This was a secluded old castle. A little girl sat in a chair while two maids beside her taught her about the existence of magic.
Though she was called a little girl, she dressed more like a boy. Her features were rather delicate, however. Once she had fully grown, she would surely be breathtakingly beautiful.
Yet the girl had never cared about any of that. She merely listened to the maids' lessons, but regarding her own existence... she often fell into confusion.
Ever since she could remember, the girl known as the "Azure Witch," Yuuma Tokoyogi, had grown up here.
Yuuma Tokoyogi's memories began at the age of six. Strictly speaking, her mental age severely mismatched her physical age. From the moment she was born, she had possessed the body and consciousness of a six-year-old.
Yuuma Tokoyogi was unfortunate. She had never met any of her relatives. She watched other children being picked up and dropped off by their parents... while she had only the artificial-life-form maids who had accompanied her as she grew up.
The girl could not understand it.
At times like that, Yuuma Tokoyogi would ask the maids where her mother was.
The maids' answer was, "In the Demon Sanctuary of the Far East, Itogami Island, imprisoned within the Prison Barrier."
"Prison... Barrier?"
"It is a labyrinth of time with no exit, and because of the betrayal of the 'Gap Witch,' your mother has been trapped in endless darkness."
The one who could save her mother was Yuuma Tokoyogi herself.
The maids repeatedly, almost mechanically, drilled knowledge into Yuuma. "Lady Aye, your mother, regarded you as her trump card for escaping the prison. Only you can rescue her. But your body is still too young. When you reach your sixteenth birthday, on the day of the Bonfire