6.11 The Sacrifice
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Amicitia didn’t know how long she had been dragged around by her ‘savior’ by now. She said she wanted to do something with her, but never quite elaborated on it. They were atop a large mountain range, in a foreign world, with a clear sky above them and an unobstructed view of a valley with a small town in front of them, while even taller mountains rose up behind them.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” her savior spoke, facing the setting sun behind the valley. She made sure to lift Amicitia up so she could see it in her crystal form, at eye level.
“It is. But why show me all this?”
“The best part is still coming!” her savior insisted, and as the sun vanished behind the horizon, she turned around, facing the tall, snow-capped mountains. Their tips were glowing in a gentle pink-orange hue, transitioning into soft shadows below.
“Alpenglow. Light is diffracted in the atmosphere, and so, even with the sun gone, it still illuminates parts of the world, most noticeable with these white mountaintops.”
“I know about the phenomenon. Capitolium stands on top of a mountain, after all.”
“Of course you’d know, my bad! But I didn’t come here to explain what it is. I just wanted to show you how beautiful it is in this particular world. The glow is so intense and mesmerizing that down below, in the villages that fill the valley, a religion has formed around it. The gentle mother mountain, who glows with a warm light to bid her children goodnight, while the diligent father mountain on the other side calls them to work in the morning before sunrise.”
“You are fascinated by the cultures of all these different worlds, then.”
“I am. There is more than a person like me could ever see in a single lifetime, as long as it may be…” her savior mused, gently running her fingers over the surface of Amicitia’s crystalline form. It felt comforting, letting her forget about her own guilty conscience for but a brief moment.
“Say, Amicitia. Do you think human lives can be like the alpenglow?”
“You’ll have to elaborate.”
“Just like the sun, which vanishes behind the horizon… I hope that humans can glow like this, illuminating the path for those who come after them, even after they are gone. Like the Aranon showed us the way forward, giving us technologies and philosophy to deal with cultures of different worlds living together.”
“You’re talking about death and legacy.”
“Maybe,” her savior replied and showed a little smile. It appeared bittersweet to the Deogemma.
“Then here’s my earnest answer: I do. The older generations prepare the younger ones for what’s ahead, with the accumulated wisdom of the past, and their contributions to it. Even if someone’s name may be forgotten over time, whatever little they did with their mortal time will be a part of the whole. Of humanity.”
Her savior nodded again, then she let out a little laugh.
“I’m sorry, I got sidetracked there. Let me ask this: Amicitia, after doing your penance, would you like to go on a long adventure? To see dozens, no, hundreds of worlds like these? Strange, highly advanced civilizations that span multiple planets, or secluded ones hidden away in a hole in the ground? Dead planets bearing witness of long extinct species, waiting for you to carry on their legacy, worlds of martial arts, worlds in which costumed heroes fight their nemeses, worlds filled with vast oceans that humans traverse in sailing ships, with daring privateers questing for treasures unknown?”
Amicitia went quiet. She still didn’t know why she was offered this chance, but she had to admit that it sounded tempting. Wonderful, even.
“What is my penance?”
“A long, long sleep. You won’t be conscious for the better part of two millennia, but on the other hand, you won’t notice the passage of time at all, and you won’t feel a day older when you wake.”
“That doesn’t sound much like a punishment.”
“It is not. It is a deal to fix part of what you have broken, nothing more.”
“Then I accept,” Amicitia said without hesitation, and her savior nodded. Mana pulled her witch hat off her head and gave the gemstone in her hand a warm smile. She looked almost the same as when Amicitia last saw her at the research lab, but there were grey streaks in her hair, and her eyes looked like they contained the wisdom of a thousand years or more.
“Good. Then it’s time for me to go on one final little adventure.”
September 2024
Mana stepped out of her portal, right into the apartment of the Celestial Sisters. It was the middle of the night, yet the living room was lit up, and Mana heard the rushing sound of water from the bath.
She quickly hid behind a corner as she heard the bedroom door open and Momo walked outside with a little yawn, dressed in only her underwear. The drowsy gyaru laser focused on the bath and vanished inside, and Mana could hear the two idols softly talking to each other – and soon there was something else that she was certain she shouldn’t be hearing. She quickly hopped back into her white void, accelerating a few hours forward and checking the room again. The idols were gone, and as she checked the clock, she knew that it was about now that they would be performing at the Tokyo Dome and get ambushed by Lethe.
She walked over to one of the windows, looking at the city below while she let out a long sigh. If her hunch was correct, Marisa would attempt to steal the potion before Mana stole it. Miss Hitoishi always kept it on her person, and Marisa stole it only during a short moment of distraction as the younger Marisa posed as a Celestial Sisters fan. Mana’s own trickery came in the precious few seconds before Marisa could make her move, opening a portal directly inside Madame Bille’s jewelry box and quickly putting a fake potion inside. It wasn’t a perfect copy, as it was brighter and more translucent, and, of course, she would have risked Miss Hitoishi suspecting foul play if she didn’t have more pressing matters occupying her mind at that moment.
There’s no way anyone could access it before that…
She furrowed her brow and turned away from the window, and as she did, she almost jumped out of her skin as the sudden presence of Marisa startled the living daylights out of her.
The witch in white looked terrible. There were burns all over her side and her witch robe was shredded. Some of the magical bursts had dyed her skin in various bright colors, with blue being the most prominent one. The void filled with corrupted books did a number on her before she was able to flee.
And yet, there wasn’t malice in her tired eyes. Marisa was in control at the moment.
“I see you had the same thought. Be here long before Hitoishi to be the absolute first to get to her,” Marisa spoke and gave Mana a tired smile.
“It’s okay, Mana. I will just accept my fate.”
Marisa looked shaky on her legs and like she was about to collapse. Mana quickly rushed to her side, catching her and guiding her to the sofa to let her lie down. The clone looked at her with some exhaustion, then surprise as Mana applied the healing spell she learned from Lithael’s tome.
“You said you didn’t want to learn that without earning it… did you do something for Miss Nicola?”
Mana kept focusing on the burns and the strangely colored skin. Bit by bit, centimeter by centimeter they receded, reverted by the healing magic’s inherent connection to time magic, as Minerva explained to her when they first met. It was still too slow for Mana’s liking, as Marisa looked like she could succumb to her injuries any moment now.
“No. I just asked for it and received it from her healer.”
“But you were so prideful… always wanted to earn everything you do… make it yours…”
Marisa stared at the ceiling and her voice sounded like she was somewhere else entirely with her thoughts. Mana kept focusing on the healing, though she could already feel tears running down her cheeks.
“Please just hang in there, Marisa…”
“It’s no use, Mana. I am in control right now, but what about tomorrow? Or the day after? Or after that? As long as I’m tied to Doppelgänger, I’m a danger to you and Arisu. It could take control at any moment; it could try to hurt you… and I still need to die so that Arisu can be born…”
Mana gritted her teeth and clenched her fists.
“So what?!”
Marisa looked startled by the suddenly raised voice and looked at her again as Mana continued.
“I know that Doppelgänger will try to control you at any moment! I know that you have to die for Arisu to be born! But I refuse to just accept fate in this form! I refuse to let you go right now!”
Mana intensified the healing magic she applied to Marisa’s wounds, and her clone slowly let her tail brush over Mana’s cheek as she kept looking at her in confusion and light admiration.
“I have a tome that lets me time travel, and access to a universe of infinite possibilities! I swear, I will find a way to save you without abandoning Arisu, either.”
Mana smiled weakly as she continued.
“I read your letter after imprisoning you, and yes! I love you, and I love Arisu, too. How could I not? You both have the same, beautiful soul, and Arisu also hoped that we can one day be together, just like her mamas.”
Marisa looked on without comment, and Mana gently grabbed her hand, giving it a little squeeze.
“I’m renewing my promise to you, as the mighty Witch Queen of the Infinite Library: I will save you. You and Arisu both. No matter how long it takes me, and once I discover a way, I will return right here to this point and save you!”
A suffocating silence filled the room after Mana’s words and she saw Marisa trying to process them, tilting her head. After a terribly long time she smiled, and a single tear ran down her cheek.
“Thank you, Mana. I trust you. I trust that you will save me!”
The strength in Marisa’s hand was fading, and Mana held on to it harder than before, concentrating on her healing magic some more.
“Come on… come on! You can’t just leave me after I made a promise like that…!” she shouted as Marisa’s eyes closed. The redheaded witch looked like she made her peace, only wanting to hear from Mana how much she cared, and then resigning herself to her fate.
Seconds felt like minutes, and those stretched into feeling like hours; Mana’s hope was about to fade as she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. Someone was in here with her, now pointing their hand at Marisa and adding to the healing magic coursing through her. Then a second pair of hands joined in, summoning their own magic circles.
Mana could watch in real time how the damage done to Marisa’s body was reverted. The blue and yellow and red colors faded from her skin, leaving it behind sun kissed as it should be, without burn marks.
“Who…?” she turned her head to her left, and her own eyes looked back at her. Mana blinked and looked again. This was her, in her same old witch robes, though with grey streaks in her hair. And as she looked to the other side, she saw Marisa, similarly showing her age only with her hair.
“I made this promise a long time ago, and I’ve come to fulfill it,” the older Mana said, offering Mana a warm smile.
“How old are you?” Mana asked, almost instinctively, now sitting next to Marisa on the sofa and running her fingers through her hair as the redhead held on to her other hand.
The older Marisa raised an eyebrow, looking at the older Mana who immediately broke out laughing.
“Just as rude as I remember you being the last time I visited! I won’t tell, Mana. It’s best if you don’t know.”
“Why?”
“Because today is the last day of my life, and it’s bad luck for someone to know exactly how long they are going to live.”
This revelation, the nonchalant way in which the older Mana said it, completely overwhelmed Mana. She felt her breathing accelerate and the edge of her vision darkening.
“…what did you say?”
“Oh, come on. You’ll live a happy, long life, but every person dies one day. Most people don’t have the luxury to choose how and when exactly it happens, either, so you should feel a little more at peace with it.”
Mana looked from her older self to the older Marisa who cleared her throat and looked to the side before she spoke.
“We figured that the best way for me to be reincarnated as Arisu is… to just die of natural causes at some point. We traveled back in time for that purpose.”
“But…” Mana couldn’t continue her protest. Her mind was locked up. Intellectually, she completely understood what the older pair of witches were doing here, but on an emotional level, she was confronted with her own mortality. She was going to die, not at some unspecified point sixty or a hundred or who knew how many years in the future, but here and now; the time she would still experience between her two incarnations in this place didn’t register in her addled mind.
“Mana… it’s fine, really,” the older Mana spoke again, reaching out to gently pat her head.
“You will live such a wonderful, long life, see untold wonders and beauty… you will have the people you love dearest always by your side. There’s nothing to despair over. You will live the best life a witch of your talents can, and you will end it by paying this wonder forward to your younger self. To save her heart.”
Mana closed her eyes and let her older self pamper her for a while longer before she calmed down. She looked down at Marisa, running a hand through her hair before making eye contact with her older self again.
“You have grey strands of hair, but you look younger than the adult version of me who I met last year…”
“Oh, that?” the older Mana grinned, spinning around once and showing herself off. “For a while I was obsessed with being a proper adult, but I have come to realize that being so small and cute was the best thing in the world!”
Mana’s eye twitched at those words, but she let it go, continuing the previous conversation instead.
“You coming back here solves the reincarnation, but what about…?”
“Right… there’s a few things that we still need to do. To ensure that Marisa has the best life possible.”
The older Mana fished something out of her robes, and as she opened her hand, Mana found a pink gemstone lying in her palm.
“We are getting help from Amicitia here.”
Mana looked at the crystal skeptically, then back to her older self.
“Amicitia…?”
“You know her as Filo. She is the one who gave Marisa a love potion, with which she drugged you and in turn made you erode the carefully erected barriers around her memories. She didn’t do this because she found pleasure in it. She was… afraid of her uncle, Scotus, and followed his orders.”
Mana looked back to the pink crystal, reaching out and touching its surface.
“Did you really…?”
“I did. I am so sorry, Mana. You didn’t deserve any of what happened, and that is why I’m here to make amends.”
A part of Mana wanted to toss the crystal aside after hearing those words, but she kept her hand on Amicitia instead, opting to fully trust the decision of her older self.
“And how is she going to…?” she looked around between older Mana and Marisa.
“First you need to understand how Doppelgänger and Marisa work together,” the older Mana elaborated.
“I can only give you the short version, since you will discover the details during your dimension travel one day, but Marisa is essentially a projection of Doppelgänger. A very elaborate, flesh and bone projection. Without Doppelgänger, however, this projection will fail and die within a few hours, even when the soul that Doppelgänger uses to power itself is in control.”
Older Mana looked apologetically to the younger Marisa, who squeezed Mana’s hand as if to seek reassurance from her.
“However, what if we separated Doppelgänger from the body, kept the soul inside and gave the body an… alternate power source?”
“Like a Deogemma crystal,” Mana concluded, looking at Amicitia.
“To atone for what I have done, the older Mana here offered me to hibernate for as long as Marisa lives, fueling her with the flow of magical energies that happens when a Deogemma has a human host.”
Mana looked towards the older Marisa.
“So that means you…?”
“Yes. I have Amicitia inside me right now.”
“How long have you-”
“Again,” older Mana interrupted, “we will not tell you how long you have left to live.”
Mana nodded and lowered her head, staring at the ground before Marisa gave her hand another squeeze. As she turned her head, she saw a reassuring smile.
“We’ll be together, no matter how long that will be.”
“Let’s begin,” older Mana said, and Marisa nodded. Following a gesture from the witch, Marisa stood up, facing both the older Mana and her own, older self. She shivered a little in anticipation, with her eyes flicking from one to the other.
“We have to be quick. Doppelgänger won’t let us pull it out without a fight,” the older Marisa spoke, and older Mana nodded in turn.
“Say your goodbyes for now if you like, Amicitia. For both of you it will be only a moment until you speak again.”
“Then I’ll see you in a moment, Mana. We shall speak after,” Amicitia spoke before she was pulled out from under Mana’s hand. The older witch stepped in front of Marisa and extended her hand, together with her clone.
““Go on, then, Doppelgänger. Show yourself!”” they commanded in unison, and Mana could feel the energies of a spell she didn’t know fill the air in the room. Marisa gritted her teeth as her chest glowed, then she let out a scream as the tome which Mana so foolishly activated all that time ago phased right out of her. Dark energies surrounded it, and it looked like it shivered, as if it could muster enough rage to overcome its own form and attack the witches in front of it; however, the older Mana cut whatever it would have done short.
“Atomize.”
The book froze mid-air, as if it was caught off guard, and slowly disintegrated. An unnatural wind originated from it, making every witch robe in the room flutter, and Marisa looked on in disbelief as her ‘heart’ was destroyed just like that. She fell back on the couch, leaning against the backrest. She looked a little pale.
That’s it… it’s gone. Just like that…
“Don’t you worry,” the older Marisa spoke and stepped close, grabbing Amicitia and pushing her against the younger Marisa’s chest.
“You’ll be fine. Now, Amicitia… become this girl’s heart, just like Minerva became Seika’s all those years ago…”
As if to confirm those orders, the pink gemstone glowed in a bright color, phasing into Marisa’s chest like the tome that left her. Marisa let out a gasp and the bit of color that was missing from her cheeks immediately returned.
“There we go. How do you feel, young one?” older Marisa asked, a hand on her younger self’s shoulder. Marisa looked up into her older self’s eyes, holding a hand on her chest, where Amicitia now beat like a magic heart, pumping mana through her artificial body.
“Alive. A little different. The hate that I tried to keep out… it’s gone.”
“And in its place?”
Marisa visibly thought about it, blushing a little.
“Love… so much love. For Mana, and… there’s still so much more.”
“That would be the effect Amicitia has on someone. After all, she is the goddess of friendship and love, even if her love often takes on a… lewd form,” older Mana explained with a little smirk, then she turned to face her younger self again.
“Also…” older Marisa started, throwing a conspiratorial glance over her shoulder before she leaned in to whisper something to Marisa. The younger girl blushed after a few more words were spoken.
“There’s one more thing…” older Mana mentioned, pulling a book out of her sleeve. It was the tome of time travel, a little rougher around the edges than the one Mana currently possessed.
“I want you to take this with you into the future and destroy it.”
“But without this, you…”
“Can’t return to my time, since even with Portal’s knowledge of the world of white sand we need this book’s spells to access it, like a key for a lock? Oh dear, Mana. I have already told you what we are here for. What use is a return ticket that remains unstamped?”
Mana nodded, receiving the tome. However, the older one still held out her hand. “And now give me yours.”
“Didn’t you just say that you…?”
“It’s not for me,” older Mana responded with a smile, and Mana nodded, slowly handing the book to her older self. She examined it for a short moment, then she took a deep breath.
“Good. Portal, if you would?” she spoke quickly, and immediately after, a single opening in reality materialized in front of her. Mana couldn’t tell what was on the other side. It looked like an endless white void just like Janus’ realm of many doors, but this one was entirely empty, except for small, black and spherical objects on the ground. She heard a girl’s quiet sobbing from somewhere beyond the portal, but before she could identify what she saw or heard, older Mana simply tossed the tome through the rift and closed it immediately, then she turned towards Mana again.
“What was that…?” Mana asked, her head spinning with questions that she knew would be left unanswered.
“A place. And a girl who needs this tome more than anyone else could have ever needed it.”
“I’m a little annoyed that I’m going to become this cryptic,” Mana complained and she saw a smile form on her older self’s face.
“Anyway, our business is concluded,” older Mana spoke as the older Marisa helped the younger one up and brought her towards Mana, who gladly took over supporting her. The older Marisa then put a hand on her own chest, letting out a deep sigh as a pink glow emerged from it and Amicitia’s crystal phased out of her. She quickly handed it to Mana.
“She was right… it felt like a moment. But a moment in which I had the most beautiful dream…”
Mana raised a brow at the crystal in her hand, then she looked back at the older pair.
“What now?”
“Just as I told you, Mana. We’ll take these next few moments to say goodbye to each other. Now go! Pick up Arisu and properly start the rest of your life. Make the most of it! Enjoy every beautiful moment in those wonderful and weird worlds that our multiverse is filled with and share it with your loved ones. Spend immeasurably precious moments with your family, and, once you realize that it is time, come back here, and pay it forward to the next young Mana!”
Mana wanted to say something – to talk to this older, much wiser version of herself much longer… but she didn’t know about what. Not yet at least. And she had a feeling that once she knew, there would be no need to talk about it anymore, anyway. She nodded and opened a portal to the white desert of time, supporting Marisa on the way through, while the older pair waved her goodbye.
***
“Something was bothering me,” Portal spoke up as Mana counted the minutes. Marisa was lying in the white sand and idly staring into the fading blue sky above while Mana retrieved her old friend from her robes, looking at him.
“And what is that?”
“The portal she opened to toss the tome to an unknown recipient. First off, she used almost a lifetime worth of magical energy just to open it– like she was brute-forcing her way into a place where I can’t usually go without a key, like this world. But that wasn’t even the thing that bothered me the most,” the tome continued, and Mana tilted her head.
“What did, then?”
“The coordinates… were exactly zero. In space and time, and many more dimensions that matter during multiverse travel.”
Period of Calm Seas, 1477 in the Era of Plunder
Two ancient witches stepped through a portal leading right in front of the little hideout Marisa built and had a look around. The sound of waves drowned out everything else as Mana stepped up towards the crude furniture, running her fingers over the coarse wooden surface of a side table.
“This brings back memories,” Mana said with a smile, turning towards Marisa, who had started to go a little pale around the nose.
“Are you still feeling alright, dear?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll hold out for another hour or two. I’ve had Amicitia inside me for a very long time, so some of her magic reserves became my own,” Marisa assured her. She put her hands on her hips and let out a little sigh.
“We had much more comfortable places that we lived in, but the first one always holds special meaning, doesn’t it?” she asked with a smile, and Mana nodded. She pulled a gemstone out of her sleeve – it was green and a little less brilliant than it used to be. In the past year, Arisu had grown too weak to maintain a body of her own, so Mana carried her around wherever she went, and let her fuse with her body to allow her to walk around, when she liked.
“Look, Arisu. Our first hideout,” Mana spoke and Marisa stepped closer, placing her own hand on the crystal to hear her response.
“It’s from before we expanded it,” Arisu spoke, sounding a little nostalgic herself.
“That’s right. Took ages, because someone destroyed the tomes with the monsters I used to build this house in the first place,” Marisa said with a slightly accusatory tone, though she let out a laugh right after.
“I was so mad the moment it happened… mostly driven by Doppelgänger’s hatred. But these days, I’m glad that their souls were freed.”
Mana nodded, looking at Arisu in the palm of her hand.
“I am surprised that you didn’t want to talk to the younger Mana before she left,” she spoke, caressing the side of the gemstone with her thumb.
“It would have only caused her more grief if she had known. Why you chose today as the day you would die and let Marisa’s soul be reborn as me.”
“Probably… would things have turned out the same way if she knew? Hard to say,” Marisa agreed. “I’m more than happy with the way our life turned out. What a strange but wonderful life! Married to the girl who should have been my sister, had I been born a human, and at the same time to my future reincarnation. It felt taboo on so many levels but wasn’t.”
“Well, still, it’s not like we could tell just anyone about what our deal was,” Mana said with a chuckle. “Even as we got our marriage approved due to the technicalities, we had to keep it secret that you have the soul of my sister who never was.”
Marisa made a dismissive gesture and the trio looked at the hideout one last time, letting out a collective sigh.
“I think it’s time to choose a resting place. As beautiful as the memories of this place are, I wouldn’t want our younger selves to come across our remains once they return here,” Mana spoke, and she felt agreement from Arisu while Marisa made hers known with a nod.
“Do you have an idea? We chose this world because it’s always been our favorite, but…”
“Oh, I do, Arisu. A place to put you, and me, and Marisa… and someone else to rest.”
***
What they visited was a sleepy little port town on a small island. Its only exports were fish and fresh fruit, which they sold to passing ships, be they merchants or pirates. Nothing had changed in the eighteen years since Bonnie departed this place. Small children were playing with sticks on the beach, pretending to be daring buccaneers engaged in deadly duels with their sabers. As they saw the cat-eared strangers approach them, however, they quickly dashed away, hiding behind a corner to keep an eye on the pair.
Mana didn’t pay it much mind. She sat down by the water, holding Arisu on her open palm, with Marisa’s hand right on top of it, while looking out at the gentle waves and the crystal-clear blue water.
“It’s beautiful,” Arisu commented, and Mana felt a tug of nostalgia in her chest. Nostalgia that wasn’t hers.
“My first memories are of this place. Chronologically, anyway,” Mana commented and let out a little sigh as Marisa leaned her head against her shoulder.
“I thought it might be fitting. And I owe Bonnie this much. To let her fade out of consciousness in this place.”
Her reminiscence was interrupted by a voice from behind.
“Who are you? What do you want in our town, strangers? We don’t want any trouble.”
The voice was familiar to Mana, though she never encountered this person herself. She turned her head, looking at a woman in her late sixties or so. Her eyes looked like her soul was burdened with heavy sorrow, and Mana knew exactly why.
“Miss MacLeod. I assume that you’ve been made the village Elder?”
The woman looked confused, then she narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“How do you know my name?”
“A close friend of mine knew you.”
The woman sighed and nodded.
“Well, we get a lot of merchants and other folks, so I guess I know a lot of traveling types. I’ve never seen anyone with those kinds of ears and tail, however.”
“I come from very far away,” Mana responded with a little smirk, then she turned around.
“I would tell you that I’m not going to bother you, but that would be a lie. I am at the end of my life, and thus I will be bothering you quite a bit.”
“Why here?”
“I wanted to look out at the ocean one last time with my loved ones.”
The woman looked around in slight confusion, seeing only Marisa, not ‘loved ones’ plural. Still, she let out a sigh, then she looked openly pained.
“Stare at the ocean as much as you like. Personally? I despise it. It stole everything from me. My darling daughter couldn’t resist its siren call, and now she is lost to it. I never even got to speak to her anymore after she left.”
Reckless children hurt their parents.
Mana closed her eyes and put a hand on her heart. She could feel Bonnie being anxious deep inside her soul.
“Miss MacLeod, I’d like to suggest an exchange.”
“And what would you want?” the village Elder’s tired voice replied.
“I’d like for us to be buried here once we pass. With all of our possessions. No exceptions.”
She kept Arisu hidden as she said that. She didn’t want her to end up as an adornment on someone’s jewelry after she passed on. MacLeod tilted her head, but she appeared to find the request agreeable and explained the rituals.
“In this village, the departed are sent out on small, fragile boats. They are picked up by the current that flows just east from here and carried towards the open sea, where, eventually, the waves will claim their vessel and bodies and return them to the bosom of the Goddess of the Deep.”
“That sounds beautiful,” Mana admitted, and felt Marisa squeeze her hand.
“And what is it that you have to offer?” the village Elder now asked of them. Mana handed Arisu to Marisa and stood up, facing the woman with a wistful smile.
“I bring you word from Bonnie. She is sorry for leaving this place and never talking to you again. She followed the call of adventure, and found it, but…” Mana stopped and lowered her eyes.
“…my condolences. She returned to the Goddess of the Deep, as you put it. Her body is now one with the ocean.”
***
“I hope she’s alright,” Marisa spoke quietly, after the Elder retreated. The children were ushered inside their homes as well, suggesting to Mana that Marisa, Arisu and she were given privacy and peace for their final moments, while the villagers prepared three boats elsewhere. A third to put Bonnie’s leftover possessions to rest alongside them, or so she was told by the Elder before she left.
“Closure is important. For her and for Bonnie both. She knew all along, but it’s better if she hears it from someone who knows for sure,” Mana responded, closing her eyes as she prepared her mind for her own closure.
“I guess it’s time,” she concluded, reaching into her robe. She placed the universe marble containing the infinite library in the sand, gazing at it intently for a few moments.
“We had so many adventures thanks to its many books. To think we’ll end them here…” Arisu spoke.
“It has to be done. All the sentient books inside that have awoken but were never claimed by anyone trap a soul. And every soul deserves to be free, to be reborn and have the chance at a happy life.”
There was no disagreement from Arisu, and Marisa gently put her hand on Mana’s shoulder as she retrieved her tomes. All of her original friends were here. Portal, Arrow, Barrier, Blast, Fireball, Accelerate Target, Translate, and many others were laid out in the sand. One of the more important additions to this collection was ‘Eternity’, the tome that allowed her to live as long as Arisu did, while Marisa was sustained by Amicitia’s energies.
“Friends,” she spoke to the assembled tomes.
“This is goodbye. We’ve been through countless adventures, big and small… and over the course of the years we have become family, instead of just a spellcaster and her magic books. I would like to thank you all for accompanying me – for choosing to stay with me my entire life, instead of being given release prematurely. I would have granted it to you, gladly, if you had asked.”
“And you know that we would have never asked, Mana. We are all glad to have served you until the end,” Portal spoke up, lending his voice to all of the tomes. Hearing his voice made Mana smile.
“Portal… my friend. My mentor. You were like a second father to me. I will miss you dearly.”
“Then let us hope that I will become your father or maybe your teacher in our next lives, wherever that may be,” he spoke, and Mana nodded. She opened a portal to the library, gently placing the tomes on the carpet one by one, saying goodbye as she did so.
“This is not farewell. This is ‘see you again’,” she spoke quietly, leaving the portal open as she pointed her finger at the universe marble.
Atomize.
A single thought, and a universe ceased to be. The marble disintegrated, top to bottom, and the portal that linked her to her books collapsed. Without a trace the library and its tomes were gone, and a million souls set free to be reborn again. With their departure, Mana could feel Eternity’s magic dissipating. Mortality had its grasp on her once more, and as old as she was now, it was only a matter of minutes.
Mana watched some specks of the library’s dusty remains ascend into the air and let out a long sigh, and as Marisa shimmied over to wrap an arm around her shoulder, she gladly leaned into her, watching the distant sunset.
“Thank you, Mana. Marisa. I love you.”
Those were Arisu’s final words. The crystal was now lying inert in the witches’ hands, as a single tear ran down Mana’s cheek.
“I fulfilled my promise to you that I made that day,” she whispered to Arisu, with Marisa looking on with a tired look. Mana turned her way, giving her a weak smile as she wiped away the tear.
“When she came back that day, she looked so distressed. She said ‘please, never leave me alone’, so I didn’t. I extended my natural lifespan, to spend its entirety with her. I know it’s silly. I will follow her in a minute, but now I already feel her absence so clearly and painfully.”
Marisa reached out to caress her cheek. She looked weaker now, but she held on. To pass away at the same time as her, Mana quickly realized. She returned the gesture and slowly, the two laid down in the sand, with the gentle waves lapping at their hair, holding Arisu’s crystal between themselves.
Mana looked her clone – no, her beautiful wife – in the eyes. And as she started to feel oh so terribly tired, the two spoke their own farewell.
“Sleep well, Marisa. You have such a joyous life as Arisu ahead of you. Enjoy it to the fullest, and then… join me in our next life. I love you.”
“Farewell, Mana. I feel so blessed that I got to spend this life with you and have another by your side ahead of me. I love you.”
Not much later, three small boats carried two witches and an assortment of children’s toys and clothes to their final resting place. The Elder kept her promise, and Arisu was safely placed in Mana’s robes. They looked like they were sleeping peacefully and had pleasant dreams; after all, they knew firsthand that life is one long, wonderful dream itself, from which one only woke up to experience another one – and that there were three young girls out there for whom this dream had just begun, thanks to them choosing the past as their final resting place.