Outskirts Of Tokyo, 2026.

In Ayaka's opinion, the year 2026 was a grand time to live in.

Her cheeks were rosy as she jogged down the shaded path to school. Exercise got the brain and body to work properly. Giant wind turbines pierced the sky, along with the architectural feats that appeared to be made out of glass solely. Ayaka had learned that they were constructed using nanotubes during her science classes.

A car zoomed past her, but she paid no mind to the smog-for there was none. The majority of the vehicles on the road were powered by hydrogen and electricity.

Masdar City was completed last year. There was talk of more cities being designed like it in the near future.

Ayaka's aunt had surgery on her brain tumor just last week. Utilizing stem cell technology, the surgeons were able to replace the brain cells.

2026 had its own problems.

Biowarfare was becoming more commonplace. Water was becoming more in demand as there grew to be less of it. But Ayaka preferred not to dwell on the negativities of life, especially during her walk to school.

Quote :

21 January, 20XX

Earth.

What was once a glorious haven of milk and honey has degraded over millenia into a nexus of antipathy and destruction. The cause? Life. Like a boundless number of other planets throughout infinity, Earth was the blessed child of its galaxy to be the carrier of its soul -- its denizens. Humankind. A race capable of enacting horrors unfathomable in the name of their own dysphoria and jingoistic tendencies. The hell so many of us grieve and murder over cannot be so far-gone from our current state. I can not -- and will not -- continue to watch our rapid descent into finality with a still hand. Today will mark the beginning of our rebirth -- the dawn of hope breaking through the curtains of despair drawn so tightly by the chimera who torment us. Today begins humanity's final onslaught against those who torment us from the great beyond. Today, Project μ will commence.

- I understand the dubiousness of project's nature. Am willing to admit that I can only fool myself into believing that my means are in the right. Considering Foot's trolley problem. -

-- 白金 稜

A thick layer of clouds hung over the night sky. Not even the penetrating orange light of the full harvest moon could pierce the vapor. However, there was plenty of artificial light below. The perks of living in the modern world were endless!

The spark would presumably hit, according to Shirogane's infallible calculations, around 10:00 AM this very next morning. Until then, he would watch from his burrow, the LED screens surrounding him lending a strange iridescent hue to his smooth, platinum hair. The machine hummed behind him -- a gentle, almost cooing A flat. Steam from a steeping cup of earl grey rose through the air between him and the main monitor, then was swiftly carried off by a ceiling vent.

Project μ was underway.

------

Kaito Fujioka gazed through the ceiling at the train's track, lengths of rail speeding by faster than her eyes could take in. Her apartment was a good four miles out from Masdar proper. "Asakura Circle," a female voice announced the next stop. Kaito tugged the strap of her schoolbag tighter and prepared to deboard.

"You look exhausted, Ryou."

A man in his early thirties was suddenly standing beside the blond man. In his hand was a steaming mug of tea. His dark eyes darted back and forth between the screens, before landing back on Ryou. He still managed to be amazed at how rapidly his friend had aged through the years.

Keiichiro had aged through the years as well. Even at his young ages light shades of gray could be seen in his long ponytail. He still looked years younger when he smiled.

"Have some tea." he said to Ryou, offering the mug.

~

Ayaka pulled her phone out from her pocket to check the time-7:30 AM. The train was right on schedule. She smiled eagerly as she waited for her friend to disembark.

Earl grey; Shirogane had guessed correctly. He took the mug with no acknowledgement to his partner and continued to read his statistics. There was a small red spike rising on one screen, and he wondered why.

-----

Kaito approached, a braid in hand, a small pouch in the other. "Aya-chan! They had it! The last one!" she exclaimed, referring to what she carried.

Keiichiro pulled up a nearby chair to sit beside by Shirogane. He smiled at the screen, paying no heed to the red spike that had surged.

"It's wonderful to see our vision grow into a reality," he chuckled lightly to himself. "It makes me feel nostalgic at the same time. Wouldn't you agree?"

~

"Come on silly, we're going to be late!" Ayaka laughed at her friend, and she once more began to jog towards the vicinity of the school.

Kaito was a slowpoke, so Ayaka was speed walking more than anything. "Sorry-what do you have the last one of again? Did you tell me already?-I forget."

Shirogane grimaced. "Nostalgic," he murmured, running a diagnostics application alongside the program. He certainly wished he felt the same. "Yeah."

-----

Kaito, jogging rather daintily alongside her friend, snapped open the pouch and emptied its contents into her hand. "Mo~od rings! A relic of the discotheque!" The two aluminum rings clinked against each other as she bounced. On each was fixed a rather large stone, presently sour in rusted-green.

"Well... I am anyway," Keiichiro smiled dreamily. "Ah, what does that spike translate to?" he said, pointing at the red streak on the screen.

~

"Don't you mean the seventies?" But Ayaka admired the glistening stones in the sunlight. She grabbed one of them from her, and slipped it onto her finger. The stone gradually shifted towards a yellow color.

"Kaito-chan, can I wear it for rest of the day?" she asked.

"It's for you, silly! That's why I bought two!" Kaito exclaimed as the two crossed a bridge over a recently-built canal. She went to slip on her own ring -- she'd purchased hers in a diamond-shape -- but managed to drop it. It slipped through one of the holes in the walkway and made barely a splash into the water. The stone turned black almost immediately, absorbing the cold. "Eeeeh! Are you kidding!?"

--

Shirogane took a sip of his tea. Lightly steeped, how he liked it. "Just memory allocation. Linked to the second detector in the third district. Someone compatible must've just passed by." He glanced up at the screen for the first time, truly reading it. The teacup pressed against his lips briefly once more, then clattered against its saucer. "That's an abnormal reading, actually..." He quickly pressed a few keys and brought up an infrared visual on the same bridge the girls had just crossed. "Two of them."

"Ohhh!" Ayaka ran over and leaned over the railing of the bridge. "It looks like it's gone!" And she didn't want to dive in and rescue it-she wanted to have a decent hair day before she had to go to track practice.

She slipped off her own ring, and held it out to Kaito. "You bought it, so you can have it. I can buy a matching one later-huh?" Ayaka yanked her head up, towards the glistening skyline of the city.

"Did you just see a weird light, or was it just me? It looked red."

~

"Two of them?" Keiichiro leaned forward to read the screen's contents with mild interest. A bemused smile curled around his mouth. "You don't often get that lucky..." He studied a now spiking graph at the corner for a moment, and the rows of data and coding that would appear completely foreign to even a computer literate person.

"I don't suppose you want to initiate contact."

"Eh?" She looked up. "Looks clear to me. Blue as they make it." Kaito closed her friend's hand around the ring. "And that's alright, it was only 50 yen. And that one's yours!" she beamed.

--

"Well over a year, it's been. We haven't had two this compatible since the observation began." Shirogane entered a brief command, and a map of the prefecture's streets in white opened in the corner. The two girls were rendered as two, red pixels slowly heading to the east side of town. "We'll stick with tracking them for right now." By their silhouettes, he could tell they were both fairly small, probably female. Typical.

"Alrighty, then!" With a smile Ayaka slipped the ring back on, and then stood with her hands on her hips. "Common, let's hurry! Student council has a meeting early, since the cultural festival is next week!" She resumed her jogging pace down the path.

~

"Ah, it's a little sad, isn't it?" Keiichiro still had a small smile, but it resembled a grimace more than anything. "I wonder how old they are... it's difficult to tell, on the screen."

"Hey! Is anyone here?!"

A short blonde girl burst into the cafe. The dainty chairs were all stacked on top of the tables in the seating area - obviously the establishment was closed, but that certainly didn't mean people weren't inside. Yuzuki made her way to the back, where the "staff room" was. Though she was a part of the Mew Project (whatever that was - she still wasn't quite sure) and was part of the Cafe Mew Mew staff, Yuzuki wasn't allowed in the back room under any circumstances. Her partners did all of their top-secret work back there, and even though Yuzuki had been a part of the Project for some time now, she wasn't allowed in there. This was a decision Yuzuki totally respected, but she certainly hoped it wouldn't be this way forever. She was getting to be quite curious.

"Keiichiro! Shirogane!" Yuzuki called out as she neared the back area of the cafe, where she expected her partners were. Or, at least, where she hoped her partners were. Otherwise she'd just feel stupid. "Are you here? I have news!"

"There's a trend," Shirogane replied curtly, taking another sip from his cup of tea. "Take care of that, would you?" he asked of his partner, in reference to their visitor.

--

"Ehhh, are you really going to make me sit in on that again?!" Kaito cried hopelessly, picking up her feet a bit more. She stumbled here and there, but managed to keep her balance overall. The two eventually made it to school, where said meeting was well underway.

"Ah, it's always me, isn't it?" Keiichiro grimaced slightly at his friend and colleague. But by the time he had slipped out of the back room, his customary relaxed smile was back on his face.

"Good morning, Miss Yuzuki," He made a polite bow. "Do you have the day off from your school?"

~

After the two girls had taken their seats, Ayaka gave Kaito a sharp nudge in the side with her elbow. "You always make us late! It's not good for the Class President to be late..." she hissed to her friend with a frown.

"No!" Yuzuki said very matter-of-factly. She checked her watch. "I need to be across town in fifteen minutes! But what's important is that I fought that pesky witch that was wreaking havoc under the bridge nearby! So she's no longer a problem!" Yuzuki grinned and pulled out her Soul Gem, which was a clear, shiny amber. "It even dropped a Mew Aqua, so my Soul Gem's all clean! Isn't that great?"

"Excellent! I am pleased to hear that you manage to rid of it in time for school. I trust you still have the Mew Aqua on hand?" Keiichiro nodded his approval, and then his face brightened with the dawning of a new idea.

"Ah, just a minute-you deserve a treat," Keiichiro slipped back inside the kitchen of Cafe Mew Mew, and returned with a chocolate frosted cupcake, decorated with baby pink sprinkles.

"Did the witch give you any problems?" he said, passing the treat to Miss Yuzuki.

"Well... no," Yuzuki's cheery disposition darkened a bit, afraid of disappointing him. "I used it to clean my Soul Gem, so it's gone..." She brightened back up when he brought her the cupcake. "Uwaaah! It's so cute!" Yuzuki gently picked it up off of the small platter Keiichiro had brought it on. She was almost afraid to eat it because it looked so perfect. "Um, well... it certainly took a while, and I feel really sore. I think I'm all bruised up... but I'll be fine!" Yuzuki smiled, but moving at all was really starting to hurt. At least it was winter so she had stockings and a long-sleeved shirt to hide her bruises.

"Do not worry about it this time-just remember to save a part of it for us. It's necessary, after all." Keiichiro's smile seemed much more strain, and the coffee brown eyes darted at her arms and legs.

"Is it anything you serious? If so, then I do have the power to contact your school..."

"N-No! I'll be fine... I have to make sure I keep my grades up, you know. But I'll keep it in mind to save part of the Mew Aqua next time... why do you need them, anyway? I thought their only purpose was for cleaning Soul Gems." Yuzuki bit into the cupcake Keiichiro had given her. It was so good...

"Shirogane wants you to begin collecting leftover Mew Aqua for research. And not just you, either-we'll be notifying the other girls who are participating in the program." Keiichiro felt thankful that he only had to half lie to the girl.

"Research, huh..." Yuzuki mumbled as she downed the rest of the cupcake, making sure to wipe the chocolate off of her face. "Okay, then! Are there really going to be other girls?!" Yuzuki's eyes brightened at the idea of fighting with others. Being a magical girl by herself was a very lonely endeavor. It certainly would be more fun if she had others with her! "Who are they?"

"To be truthful, we're not entirely sure yet ourselves. We think we've found a few possible candidates that would be good options.They will most likely be around your age." Keiichiro answered. It was a relief to be honest.