Magical Girl Overtime [Second Arc Complete!]

???

Marisa couldn't even see her own hand in front of her after entering the strange domain of the man who called himself Erebus, the true form of that slithering mass that swallowed her whole and got her out of that fake Tokyo. A god of darkness is what he called himself, and yet, his white, luminous hair was the only source of light in here, aside from the occasional flashes of lightning.

The ground was grey and barren, unable to support any life, and yet, there was a lot of activity in the darkness beyond her vision. Creatures in the shapes of animals from Earth and other places were lurking just beyond sight, their eyes ever resting on Marisa, like they were about to pounce on her and devour her.

“You needn't fear them,” her host reassured her, though she had her doubts. She was too driven by her desire to survive against all odds despite her pre-determined reincarnation as Arisu, and she would be damned if she slipped up now and let some random beast devour her.

“I don’t,” she responded, priming a fireball in her hand, which finally added more much-needed light to her surroundings. Bears, wolves, lions, manticores, lamias, and all other sorts of creatures were present, or rather, their shadows were. They kept a respectful distance to the man called Erebus and her, and some even bowed their heads before him. Others stepped closer, and as he brushed his hand against their fur, their shadowy shapes liquefied, merging into his body in a bizarre display.

“They are my aspects. While separated from me, they will follow their instincts, but they still know who their master is. Come, now. I didn't bring you here to admire the scenery.”

She quickly followed him, and as they walked past a large hill in the darkness, lit windows crept into view, belonging to a castle standing alone in the dark world surrounding it. Their approach took a few more uneventful minutes, until they stood in front of the large wooden gates. They swung open with a loud creak, revealing the torch-lit corridor inside, with various statues and mosaics decorating the way.

“So, why did you bring me?”

“Because we share a common goal,” Erebus explained while turning around to face Marisa. She could now finally see his full appearance: gaunt, dangerously so, even, as he didn't appear to fill his black robes entirely. He was wounded, she realized, like someone or something tore a whole piece out of him, and he was barely holding on.

“This Arisu you saw. We call her the abomination. We don't want her to exist any more than you do. You get where I'm going with this?”

“You want me to kill her. But that won't help me. I need her to never have existed in the first place…”

Marisa blinked and stopped as a memory came back to mind. She knew those creatures out there, she realized. She commanded them before. And that ridiculous plan to stop Arisu from existing? She remembered her older self instructing her in it. She didn't realize that she had become the older self until now.

“Haven't I been here before…?”

“Curious. You broke the spell, but you still have to dredge up some of your memories yourself. Indeed, I recall you fighting your original in this space before, as well as the abomination breaking in some other time.”

“Doesn't that mean that this is pointless? I already tried, and I failed…”

Erebus let out a chuckle, leaning a bit closer.

“Here's a secret for you: fate may look predetermined from where you are standing right now, but it is anything but. The smallest deviations happen even in a perfect time loop, and if you prod it enough into one direction or the other, it will unravel, sooner or later. And we are so close to breaking it!”

Marisa looked at him skeptically, though she saw no reason to mistrust him. Not yet, anyway.

“Right. I'll go back in time to prevent Arisu from being born. But how do I do that? Go back in time, I mean.”

Erebus’ visage distorted into a wicked grin as he turned around again and gestured for her to follow him. On the way he tossed her two small medallions. They were made from an unnaturally black material that light didn't even reflect off of. Marisa recognized them, of course. She was supposed to give one to her younger self, to allow her to pass through the Shadow creatures without issue. After that exchange, they finally arrived in front of a wooden door, and Erebus opened it for her; inside was a simple room. A wardrobe, a bed, a desk. Marisa gave Erebus a quizzical look and he smirked.

“You do remember your own powers, don't you, Doppelgänger? We don't know where the tome of time travel is hidden, but your other half will find it, soon. All we have to do is wait for you to get your copy, so while you wait, you may enjoy my hospitality.”

Mana didn't know for how long she had been falling. Ten minutes, maybe? Or twenty? It didn't matter much to her anymore. In one fell swoop she lost both Marisa and Arisu, and despite telling herself that whenever the inevitable happened she would just forgive Arisu, she was now confronted with the fact that it was mostly her own fault. All she could do was to push one of the girls she loved away, while the other had fled.

Part of her knew that things could work out, somehow, but none of that helped in any way to quell the feelings of guilt in her heart right now.

Hundreds and then thousands of bookshelves soared past her as she let herself fall down one of the endless chasms in the library, alone with herself and her thoughts. She vaguely remembered that her fall down the endless chasm was accidental, at first, as her portal into the library was slightly off and she tumbled down. Her decision to think about her poor choices while in freefall, however, was entirely conscious.

“Mana.”

“You haven't talked to me in a while,” Mana replied to Portal with a little snort, slowly pulling her old friend out of her sleeve and looking at it.

“All this was meant to happen, and you know it. So, stop feeling sorry for yourself and instead work on fixing it!”

The sudden, harsh words from her partner tore Mana out of her apathetic stupor and tears filled her eyes.

“How could I fix this? I don't even know how to time tra-“

Mana was interrupted as her fall was suddenly cushioned and came to a stop. She was floating inelegantly, staring up towards where she came from, into a chasm framed by bookshelves that… suddenly ended. It looked like a hole, almost similar to her portal, that hovered in the middle of nothingness. She looked around, and the space she found herself in was unlike anything she had ever seen in the library before.

The level she found herself on suddenly opened up into a giant, yawning void, filled with luminous, blue fog. Small lights sparkled inside its swirling mass like stars, while here and there a bookshelf and its contents were floating around.

“What is…” Mana started, but Portal interrupted her.

“Your little gamble with Marisa back then irreparably damaged the library. The damages are few and far between, but pockets like these have formed where the strain on this universe was the most severe. More than that, the books here have become warped, developing anomalous properties, so do be careful!”

Mana nodded, then she furrowed her brow in concentration. She was slowly rotating in place, and when she moved her arms, there was at least a little bit of air resistance. Soon she was ‘swimming' through the blue void, between shelves spilling their contents into the emptiness around them.

“I have a question, Portal,” Mana said to break the silence as they explored the anomalous space.

“Ask away,” Portal confirmed, so Mana followed up.

“Do you think I really descended from a Bakeneko?”

“You mean that thing the Jorogumo said to you? If she said so, I don't think there's a reason to doubt her, and besides, Inari confirmed it. Those creatures can somewhat sense each other. Not exactly a feature exclusive to your world's spirits, either.”

“I don't know how I feel about having a literal cat in my family line… don't Bakeneko come into existence when a cat gets very old?”

“That is what your mythology retells to explain their visitors, just like the Deogemma became the Roman gods. It was most likely a visitor in the form of a beautiful woman. Maybe with cat ears and a tail. I hear those features are very erotic on a woman to your kind… or maybe I caught on to that fact when I saw you playing that one game with cat maids working at a bakery… what was its name again?”

“Ugh… stop! I really have no privacy with sentient books in my room, do I?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Great…” Mana grumbled, then she got close to one of the floating books. It looked normal enough, until she almost touched it, then it started to glow in a hot orange color and swelled to twice its size. Mana saw disaster coming, so she quickly shot herself away with ‘Blast’, flying away at breakneck speed as the book burst and swallowed its immediate area in a giant fireball. More books were caught in the blast, and a chain reaction of colorful explosions started. Some of them created phantom animals, like butterflies that freely phased through every object they encountered, others spread glittering particles, which hit more books. Mana witnessed previous spells getting frozen into solid blocks of ice, while yet more items were shrunk or enlarged at random.

“As I told you. These spaces are distorted and suffused with all sorts of magic. Remnants of the powerful spells that wove this place into existence and made it self-replicate into infinite infinities. They are frayed and broken, like an overly worn piece of cloth,” Portal explained, while the bursts died down again. Fewer books were now floating in the strangely luminous fog, though they were still more than she could ever possibly count.

“This place still manages to surprise me every time I come here,” Mana spoke quietly.

“I should come here next time with-”

Right. There is no one left to come with me.

“It is an absolute marvel, Mana. But never forget that it was built on blood and suffering, and that sinister forces want it for their own ends.”

“I know,” Mana confirmed, letting out a long sigh.

“…I want to see as much of this library as I can in my lifetime. But I promise you, Portal, one day I will destroy it. To free every soul trapped in a book. To prevent any more souls from being forced into these books. And one day, I will free you, too.”

“I'm proud of you, Mana. You have grown into a surprisingly mature witch, and you have learned to put the needs of others before your own in the short time I've known you.”

The words hung awkwardly between the two, then Portal spoke again.

“And it is this mature witch that I am beseeching with these words: go and find the time travel tome. Set the events of last year in motion, so that we might know a brighter future.”

First, Mana needed a clue how to find the tome of time travel in the first place. She tried to consult the indices she already owned, but none of them were of any help. There was no entry for ‘time travel’, or ‘world of white sand', and if that world held some esoteric name, then it didn’t appear as an unexplored entry, at all.

She was about to give up until she remembered some of Arisu's parting words after their first date. Not the bumbling, adorable confession, but what she said before that.

It was made by my great-great-grand uncle.

Not telling, read some mythology!

So, she intended to do just that. She went to school the next day as normal, though she attempted to avoid Arisu. She had no right to talk to her, not after the way she blamed her for her own blunder. It hurt, but she only wanted to offer the girl her genuine apology after she cleaned up her own mess.

Her school day was a normal one, though the time went by like molasses as she waited for lunch break, with the feeling of guilt still hammering at the back of her mind. She skillfully dodged the hands of her classmates like usual, either tilting her head to avoid a petting, or curving her tail right out of the way of a hand approaching to grab it, and a small part of her was amazed by the mastery she attained over her new body parts. Her elongated spine didn't feel out of place anymore, and in fact, she felt like if someone took her tail away again, she'd have trouble keeping her balance.

Finally, the bell signaled the start of her lunch break, and Mana hurried towards the school library with big steps. She opened the door and hurried to the shelves stocked with books about history and mythology. Most of them, naturally, were about Japanese topics, but she was certain that she had seen a book about Roman and Greek gods as well. Her hunch paid off: she found what she was looking for after a little bit of effort, and as she flipped through the pages, she was soon on the one talking about one of Arisu's mamas.

“Minerva, member of the Capitoline Triad, together with her father Jupiter, and his consort Juno. The goddess of strategic warfare, of wisdom, of the crafts, justice, and in her earliest incarnation as an Etruscan goddess, Menfra, healing. She was born from Jupiter’s forehead after he swallowed his pregnant wife Metis, following a prophecy that her firstborn son would overthrow him.”

Mana tilted her head after reading that passage, and some of the more common myths after. She didn't much appreciate the way Minerva was depicted here, but this was how humans two thousand years ago wrote about them, so who was she to argue with dead people’s misconceptions?

She latched onto Jupiter, her father, and kept going to work her way up the family tree.

“Jupiter Optimus Maximus, meaning Jupiter the Best, the Greatest, king of the gods, head of the Capitoline Triad, ruling over the gods together with his sister-wife Juno.”

Mana stopped for a moment, thinking back to Marisa, her clone.

“Well, I can't judge,” she mumbled and continued reading.

“Ascended the throne after defeating the Titans, the generation of his father Saturn. He wields lightning as his weapon. One of his many names is Jove.”

She rubbed her chin and stared at the attached illustration of a muscular, white-bearded man sitting on a throne. This described Jove, alright, but the illustration couldn't be further off from the androgynous man in wizard robes she knew.

However, there was a name: Saturn. She kept flipping the pages until she reached the one describing him.

“Saturn, leader of the Titans. He ascended to power with a scythe given to him by his mother Terra, with which he castrated his father, Caelus, rendering him unable to… connect with Terra again.”

Mana raised a brow, looking up from the book.

“There's a lot of sons overthrowing fathers going on… and that's the Dream Empresses' weapon, yes? But I think we're at the correct generation with that next one.”

Caelus. The sky. According to some sources he was Terra's first son and then her husband, others state that he came into existence at the same time as her. Of course, that would complicate things a little. Did Arisu mean one of Terra's children with her great-great-grand uncle, or one of her siblings?

Mana got to work, first looking at all the children of Terra, before she let out a long groan after seeing the exhaustive list.

“There’s got to be an easier way to do this…”

She fished her phone out of her pocket and made an internet search, typing in the words ‘Roman god of time’.

Immediately she got a result.

‘Saturn, also known by his Greek name, Kronus.’

“That’s not the right guy. That would be a great… uh… a grandpa, not an uncle,” Mana complained, then she attempted another search.

‘List of Roman gods of time’

She didn’t get a direct summary like she wanted, but she saw an article about deities of time of various religions. And as she looked at the list of Roman deities, she saw a familiar name...

***

???

“My, what took you so long?”

The voice belonged to the double-headed keeper of the infinite, white void connecting various worlds through magically connected doors: Janus. He looked at Mana with clear bemusement, like her arrival was just a matter of time to him.

Mana looked at him with tired eyes. She couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this was just a game for this ancient being in front of her. One of the oldest, in fact, if the mythology that she just read held any truth.

“Why didn’t you just… show up and get me?” Mana complained to him, and the mouths on both faces formed a wide grin.

“Oh, no, young witch. One must not disturb a stable time loop. The smallest deviation from the script could spell catastrophe. You had to find me on your own, and now all you have to do is to ask me for the tome that will set everything right. For the sake of my darling niece.”

He acts detached, but all of this is because he cares about Arisu… is it?

“Aren’t stable time loops inescapable?” She asked and watched him, as he slowly pulled a heavy tome from his sleeve.

“No. They are indeed the result of the hard work of everyone involved. Especially the ones who interact with their own past hold the largest part of the responsibility to keep things going the way they should go. Like you, for example. You could simply do things differently than what you saw of yourself in the past, and everything would fall apart. That would not be… desirable, would it?”

Mana stared at the tome in front of her and grimaced; she would have to stop Marisa. Wouldn’t that mean that she had to kill her, too? To allow Arisu to be born? The leather-bound surface of the magic artifact called to her, to set everything right, just as she did a year ago, just from another perspective.

What if I simply don’t take the tome? If I return to Arisu and we act like nothing ever happened? Marisa can’t go into the past to try and get Miss Hitoishi killed if she doesn’t have access to the tome, right? She could keep on living, even if she’s alone, and Arisu and I could just… could…

She felt weak, all of a sudden. She felt her brain becoming hazy, like it was being filled with fog, and then she felt a strong pressure around her throat. Her eyes went wide as she recognized the feeling of strangulation and fell to her knees, clawing at her neck. There were imprints of an invisible hand, but no person who they belonged to.

What is this…? What is happening?!

Janus watched her with an inscrutable expression on both his faces. He kneeled down, still holding out the tome, just barely in reach. All she had to do was to reach out.

“You know what is happening, young witch. The moment you doubt the proper order in which everything ought to happen, you alter the time loop. Think again: what happens in the past, without intervention from your time traveling self?”

Mana kept choking, her eyes feverishly darting around. The book was still in reach and her arm extended, her hand reached for it.

“Without the witch traveling back in time with her companion, her younger self will be choked to death in the middle of the infinite library. The clone will sink into despair, and, without her mistress, will soon return to its dormant state, releasing the soul within. But that’s not everything there is to this time loop, is it?”

Mana grabbed the tome, and the moment she touched it with the resolve to go back in time, the pressure on her throat vanished. She rolled on her back and let out a long gasp, then she coughed and hacked, while Janus continued indifferently.

“Nay, for the young witch only started her journey because her older self from the future brought her into that situation in the first place. If you were to stray from the path, our reality would come apart at the seams.”

“Are you done lecturing me?” Mana asked with a grimace, staring into the infinite white void which she presumed was ‘up’ in this strange world, while still holding a hand on her throat where she just felt the intense choking sensation. Janus looked down at her and rubbed his chin – one of them, at least.

“This lecture is over. Another awaits. You need to learn how to wield your new power.”

???

The world Mana entered with Janus was already familiar to her. An endless white desert, with sand flowing upwards into the sky in multiple, majestic pillar spread out across the horizon. Janus walked ahead, and Mana followed, struggling a little as her short legs sunk into the soft sand and she had to take big steps to free her feet from the oddly warm ground.

“I know how this works already. A minute in here is a month back home, yes?” she asked, and Janus turned his head a little, so that one of his faces looked right at her.

“That is one of the ways this works. It is, however, a little more complicated than that,” he responded and led her closer towards one of the large pillars. As they approached, Mana blinked as she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. The closer they came to the large pillar, the faster the sand appeared to move.

“The you who told you about the one minute per month rule found an ideal place and made a perfect, mental note to keep track of it. In here, time is flowing differently depending on where you stand. The closer you are to the flowing sands, the faster time will move. It would be easy to lose track, if you are careless.”

“So, wait… what happens if multiple people are together in here and far away from each other?”

“I think you will discover that for yourself soon enough,” Janus deflected. “For now, I need you to focus on utilizing this space to its full potential.”

He stopped and turned around, pointing at Mana.

“As far as I am aware, humans in your world all carry a device with them that allows them to do various things, like keeping time and taking notes. I advise you to utilize it to keep track of the time you spend in here, and to make… calculations, in case you miss your target.”

Mana frowned and looked him straight in the eyes. One of the two sets, at least.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You can easily miss your target by a thousand years if you’re not careful. When that happens, you’ll have to try and find your way back, via trial and error, and by meticulously documenting the proper time conversions.”

Mana sighed and nodded, pulling her smartphone from her pocket. It had no connection, unsurprisingly. Her portal was still open, but it only connected to the white void between worlds, not back home.

“Start a timer when you close your portal, young witch. And then try to go back home after a while.”

Mana nodded and opened a stopwatch app. She pushed the start button at the same time as she closed her portal, and watched the timer count the time.

“A question!” Mana spoke up, and Janus immediately turned his head to give her his undivided attention.

“Arisu said you created this space. Shouldn’t you know exactly where which time conversion occurs?”

She saw a brow on both his faces rise, then he spoke again.

“I did. But it wouldn’t be prudent to just show you the requisite spots. You need to be prepared, young witch. I will not always be here to guide you, least of all when you set off to the past without me.”

Mana nodded and looked back at her stopwatch. It was a little above a minute now.

“That is quite enough. Open a portal to Tokyo now, young witch.”

Mana nodded, working her portal magic and hitting stop on the stopwatch. It showed 1:20.753.

“One minute? We can’t have gone that far, can we?” Mana asked and approached her portal. She wished she didn’t.

She could already hear loud sirens before she caught a first glimpse of the scenery. Soon the sounds of loud explosions, roaring flames, and worst of all, the screams of men, women and infants alike joined the infernal chorus. Her eyes went wide as she looked through the portal and she saw people running, trying to get away from the burning buildings, and the winged shadows that were approaching far up in the sky.

The winged shadows dropped what looked like dozens or even hundreds of cylinder-shaped objects which let out a terrible whistling noise as they approached and finally exploded with large fireballs as they hit the ground.

Mana’s shocked mind still hadn’t entirely processed what she was seeing, but her body wanted to move on its own.

I have Barrier. I can hop through and shield these people. We could take them in here and then…

“Do not interfere!” Janus’ voice boomed through the white desert and Mana’s bones at the same time. It ripped her racing thoughts right back into reality, and she found his hand against her chest, preventing her from running through the portal.

“Close it! We’ll return to your time.”

“But I could save so many-”

“They are already dead! By changing the past, you would rip their souls out of other worlds and change them, too, with unforeseen consequences, young witch.”

Janus pulled her away from the portal with a firm hand, then he sighed after seeing Mana relent.

“Open a portal to the forward-facing world. And here is the next secret: The ratios of passed time are the same between forward and back if you stand in the same location. Your Portal tome should know how to make use of that knowledge.”

“That I do,” Portal confirmed. The fiery carnage vanished and was replaced with a gateway to an identical world to the one she stood in, just with a different flow of time. Mana took a deep breath and stepped through, taking in the almost identical sights to before – only that the sand was now flowing down and away from the pillar.

“Now, young witch Mana Kanno. I will grant your tome another ability,” Janus announced, hovering his hand over Portal.

“What kind of ability?” Mana asked cautiously.

“Knowledge of past and future histories of your world. Of course, he won’t have all of that available in his mind all at once, or he might go mad. Instead, he will be able to recognize the time and place you find yourself in; to help you orient yourself, should you ever stray from the path.”

Mana gulped and nodded, then she watched Janus extend his hand to touch the tome she carried with her. A subtle glow appeared, then it was over as fast as it started.

“I feel… different,” Portal commented with a dry tone, then Janus continued.

“Go on. Tell her what she just saw, Portal. Let her figure out the time conversion for herself, then.”

“Right! It was March 10^th, 1945. The firebombing of Tokyo,” Portal reported matter-of-factly, and Mana could feel her stomach turn. She didn’t want to think about that event and the overall surrounding situation the world was in at that time, so she looked to Janus for further guidance instead.

“Now you will be able to compare the time that has passed in your world with the time you spent in here,” the giant man announced, pointing at the stopwatch in Mana’s hand.

“Eighty seconds… for eighty years.” She already figured that one out after hearing Portal’s words.

“Very good. Now let us use this to return to your time and get you used to this place.”

***

Mana spent most of her day in this white desert, training under Janus’ watchful eye. She varied her distance from the rising or falling pillar in the distance, and when she found good spots, Portal vowed to memorize them. Luckily, none of the places she saw were as horrifying as the firebombing. She saw Akihabara when it was still Tokyo’s electric town, before it became the unofficial otaku capital of the world, and she saw what the city looked like when it was still called Edo, before the Meiji Restoration.

After their session, she had a few important points stored in Portal’s ever-immaculate memory, and a feel for how time expanded and contracted in these two strange worlds.

“You must now act swiftly,” Janus cautioned her. “That tome, Doppelgänger, will have received a copy of the tome of time. For all we know, she might have trained here at the same time you did, maybe even with some help from Scotus.”

Mana narrowed her eyes and nodded. She knew what she had to do. She would have to go and grab Arisu, and then she would have to work on correcting her own mistakes. Whatever would happen to Marisa now, it was her responsibility.

???

Marisa dragged her younger self through a portal into the world of the living Shadows. The girl was awfully quiet now, after the crying and pleading she did before, as Marisa used the last remaining energy in the Alter Memory ring to transfer her own memories to the younger one. Particularly the moment of revelation after she made eye contact with the so-called ‘abomination’.

The young Marisa looked around with a tired expression, clinging to the older girl while the shadow creatures snarled and circled them beyond their eyesight. Marisa simply put one of the two medallions Erebus gifted her in the younger Marisa’s hand.

“With this, the creatures here will listen to us. And now you will listen closely to me.”

She pulled a vial out of her robes, filled with a red liquid.

“A woman called Hitoishi has a potion that looks just like this. You will help me retrieve it from her. Distract her so I can swap the vials, and Arisu will never be born.”

“And then?” the younger one looked up at her, and Marisa recognized a spark of hope in her eyes. She was conflicted. For one, she wanted to avoid this past year in a golden cage, if possible, but without it, she wouldn’t have gotten this opportunity in the first place.

I’m sorry, younger me. But I will have to keep this time loop stable in this one instance.

“I will need you to set up some… contingencies. Hitoishi will confront her foe in an office building, with the Containment Field spell keeping said foe restrained after she wins the fight. I want you to go and destroy the crown housing that spell, and maybe she will perish even before she uses the potion.”

Her younger self nodded, and Marisa let out a little sigh as she opened a portal to the endless white desert of time. She was going to kill Hitoishi and prevent Arisu from being born, and thus, she would be free from her fated death.