Chapter 27: Grievance and Consolation

Ren Akiyama's current situation was… delicate. To put it more bluntly, more accurately, and with a mounting sense of soul-crushing dread, he was currently facing a rigorous, prosecutorial, and frankly quite terrifying interrogation from his one and only girlfriend.

Of course, the brilliant, sharp-witted Hana Tanaka wasn’t questioning his heroic, if somewhat questionable act of using his… ultimate weapon… to repel the fearsome Darkmoon Queen. No, she was laser-focused, with the intensity of a thousand suns, on the matter that lay beneath said heroic act… quite literally, in fact.

“Your actions, your... unveiling... we can generously chalk that up to ‘emergency evasive action,’ I’ll grant you that much for now. But REN AKIYAMA—” Hana Tanaka, who had, with a flourish of magical energy, conjured a pair of non-prescription, intellectual-looking glasses to complete her "Ace Detective" ensemble, stared him down with a prosecutorial glare. “Why, and I want you to answer this very, very carefully, did your ‘little brother’ get… you know… excited?!”

It was a truly fatal question. A verbal landmine from which there was no escape.

“Defendant Ren Akiyama!” Hana continued, pointing an accusatory finger at him, her voice ringing with the authority of a seasoned judge. “You have the right to remain silent, but let me warn you, every single word you say, every pathetic excuse you utter, can and will be used as testimony against you in the court of my eternal, unforgiving judgment… so you had better think very, very carefully before you speak!”

Ace Detective Hana was relentless, her gaze piercing, as if she had already, through some brilliant feat of deductive reasoning, uncovered all the sordid, damning evidence of his heinous crime. “That vile Darkmoon Queen, that seductress of the night, was holding you like that, her body pressed up against yours… you were excited by her body, weren’t you! WEREN'T YOU?! Admit it, you fiend!”

Ren, at this moment, felt as if his very soul, his very essence as a man, were being subjected to a fierce, unbearable interrogation. He desperately, with every fiber of his being, wanted to deny it, to shout his innocence from the rooftops. But it was incredibly difficult to do so. Any man, any at all, knew that, much of the time, one’s "little brother" possessed a will entirely of its own, often operating under a completely different, and far more primitive command structure. To make it quiet down on command, especially under duress, one had to incessantly, religiously chant calming mantras, desperately try to distract oneself by thinking about baseball or complex tax law, or perhaps even inflict minor physical pain upon oneself. It was not a simple, straightforward feat that could be accomplished with mere willpower. And given the extreme, life-or-death urgency of the situation at the time, there had been absolutely, positively nothing he could do. His body had betrayed him.

He had, of course, many possible, plausible excuses at his disposal. Something like, “No, Hana-chan, of course not! I only got excited because I saw your super cute swimsuit just before the fight! You looked amazing!” was a line he had brilliantly, almost instantly concocted the very second Hana had begun her terrifying inquisition. And he was absolutely, one hundred percent confident that he could have, with a little bit of smooth talking and a few well-placed compliments, completely fooled her with it.

But he didn’t say it. He couldn’t.

After all, his feelings for Hana Tanaka, his love for her, wasn’t just a game. He was serious. Utterly, completely serious. Theirs was a relationship that required, that deserved, genuine heart-to-heart communication, honesty, and mutual trust. So, he offered no flimsy excuses, no convenient, self-serving justifications for his body’s treasonous actions. He simply, with the stoic resignation of a condemned man, remained silent.

This, of course, in Hana’s sharp, detective-like eyes, was a clear, unmistakable sign of a deeply guilty conscience. And perhaps, if he were being completely honest with himself, Ren did feel a little bit guilty. It was… complicated.

“In that case,” Hana declared, her voice filled with a grim, gleeful finality, “for your crimes against our sacred love, I hereby sentence you to…”

“If you two adorable, bickering lovebirds could perhaps pause your little domestic spat for a moment,” a gruff, almost bored voice suddenly, mercifully interrupted. “Ren. Go and talk to the event organizers for me. Immediately. The ‘lucky prize winners’ they drew, the ones who conveniently appeared in the lobby just before the attack, were confirmed members of the Darkmoon Coven. See if you can get any information from the staff, security footage, anything at all that might help us track down that hacker, Shadow Walker. Whether we can actually find him or not is another matter entirely. But right now, it’s working hours. So get to work.”

Ren looked at Magical Girl Black with a surge of profound, tearful gratitude. He knew, with absolute certainty, that this was his father-in-law, his dear Tanaka-ojisan, once again masterfully, if gruffly, helping him out of a very, very tight, and potentially relationship-ending, spot. “Right. Of course, Miss Black. I’ll get on it immediately.” He practically sprinted out of the room, eager to escape the courtroom of his girlfriend’s wrath.

Just then, Hana, looking a little embarrassed now, walked over to Black, her head bowed slightly. “I’m… I’m so sorry, Miss Black. It’s supposed to be working hours, and here I am, wasting time on… on such silly, unimportant, personal things.”

“Hmph. It’s fine,” Black grumbled, though her voice was surprisingly gentle. “You’re just starting out in this line of work. Anyone, even a supposed genius like your boyfriend over there, goes through a familiarization process. Just be mindful not to make the same mistake again next time. Don’t worry about it.” Black, in her own incredibly awkward, roundabout way, offered a sliver of comfort to her own daughter. It was the best she could do without completely breaking character. “Leave these kinds of tedious, post-incident matters to Ren for now. You can go back to your room and get some proper rest. You’ve been through a lot. I’m going to do a quick patrol of the hotel grounds, just to see if there are any more of those fiendish rats lurking about.”

Magical Girl Black walked with a measured, purposeful stride through the now-chaotic corridors of the hot spring hotel. Due to the recent fiend attack, the place was now bustling with anxious staff, grim-faced security personnel, and probably a few bewildered insurance adjusters.

Is the existence of fiends, of this constant, senseless violence, just a matter of course in this world? An unavoidable fact of life? The question, unbidden, suddenly popped into her head. She probably only thought of this now because of the Darkmoon Queen’s surprisingly… girlish… reaction during their earlier, chaotic encounter. If it had been a truly mature, composed woman, a woman befitting her impressive, regal figure, she probably wouldn’t have been so completely, utterly shaken by the mere sight of Ren’s… ah… unfortunate situation. Although, to be perfectly fair, it was admittedly so exaggerated, so unexpectedly impressive, that even she herself had almost been momentarily shaken. But regardless—the Queen’s shriek of pure, unadulterated shock… it felt like the kind of mortified, bashful reaction one would expect from someone Strawberry Sweetheart’s, or even her own daughter’s, age. It was… strangely human.

However, she quickly, forcefully dismissed the thought. When you finally, inevitably reach middle age, you begin to realize, with a weary sense of resignation, that pondering many of life’s great, unanswerable questions is ultimately, frustratingly meaningless. So, you just… give up thinking about them. You focus only on what you feel is truly, tangibly important. That’s all.

She soon ran into Ren again, down in the hotel lobby.

Ren was indeed already in deep, intense communication with the hotel organizers, his expression once again incredibly, unnervingly professional. The few people there, the hotel managers and security chiefs, all greeted her with a mixture of awe and trepidation when she approached. Magical Girl Black, ever the stoic, simply gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod in return. Her gaze fell on Ren. “Is it handled, kid?”

Ren nodded, his expression grim. “For now. It’s up to the organization’s information department to see if they can actually track them from here. Though, based on the preliminary data, the prognosis isn’t very optimistic. They’re ghosts.”

“Hmph. Figures. Well then, let’s go,” Black grumbled. “I’m a bit… hungry. Come with me to the buffet restaurant for a bite to eat. You people do provide a 24-hour buffet service for your VVIP guests, right?” she asked the nearest trembling staff member.

“Y-yes, of course, Miss Black! Absolutely! But… but the chefs, they all evacuated during the attack earlier! I’ll… I’ll notify them to come back immediately!” the poor man stammered.

Ren, however, stopped him with a calm, reassuring hand on his shoulder. “No need to trouble them. Just leave the kitchen to me. I can prepare any dish that might be required. I’m quite proficient.”

The staff member looked at Ren with an expression of pure, unadulterated, almost tearful respect. “Supporters… you people really are all-rounders, aren’t you! Truly amazing!”

And so, Ren and Magical Girl Black, the Supporter and his charge, the future son-in-law and his magical girl father-in-law, made their way to the vast, empty, and impeccably clean buffet restaurant.

“Don’t make anything too complicated or fancy,” Black said as they entered the massive, state-of-the-art kitchen. “Something simple will do just fine. I’m not picky.”

Ren nodded, already tying on an apron he’d found. “I’ll just grill a few nice, thick steaks then. It’s not difficult.”

Black, for once, readily agreed. Steak sounded good. Very good.

Soon, Ren brought over two perfectly cooked, beautifully presented steaks on a silver platter. He had, of course, prepared one for himself as well. The aroma was divine.

“Miss Black,” Ren said, after a few moments of surprisingly comfortable silence, “about what happened earlier… my sincerest apologies for any offense my… actions… may have caused.”

Black shook her head, not looking up from her steak. “What offense is there to speak of, kid? There’s nothing to apologize for. You made the correct, logical choice to save your own life, and in doing so, you avoided a potentially catastrophic loss for all of us. It was, without a single shred of doubt, the right course of action, even from a purely, coldly results-oriented perspective. Besides,” she added, a hint of something almost like warmth in her voice, “the situation was incredibly urgent; you could only act on your wits, on your instincts. I don’t think there was any offense at all. It was… creative.”

She paused for a moment, then, with a slight hesitation, she continued, “Hana… Hana is your girlfriend. And she’s still… not quite mature enough yet. There will be times when she doesn’t fully understand you, when she says hurtful things. It’s only normal for you to feel wronged by her questioning, by her accusations. But… don’t hold it too much in your heart, kid. Don’t let it fester. And… as her—as her friend,” she corrected herself quickly, “I apologize to you on her behalf. For her… childishness.”

Hearing Black’s words, her surprisingly gentle, almost fatherly words of consolation, Ren suddenly felt a complex, overwhelming mix of emotions… As Black had so astutely pointed out, of course, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, truly blame Hana for her reaction. But he did, if he were being completely honest with himself, indeed feel a little bit… wronged. A little hurt. A little misunderstood.

If this person… if this person weren’t my own dang father-in-law, trying to give me relationship advice while dressed as a gothic magical girl… this would almost be a genuinely touching, heartwarming moment.

“Miss Black, you know,” he said, a slow, wry smile spreading across his face as he pushed down the not-so-obvious pang of acidity in his heart, “the way you’re talking right now, so sympathetically, so… understandingly… it’s just like one of those so-called ‘plastic sisters’ you see in those silly high school dramas.” He decided to lean into the absurdity of the situation with a joke. He adopted a high-pitched, mockingly cute, almost flirtatious voice, “‘Oh, Onii-chan~ Big sister is so mean and scary~ Not like me, you poor, misunderstood thing~ I’ll always be here to comfort you, Onii-chan~ I only have eyes for you~’”

His shockingly accurate, and frankly quite disturbing, imitation made Magical Girl Black’s expression turn completely, utterly speechless. She just stared at him, a piece of steak halfway to her mouth, for a long, silent moment. 

“It seems,” she finally grumbled, her voice rough with embarrassment, “that my concern was entirely… unnecessary. And possibly quite foolish.” She then, with a renewed vigor, speared the piece of meat with her fork and shoved it into her mouth. “So, as the old, wise saying goes, meddling in other people’s romantic affairs is a truly, profoundly foolish thing to do. Never, ever give an opinion when a couple is fighting, otherwise you’ll inevitably, invariably end up being the bad guy, no matter what you do—it really is true, isn’t it.”

“Miss Black, regardless of all that, thank you for your concern. Truly.” Ren’s smile was genuine now, his earlier melancholy seemingly gone. “To be able to hear your comforting words here, now, in this strange situation… it’s actually a very happy, very reassuring thing for me. If it were the younger me, the me from my childhood, I probably would have already burst into tears by now, you know.”

This kid… he’s still joking around, even now. He’s stronger than I thought.

Black, however, felt much more relieved. And it seemed that the Darkmoon Queen, for whatever reason, didn’t actually have any immediate intention of revealing her true identity either. This—what was that woman planning? What was her angle? But this was something she probably couldn’t, shouldn’t, discuss with Ren. Not yet. If she told him, with his terrifyingly sharp intellect, he would surely guess something more, something deeper. But if she did tell him… then what was the point of hiding anything at all? It was all so damn complicated. Her head was starting to ache again.

“But, this Darkmoon Coven…” Black said, changing the subject, “do you happen to know what kind of ancient, deep-seated grudge the Darkmoon Queen has with Strawberry Sweetheart? What makes them so hell-bent on fighting us to the death here in S-City, of all places? With their considerable power, surely the Darkmoon Coven could be much more high-profile, much more successful, in other, less protected cities, couldn’t they?”

“Strawberry Sweetheart,” Ren said, his expression turning serious again, “refuses to reveal that particular information to anyone. It’s a complete mystery, even to the organization’s top brass.”

“Hmph. Such a willful, stubborn child,” Black grumbled.

“It is precisely because she is so willful, Miss Black,” Ren said with a soft, almost fond smile, “that she is, and always will be, Strawberry Sweetheart.”

This statement surprised Black a little. It was surprisingly insightful. “I would have thought,” she mused, “that someone like you, someone so focused on logic and efficiency, would actually dislike Strawberry Sweetheart quite a bit. Because she would, due to her own stubborn willfulness, often ignore the most tactically advantageous option you might provide. In a certain, very real sense, that’s incredibly inefficient, isn’t it?”

“And Miss Black’s efficiency, her results, have always been remarkably, almost terrifyingly high, haven’t they?” Ren countered smoothly.

“Well, it’s a job. I get paid to be efficient,” Black said with a shrug.

Although it felt incredibly inappropriate, almost surreal, for him to be saying this to the magical girl he was officially responsible for, if he momentarily pretended he wasn’t talking to the fearsome Magical Girl Black, but to the down-to-earth Kenji Tanaka… well, then it didn’t matter so much. “It is precisely because of that very willfulness, that very idealism,” Ren continued, his voice quiet but firm, “that she possesses the power to create genuine, honest-to-goodness miracles. That’s what makes everyone believe in her. It makes them believe that wherever she is, there will always be hope. That as long as she is there, fighting for them, miracles will happen. You noticed it too during the fiend attack the other day, didn’t you, Miss Black? Wherever Strawberry Sweetheart was, even when she wasn’t in her all-powerful Sparkling Form, even when she was getting her butt kicked, the people, the crowd… they felt at ease. They felt safe.”

“Actually,” Black grumbled, “her being there wasn’t necessarily safe at all. In fact, it was quite dangerous.”

“Perhaps. But people… people will always choose to believe in that kind of hope, regardless of the logic.”

That… that was a surprisingly rare, and perhaps even profound, piece of advice. “Let’s not talk about this anymore,” Black said suddenly, standing up. “What happened today must have been a bit of a shock for you too, kid. You can take a few days off to rest. I’ll postpone our upcoming… ‘training sessions’… for a while. Consider it a well-deserved vacation. God knows I need a vacation too.”

“Is this… is this Magical Girl Black’s famous willfulness in action, then?” Ren asked, a teasing glint in his eye.

“As you so astutely pointed out, kid,” Black said, a rare, genuine smirk gracing her lips, “when a magical girl is willful, she brings hope to the people, doesn’t she?” Black had already turned and was walking out of the restaurant. “And hey! Remember to clear our dishes and things before you leave! It’s part of your job!”

She’s really, shamelessly ordering me around now, just like an old, grumpy uncle talking to his long-suffering junior! Unbelievable!

But there was nothing he could do about it, was there? Ren felt that his relationship with Magical Girl Black now was… incredibly, almost bizarrely subtle. After all, Black didn’t know that he knew her true identity, while he did, in fact, know hers (with about 98% certainty, anyway). Relatively speaking, his only real advantage in this strange, convoluted situation was that Black didn’t yet know that he knew that she was secretly Kenji Tanaka. It was a tactical quagmire.

Although, this knowledge didn’t really give him much of a practical advantage, did it? Even if her identity was exposed, it would only lead to a catastrophic, and probably very entertaining, social death for Black herself. And what would happen to the already strained relationship between Hana and Black—Hana and her father—then… Ren didn’t even dare to imagine it. It would be a disaster of epic proportions.

But, he knew, with a grim sense of certainty, that he had to prepare. He had to have a plan. Because sooner or later, inevitably, the truth would come out. It always did.

He couldn’t just keep pushing this problem off, ignoring it until it exploded in their faces. He had to have a comprehensive contingency plan in place before things inevitably, catastrophically happened. As for emergency situations like the one they’d faced today… Ren did not want a repeat performance. He couldn’t guarantee that he’d be able to handle it, that he’d be able to find a clever, if deeply embarrassing, solution every single time. Today had already been an incredible, almost suicidal risk. A desperate gamble that had, by some miracle, paid off.

He needed to be more thorough. More prepared. More… powerful.

Some Espers, like Hana, are physically very weak, even with their powers. And I’m just a Normie. I should probably also start strengthening my own body more seriously. And perhaps… perhaps something more.

He took out his smartphone, his expression now hard as steel, and quickly, decisively dialed a number from his contacts.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said, his voice now cold and professional. “I’m calling to check on the status of my application for the small and medium-sized weapons usage certification. Has it been processed yet?”

A weary, exasperated voice came from the other end of the line. “Akiyama, are you kidding me? We’re still dealing with the legal and bureaucratic fallout from you using that unregistered, probably illegal RPG without a license last time! It’s not going to be that fast! The organization isn’t omnipotent, you know! Your official time as a Supporter has been far too short; the higher-ups still have… limited… trust in your judgment. The procedures for getting something like a weapons license for a rookie like you are incredibly, almost impossibly troublesome. It’s a mountain of paperwork!”

Ren simply, calmly said, “Then please handle it as quickly as humanly possible. I have a feeling… a very strong feeling… that things in S-City won’t be ending just like this. And the Darkmoon Queen… she will absolutely, positively not let this go.”