The Door

"I once swore that as long as no descendant of the Aozaki family surpassed me, they would not be permitted to enter 'that place,'" Grandfather said. "Now, it seems that oath no longer serves any purpose."

"Why?" After a moment of surprise, Aoko asked, "I thought I'd have to fight you first, Grandfather."

"Hahaha." Grandfather laughed stiffly. It was the first time Aoko had ever heard him laugh aloud. "I've become such a mess. How could I possibly still beat you?"

"So Fumigara Eiri, that refined scumbag, really did kill you?" Aoko said in surprise. "Are Magicians really such fragile things?"

"Not exactly." Grandfather shook his head. "Though I was powerful while I still possessed a physical body, I had already lost the possibility of progressing any further."

"You mean the limit of your talent?" Aoko asked.

"No, I mean I took the wrong path." Grandfather recalled, "In my research and use of the Fifth Magic, I entered an incorrect route and could no longer turn back. The price of that mistake was the gradual loss of the sensibilities a human should possess, so I used that brat from the Fumigara family to discard that body."

"The Fifth Magic has that kind of effect?" Aoko frowned. "If that's the case, I'll have to reconsider whether I should obtain the complete Fifth Magic."

"You misunderstand," Grandfather said. "That was not a flaw in the Fifth Magic, but in me. As I drew closer, my own flaw caused me to enter the wrong route. That was why I decided to pass the Magic Crest on to you and abandon my original body."

Aoko pondered for a moment before continuing, "So that's why you swore that only someone who surpassed you could enter the cavern?"

"That's right." Grandfather's voice was cheerful. "If they weren't stronger than me, getting closer would be meaningless. It would only be a waste of time."

"I obtained the Fifth Magic at a point very close to it," Grandfather recalled. "But that was as far as I got. Or rather, there was still just that tiny distance between me and the origin of all things."

"So I decided to see whether a descendant more capable than myself would appear, then have them try their luck in the cavern leading onward."

"If you succeed and return alive, I will give up remaining on the surface of the world and head outside," Grandfather continued on his own. "Because if I remain on the inside, I will dilute the authority of the Fifth Magic."

"I understand." Aoko had no intention of persuading Grandfather, nor did she intend to have Touko make him another body. "Then I've decided. I'll enter the cavern."

The entrance to the cavern leading onward had been hidden by Grandfather deeper beneath the basement of his workshop.

Following Grandfather's footsteps, Aoko arrived before a completely featureless wall.

"It's here," Grandfather said.

"Hm?" Aoko was puzzled. "There's nothing here."

"Think carefully with the Crest you just received." Grandfather tapped his own temple with a finger. "I fixed the entrance's time axis, so unless your mastery of the Fifth Magic reaches this level, you will never be able to enter."

"It sounds a little like an inheritance defense." Aoko frowned at the wall. "So I'm supposed to undo it?"

Grandfather said nothing, merely gesturing for her to proceed. Aoko could only brace herself, walk over, and begin examining the wall as she considered what she should do.

She could see no magical radiance on the wall, nor could she sense any traces of magecraft. Aoko ran her hand over the utterly ordinary surface, wondering whether she should simply smash it apart by force.

But since Grandfather had said this entrance was sealed through the Fifth Magic, even if she managed to destroy the wall, she would not be able to find the entrance behind it.

With that in mind, Aoko prepared herself. She closed her eyes, made up her mind, and threw herself without hesitation into the task of activating the Fifth Magic.

The vast mana of the Greater Source was converted through her enormous number of Magic Circuits before being fed into the Aozaki family's Magic Crest. Her right arm, which rested against the wall, glowed faintly, and fine patterns of light like integrated circuits appeared across her skin. Her consciousness ceased all activity in the material world and plunged into the endless river of stars. Everything beyond her came to a standstill, except for Grandfather, who continued observing her.

Ordinarily, a human body could hardly bear the burden of operating the Fifth Magic, Grandfather thought. In the past, he had endured tremendous agony whenever he used the Fifth Magic. That agony stemmed from the limitations he possessed as a human, so he had cast aside the sensibility that allowed him to feel such pain.

All Magic was the enemy of the world. If humans born of this world wished to wield the "Magic" beyond it, they had to endure the pain created by the world's self-preservation instinct as it attempted to erase them. This pain existed on the spiritual level as well, a means of annihilation designed specifically to target human sensibility.

In the past, he had abandoned his sensibility in order to go further. Yet when he finally stood before it, his own incompleteness caused him to lose the characteristic code of the Origin. In the end, he reached the limit of what he, as an individual, could achieve.

But this descendant before him, this girl mixed with unknown elements, continued to activate the Magic Crest even while enduring the agony of consciousness on the verge of vanishing. The old Magician could not help but look forward to what she might accomplish.

In the world she approached, Aoko endured extreme pain and loneliness. But that pain and loneliness were nothing more than that, Aoko thought coldly. For some reason, at this moment, the "price" demanded for using Magic seemed utterly insignificant to her. These "signals" that had appeared from nowhere in her thoughts could not stop her from continuing to use the Fifth Magic, much less destroy her consciousness and make her disappear.

That was right. The pressure rebounding from the world's struggle could do nothing to Aoko now. If the one enduring the painful "signals" did not care about them in the slightest, then such an attack was nothing more than a breeze across her face—completely ineffective.

The consciousness of the world fell into confusion. The amount it had invested was more than enough pain to easily destroy a human, so why did this human have no reaction at all? Was she even human?

Aoko had no idea what the world was thinking. She simply continued trying to draw closer to the Root, attempting to lift Grandfather's seal by partially activating the "Magic."

"Subjective Axis—Release," Aoko murmured. It was not an incantation, but a keyword for self-suggestion.

As the girl spoke, the wall before her gradually changed. A door that had not existed before appeared upon it, while the constant spatial-temporal fluctuations that had activated in units of Planck time vanished.

Aoko opened her eyes again and delightedly discovered that she had succeeded. Just as she turned to claim some credit from Grandfather, however, she found that the old man's soul had already disappeared. Perhaps the Fifth Magic that had continuously operated on this door had been the anchor for his soul.