PLEASANT rays of morning sunlight filtered into the bedroom doused with stillness. Mia stood in front of her dresser, fishing a black cape from out of its depths. It rustled as she wrapped its fabric around her shoulders and fastened it around her neck with a cord, which she tied in a cute bow. She took the sides of the cape in both hands, spreading it behind her back, and looked in the mirror.
“It’s a bit too big… However, I cannot very well just adjust the hem.”
She had never seen a hemmed-up cape, and besides, that would look lame. The length might be a little too long for her, but she couldn’t just go without her cape. So, with the bottom of it dragging behind her on the floor, Mia opened the sliding screen with a dull thud.
By the time she passed the living room and arrived at the kitchen counter, the lengthy hem was white with dust. Mia grabbed it and started dusting it off.
“Gack!”
Coughing at the rising dust, she looked towards the counter. A single framed picture decorated its surface. Mia’s father stared at her from the frame. The man she looked up to and admired so much was no longer with her. She stood up straight, gazing at the picture.
“Dearest Father, I shall now be leaving to do battle. Please, watch over me.”
She bowed to the picture before taking hold of her wand, which she always left leaning against the kitchen counter. Zealously tossing her cape back, she took off for the entrance with a confident stride.
“Here I go, to achieve my goal! My ambition is world domination. I shall have everything within my grasp!”
She vigorously shoved the door open, the cape dragging in her wake. Bam! The door noisily slammed shut behind her as she exited her apartment.
The sparrows were chirping, exchanging their morning greetings. Just as she stepped out, Mia ran into one of her neighbors.
“Why if it isn’t Miss Oonari! Good morning! It’s still a school holiday, why are you up so early?”
“Good morning, Mrs. Ozawa! I need to run an important errand today. No time for sleep when there are goals to achieve!”
“Oh, is that so? What’s up with your cape? It’s too big for you! Today’s not Halloween, is it?”
“It’s, uh… Uh… U-Uniform, that’s right! It’s my uniform!”
“Uniform, you say? Oh, I see, it’s for a play, right? Of course, there must be a drama club at your high school!”
While there indeed was a drama club at her school, Mia, who by no means was a member, was becoming a bit flustered. However, Mrs. Ozawa, oblivious to her plight, went on to show Mia the basket she was holding, smiling from ear to ear.
“More importantly, look what I have here! Dried persimmons! Just got them from a neighbor! Here’s some for you too, Miss Oonari!”
Mrs. Ozawa handed her a bag containing some dried persimmons, which Mia meekly accepted.
“Thank you very much! I feel bad for always relying on you…”
“Don’t you worry about it! You’re living alone, that has to be difficult. If you ever need something, you tell me, all right, sweetie?” Mrs. Ozawa replied kindly, before returning to her apartment.
Mia lived in a rented apartment with two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room and a kitchen. It was an apartment complex, so she ran into her neighbors quite often.
Mia wiped the beads of sweat that had appeared on her forehead with her arm. “Phew, it seems I somehow managed to talk my way out of this. She who’s to become the Supreme Ruler of Evil must tread carefully!”
The fact that Mia was the Supreme Ruler of Evil and plotting world domination was her biggest secret—she had to keep it hidden no matter what. Should someone discover her true identity, she would have to make them disappear as soon as possible. That’s what Father had said. The problem was, Mia hadn’t learned the technique for doing that yet. That meant if anyone found out who she truly was, she would be in big trouble…because she wouldn’t know how to erase them.
“Well, anyway, today I managed to keep Mrs. Ozawa from catching on to who I am. I just have to pull myself together and push onwards!”
With bottom of her cape trailing after her, Mia descended the stairs of the apartment complex. After walking down a road in her residential district for a while, she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.
“Hey, now that I think of it, what exactly do I have to do to take over the world?”
She crossed her arms as she pondered this crucial question. Father had told her to conquer the world, but she had never thought to ask him how she should go about achieving it.
While she was puzzling over this, a man walking his dog greeted her in passing. “Good morning!”
“Good morning!” Mia answered back automatically…then snapped out of her reverie. “For now, I’ll just get out of here. Can’t have my evil lair discovered after all!”
Mia, who was plotting world domination, had enemies who would get in her way. There was no telling when they might find her. So, after confirming there were no people nearby, she waved her wand.
“Fly in the skies!”
As soon as she pronounced those words with all her might, Mia’s legs lifted off the ground and her body softly floated skywards. Soaring up until she had reached an altitude where she would be unrecognizable to any passersby happening to look up, she stopped abruptly. Then she crossed her arms, her wand in one hand.
“Hmm. There is no ‘world domination’ without ‘world’, but to suddenly begin at that scale is crazy. Great undertakings like this are best started small!”
So she flew on, looking carefully with her magically enhanced vision for anything in the town that could act as a springboard towards world domination.
Mia was a sorceress. It would be meaningless to ask how she became one: she was simply born a sorceress. Just like her father and grandfather were born sorcerers before her, and their parents and grandparents before them—they had always been sorcerers. Throughout the generations, the sorcerers of her lineage strove to master magical techniques to realize their ambition of world domination, working tirelessly to fulfill their greatest desire. All of them, without exception, failed and laid down their lives in pursuit of it.
“Domination means controlling the country or its people… So, that means the world will eventually belong to me.”
She nodded in agreement with herself. Wow, she was good at this!
“And that means that this town, too, will be under my control and belong to me, which leaves me with just one thing to do!”