The next day.
Seizing the gap while Alice and Aoko were out at school, Ryōgi Minato took up Yamato and set off for the old school building at Misaki High.
Since he’d memorized a map of the area before ever coming to Misaki Town, he soon found the time-worn structure.
Unfortunately, he found no sign of Aozaki Touko there.
After a thorough search, the boy could only retrace his steps and wait for the next opportunity.
This fruitless trip reminded Minato of something all the same: it taught him that the intelligence the danmaku supplied wasn’t necessarily a hundred percent correct, and could sometimes diverge from reality on account of real-world factors.
Quietly committing this to memory, Minato returned to the mansion on the hill and began his daily lessons and training.
And time slowly slid toward evening…
…
This was Misaki Town’s abandoned amusement park—Kitsy Land.
Once a thing that symbolized the city’s dreams and free-spirited flair, it was now nothing more than a derelict zone of buildings sprawled across three hundred and fifty thousand square meters.
Using a bit of simple magecraft to snap the rusted chain hanging on the park’s front gate, Aoko was first to step into this place no one ever came to visit, while Ryōgi Minato followed behind her, cradling Yamato.
“Sorry.
Pardon the intrusion.”
The boy murmured an apology to the park’s mascot, knowing that what he and Aoko were doing now amounted to “trespassing.” But since not a single soul remained in the park, this was the only way he could think to express his regret.
Just then, a few gray birds beat their wings and alighted on an old, undismantled street lamp nearby.
The next second, they all turned their gaze upon the two of them, as if observing.
Minato glanced that way, recognizing them as the familiars his teacher used to keep watch over Misaki Town—the 「Six Singing Chocolates: Song of the Six Pences」.
To keep tabs on him and Aoko tonight, his teacher had deliberately made a few extra, so she could learn of any accident in time.
As for the young witch’s own whereabouts at this moment, Minato wasn’t quite sure.
“Minato, make sure you keep up, okay?
The paths in here wind around a bit.”
Aoko’s voice carried back from up ahead, bringing the boy out of his thoughts.
The reason the girl had stopped to turn and remind him was that she’d heard children had gotten separated and lost in this park in years past.
“All right.”
Minato withdrew his gaze, nodded, and quietly followed Aoko past the carousel at the very front of the park, heading toward the depths.
The destination of their trip was the park’s once most famous attraction—the House of Mirrors.
It was a maze: two floors above ground, one below, all of it built from mirrors of every kind, intricate and vast.
They said that in its heyday a moment’s carelessness could send a visitor losing their way inside.
But according to Alice’s intelligence, this was where the last remaining “watcher” had recently been appearing.
Aoko stood at the entrance to the House of Mirrors, looking down the dark, transparent passage, and pressed her lips together.
She knew that once she decided to step inside, the ordinary days she’d once longed for would slip away from her, and she’d have to start facing her identity as a magus head-on.
But hesitation and timidity weren’t her style.
Glancing at the boy who turned a puzzled look her way, Aoko broke into a smile.
“Relax, Minato.
In a bit I’ll show you my magecraft.”
Confidence unlike her usual self colored her voice; her eyes steadied, and she took a step inside.
With no power running, the maze’s passages stayed pitch dark throughout.
Watching the reflections of himself and Aoko in the mirrors along the walls, Minato slowly followed the girl ahead.
One dizzying reflection after another—now Aoko could understand why the people who’d entered this place back then had lost their way.
In an enclosed environment like this, there were times you simply couldn’t tell which path was the real one.
You might even fall prey to the illusion of wondering which reflection was the real you.
Carefully edging deeper, Aoko gripped her own right arm with one hand, her blue eyes wary of the surroundings.
Then, all at once, the girl inexplicably felt that one of her reflections in the mirrors had made a motion not quite the same as her own.
She instinctively looked that way—and the boy, in that same instant, cast his gaze toward a certain mirror up ahead.
“Aoko.”
Minato gave a soft warning, and the girl nodded in understanding.
The next moment she raised her right hand toward that mirror.
But before she could draw the magical energy up from within her, that figure so similar to her in build began to flee, bolting toward the underground maze.
That thing—!
Aoko was about to give chase, but suddenly remembered she wasn’t alone in this maze, and at once reined in her steps.
“It’s fine.
I can keep pace with you, Aoko.”
Hearing this, and recalling the boy’s strength, Aoko felt much more at ease, and said with a smile, “Mm, understood, Minato.”
Long legs stretching out, the energetic girl broke into a run, and the boy kept steadily behind her at a curious, unhurried pace, neither rushed nor slow.
Following that suspicious figure straight to the passage opening that led down to the underground floor, Aoko loosed a few magic bullets along the path it was taking.
But unfortunately, even at this distance, her accuracy was pitifully low—she only shattered a great mess of mirrors and dented a few walls.
Tch!
Missing at this range.
If Alice ever found out, I’d probably get teased to death…
Embarrassment flickered through her, but luckily the figure ahead seemed to have been spooked, and slowly came to a stop.
Otherwise Aoko really didn’t know how she’d have faced the puzzled look the boy behind her had just sent her way.
I see—so this is a tactic…
Having wondered at first why the girl kept failing to hit the target she was chasing, Minato caught on at the sight of this.
After all, by his own habits, once he spotted a target he need only cut it down in a single stroke.
Things like “tactics” were precisely the sort of thing he rarely considered.
Feeling he’d learned something new again, the boy stopped just as Aoko had, looking toward the figure that stood with its back to them.
“Hey, you—Touko sent you, didn’t she!”
The figure didn’t answer the girl’s question.
It slowly turned around, standing in the dim, empty maze passage, staring straight at Aoko.
And by a few threads of moonlight seeping in from outside, Aoko finally made out its appearance.
As expected, the other was a puppet too.
Only, its features so like her own, and the long hair, stirred a wave of revulsion in Aoko toward the puppet before her.
“Of course.
Only that person would do something this sick…”
Aoko gritted her teeth, and the moment she saw the puppet suddenly crouch low against the ground, she knew it was about to attack.
“Minato, step back a little—this thing, I have to destroy it myself!”
Feeling the resolve in the girl’s words, Minato cradled his blade and retreated a good distance, standing silently far off.
Even from this far, though, the boy was confident he could rush in to support her in time, should Aoko prove unable to handle the situation.
Watching the girl ahead already locked in battle with the puppet, Minato observed both their movements—keeping an eye on Aoko’s situation while imagining how, were he in her place, he might cut the enemy down more cleanly with a single stroke.
But just as he was running the fight through his mind, he suddenly felt an uncanny presence surface behind him.
The boy shifted the way he held his blade, turned to look, and—fixing his eyes on the dark corner of the mirrored passage—noticed that a short, small figure had, at some unknown point, come to stand there.
“Eh, you can actually sense me?
What an interesting fellow.”
A childish voice rang out softly, and Minato frowned in puzzlement.
A moment later, a golden-haired boy slowly came into his view, a look of pure curiosity on his face as he smiled at him.