Mahoyo dump










“It looks like you're serious, eh Aoko?”

Touko released her barrier.
And by doing that, their grandfather will be freed and Misaki’s destroyed barrier should repair itself. 
But she made the quick decision that she had to use her crests right here right now if she were to survive. 
Touko’s now usable crests were two times the strength of Aoko’s. 




That threat, Aoko looked at with eyes half-closed. 
As if it weren’t important.
Rather than look to the outside, she was feeling for what was lurking inside her mind, and cautiously caught it. 
It felt like grabbing sea weed. 
It wasn’t fury, wasn’t hard, wasn’t large.
It must have been the heat of the moment. 
She ceased thinking, and holding the grudge inside her in her hand, glared intensely at her enemy.
“Fine, Touko.” 
She spoke faintly, but with more sureness than a scream. 
“I’ll show you real ‘magic’, just like you wanted.”
Focusing her mind on her right arm’s crest which had lost its brilliance, she clearly continued speaking. 



One spell.
A farewell said with deep emotion. 


They were the magic words of the color of blue, for rewinding the time of a certain someone’s happiness. 

When it comes down to it,
Magecraft is human wisdom and the world; magic is the solitude outside, included in neither.

The beginning first changed everything.
The following second acknowledged many.
The resulting third showed the future.
The linking fourth concealed itself.
And the final fifth had already lost its meaning.

Had it only ended at the third, someone had said.

Magecraft is the studying of history.
The works of man, the circle of life of the planet.
But magic is the providence of a god beyond the skies. Why would anyone on this earth call a feat not of man not of the planet and the planet a miracle? 
It is an irrefutable crime.
Magic is the enemy of humanity. 
And that is why those who have newly acquired magic are killed by that red shadow. 

“Hear me, Lord of Creation”

Her voice loudly echoed in the winter sky. Cracks ran across the space itself. The creaking of the surrounding landscape invoked images of a collapsing cathedral.

“……”

Should she retreat, should she fight? Touko, trying to keep her cool, awkwardly watched the events unfold. 

Confronted with the source of the many years of bitterness she had continued to chase, she had no way of making rational judgments. 

Their fates were now shaking with uncertainty.
Because of the magic crests behind her and the advantage of terrain, the force at Touko’s command was ten times Aoko’s.
There is no way she could lose. But magic is a different story.
If the Aozaki’s magic is of the same type as the fairy tale monsters of Kuonji Alice, the difference in the level of the practitioners’ ability becomes irrelevant.
It will then become a battle between “magic” and “Aozaki Touko.”
….It would be a hopeless battle.
The uniqueness of magic, its transcendency probably would blow away the likes of skill in magecraft.

“But,”

Touko eyed her sister, wondering could she really use it.
Her declaration had lacked power. 
Shouting loudly she may have been, what was there was only restraint, and not the strength of sacrificing someone.
What it means to carry magic in your body could not be comprehended by Touko the unchosen. 
But the recklessness of changing the world,
The haughtiness of becoming the adversary of the planet – no human mind could carry that burden. 
If she has hesitations, it makes that girl all the more unfit to handle the power of magic!




“Yeah, well”
Making eye contact with Touko, Aoko mumbled to herself self-derisively. 
She can’t dispel her uncertainty. 
The fear in her chest disappearing surely won’t happen.
“But, just because of that,”
Just because of that doesn’t mean she can keep running away from it.
She couldn’t forgive herself if she didn’t go forward because her doubts and fears wouldn’t disappear. 
She closed her eyes, flinging herself at the final step. 






She stops time to shut away the light. 

And then, she submerged herself in her own darkness.

Everything passes while stopped. 

To the vast canal of stars, where everything other than herself has died out.



Suddenly, 
I wanted to disappear in the foolishness that came here without warning. 





_________________Ah, it’s here again. 

This time, the red figure is coming.





Unintentionally,
I saw a new memory

Probably the result of exchanging__________using someone else as a medium. 
I hear that noise, familiar even though it should be the first time.




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Desire nothing.
Seek nothing.
It’s crucial to unify to
_____________________my scattered consciousness travelling backward to zero.
This noise.
This dribble so frustrating it’s bringing me to tears, 
___________________________________________is is making me want to tear at the back of my hair when I don’t have the time.

My greatest problem is that red specter, and
You must not learn the value of life.
You must not think about the preciousness of death.
The noise continues. 
It wasn’t a part of this journey, 
it was none other than an obstacle from the outside.
But, that noise throwing me into disarray,
I finally understood what it was.

(What is this?)

The disgusted whispering was directed at the source of the noise.

Or maybe at whoever was passively listening to that voice.



The red shadow hesitated.
It’s hateful eyes looked at me, who brought no answer, no resolve.





You, you wouldn’t–
For that reason, you– 
For that spur of the moment feeling, you dare become my prey!


That is all there is to you.
You have nothing else.

The effect of winding back–the decision to not accept no.

His best time–his all too meaningless life.

She erased it.
Erased that noise that to him was the absolute rule, with greater force.

Like she were brushing away spider webs blocking her way. 

The noise tore, and a different noise rung in the ears. 
/I wish for nothing. I want nothing.
An innocent mind heeding to the decision.
/That is why there is nothing to be gained.An insincere life led by affirmation.

(….It’s too stupid)





My legs which had been going to the future stop.
I changed my path on impulse.
It’s not so much that what’s important changed, but more like I’ve really had it, oh what to say…

(You’re saying this is your past…!)

I won’t feel satisfied until I give someone a piece of my mind!
Maybe it was the source of the voice, or him who was listening to it, or myself who was just letting it happen, or whoever it was that did this to him.

Without finding an answer, I open my closed eyes.


(And here's some music to go along with it; at the right place)




“I tell thee.”
She releases what she drew forth.
Whatever she saw, whatever happened, doesn’t remain in Aoko’s memories.
What is there is only the rage causing her heart to race. 




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Urged on by something even she herself didn’t understand, she opened the lid of her magic. 
The change was dramatic.
The snow by her feed disappeared, and green earth peered through.
It wasn’t from the snow melting, it was from it being rewritten to a different landscape and as if to criticize it, all factors came to erase her actions.

“-------,”
The discharging power wouldn’t tolerate her herself.
As if to say that that miracle would destroy the world. 
The world moved to eliminate her to protect itself. 

“-----,!” 

Her mind vanishes from this plane from the pain burning the cells throughout her body.
But it does not daunt her. 
This pain, this isolation, all of it is to reach the Root in flesh and blood.
From the moment she inherited the magic, she had already overcome the likes of this torment many times. 

“….”


She vies with the nature of the universe, shouting voiceless shouting.
The burden scorches her retinae, her nerves.
Beyond that, she saw light.
What it was she came back for,
What is was she wanted to scream, she at last remembers. 

“In my name representing order (blue), I tell thee”




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The correcting voice tells her to stop.

At the ends of her trance, her hands reach the true nature of magic.

The red shadow is there, rearing its fangs to demonstrate the futility of it all.
So many doubts, so much anger.
But that has nothing to do with her/me. 
The hell with the duty of the magic users, the extinction of humanity. 
I’ve had enough of hearing that. 
There’s only one reason why I’m moving my fingers.
Basically, well, it’s kind of hard saying it, but it’s because I want to save him so much!


(not sane)
“All is right”

A blue tornado swirls up.


The magic user begins her swindling of the world, with doubt-free, sorrowless eyes.

Time turns back.
The primal scene is being rewritten. 







Those were white flowers. 

Ripples of wild flowers whiter than snow erode the world, and then….



(five timeless words)
“The order has fallen”
Like she declared,
The fifth magic showed itself, in this time, in this region, only.







The secluded snowed-in clearing transformed in the blink of an eye.
A sea of white flowers blooming proudly blanketed the open space.
Only the surrounding naked trees and the old school house spoke of this being the same world as before. 
The cold wind as well became warm in this field.

Even the stars returned to fill the nighttime sky. 

The light of stars looking so close you could touch them. 
The solitude of only the buzz of bugs and the whisper of the night, where loneliness and relief become one. 
Scenery free of impurity and grief, where the acts of man have been expunged. 
There was nothing here, but at the same time nothing was needed.
And that, that had been his best time. 




She turned that barren winter land into a spring field
That this was the “magic” mentioned by Aoko stunned Touko.
Not bad in the least, but the “magic” she so wanted to see certainly was not something that was only romantic.
It seems that some spell code of large scale was deployed, but the surrounding mana was no different than before. 
Disappointing was putting it mildly.
It was mere child’s play compared to Kuonji Alice’s Flat Snark.


The only changes were this flower garden and–

Aoko, whose attire changed.

Although it’s reasonable to assume that her body has been boosted in some fashion, Aoko is not yet a match for Touko no matter what she does. 

“….
“……Yes, this is magic alright, but,” 
Her muttering contained the faint trace of irritation.




“We’re both well past the age of adolescence.
Don’t tell me you’re done?”





Aoko begins walking in the sea of flowers.

Her destination, none other than Touko.
“It’s over. For me and for you.”

Her terseness caused Touko to feel something was off.
It felt different from Aoko’s voice.
It was practically the same, so was it the tone that changed? No, that’s the same too. If there is anything different, then it’s……




“---------!”
And then, Touko noticed one other change.



It hadn’t been only the clearing and Aoko that were different. The dead body cut in half by Aoko’s feet has been repaired. 

Resurrection of the dead?
Healing of wounds?
There’s no indication that such an elaborate spell code was applied, but more than anything else, restoring the body would not undo “death”. 

Since times of old, complete resurrection of the dead has not been granted by even magic.

Then how does that account for the breathing of the unconscious youth lying on the ground behind Aoko!? 

(“Resurrection of the dead is the Aozaki magic…..? 
No, it’s something else. It’s not so much as resurrection as it’s……”) 

Before that answer could come out, Touko realized what it was she felt wrong. 

Aoko’s gestures did not match her age.
It wasn’t the slight change in appearance she should have been paying attention to, it was the change inside. 
By the time the improbable conclusion was arrived at, Aoko closed the distance between her and Touko to 10 meters. 




(Turbine, set)
“Circuits, connect”
Her left hand rises as high as her eyes.



The mystic energy being created in Aoko’s body looked–no, you could hear the difference. 
Even Touko has never heard that jarring sound. 
Aoko’s circuits are the low grade, single function ones of mediocre magi.
The amount she generates is much lower than Touko’s.
But that speed is far too abnormal. 
It is clearly faster than the speed of blood flow, and, 

It was one thing for it to be the sound from magecraft, but for there to be noise from simply activating the circuits– that’s unheard of even in the Association!“
“Let there be victory before me.”


Dread spurring her, Touko inscribes runes in the air. 
To protect herself against what magery Aoko will attack with, she put up the protection of Tyr and enhanced it with the power of her seals, making it into a protective barrier.


However, Aoko paid no heed, and without bringing her arm up to aim, 

“Missiles, deploy,”

She commanded, brusquely to herself. 







“!!!?” 

She couldn’t see even the start of the magecraft.
The mystic missiles she fired at a word were actually 20 bolts. 

Like shooting stars, they burned through the wall of runes, which could even block rockets, and penetrated Aozaki Touko’s coat.

“Those were deployed, not loaded!?”




The protective rune cast on her coat screams. It will not take another one of those volleys.

Moreover, that hit damaged her circuits for sure. 

She didn’t want to admit it, but in direct fire power, Aozaki Aoko surpassed Aozaki Touko.
What was further harder for her to admit was that that woman wasn’t even serious……!


“Ansuz, Sowelu, Inguz”
“-----!”
Touko draws runes in the air as she jumps away.

The runes change into flame in response to her shouts. 

But.





“Slow!”



Aoko erased them with just one word.

The runes shatter before they take meaning.

The power of her word was simply greater than the mystic power of Touko to turn runes into form. 

Cancelling the runes, Aoko makes her way through the white flower garden. 

Her expression, the stable running of her circuits, even her breathing were different from what they were up until now. 

It was optimized self-control, possible only by those who have great experience in battle. 

“It's time?”

If that was the true nature of the Aozaki magic, then everything would make sense.

Aoko’s circuits were not amplified. 
That can’t be done in the first place, and even if she had attached external hardware as Touko did, only her total capacity and the amount of usable spell codes would increase. 

Her own talent as a magus, the degree of purity of her circuits won’t change. 

But Aoko was now unquestionably greater than Aozaki Touko as a magus

Then there could be only one answer.

That apprentice developed in an instant into an adept–no, she fast-forwarded her own time.

“---!”
The orange magus turned her back to Aoko and ran.

Her gut told her she had no change there, and she fled into the old school house. 

Aoko did not try to shoot her from behind. 

It wasn’t out of mercy, but the cool-headed judgment that she will miss from this distance. 




Aoko lunges forward determined not to let her escape, but she suddenly stopped like she had something to do. 

……She has some hesitation in saying it. 

She took a small breath,
“Alice, stay with him.”
She said, as if ashamed of her mature voice.

White flowers scatter. 

Without turning around, Aoko ran in pursuit of Touko as her long hair fluttered in the wind.









“Huh?”

Eyelids flicker open.
Soujuurou woke up from his long slumber.

Apparently he had fallen asleep on his back, as his vision was filled by the expanse of a starry night.

A circular sky, flanked by trees.

Even though it was the first time he’s seen it, it looked to him like scenery he’d forgotten about, scenery he didn’t feel right in.

“……..”
His mind wasn't sound.
He had no idea what he was doing before he fell asleep or why he was sleeping.
It was like walking out of the front door then waking up the next minute to find yourself on the bed.
There were too many blanks before and after, and he wasn’t able to immediately remember even who he was. 

All he could remember was,

A woman he’s never seen before, 

And on his neck, thin – 
(-I have no idea what he was going to say next; probably fingers?) 

“Seiki-kun.”

The voice coming from his side….that low but piercing voice, yes, that should belong to the girl named Kuonji Alice.

“Come to think of it, yeah that’s right,” 

The incoherent mumble came as Soujuurou rose up. 

Beside him the girl in the black robe was sitting on her knees.




“…..Flowers,”
He said absentmindedly without looking at Alice to his side. 

The spring flower garden, surrounded by bare trees and snow, shook under the azure moonlight.
The petals scattered in the night wind lifted their white bodies like butterflies into the darkness.
Soujuurou looked long at it and gently placed his fingers on his neck, 

Cautiously, cautiously at first, like he were touching a wound,

And then, strongly, strongly clenching it.

“Seiki-kun.”

Before he could do any worse, the voice of the girl next to him stopped him. 
“You’re going to leave again, even after coming back…?” 





The meaning of her question was lost on Soujuurou.
Her voice contained a mix of criticism and sadness.
Eyes unlike Alice gaze accusingly at him and snapped him out of the unconscious. 

“Leave? For where?”
His fingers fall from his neck. 
Alice, not answering, looked up expressionlessly at the sky. 

Up there is only dark– 

“…Well, okay. More importantly, what was I doing? Something’s weird. It’s all a jumble.”

Alice looks intently at Soujuurou canting his head quizzically. 
The boy who earlier defeated the werewolf and the befuddled boy over there are completely different, and yet nothing feels unnatural about that.
She observes the boy, trying to penetrate the mystery, but Alice came to accept that she would not find a satisfactory explanation. 

Then, she asks him.

She asks the question that she’d asked again and again from afar when he was asleep and eventually stopped out of vexation.

“Seiki-kun, what were you doing before?”

Her quiet question was like magic charming a traveler. 
Maybe enchanted by it, Soujuurou submerges himself in the sea of memory.
During the silence, the two of them lingered on the white hill like brother and sister.
“….I thought I heard someone speaking. It seemed like she was asking me something. But, I wasn’t able to say anything in the end.”

He dimly remembered the questions asked in the darkness of death. 
He didn’t know that he even died, but apparently there were some fragments left of when he intersected with her time. 
Soujuurou’s expression clouded in regret. 





Alice quietly asks him as his face was turned away. 

“…Did you find something you want?” 




The memory of “somebody” asking him that very question came back to him, and he nodded his head lightly.



“… Yeah, that’s right. But you know, Alice. I didn’t think I would. I never thought I would.”

His sad voice had a hint of power in it. 
The white flower garden below him was like the other shore where the dead go.
It was, just a little too bright for Soujuurou. 

“Now I remember. I’d been ripped apart in front of Aoko. But I’m alive. Why?” 

Soujuurou felt over his body in amazement.
His arms as well were like they were before, and Aoko was nowhere to be seen.
When he turned to Alice looking for answers, still seated, 

“You were wound back, Seiki-kun. This should be from your memories, yet you don’t remember it?”





She said peculiarly, as if sulking. 

“My, memories….Strange that I don’t remember then.” 

“It’s because Aoko’s using your time now. Until she returns it, you won’t remember.”

Leaving an ominous answer, Alice looked over the flower garden.

“….But it’s such a shame that this will disappear. When it returns to what it was, I’ll be the only who can look back on this.” 

If only for an instant, Alice smiles and looks at the white flowers. 

“……”

Soujuurou did not understand, to no surprise. 

“Alice. You’re not going to tell me are you.”

Alice suddenly turns around to Soujuurou’s voice. 
Her fathomless eyes did not betray the emotions hiding inside. 

“It will be gibberish. Do you still want to know?”

“Yes, I do. Especially if you will tell me.” 

Looking at Soujuurou resolutely nodding, Alice sighed and closed her eyes. 
But even so, she told him not because of any dislike but probably because she was concerned for him in her own way. 

“…..Essentially, you died, then came back to life. After Touko-san killed you, Aoko wound back the five minutes of time before you woke up. Ten years of your life were used by Aoko at that time. Your physical ages haven’t changed, so I imagine she only took your internal time. That’s why this scenery will look nostalgic to only Aoko. And………”

And, when this exchange of time ends, what happened in these few minutes will be lost from the memory of Aoko and Soujuurou. 
This is the result of magic using another person as a medium, not a change in Aoko alone. 
Had it been Aoko travelling back by herself, the contradictions in the time axis would also have become her own experience, but this time it was proper time travel. 

The contradiction will be properly corrected.
When the magic eventually ends, the nostalgia that Aoko feels here, the unfamiliarity that Soujuurou senses here will be corrected like they never were 

This miracle,
This sea of white flowers will only be remembered by the third parties, Alice and Touko. 

“…..Took, time……?”

For the sake of Soujuurou, who tilted his head further, Alice gave an explanation if only in form,
Remembering that Aoko had said before that as long as the idea is explained Soujuurou won’t say anything back even if he doesn’t understand.

“There wasn’t a way to bring you back, so Aoko tried to avert your death instead of restore your life. But it was too much for Aoko, or she had cold feet again, so she avoided any large-scale manipulation, and settled for an exchange between you and herself.” 

“Right now, you have jumped in time for five minutes. Even if someone in the far future could search in this time, you alone would not be found by someone, because, you weren’t on this time axis.” 

“And at the same time, Aoko borrowed time from you to add to her own. It probably was the time of your childhood. I’ve heard individual time manipulation is easier when working with the parts that were forgot–……Seiki-kun?” 

Alice’s eyes look at him as if to ask if she should stop here, and Soujuurou could only nod in return. 

“……In other words, Aoko used two miracles, the ones of rewinding your body and fast-forwarding her own. When she was intervening in your time, she borrowed ten years worth of time while she was at it to bring her future self.”

“That’s why, the one attempting to kill Touko now is an Aozaki Aoko with 27 years of time.”

……It’s all Greek to me, Alice. 

While that impression showed on his face, Soujuurou’s brows furrowed when listening to the part concerning Touko. 

“….You mean Aoko is going to kill Touko-san?” 

“She’s probably finished by now.” 

Soujuurou immediately ran upon hearing Alice’s answer. 

The figure dashing away and scattering flower petals resembled the bravery of the time he faced the werewolf. 
Alice, not stopping him, continued to only watch it.
......Watching it, while superimposing it with the figure of the boy who ran down Shiroinuzuka hill on one snowy night for someone’s sake. 

Soujuurou enters the old school house, 
To the place that became a tomb on the verge of collapse where the destructive symphony of sound and light of before continued, without hesitation. 

“See. I’m sorry Aoko, but it was futile like I thought.”





She whispered to herself in the white flowers. 
Aoko predicted this would happen, so she left it to Alice to stop Soujuurou.
Because him getting in her way in her fight with Touko was going beyond the limits of her patience.
But Aoko’s perfect understanding of Soujuurou was all for naught. 
Not feeling like running after him, the girl in the black robe, knitting her thin eyebrows lightly, lingered in the fading flower garden.


----------------------------------------

Okay, done. Or more like I'm not doing anymore, but this is all the stuff concerning the magic. If you ignore the little red riding hood thing that's stalking Aoko in the beginning of the game. Also, no pictures. It'd just picture hell.



Missiles strike down the flying blades of lightning like a storm. 

The hideout a magus uses as her stronghold is the first of her trump cards and her last.

Layers upon layers of defensive spell codes are laid in one to cut haughty challengers and insolent thieves into pieces.

The old school house is no exception, being tinkered with by master of runes and historical rarity among puppeteers, Aozaki Touko.
Her eccentric touch reflected inside, it slaughters all visitors be they human or inhuman. 

“At least slow her down you fool!”

Touko runs down the hallway while setting off the traps she planted inside.

But, none of those had any effect.

Quality or quantity, ten, twenty runes can’t even stop that girl.
Her outstanding reflexes and prediction acting in synergy with the force of the missiles she holds in both her hands, she more than easily blasts through Touko’s runes along with the walls.

“This is your idea of being a true magus, you simpleton! You are at your peak and blowing things up is all you can do– utterly hopeless!”

The ceiling opens as if on cue with her insult, and runic weighting is cast.

An invisible wall forms in the hallway. 
Atmosphere turned into gelatin in front of her, Aoko stops her running legs and brings her right foot up.

Like bringing the sky down. Her straight kick rips through the atmosphere and continues past, smashing the ceiling, runes and all.

“Right back at you and your perpetual obsessiveness! Runes, runes everywhere, why don’t you learn some restraint?! Who do you think are turning this into a goddamn space fortress! People had precious memories here, so take better care of it!”

While blowing the wooden flooring, the walls that survived decades of wind snow to smithereens, Aoko runs.

The disaster scene was only to be expected. 

Touko’s runes are still only “curses” effective against people, but Aoko’s missiles demonstrate their fury all things indiscriminately. 

“Not even a sliver of grace in you! The thought of you as my sister is– ”
Not nauseating, but it did make Touko want to exchange the blood in her body with someone else’s, but now wasn’t the time to be thinking that. 

The girl chasing after her is not the Aozaki Aoko she knows but a “completed” Aozaki Aoko. Not even a hair’s breadth of complacency could be afforded. 
But, 
“Ridiculous. You expect me to believe this is magic!”
Touko does not believe that localized individual time travel is the true nature of the Aozaki magic.
Aoko’s transformation is still only a side effect of her magic. 
She could not gauge if Aoko had arrived at the very depths of the nature of her magic, but she was certain it was not so simple a miracle.
Because the concept of time travel is already included in the second magic.
The revising of records, the rewriting of events falls under the operation of parallel worlds in other words.
For that to now be called the Fifth Magic made no sense. 

“Which leads me to this question, eh. Aoko! Where did those ten years of time come from!” 

“It came from that doofus, got a problem with that!? I’ll return it later, so don’t go bothering me about that, as if you’ve actually got the right to!”

Yes, that’s fine.
While unilateral, the total mass of time in this time axis hasn’t changed.
However,

“And what will you do about those five minutes!? Don’t tell me you will return him to his prior state after you finish me!?” 

Aoko stops in her tracks. 

The contradiction in the Aozaki magic and the contradiction in Aoko’s human nature, they provide Touko with the opportunity to strike back. 

“Yes, exactly. Time manipulation doesn’t permit resurrection. What you did is either a mere temporary reprieve”

The magecraft crests on Touko’s back reveal their true value. 
Receiving the energy from the crests, the greatest mechanism in the hallway materializes.

“Or a graver atrocity!”

Three rune stones appeared.

Their size and the energy imbued in them were on a different magnitude on the ones from before. 
These were the works of the giants of Scandinavia, restored at the Association by Aozaki Touko, replicas of the lost “original runes”.
The three layers of liquid crystal film magnify the inscribed runes ten million-fold. 

These weren’t going to be cancelled by missiles. 
Even if Aoko’s output far exceeded Touko’s own, the colossal rock was several times greater.
With a magecraft attribute that only “discharges mystic energy”, Aoko has no chance of blocking or avoiding this curse! 

“Main, set”

She chants a brief self-hypnosis suggestion, and takes a deep, important breath.
Aoko, not bothering to block or avoid, charges headfirst into the tempest of runes. 

“You, you don’t exist in this time axis do you!?”

Touko confirms her suspicions while running her magecraft crests on full throttle. 
Her runes won’t act on Aoko because even now she is repeating instances of time travel by the seconds.
Either she is sending the impacting runes to a different time, or she is wearing thousands of “herself” over herself. 
Whatever she is doing, there is no way this nonsense, this energy output can continue on! 

“One down!”
She literally kicks the stuffing out of the giant stone.
Two remain. Ten meters away in distance.
Touko has enough remaining power. 
Her crests will be exhausted, but for ten seconds she can continue firing.

And Aoko, if abiding by what is common sense to a magus, should be out of tricks. 
She should not able to perform any more of her preposterous trickery.

But if anything is preposterous, it’s that it was preposterous from the time it was time travel.

“Aoko!” 

The same events as before repeat.
Touko’s concerns at last turned to sheer hatred.
She could care less about the time travelling spells.
The problem is all that mystic power. 
Where was that woman coming up with the energy needed for time travel? 

“Just like I thought. You!” 

Seiki Soujuurou’s death. 
She returned him to the five minutes before he died, but, then, where did those five minutes go?

Aoko’s magic is not “operation of parallel worlds”; her magic does not rewrite the world itself.
Aoko wound back only “Soujuurou’s five minutes”. But, when her magic expires, naturally he should return to being a corpse.
In the first place, time travel carried out without changing the world can’t change the past.

Which means, if she wishes to save him, she has to either resurrect him, or take those actually existing five minutes and pigeonhole them somewhere far away!

“Two down!”

Aoko’s advance doesn’t stop.

Touko glares in hatred at Aoko from behind her last protection. 

“Answer me Aoko! Where did you put his time! How did you balance out the heat that had been there!?”

“I don’t give a damn! I left his time is the far, far future!”

“What?”

Five meters left. 

Touko was horrified by the irresponsibility that was coming closer. 

She took the debt incurred in the present and left it in the future!? Even a time paradox is more humane. That enormous, thoughtless consumption of heat must not be allowed. 

Time travel alone required a massive quantity of energy. 
It takes mystic power to bring in things that don’t exist here as well, but likewise, tremendous energy is lost to make what is here “no longer here”. 
And what of the mystic power used in cooling that?
Whether there’s more or less, that threatens to cause the collapse of order.
The distortion created by her magic will eventually affect this entire quadrant.

“You’re, you’re the very epitome of stupidity! Are you trying to dump an even greater debt on the death of the universe hundreds of billion years later, on to the dead end awaiting humanity!? What you’re doing is equivalent to dropping an asteroid on top of this planet, do you know that!? Is that what you want, to crush the planet with your own weight!?”

“Wha”

Aoko's eye bulge in outrage.

Her legs too forgot their own strength and broke through the floor. 

“You shut up, I’ll do something about it when the time comes, and next time I’ll send it to the past! Good enough for you!? Only the past will be crushed by the distortion!”

“You call that a solution!? You think that since the present is established it’s acceptable to erase the past!? The only ones who will fine with that are us! How do you plan to deal with the total mass, the debt of the universe!?”

Yes.
Whether the universe is closed or still expanding, the increase in the amount of consumed heat will become uncontrollable.
What is waiting at the end of indefinite expansion, indefinite consumption, indefinite growth, is not a future full of hope. 

It will be the nothing before creation. The universe will eventually suffer heat death.

“Your Aozaki magic will only make that end more definite! How will you take responsibility!”

“I don’t need you telling me that! I’ll take responsibility, I’ll do what I can while I’m still alive!”

Two meters left.

The runic spray becomes a heat ray containing Touko’s hatred and penetrates her. 

While her body is being ripped by the heat, Aoko jumps from the ground with stronger emotion, 

“You said you’d take responsibility! And that will involve what precisely!?”

“That…..I’ll start thinking about now of course!”

“You’re the worst!”

The final protection shatters.

The two magi assemble their magecraft at punching distance.
Red runes and blue ether current. 
The missiles become a waterfall and smashing Aozaki Touko together with the crests floating behind her.


Like Alice said.

The battle ended before Soujuurou would arrive.
The wooden school house, which survived decades of weathering, gave a rather easy to understand illustration of their case.

The school entrance with its dislodged door, the hallway making creaking sounds, stairs which look like they give way with a step,

These were transformed into a trail of destruction, a trail that ended deep into the second floor.

At the end of the hallway, in front of the stairs leading to the third floor, Touko lay crumbled on the ground, her back resting against the wall. 

Wounded though she was, she does not move her eyes away from Aoko. 
Internal bleeding, broken bones.

Her frame will no longer move to her satisfaction. 

Her left eye was blown out from the inside, a short circuit caused by Aoko’s jump kick perhaps, and would not open. 

Her breathing is under control despite all of her injuries, maybe as a last act of defiance, 

An act of defiance to her uninjured little sister in front looking down on her. 

“…I thought, I’d last until the roof.” 

Touko gave her non-self mocking, honest thoughts. 

Aoko only stares back coldly. 

There was no change in her blue eyes.

They were cold, merciless eyes, but even so they were irresistibly beautiful. 


Aoko does not come closer to Touko, instead staying several steps away and extending her right arm. Like a marksman finishing the job on his wounded prey. 

The battle was over. 

The magus who came to steal the land under her management is defeated with death. 

“…..”

Needless silence continued. 

Moonlight seeped through the half-destroy wall, projecting their shadows in the hallway,

The racket that had gone until now was gone. 

The storm of fireworks has passed, leaving only tense coldness to rule over the schoolhouse .

“Any, last words?” 

Aoko asked abruptly. 

Touko thought this over for a while. 

While doing so, she lightly slaps the coat of her pocket, making a bitter-sweet face at the empty sound. 

“…..I thought about having a smoke before the end, but I’ve run out. Japan’s cigarettes shouldn’t be so good.”

Aoko made a small nod of acknowledgement. 

“Truly, last words no normal person could ever make.”

“Hold on, hold on. Not even I want to have my last words be mysterious. As you wish, the loser will act like the pathetic loser she is, so listen good.” 


Touko’s voice was sarcastic, but it contained no hostile intent nor hate for Aoko. 

Probably, what she wanted revenge on wasn’t Aoko herself, but the magus lineage that she and her younger sister were trapped in.


“….I would never have guessed that the Aozaki magic would have had its roots in time travel. I suspect there is more to it than that, but what can I say, I’m not involved. You’re left with a burden the ordinary can’t understand, so treat it preciously. Though, the future doesn’t bode well for you if this is how you are even after ten years. Makes me ask what Alice has been doing.”

“Alice has been more than patient with me, unlike herself, and her verdict was that I’ll always be half-baked as a magus. But, mmmm yes. Maybe I could have put up a good fight with that wolf?”

“Hm? No, he’s out, he’s learned defeat. He’s no longer perfect anymore. He may be more valuable than a greenhorn, but he’ll probably lose sight of what makes him special when faced with magic. By the way, Aoko. Is your magic a means, or a result?”

Was it what came before or what came after? 

Did she need magic to go to a certain place, or was the magic created because she arrived there? 

“The latter. I turned tail and ran right at the front of the door, so I don’t know what gramps’ true motive was.”

“The same circumstances as the First Magic, eh. Karma must have it coming for you. I heard the Second to Fourth were created to reach that place. It’s common for those to hate their own kind. Let’s hope it does not come down to you and the First consuming one another. But, a gate you say. So inheriting magic is similar to inheriting a path, huh. Then, Ymir’s entrance was here wasn’t it?”


“To a Europhile like you, sure. To me, it was something like the Gate of Akasha. You were after that from the start, weren’t you.”

Touko, like she were purging her remaining life, grunted and nodded feebly. 

“….I couldn’t stand having to wait generations for something I so badly wanted and could get, and that’s why I went separate ways with grandfather. My wish for vengeance on the Aozakis couldn’t come before that. But it’s all over anyway. I have nothing else to say. I have one final request. I would like to hear your thoughts on touching the Root.”

Taking a deep breath, Touko said it. Her hateless last words. 

Aoko does not answer and raises her right hand high.
Her grandfather had set a few rules. 

And one of them was that knowledge, impressions concerning the Root must not be leaked. 
But, it was her elder sister’s final request, she should at least tell her what she felt, shouldn’t she? 

…..Once her arm pointing to the sky falls, it’s over.
This decrepit building will become the grave of the person that had been her sister. 

Then, all the more reason to be honest, and besides, Aoko had even less intention of following what her grandfather told her. 

“….To be frank, big sister.” 

Her voice echoes in the azure hall. 

“I honestly didn’t understand it at all.”

Giving her brutally honest impressions, Aoko dropped her right arm like lightning