Shirou woke beneath the morning sunlight.
He had not slept especially well last night, but it was not because he had grown used to the luxury of the Kuonji Mansion and could no longer handle a hard wooden bed.
"That Lady Avalon... she actually chased me into my dreams."
He had thought the time travel would go completely unnoticed, but someone had still caught on. Last night, Shirou spent a full two hours in a dream getting lectured by Lady Avalon.
Stretching, Shirou climbed down the ladder from the attic.
This was the Aida Church, located in the city center of Misaki City.
As for why Shirou had ended up spending the night here, that went back to last night, when he headed near the shopping district hoping to grab a late-night snack and fill his stomach.
That Aoko. She actually forgot to give me any money. Not even a hundred yen on me, what kind of joke is this?
Just as Shirou stood there hungry and completely at a loss, a beautiful older woman called out to him.
"My, what a cute boy. Why aren't you home this late? Ah... are you a lost child?"
She looked younger than thirty, and on a freezing winter night she was not even wearing a coat.
At first glance she seemed very kind, but Shirou caught a whiff of something suspicious.
When the boy showed his wariness, the woman simply invited him to come with her.
That only made Shirou more curious.
Well, in the worst case he would just accidentally walk into another Matou residence and punish evil.
That is right, a righteous case of taking over the magpie's nest.
And then.
The woman led Shirou to a white building with a cross standing before it.
Unlike the tiny Fuyuki Church, the Aida Church occupied a great deal of land.
For a rural town, it was honestly a little too large.
The one who came out to greet them was a nun, her tight black habit clinging to a voluptuous figure utterly lacking in ascetic restraint.
Her eyes were closed, yet she walked straight ahead without issue, and all her other movements were perfectly normal too.
The nun kept her brows tightly knit, her delicate face shadowed with gloom, and repeatedly asked the woman who had brought Shirou in,
"Are you certain he is a lost child?"
Once she received confirmation, the nun turned to Shirou with an expression that looked like she was questioning life itself.
In the end, the nun prepared a late-night meal for Shirou.
And after learning that Shirou was a homeless child, she offered him an empty room in the church attic.
When Shirou climbed down from the attic, he happened to run into the nun making breakfast.
He offered to help, and the tension in her face eased at once.
So the two of them made breakfast together.
"My name is Yuika Suse. You may call me Sister Yuika. And your name?"
"Amamiya... I see. That is a very nice name. It suits your air quite well."
The blind nun's tone was calm, but with a trace of cool detachment.
Last night, Shirou had told her that he wanted to stay at the church for a few days, and asked her not to question the reason or tell anyone else where he was.
It was an utterly absurd request.
After only a brief moment of thought, Sister Yuika agreed.
Of course, Shirou had already seen this outcome reflected in his Mystic Eyes of the End, which could perceive human nature.
During the time he had lived at the mansion, Shirou had learned from Aoko about the concept of dividing people into nine attributes, or alignments.
Chaotic, Neutral, Lawful.
Good, Neutral, Evil.
In Shirou's eyes, if Aoko's alignment was Lawful:Good, then Alice Kuonji's was Chaotic: Good.
And the nun before him, who had dedicated her life to God, was Neutral: Neutral... or something along those lines.
Through the Mystic Eyes of the End, Shirou could see neither good nor evil nor mercy in her. What she possessed was only the purest loving kindness born from true neutrality.
Faced with the sole request of a homeless child, no matter how absurd that request might be, Sister Yuika would never refuse it.
That meant his lodging until he could reunite with Alice and the others was settled.
Sister Yuika really was a rare good person.
Even the attic bed and floor, which had clearly gone unused for years, were spotless. She must have cleaned them with great care on a regular basis.
Shirou's prejudiced view of the clergy had softened.
"Do you have any plans for today, Amamiya-kun?"
While drinking oatmeal porridge in the church dining hall, Sister Yuika suddenly asked Shirou.
At the moment, Shirou did not have a single yen to his name.
He was thinking of seeing whether there was any part-time work willing to take him in, and then using the remaining time to investigate Touko Aozaki's side of things.
Although the future Aoko and Alice had an information advantage, at this point in time they still did not even know who the enemy was.
So whether Touko Aozaki herself had already entered Misaki City was something Shirou would have to investigate on his own.
"Sister Yuika, this morning I was planning to look around nearby..."
"Christmas is almost here, and the church has been short-handed the whole time."
The blind nun cut Shirou off.
"Ritsuka keeps skipping work, Father Eiri is nowhere to be seen all day, and fewer and fewer students are coming to help... which leaves me as the only laborer.
At the end of the day, the people of this town simply lack faith.
To actually say they do not want to work without pay, what exactly do they think life is?
If you spend every day full of material desires, then no matter how comfortable your life may be, your soul will still be poor."
Sister Yuika muttered her complaints, then with a sharp "Hup!" lifted a table with one hand.
It was a long table that could normally seat well over ten people, and she raised it effortlessly in one hand.
Shirou: "..."
Sister Yuika: "Amamiya-kun, if you have time during the day, would you mind helping clean the church?
Ah, if you truly do not have the time, then that is fine.
You may simply eat, drink, and stay here for free. The house of God will always remain open to you..."
"Please let me help with the cleaning, Sister Yuika," Shirou said hurriedly.
Now he finally understood why one of the tips Aoko had left him was, "Do not casually go near Aida Church!"
...
...
Shirou worked from ten in the morning until three in the afternoon before he was finally free.
The Aida Church was enormous, and yet Sister Yuika really did seem to be the only staff member there. At least, Shirou hadn't seen anyone else the entire day.
After saying goodbye to Sister Yuika, he left the church and headed for Touko Aozaki's temporary base.
The old school building in the forest behind Misaki High School.
According to information from the future, Touko had already set up a Magical Workshop there a year ago, leaving behind the familiar she intended to use as her trump card in the final battle.
Still, Shirou had no intention of making contact with that familiar. If he interfered with history too much and caused a Singularity, that would be a disaster.
This trip was only meant to confirm one thing, whether Touko herself had already entered Misaki City.
Shirou still didn't know what Touko looked like. When he asked Aoko for a photo, she answered, "I burned them all," then added, "The second Shirou sees her, he'll know. She's just that hateful a woman!"
A barrier had been set over the forest.
Shirou had been ready to complain about how Aoko, as Misaki High's student council president, could be completely unaware that a Magus had set up a barrier on school grounds, but the barrier really was skillful. It was far better than the one on the top floor of the Hyatt Hotel.
Excellent as it was, though, it still had flaws.
Shirou adjusted his presence to match that of an ordinary Misaki High student he might pass in town, then walked right in without a hint of hesitation.
Even if Touko noticed, she would probably just assume some mischievous student had wandered in to play and leave it alone.
Following the clues, Shirou quickly found the old school building.
Touko wasn't there after all.
At this point in time, she was probably making her final preparations for the battle ahead.
To make sure no one interfered in the duel between the Aozaki sisters, Touko ought to be swamped right now, with more things to handle than she could count.
It was a little disappointing not to meet the legendary beautiful older sister, but Shirou still returned to the church before night fell.
Aside from the three Slit-Mouthed Men he had taken out in the forest the night before last, several of the watchers Touko had planted were still lurking around the city. The mansion side could hardly leave them alone forever.
Because of what happened in the forest, where Aoko, who had only been there to observe and learn, was suddenly attacked by the enemy, Alice would be much more careful tonight about going out alone.
Which meant it was Shirou's turn to carry out the "second task" assigned by the Magician-sama, raising "past Alice's" favorability.
"Balance matters, you know. It's not enough for you to earn my trust alone. You need to win Alice over properly too."
"Future Aoko" had asked, "Alice, what would Shirou have to do to earn your trust?"
"..."
The witch of the mansion had stayed silent, looking very much like she had no desire to answer.
Watching her reaction, Shirou had already come up with an answer.
If he wanted to gain the trust of a witch who lacked a sense of security, then the quickest way was probably to create a secret shared between just the two of them.
...
"Tonight I'm going to get rid of the intruders in the city. I can handle it alone."
That was the first thing Alice had said in the living room in two days.
Because they disagreed over the mysterious boy, the biggest cold war in history had broken out between Aoko and Alice.
Alice had also tried using the "Mirror of Slumber" to search for the red-haired boy, but found nothing.
Clearly, the boy's anti-detection Magecraft was far more sophisticated than the intruders'.
Of course, there was no way Alice could know that her future self was the one who had taught it to Shirou.
"I can fight too."
Aoko was silent for a moment before speaking.
She knew her housemate was worried about her safety, but staying at home at a time like this simply wasn't in her nature.
For the past two days, Aoko had spent her daylight hours searching for the boy who had saved her.
She had even used the student council's influence to get people in the shopping district and the residential areas to help look, but not a single sighting came back.
Thinking he must have used some kind of Magecraft to hide himself, Aoko went to see Sister Yuika at the Aida Church.
The nun regretfully told her she had never met any such boy.
Aoko wanted to see him one more time.
It wasn't because she had words of gratitude she wanted to say.
At this point, even if it was out of sheer stubbornness, she still wanted to prove to Alice that she had been right.
"If that boy really is the enemy, I'll kill him with my own hands."
Aoko's voice carried both threat and pleading. "Let me come with you tonight."
"No."
Alice refused without hesitation. "If you have that much free time, you should practice suggestion more. You've been studying all this time and still can't remember any Magecraft besides destruction."
After saying that, the girl took her coat from the rack and turned toward the front door.
Aoko watched her back in silence.
Once her housemate had disappeared from the mansion, Aoko put on her own coat and slipped out after her.
...
In the latter half of the 1980s, Japanese cities had finally begun to settle down after their period of explosive growth and entered a more stable phase.
During that age of reckless expansion, people had been blinded and swept up in the fever of the moment, building infrastructure far beyond anything they actually needed.
The 350,000-square-meter amusement park "Kitsy Land" was just one small reflection of that era.
A small city like Misaki could never support a facility that large. "Kitsy Land" lasted only five years after opening before poor management and constant losses forced it to shut down.
After the bubble burst, that ruined land of dreams stood in the middle of the city like a tombstone, telling the story of that absurd past.
And now, in the present.
At midnight, "Kitsy Land" had long since lost every trace of its former prosperity.
"To use a place like this as a base. Is that tasteful, or completely tasteless?"
Alice cast a sidelong glance at a doll piled away in the corner of a toy box, then passed through the amusement park's front gate and quietly entered the grounds.
"Hey diddle diddle, The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon
The little dog laughed..."
As the girl dropped a cat bell onto the ground, Alice Kuonji's nursery rhyme incantation, Mother Goose, seeped into the night.
"…Found you."
Alice walked toward the source of the enemy presence.
And there, she saw something she hadn't expected.
It looked as though a massacre had just taken place. Charred remains were scattered all across the ground in a hideous mess.
Every enemy had died the same way, which meant one person had done all of this.
Then again, there was probably no need to deduce anything. The culprit had made no effort to hide.
"..."
Alice stared expressionlessly at the red-haired boy standing beneath the moon.
So he wasn't planning to run this time. Even though he had fled faster than anyone the other night?
Then that meant, just like that night, he had known in advance what she would do tonight and had deliberately waited here for her.
Alice herself didn't realize it, but the hostility in her heart had already lessened quite a bit.
Which was exactly what Shirou had been hoping for.
By Shirou's reckoning, if Aoko had been there, Alice would most likely have shown outright hostility and treated him as an enemy.
But if the two of them were alone, then Alice just might be willing to hear him out.
Next, Shirou would tell Alice who he was and where he had come from, win her over with sincerity, and then play his finishing move.
"Please don't tell Aoko who I am. This is a secret between the two of us."
If Alice had leverage over him, she would feel more secure. Once that happened, she would lower her guard and start trusting him.
Shirou felt like a complete genius.
"Alice-san."
Facing the witch's gaze head-on, Shirou spoke with a grave expression. "Actually... I'm from the future."
All of a sudden, the bushes nearby rustled.
The two of them looked over at the same time, only to see Aoko Aozaki crouching furtively in the shadows, her face frozen in shock.
"..."
Shirou's mind went blank.