Chapter 16: Work Arrangements

After a rather lengthy and frankly quite surreal conversation that had completely shattered her understanding of magical girl history, Kenji Tanaka—currently Magical Girl Black—and Ren Akiyama finally, definitively confirmed it: Strawberry Sweetheart, the legend, had, in fact, officially retired. This magical girl, who over the course of several long, grueling years had accumulated an almost unprecedented level of prestige and was widely hailed as the "strongest," had for real, no-kidding, hung up her frilly, pink cape.

She was now, for all intents and purposes, just an ordinary, if exceptionally beautiful, slightly-too-perceptive, and probably very wealthy high school girl named Akari Natsume.

Just after they had processed this crucial, world-altering piece of intelligence, Akari suddenly, and with a playful, mischievous glint in her eye, said, “Speaking of which, Ren-senpai, are you, by any chance, free right now?”

Akari suddenly, and with an almost predatory focus, turned her full, undivided attention to the startled Ren Akiyama.

Both Ren and Black looked at Akari, their expressions a mixture of confusion and surprise.

Akari smiled sweetly, a smile that was pure Strawberry Sweetheart. “Although I’ve already officially, and with much relief, retired, there are still some… parting words… I’d very much like to say to the dear, incarcerated Darkmoon Queen. I was wondering, Senpai, if you would perhaps be so kind as to accompany me on this little errand?”

“I can go with you,” Black immediately, and perhaps a little too defensively, interjected. She didn't quite understand, and frankly didn’t quite like Akari’s reasons for specifically inviting Ren.

Akari just smiled, a smile that was now a little more knowing, a little more teasing. “Can you, Miss Black, with one hundred percent certainty, guarantee that you won’t immediately get into a violent, property-damaging conflict with the Darkmoon Coven the second you see them? If you can somehow manage to sit down and have a proper, civilized, non-punching-related conversation with them, then it’s fine for you to accompany me, of course.”

“…I can try,” Black admitted grudgingly, her voice a low grumble, “but I can’t exactly control whether she will be willing to have a proper, civilized chat with me.”

Clearly, this was the answer Akari had been expecting all along. “And that, you see,” she said, her smile turning triumphant, “is precisely why I’m inviting my dear, level-headed Senpai to accompany me instead. As a officially retired magical girl, my authority, my security clearance to visit the special high-security prison, has also, rather inconveniently, been revoked along with my powers. Although I could probably still get special permission if I pulled a few strings and called in some old favors, Senpai here is also an official, active Supporter and already possesses the same level of security clearance. He can take me to see her, no questions asked. And my dear Camellia-san,” she added with a slight, almost theatrical pout, “is currently very, very busy acclimating to her new and probably very boring Esper assignment. I’d really rather not bother her with such a trivial, personal matter.”

It was a perfectly logical and clearly well-rehearsed explanation. It was obvious this wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment idea; it was something she had planned in advance, with meticulous detail. Perhaps even if Black and Ren hadn’t come to find her today, she would have eventually taken the initiative to contact them with this very same "request."

Akari looked at the two somewhat hesitant figures before her and asked, her head tilted cutely, “Could it be that you two have something… more important… you need to do right now?” As if a sudden, brilliant thought had just struck her, she clapped her hands together with a dramatic gasp. “Ah! Don’t tell me! Are you two planning to go on a romantic, lovey-dovey date next? Oh my goodness! If you’re going on a date, then I’m truly, terribly, terribly sorry for interrupting your precious time together… Oomph!”

Before she could continue her teasing, Black, with a speed that defied her petite frame, clamped a hand firmly over Akari’s mouth. “I have never once heard that the great, noble Strawberry Sweetheart was a magical girl who enjoyed making wild, baseless, and frankly quite rude speculations about other people’s private relationships. You’d better be careful, young lady, or I’ll have a very serious, and very long, word with your parents!”

Ren sighed helplessly, a sound of profound, world-weary resignation. “I’ll go with you, Akari-san. It’s fine. Just… stop talking.”

Only then did Magical Girl Black, with a final, warning glare, release her grip on Akari’s mouth.

Akari shot Black a triumphant, nearly smug "gotcha" expression, then immediately, and with a happy little hum, grabbed Ren’s wrist. “Then there’s no time to waste! Let’s go, Senpai! Let’s go have a little… talk therapy… with our dear, misunderstood Dark Moon-chan! I have high hopes that she can still be persuaded to turn from her evil, fashionably challenged ways. Although she herself has, tragically, lost the power of Moonstone, many people in the Darkmoon Coven still believe in her, still look up to her. If she were to speak up, to renounce her past, it might very well move quite a few of those lost, misguided fiends to change their ways, don’t you think?”

“Even though you’re not a magical girl anymore, you’re still trying to do this kind of thing? Still trying to save everyone?” Black couldn’t help but ask, a note of genuine, grudging respect in her voice.

“What’s wrong with that?” Akari chirped, her smile radiant. “It’s just a small effort on my part. A good deed, you know, no matter when or where it’s done, always, always brings a wonderful sense of peace to one’s heart, don’t you think~.”

And just like that, with a cheerful wave, Akari dragged a slightly bewildered but ultimately compliant Ren Akiyama away, leaving Magical Girl Black standing there, all by herself, feeling strangely abandoned.

She thought for a moment, a thoughtful frown on her face, then, with a sigh, she returned to the cold, sterile, and overly air-conditioned confines of the organization’s office building. She went to see the so-called person-in-charge. The Handler.

“Ah, Black. It’s so good to see you’re safe and sound, my dear,” the Handler said, a relieved, if slightly insincere smile on her face. She spoke in a light, half-joking tone, though her eyes were sharp and analytical. “We suddenly and rather alarmingly lost your energy signal lock for a while there. For a terrifying moment, we thought you might have finally, spectacularly gone dark on us, maybe awakened some kind of terrifying, all-consuming power and turned evil. It would have been a logistical nightmare, you understand.”

Black, ignoring the pleasantries, pulled over a chair with a loud scrape and, with a distinct lack of her usual magical girl grace, sat down heavily. “The organization… you just let Strawberry Sweetheart retire? Just like that?”

“Hmm—well, you could say she’s ‘retired,’ in the official sense,” the Handler explained, a thoughtful finger tapping against her chin. “But her Prima Materia, her Original Stone, it hasn’t been inherited by anyone yet. No one has, as of yet, successfully resonated with it. So, if she ever truly, desperately wanted to resume her work as a magical girl, she would just need to take back her Prima Materia and re-absorb its power. It’s… complicated. Lapis Lazuli, on the other hand, she has truly, properly, and with much paperwork, retired. Her Prima Materia has already, as you know, become the source of Magical Girl Red’s power.”

Speaking of Red, Black’s interest was suddenly, sharply piqued. “So, what are your official thoughts on Red, then? That kid’s recent performance, her general attitude… it’s been… unsettling, to say the least.”

The woman tilted her head, a curious, almost playful expression on her face. “Oh? And why do you say that, my dear Black?”

“Because,” Black said, her voice a low growl, “she clearly, almost desperately wanted to touch that corrupted power. She wanted to obtain that power for herself. Unlike me, she, with her own innate flame abilities, could definitely have fused with that power directly, without any resistance.” Black was, of course, referring to the dark, lingering power of Magical Girl Crystal that she herself had so reluctantly, and with much internal screaming, absorbed. She then added, a note of genuine, fatherly concern in her voice, “If you ask me, shouldn’t the organization be doing a better, more thorough job with the ideological, the moral education of its more impressionable teenagers? This is how supervillains are made, you know.”

The woman was silent for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then, she finally replied, her voice smooth as silk, “My dear Black, that would only serve to stifle their natural growth, their potential. Magical girls, as you well know, are very, very special, almost unique beings—you yourself, of all people, should have some firsthand experience with this by now. If we were to carelessly, heavy-handedly interfere with their… thoughts… with their developing ideologies… can you truly, with one hundred percent certainty, guarantee what they would ultimately become? Besides,” she added, a cold, almost amused smile on her lips, “we are a legitimate, government-sanctioned organization, my dear, not some cartoonish, mustache-twirling group of villains. We don’t do that kind of crude, unsophisticated thought control here. We have always, and will always, adhere to the fundamental, guiding principle that true, lasting justice must come from within a person’s own heart. Everyone in this organization, every hero, every Supporter, every paper-pusher, they are all here for a noble, higher purpose. Or so their contracts state.”

She certainly makes it all sound so nice, so high-and-mighty, Black thought with a surge of her old, familiar corporate cynicism. As an old hand at navigating the treacherous waters of office politics, Black never put much stock in such empty, idealistic talk. “Alright, fine. Since that’s the official company line, I won’t inquire any further on that matter. What I really want to talk about,” she said, finally getting to her real, true purpose for being here, “is the matter concerning my daughter, Hana Tanaka.”

The Handler’s mask of cold professionalism finally, for a split second, wavered. A flicker of genuine surprise appeared in her eyes. “Your daughter? What about her? Has something happened?”

“My meaning is,” Black said, her voice firm, resolute, “I want you to assign her to be Magical Girl Red’s official Supporter. What do you think of that?”

The woman was visibly, genuinely stunned. She looked at Black with a face full of utter confusion. “Why… why would you suddenly suggest such a thing? Isn’t it good for your daughter to be your Supporter? I heard her Esper ability is incredibly, uniquely convenient.”

Black sighed, a sound heavy with a father’s weary, reluctant love. “My daughter and I… we don’t have a very good relationship. And she and Ren are a couple. And I… I am her father… If she is ever going to truly grow, to reach her full potential, both as a person and as an Esper, she cannot achieve that true growth by my side, under my shadow. But she wants to grow now. I can tell. I finally see that.” When she had come out of that dimensional space, she had seen his daughter, drenched and exhausted, but with a new fire in her eyes. She had changed, just a little, from how she was before. So, by the side of a doting parent, of a loving boyfriend, Hana Tanaka could not, would not, ever truly grow.

The vast, overwhelming majority of Esper abilities in this world were just like Hana’s, requiring arduous, relentless training; constant, obsessive research and comprehension; and experience in battle after battle, just to develop and display their true, latent power. For magical girls, like herself, to be able to fight and defeat veteran, battle-hardened fiends right from the very beginning… it was an unfairly unbelievable, almost cheat-like thing. A statistical anomaly.

A playful, knowing smile appeared on the Handler’s face. “My, my, Black. What’s this? Is this, by any chance, a parent who is finally, reluctantly, and with much internal suffering, willing to let their precious little bird spread her wings and fly from the nest?”

“That’s how it’s always been,” Black grumbled, though she couldn’t deny it. She said, with a certain amount of fatherly reservation, that she didn’t quite trust the angsty, hot-headed Magical Girl Red. But without a single shadow of a doubt, Red was, at this precise moment, the most suitable Esper for Hana to be assigned to. Red needed to grow. They were of a similar age. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing, more motivating, more inspiring for a young hero-in-training than growing together, struggling together, with a trusted partner, a true comrade. Besides, when Hana worked with her, with Black, if Ren wasn’t there to act as a buffer, things were just… awkward. Incredibly, painfully awkward. And that wasn’t good for anyone’s professional development. But if it were Red, it would be much, much better. After all, Hana, for all her faults, absolutely, positively loved magical girls with a passion that was almost terrifying.

“This might mean, you know, that she has to officially transfer to A-City for an extended period,” the Handler pointed out, a mischievous glint in her eye. “You’re quite the heartless parent, aren’t you, Black? Your poor daughter already has a devoted lover here in S-City, and you’re clearly, sadistically trying to break them up. You do know that you’ll be deeply resented by the children for doing this, don’t you?”

Black felt a strong, overwhelming urge to reach across the desk and rip that woman’s smug, smirking mouth right off her face. “In any case,” she growled, her voice tight with suppressed fury, “I’m just letting you know first, officially. If the organization thinks it’s a bad arrangement, if it’s too much trouble to organize, then just forget it. I’m not insisting. Besides, there’s no guarantee that Hana will even obey the arrangement in the first place. She’s a stubborn mule, that one.”

“Alright, alright, calm down, my dear,” the Handler said with a soothing, placating chuckle. “I’ll… operate on it. Pull some strings. See what can be done.” She then casually glanced down at a data-slate on her desk. “Oh, and by the way, speaking of work, the ‘Magical Girl Brawl’ development company has sent over a new, high-priority invitation. They said they’re planning to release a brand new raid dungeon event soon, tentatively titled ‘The Fall of the Dark Moon,’ to officially, and with much in-game fanfare, announce the glorious end of the long-infamous and now officially defunct fiend organization, the Darkmoon Coven. They’ll, of course, need your full cooperation for some… promotional events… and tie-in materials. This particular assignment itself also carries a significant, high-level political mission objective from the organization’s higher-ups, so I’m afraid this is one you probably won’t be able to refuse, my dear Black.”

This woman… she had already said as much—

“Just send whatever needs to be done to Ren. He’ll arrange things,” Black said with a final, weary wave of her hand, and with that, she turned and left, not wanting to spend a single second longer in this manipulative woman’s presence.

The Handler watched Magical Girl Black’s retreating, and still surprisingly cute figure with a thoughtful smile on her lips.

“You’re not, by any chance, just trying to get your own daughter out of the way so you can finally spend some quality, uninterrupted alone time with your handsome new son-in-law, are you, my dear, complicated Black?” she murmured to herself, a low, amused chuckle escaping her lips. She then suddenly shuddered, a look of genuine alarm on her face. Ooh, now that’s a dangerous and frankly quite inappropriate fantasy to be having. If Black ever found out I was thinking that about her, with that terrifying temper of hers, she’d definitely fly into an apocalyptic rage. Not worth it. I can’t afford to provoke her. Not yet, anyway.

First things first, let’s contact Magical Girl Red! This should be fun!

......

For Magical Girl Red, these past two days had been like some kind of surreal and deeply terrifying dream—she had almost, almost made a terrible, irreversible mistake. She had almost been seduced by the sweet, poisonous words of the Darkmoon Queen, had almost become some kind of strange, twisted, corrupted magical girl. Even now, when she thought of Magical Girl Black’s cold, dead eyes and her casual, almost bored display of overwhelming, brutal power, she still felt a chill of pure, unadulterated fear. At this precise, inopportune moment, a sudden, unexpected call from the organization was clearly just adding frost to already frozen snow.

To have Magical Girl Black’s own daughter as my official Supporter?! Are they insane?!

She could still vividly, with a clarity that was like a waking nightmare, remember that strange, hyperactive girl, when she had first met her on the street, thinking she was just a Red cosplayer, and how she had almost immediately asked to take… lewd photos… of her. That was most certainly not the kind of thought a normal, well-adjusted, innocent young girl should be having! She had almost, for a terrifying moment, thought that Magical Girl Black was, in fact, the genuine, sweet, innocent young girl, and that her daughter, Hana, was actually the one who was secretly a perverted, middle-aged man who had transformed into a magical girl! The thought was deeply unsettling.

For Magical Girl Red, she had never, ever in her entire, relatively sheltered life, encountered such a fervent, pathologically obsessive fan of magical girls in real life. On the internet, of course, it was a different story. The web was filled with countless anonymous degenerates who would, the very moment a new magical girl appeared, immediately start shouting "Waifu! Waifu!" at their screens. The kind of guys who would refer to a magical girl’s innocently stockinged feet as "delicious ice cream" and graphically describe how they wanted to "lick" them. But those… those were all just fake, anonymous personas on the web, right? In the real, actual world, Red had never, ever met anyone like that. Until Hana Tanaka had appeared before her and had completely shattered her perception of reality. She had absolutely no doubt in her mind that if she were to stick her own stockinged foot in front of Hana Tanaka, that strange, unpredictable girl would actually, and with great enthusiasm, lick it.

So, when she first heard this shocking, unbelievable news, her first, instinctual thought was that her very chastity, her honor, her personal space, was in grave, imminent danger. But very quickly, after a few moments of panicked hyperventilation, she managed to calm herself down.

Think about it carefully! Be rational! she told herself. Hana Tanaka isn’t that kind of pervert, probably. After all, she has a boyfriend. A very handsome one, at that. And she doesn’t hide that relationship at all; in fact, she seems quite proud of it. And that man named Ren Akiyama… he seems like the classic, popular, sunny, handsome type. In a certain, very real sense, he’s actually kind of Red’s type, if she were into that sort of thing. But she had absolutely no interest in poaching someone else’s man, so she would never, ever do anything to interfere with their relationship.

So, that pervertedness, that intense otaku energy… it’s just an act, right? A persona? She’s definitely not actually interested in women, right?

If that’s the case, then having her as my Supporter… could it work? She looked again at the detailed file the organization had sent over, which showed some of the known, documented spells that Hana Tanaka could use.

“…This… this is too amazing! If this is true, if she can really do all this… then I can do any kind of cosplay I want! For any occasion! The possibilities! They’re endless!”

Magical Girl Red, it must be said, was also, in her own, slightly less obsessive way, a massive magical girl fan. She just wasn’t nearly as fervent, as… intense… as Hana Tanaka.

Immediately, with a newfound, giddy sense of excitement, she called the organization back. “I agree! I’ll do it! I accept Hana Tanaka as my new Supporter!”