Chapter 6: Black is Still on Vacation

The next day, Magical Girl Black and Ren Akiyama were, indeed, still on vacation. It was a strange, almost surreal state of being.

The latest intelligence report they’d received was that the indomitable Strawberry Sweetheart still hadn't managed to track down the elusive, and apparently very good at hiding, Magical Girl Red. Her current plan, transmitted via a rather terse message, was to continue her high-intensity search for another two days. If Red still stubbornly refused to show her face by then, Strawberry would have no choice but to give up and return to S-City with Black. After all, she, too, had a mountain of her own responsibilities to attend to; she had signed all sorts of lucrative and legally binding commercial contracts, and pushing them back for a few more days was already the absolute, unprofessional limit. The magnificent, ever-reliable Magical Girl Strawberry Sweetheart could not afford to be seen as a flake who broke her promises. So, if Red was still playing hide-and-seek by the deadline, well, there was nothing more to be done. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it fight its senpai for a power-up, apparently.

A-City, unlike the more nature-oriented S-City with its lush mountains and babbling streams, had tourist spots that were mostly related to "people," to history, rather than to pristine natural landscapes. For example, there were ancient, beautifully preserved buildings left over from centuries past, and of course, the sprawling, somber, battle-scarred ruins they had visited yesterday. All in all, it was a city steeped in a long, rich, and often quite violent history.

However, in stark contrast to yesterday’s rather solemn historical sightseeing, today Black and Ren, at Black's—or rather, Kenji's—insistence, went to the renowned A-City Science and Technology Museum.

A-City didn't have many powerful, frontline Espers, but it was different from other places in a very significant, and very profitable way. The "Creators," the brilliant minds of their generation, were all gathered here. Many Espers, and even many ordinary, non-powered individuals, who were not particularly skilled in combat but who excelled, with an almost supernatural talent, in the fields of invention, engineering, and creative problem-solving, had all congregated in this city. For instance, Black’s own custom-made, fiend-pulverizing, and surprisingly comfortable knuckle dusters had been designed, forged, and probably extensively tested right here in one of A-City’s high-tech labs. Comparatively speaking, this city was also home to a great deal of "black technology," secret, cutting-edge innovations that bordered on science fiction.

For example, the infamous, top-secret black-tech weapon that had, all those years ago, tragically destroyed the legendary Magical Girl Crystal. Though she’d heard that the activation of that terrible weapon had come at a great, unimaginable cost, a locator for that very same doomsday device was, at this very moment, attached to Magical Girl Black herself, a silent, grim reminder of her own potential fate. If Black were ever to catastrophically Invert, and if the organization, in its infinite wisdom, determined that she was beyond any hope of regaining her sanity, they would, without hesitation, use it to… erase her from existence. A comforting thought.

Of course, aside from those ridiculously exaggerated, world-ending pieces of military-grade technology that couldn't possibly be shown to the general, easily panicked public, A-City itself had also developed many brilliant black-tech marvels that could be, and were being, used for civilian purposes. And one could get a tantalizing glimpse of all of them, right here, in this very museum. To put it simply, the incredible, almost magical items exhibited in this grand hall could, with a high degree of certainty, signify the future direction of all civilian technology for the next twenty years.

And men, especially middle-aged men with a penchant for history and gadgets, have always been very, very interested in this kind of thing.

And so, Ren Akiyama, the dutiful Supporter, and Magical Girl Black, the "manly" magical girl, arrived at the gleaming, futuristic Science and Technology Museum.

“You know, it’s funny,” Black couldn’t help but remark, a note of genuine, nerdy enthusiasm in her voice as they passed through the high-tech entrance gate. “The organization uses advanced iris recognition for all its security checkpoints, but using it to enter a state-of-the-art science museum like this just feels so much more… well, high-tech! More impressive! Back at the organization’s headquarters, it just feels like a normal, everyday part of the clocking-in process.”

“I suppose that’s just the feeling the organization gives off, Miss Black,” Ren agreed with a small, knowing smile. “A sense of mundane, bureaucratic dread. But since we’re officially here to have fun today, let’s try not to think about the organization’s business, shall we? Speaking of which,” he added, his eyes scanning her new outfit with a professional, analytical gaze, “you changed your clothes again?”

Black nodded, a little proudly. “Well, I am a magical girl, after all. I thought, for a change of pace, I should try wearing a cute little skirt for once. I’m wearing reinforced, military-grade safety shorts underneath, of course,” she added quickly, “but wearing a skirt is surprisingly… liberating. How should I put it? It feels so wonderfully freeing! So breezy! Girls really have it good, don’t they! The comfort is on another level!”

Ren really, really didn’t want to hear this kind of peculiar, surreal commentary from his charge/father-in-law. Today’s Magical Girl Black was wearing a cute, pleated skirt that looked a bit like a standard JK’s (Japanese high school girl’s) uniform skirt. But since she herself was so incredibly petite, so small and slender, it gave off a particularly strong sense of... immoral charm. And this… this is my future father-in-law… The sense of wrongdoing, of cosmic, existential awkwardness, grew even stronger, threatening to consume him entirely.

“So, have you done your usual, ridiculously thorough research and found out what fun, interesting tech they have here in advance?” Black asked, oblivious to his internal turmoil.

“Of course, Miss Black. I have a full itinerary prepared.”

Ren, ever the professional, led Black directly to a massive, state-of-the-art virtual reality experience hall. Inside, according to the brochure, you could experience all sorts of incredible, hyper-realistic simulations. Black, intrigued, put on the sleek, futuristic helmet, and a stunningly realistic, panoramic view of the deep ocean floor, complete with colorful coral reefs and exotic-looking fish, spread out before her eyes. She thought about it for a moment, a thoughtful frown on her face, then, with a sigh of disappointment, she took the helmet off.

“You know, kid, I feel like this… this isn’t really that interesting, when you think about it,” she said, her tone almost apologetic. “After all, if you really, truly think about it, if I, Magical Girl Black, wanted to see the breathtaking scenery of the ocean floor, I could just… you know… dive into the actual ocean and see it for real. In person. I could even, if I were in the mood, probably get into a bare-knuckle brawl with a killer whale and win. So, for me, this virtual stuff… it doesn’t really have much meaning, does it?”

Ren, nodding thoughtfully, put on the helmet to check it out for himself. After a minute of being virtually surrounded by very realistic-looking, but ultimately fake, fish, he took it off with a sigh of his own. “You’re right. Although it’s incredibly, photorealistically well-made, just as you said, for a genuine magical girl, this kind of thing… it really doesn’t have much meaning, does it? After all, magical girls themselves are already such fantastically, ridiculously magical beings. In that case,” he added, already consulting his data-slate, “the zero-gravity experience room is probably also meaningless for you. Since you’re always flying around in the sky, the sensation of weightlessness must be a pretty common, everyday experience for you, right?”

Black nodded in agreement. Finally, someone who understands my unique, first-world magical girl problems!

Ren then began to think seriously, a deep, furrow of concentration on his brow. For a being as ridiculously overpowered as a magical girl, what kind of mundane, mortal technology would actually be considered interesting? Or novel?

“Ah! I’ve got it!” he suddenly exclaimed. “There’s an attraction here called the ‘Time Machine.’ It says it’s a time machine, of course, but it actually just uses a highly advanced, predictive AI to generate a hyper-realistic image of what you’ll supposedly look like in the future. I must confess, I’m actually quite curious to see what an older, more mature Magical Girl Black would look like.”

This piqued Black’s interest. “Now that you mention it, kid, I’m quite interested in that too. A magical girl’s physical form does, apparently, change somewhat over time, along with their original, civilian body. Just like how Strawberry Sweetheart’s transformation, when she first started out as a little kid, was also that of a little girl, a chibi version of her current self. Although my own situation is a bit… strange, a bit anomalous, I’m also quite curious to see what the future, older version of Magical Girl Black would actually look like. Will I still be cute?”

When they finally arrived at that particular exhibit, they found, much to their dismay, that it was incredibly, almost ridiculously crowded. It seemed like a lot of people, of all ages, wanted to try this attraction. Of course, similar, less sophisticated "aging" AIs were readily available online for free; you could just upload your own picture and get a wrinkly, grey-haired result in seconds. But the advanced, proprietary AI at this particular exhibit was on a completely, fundamentally different level from the cheap, gimmicky ones on the internet. This thing, the museum’s brochure proudly proclaimed, was the most accurate, most scientifically advanced predictive AI in existence. So—there were, surprisingly, a great many young couples here, all eagerly taking photos together, the theme of the day apparently being “a glimpse of us when we’re old and grey together.” There were also many elderly people here, their eyes filled with a wistful nostalgia, hoping to see a glimpse of themselves restored to their youthful, vibrant appearances. It was, they said, a completely different, magical experience from just looking at old, faded photographs.

Suddenly, Black grabbed Ren’s hand.

When Ren turned his head in surprise, Black said, her voice surprisingly, fatherly serious, “It would be incredibly troublesome to get lost in a crowded place like this. We’d probably have to meet up all the way back at the main entrance if we got separated. So, don’t you dare wander off on your own, you got that, kid?”

Is… is she actually, seriously treating me like a little, irresponsible kid right now? Seriously? When Ren went on his own dates with Hana, he was always the one who would instinctively, protectively hold Hana’s hand to keep her from getting lost in a crowd. Speaking of which, he noted with a detached, almost academic interest, this way of holding hands, it’s completely different from how couples usually do it… Magical Girl Black’s small, surprisingly strong hand was holding Ren’s quite firmly, genuinely afraid that he, a pretty tall teenager, would somehow get lost in the crowd like a wayward toddler. However, to any casual, unsuspecting outsiders who might be watching them, they probably just looked like a slightly overprotective older brother bringing his cute, slightly embarrassed, but secretly quite pleased younger sister to visit the museum. The irony is so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

The two of them, the magical girl father and her future son-in-law, queued for quite some time, shuffling along with the eager crowd, before it was finally, mercifully their turn. To save time, and also because Black was still stubbornly holding his hand, they naturally, if a little awkwardly, posed for the picture together.

Of course, the final, AI-generated result was, much to Black’s profound disappointment, quite… underwhelming.

The aged, future appearance of Magical Girl Black looked just like… well, just like any other generic, slightly wrinkly, perfectly ordinary old lady you might see on the street. And Ren was the same. To be perfectly honest, there was absolutely nothing special, nothing remarkable, nothing magical about it at all. It was just… old.

Holding the slightly depressing photo, Ren gave a helpless, almost wistful smile. “You know, it’s really quite something to think about, isn’t it? Does every single person, no matter how special or powerful they are now, eventually just… turn into this? When they get old?” He shuddered slightly. “I must confess, I’m suddenly a little bit afraid of growing up now. I can hardly even imagine that this old man in the picture is supposed to be… me.”

Black nodded, a rare, genuine solemnity in her voice. “But it’s a process everyone, without exception, has to face, Ren. I, too, was once lost, once felt a profound sense of despair, when I first started to truly feel myself aging. But at that time,” a soft, almost sad smile touched her lips, “I thought to myself, ‘There’s no time to be lost, you old fool. You still have to raise Hana. You still have to see her grow up.’ And then, by the time I finally snapped out of my own mid-life crisis, you all were already so big, so grown up. The flow of time… it’s truly, utterly merciless, isn’t it?”

“And then,” Ren added gently, “you became Magical Girl Black.”

Black caught the subtle, teasing tone in Ren’s voice. She said, with a flash of her usual grumpy dissatisfaction, “Hey! You little brat, you’d better be careful what you say, you hear me! Right now, you’re just an ordinary, non-magical person. But don’t you end up somehow becoming a magical girl too when you finally get to my age! Then, and only then, you’ll finally know how I feel! Honestly! Young people these days! Don’t be so young, young man! It’s annoying!”

“So, what does it really, truly feel like, then, after you become Black?” Ren asked, his curiosity genuine. “Do you actually feel like you’ve become younger? Stronger?”

“Of course, you idiot. It’s like night and day,” Black admitted with a surprising frankness. “To be perfectly honest, a magical girl’s body is truly, unbelievably strong and powerful. Almost unfairly so. Once you get used to this kind of super-powered state, you feel incredibly, pathetically weak when you change back to your normal, mortal form. When you’re a magical girl, you get this… this intoxicating feeling of being able to do absolutely anything, of being invincible. It’s… quite scary, to be honest. It could very easily, and very quickly, become addictive.”

Hearing her say this, her voice filled with a strange mixture of awe and trepidation, Ren felt he could almost, almost imagine that incredible, terrifying state of mind. “No wonder I see so many of the other magical girls always trying to maintain their magical girl forms, even when they’re off-duty. It seems becoming a magical girl is indeed, a very, very satisfying, if slightly dangerous thing.”

Black didn’t deny this. It was the simple, unvarnished truth.

“But… is it actually possible for a magical girl to maintain that state… permanently?” Ren asked, his interest in this particular, highly classified topic now thoroughly piqued. “I saw you change back last time, at the concert, when you completely ran out of stamina, didn’t I? So there must be a limit, right?”

At this, the strange, cryptic words that the enigmatic retired magical girl, Moeka, had whispered to her in the restaurant flashed, unbidden, through Black’s mind. Her expression instantly, involuntarily turned sour.

“What’s wrong, Black? You look… you look quite unhappy all of a sudden. Did I say something wrong?”

Black replied, her voice now filled with a genuine, palpable unhappiness, “I just… thought of some strange, unsettling words a rather strange, unsettling person told me a while back. And I have absolutely no way of judging if they’re true or not, and I most certainly have no intention of ever, ever trying it out for myself to see.”

Ren looked at her with an undisguised curiosity. “For example? What kind of words?”

“…A child doesn’t need to know such complicated, adult things,” Black grumbled, immediately shutting down the conversation.

Now she’s treating me like a little kid again? Really? Ren thought, a fresh wave of exasperation washing over him. When you were giving me a mountain of impossibly difficult work, when you were making me communicate with all those stuffy, high-level corporate types, you certainly didn’t treat me like a little kid then, did you! Honestly! Is this that classic, infuriating parent thing? You know, the one where they have guests over, so they constantly order their children around to do chores, just to create the false, manipulative impression that ‘oh, yes, my child is so very obedient and helpful’…

Black might have some serious, fundamental misconceptions about their professional working relationship, Ren mused. He might indeed, one day, hopefully, be her future son-in-law. But on the other hand, in this current, bizarre situation, he was also her official, duly appointed work partner. And as the old saying goes, public is public, private is private. These were two separate, distinct issues that absolutely needed to be treated as such! For the sake of his own sanity!

However, he wasn’t about to say anything to spoil the surprisingly pleasant mood of their little outing right now. He could always investigate the related, highly classified matters concerning magical girl biology later, on his own time. Someone, somewhere in the organization, must know something.

“So,” Black said, changing the subject, “did you happen to send Hana the pictures of our little vacation yesterday?”

“Yes. I sent them,” Ren replied.

“And? What did she say?” Black asked, a little too eagerly, trying, and failing, to sound casual.

“She said to leave all the moving-related matters at home to her, and she wished us a happy, fun time,” Ren said with a smile. “And finally, she asked us not to forget to bring her back Magical Girl Red’s autograph, and any related, limited-edition merchandise. And,” he added, a deadpan expression on his face, “if it were at all possible, a pair of Red’s authentic, used panties would be for the best, apparently. For her collection.”

Black was silent for a long, long, soul-searching moment. “She’s my daughter, I know,” she finally said, her voice filled with a profound, cosmic weariness, “but I still have to ask you this, Ren, man to man. Your girlfriend is such a complete, and possibly irredeemable pervert. Are you… are you really okay with that? Be honest with me.”

“Well, isn’t that fundamentally a problem with your upbringing, Tanaka-ojisan?” Ren countered, a teasing, merciless glint in his eye. “Even though it’s a single-parent household, you should have, at the very least, asked my mother, or some other trusted female figure, to provide Hana with some appropriate, age-specific guidance during her crucial adolescent years, right? But you didn’t do any of that, did you? Which is precisely why she was exposed to all sorts of… unfiltered… knowledge on the internet during her formative puberty, and was allowed to grow up completely wild and free, and has now, as a direct result, become the wonderful, charming, and slightly perverted young woman she is today, isn’t that right?”

“Urgh…”

This righteous, and frankly quite accurate, argument, this unassailable, just argument, hit Black right where it hurt, stomping all over her most sensitive, most vulnerable spot. It was so devastatingly true that she couldn’t even come up with a single  retort. Ren, that little brat, was absolutely right. She had made a huge, perhaps unforgivable mistake in her daughter’s education. And that was why Hana had now, inevitably, become such a… such a pervert. It was all her fault.

“I’ll… I’ll have a good, long, stern talk with her when I get back,” she mumbled weakly.

“At this point, Tanaka-ojisan,” Ren sighed, a sound of profound pity, “I fear that education is completely meaningless. It’s far too late for that.” He then added, a gentle smile returning to his face, “But the actual, practical impact on her daily life probably isn’t that big, really. After all, she’s just… interested… in these things. It doesn’t actually affect her normal, day-to-day life. Mostly.”

“She’d better be,” Black grumbled, though there was no real heat behind it anymore. She was a defeated father.