6.12 Past Arrangements
September 2024
Even with the surrounding situation, Arisu enjoyed herself these past days. Getting to know the younger Mana and assisting her through her troubles, comforting her when she was sad about Marisa and visiting all sorts of strange worlds. She hoped that one day she could do this with Mana at her leisure, without a looming tragedy on the horizon at least.
Since meeting her own timeline’s Mana at Nicola’s place yesterday, she had seen the strange world of steel again, seen Mana’s somewhat frosty relationship with Meryl, the woman who would banish her, and she got to know Stevyn, the researcher who lost an arm. He brought them to a prisoner, one of the red wizards who attacked her a short while ago, and then Mana took her to the wizards’ home world, though Arisu kept quiet about the fact that she already knew of that world.
They fought more wizards after stealing the universe marble containing the infinite library, and even their sorcerer king got involved, who outmatched them. That was, until Mana used a portal to bring him into a makeshift incinerator on a metallic shell surrounding a star and forced him to retreat.
Arisu fell in love with Mana all over again, and right now she wished for nothing more than the opportunity to go on more adventures with her, but at this very moment, she had to focus on their common adversary. Marisa, the younger one, had summoned a few creatures to fight her and Mana in the library. Flames greedily devoured the books around them as an imp, a skeleton knight with a great sword, a golem and a minotaur emerged from nothingness to stand by Marisa’s side.
She knew that Mana wanted to capture this Marisa alive, but if that many creatures fought her while she dueled the redheaded witch, there was no telling whether she’d be able to stop herself from injuring her opponent.
Arisu nodded to herself as she made a decision and spoke to Mana.
“I’ll take her summons; you go and capture her!”
She saw Mana’s eyes light up with understanding, then she leapt over the railing, pushing herself towards the summoned creatures. She used one of the spells she copied off Mana, firing a flaming arrow right into the imp’s chest. It was torn apart by an explosion that rocked the golem and almost toppled it. The minotaur reacted quickly and put its shield down in front of the skeleton warrior, preventing its armor from melting, just as the minotaur’s shield did at this very moment.
Arisu landed on the other side of the chasm, right between the monsters. With a quick glance she confirmed that Mana tackled Marisa through a portal, and the two vanished.
Good. Now to deal with these guys.
She immediately had to dodge the thrust of a spear that was aimed right at her midsection, then she summoned a katana of light into her hand and parried the skeleton knight’s swing with his greatsword that aimed to lop off her head; the force of the swing still managed to smash her lightweight body into the burning bookshelf to her side and she fell on her knees, reeling. The pain was almost enough for her to drop her guard. Almost.
Arisu rolled to the side as the golem smashed its fist down on the ground, right where her head used to be. The floorboards cracked and the three summoned monsters stumbled, then the structure gave out and the combatants fell down to the level below. Arisu let out a short scream as she hit her back on the ground, while the golem simply smashed through those floorboards as well, and the next, and the next. She still heard the slowly fading crashing sounds of splintering wood as she scrambled to her feet and swung her katana at the downed skeleton knight.
He was aware enough to block her swing, then his plated boot was against Arisu’s chest and he kicked her back, forcing a grunt out of her.
The minotaur rose to its feet as well, blowing hot air out of its nostrils before it ditched its spear and pulled an axe from its belt. Arisu clenched her jaw and gripped her katana a little tighter, with her eyes dashing from the minotaur to the skeleton warrior.
Two versus one… and I don’t know much more about melee combat than how to swing my sword… I’m sorry, master Hachiman.
Pragmatism won out, and as the minotaur stepped closer, Arisu fired another fire arrow. She aimed for his weapon arm as it came out from behind the shield, and as the minotaur flinched back, Arisu could, for a brief moment, see in its eyes that it realized that it messed up – then this corridor, too, was consumed by flames as the minotaur exploded spectacularly. The skeleton warrior was flung to the ground by the explosion, as Arisu stumbled backwards.
Both of them rose to their feet, and Arisu already readied her bow to aim at the skeleton. She let loose a few arrows which struck it directly into the chest, penetrating the armor. The skeleton stopped for a moment, looking at its chest and then at Arisu, before its jaw moved in silent laughter and yanked the arrows out, leaving behind holes in the armor that revealed the gaps between ribs.
“Oh, come on…!” Arisu complained and summoned her blade of light into her hand, but the supposed duel was rudely aborted as a portal opened next to the skeleton warrior and she heard Mana’s voice command ‘Blast’.
The skeleton was struck, hit the wooden railing and broke it, before it tumbled down into the depths below.
“I never knew that they could still move even after the spell book is removed… did they have energy reserves?” Mana asked someone as she stepped through her portal. Arisu smiled and wanted to enthusiastically run her way to hug her, but she froze halfway as she saw the second person emerging from the portal.
It was Marisa. Her robes were torn in various places, but she looked healthy. She didn’t notice Arisu at first, as she was entirely focused on her talk with Mana.
“They can move a little on their own. Ten minutes or so, if the spellbook gets too far away from them. If the spellbook is destroyed… well, you saw what happened.”
“Yeah… sorry about that, again. I just hope that its soul will…” Mana looked Arisu in the eyes and interrupted herself. Arisu saw a mix of conflicting emotions on Mana’s face, but as the witch stepped closer, she smiled and suddenly embraced Arisu.
“I did it, Airisu… you’re both safe, now!”
Arisu returned the embrace and as she did, Marisa stepped closer, clearing her throat.
“I’m… sorry,” she managed to say, though she averted her eyes.
“That wasn’t you in control. I already know,” Arisu spoke and reached out, gently touching Marisa’s shoulder. There was an odd tingle as they made contact. Something familiar, yet so foreign, but pleasant all the same. She assumed that it must have been the feeling of touching her own soul in another’s body.
Mana released Arisu from the hug and cleared her throat, looking around.
“…how far are you? Judging by the minions, this is after you stop her from grabbing the crown, yes?” she asked quickly, and Marisa looked around.
“Huh… if we’re meeting her here, then that explains, how…” Marisa mentioned, rubbing her chin in thought. Arisu couldn’t even guess what she was talking about, and Mana simply took her reaction as a yes.
“Good. I need you to go out there and get some help. My younger self will soon land on a playground with Marisa, who will unleash Shadows.”
Arisu could see Marisa’s face twist in pain as Mana said that. She was already averting her eyes in shame again.
“What kind of help?”
“Other Magical Girls. Your Mamas aren’t available right now. Miss Hitoishi can’t transform and is probably already wounded, and Miss Takeuchi is pinned down in Kawaguchi. If I remember correctly, you grabbed the Flower Brigade.”
“…really? I don’t even know them. Oh, wait… I did see them when they weren’t transformed.”
“Perfect,” Mana said, and she fetched something from her robes. As she handed it to Arisu, she recognized it as one of the locator rings she had received from Auntie Nicola when they faced Okumo.
“Recall what they looked like, and you’ll be able to find them, even if they’re not patrolling in their Magical Girl forms right now.”
“Got it!”
“Good,” Mana confirmed with a smile. She produced a little envelope from her robes and handed it to Arisu.
“I wrote this while Marisa and I were time traveling. Hand it to my younger self when you meet her, then send her after Marisa. It’s important that she goes after her to keep your mama safe. After everything is done, we can return home… together.”
Arisu nodded, and for the first time since the incident in the fake Tokyo, she saw Mana’s genuine smile again.
***
Luckily, the locator ring told her that the Flower Brigade were all in the same place, which made her task all that easier. She already copied Mana’s Portal spell off her and held out her hand to open one to the correct place. However, she hesitated for a moment.
Wait a second. I made eye contact with them before, when I realized that they were the Flower Brigade, but they didn’t recognize me. How?
She thought it over for a moment, rubbing her chin. A eureka moment didn’t take long to come to her, as she remembered Mama Seika’s words about her transformation.
“Right! They won’t recognize me later if I come in transformed.”
With that, Arisu clenched her fist close to her heart, and then, emitting a green glow, she hopped through the portal.
***
“Seriously, what is she doing…?” Asahi asked in an annoyed tone, with her typical tsundere tendencies. She was worried about the strange armored Magical Girl in blue, who was shown on TV, cowering in a trench and fending off child-sized rats that attacked in waves, together with a very colorfully dressed girl who played bagpipes from time to time, oddly enough.
Ichika shrugged her shoulders. Her, Asahi and Iona sat in her bedroom, watching the TV reports of the attack in Kawaguchi.
“We can always go and help her,” she suggested to her impatient classmate.
“And then get chastised for getting in her way? Humph!” Asahi responded, turning her head away and pouting visibly. Ichika couldn’t help but let out a suppressed laugh as a snort.
“Huuuuh? Are you laughing at me? Do you want to fight?!” Asahi jumped up, leaning over Ichika, who quickly raised her hands in a calming gesture.
“Calm down, calm down. I just think it’s admirable that you’re worried about her…”
“Worried about her? Huuuh?!”
“Can you two shut up?” Iona spoke, and the two turned their heads. She wasn’t technically the leader of the trio, but whenever Iona, or Rose, raised her voice, the two quickly quit their squabbling and listened.
Iona then turned her head towards the fourth person in the room. A floating green creature with a vaguely humanoid body, wearing a sunflower’s petals as a dress. Their mascot, or rather, their patron would be the correct way to describe it, called Florena.
“What do you say? Should we intervene?”
The creature looked at Iona and pondered her question before it answered.
“Hmm… I do not sense the abominations of dead wood nearby, so we might have time to…”
A portal appeared in the middle of the room and the whole group immediately jumped back from it, transforming out of reflex. Asahi emerged as Cherry, Ichika as Violet, and Iona, naturally, as Rose. They pointed their flower-themed weapons at the portal, though they lowered them as they saw a girl with glowing green hair emerging from it.
“Uhm! Sorry! This is the Flower Brigade, yes?” she asked, stumbling on the last step as she climbed through the circle and almost falling.
“Who are you?” Violet demanded to know, even as she kept her weapon lowered. Even though this girl was clearly superpowered, she felt no threat from her. In fact, the way her hair glowed reminded her of Minerva Crimson and Bellona Azure.
“I’m Arisu! I’m here because, uhm… well, there’s going to be an attack soon, and I need you all where it’s going to happen!”
She immediately turned around and prepared another spell, and the trio could watch a portal form. The three exchanged a look and after Violet saw her companions shrug, she decided to go along with it for now.
“By the way, why is your main enemy Madame Bille? It doesn’t feel like you should have a rivalry,” the strange girl with the eyepatch asked. Rose looked at their mascot again, which regarded the green-haired girl with some curiosity.
“When I came to this world, I was a visitor and simply enjoying the countryside. Her attacks provoked me into revealing myself, to protect the people I’ve grown so fond of. Besides, I dislike the way she enslaves the wood.”
“Oh…” the girl said, a little dejected. “I’ll tell her when I see her the next time!” she added, though she sounded like she was in a hurry.
“You wha-”
Violet couldn’t finish her question. Arisu immediately jumped through the portal and the trio could only follow. Violet blinked in disbelief as she saw the girl with the green glowing hair attacking a redheaded girl wearing white, tossing her away from an almost identical looking girl in black.
She wanted to ask the green-haired girl what the meaning of this was, but then she noticed something odd about the playground they landed on. Barely any people were around, but many random objects littered the ground.
“All these items around here are Shadows! Go and help the people inside!” Arisu shouted.
This is unusual. If there’s that many Shadows, then Minerva Crimson should be here by now…!
“Eh? Won’t the red one come and scold us because those are her monsters and it’s dangerous?” she voiced her confused thoughts.
“She can’t come today! Please!” Arisu pleaded, and Violet relented, hiding a little sigh under her breath. She nodded her companions’ way and the trio quickly split up, rushing the various objects strewn across the sand.
Violet quickly touched a teddy bear and was sucked inside the parallel world. The color drained from the environment, and every other person around her vanished.
She had been in a space like this before. Barely a year ago, her and the rest of the trio intervened in a Shadow attack and got caught off guard by the parallel dimension aspect. The Shadow residing inside that space almost overwhelmed them, too, until Minerva Crimson arrived, defeated it, and gave the trio a stern talking to.
But today, Violet wasn’t that naïve girl anymore.
She saw a small child on the ground, crying for its lost mother, while a wolf made of shadow prowled, looking about ready to pounce and claim its meal. Violet wouldn’t let it.
She cracked her thorned whip, and the creature immediately shifted its focus. Food was replaced by an active threat as its priority target, and as it sprinted for Violet, she swung her weapon. Her whip cracked again as it wrapped painfully around the wolf’s neck and its thorns dug into the shadowy mass making up its body. With a mighty pull, she quickly separated the head from the rest of the body, then she made doubly sure and cleaved the creature clean down the middle with another swing.
The pocket dimension collapsed, and as she returned, the cries of three children and the surprised shouts of an adult filled the playground. Her companions were as fast as her, and that calmed her somewhat. There was no sign left of the witch in white or the one who was lying on the ground before, but right now, that didn’t matter to Violet. She touched the next object to repeat the process, again and again.
She was so focused on her task that she didn’t even realize that the green-haired girl vanished after they defeated the final set of Shadows in this place and the Kuma Group approached them to offer to take over patrolling the city for any more Shadow outbreaks.
***
“What did the older Marisa whisper with you, anyway?” Mana asked curiously after her and Marisa felled another Shadow creature. The younger Marisa unleashed the beasts all over town in retribution, but luckily, her older self still remembered where, now that she was with Mana.
“Uhm…!” Marisa blushed a little and looked to the side, though her bashful expression was a little disturbed by the grin her mouth formed.
“She said I’m a real girl now, and I can… well…”
“What she means to say is that now that she uses me as a core, she has biological functions, as her body more resembles that of a Deogemma’s. Overall, a superior version of a humanoid magical projection compared to what she had before.”
“Meaning…?” Mana prodded further, lifting Amicitia in her palm to look directly at the crystal.
“She will experience hunger and thirst, but she is also no longer sterile. She can have children. And going by the way Arisu was born, and all the other magic in our vast multiverse, it stands to reason that you two being girls won’t stop that from happening one day.”
Mana’s face heated up significantly. Her mind flashed back to her thirty-six-year-old self who she met last year, and how Mana commented on her acting like their mother. She got so flustered that she almost dropped Amicitia.
Arisu hopped through the next portal, right into an apartment. She was here before, she realized. In fact, this was the place she was born in, and the first person she saw after her birth was here as well, jumping up from her couch and letting out a surprised scream after Arisu so rudely intruded.
Auntie Sayaka looked at her with big eyes as Arisu ended her transformation, putting her eyepatch back on and looking at her with pleading eyes.
“Miss, I need you to treat someone!” she announced, and the doctor let out an incredulous ‘Huh?!’ before Arisu continued.
“Someone I know… a Magical Girl… she’s losing a lot of blood, and she needs treatment! You have bandages in here, right?”
The incredulous expression didn’t disappear from Auntie Sayaka’s face at all, and she tilted her head.
“Huh? She’s bleeding out?! You should get her to a hospital immediately, young lady!”
“I can’t! She can’t afford being admitted right now! She has a time limit until a monster comes after her and she needs to meet someone before that time is up! Please!”
The doctor slapped her hand against her forehead and let out a long groan. “What kind of Magical Girl is so reckless that she… ugh, fine! Bring her in, then! Can’t have someone die just because I think they’re stupid.”
Arisu nodded, looking at the door.
“She… should be here any minute now…”
Just at that moment she heard the doorbell ring. Arisu ran to the door before she stopped and realized that she had better options and opened a portal to the front door. She saw the younger Mana on the other side, her hands extended towards a collapsed woman, who was none other than her Mama Seika. Her white shirt was absolutely soaked in her blood, which seeped out of five deep holes that went into her left shoulder blade – or it was in the process of doing so, but right now absolutely nothing on Mama Seika’s body moved. Only after a short moment, Arisu noticed that the holes in Mama Seika’s shoulder were on the wrong side.
Did something change?!
“I have her in stasis, but she needs treatment! There was blood all over! Your letter was wrong, Arisu, she was all the way over in the park, not in front of the door!” Mana spoke, and Arisu could see the panic in her eyes. She quickly nodded to Auntie Sayaka who rushed to their side, lifting Mama Seika up by the armpits, with the two younger girls supporting her legs and carrying her to the bedroom.
The doctor wasted no time and hurried to get some equipment she had at home, like a pair of scissors. She cut the torn sleeve off to reveal the injury and cursed quietly.
“I can stitch these and then bandage it tightly, but she’s lost too much blood! Sorry, but we’ll need to bring her to the hospital, or she’ll definitely die within the hour!” the woman talked in a stern voice.
“Do you… have something for person-to-person blood transfusion?” Arisu quickly asked, and the doctor looked at her like she was insane.
“I do, but I’m not doing that!”
***
She did that. After stitching the stabs and giving the rest of Mama Seika’s body some much-needed treatment of course. Arisu could see the doctor grumble as she very transparently made peace with the fact that she would lose her medical license if Mama Seika died on her bed. A thin needle connected a catheter to a ball pump, which connected to another catheter with a needle. Both of them were in Arisu’s and Mama Seika’s arms each, and the girl didn’t hesitate to pump, all while Mana leaned against the nearby wall. She didn’t have any healing or any blood to give, so she observed and calmed her racing heart.
Auntie Sayaka watched the crimson liquid travel from girl to woman and couldn’t hold it in anymore. She jumped off her chair and started ranting about her frustrations to anyone who would listen.
“This is absolutely crazy! Utterly, nonsensically crazy! If this weren’t a severe emergency, I wouldn’t even entertain the thought of having a young girl whose blood type I don’t know donate to a patient whose blood type I also don’t know!”
Arisu shrunk a little – she had never been scolded like this by Auntie Sayaka, but she understood her frustrations. She responded, timidly.
“I’m sorry, miss. But we need to get her ready to meet someone in an hour. And don’t worry about the types. Hers is O positive. I’m O negative.”
Arisu was glad for the many strange tests Auntie Sayaka did with her. Parentage, blood group, various other things to confirm that her body had all human functions that were working correctly.
Auntie Sayaka ran a hand through her hair and took a deep, calming breath, watching Arisu as she kept pumping her blood into her mother to save her life.
“Don’t give her too much, girl. We can’t have another case of someone bleeding out. Much less so a child,” Auntie Sayaka spoke now, much more tender.
“Don’t worry about me, au- er, miss. I can’t bleed out.”
Indeed, she felt a little lightheaded. Sometimes. It was like a sinus curve of dizziness as she kept donating her body’s blood. Just as it felt like she was about to black out, a sudden regenerative burst hit her, and she started all over again.
“What in the – you’re serious, aren’t you?” Auntie Sayaka said, looking like she resigned herself to everything that was happening around her. Arisu couldn’t quite identify if Sayaka caught that she almost called her ‘auntie’ just now. Sayaka continued with a dismissive wave.
“I’ve seen some crazy things in my life, so I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. Especially after you came in transformed like that.”
Arisu gave Auntie Sayaka a grateful smile, then they both heard someone groan and shift on the bed.
“Oh, look who’s awake,” Auntie Sayaka commented and immediately followed her duty as a doctor.
She asked Mama Seika various questions to check whether she was there mentally, then she did a few primitive tests to check for any issues with her eyes or the brain functions associated with vision.
And then, Mama Seika simply spoke Auntie Sayaka’s name, catching her entirely off guard. Arisu watched the strange reunion with wide eyes, following their exchange with great interest. Auntie Sayaka and Mama Seika knew each other only briefly before today, which was a fact she wasn’t aware of before. She then looked at Mana, and Arisu was certain that she was talking about her with Mama Minerva that moment, the way she just stared at first and then had her eyes flick slightly in the direction of her earring, like she was listening to it.
And then, her mama finally looked at Arisu.
“…do we know each other?”
“Not yet.”
Arisu knew that. How could her mama know a girl who wasn’t even born yet? And still, the fact that she didn’t recognize her almost made her cry. Images of her mama vanishing into thin air flashed back into her mind, and she quickly closed the distance to hug her tight, like Mama Seika would disappear if she let her go.
“Ow, ow! Not so hard! I don’t know what I did to deserve that, but not so hard, please!”
Sayaka had to step in and gently separate them before removing the catheter from both their arms – and as Mama Seika turned towards Mana to thank her, a portal opened. Mana – her Mana – stepped out of and headed straight for Mama Seika, and right next to her, she opened the chest of magic items, stowing the vial inside.
“You dropped this,” Mana said, and Arisu almost let out a little snort at the terrible lie. “That’s all I’m going to say about this.”
Mana made eye contact with Arisu, and she saw a little smile on her face.
“Well, aren’t you having fun? Come on, let’s go home.”
Arisu felt warm inside after hearing those words. She wanted to go home, to talk about everything with Mana, to properly make up with her and then go back to being friends… or more than that. But there was still one thing she wanted to do.
“Can I have a moment?”
“…you know that’s risky, right?” Mana asked her, and Arisu simply nodded. She complained a little, but in the end, Mana let her have her moment.
***
Mama Seika was talking to Mama Minerva. Arisu held her hand, and, unbeknownst to both of them, she was able to listen in on their conversation like that.
“She’s… one of us. My kind. But also, not. She’s not a halfling either, like Bacchus or… I don’t know.”
Arisu bit her lower lip. She knew she was strange, both for humans, and also for Deogemma. It felt a little like she didn’t really belong anywhere.
“So, uhm… from context clues I’m guessing you and the cat-like Mana are time traveling,” Mama Seika asked, and Arisu nodded.
“So, I can’t ask you too many specific things.”
Again, Arisu nodded. She wished she could tell her mama about the things that would still happen to her, and possibly how she could avoid them. But they just prevented a different future from occurring, and she felt like she shouldn’t interfere in that.
“Well, now this is gnawing at me! You’re so clingy, I hope that doesn’t mean I’m dead in whatever future you’re from!”
Arisu shook her head. Actually, she wasn’t sure. Mama Seika was bleeding from her neck and choking, but she didn’t die. She just… ceased to exist, all of a sudden, and the apartment belonged to a stranger, in the blink of an eye. The absurdity of it all forced a little chuckle out of her. But even still. They succeeded! Her mama was safe, and Arisu looked up at her, with her eye sparkling.
“No. You disappeared, but we just fixed that.”
“That’s good to hear! I don’t think I’d like disappearing very much.”
You were only thinking about my safety, even while you were disappearing…
Arisu couldn’t hold her feelings back. She hugged her mama again, though she quickly let go as she complained about the pain in her shoulder.
“Ah! Sorry!”
“It’s alright. Whatever our relationship is like in the future, you must be a really good girl to care about me that much,” her mama said, and soon the familiar feeling of her hand on Arisu’s head was back. Arisu closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying it to the fullest, though she had doubts.
“I’m actually a troublemaker…”
“But with your heart in the right place, hm?” Mama Seika asked immediately. Arisu thought about her little adventures with Mana, and her encounter with Okumo. How it was Mama Minerva who had to tell her to take her victories wherever she could, or otherwise she would break her own heart. She still regretted not being able to save everyone.
“Maybe…”
She thought back to how she tried to help Ishikawa, only for her to tell her to stay out of it. She thought back to how she triggered the incident in the facility where Marisa was held. She thought back to that poor man, whose arm was bitten off by her uncle Scotus, all because of her. She was taken out of her thoughts by the voice of her mother, once again.
“I don’t know what kind of relationship we have in the future, but I can already tell that you’re a good girl at heart, alright? So, whatever got you doubting yourself, don’t beat yourself up over it. I’m sure you’ll do the right thing in the end.”
Arisu looked up, into her mother’s eyes. Despite her injuries, she gave Arisu such a bright, gentle smile, like she had always done ever since she had known her. The moment passed, and her mama checked a timer on her phone.
“You have to go soon, right?” Arisu asked, subconsciously clinging to her arm.
“Yeah. I only have one shot at this, so it’s better if I have enough time to explain everything to Miori,” Mama Seika assured her and gave her one final smile. Then the door opened.
“Ready to leave?”
Arisu nodded and slowly let go of her mother, hurrying to Mana’s side while she spoke some words to Mama Seika. Arisu didn’t even pay attention to what she said. Right now, she wanted to go home and hug her mother back in her own time.
“See? I told you we’d make it. Now things are back the way they should be,” Mana assured her and gently touched her shoulder. She opened a portal to the white desert, and Arisu climbed through the opening, while Mana still talked to Seika. After Mana was done, she climbed through the portal herself. The little hole in reality that still connected them to the past was about to close, as the feelings inside Arisu bubbled to the surface. She stepped ahead and said her final words to her past mother.
“I’ll see you soon… mama!”
She saw Mama Seika’s jaw drop, and then she felt Mana’s hand on her mouth as the portal closed, and both stood there in complete silence for a few moments.
“…what in the… are you out of your mind, Arisu?” Mana groaned, letting go of her.
“S…sorry. I haven’t called her mama at all, but then I… kind of wanted to.”
“Well, now she knows that she has a future daughter and…” Mana mused, stopping before she scratched the side of her head.
“…ah. She knew. All along. Right, I slipped up, too, back then…”
Arisu pouted and playfully punched Mana in the arm.
“See? I’m not the only one messing up here!”
Mana let out a little laugh and nodded, then she retrieved the universe marble of the library from her robes, opening a portal.
“You can come out, now. Our business is done,” she spoke inside and stepped away from the portal, before Marisa climbed out. She gave Arisu an awkward smile as she greeted her with a little “Hi,” before turning towards Mana.
“So, what do we do now?”
“First? We stop at Hitoishi’s place and check that everything is alright, and then… hm…” Mana’s cat ears were suddenly flat against her head.
“Damn it… we two have a long talk with my parents ahead of us.”
The two witches had a lively talk about what they could possibly say to Mana’s parents, but Arisu felt her mind drifting.
Won’t the Mana in the past be really sad right now?
She looked over her shoulder, to where the portal into the past used to be, thinking about that young witch, and the loneliness she must have felt after imprisoning Marisa.
She was torn out of her thoughts as Marisa cleared her throat.
“Mana told me… she read my letter from back then, when I was freshly possessed by Doppelgänger and used a short moment in which I was in control to write her a message. I’d like you to know its contents, too… and I want to hear your response.”
Arisu nodded, receiving Marisa’s and Mana’s love confessions, which she promptly returned.
November 2025
Seika let out a loud gasp, followed a thudding sound of something soft hitting the floor of her kitchen.
She was disoriented, and she felt like she had just woken up from a very long dream of death and nonexistence. She quickly ran her hand over her throat, vaguely remembering that she had an issue with it, but nothing was there. As she looked at the ground, she found the cucumber she had dropped and quickly picked it up to put it aside and wash it again later, then she hurried towards the bedroom.
A peek inside told her that Miori and Ayame were sleeping peacefully, though they stirred here and there, as if they also had that strange dream. After confirming their safety, she remembered something about the cucumber she had just dropped. She was about to hand it to Arisu, when… something that she couldn’t remember happened.
“What’s the matter, Seika? You look like you’re panicking,” Pallas commented with some worry, and Seika hurried towards Arisu’s room.
It was the same as always, with the three figurines she passed on to her daughter standing guard over the bed, but Arisu was nowhere to be seen.
“Arisu isn’t here,” she whispered, quickly hurrying to the bath. She wasn’t there, either.
“Maybe she left for school already?” Minerva suggested and Seika shook her head. She hurried towards the entryway and saw Arisu’s school bag still near the ledge.
“No… she hasn’t left for school. Where is she…?” Seika asked, and her question was quickly answered. She was suddenly hugged from behind, with a strong grip besides. Arisu hugged her back, and Seika gently put her hand on top of that of her daughter.
“Oh dear… what happened?” She asked, looking over her shoulder.
She felt like she was seeing double, with color issues besides. There was Mana, and also Mana, but in white robes with red hair. She felt like she had seen that version of the girl before.
“Mana and… the Celestial Sisters fan?” she asked with a raised brow, and the redhead averted her eyes quickly. It suddenly clicked for her, and she looked Mana directly in the eyes.
“You time traveled?”
“Yes.”
“So, I… died? Or was erased for a moment?”
The young witch nodded, and Seika felt her stomach twist into a knot.
“…in that case, thank you, Mana. I truly owe you. Again.”
“Don’t mention it. It was largely my fault, too. And hers.”
Mana produced a pink gemstone from her robes and presented it to Seika. She looked at it with no little confusion, tilting her head as she looked Mana in the eyes.
“Amicitia,” Pallas commented.
You know her?
“One of the children of the night. So, going by familial ties, she is with Scotus’ group. But… she’s always been the softhearted one among them. She more closely resembles her half-siblings Dies and Aether, who have cut ties with their parents.”
“When you say it was her fault, then…?” Seika spoke to Mana, and the young witch responded.
“It’s a long story, but she used a love potion to make me careless, and then she talked Arisu into stalking me, which resulted in this whole mess. But it’s now resolved, and she has done her… penance, so now we have to decide what to do with her.”
“Uhm…!” Arisu spoke up, and all heads in the room turned towards her. “Can I have her? She’s my friend…”
“Despite everything?” Mana asked with surprise, and Arisu nodded, stepping a little closer to hold out her hand.
“Yes. Despite everything.”
Mana hesitated only a short moment, but then she nodded, handing the gemstone to Arisu, who smiled and held it close.
Mana watched her with a little smile, then she pulled a tome from her robes as well, placing it on the kitchen counter.
“I’ll have to apologize for this as well. I started this whole mess by picking this thing up: it’s a tome that allows me to open a portal to two worlds that allow one to time travel, and once picked up, Marisa over here got a copy. She was under control of a spell, so don’t worry about her anymore, but… that spell had control over time travel. And it was cooperating with the ones who want Arisu dead.”
Mana sighed and looked at Seika with a determined look.
“I’m going to destroy it when I get home. Time travel is much more trouble than it is worth, and I’m not going to let it make any more trouble for you.”
“Well, I’m glad that everything has returned to normal, with no changes… there were no changes, were there?” she asked into the round, but she didn’t get an answer. Mana and Marisa were either clueless or tight-lipped, and Seika scratched the scars on her left shoulder which Lethe gave her.
Wait… were they always on the left shoulder?
“You silly goose, of course they were always on your left shoulder,” Minerva responded.
***
Mana and Marisa hopped into Mana’s room through the portal, looking around with a little sigh.
“Now we’ll have to introduce you to my parents. Soon your parents, at least officially. Hopefully. Sayaka will probably try to kill me if I ask her to do the same thing for you that she did for Arisu.”
Marisa grimaced, shaking her head a little.
“Sorry for all the trouble, Mana…”
“Oh well, what can we do,” Mana commented, turning towards Marisa and smiling, while she lifted the tome of time travel up, inspecting it and letting her mind wander.
When she talked to her younger self, she learned that Hitoishi was injured on the other shoulder – and that her injuries were more severe than during Mana’s own time. She lost more blood and collapsed in a park, away from Sayaka’s apartment, instead of at her doorstep. Younger Mana was thankfully able to find her in time, but now it occupied her mind. She was still unaffected by the changed past, remembering her own, while it faded from the memory of everyone who didn’t accompany them during their time travel.
Ultimately, the change was minor, but it scared her that such a simple thing as her saying ‘Damn it’ instead of ‘Blast it’ caused a butterfly effect like this. Accordingly, she gave her younger self instructions to give the next young Mana a locator ring instead of written instructions for a location.
I’m sorry, Nicola. I didn’t perform entirely according to the script. I hope I nudged the time loop a little in our favor with that.
She shook her head, bringing her ruminations to an end before she addressed Marisa.
“Hey. While my back was turned… did Arisu by any chance touch this?”
Marisa raised a brow and nodded.
“She did. I think she even used her powers of mimicry to copy it.”
Mana smirked as she heard those words and didn’t hesitate in the slightest.
“Atomize.”
The tome of time travel, the cause of and solution to so many of their problems, disintegrated, leaving no trace behind. It was forever out of reach for the children of darkness, and Arisu had a whole week of dates with the younger Mana ahead of her.
(End of the ‘Family’ arc)