Chapter 30: Training

How should one put it?

The "Mage" Esper ability was an incredibly, unfairly comprehensive one.

Many people in the world could use something that resembled magic, but their abilities were almost always specialized, something like "Pyromancy" or "Cryomancy." Only Hana Tanaka’s ability was simply, and with a profound, terrifying elegance, "Mage." If this ability were allowed to grow, to develop to its full, monstrous potential, it could, without a single shadow of a doubt, be called the most versatile Esper ability in the entire world. Or perhaps, even the strongest.

Hana, the wielder of such a legendary ability, was naturally a little different from other people. She actually possessed several passive "spells" that were always active. For example, she had a passive mana absorption ability. Although the bonus it provided her at her current, still-developing level was very small—when she truly needed to recover her vast reserves of magical power, she had to rely on focused, deep meditation—in her daily, mundane life, this skill, like an automatic, self-regulating charger, was incredibly useful. As long as she wasn't consecutively, recklessly casting powerful spells, she could basically ensure her mana bar was always, conveniently full. Other corresponding passive abilities included things like "Passive Warding" and "Inherent Physical Enhancement." These passive spells would grow stronger, more potent, as Hana’s own core Esper ability grew stronger. At their current stage, they weren't particularly effective, not really. But in a few more years, they would undoubtedly display a considerable, and probably quite terrifying, power.

Among these unique, innate skills, there was another, much more troublesome passive ability called "Telepathy."

Theoretically, if Hana were to grow to the point where she was the strongest being in the entire world, this passive spell would probably allow her to hear the innermost thoughts of others. Perhaps even to foresee the future, to sense any and all malice directed towards her from anywhere in the world… like a god-like, omniscient existence. But right now, at her current, still-pathetic level, the skill was rather… underwhelming. And deeply annoying.

It mostly just… affected Hana’s mood.

She suddenly, out of nowhere, felt a sharp, almost physical pang of something like pain, a cold dread in the pit of her stomach, as if something she was desperately unwilling to accept was happening, right at this very moment. But… what was it? What was happening?

Hana didn't know. Her senses weren't that keen yet, her spiritual level was still far too low. But the number of people in this world who could make her feel so suddenly, so deeply worried… she had a pretty good, and very short, idea of who they were.

So, with a heart now filled with a new, gnawing worry, she called Ren Akiyama. Something's wrong. I can feel it. He and Black… they might be in some kind of crisis…

“H-hello?”

“…Hana? Is something wrong?” Ren Akiyama struggled, with a monumental effort of will, to keep his breathing steady, to keep his voice from cracking. He stared, his eyes wide with a mixture of horror and a strange, unfamiliar excitement, at the person right in front of him, the beautiful Magical Girl Black, her cheeks flushed a delicate, lovely shade of pink, who was, at this very moment, sensually, almost hungrily licking her lips.

Hey! Hey, you! Your daughter is on the goddamn phone right now! Can you hear me?! Why do you look like you don’t have even a single, solitary shred of guilt in your entire being?! What are you doing, Black! What in the seven circles of hell are you DOING?!

“Ren…” Hearing his voice, even if it was a little strained, Hana’s heart relaxed considerably. She had been so afraid that something terrible had happened to him. “Are… are you with Black right now?”

Ren, his gaze still locked on the terrifying, and frankly quite alluring, magical girl before him, swallowed hard. “Y-yes. We’re together.”

“What are you guys doing?”

“Th-there have been some super-powered crime incidents in S-City recently,” Ren said, the lie coming surprisingly, frighteningly easily to his lips. He was getting too good at this. “We’re making some… ah… targeted preparations. We consulted with the retired Magical Girl Lapis Lazuli earlier about how to approach the situation, and we have some promising leads now.” He was, as was rapidly becoming his custom, telling the truth, but only half of it. “Did… did you run into some kind of trouble with Magical Girl Red?”

Hana shook her head. “No, nothing like that. It’s just… that telepathy thing of mine, it suddenly had a strong reaction. I didn’t know what was happening, and I thought something might have happened to you two… I’ll go and check on my other friends now. As long as you two are safe, that’s good… This… this might be related to what you’re about to do. You have to be extra, extra careful, okay? This might be some kind of… of premonition. A warning.”

“I understand, Hana. We’ll be careful.”

“Okay. Then I’m going to go and check on my friends now, see if they’ve run into any danger,” Hana said, her voice now a little more cheerful.

Ren paused for a moment, an idea, a desperate, brilliant idea, flashing in his mind. “Hey, Hana? Don’t you want to… you know… say a few words to Magical Girl Black while you have her on the line?”

Hana hesitated for two long seconds. “It’s… it’s probably fine, right? I don’t want to bother her. Just… tell her I said hi.”

“Is that so?”

“Then I’ll hang up now! Good luck, you two!”

And with that, Hana, with a final, cheerful chirp, ended the call.

Ren felt that the situation was incredibly, hopelessly tricky. Right now, the girl known as Magical Girl Black was practically wrapped around him, her body pressed against his, insisting that they continue their so-called, and profoundly questionable "training." Are you really, as those insane netizens say, a thirsty loli-wife-widow? Because you seem awfully, disturbingly enthusiastic about all this, Tanaka-ojisan.

“Oh, Ren… this feeling… it’s so good. So wonderful,” Magical Girl Black murmured, her voice a low, husky, seductive purr that sent a fresh wave of shivers down Ren’s spine. “I can feel the power… it’s welling up from the very depths of my body. It’s so… so enchanting…” Magical Girl Black was an incredibly petite, almost doll-like young girl, but she could fly. So she could, with an effortless, supernatural grace, float like this, half-suspended in mid-air, her face just inches from his. “Let’s… let’s continue our training, okay? Don’t be so nervous, Ren-kun. This is just training, after all. It’s not a big deal. Just a necessary, and perhaps even enjoyable, means to an end. You shouldn’t think too much about it. What we’re doing right now… it’s a completely emotionless, purely professional act.”

If there are no emotions involved, would that much power really be welling up inside your body, you old fool?! Ren thought, a profound sense of skepticism warring with his mounting terror. Speaking of which, are you actually gaining any real power from this? Or are you just enjoying it? Because if you’re not actually gaining any power, then I’m going to have to seriously, and with extreme prejudice, question your true, underlying motives here, Tanaka-ojisan.

But, alas, there was absolutely nothing he could do. This was, after all, the one and only, the ridiculously overpowered Magical Girl Black. As the old internet meme went: A chance encounter on the road with Magical Girl Black, you can’t win even if you try your absolute best.jpg. Ren was at a complete, utter loss. He truly had no way of dealing with, no way of escaping from, this terrifying, and currently very affectionate, Magical Girl Black. It was a very, very helpless, and deeply awkward situation to be in.

……

At this very moment, in the shadowy, dilapidated ruins of the warehouse where the magical girls and the Darkmoon Coven had fought their final, epic battle, several strange, cloaked figures were gathered.

“Gentlemen,” a voice, deep and distorted, echoed from within a wide, purple robe, “it seems that our recent, artistic crimes have been completely ignored by the so-called heroes of this city. The great and mighty Magical Girl Black hasn’t reacted at all. A few days ago, we made a wager, did we not? We said that whoever amongst us could successfully protect themselves from Magical Girl Black’s inevitable, wrathful pursuit, while at the same time committing the most heinous, the most spectacular crimes, could then rightfully claim the title of the new Darkmoon Coven. But now, it seems we haven’t even been taken seriously. We have been utterly, completely ignored. Can you accept this? This utter disdain? This profound disrespect? Magical Girl Black is indeed strong, I will grant her that. But she is nothing more than a tired, pathetic old man who should have been eliminated by society long ago! What is there to fear from such a withered, obsolete old man? The glorious progress of the youth, our progress, begins with the violent overthrow of the outdated, stagnant perceptions of their elders! She is just a relic of the past! A corrupt, decaying thing! And so, we gather once again, for an even bigger, even more glorious wager! To let Magical Girl Black know, once and for all, the terrible, terrible price of scorning us!”

A wooden puppet, its movements stiff and jerky, its painted, decorative mouth clicking and clacking as it opened and shut, made a strange, unnatural sound. “I understand what you mean, of course. But my murders… my murders are filled with a profound, almost divine artistry. Therefore, I cannot agree to your crude, vulgar request. I will only, and always, shape my art. How you lesser beings choose to commit your clumsy, artless crimes is your own business. I only care about my beauty. My magnificent creations.”

“Puppeteer,” the purple-robed figure said, an edge of annoyance in its voice, “if that is the case, then why did you bother to come here and compete with us in the first place?”

“I am very, very fond of the magnificent Darkmoon Queen,” the puppet replied, its voice a hollow, emotionless rasp. “This position, this throne of darkness, I am saving it for her. She, and only she, will one day become my most perfect, most beautiful work of art. The rest of you… you are not worthy to even sit in her shadow.”

“Hehe~” A cold, sinister laugh echoed through the ruined warehouse.

“Very well, then. Let us each act according to our own will! Let the games begin!”

During this tense, hostile discussion, the fiends were about to disperse, to go their separate ways and begin their reign of terror. But in that single, solitary instant… they all, as one, looked up in the same direction, a look of dawning, abject terror on their grotesque faces.

“This… this presence… it can’t be…”

The purple-robed figure who had spoken first, the apparent leader of this new, chaotic faction, seemed to realize something. He began to laugh loudly, a wild, almost manic sound. “This is Magical Girl Black! She is radiating her magical girl power, her mana, indiscriminately across the entire, unsuspecting S-City! Just like a bat using echolocation to map its surroundings, she is going to directly, brutally search for every single Esper, every single fiend, in the entire city! It seems she did not ignore us after all! No, it was just that the so-called organization’s reaction was far too slow, and she has only just now, finally learned of the beautiful, artistic cases we have so lovingly committed… My dear colleagues! It is now time to flee! Time to run for your very lives! I hope, with all my heart, that all of you can somehow, by some miracle, manage to survive her coming wrath!”

One by one, the shadowy figures scattered, disappearing into the night. No one, not a single one of them, wanted to face the fearsome Magical Girl Black head-on. In this new, emerging era of fiends, one who could truly, equally stand against her had not yet been born. The fiend is  pitch-black, the fiend is darkness, the fiend always, silently grows and festers in the shadows… And one day, when it finally, inevitably appears before you, that darkness will be enough to swallow everything.

But now was not that day. Now was the time for the darkness to hide.

In reality, Magical Girl Black’s current, tyrannical method was somewhat… reckless. Even the mighty Strawberry Sweetheart, in the past, had never, ever used such a crude, brute-force method to investigate and track down other Espers. After all—not everyone’s power was of the same nature, the same frequency. Not all energy feedback would necessarily show up on her scan. And at the same time, for many, many other, non-hostile Espers, this was a very, very presumptuous, almost invasive act. To put it bluntly, it was a special, high-frequency energy impact, a psychic sonar pulse. Ordinary, non-powered people might not feel it much, if at all. But for certain, more sensitive Espers, it could even, in some cases, affect and interfere with their own delicate abilities. What's more, Black was radiating it directly, contemptuously from high in the sky, over the entirety of S-City. It was an unprecedented, arrogant display of raw, untamed power.

Although it was reckless, it felt, to anyone who knew her, like something Magical Girl Black would absolutely do. After all, this crude, brute-force method fit perfectly with the brutal, savage, and incredibly direct impression Black had made on the world in the past. It was also, in its own way, undeniable proof of Black’s righteous, and frankly quite terrifying, anger. She had no intention, none whatsoever, of leaving these new, super-powered criminals even a single, solitary shred of leeway. She was going to hunt them all down, and she was going to destroy them all. Utterly. Completely.

Of course, as far as Black herself was concerned, she didn’t think it was anything particularly strange or out of the ordinary. At the end of the day, since the fiends had been so arrogant, so theatrical in their provocation, then let them know, once and for all, that they were nothing more than pathetic, sniveling cockroaches in the gutter, and she, Magical Girl Black, was the brilliant, blazing, all-consuming sun. Under her magnificent power, all their pathetic, cowardly deeds would have nowhere to hide. She was the scorching sun, and her light, her power, was more than enough to burn all these disgusting, skittering cockroaches to a fine, black crisp! They could never, ever see the light of day! Not while she was around!

This was Magical Girl Black’s swift, decisive, and utterly overwhelming counterattack to the fiends’ pathetic, cowardly provocation. She didn’t have a fancy, emotion-soothing domain like Strawberry Sweetheart’s almost cheat-like Sparkling Form; she couldn’t comfort people’s hearts like a gentle, warm spring breeze. But she could use her own raw, untamed power to bring people a different, more primal kind of security. Under this overwhelming power, the people of S-City should know, with absolute, unwavering certainty, the profound, unshakeable determination of Magical Girl Black to subjugate any and all fiends who dared to threaten their peace.

Of course, the Black of the past would not have done this. After all, considering the massive, crippling energy consumption of such a move, it was hard to say it was a particularly rational, or even sustainable, choice.

But just now, she had… ah… “trained”… a little with Ren. And at this very moment, she felt her entire, small body brimming, almost overflowing with a new, strange, and intoxicating power. And so, such a thing, such a massive expenditure of energy, was not worth caring about at all. She needed to vent this new, surging power. She needed to display her power. She needed to completely, and with extreme prejudice, erase the pathetic, new shadows that had just been born in her city!

In a certain, remote location, far from the city center, the wooden puppet that was rapidly, and with a certain amount of panic, trying to flee S-City suddenly, inexplicably, and with a silent scream, burst into brilliant, all-consuming flames.

Magical Girl Black, floating serenely in the night sky, her hair and coat billowing in the wind, turned her cold, predatory gaze in that distant direction. A slow, satisfied, and utterly terrifying smile spread across her face.

“Found you.”