“Lilinnnn!!” Hanada sobbed into my chest—now bereft of the armor that had been there before. The poor girl was full-on ugly crying, which made sense, given what she’d been through.
The crying probably just boiled down to social anxiety and stress, though.
Hanada Maya, licensed professional manga artist, and one of my earlier cosplay material sources. I’d reached out back then to get a full outline of the character, front and back, so I could make the costume, and she’d emerged from her cave to come see the first cosplay of one of her characters at a major convention. Since then, she’d come to see me at…
One, two, three, four… Wait, has she been stalking me? Somehow, upon reflection, she’d been at every convention I’d attended worldwide for four years. Did I just never notice because she’s kind of cute? In the same way a fluffy animal could be cute, of course.
All of that spiraled through my head while Hanada put her emotional state back together, sobbing into my chest and doing the worst motorboat I’d ever received. It had nearly been impossible to get a room alone with the girl, and the moment the door was closed, she’d broken down like an old radio.
“You must’ve been terrified.” I tried to console her, but she just seemed to instantly bounce back, like nothing had happened, despite the furious wiping of her eyes behind her bangs.
“No, no. It’s not that. Just… too many people around. And they were all looking at me. It was hard to convince the event staff that I needed the women’s changing room, even. It’s hard to find room to get a word in sometimes.”
Right, that made sense. Hanada had an issue with social interactions with more than one person. Hence, the room alone. Really, it was adorable to watch her function like a normal person right up until a third person joined the conversation, and then she’d go dead silent unless spoken to directly.
Still, it was odd that I hadn’t seen her at the crystal identification event in the throne room.
“Wait, changing room?”
Hanada nodded, her fists raised in excitement. “Yeah! I had some friends who wanted to go. They don’t know I’m a mangaka, though. We all did cosplays. They got me to go as Sephiroth. But now…” Her emotional state wavered as she let her shoulders slump with a sigh.
“What’s wrong?” Meanwhile, I was trying to remember who that was supposed to be. There was so much anime and manga to get through that I’d never quite made it to video games, leaving a giant hole in my cultural understanding. I leafed through my memories of the scanning incident, looking for tall, lanky people with more feminine shoulder widths.
I instantly hit the brakes when I realized who she was. Class A, Swords. Hanada was the Sword Heroine. If I had to guess, then my stalker could become stronger than Fukushi if she got some actual exercise for the first time in her adult life.
“They left!” Hanada finally buried her face in her hands, shoulders slumped. “My friends all said they didn’t need to stay trapped in the castle, so they used the commotion of your duel to slip out. I tried to get them to stay, but they didn’t listen!” Rather than sad, she actually sounded mostly angry about it.
In any case, it had finally happened. “How many, what do they look like, and where were they headed?”
“I’ll just come with you!” Hanada peeked out from her hands, parting her bangs and boring into me with her pale blue, soulful eyes. I thought my heart would stop. All those things people said about facial symmetry and perfect features? Hanada Maya had them all. She was a very pretty woman. Pretty enough to get lots of attention. Attention she really disliked. Which made sense, given her fashion sense. Or lack thereof.
“I’m not going alone, understand? We’ll be in a larger group. Can you live with that?”
She nodded, her jaw set firmly and back straight.
“We’ll need Daniella, then.”
“You called?” A minor windstorm announced the arrival of the high mage herself, which also made Hanada squeak in surprise. “That was adorable. I heard the situation, so shall we go?”
“Yes. But can we get Hanada-san a sword?”
“Could she swing one for more than half a minute?” Daniella asked with skepticism.
I wasn’t sure, but I nodded. Hopefully those hero bonuses would mean something to mitigate the issue. Hopefully, I wouldn’t be totally wrong and discover my stalker to be a complete liability.
Moments later, the three of us were marching down hallways like women on a mission, although Hanada was fidgeting with open anxiety. That changed the moment we reached a small armory, and Daniella handed the first sword to Hanada. The moment her fingers touched the grip, her posture shifted. Her center of gravity lowered and her weight settled across both feet evenly. Even her breathing became completely steady. She stopped looking like a scared rabbit, and instead had the intensity of a freshly trained soldier.
She drew the sword and eyed the edge, held it out, giving it a few swings, all slicing neatly through the air. Finally, she shook her head, strapping the sheath to her belt and approaching the rest of the stocked weapons. Hanada picked out one more identical blade, which settled at her waist on the opposite side. Then she grabbed two shorter blades, which joined the first pair.
“Why four of them?” I asked, confused.
Daniella shook her head, though. “No time. I’m sensing a scuffle in the market, but it’s almost out of my range.”
I groaned. Humans and their ability to cause trouble.
We turned our hustle into a race towards the front gates of the castle, departing with barely a word of caution from the guards.
We hit our first snag at the base of the drawbridge, where an ostentatious carriage was waiting, with a posh, stately man standing in the center of the road, flanked by an accountant- and bodyguard-looking sorts.
“Ah, High Mage Daniella. Perhaps my timing was just right. Please, explain to me why I cannot see His Maj—” the man cut off as we barreled past, thankfully not dragged down by Hanada’s lack of good running form. “Hey! What is this insolence?”
And we kept going. I could sense a staged distraction when I saw one.
“Nobles!” Daniella bit out with disgust.
I, with my wealth of anime perspective, found that I agreed. I didn’t have any such opinions before Earth, but the world’s healthy dislike of pompous authority figures had rubbed off nicely on me. On some levels, Earth was just as screwed as every other world, but on others, they had the right ideas down.
We ran into a second issue after that. I had just fought a rather strenuous duel against a superhuman samurai girl. I was tired. Running full tilt through the upper crust of the city took time, and everything was so far apart. As if every noble house needed a sprawling garden in each direction around their mansion.
“Sorry, I need to switch to flying.” That was all the warning I could give before letting a strong storm current catch my cloak and lift my feet off the ground a few centimeters. Thankfully, being back in my cosplay outfit, I was pretty lightweight.
I could’ve gone faster, but Hanada was the one who knew who we were looking for and Daniella was an authority figure in the kingdom, which meant she would be more helpful than I would in the event of a confrontation.
The market was packed. So packed there was no room to cut through. The reason was easily identified when I flew up an extra foot to get a view. Everyone had created a loose circle around two people, both dressed in worn traveling gear, each tall and rippling with tense muscle as they shouted at each other for some reason or another.
I lowered to the ground and shook my head. Not a chance either of the guys were members of the weebs.
“Just some local adventurer-types. Any other ideas?” I asked, losing some of my earlier haste.
There was a sickening smack of wood on flesh, and I rose up to get a better view as more angry shouts rose into the air. The cause was a bit more chilling. The city guards had arrived, and were frustrated by the press of the crowd, so they’d decided to implement their truncheons on the civilians in their way, carving a path of violence that far outstripped the original confrontation. It was unnecessary, but easy to tell when someone was on a power trip.
Oddly enough, the moment the violence actually broke out, the two who’d caused the disturbance both melded into the crowd like ghosts.
“[Wind Sense].” I quietly intoned, placing a small magical tracer on each of the men before I could lose them.
“Something is very wrong about all of this,” I informed the two as I descended again. “I’m sensing a scam afoot.”
“Hey, you three, you’re being detained for questioning!”
We turned, and a small cadre of guards approached from the direction of the noble district at our backs, already with their clubs in hand.
“Excuse you? You don’t have the authority to detain me.” Daniella glared at the approaching men balefully. “I am High Mage Archaelyn.”
“All the better. Duke Andreas has submitted a formal request that you be brought in on suspicion of treason.”
“Right. As I said, I’m sensing a scam afoot. Let’s all split up. You two return to the castle, I’ll do some investigation on our missing heroes.” I sent the words on a private little breeze to the pair, then wove a curtain of magic around myself. Light magic to turn invisible, wind magic to mask my scent, dark magic to nullify the traces of my passage, and a broad sweep of mild fire magic to warm the entire area enough to disguise any heat my body made.
First task, helping Hanada escape. Daniella had already shown some progress in making her own copy of my [Sonic Move] spell, which allowed me to move as one with lightning. Hers allowed her to blend with wind, so capturing her would be nearly impossible.
Hanada, with one hand on the hilt of her shortsword, faced the six guards with grim determination. Then, without warning, she leapt to the side, clearing the market stall and using a wooden support pole to spring herself higher, landing on a rooftop and vanishing over the side.
I watched in stunned silence as she disappeared beyond.
Daniella even reacted before I could, turning into a gust that vanished into the sewer grate nearby.
Suddenly without pressing urgency to help the two in their own escapes, I just floated up into the sky, unseen by the world as I headed for the two fools I’d placed my trackers on. I’d tail them, then turn them upside down and shake them until their lunch money fell out.
But seriously, I wondered internally, how great is it to be on the same side as the heroes for once? Like, shocking competency is so refreshing. And Hanada? Who would’ve guessed she was a supermodel level existence, beneath all that goth exterior?
The question was… did I want to put my stalker on my list?