Who Da Boss Lady? 16

Commissioned by InfiniteChaosRai

Who Da Boss Lady?

Chapter 16

-VB-

Mari tried her best to not use any of her new powers. 

Like… she had them before? It’s just that she didn’t know how to use them well or that she had them. Because Venalita was a “dealer, not a trainer” as her dad said. Vena gave her the power but didn’t quite help her with it aside from … maybe the bare basics? Like it was actually a little insulting now that she thought about it. 

Vena treated her kind of like a stray cat to pity and give gifts but didn’t really do much beyond that? 

Or was that mercy? 

She’s seen instances of kernels of Venalita’s “truth.” How she didn’t quite behave “normally” in any sense of the word when she lost focus. Even Venalita herself admitted that she wasn’t exactly in full control of herself! 

Ugh.

It was all just so confusing and worrying. 

But who was she worried for? 

Mostly herself and her family. Venalita … hadn’t exactly grown on her. Yet. But the process was starting like how you can’t see mold on bread until it decides to start fruiting. 

Yeah. Like that. 

… Why did she have to remind herself of that? Now she was going to be paranoid about every single bread she’s going to eat today. 

Ugh.

Anyway, she was keeping her newly realized powers at bay. Like mana detection. 

Because that was a thing she could control. 

Because she can now. 

And she was scared about finding out who in her school were devils. 

---

“Wait, so you’re saying that…”

“Yes,” Dad nodded. “Devils rule this town, and the clans in charge of the Kuoh Town specifically are the Gremory Clan and the Sitri Clan. Both are connected to the highest authorities of Devil society, the Satans.”

“Like Lucifer Satan?” Venalita asked with a smile. “Mari, you can be good-evil by striking down the Lucifer!” 

“No. Absolutely not,” Dad hissed at Venalita. “Aside from the fact that the current Lucifer can destroy mountains on a whim, Mari is barely at High-Class, not even the Ultimate-class that leaders of Devil society are expected to be.”

Mari frowned. “But … I won against that masked devil with just a single attack,” she replied. “And Vena said that it was an Ultimate-class.”

“Mari, dear, just because you have the equipment doesn’t mean that you are at the level of people who normally use that equipment,” he replied with a shake of his head. “But we’ll get to that later. Think of it this way if you must. You have a very big gun but you aren’t used to carrying, fixing, shooting, fighting, and retooling it. For all we know, that single attack you did took up a lot of your mana and you don’t realize it.”

“It wasn’t, and you can bet my pretty as-”

“Language,” Mom shouted from the kitchen.

Vena grumbled. “... bottom that she wasn’t going to run out.”

Dad raised an eyebrow. “How many shots could she have fired then?”

“...”

“... Well?”

“Three?”

Dad glared. 

Vena looked away. 

And Mari … felt aghast. Three shots?! Was Vena telling her that she would have been defenseless and weak after just three attacks?! 

“As I said, you don’t know your equipment, which is why we’re doing the training. And part of that training - and knowing about Devils - is knowing their power level. Devils determine everything by one’s power. A weak devil is a lower caste devil. A strong devil is a higher caste devil. That’s the most basic way to describe their society. And there will be Devils in your school, Mari. Do not react negatively toward them but do not also accept anything from anyone, especially if they look like chess pieces. That’s how they enslave other races.”

“... Enslave?”

---

Mari took in a deep breath as she walked back into school after what felt like a year but was actually just two weeks. 

Dad got her excused absences. How he did that, she didn’t know. Probably had to do with the … big and pretty doctor who took care of her due to Vena-related reasons. 

But she was back now, and two weeks of school missed was a lot of time for her friends to fret over her. 

“MARI!” 

She let herself get glomped by Iri, a smaller girl in the same class as her. 

But instead of the glomp she expected, Iri missed her mark (Mari’s chest) and slammed her forehead into her abdomen.

And instead of a glomp, Mari almost heard a thunk. Iri’s head bounced back like she’d just headbutted a concrete wall. 

“Oh my God, what happened to you?!” Iri nearly shrieked as she hugged her again. “And why is your abdomen so hard?!” 

Mari grabbed the hem of her uniform and held it down. “I got better,” she grumbled. 

Iri play-punched her stomach… and her eyes widened. 

“Mari, have you been doping?!” 

“What?! No!” 

“You must have! You always wanted to get bigger -!” 

“NOT LIKE THAT!” 

But even as she shrieked and tried to get the Iri Leech off of her, she felt better. Because at this range (hugging), her mana detection, which she had kept at minimal, was telling her that Iri wasn’t a Devil. Just a normal human. 

That put her at ease.

And then she saw Shirone walking calmly up to them.

… And her mana detection blared with warning. 

Wrong. 

Different from the masked devil but wrong in a way that told her that the approaching thing wasn’t human. 

And her heart dropped. 

Of all people… Shirone was a Devil? 

Shirone? 

Something must have shown on her face because Shirone frowned, hastened forward, and glomped both her and Iri in a hug of her own. 

“It’s okay,” Shirone mumbled. “You’re back.”

… Yeah. It’s okay. She was back. She was just … regular Mari talking to regular Shirone. No need to think about Devils and the other supernatural stuff. 

She could… deal with that later. 

Shrione didn’t change! Mari did. Shirone was the same Shirone she saw last time she was at school. 

Then she heard sniffing. 

“What did your mom make this time?” Shirone asked with hungry glimmer in her eyes. 

… Yeah, Shirone hadn’t changed. Shirone was still her friend. A Devil friend. 

Mari will just keep that knowledge - that she knew about Shirone being a Devil and that this was a school run by Devils - to herself.