10. I'm Disappointed, Nova
The Mohican Family's hideout was a motorcycle shop set back inside an alley — exactly the sort of place you'd expect from thugs whose whole business was tearing through the streets on bikes.
Inside, the motorcycles stood in neat ranks to the left and right, and at the center of them I sat in a chair with my legs crossed. Nova took one look at me like that, and bewilderment washed over her face.
"This is definitely the Mohican Family's base... so why on earth are you here?"
Hm. Hadn't I just asked whether we ought to loosen up first? I'd picked a fight in the open. I'd been sure she would drop into a fighting stance on the spot.
"Machina! I'm asking you right now! Why are you here?!"
The words came out aggressive, and yet she still hadn't taken a stance at all. Wary, without quite turning hostile — an awkward in-between, if I had to name it. Honestly... what was I even supposed to call this?
"Unbelievable."
"What?"
Tsshk!
A mechanical tentacle shot from my sleeve and punched through the empty air just above Nova's shoulder. Ordinarily, the textbook version of a threat like that was to graze the cheek and draw a little blood.
I can't put a mark on a face that pretty.
So I settled for piercing empty air — a blow that, at a glance, might have looked like a cowardly ambush from an idiot who couldn't even land the hit.
"...Hk?!"
Fortunately, Nova took the threat for exactly what it was. The instant the tentacle whipped past her cheek, she startled and finally dropped into a combat stance.
"Slow. Even just getting ready to fight."
"Y-you?!"
And then, for some reason, she looked at me as if I had betrayed her. I couldn't make sense of that look. I went blank for a moment, then asked, carefully.
"Why are you looking at me like that? Did I do something wrong?"
"What?! You call that a question? You just threw that dangerous thing at me out of nowhere!"
"I only threatened you. I didn't even strike you... and to begin with, I'm a villain, and you're a hero."
Yes. I was the villain Machina, and she was the hero Nova. Hero and villain — the moment we met, a fight was inevitable. That was the shape of what we were.
"So why are you looking at me as though I've betrayed you?"
"Because... I didn't think you were actually a bad villain!"
"......"
She hadn't taken a fighting stance because she didn't believe I was a bad villain?
An answer I never saw coming.
This was only the second time Nova and I had met. We weren't bound by any deep connection, and yet she had trusted me enough to feel betrayed. The corner of my mouth lifted on its own. Thankfully, the mask kept the smile from her.
Even my favorite admits I'm not a bad person. That feels good.
Of course, the pleasure belonged only to Baek Woojin the gamer. The villain Machina was not permitted to welcome a verdict like that gladly. I was standing here as Machina in order to become Nova's trial — an ordeal she would have to overcome, the thing that would make her strong. That was my duty. The villain Machina's duty.
Which meant—
"You mustn't do that, Nova. You hardly know a thing about me, and you're deciding all on your own that I'm not bad? That's dangerous."
Feedback first.
"Uh... huh?"
"Last time, I introduced myself to you as a villain. I called myself a bad man, and I even killed someone right in front of you — a hero. He was a villain himself, but still. After that, I attacked you. All while wearing a mask that hid my entire face."
"Y-yeah. You did."
"Then the normal reaction, looking at me, would be, 'That bastard — there's no reading what's inside him. He's dangerous!' What part of me, exactly, looked like I wasn't bad?"
When I pressed her, Nova's lips worked a few times before she answered, sounding a little wronged.
"Th-that was all there was!"
"Pardon?"
"Yeah! That was all there was! You didn't lay a hand on any civilians, you didn't touch Ray, and even though I was hurt you just left me there!"
"Hm."
She wasn't wrong. Just as she said, that day I had turned around without touching her any further. I had only shown myself in the first place because I had no other way to save her, and I'd assumed that once I named myself a villain, she would simply take it at face value.
Nova hadn't.
"I still think killing Fat Guy was wrong, but if you look only at the result, the people who were there got saved because of you! That's why I didn't think you were such a terrible villain!"
Even after I had introduced myself as a villain, she refused to swallow it whole. She didn't measure me by a standard someone else had handed her. She judged me by her own — and that, if anything, was so very Nova of her.
"Haha. Is that so."
I laughed before I could stop myself.
"Huh? You laughed? Laughing here means I wasn't wrong, right? I'm right! Otherwise there's no reason you'd be laughing—"
Chrrrk!
A mechanical tentacle snared her ankle.
Whirl!
I spun her once through the air and dumped her on the floor.
Thud!
"Agh?!"
I looked down at Nova, her cheek smeared gracelessly against the concrete, and spoke.
"Nova. Do you know why you've ended up like this?"
"Machina, what do you think you're—!"
"Because you are an idiot."
"W-what?!"
At that single word — idiot — she bristled and tried to push herself up.
Whik!
I cinched the tentacle around her lower body once more, and she shared another passionate reunion with the floor.
Crash!
"Ghk!"
"You thought a villain might not be so bad, loosened your guard, and this is what it got you. If that isn't a blithering idiot, then what is it?"
"Nngh... grrr...!"
Vmmm—!
A faint radiance kindled in Nova's right fist. So she was finally thinking of fighting. Behind the mask, I lifted the corner of my mouth.
"Only now you decide to fight. Far, far too late — but fine. I'll indulge you. I have at least that much patience."
"Machinaaa...!"
She shot to her feet with both eyes packed full of fury, and this time I didn't knock her down before she could rise. Sweeping someone into the dirt three times running was nothing but harassment, and doing it again wouldn't help her grow.
"What's so wrong with trusting someone! And you're the one who gave me a reason to trust you! Then you betray that trust and mock me...!"
Betrayal and anger shook through her. She ground her teeth and declared it to me.
"I'm going to make you apologize for this. I swear it!"
She had the whole mood in her grip, and what came out of it was I'll make you apologize. In a world where defeat, as a matter of course, meant being violated, it was a purity that didn't fit in the slightest. Well — that was precisely what was good about her.
"Yes. Excellent. Come at me whenever you like."
I flicked a mechanical tentacle as I said it. The movement was infuriating even to my own eyes, and Nova ground her teeth hard.
"It won't be like last time! Last time I was injured! This time I'm not!"
"Yes. I'm looking forward to it."
"Nnnnngh! Here I come!"
She kicked off the ground with everything she had and rushed me. Radiance loaded into her right fist, the force of that charge was far too much for any ordinary person to withstand. She was superhuman. Of course it was. Nova could flatten dozens of thugs armed with steel pipes and baseball bats in a heartbeat, which was why, in the blink of an eye, she was right in my face.
Shwaaak!
A fist that could shatter a concrete wall shot toward my face. It never broke it.
Tap.
"Eh."
Before the punch could land, a mechanical tentacle had her ankle. It wound her ankle and her thigh, and I hoisted her clean off the ground.
"Kyaaah?!"
In a single instant, Nova was hanging upside down in the air.
"L-let go!"
"If you tell a villain to let go, do you think he will? You'll have to free yourself."
"That's... true!"
She nodded at my words, then hammered the tentacle with a fist wreathed in radiance.
Clang!
But right now—
"...I-it's so hard!"
She was nothing more than a fertilized egg that couldn't even crack its shell. Nova clutched her right fist, her face twisting. With the strength she had now, she couldn't so much as scratch my mechanical tentacles.
"Oh? You can't get free? Then you've lost, haven't you?"
"N-no! I haven't lost! Even hanging like this, the moment you come closer I just have to drive my fist in!"
Burning with fighting spirit even while dangling upside down by the ankle. The refusal to give up was admirable enough.
"And if I do this?"
Insisting on it didn't mean a finished fight kept going.
Chrrrrk.
I sent out more tentacles and bound both her arms, her torso, and her legs completely tight.
"D-don't— hiiik...?!"
She must have hated the feeling of mechanical tentacles sliding over her and wrapping her whole body; her face went pale and rigid. A face like that made it seem as if I were doing something wicked. But I was a villain right now. A bad man doing bad things was only natural, wasn't it? I brushed away the flicker of guilt as lightly as it had come.
"You can't throw that punch anymore, can you?"
I put on a voice so obnoxious it would make anyone listening want to scream.
"And yet you boasted it would be different from last time. That you were perfectly fine now. For all that grand talk, this was far too easy, don't you think? Is a so-called hero, someone charged with the peace of the city, permitted to be this weak?"
Completely subdued, then teabagged by a villain. For a hero, there was nothing more infuriating.
"You... you. Are you done talking...?"
Just as expected, Nova's face flushed scarlet as she trembled all over. Thoroughly angry. Good — a fine reaction. Anger was one of the greatest motives a person had for growing stronger. I lifted her, still upside down, until our eyes were level, and went on.
"Yes. I am. What are you going to do about it?"
"...Hk."
"What is it you can even do right now?"
I used to believe Nova must never know defeat. I had believed it because, in this world, defeat led straight to violation and humiliation. In the game, it was the horrific things that followed a loss that broke a person's heart, and that was why I had thought she must never learn what losing felt like.
But what if those horrific things didn't follow? What if defeat ended as nothing more than defeat? Then defeat did not lead to despair. Rather—
It becomes the cornerstone of the next victory.
"Hm? What can you do. Trussed up like this, unable to so much as twitch. Weak as you are."
"Nngh— grrrk...!"
So I would beat her, again and again.
"Tch. No fun, and nothing moving about it. What even is this. Last time we met you were shouting that next time things wouldn't go my way, so I'd gotten my hopes up quite a bit."
I would keep handing her defeat, rile her up as far as she would go, and make her furious with me.
"That's enough. I'm disappointed, Nova. You aren't even worth facing. Go home, wash your feet, and just go to sleep. I had such high hopes. Honestly."
If I did that—
"Machina, you— you really...!"
—then Nova would grow stronger.
"I left the Mohican Family rounded up on the second floor, more or less. Take them with you."
With that, I released the tentacles' hold.
Srrr—
I gave a careless wave and walked out through the shop door. If she charged me from behind, it could be dangerous — but she wouldn't pull something that cowardly. I knew she wouldn't.
"Next time! Next time it absolutely won't end like today!"
Just as I'd expected, she only shouted in a trembling voice. She didn't rush me. To make her even angrier, I answered with another lazy wave of the hand.
"Yeah, sure. I won't get my hopes up this time. Bye."
"Grrrrk!"
Leaving the sound of Nova shaking with rage behind me, I stepped out of the shop.