6.13 The Trio
“Uhm… nice to meet you! I am Marisa, and I’m… dating your daughter!” Marisa announced the morning after their arrival from the past, bowing deeply in front of Mana’s befuddled parents. Her father cleared his throat and looked at her thoroughly, then he turned towards Mana.
“I already voiced my support for you, Mana, but I have to admit… I may have not properly understood the implication of the word ‘clone’ when you told me about her. It’s shocking how alike you two look.”
Her mother in the meantime appeared to do her best to make Marisa feel welcome. She prepared a space for her at the breakfast table and immediately suggested to Marisa that they could go out and shop for clothes, seeing how she already knew all her sizes. She would even fix her witch robes, given how they were torn all over, or simply make new ones for her.
“Yeah… but I’m not going back on it. Still, the best way to have her be accepted out there is if she pretends to be my sister,” Mana suggested and cleared her throat.
“We’ll… avoid any display of, erm, affection in public.”
“And how are we going to do that? It’s officially recorded that your twin sister died and you resorbed her,” her father objected, though he raised his brow a little as he saw Manas little smirk.
“Oh, no worries! I know what to do. I know someone.”
***
“One of you is going to get my medical license revoked one of these days,” Sayaka complained loudly, looking at Mana, then Marisa.
“First a fake teen pregnancy, and now you want me to turn a resorbed twin into a living twin… I’m going to get into so much trouble if anyone ever finds out…”
Mana could only return an awkward smile and cleared her throat before she gave her response.
“Nicola offered to help if you hit a wall somewhere. She says she can offer distractions, disguises, magic that alters documents, which apparently works for digital ones, too… she also made a new friend recently with similar powers to hers who comes from our world, so she’d help out as well…”
Sayaka didn’t look too convinced by Mana’s offer. She grumbled and looked like she was about to get up and raid her fridge for a highball or a beer, but she sighed after another moment and sank back into her chair.
“Fine! You go and think about some kind of story you want to tell people outside of government documents that explains how nobody knew that you had a twin sister until now. And this doesn’t even need to be stated, but I’m still doing it: no overt shows of affection outside of your home, got it?”
Mana blushed and nodded quickly to confirm Sayaka’s command, but Marisa looked like she wanted to object to it. Mana quickly put her hand on Marisa’s mouth and answered for her.
“Don’t worry! No being lovey-dovey outside of our house! We have a reputation to uphold, after all.”
***
“I don’t like that condition, Mana!” Marisa complained after they entered her home again. She quickly clung to Mana’s side once they were back in her room, sitting on the edge of the now larger bed that her parents brought in for her to give Marisa space to sleep.
“You know that no one can see us like this. Magical stuff is happening throughout the world, but there’s no telling what people will think or do if we revealed that you are a magically created clone.”
“Well, if things keep going at the rate they’re going right now, there will be more girls sprouting animal ears, just like us. And maybe we’ll see even more visitors out there,” Marisa said with a pout, poking Mana’s cheek with a finger to show her annoyance while simultaneously making pretty eyes for her.
“And when that happens, then at some point they’ll have to admit that there’s magical occurrences, and that us being clones is possible!” Marisa concluded and grinned.
“Well, that’s true, but I think a lot of people are going to see contact between clones the same way they would see it between sisters… ugh, I don’t really want to think about it!” she complained and let herself fall on her back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Still, a smile made its way on her face.
“What are you grinning about, hm?” Marisa asked curiously, prodding Mana’s cheek some more.
“…I think it’s really nice, all of this. Just talking about how we’re going to live our normal life together, here on Earth,” she admitted, turning her head and smiling at Marisa, who rubbed her chin and nodded.
“Us two… and Arisu, of course? Where is she, anyway? I would have assumed that she’d come and hang out with us,” Marisa inquired, falling on her back next to Mana to stare at the ceiling as well.
“I think she’s in the past right now. You told her about your idea to have a relationship together yesterday, after all. She was the one who told me to open your letter.”
“Oh!” Marisa exclaimed with a nod. “But she didn’t tell you that things would be alright?”
“No. Just like I didn’t tell myself. I wouldn’t want anything to happen any differently, especially seeing how one wrong word changed a detail about Miss Hitoishi. Any more of that, and I can’t even imagine how much things would change…” Mana shuddered, trying not to imagine those alternative scenarios. Maybe it was a mistake that she gave her younger self some instructions to give the next Mana, but seeing how nothing changed right now, she assumed that things simply went well.
“Overall, I think, we got the best possible outcome,” she concluded.
“I don’t really think being imprisoned for a year was that ideal, Mana!” Marisa protested and pouted at her, poofing her cheeks. Mana let out a laugh and quickly leaned over to place a kiss on her lips, then she separated from her again.
“Alright, alright. The imprisonment was terrible… but in the end we won against Doppelgänger, didn’t we?”
Marisa smiled and just looked like she was about to lean in and give Mana another kiss – but she never got to. A portal opened above them and Arisu dropped on top of Mana, knocking the air out of her. While she gasped for air, she caught a glimpse of a white desert on the other side of the hole in reality, before it closed.
“Ah! Hey Mana!” Arisu greeted her energetically. Her face was completely red, and Mana could already guess what she had been up to during her trip into the past.
“…you know, even if you have portal spells, it would be nice if you came out of your portal outside of the room and knocked…”
“I wanted to surprise you. And hello, Marisa!” Arisu greeted the clone – then her eyes widened as Mana simply grabbed her face by the cheeks and pulled her in for a kiss. She didn’t resist, in fact she leaned a little into it, but her eye was still wide in utter shock. After Mana let go again, she blushed more than she already had.
“Wha-wha-wha-wha…?”
“Your second kiss, that you said you wanted to come get now, as you told me last year. That’s what you came here for, didn’t you?” Mana asked and grinned at Arisu, savoring her little ‘victory’ over the mischievous girl who quickly pouted.
“Hey! I wanted to surprise you!”
“With something I remember from last year?”
“Uuu…”
Marisa let out a laugh and patted Arisu’s head, looking her in the eyes.
“It’s alright, Arisu. You’ll get many more chances to surprise her.”
“Hm…!” Arisu pouted, then her face brightened up again and she went for another kiss – this time with Marisa, who blinked in surprise and took a moment after their lips separated to savor the feeling.
For the next week, Arisu would be gone every evening to visit the Mana of the past, and right after that, the trio was inseparable.
December 2025
“Kanno, come in and introduce yourself!”
Marisa walked in front of the class, with some growing nervosity in her chest. She saw Mana sitting relatively center of the class, quietly encouraging her with a nod, but the rest of the class still scared her a little. She saw them staring and heard the whispers, which her ears quickly picked up.
“Woah, she really looks just like Mana.”
“She has cat ears, too? So, are those mutations genetic?”
“Look how her tail is swishing around!”
“Her silver eyes are beautiful…”
Marisa balled her hands into fists by her sides and bowed before the class, then she finally spoke.
“Hello! I’m Marisa Kanno. I’m Mana’s twin sister, and I’ve been abroad in Australia for the past three years! We went to different elementary and middle schools, so this is the first time we are together in a class!” she dutifully retold the cover story she practiced with Mana and her parents. She looked around the class for a moment and gave them a smile.
“I like games, novels, traveling, and my sister, of course! I hope I can be friends with many of you!”
She saw Mana raise a brow after she snuck in that anecdote about her, and just as fast, her sensitive cat ears heard the whispering of some of her classmates.
“Is she a siscon?”
“Might just be a very clingy type of sister.”
“She hasn’t seen her in years. I’d be clingy, too.”
“Very well, Kanno. You can take the seat here in front by the door,” her teacher finally instructed her.
Marisa nodded and moved to her seat. Part of her was sad that she didn’t get to have Mana in her line of sight, or, even better, got to sit right next to her, but she understood that she would probably give in and do things that any onlooker would find suspicious if she was given too much ‘Mana time’ during class.
She rummaged through the limited memories she was born with as Mana’s clone, quickly recalling that a day usually started with homeroom, and the subjects would follow later, after short breaks. There was a lunch break, too, and from what Mana told her, that would be when they could go to the roof and meet up with Arisu.
Her hopes that she could chat with Mana in that short break after homeroom, however, were quickly dashed as half the class surrounded her.
“You’re really Mana’s sister?”
“What was Australia like?”
“Did you see kangaroos?”
“Are their spiders really that big?”
Marisa tossed a glance pleading for help towards Mana, but she simply looked to the side, unable to hide a wide grin.
Ugh… don’t just sit there…! Help me!
***
“Leaving me hanging like that? I never knew you were that cruel, Mana!” Marisa complained as they sat on the roof, eating their bentos together with Arisu. It was still rather mild in Tokyo, despite it being the start of December, with twenty degrees Celsius during the day, allowing them to comfortably use the open space in their uniforms.
“Come on now, it was just people trying to make small talk and make friends with the new girl. It wouldn’t be right for me to butt in,” Mana responded with a little grin.
“Boo! No one came to talk to me on my first day because of Okumo!” Arisu pouted, and Mana rolled her eyes.
“Oh, come on now, people came and made friends with you after Okumo was gone, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, but… the atmosphere in the class is still so depressing. Ten girls went missing and then only their bones were found. That weighs everyone down, even though we killed the one responsible,” Arisu responded with a heavy sigh, looking at the ground. Marisa quickly extended her hand to pat her head, then she wrapped an arm around her shoulder to pull her in, letting her rest her head against her shoulder.
“You did the best you could. They were gone before you attended school, and thanks to her strange magic no one noticed. Don’t blame yourself, alright?”
Arisu went quiet for a moment, then she nodded, letting out a sigh as she stretched and looked out over the city.
“Well… now that we’re all together, I have a question!” Arisu exclaimed, and both Mana and Marisa looked at her.
“Which world are we going to next?” Arisu asked, showing them a wide grin. “I really liked the one with the metal walls! There were that skeleton and all those machines, and it was really warm for some reason… we didn’t get to explore it properly, because that sorcerer king chased us!”
Marisa raised a brow, looking at Mana. “Is she talking about Icarus Station?”
“I think so,” Mana responded before stuffing her face with another egg roll.
“Eeeeh?! You’ve been there already? No fair! I want to explore there, too!” Arisu exclaimed with a pout.
“There’s not much to see, at least not where we went. It was a… station around a star. Apparently, they didn’t get food shipments anymore and slowly starved, and before the end, the workers rebelled. We didn’t meet a single living person, only a robot that thought we were some kinds of… representatives of a… union?”
“Of the Free Trade Collective. The union were the people who got crushed after rising up,” Mana reminded Marisa, and she nodded, thinking back to those empty corridors that smelled of stale air and had the shadow of death hanging above them while the flames of a star burned below.
“Really? And have you seen all of it?”
“Don’t be stupid. That station was a shell around a star, that’s the surface area of…” Mana appeared to be thinking about it for a moment but gave up after a minute of doing so unsuccessfully.
“…many Earths,” she concluded.
Marisa shuddered. There weren’t many skeletons at first on account of the Collective’s soldiers incinerating the captured and dead from the union, but still, imagining that amount of death on the scale of a sun was utterly tragic and incomprehensible to her.
“Maybe you should look at other sectors? We could explore!” Arisu suggested. “Or we could finally make a plan to save that other world from the sorcerer king, like you promised!”
“I’m not sure we’re strong enough for that yet, even with the three of us,” Mana admitted, and Marisa let out a little chuckle.
“You’ve been getting into adventures without me? How naughty, Mana…”
Mana let out a long sigh, but she managed a little smile afterwards.
“I think I have a bittersweet world to show you after school today. Will you come with me?”
???
Arisu stepped out of Mana’s portal and immediately started to float. The walls around her were metallic, with the exception of a single window front. What Arisu saw there was a giant, yawning maw in space, with a glowing, orange disc swirling around it. She could make out some lights in the distance and soon realized that they were space stations, surrounding the black hole.
“This was one of the only worlds I went to without either of you,” Mana explained, looking out into the distance. She stabilized herself by grabbing some handrails and kept looking outside wistfully.
“It made me realize how used I’ve grown to traveling with Marisa, and how it didn’t feel like a proper adventure when I was alone. I was just here and contemplated how much I missed Marisa between Arisu’s visits.”
Arisu nodded, floating over to Mana and hugging her before she looked outside the window again.
“But now we’re both here! So… what is this world? What is happening here?” she asked and Mana gave her a little smile before she turned around, pointing at the small, blinking lights in the distance.
“The last humans live here, at the end of their universe. Trillions of years in our future, after the last stars have died and the only light left is the one created around black holes. Without all the protective layers of this spaceship, we would have gotten a damaging dose of x-rays by now. I honestly don’t even want to know whether the inhabitants of those stations still look human, after all those years.”
Arisu let Mana’s words go through her mind, and she nodded along while keeping an eye on the black hole outside. She caught Marisa looking at it as well from the corner of her eye, and her expression was similarly wistful as Mana’s.
“A last glimmer of life against the ever-encroaching darkness as everything ends. It is rather beautiful, in a melancholic kind of way.”
Arisu blinked and put a hand on her chest, where she kept Amicitia in a little pocket.
I wish we could save them from that end.
“Some things are meant to end, Arisu. Once you resolve yourself to save the last survivors of this universe and bring them somewhere else, what then? Their descendants will meet the same fate. Do you plan to save them, too? And then their descendants? And theirs?”
Arisu only stared into the gaping void, letting out a little sigh.
“Well, their souls are going to go somewhere else, right? This is just one of their many lives. It’s just… a little sad that they are surrounded by darkness and just waiting for everything to end.”
“Their next lives will be much better; you can be sure of that.”
Arisu pursed her lips, then she pushed herself off the railing and turned towards her two girlfriends.
“Let’s go somewhere that’s more fun.”
***
???
Arisu looked at the sky with wide eyes as she saw a chariot race across it, carrying the sun like a ball. Two wolves were chasing it, though they never appeared to catch up. The entire scene was so far away that it felt extremely slow from her position, but she could tell that both parties must have been going incredibly fast at whatever altitude this chase took place.
Mana brought them here as Arisu mentioned a world that was more fun than the last, and at least the weirdness of their surroundings didn’t disappoint.
“This is a giant platform in the crown of a giant tree, by the way,” Mana explained with a little grin as they approached a large wall with perfectly laid stones – with the exception of ten of them, which looked a little sloppy, sitting right atop the large gate that the trio walked through.
“The tree is as large as a solar system, and it has whole planets in its branches… and there’s many more strange things I could show you…!”
Mana would have kept rambling if Marisa hadn’t interrupted her.
“I know of this place… I never went, but I’ve seen the name in your index,” she commented, looking around. The witch in white froze and let out a scream as two large wolves approached and immediately ran her over before they circled back to slobber all over her face. Once satisfied, they moved on to Mana, who laughed and withstood their assault with experience. She even went so far as to ruffle their fur – and then she pointed at Arisu with a mischievous grin, as if to command the wolves to slobber all over her as well. To Arisu’s surprise, they obeyed the command.
Only moments later, Arisu was on her back, staring into the sky, with her face wet and sticky from wolf drool. She didn’t know if she should laugh or be angry with Mana, and before she could come to a decision, she was interrupted by a loud laugh coming from further inside the walled-off section. A tall, jolly man left a large wooden building, throwing his arms wide as he saw Mana.
“Young seidrkona! I haven’t seen you since you requested the help of our new friends! I am glad to see you well! I trust that my good friend, Jove, found you in time, then?”
Arisu blinked as she heard the name of her grandfather and quickly shot up into a sitting position, even startling the two wolves into taking a step back from her.
“You know my grandpa?” she asked, looking at the man who approached them. Her returned her questioning gaze with a wide smile of his own. With his large, bushy beard, it looked thoroughly friendly, even though his visage was a little terrifying, owed to him only having one eye, while the lids of the other didn’t quite close around the empty socket.
“Oh my, what’s this? Family of my good friend? And family of my other good friend the Seidrkona?”
He looked at Marisa, who slowly sat up and gave him an awkward smile, then looked back to Arisu. He pointed towards her eyepatch.
“I might get one of these for myself one day. It looks good on you, young kin of thunder. But! Enough of the outdoors pleasantries! Do come inside and feel at home, I’m sure you have many stories to tell!”
***
“An adventure through time itself! You never fail to impress, young Seidrkona!” the jolly man laughed and slapped the armrests of his throne. After guiding them inside he introduced himself as Odin. Apparently, Arisu’s grandfather was on good terms with him, and he knew him from even before the Kawaguchi Incident, with both this world called Yggdrasil and Capitolium moving in the same direction in time.
The hall they were in was rather chaotic. Human soldiers, dressed in chainmail and leather, were feasting and making merriment with strange humanoid rats and other rodents, like mice, hamsters, or even a capybara, wearing similar equipment. Arisu vaguely recalled that there was a threat called the Rodent Regiment which sometimes attacked Tokyo before she was born; they were one of the more vivid memories she inherited from her mothers. Looking at them, Arisu could tell that they weren’t from here, or from Tokyo, or from whatever world of rats they pretended to be from.
She saw visions of tall, silvery buildings, always tinted in a dark blue haze thanks to ongoing pollution, and illuminated by neon lights. She saw that world’s coordinates as well, feeling herself able to pass these coordinates on to Portal, if she so desired – though she didn’t have any plans to visit right now, so she put that thought aside, soon forgetting the coordinates.
“I might have caused more trouble than I solved, though,” Mana admitted bashfully, but Odin was having none of it.
“Leave waves wherever you go! You are a force that echoes through the worlds and ages! Let people know your presence wherever your fate carries you! Whether that means you scared a puny mortal into hunting the shadow of witches or it means more inspiring tales than that, it shan’t matter!”
“You’re in high spirits, King of Kings…!” a voice spoke as whoever it belonged to approached. As Arisu turned her head, she saw one of the rat warriors, holding a drinking horn.
“Of course! My dear friend, the young Seidrkona is here with us again, Ka’zarr! And she brought both her kin and Jove’s granddaughter!”
The rat warrior turned to bow to everyone in the group and smile at them. He paused especially as he saw Mana, whose eyes went wide.
“Wait… Ka’zarr? I didn’t even recognize you. Because, uh…”
“Because us rats all look alike? How rude! You, on the other hand look way different from how I remember you, on account of growing those cat ears!” the warrior responded with a wide grin, and Mana let out a laugh. She hopped out of her seat and walked over to the humanoid rat, giving him a long hug.
“Thank you for getting help! I never got to say that. It ended up saving more people than just me.”
“Don’t even mention it! Ka’zarr of the Rodent Regiment keeps his word!”
“I… doubted you. I was in pain due to my body changing and wasn’t thinking straight, but I did…”
“Do not worry about it! I did run away rather quickly and left you behind. Most people would think I left them.”
Arisu watched the exchange attentively. Everyone around her had so many experiences from way before she even came into this world. It made her a little bit jealous.
She suddenly felt a warm hand close around hers and looked into Marisa’s eyes as she searched for the origin of that feeling. Marisa gave her a little, encouraging smile as Arisu squeezed her hand a little.
Right. I’m not the only one with an unusual birth. Even though she’s… technically me.
The spirited exchange between Mana and the rat warrior continued, even as Arisu and Marisa shared this little moment. His voice swelled a little in volume as he appeared to remember something.
“Oh, right! We were about to have another bout. Gunnar got drunk and challenged me earlier. Want to watch?”
***
Loud cheers erupted in the hall as a circle formed. Tables and seats were pushed aside as Ka’zarr and Gunnar, the obvious challenger, faced each other. Gunnar was already swaying from side to side, and Arisu raised a brow. She was certain that this guy was too drunk to stand, let alone fight, but he still raised an axe and pointed it at the rodent, nonetheless.
“I’m getting you this time, rotta!” Gunnar exclaimed while audibly holding back a burp.
“Oh! I know him!” Mana suddenly exclaimed, pointing at the man. Arisu and Marisa both turned their heads towards her as she turned towards Odin.
“Wasn’t he the man you gave the Berserker Rage back then?”
“You have a good memory! Gunnar has indeed been bestowed with the gift. And now, in his eternal life after death, he can access it freely!” Odin declared, almost boisterously so.
“I’m curious… souls are supposed to pass to other worlds on death. I guess you can interfere in this?”
“Indeed! Any soul we deem worthy can be placed in these venerated halls of Valhalla and given a new body. They might die again during their daily bouts, but they will always be returned to life, until they are ready for Ragnarök.”
Mana nodded and walked over to Arisu and Marisa, sitting down on Arisu’s free side. The brawl inside the circle of men and rodents started in earnest, now, with the nimble rat warrior dodging a drunken swing of the axe, which promptly got stuck in the wooden floorboards.
Ka’zarr tried to scale the drunken berserker’s back, but the man turned around with surprising agility, almost smashing the rodent’s skull with his elbow as he did so. The sudden movement freed the axe’s blade from the wooden floor, and he followed up with wild swings. Ka’zarr ducked under the first, then jumped over the next one that was aimed lower, closing the distance. He wielded thin daggers whose blades slightly expanded from the tip to the guard in a triangle shape, and he thrust them forward with his entire weight behind them, assisted by, as Arisu intuited, whatever technology powered his gaming avatar, giving him superhuman strength on top of his agility.
Some blood was spilled as the dagger’s tip slipped between a ring on the berserker’s chainmail, prying it wide open with its increasing width until the tip entered flesh in the warrior’s lower abdomen. The berserker grunted, and he struck Ka’zarr with the haft of his axe, making the rat warrior stumble aside. He quickly looked at the spot of his chainmail that was now damaged, with the broken ring falling off and the surrounding ones hanging a little bit loose, then he looked at Ka’zarr again, showing him a mad grin. He drew a second axe, and his muscles bulged freakishly as his face turned red, then he rushed towards the rat warrior.
The berserker’s strikes were swift and had devastating strength behind them, as evidenced by Ka’zarr dodging a strike that aimed to cleave him from top to bottom, making it hit the solid oak banquet table behind him and breaking it in half with that single strike.
The rat warrior only had a short, precious moment to catch his breath, using it to wipe some of the blood from his face before he had to dodge the next strike. He ducked under the axe again to dash forward and managed to pierce the chainmail at the height of the berserker’s chest, now.
Another grunt, and the two stumbled a few steps back from each other.
“Not bad, Gunnar!” Ka’zarr exclaimed, grinning wide, but the enraged opponent gave no answer.
“I’ve seen this last time! Ka’zarr is going to use his tail to pull himself up and attack him in the neck!” Mana spoke quietly to Arisu, looking a little full of herself on account of already being familiar with the happenings around here. Arisu nodded and watched the combatants again.
Ka’zarr took a combat stance, with his eyes focused on the berserker who stepped closer. It was obvious that he was trying to goad the man into an attack while his mind wasn’t entirely there.
That’s when it happened: Ka’zarr’s eyes darted to the side, like he was looking at something only he could see, then he froze. That crucial moment cost him the duel as the berserker brought both his axes down and caught him off guard. The floorboards were smashed, and colorful holographic cubes exploded outwards from where Ka’zarr stood before.
“What the-” Mana commented, and a murmur broke out among the spectating rodents.
“That’s not like him.”
“Yeah, he never gets distracted during fights.”
Arisu had a bad feeling about all this. She looked at Mana, who shrugged. “Everyone can have a bad day at some point…?”
“It looked a little more sinister than that…” Marisa commented quietly, and she pointed towards the other rodents, who appeared like they were opening and reading screens only they could see.
The nearby capybara warrior sighed. “Really, Zach? What use is it to tell an NPC that…? Ah, never mind, if the guild master wants it…”
The warrior stepped closer to the trio and cleared his throat.
“Ka’zarr sent a message. He says you should… go back to Earth? There’s going to be an attack.”
Arisu’s eye went wide and she hopped off her seat.
“An attack? What kind? Are the people safe?”
“It’s going to be a big one. That’s all he said.”
Arisu’s stomach tied itself into a knot and she turned around towards her girlfriends immediately. She wanted to shout at them that they’d have to leave immediately, but as she saw Mana already opening a portal, she felt a little silly.
“Let’s go,” Mana said, and Arisu quickly nodded, grabbing Marisa by the hand and following the witch in black back to Earth…