Who Da Boss Lady? 9 (Patreon)

Commissioned by InfiniteChaosRai

Who Da Boss Lady?

Chapter 9

-VB-

When the punch landed on me, I sailed across the room and slammed into the opposite side of the wall with a squeak and then fell down.

For a moment, no one in the room said anything as I got up.

“Owie! Did you have to do that?!” I whined with faux tears. It did nothing to defuse the tense atmosphere of the room. Mari’s mom was now standing and backing away while Mari’s dad’s doctor friend was doing something, too. 

Both she and Mari’s dad stared at me as if they were looking at a monster. 

“H-Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you or anything…” I tried. “I’m just looking out for Mari!” 

-VB-

Sato stared at the creature floating above his daughter.

And he knew implicitly and explicitly that his family’s life was in danger. 

He didn’t know this through some kind of mana detection but because of his unique ability to detect threats. 

And this thing in front of him was the biggest threat he’d ever run into in his life. 

Sato, seventeen year old, grunted as he stared up at an Oni. 

“Oh, look at you~!” the oni laughed while armored and armed like a Sengoku samurai. “You think you can win against me? I am the Black Oni Warlord of Hokkaido, the Thundering Bellow of the Kusagawa Clan!” 

All Sato saw in front of him was a slight halo. With what he had on him and his skills, this self-proclaimed warlord would not be that much harder than the lesser land gods he’d killed before. 

He sniffed and raised his gun. “You never know until you try.”

Sato felt his heart pounding. 

Sato, twenty years old, looked out toward the sea and glared at the giant serpent that threatened to end his hometown.

“You know you don’t have to do this.”

He looked over his shoulder and saw his mentor and the woman who kept the youkai of Western Yamato at bay with her mere presence. In his eyes, she glowed with an inferno-like halo. She was far outside his power and experience. He glanced back at the sea serpent that was whipping up its spell for a tsunami. Its halo burned at his eyes but it didn’t make him tremble in fear like his master’s did. 

“I would be a thankless* student if I ran away like a coward.”

His master laughed.

It would be the last time he heard her laugh.

His ears pounded. He moved but he felt like he was pushing through molasses. He needed to be faster! 

Sato, twenty-four years old, knelt before a fallen angel in an unwilling mockery of submission. He breathed out tiredly while his blood dripped slowly off of his chin, one drop at a time. 

The fallen angel, a mere four wings, laid on his back, laughing quietly and painfully. 

The threat halo that had once burned was now a smouldering shadow of its former self, barely illuminating the man’s head. The angel’s actual halo had long since dimmed and laid broken, staticking and failing even more as the angel’s life ebbed away slowly. 

“That was fun, eh, Sato-chan?” 

“... You are insane to the end,” he muttered.

Around the two of them, the baseball stadium remained standing by a thread. The stands were all but gone, and the interior court was devoid of its grass. Huge craters pockmarked everywhere.

“Oh, if this was how I was going to die, then I would have killed your teacher a long time ago,” the fallen angel giggled. 

“... Your betrayal at those shores killed so many humans. Don’t you feel anything about the deaths of your former charges?” 

The fallen angel… finally stopped laughing. 

“Humans…? Me, feel bad about killing humans?” With his last strength, the fallen angel stood up. “Why the fuck would I feel bad about killing humans…?” he groaned out as he stood up and looked down at Sato. “Why would I feel bad at all about killing you animals when it was saving your lot that resulted in my God, my Father, dying…?” he hissed out through the pain even as his wings began to crack and dissipate away into motes of nothingness. “If it wasn’t for you… humans…” he gasped out. “God would have … conquered it all…! All pantheons… would have knelt before him…! Destroyed…! Forced to become … either good … or disappear…!” 

He took a step forward. 

He weakly grabbed Sato’s chin and shook him. Weakly but with such a conviction that Sato feared he might die.

And the fallen angel… wept. 

“You humans killed the only person who mattered to me and mine… who we loved with all our hearts and souls…!” he hissed out even as his face began to disintegrate. “I loathe you, humans. If it weren’t for you… God would be alive…! He would be with us still…!” 

Then his arms broke off. 

Sato, even as his body moved, saw the wings on the thing’s back. 

It looked like wings to his eyes and on the surface, but they weren’t normal. They weren’t normal. They weren’t normal normal normal normal -! 

The fallen angel glared at him.

“I hope the Heaven is forever barred for you and your kin,” he cursed. “I hope you humans suffer forever … in the filth … of your own making…!” 

And finally… died.

But for a split second, he saw his threat halo flare out.

For a split second, that fallen angel, in the last moment of his life, was a greater threat to Sato than anything he’d ever run into his life.

And the same halo was hovering behind the flying black thing.

His left hand and arm struck out with a punch even as his right arm twisted around to let his right hand reach for the gun he kept hidden in his spell pocket. 

His left fist connected … and sent the thing flying?

He watched in alarm as it squeaked after hitting the wall and then falling down to the 

“Owie! Did you have to do that?!”

Sato … did not expect that level of a whiny voice to come from the creature. It also didn’t look hurt at all despite the fact that he threw a left jab that had taken out lesser youkai.

“H-Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you or anything…” it said while getting up. “I’m just looking out for Mari!” 

“You expect us to believe that?”

“Y-yeah?” it tried as it flew up and hovered at his eye level. “I’m Mari’s guardian angel… ish.”

“‘Ish,’” he repeated. “I’m about to shoot you if you don’t expand on that ‘ish,’” he threatened. 

“Oh, come on! You haven’t even let me explain myself!” 

“And you better get started before I start shooting.”

“And I thought you were cool with your driving,” it grumbled quietly. “Fine!” it said and then cleared its throat. 

Then it posed. 

“Who do you call when you have trouble that needs to be taken care of~?!”

He pulled his gun out. 

“Jesus Christ, man, let me have my intro!” 

It had to be stalling for time for something. 

-VB-

I was definitely stalling for time.

Because I didn’t think “Hi, I’m an evil creature who turns naive and innocent young girls into evil magical girls whose whole job will be to satisfy their own life goals and to be selfish!” will fly in the face of any respectable parents. 

“I am a creature that exists to raise my chosen investment into something greater, and receive fulfillment in seeing my protege do great.”

Mari’s dad stared at me.

He looked like he wanted to shoot me with that Colt 1911.

… Aside from his good taste in pistols, I did not want him to shoot me with a gun. Considering that his punch just then didn’t hurt, I doubted that a non-magical bullet was going to hurt me.

…

…

But then again, Mari’s dad looked like he knew what he was after encountering magic. And did some magic spells, too. 

… Hmm, I might actually get hurt.

“Look, that’s the best you’re going to get unless Mari wakes up and agrees to tell you,” I harrumphed and turned away. 

“And why shouldn’t I just kill you here?” 

I turned back to him.

And laughed. 

And laughed. 

And then the bastard actually shot me!

Stupid. 

That woke up Mari.

-VB-

A/N: culturally, being “thankless” was a greater insult than being a coward for the Japanese. In a civil setting, it would be considered impolite. In less civil settings, people have been killed for less.