Work Text:
1. About anonymity
A heap of garbage bags gleam, taunting, from behind a metal fence.
The grille is solid and scalding to the touch beneath the midday sun, a terrible reminder to Ririsa of what 3D reality is: frustrating, fraught with mundane annoyances, and worst of all, completely unmoved and unmoveable by even the best of intentions or the most heartfelt of pleas.
A student council member, passing by with even more trash in hand, takes pity on Ririsa. She opens the gate, helps Ririsa hunt through the garbage for her missing bag, and then, when they find it, thankfully doesn't confiscate it.
As Ririsa dashes down the school corridors to the manga club room, clutching her precious costume in its black bag, she isn't thinking about armies of evil struck down by light, or an angel who does battle in the name of righteousness. No, she's thinking about the girl with long black hair who hooked their pinkies together and said with a smile, "It'll be our secret."
The first thing Ririsa felt had been relief: No one need know but the two of us.
Then, She must have helped countless other people before, just like this.
This is the first thing Ririsa learns about angels: Liliel shines so brightly she brings light to the whole world, but in real life, sometimes angels' radiance is hidden behind all the trash bags they're carrying.
2. About personal sacrifice
On the day of the culture festival, an aquarium breaks and floods the hallway.
Ten minutes to the maid cafe's opening time, Mari-nee drops her costume, puts her shoes back on, and runs out to help. No one thinks more of it, because that is what Mari-nee always does, and that is just who Mari-nee is.
It is, and she is. But Ririsa has seen Mari-nee's room and sewn Mari-nee's costume designs, and she knows how much Mari-nee had been looking forward to today. She knows how much Mari-nee had wanted to show her costume to the student body and her visiting parents, and perform as her whole true self for the first time.
This is the second thing Ririsa learns about angels: Liliel went to her demise with a smile amidst the tears of her battalion to save the world, but in real life, what the angel might have lost is known to no one but herself.
3. About going out of one's way
In order to tutor Ririsa in maths, Mari-nee stays late after school and even wears all sorts of costumes to motivate her.
This is how Mari-nee explained it: Ririsa's grades are so legendarily terrible, the student council had collectively agreed that intervention must be staged. Mari-nee had volunteered, of course: Ririsa is her club junior, and part of the student body she had sworn to serve when she was inducted into the council, and most of all, her treasured friend. Mari-nee confides that she herself isn't particularly smart, so she had to make up for it in diligence and hard work, but it had mostly paid off in the long run. "So you can too," Mari-nee had said with a grin, and then cracked her whip against the edge of Ririsa's desk again.
Ririsa still fails the next maths test, but not as badly as before. Thinking back over the last few weeks, Mari-nee must have spent more time with her after school than Ririsa has paid attention in maths class for the entire year.
This is the third thing Ririsa learns about angels: Liliel banishes evil and snatches innocents from the jaws of mortal danger, but in real life, angels will be there for moral support, even if it's just to hold the hand of someone who needs it.
4. About uplifting others
Two weekends before Valentine's Day, Mari-nee invites all the manga club girls over to her house to learn to make chocolate.
Ririsa arrives with a bag of baking utensils in hand and finds Mari-nee's kitchen already stocked with supplies for six. Aria is sitting on the countertop, totally focused on setting up a phone tripod; Nonoa has somehow never used an oven in her life and is hanging off Mari-nee's every instruction. Later, Mikarin burns their first batch of cookies so badly Ririsa has to run around waving a paper fan to help the kitchen air out, and at the end, they all make a promise to meet up just before Valentine's Day and try again.
This is the fourth thing Ririsa learns about angels: Liliel searched Heaven and Hell for precious items to earn Ashford's regard, but in real life, angels open their kitchen and teach their juniors to make chocolate.
5. About communicating
Mari-nee graduates this year, and at the last manga club meeting she is to attend, she puts on Liliel's costume. With the blessing of Ririsa and the others, she tells Okumura-senpai all the things he needed to hear that Ririsa did not know, or could not say.
She tells him that he doesn't have to live in her shadow any more. She tells him to accept that he is able to love, and at the end, she punches him and yells at him to get over himself. For just a moment, Ririsa's 2.5D perspective slips. Liliel has never done that, could never do that. That's all Mari-nee.
This is the fifth thing Ririsa learns about angels: Liliel went through many tribulations and received Ashford's love in return, but in real life, Mari-nee only wants the best for the people she cares about.
+1. About moving on
When Marina was eight, she decided she could live her life in two halves: the saint who helps, and the otaku who reads manga shut in her room after dark. The girl people expect to see, and the girl who can never show anyone who she is.
Ten years later, Liliel and Ashford are still the same, but Marina herself has grown up. Because of Ririsa and the manga club, she knows who she is, and she has found the courage to live truthfully as her whole self. She is a high school graduate now; she has acceptance letters from multiple universities and a train ticket to Kyoto in her desk drawer. (And a meeting with Mayuri-sensei tomorrow to discuss 'her future and the manga club', but surely that will simply be a farewell from a faculty advisor to a leaving council board member.)
As for Ririsa and Maa-chan, they still have the Comiket, the coming school year, and their whole lives ahead of them. To grow, to learn, to change, and perhaps even to one day realize what they mean to each other.
All in all, she wishes them the very best.