By the time she arrived at the school gates, it had started drizzling again.
Aoko looked up. Most of the sunlight was hidden behind the clouds, with only faint rays slipping through imperceptible gaps, bringing a trace of life to this gloomy Wednesday.
"Hey! You there, student! Motorcycles aren't allowed at school!" A female student with long, slightly wavy chestnut hair ran up to Aoko and demanded angrily.
Aoko looked down and grinned. Wasn't this the adorable Kumari Kanoka from the student council? She had only been absent for a few days, and Kanoka already didn't recognize her?
Back when she attended Asagami, Aoko had been driven to and from school in the family car. After entering high school, she bought herself a motorcycle and began enjoying the thrill of being a biker while skirting the edge of unlicensed driving every day.
Aoko took off her helmet, revealing crimson hair like flowing flames, and looked at Kanoka with an ambiguous smile.
"Eh?! President Aoko?!" The cute, petite girl stared blankly at the biker, who wore a jacket on top and her pleated school skirt below, clearly at a loss.
"What? You don't recognize me after just a few days?" Aoko teased. "If you don't even recognize your own president, Kanoka, I might have to reconsider your position as treasurer."
"You're one to talk!" Kanoka huffed. "President Aoko, do you know how exhausted Vice President Tsukiji and I have been while you were absent?! He's practically about to experience a salaryman's death from overwork ahead of schedule!"
"Is it really that serious?" Aoko asked in surprise. "It's only a high school student council. How much work could there possibly be?"
"That would be true for a normal student council with everyone present!" Kanoka emphasized, raising one finger. "Our student council was already short-staffed, and then our president kept disappearing whenever she felt like it, so even I, the treasurer, got dragged out to guard the gates!"
"Isn't that a good thing?" Aoko said indifferently. "Doesn't Tsukiji love the feeling of holding power? Wouldn't it be better if I didn't show up?"
"Power is a wonderful thing, but you need to be alive to enjoy it!" Kanoka sighed. "You'll understand once you see the vice president's condition. Oh, right—President, did you dye your hair? Students aren't allowed to dye their hair!"
"What do you mean, dye it?" Aoko played dumb as she pushed her motorcycle into the campus and parked it, replying to the student council's little treasurer. "My hair is naturally this color. I've never dyed it."
"Who are you trying to fool?!" Kanoka's expression became so amusing it looked like something straight out of a manga. "Don't treat me like an idiot, President Aoko! Your hair was originally... huh?"
The student council treasurer fell into confusion. In her memories, she could no longer recall exactly what color Aozaki Aoko's hair had been. It definitely hadn't been red... or had it really not been red?
Seeing this, Aoko secretly smiled. Her hair had turned this color as a side effect of activating the Fifth Magic. In the original timeline, Aoko only entered this state when she used the Fifth Magic. But now, having completely entered the Spiral of Origin and obtained the complete Fifth Magic, her hair had remained permanently red.
This change was actually caused by the so-called "first impetus"—in other words, a phenomenon that followed causality. Kanoka was surprised by the change in her hair color because this memetic effect had not yet completely altered her memories. If someone asked her again in a few days, she would only answer, "President, did you take the wrong medicine? Hasn't your hair always been red?"
Of course, magi like Alice and Touko could still remember her old hair color. After all, sufficiently powerful magi could resist this memetic infection's alteration of their memories.
Listening to Kanoka chatter on and on, Aoko arrived near her classroom.
Pushing open the door, Aoko surveyed the teachers and classmates she had not seen in many days.
Class had not officially begun yet, and the teacher was preparing for homeroom, so the students had been chatting before she entered. But the moment they noticed Aoko had returned, the room fell utterly silent. Even Teacher Yamashiro at the podium did not know what to say.
Aoko did not feel awkward in the slightest. She walked into the classroom openly, nodded to the teacher, then went straight to the second-to-last desk by the window and sat down.
That was right—this was the throne of destiny for countless protagonists across the multiverse. Laugh.
The teacher made no comment on Aoko's hair color or her many days of absence, maintaining his usual pace as he began that day's homeroom.
"There will be monthly exams today, so make sure you're prepared," the young Teacher Yamashiro reminded them. A wave of wailing rose from the students below, as quite a few of them had nearly forgotten about the exams.
Aoko did not care at all. The difficulty of the material in a Japanese private high school was utterly meaningless to her. If she had wanted to, she could have gone to university long ago.
Misaki Town was actually located in the outskirts of Tokyo in this world, which was why Aoko could find a school like Asagami Girls' Academy nearby. Meanwhile, Mifune City, the famous location of the Spiral of Origin—laugh—was situated squarely within Tokyo itself.
So, once she settled the mess back at her old home in Misaki, Aoko would immediately apply for early graduation and take the university entrance exams. The University of Tokyo looked pretty good. With Aoko's current store of knowledge, along with the bonus intelligence granted by her Wizard class, passing the University of Tokyo entrance exam would be effortless.
Rather, making the current Aoko compete with ordinary students would simply be cheating.
At around nine thirty in the morning, Aoko began her exams.
Because Misaki High was a private school, it basically ignored the Ministry of Education's workload-reduction policies entirely, so the students still faced quite heavy academic pressure.
She glanced at the schedule written on the blackboard and discovered that she had at least six exams to take today.
The morning examinations were Japanese Language Arts (Modern), Mathematics, and Chemistry. There would be a one-hour lunch break, followed by Physics, English, and Physical Education in the afternoon.
Exams for subjects such as Health and Home Economics, as well as German and Latin, which Aoko had chosen as electives, were scheduled for the following day.
Taking the test paper handed out by the teacher, Aoko quickly skimmed through it. Then, before the teacher had even finished explaining the precautions, she began answering the questions.
Her elegant penmanship danced across the page, every answer completed in a single stroke. Aoko's responses were flawless, and even her handwritten characters could have been used as models for calligraphy practice.
Naturally, Aoko finished the paper with more than half the allotted time still remaining. She openly handed it to the teacher, who had long since witnessed Aoko's ability and remained unfazed, merely reminding her not to make any noise in the hallway and disturb the students still taking their exams.
With some time remaining before the next exam, Aoko left the school building with light steps and strolled through the campus.