"Hey, Alice, what do you think Shirou is to me?"
After dinner, while Shirou went to borrow the bathroom, Aoko Aozaki threw that question at her housemate.
"You said before that he's someone connected to the Fifth Magic, and he didn't deny it, right?
That means Shirou has some kind of connection to 'the future me.'"
The girl fell silent for a few seconds, then answered, "I don't know," and lowered her head to keep reading.
"Even you don't know, Alice? I've got a few theories, though."
Sitting cross-legged on the sofa, Aoko began laying out her analysis.
"The first theory, and in a sense the one people would think of most easily, is this.
Look, Shirou has red hair too, doesn't he? So that boy must be my descendant from the future."
Alice's eyebrow twitched. What did red hair have to do with anything?
Aoko's hair was obviously not red.
Touko's hair did fall on the red side, but that was dyed. Her natural hair was black, and Alice had seen it when they were children.
Aoko said, "Don't manga have plots like that too?
A grandson living in the 22nd century sends a blue cat-shaped robot back to his grandfather to change the fate of his useless ancestor.
Shirou's case would be like this.
A grandson who admires his grandmother uses Aozaki family Magic to jump to this era so he can help his grandmother when she's in trouble."
Alice was speechless. Don't tell me you spent the whole walk to school today thinking about this.
"If that were true, then that kid wouldn't be your grandson. He'd be the robot cat."
"And that brings us to the second theory."
Aoko said, "And this is also the one I think is most likely."
Alice's interest was stirred a little, and she asked without thinking, "What is it?"
"Shirou is my familiar," Aoko said.
"...What."
Familiar expert Alice Kuonji was so stunned by her housemate's utterly absurd idea that she couldn't say anything else.
"Try looking at it from a different angle. Shirou didn't jump to 1989 through his own will or power.
That boy was sent to this era at the request or command of 'future Aoko.'"
"Aoko, your idea is certainly interesting. You could turn it into a manga. But I have to remind you that it's impossible."
Setting aside exceptions like the Kuonji family, a magus's familiar was generally a small animal.
However, if one wanted to create a familiar with Magic Circuits, a living creature couldn't be used. The material had to be the corpse of a small animal.
Through various methods, for example using accumulated hair as a medium, a magus would reincarnate the animal's corpse into an entirely different being.
Once reborn, the animal could understand human speech, or even disguise itself as a human.
Its behavioral principles would also change, and it would generally take on a personality similar to its caster's.
Aoko was probably trying to say that Shirou only looked like a boy, and was actually some kind of Phantasmal Species transformed from a small animal, Alice thought.
But judging by the overwhelming combat ability Shirou had shown in the forest and at the amusement park, that was impossible.
A small animal was still just a small animal. No matter how outstanding the master was, the base material for the familiar was simply too weak.
Alice had heard that, under certain special circumstances, familiars with powerful special abilities could be born.
For example, a succubus made from the corpse of a cat.
But it was absolutely impossible for a familiar based on a small animal to possess the kind of direct combat power Shirou had.
...Actually, there was one other possibility.
That would be using a dead human instead of a small animal as the material to create a familiar.
Toying with the dead was already the realm of heretical evil arts.
Alice sucked in a sharp breath. Had "future Aoko" become an evil dark magician?
Alice said, "And why would you even do that?
Aoko, you're the type who'd rather handle things yourself than go through the trouble of 'making a familiar,' aren't you?"
"The reason for making a familiar... couldn't it be because I wanted to compete with someone?"
Aoko stared straight at her housemate without the slightest attempt to hide it.
Alice looked back at her with boundless sympathy.
"So just because you wanted to compete with me, you started messing around with human corpses... Aoko, I used to think kindness was your one good point."
"What are you even thinking, idiot!"
Feeling offended by the look on her housemate's face, Aoko puffed out her lips and complained.
"I'm asking you, why are you so hung up on dead things?"
"What do you mean?"
Aoko said, "Shirou is a living human being, and he's also my familiar."
"That only makes it worse. Controlling a living human."
Aoko hurriedly waved both hands. "No, no, no, that's not what I mean. I mean Shirou became my familiar willingly!"
Alice said flatly, "Then he isn't a familiar. He's a collaborator. The basic requirement for becoming a familiar is that it is not the caster, and not a living being.
Second, it must possess intelligence and the ability to carry out tasks that compensate for the caster's weaknesses. That is the requirement for a first-rate familiar.
And it also has to obey absolutely. Honestly, no matter how exceptional something is, if you want to make it into a familiar, you have to wait until after it dies.
Are you saying that boy willingly became Aoko Aozaki's slave?"
"Slave is way too harsh a word, okay~"
For some reason, Aoko grew even more animated.
Alice was already used to it. Ever since Shirou appeared, Aoko had been in inexplicably high spirits.
"Couldn't the thing connecting Shirou and me be something other than magecraft, curses, or contracts?"
"What thing?"
As a witch, the girl couldn't understand. Was there really anything in this world more binding than magecraft?
Aoko's cheeks turned faintly red as she spoke hesitantly.
"There is. Something stronger than magecraft. Like... love?"
That word coming out of Aoko's mouth nearly made Alice choke on her own saliva.
After all, the image of that word was so far removed from Aoko Aozaki.
Alice Kuonji was the world's last witch, one who could not keep up with the times, so she was fated to have no connection to "romance."
But Aoko was different. As a human girl, she seemed naturally incompatible with the very concept of "romance."
"What kind of monster do you think I am? Even I can fall in love, okay!"
Aoko shouted the complaint, her face red.
There was no doubt. That had to be it.
"Shirou is both my familiar and my lover.
At that moment, I felt something like fate."
Alice said coldly, "To openly declare that a twelve-year-old boy is the fated lover in your life.
Aoko, in a sense, you're invincible."
After blurting out everything she had been bottling up for so long, even Aoko herself felt unbearably embarrassed.
It was nothing but a one-sided fantasy, yet somewhere in her heart she had already decided that Shirou was "future Aoko's" lover, and believed it completely.
Mortified, she hurriedly changed the subject.
"B-but putting that aside, Alice, it feels like things between you and Shirou have gotten a lot better, right?
Last night you looked like you were ready to 'find a chance to secretly deal with him while Aoko isn't around,' but today that feeling is completely gone.
Even the atmosphere at dinner just now seemed pretty good."
"I've only accepted it because I had no choice, and besides..."
"And besides?"
Alice said, "He promised me he wouldn't interfere with me."
Aoko said, "That's so cold... It's not like getting along with him would kill you."
The living room fell quiet, and for a while neither of them said anything.
"What's wrong, Alice? Are you in a bad mood?"
Aoko spoke up after noticing the subtle shift in Alice's mood.
She realized that the tense edge Alice usually carried around her housemate had disappeared, replaced by a trace of dejection.
Alice looked at the mottled floor and said, "It's not that my relationship with that boy has improved.
I still don't understand him, just like before. How can I trust someone I don't understand?"
"Yeah... then why are you?"
"Because I understand you. Your choices are always right, so I want to trust the character of the person you trust."
"..."
Alice didn't understand Shirou, nor did she intend to.
But since Aoko, her partner, trusted him, then Alice could trust him as well.
Alice said she couldn't trust someone she didn't understand.
Then the reverse was also true. If she wanted to trust someone, she would want to understand that person deeply.
"Wow, that actually sounded pretty sincere. So you really trust me that much, Alice?"
"...Yes. Whether I like you or not is a separate matter. I trust you, that's all."
Just then, Shirou returned to the living room after finishing his bath.
Aoko sprang up from the sofa as if launched, ran over, and affectionately wrapped herself around the boy's arm.
At the sight of that, Alice abruptly turned her face away and looked out the window.
It only lasted a few seconds, but she suddenly felt that Aoko was a very happy girl.
At least, far happier than Alice Kuonji.
...
...
Their next clash with Touko Aozaki came on an utterly ordinary afternoon.
Even though he had already moved out of the church attic, Shirou had not forgotten the kindness shown to him when he had nowhere to go.
He told Sister Yuika that while he could not promise anything long-term, as long as he was still in Misaki, he would come to the church to help out at least twice a week.
And when Shirou said that, some irrelevant bystander in the church happened to overhear him.
"If you've got that much free time, Shirou-chan, how about coming over and helping me out?" said the woman.
Her name was Ritsuka Suse.
She was the highly suspicious beauty who had struck up a conversation with him on the very night Shirou had jumped to this era, then brought him to the church.
Compared to her mature and steady younger sister, Sister Yuika, Ritsuka gave off an air of complete carelessness from head to toe.
It was hard to imagine that this one was the older sister. Did this person even do her job properly? And as for her figure...
The gap in wealth between the two sisters was even greater than that between the magician and the witch in Misaki Town.
Even so, she really had helped Shirou when he was in trouble.
"Really? Great! Then no time like the present. Shirou-chan, come over to my place tonight, clean up, and make dinner for me while you're at it!"
Ritsuka Suse beamed, then dragged the boy off toward her apartment.
It was a perfectly ordinary two-story apartment building you could find anywhere.
Shirou had heard people say that places like this were usually rented by college students with no money.
It seemed that not only were nuns poor, but life was not easy for low-level magi either.
That was right. Ritsuka Suse was actually a magus, something Shirou had noticed the first time he saw her.
It was just that unlike an heir to Magic or the last Meister, Ritsuka Suse was not even third-rate as a magus.
If Morgan had not picked Shirou up back then, his future in life would probably have turned out much the same as hers.
"...What's wrong, Shirou-chan?"
Ritsuka Suse turned back to look at the boy.
Standing at the apartment entrance, Shirou was staring sternly at the ground by the door.
"If you're about to say this apartment is too shabby and you don't want to go in, I'm going to hit you, okay?"
"Ritsuka-san."
Narrowing his eyes, Shirou asked, "Have you offended someone recently?"
"Huh... what do you mean by that?"
Ritsuka Suse blinked. "Come to think of it, I have been hearing someone trying to pick my lock late at night lately."
"You weren't imagining it. There's a trap set on this room... probably by the person you took for a thief."
Shirou crouched down and touched the line where the door met the floor.
"There's something filthy hidden in here. This is..."
Shirou frowned slightly.
It was an extremely sophisticated trap, far beyond anything his own third-rate magecraft could possibly undo.
"Ritsuka-san, would it be okay if I destroyed this entire apartment building?"
"No, absolutely not! What are you even thinking!"
Ritsuka Suse wailed miserably. "Are you trying to saddle me with a debt I'd never pay off in my whole life?!"
"All right."
Shirou took a deep breath. Since he could not destroy it through physical means, then...
Accompanied by the brilliant light of Projection magecraft, a jet-black katana appeared in the boy's hand.
Like "Blade of Chaos" and "Aegis," this was also one of the weapons Shirou had possessed from the very beginning.
Its name was "Yamato," the demonic sword that separates "human" from "demon."
It possessed the power of "separation." It could not only cut through space, but also create pathways within it. It was even said that its true nature was that of a key capable of opening the gates of hell.
"Huh? A sword? Why are you taking out something that dangerous, Shirou-chan?! I already said you can't break anything~~~"
Ignoring Ritsuka Suse's miserable cries, Shirou silently drew the blade from its sheath.
"...Hmph!"
"Yamato" swept down toward the boundary between outside and inside.
"——————"
The floor of the apartment was split open.
But it was not split in the physical sense. Rather, it was as though a zipper had been opened there, leaving behind a slit.
Then, from that crack in time and space, some black object jumped out.
"What... is that...?"
Ritsuka Suse's voice came out hoarse with shock.
It was a shadow.
Even under the afternoon sun, it was still perfectly visible. A completely black, flat shadow with no thickness.
Dragged out into the open, the shadow familiar lunged at Shirou in humiliation and rage.
In a single flash.
The shadow vanished into dust.
"Huh?"
Ritsuka Suse stood there blankly.
Shirou had swung a blade imbued with some powerful Mystery and cut the shadow monster in two.
That sounded simple enough, but it was actually a misdirection.
Because Shirou had not cut at the shadow monster at all. He had slashed into empty air in another direction.
There had apparently been nothing there, yet the moment Shirou struck, the shadow monster lunging at him vanished instantly as well.
No, that direction had not been empty after all.
Shirou had definitely cut something, something even a magus's eyes could not see.
Most likely it had some kind of invisibility or unrecognizability magecraft cast on it. Only after it fell did it finally take on a visible form.
It was a familiar made in the shape of a bird.
Its body and wings were made of brass wire, and its eyes were rubies.
Inside the familiar, something like a miniature film reel was turning, projecting some kind of light through the gem eyes.
The moment it was cut down by Shirou, the flat black shadow monster was destroyed as well.
"The shadow monster was only a projected image."
Staring at the shattered bird familiar, Shirou quietly explained that this was the real body.
Ritsuka Suse finally understood. So that was why Shirou had not gone straight for the shadow.
Even a demonic sword that could slice through space like butter obviously could not cut a shadow cast upon the air.
No, more accurately, even if it could cut it, as long as the slide projector kept running, the shadow could revive endlessly.
That was the trap buried at the entrance to Ritsuka Suse's apartment.
A Mystic Code far beyond the proper standard of modern magecraft.
Yet compared to the shadow familiar, what was truly frightening was Shirou's terrifying insight, seeing through the magus's trick in an instant.
"Shirou-chan... how on earth did you figure that out?"
A layer of awe had entered Ritsuka Suse's eyes as she looked at the boy.
No matter how sharp someone's intuition was, reacting in a life-or-death moment like that should have been impossible.
With a serious expression, Shirou said something that sounded almost like a joke.
"Mm, I've killed shadow-like monsters before. Ones as tall as mountains and as many as the sea.
Those things were noticeably different from that shadow monster just now, so I could tell something was off. The real body had to be something else."
Even if the boy claimed it was merely a lucky coincidence, Ritsuka Suse could not believe that.
Because what Shirou had just shown was not merely keen eyesight. The casual slash he had thrown out had also been on a level beyond human understanding.
Ritsuka Suse could not help but think about that flash just now...
Could the Aozaki sisters' senpai, the man who had killed the magician, have delivered a slash like that?
Shirou and the others had been distracted by the trap, so they failed to notice.
Besides them, there had been someone else present who had witnessed the entire scene.
It was the woman who had come to catch up with an old friend, and the woman who had set the trap at the door.
"So that makes the forest, the amusement park, and now this... third time already. Did I somehow offend him?"
Standing in the parking lot beneath the apartment building, the red-haired female magus, Touko Aozaki, wore a sly and dangerous smile.
"Oh well. This is a good chance to go say hello."
...
If you'd like to support my work and unlock advanced chapters, you can follow me on p-@-treon.
[email protected]/PinkSnake (50 Chapters Ahead).
You can also follow as a free member to read a few advanced chapters.