The Mirror of Naps

In short, Aoko Aozaki and Alice Kuonji spent a relaxing afternoon at the Kuonji residence. The two kept their unspoken understanding and, for the time being, neither mentioned Touko Aozaki, who might be preparing to meet them in battle.

On the third day after imprisoning Lugh Beowulf in the Imaginary Number Prison, Aoko came to Alice.

"Alice, I need your help with something," Aoko said seriously to Alice beside her on the sofa. "I want you to use the Mirror of Naps once."

Alice sipped her black tea unhurriedly. Rather than immediately responding to Aoko's request, she waited a moment before turning to look at her.

"First of all, the Mirror of Naps hasn't been completely restored," Alice said. "So it isn't one hundred percent accurate when used to find something."

"I understand," Aoko said. "I already have a rough idea of where Touko is hiding. Using the Mirror of Naps is only a secondary confirmation."

"I'll ask one more time. You really intend to use the Mirror of Naps to find Touko?" Alice asked again, this time seriously.

"I don't like regretting things," Aoko said frankly. "Have some faith in my strength."

"If you fail, Touko's stronghold will become your prison as well," Alice said sternly.

"It won't be so easy for anyone in this world to trap me."

The two arrived at the place where the Mirror of Naps was kept. Alice did not try to dissuade Aoko again, because she had already seen Aoko's resolve and had some understanding of her strength.

Alice laid the mirror flat on the table and gently brushed her hand across its surface, producing the sound of water plopping.

The image in the mirror shifted from blurry to clear, eventually settling on the forest near the old schoolhouse.

The area shown was enormous. If someone else had been sent to search it, they would likely have needed quite some time.

"Touko set up countermeasures against the Mirror of Naps. I can only pinpoint it this accurately," Alice said with a frown.

There had originally been a World Egg inside the Mirror of Naps, but since it was incomplete, it had been useless to begin with.

However, Alice's mother had invited the still-young Touko to remake and repair the mirror with her. They fused the egg and the mirror together, so Touko was quite familiar with this PLOY.

Now, it was a tool capable of easing and distorting the laws of physics within the range of a bounded field.

"It's fine," Aoko said, shaking her head. "The mirror's search results prove my guess was right. Just keep going."

Hearing Aoko's words, Alice took out a chess-piece-like object and placed it atop the Mirror of Naps. The mirror vanished into thick fog and sank away from the table.

The chess piece also seemed to melt, becoming the "Nameless Forest" that blanketed the old schoolhouse area.

"I'll be right back." Aoko smiled at Alice, then walked without looking back into a door that had appeared somewhere inside the manor.

Using the Nameless Forest had been Aoko's idea, because she did not want any ordinary people to be caught up in her battle with Touko. As for exposing mysteries, she did not care about that at all.

As long as they remained within the bounds of that nameless forest, every human who was not a mage would be given the suggestion that there was "no need to go any farther ahead." In other words, it was magecraft that drove people away.

Aoko could do the same herself, but on nowhere near the scale of the Nameless Forest.

Using the New World inside the Mirror of Naps, she achieved positional targeting and actual spatial transfer. She entered through one door, then emerged through another near her destination.

This was a function the Mirror of Naps had not possessed in the original timeline. After Aoko came to the Kuonji residence, she had asked Alice for help and personally spent a great deal of time bringing it into being.

However, achieving this seemingly simple yet overwhelmingly powerful function had not been easy. Aoko combined it with some of the knowledge she had learned from the magic web—the parts of her knowledge skills concerning other worlds and planes—and in the end, could only make the mirror's transfer function usable by herself.

This was because anyone else who entered the mirror would inexplicably lose their sense of direction, then be spat back out near the entrance after a while.

Only Aoko could adapt to the unfinished, chaotic space within the mirror without becoming lost, ultimately finding the exit she wanted.

Aoko had now arrived in a wilderness some distance from the actual old schoolhouse.

Calling it wilderness was not quite accurate, because she had pushed open the door of a structure resembling a small hut in the fields and stepped out.

A vast white wasteland stretched before her, November snow covering the earth.

Looking toward the distant old schoolhouse, Aoko smiled and flew into the sky.

Her crimson hair danced in the cold wind. Wearing a burgundy dress with black tights, Aoko descended from the air and landed steadily before the old schoolhouse entrance.

The instant Aoko touched down, something strange happened.

Centered on where her feet stood, densely packed runes appeared all at once. A considerable portion of them were meant to bind the target that had stepped into the trap, while every remaining rune represented burning.

The rune arrangement was exceedingly intricate. Hundreds of thousands of characters linked together, forming a chain reaction by imitating stellar nuclear fusion—the PP chain—and seeking to unleash as much power as possible in the shortest possible time.

Countless thread-like spells crawled over Aoko's body, pinning her firmly in place. Then came endless light and heat, as magical fire ignited by the runes completely engulfed her.

Touko Aozaki, who had long prepared to meet her attack, stepped out through the old schoolhouse doors. Her expression was fierce as she stared at the spot where Aoko had descended.

Thick smoke shrouded the surroundings. Ordinarily, no living creature could survive such searing heat.

Yet Touko still guarded that place with all her strength, because she knew Aoko could not possibly be defeated by an ambush of this degree.

Even when they had studied magecraft together as children, she had vaguely sensed that her younger sister's talent was no less than her own—the talent of the "Egg of a Magician" that outsiders considered brilliant.

In Touko's eyes, Aoko's attitude of "not really caring about anything" came from the composure of someone who had long known everything.

The letter Aoko had sent two years ago, warning Touko to kill Arba and Araya Souren, had only confirmed Touko's suspicions about Aoko.

Touko had returned to Misaki not only because she wanted to seize the Fifth Magic, but also because of the dissatisfaction she had accumulated over the years toward Aoko's "composed attitude."

If Aoko had known the outcome of today all along, why had she not told her beforehand?

If Aoko had known everything from the start, then what had all the efforts of the mage named Touko Aozaki been for?

Touko was furious at their grandfather, furious at Aoko's flippant attitude, furious at her childhood friend who had sided with Aoko against her, and furious at herself.

The flames of anger burned silently in Touko's heart. Perhaps she had long been able to guess the outcome of this battle, but she still gave it everything she had, wanting to prove something.