Chapter 25: The Reason for Becoming a Villain

No matter how Magical Girl Black was internally considering the complex, tangled mess of her relationship with her own daughter, she ultimately had to face the next day. A new, and probably equally stressful, day.

Speaking of which, her daughter, Hana, could have actually, with her own convenient healing magic, easily treated Ren Akiyama’s injuries. She had, in fact, intended to do just that when she had rushed back to the hospital yesterday, her face a mask of worried determination. But Ren, that clever, manipulative little brat, had masterfully, and with a single, devastatingly effective heart-to-heart talk, managed to send her away, her mind filled with a new, noble purpose.

Lying in his sterile, uncomfortable hospital bed, Ren felt that he didn't really have the face, the right, to let Hana treat him now anyway. Not after everything.

A message from Hana, of course, arrived on his phone. She was now officially Magical Girl Red's new apprentice Supporter. So, for any and all matters involving both Red and Black, a formal and probably very tedious request had to be sent through the proper channels. In this, in the bureaucratic necessities of their strange new lives, Hana, surprisingly, did an excellent job. It was clear that her latent abilities as a Supporter, her inherent competence, were also, in their own quiet way, beginning to grow. For a girl who theoretically, by all rights, should still be in school, worrying about exams and boys, this was, he had to admit, a very, very impressive feat.

Under these new, complicated circumstances, Magical Girl Black needed to have a formal, strategic discussion with Magical Girl Red, to decide whether they should, in fact, swap the territories they were assigned to protect… but this matter should have been decided by the organization itself, by the higher-ups. However, the organization, for better or for worse, did grant its top-tier Espers, its magical girls, this surprising degree of personal freedom.

And so, Magical Girl Black and Magical Girl Red, the two newest, and arguably most unstable members of the Color Generation, started a rather awkward video call.

“Red, you want to come to S-City, and you want me to go to A-City. I’ve already been informed of this matter,” Black began, her voice the usual, no-nonsense, almost bored grumble. “But I have no intention of accepting this proposal. I’m rejecting it.”

“Although what I’m about to say has no real, hard data to back it up,” she continued, her logic pure, unadulterated Kenji Tanaka, “now that the Darkmoon Coven has been effectively eliminated, the remaining, leaderless fiends in S-City will, in all likelihood, gradually become more active, more chaotic. As the old saying goes, ‘When the lead dragon is gone, the whole world rejoices.’ And when the leading fiend organization in a territory disappears, the lesser fiends, on the contrary, tend to blossom like a hundred, chaotic, and very dangerous flowers. Comparatively speaking, the environment in A-City is still relatively stable; everything there can be relied upon with pre-existing intelligence reports and established protocols. It is, ironically, a much safer assignment for a rookie like you.”

Her reasoning, on the surface, sounded plausible, even wise. But in reality, there was no concrete proof. After all, now that the fiends of the Darkmoon Coven had been so spectacularly, so publicly dealt with, who could guarantee that any other, significant fiends would actually dare to pop up in their place? The organization’s official, and far more aggressive opinion was to press their advantage, to launch a full-scale, scorched-earth "mop-up" operation, to completely cleanse S-City of any and all remaining fiends once and for all.

But since Magical Girl Black, the current "strongest" active hero, didn't want to switch, then Magical Girl Red, the rookie, couldn't exactly insist on it, could she? After all, Black was her undisputed senpai. And more importantly, Black was, by a ridiculously, almost laughably large margin, significantly stronger than her. In this world, might made right.

“Since… since it is your opinion, Miss Black,” Red said, her voice a small, hesitant squeak, “then I will, of course, follow your decision.”

This also meant that Hana Tanaka, her newly assigned Supporter, would have to go all the way to A-City. All by herself. However, this wasn't something to be too worried about, not really. Hana had a rather convenient teleportation spell she had used many times before in emergencies. But that particular spell consumed a large, almost crippling amount of her magical power and had a very, very limited range. She also had another, more powerful spell, one that could perform incredibly long-distance, cross-country teleportation. But that one, unfortunately, required a full, uninterrupted month of painstaking, meticulous work to construct the so-called "teleportation circle."

Recently, Hana had actually, with a surprising amount of diligence and foresight, already started doing this very thing. She had been repeatedly taking commercial flights back and forth between A-City and S-City, secretly constructing the two corresponding teleportation circles on both sides. This was also why, when Ren had had his… unfortunate accident… and had been hospitalized, it had taken her some time to rush back to his side. And it was also why her temper, upon her return, had been so particularly bad, why she had said those harsh, unforgivable things to Black, to her own father.

All in all, Black felt, with a familiar, crushing weight, that she was definitely at fault. But if she wanted to reconcile with her daughter now, what exactly, precisely should she do? She had no idea. She had heard the sharp, almost cruel words Ren had said to Hana in the hospital room, and she felt that Ren, that little brat, was also a rather ruthless, manipulative fellow. But she couldn't deny the fundamental correctness of Ren’s logic. According to Ren, this was something Hana should do on her own initiative. So was she, her father, supposed to just… do nothing? Just wait?

After hanging up the slightly awkward call with Red, Black looked at Ren, who was still, much to her annoyance, lying comfortably in his hospital bed. “So, what should I do next, O wise and brilliant Supporter? Train?”

“Although ‘training’ is a very charming and certainly very productive word, Miss Black,” Ren said with a thoughtful expression, “I think we should probably go fishing first. Dark Butterfly, as you know, still hasn't been found yet. Don't you think her being alive, and at large, is very, very dangerous? Especially since she can change her appearance to look like absolutely anyone. If I were Dark Butterfly right now, I definitely would not let this go so easily. We need to lure her out. And what better bait than a lonely, vulnerable hero?”

Dark Butterfly… Yuki Kirishima. The woman with Kaoru’s face.

“There really are so many goddamn troublesome things to deal with,” Black grumbled, a profound weariness in her voice.

“You know,” Ren said with a soft, infuriatingly gentle smile, “if you weren't so incredibly awkward about everything, these would actually all be very, very simple matters to resolve, Tanaka-ojisan.”

“You’re really getting cheeky now, aren’t you, you little brat?”

...

For Yuki Kirishima, the fiend known as Dark Butterfly, her entire, carefully constructed world had collapsed.

No, to say her world had collapsed wasn't quite right. The only real reason she had bothered to join the infamous Darkmoon Coven in the first place was because it was, at the time, the most powerful, most influential fiend organization in all of S-City. And for her abnormally, pathologically tragedy-craving heart, a glorious, theatrical fiend organization was the only place that truly, aesthetically suited her. And the magnificent Darkmoon Queen, she was a fiend who was beautifully, artistically obsessed with destruction and ruin; she would surely bring numerous, wonderful, exquisite tragedies to this boring, mundane world. This was also the primary reason she had so loyally, so devotedly chosen to follow the Queen.

However, the Darkmoon Queen herself had, in the end, chosen a tragic end—no, that shouldn't be considered a tragic end at all, she corrected herself with a surge of artistic indignation. After all, the Queen hadn't actually died. And her magnificent will, her legacy of beautiful despair, had not been successfully passed on to a worthy successor. If one were to look at it from the cold, objective perspective of a storyteller, a narrator of events, then without a single shadow of a doubt, this pathetic, anticlimactic conclusion… it was nothing more than a cheap, sentimental, and frankly quite disgusting story of reunion and reconciliation. A happy ending. Ugh.

If the author of this particular story, this grand, cosmic narrative, had a slightly kinder heart, then the story would inevitably, predictably become one where the once-great Darkmoon Queen, after a period of soul-searching and perhaps some community service, completely turns over a new, boring leaf. And then, in a couple of volumes, when a new, even more powerful and ridiculously designed final villain appears, when the plucky protagonist group is on the very verge of complete and utter annihilation, the now-redeemed Darkmoon Queen would make a dramatic, last-minute appearance, heroically sacrificing herself, and in her final, dying breath, entrusting her unique, hard-won understanding of life, some profound, deeply personal thing from the depths of her heart, to the grateful protagonist, thus completing her character redemption arc, and finally, righteously, and with much fanfare, transforming from a feared and respected fiend into a beloved and probably highly marketable hero. This, Yuki knew with the weary cynicism of a seasoned writer, was a common, lazy, and utterly contemptible trope used by countless, talentless authors.

Yuki Kirishima felt that was the unmistakable mark of a truly hack author.

It was just like in so many of those classic and frankly quite overrated works of fiction, where the male and female leads just so happen to be on two opposing, warring sides, the ultimate hero and the ultimate villain. And then, they fight, they clash, they angst for the entire, bloated length of the work, and then, right at the very end, these two, these mortal enemies, they suddenly, miraculously forgive each other, they magically reconcile, and then, to top it all off, they get together, they fall in love, and then the world is instantly, unbelievably at peace… And what about all the other people? All the supporting characters who were so tragically, so meaningfully sacrificed because of their epic, self-indulgent struggle? The brothers, the comrades, the friends, the sisters, the relatives, the lovers… what about all those poor, forgotten souls who were sacrificed for the sake of these two’s grand, saccharine, happy-ever-after reunion? They had only fought, had only died, for their own ideals, for their own beliefs. But in the end, the so-called "peace" that was achieved, was it not built upon the trampling, the utter desecration, of all of their noble, now-meaningless wills?

Yuki hated, with a deep, passionate hatred, stories like that. A tragic undertone, a beautiful, melancholic sadness, that was what truly befitted sacrifice. The fiends who had died in the Darkmoon Coven would never, ever forgive the heroes who had killed them. Nor would they, as that brutish Magical Girl Black had so arrogantly, so ignorantly claimed, ever thank Black for killing them, for allowing them to "atone" for their sins. Their pain, their hatred, their sorrow, it would always, eternally exist.

And the same was true for the ordinary, innocent people who had been so casually, so brutally killed by the fiends. They had lived ordinary, mundane, and probably quite boring lives. And then, suddenly, without any warning, they had been trampled, had been erased, by the careless whims of the fiends. Even if Magical Girl Black had eventually subjugated those fiends, had "avenged" them, the dead were still, irrevocably, dead. Their hatred, their sorrow, it too would still, and should still, exist.

So, Yuki Kirishima hated happy endings. In a happy ending, all the sacrifices, all the suffering, all the pain, it all seemed to be so lightly, so carelessly, so insultingly brushed aside. All the death, all the agony, it was all, in the end, somehow made to seem… worthwhile. And that, she felt, was the greatest, most unforgivable lie of all.

She could not, she would not, inherit the will of the fallen Darkmoon Queen. And the person who was supposed to inherit the Queen’s magnificent will, the fiery Magical Girl Red, she had not succeeded either. She had been stopped, had been interrupted, by that anomaly, that aberration, that walking, talking deconstruction of all her beautiful ideals, the one they called Magical Girl Black.

Then, as the fiend Dark Butterfly, a villain without a cause, a writer without a story, what should she do now?

She didn't, not really, harbor any deep-seated, personal hatred for this world. She just… she just wanted to write, to create, the beautiful, tragic aesthetics that she so loved. She didn't intend to seek revenge, nor did she intend to repay any favors. She herself, her heart, was a blank slate, devoid of such simple, primitive things. She just knew, with a very clear, very pragmatic certainty, that if she didn't run, if she didn't disappear, she too would be caught and locked up in that disgusting, sterile Esper Prison. And that, most certainly, was not a good place for enjoyment, for artistic creation. She had no need, no desire, to experience such a boring, meaningless life. In such a prison, what kind of new, interesting stories could she possibly see? She had already, over the years, heard far too many of the same, tired, pathetic stories of her fellow fiends. They were all so… uninspired.

Casually, almost unconsciously changing her appearance into that of a plain, unremarkable young woman, she walked down the crowded, anonymous street, feeling very, very lost. The social media accounts she used before, her online personas, they certainly could not be used anymore. And the same went for her beloved pen name. So, what should she do now?

She knew, of course, what the most logical, most efficient course of action would be at this time—get close to someone, some ordinary, unsuspecting person. Then, learn their movements, their expressions, their habits. Acquire their knowledge, their memories, their very life. And then, when the time was right, find a way to quietly, cleanly kill them. And then, with her unique, and in this application, quite terrifying Esper ability, take on their appearance, completely, seamlessly replace them. Replace their entire identity. This way, the fiend known as Dark Butterfly could finally disappear from the world, and she, Yuki Kirishima, could reappear, in a righteous, open, and completely undetectable manner, in the world of light. This was not a particularly difficult thing for her to do. Although her Esper ability didn't possess any great, destructive power—this ability, she knew, made it very, very easy to do very, very bad things. For example, she could, if she so chose, transform into Magical Girl Black’s appearance and go on a city-wide, evil rampage, completely ruining Black’s hard-won, if somewhat controversial reputation…

But she didn't want to do that. For some reason, she just… didn't.

That day, the image of that man’s resolute, unwavering, almost impossibly heroic figure constantly appeared in her mind, a recurring, haunting vision.

That was not the hero, Magical Girl Black. That was a man. A man named Kenji Tanaka. That man, right there in front of her, while she was cynically, cruelly using the face of his beloved, deceased wife, while she, Yuki, had already, by all accounts, revealed her own pathetic fear, clinging desperately, shamefully to his arm, had, with a strength that was almost heartbreaking, resolutely shaken her off. And then, under the watchful, judging eyes of all, in front of his own daughter, his own future son-in-law, he had transformed into the magnificent, terrifying Magical Girl Black.

The opinions of the world, for him in that moment, seemed not to exist at all. The troubles, the humiliation, he might face in the future seemed utterly irrelevant. The opinion of her, Yuki Kirishima, the woman who could have, in another life, become his new wife, could be completely ignored. Even the feelings of his own daughter, the very person he was trying to save, seemed, in that moment, to be of no consequence. He had just… transformed. He had resolutely, without a single shred of hesitation, stood in front of his beloved daughter, and then, with all his might, he had fought, had challenged, the all-powerful Darkmoon Queen herself. Had directly, and with a single, devastating blow, blown off one of her arms.

What a man.

This… this was simply the most tragic, most beautiful hero in the entire world. Even if tragedy was inflicted upon him, even if his very body, his very gender, was transformed into the form of a young, petite girl, he would surely, undoubtedly, always be able to maintain that magnificent, almost breathtaking heroic spirit… Dark Butterfly simply could not forget the sight of him in that moment. It was… it was art.

As a writer, as a connoisseur of human emotion, she knew exactly what this strange, new, and deeply overwhelming feeling was called.

To put it nicely, to put it romantically, this feeling was called love.

To put it not so nicely, to put it more crudely, more honestly—she was in heat.

Yes, this body of hers, after more than twenty long, uneventful years of growth, had finally, at long last, reached its full, biological maturity. It had finally, and with a surprising intensity, reached the point where seeing a certain, specific man would throw her into a state of profound, dizzying excitement. She felt, with a strange, academic calm, that she should face this new and rather inconvenient problem frankly.

A romance between a villain and a hero… it truly, almost perfectly fit the plot she had always, in her heart of hearts, envisioned for her own life… Do the villain and the hero, in the end, get together?

No, no, no, that wasn't the result she wanted at all. Not a happy ending. Never a happy ending. Yes, the story she wanted, the ending she craved, was—in the end, one side is tragically, beautifully eliminated, or, even better, both sides are gloriously, poetically eliminated together. Only such an ending, a truly, profoundly tragic one, was worthy of a tragic, beautiful undertone.

The man, Kenji Tanaka… he, she knew with a certainty that was almost religious, could surely bear the weight of all tragedies. He was just that kind of man. He was so full of a rugged, middle-aged masculinity, so impossibly, tragically attractive to her eye, and thus so… so perfectly capable of bearing the magnificent, tragic ending she had envisioned for him. For them.

So, she was no longer fighting for the now-defunct Darkmoon Coven. She was most certainly not fighting for her own petty hatred and resentment. And she most definitely had not inherited or continued anyone else’s pathetic, secondhand will.

She was just… a woman in love.

And for the sake of the beautiful tragedy of Kenji Tanaka, she, Yuki Kirishima, had to become a true, magnificent, and unforgettable villain.