Chapter 24: Like a Dream, a Illusion, a Drop of Dew, a Flash of Lightning

If one were to delve deep, deep into the personal history of the young girl named Akari Natsume, one would eventually discover that she and the girl named Yume Ayase, the fallen Darkmoon Queen, were, in fact, half-sisters, born of the same father.

Yume was the elder, the firstborn shadow. Akari was the younger, the brilliant light that followed.

Their father, in his youth, had been deeply fond of Buddhist scriptures. He was especially, almost obsessively, fond of that particular, famous verse from the Diamond Sutra.

Like a dream, a illusion, a drop of dew, a flash of lighting. 

He always wore an air of detached, almost serene indifference. And the fact that their respective mothers’ relationships with him had both, inevitably, fallen apart was probably due to that very same indifferent, inhuman attitude. It was as if nothing in this mortal world, no joy, no sorrow, could truly stir his heart. He was always so calm, so serene—a calmness so profound, so absolute, that it made ordinary, emotional people feel hopelessly, pathetically inadequate in his presence.

Of course, in the end, this strange, ethereal father of theirs had truly, and with no apparent regret, become a monk and completely renounced the secular world, disappearing into a monastery deep in the mountains.

When they heard this news, neither Yume nor Akari were particularly surprised. At that time, eleven-year-old Yume and nine-year-old Akari had, in a very real, very painful sense, become orphans. Their original mothers had already, with a certain pragmatic haste, started new families of their own and were reluctant to take in these complicated reminders of a past life. Thankfully—or perhaps, mercifully—they each received a steady child support payment deposited into their bank accounts every single month. And school, at least back then, didn’t cost too much money… This was something that the already remarkably mature eleven-year-old Yume knew she should, on some level, be grateful for.

But she was not, and would never be, like Akari.

Yume hated her father. She hated her mother. She even, with a bitterness that was like poison in her heart, hated Akari.

She hated the fact that she even existed in this miserable, unfair world. She hated that she had been forced to endure such a difficult, lonely fate. She hated that she couldn’t seem to attain the simple, effortless happiness that others took for granted. She hated that she still had to live with Akari, her insufferably cheerful little sister, who was so much like their detached, unfeeling father. She hated that she so desperately wanted to fight back against it all, but had no power. She hated that she wanted to destroy everything, to burn it all to the ground, but couldn’t bring herself to strike the first match.

Akari, two years her junior, was indeed very much like their father in her serene composure. But—perhaps she was also fundamentally different. Because she did not, for a single moment, feel that the things of this world were meaningless or "unreal." In fact, it was the opposite. She cherished, with an almost sacred reverence, every single thing that existed around her. She held a love for all things, for all people, a radiant, blindingly bright affection that was almost difficult for a normal, cynical person to believe.

Even though they had been callously, completely abandoned by their own father, she had simply smiled her infuriatingly gentle smile and said to Yume, “Father must also be searching for his own happiness, nee-san. We should be happy for him.”

Even though their own mothers were unwilling to accept them, to take them in, she still smiled and said, “Our mothers must have their own deep, painful difficulties too, you know.”

And even though Yume herself, her own older sister, hated her with every fiber of her being, a fact she made no effort to hide, Akari would still, always, smile that same, unbearable smile and say, with a cheerfulness that was like a knife to Yume’s heart, “I love you the most in the whole wide world, nee-san!”

How hateful! How utterly, completely, unforgivably hateful! Why did such a person, such a creature of pure light, even exist in this dark, miserable world? Why couldn’t she, just for once, bring herself to hate? If she just hated, if she just embraced the bitterness, everything would be so much easier… In that moment, Yume felt she finally, truly understood her own mother’s feelings, her reasons for leaving their father. Akari was not like their father, and yet she was exactly, maddeningly like him… A person like her, a person so pure, so bright, they just, by their very existence, shone a harsh, unforgiving light on the hidden weaknesses of everyone around them. They made anyone, everyone, in their presence see their own clumsy, ugly, despicable, and all-too-human side. They made people… unable to bear their own reflection.

That day, she had been walking down the street with her little sister, Akari. That fateful day, the legendary Magical Girl Crystal had entered her terrifying, catastrophic Inverted state. That day, even as the panicked organization staff were desperately trying to guide the screaming civilians to evacuate, she, Yume, had smiled. A dark, ugly, and beautiful smile.

“Look, Akari,” she had said, her voice a sweet, poisonous whisper. “It’s your favorite, the magnificent Magical Girl Crystal~ We have to go and help her, don’t we?”

It would be so, so nice if we could just die like this. Together.

If we could just die like this, then all the pain, all the suffering, all the hatred, it would all finally cease to exist. Even the almost-perfect Akari, this insufferable, impossibly bright little sister who made her feel so inadequate, so ugly, so small… even she would die like this… Could there possibly be anything more beautiful, more perfect, more satisfying than that?

And in the end, to die because of her most favorite, most beloved magical girl, Crystal… she would surely show a pained, agonized expression, wouldn’t she? She would surely show the expression of one who has been cruelly, unforgivably betrayed, right? I want to see that. Oh, how I want to see that… I want… I want Akari’s perfect, smiling world to be completely, beautifully destroyed!

That radiant, ever-present smile of hers… it’s just too damn blinding!

However, Crystal was, in the end, still Crystal. Even at the final, desperate moment, she had somehow managed to maintain a final, fragile shred of her innate goodwill and her sense of heroic responsibility. She had, with her last breath, split her immense, corrupted power in two. And from that single, shattered Original Stone, the tragic Magical Girl Moonstone and the hopeful Magical Girl Strawberry Sweetheart were finally, simultaneously, and with no small amount of cosmic irony, born.

How utterly laughable, and yet, how exquisitely, beautifully interesting! No, it was precisely because it was so interesting that it was so laughable.

Yume had obtained power, the magnificent, destructive power to finally vent her own pain, her own deep-seated resentment, upon the uncaring world. But at the same time, her sister, Akari, had also obtained the power, the sacred, noble power, to protect that very same world. A perfect, tragic, and beautifully symmetrical conflict.

For Magical Girl Moonstone, or rather, the girl who would later become the fearsome Darkmoon Queen, what was truly most important to her? She knew, better than anyone else in the world. She wanted, more than anything, to see Strawberry Sweetheart’s perfect, smiling face contorted in pain and despair. She wanted to ensure that the child who had smiled and loved the world since she was young, despite everything, would never, ever be able to smile that infuriating, radiant smile again. This was her most filthy, most despicable, and most beautiful fantasy. As long as Akari wasn't so impossibly, so inhumanly noble, she, Yume, could finally, calmly accept her own twisted, ugly self.

She had, for one brief, glorious moment, actually succeeded. When Strawberry Sweetheart had, at long last, finally entered her own Inverted state, who in the world could possibly have understood the sheer, ecstatic joy Yume had felt? She had never, not once in her entire, miserable life, been so wonderfully, so beautifully happy as she was in that moment.

But, alas, the goodwill, the love, the hope that Strawberry Sweetheart had so foolishly, so generously shown the world was, in the end, returned to her. The boundless, unconditional love she had given her comrades, her friends, was paid back to her in kind. When the brave Magical Girl Blueberry Torte had, with a final, heroic smile, used her own life to awaken the lost, rampaging Strawberry Sweetheart, she had, as a result, become stronger, more resolute, more unbeatable than ever before. Beneath that soft, sweet, fragile exterior, a hard, unshakeable, almost diamond-like support had been forged. Beneath that cute, harmless appearance, she now possessed something that could not, would not, ever be defeated.

In fact, at that very moment, Yume knew, with a certainty that was like a shard of ice in her heart, that she would never, ever be able to truly, decisively defeat Strawberry Sweetheart in her entire life.

So, she had made preparations to pass on her own will, her own legacy. Her hatred would be inherited. Her sorrow and her beautiful despair would be continued—and thus, she, Yume Ayase, the last of the Gem Generation, could finally, at long last, meet her own beautiful, tragic end.

...

Yume Ayase’s eyes snapped open. She awoke with a start from her troubled, fitful sleep, shaking her head to clear the lingering shadows of the dream. Her mind felt a little dizzy, a little disoriented. “What a hateful, hateful dream. Truly, as the old verse says, ‘like a dream, an illusion, a drop of dew, a flash of lighting’!” Perhaps, she thought with a fresh pang of bitterness, my detached, philosophical father had been right about something after all.

“My Queen, did you have a nightmare?” a familiar voice rasped from the adjacent cell.

“Don’t call me Queen anymore, Darkstar. I’ve lost all my power. I’m just an ordinary person now. The Darkmoon Coven has been destroyed. I am not the Darkmoon Queen, and you are not the magnificent Darkstar Count,” she replied, her voice flat, devoid of its usual regal authority.

Darkstar Count was silent for a brief moment, then, he asked, his own voice now quiet, almost hesitant, “Have you… have you truly given up, then?”

“Yes, Darkstar. I’ve given up. That Magical Girl Black… she is an absolute anomaly. A bug in the system. She probably won’t, as you so foolishly, so optimistically imagined, ever end up locked in this pathetic place with us one day. She completely, contemptuously shouldered all of Crystal’s ancient, potent malice, and then, with a casual and bored air, she completely disdained our very existence, our entire, grand tragedy. Speaking of which,” she added with a sigh, “I’m eighteen now, you know. I should be considered an adult, right? It feels like there’s a huge, unbridgeable gap between myself and a real adult. Darkstar, how old are you this year?”

“I am thirty,” he replied, his voice a low rumble.

“And that corporate drone uncle, Black, he’s over forty, isn’t he? Well then, in that case, it seems it’s only natural that we couldn’t possibly beat him, now is it?” Yume lamented, a strange, almost pathetic logic to her words.

“Even the great and mighty Queen makes excuses to comfort herself, I see,” Darkstar mused, a hint of his old, aristocratic amusement returning to his voice. “‘Because the opponent was so much older, there was nothing we could possibly do.’ Such a weak, almost childish way of thinking… I must confess, I don’t entirely dislike it.”

Yume asked, a genuine note of surprise in her voice, “Darkstar, you… you seem remarkably calm about all this. The very moment Strawberry Sweetheart successfully reversed her own Inversion, all those years ago, I already knew, with an absolute, soul-crushing certainty, that I could never, ever truly defeat her in my entire life. What about you? When did you know?”

“Knowing full well that you could never defeat Strawberry Sweetheart in your entire life, my Queen, you still, for all these long, fruitless years, led the Darkmoon Coven forward, towards certain doom. In a certain, very real sense, that’s quite, quite cruel, isn’t it? Our entire lives… they were spent fighting an opponent we could never possibly hope to defeat. You really aren’t a very good person, are you, my Queen?”

“What truly good person would join a fiend organization in the first place, you fool!”

At this, the two of them, the fallen queen and her loyal, defeated knight, in the cold, desolate, and utterly silent halls of the maximum-security Esper Prison, began to laugh. Their laughter was by no means pleasant, not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it was the kind of laughter that perfectly befitted their fiendish, monstrous identities—a sinister, sarcastic, strange, and beautifully, wonderfully absurd sound.

And then, as if the very prison itself, this great, stone behemoth, had a will of its own, a deep, sonorous, bell-like sound echoed from its deepest, darkest depths, a sound like a great temple bell, that completely overpowered the fiends’ mad, cackling laughter. And the prison, once again, returned to its usual, oppressive silence.

...

“Red, I… I want to create a proper, intensive training plan for us,” Hana Tanaka said, her voice filled with a new, unfamiliar seriousness as she contacted Red via a secure video call. “Regarding the matter of switching our operational regions, we’ll need to discuss it with Black first, of course. I’ll contact her tomorrow. But, no matter where we end up being stationed, if we want to get stronger, we need to put in the real, hard, and probably very painful effort. Don’t you agree?”

On the other end of the video call, Magical Girl Red, looking slightly terrified but also strangely determined, nodded solemnly. “Strawberry Sweetheart and Magical Girl Black… they’ve shown me the true way a magical girl should live. They’ve shown me the indomitable will of a true magical girl. I have come to deeply, and with no small amount of shame, understand my own pathetic weakness. I absolutely must learn from my great senpais!” She could still, with a clarity that was like a recurring nightmare, recall that night, the way Magical Girl Black had looked at her, those cold, dead, and deeply disappointed eyes. She must have known, Red thought, a shiver running down her spine. She must have known the weakness in my heart, known my pathetic, cowardly wavering. That’s why she looked at me that way, why she said those terrifying words—it’s so, so scary.

If I ever do something bad again, if I ever show that kind of weakness again, I’ll definitely, absolutely be obliterated by her! Lately, Red had been watching a lot, a whole lot, of leaked combat videos of Black fighting fiends, and she could only, with a growing sense of dread, describe them as brutally, almost inhumanly savage. She did not, she really did not, want to end up like one of those poor, exploded fiends! If I don’t get stronger, if I don’t properly, diligently fulfill my sacred duties as a magical girl, I’ll be obliterated by Miss Black! For sure!

“So, what’s your brilliant idea for this training plan, then?” Red asked, her voice a little shaky.

“We will climb high to see far, and we will fight against the current with unyielding courage!” Hana declared, her eyes blazing with a slightly manic, shonen-protagonist-like fire. “My proposed plan is this: we will climb the world’s highest, most treacherous mountain peak with our bare, un-magically-enhanced hands! And then, we will swim upstream in the world’s most turbulent, most dangerous, piranha-infested river! We will overcome all challenges with pure courage and unwavering perseverance! We will forge for ourselves hearts of steel, and we will obtain unparalleled, god-like power! You can rest assured, of course,” she added, as if as an afterthought, “in a truly critical, life-or-death moment, you can, of course, transform into a magical girl. And I also have my own magic to ensure our basic safety. Perhaps the initial challenges will be very, very difficult. We will fail, time and time again. But as long as we never, ever give up, we will surely, undoubtedly, absolutely succeed!”

After hearing this insane, and probably highly illegal, training plan, Red’s gaze subtly, almost imperceptibly shifted to the side. “Ah! What was that you said? Another fiend attack? Right now? In my immediate vicinity? Oh no! Miss Hana! A fiend has suddenly appeared! I have to go and subjugate it immediately! It’s my duty! We’ll… we’ll talk about the rest of this brilliant plan when I get back! Bye!” Are you completely insane?! That kind of nonsensical, masochistic training! It sounds like nothing but a living, breathing hell! What is wrong with that father and daughter pair?! Neither of them is even remotely human! Today’s duel is officially canceled.jpg.

Watching, with a deadpan expression, as Red’s panicked, pixelated face abruptly, and with a distinct lack of subtlety, ended the video call, Hana knew with a certainty that was almost sad, that Red was definitely terrified. She was scared. After all, that kind of guilty, obvious conscience… it was painfully, comically obvious to anyone with eyes. She wasn't some naive, gullible fool who could be so easily, so clumsily deceived.

But…

The young girl, with a frustrated groan, curled up into a tight, miserable ball on her bed, pulling at her own hair. She felt incredibly annoyed. And a little lost.

She knew, of course, what Ren, her wise, and sometimes infuriatingly perceptive boyfriend, had been trying to tell her. But at this point, actually, genuinely reconciling with her father, with all the awkwardness and unspoken history between them… she had just, just told him that she hated him the most in the entire world… The thought was just… too much.

She had only formulated such an insane, over-the-top training plan as a way to escape from that heavy, uncomfortable feeling. To distract herself.

And also…

“I’m your girlfriend, you know, you big idiot!” she complained to her empty, silent room, a fresh pout on her lips. “Why do you keep taking my stupid father’s side in everything… Can’t you just… can’t you just comfort me a little? Just for once? If you did, then I would have just listened obediently to you, you know… Is… is Magical Girl Black really cuter than me?”

Such were the deep and completely unreasonable complaints of a young girl in love.