Chapter 33: Hana's Magic

A profound, gnawing sense of unease lingered, plunging Hana into a state of panic.

She had already checked with everyone she knew, her friends, her family, but they all said they were fine, that there was nothing wrong. She felt that this was, perhaps, an ominous sign. That maybe... just maybe... there was something out there that was coming specifically for her.

I should probably tell Black and Ren about this...

However, just as she had resolved to do exactly that, Magical Girl Red appeared right in front of her.

“I heard that Black’s Supporter—who is also your boyfriend, right?—had a bit of an accident, so I came over to pay him a visit.” Red even, to Hana's surprise, seemed to have brought a proper get-well gift with her, the kind one brings when visiting a patient.

Hana scratched her head, looking a bit awkward. "Oh, ah, about that... I already, you know, healed him up with my magic." She explained, "He was... ah... discussing some new, super-secret ultimate moves with Black and accidentally got injured. You know how she is."

She gave Red an apologetic smile. "It’s so nice of you to come all this way for him, though. I'm really sorry for the trouble."

After all, Hana thought, she had to take a plane all the way here. If she had tried to fly here herself, it probably would have been way too exhausting. And knowing her, she'd probably get lost and fly in the wrong direction anyway.

When Red heard this, she just waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, that doesn’t really matter. My main reason for coming over was actually to talk to Miss Black about something important.”

“I heard,” she continued, “that a new magical girl just debuted in X-City. Magical Girl Blue.”

“That's just in the neighboring city, right? I was planning on asking Miss Black to go and take a look with me.”

Hana was stunned. “When did that happen?”

“The night before last,” Red explained. “It wasn't long after you left. Magical Girl Blue was born during a fiend incident over in X-City.”

The events of the past few days had left Hana feeling a little agitated. For a magical girl fanatic, an otaku of her caliber, to be so out of the loop that she hadn't even heard the news of Magical Girl Blue's debut... it was almost a personal failure.

“Ah, about that…” Hana said, “That might not be easy right now. Miss Black has been dealing with some really, really troublesome fiends lately.”

So, Hana explained the situation to Red, telling her everything she knew.

"Super-powered crime?" Red mused. "So it sounds like the opponents aren't all that strong, just... really, really hard to deal with, huh?" She couldn't help but let out a small sigh of relief. She felt that Miss Black's reasoning had been spot-on. If they had swapped places that day, this whole nightmarish, troublesome situation would have been hers to deal with.

Without a single doubt, here in S-City, the very form of fiendish world-destruction had changed.

While fiends everywhere else were still stuck in their old-fashioned “launch a big, flashy terrorist attack” mode, the fiends here in S-City had already evolved, becoming far more secretive and subtle.

Even that Magical Girl Black, for several days after the crimes had been committed, still hadn't been able to solve the cases. The fiends from before, after all, would get instantly obliterated by Black the moment they so much as showed their faces.

The most critical, and most troublesome, point was this: this time, the fiends weren't showing their faces at all.

“So, how does Miss Black plan to solve this?”

“Well, I noticed earlier that Black radiated her magical power directly over the entire city,” Hana explained. “She was conducting a scan, using a principle similar to radar. The process was very brief, but I suspect she’s already found something.”

Red was completely stunned. “She radiated her magical power over the entire city?! That’s just an insane, totally outrageous amount of power! I… I definitely can’t do anything on that level…”

She looked utterly dejected, and even her usually energetic, perky twin-tails seemed to droop as a result.

“It looks like… that crazy training plan you mentioned before… maybe I really do need to do it after all. Comparing myself to that, I seem… I seem kinda… way too weak. I already watched Magical Girl Blue’s combat video, and… it feels like Blue is also really, really strong right out of the gate.”

“So, Blue… her attacks are probably water-stream or frost-based, right?” Hana guessed, her otaku-brain instantly analyzing the trope.

“You’re right,” Red sighed, her shoulders slumping. “But she just seems so… dreamy, you know? And her figure is amazing, and she has this really noble, almost high-class, refined aura… To be honest, is that really what a magical girl is supposed to be? There’s nothing 'cute' about her at all~”

Hana was speechless. “Are you kidding me? You haven’t even met her in person, and you’re already dissing her? That," she said, her eyes narrowing, "is the 'Flames of Jealousy.' And that's not a power I think the real Magical Girl Red should be wielding.”

Red stuck her tongue out playfully. "Well, it can't be helped, I guess… Anyway, why don't we go find Miss Black and Ren? We can see if there's anything we can do to help out."

Hana nodded. It just so happened she was looking for a good excuse to see Black anyway.

Although, to be honest, it was pretty pathetic that a father and daughter needed an excuse just to see each other. But, if you asked her to, right at this moment, act like a sweet, spoiled kid and say, "Daddy, I missed you!"—the kind of honest, straightforward words a normal daughter should be able to say... she absolutely, positively, with every fiber of her being, just couldn't bring herself to say it.

Young people are always so obsessed with this thing called 'face'. If you're not obsessed with your image, it's hard to even call yourself a young person.

She was right in the middle of puberty, feeling that she was constantly moving towards independence, and that it was necessary to move towards independence. Compared to the past, she now felt she had even less of a right to act spoiled.

Of course, she had no idea that her father, Magical Girl Black, was at this very moment thoroughly enjoying the simple, wonderful pleasure of being the one who was pampered.

“Then let’s get going!”

Hana had only just said the words when the gnawing, nameless sense of dread in her heart suddenly, violently exploded.

She didn't even have time to react; she just threw herself sideways, diving hard onto the pavement. Red, in mid-sentence, just stared at her, a look of complete and utter confusion on her face.

And in that same, heart-stopping instant, Hana sensed it—something invisible, something transparent, something that felt like a sharp, thin line, had just pierced straight into Red’s unsuspecting body.

“Red!”

Hana instantly realized that the ominous feeling she'd had was real.

A split second later, she saw flames suddenly erupt and flare across Red’s body. The transparent, almost invisible threads that had pierced her were instantly incinerated, burned to absolute cinders by the magical fire.

Red frowned, looking around in confusion. “What the hell was that? It felt like something pricked me. Actually, it really hurt… An assassin?” She had the expression of someone who was completely baffled, unable to make any sense of what had just happened.

Hana was completely, utterly stunned. "That… that must have been an attack from the fiend, The Puppeteer! But, Red, it looks like you have a pretty good method for dealing with him!"

"The fiend The Puppeteer?" Red's eyes widened as she instantly made the connection. Just a moment ago, they had been talking about those very super-powered criminals. "Wait... is he here to cause trouble for you?"

Red was instantly on guard. She moved right next to Hana, and flames began to gather around her, forming a protective, spherical cocoon of fire that completely enclosed Hana inside.

“Let's go find Black, now!” Red said, her voice tight with urgency. “I couldn't get a lock on the enemy's position. I… I'm not sure if I can win against them, although... my gut tells me they aren't actually that strong.”

...

When the two of them finally found Black and Ren, they discovered that both of them looked a little… flustered and hot.

"What's wrong with you two?"

"We found the fiend!" Black snapped, a little too quickly. "But it was just a puppet! We defeated the puppet, but we still can't find the real body. It's just… made us both a little agitated, okay? I seriously suspect that 'Shadow Walker' the organization supposedly arrested is a damn fake. The enemy has to have a hacker assisting them, probably using an artificial satellite in the sky to watch my every move!"

Hana looked over at Ren, who gave a slight, grim nod.

Her own expression became incredibly serious. "It seems that fiends are really, really hard to deal with once they go into hiding," she said, her voice low. "But… if it's The Puppeteer, I think we might be able to deal with him. He just attacked me."

"What?!"

In that single, terrifying instant, the expressions on both Ren Akiyama and Magical Girl Black’s faces became absolutely murderous.

“Red just so happened to be right next to me,” Hana explained, still out of breath, “and her power… it seems like it’s a perfect counter for The Puppeteer! Those invisible, transparent threads… they were just instantly incinerated by Red’s flames! The enemy was definitely, 100% trying to make a move on me! That much is certain. So, we came to find you guys right away!”

“That damned thing… are they still trying to provoke me?!” Black felt like she was about to explode. She absolutely had to go and interrogate the organization… This kind of security, could she really rely on the organization to guarantee it?

No, perhaps… she would have to use her own methods.

She suppressed the violent rage that suddenly surged up from her heart. “Right now, the most troublesome thing is still finding The Puppeteer's whereabouts. Him targeting you is just too damned dangerous. He should be the first fiend we take care of.”

"I was actually on my way to find you two anyway," Hana said to them. "If you're both having such a hard time finding that man... I think I might be able to track him down."

"You?" Black asked, her voice skeptical.

Ren's expression suddenly changed, a look of dawning understanding on his face. "Hana," he said, his voice low, "you don't mean… you're going to use…?"

Hana simply nodded, her own expression now serious.

Both Magical Girl Black and Magical Girl Red looked utterly bewildered by this.

Ren, seeing that Hana didn't seem to want to be the one to speak, stepped in to explain for her. "You are both magical girls," he began, "so when you hear the word 'magic,' what's the very first impression that comes to your mind?"

"Power," Black grunted instantly.

"Splendor," Red offered, at the same moment.

"Those answers fit your personalities perfectly," Ren said, but his own expression was dead serious. "In fact, the original concept of magic, when it was first born, was supposed to be about the uncanny and the ominous, something that brought calamity and curses, wasn't it? Take the early witch hunts, for example. Witches, who were believed to possess magic, were hunted because they would supposedly harm others… This 'Mage' Esper ability... while it has a lot of convenient, everyday uses, in reality, it also contains many cruel, dark spells. It's just that Hana doesn't really use them, that's all."

“Cruel magic?”

Black’s eyes suddenly widened, as if she had just remembered something terrible. “Wait… I remember now,” she said, her voice a low, almost horrified whisper. “That family, the one that came to our house to cause trouble all those years ago… the one from when I misunderstood you two as kids… I… I think I heard later that they… they got into a car accident or something…”

She stared at her daughter, a dawning, terrible suspicion on her face.

“Hana… was that you? Did you curse them?”

Hana Tanaka remained completely, utterly silent.

Her silence was a deafening, chilling confession.

So, it really was her. She had actually cursed them.

This, then, was the real reason she had never dared to be truly open with Black. After all, this kind of thing… in the eyes of any normal parent, it would, for the most part, be seen as a clear, terrifying sign of their own child’s burgeoning wickedness. It was a dark secret she had, in the past, shared only with Ren Akiyama, her silent confidant.

As for Black, although she already knew that this daughter of her was perhaps not some simple, pure-hearted "goody-two-shoes," she had never, not even in her wildest imaginings, thought she had done this kind of thing.

But... now that she knew... what in the seven circles of hell was she supposed to do about it?

My relationship with my daughter is still so stiff and awkward already, she thought, and besides, my own handling of that original incident was the real problem in the first place.

If I had just been able to properly listen to what Hana was trying to tell me back then, she probably wouldn't have felt the need to do something like this…

Besides, it's not like that family of three was in any mortal danger… right?

…Still, her conscience was, just a little bit, taking a beating right now.

But Black just shook her head, her voice surprisingly gentle, almost weary. “No,” she said, cutting through the heavy, awkward silence. “This is my problem. It’s because I misunderstood you two back then, because I failed you, that you felt you had to do something like this.

“Even if it was a mistake,” she said, her gaze firm, “you two don’t need to feel guilty about it. I’ll be the one to take responsibility. It’s already been so many years. We don’t need to drag up these old, painful things now. Let’s just… drop it.”

“Black…” Hana whispered, her eyes wide, clearly stunned by her father’s sudden, heartfelt defense.

Although she knew, of course, that her father had changed, in some fundamental ways, after becoming Magical Girl Black, the words she had just spoken… the Kenji Tanaka of the past, her old, stubborn, unyielding father, would never, not in a million years, have been able to say something like that.

This new, understanding, almost kind version of her… it left Hana feeling completely at a loss, her mind reeling in confusion.

She instinctively, almost desperately, looked over at Ren Akiyama, and she saw his calm, gentle, almost knowing smile.

It’s Ren. she realized, with a sudden, dawning clarity. He’s the one. He’s the one who changed my father.

Hana couldn't help but feel incredibly, almost painfully moved. She immediately, violently spun around, turning her back to them. “W-whatever! The point is, I remember the organization does have some files on this ‘Puppeteer’ guy.”

“After all,” she continued, her voice now regaining its usual, confident, otaku-logic-fueled tone, “his pattern of activity before he became a fiend is crystal clear, even if he completely vanished after he became one. But that old data… it’s enough. It’s more than enough for me to curse him.”

"And to what extent can you curse him?"

"Cursing him to death isn't realistic," Hana admitted. "If I wanted to curse him to death, I'd need way too many rare components, and my mana pool just couldn't support that kind of drain. But," she added, a sly, confident smile appearing, "I can definitely curse him with a whole lot of bad luck. And as long as the curse is on him, I'll get a 'ping,' a feeling, whenever I get close to him. And that's how we'll be able to track him down."

"Excellent! Hana! You did a fantastic job! Now, let's act immediately! I can't wait to wring the Puppeteer's neck! He’s going to find out what happens when you cross your Dad."