The phone rang at exactly seven in the evening. Kakine had been expecting it. He was seated at the small table in his mansion, with a mug of hot chocolate and muffins on the side. He had a notebook of half finished diagrams opened in front of him, working out formulas for bounded fields.
He reached over and picked up the receiver.
"…Hello?"
"Kakine."
His grandfather's voice was calm and familiar, carrying a faint crackle through the line.
"How are you doing?"
Kakine leaned back in his chair. "I'm alive."
There was a pause.
"…That's not reassuring."
He huffed softly. "I'm fine. Tired. Worked all day."
"Worked?" his grandfather repeated. "You found employment at 9 years old?"
"Sort of," Kakine replied. "I'm… helping out a magus."
Another pause, but it was longer.
"…Helping."
"Yeah. I made a deal. I get access to ley lines, she gets my labor."
Silence.
Kakine frowned slightly. "Grandpa?"
"…Who?" his grandfather asked quietly. "Who are you working for?"
Kakine didn't think much of it.
"Touko Aozaki."
The effect was immediate.
On the other end of the line, there was a sharp inhale, almost a gasp. Followed by several seconds of dead silence.
"…Grandpa?"
"…You said," his grandfather finally spoke, very slowly, "Touko… Aozaki?"
"Yeah," Kakine replied. "Red hair. Glasses. Runs a workshop called Gara no Dō. Kind of annoying. Bad with money."
Another inhale.
"Kakine," his grandfather said, his voice suddenly strained, "how did you meet her?"
"…I knocked on her door."
"…You what?"
"I knocked," Kakine repeated. "Her friend answered. Then she talked to me. We made a deal."
There was a soft sound on the other end, like someone sitting down heavily. "Kakine," his grandfather said, "do you have any idea who you are working for?"
"…A strong magus?"
"That is an understatement."
He took a breath, steadying himself.
"Touko Aozaki is a Sealing Designate."
Kakine wasn't really that aware of the term, he figured that he'd just got on the clocktower's bad side or something of sort. His grandfather was gonna come back to teach him english and clock tower politics later on, but he didn't really study it beforehand. If his grandfather was going to explain it later, why not focus on the stuff he wanted to learn now?
"Do you know what that means?"
"…That the Clock Tower doesn't like her?"
His grandfather let out a humorless laugh.
"It means the Association considers her knowledge dangerous enough to warrant permanent capture. It means entire departments have failed to restrain her. It means she has escaped execution more times than most magi live to see."
Kakine slowly straightened in his chair.
"…What?"
"She is a pioneer of puppetcraft. A master of bounded fields. A genius in thaumaturgical theory. And utterly irresponsible." That last part was said with tired certainty.
"She treats laws, regulations, and traditions as mild inconveniences. If she decides to do something, she will do it. Consequences come later, if at all."
Kakine's mind replayed Touko lounging in her chair, surrounded by junk, telling him to clean her boxes.
"…She made me sign a contract," he said. "No geas or No curse."
"That means she doesn't think she needs one," his grandfather replied immediately.
The words hit harder than Kakine expected.
"…Is that bad?"
"Yes."
There was no hesitation.
"It means she believes she can control the situation without safeguards. It means she believes you are either harmless… or useful."
"…Probably the second," Kakine muttered.
His grandfather sighed.
"Kakine. Listen to me. Working under Touko Aozaki is not like apprenticing to a normal magus. She attracts disaster. The Association watches her constantly. Enforcers, Executors, rival families, sooner or later, trouble will come to her door."
"And I'll be standing next to it," Kakine finished.
"…Yes."
They were quiet for a moment.
Then Kakine spoke.
"She's letting me use the ley lines," he said. "Freely. As long as I don't mess up."
Another pause.
"That alone is… extraordinary," his grandfather admitted. "She does not share resources unless she sees potential."
Kakine stared at the tabletop.
"…So I'm not dead yet."
"No," his grandfather said softly. "You are not."
Then, more firmly:
"But you must be careful. Watch. Learn. Do not imitate her recklessness. Do not assume her enemies will show you the same tolerance."
"I know," Kakine replied.
He meant it. Touko seemed fairly calm, but his grandfather sounded like he'd have a heart attack. The line was quiet again. Not the tense, alarmed silence from before, this one was slower, heavier. Like his grandfather was thinking carefully about what to say next.
"…There's something else," his grandfather said at last.
Kakine shifted in his chair. "What?"
"The Clock Tower has been… changing," he replied. "Subtly. Over the past few years."
"Changing how?"
"A new professor in Modern Magecraft has been making waves," his grandfather said. "Young magi have been flocking to his classes. Talents, heirs, prodigies. Even families that normally keep to themselves are sending their children."
Kakine frowned. "He's that good?"
"Yes," his grandfather said without hesitation. "Some are already calling him the best of his generation."
There was a faint pause.
"I spoke to him recently."
"You… know him?"
"We have crossed paths," his grandfather replied. "Professionally."
Kakine waited.
"He is sharp. Methodical. Ambitious," his grandfather continued. "And very interested in unconventional talent."
That made Kakine's attention sharpen.
"…Meaning?"
"Meaning," his grandfather said slowly, "that in a few years, when you are old enough, you will likely be attending his classroom."
Kakine blinked.
"The Clock Tower?"
"Yes."
The word carried weight. He didn't even know English, so going somewhere abroad to learn wasn't really in his plans. He was planning on just laying low and staying in the city and not making any moves. Now it made sense why his grandfather was scared I was associating with Aozaki. If people at the clock tower knew I might get a sealing designation by pure association with her.
"This man," his grandfather went on, "will shape the next generation of modern magi. His students will become department heads, Lords, researchers, enforcers. If you walk that path, you will cross him eventually."
"And if I don't?"
"Then he will still hear about you," his grandfather said. "One way or another."
Kakine exhaled slowly.
"…Great."
His grandfather's voice softened.
"Kakine. The world you are stepping into is larger than you think. I have really high hopes for you, and think you'll be a great heir."
Kakine smiled a bit at hearing his praise, he was rather looking forward to the future of his new life. It would be filled with struggle but hopefully this struggle would pay off.
With that his grandfather hung up the phone. Kakine was feeling surprisingly relaxed after all that. Touko was dangerous but he didn't feel much actual malice from her whenever they spoke.
Kakine lowered the receiver back into its cradle and sat there for a moment, staring at it. Then he leaned back in his chair and let out a slow breath.
"…Best of his generation, huh," he muttered.
Clock Tower. Professors. Lords. Sealing Designates.
It all felt distant. Unreal.
A few weeks ago, his biggest concern had been whether his calculations were off by a decimal point. Hell in his old life, him being a model student sounded impossible to even conceive. Now he was apparently standing at the edge of a world filled with monsters in human form.
He shook his head and looked back down at his notebook.
If he was going to survive in that world, worrying about it wouldn't help.
He picked up his pen.
The half-finished diagram in front of him depicted a simplified ley line convergence: three intersecting flows, layered over a bounded field framework. He'd been trying to figure out how to stabilize output without relying on external anchors.
Most modern magi used catalysts. Relics, talismans and spirit cores. Those things were all reliable, but they all had just as good a chance of failure. Kakine didn't like that. He scribbled a new formula in the margin.
If the foundation is reinforced through recursive feedback… No. That wasted too much energy. He crossed it out. What if he treated the ley line like a current instead of a reservoir? Redirect instead of store.
His pen moved faster. A rough model formed, mana flow cycling through layered sigils, feeding back into itself, stabilizing through harmonic resonance rather than brute-force containment.
Then the phone rang. The sharp and sudden sound was loud enough to slice straight through Kakine's thoughts.
He flinched, his pen slipping and dragging an ugly line across the page.
"…Tch."
He stared at the ruined formula for half a second, then slowly set the pen down.
With a quiet sigh, Kakine reached over and picked up the receiver.
"…Hello?"
"Took you long enough," Touko's voice snapped through the line. "Get dressed. I need you at the office."
Kakine frowned. "It's late."
"And?" she shot back. "This isn't about clutter. It's serious this time."
That single sentence made him straighten. It was rather strange for the playful office lady to sound so serious.
"…What happened?"
There was a brief pause.
"Fairies," Touko said.
Kakine blinked, weren't fairies at the reverse side of the world or something like that? What were they doing in modern times, when mystery was already fading.
"Not the cute kind. Ley-line parasites. Memory-eaters. The annoying kind that turns places into psychological minefields." She sighed. "A cluster broke loose at my apprentices school and I sent her to handle it, but some of them escaped."
"But won't they fade with time?" Kakine asked. "Fairy familiars should disappear once their master loses control."
There was a sharp click on the other end of the line, like Touko lighting a cigarette.
"Normally, yes," she said. "If they were proper familiars, tied neatly to a contract, they'd evaporate in a few hours."
Her voice hardened.
"These aren't."
"…Meaning?"
"They've gone feral," Touko replied. "They've turned against their master, and have wandered off into the world on their own. Instead of fading, they've switched to survival mode."
Kakine felt a chill run up his spine.
"They're feeding," she continued. "On ambient mana. On emotional residue. On people, if they get close enough. Fear, stress, exhaustion, anything with a spiritual footprint. It's more than enough to keep them stable."
"So they're… self-sustaining," Kakine muttered.
"Exactly," Touko said. "Little parasites with wings and bad attitudes. As long as there are humans around, they won't disappear."
There was a brief pause.
"And right now," she added quietly, "they're loose in a school."
Kakine let out a slow breath through his nose.
"…I'll be there in a second," he said. "Just wait."
"Good," Touko replied immediately. "Don't dawdle."
The line went dead.
Kakine stared at the receiver for a moment before lowering it back into its cradle.
"…A school," he muttered.
Of all places.
He glanced back down at his notebook. The half-finished formula, the intersecting sigils, the messy correction where his pen had slipped, weeks of quiet progress, all sitting there unfinished.
Reluctantly, he pushed his chair back and stood.
"Guess this is on hold."
He flipped the notebook shut, carefully sliding a thin bookmark between the pages so he wouldn't lose his place. Then he gathered the loose papers scattered across the table, stacking them neatly and tapping the edges into alignment.
One by one, he filed them into a drawer beneath the desk.
Diagrams. Flow charts. Experimental drafts.
All of it would have to wait.
After making sure nothing important was left out, Kakine pulled on his jacket and slipped his backpack over his shoulder. He paused at the doorway, casting one last glance at the quiet room.
His hot chocolate was now lukewarm and his muffins were still untouched.
A peaceful evening, officially cancelled.
"…Figures," he murmured.
He turned off the lights, locked the door behind him, and stepped out into the night. He crossed the front yard at a brisk pace and near the gate, leaning against the fence, was his electric scooter.
Kakine grabbed the handlebars, flicked the power switch, and stepped on. The motor hummed softly as it came to life. With one last glance back at the mansion, he pushed off and rolled onto the empty street.
Streetlights passed overhead in steady intervals, their pale glow flashing across the pavement as he picked up speed. The quiet of the neighborhood was broken only by the low whir of the scooter and the distant sound of traffic.
Despite the rather dire situation, he couldn't help but admit the city looked beautiful at night.
He leaned forward and accelerated, cutting through the streets toward Touko's workshop as fast as the little motor would allow.