Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Eight

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Yuuri Ruka was at work when the first sign of something being wrong dropped, when he first got the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.  The several different news stations which played in the grocery store included one American station, since Shibuya was such a common tourist location.  The station was obviously in English, which Yuuri wasn't about to comprehend when he wasn't transformed, but there were Japanese captions added in at a delayed rate.

He tended to read those captions when work was slow, and work was always slow on weekdays, with his midday shifts.  Except for people who wandered in to grab prepared foods for lunch, nobody was doing their grocery shopping at the time of day when everyone with an office job was at work, and kids who could be sent on errands or shopped for themselves were at school.  What he saw today on that news station, however, was shockingly relevant.

Usually, the American station meant nothing to him.  All his friends were right here in Japan, so even hearing about bad things happening overseas didn't tend to have an impact on him.  This one did.

"We have today discovered that the ex-child star Clarence 'Tyler' Hale, better known these days as confirmed magical boy 'Pretty Fighter Ribbon Stripe' has disappeared.  His grandmother is insisting that the disappearance is strange, as he is usually upfront with her when he leaves to perform magical activities.  We recommend that any in the Hollywood area exercise special caution over the next few days.  Even if this known magical boy hasn't decided to go on a crime spree and has indeed gone missing in a strange manner, that strange manner may also endanger humans."

Yuuri was confused by that broadcast, but it made him worry.  Stripe, he knew, was Blade's highest ranking magica.  Not at all the type to get killed by Lionhardt, or to be caught off-guard enough to vanish without a trace in the first place.  That wasn't normal.  Nothing about magica was normal, of course, but this was unusual even in that context.

With the day crawling by at such a slow, awful pace, Yuuri unfortunately had plenty of time to stew on this information.  It was even more unfortunate, then, when Sayaka walked into the store, hands on the straps of her backpack.  She walked straight up to Yuuri's aisle, but before she was able to say anything to him, he reached over the counter and tore her backpack away, throwing it onto the ground behind the register to stomp on it.

A sharp pain coursed through his entire body, which told him he had been correct in his assumption that Blade was in the bag.  Distributors weren't fragile, but they weren't invincible either, so one of the stipulations of contracting with one was that any magica who attempted to utilize their superior combat abilities and size to attack a distributor would find whatever pain they inflicted quadrupled back to them.

"Blade!" Yuuri hissed, picking the bag up again and shaking it till the distributor fell out, "Care to explain what happened to Pretty Fighter Ribbon Stripe!?  Is that same disappearing act gonna happen to Sayaka!?  What about me, or Kyosuke-san, or Uamake, or Horace!?"

"Hey, hey, calm down!" Blade shook its head, climbing out of the register area to sit beside the plastic bags at the end of the conveyor belt, "I have no idea what happened to Stripe.  He's definitely not dead, that's all I know.  I can't tell where he is.  Oh One can't even tell what country he's in, either... And Prince Horace has also disappeared."

"We came here to talk to you about it," Sayaka said, frowning, "In the future, please don't take that as an invitation to start kicking Blade around.  What seems to have happened is each distributor's highest ranking magica have vanished off the grid in full.  Fizzy Pop, Diamond Dust, and Forever Sparkling Into Eternity are also gone."

"...Uamake?" Yuuri questioned, citing Sugarcanesugarcane's best magica.  He'd never met her, but he respected her abilities.  The entire island chain of Hawai'i had two magica, and she was one of them.  If she and all her power had vanished, then that area could very well be left without meaningful protection.

"No," Blade answered, "Only Horace.  I think whoever's behind this considered your whole posse as just one distributor, or maybe... Uamake, Lullabye, and Snowy Rose just never received their letters of commendation.  There might be a connection between those and these disappearances, since at the time this morning when Stripe disappeared, Sayaka had actually become rank 27, and him rank 28."

Sayaka nodded in agreement, "Right.  If it was actually based on rankings, then I would have been the one to disappear.  But five months ago, when everyone got those letters of commendation, he was above me.  So I'm guessing that's at the heart of it.  Blade and I are going to start an investigation to see if there's anybody who has one but never opened it, to try and figure out if there's a magic signature of some sort, something to tell us what type of magic was used, even if we can't figure out who used it."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?  What if you get taken in the process of the investigation, huh?" Yuuri questioned, leaning towards her, "Why don't you let me handle it?"

"Cause I don't want you disappearing either, idiot?" Sayaka curled her lip, glaring at him, "Plus, you'll have your own job to do.  Distributors are meeting up later this month to put together a plan of action, and it's pretty damn likely your posse's going to be saddled with the job of actually rescuing the missing magica once they've been located.  Way more dangerous than just playing detective."

Yuuri nodded, then sighed as he leaned against the register, "Figures that something like this would happen, God.  Fizzy Pop and Prince Horace... That level eight never would have been beaten without them there, right?  What are we supposed to do about the next one?"

"..." Blade looked down, "Don't know.  But some newer magica we've all been collecting are promising.  I've made three since that monster, after all.  Ribbon Green has potential," It explained, "And as much as I hate to admit it, it isn't like Skorgles' magica ignore monsters.  There was one of them at that level eight battle anyway, and a lot of them are very strong.  Usually they fight monsters which appear away from urban areas, since they aren't good people, but something so strong is a good draw for them anyway, even if the side effect of it is helping civilians."

"And we're all getting stronger, too," Sayaka noted, "Everyone who's already a magica is improving a ton, which is why the rankings don't shift much.  We're all becoming powerful as time goes on.  I think that five months from the first level eight, the next one would have to be much easier to defeat, assuming its power stays the same."

"I can only hope," Yuuri shook his head with a grimace.

-----

The missing person's reports rolled in over the next few weeks as people realized that the magica in their lives weren't coming back.  The soonest ones came from people who had no idea their relative had magic, of course, but even those who knew came to the conclusion that something was wrong.  The heir to an important company, Riko Asahi, was declared missing, and any magica who knew anything could surmise, even through glamours, that she was one member of Fizzy Pop, the less enthusiastic one.

"I'm glad to see that we've all gathered here," Chikd was the first at the distributor meeting to speak, "Even you, Skorgles.  I was surprised that you decided to grace us with your presence."

Skorgles looked around the room.  They'd picked an old hotel's rec room, using the pool table as a conference table, "I wouldn't miss it for anything.  Just because I don't care about rankings and I encourage my magica to murder yours, doesn't mean I haven't been impacted by these disappearances.  One of mine went missing too, after all, and it's imperative that you know it wasn't Goddess, but Solar Applause."

"Solar Applause..." Blade mumbled, "26th lowest in the rankings, but that would be your highest rank, wouldn't it, Skorgles?  So that's a good point.  It is the highest rank, or it was the highest rank five months ago.  Solar Applause received a letter of commendation, right?"

Skorgles nodded, "Yes.  I'll assume that you know because Stripe received one too."

"All of our missing magica got them," Captive Ham added in, looking around the table, "Forever Sparkling Into Eternity was so surprised and proud.  She didn't even know until then that she was my best magica at rank 44..."

"I'm worried about Diamond Dust," Desire Train sighed, staring at the ceiling, "My magica all kind of think that I'm a jerk, but I do care about them.  Diamond Dust's husband... He knew that he was a magical boy, and was the second one to file a missing person report after Stripe's grandmother.  We need to find our missing magica, because we know that they aren't dead.  There's no way we can let this go without discovering the truth behind their disappearances."

"That's right..." Oh One mumbled, dejected.  It seemed to have nothing but sadness in its voice, "Guardian Angel is so worried about Prince Horace, and so am I, and so are all our friends.  My posse and our magica, especially in Tokyo, want to do all that we can to find the missing magica."

"Hey," Skorgles spoke up, its voice a bit condescending, "Wasn't Guardian Angel the last person to be seen with Prince Horace?  And didn't he rocket to spot number four as soon as you contracted him?  Haven't you considered that it could be an inside job by a magica?"

Must Pope looked over at Skorgles, eyes wider than normal, "Why would you bring up that possibility?  That implicates your magica more than it could possibly implicate any of ours!"

"That's where you're mistaken.  Not a single one of my magica would ever kidnap a high ranking magica without killing them.  Even Giftwrap wouldn't let her own desires get in the way of collecting magical power," Skorgles laughed, "If you're so mistaken on the Modus Operandi of mine, how can you be confident in any of yours?"

"The only magica of mine that I'd ever think would do this," Desire Train spoke up, "Wouldn't have.  I can never predict Future Style, but I do know that she wouldn't take part in making Forever Sparkling Into Eternity disappear.  That's the only thing I would ever put past her."

Captive Ham nodded along, "I think that's true.  Sparkling and Future were friends.  When it comes to my magica... Sunday Devil doesn't like consequences, so he'd be a suspect if the disappearances were unranked magica between the bottom thirty and top hundred.  And similar to Skorgles' magica, there's no way Lady Justice would ever keep anyone alive if she kept them this long.  She's impatient."

"So it isn't a magica belonging to a superpower," Blem spoke up, waving its eyestalks, "If it's a magica at all, then it's somebody unranked, or in the rankings who's a fluke, not a trend.  I'm not convinced it is a magica, though.  All of us... This is our first truly human universe, right?  Our group's first foray into a world fully capable of free will and creative thought.  Every other universe we've dabbled in, the humans have been tools, not people, before we even got there.  So of course things would be more interesting here."

"That's right," Sugarcanesugarcane agreed, "We would never have a conversation like this in our past universes.  I think what Blem is saying is that... Monsters level 9 and 10 may actually have the ability to spawn in a world like this.  We have no idea what those could be.  For all we know, monsters really could be responsible for this."

"Nonsense," Skorgles scoffed, "Monsters can't think that much.  It's the only way most of your weak little magica can stand a chance against them, after all.  All those small fry have going for them is strategy, not power.  The only magica who can actually match a monster in power levels are probably Goddess, Bluebird, Prince Horace, Uamake, or Fizzy Pop.  And lest we forget, two of those in the list have disappeared off the face of the planet."

"Skorgles..." Captive Ham spoke up, "Who is Bluebird?"

"The second worst magica, of course.  She's surpassed Sunday Devil.  She became a magical girl last July.  It's been almost a year for her now, since it's June," Skorgles answered, "Goddess created her, which is why you all didn't know when she came into existence.  I've only recently convinced her to go public on the rankings."

"There are a lot of year-old magica now," Must Pope noted, "I'm surprised, less of them have died than I was expecting.  Well, of course there's still been a lot of death, but less than I would have thought would happen.  The rankings hardly even shift around that much."

"Of course," Oh One spoke up again, this time masking its sadness behind the fact that it, as the top distributor, had more information about the universe available to it, "Not only is this a truly human world, but there's also the matter of magical culture as it existed before we arrived.  Admittedly, we did base our methods on that culture, deeming it more effective in this universe than calling our magically gifted beings mages, wizards, or any other term... But it also seems that thanks to these correlations we created, everyone already knows what it means to be a magica, and what has to be done.  The dangers, and the required skills.  It isn't often we recruit somebody who just can't handle the job."

"Their distrust of us leads them to be more effective magica," Blem added in, "Thanks to the divide between stories about magical girls who are all sunshine and rainbows, and the stories where becoming a magical girl is just some ploy to get something else more sinister from them, nobody knows what to think of how upfront we are with the dangers of becoming one.  Still, if they think our goal is for them to die fighting monsters, that only motivates them to fight harder."

"Enough philosophical talk," Desire Train snapped, then grumbled, "We need to determine what tasks should be given for the purpose of resolving the case of these missing magica!  I vote that we still focus on fighting monsters, but with a side goal of finding these magica.  Wherever they are, they'd still just die if we dropped monster-hunting to look for them.  We all need orbs."

"My posse and our magica will follow up on dangerous leads," Oh One decided, "Blade and I already discussed that would probably be the case.  It's going to try and figure out what type of magic could be at play here."

"I'm not going to participate in this side-quest," Skorgles decided, and none of them could really argue with it.  It always did what it wanted, no matter what anybody said to it.  All they could ever hope to do was stay out of its way and avoid starting trouble with the one distributor who relished in it, "I don't care that Solar Applause is missing, and with your top magica all out of the way, it just makes my goal easier.  Informing you of my own magica's situation is the most kindness I'll show to you."

"That's more than anyone expected of you," Sugarcanesugarcane confirmed, swishing its tail, then looked around the table, "Anyway, Captive Ham.  The rest of your magica aren't especially strong or high ranking, right?  With that in mind, I think that you should follow up on less dangerous leads.  Desire Train, your ability may be useful too.  The magic used might not bypass your skill of telling where in the same city as you somebody is, so if you have a magica with travel magic, that could be very helpful of you."

"Of course," Desire Train agreed, "I'll gladly do that.  I don't have any magica like that right now, but I can try to create one, since I have a charge currently."

"I can assist you," Sugarcanesugarcane offered, "I'm able to appear at somebody's most likely moment to become a magica.  I can take you along when doing that until we find someone who's likely to end up with a travel ability, like a... Devoted flight attendant?  I don't know.  Usually I wouldn't offer help to my rival, but if it will help to find Prince Horace and the other missing magica, then of course I will."

"Why thank you," Desire Train nodded, "That is one thing we can all agree on.  We can't have magica disappearing like this, none of us want that.  So we can work together for this purpose."

---------

Yuuri Ruka felt, for the first time, that he might regret having become a magical boy.  It was strange that now was when he became so worried, with everything Sayaka had said to reassure him, but that really didn't help.  Her statement that a level eight monster could be defeated without Horace and Fizzy Pop hinged on the idea that a level eight now was exactly as powerful as the last one.  That couldn't be assumed

It was the kidnapping in general that shook him more than the idea of fighting a monster so strong without the best magica, however.  His reasons for becoming a magical boy were simple enough; he wanted to have agency over himself and his choices.  If it was possible for anything or anybody in this world to kidnap the strongest magica out there, then what choice did he have?

It was terrifying.  For the past month, he'd been fighting through it, carrying on despite the dread which sat in his stomach.  He could be fine, if he tried, but trying all of the time was just something he wasn't capable of.  Not tonight, anyway.  There was a trigger for it, of course.  He'd been to see his mother.

That was never a good idea, of course, and he certainly hadn't wanted to go.  It was required of him, however, because of an incident while he was in high school.  A violent outburst against the wrong person had earned him a probation period, and to this day he was required to "see firsthand the effect of prison" by having regular meetings with his mother, even with the technical probation finished.

Not that they could do anything to him if he broke the rules, given he was a magical boy now, but he'd had the fear of authority put into him.  Of this authority.  Logically, he knew that he could give up on the whole deal and nothing would go wrong.  Still, he found himself going.  She was just as awful as ever, every time.  Prison didn't dull her blade at all.  Just seeing her face reminded him of how his life had been ruined, and she always asked about Hikari.

Hikari... Yuuri had never felt bitter towards his little sister.  He only envied that she had been spared the full wrath of Komaru Ruka.  She almost hadn't been.  It had almost been her, until Komaru's criminal contacts informed her that thanks to the number of people like her, there wasn't much demand for young girls.  Her son was a much more viable option to sell off at this point.  Hikari still needed to feel the sting of knowing her mother had considered it, and she was so young then.  Yuuri was the better part of five years older than her.

He didn't blame her for running away.  Everyone thought that Hikari was murdered by the Vagrant Killer, but Yuuri didn't buy into that, especially when Ayano resurfaced.  His theory was that his sister, tired of growing in the shadow of their mother's misdeeds, ran away with her best friends.  She was still out there somewhere, but he didn't worry about her.  She would be fine.  He didn't say that to Komaru, though.  Their mother could think Hikari was dead.

His sister didn't need to keep living in that shadow, even as he was forced to.  If he ever stopped seeing his mother, it would still hang over him, because it influenced his entire life and the way he saw the world, interacted with the world.  It was the reason he was in this hole now.  Becoming a magical boy was his attempt at clawing his way out of that hole.

But now that the dirt was falling back in around him, he found himself lying on the floor of his apartment, looking up at the ceiling.  He was probably going to lose the client he bailed on tonight, and he didn't really care.  As he tackled adulthood, he did begin to understand why his mother did such an awful thing to him.  Everything costs so much, and he could barely afford rent on his grocery store wages, let alone any other bills or food.  His mother wanted nice things, and she didn't want to work, and both of those ideas were beyond him.  He still needed to supplement his income.

He put his hand up in the air, staring at the question mark on his arm.  He'd been drinking that night, more than he probably should have.  The edges of his vision were blurry, and he definitely didn't want to try standing up.  He could sit up, though, so he did.  He kept looking at the mark, and he wondered.  He'd been warned to avoid letting it come to harm, but he was just depressed enough and just drunk enough to want to find out what that could be.

He pulled his pocketknife from his jacket, and flipped the blade out, narrowing his eyes at it.  It wasn't like he'd never cut human flesh before, but it hadn't been his own.  He wasn't quick to draw it, but he also wasn't against bringing a knife to a fistfight if he had to.  Being kind of a scoundrel about town led to some situations like that; it was a shame that as a magical boy, he was known for prostitution, and as a human he was known for petty crimes, but it was better than having his flaws all on display at once.

He certainly considered the former a flaw, but only as it reflected on himself.  It wasn't something he wanted to do, or enjoyed at all.  It was something he wanted to leave behind, but instead all he could do was take pains to make it 'less awful'.  The petty crimes and violence didn't bring him so much shame, since those did bring him friends like Kotomi.  That much was in his nature, and he felt at home with people like her.

Even so, it felt like a flaw right now.  Like another aspect of aftermath, not a part of his personality like it was.  Just more aftermath, and he wasn't fond of that idea in the least.  He figured, even if harming the mark resulted in some horrible fate like the loss of his magic, or his death, it was fine.  He sighed, and brought the knife to his mark, applying light pressure.  He saw one drop of blood bead up, then everything went foggy and sharp all at the same time, like smoke with a strobe light inside of it.  He tossed the knife across the room and gritted his teeth as that feeling crashed down on him.  His entire body hurt, all of it, more than he'd ever felt before.

It was only a second.  No, half a second, it wasn't any time at all, and as quickly as it had come, it disappeared.  He fell forward onto his hands, breathing heavily, and retched, unable to even move to avoid emptying the contents of his stomach directly onto the floor.  He stayed there for what felt like forever, but had to only be a single minute when he heard a knock on the door.  God, he didn't want anybody to see him in this state.  He didn't answer at all.  Even if it was Kotomi, the worst she'd seen him was this drunk, not in this much overall disrepair.

Another knock came, accompanied by a shout through the door, concerned, "R-Ruka-san?  Are you okay?  I heard you scream!"  Of course it was Kanoshi.  He groaned.  He didn't even realize he'd made a sound, but with the amount of pain he'd felt, it made sense.  He didn't respond, but Kanoshi just wouldn't give up, "If you don't answer then I'll break the door down!"

"God!" Yuuri yelled at the door, getting off his hands to sit back again, coughing as he moved, "I'm fine, sensei!  Just leave me alone!"

He realized his mistake right away, but not before Kanoshi opened the door, realizing that Yuuri had forgotten to lock it.  Quietly, he moved to sit down next to him and sighed, keeping his voice gentle, "Ruka-san, that's exactly what you said to me the day your mother was arrested."

"...Fucking, call Kotomi," Yuuri groaned, bringing an arm up to cover his face, "You don't gotta see me like this, okay?  She can deal with me.  She can deal with my bullshit, I won't make you-"

"Shush," Kanoshi stood back up, "I understand," He did, too.  He realized that though Yuuri spoke as if he was trying not to inconvenience Kanoshi, it was that he would prefer Kanoshi didn't see him in this state.  He would do the same thing himself, though.  He wouldn't have wanted anyone to see him the night that the high-ranking magica disappeared; he'd been hit especially hard by Horace's vanishing, and had only recovered in the weeks following thanks to the help of the other Tokyo Magica.

He turned around and pulled out his phone; Kotomi had given her his number, 'just in case', and this had to be one of those just in case situations.  He sent her a text saying that Yuuri was having a bad night and needed her.  She responded straight away, saying she'd be right there.  Kanoshi wasn't going to leave Yuuri completely alone until she arrived, but he would do as much as he could for Yuuri, just staying in the room but not looking at him.

Kotomi was there much sooner than Kanoshi expected, and she motioned for him to leave the apartment.  He complied, and she went to sit next to Yuuri once he was gone, "Hey, Rucchi.  The fuck happened to you this time?"

He moved his arm away from his face to look up at her, eyes puffy, and shook his head, "Can't keep saying shit's happened to me.  This time, I just fucked up, yeah?  This ain't anybody's fault but mine.  I had to see my mom today, so I came home and got drunk off my ass.  Not coping well, that's what this is, and nothing else.  The missing magica on top of it, and..."

Kotomi nodded, then stood up and went to his kitchen, retrieving a roll of paper towels, "And you did whatever made you puke your guts out, yeah?  That never happens when you drink," She started doing her best to clean up the floor, but kept her eyes on him, "You better tell me."

"I only wanted you here because you were the lesser of two evils to see me, compared to my middle school teacher," Yuuri sighed, but he answered anyway.  He couldn't get away with keeping it from her, "I wanted to see what would happen, if I injured my question mark," He held his arm out, "Turns out, it's just a ton of pain.  More than anyone could imagine.  More than I could imagine before it happened."

"More than you could imagine's quite a feat," Kotomi noted, holding her own hair back with one hand as she cleaned with the other, "Look, I'm not against magica or anything, but if you're gonna be one then you damn well better be careful about it.  If you're gonna do stupid shit anyway, you may as well be a human.  I'm in fights all the time, and I get by just fine, because I'm smart, okay?"

"If you're so smart, then why are you wasting time on a fucked up idiot mag like me?" Yuuri questioned with a bitter chuckle, which earned him a glare.

"Cause you're my friend, and cause you've been my friend for a while now.  If you can't understand that, then you really are an idiot," She shook her head with a grimace, "It ain't like you've never been there for me when I've screwed up.  I know you'll find a way to pay me back for this.  You always do, even when you don't need to..."

--------

"Oi, Moron-sensei," Sayaka got Kanoshi's attention as soon as he left Yuuri's apartment, and he jumped half out of his skin.

"Y-Yamaguchi-san!?  What are you doing here?" Kanoshi questioned, holding his arms in close to himself.  Even after fighting against monsters alongside her, she was intimidating on a personal level.  Especially since she continued to insist on calling him a moron.

She shrugged, stepped up from the wall she'd been leaning against, "I live with Tanako-chan now, and I figured it'd be faster if I brought her.  That van of hers may be great, but even it can't bypass eight-pm traffic around this neighborhood.  Figured we should get here as quick as possible.  So what happened to Rukkun?"

"Your nickname for him is so much kinder..." Kanoshi sighed, holding a hand to his own forehead, "I don't know.  He wanted me to call Kotomi instead of helping him myself, I think he was embarrassed.  So I wasn't about to pry."

"Lame," Sayaka scoffed, looking away, "You could have at least peeked!  Come on, if you called, then you gotta know something about it."

"I heard Ruka-san scream from my apartment under him, then I came up here to try and find out what happened.  He didn't answer the first time I knocked, then he yelled at me to go away, but I got worried because he said it the same way he said it back when some... stuff happened when he was my student, eight years ago now."

Sayaka narrowed her eyes, staring right through him, "Yeah, I know what happened.  With that in mind, you still turned your back on him until I brought Tanako-chan here?"

Kanoshi fidgeted under her gaze, shifting between his feet, "I know if I was in that situation, I'd want to be left alone if I asked to be... I was trying to respect Ruka-san.  He is an adult."

In response to this, Sayaka just turned away from him and crossed her arms, "Yeah, I'd wanna be too.  If you found me for sure, I'd probably tell you to get Kaiba-nee, but you know what?  She's nowhere around here.  Tanako-chan might not have been either.  What people want in crisis is never what they really need... You should have kept an eye on him."

"What does it matter if I should have?  I didn't, and it worked out fine," Kanoshi defended himself on principle, but there wasn't much conviction in his voice, "I'm a teacher, not a therapist.  I don't know how to deal with adult problems at all.  I barely know how to deal with kid problems as it is!"

"You were a teacher," Sayaka tilted her head, glancing back at him, "You're not a teacher now, because you became a magical boy.  I won't expect you to know how to deal with adult problems, or kid problems, but I swear to God, Kyosuke-kun, with Prince Horace gone you're the oldest magica in Tokyo.  So you better learn how to deal with magical problems.  You're a support type, so act like it."

"...Yamaguchi-san," Kanoshi gave her a nervous smile, "You really care, huh?"

"No!" She snapped back, bringing her hands up to try to hide the embarrassed blush on her face, "You're my comrades, not my friends.  I just don't want to go back to how tough it was to fight on my own if you screw up and all end up dead because you're a bunch of grown men less competent at being adults than a damn schoolgirl!"

"Sure," Kanoshi chuckled, then turned as he heard the door of Yuuri's apartment open again.  He was surprised to see Yuuri there rather than Kotomi.  He frowned, "Everything good...?"

Yuuri leaned against the doorframe to steady himself, and nodded, "Kotomi talked some sense into me.  I won't do anything so stupid again.  I... don't want to talk about it, but I guess I do have to warn the two of you.  It really is important that you don't get even a little hurt, where your mark is.  If you do, you'll regret it."

"Hello everybody," Oh One appeared suddenly, again.  It did that often, "Well, Kanoshi and Yuuri, I suppose.  I'll talk to the others soon.  It seems that you're not having a good night.  I hope I can remedy that.  I have good news.  A possible lead, we'll investigate as soon as possible.  Some monsters have been behaving strangely in Nagasaki prefecture, so I'd appreciate if your team could make your way in that direction.  After getting your affairs in order to leave for a period of time, of course."

"I'm good to go anytime," Kanoshi nodded, straightening up, "The eSports league that recruited me is salary, so as long as I play often and stay well-ranked when I am able, it's fine to go on hiatus."

"My boss knows I'm a magical boy, and I pick up so many extra hours and shifts to help out," Yuuri agreed, holding a hand to his head, "I can leave... The day after tomorrow.  I'll need some recovery time."

"Recovery time?" Oh One questioned, its eyes immediately going to the small wound on Yuuri's arm.  It made a strange, concerned noise, taking a step backwards, "A week.  We'll need to wait at least a week.  Yuuri, don't do any fighting until that's fully healed.  That's an order," With that said, it turned around, "Anyway, I'll go speak with Infernal and Lullabye.  You two... Ugh, stay out of trouble, okay?  Get some rest."

Oh One took off again to inform the others of this lead, and Sayaka pulled out her phone.  She was informing Blade of her intentions to join her 'comrades' in their investigative trip to Nagasaki.  It would be the first time she went back to that prefecture since the Korekara Massacre, a year and a half later.

At least this time, she'd have people she could rely on.  Yuuri and Kanoshi would definitely protect her; and that was just what they were thinking, too.  Of course they'd all have each other's backs.  Sayaka still tried to mask her involvement in their battles by showing up fashionably late, but being friends with adult men wasn't unusual for her, once they proved she could trust them.  That was her life back in Kobe, after all.

Kanoshi was excited to follow this lead.  Some part of him was optimistic, and another part knew that optimism was unfounded, but maybe this strange monster activity really could lead them to the missing magica.  That was the best case scenario, and Kanoshi was hoping it would be the one which they ended up with.  Even with the blow to his confidence of the incident occurring in the first place, even with whatever just happened to Yuuri... He still felt that becoming a magical boy wasn't a mistake.

If he hadn't become one, after all, how could he hope to help with any of those issues?  As a magica himself, he stood a chance at protecting everyone he cared about, a better chance than he ever could as a human.  

That was what mattered in the end.

Next Chapter->

Akuma No Imouto Chapter Eight

<-Previous Chapter

<-----First Chapter

Your name is Ryoji Masaomi, and you hold in your hands an axe which is the physical embodiment of Sayaka Yamaguchi’s darkest secret.  However, you immediately throw it aside when you see the state that your twin brother is in.  You’ve only just discovered that, although it’s not supposed to be that way, Nagi can remember the details of what happens within a patron’s mind when collecting the secret, something which you can only do if you’re close friends with the person whose secret you’re collecting.  Otherwise, all you remember is problems which can be remedied for next time by learning a new skill.

Nagi’s lying on the ground, curled up in fetal position, trembling, whimpering.  Vicente looks over from behind the bar, then jumps into action as he realizes that in that state, any demon would lose control over their disguise, and scoops Nagi up to put him in the kitchen with Koren again before returning to work.  By the time he’s finished this, you’ve got your thoughts together, and you turn on Sayaka, grabbing the front of her shirt with a harsh scowl on your face, “How do you know Kiyoteru Tanaka!?”

“W-What!?” Sayaka questions, “I thought you didn’t remember the secrets!”

“I don’t,” You hiss, staring into her eyes, overtaken by anger, “But I know my brother, and I know that the only thing he could ever see in someone’s mind that would put him into that condition is Kiyoteru Tanaka.  This is the worst condition he’s ever been in after secret collecting, and it has to have been a result of that man being involved.  So tell me.  How do you know him?”

“I killed him,” Sayaka answers, pushing against your shoulders, “I killed him fourteen years ago.”

“Nonsense,” You growl back, but you do let go of her, taking a step backwards, “I killed him five years ago.  When Nagi and I first arrived in the human world.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.  I really made sure that he was dead,” Sayaka mutters, holding her hands to her chest with a worried frown, “Maybe you killed somebody else with the same name?”

“I really don’t think that’s likely,”  You groan, then grab Sayaka’s wrist, stop by the bar to grab another serving of the potion, then drag her back to the kitchen, “And I’ll prove it.  Neptune remembered, Nagi remembers, so I’m betting you’ll remember too.  I’m going to show you Nagi’s secret, and then you’ll understand,” Your grip on her wrist gets even tighter, “You’ll understand why I had to kill him, and why there’s no way I got the wrong guy.”

“I really don’t think that’s necessary-” She starts to protest, but you throw her to the ground next to Nagi as you crouch down and pour the potion into his mouth, locking eyes with Sayaka as you do so.  She seems terrified, and you don’t care.  You want her to be afraid.  Maybe it is unnecessary, but when she’s intent on confusing you on your revenge, you’re bound to be a little bit petty.

----

“Wow.  I’m surprised that worked,” A man’s voice broke through the darkness of the room, filling it with a sound which the secret onlookers found familiar and unsettling, but this was the first time that the target of his words was hearing it, “Perfect.  Give me my options, Nagito-kun.”

Nagi looked up, finding himself somewhere entirely different than he expected.  Last he knew he was walking to school, but next thing, he was here.  The room had barely any lighting to it, and he could tell what was happening as soon as he took a look at the floor and discovered that he was sitting in the middle of a pentacle.  He’d… been summoned?  Well, that was okay.  He did go to school, he knew what to do in this situation.  He slowly stood up, then turned to face the one who’d summoned him.

“Your options…” Nagi mumbled, flexing his fingers.  This was strange; by being summoned, he’d been forced into a human shape.  That didn’t usually happen… Well, he blinked a few times, “Uh, I need to know what you want, first.”

“I did write what I wanted in the circle,” The man frowned as he said this, checking it, “But I suppose that’s just to send a certain type of demon, and is useless if summoning someone by their name?  Or maybe eleven is just too young for you to be able to figure that out yourself,” He rubbed his fingers together, “What I’m looking for is sex.  With you, not with some succubus.  You know what that is, right, Nagito-kun?”

“Uh…” Nagi frowned, crossing his arms over his chest, “Y-You summoned me specifically?  How did you know who I was?”

“That’s not important, but if you must know, I saw you when I stumbled into Ura town and asked somebody for your name.  It’s unlucky for you that the first demon I asked knew it and was willing to give it up to me,” He put a hand out toward him, “I thought you were cute.  Now can you please give me my contracting options?”

Nagi brought his hands up to cover his face, confused and afraid.  He’d heard that being summoned was something which was easy to deal with, that the contracts would usually be dealt with by other people.  He couldn’t do anything but offer the contracts, of course.  Maybe he could make them so ridiculous that they’d all be refused; then he’d fall into ‘summoned by an idiot’ territory and be trapped in the human world for a while, but at least he wouldn’t have to give in to this man’s wishes.  He brought three contracts up in front of him.

1. One night in exchange for the summoner’s soul upon death
2. One hour in exchange for blood donations from the summoner until death
3. One night in exchange for indentured work to the demon populace from the summoner until death.

“Huh.  I guess you’re giving me the absolute worst offers that you’re allowed to give.  Hoping I’ll give up?” He questioned, then lifted a pen and signed ‘Kiyoteru Tanaka’ on the first contract, smirking as he watched Nagi’s surprise, “That’ll just make this more fun.”

------

“What… What year was this?” Sayaka turns away from the scene, which seems in this case to be playinhg out on a television screen and asks you when this happened.  It’s a strange question, but you’ll answer it nonetheless.

“What year?  Uh, 2005,” You answer, glad for an excuse to look away from the scene anyway, crossing your arms in response to Sayaka, “Why, though?”

“Ughh…” She closes her eyes and turns to lean her back against the screen, covering her mouth with both hands as she shakes her head, her reaction seeming more dramatic than you would have expected, “So that’s what he meant, Oh my God…”

“Eh?” You question, taking up a similar position to her as the sounds on the other side of the screen grow more and more unsettling, and you don’t want to see that, “What are you talking about, Yamaguchi-san?”

“When he kidnapped me in 2006,” She explains, curling in on herself, “He said that he’s once ‘broken an eleven year old boy in just one day’.  If the chance has happened that I ended up meeting that boy he was referring to, then doesn’t that mean that he has to have hurt a whole lot of people?  It can’t be pure coincidence.  Statistically speaking,” She takes a deep breath and straightens up again, looking up at the ceiling with her voice unsteady, still shaking her head slightly, “And if he didn’t actually die when I killed him, how many people has he hurt since then?”

“I don’t know,” You shake your head, and the screen seems to be able to tell that you’re willfully looking away, and instead cuts to a moment that you remember full well, just as you can hear it.  When Nagi got back.  He didn’t want to leave the house for about a month, and you’d talk to him through the door of his room, and he’d want to hear your complaints every time you had a bad day, even though you were ten and he was eleven and his problems were so much bigger than yours.  He still stuck it out for you.  Maybe it was to avoid telling you what happened.

He only told you when you asked, years later.  Maybe he felt that he’d be pretty awful too, if he told his little sister about all of that before you’d be able to handle it.  He did end up telling you, though, and you never forgot, and that’s what left you with the decision, upon arriving in the human world, to track down Kiyoteru Tanaka and kill him yourself.  And you did.  You destroyed his whole home, and that was when you met Arthur.

Arthur had been providing magic for him in exchange for two things; being left alone, and collecting the secrets of Kiyoteru’s victims.  He was very glad to make a deal with you instead, to stop being an accessory to that man; though he could never explain to you why he wasn’t just able to use his magic to get out of there.  You do have to wonder about that, but Arthur’s proven time and time again that you can trust him.

“Sorry…” Sayaka speaks up again, breaking you from your thought after a while of listening through Nagi’s teenagerhood stretching out from that singular incident, “Look, it’s obvious that’s the same Kiyoteru Tanaka, the same person.  I just don’t understand how we could have both killed him…”

“I don’t get it either,” You sigh, biting your lip, “I mean, there’s always one possibility, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” You think about it a little more, then just shake your head, “Nevermind.  Let’s try and find the item for Nagi’s secret, and get back to the real world.  Sorry I overreacted.  I just… After what he did to my brother, I was pretty brutal towards him.  It was really unsettling to hear you say you killed him.  But… Now that I’m thinking straight, you’d have no reason to lie about what you thought you did.”

“Yeah, I want to go home,” Sayaka nods, pushing off from the wall to stand up straight and look around, “This was definitely a weird day.  I wouldn’t say it’s been a bad one… But I want to get some sleep.  I am just a human, you know.  All of this is pretty bizarre, pretty beyond me.”

“You’re handling it quite well, for a human,” You note, looking for an item as well, your back still to the screen.  The room you and Sayaka ended up in to ‘watch’ the secret through is really quite small, so it doesn’t take long for you to notice the ballpoint pen sitting on the floor.  You crouch down and pick it up, then Sayaka walks over and leans down as well, looking over your shoulder at the mysterious office supply.

“That pen… Isn’t that what he used to sign that contract with Nagi-kun?” Sayaka questions as she squints at it, then stands up again.  You stand up as well and take a closer look at the pen, and while you’re examining it, you find yourself back in the real world again.  Time resumes, and Koren slithers over to investigate the problem.

“What’s going on?” She questions, then freezes as she sees the pen in your hand, taking a long look at it before she snatches it and holds it up above her own head with a scrutinous squint, “Where did you get this??”

“That?” You ask, stepping closer to her, “That’s the embodiment of Nagi’s secret.”

“Oh my,” Koren returns the pen, frowning, “Well, you really should hand that over to Arthur as soon as you can, dear.  Somebody might get the wrong idea if you carry around a pen like that.”

“Why?” You question, looking it over, “It seems like an ordinary pen to me.”

“Well, I suppose it does, if you don’t know what it means.  A ballpoint pen with three aqua stripes and one yellow stripe at the bottom, though, is supposed to be a subtle way for members of the Order of the Felinus to reveal themselves to their comrades,” Koren explains, then turns to Sayaka, “Say, you’re the one who was asking if I had anything gamier than beef, right?”

“I am,” Sayaka nods as Koren returns the pen to you, “I knew… the person who hurt Nagi-kun was in The Order, but how did you know about the pen?”

“I’m smart, and I get around,” Koren answers, holding finger to her chin, “So a friend of mine warned me about it.”

“I see,” You nod, then pull your phone out and call Arthur, asking him to come by immediately to pick up the three secrets you’ve collected today.  You have to hope that Nagi doesn’t mind too much, that you went ahead and collected his… If he even finds out, that is.  You’ll only tell him if he asks.  That seems to be a consistent theme between the two of you; you don’t keep secrets, but you aren’t upfront either.  That’s just how it is.

While you wait for Arthur to arrive, you return to the bar and send Vicente back to handle the tables.  Koren continues cooking while she keeps an eye on Nagi, and you give Sayaka and the rest of her group your blessing to leave as soon as they’re ready.  Sayaka doesn’t need to keep being involved just because you dragged her into it, and she’s earned Akuma Spirits the title of yakuza hangout… if she still wants it.  You can imagine that she might have changed her mind after a day like today.  When Vicente’s got his tables sorted out, he comes to have a chat with you, leaning on the counter, “So, you gonna explain to me what this’s all been about?”

“No,” You answer immediately, cleaning out a glass.  The place is technically already closed at this point, so everyone’s finishing up.  It’s been a busy evening, “You don’t need to know.  Everyone who I’ve explained it to has suffered for it, so you’re much better off in blissful ignorance, capiche?”

“Eh, I’m fine with that,” He shrugs, and doesn’t press the matter anymore, “But you know, I can’t help but worry about that kid.  He’s your little brother, right?”

“Older brother, actually,” You correct him, “I don’t have any other siblings,” You notice the surprise on his face, and chuckle, “Look, he’s only older by a year, so it’s not like there’s some automatic guarantee that he’ll have his shit together more than I do.  Don’t they also say that boys mature at a slower rate than girls?  I guess that kind of doesn’t mean anything when it comes to trans folks, though,” Your laugh fades into a wistful sigh as you look back towards the kitchen, “I don’t know if he’ll ever be okay.”

“He’ll have to be eventually,” Vicente assures you, running a hand through his hair, “I used to think I’d never be okay, but here I am now, way more than okay.  It’s just a matter of time, and you know, demons have all the time in the world.  I think you really are doing what’s best for him.  I mean, I could be wrong, but I recovered thanks to normalcy.  Supportive friends, a regular routine, more good days than bad days.”

“I’d love to know what you recovered from,” You note as you set a glass down in front of him.  Red wine, any sort from a mid-cost-branch.  You’ve got his order memorized, “But I won’t be asking, especially not today.  Enough’s happened today.  I don’t need to hear the sob story of an incubus on top of that.”

“Rude,” Vicente raises an eyebrow as he takes the drink from you, “But good too, because I have no intention of telling my incubus sob story.  Not today, anyway.  All I can say is that maybe it’ll take a decade, maybe it’ll even take a century, but your brother’s gonna be fine eventually.  Humans have that disadvantage.  No matter what they do, they might die before they ever feel okay again.  Demons can just keep on keeping on until eventually, someday, everything awful fades away.  Maybe that’s why humans are so much worse.  Demons know that any negative impact they cause will wear off.  Sadistic humans, though… They can see the end of a life before the end of their influence.”

“I guess that’s a good point,” You nod, watching as the last patron files out of the bar, suppressing a yawn as you speak again, “I don’t really know… what to make of the universe, but I guess that’s because I’m still just twenty-five.  I may be an adult, but by demon lifespan standards, I’m still just bound to be clueless.  Maybe I shouldn’t be the one carrying this burden…” You’re not really talking to Vicente anymore, but to yourself.  Should you be looking at people’s deepest secrets when you’re still learning about the world?  You don’t have much more time to think on it, though, because that’s when Arthur arrives.

“So,” Arthur starts as he walks in, but you hold up a hand to stop him from continuing and turn to Vicente again.

“You really don’t want to be involved in all of this, Vicente,” You raise your eyebrows, “So you can head on out.”

“Hm?  Oh, well, okay,” He stands up, giving Arthur a wink as he goes past.  Once he’s gone, you walk towards Arthur, bringing the three secrets along with you.

“Thanks for coming, Arthur.  I know it’s weird to do something like this, but apparently this pen is something which I shouldn’t hold onto for too long,” You hold it and the buckle out in one hand, and you’re holding onto the axe with the other, “All three of these should be pretty strong, too.”

“You’re lucky I was available to travel here normally,” He mutters as he inspects the items, “If I’d been busy, then I would have had to get Jela to port me here, and you know if two of us go somewhere, it’s really all four of us,” He’s referring to his three roommates.  You don’t know much about them except that apparently they don’t like going anywhere together if it’s not all together.  You’ve not yet had the pleasure, or as Arthur seems to think you’d find it, displeasure of meeting them.

“Yeah, I guess so.  Anyway, are these things as strong as I’m expecting?  I’ve been ending up with a lot of good ones lately, you know,” You shake your hand, trying to get his attention back to the items that you’re holding in it.

“Huh?” He questions, then actually takes a closer look at the secrets, “Oh yeah, wow.  All three of these are seriously strong… You know, I’m running out of spells to cast at this point,” He chuckles, straightening out his back, “Well, I’ll use one of these to give you some more space in the building of course!  I’d say this is about the ceiling of how strong a secret can get, so using one of these for a bigger on the inside spell will be just about the biggest bigger on the inside I can accomplish… Better than the small charm I was intending, if you’d want that,” He blinks slowly, “I’m just trying to think… what other big spells can be useful to you,” He mumbles.

“Why not just hold on to the magic for a while?” You offer, raising a finger in the air, “You were saying that you can’t figure out how to use anything more than charms, so why don’t you just hold onto the power for a while until you can learn to use it on something even more interesting?”

“I’d love to do that, but…” He sighs, scratching the back of his neck, “The reason I can’t figure out how to use anything more powerful is that there’s no resources for me to use.  There’s nobody who can teach me, and it’s dumb luck that I even found the one book of charms that I did.  Secrets magic really predates the internet, and I can’t exactly go looking through demon libraries right now…”

“I’m not saying there’s any rush,” You insist, “I’m saying that you don’t need to worry about paying it back to me quickly, just keep the magic until you find something interesting worth using it on.  Doesn’t even have to be relevant to Akuma Spirits, honestly.  We’ve been doing pretty great from a business standpoint, even if we’re dealing with some weird things around here emotionally lately.”

“You have?” Arthur questions as he takes the secret-items from you, maintaining eye contact.

“Well, today especially.  That buckle was from a creature which isn’t a demon, it used to be a human but… isn’t,” You explain, “The axe is from a girl in the yakuza named Sayaka, she was also involved with Tanaka, and apparently Nagi remembers what happens in the process of secret collection even if he isn’t close to the person whose secret it is…”

“Huh?” Arthur pauses, blinking at you, “You’ve been sending him in?”

“Sending?  No, bringing,” You shake your head, “Anyway, he had a breakdown because Tanaka was in that secret, so I got his secret too.  That pen.  I was kind of petty I guess, I made Sayaka-chan come with me because she said that she killed him in 2006.  That’s nonsense, though.  I killed him just a few years ago.”

“Well, that would explain why he remembers, the potion’s only made to wipe one infiltrator’s memory,” Arthur notes, then freezes when he realizes your entire sentence, “This pen is… Nagi-san’s secret?”

“Yeah, it is,” You nod, “I figured I’d collect it eventually, anyway, but I ended up with it today because I was overreacting.  Anyway, you spent some time with Tanaka, right?  Do you have any idea how she could believe that she killed him a good decade before I did?”

“Of course I know how,” He answers, slipping the pen into his pocket and the other items into his bag.  You’re getting worried; his voice is flat, but with how upset his expression is, you can tell that’s just an attempt to mask his emotion, “Kiyoteru Tanaka isn’t human, after all.  He can’t be killed that easily.  In fact, as far as I know, he can’t be killed at all.”

“You mean…” You take a step backwards at this new information, “He regenerated…?  He’s seriously not human?  But what demon would be so horrible?”

“It’s naive to think that just because there’s so many bad humans per each bad demon… you won’t encounter a bad demon.  You know as well as I that demons in the human world for non-summoned reasons can summon demons themselves, and it’s much easier to get away with crime in the human world, so of course he’d be here,” Arthur continues, staring at you as his voice cracks with this speech, “Tanaka… I don’t know what other names he’s gone by, but I do know his title.  The Gentleman Devil.  Like the fallen angels, he’s a permanent being.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” You question, grabbing for his shoulders, but he steps out of the way and you fall onto the floor.  For the first time, he actually looks intimidating when you look up at him.

“I didn’t remember this information.  I’m telling you now because I can.  Tanaka brainwashed me into helping him.  I’d only remember after I got Nagito Masaomi’s secret.  I have no choice but to bring this back to him, but at least I can inform you of the situation.  I really am sincerely sorry for this.  I can imagine… you won’t want to see me again,” He pushes his hair back behind his ear, then turns and leaves.  You’re not sure what the significance of the situation is, but you do know that Kiyoteru Tanaka is alive after all.  You get to your feet, shakily, and run into the kitchen.  Koren’s holding onto Nagi, and he seems to have fallen asleep as a defense mechanism, to stop panicking.

“Koren,” You start, getting her to look up, and she frowns to see how distressed you are, “I’m scared.”

----------

You are Nagito Masaomi, a Gashadokuro who arrived in the human world at age 21, in December of the year 2015.  You’ve been living in the mortal world ever since.  This wasn’t the first time you’d ever been in the human world, but you don’t want to think about that.  That was only twelve hours.  Twelve hours which ruined your life.

When you arrived in the mortal world, you and your sister agreed to split up, to try and find your own way, because you were old enough that you would have been doing that soon in the demon world anyway.  She bought a bar in Tokyo and carved herself a piece in the world, you got a job at a gas station along the highway which led towards Kobe.  Shin Orihara, your manager, was not the only man you’d been with since arriving in the human world, but he was the one you dated longest.  It was also the relationship which ended the worst, since he fired you, and the noise complaint your argument prompted was enough to get you evicted.

You were better off with your sister than forging on alone.  She did so well for herself, and you did so badly, and you were so lucky that she took you in; so lucky, and it felt like it couldn’t be real.  It was too good to be true; it really was, because it’s ended.  It’s over.  You aren’t there anymore.  Last thing you knew, you were collecting Sayaka Yamaguchi’s secret, and the man who hurt her… Was the same one who’d hurt you, fifteen years ago.  You haven’t gotten over it.  You haven’t moved on.

And where are you now?  You’re in a dark room, you can’t see in front of yourself at all.  There aren’t windows, and it seems the walls have moulding on the top and bottom.  You aren’t bound, you can move around the room, as much as is possible with the claustrophobic scale, and your arms are free to feel around.  There’s tape over the cracks of the door.  You won’t bother removing it, not yet.  That could alert whoever put you here to the fact that you’re awake.  Whoever put you here… You put your back against the door and listen, and you recognize the voices immediately.

“Wait, did it actually work that quickly?” Arthur questions, his voice shaking and seemingly horrified, “It’s that powerful?”

“All I did was bring him here,” Kiyoteru laughs, “I could do plenty more with a tool like this.  Funny, though, that his secret was the pen I used to sign that contract which became his secret… I lost this when Sayaka-hime killed me.  I suppose I should thank you for bringing it back to me, Arthur.  I knew I could count on you.”

“I never would have helped you if you didn’t make me,” Arthur protests, and though you can’t see him, you’re inclined to believe that he’s telling the truth, “If you have power like that, why use it like this?  Why not just use it directly to entertain yourself?”

“It’s no fun to make someone do something with demon powers.  I didn’t control you for fun, though.  I just needed to get him here.  I’d never brainwash somebody I actually intend to do harm upon,” Kiyoteru laughs, and you cover your mouth, taking deep breaths to quell your panic, “Speaking of, I really should reward you for your compliance, yes?” You can hear that he’s standing up, “Take this.  A secrets spellbook.  It’s what you were looking for, right?”

“I…” Arthur hesitates, “I was looking for something exactly like this, but it’s like blood money.  I don’t want it if the price I paid was...”

“Go on and take it.  It isn’t like you’ll be seeing her again anyhow.  You may as well run with… What was it that she said to you at that moment?  Save the magic and learn to do something better than a charm?  That book is your ticket to doing exactly what she wants you to do,” His voice isn’t particularly smooth or silky, but it’s convincing nonetheless.  Arthur doesn’t protest again.

You want to figure out why you’re here; how you ended up in Kiyoteru’s home, when the last thing you remember is being at Ryo’s bar.  It’s not like your whole life since you were eleven was a bad dream; you’re definitely an adult right now, and there’s no way so many memories could be the result of a dream like that.  You know it was real.  All of it was real.  Everything mediocre, and awful, and finally great right up until the moment that you woke up here.  You woke up with Kiyoteru Tanaka.

You know that he’ll want to see if you’ve picked up the pieces by now.  He reveled in breaking you down the first time you met, and his influence on you was so great that you’re still reeling today, still in just as much pain regarding him as you were the day you returned to the demon world back then.  You’ve felt for a long time as if you ought to be over it by now.  You aren’t, though, and he’s bound to taunt you for that fact.  Maybe part of why you wanted to get over it was so he wouldn’t have this ammunition.  Maybe part of why you couldn’t get over it was because you always had that dark feeling that you’d meet him again someday.

If you had recovered, though, you suppose he would have just taken joy in breaking you again.  He told you that night, and you believe it too; you understand him.  You understand his twisted pleasure and the way that he loves to be friendly, be polite, and destroy his targets.  You understand that a ‘strike zone’ he refers to means nothing, because it isn’t like he’ll leave you alone now that you’re an adult.  What you don’t understand is how you got here.

All you can imagine…

Is that you did something to piss off Ryo, just like Neptune did, and she sold you out.

She is your demonic little sister, after all.