Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
If she had been eating, Snow would have slammed her bowl down on the table.
The Witch Clan, few in number though they were, had four Great Witches standing at their helm!
The idea that witches — wielders of power that dwarfed nature itself — could be wiped out by humans? Humans who would lose half their number to an earthquake or a tidal wave? If anyone other than this boy had said it to her face, she'd have assumed they'd woken up on the wrong side of some dream.
Did she not know exactly how powerful each Great Witch was?
She herself could move mountains, part seas, and sever rivers. She had no reason to believe the other three Great Witches were meaningfully weaker.
By any reasonable estimate, any one Great Witch going all-out could bring an entire human civilization to ruin. The four of them together could scrub every human from the surface of the planet without difficulty.
And yet now some boy had appeared out of nowhere and was trying to tell her that humans — tiny, frail humans — had prayed to some god of their own invention, called it a Church, and used it to hunt the Witch Clan to extinction?
Snow studied this stranger — this oddly familiar stranger — scanning his honest face for a trace of insincerity.
There wasn't one. And for reasons she couldn't explain, his words carried an inexplicable weight of conviction.
"Hold on. Let me work through this…"
Snow pressed her fingers to her forehead, slightly pained. The [Float] had long since lapsed — she was now seated in the chair by the bedroom desk.
She grabbed the nearest outer garment and draped it over herself where only a bath towel covered her — she knew she probably ought to get properly dressed in front of a stranger she'd just met, but the boy's words had struck her too hard, and besides, the strange ease she felt around him made her forget.
"If those images in your mind weren't some advanced false-memory spell…"
"You're telling me that one day, in the future, I'll take in two orphans of another people?"
"And that one of those children… is you?"
Snow looked Shin up and down, the corner of her mouth curving in something between a smirk and sheer disbelief.
"You're also telling me that Witch Island — with all four of us Great Witches here — gets wiped out by humans in the not-too-distant future?"
"Setting aside everything else — even if those humans used underhanded methods to poison and kill my people, what makes you think we Great Witches couldn't reverse it all? That we'd have no recourse?"
"Pff— haha— ahahahaha~!"
Newly crowned Great Witch Snow dissolved into laughter, shoulders shaking, damp hair trembling.
"That's probably the funniest joke I've heard on my coronation day."
"Little one — you weren't sent by the younger witches to cheer me up, were you?"
"Humans? Destroy witches?"
She stood up. One pale finger traced lightly through the air — and before Shin's eyes, the very fabric of time and space distorted.
There was no other way to describe it. Something intangible and imperceptible coalesced into something visible — time and space, given substance, condensing into a visible river of photons.
Great Witch Snow watched Shin's stunned reaction with visible satisfaction.
"Let me introduce myself properly, little one. My name is Snow. I am the Great Witch who commands the power of Wind."
"Wind is the aether — formless, weightless. My magic governs time and space — which is to say, I have the ability to reverse this entire world for my sake alone."
"I call this magic [Death Rewind], and it is only one of my many spells. By your logic — if my Clan is destroyed through human treachery, I simply need to rewind time to before the slaughter and give warning. What's the problem?"
Snow leaned close to Shin, those pale blue eyes carrying the serenity of someone who has never needed to worry about anything in their life.
And for a moment, her words genuinely almost persuaded him — after all, [Death Rewind] was nothing like Nikaidou Hiro's reversal ability, which was bound to the morning of the current day. The Great Witch's reversal had no such limitation written into it.
So why, if the Witch Clan was simply slaughtered through human betrayal, had the Great Witch Snow not reversed time and saved everyone?
This was a genuine question — and it made Shin wonder whether there was some additional detail surrounding the Clan's destruction that he didn't know about.
"All right, little one. I can see you're no bad person — and I find I can't dislike you, somehow. So I'll let you off the hook."
Snow released the [Float], letting Shin settle back to the floor, and felt — inexplicably — not the slightest wariness toward this boy.
"If you wandered here by accident, I can take you home. I happen to have some free time these days."
"And if you came here for some other purpose — as long as it isn't malicious, Witch Island is quite hospitable. Go introduce yourself to Hana and the others, find yourself an empty room, and make yourself at home."
"Don't worry about meals. We have a witch specializing in Cooking magic, so you won't go hungry. Come to think of it, you might be the island's first outside visitor in nearly a century — I wonder what the others' reactions will be~"
"Oh — one more thing. Please don't try to make friends with other witches by sneaking into their bedrooms. I may have an exceptionally even temperament, but not every witch on this island is like me~"
Snow held up one finger, smiled, and drifted lightly upward, tapping it to Shin's forehead.
The delicate warmth of contact was enough to jam the words that had been forming in his throat.
This was the nature of witches — a people so innately kind they would extend unconditional trust to an absolute stranger, without hesitation.
Compared to how he'd been received in the Lands Between, this was another world entirely.
If all of this was real — if it wasn't merely a deep layer of the Great Witch's shared dream — if time still had room for things to be different…
"Hmm, hmhm~"
"What a wonderful day — not only did I get crowned, I also heard quite the interesting story~"
Snow withdrew her finger, leaning back into her chair with a contented laziness, then seemed to remember something and looked back at Shin with an amused gleam:
"How about this, little one — consider yourself lucky. I'll grant you one wish~"
Snow's lips curved upward.
"You're the first living person I've told about my joy at becoming a Great Witch. Within reason, I'll grant whatever you ask~"
She gave him a mischievous wink — like a sheltered young princess who had never had to be careful about anything in her life — and let her gaze travel appreciatively over Shin's physique.
"Calling me Mother, of course, is off the table~"
"A boy your size, calling me Mother — the pressure alone would be quite something~"
"How about this instead — try going after one of the other witches. There should be some among them who want a male companion. And since I, as Great Witch, rank above all ordinary witches, by the transitive property of human social custom, I'd technically qualify as your Mother in that arrangement. Four parts in five of the way there, at least. How's that sound?"
That math doesn't work at all.
Shin opened his mouth, found he had no idea what to say.
Mostly because he couldn't figure out how to wake himself from this deep-layer dream in the first place — so he might as well stay with this freshly crowned, freshly young Snow and listen to her ramble.
Compared to the mostly reserved Great Witch of everyday life, this version was so much more animated. And they couldn't be more than a few decades apart in timeline.
But then, without warning:
Bzzzm —!
A panel of light unfolded without preamble in the center of the room — and both Snow and Shin looked toward it.
It was the Witch Clan's communication magic.
Three translucent silhouettes materialized in the air. Their faces were indistinct to Shin's eyes, just as the real Witch Island had always appeared blurred — probably the difference between dream and reality. Dreams were never perfect mirrors.
"Snow. Urgent matter."
The voice of the Earth Great Witch — slightly hurried.
"The ancient prophecy has finally revealed itself. It foretells our Clan's destruction at an outsider's hands — in the near future. We need to discuss our options."
"Destruction?"
Snow's eyes flew wide. She looked at Shin — standing there with his most innocent expression — and that easy contentment she'd worn all day vanished.
"What happened? Who's responsible? Nothing on this planet should be a threat to us — how can this be…"
"Humans." The three Great Witches spoke together.
"The prophecy cannot be changed. We need to decide on the most appropriate course of action, and quickly."
Four updates today — pushed myself to the limit. Also asking for a few votes — I plan to get through Snow's story arc in one go.
To be continued…