Something I will call out as cheating, unless it's what the plot of the game is about (the Z series, X being a riff on isekai settings, etc.), or unless it's what the plot of the show is about (Rayearth and Knights & Magic in 30...arguably SSSS.Gridman too I guess).
Half the fun in these settings is jamming a ton of square pegs into round holes and seeing what happens.
On the other hand, imagine the MC, trying so hard to contact the other magical girls of her world, seeing other worlds collide cataclysmically and panicking, because she didn't print enough posters for cities in other worlds, and she needs to get access to their internets. Or she even caused it and is (badly) covering up.
I remember reading some crossover of many magical girl shows. It started with an exhausted magical girl who'd been fighting alone for a time breaking the masquerade. I dropped it though, and don't remember much.
Oh yeah, I remember. It was on Spacebattles and roughly contemporary with Puella Magi Madoka Magica as I recall. I could probably find it again if I put any effort into it.
Oh yeah, I remember. It was on Spacebattles and roughly contemporary with Puella Magi Madoka Magica as I recall. I could probably find it again if I put any effort into it.
Bringing up the multiverse only when a MG work in question already did so (e.g. A Magical Anomaly, CWMGQ) does sound like a good compromise. Helps the latter has a whole continuity (Void) specifically for dubiously canonical stuff.
But back to A Little Vice, I'm starting to wonder if its title is meant to be a reference to A Little Life? Probably not, but no harm in wondering
Man, the end of the year can kick the crap out of your schedule, but thankfully, I don't intend on being lapped by updates twice in a row, so let's get cracking on this installment of Chiro's Bizarre Adventure!
I endured a long anxious afternoon hiding in my room in the Forest. We'd been in no mood to continue the outing after Inessa rediscovered her virtue and demolished my monster. Ida had insisted, after the two found 'Chiro' 'hiding' in the staff room, that Nia's insurance would take care of much of the damage to the salon, but she was still quite palpably upset. At least no one was hurt. Despite my slips, Inessa seemed to have been too caught up in the moment to notice anything.
Of course Chiro was horrified by all that had happened. Looking lost and scared and confused had done enough to cover up for whatever my little breakdown may have cost me regarding the masquerade. And, it might have helped that I did feel at least a little guilty. Yes, I'd helped someone reveal her buried envy and speak her true feelings to a world that pushed and pushed against them, and I think Avaritia would have been quite happy with me about that. But ey wanted me to be the one watching for collateral damage, not the one randomly turning everyone I touched into a Resinner. So, it wasn't hard to use exhaustion as an excuse to cut the day short. Besides, Ida's goal of cheering up Inessa seemed to have worked remarkably well. Despite the devastation, Inessa was annoyingly upbeat after everything.
So it wasn't at all hard to fake being drained after the near brush with a monster and make my get-away. Ida was fuming as Inessa tried to play the sympathetic ear, hiding her obvious newfound determination that was also my mistake.
The focus on Ida's emotional dimension in this seemingly senseless attack on her family dovetails very interestingly on the revised next episode preview for this chapter making primary reference to her:
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 Chiro can never quite escape the aftermath of her actions without tripping over her guilty conscience is, as always, Yeah, but the way she uses Avaritia's expectations as a moral indictment...Man you don't even know how not to make your villain role the lash of your superego.
Being annoyed that the pep talk she gave to Inessa on purpose worked. Kek.
Avaritia had not returned by the time I made it back. Superbia had only insisted I distract the Saints for a short time, so I assumed ey should have completed whatever was so important by now, if all'd gone well. And yet, there was nothing in the Forest but silence. Of course, ey might have been chatting with Superbia already for all I knew. Ey wouldn't want me to see that. With no better options, I retreated to my room, grabbed Count Fruitula and allowed myself to hang from the rafters, sway gently and wait.
Waiting can be a kind of hell. It's the kind of hell where you can't distract yourself because someone might be hurting. And you aren't quite the kind of monster that could just coo at cute bat videos while that's happening. So you just end up imagining all the things that might have gone wrong. It's the kind of hell where it's easy to let a part of yourself start longing for any news, even if it's bad because at least you wouldn't be waiting anymore. But, after all the months worrying that Inessa's fights would go badly, at least it was a familiar kind of hell.
And this time around, I was allowed to hug Count Fruitula for comfort. The bat plushie reminded me of em after all, and the way ey'd smirked as ey practically forced me to take him.
It was definitely a better way to be an anxious mess than a boy could manage. Well, at least if the boy was terminally afraid of how he might be seen if he got caught doing that or what might happen if his dad was the one who caught him.
At last, someone knocked on my door. There was no one ever around but Avaritia and Superbia, and it was hard to imagine him lowering himself to knock instead of simply barging in. (Granted, Avaritia only really remembered to knock half the time emself.) And that meant I was about to be surprised by someone I very much wanted to see.
Unfortunately, good surprises still surprise their surprisees. I may—or may not—have started and let out some kind of unwholesome sound halfway between squeak and screech in response. I may—or may not—also have tried to cover my mouth in raw embarrassment. In the process of doing that, if I had done that, I hypothetically could have dropped the poor Count. Obviously that couldn't be allowed, so a hypothetical Invidia pathetic enough to do all of those things might have flailed and stretched to grab him before he fell. And, this hypothetical Invidia, for all she shared my wicked grace, may—or may not—have lacked the dexterity to avoid falling in such circumstances.
Fortunately, it was definitely very certainly the case that none of those things happened to me.
Which is to say that Avaritia definitely did not fling wide my door, a triumphant look on eir tired face, just in time to see me fall from the ceiling clutching an innocent plush bat to my chest for dear life.
"Hi," I said from the floor, too relieved to wonder where I was going to spend the next decade hiding in embarrassment, "I'm glad you're back!"
Avaritia stared for a moment, then decided not to bother asking and limped into the room. Eir mundane clothes were covered in cuts and scratches, and eir thigh was stained a dark brown that I hoped wasn't dried blood.
But eir face was carved into an unmistakably characteristic, roguish grin.
"Heya Chiro," Lupin said, as if ey were not very visibly injured, "How's it hanging?"
"Just," I responded, patting the poor count carefully before placing him gently on my bed and spinning to point at Avaritia, "just because you are my partner does not mean I, Invidia Bat, will tolerate this indignity."
Ey laughed and it felt like things were going to be okay.
"Is your leg…" I wasn't quite sure what to say, but Avaritia shrugged off the concern.
"Gimme a few days to heal and it'll be good as new. There are… things back home that are a lot scarier than our little Saints."
"Back home?"
"The real Forest. Superbia wanted me to go back and acquire something and, well, there's no better thief among the Beasts than Avaritia! So obviously I'd be the one to go get the treasure," there was a wariness Avaritia couldn't quite manage to hide when ey spoke of the deeper parts of the Forest. I wanted to ask more, but ey gently tapped a finger to my lips, hushing me.
"We can talk about it later, partner," and that was the end of that.
"So, if you were going back, why did I need to distract the Saints?"
Avaritia frowned, "He didn't mention that." It didn't take a genius to understand that the greedy wolf was not pleased that the plan had expanded behind eir back. "But it makes sense I guess. We don't know if they have any ties to that side of the Forest, and more people throwing virtue around everywhere could have made things bad. So I guess I have you to thank for keeping me safe!"
Ey reached out and ruffled my hair, "Also, I like the hair. It's very you."
I blushed and glanced away. There was a possessive intensity in the way Avaritia looked at me sometimes that I couldn't bring myself to hate. "You noticed?"
"Chiro," Avaritia said, sighing, "half your hair is gone."
"Right," I sighed, not quite embarrassed enough to stop luxuriating in the feeling of having my partner back and safe and complimenting me again.
"Anyway," Avaritia sobered up, "Superbia wants to talk to us both. I… just be quiet and nod and nothing will go wrong. He should be happy. I got something amazing, and we're all going to get a lot stronger from this! Wait until the Saints get a taste of the new and improved Invidia and Avaritia duo."
I couldn't bring myself to dampen Avaritia's mood, especially with eir injuries, but something about their words filled me with dread.
"Welcome my beasts," a few of Mr. Noir's shrill words were already enough to set me into a rage. I was not his beast. Avaritia was the one who had seen me, who had given me the tools to face my envy. Whatever my feelings about where I'd chosen to take that, he'd had no hand in my apotheosis.
Beside his throne, a familiar gray robe watched silently. I'd seen them before, when I was reintroduced to Mr. Noir as Invidia, though I knew nothing about the person inside. The robe could have been empty for all I could tell.
A much more intimidating figure to see at this time!
Though this is mildly diminished by the thought that the reason this robe is ominously empty looking is that a floating plushie obviously wouldn't fill out the outfit.
I didn't let that show on my face. Instead I offered a curtsy, letting resentment drown out my disgust at his presence. If anything, knowing that he couldn't reconcile himself to me existing as a girl felt oddly empowering. He despised everything about me and yet he needed me all the same. Yes, look upon me and realize how wide the world is; Invidia's deceptions are far beyond your feeble comprehension, you vain little snake.
With that oddly cheerful thought, I rose from my curtsy and graced Mr. Noir with a smile, "So, what is going on anyway?"
He looked at me; his obvious disdain and distrust losing to his need to proclaim himself. "I have had Avaritia retrieve this!"
He raised one fist, revealing a large dark purple fruit about the size of a heart. It almost seemed to pulse with the power of sin, throbbing to my senses in a way that threatened to eclipse even Superbia's monstrous power. It was horrifying and enthralling at once, a wave of incomprehensible contradictory feelings shoved into the same vessel; pulling in and pushing away, bright and dark, fathomless as the oceans and inconsequential as a pebble all at once. I tore my other senses away after a moment, panting for breath. It called to my sin like a long lost sister.
How had Avaritia touched that to take it back without falling into a stupor?! For eir part, Avaritia seemed to handle the fruit's enthralling presence with far less difficulty.
"What is that?" I managed to keep my voice level, fixing my eyes on Superbia's smug face. Avaritia knew what to expect, so I was the sole audience of his little show and I refused to give him fear or awe or anything like that, not with the way he treated Avaritia, not with the way everything about him was so like home. I brushed that thought aside, and paid attention to the monologue.
"This is the source of everything, a fruit of the First Tree! The seeds from a single one of these fruits has given us our status as Beasts."
"And a second could make us even stronger," Avaritia said, grinning, "There was some risk; the Deep Forest isn't safe and if the Saints had worked with some of its guards…" I wondered if that was a genuine worry, or a detail worked in to make it sound like I'd contributed. I hadn't even distracted Temperance. "But now that we have this, we can each take another seed to empower our sins even further. The Saints won't stand a chance against us now!"
"Long ago, people were weak and powerless, and the forest in which we all lived was dark and scary and full of monsters. The children of the forest hid and ran and tried to survive and eventually they found themselves seeking shelter under a tall ancient tree."
"The First Tree?" I asked, wondering where ey could have possibly heard the story.
Avaritia nodded, "The First Tree was kind and wise and decided to shelter the fragile children of the forest who knew nothing. And the Children grew safe and venerated the First Tree in return. But," Avaritia shrugged, "you can't really live just around a single tree. The children grew curious about the dark forest around them, so the First Tree sent a messenger to give them a single fruit, that contained all its knowledge, to help them understand the forest, to let them find the power in themselves to stand in the darkness and thrive."
Ey hesitated, "The rest is a bit different from what they made you learn in school, but Superbia's like old old and he was there for a lot of it, so I trust his version."
I made a note to inquire about the version Avaritia had learned first some other time; it sounded more credible.
"But only a few people could use the fruit, those who were willing to dive into their own desires, who were willing to try to grow and change and be more, to become beasts that could survive in the forest."
"The fruit is where those seeds we used came from?" I wondered out loud.
Avaritia poked me in the ribs, "Yes, but don't interrupt. Anyway, the other children of the forest were worried about those who started to explore. They decided that it was bad to use the Tree's gifts, that the Beasts were monsters who needed to be stopped, that the First Tree was wrong to let them become Beasts in the first place; so they stole a branch from the First Tree and carved it into weapons that they could use to get rid of the Beasts."
If the first Fruit was a gift, and the Branch was "stolen", then why would a Beast be spurned from receiving another, if the First Tree so obviously favors them in the "real" story?
...
Sarcasm aside, the compulsions of the Seeds are already on a thin balance with the Beasts' wills at just one, adding another on the scales for a boost is an undoubtedly dangerous risk, but is it one that's already been taken?
Superbia certainly hasn't eaten the Fruit whole by now.
Superbia tutted condescendingly, "That is one use that certain minds might choose for such a treasure; but there are far greater purposes to which this fruit can be spent," he grinned at the look of shock on Avaritia's face. "Our companion," he gestured to Gray Robe, "will modify the seeds and identify a fitting host for each. Unqualified to become true beasts, they will transform into a beacon for their sin. Each seed will spread its roots, awakening Resinners all around it given enough time. Feeding that much sin to the First Tree at once will do far more to advance our objectives than merely consuming the seeds for immediate power."
"You mean turn… everyone in the city into a Resinner at once?!" I couldn't stop myself from asking, horror breaking through my voice.
Avaritia glanced at me warningly as Superbia snorted, "Only those receptive to the Abyssal Forest's wisdom, but the number will be far more than we need to accomplish our goals."
"Superbia knew we'd lose if we fought, and he found a way to a world outside the forest entirely. So, we figured we could come here and empower our seeds and recruit new allies like you! People that need their darker emotions; that crave something more than they can have being all nice and kind and doing what society wants them to do."
I wasn't sure how to square my own envy with that; but any way to pretend that I wasn't a monster who'd sold myself out to team evil just so I could stand on the stage instead of just being a powerless bystander posed obvious temptations.
"And making Resinners?"
"The more monsters we make, the more power of sin we spread, the stronger we can get and then we can go back and show everyone they were wrong. Superbia has it all figured out."
I didn't know what to say to that. This was insane. It was one thing to release one person's sins, to help them bare their hearts to the world. It was another entirely to release thousands of monsters across the city at once. There was no way the Saints could keep up. People, a lot of people, would suffer.
Amazingly, when the openly stated gameplan is "Make people monsters" and "Beat the people who are stopping you from making people monsters", rarely is it actually upper management's concern that the target area not be ravaged into oblivion until everyone left are monsters!
"Is this really okay?" Avaritia and I had returned to eir room in the Forest where we could talk more freely. Or rather, where I could voice my doubts.
Ey shrugged, "He can be like that, but…. He knows what he's doing. If he thinks this will work, it'll work out for the best in the end."
Was that confidence built on years of working together as allies, I wondered, or was ey simply afraid to admit that the person they thought of as their savior was nothing more than a monster, that whatever love they had for him would have been better spent elsewhere?
I shook my head. Even if that's what drove Avaritia, I had no room to judge. Besides, self-righteously telling em what ey should be doing wouldn't get anywhere. Inessa had let slip her feelings on how to handle my dad enough, and I'd only ever retreated more into my shell. Avaritia was defined by eir greed, eir need to keep those they valued close, and nothing I could tell em would be something they hadn't already been ignoring emself.
I gotta say, Chiro's steadily leveling up self-awareness is truly a privilege to see, she really genuinely might be approaching the time when hindsight becomes present sight!
"Avaritia?" I tried a different tactic, "When you recruited me, you said you wanted someone to watch your back, to hold things back if the collateral damage got too bad." I laughed a little bitterly, "I've been pretty bad at that I guess."
Ey stopped, and stared at me and I saw the fear eating its way through eir eyes. I didn't need to say more. I did anyway.
"If we go along with this, people are going to get hurt. A lot of people. I know you care about collateral damage. I know you're a good person, that between all the beasts, you're the one who really believes in what we're doing more than any of us, who wants to do the right thing."
It was true. I could persuade myself to try out the cause of sin, but my desperate, clawing need to stand on the stage was a far more selfish drive than Avaritia's ideological predispositions. I wasn't a true believer in the bigger cause, not yet. I barely understood what we were actually trying to do.
Even my feelings for Envy were complicated. The seed had taken me at the moment when I'd broken and stitched my outsides back together. It had let me imitate, if not become, the creature I wanted to be. Envy had scoured away my face and given me gorgeous masks. It let me pretend to be Chiro or Invidia or anyone actually worth existing. And it would never let me forget how pathetic and awful I really was below the mask. It was worth it, for me. But it remained a sweet poison.
Strangely the seed had no dislike for that sentiment this time around. Perhaps wishing I was a good person while knowing I didn't have it in me to become one was, itself, an expression of my sin.
"But you asked me to tell you when you were going too far," and now the seed prickled warningly against my bones. This was a step closer to the line.
"This is," once again, the vines of sin holding my facade together threatened to come undone. Once again I was subject to agony. I bit back a yelp and looked Avaritia in the eyes.
Chiro realizing that she gets to want to be a good person with her Sin punishing her, but not get to be one, and then doing what will make Invidia stake its claws in her back.
Because she is a good person.
And now she knows.
(At least a little.)
(Please make it a lot soon, okay?)
Spitting on Avaritia's self-deception about being cool and callous and not Really having an ideology at the same time? Even More Peak.
Ey turned and started to say something. I could feel the wrath lurking beneath the surface, the impotent rage dying to lash out at anything at all. Ey didn't voice the accusations they were dying to make.
"Maybe," ey finally admitted.
I could hardly believe ey'd said that out loud, for all that the word must have been agony.
"M-maybe if this doesn't work, Superbia will use the fruit some way that's… less damaging?" I hated myself for the deflection, for not grabbing em and hugging em and doing every single thing in my power to pull them away from Superbia for good. We could stay with the cause. We could keep making Resinners without him. But Avaritia wouldn't leave, not while he had no one else. He'd also probably murder us horrifically if we tried.
Avaritia nodded, "Right! He's just… This war's cost him a lot," I hated how familiar Avaritia's excuses sounded, "His pride's the only thing he has to hold onto now," ey said as if ey shouldn't have been someone Noir could have held on to.
"We can help him though! Blunt the bad ideas, lead him to some big victories and then he'll listen!" It was a tune I'd hummed to myself quite often, for all that the lyrics were different.
Ey grinned, almost believing eir own words. Avaritia had never been the type for sustained brooding.
The days following the revelation of Superbia's plan passed in surprising peace. Avaritia wasn't willing to discuss breaking away from it in any detail, for all our mission haunted em, and I had no clue what to do myself. So we fell into an odd rhythm of talking about everything except what was important; yet another dance I'd hoped to avoid repeating. At the same time, Avaritia was more than pleased that I'd followed eir wardrobe commandments in eir absence and was quite happy to praise me for all the little ways I was 'managing myself' well. With Inessa's return to form, Temperance's glares faded to a justified wariness and Ida's near desperate attempts to hunt me down went from horror movie villain to the normal level of over the top intensity Ida applied to everything she did, so I managed to secure a greater number of lunches to myself.
A few other girls even started talking to Chiro. That was a weird experience, of course. I wasn't really used to people outside of my tiny circle. But Chiro was supposed to be bright and sunny even if I found the whole thing a little draining. I wasn't going to be at school that much longer, one way or another, but as daydreams went, I didn't mind Chiro.
It was Thursday and I was at lunch—chatting with a few girls from class all the way across the cafeteria from my former friends—when the image pushed its way into my head: a boy, perhaps ten to twelve, sitting alone in a playground wearing a bulky pair of headphones. He seemed dead to the world, and he radiated sin, a slow monotonous percussion, endlessly enacting itself and dead to the world.
It lingered for a moment, practically branding itself into my consciousness.
"The Sprout of Sloth has been discovered. The seed has been prepared. Meet with Avaritia and protect it until it can take root." A voice echoed through my head, alien in a way that felt almost familiar and impossibly ancient. That must have been Gray Robe, communicating with us somehow. This strange boy would host the first of these modified seeds to take root, a tool to awaken Sloth across the city if it could grow enough.
I shook my head and made excuses about visiting the nurse's office as I wondered frantically what to do. Maybe one wouldn't be so bad? Superbia's plan had mentioned needing all seven sins spread across the city to work. Maybe it would be fine if we let this one happen…
Temperance caught my gaze from across the cafeteria. I caught her eyes for one desperate second, then shook the thoughts out of my head and focused my gaze on the doors instead.
I let them close behind me and kept walking, though I wasn't surprised to hear Temperance's voice behind me.
"And where are you going all of a sudden?" she asked. I bit down a surge of undeserved hope as I turned back.
"You know, if you want to follow me, you could just return to the Forest. I'd be more than happy to explain my whereabouts whenever you wanted if you did that," I covered my mouth with one hand and laughed.
Temperance stared at me expressionlessly.
"Then it's no business of yours where I go. I'm not using this identity to do anything to Inessa, so you have nothing to fear." I should have said more. I should have told her everything Superbia had planned. Instead I spun and began walking away. A part of me hoped that this would be enough, hoped that the Saints would follow us and destroy our plans. That was what they did, after all.
And, even if I was too cowardly to tell Temperance what was wrong, I was also cowardly enough to stay as Chiro as I left campus and walked slowly to the playground, studiously not looking back to see if a blue haired girl had snuck onto stage behind me.
Avaritia greeted me as I transformed, looking as anxious as I felt.
"Where were you?"
"I had to sneak away from the Saints," I responded, perhaps a bit too defensively.
Ey looked at me for a second, then shook eir head and produced a seed. It was like the one that had transformed me, the one that sat inside my chest even now. And yet, someone had scrawled on it with all sorts of strange writings, pulsing bright yellow against the seed's ominous black.
Ey gently held out eir hand, allowing the seed to float to me. As strange and uncanny as the fruit had felt, the modified seed felt wrong on just as fundamental a level. It infected everything around it with sin, a strange Shepherd tone of a vice that seemed to sink endlessly into itself. I pulled myself away from it and entered the playground.
I found him easily, listening to music and dead to the world. The boy had not moved from where I'd seen him in the vision, or perhaps Gray Robe had somehow known where we would find him. I approached slowly, looking up to him from the base of a slide. If Temperance had followed us, then delaying might mean the difference between failure and success.
He seemed to evaluate me for a moment before closing his eyes.
"H-hey!" I shouted, "D-don't just ignore the cool mysterious evil batgirl!"
He continued to ignore the cool mysterious and very evil batgirl. Honestly, kids.
With a flap, my wings lifted me to his level, allowing me to pluck the headphones from his head. Balefully, he looked up.
"Hello, brat," I said, favoring him with my fangiest glare.
"Hi," he said quietly, in a voice that would give Temperance a run for her money for how little caring it contained. Well! I would show him! I was practically inured to that kind of treatment these days!
"Why are you all out here alone? You know, bad things happen to little boys who have no one to look out for them."
He seemed to consider it for a moment. "It doesn't really matter," he said.
Ah, so that was how I'd looked that night in the cold after I'd run away from dad. I wondered what had driven a child so young to the breaking point.
"Wanna talk about it?"
"Not really."
I toyed with the seed. Perhaps this wasn't all bad after all.
You are literally going to turn him into a monster creation jukebox there is literally NOTHING not bad about this.
Man I think what's really like. Wrong with the Beasts, every one of them, even Superbia in his special prick way, just have absolutely no patience for the long game of helping people figure out their shit.
I mean they're literally mystically opposed to the forces of Virtue that include Patience, so like. It's understandably the case, but come on.
"If everything could just stop for a little bit, could let you have a break just for now and you wouldn't have to think or remember or feel anything at all until you can gather the strength to talk to someone, would you like that?"
He looked at me warily for a moment. Then he nodded.
Gently, I held up the seed and blew it toward him. He looked on, half-curious, as it landed in his chest and sunk in. For a moment he stared at me, almost grateful. Then his body began to distort.
Roots spread out from his feet, digging into the slide and fusing with it, growing and sinking. His eyes closed as a tree began to grow around him, spreading out in all directions, growing up and up until only his face was visible, sleeping gently inside the tree of Sloth.
I flew back despite myself, landing near Avaritia. Creating a Resinner was an almost mystical experience, bonding through shared sins and shared blood. Here, there was no such connection, no insight into what had hurt this child so that he welcomed Sloth.
I took a few moments to look upon my work, to stare as the tree grew and grew. Perhaps there wasn't any reason to worry that the Saints wouldn't find us. Instead, I should have worried if they could win.
I alighted on a branch and rubbed my hand on the tree. It would be defeated. Our plans would fail. The Saints would seize victory like always. And maybe they'd be able to help this kid more than I had.
I tried to pull my hand back, but it was strangely stuck, sinking slowly into the bark of the tree. Frantically I tried to pull it away and I shouted something and then squeaked as something wrapped around my feet, pulling me up, rough branches growing around me in real time to pin me in place.
"Nononono, you're not supposed to go after me!!!! Avaritia saaaaveeee meeee!" I screamed for help as something broke my skin. Dimly, as the world faded to black, I saw a figure in blue leaping toward the tree, foregoing her trademark speech.
I sank into the tree, into sloth's slow lullaby, drowning out thought, drowning out feeling, drowning out even my envy. I made a token struggle to keep myself awake, to fight. But, in no time at all, slumber took me.
I dreamt about a boy.
His mother didn't run out on the family; he didn't get attacked by monsters. His best friend had no amazing epiphany where she found herself, came out and then turned into a hero. Instead, things continued as they always had, an unending cycle of faked smiles, meaningless attempts to comfort Inessa and quiet retreats to the realms of fantasy when her efforts proved equally shallow.
Perhaps he was supposed to graduate, supposed to go somewhere else, to move on to something else? It was hard to sort that out when it was so easy to move in the same never-ending circle, letting familiar routines help anesthetize him to the anhedonia of life.
Inessa and I studied together. Mostly, I helped her study. We never met Temperance or Lupin and Ida remained a distant figure, one we could barely name, so it was just the two of us.
It should have been easy to pull myself out of it. All I would have to do was admit it. I could snap my fingers and escape. And sure, I wasn't happy right now. I couldn't see myself as the kind of person that could just be happy for no reason on a day to day basis. But, at least, I'd claimed those little moments: the feeling of flying, of freedom, the power to stand opposite my former friends, and the simple pleasures of playing at being Chiro.
My parents fought again. I put on my headphones and pretended not to know my dad was shouting downstairs and pretended not to see any of the sparks that sprouted around Inessa.
And yet….
It was nice to avoid realizing how much I hated everything about my life. It was so easy to live in a world where I could pretend things were good enough, were going in the right direction, even as everything faded into monochrome gray.
I pretended to make fun of Inessa and she pretended to get offended. We both acted like the transient ups and downs of daily life meant anything next to the overwhelming monotony of it all. Sometimes, she started to say something and, for the briefest instant, I could see the red of her hair glowing like fire against the gray world. And then she'd give up and fall back into the same routines.
It was a way of pause: to cease without having to face the finality of ending, without having to admit that you'd like to stop being or that you are the kind of person who might be able to do that to those around you.
And then, she broke the pattern. Inessa turned from me and asked out a girl as I watched in the distance. She got rejected. Her crush said something awful to her. Inessa's face twisted into a frown. But then she laughed instead; it wasn't fair to do that to Inessa. And yet, Inessa laughed and tried again and then Inessa Brandt began to spew flames.
And I wasn't the kind of person who could resist that offer. I wasn't the kind of person who could be the hero.
Castitas faced Invidia—me—in what seemed to be an empty void, devoid of illumination save for the soft flames of Castitas' knocked arrow. Glittering bubbles floated around us merging and splitting and showing a thousand sad stories. She'd done it. She'd entered my dream, our dream, and she'd found it in herself to break out of that apathetic sloth, to cut through the comfortable gray of the world. Truly, there was no one I'd rather envy.
Inessa: Hey has being evil been good for you?
Chiroptera: [Lying] [Maybe] [She has no idea] Yes.
Inessa: ...Do you wanna talk about that?
Chiroptera: NO! FUCK YOU!
Castitas hopped out of range, retaliating with a perfunctory arrow. I deflected it with a copied flame.
"I don't want to fight!" she shouted, almost desperately; ever passive, ever willing to sit and let me attack as she peppered me with magic from a safe distance.
"This isn't about you!"
Even I had to admit that sounded hypocritical while I was wearing her face. And yet, for once, it didn't feel like a lie. I envied Inessa, that was true. I stared at her and I wanted more than anything to be her in every way. And yet, it wasn't about her really. If she were a stranger, would I still have felt the same?
I let loose a screech and followed it up by flying in as fast as I could, swaying to the left and right to dodge Inessa's arrows. Frantically, she grabbed her bow with both hands and swung it at me, clubbing me in the side of the face and sending me astray.
"W-what!!! That's not how you're supposed to use that!" it wasn't fair! That wasn't a melee weapon! W-where was the dignity? The grace!? Starlight Princess Orion would never use her wand as some kind of club.
Inessa took a moment to hold up two fingers in a peace sign and flash a smile that fled from her face as soon as I pushed past the pounding in my head and dove for her again.
"I just want to understand why you have to do this!"
"It's like Avaritia says! Some of us need sin to keep moving, to break out of that endless spiral where we let ourselves die day by day! My envy set me free!"
Inessa jumped over me, firing an arrow at the back of my head. I spun as fast as I could, knocking it out of the air with one wing and righting myself as she once again opened the distance between us.
"Tell me what you envy so much then!"
I screamed in wordless frustration and dove for Inessa again. If it was that easy to articulate in the first place, I wouldn't have gotten this far.
"EVERYTHING!" I snapped. The void shook again, or perhaps I was just losing my grip on it.
"What…" Inessa looked at me in complete surprise and barely remembered to dodge my next attack.
"What about me is so great?" she asked, infuriatingly mystified.
I conjured a ball of fire and lobbed it at her.
"You're brave! You're selfless! You're beautiful! You're strong! You can figure out what you want and become a person who can chase it even if you mess up! You help people! You can make friends and do things you enjoy without feeling guilty about it! You care!"
She blushed and froze. I tried to tear her eyes out with my claws.
This has to be the weirdest fucking day for Inessa. Her best friend is calling her the coolest person ever and somehow that's a motive to murderize her as a werebat.
"A-and even if I was, none of this whole sin thing is helping you be brave or help people or try your best!"
That went without saying. My envy was an unreachable goal, a mirror that could never be real. I'd admitted that to myself over and over again and yet, it ached more when even Inessa noticed it.
I stopped. I needed a moment to find the response, to tell Inessa exactly how badly she'd misunderstood me, to convince her that hating me was objectively the right thing to do.
And LITERALLY trying to RESPOND TO THIS is giving her Insight Damage.
Because where is any of this supposed to go? If Sin is right for Chiro, then it should literally give her what she wants, and it is specifically, not giving her what she wants, because that's what Envy is, so the only winning option is to convince the only friend who's always been there for her that she should actually hate her now and...How do you even do that when you just said you've always just wanted to be like her?
In the distance, I could see Diligentia holding up a seed, tired but satisfied. Temperantia stood over a crouching Avaritia, the wolf's tail between eir legs.
Can you fucking believe what that L streak must feel like.
[Running away because you got your asses dribbled] "WE SHOULD FIGHT!" [Running away faster because one of the people who dribbled your asses wants to do it again]
I could dress it up however I wanted. We'd set up a super monster and then I'd immediately gotten captured and had to have Castitas save me. And even then, they'd beaten us and recovered the modified seed of sloth. It was hard to know how long we'd been in that dream, but it clearly hadn't been long enough for whatever Superbia had planned.
I'd thought I could stand against Inessa, could rival the protagonist a little. And yet, she barely even seemed to realize we were fighting.
Chiro didn't even know if she wanted any of this to happen (she didn't), and she still feels like a sopping wet beast.
Rip in rip Chiro, rip in rip.
Don't worry though! Inessa said she wanted to fight you now!
Because she didn't before!
And now you have to deal with Angelic Saint Castitas on purpose!
...
"Nononono, you're not supposed to go after me!!!! Avaritia saaaaveeee meeee!" I screamed for help as something broke my skin. Dimly, as the world faded to black, I saw a figure in blue leaping toward the tree, foregoing her trademark speech.
"You disappoint me," Superbia's wrath fell on us like thunder as we entered his throne room. It was all Avaritia and I could do to stand. The cloaked figure once again present, watching with what might have been curiosity or amusement, was seemingly immune.
"Again and again, my plans fail because of you," he growled, "Not only did you fail to guard it properly. The Saints barely took a moment to find the Sprout!"
I met Avaritia's eyes and I saw recognition flash across eir eyes. Ey knew I'd led Temperance right to the sprout. How couldn't ey, after the conversation we'd had.
Slowly ey turned to face Superbia. That was fair. For all we'd talked about being partners, I'd barely earned the title, then I'd turned around and betrayed eir cause. It was only natural that they'd say the truth.
"I let Temperantia know where it was," ey said with a faux cheer.
"I…" I tried to interrupt, to say something, anything.
"It was all my fault. I thought we could talk her back around into joining us if she saw how big this plan was…" Avaritia's tone was forcefully blase and ey even had the temerity to wink at me.
Superbia raised a hand. Terrible light descended, hammering Avaritia into the ground with the force of divine wrath.
"You dare!?" He shouted.
I tried to interrupt, but no one seemed to notice my fragile voice. Or perhaps the words had just gotten caught in my throat, buried under a strange and all too familiar pressure.
"Very well!" he grimaced, desperate to save face, "You have failed me for the last time!" The light spread, wrapping Avaritia in a cocoon.
I had to do something, anything. I cast about for any kind of solution. Anything to make him stop. I could have attacked, but he was so obviously so much more than either of us. I'd just end up joining Avaritia in that situation.
The cocoon of light rose, smashing itself against a wall, then another. Muffled screams were the only indication that Avaritia was aware of every aspect of what happened. This was all my fault. I'd been the one to tip off the Saints, to fail at every little task, to fail to even organize resisting Superbia's horrible plans enough that this hadn't blindsided Avaritia with no chance for someone actually competent to sort things out.
I had to do something. I'd taken the stage and I had to carry it through, however undeserving.
"Wait!" I shouted at last.
Slowly, Superbia turned to face me.
"T-the Saints," I said desperately, a plan coming together. "They're our real problem. They always fight together so of course we're outnumbered, B-but," I took a deep breath.
This was dumb. This was wrong. I should have grabbed Avaritia and run. I'd failed Inessa and her family. I'd failed Ida and Temperance and even dad and now I was failing Avaritia too. I'd barely escaped my dad and I'd let em linger in the same toxic place, too useless and too smug about holding it over Temperance to actually even conceive of doing anything.
"Castitas is their leader. If we can get rid of her, then they'll collapse and everything will work," Superbia didn't care about punishing Avaritia. Not really. He cared about finding a reason that his failures weren't his fault. I understood the impulse. I was little better for all I'd been drilled my whole life not to make excuses, but it was easy enough to manipulate.
This plan would work. Inessa wanted to fight me for some reason. I could lure her out, pull her away and fight her and then, one way or another, Superbia would either let Avaritia free willingly, and then we could run away together. If I lost, if the worst came to pass, he wouldn't have any other choice but to let em free. And, I liked to hope Avaritia wouldn't stay around if Superbia's actions had brought me to that.
"I know how we can capture her." I stared at Superbia, banishing all of my doubts. One way or another, I wouldn't let this stand. For once, I felt almost serene. "But, if I do that, you have to set Avaritia free."
I was very concerned Chiro was gonna say she knew Inessa's actual identity, but thankfully she's very terrifyingly straddling the line of what she needs to get away with for this to work.
Gathering her resolve, Inessa makes a serious decision. Meanwhile Invidia arrives at a conclusion of her own. Will Castitas be able to defeat Invidia… and, even if she can, will she be able to save Chiro?
Tune in for Episode 28: Decisive Showdown! Castitas vs. Invidia!
There's a lot I could say about this chapter, besides the fact it's very good, but I'm zooted to my fucking gooted by how goated this penultimate climax is, so I'll just leave it is it's very good for now.
Looking forward to 2023's last rendition of Lesbian Naruto vs Sasuke!
Been thinking of the idea that he's literally powered by making himself seem impressive/oppressive. So he needs to go out of his way to show off or crush people both to feed his ego and powers. And it allows to make him a bossfight that charges supermoves by buffing his team and debuffing opponents.
So his thing as a boss, for HSR (kinda sleepy, sorry if anything feels weird.)
I'd give him fire and wind weaknesses, thinking imaginary or quantum for third. He brings minions, like maybe tree constructs, resinners, or mind controlled characters. He uses imaginary element and inflicts the status Imprisoned, causing loss of a turn and slowness. His buffs and debuffs could charge a defensive shield and a big breath attack? Also I like the aesthetics dragon xemnas had, and think stealing the magic circles that shot lasers would be cool. Inflicting weakness break could ruin his buffs and power-up. Also thinking of some flight thing. Flying not as freedom like it's for Chiro, but as a way to place himself above. I just like how thematic grounding the dragons in skyrim is. Also, need the fire support button. HSR bosses, except the tutorial, have a special charged move that calls in an attack outside the party, matching one of the bosses' weaknesses.
Anyway, went and complied a more structured and comprehensive list of Original MG stories and settings on SV (well, the CWMGQ spinoffs are fanfics, but still of an original SV work), even if some have been inactive for a while. Think I got them all, but let me know otherwise:
Anyway, for crossovers, I think using Pretty Cure annual crossover movie rules of "everyone ends up going on vacation at the same place and end up fighting something and we are not actually allowed to think about the fact that five world ending crises canonically happened to everyone here in a roughly similar timeframe and that hasn't altered the worldbuilding at all" or the like is always an option!
"All the mascots just know each other." is a helpful addition as well.
Though it's gonna be awkward in Fool Bloom's case, given the mascots there (the Dandelionhearts) are all dead. Unless you count Sfira or Maimi as the mascot.
For ALV and Phantom Ascension though, makes a lot of sense that an Archangel and the afterlife-related Shades would know each other
Though it's gonna be awkward in Fool Bloom's case, given the mascots there (the Dandelionhearts) are all dead. Unless you count Sfira or Maimi as the mascot.
Well, here it is. Decided to post this joke omake with a cheesy villain, though I'm not sure if it lands properly? Gonna try to expand on it later.
The Saints frantically ran down the corridor of the broken down building. Shambling things made out of plants rose at their advance, before being dispatched by Castitas' arrows, with any survivors blocked or pushed by Diligentia and Temperantia. They ran into magical wooden gates, which proved resistant to them. The Saints set to tearing them down while holding off the advance of the creatures. Finally, they broke into the chamber, about the same time as the Beasts did. There stood the root cause of this.
A girl, about their age, was in the middle of a circle, assorted laboratory instruments spread around the room on many tables. The center held a tree, its roots, branches and vines extending to the walls. The girl herself, Elisa, was their classmate, and looked quite different than how they had known her. She looked tired, like she had barely slept or truly relaxed in the last few days, her clothes were wrinkly and dirty. Yet, she looked determined and energized.
"Please, Elisa! We can talk this out! We can solve this without anyone getting hurt!" Castitas pleaded.
"No. No more talking or holding back. Your stupid fights took everything from me. You Saints have failed time after time to truly stop the Beasts, letting them destroy my home. My mother only ever wanted to use her research in marine biology to help people. She was gonna revolutionize medicine! And time and time again, you ruined our family's businesses and laboratories. Plush store? Burned down. Sea themed theatre? Decayed by a shadow monster. Hell, we even tried to sell seafood from carts, and you still destroyed. Every. Single. One. Of them!" She got more and more agitated. She barely reacted in time to grow a wall to block Temperantia's attack. She quickly shifted her attention to the tree, chanting to it.
It started expanding and twisting its form, as the greenery around converged, walls forming as needed to block the Saints and Beasts. They felt the power pulsing from it, sweating and feeling their hearts quicken. The mass started forming flippers, one end opening into a mouth while another thinned. It soon took a selachian shape. A recognizable, cute form.
A Blahaj, in fact.
They prepared themselves as the entity got its bearings. It looked around curiously, and moved and stretched its body. The saints charged their magic into their weapons and themselves, while the Beasts felt the power coursing in the roots within their bodies. They wordlessly agreed to a truce, and Elisa's so called guardian roared.
NEXT WEEK ON SHINING VIRTUE ANGELIC HEART!!!
A dark scheme brews in Washintgton to perform a summoning, while the Saints wonder how to make the trip. Michael must hide, as the IRS is on her tail.
Tune in for Episode: Showdown in the White House! Mount Rushmore attacks?
Kinda feels like the ALV version of what if the Cabbage Merchant tried to get revenge on the Gaang. Interested in that expansion
Also, I'm feeling by this point I should probably give the SV MG Crossover discussion its own thread by now, since it's currently split up over multiple threads
Yup. Was going for that reference.
For adding to the story. Besides describing things better, was thinking of an extra scene before or after. So either a scene of her falling apart before dropping out, or a prior confrontation, or after the fight with the shark.
Elisa falling apart. One day, Elisa disappeared and her family has been looking for her. I made her someone known to the Saints, and they have some sense for people's issues. They'd notice something wrong and be motivated to help someone they know. Course, Chiro has shown they can just be stonewalled. At least Chiro already got them used to things going wrong like that.
Also, gotta figure out how to write the Beasts' reactions to this. I stalled in that part.
Oh, by the way. Elisa's mom was researching HRT synthesized using marine life, among other medical research. Unfortunately, can't justify making it from sharks specifically.
This omake is also a reference to summoning primals, from ffxiv, an act done by the truly desperate (or a level 90 or something summoner). As we've been shown, there are multiple ways to harness the tree, and I made summoning the Earth technique.
Was confused at first, then got it. Aquarium dates. Yeah, maybe an Aquarium burnt down. All the poor fish not getting rescued before the fire kills them would've probably made Chiro more averse to work with the beasts, and Lupin more ready to defect, lmao.
Was confused at first, then got it. Aquarium dates. Yeah, maybe an Aquarium burnt down. All the poor fish not getting rescued before the fire kills them would've probably made Chiro more averse to work with the beasts, and Lupin more ready to defect, lmao.
Personally I'm envisioning Tempe heroically waterbending all the fish into floating globes of water until someone can come rescue them. Building's gone, awkward manta rays are ok. This IS a kids' show after all.
Personally I'm envisioning Tempe heroically waterbending all the fish into floating globes of water until someone can come rescue them. Building's gone, awkward manta rays are ok. This IS a kids' show after all.
Oh, this could be so adorable. Those confused fish, swimming in the globes and looking around. The light reflecting and refracting. Could make for such nice shots.
Meanwhile Elisa and her family are weeping at their losses in the background.
In the end, Superbia agreed. He spent some time going over the plan, insisting on shaping it to his desires. But, in the end, he agreed, with a few modifications. He didn't trust me to beat her. Instead, all he wanted me to do was draw Castitas out and grab ahold of her. Superbia claimed he could leave a trace of his power on me that would summon us both back to the Abyssal Forest as soon as I grabbed her.
Only then, he promised perfunctorily, would he consent to release Avaritia.
I shouldn't have agreed. I shouldn't have offered the plan in the first place. And yet, for all I'd taken my place on the stage, I wasn't the hero. I wasn't beautiful and strong and capable of overcoming my limits to save my friends. I was just a jealous bat who couldn't control herself, couldn't save her partner when it mattered, couldn't even do a good job as an evil general.
The plan I was offering was awful. I would never have suggested it if Superbia hadn't taken Avaritia. And yet, a selfish dark part of me needed to settle things with Inessa. I'd beaten her, but then she'd beaten me. I couldn't tolerate letting it stand as a draw. No, I'd smile and agree to Superbia's conditions and then face Inessa fair and square with everything I could bring to muster.
And, if I gave it my all, if I copied Castitas' fire until I burned out, and I still lost, then Superbia wouldn't have any choice but to release Avaritia, or do his own dirty work. Ey'd go free; I'd win.
It was easy to lure her out. She'd said she wanted to fight—for once it turned out we were actually on the same page—and I knew where she lived. It was easy enough to slide a letter under her door in the middle of the night.
I told her to meet me in the park the next day. I ached to drag it out, to delay the inevitable as much as possible. But that wouldn't be fair to Avaritia, and if I did successfully capture Inessa, it was probably better to do it on a Friday, so she wouldn't miss school if she converted or broke out.
Preparations made, the rest was just a matter of waiting for the appointed time. Waiting and knowing that Avaritia was locked up, unable to act or move or even see. Knowing that I was powerless to do anything about it. Knowing that I was about to betray Inessa yet again, worse this time than any other. Knowing this would be the end, one way or another.
I'd hoped that one last day at school would help me make my peace with what was about to happen. I'd have one last chance to pretend to be Chiro, to chat with her acquaintances, trade awkward looks with Temperance, dodge Ida's awkward attempts to pull me back into the friend group. A characteristically selfish part of me demanded that much before I flipped the table.
To my chagrin, I needn't have bothered. It was impossible to have an ordinary moment knowing what would come next. I couldn't exactly look Ida in the eyes while I was about to do my best to take her best friend from her.
At least, I wouldn't be using Chiro's identity to do it; I wouldn't be breaking my promise with Temperance.
---
It was an appropriately gloomy afternoon, the kind with encompassing clouds that were just killing time until they could become a proper storm. That left the park empty, not that it was usually crowded or anything, but it was nice to know we'd avoid disturbing anyone with our fight.
I'd dashed out of school as soon as the bell rang, intent on trying to warn or chase everyone I could away before things started. With the park empty, I found myself sitting on a park bench as Chiro, failing again to steady myself for the upcoming fight.
Perhaps I should have transformed. But I wasn't going to be able to go back after this. One way or another, Chiro's time had come to an end without accomplishing anything of note. Some perverse little part of me wanted to, at least, throw her in Inessa's face. Or perhaps I just needed to lay bare all of my sins at the end of everything.
Inessa was late; it started to drizzle, little drops halfway between bitter cold humidity and proper liquid. I wondered if she'd missed the letter, if she'd decided to change her mind about wanting to settle things once and for all. Perhaps the Saints were going to attack me as a group?
I hadn't bothered with an umbrella. It had felt like it would be too awkward if Inessa showed up for our big climatic battle and I was carrying around an umbrella I didn't need. Instead, she found me huddled into a damp ball on a bench, hugging myself for warmth.
"So it was you," she said, betraying no hint of surprise at seeing Chiro here.
Awkwardly, she sat down on the bench next to me. "Sorry it took so long to get here. I figured that it might help to talk the others into not showing."
I didn't respond. Of course she'd tell them. Of course they'd agree to this. To them, this was probably the place where they saw me turning around. A wasted effort.
"I figured it was you when I saw your haircut in the fight the other day," she laughed awkwardly. "And I realized that you'd said 'her' in the salon when we were talking things over. I used 'their' and you corrected me."
Again, I had nothing to say to that, nothing I could say to that really.
If Inessa was frustrated by my non-responsiveness, she didn't show it, "And then you skipped today, so we all put it together and Temperance confirmed it. Which, well, Ida was pretty upset at her for hiding things again, but, we can tell you all about that later."
Honestly, was Temperance actually temperate or just indecisive? I shook my head; there was no point thinking about that kind of thing now.
Something about the action made Inessa settle a little more into her skin. She even managed a grin that bore faint echoes of the closeness we'd had for so long.
"I guess a part of you didn't want to stay away, huh."
"Ida kept dragging me back. She got a little obsessed with Chiro," the excuse came easy to me. For all I'd been raised never to use them, excuses always seemed natural on my lips. I let it go this time. There were some things I couldn't admit, not to her, not then.
I wondered if there was a point to talking like this. We'd never managed to say anything important before now; this wouldn't be any different. I glanced at her: fragile and yet oddly defiant, a tiny flicker of flame that refused to bend to the brewing storm.
I could have reached over and hugged her. Superbia would have been able to summon us with that. And yet, I owed her more than that; I needed this to be more than that. Even my own sin wouldn't have let me go through with that gambit.
"You're stalling. We didn't come here to talk, Castitas," I'd wanted the words to cut, but the comment ended up sounding affectionately chiding instead. I admired her, I loved her like family, I resented her with all my heart. And today we would grab that web of feelings between us and burn it to dust.
"Do we have to?" she asked, "Is there no other way?"
I stifled a laugh. If I'd ever been the kind of person who knew what I wanted, we wouldn't have gotten here in the first place. But Inessa wouldn't get the joke, and it wasn't like I was any better at understanding me.
"There's no other way," I said instead, rising to my feet and walking away from her.
I transformed between steps, stretching my wings dramatically before I spun to face her. Ten paces away, the perfect length for a duel.
Inessa slapped herself twice on her cheeks, then grabbed that wooden bracelet of hers. In a surge of flame, Castitas stood before me, all the more radiant for the palpable air of sad determination she carried with her.
"I don't think I really get it," she said at last. "But I'll do whatever I need to do to make you talk!"
I lifted off the ground to build a little height, then dove for her. Even now she dared to think we could go back, that we could let all our feelings out then return to the old status quo, like all this was just another monster of the week.
I expected her to retreat. In both of our previous fights, Castitas had focused more on keeping the distance open between us and using her weapon. Instead, Castitas stepped forward to meet me, ducking under my strike before springing back up. Her palm rammed into my chin with enough force to send me toppling backwards.
I landed flat on my back and did my best to roll away before she could follow. If I were still just a human, that would already have been enough to end me. As it was, I found myself wobbling as I sprang to my feet and tried to open up enough space between us to get my bearings.
"CASTITAS FLARE BARRAGE!!" Inessa shouted her trademark attack.
Retreating had, obviously, been a mistake. Range was her weapon, not mine. In punishment, I found myself facing down a swarm of fiery arrows. Frantically, I copied her power, matching each arrow to a fiery green bat.
"Why did you have to do this?" she asked, as if asking the same questions over and over would ever change things.
"You keep saying that I'm amazing or that you envy me!"
At least she had the decency not to expect an answer, for all her words were punctuated with another trio of fiery arrows. These spun off in circular arcs before reorienting and, impossibly, homing at me from several directions at once.
I knocked a pair aside with my wings and caught a third with one hand, wincing at the heat, only to find that Inessa had used the distraction of the arrows to once again close the distance, striking at me with a flurry of blows.
"I'm a ditz!" she shouted, delivering a roundhouse kick to my thigh. "I'm indecisive! I can't do anything alone! I'm a coward when it comes to the people I care about!"
I pinched her leg in between my arm and my gut, following up with a subsonic screech that sent her stumbling.
"What I'm saying," Castitas took a moment to catch her breath, wiping off her lip, "Is that you're the clever one. You always know what to say to calm people down! You listen and you care! You're a good person, Chiro! So why do you think you need this?"
She stumbled on the name, still trying to reconcile the person I pretended to be with the person I'd thought I was.
"Haven't you been listening to Lupin, we're the good guys!" My response was mocking in a way she didn't deserve. Anything to blow it off, anything to keep this confrontation as purely physical as it could be.
Thunder sounded in the distance.
She shook her head. "You don't really believe that, do you?"
I wanted to tell her I did, but Superbia's casual cruelty was fresh in my mind. No defense of sin could justify handing Castitas to him. The words died in my throat.
"So why?!"
She advanced again, raining blows on me with all the aggression of an oncoming wildfire. I parried and dodged and tried to counter as best I could, letting my wings and my superior mobility do most of the work for me there.
In the midst of that, the rain began to fall in earnest.
"You found yourself!" I admitted as I landed a glancing blow on her shoulder, "I got distracted with mom and then I turned around and looked and you'd turned into someone amazing. Someone I could never match, someone who could actually face herself, who could move beyond thinking about how much she'd like to be a good person if she could and just actually helping make life better for everyone!"
The plant inside me trembled, vines writhing against themselves in twisted satisfaction.
Inessa blushed, then shook her head. "Like I said, I'm not that amazing at all!" She knocked away a mimicked arrow and parried my follow-up punch with the arm of her bow, before releasing an exploding blast of flame right in my stomach. Worse, she had the raw audacity to keep talking while she did it.
"But, even if you think I am, so what? It's not wrong to admire people! Aspiring to be like someone isn't a sin!"
I coughed and stumbled back, straining to stay on my feet. Castitas seemed disinclined to follow, leaving me the space to answer her words, if not her blows.
"Of course not!" I snapped, "When you're the kind of person who can change, who can become the thing you admire, then aspirations aren't sinful! They help you learn what you want to be! But," something slotted into place. The envy I'd never quite grasped suddenly seemed so obvious to me, "that's the difference between us! I'm not a hero! I'm not someone amazing! I can't turn around and change or work hard until I become the person I want to be."
I laughed, at the end of the day, envy was that simple. "Envy is when you know what you want is impossible. And once you realize that, you can't just seal your wanting away!"
Castitas took a moment to gather her thoughts. I'd hoped, when I'd seen the weather report, that the rain would make this a little easier. Instead, she seemed to be burning all the brighter.
"I realize that," she said at last. "At first I wanted to just go back to the way things were, to wake up and realize it had all been a bad dream, that C was still there and that everything would just go on the way it always had been, where I helped him and we slowly made things a little better, and I could always rely on him to be kind and smart and know just what to say to help."
Her wings were supposed to be cute accessories, a silly part of a costume that would have been absurd if the Saints weren't so amazing. Now, they caught fire and grew with every word she said, every ounce of passion incarnating as another burning feather.
"But that wouldn't be fair to you, or to anyone who's gotten hurt, would it?" She shook her head. "That's why, we should accept everything and go forward instead!" That was objectively nonsense. It didn't mean anything at all. And yet, Inessa acted like this was some divine revelation. "I'll stop looking up to the image of you I built up in my head all this time, and you can stop doing the same for me and we can finally talk to each other."
Castitas envied me? No, I shook my head. Her soul did not sing to me with any depth. At least it hadn't since I'd learned to listen to them. At most, she aspired to be like the person she'd thought C was. It was a strange revelation nonetheless.
I shook my head. If I was the person who could get better just from trying more, I wouldn't have ended up where I was in the first place.
"Hi, it's nice to meet you. I'm Inessa Brandt," she punctuated her words with another arrow of fire, aimed squarely at my throat.
I batted it aside with a growl. This wasn't fair. She couldn't just force me to go along with her ridiculous ideas anymore. And yet, when I looked up, she'd dared to extend a hand toward me.
I screamed at her, sending a blast of rippling pressure straight at her. Inessa didn't bother dodging, stumbling back with the blow. And yet, her eyes didn't leave mine, and the smile on her face didn't so much as flicker. Her hand didn't fall.
"What's your name?" she asked, managing not to stumble over her words for all her face was contorted in pain.
How was I supposed to answer that? I wasn't C. I would never be him again. But Chiro was a mask and Invidia's everything was built out of lies.
I raised my hands and gathered mimicked flames into a large bat, sending it hurtling toward Inessa.
A single unformed blast of fire drowned out my flames, and the next bat and the next bat, Castitas burning brighter than I could ever hope to copy.
"I'm no one," it sounded so melodramatic to finally say it after so many weeks of dancing around the point, "I'm nothing, just deception after deception, stacked on top of itself until I almost look like a real person!"
In a way, it was a relief to finally own it. To admit that, no matter my pretensions, I'd known from the start why Inessa would triumph today. Wishing and longing and knowing it wasn't fixing you until you grew desperate enough to tear yourself apart just to fake it for a few beautiful moments. What else could that self-destructive impulse be called but sin?
My seed came to life, tendrils crushing my heart in a loving embrace. It adored being named in such lavish detail.
"Is," she did not move, save for the flapping of her wings that kept her floating a few inches above the ground, "that really how you feel?"
I answered her with a wave of green fire. It crashed into her wings and died, forcing me to leap over the incoming flames. Her raw power, the way that even now, she'd grown beyond me, giving lie to Inessa's cold comforts.
"Then that means you can become anyone you want to be!" Inessa smiled brightly at me, still refusing to accept the obvious.
I stared at her, genuinely confused. Did she still not get it? Was I simply too pathetic for Inessa to comprehend?
"So you hate yourself," the words were heavy on her lips. "I know there's more to you than that! You liked being Chiro!"
I dive-bombed her, pulling in and out and striking again and again as she blocked and dodged my frantic assault.
"It was an act!" I shouted, "I was trying to get close to you!" Frustration helped give weight to my blows, and I managed to drive my knee into her solar plexus, doubling her over. I followed it up with a hammer of imitation fire from above.
She laid in the smoking crater for a moment, and I found myself pausing to catch my breath.
"That's not what Temperance said! And," Inessa trembled and pushed herself to her knees, "And, I saw the way you smiled, when you thought no one was looking, when you got to just be yourself, away from your dad and us and everything!"
I wanted to deny it. If I didn't admit it, it wasn't true. And yet, Inessa was already standing, wiping a hint of blood off her lips and smiling at me.
"She's fake!" I said instead. "I'm not her. I'm not the kind of person who could be her! I'm just pretending!" I lifted off the ground, rising above Inessa to divebomb her.
"So?" she asked. "I'm an idiot, but, why does it matter if it's fake, if it's what you want?"
"That's not…"
"It's not fair!" Inessa cut me off. "You're so kind to everyone else, why do you always get to be mean to yourself? If this was anyone else you'd tell them to try! That even if they couldn't be exactly the person they dreamt of, they could still become someone great!"
I probably would have casually made up something like that. Then again, I didn't hate anyone else the way I loathed myself, not even Superbia. Somewhere in the fight, Inessa's constant overtures had gone from impossible to almost sounding logical.
I searched for the words that would point out how ridiculous all her platitudes were.
"STOP TRYING TO CONVINCE ME AND JUST DIE ALREADY!" I threatened instead, as if there was any world where I could kill her. It was good if it made her think I meant it though, or she might not do what needed to be done.
I folded my wings close to my body and swooped down toward her one more time.
Inessa raised her bow straight up, her hands trembling with strain, and pulled it back as far as it would go, struggling to hold it steady as an arrow took form. It was massive, and made from flames so bright they almost seemed like a sun.
"CASTITAS METEOR SHOWER!!!" Inessa shouted as the arrow loosed.
The arrow rose up and up, exploding in a massive fireball that scattered the clouds for a moment. A thousand burning stars fell toward us.
I dove toward Castitas, knowing I wouldn't make it, and then screamed in pain as one then another tore through my wings. A third smashed hard into my back, sending me crashing to the ground at her feet.
Inessa stepped lightly this way and that, dodging her own attack with instinctual ease as she looked down on me.
"Why can't you try? I'm not saying you have to like yourself, to believe you can wake up tomorrow and feel like you're really that person. But," she offered me a hand up, "why not let yourself try instead of all of this deciding it's impossible? Even if it's impossible for you to do it alone, we can still do it together!"
It wasn't fair. It would be so much easier if she would just crush me.
"Even if I wanted to try," the seed writhed inside of me, its mood crashing in an instant. The mere mention of another path enraged it into sending spikes white hot agony through my chest, up my neck and all around my skull. "I've gone too far."
I slapped the hand away and pushed myself to stand, wobbling ever so slightly as I resumed a fighting stance. My wings were burnt and broken. There would be no more flying for Invidia Bat in this fight.
"You can always change direction," she said, cheerfully
"I've hurt people!"
"And we can forgive you, and, well, we can make amends to anyone we can't tell."
"You can't—" I stumbled and caught myself. Dark spots made their way across my vision. I ached inside and out. And I wasn't sure how much was me and how much was that my sin had grown angry at the fact that I dared let Inessa reach me. "You can't just say that."
I wondered what it would have been like. If we'd ever managed to talk like this before now. I might have been lost enough to try. Would I have run away? Would I have been able to become someone a little like Chiro? Probably not; it took a lot of magic to create her. A part of me wanted to believe it could have been possible.
But Superbia had Avaritia trapped. And the only ways to end that were to capture Inessa here and now or to make sure he couldn't fall back on using me instead of em.
I gathered myself and looked wordessly at Inessa, baiting her in as I gathered every last bit of energy I had. For a single moment she relaxed, donning a beatific smile. Nervously, I tried and failed to smile back.
Then I screamed with everything I had left. It sent her flying back, crashing through the hard plastic shell of a slide and into a swing set with an agonizing crunch.
"I'm too weak," I offered by way of explanation as Inessa rose to her feet, straining to stand despite the damage.
"It would be nice," I admitted. Speaking was hard. My wings had already begun to dissolve into miasma. My seed hated every word. "It would be nice to be that person. To… let myself try, let people help, even if I couldn't ever believe I could be what I wanted to be."
"But I'm weak," I glared at her. "And I couldn't just go back to wanting, not if it means pretending it's not impossible, not if it means that I have to risk being him again!"
I grit my teeth and forced my legs to move. The result was halfway between charging and stumbling. Something inside of me was crumbling; my seed could not allow the longing that Inessa raised here and now: the offer of another road I could still take.
Inessa rose to her feet before I got anywhere near her. She didn't look much better than I felt, but unlike my tattered wings, her flames hadn't dimmed at all. Instead, they grew brighter still, wrapping around her like armor.
"CASTITAS!" She raised her bow in front of her, spinning it as easily as anyone else might spin a baton. With each rotation it grew larger and larger, the flames extending the shape of the bow far beyond its limits.
"EMPYREAL," the flames around her stretched into a point, transforming Castitas herself into a gargantuan arrow.
"ARROW!" And she fired herself forward, shooting at me with all the light and heat of a newborn star.
I closed my eyes and savored the oncoming warmth. Finally, it could end. Inessa would be sorry that she'd had to take it this far, but she was so strong.
Avaritia would know that Superbia had set me on this course and finally break away, and I could finally stop trying to cling to the shards of envy, worrying about if something else was possible, or if I could listen to Inessa (or Temperance or Avaritia…) and try to approach myself with a little kindness. It was easier to let it all go, to sink into oblivion clutching at a precious little dream I'd torn to pieces with my own hands.
I expected the flames to hurt. Instead, after the initial harsh impact set me tumbling back, they surrounded me with a gentle warmth. I waited for the end. And yet, the sensation lingered, a crushingly kind human sensation, little different from from an embrace.
Slowly, I opened my eyes.
Inessa Brandt had wrapped her arms around me, Castitas' uniform giving way to her mundane clothing.
"Honestly," she said, "Did you think I would actually kill you?"
That had been the plan, yes.
"Superbia has Avaritia. He's going to hurt em unless I brought him you," I said, one last futile act of defiance. But I'd already lost. The network of roots inside of me had already begun to rebel, pulling away from my veins to sink back into themselves. Vines pulled away from my flesh, the power and the gift going with them.
Inessa just hugged me tighter, "then we'll save em together!" she said with a quiet exhausted confidence. Strange, when it wasn't me she was talking about, that actually made me feel like she could do it.
"Fine," the last of envy's power cracked, my seed burrowed deeper into itself, pulling away with all the strength it had granted me. "You win."
"You promise?" she asked, irritatingly playful.
"Fine."
I could feel myself crumbling as the last of my power pulled away. My beautiful mask felt already cracked at the edges. I could give up, but Invidia would take Chiro with it. That should have made me give up on this whole redemption thing. And yet, a part of me wanted to believe the face beneath the mask could change.
Inessa practically purred as I awkwardly lifted my hands to hug her back.
The seed went oddly quiet, almost as if was hibernating. Of course, I could still feel it deep inside, waiting to welcome me back as soon as I admitted that all my efforts to be better were just another masquerade.
I could feel Chiro's form cracking. That final admission had cost me the ability to be her. And yet, just maybe…
Light flickered around us, cutting off that thought entirely. Superbia had said that I only had to hold her for a moment and he'd take us back—
I tried to shove Inessa away with everything I had. Instead, the world shattered and deposited us both in Superbia's throne room.
"I suppose," he said as he looked at us both with begrudging amusement, "that I can acknowledge that you completed the plan even if you somehow seem even more pathetic than usual."
He raised a hand and bindings of light snapped into existence around Castitas, pulling her away from me. Perhaps, if we'd been fresh, we could have stood together and fought. We wouldn't have won, but we might have been able to run away, to gather ourselves together and free Avaritia.
Invidia could have tried those things. But I wasn't her anymore. My seed refused to answer my calls.
Once again, I was useless.
It was tempting to sick back into the same old self-hatred, to give up once more and admit how pathetic I was. Perhaps that would even have appeased my seed enough to do anything besides nod and pretend this was what I'd intended. I wanted to give up.
I'd promised I wouldn't.
NEXT WEEK ON SHINING VIRTUE ANGELIC HEART!!!
Invidia has been defeated, but Inessa is being held hostage by the Abyssal Forest! Temperantia, Diligentia and Michael stage a perilous rescue attempt. Meanwhile, Chiro considers what she wants to do now that her power of envy has shattered. Just when it seems like all hope seems lost, a surprising ally arrives on stage!
Tune in for Episode 29: Truth in the Mirror; A Saint Arrives on a Gentle Breeze
That's right, Ira Weevil shows up next chapter.
More seriously, holy shit, we're actually getting to the big finale! I'll admit, the Invidia/Castitas fight and what happens after is the scene that framed the whole story for me. Of course there'd have to be a big duel in the rain. Of course my protagonist would get absolutely trashed, demolished, utterly destroyed on every level.
I'm incredibly psyched for these last chapters and I hope they bring a satisfying conclusion for the audience I've inexplicably attracted.
In other news, User's Choice nominations close about 15 hours from posting this chapter. At present, we're currently doing really well in the three categories in which we're eligible! I'm incredibly humbled and thankful for the reception here. I'm awed and humbled to see the support this story has already gotten.
In particular, Best Original Work is one I think we really might be able to win. Votes open a day after posting this, and it would be really amazing if we could take home a User's Choice award.
Kinda impressive how we're around 100k words (which I think is about 200 pages) yet we're already nearing the end, given I'm used to seeing web fiction on SV and elsewhere go on for much longer
I think Shadell got a lot of advantage, in that regard, out of having chosen to start the story in media res and rely on the reader's general knowledge of magical girl tropes to sort of fill in the blanks.
So we can get a level of detail that would require her to expand the story to two or three times the length if she were telling the entire story of Shining Virtue Angelic Heart, but focus it down on a single arc.
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