"Well, hello there — future me."
"Don't be afraid. You are me, and I am you. If anything, you ought to be thanking me — if I hadn't stepped in, the Goddess's magic would have done you in quietly."
"The Goddess's magic?!"
Nanoda was startled — but even as the surprise registered, she had already realized what was happening. Two consciousnesses now inhabited this body. Two souls. The presence speaking to her had to be the original owner, the one who had faded away before she crossed over.
The true Great Demon of the Mythical Era.
"A Return Magic — and a modified one at that. Lucky for you I felt something stir in me at just the right moment, and fished you out of the timestream before it swept you away."
Where Nanoda's voice was cool and crisp, this one was playful and light — breezy, almost girlish. It was hard to imagine such a tone belonging to an ancient being of the Demon Race.
The attitude left Nanoda genuinely taken aback.
"So — how far back am I?"
Nanoda had some familiarity with Return Magic, but this was different from anything she had encountered. It wasn't just her consciousness that had been sent back — her body had come with her.
"Oh, give or take — a little over a thousand years before the future me dies." A grin, and a flash of fangs.
"...What?" Nanoda went still. That long? And how did it even know—
"Ha! Don't worry — I mean you no harm. Quite the opposite, actually. You taking my place in the future suits me just fine."
"What exactly are you—"
Before Nanoda could finish the question, control of the body slipped away from her again.
"Do you want to go back? To the age that was supposed to be yours?"
In that suspended moment, Nanoda felt a kind of connection — wordless, instinctive. Satisfied that there was no malice in the presence sharing her body, she gave a small nod. "Yes."
She had no plan for the situation she was in. That much was simply true.
Seeing her let her guard down, the presence smiled again.
"Why?"
"There are things I haven't finished. And a promise — to you, it seems."
"A promise? Is that so." A short laugh. "You really are an interesting one. All right — I can send you back. But before that, why not travel with me for a while? Come and see what the world looked like a thousand years ago."
"Can't you just send me back directly?"
At that, the presence looked faintly sheepish and scratched the back of its head. "Sorry. I can only interfere with Return Magic — I can't simply push you back on my own. We'd need to find a certain stele, one that damned Goddess left behind. That's where her magic is stored."
Then, with a quick pivot in tone: "Besides — this is a good opportunity for me to teach you my original magic. If I'm guessing right, the future me must have been so weakened by the time it handed the body over to you that it vanished the moment it let go. Which means right now, you can't fully wield my power — and you can't cast my magic at all, can you?"
Faced with this goodwill that had arrived from nowhere, Nanoda felt a flicker of uncertainty. But everything it was describing matched her situation exactly.
"You can see the future?"
"Mmm, how to put it — after meeting you, my instincts told me it would go this way."
It sidestepped the question again.
"You've already tried it, haven't you — unleashing the suppressed instincts to release my magic. So. What did it feel like?"
Nanoda hesitated, then answered. The one who understood this body best was the original owner — learning about her true power directly from the source was worth something. And so far, the presence had given her no reason to distrust it.
She was certain of one thing: if it had wanted to expel her, it wouldn't have gone to the trouble of pulling her out of the timestream — nor spent this much time talking.
"Time. I felt everyone else's time slow down. I could act more times in a shorter span than should have been possible."
Given that it had reached across time to pull her out, she had guessed the magic might have something to do with time. That was her theory, at least.
In the next moment, the theory was dismissed.
"Wrong. As I thought — you really don't understand any of it yet."
A satisfied smile. Then the explanation began.
"My magic is 'Paradox.' The Magic of Paradox."
"Paradox?"
Nanoda was puzzled. It sounded like something out of philosophy — or physics.
"That's right. What you activated earlier was pure instinct — self-preservation with no conscious direction behind it. Am I wrong?"
"No."
For a moment, Nanoda felt as though she had been carried back to her past life — back to when she was learning the techniques of an assassin, under the tutelage of the priest who had never once lost a fight. Only this time, the teacher was this ancient Great Demon of the Mythical Era, who shared her very body.
"That's because you haven't yet grasped or understood Paradox Magic. The reason you felt time slow down is this: your magic was creating a paradox of motion. It transforms the movement of enemies and everything around you into stillness — freezing each instant in place. The result is that your opponents and the surrounding environment fall into a paradox of immobility. But you are not caught within that paradox. So you alone can move freely."
"But that's not—"
The words "that's wrong" died on her lips. Nanoda stopped herself. Something had clicked.
"Let me ask you something. What is magic — at its core?"
Seeing understanding dawn in her expression, it bared its fangs in a grin once more.
"Making the impossible... possible..."
"Exactly. Paradox Magic is the realization of applied paradoxes — motion becomes stillness, and at its furthest reach, existence becomes annihilation. It runs counter to reality. It runs counter to all other magic."
"Of course, fully converting existence into complete annihilation — or the reverse — is a realm even I never managed to reach entirely. At best, I could make something change or disappear for a period of time, the duration varying depending on what the thing actually was."
Even Nanoda, composed as she always was, found herself staring with her mouth slightly open.
"The way you describe it — with enough imagination behind it, this magic could rewrite almost anything. It's practically an all-purpose power."
"Well, I wouldn't go quite that far. When dealing with something that has a very high mana capacity or a special kind of divine protection, the effect and duration of Paradox Magic become quite limited."
At that, the presence fell quiet and turned its gaze to the campfire flickering before them. The easy, carefree smile faded. Something ancient and tired surfaced in its bearing — like dusk settling over an open plain. The flames licked at the wood with a soft, steady crackling, and against the scattered sparks drifting into the dark, the presence became, in that moment, something cold and still — a Demon, and nothing more.
"But for someone who has survived as long as I have, this magic has served mainly as a support tool. In the Mythical Era — that age crawling with monsters and gods — the only thing Paradox Magic was ever truly good for was keeping me hidden. You've probably sensed it yourself, to some degree: I have always relied on physical strength far more than magic."
There was remembrance in the words, and weight. The flames danced. Shadows twisted.
Then, in the next breath, it broke into a fanged grin again.
"But now, looking at you — I think these long years weren't lived for nothing."
More full of life than Nanoda had imagined. She had never met a member of the Demon Race who smiled this much.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Oshi No Ko: Co-starring with Kana Arima
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone