Beni (After) - If You Enrage Me, You Will Taste My Ultimate Attack, 1,100 Years of Pain!
Perspective: Saru
This landscape I'm looking at... it's familiar, but at the same time, it's kinda not. The differences with the surface are small, but those small differences are what ticks me[1] off. What the hell is wrong with this place?
"Man, I just can't get used to this place," I grumble, and contrary to my expectations, someone turns to me.
It's Beni[2]. For some reason, she wears those fox ears whenever we're down here.[4]
"Of course you can't -- you're alive. This is the realm of the dead, after all."
"For real? Nini[3] looks fine, though..."
"Don't compare yourself to the biggest exception of all[5]. He's special."
"Special, huh?"
Beni wags her tail. Wait, she's wearing a tail as well? And the way she can make it wag -- holy moly, that's creepy. Nini doesn't seem to care though... hell, he seems like the type curious enough to try and touch it. I swear, he's gotta have a few screws loose in his head.
"What is with that look of irreverence in your eyes!?"
"Well, I mean, isn't he just a normal guy? Aside from the part where he was born in space?"
"The fact that he was born in space is irrelevant. Well, I suppose there's no use explaining things to you..."
Beni unfolds her fan and slashes at an approaching Kegai. It looks like she's performing a dance of some kind, but she's not sexy at all, so... That's too bad. It is a good dance, though, so I do feel like praising her for that.
"Again with the irreverence."
"What?"
"You are thinking indecent thoughts."
"Eh, I was thinking about other things, too."
"Doesn't change the fact that you were disrespectful. Listen well -- if you enrage me, you will taste my ultimate attack, 1,100 Years of Pain!"
"Sounds like that will take a while."[6]
"In case I wasn't clear, it's an attack that inflicts 1,100 years' worth of pain!"
"What, and I'll die 1,100 years after it hits?"
"I have a different attack that does that, you fool!"
"Damn, girl, why'd you need to be so complicated?"
Beni proceeds to look around, seeming pretty restless... probably because of how short she is. She must be looking for Nini.
"I don't see Nini anywhere."
"Dude must've run off again. I swear, he's way too damn reckless."
"Can't be helped. He's special."
"Special again, huh..."
I sit down on the cold soil... yeah, despite it being August now, the soil down here is cold enough to make me shudder.
"He'll probably be back if we wait. And by the way, Beni, the way I see it... you look way more special than him."
"Indeed, I am quite special!" she boasts, puffing out her nonexistent chest.
When I said special, I didn't mean it in a good way, but that seems to have gone way over her head.
Well, whatever.
"So, Beni, since you're so special and all... Mind telling me why you're in that ridiculous getup? We're all war comrades here -- no need to hide your reasons, right?"
"Hmm... Indeed, it would be unfortunate for you to be kept completely ignorant. Very well. I'll talk."
Beni proceeds to sit down beside me. That's a proper lady's sitting posture right there, but... Nope, still not sexy. Too bad.
"Once upon a time," she says, looking a bit sad, "I was born as a daughter of an esteemed noble household."
That explains why she speaks in a weird way sometimes. I'm not about to make fun of her for that. Still, nobility, huh...
"Noble household? Of where?"
"Ashihara Nakatsu! The very land on which you have lived your whole life!"
"Uh, so you mean... Japan?"
"Where else would it be!?"
"I dunno, anywhere where foxes live, I guess!? They're all over the world -- Eurasia, Africa, America, the freaking Arctic regions -- everywhere!"
"How can you be so stupid and yet know so much trivia!?"
Now she's lashing out at me... despite not being intimidating at all.
"Well, y'know," I say, picking my ear with my pinky finger, "I never really liked studying in school."
"Maybe you should start liking it, then. The education they provide adheres to a high standard -- it's wasted on the likes of you."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. So you're nobility, huh... You're saying you're an ancient grandma from the Meiji era or what?"
"Heian. It's Heian."
"Huh... Aha, so that's why it's 1,100 years? Okay, I get it now..."
"You're quite a character, you know that?"
"You think?"
I cross my arms and wonder why I'm having such an easy time believing everything Beni says. Maybe it's because of how weird this negative-colored realm already is.
"So what's a high-and-mighty lady like you doing here?"
"It's a long story, but as an introduction: I lived my life blessed with the love of my parents and devoted myself to academic and poetic pursuits... but in the end, I succumbed to an illness."
"So you're... dead? Like the Kegai?"
"Do not lump me in with their kind! I am a goddess! Not a high-ranking one, no, but a goddess all the same!"
"O-kay...? There's a difference?[7]"
Hearing me ask that, Beni looks at me as if I'm an alien. How am I supposed to react to that?
"Are you seriously asking that?"
"After all the weird shit I've seen? Yeah. I wouldn't joke around about this stuff."
"If you say so. Now, listen well: if you don't want the gods to kill you, watch what comes out of that mouth of yours."
Beni looks and sounds dead serious. And, well, I have heard that calling someone a Kegai could get you murdered -- I guess it's the same for the gods.
Unlike the gods she speaks of, though, Beni isn't out to kill me. Just like humans, I guess there are some decent ones among them as well.
"Uh-huh... Gotcha. I'll be careful."
"You'd better be. The gods march to their own tune -- even more so than I do."
"Wow, that sucks."
I take a look at the sky and decide to change the subject. Even here in the realm of the dead, there is a sky -- strange how that works. And even stranger is its colors.
"Gotta say, though, the colors down here are so damn weird. Like everything got negative'd."
"Negative'd? What does that mean?"
"Ah, you know, like being photographed with a negative film?"
"Ah, that. Yes, yes, I know what that is."
"Uh, pretty sure you don't."
===
Chapter 25 Character Profiles
↩[1] Saru (Kunihiko Sawada)
Member of the baseball club. Quite good at looking after others.
When he was in elementary school, he was called "Saru" or "Saruta" because of his tree-climbing skills. Sometimes he is still called by those nicknames.
He is not keen on studying because he wants to find a job to ease the burdens of his widowed mother.
First-person pronoun used: Ore
↩[2] Beni (Benihime Tenno)
A fox girl. Usually not referred to by her full name.
Like foxes in folklore, she usually uses transformation arts to disguise herself as a human. Carrying out her current mission as a self-proclaimed high school girl.
Plays an active role in battle when she is in your team.
Somewhat of a blockhead, but possesses extremely good looks. Considered the game's most charming character.
First-person pronoun used: Warawa
↩[3] Nini (Novus Nemo/Taichiro Oyama)
The game's protagonist.
Born on the Hope International Space Station as Novus Nemo, and raised outside of the Japanese linguistic sphere despite his ancestry.
Due to the unique location of his birth, some people treat him as effectively an alien.
His nickname, "Nini," is short for "nobody" or "new" in the International Space Station's standard language.
Being Teruko's grandson, he goes by Taichiro Oyama, his Japanese name, when he comes down to Earth. No records of his father and grandfather exist in Japan.
===
Chapter 25 Footnotes
↩[4] "For some reason, she wears those fox ears whenever we're down here"
Beni doesn't need to hide her identity when she's in Yomotsu Hirasaka, so she disengages her disguise to conserve her divine energy.
↩[5] "The biggest exception of all"
Nini is receiving intervention from another Universe.
In other words, he's being controlled by you.
↩[6] "Sounds like that will take a while."
Saru thinks Beni is referencing the "Sannen Goroshi," a fictional karate technique from the manga "Karate Master" (Karate Baka Ichidai), which causes permanent damage to the victim's vital organs, resulting in their health gradually deteriorating until they die 3 years later.
↩[7] "There's a difference?"
Objectively speaking, there is really no difference.
===
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