Who Da Boss Lady? 2 (Patreon)

Commissioned by InfiniteChaoRai

Who Da Boss Lady?

Chapter 2

-VB-

Her name was not Clarinette the Envious. 

She was Sakai Mari! She wasn’t a hooligan or a weirdo! She was a model student at Kuoh Academy, which was a rival to all of the nation’s top 10 high schools and also a rival to any of Academy City’s schools! 

But… well… flying.

She giggled as she spun around in the alley, doing flips and twirls to her heart’s content. 

Then she paused. 

“What do you mean Evil Magical Girl?” she demanded lowly.

The doll, the weird magic doll that pulled this parlor trick, got up from where it - she? - fell after Mari struck her. 

“Oh, well. Because you are! Accepting this role means you are evil now.”

“I am not evil!” 

“What is evil?”

She opened her mouth to respond but found that she was … coming up blank.

But why? Wasn’t the answer simple and straightforward? 

The doll floated back up as if it(she?) hadn’t been smacked around. 

“I am Venalita! I am a purveyor of bad girls!” she(definitely she) said as she winked with a Victory V-sign made with her fingers over her eyes. 

Mari wanted to smack her again. 

“Fine, why don’t you tell me what evil is?!” she demanded. “Since I’m a bad girl who probably doesn’t know anything?!”

“Want is evil.”

“... What?”

The doll grinned.

It was … unsettling, the way its cloth lips stretched across its face where previously it was just a small mouth-shaped hole. Where was the crinkles and folds in the cloth? 

A shiver ran up her spine as she slowly came back down to the ground. 

“Want is evil,” the doll repeated. “The desire to be famous. The desire to do more. The desire to be great. The desire for women and men. The desire for baubles and treasures. Even the desire to see your family and community do more. All of it is evil.”

“H-How the heck is wanting my family to do well evil?!” 

“Because it comes at someone else’s cost, of course.”

…What? How did that -?

“Think about it. If you take a job that someone else needs more and are more qualified to take, then aren’t you evil for doing so?” 

“H-How would I know?! I don’t have a job!” 

The doll’s stretched lips came back to a small “o.”

“I forgot I was talking to a kid.”

“I’m sixteen!” 

“Sixteen, eighteen, twenty. Whatever,” the doll sighed as she waved her hand dismissively while looking away to the side. “The point is that when you are woking toward only your growth and desires, you are ultimately an evil being. Intent matters, of course.” She paused then brightened. “Oh! Let’s use a different example. Tuna!” 

“Tuna…?” Her head was starting to hurt from listening to “Venalita.”

She nodded. “Tuna. Wonderful food. Wonderful fish. And Japan overfishes them.”

“So…? People have to eat.”

“You don’t have to eat tuna.”

She opened her mouth and stopped. 

“You Japanese are overfishing the tuna so much that tuna population has been falling for decades. Sooner or later, tuna is going to go extinct. Because you wanted to eat tuna sushi. Isn’t that evil?”

She grimaced. 

But she liked tuna sushi…

…

…

Oh.

“Yeah, you understand. Or what about lawyers? They’re evil, right? But what they do is completely legal and necessary.”

Mari started feeling bad. 

“T-Then what is good?”

“Sacrificing yourself for the sake of others.”

“... How?”

“What is a hero?”

“Someone who fights crime and protects people! Someone who helps others!” 

“And why must the hero do it? Why can’t the people protect themselves?”

“B-Because there’s a lot of weak people, right?” she said, poking a hole in what Venalita was saying. 

“Yes. So they should die.”

Mari froze. 

“... What?”

“Why should someone else die for a weak person who cannot contribute? Why should the police officer die to save an elderly woman? Why should a firefighter die for a family who didn’t even bother to do basic fire safety checks on their house? Why should doctors and nurses risk their lives helping someone who clearly has no future? Why should people finance people who don’t work or who will clearly die in the next year?” Venalita floated up and looked at Mari in the eyes. 

Mari didn’t realize until then that she’d frozen stiff. 

“Good is the sacrifice of a few for the sake of many. A soldier traumatizing themselves by bloodying his hands on the battlefield. A nurse crying quietly to herself in the supply closet. A firefighter with lung cancer. The grave of a police officer. The politician who tries so damn hard to push laws meant to protect people.” She paused and then abruptly flew back to give Mari space. Venalita spread her arms wide open. “So don’t be good! Be evil! Live for yourself, Sakai Mari! Stand on top of the world, both mundane and magical, and be everything you want to be! Make your family happy! Make yourself happy! Be the dependable friend who doesn’t need to sacrifice to help them out! Be the one who lives a long and happy life!”

Mari gawked. 

It was twisted. 

It was wrong.

And yet…

Did Venalita say anything that wasn’t right?

“I…” She paused. “I’ll … I’ll think about it.”

“Sweet,” Venalia hummed. “Oh, and if you want to take your costume off, just say ‘Hiding Envy.’ And when you want to put it back on, say ‘Envious Transformation’!”

Mari glared at the doll. “Why are the phrases so cringe?” 

“It’s better than ‘love triumphs over all’ or ‘friendship wins the day.’”

She cringed when she heard those words. 

Yeah, you know what? Her phrases were better. Maybe even a little cool with “Hiding Envy.”

“... Then what do we do?”

“Well, you gotta get stronger, and an Evil Magical Girl gets stronger by defeating … anyone and everyone.”

“Huh?”

“Yup. Go around smacking the police. Go kick magical girl ass. Ruin charioy events if you really want to be evil.” Then Venalita grinned. “Or… be really evil. Find a corrupt politician. Kick his ass. Expose his corruption to raise your fame, but do it not because it’s the right thing to do but because you want to be better off. True evil always hides in plain sight, you know?”

Then Venalita disappeared, leaving her alone in the alley. 

Mari felt like she lost something today. “... Hiding Envy.”

With a dim light, her transformation was undone, leaving her with her actual appearance. 

She sucked in a shuddering breath and let it out. 

Instead of thinking too hard about it, she just walked home. But as she walked past billboards and TV screens showing famous idols and models and supposedly clean prosecutors uncovering corruption, she couldn’t help but see the dirt in everything. 

-VB-

“That’s… odd,” Shitori Souna hummed as she stared out into the city from her student council room. 

For a while, she felt a burst of magical energy. It wasn’t devil, yokai, or divine. It was just raw magic, if refined to the point of artistry. 

It was interesting. 

And powerful.

She glanced over her shoulder. 

She did have a missing piece right now…

She glanced back out at the city. 

‘Perhaps I can find another member for my peerage,’ she thought with hope. ‘Someone with raw power to supplement my peerage’s precision.’