Lin Yuan looked at the shattered window and suddenly thought Mira had a point.
At least Fairy Tail was unlikely to fall so quiet that it vanished without a trace.
Mira had already caught up with Natsu, broom in hand. Natsu fled across the tabletops, while Gray slipped under a table in the chaos, only for Erza to grab him and pull him out.
"Now that you're awake, clean up the mess you made."
"Why are you awake too?" Gray protested.
Erza folded her arms. "Because someone smashed the window."
"That was Natsu!"
"Gray kicked him!"
The two pointed at each other and, a moment later, began wrestling again. A vein twitched at Erza's temple. She gave each of them a punch, and the hall finally fell quiet.
Mira put down her broom, displeased. "Mind your own business. I was just about to catch them."
"You just broke the third chair."
"I'll pay for it!"
"With the reward for the job you haven't even collected yet?"
The two girls stared at each other for a moment, then rolled up their sleeves at the same time.
Lin Yuan silently put more distance between himself and them.
The brawl before dawn only came to a reluctant end when Makarov roared from his office, "Whoever keeps fighting can fix the roof!"
Natsu and Gray collapsed and went back to sleep. Erza dragged away two surviving chairs, while Mira sat down across from Lin Yuan again, her expression sour.
"Did you just laugh?"
"No."
"I saw you."
"You saw wrong."
Mira stared at him for a long while, then suddenly slapped the tabletop. "Don't try to change the subject. You still haven't answered me. What was supposed to be behind the door?"
The smile faded from Lin Yuan's face.
He could have said he didn't remember again. But Mira hadn't looked at him with pity, nor had she treated what he'd said in his sleep as a wound to be carefully avoided. She was simply waiting for an answer, as if waiting for him to admit how many floorboards he'd broken during a fight.
"I don't know," Lin Yuan said. "Because I don't have a past."
Mira raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Before the master found me in the forest, I only remember fragments. Rain, the corpse of a god, ten extinguished thrones, and a door that something had closed."
"What about your family?"
"I don't remember."
"Where are you from?"
"I don't remember."
"How old are you?"
Lin Yuan fell silent.
Mira was incredulous. "You don't even know that?"
"Porlyusica said I'm probably ten."
"So you've been walking around looking like you know everything, but you actually need someone else to guess how old you are."
Lin Yuan didn't think that was the point, but the way she put it, the whole thing suddenly seemed a little embarrassing.
"At least I know what Take Over Magic is."
"That's not your past."
Mira leaned back in her chair, resting her demon right arm on the edge of the table. She thought for a moment, but her face showed none of the surprise or pity Lin Yuan had expected.
"If it's gone, it's gone."
"It's that simple?"
"What else? You can stare at the hole in your head all you want, but it won't grow back on its own." Mira pointed at Natsu and Gray, who were sleeping in a heap. "Ask those two idiots whose glass they smashed yesterday, and they might not remember either."
"That's different."
"Of course I know it's different."
Mira huffed and thrust the broom into his hand.
"But you remember what happened today, and you'll remember what happens tomorrow. Once you've collected enough memories, who'll care how much is missing from before?"
Lin Yuan looked down at the broom. There were five scratches on the wooden handle where Mira had raked it with her demon claws, and beside them was a notch that hadn't been smoothed out after their first fight.
He did remember.
He remembered the hand Makarov had reached out to him, the fire Natsu had breathed that had gone out halfway, and how Mira had come out of her rampage for two pieces of cake.
These memories were noisy, even a little absurd, but they were all truly here.
"You're right," Lin Yuan said.
Mira was the one caught off guard. "If you admit it that quickly, it's hard for me to keep scolding you."
"You can save it for next time."
"Who'd save it on purpose?!"
The office door opened just then.
Makarov came out carrying an ancient black book almost as tall as he was, a long trail of dust rising behind him. He had clearly heard the latter half of their conversation, but he didn't ask anything. He simply set the ancient book down heavily on the table.
Three faded chains were wrapped around the corners of the book, each covered in sealing talismans. The outermost talisman had yellowed, and still bore traces of the magic successive masters had used to reinforce it.
There was no title on the cover, only a serpentine engraving similar to the one on the black stone. As soon as Lin Yuan came closer, the tightly fastened bronze clasp sprang open on its own.
The pages turned without any wind, finally stopping on a blank sheet.
Ink slowly seeped through from the back of the page, forming ancient writing Lin Yuan had never seen before, yet could somehow read.
Makarov's expression grew utterly serious.
"It wasn't us who found it."
He looked at the words that had appeared on the page by themselves.
"This book knows you."