Alice Kuonji tugged lightly at Shirou's sleeve.
"Um, Amamiya-kun."
She whispered into his ear.
"Why does Aoko know you? Are you actually some kind of celebrity?"
"I don't think that's the case..."
Shirou answered without much confidence.
Four years earlier, during the Fourth Holy Grail War, he had taken part as one of the Masters and survived to the very end.
After the war, Shirou used the influence of Tokiomi Tohsaka, Risei Kotomine, and the Matou family to enforce strict information control over the truth of that Holy Grail War.
But the incident had grown far too large. There had even been monsters making landfall in Japan, so it was impossible to cover everything up completely.
Rumors mixed with other rumors, which gave birth to new rumors, until the Fourth Holy Grail War became a legend of the distant Far East.
And among the many tales in circulation, some were outrageously absurd, for example...
Yeah, Shirou had heard that one too.
During the Fourth Holy Grail War, there appeared the strongest Master in history.
At times, he looked like a young child.
At times, he took the form of an adult.
In that war of lives on the line, he displayed overwhelming and absolute power, turning Fuyuki into a stage for himself alone.
Whether it was the great Magus Families who controlled the land's spiritual veins, or genius Lords of the Clock Tower, even heroes and kings out of myth and legend were no exception.
It made no difference whether the enemy was a Magus or a Servant. That Magus, by his power alone, defeated every last enemy.
Defeated?
No, [slaughter] or [trampling] would be the more accurate words.
And then...
At the end of all that killing, when the omnipotent wish-granting machine was already within his grasp, the strongest Magus abandoned it without the slightest hesitation.
Why?
Why let go after coming that far?
Wasn't the reason obvious?
To that Magus, the power of the Holy Grail was too small to be worth mentioning.
With a sneer, he cast the Holy Grail back into slumber.
And in the end, all that remained was the record of the strongest battle ever carved into the Far East.
...That was way too exaggerated.
When Shirou first heard that rumor, he had been left speechless.
Wow, who could this Magus possibly be? It definitely wasn't me.
Irisviel... the rumors about you out there have gotten completely ridiculous.
"Rumors can't be trusted completely, but they also aren't fantasies that spring from absolutely nothing, right?"
Aoko Aozaki smiled as she stared at Shirou, and a chill immediately ran down his spine.
"Come on... tell me, Shirou-kun!"
The Fifth Magician pressed him with open curiosity, her full chest swaying so much it was almost distracting.
"How much of the rumors about the Fourth Holy Grail War is true? Twenty percent? Forty percent?
No, if even that Kayneth has kept this quiet, then he must have witnessed something truly terrifying.
So at least sixty percent of it is true? Wow, so it really is true that you defeated a Servant?"
In the bright café, Aoko Aozaki pressed him without the slightest restraint about the secrets of the Holy Grail War.
So Amamiya-kun is... a survivor of that Magecraft ritual held in Fuyuki?
Alice Kuonji was startled too, far more than she had expected.
She had known from the beginning that Shirou was not an ordinary child.
She had known that already, and yet hearing Aoko talk about Shirou's past made her feel as if someone had smashed her head with a heavy hammer.
The girl's thoughts fell into complete chaos, and she had no idea what she should say.
Wait, does that mean Aoko knows more about Amamiya-kun than I do...?
No, is that really what I should be focusing on right now?
Shirou stared at the coffee cup in front of him, took a hard gulp, and then said,
"...I'm not at liberty to say."
"Not at liberty to say, pfft... hahaha, hahaha!"
Aoko Aozaki burst out laughing and slapped the table.
The customers at the next table all turned to look when they heard her laughter, but Aoko did not care about anyone else's stares in the slightest.
After a while, Aoko Aozaki wiped the corner of her eyes and finally stopped laughing.
"Shirou-kun, you're really interesting... Sorry, sorry. I asked something I shouldn't have.
You're right, this isn't the kind of thing you can casually discuss with someone you've only just met. Sorry for putting you on the spot."
"It's fine," Shirou said. "I'm the one who should apologize. I was the one who asked to meet you in the first place."
Aoko Aozaki pinched her chin.
"Huh... Shirou-kun really does have the personality of a serious class representative.
Since you're so close with Alice, I thought you'd be a much more eccentric kind of kid.
No... is this [normality] actually the most [abnormal] thing about you? I see, I see..."
At that moment, the Magician suddenly felt a sharp stare on her.
It was Alice looking at her.
What an intense protective instinct. Hehehe...
Aoko Aozaki knew Alice Kuonji very well.
On the surface, Alice looked like a cold, quiet, delicate beauty, even a little shy and soft.
But Aoko knew full well that at her core, she was a witch through and through.
Gloomy, nasty, vindictive, fond of mischief.
Those were the true colors of Alice Kuonji's soul.
But...
That ill-tempered modern witch was now disguising herself as a good girl.
...You really are something, Shirou-kun.
Aoko Aozaki smiled faintly, then quickly explained herself to the red-haired boy under pressure from her old friend.
"Well, anyway... you don't need to be so on guard around me. I don't mean anything by it."
Shirou nodded.
"Yeah, Alice-san already told me... that if I take Aoko-nee-san's words too seriously, it'll give me a headache."
"It's about time we got to the point," Alice said softly.
At her prompting, Aoko Aozaki's expression turned serious.
"Then let me ask you directly, Shirou-kun. Why were you looking for me?"
At that instant, Shirou felt completely overpowered.
Under the gaze of the Fifth Magician's clear sapphire-like eyes, every roundabout phrase he had prepared vanished from his mind.
He swallowed and said,
"I am... a time traveler."
"What?"
Alice Kuonji let out a surprised sound.
Aoko Aozaki, on the other hand, reacted calmly. Through the rumors of the Fourth Holy Grail War, she had probably already sensed something like this.
"To be precise, I used to be."
Shirou took a deep breath, met the Magician's sharp gaze head on, and continued.
"I heard from Alice-san about what happened eight years ago. Aoko-nee-san used Magic to accelerate herself by ten years.
Actually, I've gone through the same thing. I accelerated the time inside my own body by ten years."
Aoko Aozaki understood what Shirou meant immediately.
"So that's why you never left behind a clear impression during the Holy Grail War, and the stories about you became even more contradictory?
After all, one moment you were fighting in the form of a child, and the next you were fighting in the body of an adult... hm, this is getting interesting."
"But that wasn't even my first time traveling through time."
"What? You already had experience with time travel before the Holy Grail War, Shirou-kun?"
Even Aoko Aozaki was genuinely surprised this time.
Long before the Fourth Holy Grail War, Shirou had already experienced drifting into parallel worlds by accident more than once.
The Second Magic, [Operation of Parallel Worlds].
Time travel was also classified as an application of the Second Magic.
So, if Shirou was not mistaken...
"I think I have a degree of compatibility with time travel far beyond that of ordinary people."
Just as a Master has aptitude as a Master, and Rayshifting has compatibility for Rayshifting, time travel also had its own corresponding aptitude.
That aptitude naturally differed from person to person.
Based on his past experiences, Shirou had concluded that his compatibility with time travel far surpassed that of a normal person.
In truth, his estimate was already a conservative one.
Because he had lost his memory during his first trip to Britannia, Shirou did not know the truth of his own origins.
His soul came from another dimension entirely.
As someone who had crossed over from another world, Shirou's adaptability to time and space could no longer be measured by common sense.
All the strange encounters and extraordinary experiences that followed had been built on that very foundation.
A faint shadow crossed the Magician's beautiful face as she listened to the boy.
"Shirou-kun, why are you telling me this? Do you want me to drag you away and preserve you in formalin?"
"Aoko." Alice Kuonji frowned and scolded her.
She was deeply confused too, wondering why Shirou would tell Aoko something like this.
There was absolutely no need to reveal a secret like that to a stranger he had only just met, was there?
Alice pouted a little and thought gloomily to herself, rather than telling someone as careless as Aoko...
Amamiya-kun, isn't there someone much more suitable and much more reliable right beside you to confide in, like an understanding older sister?
Without noticing the turmoil of the girl beside him, Shirou stated his real purpose.
"I want to borrow Aoko-nee-san's... the power of the Fifth Magic, and go back eight years."
He said it all in one breath.
"If it's me, I can stop the you of the past.
I can save Touko Aozaki and prevent her death."
"Wha..."
Alice Kuonji snapped out of her spiraling thoughts and stared in shock, her mouth falling open.
In the next instant, the warmth vanished from the witch's black eyes.
She shot to her feet and looked down at the boy as she sternly rebuked him.
"Amamiya-kun. Do you understand what you're saying?"
"?"
Shirou did not understand why she was so agitated.
"Alice-san, are you saying changing the past is forbidden?"
"That's right."
Alice Kuonji clenched her small fists.
The absolute taboo of time travel. Changing the past.
In all kinds of science fiction stories, anyone who tried to change the past would ultimately suffer a backlash from causality and end up causing events to move toward the very future they already knew because of their own interference.
Shirou had read plenty of stories like that too.
But...
Magic was called Magic precisely because it had the power to make the impossible real.
[Time travel] itself was not Magic.
Magecraft also had secret techniques capable of controlling time, such as Heroic Spirit EMIYA's [Time Alter] and Morgan's [Water Mirror].
Morgan's [Water Mirror] could even throw the [present] into the [past] thousands of years ago, yet it still could not change a predetermined ending.
But true Magic could surpass causality and overturn time and space.
Because that was the miraculous hand that stood above Magecraft, a domain humanity could not step into and must not touch.
"I understand what you're thinking, Shirou-kun..."
Aoko took a sip of the coffee in front of her and smiled.
"You suffered irreversible damage in the Holy Grail War. So that rumor was true too...
That's why you wanted to ask Touko-nee to make you a new body, a new vessel."
The boy did not deny it. That really was his ultimate goal.
Aoko Aozaki continued.
"Well, if we used my Magic together with Shirou-kun's constitution to carry out time travel...
then changing the past probably would be possible.
But... why should I do that?
Why do I have to let you save Touko-nee-san?
She's not just my biological older sister. She's also my mortal enemy in the struggle over True Magic."
Shirou fell silent.
"..."
"Why did you stop talking, Shirou-kun?"
Aoko pressed him without mercy.
For that one moment, Alice was deeply grateful for that side of her personality.
"If you've got something to say, then say it plainly."
Aoko curled her lips into a mocking smile.
"Are you about to lecture me that [killing is wrong]?
Before I was Touko's little sister, I was a Magus first and foremost... and you're a Magus too, aren't you, Shirou-kun?
Oh right, I heard almost everyone survived the Holy Grail War. How kind of you. Were you trying to create a world where no one gets hurt?
Sorry, but I can't pull off saintly behavior like Shirou-kun can.
Anyone who shows killing intent toward me, I'll pay them back twice over without hesitation."
Aoko shot him a razor-sharp look, as though she wanted to tear the boy apart.
Shirou met her gaze without flinching.
"I think killing and revenge can be necessary and justified."
"Oh?"
"If you believe killing Touko Aozaki wasn't wrong, then it probably wasn't wrong..."
Shirou said, "But why do you look like you're about to cry, Aoko-nee-san?"
"..."
Aoko Aozaki turned toward the café window, and only then did she notice how badly twisted her expression had become.
So even the regret I thought I'd hidden so well still couldn't escape this child's eyes.
A bitter taste spread through the Magician's mouth.
When she killed Touko, Aoko Aozaki had thought she was perfectly calm, certain that she would never regret it.
But she was wrong.
Only her body had matured by those ten years through Magic.
Once the time of the Magician ended, the one left to bear the crushing consequence of [killing her sister] was still only a seventeen-year-old girl.
Not long after Touko died, Aoko Aozaki dropped out of Misaki High School and set out on a wandering journey with no destination.
If Alice had not contacted her on her own this time, she probably would never have set foot in Misaki again for the rest of her life.
The Magician lowered her eyes to the coffee cup in front of her, and suddenly a distant memory she had nearly forgotten resurfaced.
Up until she graduated middle school, and until before she started living with Alice, Aoko Aozaki had always been a devoted coffee drinker.
Because she admired her intelligent, gentle, genius older sister, she had started drinking black coffee in imitation of her...
So I used to have an awkward, embarrassing girlhood like that too. Heh.
Aoko Aozaki fell into a long silence.
Shirou watched her nervously and swallowed.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes...
Time quietly passed in the awkward silence.
At last, Aoko Aozaki let out a sigh.
"Haa... I really lose to you.
If I ever get the chance, I want to see what on earth is inside your head. Seriously, I have to admire you."
Weariness was written all over her raised, composed face.
"I understand, Shirou-kun... I'll give you one chance."
"You mean it, Aoko-nee-san!?" Shirou straightened up at once.
"Yeah, I promise... I'll use the Fifth Magic to send you to 1989."
Aoko Aozaki spoke in a serious tone.
"But whether you can save Touko-nee-san depends entirely on your own efforts. I can't guarantee anything.
If you've got the ability, then try persuading my past self."
"...Thank you, Aoko-nee-san!"
Shirou could not help lowering his head.
What filled his heart was less gratitude than deep emotion.
He understood very well what Aoko's permission meant.
Shirou would be sent back eight years, to a time when Aoko still knew nothing about the future.
In other words...
If it came to that, even directly killing Aoko in order to prevent Touko's death would be possible.
No one could agree to something like that without trusting Shirou with their life.
"Thank you so much... Aoko-nee-san, I won't let your trust go to waste.
I'll protect not only Touko Aozaki, but you too, Aoko-nee-san. Even if it costs me my life."
"All right, all right. I'm not used to being thanked this seriously."
The Magician turned her face away in embarrassment.
She understood a little better now why Alice had fallen so easily.
Just as Shirou and Aoko were about to sit down and discuss the details of the time travel further...
"...I don't agree."
The witch's murmur snapped both of them back to attention.
"Time travel and all that... don't be ridiculous."
Shirou and Aoko Aozaki exchanged looks, then turned toward the black-haired girl.
"You two are being far too selfish. Far too selfish.
Amamiya-kun is still a child, so one thing leads to another... but Aoko, are you seriously going to join him in this nonsense too?"
"Alice-san?" "Alice?"
There was a hint of tension in the Magician's voice.
Shirou was certain it was not his imagination. The air in the café had grown heavier and heavier.
Alice Kuonji remained silent, staring at the two of them with pitch-black eyes utterly devoid of emotion.
"Changing the past... is that really something you two can decide so casually on your own?"
"Um, Alice-san..."
"Amamiya-kun, please be quiet for a moment."
"..."
Shirou wisely shut his mouth and trembled in silence.
"I don't agree," the witch declared coldly.
Their plan was to use the Fifth Magic to send Shirou back eight years, so he could persuade Aoko.
If it succeeded, then Touko Aozaki, who had died, could be saved.
But at the same time, that also meant...
Aoko would meet Shirou earlier than she had in the present.
Alice's meeting with Shirou would be pushed back until after Aoko.
And then the time Alice and Shirou had spent together in the mansion...
That one week, the time the witch treasured like a jewel, would all be forgotten, abandoned. It would cease to exist.
"..."
In a voice colder than absolute zero, Alice Kuonji murmured,
"That kind of thing, I absolutely, absolutely…won't allow it.."