Charlie laid in her bed, her head dangling off the edge of looking up towards the ceiling. She had been awake for a while but was forced to stay in her room. Two of the Soppio guards were placed in front of her door, keeping her from leaving.
Someone even boarded up her window so she couldn’t see what was going on outside. She was very bored, but she understood why Sanosuke and their deities were going to all these extremes.
It was for her, to surprise her.
When was the last time someone gave Charlie a surprise party? A surprise gift? A surprise anything for that matter? She thought long and hard, Carmichael had wanted to give her things back on earth, but she never really let him.
He was able to get by past this limitation in their friendship under the guise of “I’ll let you borrow this.” Video games and movies in particular were what Carmichael made Charlie “borrow”. Of course, it didn’t really work, once Charlie was finished with whatever game or movie, he would sneakily place it back in Carmichael’s room.
Eventually Charlie started to do the same, allowing Carmichael to “borrow” things that he really wanted him to keep as a gift. Charlie chuckled at those memories, she started to see parallels to her friendship with Carmichael and the sisterhood between Inari and Freya.
Their passive aggressive compliments to each other, never tearing the other down but instead trying their best to bring the other up. In a way Charlie and Carmichael were battle brothers, they would play multiplayer battle arena games or mobas together.
Carmichael would be the marksman position even though the characters he picked in the game all had giant swords and Charlie would be his support keeping him alive and making sure he got all the gold and kills in the game.
They got pretty far up the rankings just with their skills and synergy but in these games, there were three other players on your team and unfortunately those teammates weren’t as good as the Car-Char combination.
“Man, they really held us back, huh?” Charlie whispered still looking at the ceiling; she had moved her bracer arm up in the air, moving it in place. She took the time to go over her status screens.
Stats
STR:<0/0/0/0/0/0>
INT: <0/0/0/_/_/_>
ATH: <0/_/_/_/_/_>
RES:
It was disappointing, three grueling long years of training and nothing had changed since the last time she had looked. Was that really not enough… Was she still not enough?
“Do..n’t feel so down.. Don’t get discouraged!” the static voice said in her head. Charlie slid off the bed onto the floor. The voice was speaking the truth; Charlie knew that her discouragement was her weakness, the moment she faltered was when she would think.
“What's the point then?”
And give up completely, she thanked the voice in her head and moved her body into a push-up position. Sanosuke had told her that whenever her old negative thoughts appeared in her head, she should do push-ups. It was a simple method to keep her mind busy.
“Either way I can’t dwell on the past,” she said in between push-ups.
“Ye..ah that's…the spirit– ACK!!” As the static voice spoke it suddenly screamed in fear, the scream it made caused Charlie to drop to the ground in surprise.
“There… you.. Are! Stop slacking off and get back to training!!” Another voice was heard in Charlie head, this one was clearly masculine and strong, a much older voice. Charlie felt like she knew the voice, but it was hard to truly tell the tone of the person or things with all the static.
“Master *BZZET* please… I was.. onl—“ the static voice that Charlie always heard now spoke, when it tried to say the name of its master the static overtook it, and Charlie couldn’t hear what it said.
“NO EXCUSES! Ch..arli..e and Freya are working harder than ever! And we need to as well. No more talkin..g to Charlie,” the master shouted.
Then silence. It was a bit depressing for Charlie, it seems the voice wasn’t going to speak with her anymore.
“They said my name and Lady Freya…”
She continued to do push-ups. Whatever the voice was, whoever the voice was, they were here to help team Freya. They were here for Charlie.
“I need to hurry; I need to get past this dumb lock.”
///
A few minutes had passed when Charlie's door finally opened, Sanosuke and roughly three foxes came into the room. The guards that were stationed at her door looked in, nodded at her and then were relieved of duty.
Inari and Freya also appeared after the door was closed to their two retainers, Sansuke wore his work clothes and appeared to be covered in smoke. He looked exhausted as if he was working all night. His fingers had bandages all over them, the first thing Charlie had noticed about him. The second thing she noticed was that he held a folded piece of clothing in his hands.
He gave it to her with a smile. “This is for you to wear; the festival is about to begin.” Sanosuke also needed to get ready, so he said his goodbyes and left the ladies and foxes. Charlie unfolded the clothes. It was a kimono, a beautiful kimono colored purple with blue and pink highlights.
Charlie was in awe; did she really deserve to wear something so beautiful as this? Freya sat on Charlie's bed and looked a bit annoyed at Charlie. “Hey, you better not be thinking of something depressing right now. Don’t second guess yourself and put it on.”
Inari laughed slightly. “Even though that comes from Freya she is telling the truth, Charlie. We have been with you for a while now and can tell when you are thinking negative thoughts. I’m here to teach you how to put it on.”
Freya stuck her tongue out at Inari, Charlie smiled at the two. They really did remind her of her friendship with Carmichael, she spent the next few hours learning from the two feminine deities how to put on the kimono. The fox servants were helping her like maids at this point after she had the kimono on, one of the foxes placed a chair behind her as another fox pushed her to sit on the chair.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
The two battle sisters stood in front of the confused Charlie, they both stared at her face with their fingers on their chins. Inari snapped her fingers and one of the foxes placed a make-up set on the table next to Charlie.
“You're at that age where a woman’s got to look just as bad-ass as she is,” Freya said. “We don’t have time to teach you how to apply make-up, so just let us worry about that for right now.”
“We? Who is the one that begs me to put my style of make-up on them? Hmmm?” Inari replied. Freya couldn’t say anything and just lightly laughed, Charlie looked at Freya and saw that she had red eye make-up around her eyelids.
Charlie didn’t ever think too much of it, she just thought it was part of her appearance as a deity, but she was wearing the same traditional Japanese make-up that Inari wore. They were truly battle sisters, no, sisters in general.
Inari commanded the foxes on what make-up to use and where to apply it, Freya wanted something simple for Charlie and Inari agreed. After a while the foxes were finally done, the two deities looked proudly at their work.
One of the foxes pushed a full body mirror in front of Charlie, she stood up and looked in the mirror. How could that be me? she thought. How?
The kimono had fit her perfectly, the colors also matched her complexion and the purple highlights in her hair. The make-up was a copy of the same eye make-up the two battle sisters had, only the color was purple instead of red.
“You look beautiful, Charlie,” Freya said with hints of tears in her eyes. Inari nodded in agreement; she looked like a proud mother.
All of Charlie's life she was told she was cute, handsome or beautiful. Yet if that were true, why did people use her? Why did people leave her and block her? If she was really all those things to these people, they would have stayed.
So she had a negative view of herself and how she looked, she couldn’t believe the things others told her anymore. But here in this moment as she stared in the mirror… she believed it.
“Just like you two,” she replied with tears in her eyes.
Her soul ached for a quick second, causing her to grab her chest in pain with her bracer hand. She remembered feeling this ache once before when her resolve had started to come back, although it wasn’t as intense as it was now. She opened her screen and saw the status window once more.
Stats
STR:<0/0/0/0/0/0>
INT: <0/0/0/_/_/_>
ATH: <0/_/_/_/_/_>
RES:
Another letter lost, another step closer.
///
The Soppio festival was underway, as Charlie walked through the town she was greeted by the townsfolk. Some wore kimonos like her and others wore other types of festive clothing. The town was decorated with lights powered by ather.
These lights were multi-colored and even changed to different colors randomly; there were many food stalls which Charlie had started to visit one by one to try out the many different delectable foods. Caramel apples, hotdogs including some Fantasia world only food like a Nurtch drink. It was like soda, only much sweeter.
There were game booths to win prizes as well. One of the prizes for a game was a plastic Masked fighter Black mask, so Charlie immediately ran to the game and went to play.
The game was knocking over three glass bottles; she quickly placed an aurum on the counter and grabbed the ball. She threw the ball with all her might and smashed the three bottles.
“Oops.”
She quickly apologized and grabbed her prize, placing the mask on her head. All the other kids of the town were trying their best to win different prizes and she decided to help the kids by giving them pointers.
Sanosuke walked from one of the foods, he held two giant pretzels heading towards Charlie. He wore a dark blue yukata with socks and sandals. Charlie noticed him and waved goodbye to the kids; as she reached him, he handed her one of the pretzels which she immediately took a big bite out of.
The pretzel was amazing, causing Charlie’s face to melt in food ecstasy. “Mannnn this is sooo good,” she said with a full mouth. She didn’t care if it was unladylike, she was still hungry.
“How are you enjoying the festival?” Sanosuke said with his trademark smile on his face. Honestly, he always had that smile when dealing with Charlie or the other members of Soppio.
“It's been so much fun! Check it out, a Masked fighter Black mask!” She slid the mask over her head and did a heroic pose. She felt a bit embarrassed doing it, but in this world, she was still a young girl and all the other kids her age were also doing it.
“I’m glad you liked the masks. It took a while to make enough of them so all the kids in Soppio could get one,” Sanosuke said, taking pride in his work. Charlie slid the mask back up and looked at Sanosuke.
“You… made these?” Charlie asked. Charlie wasn’t dumb, she spent three whole years with this man and knew the abilities and skills he had. It’s not that she didn’t believe him, she was hoping that he didn’t spend all night doing all of these things by himself… Doing all these things for her.
“Well of course I had help from the townsfolk, my apprentices and the foxes. But I designed and made everything and even gave some recipes from Lady Freya and Inari for the cooks to use.” Sanosuke let out a yawn that he tried to hold in, while it was getting dark you could still see the dark black circles under his eyes. “I made your kimino, it's based on the kimono that my wife always dreamed of passing down to a daughter if we had one.”
Charlie stood dumbfounded looking around at the festival, the festival that Inari forced Sanosuke to throw for Charlie. She looked down at her kimono, the one of Sanosuke's late wife, Mari.
“Why do all of this for me…” she thought. I’m worthless, I have done nothing to truly help you yet. I don’t deserve to wear something as significant as this.
Sanosuke looked at the sad face Charlie was making and knew she was having negative thoughts. He coughed and then started to push her towards the town square. “There is going to be a show that me and the foxes are putting on, you better hurry and grab a great seat.”
///
Charlie sat on a wooden bench in the town square. In front of the benches a stage had been built with red curtains hanging around wires that held multiple lights.
The entire town was currently here waiting for the surprise show. All the kids were instructed to sit in the front, some of the kids were sitting on the ground.
Freya and Inari sat next to Charlie, the townsfolk had been told to leave space in the seats next to Charlie, the excuse being that she is just claustrophobic and needs space.
One of Sanosuke’s foxes was controlling a spotlight on top of one of the trees, the fox moved the spotlight in the center of the stage just as Sanosuke came out.
He wore a very modern outfit, a white biker jacket with black accents. The sleeves were rolled up, he wore a striped white polo with big black stripes across them. He complemented the look with white jeans, white shoes and white fingerless gloves.
Charlie recognized the fit immediately, it was the iconic outfit that the main hero Kouta wore in Masked fighter Black. Sanosuke didn’t have his hair tied up, he had a middle part with hairs that was flowing freely from the sides of his face.
“Welcome everyone, today is a special day. We are here fo—“
Just then the curtains quickly open up and ten evil looking figures appear. Behind the curtain you could see a few foxes with instruments as they started to play a battle theme.
“The evil crusaders!” one of the kids shouted. The evil crusaders were the name of the evil organization that opposed Masked fighter Black.
The ten minions were foxes wearing black ninja outfits; the foxes were stacked up on top of each other to appear more human.
Sanosuke started to fight off the minions, every dodge a gasp was heard from the crowd. Every hit the crowd jumped with excitement.
Inari in particular was really getting into the performance. A crocodile monster then appeared and pushed Sanosuke down onto the ground.
“A bio monster from the evil crusaders! Children of Soppio, lend me your strength.”
Charlie, Freya, Inari and all the children of Soppio stood up just as Sanosuke did. They mimic the same movements, moving their fists to the right side of their faces in a quick motion.
Sanosuke tightened both of his fists with a face of resolve and said the iconic word
“HENSHIN” which the audience said at the same time. The spotlight came off and colors of red and smoke appeared out of nowhere. Foxes quickly ran and placed pieces of armor on to Sanosuke,
The fox orchestra started to play the Masked fighter Black theme song. When the light came back on, Charlie and the kids gasped as Sanosuke wore an exact replica of Masked fighter Black armor.
“So cool,” Charlie whispered.
Sanosuke posed again and looked at the crowd, they all knew what was coming next.
“I am the child of the moon! Masked fighter BLACK!”
Sanosuke punched the Crocodile monster and then swiftly kicked him, screaming out “masked kick.” The monster fell to the ground defeated, he then turned to the crowd and pointed towards the children.
“There is a hero inside of you all. So wake up the hero!”
///
After the epic show, Charlie was eating homemade ice cream from one of the stalls.
The show was a hit with all the kids as they ran around the town doing poses, really Charlie was just as excited.
She had missed watching shows like Masked fighter or playing video games. Every day for the past three years was nonstop training and before she found Sanosuke she was an assassin for most of her life.
Today, Charlie got to finally enjoy her new life in this world. She got to be a young girl and feel beautiful, she got to feel like a young teen for once and enjoy something related to a show she watched back on earth,
“Sanosuke…sen..sei… is…. one amazing guy.” The static voice had appeared, lightly catching Charlie off guard.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Yet I still haven’t done a damn thing. I'm never going to say I’ve changed until I unlock my resolve.”
She finished the ice cream and aggressively threw it away.
“Ar..e you mad?” the voice asked.
“Yeah… Mad at myself.”
The adults of Soppio were setting up the fireworks Sanosuke developed, these fireworks were of different sizes and needed to be placed strategically for the most optimal explosions.
Sanosuke was overseeing their placement when he saw Charlie. Walking towards her he had his trademark smile.
“Charlie, before the fireworks I want you to come with me. I have something I wish to give you.”