12. the nothing magician

“Never mind.”

Yeah.

“Ishida?”

Yeah?

“Do you want to go back?”

Yeah… wait, back to what? The arena? Our world? Back in time?

“Oh, wait, I get it. We’re here because you don’t have magic yet, so you want the squad leader, me, to advise you, but not in front of your teammates. I understand.” I found her ability to conjure injurious amounts of bullshit charming. Hisui continued: “It’s natural for you to feel insecure. After all, you’ve always been the strongest person in the room. For the first time in your short, but prodigious life, you’ve learned how it feels like to be average.”

What was this insane woman saying? It almost sounded like something her therapist might’ve told her and which she now parroted. Literally none of that was true–for me anyway.

“Rather than react with anger and resentment, you can see defeat as a learning opportunity and be grateful for it.”

…yeah, she was definitely parroting. I hid the grimace with the back of my hand.

Out of nowhere, Hisui clapped. My skeleton nearly jumped out of my body. “Wait, I got it! It’s not about how hard you hit, but about how hard you get hit–”

“--and keep moving forward?”

“Yeah! That!” She clapped my shoulder this time. “Now you’re learning!”

“Did you like the movie?”

“Movie?” Hisui inquired.

I stared at the darkness where she was while she stared at the darkness where I was.

“Huh? Wait, no, what movie? Did I miss something?”

I hummed the theme song of the movie she’d just quoted, to no avail. I was so so glad that she wasn’t able to see my face. “Never mind,” I mumbled. “Continue.”

But she didn’t. The following silence could’ve been used as a torture method. Silly me–she’d just used the quote without context. As if the movie were remotely obscure…

“My dog died,” Hisui said. This was so bafflingly out of nowhere that I half expected her to turn this into an inspirational speech. ‘My dead dog fell, but we must continue to rise’. “Why don’t you tell Connie and the rest that you have no magic?”

Two non-sequiturs in a row. I shrugged.

“Ishidaaa…”

My eyes had adjusted to the darkness by then, but not hers, apparently. “Because… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

“Why.”

“Why what?”

Was she doing it on purpose? “Yellow,” I replied.

“Yellow what?”

“My favorite color.”

“Oh,” she said, “Mine’s pink.”

Her lack of reaction to that non-sequitur rankled me to primordial levels, but at the same time, it made me wonder what her normal conversations were like. Her thinly veiled attempts to win Yukimura over were not lost on me, but I’d hardly count those as ‘normal’. Given how tolerant Aoko was to nonsense and how little they’d actually talked, I obviated those encounters as well. This left Connie, who activated Hisui’s teacher’s pet mode, and I, who turned her into an unwanted life advice machine.

“Just tell them,” Hisui said. “I’m sure they’ll help.”

“How?”

“I don’t think the trial thingy is the only way for us to get magic. I’m sure they have contingency plans for…”

“For problem students?”

“Yeah.”

I gave her time to correct herself, but no, she’d said that without a trace of irony. I had to smile. Regardless, she was right; one of the fake onis had mentioned a ‘manual awakening’ before. I opened my mouth to say this, but ran out of air–just at the thought of having to say so. Many. Words. In. A. Row. But this entire conversation had been nonsense at best, and I was sick and tired. Did I have to get angry to even begin to resemble a normal person? I said, instead, “I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

I shrugged.

“Did you just shrug?”

I nodded.

“Did you nod?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, um. Uhh. T-there’s no reason to keep dragging the problem when the solution is easier and beneficial for all parties involved.”

“Don’t care.”

“Ishida, remember what I told you before?”

The ‘don’t care’ was an intrusive thought turned intrusive… dialogue. Before I unintrusively apologized, she said that, so I figured that she also didn’t care. So I didn’t apologize. “No.”

“I told you to leave the bad things behind.”

Oh, no, more intrusive– “And if I’m the bad thing?”

“Nah.”

–dialogue. Yeah.

“That’s a defeatist attitude,” Hisui said. “It’s deterministic. It’s nihilistic. It’s why the world is full of sad, jaded adults.”

I thought of spewing out more out-of-context movie quotes, but something told me that she wouldn’t be privy to their origins again. Sad, jaded nihilism, perhaps. “Fine, I’ll tell them.”

Her silhouette made a victory fist pump.

“...eventually.”

“Then the only thing left is the strategy meeting. First, how would you break Kawakami’s water shield without physical attacks? Second, what did Yukimura mean by ‘the obvious thing to use with plant magic’? Third, how can we avoid being the worst team again?”

First, elemental weaknesses. Second, status effects. Third, the power of friendship. So far, videogame logic hadn’t betrayed me. However… “Sakura, do you–”

“Hisui is fine.”

(Well, don’t mind if I do.) “Hisui, do you like videogames?”

“Yeah.”

“What genres do you play?”

“Ro… romance?”

“...huh?”

“Like…” She trailed off. “Those phone games where characters date you and stuff. I mean I play them because I get bored, not because I want to date them or anything. Just bored. But yeah, I play those, but I don’t pay for the H-scenes usually. Maybe sometimes but it depends. I know you guys think I’m stuck-up, but I promise I’m not, I’m just busy a lot but, I like games really. I just don’t have time. Say something.”

So…

…so…

…she didn’t play anything that could make her savvy about this world’s mechanics. So I’d have to explain this from scratch. So she was single–wait, no, so what if she was single? To begin with, I’d told myself that I’d tell her how I felt specifically to get rejected and move on.

“Will you tell Yukimura?” She asked. Translation: will you out me as a dishonorable addition to the group?

I shook my head, remembered she couldn’t see me, and sighed. “I won’t.”

“Promise?”

This was as good a time as any to tell her to date me lest I inform our peers about her treason. After all, she’d told them I liked her because… fuck if I knew? Because she felt like it? Something told me that she didn’t even suspect I actually liked her. (Un)fortunately, this meant that blackmailing her wouldn’t be funny anymore. “Whatever.”

“Don’t ‘whatever’ me. Do you play games, Ishida? Can I call you Seishin?”

“....I’m sorry?”

“Do you–”

“No, the second part,” I said.

“Oh. Can I call you Seishin?”

“Call me what?”

“Seishin.”

I could hear that all day long, over and over again. “Yeah, sure…”

“Aight, got it. By the way, it’s okay if you don’t play games either. I won’t tell them.”

“No, I… I do.” Right–this was supposed to be a strategy meeting. Unless I explained what status effects were–from scratch–,Hisui would be outed as a phony sooner than later. Literally no one but her would care. Aoko? She wouldn’t give a shit. Yukimura? He’d already said that he didn’t dislike her anymore; if anything, he’d have a field day explaining basic RPG mechanics to her. “Who cares, anyway?”

Hisui groaned. “You don’t get it. Not everyone can be… I don’t know, indifferent. Not everyone can be cool and collected like you.” (What. If only.) “I knew going in that all of you hated me, but I pretended not to. I know you hate me, but are too nice not to help.” (WHAT.) “I have to act like I know about this stuff or else we won’t have a leader. (What is the talking about? I’m at my wit’s end.) “Therefore, I have to care, and I have to be on everyone’s good side. That includes Connie, so we have to win.”

“I don’t…” Then why the actual flying gigafuck had she told the rest of the group that I liked her if I she thought–whatever. Trying to find logic in this was like performing a surgery with quantum crystal healing.

Fine! So be it.

I’d talk.

Yeah.

“...what Yukimura was talking about were status effects, which are like… um. You know. Um. Paralyze poison sleep. Um. It depends on the game. But those three are usually. There. You know. Or like. Berserk. Confuse. Slow.”

“Ohh…” Moments later, Hisui asked, “How is that related to plants?”

“I don’t–I mean, it’s… it’s not I guess… but plant powers are usually related to them. Because. I don’t know, they just are.”

Silence.

“Ask Yukimura,” I mumbled. “He–”

“I get why ‘poison’ would be a thing, but sleep? Paralysis? I guess paralysis would count as a neurotoxin? But why sleep? Though there’s a fungus that turns ants into zombies, so maybe that would count as ‘confuse’? I don’t think Connie would let me use those, though.”

“Please don’t turn people into zombies.”

“I don’t get ‘berserk’. Do you mean the mang–sorry, copyright. Aren’t those Nordic warriors that get very angry and very strong? What does that have to do with plants? Oh! Wait, Ishida, I got it!”

“Seishin is fine,” I said to be cheeky.

She grabbed my arm, which nearly made me puke out my skeleton. “What if we pretend like I’m doing a ‘berserk’ spell on you?”

“Ghhhkkk… sss…”

“Yeah, like that.”

I cleared my throat. I didn’t know we were so… close. Holy shit. Fuck. Fucking shit. FUCK. Experimentally, I moved my arm a bit, nudged her, then retreated and froze and had to grit my teeth to avoid emitting more berserker sounds. But no. I had to calm down and reply and be normal. Easy.

Now that she mentioned it, it was a good plan. Not only would it play into Yukimura’s status effect shtick, but it’d also give me an excuse to avoid using magic. “We could also…” I cleared my throat, for I refused to stutter. “I mean I could also… um… pretend? To be hard. My fists. Fuck. I mean like rock fists I don’t know I didn’t mean. I didn’t mean that.” Alas, denying my nature brought forth perilous consequences.

“Good idea,” Hisui said. “So here’s our plan: I cast ‘berserk’ on you, you become a Nordic warrior, you pretend to be hard–”

“My fists.”

“–and then you’ll use your fake dust magic to break the shield.” All this while, she’d been squeezing my arm like a stress ball. “Oh, wow.”

I didn’t want to know what that meant, but slapping her hand away could also lead to perilous consequences. With my luck, I’d miss and slap something else.

Then she released me. “Should we go?”

I nodded, then swallowed, then said, “Yeah.” What had that ‘oh, wow’ meant?

She crawled towards, I assumed, the entrance, pawed around, then typed at something. What had that ‘oh, wow’ meant?

The door opened; the snow-white arena greeted us again. What had that ‘oh, wow’ meant, dammit?

Since she was on all fours right in front of me and wearing a miniskirt, I was greeted with… oh, wow.

Oblivious, or uncaring, to what I’d just witnessed, Hisui crawled out, stood up, dusted her clothes, then held out a hand to me. Mine was clammy and cold, but I took hers anyway. As she helped me up, I looked at not her. “We got this,” she said, and even though we didn’t, we did, and thus we went back.