Chapter 20: A Fragile Thing

Magical Girl Black… Isn’t she good enough?

What kind of emotion, what kind of desperate plea was hidden behind the young girl’s quiet, almost whispered question?

At this very moment, the girl’s eyes were locked on Ren Akiyama, her gaze so intense, so raw, that he found it difficult to read, difficult to even meet. It was like a desperate yearning, like a silent, heartbreaking supplication, and yet, at the same time, it felt like an interrogation of his very soul, a demand for an answer he wasn’t sure he was qualified to give.

“Of course, Magical Girl Black is good. She’s incredible,” Ren said, his voice quiet but firm, his words chosen with a surgeon’s precision. “But does that mean… that Kenji Tanaka simply ceases to exist?” He asked the question in return, a gentle but unavoidable counter. He knew, with a certain empathetic, painful dread, that this was the very last thing Black—Kenji—wanted to hear. This was absolutely not the comforting, reassuring answer she was so desperately hoping to get from him. But he had to say it. He had to speak these hateful, necessary, and ultimately kind words.

“And is Kenji Tanaka not me?” Black retorted, a serene, practiced, and utterly fake smile still gracing her lips. “How annoying you are, you know that, kid? Are you really, truly still just seeing me as ‘Black’? We’re the same person, you know, yet you so stubbornly insist on treating us as two completely separate, distinct people. If you keep this up, you might actually give me a bad case of schizophrenia, you know~”

Frankly speaking, the girl’s current appearance, her pouty, almost teasing demeanor, was incredibly, illegally cute. She was even, he suspected with a professional’s eye, deliberately trying to be alluring, to use her moe appeal as a weapon. To be perfectly honest, this… this surprisingly "moe" side of Magical Girl Black was something only Ren Akiyama was ever privileged, or perhaps unfortunate enough, to see. In all the widely circulated, heavily edited audio and video recordings of the fearsome Magical Girl Black, no one, absolutely no one, had ever witnessed her acting so… cute. Even in the massively popular and now globally dominant mobile game "Magical Girl Brawl," there was no such thing as a "pouting moe animation" for Black’s notoriously badass character.

But here she was, right now, right in front of Ren, revealing such an unguarded, almost vulnerable and deeply confusing side of herself. The young, petite girl’s slightly teasing, provocative demeanor… it was practically an open, engraved, and personally delivered invitation to commit a serious and probably highly enjoyable crime.

Lolita! My life, my love, my fire, my sin, my hope, my light… my father-in-law… STOP! For the love of God, Akiyama, STOP!

Ren forcefully, violently, and with a surge of pure shame, halted his own dangerous, and frankly quite inappropriate internal fantasy. It had to be said, Black, as someone who had once had a wife, as a man who understood on a fundamental level how men thought and felt, she knew with an almost instinctual, deeply terrifying precision, what simple, imperceptible expressions, what subtle, unconscious gestures, could stir, could provoke, a man’s heart.

She’s so damn difficult to handle! And so very, very clever!

An adult like Black wasn’t like a simple, relatively straightforward young girl like Hana. You couldn’t even easily deceive her, not really. Her rich, often bitter and deeply cynical social and corporate experience would make her question everything first, second, and third, and then, only then, make a cold, hard judgment based on what best served her own complex, and often contradictory interests and emotional needs. This was the very reason why so many middle-aged people seemed so incredibly, so infuriatingly stubborn in the eyes of the youth—to put it simply, if something didn’t align with her own deeply entrenched wishes, she wouldn’t listen; if something didn’t fit with her own established ideas, she would reject it out of hand. The worldview she had so painstakingly, so painfully built for herself over forty long years was already incredibly, unshakably firm. She would not, could not, be easily changed. Very, very few people, Ren knew, truly manage to continue to learn and adapt as they grow old.

So, to deal with a person like this, a person so set in their ways, so trapped in their own narrative, you had to follow her lead. You had to play along with her logic. And then, from within the very walls of her own argument, you had to use her own irrefutable logic to utterly, and with no room for escape, defeat her.

Ren thought for a simple, fleeting moment. And then, a similar and deeply suggestive smile appeared on his own handsome face. With the slow, deliberate gaze of a classic, refined, and perhaps slightly predatory gentleman, his eyes swept over Magical Girl Black’s form, a look that made Black feel a little… a little bit uncomfortable. A little bit exposed.

Then, he said, his voice a low, silken, and deeply dangerous purr, “Hmm—the way you’re putting it, the implications of your actions… can I, perhaps, interpret this to mean that you, my dear Miss Black, have intentionally come to a young man’s private bedroom in the middle of the night, while wearing such an… alluring, high-slit cheongsam, revealing your snow-white, silky, and no doubt incredibly smooth thighs, with the express, unspoken purpose of… seducing me? I’ve always heard, you know, that when girls finally decide to be proactive in these matters, it can be quite… frightening… for us poor, innocent men. Is it really as the more… cultured… corners of the internet say? That the legendary ‘loli-wife-widow’ archetype, Miss Black, is actually… incredibly, insatiably thirsty in that particular, carnal regard?”

“…E-eh?”

“Are you,” Ren continued, his voice dropping even lower, his face now just inches from hers, “so desperately impatient that you can no longer wait to experience my young, vibrant, and undoubtedly very energetic body?” He delivered the final, devastating and frankly quite audacious blow.

Magical Girl Black abruptly sat bolt upright on the bed. She frantically tried to adjust her beautiful, and now suddenly very, very revealing cheongsam, attempting to wrap herself up more tightly, to cover her exposed skin, as if that would somehow protect her. “I-I-I didn’t mean that at all! Y-you! You little brat! You pervert! So you really do harbor lewd, disgusting desires for me! And you’re my own daughter’s boyfriend! With those kinds of horrible, unforgivable thoughts, how can you possibly, ever face Hana again?!”

You see? Ren thought, a cold, clinical satisfaction in his eyes. People like Black, they always, always, instinctively try to put themselves on the side of what is right, what is proper, what is morally correct. Even though she herself had initiated this bizarre, incredibly suggestive situation, the very moment you called her out on it, the moment you turned the tables, she would immediately, without a moment’s hesitation, try to paint you as the villain. A classic, if somewhat pathetic, defensive maneuver.

Ren knew, with absolute, unwavering certainty, that if he didn’t use some more… drastic, more unconventional, and perhaps even slightly cruel measures tonight, he would never, ever be able to get a straight, honest answer out of Black. He would never, ever be able to hear her true, heartfelt, and probably very painful words.

So, with a sudden, decisive movement, he lunged forward, easily pushing the surprisingly weak Magical Girl Black down onto the bed.

“You! What… what do you think you’re doing! Get off me!”

He was, in fact, fully prepared to be sent flying through the nearest wall by a swift, brutal, and probably bone-shattering kick. But, just as he had predicted, just as he had hoped, Magical Girl Black, the legendary hero who could punch a hole clean through a high-rise building with a single, casual blow, was, at this very moment, truly, almost tragically like a small, helpless, and utterly terrified little girl facing down a big, bad villain, with absolutely no power, no will, to resist. She only struggled symbolically, pathetically for a couple of seconds, her movements weak and ineffective, and then, her struggles ceasing, she began to desperately, pleadingly interrogate him.

“If you’re really an adult, Miss Black, if you’re really the one in charge here,” Ren began, his voice now dangerously, hypnotically soft, a quiet whisper that seemed to echo in the silent room as he hovered over her, “then you should be able to understand this, right? Men, by their very nature, are simple, lecherous creatures. And when someone as beautiful, as alluring as you, Miss Black, comes to my bed in the middle of the night, uninvited, it’s very, very difficult for a normal, healthy man not to have… certain fantasies. Doesn’t an experienced adult like yourself know how to avoid such potentially… compromising… situations? I can only, logically assume that this was some kind of… unspoken invitation. As for whether I can face Hana or not… well, I think that’s probably not the primary, most pressing question I should be considering at this particular, very intimate moment, do you?”

Ren stared down at Black, his gaze now somewhat… feverish. Intense. It made Black unable, unwilling to meet his eyes.

“If we were to follow the classical, chivalrous definition of a ‘gentleman’—when a lady has already, of her own free will, come to your bed, and yet you, the man, do not make a single move on her… well, that is the very height of ungentlemanly, almost insulting conduct, is it not? Where would you be placing the poor lady’s dignity then? Her honor? Fortunately for you, my dear Miss Black, I am, indeed, something of a modern gentleman. I will, of course, respect your intentions, your unspoken desires.” He paused, letting the words hang in the air. “Of course,” he added, his voice dropping even lower, becoming even more intimate, “I am, as you know, deeply in love with Hana. So, I do hope that our… relationship… our little arrangement here, can perhaps remain at the purely physical, purely carnal stage of just being… benefits. That would be best for both of us, I think. Less complicated that way. At this moment, right now, we are nothing more than two lonely, bored souls, seeking solace, seeking comfort in each other’s arms. There’s absolutely no need to involve any messy, inconvenient emotions like… love, is there?”

As he spoke these shocking, almost unbelievable words, Ren’s hand began to move, slowly, deliberately, torturously from Magical Girl Black’s tense, trembling shoulder, downwards. The process was incredibly, agonizingly slow. For Black, it felt as if her very heart, her very soul, were about to leap out of her throat. She could feel her skin burning, tingling where Ren’s hand almost, but not quite, touched. She hadn’t been this nervous, this terrified, this completely out of her depth in many, many long, and often very lonely years. At this moment, her mind was a complete, chaotic, screaming mess. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do, how she was supposed to react. So much so that she just lay there, as if she were being controlled by some unseen force, completely paralyzed, waiting, with a mixture of terror and a strange, unfamiliar anticipation, for Ren’s next, inevitable move.

He’s… he’s going to touch my chest next, Black thought, her mind screaming in pure, unadulterated panic. And then, he’ll move all the way down, and then… and then he’ll just lift up my cheongsam—a boy like him, he wouldn’t even let me take the cheongsam off, he’d just… he’d just make me take off the panties underneath… And… and what should I do then? What can I do? Should I fight back? Should I let him? What is happening to my life?!

She knew, with a terrifying certainty gleaned from years of watching bad TV dramas, what a boy, a man, would do in this kind of situation. But she, Black, a forty-something-year-old magical girl father, had absolutely no earthly idea how she was supposed to react.

Until—Ren’s hand, his warm, steady hand, came to a gentle, almost chaste stop just inches before Black’s small, rabbit-like chest.

“But,” Ren’s calm, clinical voice suddenly cut through the tense, charged silence, “even though I say all that, Miss Black… a rather important, and perhaps slightly mood-killing, question just occurred to me.”

“…” What in the seven circles of hell is this man talking about now?! Now, of all the insane, inappropriate times, he has a question?! But Ren’s sudden, unexpected words, as jarring as they were, allowed Black to finally, mercifully regain her ability to think, to pull herself back from the brink of the chaotic, hormonal abyss. She suddenly, with a jolt of pure horror, realized what an unbelievably outrageous thing she had just been tacitly, almost willingly allowing to happen.

So, with a surge of newfound strength born of pure, desperate shame, she finally managed to draw on the power from within her body and push the surprised Ren away. She then scrambled, with a distinct lack of her usual magical girl grace, to the furthest, safest corner of the bed, looking at Ren with a wary, almost terrified expression. “What… what do you want to say?”

“I was just wondering,” Ren said frankly, his expression now perfectly, infuriatingly innocent, “can magical girls actually, you know, get pregnant? Biologically speaking. If so, then perhaps we should, as a matter of due diligence, order some takeout and have them deliver some… ah… protective measures, along with the food. After all, if you were to suddenly get pregnant, Miss Black, it would undoubtedly cause a great, great deal of trouble, and probably a logistical nightmare, for everyone involved, wouldn’t it?”

Magical Girl Black finally, utterly, and with a righteous fury that was entirely fatherly, snapped. She grabbed the nearest, fluffiest pillow and, with a furious, feral roar, smashed it with all her might directly into Ren Akiyama’s handsome, and now slightly bewildered head.

Although she had, even in her rage, held back her true strength, the sheer, overwhelming impact of Magical Girl Black’s immense power, even when channeled through a soft, fluffy pillow, was more than enough to send Ren reeling, his head spinning as if he’d just gone ten rounds with a heavyweight boxer. He collapsed, with a soft, defeated groan, back onto the bed.

“Alright,” he said, his voice slightly dazed, but a triumphant smirk playing on his lips, “it looks like you’re completely, fully awake now, aren’t you, Miss Black. Your fighting spirit has returned. So, now that we’ve gotten all that out of our systems… can you finally answer my real question?”

This man… this absolute, manipulative, terrifying monster!

Magical Girl Black, relaxing slightly from her coiled, defensive, cornered-animal posture, leaned back against the wall by the bed, her legs outstretched, her smile gradually becoming one of weary, profound resignation. “It’s just as you said, Ren. It’s just as you said.” The girl raised her two hands. She stared at them, as if seeing them for the very first time, then held them out for Ren to see. “Look at these hands, Ren. Fair, beautiful, almost delicate, and yet… filled with an impossible power. They can smash through reinforced concrete as if it were paper. They can resist all sorts of devastating energy attacks. Even if they were to be completely, brutally severed, they could, with the strange, miraculous power of a magical girl, be restored in an instant. What an incredibly, unbelievably powerful pair of hands, wouldn’t you say?”

“Indeed,” Ren acknowledged, his own voice now calm, respectful. “The God-Severing Cleave, when released from these hands, could easily, effortlessly slice a person clean in two. It is an incomparably, terrifyingly powerful force.”

Black smiled, a sad, bitter smile this time. She then pointed a delicate, trembling finger to her own pretty, youthful face. “And look at this face, Ren. Impossibly, almost illegally cute, isn’t it? As long as I smile, it’s as if I can be forgiven for absolutely anything. Even with a personality as terrible, as abrasive as Magical Girl Black’s, even when people know, with absolute certainty, that there’s a tired, middle-aged uncle underneath it all—as long as they see this face, they can’t seem to get truly angry. They instinctively, helplessly feel that it’s… ‘cute.’ What a demonic, what a truly, truly bewitching face, wouldn’t you agree?”

“After all,” Ren said softly, “all magical girls are cute. No one, not really, dislikes magical girls… not even the fiends they fight.”

“That’s just it, Ren! That’s exactly it! That’s the problem!” Black dropped her hands, lying down with a thud beside the now-sitting Ren. “And that’s what’s so damned, so agonizingly, so unbelievably frustrating about it all—do you remember that old, soul-sucking company I used to work for?”

Ren, of course, remembered. “I recall it was a private, family-owned enterprise of some sort?”

“Yes. The boss of that company, that pathetic little man, he somehow managed to make a few dozens billion million yen when he was young. Now, the interest that that money earns just sitting in the bank, doing nothing, is significantly higher than our company’s entire annual profits. And a lot of the time, the company was actually, actively operating at a considerable loss. So why, Ren, why do you think he bothered to run a company at all? Why go through all the stress, all the trouble?”

“He wanted to earn even more, perhaps?” Ren guessed.

“No. It’s not about the money. It’s just because, as a middle-aged man in his forties, like he was when he first started the company—if he weren’t the ‘President,’ the ‘Boss’ of a company, no one, absolutely no one, would even look at him twice on the street. He’d just be another invisible, forgotten, pathetic middle-aged man, completely discarded by a world that only values youth and beauty. So the older he got, the more energetic he became, the more he loved to call pointless, soul-destroying meetings, because it was only when he was acting as the ‘Boss,’ only when he was lording his pathetic little bit of power over us, that he could feel a strong, tangible, desperate sense of his own existence.” Black stared up at the blank, featureless ceiling of the hotel room, her voice a low, empty murmur. “People our age, Ren… we’re all so, so terrified of being abandoned, of being forgotten by the world.”

These were words Ren had never, ever imagined he would hear from the fearsome, confident Magical Girl Black.

“If I had never become Magical Girl Black,” she continued, her voice now barely a whisper, “when you and Hana eventually get married, you’ll move out, you’ll start your own life. You might come back to visit once a week—or, more likely, once a month, if I’m lucky. And during all that long, empty time when you’re not there? I’ll already be retired. Will I be able to find a group of friends, other lonely old men, to enjoy my pathetic little hobbies with? Will I have any meaning, any purpose, to this world anymore? Am I still creating value, or have I just become a social parasite, a useless rice-bug, just waiting to die… Thinking about these things, you start to feel… anxious. Thinking about these things, you feel an immense, crushing loneliness and a profound, desolate sense of desolation.”

She finally, once again, turned to look at Ren. And Ren saw, in the girl’s beautiful, doll-like eyes, an emotion that was so deep, so utterly, heartbreakingly sad that it was difficult to express with mere words. And also—he saw tears. Real, genuine tears, welling up in the corners of her eyes, threatening to fall.

“Ren,” she whispered, her voice cracking with a vulnerability he had never, ever heard before, “I… I can’t change back. I can’t face that kind of empty, meaningless life again. I want to be like I am now, with everyone always looking at me, needing me. I want to be like I am now, possessing this immense, incredible power, being able to protect the city, being able to attain… my own sense of value! I want everyone to rely on Magical Girl Black! I… I don’t… I don’t want to be just boring, pathetic Kenji Tanaka anymore.”

Ah… Ren thought, his own heart aching with a strange, new sympathy.

The strong, the aloof, the unshakeable, the terrifying Magical Girl Black.

She was, in the end, such a fragile, such an exquisitely, beautifully breakable thing.

So easily, her hidden, painful cracks were laid bare for all to see.