Women Have Three Mouths
No matter how absurdly powerful my magic was, I had only been Mother for three months. And in that time, I could count my actual fights on one hand. Aquamarine, by comparison, had more combat experience than I could even begin to match.
"What, you thought I couldn't do close combat?"
"Yeah. Pretty much."
I had misread her, I would admit. She had been throwing around nothing but wide-area spells, so I had figured she either did not have any single-target magic or that it was laughably weak.
"Honestly, I already know exactly what you were thinking, Mother."
A dagger whistled past my ear, close enough to kiss the skin. A few strands of hair from my sideburns drifted loose and fluttered to the ground.
"In other words, I don't need single-target magic."
Yeah. She had a point. Credit where it was due.
The incoming trajectory looked impossible to block with Bedel, so I threw myself into a roll and got out of the way. The dagger carved through the space where my neck had been a heartbeat ago — I could have sworn I still saw the afterimage hanging in the air.
"This is all I need."
A dagger about one and a half times the length of my palm. The girl in the water-blue sailor uniform held it in a reverse grip, body slightly crouched, both hands raised in a guard stance.
"A sailor uniform and a dagger? You know that look does not work on you, right?"
"What, you'd rather I had a machine gun?"
So she had seen that movie too.
"A pretty-girl assassin. That's cool. What's the problem?"
"Yeah, right."
I stood up straight and knocked the Bedel club against the ground, shaking it off. If I fought her head-on, I had no chance. I was not strong enough yet to win a straight fight. Same as last time in Pangyo — unless I hit her with something she never saw coming, I could not win. And I had just the thing to catch her off guard. She had pushed me this far, so Aquamarine would be thinking she had already won.
"Here I come, Aquamarine. That durability you've been stacking — you got enough?"
"Bring it. All you want."
She lowered the dagger to her hip and stretched out her other hand, crooking her fingers at me in a come-hither. A blatant taunt. I gave her a bitter smile. Look, even if I had brought this on myself, getting dismissed this hard was seriously starting to piss me off. But if I wanted this fight to end the way I needed it to, I had to let it slide.
Thud, thud, thud, thap, thudthudthud...
My footsteps pounded across the dew-soaked grass, and Aquamarine grew larger in my vision with every stride. I watched the tip of her dangling dagger swing toward me — and then I hauled Bedel up and hurled it at her with everything I had.
Whoom, whoom, whoomwhoomwhoom...
Bedel spun through the air in huge, lazy revolutions, flying straight at Aquamarine — who sidestepped it like it was nothing. I had expected that. Of course it would not hit.
The dagger came flying at me. From below, rising toward my face. I watched the tip climb and turned my head just enough to slip past it. A sharp, electric sting carved up my cheek.
"You fucking bitch — that's a girl's face!"
"I just gave you a decoration!"
Oh, is that right?! Then where's yours?!
The dagger, already back in position, came flying at my face again.
"Decorations come in pairs!"
"Fuck off!"
I was waiting for this, you piece of shit!
I caught the dagger in my right hand. The pain of a blade punching deep into my palm should have been a given —
There was none.
"You— wh-what...?!"
"Women have three mouths... you fucking bitch...!"
They don't, actually.
The dagger was already being enthusiastically chewed by the mouth in my palm. It was making actual crunching, grinding sounds as it ate the thing from blade to pommel, thoroughly enjoying itself. Okay, what the hell. Even I had never seen this before!
"Th-this is my secret weapon! You get it?!"
"Let go! Let go of me! You crazy bitch! Let go!"
Not a chance. Did she have any idea how hard I had worked to set this up? I had tried contaminating her pure water with dark magic through Bedel first, but that was not going to work, so this had been the backup plan. Lucky for me it was working like a charm.
The dagger was mostly gone now, chewed down by my right-hand mouth until only the very end of the hilt was still visible. Aquamarine shook it off and started thrashing, trying to wrench her arm free of my grip.
"Hold still, damn it!"
I drove my knee into Aquamarine's side. She flinched at the thud, then immediately started struggling again to break free.
"Let— let go of this! You cowardly bitch, all you ever do is pull cheap shit like this!"
"Using the weapons I have is cheap now? Whatever — just die, you piece of shit!"
I reached out with my left hand, grabbed her by the collar, and yanked her in. At the same time, my right hand clamped down on her face.
"Right-hand mouth — eat as much as you want!"
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"
"Hold still!"
"Let go! Let go! My magic! I said let go!"
"I said hold still!"
Okay, this was actually incredible. A clear, crystalline magic that I assumed was Aquamarine's was swirling through my entire body. After a couple of circuits, it synchronized with my dark magic and started accumulating as-is.
"Hold!"
— Crack!
"Still!"
— Wham!
"Already."
I planted two rocket punches in her gut back to back, and Aquamarine went quiet. No, wait. She had passed out.
I dragged the limp Aquamarine by the face over to a new spot. Standing this whole time was exhausting. I would sit on a bench and keep drinking. Man, this was cool and refreshing. Tasted great.
"Just admit it already. Before I hit you some more."
"..."
Aquamarine's face was flushed a deep, furious red. She was face-down on the ground, barely propping herself up on her arms, and even those arms were trembling so hard it was almost pitiful.
I had beaten Aquamarine until she was begging me to just knock her out. I would grab her by the face, haul her upright — this one's for Kabe. Punch. This one's for Keru. Punch. This one's for me. Punch. Oh, you made a sound? From the top. After more than an hour of that, Aquamarine no longer looked like she even had the will to resist.
And this was the result. Sprawled in front of me, barely holding herself up, she did not even dare look me in the eye.
"Not gonna admit it?"
Me? I was in perfect condition. Even the gash Aquamarine's dagger had carved across my cheek had healed completely a long time ago.
"I lost."
After lying there for a long while, Aquamarine seemed to have recovered just enough magic to move.
"First time since I fought Cyclone."
"First time for what."
"First time I've felt this — completely drained. Not a single drop of magic left."
"That so? Your magic was insane, though. Tasted amazing."
"You piece of shit."
"Not as much of one as you."
"Three-mouthed bitch."
"Jealous?"
"Get lost. You're disgusting."
"Oh?"
I snapped my left fist up, and Aquamarine flinched. See, crazy bitches only listen after you beat them. They act like they own the place because they think they can get away with it. It is only after they get hit hard enough to think they might actually die that manners get properly installed.
"What are you magical girls, a bunch of wild boars? You've got a thimbleful of magic between you and you just charge in relying on cheap tricks. Use your heads, like I do. If you're not gonna use it, why even have a head? Just filling the empty space above your shoulders?"
"You—!"
"Oh?"
"..."
"Anyway, I won. Right?"
"..."
"You gonna say it or not?!"
— WHAM!
"AAAAAGH!"
— Crash!
Ah, maybe I hit her a little too hard. I had gotten so pissed that she still would not say she had lost after all that beating that I just rocket-punched her in the face. She tumbled ass-over-teakettle and slammed into a corner of the snack stand. I grabbed her by the ankle with my right hand and dragged her back out.
"Lie down."
"..."
"If you don't—!"
"I-I'm lying down!"
Aquamarine had been trying to sit up, ignoring me — but the second I raised my fist again, she hiccupped and flattened herself on the ground. I sat down on her stomach.
"Khhek..."
"Breathe properly."
"I-I can't breathe..."
"I said breathe properly."
"..."
"So I've been thinking."
Naturally, no answer came back. This fight had been premised from the start on the winner making a demand and the loser complying. Kabe's revenge, of course. I had beaten her thoroughly enough to feel good about it, and watching her flinch just from me raising a fist was honestly pretty satisfying.
"Look, even if you went around announcing 'I'm a child abuser, I committed animal cruelty,' I don't think people would even be that surprised at this point."
The video had spread that far, after all. How many people had not seen it? Apparently if you typed her name, the autocomplete already tacked on that disgusting woman.
"So I decided to borrow your idea."
"What...?!"
"I actually owe you a lot of thanks."
How could I not? I had not even thought about what I would demand if I won — and not only had she reminded me I should demand something, she had even laid out that whole tidy plan of putting me in a maid outfit to crush my pride. She had just handed me the entire thing.
"I genuinely had nothing planned, you know."
I let out a long sigh, leaned back on my hands, and looked up at the sky. Wet, choking coughs drifted up from below. Not my problem.
"But then you showed up and spilled every last detail. Turns out there was a lot I hadn't even considered."
She actually sounded like she was about to pass out for real, so maybe I would ease up. I stood. Only then did Aquamarine suck in a huge breath and scramble upright, her face still flushed.
"Anyway, that's how it is. You've got these on too, right?"
I tapped the cameras clipped to my chest, both wrists, near my navel — showing them off. Aquamarine's... ah. A few of hers were already gone. Almost all of them, actually. The fight had gotten pretty intense, and she had taken a beating over her entire body, so they had either flown off or gotten smashed.
"Whatever. I've still got mine, so that's enough. Now. Make your oath to the nation."
"What... oath?"
She looked up at me with resentful eyes.
"..."
"Hey. You gonna repeat after me or not?"
— Thud!
"Hhkuh...!"
"Repeat it. Now."
I snapped my hand up. Aquamarine made a little hic of swallowed spit, dropped her eyes, and started stammering.
"I-I, Aquamarine... was today... defeated by the boss of Mogumogu-dan, M-Mother..."
"Th-that's—!"
"Oh?"
"For life is a little... a little..."
Was that a bit much? Nah. I had suffered, so she was getting it back several times over.
"Oh, really? Fine. Then don't. Instead, you live here with me forever. How's that?"
"That's—!"
I had no idea how long the Two-sided Barrier would hold. But judging by her reaction, it probably was not short. Well, "forever" was a bit much, I would admit.
"Until I say we're done."
That said, I had no actual intention of using her as a maid. If I did that and she went after me in my sleep, or went after Kabe, we would have a real problem.