Wanted to say that, much as I joked about Shining Virtue Angelic Heart having been Westernised, on reflection I do think the story works better thematically set in the US than it would Japan. Not that you couldn't do a story themed on the Seven Sins and Virtues and Garden of Eden in Japan, people already have, but being set somewhere with a majority Christian population like the US I feel gives the motif more weight
It def is interesting how that would affect the "sin vs virtue" conflict that's been discussed a few times here, where in an American context the stifling effect Christian morality has had on society is significantly more apparent, thereby making the notion of sin more rebellious; whereas, if you're looking at the religion from an outside perspective, you're more likely to take "do good things and don't do bad things" at face value
It def is interesting how that would affect the "sin vs virtue" conflict that's been discussed a few times here, where in an American context the stifling effect Christian morality has had on society is significantly more apparent, thereby making the notion of sin more rebellious; whereas, if you're looking at the religion from an outside perspective, you're more likely to take "do good things and don't do bad things" at face value
On the other hand, the notion the show seems to be driving at of "find a healthy balance between Sin and Virtue so that you are neither harming others nor yourself" is WAY more Taoist than Christian.
Remember that discussion that we had about how the Seven Deadly Sins are a motif that fits a westernized setting better than a Japanese one? I read a magical girl manga that reminded me of it.
It's called Magical Girl Tsubame. Too early to say whether I recommend it. Not much in common with A Little Vice.
Weird that is has Sloth being Green, since Green's usually linked with Envy everywhere else (including in Japanese works). Guess it works if they're setting up Sloth as the opposite to Wrath?
Despite the fact that I should have literally been able to teleport out of my room, my attempts to sneak out early Monday morning nevertheless ended in failure. Accordingly I was coerced against my will into abandoning the giant hoodie aimed at hiding poor Chiros away from the onslaughts of their justifiably angry ex-friends. At least the dress code mandated skirt and blouse Lupin forced on me looked cute together and my earrings weren't going to accidentally inform anyone who I was this time around.
That said, school remained an agonizing exercise in being visible. I could look into a mirror all I wanted, but no matter how cute I looked it still felt like everyone was inches away from figuring out what I really was.
Of course even that stopped mattering as I crossed the school grounds well before the first bell. Temperance was by the doors.
I slowed to a stop as I approached, unwilling or unable to fully cross the final few feet between us. Right, there were bigger problems facing me than my gender anxiety. We stood, facing each other, slightly too distant to talk comfortably, neither of us able to bridge the gap.
Temperance didn't speak; she didn't threaten me. She didn't need to. I knew what she was considering. If anything, I should have been surprised she hadn't already outed me. It made sense that it was over. I'd failed to hide from her and that meant getting caught, especially now that I'd shown I was committed to Sin.
And yet, I'd only had Chiro's mask for a single school day, and even then, the idea of losing it was agony.
"Please don't," I found myself nearly begging.
"Why not?" she asked after a few agonizingly still moments of consideration.
It was a fair question. Why not? The fear of failing Lupin's expectations was an obvious reason. I didn't want to mess up a mission, to leave em making excuses to Superbia, to leave em any reason to interact with Superbia at all. That was the big thing. I might be a silly little bat, powerless to help, but I had to do everything I could to protect my partner nonetheless. Except, that didn't really feel like all of it.
Was some of it because I wanted to keep being Chiro? There was a part of me that liked playing dress-up with Lupin and pretending to be a normal girl, for all that actually appearing in public like this left me a constant blushing mess, bouncing endlessly between anxiety and anticipation. Chiro was supposed to be a mask. Those feelings shouldn't have mattered; they did anyway.
Perhaps I was afraid of hurting them yet again. That raw need to make Inessa acknowledge me for what I was had driven me to violence, and yet now I was terrified of being seen. I had no right to worry about hurting any of them any more. Even so, the thought of not just fighting them, but betraying them again, felt like more than I could take.
"Lupin could get in trouble if I fail," I said at last. It was a low blow, for all it was true. I didn't want to think of what Superbia might do to em for my failures.
Temperance considered this for a few moments.
"Let's talk," she said finally and began to walk away from school.
I wanted to complain. School is important after all! And Chiro was new! I didn't want to get a reputation for playing hooky on my second day!!!
Temperance's lip twitched despite herself as I resisted the inevitable. Finally I nodded my agreement and allowed her to lead me away from campus.
---
We sat in the park, empty at that frigid hour of the morning. Once more, Temperance looked at me in silence.
For a moment she seemed almost as unsure of what to do as I was. Then she cleared her throat and that illusion died.
"How is ey doing?"
"What?" I wasn't sure how we'd gone from discussing my misdeeds to Avaritia's well-being.
"Avaritia seemed off when ey attacked us yesterday," Temperance said.
I didn't answer immediately. I hadn't heard whatever plans Superbia and Avaritia were working on, but even then, I knew better than to leak anything to Temperance. And it wasn't like Lupin had told me anything in the morning either. If anything ey'd been distracting emself treating me like eir dress-up doll.
"Ey were stressed about something," I said at last. "But Lupin didn't talk about it."
Temperance cast her gaze out across the playground and sighed in a way that spoke of long suffering familiarity.
"Avaritia really is greedy," she said with something that could almost be mistaken for indulgence.
"Are ey?" I wondered at that. I'd heard the song of Avaritia's greed of course. It was impossible to be near Lupin and not notice. And yet, whatever eir misdeeds or eir impulsiveness, Avaritia had practically devoted emself to saving me. Even eir attitude toward greed seemed to express something I struggled to interpret as sin.
Temperance, for her part, considered her words carefully. I wondered what she was about to say. Was she going to say I was enabling Avaritia? Demand I come back to the light?
"Has Avaritia told you about how we got here?" she asked at last, choosing some incomprehensible third option.
I nodded, wondering if Temperance was simply taking advantage of her leverage to get a free status update on the partner she'd abandoned.
"I was going to be Ira," Temperance non-sequitured instead.
"What?" I asked. I didn't know why Temperance had decided to share, but the information that the eternally calm Temperance had planned to consume a seed so at odds with her everything. It was simply too distracting a revelation to bypass, whatever the rhetorical ploy.
Temperance nodded exactly once, as if I had been asking her to confirm that wasn't a joke instead of to explain, then lapsed back into a silence that stretched for what felt like forever.
"We'd just run away. I was… angry," she smiled ruefully, or at least she tried. Any expression at all still looked forced on her face. "Back then, all I wanted was to lash out at everything. Avaritia was scared it would consume me. For all ey still talk about sin…"
She shrugged. "Avaritia always says that ey ran away for me, but, it was crushing em too. Ey'll betray you in every way that counts if ey thinks it will help, even if ey think you'll never talk to em again. But ey won't ever ask for help with eir problems. Ey wants to help everyone ey likes, but ey won't let anyone help em."
It was a perspective on Lupin I hadn't considered. It was also, very obviously, true. Lupin was lonely, sure, and desperate enough for a friend that ey'd recruited me of all people. But ey had also been barely able to open up enough to push me to go with em to the mall to buy me a present.
Superbia had come up with some strange plan which made em anxious and ey'd run out and gotten into a fight instead of telling me anything. And yet, ey always forced emself into my heart. Lupin's way was to hold eir friends close, live for them and help and refuse to let them do the same.
"Ey really is greedy," I agreed at last, wondering how I felt about that.
There was jealousy at how much better Temperance knew my partner than I did. After all, I was just the cheap copy, the second-rate replacement Lupin had picked up by the side of the road with looks stolen from Inessa and apparently enough feminization that you could almost confuse my plot arc for Temperances'. I'd never have the kind of bond they'd had before Temperance dared to throw it all away.
"Was that why you quit?" I asked, a bit too afraid of what Temperance could do to Chiro to be as passive aggressive as my instincts wanted. A sudden surger of fear in the back of my throat helped recenter me. I couldn't claim to know what Temperance was trying with this conversation, but the matter at hand wasn't my partner's ex's complicated feelings about said partner.
"Avaritia was right to trick me into taking Gluttony," Temperance conceded. I wondered how long that realization had taken her. "Wrath suited me too well. Indulging was different. Even then, it didn't help in the end. It was something new and exciting until it got bitter. And then, I couldn't say no to Inessa when she told me to change. I thought Avaritia would follow."
"Why would you believe ey could?" Temperance's words baffled me there. If there was one thing Lupin believed in, it was eir cause.
"Ey want to keep eir people happy, to keep them close and give them everything. That's eir greed. A Beast shouldn't choose what it thinks is right over what satisfies its sins."
Again, Temperance understood Avaritia more cleanly than I did. And yet—my seed sent a brief flare of pain down my spine as I realized that I knew something about Lupin that Temperance didn't. Despite all the reasons it shouldn't be so, ey still cared about Superbia.
"Is that all you wanted to talk about?" I asked, burying the truth deep down. If Temperance didn't get it, it wasn't my place to share that kind of twisted emotion.
She shook her head.
"It's not too late to change sides. We can help you, you know. And even Lupin wouldn't commit all the way to sin. It can't save you."
And there it went. This was all some sort of youth pastor attempt to build sympathy so she could talk me around.
I bit back laughter. As if I could go back. As if I didn't know already that for all its gifts, sin would never set me free. As if my envy would leave me any room to imagine salvation from its stolen beauty. Worst, the seed was still better than remaining where I'd been.
"Are you going to tell them or not?" I wasn't sure just when the power dynamic in the conversation had changed. And yet, Temperance seemed so uncannily open and vulnerable for once. It was surprisingly easy to press.
"No," she admitted at last. "But, Chiro," the emotion seemed to drain from her faceas she spoke, until her voice was a freezing monotone, "We all want to help you. But, if you take advantage of letting you stay at school to hurt Inessa again, I will end you."
I shuddered despite myself. And yet, something about the naked threat soothed in a way that vapid invites to redemption never would.
"That's fair," I conceded. Honestly, it was more than that.
We walked in silence for a few minutes. There was nothing left for us at the moment but to return to school.
"Mr. Brown's recovering well," Temperance said at last. "He seemed a lot less stressed."
"That's good, he deserves it," I said, as if I was really the kind of person good enough to even really remember that my actions were theoretically meant to help him.
"Inessa's fine, physically," Temperance added a few minutes later.
My muttered thanks would have been too quiet for her to hear, and yet, somehow her footsteps grew qualitatively more smug for the rest of our silent walk back to campus.
---
"Hiya Chiro!" Inessa greeted me in second period, faking a smile in a way that twisted the knife.
"Hi," I replied, somehow ignoring the contradictory urges to scream, attack her, run and break down begging for forgiveness. I didn't manage to say anything else. At least, I could take solace in knowing that she would finally see me for the monster I was from now on. Really, it was a kindness to crush the illusions she had held onto over a boy who'd never been real.
It also helped that Ida seemed as pained by Inessa's pretenses as I was. That didn't help make second period any easier. Inessa's malaise even lingered past her physical presence, haunting us all through third period chemistry. Ida and I barely managed to exchange any words.
At least fourth period left me alone with my guilt. When the bell rang, I managed to pick out the sound of Ida's approaching footsteps and hide. And that meant that she didn't get to commit a literal war crime by dragging me to the Saints' table again. And sure that meant sneaking into an empty classroom for lunch, but I was evil now! That meant I could do rebellious things like have lunch outside the cafeteria!
Okay, so I still felt a little guilty about breaking the rules, but it was still a lot better than getting forced to sit with both Inessa and Temperance. Inessa's fake smiles were an old friend from back before she'd suddenly found herself. Seeing her return to anything resembling that bitter state when she was supposed to be so much better than me now felt fundamentally wrong.
But, I didn't deserve to comfort her. And really, had I even been that in the wrong? Maybe I'd taken things a bit too far, but she was the one who showed up to my monster attack and started shooting at me! She was the one who refused to acknowledge my own agency, to accept that I wasn't just that pathetic boy in need of saving anymore. No, the more I thought about it, the more I was okay with what I'd done. I was evil now and the sooner my former friends understood that, the less they'd suffer as I proved, again and again, how far I was willing to fall to join them on stage.
---
I ducked out of school immediately after classes ended and hurried back as fast as I could to the Abyssal Forest.
"Avaritia~!" I called, feigning a good deal more enthusiasm than I felt as I pushed open the unlatched door into my room, "your adorable partner's home, so let's go do some plotting or something!"
"Ah, Invidia," his voice was as shrill as ever and it still felt like fear, "I see you have been adapting."
It seemed that it was not, this time, Avaritia who had left my door open as they sat awkwardly on my bed waiting for my return. Mr. Noir did not often wander the Forest beyond his throne room and quarters; at least, that's what Avaritia had insisted. It seemed today was an exception.
Maybe, I wondered, I could just close the door and leave.
"Mr. Noir," I gave him a shallow curtsy instead. Avaritia had cautioned me to avoid our boss, but had told me exactly how to behave if that proved impossible: demonstrate obedience, accept what he said and go to em if there were any larger problems. Above all, I was not to start a confrontation. It wasn't hard to remember; I was used to following rules like that in my relationships.
"Superbia," he said with disdain, "as I've told you Invidia, there is a power in names."
I lowered my head, acknowledging the reprimand. I couldn't start a fight, couldn't argue. And yet, it would always be Mr. Noir that had pretended to be my confidant, had twisted me around his fingers for his own ends. Some part of me refused to acknowledge that we shared the same species now.
He eyed me silently for a few moments, "I must say, I did not expect this degree of aberration, boy."
For once he wasn't twisting things around. My sin had transformed me in strange ways. And yet, it still inspired a spike of icy rage that threatened to overcome my instinctive fear at his presence.
He surveyed me for a few moments, those horrible eyes meeting my own until I could no longer meet his gaze. Then he shrugged, "perhaps you are not quite of the caliber I initially thought, but it is clear you embody Invidia well. I am glad to see that you have not entirely failed to reach the potential I saw in you."
"Thank you," I said, trying desperately to say it in a way that didn't sound like I really meant that I wanted to claw his eyes out.
Superbia's stare told me exactly how successful I'd been. He paused for a moment and his presence grew far louder, a sound so sharp and bright it could cut. His sin was light itself, monotone, glorious, and capable of pressing itself over any other lesser noise. It brooked no defiance, no stain on his glory. The raw power of his presence was overwhelmingly greater than Avaritia's or mine. It drove me to my knees, struggling to breathe, to perceive anything besides that terrible might.
Then the noise eased. Superbia looked at me as he might consider a bug, "It is your nature to have jealousy for your betters. So long as you remember your place, these expressions of your sin are tolerable."
I wanted to laugh; I couldn't imagine what would happen if I did. Superbia thought I was jealous of him? Of everyone involved in this entire performance, Superbia was the one person who had nothing I wanted to imitate. No matter how strong or how sure of himself he was, I wanted nothing of his brittle pride or his casual cruelty.
That alone, Pride could never be allowed to know. I could see that, seeing the feel of him. Pride saw envy as its natural consequence. To resent him, to want to steal his power and his status, was only natural in Superbia's view. To look upon him and despise him instead? This, I knew instinctively, was a blasphemy of the highest order.
"Thank you, sir," I let fear dampen my voice. He would appreciate that.
"Good," he said stiffly. "I have a mission for you."
"What about Avaritia? I understood my missions would come from em," again I did not have to feign the slight tremor in my voice. He wouldn't destroy his most useful lieutenant; but I had no illusions that Superbia wouldn't punish em in all sorts of ways if he felt it necessary to spare his vanity. He really was just the same.
"She," he practically spat the word. Avaritia must not have been high in his esteem at the moment, "has been reminded that her other duties warrant a great deal more haste than she was inclined to give. I believe it necessary to inform you of this plan personally, and to assure you that if either of your incompetence ruins my work there will be consequences."
I gulped, but nodded.
"I am glad you understand. This weekend, it shall prove necessary to distract the Saints to ensure that they are busy as Avaritia completes her task. I do not believe they are likely to interfere with work in the Forest, but there can be no allowance for errors."
There was nothing to it, and I'd already committed to fighting the Angelic Saints. Whatever lingering stage-fright I still felt over taking the place that I'd sacrificed so much to claim, I could never go back to being C.
"As you command." The poison fruit was far more bitter than usual.
---
My first battle had been a heat of the moment thing. I had been angry and stupid and had someone there that stimulated all of my instincts as the incarnation of envy. Mr. Brown had been the kind of person Avaritia spoke of, someone whose sin needed an outlet, who seemed to have found some solace in the days after the attack. Preparing to just unleash a monster somewhere where the Saints could find it was far more anxiety-inducing.
The fact that I hadn't seen Avaritia in the Forest at all since Superbia's comments about assigning em to other tasks did not help my mental well-being. I should have at least been able to hide at school. But, having let Avaritia dress me up twice, it would have obviously been suspicious to any snooping magical girls if I stopped now. So, despite the absence of the wardrobe police, I had literally no other choice than to keep dressing up in cute outfits and doing my makeup every morning.
Worse, while Temperance had decided to ignore my existence completely for the moment and Inessa remained In A Mood, Ida was worse than either. For whatever reason, she seemed to have fixated on Chiro: dragging me around, forcing me to eat lunch with the group despite my presence worsening the tensions already tearing things apart, and otherwise trying to befriend me at every opportunity.
Fortunately Ida's schedule remained an exercise in self-flagellation. She had relatively little time to breathe, sleep, or stalk new friends and it was only during classes and lunch that she proved inescapable.
Or it should have been like that. Except, during lunch on Thursday, she'd openly defied the mood to gloat about a rare free Saturday and invited everyone to join her on an outing to a new salon a family member was running.
And it wasn't like I could refuse the offer. It wasn't that I wanted to try going to a salon, or that it was obviously meant to cheer up Inessa!
No, It was simply that Chiro—the fundamentally good girl I was pretending to be—was supposed to be a caring and surprisingly intuitive person who went out of her way to try and support those around her. And, well, if I just had to distract the Saints, maybe making sure the spa day proved distracting would work better than trying to hurt them again.
Ida was clearly counting on us to help cheer Inessa up and turning her down would have made Chiro seem like a monster and obviously that would break my cover. So I had no choice but to agree to attend. It was simply completely outside my control.
Temperance had looked at me with something between profound exasperation and lingering resentment, then announced she had a prior commitment, and I felt a flash of guilt. Obviously she knew this whole thing with Inessa was my fault and that I was low-key a terrible person for just pretending to be their friend like this. Obviously she didn't want to be around me at all and obviously, seeing me play nice with Inessa and hiding that I was the reason for her current struggles had to hurt her.
But, that meant that I definitely couldn't back out after making Temperance give up her spot for me.
---
"We'll be there soon! It's just another block or two. My cousin's great! I don't really go for all that girly stuff personally, but it's nice to find an excuse to visit her every now and then." Ida smiled, as if we were doing her a favor by being here, desperate to keep Inessa active and engaged. I wondered what responsibility she'd pushed aside to make time for this.
"Sounds great," Inessa said.
"I've never really done the whole thing like this. It's a little bit scary to be honest…" I blushed and looked away.
Well, mostly I was afraid of what Superbia might do to us if I messed up his plans, or what I might have to do if the Saints decided they suddenly had to run out for some unspecified emergency. But Chiro wouldn't have any reason to worry about that, so she was allowed to be nervous visiting a fancy girly place like this.
"Never?" Ida asked, surprised.
Oh right, a real girl would probably have been to places like this all the time.
"Well, dad never approved of this kind of thing so, like, mostly I just got a friend to help style my hair and I haven't really gotten any other stuff done," I didn't actually know what other stuff entailed, but I was sure it was strange and girly and forbidden. Besides, that was a passable excuse that was almost tailor made to achieve another goal as well.
Indeed, light flickered momentarily in Inessa's eyes, the chance for gossip luring her out of the depths of her fugue.
"A friend you say? What kind of 'friend'?" I could hear the invisible quotations Inessa put around the word 'friend'.
I blushed, because obviously this would embarrass Chiro. Invidia—the very serious, scary, evil bat—had abandoned mundane emotions like shame, so I would never really be awkward or shy about this, I just had to keep up appearances.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Ey're really nice to me, but, it's, well, a little complicated." Besides, any interest Avaritia had feigned in me could easily be attributed to the fact that I'd stolen Inessa's body, or that she was treating me like a replacement Temperance. Either of them was quite the catch.
Inessa pumped a fist. Her heart wasn't in it, but this was still the best I'd seen her since my most recent betrayal.
"Well then," she pulled me closer and whispered conspiratorially, "we'll just have to make sure you come out of this so cute your friend won't have any choice but to confess."
"Please," I said, method acting as the kind of person who found the idea of being desirable agonizingly desirable purely on its own terms, even if it was obvious that there was no way anything could really come of it.
Ida shook her head sadly at us, "Honestly, you're both… You can just try it and see if they're interested! This isn't rocket science!"
"Oh, Miss I have no free time? What would you know about dating?" Inessa was too far from any of her crushes to collapse into a black hole of shyness, so she had no problem retaliating against Ida's comments. I wasn't quite sure what to feel about this working. I didn't want Inessa to suffer, not really. But, even the writhing sin inside of me wasn't sure if it wanted her to recover this easily when it was her turn to feel bad.
Ida smiled imperiously, "I've had lots of boyfriends!" she said, her voice thick with hubris.
"Wait, what?! Lots?" I had, of course, gotten all this gossip from Inessa before, but Chiro hadn't.
She nodded, "Two in high school so far!"
"And who are you dating now?" Inessa asked rhetorically.
Ida deflated, "no one," she admitted.
"And why is that?" Inessa ruthlessly slammed shut the jaws of her trap.
"I don't know! They kept complaining that we never had any time to do things together, but we always did lots of stuff together!"
Inessa tutted, "Ida, Ida Ida…" then she turned to me and explained for my benefit, "she had Javed agree to manage the girls basketball team and then kept having 'study sessions' with him where she actually just studied the whole time."
Ida had the grace to blush, "How was I supposed to know that Javed didn't mean studying when he said I should come over to study! Studying is important and working side by side with your boyfriend just seems like it would be really nice…"
She looked desperately toward Inessa and me, "I-is it too much to want a boy that doesn't mind that I'm as tall as he is, or stronger than him, who won't tell me to act girlier, and who actually cares about improving himself like I do? Is it so bad to want someone who can keep up with you?"
I didn't know a thing about dating boys, and despite being one for most of my life, my own gender seemed an alien species to me half the time. Inessa, likewise, had exactly zero experience dating. But it wasn't a hard question to answer.
We glanced at each other and nodded silently.
"Yes, way too much!" we chorused.
"Ida," Inessa said, not without sympathy.
"You absolutely deserve a boy who accepts you and likes you and supports you as you are; but..." I continued somberly.
"No one can keep up with you!" Inessa announced the final verdict as I nodded along consolingly.
"Let's just go inside," Ida responded, resigned to her sentence.
Gallantly, she pulled the door open to a small salon, the sign outside drawn in a pink cursive font that bespoke a forbidden territory people like C weren't to enter.
Oh sure, I'd always dragged myself to Supercuts every time dad decided my hair was getting too long, but this was different. This was the real deal, a world I'd never dared venture into for fear of how I'd be seen.
I took a deep breath and…. let it out in a disappointed sigh as it looked pretty much identical to its off-brand imitations. Chairs spaced far enough from each other to allow comfortable access from all sides, black plastic sinks with headrests specially designed for washing hair, and a few busy employees. No one was at the register, around which a small set of seats were positioned for waiting. The decor was nicer of course, but it lacked that air of essential mystery I'd been dreading and anticipating. It was just a place like any other.
"I'll be with you in a second, Ida," the voice came from someone who was obviously Ida's cousin. Just like Ida, she was tall—enough to tower over me now—and had a dark complexion. Though slimmer and less muscular than our resident sports addict, her eyes carried that same sense of indefatigable purpose.
Ida nodded, then glared at us both, "Not a word to Nia about boyfriends," she whispered urgently, earning silent nods from both Inessa and I.
She looked at us oddly for a moment, "You know, you two really do look alike."
"Do we?"
Inessa glanced at my face, searching curiously for a few moments. I feigned confusion, hoping that my secret was not about to accidentally be revealed in a moment of casual observation.
"Yep, you could practically be… sisters," Ida said, wincing as she reached the end of that sentiment.
The smile fell from Inessa's face, "I don't think I'm feeling so good, after all."
Ida cursed quietly under her breath, then stepped in to hug Inessa.
"What's wrong?" I asked, wishing I could be literally anywhere else.
"Alright," Ida's cousin returned, "I'm still putting out a few fires, but if one of you wants to go with Kelly now, she had a cancellation and we should be able to get to all of you…" Nia's voice cut off as she saw the situation.
I looked awkwardly between Ida and her cousin.
"You can go," Ida said, looking at me over Inessa's shoulder, "Inessa's going through some issues. I should stick with her for a sec."
C would have stayed. He was close and awkward but he'd known Inessa better than anyone, and there was no real point to him if he couldn't even help comfort her. Chiro was an outsider in this situation who was also secretly an alter identity of Invidia, who was literally an embodiment of envying Inessa.
And that meant I was allowed to just leave, even if a part of me still managed to feel bad for doing it.
"If you're sure," I pretended to be a little hesitant before leaving at one final nod from Ida. Besides, Inessa needed better support than a jealous bat like me.
"Everything okay there?" Nia asked as she led me toward the back of the salon.
"She's been doing pretty bad all week," I said sadly, "Ida staged this whole thing to help cheer her up, but I'm not sure it'll work too well."
"Well, we'll see about that!" Nia grinned, taking it as something of a challenge, "I can't let that little cousin of mine rely on me for once and not fix things, now can I?"
I giggled, "Well, good luck."
Nia shook her head, "Believe me, a little change to your look can do wonders for your outlook on life. Kelly! This one's for you."
A twenty-something redhead with a nose piercing gave Nia a nod and led me to her chair.
"What can I do for you today?" Kelly asked, and I sensed the faint hollow thump of her envy for her boss. I liked her immediately.
"I'm not sure," I said, hesitating. I could imbue her right now, allowing her to sprout in the next few hours and taking care of my obligations to Superbia. But, this was Ida's cousin's shop. It could get destroyed. Would this be breaking my deal with Temperance? And… could I really just do that again? Mr. Brown had been one thing. His anger demanded release; but Kelly's sin was smaller for now. I ached to set it free, as I always craved sin's release, but it was harder to justify forcing it.
"Keep it fairly close to what you have now?" she asked.
I hesitated. I was Inessa's mirror, and that included the hair, even if green was a clearly superior color. I remembered the way Lupin had looked at me, had started flirting as soon as I looked like eir old enemy. It was all jokes of course, playing up the new girl's confidence. And yet, looking like Inessa had to make it easier.
Nia had said that a style change could change your perspective. Inessa had joked about winning over Lupin with a new look. And yet, I had no value of my own. I was an imitation, nothing more. My sin writhed at the idea of breaking that pattern.
"Actually," I said, wincing at a sudden burst of tightness in my chest, "let's change things up a lot. Something shorter? More stylish? Like a…." My sin writhed in irritation under my skin. Its roots gently tightened around my heart and it tore at the underside of my skin, peeling away at me as if to say this mask was a gift and a reminder, and if I refused to play my part it could be torn off of me at any moment. And yet, Avaritia had said pushing it could be good, to learn more about myself and… I just wanted to sit down and change my look like I was a real girl who could just do that and not look in the mirror and see even her hair tell her how fake she was. It was just my hair. It wasn't like I wouldn't still know.
The flickers of agony were one thing. Just as fundamental a problem is that I wasn't a real girl. I had not been schooled in the arcane language of describing hair styles. I fumbled for a word, anything to avoid looking like an imposter, "Maybe a bob?"
Kelly ran a hand through my hair, gently undoing my ponytail and handing me the scrunchy, "Yeah, I think that could work well for you. Let's get you washed up and get to it."
I let out a relieved squeak, satisfied to have passed this test as Kelly escorted me from her chair to one of the sinks and began gently shampooing my hair. It felt relaxing enough that I could almost ignore Invidia's discontent.
Instead, I dipped a metaphorical fang into Kelly's sin. I had to know what made her feel so similar to me to decide whether I would release her. Hers was no great mystery. She saw Nia, who wasn't much older than her, running the entire salon and she wanted that for herself. Alone, that wouldn't have been enough to stimulate my seed. But, she buried it down deeper and deeper, acting ever the kind friend and loyal subordinate as she denied her own desires and resentment, pushing it under worlds of pressure.
I managed to hold it back until she was wrapping up my hair and talking about all the other ways I would get pampered today. But my sin was unhappy with me, and this restraint was one imposition too many. A flicker of weakness was all it took to let Envy's thorns pierce my skin, to let myself push a single drop of sap into her chest. We were close enough that it wasn't hard to hide.
At least this helped calm the writhing envy inside of me. It did not like that I had abandoned, to some extent, my mockery of Inessa. Feeding it another's envy served to soothe and distract and its grip on my heart loosened.
Of course, where Resinners usually took hours to blossom, my sin approached hers with startling enthusiasm, practically pouring out of me to give her everything it could in punishment and reward alike. And that meant my Resinner had all the sustenance she needed to grow strong far more quickly than I'd been anticipating.
Her transformation was instant. One moment she was standing next to me, the next she was approaching Nia in a daze as her arms deformed and stretched into massive scissor blades, her body following-suit with the transformation.
Bad Cut mashed its blade-arms together in an effort to separate Nia's head from her body. Fortunately, Nia slipped and fell to the ground in shock, leaving the blades to close over empty air.
Diligentia's familiar "Steadfast as the Earth" followed a few moments later as the Saint of Diligence rammed into Bad Cut with her shield, shoving the Resinner through the salon's doors and into the street.
I winced at the sound of shattering glass. How expensive would the repairs be? Would Nia have to give up on the store because I couldn't control my sin?
Still, Ida and Inessa would make short work of a single Resinner once they transformed; that should have been the case. Instead, Inessa stood there, fingering a bracelet with worried indecision and nearly getting hit by a piece of stray glass.
"Come on!" I shouted, dashing toward her only a little bit faster than Chiro should have been able to move and pulling her toward a back room. Bad Cut faced Diligentia and spread its arms as wide as they could go before beginning to spin like a helicopter. I shuddered to imagine what that might have done if it was still in the salon.
Inessa didn't react, but did allow me to pull her through an employees only door into a back room. She was shaking.
"What's wrong?" I asked stupidly. Chiro would have no reason to wonder why a friend panicked at the sight of a monster. That was the expected reaction.
"I…" Inessa sagged against a wall, "I can't do anything."
"What do you mean?" I asked, feigning confusion. Chiro wouldn't know how wrong those words were from Inessa's lips.
"I'd decided to just charge at everything straightforwardly, to be pure and just and help people, and…" She was trembling.
Inessa was terrible at keeping a secret identity. Absolutely terrible. I should probably be taking advantage of this, twisting Inessa further until she lost any chance of regaining her power in the short term. A part of me wanted to. A part of me wanted to shove in the knife, to pull her down into the swamp with me. And yet, that felt wrong. This was not the Inessa I longed to be.
"And?"
"I… there was someone close to me I thought I was helping. Things were bad for them and not in the way I could just punch," Inessa said as if she hadn't punched a great many threats to my well-being, "but, I thought that if I just told the right people and faced them honestly, tried my best and gave them a hand when they needed, it would all work out."
"And something went wrong?" I could hear the sounds of the battle in the street.
I'd made a promise to Temperance. And evil or not, I couldn't just abandon that if I wanted to keep being Chiro. My sin, for once, supported this. Everything I was was a pale imitation of Inessa Brandt. A part of me wanted to show her how futile her efforts were, how little she could do, how little she could understand. And yet, Castitas was a perfect hero, beautiful and strong and pure of heart. She wasn't supposed to be so weak or so vulnerable.
Inessa sighed. "They hurt me," she admitted. "Things got really bad, but I thought that was finally what they needed, maybe, to really let us make things better for them. I really thought we could take them in and show them how much nicer things could be from now on, to really help them get out of the state they've been in for so long, but…"
"They took advantage of your kindness and betrayed you when it counted the most?" I said, knowing the answer.
"No!" Inessa practically shouted, "They… did lash out and they did other things," she wasn't in any condition to find a vaguely plausible explanation for me almost strangling her, "but it wasn't that. It was… They said they were jealous of me."
She trailed off into silence.
"They were jealous of me, and I'd never even noticed. I thought I understood everything, thought we knew everything about each other and that I knew how to help and…" she sighed. "They lashed out and, well, I wonder if I was really helping at all. Even when I kept trying to approach them, they just got worse and worse. And now I can't even fight."
I wondered about that. What Purity meant to Inessa. The absence of lust was, well, I couldn't see Inessa being Castitas on those grounds. But, that sincerity of emotion, to put her heart in her actions and to genuinely love those around her, to care about her everything. Was that a part of it?
I couldn't believe I was the one stuck doing this. I'd abandoned the role of giver of platitudes and bland moral encouragement to take a place on stage. But I couldn't leave Inessa like this.
"Was that really how they felt?" I asked neutrally, "and, just because they reacted badly doesn't mean you did anything wrong. Maybe, deep down, they're just not someone that deserved saving; maybe you tried your best and that's okay and that just means you're a good person and they weren't."
Inessa shook her head furiously, her still-wet hair flopping around her.
"No, there's no one who doesn't deserve saving! But… if trying to help just made things worse, how am I supposed to fix things?"
That I couldn't stand. Still, after all my betrayals, after showing her I could still stand on my own as a magical girl every bit her equal, Inessa Brandt refused to see that any of it was my choice. To her I remained an object in her story. Even now, she refused to abandon me, refused to just let me sink into the Abyss. Her doubts weren't over her misjudgement, but the fact that she'd failed to pull me out of the mud on her own.
I bit my lip, "Have you even asked?" I snapped.
"What?" she asked, taken off guard by my bitterness.
"Have you actually ever looked her properly in the eye and asked her if she wants you to save her? Does she want to go back to that status quo where she's always waiting on you to save her and can't take a single step forward for herself?" that wasn't fair, Inessa asked how I was doing all the time, "And if you didn't see she was jealous, have you ever really seen her at all?"
Inessa hesitated. In the silence, I could hear Ida's shouts, followed by the sound of something breaking.
"What do you mean?" Inessa asked finally.
"Maybe she doesn't need saving. Maybe she needs to find a way to stand up on her own and talking about saving her just makes her remember how terrible and worthless she is. Maybe what she needs is someone who will actually respect her enough to let her make her bed and lie in it. If she wants to be your enemy, just accept that she's your enemy and stop ignoring everything she does or giving it a pass when she hurts you like she's not even responsible for her own actions."
I was hyperventilating.
"N-not that I know anything about the situation, sorry. That's just… I think it would really feel pretty rough to have your friends act like they can fix you." Yes, that was very smooth. Inessa was absolutely about to call my bluff.
Instead, she sat pensively in silence for a few moments.
"Then," she asked, with more than a hint of desperation, "What do I do?"
"I don't know! I'm not that person!" I said like someone remembering that they definitely weren't supposed to know what was going on, "Maybe you just need to accept that you can't go back to whatever status quo they clearly don't want! Maybe you sit down and just face her on her own terms for once instead of deciding how things should be like that's your job!"
Inessa frowned, and she repeated a few words to herself. Then, without any rhyme or reason, something broke through the despair and she began to laugh.
"You're right Chiro," she said, pulling me into an uncomfortably warm hug for a moment. "I can't go back and, I don't know how to go forward yet," she said, as if that was some kind of revelation. "So I just need to start over, face her head on and figure out where to go together," She smashed a fist into her palm for emphasis.
"BAD CUT," a Resinner screamed in the other room. Inessa started, then started to laugh guilelessly.
"Right! First that."
Her eyes practically seemed alight with an inner fire. No, on closer examination, those were, in fact, actual sparks. Her bracelet, likewise, had begun to glow red and I could see what seemed like the outline of a halo behind her head.
Even without transforming, I could see the image of wings stretching out behind her.
Abstractly, I felt that my words would somehow come back to haunt me. And yet, even my sin was pleased. Here was an Inessa Brandt worth copying.
The fight didn't take much longer.
NEXT WEEK ON SHINING VIRTUE ANGELIC HEART!!!
The Abyssal Forest begins working on a terrifying new plan that could destroy the entire city if not stopped! When the Saints find themselves separated, Ida has to fight this new threat all alone before it can plunge the city into an eternal nightmare! Meanwhile, Inessa comes to a decision of her own!
Tune in for Episode 26: Sweet Dreams! The Saints' Counterattack Begins!
That poor monster of the week...
As always, I'd love to thank my wonderful betas, especially @Clown Bean who gave a lot of lovely comments and Rooibos Chai who is a major reason that this one ended up being reasonable at all, but also, of course, @Gargulec, @NemoMarx, @Chehrazad and @veteranMortal as well.
Recently, I've seen some requests for good trans fics, so in no particular order, I thought I might plug a few works I've really enjoyed lately:
Bioshifter is a longer ongoing webserial with a lot of great content. The protagonist isn't actually trans, but there's good trans rep in the supporting cast, and her perspective offers some really nuanced takes on neurodivergence and trauma of all shapes and sizes. If you want a darkish adventure story with some solid trans content (and some more trans subtext on top fo that), a lot going for it and a protagonist with more psychological issues than mine, Bioshifter is a great place to start. Very unusually for a web-serial, the longer Bioshifter has gone, the better it's gotten.
Speaking of trauma and trans girls, How Can I save the World if I'm No Longer the Hero is a longer (finished!) work with a very solid and psychologically rich deep dive into its protagonist. The hero has, after failing again and again only to restart his quest at the beginning, resolved to give up his power in one final attempt to save the world. Along the way she has a lot to learn about the value of joy and the need to connect with others. Overall, this work really shines as a character study, with a protagonist who has Been Through Things and is a delightful mix of hypercompetence and disaster and whose journeys to deal with the world ending threat neatly mirrors her journey to work through some things. Overall, it's just a delightful read from beginning to end.
Last, but certainly not least, Flowers in the Dungeon is an older story, but one I just found this week. It's a very sweet trans lesbian romance about a D&D game, actual magic and overcoming your demons. It's a bit shorter than the other two, so I don't want to give too many details away, but I really liked it, and JAW has a number of other delightful fics as well that are all worth checking out.
Wow, she's literally not even trying this episode. She really made that monster by accident and got so messed up by the emotional not-argument/not-therapy session that she didnt even transform.
And of course, identity shenanigans aside, just talking with Inessa was more effective at conveying the point about agency than aiming evil magic blasts on her. I'm glad it helped, but I somehow suspect the vile forces of dark magic Chiro allegedly serves won't be too appreciative...
You know, this may be a crazy theory but I think Chiro… is actually C?
It's pretty subtle, but if you really analyze her pep-talk at the end of the episode, I think there are some hints to that conclusion. Maybe I'm just crazy though.
You know, this may be a crazy theory but I think Chiro… is actually C?
It's pretty subtle, but if you really analyze her pep-talk at the end of the episode, I think there are some hints to that conclusion. Maybe I'm just crazy though.
So I've been looking up flower language and plant symbolism a lot lately, and given the tree and seed motifs, was thinking about assigning the characters flowers.
For Chiro, the only flowers I found linked with envy were the yellow rose and yellow hyacinth, which is weird given the aforementioned association of envy with green, but most flowers are partly green I guess.
The Lotus seems to fit Inessa best, as it can represent chastity but more importantly purity as well, and is similar in colour. Funny that's heavily linked with Buddhism though for a story with Christian imagery. For flowers specifically linked with fire though, there's the red orchid and poinciana.
Thought the Dandelion could work for Ida, with young dandelions close in colour and it representing overcoming hardship, close enough to diligence. The ivy and thistle could also work, linked with endurance.
Only flower I could find that represented temperance was the Azalea, and for gluttony the Venus flytrap comes to mind, but I figured something waterier would suit her better. Given this chapter's reveal though, the orange lily can represent hatred, though that clashes with her colour scheme.
For Avaritia there's quite a few flowers symbolising wealth and riches, such as the cornflower, Peruvian lily, jasmine, yellow poppy, and buttercup. With Superbia, both hydrangeas and orange orchids can symbolise pride.
For the remaining sins and virtues, coriander can mean lust, the blue tulip meaning tranquility is the closest I can come up with for sloth, broom humility, allium, ox-eye daisy and azalea again patience, the red tulip charity and by extension delphinium and peach blossom generosity, and the cherry blossom and speedwell kindness.
Granted, I got all of this off Wikipedia, so I can't say for its total accuracy.
Edit: Sloth could also be Poppies, given their sleep inducing effects
You know, this may be a crazy theory but I think Chiro… is actually C?
It's pretty subtle, but if you really analyze her pep-talk at the end of the episode, I think there are some hints to that conclusion. Maybe I'm just crazy though.
I think the funniest part about this is that this is the person that sucks at secret identities and the one that copied her in being just as bad at it talking to each other while also both completely missing the point in one way or another. Also, the duality of sin and virtue strikes again as C ends up acting charitable to make sure others are worth envying.
What is more intriguing to me here is that this chapter set up some big things. A lot of things are lined up to explode, it's just a matter of when they do. The part about Ira especially makes me wonder whether the next step of power progression is going to be people somehow double wielding sins and virtues.
Superbia thought I was jealous of him? Of everyone involved in this entire performance, Superbia was the one person who had nothing I wanted to imitate.
gee sure is a crazy coincidence how the only magical person around you dont want to want to imitate is also the only magical man. i'm sure there's a cis explanation for that though
"Hiya boss," ey said with a confidence I couldn't understand. Superbia demanded respect. Superbia could obviously crush us for failing to respect him. Superbia was sitting in his chair talking quietly to a reedy figure in a gray robe that left literally everything about its occupant to the imagination.
"What is the meaning of this interruption?" Superbia demanded, even as his eyes focused on me for all my efforts to hide behind Avaritia. He snorted.
"Ah," the robed figure said. "So the fourth has finally awoken. With your leave, I will allow you to attend to this, we can discuss the fruit later." Their voice had a lyrical tilt to it, and a strange ethereal quality that felt familiar in a strange way. Where Superbia made a constant show of authority, the cloaked person managed to sound like they were above everything while miming deference.
Was some of it because I wanted to keep being Chiro? There was a part of me that liked playing dress-up with Lupin and pretending to be a normal girl, for all that actually appearing in public like this left me a constant blushing mess, bouncing endlessly between anxiety and anticipation.
"I must say, I did not expect this degree of aberration, boy."
For once he wasn't twisting things around. My sin had transformed me in strange ways. And yet, it still inspired a spike of icy rage that threatened to overcome my instinctive fear at his presence.
So, despite the absence of the wardrobe police, I had literally no other choice than to keep dressing up in cute outfits and doing my makeup every morning.
Very cisgender thoughts. No need to introspect about them at all.
(Okay, that last one is a whole bunch of stuff, but gender euphoria is part of it.)
"Avaritia'll betray you in every way that counts if ey thinks it will help, even if ey think you'll never talk to em again. But ey won't ever ask for help with eir problems. Ey wants to help everyone ey likes, but ey won't let anyone help em."
Was Lupin gonna be Acedia, or did Superbia get one of the sins right?
And sure that meant sneaking into an empty classroom for lunch, but I was evil now! That meant I could do rebellious things like have lunch outside the cafeteria!
Okay, so I still felt a little guilty about breaking the rules...
She isn't evil enough to be a supervillain for a series aimed at literal toddlers. Maybe if it's working on "If you give a mouse a misdemeanor" logic, but even then, she'd probably be comic relief for most of the series.
But, I didn't deserve to comfort her. And really, had I even been that in the wrong? Maybe I'd taken things a bit too far, but she was the one who showed up to my monster attack and started shooting at me! She was the one who refused to acknowledge my own agency, to accept that I wasn't just that pathetic boy in need of saving anymore. No, the more I thought about it, the more I was okay with what I'd done. I was evil now and the sooner my former friends understood that, the less they'd suffer as I proved, again and again, how far I was willing to fall to join them on stage.
And it wasn't like I could refuse the offer. It wasn't that I wanted to try going to a salon, or that it was obviously meant to cheer up Inessa! No, It was simply that Chiro—the fundamentally good girl I was pretending to be—was supposed to be a caring and surprisingly intuitive person who went out of her way to try and support those around her.
You can practically feel the desperation in "his" internal narration. "It's not that I actually want this, I just assumed an identity which forces me to behave in a certain manner, instead of adopting a more antisocial attitude that would give me more flexibility."
C would have stayed. He was close and awkward but he'd known Inessa better than anyone, and there was no real point to him if he couldn't even help comfort her. Chiro was an outsider in this situation who was also secretly an alter identity of Invidia, who was literally an embodiment of envying Inessa.
And that meant I was allowed to just leave, even if a part of me still managed to feel bad for doing it.
"Huh, I know someone who uses Spivak pronouns too."
"Wow, what a weird coincidence..."
"I don't know! They kept complaining that we never had any time to do things together, but we always did lots of stuff together!"
Inessa tutted, "Ida, Ida Ida…" then she turned to me and explained for my benefit, "she had Javed agree to manage the girls basketball team and then kept having 'study sessions' with him where she actually just studied the whole time."
Ida had the grace to blush, "How was I supposed to know that Javed didn't mean studying when he said I should come over to study! Studying is important and working side by side with your boyfriend just seems like it would be really nice…"
She looked desperately toward Inessa and me, "I-is it too much to want a boy that doesn't mind that I'm as tall as he is, or stronger than him, who won't tell me to act girlier, and who actually cares about improving himself like I do? Is it so bad to want someone who can keep up with you?"
It felt relaxing enough that I could almost ignore Invidia's discontent. Instead, I dipped a metaphorical fang into Kelly's sin. [...] I managed to hold it back until she was wrapping up my hair and talking about all the other ways I would get pampered today. But my sin was unhappy with me, and this restraint was one imposition too many. A flicker of weakness was all it took to let Envy's thorns pierce my skin, to let myself push a single drop of sap into her chest...
At least this helped calm the writhing envy inside of me. It did not like that I had abandoned, to some extent, my mockery of Inessa. Feeding it another's envy served to soothe and distract and its grip on my heart loosened.
Every chapter makes it harder to argue that Invidia's sin is what its bearer really wants. Or that that sin is completely passive.
Of course, where Resinners usually took hours to blossom, my sin approached hers with startling enthusiasm, practically pouring out of me to give her everything it could in punishment and reward alike. And that meant my Resinner had all the sustenance she needed to grow strong far more quickly than I'd been anticipating. Her transformation was instant.
She really needs to figure out how to be subtle about stuff before a second person puts two and two together, despite the magic telling them it's five.
"They took advantage of your kindness and betrayed you when it counted the most?" I said, knowing the answer.
Kid, you're projecting. I mean, you're projecting onto yourself, which maybe sounds like introspection, but it isn't because introspection requires a mind open to change, and also we're talking about how other people interpret you and not your inner self.
I bit my lip, "Have you even asked?" I snapped.
"What?" she asked, taken off guard by my bitterness.
"Have you actually ever looked her properly in the eye and asked her if she wants you to save her? Does she want to go back to that status quo where she's always waiting on you to save her and can't take a single step forward for herself? And if you didn't see she was jealous, have you ever really seen her at all? Maybe she doesn't need saving. Maybe she needs to find a way to stand up on her own and talking about saving her just makes her remember how terrible and worthless she is. Maybe what she needs is someone who will actually respect her enough to let her make her bed and lie in it. If she wants to be your enemy, just accept that she's your enemy and stop ignoring everything she does or giving it a pass when she hurts you like she's not even responsible for her own actions."
I was hyperventilating.
"N-not that I know anything about the situation, sorry.
Hey, Pot, remember how you were criticizing Kettle for letting her secret identity leak into the conversation? Also, if Inessa doesn't realize your secret identity, your self-loathing comes off as serious misanthropy.
Gallantly, she pulled the door open to a small salon, the sign outside drawn in a pink cursive font that bespoke a forbidden territory people like C weren't to enter.
I've let my overthinking get the better of me again. Superbia talking about the power in names makes me more conscious of how I identify various characters (on top of my normal pedantic instinct). And our antivillain is really tough to name. She thinks of Chiro as the mask she wears and Invidia as the sin within her—part of herself, but not herself. She thinks of C as a separate entity from herself, or at least as a past self whose life she escaped. And what other name is there for her? Bat Girl? Proto-Humanitas? Effing Charleton?
Without the disguise field, even people who didn't know C would realize that the new kid looks exactly like that other girl in English Lit, except with a weird hair color.
...
Come to think of it, the ones that don't see Inessa much might think Chiro looks a lot like Saint Castitas. Huh. That would be an interesting misunderstanding.
gee sure is a crazy coincidence how the only magical person around you dont want to want to imitate is also the only magical man. i'm sure there's a cis explanation for that though
Well, C finally managed to be emotionally honest with someone about her needs even if she was like three layers deep into gaslighting herself to do so. Progress!. Also an interesting look into what Chastity might mean to Inessa here. It's really more like honesty, isn't it? She's a terrible liar, always says how she feels, and is basically a beacon of This Is Who I Am. Exactly the opposite of C. No wonder she couldn't understand what she wanted or needed or felt until she finally forced herself to spell it out.
gee sure is a crazy coincidence how the only magical person around you dont want to want to imitate is also the only magical man. i'm sure there's a cis explanation for that though
TBF, he _is_ a total asshole who misgenders people on purpose. It'd be more compelling evidence if there was a squad of wholesome magical boys just off-camera who never could convince Chiro to go fishing with them back when she was still going by C.
Y'know, after the big todo she made about not knowing the ArCaNe SeCrEtS of hair styles, I'm kinda curious how Chiro reacts to stereotypically masculine topics.
The way he misgendered Chiro and via the tone seemingly intentionally misgendered Avaritia. Oof. Am actually a little curious now if it was Avaritia's choice to disguise as a girl instead of an enby or Superbia's choice.
Inessa's fake smiles were an old friend from back before she'd suddenly found herself. Seeing her return to anything resembling that bitter state when she was supposed to be so much better than me now felt fundamentally wrong.
Just going to note the continued vaguery of what that actually means and the direct juxtaposition between Chiro's situation and Inessa's situation strongly backs up my Inessa Trans Trutherism theory.
"I… there was someone close to me I thought I was helping. Things were bad for them and not in the way I could just punch," Inessa said as if she hadn't punched a great many threats to my well-being, "but, I thought that if I just told the right people and faced them honestly, tried my best and gave them a hand when they needed, it would all work out."
...
Inessa sighed. "They hurt me," she admitted. "Things got really bad, but I thought that was finally what they needed, maybe, to really let us make things better for them. I really thought we could take them in and show them how much nicer things could be from now on, to really help them get out of the state they've been in for so long, but…"
...
"They were jealous of me, and I'd never even noticed. I thought I understood everything, thought we knew everything about each other and that I knew how to help and…" she sighed. "They lashed out and, well, I wonder if I was really helping at all. Even when I kept trying to approach them, they just got worse and worse. And now I can't even fight."
..
"You're right Chiro," she said, pulling me into an uncomfortably warm hug for a moment. "I can't go back and, I don't know how to go forward yet," she said, as if that was some kind of revelation. "So I just need to start over, face her head on and figure out where to go together," She smashed a fist into her palm for emphasis.
Also just going to note the pronouns here. Pretty clear that Inessa has figured out Chiro is trans at this point, though I am curious when. Given my own theory about Inessa, I think it makes more sense for her to have known all along but wanted to wait for Chiro to figure it out herself, because there's a really strong juxtaposition there, especiallly if Inessa is trans, imo. It's also worth noting that Inessa frames her trying to help as "approaching them", not the father situation. (Wonder if the gambit by Temp was entirely her own idea, actually. And the whole "Things got better for them" sounds quite a bit like when Chiro became Invidia, tbh.)
(Worth noting that while I'm a beta, the only real prviilege I have is seeing a chapter ahead of time, my guesses are basically the same as anyone elses, so I feel comfortable sharing speculation here tbh.)
Also I do actually want to post the rest of the catch-up stuff I do have finished, but 10 in particular got REALLY personal in a way that it'd be really difficult to edit, so I've been debating on it.
But C turned into Invidia Bat, a cute, if very Inessa-like, bat girl. Still, though, the idea that she and Chiro are one and the same seems rather far-fetched.
Well, C finally managed to be emotionally honest with someone about her needs even if she was like three layers deep into gaslighting herself to do so. Progress!.
It feels really good to see her actually talk things out with Inessa for real, after all this time. At least, in a way more constructive than just leaving it at "I'm evil and you should hate me" and not elaborating
And while the seed's feedback making it seem like helping her friend get back on her feet was clearly for evil (tm) reasons is very funny, I'm also very glad she can't avoid acknowledging she still cares
Superbia had come up with some strange plan and it made them anxious and ey'd run out and gotten into a fight instead of telling me anything. And yet, ey always forced herself into my heart. Lupin's way was to hold eir friends close[,] live for them and help and refuse to let them do the same.
V)
)
