Chapter 13: The Only Way

It was a truly bizarre, surreal situation. The epic, city-shaking battle had concluded, yet its aftermath was proving to be remarkably peaceful. For now.

The public had only witnessed what appeared to be a complete one-sided slaughter of the infamous Darkmoon Coven by their beloved magical girls. Of course, the word "slaughter" wasn't quite the appropriate, PR-friendly term to use here; after all, magical girls were sacred symbols of love and justice. So, it was officially reported as a one-sided crushing victory of love and justice, a brilliant, flawless operation that hadn’t even given the pathetic fiend organization a single, solitary chance to mount any meaningful resistance.

The officials, naturally, were absolutely, giddily ecstatic. They considered this a great, historic victory, a triumph that could, and would, be proudly recorded in the annals of history for all time. A glorious declaration that justice had thoroughly, decisively, and with extreme prejudice, crushed evil. It was, they claimed in their press conferences, an outstanding, exemplary result of their many long, hard years of diligently striking back against the fiendish hordes.

And Magical Girl Black’s performance, in particular, was universally hailed as nothing short of absolutely, breathtakingly perfect. Those merciless, contemptuous slaps had landed squarely, satisfyingly on the arrogant faces of the fiends, completely, utterly shattering their so-called dignity and their twisted, pathetic ideals. With such a terrifying, awe-inspiring deterrent now on the world stage, surely anyone who even considered becoming a fiend in the future would have to seriously, deeply weigh whether they could possibly withstand the sheer, soul-crushing force of Magical Girl Black’s "educational" slaps. Whether their own pathetic, half-baked ideals could possibly endure Black’s brutal, existential interrogation.

The Darkmoon Queen was apprehended. The remaining fiends, their spirits broken, had all surrendered without a fight. There was no longer any point in fighting. Were they supposed to try and take on the monstrous, reality-bending Nightmare Pudding? What a joke. That would be as ridiculously, comically suicidal as a random person declaring, "I think I'll go have a friendly boxing match with Sukuna." Their magnificent Queen had been beaten like a stray, mangy dog; who among them would still dare to so much as bark?

However, at this very moment, in the gaudy, velvet-and-mirror-adorned confines of a certain love-themed hotel room, Hana Tanaka was having a bit of a… meltdown.

“Magical Girl Black is really that strong? That terrifyingly, unbelievably powerful? And that… that’s actually my dad? Oh my god, what a embarrassing old man he was!” Hana grumbled, a strange, almost dizzying mix of awe, pride, and profound, secondhand embarrassment swirling in her heart. But the fact that her father, her lame, out-of-touch father, had been able to single-handedly win such a monumental war… it was, she had to admit, an incredibly, unbelievably exciting thing.

The young girl’s tense, adrenaline-fueled heart finally, mercifully began to relax, and a faint, tell-tale blush crept onto her cheeks. With a soft, almost mischievous giggle, she wrapped her arms around Ren from behind, pressing herself against his back. “Um… hey, Ren,” she murmured, her voice a soft, playful purr, “you know… look, we’re already here and all… in this… room… If we just, you know, pack up and leave right now, without… you know… taking advantage of the facilities… wouldn’t that be… a bit of a waste?”

However, the sweet, romantic, and possibly slightly spicy scene she was so clearly imagining did not, in fact, unfold. Her wonderful, handsome, and usually quite attentive boyfriend, Ren Akiyama, had absolutely no intention of engaging in any kind of romantic, ambiguous, or otherwise hormonally-charged banter with her right now. Instead, he spun around with a sudden, alarming seriousness, his hands grabbing hers, his eyes wide with a desperate, frantic urgency.

“HANA! QUICK! I need you to use your locating magic! Find Magical Girl Black’s position! NOW! This is an emergency!”

“E-eh?” Hana was completely stunned, her romantic mood shattering into a million tiny, confused pieces. “What do you mean, Ren? What’s going on? What are you doing?”

Seeing the dazed confusion in her eyes, Ren became even more urgent, his voice tight with a barely suppressed panic. “Don’t you see it?! Weren’t you watching?! She was putting on a brave face, Hana! Just for us! Magical Girl Black is nowhere near as fine as she’s pretending to be! She’s in the middle of a huge, potentially catastrophic crisis right now! We have to hurry!”

Magical Girl Black… in a crisis? How… how could Ren possibly say that? That’s my father. My ridiculously overpowered, fiend-punching father. Surely, I should know him much, much better than Ren does. I didn’t see anything wrong at all…

“HANA! HURRY!” Ren’s voice was sharp now, a command.

“O-okay!”

There was no time for Hana to hesitate. Ren’s urgent, almost terrified demeanor made her own heart pound with a fresh wave of anxiety. She immediately, without another thought, activated her locating magic. After confirming that Black’s energy signature had stopped moving, that it was stationary somewhere remote, Ren immediately, with his Supporter authority, requested an emergency helicopter from the organization. Within minutes, a sleek, black helicopter was hovering outside their love hotel window, ready to transport the two of them away. Their destination: the same remote, mountainous valley with the now-infamous hot spring hotel they had visited just a few short days ago.

Upon arriving at the desolate, eerily quiet valley, Ren curtly refused to report his specific actions to the organization’s worried operators, merely stating that it was a highly confidential, Level-S magical girl matter. He then, taking Hana’s hand, led her on a frantic, desperate run through the dense, silent valley, finally, after what felt like an eternity, finding Magical Girl Black. She was sitting cross-legged, serenely directly under a thundering, powerful waterfall, letting the torrent of cold, rushing water crash down upon her small, unmoving frame.

“BLACK!” Ren yelled, his voice echoing in the quiet valley.

Black slowly opened her eyes. She saw her daughter, and her daughter’s boyfriend, standing before her, their faces etched with worry. A helpless, weary look flashed in her own eyes. “What are you two doing here? Can’t you see I’m trying to imitate the ancient, wise sages and engage in some serious spiritual training? Don’t disturb me. I need to digest and absorb the last vestiges of Crystal’s power. You two can… you can go on a date for a while. Have fun.” Her voice was weak, strained.

Ren, his face a mask of angry, worried determination, strode forward without a single moment’s hesitation, wading into the cold water, and unceremoniously pulled the surprisingly light Magical Girl Black out from under the waterfall’s punishing cascade. “What the hell are you trying to prove, acting so tough all the time! Your condition is clearly terrible, isn’t it?! Stop pretending!”

Black looked at Ren with an air of weary, bored indifference, though her eyes betrayed her exhaustion. “What are you talking about, Ren? Making such a rash, emotional judgment… that’s not something a competent Supporter should be doing, you know.”

“If I’m not mistaken,” Ren countered, his voice sharp, his analytical gaze piercing, “you can’t use a single, solitary bit of your own power right now, can you? Flying away from the battle just now, that was the absolute, desperate limit of your remaining strength, wasn’t it? If you relax for even a single second, that corrupted power from Magical Girl Crystal will completely, catastrophically overwhelm your own. You may have, through sheer willpower, rejected her emotions, her will, her despair. But the raw, untamed power itself is still attacking your own power, still trying to consume you. And it will never merge with yours, not as long as you continue to resist it.”

Black was stunned. Utterly stunned. She stared blankly, almost uncomprehendingly at Ren.

And looking at Ren with the exact same expression of profound disbelief, was Hana Tanaka. Just by seeing the look on her father’s—on Black’s—face, it was painfully, terrifyingly obvious that what Ren had said was absolutely, unequivocally correct. Even from a great, impossible distance, just by watching through the Darkmoon Queen’s distorted, holographic projection, he had already, with an almost supernatural perception, realized the extreme, desperate state Magical Girl Black was in. He, Ren Akiyama, understood her father—no, he understood the enigmatic, terrifying magical girl known as Black—better, more deeply, more intuitively than she, her own daughter, ever had. And she was supposed to be the die-hard, obsessive, walking-encyclopedia-of-a magical girl fan. Moreover, this person, this complex, suffering hero, was her own goddamn father. This fact, this sudden, crushing realization, made Hana’s heart incredibly, painfully complicated. But right now, what should they… what could they possibly do?

A bitter, self-deprecating smile appeared on Black’s pale face. “Well, you know… adults always have to act tough in front of their kids, don’t they… I can’t exactly let a couple of little girls bear this kind of terrifying, world-ending power, now can I? What would become of my dignity as an adult then? But, since you already know my pathetic state, why in the world did you bring Hana here? I… I didn’t want her to see me looking so… so pathetic.”

“Dad!” Hana cried out, her own composure finally breaking. She felt her eyes sting, and hot, unstoppable tears began to stream down her cheeks.

“In a situation like this,” Black continued, her voice now a weak, ragged whisper, “to be perfectly honest, I don’t know how much longer I can suppress Crystal’s power. Or if I can truly, completely wear it down at all. I’m… I’m basically a giant, unstable bomb right now. And exploding here, in this remote, deserted valley, is probably the best possible outcome for everyone. I… I feel a little bad for the poor hot spring hotel people, but it’s still far, far better than causing massive, catastrophic destruction in the middle of the city. I was originally, foolishly planning to try and head out to the middle of the sea, but… but I really can’t fly that far anymore. I’m… I’m just too tired.” Black’s face was filled with a profound, heartbreaking helplessness, completely devoid of the domineering, terrifying aura she’d had when she was so casually, so brutally slapping the Darkmoon Queen around just a short while ago. Instead, she looked as weak, as fragile, as utterly helpless as a small, lost girl. “You two… you should leave. Quickly. I think… I think I can still hold on for a little while longer. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll even succeed in suppressing it completely. But… but if I fail, if this thing goes off… you two are the most important people in the world to me. And I don’t want to see you caught in the crisis. So please… just do this for me. Please? Can you?”

Seeing Hana’s face now completely streaked with tears, Black felt like crying too. But she held it in. She had to be strong. For them. She turned to Ren. “Ren,” she pleaded, her voice now just a hoarse whisper, “can you… can you please take her away from here?” She knew, with a father’s weary certainty, that she could no longer control her own willful, rebellious daughter, that she could no longer command her obedience. But Ren… Ren was smart. Ren was rational. He would surely realize the complete hopelessness of the situation. Only he could possibly take Hana away from here now. So, she only asked Ren.

“No.” Ren’s voice, in stark contrast, was incredibly, unnervingly firm. His gaze was absolute. His eyes seemed to shine with a certain blinding light, a light so bright, so intense, that it even made the exhausted Magical Girl Black feel a little dazzled. “I told you before, didn’t I, sir? I won’t let you die.”

“But… but there’s no other way…” Black stammered.

“If you lose control here, if you explode,” Ren stated, his logic cold and sharp as a razor, “I can guarantee, with absolute certainty, that you won’t just simply die. The internal, catastrophic explosion of that much corrupted power… it will just force you into your own Inverted state. And Strawberry Sweetheart’s Inversion is already that terrifying, that destructive. A stats-monster like you… if you were to fully Invert, I can’t even begin to imagine how powerful, how utterly, apocalyptically strong you would become. And then… and then we’ll all die together here, won’t we?”

Black immediately, desperately retorted, “But if you just stay away from me, then the organization’s orbital weapon will only target and destroy me! You’ll be safe!”

“There is another way,” Ren said, his voice now calm, his plan already formed. He had, of course, already thought of a plan. He always had a plan. He then turned to a sobbing, almost hysterical Hana. “HANA! Listen to me! Open your dimensional space! Right now! And put both me and Black inside! If we’re sealed within that pocket dimension of yours, the organization won’t be able to detect our energy signatures, our status! And even if Black does Invert inside, as long as you don’t open the space, as long as you don’t let her out, she won’t be a danger to this world! It’s the only way!”

Black was suddenly, completely shocked. A slow, almost incredulous smile appeared on her face. This kid… he’s a genius. “Should I say, as expected of a top-tier Supporter? You actually came up with a crazy, insane method like this? It’s… it’s indeed a good idea. A brilliant one, even. But… you don’t need to come in with me, kid. I’ll be fine in there by myself. If I fail, just… just don’t let me out until someone, somewhere, confirms that they can actually, definitively defeat me. Hana,” she said, her voice now soft, almost pleading, “your dimensional space… I’m afraid it will probably be unusable for quite a while after this.”

“No…” Hana sobbed, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated despair. She shook her head, again and again. “No! I don’t want that! I don’t want it to be like this! You two… you can’t…”

“BELIEVE IN ME, HANA!” Ren’s voice was a roar, a command, a desperate plea. He, still supporting the weak, trembling Magical Girl Black, came to stand directly before the heartbroken Hana. He reached out a hand and gently touched her tear-streaked cheek. “Believe in me. I won’t let Black die. And I won’t die either. I will come back to your side. I promise.”

“No… no, it’s impossible! Ren, what you’re trying to do is… it’s suicide! If anyone has to go, it should be me and Black together! I’m her daughter…”

SLAP!

The sound was shockingly, brutally loud in the quiet, tense valley. Ren, with a strength and resolve Hana had never seen before, had slapped her hard across the face. Hana was so stunned, so completely shocked, she couldn’t even feel the sting. She had never, not once in her entire life, imagined that Ren, her gentle, kind Ren, would ever, ever do such a thing.

“You must do this, Hana! You have to be the one to stay here! To be our anchor! To keep us tethered to this world! What are you still hesitating for?!” Ren had never, ever been so strict, so angry with Hana before. His voice was filled with a righteous, desperate fury. “You’re a magical girl fanatic, aren’t you?! A magical girl otaku! There is NO ONE in this entire world who should believe in the power of magical girls more than you! In the power of love! In the power of hope! And now! At this critical, life-or-death moment! You’re actually going to say it’s impossible? You’re going to say that Magical Girl Black can’t do it?! That she can’t overcome the corrupted power of Crystal?! That she can’t conquer despair?! DON’T YOU DARE DISAPPOINT ME, HANA TANAKA!”

He hadn’t wanted to do this to her. Not ever. But now, every single fraction of a second was critically, unbelievably important. So, he had to. He had to be the bad guy. As Black’s Supporter, as Hana’s boyfriend, as Ren Akiyama himself, as family—he had to, in this single, terrible moment, bear the entire, crushing weight of their collective fate upon his own shoulders.

Hana, sobbing, her cheek stinging, her heart breaking, finally, reluctantly opened the shimmering, portal-like entrance to her dimensional space. Her tears were now flowing uncontrollably, a river of sorrow and regret.

“Don’t… don’t tell my parents about this,” Ren said, his expression suddenly gentle again. “I don’t want them to worry. After all,” he added, a small, confident smile on his face, “I will definitely, absolutely bring Black back with me. I promise.” He then, with a touch as soft as a butterfly’s wing, gently, lovingly caressed the red, stinging mark on her cheek where he had just struck her. With a final, resolute look in his eyes, he resolutely picked up the now-limp Magical Girl Black and, without a single backward glance, leaped into the shimmering, swirling space.

Just before the portal closed, Hana heard his voice, one last time. “Hana! I’m sorry!”

Hana bit her lip so hard she drew blood, her heart shattering into a million tiny pieces. And then, with a choked sob, the dimensional space snapped shut.

The young girl, alone, helpless, and utterly, completely broken, collapsed in a heap in front of the thundering waterfall. The magic she had just performed, the act of sending them away, seemed to have completely drained all of her remaining strength, all of her hope, all of her will. What am I? she thought, a hollow, empty feeling in her chest. What good am I?

Aspiring to be a magical girl, yet not truly believing in their power. A daughter to my father, yet never once noticing his struggle, his pain. The wielder of the almost omnipotent, reality-bending “Mage Esper ability,” yet so utterly useless, unable to do almost anything when it truly, truly mattered.

What have I been doing with my life all this time?

Hana looked up, her tear-filled eyes fixed on the thundering waterfall where her father, as Black, had been sitting just a few short, agonizing moments before, trying to save the world all by herself.

She silently, slowly, with a newfound, terrifying determination in her eyes, stood up. And then, she walked, with a slow, deliberate, funereal pace, directly under that same, punishing, ice-cold torrent, letting the full, crushing weight of the water crash down upon her, drenching her completely, trying to wash away her weakness, her shame, her despair.

“I… I was so… so weak.”