The librarian is even more confused now about what this girl's looking for.  "... If you don't want electronic records, then I do recommend those shelves."

Lila nods.  "Let's go look for myths while we're here."

Sure, that sounds like a good plan.  She'll maybe ask where to go if she wanted to find more things that fit her criteria than here, but right now...mythology and whatnot.

It becomes obvious, when they look over the books of folktales and fairy-tales now, that magic cats and rabbits are common.  Unusually common.  More so than any other magic animals.

They give quests, and appear to give the heroine cryptic hints and occasionally taunts.  And yes, they appear more often in stories with girl protagonists.  Occasionally they die - in various story-appropriate ways, whether to magic or physical means - but often another one will appear later in the story.

"These heroines don't really read like magical girls, really..." Lila muses, "but a lot of them read like something that could've been inspired by magical girls.  Which makes me wonder again:  why aren't they - we, I mean - more open?"

"But now that I think about it, I'm sure there're a lot of significant things we did in history that would've have happened without us - like that one Roman emperor, Mar-what's-his-name, who they said was killed by some goddess who suddenly appeared.  I think I know what happened now."

"Wouldn't have, you mean?  As for why we're not open...My best guess is 'Kyuubeys'."

"Yeah... they're mysterious enough I want to blame them too."  She shakes her head.  "Maybe it's unfair - maybe there's some other problem they can't or don't want to explain to us - but if so, then they can defend themselves."

"Well, if we trust the tales, we've learned they can be killed.  But it apparently doesn't do any good.  Half of me wants to try to find more historical magical girls, but then I also want to go somewhere else where Kyuubey can maybe show up out of public sight.  And talk with Jenny about what we're going to do now that Kiri's dead."

"That doesn't seem like the worst idea ever. 

...Um.

Kiri's body was never found, is the thing.  So...I think I want to see if I can find - anything useful about that."

Lila gets up and starts stacking up the newspapers and books to put back.

"If she... became a witch -

"Wait a minute; there wasn't a body left when we killed that witch.  So if she did, would there still be a body left behind already?  Or would the magic take it?"

"...I dunno, but thinking about what was left behind when Jenny killed that witch, I find myself worrying about Grief Seeds."

"Ugh.  Makes me want to give it a good burial rather than -

"Oh no, we refill our soul gems off it, like vampires."

She shoves the last papers together and into the box.

"That is...not pleasant.

"...I want to try something with this one, when we have a chance.  There was something...I didn't have time for, when we fought her to begin with."

"Me too.  But - let's get out first."

They take back the newspapers, put the books on the To Be Reshelved shelf, and then Lila makes one detour to the history shelf on the way out and grabs a biography of Joan of Arc.  "Maybe she might've been - one of us?"

"It's certainly possible, given her, well, everything.  Though it's notable that there seemingly aren't any Kyuubey."

"I think I remember some butterflies or birds or something around Joan once?"  She shrugs.  "If we have any other ideas...  I can ask Dad to bring us to the university library.  Though I think it's best if we get some leads first."

Jenny, in her nonmagical jeans, is leaning against the wall outside the library, looking like she's been laughing to herself.  She waves lazily to Lila and Diana as they come out.

"Hi.  Patricia says she's too busy to play the flute for us today; maybe some other day.  What'd you find?"

"Not much but suspicions.  Kiri wasn't the only girl who disappeared, though..."

Jenny's smile drops away.  Witches get lots of girls, but she still doesn't like hearing about it.

"No surprise," she says somberly, shaking her head.  "Don't think I know anyone else over in that city... no, wait, Kiri mentioned she was hunting with a Kate?"

"...That might be the person reported as Catherine Baker; they disappeared at the same time."

"Well, guess that means we won't be heading over there."  She kicks at the wall a bit.  "So much for whatever she knew."

"She might have kept notes."

"Yeah, but what'd we say to her parents?  'Hi, I'm your dead daughter's old friend; can we dig through all her papers for something that may or may not be there'?"

"We think we might know something about why she disappeared, and - it's not enough to tell the cops about, yet -" her face scrunches up at the idea of actually involving the cops, because, no - "but we'd recognize clues if we saw them."