6.09 Back to the Start
Moon of the Murdered Singer, 1067 AR
“Why? Why, Senpai?! You said this would work! No! No!! Get away from her, you monster!”
Seika groaned and opened her eyes as she heard a voice shouting. Someone held her, with an arm wrapped around her shoulders from behind. Her face hurt, and she could feel gauze that was taped to her skin on it, while a debilitating pain radiated through her right shoulder. She realized that her right arm was in a sling and she couldn’t move it very well.
Right in front of her was an armored woman, with blue and purple glowing hair and a beautiful face that was currently distorted in grief, held in thorny vines and struggling against them. She struggled so badly that the thorns ripped her flesh and spilled her blood.
“Now, now. What should have worked, Miori dear?” The cruel voice belonged to whoever was holding her, and Seika’s eyes went wide as she recognized it as belonging to Lethe. This Miori in front of her, did Seika know her? Did Lethe just erase the memories of an important person from her mind?
She struggled, but her breath hitched as she felt the creature’s sharp nails against her throat. The same nails that stabbed her shoulder and scratched her face before.
“Ah, look at that. She’s awake. I’m sorry, Seika, I would give you a lengthy farewell, but you have tested my patience for the last time, so I will… cut our time short.”
Seika felt a sharp pain going through her throat, and immediately she felt like she was drowning. Her vision filled with red, as did her lungs, and she sputtered and choked, all while the stranger, this Miori woman, screamed her name. Her gushing blood dripped on the ground, watering Lethe’s sickening flowers with her life, and a golden fruit burst from the screaming woman’s chest.
What went wrong? I thought everything went to plan…!
***
November 2025
Seika shot up and gasped, grabbing her throat. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead, and she quickly looked around in a panic. Miori and Ayame were in bed right next to her, and everything else appeared normal, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong.
She shook her head and got out of bed, walking towards the shower.
“Are you alright?” Minerva asked with some obvious worry, and Seika let out a long sigh, rubbing her temples. She sat down on a stool in the bath and treated herself to a cold shower.
“I had a nightmare about Lethe,” Seika answered, letting the cold water wake her up. She stared at the ceiling.
“That creature Discordia made a daughter out of, yes?” Pallas inquired curiously, and Seika gave a little ‘mhm’ as a response before she continued.
“I think the stress is getting to me.”
“A lot of things are happening at your job. You’re preparing that MagiColle booth at Comiket, aren’t you?” Minerva asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
Seika nodded. “With Hifumi and Yoshida both appearing to do an informal book signing event. All that because we’re preparing an announcement for a Starfaring Maiden anime. But that’s just work,” she brushed Minerva off, with her thoughts trailing off towards Arisu.
“She’s still crying herself to sleep.”
“She does,” Seika admitted, stepping out of the bath and drying herself off as she stared off into space again. Arisu came home two days ago without an appetite, and they could hear her crying in her room, yet whenever Seika or Miori or Ayame tried to comfort her, she would brush them off. From what Seika could gather, she had a falling out with Mana, which surprised her entirely, seeing how close the two were when they came to her rescue last year.
She got herself dressed and walked into the living room, looking at the clock. 5am, too early to do anything and too late to just go back to sleep. She walked towards Arisu’s room and slowly opened the door instead, where she saw her daughter tightly clinging to her pillow, quietly sniffling to herself.
“Oh dear,” Seika whispered and stepped closer. Arisu stirred and sat up, looking at Seika with her human eye reddened, and snot running from her nose.
“Come here, darling,” Seika whispered and embraced her, running her hand over her young daughter’s back. “What happened that you’re crying so much, hm?”
“It’s all my fault!” Arisu whimpered, clinging tightly to Seika while the latter kept stroking her hair.
“What is?” Seika asked, letting Arisu sniffle against her shoulder.
“I followed Mana to her secret place! I ruined everything for her! She said she never wants me to talk to her again!”
“Possibly something said in the heat of the moment while she was hurt,” Minerva commented, and Seika let out a little sigh.
“Now, now, Arisu. I know Mana, and I don’t think she’s the kind of girl who really means things like that. She’s way too kind for that. I’m sure once she has calmed down you can talk things over.”
Arisu nodded and kept sniffling but slowly calmed down as Seika kept running her hand through her hair.
“Want to go back to bed now, or do you want to make breakfast together?” Seika whispered with a smile, and Arisu looked at her, wiping the remaining tears from her eyes.
“I’ll help,” she announced quietly, and Seika nodded, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead before she walked ahead into the living room, leaving Arisu to put on her uniform.
Arisu moved into the living room to the kitchen partition and cut up some veggies with Mama Seika, while she was busy preparing the miso soup. She sometimes reached out to pat Arisu’s head, or hugged her to make sure she was alright, and Arisu appreciated it.
Still, she thought about Mana. About how hurt she looked when everything came falling apart. The man called Stevyn, who moved in to confront Marisa and stunned her, and how he lost an arm as Scotus came to steal Marisa away. She wasn’t fast enough to save him, which only added to the feelings of guilt.
“Here’s the cucumber, can you slice it, please?” Mama Seika asked, and Arisu nodded, holding out her hand for Mama Seika to place the cucumber inside, but she never received it. She heard a soft thud of something hitting the ground, then she heard Mama Seika speak.
“Huh? That’s weird… why did I drop…?”
Mama Seika went quiet, and Arisu turned around. She saw her mama stare at her hand in front of her face with wide eyes as it started to turn transparent. She saw Mama Seika’s mouth move, but blood gushed out of it, and out of a gash across her throat.
“Mama!!” Arisu shouted and ran towards her. She tried to put her hands on her mama’s throat to staunch the bleeding, but she wasn’t able to touch her at all: her hand simply phased through her.
Mama Seika looked on in more confusion, then she put a hand on her throat, as if she only noticed it now. She quickly looked at Arisu and moved her mouth, even if she couldn’t speak. Arisu still panicked, and only noticed after Mama Seika mouthed the same syllables five times that she wanted to tell her something.
‘ma-na-ma-na-ma-na‘
Arisu’s eyes filled with tears, and she still tried to help her mama somehow, but she understood; Mama Seika was convinced that Mana was the only one who could help her. Despite her situation, Mama Seika’s eyes were still full of warmth, and she looked at Arisu until her fading body was entirely gone.
Arisu fell to her knees and whimpered, staring at the spot where her mama just stood, then the kitchen started to change as well. Someone she didn’t know stood there and prepared breakfast. A woman like any other, entirely unknown to Arisu.
She panicked again; she stood up and ran towards the bedroom, throwing the door open. There was a normal double bed, with a man sleeping in it besides, and now she heard the stranger shout.
“Who are you? What are you doing in here?! And… what’s happening to you?”
That last part made Arisu stop. She lifted her hand in front of her face and breathed heavier as she saw it turn transparent, just like her mama before.
No… no!! I have to find Mama Miori and Mama Ayame and find a way to get Mama Seika back!
Just as she was about to hyperventilate due to her panic, she heard the familiar sound of one of Mana’s portals opening right next to her. The witch leaned out of the portal, grabbed the parts of Arisu’s body that hadn’t turned transparent yet, and pulled her through the opening.
???
“Made it just in time!” Mana announced, breathing heavily as she collapsed on the ground. She closed the portal and started a timer on her phone before she shakily got back on her feet and walked over to Arisu. The girl looked devastated, staring at the ground, then her hands, which were back in their regular opaque state.
“By pulling you into this space, you’re not being affected by the altered past… for now,” Mana continued to speak, observing Arisu.
She didn’t talk, and Mana could see wet spots form on the sand as tears kept flowing out of the girl’s eyes. Mana was uncertain what she was supposed to say now, so she simply reached out and touched Arisu’s shoulder. That appeared to yank her out of her sorrowful paralysis. She turned around, with her tear-stained face and looked at Mana.
“Mama… my mamas are…”
Mana clenched her jaw; she knew that this was her fault, but also that this needed to happen. She wanted to open up and tell Arisu that she forgave her, but the words were stuck in her throat.
Forgive her for what? It’s all my fault in the first place! Why did I give in and do those things with Marisa, despite the risk? Why did I leave Arisu alone and dodge her questions?
Mana let her arms hang by her side before she took another deep breath and hugged Arisu tightly.
“She is not dead! We can fix it, Arisu! We…we can fix everything. I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right, even if I have to…”
She couldn’t finish what she was about to say, even if she had mustered the strength to say ‘kill Marisa’, as she was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“You can believe your friend, niece. All this is the work of that malevolent spell book called Doppelgänger. The one that imitates Mana’s appearance. By stopping her, everything will go back to normal. You will see your mothers again.”
Janus towered over them both, and Mana narrowed her eyes, while Arisu looked up at him, letting out a loud sniffle.
“I didn’t think you’d come with us,” Mana said skeptically.
“I am not. I am merely here to see you two off. I can’t be away from my domain of doors for long.”
“Figures,” Mana said with a little sigh, gently rubbing Arisu’s back.
“Didn’t you say that you never want to talk to me again?” Arisu now managed to ask, looking at Mana with a little pout. The sudden change in demeanor took Mana entirely by surprise.
Come to think of it, she was acting very chipper during our cooperation one year ago… don’t tell me she was hiding this kind of pain behind her smile?
“I… okay, listen, I’m still a little mad…”
At myself.
“…but I wasn’t thinking clearly when I said that. You are my friend and I think with some time…”
And after I cleaned up my own mess…
“…I can get over it.”
Arisu nodded and took a deep breath, wiping away her tears and pulling her eyepatch out of her pocket to put it on.
“…let’s get my mamas back,” she said quietly, and Mana could witness in real time how she put on that happy-go-lucky mask from last year, hiding her pain behind a chipper exterior, just like she did as Okumo bullied her.
“I will leave you two to it, then. Good luck, my darling niece. Good luck, Mana,” Janus said and walked into the white desert. He seemed to get slower as he walked further away from the salt pillars, before he walked through a door that appeared in front of him. Mana checked the stopwatch app on her phone; the incident happened in September of last year, and they were moving at one month per minute. Currently it sat at thirteen minutes.
One more, and… wait, no…
Mana reached for her throat, rubbing the spots where Marisa choked her more than a year ago. She took deep breaths, trying to calm her racing thoughts and quickly hid the timer behind her robes.
“So, uh… what are we doing now?” Arisu asked with a curious glance towards Mana.
“We’re waiting. In this world, a minute moves us back one month on Earth. Well, depending on whether you are standing in the right spot. There are slower and faster areas.”
Arisu nodded, “Then we are going back to where Marisa is going and prevent her from doing what she did to mama, yes?”
Mana looked at her timer. They were past the fourteen-minute mark by now, counting fifteen and up.
“Of course,” she lied.
***
“Yo, Mana!”
Arisu immediately poked her head through the portal and greeted the younger witch on the other side. Mana in the meantime checked her timer again. Twenty minutes. That should have brought them to March 2024, the moment Marisa tried to strangle Mana. She didn’t quite remember the room of the library in which their confrontation happened, but luckily, Portal was able to track the location of its owner, even if there were temporarily two of them. Arisu should have jumped through by now to confront Marisa and get her off the young Mana, but…
“What date is it?”
There was no response, but Arisu appeared to have her answer, nonetheless.
“Uh-oh! Hey, Mana! We went too far!”
What?
Mana remembered, now. Her first true encounter with Arisu, who suddenly poked her head through a portal in her bedroom and gave her a first glimpse of the utter weirdness that would await her in the infinite library. Mana checked her timer again, then she looked around.
Damn it, are we standing a little too close to the pillar?
“Damn it, how far exactly?”
She stopped and felt a strange, nauseating feeling wash over her, like she had just changed something that should have remained the same.
Wait… I didn’t say that. I said something different. ‘Blast it’. I never used that expression in my life…!
“It’s February!”
“February?! That’s when I just started! Get back in here, I’ll bring us to September, no matter what!” she carefully repeated the words she remembered to avoid further deviations. She lied again. Her aim for now was March, not September.
“Alright!” Arisu confirmed and poked her head out of the portal again to say goodbye to Mana on the other side.
“Just… forget this ever happened, okay? Bye, Mana. See you soon!”
See you in a month.
Mana closed the portal to her bedroom and replaced it with one to the other world of white sand, the one that would fast-forward time for its occupants. She stepped through the portal, with Arisu following, took a deep breath and turned around.
“I have an idea for this next one, Arisu,” she started, and Arisu tilted her head, listening.
“One month after this, I am waking Marisa up. I use the tome ‘Doppelgänger’ to defeat a slime monster that has two cores and can regenerate them quickly. We could stop her from existing entirely. Your family would be saved, and everything would be over before it even begins!”
It wouldn’t work out like that, of course. Marisa would see Arisu and declare her a rival and thus start this feud in the first place. She couldn’t tell Arisu that, she could only apologize for the deception later, or she would die right then and there, on the musty carpet of an infinite library. Killed and possibly replaced by a spell book.
Mana could see the hesitation on Arisu’s face. Even though it was life or death with Marisa’s plan to prevent Arisu’s birth, the girl didn’t like the idea of killing Mana’s clone. Maybe it was because she looked identical to Mana? Either way, she sighed and slowly tucked away her cat ears under her head, and pulled her tail inside her witch robes for what was to come, then she stared at her timer.
The target day is March 19th, and currently it is February 20th. That is 27 days. Or 26 days and 19 hours, to be precise. I have only one shot to land on the right moment in time.
She closed her portal, pushed the button of her timer and watched it like a hawk.
***
“Mana! We’re too late. What do we do?”
We’re just in time.
“Damn it all! Drive her away for now!”
Arisu jumped through the portal and engaged Marisa, and Mana followed her slowly. It was not like she didn’t want to help, but seeing Marisa, who hadn’t chosen that name for herself yet, made her want to cry.
“What a mess!” her true feelings came out, and it was all she could do to not whimper these words, keeping up her strong façade. The next words she forced out of her mouth, to keep the time loop stable.
“But we can stop her right here and right now by snuffing her out in her own past. Give her hell, Arisu.”
The fight was short and indecisive. Marisa, still occupied by Doppelgänger’s will, with no other drive than to merge with her mistress, complained about Arisu’s closeness to Mana at every turn, blocking Arisu’s strikes and then dodging away over the chasm of the library. Mana ended the fight by putting her hand on Arisu’s shoulder, and she could feel some tension leaving the girl’s body as Mana urged her to stop and Marisa used the opportunity to flee after declaring that she would get rid of Arisu.
I will have to do it myself. She can’t do it.
However, there was a shadow on Arisu’s face.
“Mana…”
Mana bit her lower lip. She knew what was coming. Arisu figured out that by showing up at this very moment, they set everything in motion in the first place.
She was ripped out of her thoughts as she heard her younger self’s voice overlapping with her own to reply to Arisu with a ‘Yes?’ in unison. She snapped, annoyed at her own naiveté. This girl right there, this Mana of the past, was someone who would do everything wrong in the near future, causing this whole mess, and it colored her response.
“She’s obviously talking to me. Be quiet!” she reprimanded her younger self, seeing some confusion in the young girl’s brown eyes. However, now it was her turn to be reprimanded.
“Mana… instead of erasing the clone … did we just give her the idea to prevent my existence in the first place?”
She didn’t look at Arisu. She simply opened a portal to escape from her younger self.
“Maybe. Let’s get going.”
“Oh, we’re going to have a long talk!” Arisu shouted and followed, after apologizing to the younger Mana.
***
“What was that about? Did we just cause all of this?!” Arisu raised her voice, as Mana quietly accelerated them forwards in time, starting her timer again.
“We did,” was her simple answer, still hiding her face from Arisu.
“And why?” Mana couldn’t hear anything in Arisu’s voice that would indicate her mood. Whether she was neutral, or angry or maybe even taking pity right now.
“Because I would have died right there if not for our involvement. It’s part of my past now,” Mana admitted, turning around towards Arisu. She was expecting maybe an irritated face, or a completely angry one, but instead Arisu looked at her like Mana merely came home late, instead of kicking off events that saw her mother getting erased.
“You could have just told me, you know?” Arisu said, stepping a little closer.
“…oh? Would you have agreed to help me? Even if it meant that your mother would disappear because Marisa saw you?”
“Why did you ever doubt that?” Arisu genuinely sounded hurt, and Mana’s cat ears drooped under her hat as she tried not to look at her again.
“I’m… going through a lot right now, okay? I wasn’t sure if…”
Indeed, what was she unsure of? Mana bit her lower lip, dwelling on her feelings of guilt. She wanted to save Miss Hitoishi, of course, to return everything to its proper place, but would she be able to kill Marisa, or would she just doom them to repeat this song and dance?
“Well, whatever you’re going through, I’m with you. We’ll get this sorted out together,” Arisu declared and reached out her hand. She petted one of Mana’s ears, and while she would have appreciated the gesture from Arisu any other time, the strange feeling of comfort it spread through her body instead filled her with disgust at herself. She quickly took a step back from Arisu.
“Don’t touch my ears or tail, please,” she said quietly, and Arisu took a step back from her.
“We’ve almost reached September. Let’s focus on our task,” she said after a short while, and Arisu nodded. As the timer reached the desired count, she extended her hand and opened her portal, which brought them right in front of the Tokyo Dome. From there it was only a short distance until they found Mana’s younger self, dressed in Celestial Sisters merchandise, looking around to see if Marisa was going to come and join her. Mana almost felt sorry for her younger self, but nonetheless she had to bring her back to reality and recruit her into their scheme to stop Marisa’s plans.
“She’s not coming,” she said, rather matter-of-factly, and watched her younger self’s entire world shatter.
Sorry, younger me.
Mana lost no time to explain the role her younger self would be playing in apprehending the younger Marisa, together with Arisu. She herself would deal with the older Marisa. She already had an idea she was about to pursue.
September 2024
Arisu landed in a luxurious pool with a loud splash and quickly rose to the surface to catch her breath. Mana sent her to accompany the younger version of herself and capture the younger Marisa, but it looked to her like Marisa was the one in control of the situation right now.
“You’re trying to capture me, aren’t you, mistress? Well, I can’t have that!” were the first words she heard after she rose out of the water, followed by an immediate sharp pain as she was pinned to a nearby decorative pillar by an arrow made of light, which penetrated Arisu where her human form’s heart should have been. The impact knocked the wind out of her, and the pain made her vision turn dark, all while she heard the sounds of a magical battle. The sloshing of water and the impact of bodies against walls and ceilings carried to her ears before her vision returned. The pain in her chest was almost unbearable, but as she saw Mana getting pinned against a pillar by a golem, she immediately grabbed the arrow and yanked on it, pulling it out in a quick motion. Right after, she transformed and rushed to Mana’s aid.
She punched the creature in its head, covering her hand in the same solid energies she used to block, making it stumble aside and drop Mana. She immediately followed up by summoning her wrist blade. The golem attempted to swing at her, but she ducked under the punch and cut off its arm with a quick swing, then she dashed closer, slashing to the left, then to the right and to the left again, cutting a zigzag pattern into the golem. It looked like it tried to follow up with one more attack, but collapsed into small parts, then the light left its gemstone eyes.
Arisu quickly put herself in front of the younger girl to let her recover.
“Are you alright, Mana?” she asked, quickly looking at the blue-haired witch who subconsciously patted herself all over, as if to check her body for damage.
“I should ask you that question! You got an arrow through your heart!” Mana responded with an exasperated voice, and Arisu couldn’t help but show her an awkward smile.
“I can’t be killed by hurting my body. It’s not my true body, after all,” she said, looking back to where Marisa stood and watched them.
In that regard I’m even less human than you are, am I not?
She was ripped out of her contemplation as she was soon pinned against a pillar like Mana before her. Marisa must have summoned a second golem while Arisu was distracted, and the creature wasted no time trying to kill her, applying more pressure than Arisu could possibly bear.
She heard a crack, and a feeling like a thousand shards of glass were inside her body overwhelmed her senses. Even despite her attempt to look brave in front of Mana, she let out a loud scream as her bones were broken.
The golem wasn’t finished. It grabbed her by the leg and swung her into the nearby pillars, cracking concrete and plaster. Her body was damaged repeatedly and healed just as fast, but it did nothing to reduce the agony she was in.
She almost felt like she should just give up and pass out, but as the golem made another swing for one of the pillars, she caught sight of Mana being frozen in place, while Marisa walked around her, holding Mana’s Portal tome. She grimaced and found just enough willpower to project her magic energies in front of herself before she hit the next pillar, allowing her to recover just enough that she was able to summon her bow. She quickly drew the string and shot three arrows into the golem’s shoulder which released strong bursts of energy, just enough that it cracked and she could use her strength to break its arm off. She fell to the ground and rolled to the side as the golem attempted to flatten her with its remaining fist, then she summoned her blade, jumping up and decapitating the summoned, rocky creature.
Marisa jumped out of the way as Arisu kicked the head her way before it even hit the ground and it crashed into the nearby pillar, then the clone’s face took on something ugly, as Arisu aimed her next arrow at the girl.
“Tch. Step aside, would you, mistress? I’ll retrieve you later,” Arisu heard Marisa say, and Mana fell through a portal in the floor. As Arisu looked at the opening and the black void beyond, she understood where it led.
Erebus. The world of darkness, ruled by Uncle Scotus. The man who wants me dead.
She panicked a little as she realized that Mana would be alone with the shadow creatures in that realm, with no means of escape due to Marisa holding on to portal. Her mind was racing, and Marisa grinned as she appeared to realize what was going through her mind.
“Tick-tock, little homewrecker. Mistress will be turned into a beautiful Empress if you aren’t quick,” Marisa taunted, and Arisu gritted her teeth, readying herself for combat.
***
Marisa kept laughing as she summoned a minotaur and another golem from her spell book, pointing them towards Arisu.
“Smash her to bits! And when she can’t move anymore, rip that crystal from her eye socket and crush it into dust!”
Arisu dodged a spear thrust by the minotaur, stepping aside and cutting the weapon with a powerful swing of her wrist blade. She wanted to face the golem next, but instead she immediately felt a thudding pain in her side and herself flying through the air, hitting a nearby pillar. She quickly pushed herself off it to dodge a follow-up punch from the golem, before her vision appeared to skip whole seconds again and she was impaled on the Minotaur’s spear. She let out a scream as she was flung off with a swing, hitting the windows overlooking the streets and cracking them. Her mind was racing as she tried to figure out what just happened, then the scene of Mana standing frozen came back to her mind.
She’s freezing me with Stasis!
Another time skip from her perspective later she heard shattering glass and found herself in freefall above the city, with the Minotaur following close by. Arisu quickly activated her power of flight and dodged the Minotaur’s spear thrust. She saw people below on the ground, so she utilized the power of Portal which she had still copied from the other day. With a quick execution, both the broken glass and the summoned creature were sent into the upstairs pool with a loud splash.
Arisu hid behind the neighboring apartment tower, deducing that Marisa could only freeze her if she had a line of sight. From the corner of her eye, she saw a man and a woman in bathrobes stumbling away from the window as they saw her, and she gave them an awkward wave, then she thought some more about her situation.
She couldn’t leave. Not yet. She needed to retrieve Portal from Marisa and give it back to Mana, or otherwise she would be utterly helpless. Maybe her best course of action would be to distract Marisa somehow and use Portal in the confusion to snatch the spellbook from her.
How do I get her from here?
The answer came to her almost instinctively. She summoned her bow into her hand and brought the technique taught to her by Hachiman back to mind.
‘As the foremost authority on archery in this country, I shall teach you a magic technique! No matter where you really aim, as long as you have a target in mind, your arrows will not miss their mark!’
And just like that, an idea took shape.
Arisu pulled the bowstring and aimed towards the corner, without emerging from her cover. Keeping her eyes closed she visualized Mana, then she changed her hair color, her eye color and finally, gave her a lightly tanned appearance until what she pictured was Marisa.
I won’t hurt her, Mana… I promise.
She let go of the bowstring, and five arrows soared into the night sky in an arc. They curved around the corner of the building, and Arisu was quick to follow, almost keeping up with the speed of the projectiles.
She rapidly approached Marisa, who stood in the shattered window and let out a curse, raising her hands and using Stasis to freeze the approaching arrows in the air – which was just what Arisu was waiting for.
She was under no illusion that she could beat the redheaded girl right now, at least not without seriously injuring her. Instead, she used her own ability to copy the spells she got hit by and put Marisa in stasis herself. Marisa was frozen in place, with her surprised reaction motionlessly staring ahead, fully unaware of the state she found herself in. Arisu quickly dismissed her magic arrows and rummaged through Marisa’s robes until she found what she was looking for.
“Hey, Portal.”
“Hello, young lady,” was the prompt answer. It sounded a little wary, but Arisu paid it no mind. Instead, she focused on opening a portal to Erebus with her copying ability, hoping that she was just in time to save the younger Mana from the Shadows.
???
Mana, the older one, stepped through one of her trusty portals into the infinite library after some initial preparations, looking around warily. She kept her right hand on the other side of the portal, only slowly pulling it inside, ready to thrust her hand holding the universe marble back out at a moment’s notice, but nothing happened. She closed her portal and inspected the universe in her hand.
“Good. Since I brought this from the future, bringing it in here doesn’t mean that the universe is currently folding in on itself. But…”
She pulled Portal out of her sleeve, looking at it inquisitively.
“Can you access both libraries?”
The spell book didn’t take long to answer.
“Of course. They may have overlapping… universe coordinates, but as they are in two entirely different temporal states, differentiating them is not a big deal for me.”
“You always surprise me, Portal. You’re really amazing, you know that?” Mana complimented her companion with a smile, and the book even looked to her like it was blushing. That was probably her imagination, however.
“I merely do my best to assist you, Mana. That’s how I was made.”
Mana nodded, then she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She had mulled it over a thousand times by now, but finally, she had to take action. She had to reach for any advantage she could hold over the older Marisa, and right now, she knew of one trump card which she had been too cautious to even add to her deck. She placed the Universe marble on the carpet and took a step back.
“Alright… target the library of the future. Bring me to Atomize.”