Magi

Magi Chapter 12

Hayako, Suzuku, and Julia stood in the waiting room, the former nervously shook her leg. At last, the secretary spoke up.

"Mr. Sawano will see you now?" she said.

"Thank you," said Hayako.

Then she, Julia, and Suzuku went into Mr.Sawano's office.

"Hello, ladies," said Mr. Sawano, "I'm Ayato Sawano. It's nice to meet you."

"I'll go first," said Julia, "My family accepts your terms."

"Wonderful, and you, Suzuhara-san?"

"Where's my sister you monster?" exclaimed Suzuku, holding up her phone.

"I can assure you, I've never seen that girl. Why would I know where she is?"

"Because we know all about your magi trafficking!"

"I assure you, though I may deal in some unsavory practices that is not one of them. But, you're not the first to accuse me. I think someone is trying to frame me."

"You expect us to believe that?"

"Trust the Sawano name, if we did this, you would never have tracked your sister this far."

"Okay, you have a point, but who would be trying to frame you?"

"I have plenty of rivals who would love to, but the most likely is the Medici family. They do some nasty stuff, including human trafficking."

"Okay, so we have a suspect," said Hayako, "Now we just have to track down the head of the Medicis and interrogate him."

"Easier said than done, but I'll help."

"Me too," said Julia, "It's the least I can do after trying to kill you twice."

"It's appreciated," said Hayako.

"We'll track down the head of the Medicis, Giorgio," said Mr. Sawano, "You three just do the tourist thing for now, courtesy of Sawano Industries."

"Right," said Hayako, Suzuku, and Julia.

The three spent another week acting like normal tourists, until they were summoned back to Sawano's office.

"Okay, we don't know where he's staying," said Sawano, "but we know that every day, he eats at a restaurant called The Roman Gardens. He arrives at six and leaves at eight. If you screw up, he won't go there again, so you have one shot at this. Here's a picture of him."

"Got it," said Hayako, "Julia, Suzuku, let's go."

The three made their way to the restaurant and waited outside for Giorgio Medici to arrive. Eventually, they saw him step out of a large black limousine and head into the restaurant.

Hayako, Suzuku, and Julia headed in after him.

"Table for three," said Julia to the hostess, slipping her a large bill, "now."

The three were seated immediately. They waited for about an hour for the dinner rush to die down. Once the restaurant had mostly cleared out, Julia began the confrontation by grabbing Giorgio with a mana arm and throwing him out a window. Hayako ran up to him and planted a foot on his chest, immobilizing him.

Suzuku ran up to him.

"Where's my sister?" she asked, holding up her phone.

"I-I don't know," said Giorgio.

He looked over to where Julia was walking toward him at a sedate pace. Noticing this, she waved with a friendly smile.

This evidently convinced Giorgio to spill everything.

"I'm just the middle man," he said, "I drop the kids off at the warehouses and someone picks them up."

"Warehouses? Plural?" asked Hayako.

"Yeaha, I have a list right here!"

He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and showed Hayako. Hayako took it and handed it to Suzuku.

"Thank you."

The three then left together.

"We'll start investigating these tomorrow," said Suzuku.

"Right," said the other two.

The next day they went to one of the warehouses and saw children being loaded into a car. Hayako and Julia moved closer to investigate. As they did so, they noticed that the people doing the loading were dressed like ninjas.

"Crap," whispered Hayako, "They must be wearing those collars, we won't be able to get any information out of them, and we don't have time to dismantle every collar."

"Maybe we'll find a clue on them or in the car," suggested Julia.

"Right, let's go."

The two stepped out of their hiding spots.

The ninjas immediately noticed and hurriedly finished loading in the children.

A few got in the car and started to drive off, while the rest stayed to hold off Hayako and Julia.

Julia, however, ran right past them, intercepted the car, and punched its hood. The metal crumpled like paper and the car flipped over Julia.

Julia ripped off the car door and pulled out the driver and passenger. Julia immediately killed them both, one by snapping their neck, the other by decapitating them.

Hayako, meanwhile, dealt with the ones that had stayed behind.

She punched one through the warehouse wall and, knowing they wouldn't stay down otherwise, reluctantly decapitated the others. The one she had punched survived and started launching flaming mana balls at Hayako. Hayako stabbed him through the heart with a mana blade.

Hayako looked over to Julia and saw that a ninja was creeping up behind her with a collar in hand.

"Julia, look out!" she shouted, but it was too late.

The ninja clamped the collar on Julia's neck, she had time to behead the offender, then grasped at her head, like she had a headache. Then a light seemed to go out in her eyes and she simply stood in place.

"Ready for orders," she said in a dull, mindless voice.

She looked to Hayako, then ran away.

Suzuku ran up to Hayako.

"Hayako, we have to go!" she said.

"I know..., but we're going to need help, let's call Shirou," she said.

Just then, her cell phone started ringing.

"It's Shirou."