Chapter 19: Thus Spoke Black

The instant Devouring Frog, his grotesque features contorted in a leering semblance of a smile, was about to deliver the final, despair-inducing, and probably very slimy blow to the incapacitated girl before him…

KA-BOOM! The very ground beneath its warty feet suddenly, violently caved in, plunging it into a newly formed, smoking pit of rubble and despair.

An explosion, sharp and deafening, erupted directly above his bewildered, rapidly descending head.

At that precise, critical moment, Ren Akiyama, looking like a hero straight out of an action movie (if action movie heroes occasionally used repurposed hobby drones for tactical strikes), charged out from his hiding spot. He unceremoniously tossed aside the now-useless remote detonator in his hand, then, with a strength that belied his lean frame, scooped up the stunned, almost catatonic Hana Tanaka and started running for dear, precious life like a bat out of fiend-infested hell.

“Ren! What are you—?! How did you—?!”

Hana was utterly, completely stunned. She had just, just moments ago, with trembling fingers and a heart filled with tragic resignation, sent Ren her final, desperate, probably very sappy text message. And now, impossibly, miraculously, he was here, right in front of her, smelling faintly of smoke and awesome.

“Tamao, bless her gossip-loving, surprisingly well-connected soul, tipped me off with an urgent SOS text!” Ren yelled over the din of distant explosions and his own ragged breathing. “We can treat her to a mountain of expensive ice cream later to thank her properly! Assuming we survive this, of course!” He held Hana tightly, his legs pumping like pistons as he sprinted with all his might through the chaotic, debris-strewn streets. “But, Hana, seriously! You could have run! You had your invisibility! Why in the world didn’t you just get the hell out of there?!”

“If I ran,” Hana gasped, her voice choked with a mixture of fear and stubborn pride, “they… they would have hurt all those other innocent people! I couldn’t just leave them!”

Such a kind-hearted, noble, and occasionally infuriatingly reckless girl… Ren thought, his heart swelling with a mixture of admiration and terror. He had, with a stroke of desperate genius, used a modified, high-payload hobby drone to carry out a rather impromptu bombing run on the two fiends. The effect, while certainly spectacular and attention-grabbing, was clearly not ideal for actually defeating them. Forcing them to be wary of harming potential hostages was, of course, the best possible outcome for now, buying them precious seconds. The organization, bless their bureaucratic hearts, should also be dispatching other, more heavily armed forces at this very moment. Hopefully. Devouring Frog and his equally charming companion, Burrowing Worm, weren’t considered particularly powerful, top-tier fiends by organization standards; in their official assessment, they were the type of low-to-mid-level nuisances that could, theoretically, be dealt with using conventional, high-caliber weaponry. They just needed to stall, to survive, until the probably very grumpy special forces finally, eventually arrived!

Damn it all! I should have packed a couple of rocket launchers! Or at least a bigger drone! Hindsight is a cruel mistress!

But right now, there was absolutely no time to dwell on tactical regrets or armament deficiencies. He knew Hana’s inherent capabilities as a Mage; against ordinary, run-of-the-mill fiends, she could usually manage to evade them or at least hold her own for a respectable amount of time. He hadn’t, for a single moment, expected Hana to stubbornly refuse to flee, to instead choose to fight like a true, if somewhat outmatched, hero. It was only because those sadistic fiends were clearly, cruelly toying with her, prolonging her suffering for their own sick amusement, that she was still, miraculously, alive.

“Watch out! Ren, they’re coming for us! Below!” Hana shrieked, her voice tight with fresh terror.

Ren immediately, instinctively noticed the ground directly beneath their feet bulging upwards ominously, like a giant, subterranean mole about to surface.

It’s Burrowing Worm! That slippery, dirt-eating bastard!

This particular fiend’s burrowing ability was incredibly, infuriatingly problematic in this kind of urban pursuit situation. However, this was the city. The fiend, hopefully, couldn’t just break through the reinforced earth and concrete as easily as it could in a soft, yielding rural field. The dense layers of concrete and asphalt that constituted the city’s roads and foundations would, with any luck, make his subterranean movements significantly more difficult, more sluggish. To fight this one effectively, they needed a different terrain…

Ren, still carrying Hana bridal-style (a fact that his brain vaguely registered as both highly romantic and incredibly impractical under the circumstances), leaped with all his might, his muscles screaming in protest, just as the ground where they’d been standing erupted in a shower of dirt and asphalt. He dodged the surprise attack by a hair's breadth and then, with a surge of desperate inspiration, dashed directly onto the nearest elevated highway ramp. This wasn’t exactly a brilliant, tactically sound decision, he knew that even as he did it, as Devouring Frog’s ranged, disgusting tongue attacks wouldn’t particularly care if they were on an overpass or ground level. But, for the moment, he had absolutely nowhere else to run! They were trapped!

“Ren, you have to put me down! Now!” Hana insisted, her voice firm despite her exhaustion. “Their primary target is clearly me! You’re just an ordinary person, a Normie! They won’t specifically aim for you if I’m not with you! You can get away!”

Yes, Hana had, with a chilling certainty, realized this during her earlier, terrifying fight. They were after her! After she had engaged them, after she had become their primary focus, they hadn’t shown the slightest, passing interest in harming any of the other screaming civilians. But the moment she had even contemplated trying to make a genuine escape, they would immediately start menacing the other innocent bystanders, herding them like cattle. It was painfully, cruelly obvious—they were banking on her inherent, heroic unwillingness to let innocent people suffer because of her. They were sadistically forcing her to fight, to stay and be their plaything. From the very beginning, they had been targeting her, specifically.

In fact, these kinds of incidents, where shadowy evil organizations specifically, almost surgically targeted individual Espers, had happened before with alarming frequency. Although most of the members of these evil organizations were also Espers themselves, possessing their own twisted powers… Hana, despite the mortal peril, actually felt a tiny, shameful and exhilarating thrill of excitement. The enemy, whoever they were, had dispatched two entire fiends, not just one, just to deal with her. What did that signify, if not her growing power? Her increasing threat level? In their perception, in their evil fiend database, Mage Hana Tanaka! She was clearly an existence that had to be eliminated! A rising star that needed to be snuffed out before it became a supernova! Otherwise, why would they possibly go to such elaborate, city-destroying lengths just to get to her? This was undeniable proof of her power! Of her potential! If she just had enough time to grow, to train, to unlock her true abilities! She would definitely, one day, be as strong as Strawberry Sweetheart! Or even… Black!

Ren, at this particular, life-or-death moment, had absolutely no idea what kind of grandiose, slightly delusional, hero-complex-fueled thoughts were currently racing through his beloved girlfriend’s adrenaline-addled brain. His own physical fitness, honed by years of dedicated training, was extraordinary for a supposed Normie. As a prospective Supporter, he trained relentlessly, day and night, pushing his body to its absolute limits. He’d heard whispers, legends even, of incredibly rare, almost mythical heroes in the world who weren’t actually Espers, who fought with sheer skill and unwavering determination. But that, he knew, was a realm, a level of badassery, that Ren Akiyama, for all his intelligence and dedication, couldn’t yet hope to touch. Not yet.

“Are you seriously asking me to abandon my adorable, currently-in-mortal-danger girlfriend and run away by myself like a pathetic coward, Hana-chan?” Ren flashed Hana a dazzling, ridiculously reassuring, and probably quite inappropriate-for-the-situation smile over his shoulder. “My manly pride, my very soul as a protagonist, would be weeping uncontrollably, you know~ It would never recover from the shame!”

He was, undeniably, in that single, stupid, heroic moment, incredibly, breathtakingly cool. So cool, so dashing, so utterly, ridiculously heroic, that it was almost hard for Hana to look away, despite the impending doom.

“Ren…” she whispered, her heart doing a strange, fluttery, and probably highly inappropriate-for-the-situation little dance.

“Right now, Hana, listen to me! Magical Girl Black and Strawberry Sweetheart are out there, somewhere in this city, fighting their own desperate battles! You’re a massive fan of both of them, right? You believe in them, don’t you? So, you have to believe that they can, and will, achieve victory! All we need to do, our only mission right now, is to stall for time—we don’t need to fight these losers, we just need to run like our lives depend on it! Which they do!”

Hana immediately protested, “But what about all the other people still trapped down there?! They’ll—!”

“You’re afraid that other people will get hurt if we run, but I’m not afraid of making that choice right now!” Ren cut her off, his voice suddenly hard, his expression grim. This was the pragmatic Supporter talking now, the one who had to make impossible choices. “So, yes, if it comes down to it, I will effectively abandon those people to save you. And precisely because those fiends know this, because they know you won’t let that happen, they won’t recklessly attack the other civilians, not while you’re still a viable target. They’re afraid that if they push too hard, if they cause too much indiscriminate chaos, you’ll actually let me take you away, and they’ll lose their primary leverage! So, Hana, please, the best, most tactically sound thing you can possibly do right now is stay still, don’t move, and focus! Recover as much of your precious magical power as you possibly can! Even one more spell—even a tiny one—that could buy us a few more life-saving seconds! Do you understand?!”

Looking at Ren’s resolute, almost fiercely determined face, Hana suddenly, with a jolt of shame, realized how negative, how passive, how utterly unheroic her own thinking had been. He’s right. I need to focus. I need to fight. She immediately focused all her remaining concentration, all her willpower, desperately trying to draw upon the last dregs of her rapidly dwindling magical power.

......

The very moment Black had heroically (and with much internal grumbling) drawn the formidable Darkstar Count away from the immediate vicinity, Ren had received Tamao’s frantic, emoji-laden SOS message. He knew, with a sinking heart, that he couldn’t possibly catch up to the super-sonic, probably-flying Magical Girl Black and her equally airborne adversary, Darkstar Count. So, with a surge of adrenaline and a prayer to any listening deities, he had immediately and decisively turned back to find Hana. On the way, sprinting through the debris-strewn, panic-filled streets, Ren had initially and naively assumed that Hana had just been incredibly, spectacularly unlucky and had simply coincidentally happened to run into some other, unrelated fiends. After all, Tamao, in her panicked message, had also said that Hana was bravely fighting fiends to protect them. But when he actually finally arrived at the scene, when he saw the two fiends, Devouring Frog and Burrowing Worm, so intently, so obsessively focused on Hana, he realized, with a chilling certainty, that these two fiends were specifically and deliberately targeting her.

But why? Why Hana? She’s just a rookie Esper! She’s not that strong yet! What do they want with her?

Ren’s mind, his powerful, analytical Supporter brain, raced at speeds that would shame a supercomputer. And then, a series of strange, seemingly disconnected occurrences from the past few days, observations he had filed away as anomalous data points, suddenly and horrifyingly flashed through his mind, coalescing into a single, terrifying, and utterly unbelievable hypothesis. Mr. Tanaka, his neighbor, Hana’s father, suddenly and inexplicably going to and from “work” at odd hours, looking stressed and secretive. Magical Girl Black, screaming and vehemently, almost hysterically rejecting him, Ren, as her Supporter the moment she first saw his face. Magical Girl Black, who was notoriously cold and hostile to everyone else, yet who was, almost inexplicably, surprisingly gentle with Hana. And that clumsy, transparently obvious excuse Black had concocted, that ridiculous story about a “reward,” which was clearly just a poorly disguised pretext to get Hana’s private contact information—and, perhaps most tellingly, to this very day, despite his official position, no one in the organization had revealed Magical Girl Black’s true, civilian identity to him. He had originally, foolishly assumed it was because he was just a lowly intern, that his security clearance wasn’t high enough for such sensitive information… But if that were the case, if it wasn’t just about his intern status, was it perhaps because Magical Girl Black’s true identity… was something so shocking, so unbelievable, that it absolutely, positively couldn’t be made public?

No, no, no! That’s impossible! It can’t be! It’s too crazy! Too absurd! Ren violently, desperately shook that terrifying, world-shattering conjecture from his mind. We’re running for our goddamn lives here! This is absolutely no time for wild, unsubstantiated, probably completely wrong conspiracy theories! Focus, Akiyama, focus! The immediate, overwhelming priority now was to somehow, someway, get Hana out of this alive, to survive until other, hopefully more competent heroes and reinforcements finally arrived! Assuming they ever do!

At this very moment, in another part of the embattled city, Magical Girl Strawberry Sweetheart was desperately and heroically fending off the relentless, sadistic attacks of Darkmoon Queen.

“Strawberry Sweetheart! You insufferable little pest! Why don’t you use it! Why don’t you finally embrace your true nature and use your delicious Inverted state! Or are you too afraid? Why don’t you at least use your ridiculously overpowered Sparkling Mode! Are you trying to bore me to death with your predictable, goody-two-shoes attacks?!” A whip of dark, corrosive, purplish energy, crackling with malevolent power, lashed out with terrifying speed, striking Strawberry Sweetheart with brutal force and sending her hurtling through the air like a broken doll, her pretty pink Dress tearing in several places, leaving angry, bloody welts on her usually flawless skin.

Yet, Strawberry Sweetheart, with a pained groan, struggled valiantly back to her feet, her gaze fixed, unwavering and resolute, on the sneering Darkmoon Queen. “Inversion… Inversion is the dark, hidden side of my heart, Darkmoon Queen. A power born of pain and despair. Even if I can, to some extent, control that terrifying power now, such a power, a power of darkness, can never truly change you, Darkmoon Queen. It can never save you. Using the destructive power of darkness will never, ever allow you, who are so deeply, tragically steeped in that same darkness, to finally see the true, healing light.”

She took a determined step forward, then another, her body aching but her spirit unbroken. “And if it’s my Sparkling Form you wish to see… that power, while pure and strong, it cannot make you let go of your deep-seated hatred, your endless sorrow. It would only, ultimately, erase you from this world, extinguish your pain by extinguishing your very existence. Darkmoon Queen, I will not do that. I refuse to take the easy way out. I will find a way to save you. I will make you become a good person again. I promise you that!” Her voice, though strained, rang with an almost impossible, luminous sincerity.

“STRAWBERRY SWEETHEART!!! YOU NAIVE, IDEALISTIC, UTTERLY INFURIATING LITTLE FOOL!!!” Darkmoon Queen shrieked, her carefully maintained composure finally cracking, her voice raw with an ancient, festering rage. “YOU ARE ALWAYS! ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS! SO PREDICTABLY, SO BORINGLY, SO TEDIOUSLY!!!!!!!!! ALWAYS LIKE THIS! I WILL MAKE YOU SUFFER! I WILL MAKE YOU DIE IN THE MOST EXCRUCIATING, MOST DESPAIRING WAY IMAGINABLE!!!! I SWEAR IT UPON THE ASHES OF MY SHATTERED HEART!!!!”

......

“Well, now! The famous Mage Esper ability! How wonderfully, delightfully… underdeveloped!” Devouring Frog and his equally charming companion, Burrowing Worm, had finally cornered Ren and Hana in a dead-end alleyway. Their hideous, grotesque fiend faces were contorted with a strange, unsettling mixture of glee, bitterness, and some other, darker emotion that the two terrified young people couldn’t quite comprehend.

“If I had been blessed with an amazing, versatile ability like that,” Devouring Frog croaked, his voice a wet, gurgling sound, his bulbous eyes fixed on Hana with a hungry intensity, “I wouldn’t have been the freak who found a disgusting, writhing jar full of live bugs hidden in my school bag every single goddamn day! And they, those laughing hyenas, they even dared to ask me if the bugs tasted good! If they were going to curse me with an Esper ability, why, oh why, couldn’t they at least have given me a strong one? A cool one? Even something as ridiculous, as frilly as becoming a magical girl would have been better than this! Why did it have to be, why did it always have to be this—this ugly, disgusting, utterly useless, and frankly quite embarrassing amphibious ability? Why is it that I can never, ever get anything I actually, truly want in this miserable, unfair life!” His voice broke on a sob of pure, pathetic self-pity.

Hearing Devouring Frog’s anguished, bitter words, Burrowing Worm, his own segmented body trembling with a shared, empathetic pain, seemed to resonate with a profound, almost spiritual understanding. “You… you truly are my comrade in suffering, my brother in misfortune, Devouring Frog! Those people… those cruel, heartless bastards… they threw me into the muddy, stinking fields like I was garbage! They stomped on me with their heavy, uncaring feet, laughing, asking me why I wasn’t burrowing deep into the goddamn ground to loosen the stupid soil like a good little worm! They even… they even tied me up with rough, chafing rope and threw me into the cold, dark river! Used me as live, wriggling bait to catch pathetic little fish! If only… if only I had been born as just an ordinary, powerless, insignificant person! Then I, too, could have perhaps embraced a simple, beautiful, and wonderfully unremarkable life! Free from this torment!” His voice was a choked whisper of raw, festering resentment.

Ugliness and violence, Ren Akiyama knew with a grim, weary certainty that was far beyond his sixteen years, existed in the world with a mundane, almost casual and utterly soul-crushing regularity. Both he and Hana, in their relatively privileged, protected lives, had never truly experienced such raw, unadulterated brutality and cruelty. Because they were, in their own different ways, the "strong" ones. Hana, with her rare, versatile Mage Esper ability. Ren, consistently first in the entire school academically, and also, surprisingly, first in most athletic endeavors. They themselves, whether they realized it or not, stood at the very top of their little high school food chain, in a position where they could have, if they had so chosen, bullied, tormented, and lorded over others. But they simply and naturally chose not to. That didn’t mean, however, that life was truly so beautiful, so fair, so kind for everyone else out there. Far from it.

In this single, terrifying, illuminating moment, Supporter-intern Ren Akiyama, for the very first, truly profound time in his young, sheltered life, came face-to-face, heart-to-heart, with the undiluted and deeply personal malice of actual fiends. Why they were called fiends, why they so desperately, so violently sought to wreak havoc and destruction upon the world—a tiny, chilling, almost pitiable sliver of the complex, heartbreaking reasons was finally and brutally laid bare before his rapidly maturing and increasingly horrified eyes.

He constantly, desperately told himself internally, like a mantra, not to be swayed by their tragic, sob-story words, not to let his empathy cloud his judgment. They’re still monsters! They’re still trying to kill us! Hana, beside him, should have recovered at least a tiny sliver of her precious magical power by now; she should, theoretically, be able to cast one or two small, hopefully effective spells. But what kind of magic, what desperate, last-ditch gambit, could possibly create an opportunity to escape from these two clearly traumatized, dangerously unstable, and murderously motivated fiends simultaneously? His palms, his forehead, his entire body, were slick with cold, terrified sweat. The pressure, the sheer, unbearable weight of it all, was at its absolute, crushing peak. He was out of ideas. Out of time.

“Is that so? How tragic for you both.” A new voice, cold as ice, sharp as a razor, and utterly devoid of any discernible emotion, suddenly cut through the tense, charged atmosphere from directly behind the two stunned, monologuing fiends. “Then… tell me… didn’t you at least kill them? Those who tormented you so?”

The sudden, unexpected sound of that voice, that terrifyingly familiar voice, was enough to make all four individuals present—two fiends, one Supporter, and one nearly-out-of-mana Mage—tremble with a sudden, inexplicable jolt of primal fear.

The two fiends, Devouring Frog and Burrowing Worm, spun around instantly, their grotesque faces contorting with a mixture of shock, disbelief, and dawning, abject terror. And then they saw her. Standing there, wreathed in an aura of pure, unadulterated menace, her expression unreadable, was that pitch-black, impossibly powerful and legendarily terrifying magical girl named Black. Her eyes, visible even through her dark complexion, were incredibly, inhumanly cold, like chips of obsidian ice. Dark, violent energy pulsed almost visibly around the gleaming, deadly knuckle dusters on her hands. Her expression was perfectly, eerily calm, almost serene, but anyone, anyone with even a shred of self-preservation instinct, could sense the raging, apocalyptic volcano of pure fury simmering just beneath that tranquil, terrifying surface, ready to erupt at any moment.

“I’m asking you a question. A simple one.” Magical Girl Black repeated the question, her voice dangerously, deceptively soft, each word a tiny shard of ice. “After you became these… things… these fiends… did you, or did you not, kill those who once bullied you? Those who made your lives a living hell?”

Devouring Frog, trying desperately to sound brave, to muster some semblance of fiendish defiance, croaked loudly, his voice trembling, “Wh-what’s it to you, you interfering bitch!”

Magical Girl Black smiled. It was not a nice smile. It was a smile that promised pain, oblivion, and possibly a very messy cleanup. “Oh, it’s nothing to me, personally. Not at all. It’s just that I, you see, am a surprisingly kind-hearted, considerate person deep down. And if you didn’t actually manage to kill them, those tormentors of yours, well, you’ll probably end up regretting it for the rest of your very, very short lives. Because, you see,” her smile widened, becoming even more terrifying, “you’re both about to die. Right here. Right now. And regrets are such a terrible thing to take to your graves, don’t you think?”

“Black! You interfering bastard! Your gir—” Burrowing Worm began to shriek, a desperate warning or a final curse on his lips.

But before either of the fiends could finish their sentence, before Ren or Hana could even blink, they exploded. Violently. Messily. Completely. Ren and Hana vaguely, in a blur of motion and shock, saw a flicker of impossible afterimages, saw the horrifying, almost surreal spectacle of the two fiends being instantly, brutally, almost casually obliterated under those terrifying, knuckle-duster-clad fists. And then, as the gruesome, crimson rain of fiend-gore and tattered bandages began to fall around them, they saw Magical Girl Black standing amidst the carnage, a faint, almost serene smile playing on her lips.

The two of them, Ren Akiyama and Hana Tanaka, knew, with a chilling, absolute certainty, that they would probably, most definitely, never, ever forget this horrifying, awe-inspiring, and deeply profoundly unsettling image for the rest of their natural, and hopefully much longer, lives.

“Are you two alright, then?” Black asked, her voice surprisingly calm, almost gentle now, the terrifying killing machine momentarily retracting her claws. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was a killer.”

Thus spoke Black.