Chapter 10: The End of Peaceful Days
Chapter 10: The End of Peaceful Days
FALL had passed by and thick winter clouds filled the skies for days on end. Mia had continued to spend her days flying, watching over the city from above.
“In a few more months it will have been a year,” she thought.
Although she had trained to fly until the day her father had died, she had never had to do it this much, almost on a daily basis.
“So cold,” she shivered. She never knew that winter skies could feel this terribly icy. “C-C-Cold!”
Her body was shaking, her teeth rattling. Mia was gliding through the air, her form trembling, for a while now. Her outfit was a sight to behold; the girl wore a duffle coat and a scarf, a cape draped over the ensemble, with fluffy earmuffs topping it all off. If not for the cape, she would have looked just like a normal girl, but the cape ruined that image.
Anyway, even though she had taken all precautions against the cold, the skies were freezing and she had had enough of this.
“Ah-choo!” She sneezed loudly.
Mia, deciding she couldn’t bear it anymore, opted for cutting today’s patrol short.
***
“I did not expect this… Why is the winter sky so awful? It has only been a month since Kyoto, so where did this sudden biting cold come from?” Mia grumbled as she picked up her chopsticks while enjoying another meal at Subaru’s apartment.
In front of her, a tabletop burner was placed on the low dining table. Subaru’s face darkened with worry as he placed a big pot on top of the burner grate.
“I can see how it would be much more freezing up there than down on the ground. …Don’t push yourself too hard. I can see your face is flushed, and your voice sounds hoarse. I’m afraid you might have caught a cold.”
“This is just the way I am. I have never caught anything of the sort.”
What was that saying about people who were too slow and dumb to catch a cold?
“’Fat chance,’ is what I’d like to say, but in your case, nothing is impossible. Here, lemme take a look.” Ren, who was sitting next to Mia, gently put his hand on her forehead.
“Let’s see…” He put his other hand on his own forehead, thoughtfully tilting his head to the side. Then, he cupped Mia’s face with both hands and lightly bumped their foreheads together.
“Gah!”
“Well, you don’t have a fever. That’s good news,” he said softly, his breath fanning over her face.
A furious blush crept up her cheeks at that, her mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air. Her heart beat hard in her chest like a drum; for a moment, she felt mortified, fearing Ren would hear it. He pulled his head away, and took up his chopsticks, mirroring Mia.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his head inquisitively cocked to the side.
“N-Nothing!”
“Yeah? Well, even though you don’t seem to have a fever, you should probably take it easy for a while. If you catch a cold, you can forget your plans for world domination.”
“Y-Yeah. Th-That’s true,” Mia nodded feebly as Subaru took the lid off the pot.
Steam wafted up, and a delicious smell carried through the room. …Why was she feeling off recently? Until now, her heart only sped up when Ren hugged her or when he was flirting with her as a part of his efforts to rile her up.
Recently, however, something seemed to have changed. Having him sit next to her was already enough to get her heart pounding. Whenever he ate something, she couldn’t help but stare at him, caught in the moment. Even his thoughtless gestures and accidental touches made her face flush red. She would catch herself thinking how cool he looked smoking one of his cigarettes or feel her heart fluttering at the possibility that him bumping their foreheads together just now might’ve grown into a kiss…
“Argh!”
“Wh-What’s wrong, Mia?”
“Nothing, you fool! Dimwit! This is all your fault!”
“Hey, if you keep insulting me with no rhyme or reason I might just get angry…”
Mia cowered, drowning in anguish at an unnamed feeling clawing at her from the inside, surrounded by Subaru, who rubbed her back with confusion on his face, and Ren, who furrowed his brows at the unexpected abuse the girl had showered on him out of the blue.
What is happening to me? For some reason, she felt too embarrassed to voice this question pounding in her head. Mia’s heart seemed lost, as if trapped in a maze it didn’t know how to escape.
She regained her composure, and all three of them started digging into the steaming pot. She had never eaten hotpot before coming to Subaru’s place for dinner, but she couldn’t get enough of the variety of ingredients and tastes and of the way it warmed her body from the inside.
Today, they had tofu hotpot. This was a fun one because they were making fresh tofu skin themselves. First, they boiled soymilk, then using their chopsticks to remove the skin that formed on top they dipped it into sauce lightly fragranced with yuzu before eating it. The sauce perfectly complemented the light sweetness of gloopy soymilk melting in her mouth.
They enjoyed the tofu skin for a while, Ren laughing that it made him crave hot sake. Then Subaru, having had his fill, asked permission from his two guests before adding some meat and vegetables in.
“Just wait until we finish, tofu hotpot can be full of surprises,” Subaru said mysteriously with a hint of amusement in his voice.
Ren and Mia gorged themselves on boiled meat and vegetables, excitedly wondering what it was Subaru was hinting at.
Hotpot was such an amazing dish. Mia disliked bitter vegetables like crown daisies, but somehow putting it in a hotpot made them delicious, making it possible to relish even napa cabbage.
The show playing on TV in the background kept the mood going as they picked at the pot. After a while, Subaru stirred some clear liquid into the broth that had been plucked clear of meat and vegetables.
“What is that?”
“It’s bittern.”
“Bittern?” Mia cocked her head questioningly, to which Subaru grinned.
“Just wait and see.” He gingerly stirred the pot, and covered it with a lid. After some time had passed, Subaru removed the lid, showing Mia the pot’s contents. “Look, we made tofu!”
He gently scooped some of it out with a ladle, revealing a solid glob. Definitely tofu.
“Ohh, so that’s how tofu is made.”
As she was staring at it with wonderment in her eyes, Ren chuckled at her and scooped some of the tofu out for himself with a noodle spoon, promptly eating the piece he fished out.
“Yeah, isn’t it nice how you can still taste the broth in it? And once we’re done making tofu, we can use the leftovers to make rice porridge, and we’ll have another completely different dish.”
Her eyes wide in awe, Mia tasted some of the tofu Subaru had prepared from the noodle spoon too.
It was different from the regular tofu she ate so often; remarkably soft to the point that it was melting in her mouth. It felt like the fresh tofu skin they had eaten at the start of the meal, only rolled into a small lump.
It would probably still retain this delicious creaminess even when made into porridge, Mia thought dreamily, already imagining what the final dish they could make from the same broth would taste like.
“By the way, Misaki said he wants to take us out for a meal sometime soon.”
“Really? Why would he?” Ren’s eyes snapped wide in surprise at Subaru, who had already started cooking the rice porridge.
“Must be his thanks for your help in Kyoto,” Subaru gave a brief reply while adding some beaten eggs to the pot.
“Kyoto… Ah, that thing with Sayoko.”
“Apparently. It seems that he was busy with work or something before, but now that things have settled down a little, he wants to give us a proper thanks, or so he says. Of course, this would include you as well, Mia.”
“All right,” she flushed a pretty pink under Subaru’s kindly gaze and nodded.
“Sometime during spring next year, Misaki will probably be going to Kyoto to pay Sayoko’s family a proper visit. He wanted me to ask you if you’d like to tag along and do some sightseeing.”
“Oh, right, Sayoko did invite me to visit her in Kyoto again. Hm, I shall think about it,” she nodded, as Subaru’s eyes crinkled at the corners while he poured the now-ready rice porridge into her bowl.
“You should do that,” he said, handing her the full bowl.
The three of them feasted on the soup.
In the end, they agreed that Mia would wait for the other members to let her know the place and time of their group outing, since they had to work it around everyone’s schedule.
***
A week passed with little happening except for the normal day-to-day activities. In a conference room at the police station, Ren stretched his mouth wide open in a huge yawn. All of the Crow Rangers, Misaki, Subaru, Shou and Aya, sat inside, each of them trying to kill time in their own way.
“He’ll probably come once he’s back from smoking who-knows-where again.”
“Ugh, he’s the worst. Doesn’t he know there are people waiting on him? And we’re supposedly already off the clock, too!”
Recently, all the rooms inside the police station had been marked as nonsmoking, so the chief, whose love for tobacco was well-documented, was always loitering about looking for someplace to light one up. All of the Rangers were of the same opinion, namely, that a man like that was probably unfit to be their boss—or anyone’s boss for that matter. Since it had become very difficult to smoke inside the station, he resorted to doing it outside. Though they would’ve really appreciated if he deigned to do his job every once in a while too.
All the members were talking animatedly to each other, except for Subaru, who was researching something on his smartphone instead of participating in the conversation.
“Subaru, what’ve you been looking up so zealously these last few minutes, huh?”
“Oh, I was just wondering if there’s some food that’s good for curing a cold. If I make lots of vegetable soup with ginger and give the whole pot to her…would she eat it in the morning?”
Subaru confirmed Misaki’s guess with a nod. Over the past few days, Mia had developed a cold; there was no mistaking it this time around. She didn’t seem to have a fever, but her face was slightly flushed and her voice raspy. As the days went on, Subaru, having long since taken on the role of her older brother, became worried. He wanted her to recover before her flu became aggravated and developed into a serious concern.
Normally, he only cooked her dinner, but lately he wanted her to have a nutritious breakfast as well. He had been putting in an admirable amount of hard work toward her health. He was probably quite serious about counting Mia among his family members now.
A few moments later, the door clicked open. In came a man with his trousers held up by suspenders, a crooked necktie worn over a wrinkled shirt. This wretched excuse of a man was their boss, the commander of the Crow Rangers.
“Oh, you’re all already here. My bad,” their boss apologized halfheartedly and walked over to stand in front of the window. He then craned his neck to look back and surveyed the team members behind him over his shoulder.
“Well, it’s been a while since we met up face to face like this. There’s something I want to talk to you about today, but before we go into that, there’s something I’d like to confirm first. How’s the Supreme Ruler of Evil been behaving lately?”
Was it a habit of the chief’s to cut straight to the chase without any lead up? Come to think of it, when he came up with the terrible-sounding, stupid name “Crow Rangers”, he had brought it up in a similarly abrupt manner.
Those memories playing through his mind, Misaki, who had been appointed the Rangers’ leader, answered in his capacity as the representative of the group, “Her recent movements, huh…? Well, I heard she hurt a few delinquents who were lighting up firecrackers in the parking lot of a supermarket yesterday.”
“Ah, those guys. They were so noisy! No wonder she woke up with all that cracking and banging in the middle of the night.”
“Right, right! She came out wearing her pajamas with a scarf and a cape, her hair sticking out in all directions. She was so cute, right?”
“The cutest! Remember her nightgown? Surprisingly girly, huh? You know, with all those frills and ribbons.”
Whenever the girl used magic, Ren and the others would rush to her, even if it happened to be the dead of night. Afterwards they’d usually mess about a bit, or “do battle” as Mia would put it. Then they’d make up some excuse and send Mia back home. This was what the Crow Rangers normally did, but the confrontation this time took place so late at night, Mia had been way too sleepy to go through the usual motions. Leaving the delinquents to Misaki and the rest of the team, Mia had Ren escort her home.
“Other than that, let’s see... On Monday two weeks ago she caught a vendor who was dumping garbage illegally in the mountain forest.”
“Well, she’s pretty serious about sorting garbage and all that.”
“That mountain was an illegal dumping ground for the longest time now. But Mia used her magic on that disgusting mess to bring everything to the correct trash drop-off locations.”
“Yeah, that was a huge help!” All of the Rangers nodded in agreement.
Illegal dumping was one of the main problems the local police struggled to resolve. While she had been busy cleaning everything up, the Rangers promptly put in a request to erect a fence or something around the area to prevent further incidents from occurring.
Having listened to their brief reports on Mia’s activity, the chief crossed his arms. “I’d like to ask one more thing,” he man began, “The way you’re telling me about her behavior, it seems like the current Supreme Ruler of Evil isn’t actively trying to fight you. Or am I missing something here?”
“I wouldn’t say that. But, frankly speaking, even though she can use magic, her combat abilities are negligible.”
They didn’t know how it was during their chief’s generation or even their distant predecessors’, not that they really cared to research the history of the Rangers and the various overlords of the past anyway. They didn’t even really care what Mia’s father had been like, but Mia’s combat skills were essentially nonexistent.
She probably had no prior fighting experience, so her solution to everything was magic. That meant that if they could just cover her mouth, they were able to render her completely powerless. For regular police officers such as Misaki and Aya who didn’t have too much confidence in their combat abilities, it was admittedly a very difficult feat to pull off, but the fighting prowess of Ren and the other two was considerable.
Furthermore, according to those three, the way Mia used her magic was dreadfully amateurish. If only she fought dirty, then no matter how much the three of them improved their combat skills or physical abilities, they would still have a hard time subduing her.
Mia only seemed to engage in head-on fights. She refused to resort to foul play or surprise attacks, she never started a fight without declaring her intentions, and she always prefaced her attacks with a loud, “Here I come!” It was no wonder they could fend her off with ease when that was the only way she ever came for them.
Sometimes she’d open up a pitfall under Misaki’s feet, but that was the extent of her sneak attacks. Incidentally, she had once tricked Ren in this manner, but he had devised a “special” punishment for her after that as a payback, and she hadn’t tried it on him since.
“I see,” the chief nodded in understanding after hearing their explanation. “Not only is she a terrible fighter, but she’s playing fair and square to boot. …Haha, she’s just the way I imagined her to be.”
“Chief, do you know Mia?” Subaru, who was just listening without saying anything thus far, asked with a great deal of surprise.
“Well, kind of,” the chief laughed and scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, but the way she acts, combined with her personality… Plus, the fact your battles with her aren’t even real fights…This must mean she doesn’t know.”
“...What do you mean by that?”
“Hm, or rather, she hasn’t been told, would be the more correct way to put it. It seemed like he knew, so he must’ve kept her in the dark for some reason. …No, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her, that must’ve been it,” the chief muttered the last part under his breath, seemingly speaking to himself rather than the team members who sat around him.
“Chief, I’m asking you one more time... What do you mean by ‘she doesn’t know’?” Ren inquired with unease, a sense of foreboding rising inside him like a tidal wave.
The chief’s head snapped up at the question, eyeing the team members sitting around him. For a while, he stayed silent, his expression pained, but then, making his mind up, he opened his mouth and uttered, “The spell to take over the world.”
As his words cut through the room, the space was filled with shocked silence, everybody in it at a loss for words.
***
SHE coughed, a soft dry sound escaping her lips. The cough turned white as soon as it left her mouth and disappeared into the dusk.
“It is positively freezing…” Mia mumbled, perched on a bench.
It was a small bench in front of the police station. Mia was waiting for everyone to finish work and come out. Today was the day Misaki was finally going to make good on his promise to treat the group to a meal. Having asked Subaru what time they clocked out in advance, Mia decided to wait. After school had ended, she changed out of her uniform, and after idling some time away in her room, she came to the police station to wait on the bench.
Sometimes she had difficulty believing her own actions. Before she knew it, she had gotten used to spending time with the Crow Rangers. And...there was a part of her that felt like she belonged with them. It felt nice, so she wanted to be with them. She had fun around them, and that made it so easy to nod along with their antics.
Whenever she went about her duties as the Supreme Ruler of Evil and dusted the floor with some small-fry who opposed her morals, the Crow Rangers always appeared for reasons beyond her. She had every intention of giving them a proper fight, but in the end, they always let her slip through their fingers and escape.
Somewhere deep inside, Mia knew she was no match for them, especially Subaru, Shou, and Ren. With her own petite stature, she stood no chance of winning against their bigger build and speed. Moreover, they fought her with terrifying efficiency stemming from prior experience battling her; she always found her mouth covered and her arms restrained within mere minutes.
She should have been more frustrated, but Mia was finding that it didn’t bother her as much as it used to anymore. That didn’t mean she had given up though…
She still wanted to realize the one true dream of all Supreme Rulers of Evil, which was, of course, world domination. However, Mia struggled to see a reason to fight the Crow Rangers. It wasn’t as if they arrived to interfere with whatever it was she was doing. If anything, it seemed as if they appeared to check in on her. She’d fight them, naturally, but would unsurprisingly fail to get the upper hand, and eventually be let off the hook. Some days, Ren even went through the trouble of walking her home.
“Am I doing something wrong?”
She had originally envisioned fierce clashes between herself and the Rangers, but from the very beginning their skirmishes turned out to be mild at best. If she continued down this road, could she ever truly take over the world? What was this “world domination” her family was aiming for anyway? Whenever she was alone, all kinds of thoughts would slip into her head, plaguing her. Mia was no deep thinker, so this resulted in a downwards spiral of doubt overtaking her mind, making her feel as if her brain could short-circuit at any minute.
She was wondering what was keeping the Rangers while she had her eyes trained on the police station, breath escaping her in small white clouds, when she suddenly noticed a man leaving the building through the back door.
“Huh? That man...” Mia stood up and walked towards him.
Alerted to her presence, he let out a small cry of recognition, “Mia Oonari, was it? It’s been a while!”
“Indeed it has. Please, let me express my gratitude again for all the help you provided me the last time we met!”
It was the same kind middle-aged man who had shared the Crow Rangers’ personal details with Mia. Like the last time, he wore a wrinkled shirt and a necktie skewed to the side. He had no jacket on despite the terrible weather, which slightly surprised her.
“How have you been? Your voice seems a bit off, are you getting sick?”
“I wonder... To be honest, I have never caught a cold before, so I am not entirely sure.”
“Now, now, we can’t have that, can we? One’s health is one’s most prized possession. If you stay out here in the cold, you’ll definitely come down with the flu. Are you waiting for someone?”
Mia nodded affirmatively while the man calmly squinted at her. “Hmm… I see. I take it you’re getting along swimmingly with Ren and the others?”
“Ugh! N-No, it’s nothing like that! I’m only here because I was promised food!”
When confronted like this, she felt an overwhelming urge to deny everything. As Mia frantically corrected him, the man laughed in a booming voice, “Ha-ha-ha! It’s cute how you get so defensive. Well, they’ll be coming out soon—they should be done for the day. You can wait inside the station if you’d like?”
“N-No! I-I am j-just fine r-right here, th-thank you,” Mia stammered out.
The man dubiously cocked his head to the side, and went back inside, throwing a quick, “See you later then,” over his shoulder. As she blankly followed his retreating back with her eyes, his phone suddenly rang in his pocket and he took it out. …At that same moment, a piece of paper fluttered to the ground at his feet. The man didn’t seem to notice as he was already entering the building.
“You dropped something,” Mia called out to him automatically, and went to pick up the said piece of paper, but he was too absorbed in his phone call to hear her. “What do I do with this? Hm? A photograph?”
She flipped over the paper the man had dropped, discovering that it was a picture. At first glance, she had to do a double take in sheer shock, her eyes flying open, “Huh? Why…this…?”
Mia’s head shot up, and she almost tumbled over her own feet running after the man into the police station.
The picture showed three people. One of them was most likely the man who dropped the picture. But the other two... One of them, a woman, had the face of Mia’s mother who she remembered from a picture her father had shown her long ago. And then there was the last person, in whom she recognized beyond a shadow of a doubt as her father. Why were her parents in that picture? Did the man know them personally? Just who was he?
As Mia chased after the man, she saw him open the door to a conference room and step inside. She stretched her hand towards the doorknob with urgency, but then she suddenly took notice of the awfully familiar faces in the room, and her limbs froze.
The Crow Rangers! The whole team is here. Wh-Why? She opened the door just a fraction and peeked inside through the opening.
The man walked to the back of the room, whipped his head around and asked, “How’s the Supreme Ruler of Evil been behaving lately?”
“…!”
Ren and Misaki repeatedly used the name “Mia” during their report. The man knew that Mia was the Supreme Ruler of Evil. Come to think of it, Mia remembered him asking her something about her magic once. She quietly bit her lip.
The conversation continued, no one aware of the fact that Mia was listening in the whole time. Then, Ren asked the man a question, and the man opened his mouth to utter a single phrase, ‘The spell to take over the world”.
A spell to take over the world? What is that about? Does he perchance mean the great magical art of darkness that I was told to activate after I defeat the Champions of Justice?
Mia crouched before the door and listened to the conversation inside with bated breath.
***
REN asked the chief, “What is the ‘spell to take over the world’?”
“I believe it’s commonly called the great magical art of darkness. I only learned of it yesterday myself. There were very few sources I could dig up on the subject... Opinion on this matter is divided among the top brass too, so no one would give me the whole story. Instead, I had to lock myself up in the archives for a while,” the chief complained, making a show of rolling his shoulders.
Aya put a finger to her lips as if having remembered something, “…Now that I think about it… Mia did mention something about completing world domination by activating the great magical art of darkness in the wake of our defeat at her hands. Is this what you’re talking about?”
“Yes. …But that’s not entirely correct. Actually, she doesn’t even need to beat you. If Mia... If a sorcerer chooses to cast that spell, regardless of the circumstances, that alone will suffice for them to achieve world conquest.”
The Crow Rangers were dumbstruck. Simply casting the spell would be enough to conquer the world? Did that mean that if right now, wherever she was, Mia tried out that magic on a whim, she’d accomplish world domination just like that?
Shou raised his voice in alarm, “That doesn’t make sense! Why are we even needed then?”
“Well, obviously, to prevent the Supreme Ruler of Evil from perpetrating ‘evil deeds’, the gravest of which would be world conquest.”
“But you’ve just said that as soon as Mia activates the spell the world will get conquered? In any case, what does world domination even entail? Doesn’t it mean she’ll subjugate every single person in the entire world? …That sounds like a vastly unrealistic scenario to me.”
No one could hope to be in complete control of literally every single person in the entire world. No matter what kind of miraculous power they had, anyone could see that was absolutely impossible, which was why Shou and the others never took Mia seriously whenever she spoke of “taking over the world”. They wrote it off as a case of a bunch of lunatic sorcerers striving for an absurd goal unattainable even after generations of attempts. For some crazy reason they always failed. That was why they wanted to set Mia free; free from some moronic ideal, passed down through the generations in her family like some sort of heirloom, free from the nightmarish hold it had on her.
The chief quietly shook his head. “I didn’t know about it myself at the time. But now that I do, I think I understand him better. Every single time he lost and had to flee, he had a relieved look on his face. …He must’ve rejoiced that he could avoid taking over the world for another day.”
In spite of the nonsmoking policy in the police station, the chief took out a cigarette with a practiced movement and put it between his lips. Nobody stopped him. They just silently urged the chief on to continue his story.
“What they call ‘world domination’... It doesn’t mean ruling over the entire world population. Rather, it’s complete control of the world itself. More precisely, it’s reshaping the world according to their ideals. …That is the true nature of their ‘world domination’ plan.”
Silence enveloped the room at his words. What could they say, really? The story was too ludicrous to follow. Taking control of the world without taking control of mankind. Technically, that would indeed constitute “world conquest”. However…
“…It just doesn’t make any sense. World domination without bending mankind to one’s will? Humans are the most powerful living creatures on this entire planet. You can’t say you’ve taken over the world unless you’ve got mankind in your grasp,” Subaru reasoned, his arms crossed.
All of the Crow Rangers nodded in unison, agreeing with him. The chief lit up his cigarette, inhaled, and blew out some smoke, shifting his eyes to peer out the window. Outside, darkness had enveloped the city lit up by streetlights and the headlights of cars zipping back and forth.
“Mankind... That’s what you’d normally expect, right? But that’s not how they saw it—the generations that lived way, way before Mia Oonari. How many generations ago would it have been? …That’s something I don’t know, but I do know that they were quite mad and insanely powerful. In their deranged minds, their yearning to fulfill this idiotic ideal was born. That was the beginning of it all.”
The story that the chief told them sounded much like one of those fairytales beginning with a, “Once upon a time, in a land, far, far away…”
It all began a long, long time ago with Mia’s ancestors who had been sorcerers, just like her. Those sorcerers had lamented the state of the world they lived in. Humans, in their eyes, were such foolish creatures. They fought with each other, at times whole countries clashing in bloody conflict, leaving scars upon the face of the earth.
In order to advance their selfish interests, they destroyed this blue planet, violating the world itself. They repeated their deplorable behavior over and over again with arrogant abandon, as if they were kings ruling over the earth. If this were to continue, one day, this world would be destroyed by those parasites called “humans”, at least this was what the sorcerers believed.
That was the reason for its creation—the spell that could restore the world to its original form. This implied neither masking the consequences of human activity, nor was it a way to “reset” it. It truly meant reshaping the world itself by means of magic. Creating a world that was optimal for the planet’s continued survival and prosperity.
Ages passed by, history faded back into myth, but they didn’t let the bloodline go extinct nor lose sight of their goal. Generation after generation of sorcerers worked towards their ideal, weaving the spell together thread by thread. When it was completed, they called it, “the great magical art of darkness”.
“This spell is already in place all over the world. It seems like in the olden days, there used to be more than one sorcerer per a generation. Branches of the family were scattered across the planet. The same is true of the Rangers, at least before the different bases were destroyed. The Rangers and sorcerers wiped each other out. After all the conflict, little by little, the sorcerers used magic to give form to their images and ideals even while fighting the Rangers. And now, that monumental effort seems to be entering its final stage.”
“...Final stage?” That didn’t help the bad premonition Ren had. His face darkened even beyond his usual menacing scowl, morphing into the scariest expression anyone had ever seen on him yet.
The chief took a lighter out of his pocket, a small flame appearing at its top with the scraping of the flint. He positioned it at the end of his cigarette, lighting it up, the grainy sound of burning paper uncommonly loud due to the deathly silence in the room.
“You could say there’s only one switch left to flick. They say it was Mia’s great-grandfather who ushered this stage in. That was also when the war between the Champions of Justice and the Supreme Rulers of Evil came to an end with both sides utterly depleted in manpower, bases of operation, and resources. It means the fight we are fighting now is the second generation after the war ended.”
In the beginning, the Champions of Justice had been one of the many servants created by the evil organization to serve as a vanguard for them. Supposedly it was some of the very original sorcerers who crafted the armor and facilities the Rangers used to eventually fight them.
When the great magical art of darkness that could reshape the world was completed, they realized how disastrous the atrocity they themselves were about to commit would be. They were ordinary people who attended to the sorcerers, their henchmen. They turned against the sorcerers, taking the very powers they had been granted to use against their prior masters. Soon afterwards they aligned themselves with the governments all over the world and were integrated into them as a special organizational body that served in nearly every major country ranging from ancient China to the Aztec nations of old. That was the truth of the war between the Champions of Justice and the Supreme Rulers of Evil.
“That’s why long ago, there were so many of them spread all over the world. Up until her grandfather’s generation there were so many sorcerers and their servants that you could truly call them more of a country in their own right, rather than just an organization. However, in this day and age almost their entire organization has kicked the bucket, with barely any people to speak of during Mia’s father’s generation.”
And now that Mia’s time had come, all that was left of Gealach was its leader.
“Anyway, during her grandfather’s generation they still had some of their numbers. That’s when the sorcerers tried to activate ‘the spell to take over the world’, having their organization’s members use gas explosions, mass kidnappings and such as decoys. However, the Champions of Justice were still numerous as well, and still had access to a number of facilities and resources. The sorcerers were under constant scrutiny and thwarted at nearly every turn.
“But, during my generation the number of people in the team suddenly dropped. He must have felt the danger looming. He feared that if the trend continued, there would be no one left to stop his actions, to prevent him from performing the great magical art of darkness. That’s why he gave it to me, that tracking device Ren is now carrying.”
Ren involuntarily glanced at his smartphone. The transmitter that was embedded in Mia’s body. Her father had one implanted in himself and in his daughter, all because he wanted to make sure someone could stop them. How paradoxical was that?
Mia’s father had probably been imprinted with the sorcerers’ ideals from a young age. Being groomed for his role as the next head of the sorcerers, he must’ve undergone a hellish training that was more thorough and brutal than anything that Mia might have experienced. Being the Supreme Ruler of Evil had been his very life, so quitting that job must’ve meant the same as dying.
Whatever it had been that changed him, Mia’s father had wanted someone to put a stop to what he had been trained to do. But his own power had been insufficient to overpower the intent he had imprinted in his mind. He entrusted that task and the tracking device with it to the man before them, to the chief, silently wishing that he would put the device to good use and stop him when needed.
“And, what does this great magical art of darkness that made Mia’s father come to you and ask you to stop him do? What happens when the world is reshaped?” Misaki finally breached the main question on everyone’s mind.
They needed to hear the answer in order to grasp the complete picture. After all, what could world domination mean to a deranged sorcerer?
The chief quietly breathed out some smoke. “A deep blue sea, beautiful, lush vegetation, fish and animals rejoicing in their existence, each contributing to the energy flow of the food chain. Truly a utopia. However, in this world, there would be no humans. There’s no need for humans in a beautiful blue world. That’s the kind of world they pictured in their mind, and the intent that they poured into their words. They’d be creators of a new world, a title fit for people trying to bring about world conquest. Heh, sounds stupid, right? There’d be no more sins or evil though, because there’d be no more people to commit them.”
Ren and the others were stupefied at the sheer absurdity of what taking over the world entailed.
“Ahaha, what do you mean, people would disappear…? That’s just stupid, there’s no way they could do that,” Aya started laughing inadvertently, an edge of hysteria to her tone, putting her hand on her forehead in disbelief.
However, the chief looked more serious than ever, and he nodded, affirming once more that the ideal the sorcerers were aspiring for was indeed just that.
“…It seems quite likely that they can pull it off too. Well, no one’s actually tried it yet, so I can’t say for certain. …This does mean that they have put forth every effort to make their long-cherished dream possible. Or, at least that’s how the story goes in the documents left behind for us by the people who belonged to the evil organization in ages past, so it might be nothing more than their hypothesis. But I think both you and I have seen it, haven’t we? ‘Things that should not be possible’.”
Magic. As if in a fairytale, whenever Mia spoke the magic words, the arcane manifested itself right before their very eyes. The thing they had scoffed at, thinking it impossible, turned out to be very real; Mia only had to work the details of an image in her head, and she could conjure up a breathtaking rain of light, a beautiful field of flowers, or sparkling jewels... There was no denying that what they had deemed unreal did in fact exist. After all, they had all witnessed the arcane with their own eyes, on more than one occasion. Things that no one could possibly do, if Mia just spoke the words...
“…You said that we’re in the final stages now, and mentioned a ‘switch’. Does this mean that if Mia were to activate the great magical art of darkness, it would serve as that ‘switch’?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it. She’s probably been taught magic ever since she was just a little girl. She must’ve been trained to produce the right image over and over again, so she could easily picture the ideal world imagined by the generations of sorcerers before her. All that is left is to put that ideal world into words with her heart and soul...and she would achieve world domination.”
Ren frowned deeply, touching his hand to his chin. Magic that had been scattered all over the world by sorcerers throughout the generations. How exactly would it converge and in what manner would it alter the world? He couldn’t comprehend a thing about the way it would work. The only thing he understood was that the moment Mia used that specific magic, the world would be reshaped, as if painted over, and humanity may very well cease to exist. Himself, his family, his friends... What about Mia?
“What’s gonna happen to Mia? When she uses her magic—what’s gonna happen to her?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know that much. She will either end up as the only person left on Earth, like a god, or she might run out of magical power and die. The latter option is almost poetic—she’d be committing suicide together with all of mankind for the good of the world.”
In the former scenario Mia would end up all alone, in the latter she would perish.
“What the heck! Her ancestors were the worst kind of scum! Both options are absolutely terrible! I’m not gonna allow her to die, that’s a given, but even if she were to survive, ending up all alone is just... Do you have any idea how lonely she is? How much she craves human contact? I couldn’t bear that!” Ren shot up, his chair almost toppling over, and slammed his fist down on the table in a fit of anger he didn’t know where to direct.
Bam! A crack appeared in the poor, rickety piece of furniture designed for meetings.
“…Say, Ren, what does, ‘she might run out of magical power and die’ mean? If Mia’s uses up all her powers, she’ll die?”
Aya’s words startled Ren. His face twisting up in anguish, he turned his eyes away from the woman and gave a tiny nod. “Yeah... I just couldn’t bring myself to say it. Sorry. If Mia’s powers are depleted, she dies. Apparently that’s how her old man went.”
Color drained from his teammates’ faces upon hearing Ren’s words. So that was why Ren had been worrying so much whenever Mia used magic or looked tired. Misaki, who had seen Mia utterly exhausted from using magic, chewed his lip. A heavy silence fell over the conference room, soon ripped apart by Ren’s smartphone suddenly making an urgent beeping sound.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Mia’s tracking device. …She’s using magic.”
When they saw her location on the map, she seemed to be midflight. The trajectory began at the police station, moving towards the outskirts of the city.
“What is she doing flying out of town? I told her specifically that Misaki’s taking us out today, so she was supposed to wait for us in front of the station!”
“Oh, I saw her outside before coming here,” the chief said, looking down at Ren’s smartphone.
Suddenly, Subaru turned his face towards the entrance of the conference room. Then he walked over to the door.
“Subaru?”
“The door, it’s open. …Hm? A picture?”
Subaru seemed to notice something lying on the ground and crouched down to pick it up. He then placed it on the conference table.
“A photograph? Why is it here? …Hey, wait a second, isn’t this Mia’s father? He looks very young here, though,” Shou said, stealing a glance at the picture.
Hearing his words, the chief blanched all of a sudden. He rushed forward and grabbed the picture.
“Wha—but how? This picture’s supposed to be in my pocket. Could it have fallen out when I answered my phone?” he stammered out, his face rapidly draining of color. His hand holding the photograph trembled, and with the other hand he covered his face in mortification. “Mia… She might have seen this.”
“Huh? If this picture was left lying here, it means that Mia must’ve been where you found it until a few minutes ago, right?”
Everyone froze at Aya’s words. If Mia had been outside their door the entire time, that would mean she had overheard their whole conversation.
“…CHIE-E-E-E-EF! You’re the most thoughtless boss ever! Incompetent idiot! Don’t leave something that important in the same pocket as your phone! What are you, some teenage ditz?! You can’t go ‘oh, I’m so clumsy, he-he’ at your age and expect everyone to laugh and forgive you! Ugh, you make my skin crawl!”
“Oh man, I really did it this time, didn’t I?! I’m sorry, okay? I was feeling a bit blue when I went outside for a smoke, so I took a look at the picture! Then I stuck it in my pocket without thinking and… Argh! Now’s not the time to be talking about that! If she overheard our conversation, she must feel shaken to the core right now, and what if…”
What if, feeling lost and confused, Mia ended up trying to cast the great magical art of darkness?
“This is NOT good!” Ren surged from his seat and sprinted out of the conference room.
The other members ran out after him. They were probably going to hop in a car to try and chase Mia down before it was too late.
Only the chief remained in the room now. He glanced again at the old photograph which was starting to fray at the edges. His best friend, a woman he had harbored an unrequited crush on, and himself.
He let out a heavy sigh betraying his old age, and chewed on the tiny filter in his mouth, all that was left of his cigarette.