Time-Space Administration Bureau

Guys, who could possibly understand?

After going hungry for so long, it was suddenly stuffed full of magical energy and forced to keep eating. An endless supply pressed down on it, leaving it no choice but to swallow-if the Book of the Night Sky could speak, that would surely have been what it thought.

Magical devices had neither thoughts nor feelings, and they could not speak.

But Huo Lin felt a little uncomfortable at that moment.

Because of the looks from everyone around her.

Honestly, none of those looks meant any harm. It was just that two identical twin girls standing together, both with such delicate features, inevitably made people want to take a second look.

So much so that both girls felt a little uncomfortable under all that attention.

Of course, Huo Lin was the more uncomfortable of the two.

"Huo Lin, should we just take a taxi?"

"No, it's fine. Besides, Hayate, I chose to accept this myself. It wasn't because of you."

Huo Lin knew Hayate had always thought it was her fault that Huo Lin had become like this-that Huo Lin had done it to protect her.

Although keeping Hayate out of danger had been the final straw that tipped the balance when she made her choice, it was still only a "straw." The real reason was that she herself did not want to be ordinary.

She had long yearned for the world of magic.

Who wouldn't long for supernatural power? Becoming like this as the price... hardly seemed like a price at all.

Entering the station brought another small wave of attention. With Hayate holding her hand, Huo Lin walked through the ticket gates under gazes that, while not malicious, certainly embarrassed her.

Come to think of it, her reluctance to be seen like this had also been part of the reason she had not gone out during the day for the past two weeks. Now, that concern seemed well founded.

"There are so many people."

The station really was crowded. Although it was not rush hour, the Yamanote Line never had anything to do with the word "empty," whatever the time of day.

Just then, Huo Lin brushed past a blond girl.

That looks like natural blond hair, not dyed. Her skin is unusually fair, too. A foreigner?

The girl glanced back, perhaps curious about the twins. Huo Lin was already used to such looks, so she paid it no mind.

Fate paid it no mind either. She had not noticed anything unusual about them. What was unusual lay a short distance away-the site she needed to investigate.

"This is the place. Looks like the rumors were right. There's still a very strong concentration of magical energy here," the girl murmured to herself.

The magical energy was so pronounced that she could sense it directly, without any instruments.

Two weeks had already passed, yet so much residual magical energy remained. It was hard to imagine how terrifying this place had been when the incident occurred.

Fate Testarossa, nine years old, was a temporary member of the Asura, the Eighth Patrol Ship of the Time-Space Administration Bureau's Dimensional Navigation Force.

Two weeks earlier, the Asura had detected a dimensional earthquake in Non-Administered World No. 97, Earth. The tremors had appeared without warning, escalated from a minor dimensional earthquake to a major one within a single minute, then vanished just as abruptly.

That simply defied all logic.

After all, even the Jewel Seed Incident a few months earlier had only triggered a medium-scale dimensional earthquake. A major dimensional earthquake had not been detected in years.

Beyond that lay a dimensional rift, where space shattered and an entire parallel world collapsed.

But before the Time-Space Administration Bureau could mount any rescue operation, the tremors disappeared.

Moreover, no disaster had occurred in Non-Administered World No. 97. For a while, the Asura had therefore assumed there was a fault in the ship's detection system. That was the more reasonable explanation.

Several days were wasted on inspections, only to establish that there was nothing wrong with the ship.

Those were the circumstances that had brought Fate here.

Fate had volunteered for this mission for one reason alone: this was Non-Administered World No. 97.

A little over forty kilometers west of Shinjuku lay Haiming City, also part of the Greater Tokyo Area. Nanoha's home was there.

She could never allow such a potential danger to remain near Nanoha's home. Whatever it was, it had to be eliminated completely!

She-Fate Testarossa-would keep Nanoha safe!

"Hey, little girl, it's dangerous over there. You can't go any closer."

Fate was about to approach the barrier when a municipal worker stopped her. They were preparing to fill the hole.

She did not insist. She had already taken a look, and there was nothing inside the pit. There was no need to investigate it.

"Nothing" in the literal sense. This had not been caused by a bomb or excavation work. All the soil had been annihilated by high-energy magical power that had escaped observation.

There had indeed been a problem with the Asura's readings.

They had not overestimated the event, but underestimated it. Perhaps it had been too brief to observe in time. What had happened two weeks earlier had not been a major dimensional earthquake at all.

It had been a dimensional rift!

Only, that world-destroying power had been confined to this tiny area.

Everything that had once occupied this deep pit had undergone "the end of the world," disappearing as space-time collapsed.

Within this confined space, over twenty meters high and a little over ten meters in length and width, the world had been destroyed.

"Admiral, I need support."

Fate contacted the Time-Space Administration Bureau directly. She was no reckless fool. She knew full well that an event capable of causing a dimensional rift and destroying a world was far beyond her ability to handle.

A relaxed, holiday-like atmosphere had prevailed aboard the dimensional warship Asura. No dimensional incidents requiring the Time-Space Administration Bureau's intervention had occurred recently. Then Fate's request for help arrived, and the atmosphere abruptly grew tense.

"Fate, have you encountered an enemy?" The ship's captain, Admiral Lindy Harlaown, used her captain's authority to transfer the communication from the CIC directly to her own seat.

Despite holding such an important position as admiral, Lindy was a beautiful young woman with green hair. Her most striking feature was the four moles on her forehead, a mark of the ethnic group into which she had been born.

"No, that's not it. I haven't encountered any enemies. But I need a specialist to assess the scene here."

The lack of enemy activity relieved Lindy, but she also knew Fate would not request support lightly.

"Can you describe the situation at the scene?"

"There's a sinkhole here, roughly twenty meters deep. There's residual magical energy inside, but no other matter remains. It matches the signs of a dimensional rift, though I'm not certain."

A dimensional rift was a world-ending event, yet this one had been concentrated in such a tiny area.

It was like a particle collider, which could almost reproduce the energy levels of the Big Bang on the subatomic scale within a span of Planck time.

"Was it a magical experiment?"

"No, there are no traces of a spell being activated here."

No traces of a spell being activated? Admiral Lindy did not understand at first. Only after a few seconds of hesitation did she grasp the meaning. "You mean it was nothing but pure magical energy?"

If it had been a magical experiment, there would inevitably have been distinct traces depending on the magic used. The Mid-Childan style of modern magic, for example, had recognizable characteristics. There was also the Belkan style, and even ancient magic could be identified from the traces it left.

Those traces would not disappear.

But there was nothing at the scene. Only pure magical energy. Ordinarily, that suggested it might not have been caused by a person.

Surely no one could possess such overwhelming magical power without knowing any magic at all?

They could therefore infer that it was probably a secondary phenomenon caused by the accidental activation of some Ancient Belka Relic.

Regardless, any Ancient Belka Relic capable of causing a dimensional rift-even a small-scale one-was bound to be extremely dangerous.

"Understood. I'll send Yuno to support you. He's quite familiar with Ancient Belka Relics."