Extra: Dear Diary

February 20th, 2025

Fair Weather

Dear Diary,

This morning I woke up from a very long and strange dream. And I thought I would write it down.

I was in a cave with lots of children, and apparently I needed to be there because all children need to grow up in a cave. The reason was young children could not withstand outside air, which had microscopic magic elements in it.

I was then led to the mouth of the cave where it had a taller ceiling and a wide opening like a concert hall. On the ground, there were lots of diagrams. One was like the Chinese Yin-Yang symbol, and another was like a European magic spell -- what do people call them? Solomon’s circle? Matrix? I am not quite clear on the terminology, and I don’t even know what to call the other diagrams.

The University of Alberta had offered a course on the history of witchcraft before, and I was planning on taking it with a classmate of mine, but that became a big mess in and of itself, so I didn’t get to take the course. Thus I don’t know the precise terminology.

I was told to stand on any of them, and see if I can intuitively know how to use them. If I can succeed, then I can go and live outside after going to school. Otherwise I will have to try again next year.

Turns out these ‘try-outs’ only happened once a year, on the fifteenth day of the tenth month of the old calendar. I think the name is Kannadzuki. I was born in the ninth month, Nagadzuki, and so I get to try it as one of the youngest participants, since I just turned six, the age to begin these attempts.

I stood on the Yin-Yang symbol, and I couldn’t breathe. It was too much for me. I think, even though these things carved on the ground were still technically in the cave portion of the hall and not the open air portion of the huge space, it somehow simulated what air is like outside. Or maybe the spells themselves were able to channel in outside air without dispersing it past their drawn borders.

No one explained anything to me. And of course, I was busy trying to breathe. I think I finally decided to slide my feet according to the YinYang symbol, and those movements caused me to semi levitate while I automatically started spinning violently. Though it was dizzying and scary, I was immediately able to breathe again. I could feel the heavy air, full of magic, coming into my lungs and then spreading through the bloodstream. With Taichi-like movements, I was able to live with the feeling of something new and volatile gushing through me. So I guess I was able to ‘quell’ the elements.

I chose the YinYang symbol because I had at least seen seniors doing Tai Chi, which is related. I have never seen anyone doing witchcraft or summoning using the magic matrix in the open, apart from what might be shown on an anime, so I have not had a chance to observe how to use a magic circle, or spell, or matrix, or whatever I should be calling it.

After I had success, I was led to a group of representatives from many academies.

I liked the group from Aohi, the azure sun. I liked their name because I thought it was very cool. I also liked their uniform. A very pale teal, or an off tone turquoise, I think that’s what it was. If one has seen Chinese web manga and is familiar with Hanfu, Chinese traditional clothing, the style should be very very familiar: y-shaped collars and a straight down lower half of the long coat. “Zhi Ju” is what people call it. Straight skirt. Technically. The sleeve opening had a width of approximately one foot.

I really liked the colour, the style, and their name of the school, and that was why I chose them.

Then, a girl called out to me and said that I should go to Kageyama instead. She had a lavender long coat, y-shaped collar, but crossed-over skirt. “Qu Ju shen yi” would be the official name. I really like lavender. Or more accurately, I crave anything in amethyst and lavender. This girl’s clothes had very wide sleeve openings, almost like furisode kimonos, and so I went to Kageyama instead.

Kageyama had a neo-classic main hall where everything happened. They called it Hall of the Phoenix, supposedly due to its shape. I will just refer to it as the Hall. The hall had classic East Asian roofing. The North wing is the same design as the South wing, and these are to represent the wings of the legendary bird. The central tower was to be the neck. The main hall underneath the tower was the chest. The Inner Hall (Oku Den) was to be the torso, and there were three tall boardwalks leading to three storage houses on tall stilts, which immediately reminded me of the original design of the great shrine of Izumo.

So the North Wing was for magic. A member of the group of the representatives from Kageyama, named Akishi, studied there during the instructional hours. Akishi’s younger brother, Hideo, studied alchemy in the South Wing. The girl who invited me, named Arashi, studied swordsmanship in the Inner Hall.

Not many prospective students ended up coming to Kageyama because it was a place of academia. Graduates had a hard time looking for employment, and many of them became contract employees working in affiliated estates and craft shops. Those among the most talented would get a chance to become an instructor.

New students gathered in the public square in front of the Hall every morning, and senior students would do simple lessons and demos. Sometimes, a novice student would enter contemplative silence, and it would be greatly celebrated.

I didn’t say new students just now because it wasn’t exactly the best term to use. Some new students would stay on the public square every morning and never enter contemplative silence. Upon turning fourteen, or when a novice gave up trying, a student who had never entered the Silence would become apprentices in trades. Kageyama had a lot of wood shops and wineries, many glass blowers and blacksmiths, so it would still be a very acceptable outcome if one didn’t become a knight, a witch, or an alchemist.

If a student entered deep silence, then the actual introductory lesson would be given to the student. The basic version of sword routines of the Kageyama style, or the basic inventory of beginner’s spells, or the Introductory to Alchemist Materials would be passed onto the student, who would become, then, an “official student.”

Every morning, I would look at the senior students entering the Hall after giving demos, into the rising sun. I longed to follow them, and to walk alongside them. So I started to ask senior students to give me mini demos and share their experience and stories during meal time.

It took a while, but I think by the next month, Shimodzuki, the eleventh month of the old calendar, I was getting a feeling that I might enter the silence relatively soon.

That feeling made me happy. Arashi entered the silence within her first month here, and when she held a sword in her first class in the Main Hall, her spirit entered the sword effortlessly, and the sword gave a pure ring. Arashi was recognized on the spot as a prodigy of the sword. She quickly passed all the introductory courses taught in the Main Hall, and had since gone into the Inner Hall for advanced lessons.

After a few more days, it turned out what I thought was true was not accurate. Introductory lessons for all three subjects are taught in the Main Hall, whereas regular lessons for magic happened in the North Wing, regular lessons in swordsmanship still happened in the Main Hall, and regular lessons for alchemy happened in the South Wing. The Inner Hall was only for advanced courses in all three subjects.

Most students only had time to maybe take on one or two advanced courses before graduation, but Arashi had been taking courses there for years. I think they said something like four years. So that makes Arashi the top student at the age of eleven.

Akishi was fifteen when I joined Kageyama, and Hideo was like, fourteen, I think? Akishi started her regular courses in the North wing last year, and Hideo had just about finished all his introductory courses in the Main Hall, and soon started taking all his courses in the South Wing.

I got a tour of the Hall from Akishi in Shihazu, the twelfth month of the old calendar. The Main Hall was like a large classroom, with a large stage in the front. On the three sides of the front stage, there were stairs to enter, or “ascend” into the rest of the Hall. I guess students are encouraged to “ascend” in their pursuit of mastery of the Arts of Swordsmanship, Magic, and Alchemy. The Wings all had four levels, but the Inner Hall had five. Instructors taught in the North Wing, the Main Hall, and the South Wing, but Elders taught in the Inner Hall.

It was not commonplace at all for a student to fully enter advanced studies before graduation, let alone having already spent four years there at the age of eleven. So Arashi had more prestige than most instructors, actually. I felt very proud when I learned that. Arashi personally invited me to join her at Kageyama, so I must have some potential to be like her.

So every morning, I stared at the silhouettes of senior students entering the Hall, thinking of Arashi ascending to the Inner Hall. My heart went after them, and I sighed very often, daydreaming.

Spring came. I was six and half, and an instructor came to teach all the new intakes about ‘body-building’, I guess. We also had lessons on how to stand tall while exercising. I got a lesson on how to sprint but with the effort of jogging, which was fascinating to me.

I was to have shallow breaths, with my chest mostly expanded, and try to have a mini current of magic element kept in there. The mini current of magic inside me would resonate with the torrent of magic in the outside environment, and that would lift me up until only the tip of my feet touched the ground. With this buoyancy on my side, and if I could practice so as to have the magic element of Wind break up the air in front of me to reduce air resistance, then I could run very fast with very little effort.

I practiced daily after the morning demos, mostly at the side of the mountain where there were lots of boulders. After I could run with ease on well maintained paths, I practiced running on pebbles, rocks, sand, grass, moss...

Eventually, I thought maybe I could try jumping from boulder to boulder. That was not easy. My jumps were too short, and I fell off often. Eventually I managed to jump, not from top to top, but from side to side. That required a lot more fast thinking, as well as improved reaction time, as my ‘air-time’ was considerably shorter, the curvature of my trajectory was almost nonexistent, and I had to switch my body orientation in mid air to prevent my head, or worse, face, from hitting the rock’s surface.

After spring had ended, I figured it was enough madness, and went back to trying to get into the deep silence by asking Akishi to give me mini demos.

I found Akishi to be the easiest person to become friends with, from the three people that I knew. I was aware of other people, but somehow my path rarely crossed with theirs.

I don’t exactly feel comfortable beside boys, and despite the fact that Hideo was very nice, I didn’t actually interact with him all that much. Arashi was reserved. It made one nervous standing near her, often resulting in her being by herself. I tried to be friends with Arashi, but she was rarely seen during the bulk of the day, as she was immersed in study and training.

I told Arashi that I wanted to be strong just like her, and wanted to stand beside her, shoulder to shoulder. ... and whether I could sit by her side sometimes. She took me to the west cliff, and we watched clouds. We managed to sit and watch clouds and sunsets a few more times. Maybe on average once a month? I don’t think Arashi said anything to me at all during those months. She just let me sit beside her, and to spend some time together. She didn’t show much emotion on her face. Was there a hint of melancholy every now and then? I could not be certain, but I was pretty sure she was showing me special kindness.

Summer came, and I was almost seven. We had a race among the new students, and I did fairly well. Being bad at physical education since kindergarten, I was very pleased with myself. Then, there was an opportunity for me to earn pocket cash: I could deliver letters to the town at the foot of the mountain. Important messages were transferred using magic, but ordinary messages were still written on paper and delivered by couriers. Couriers did not come up the mountain very frequently, so when people wanted letters to be sent, they had to go down the mountain themselves.

Some of Hideo’s classmates found the trips unnecessary, and they much preferred to spend their whole day watching the cauldron. Thus, a notice was posted to find someone willing to run down the mountain to pass on letters to the courier station in the little town by Kageyama.

Since I did fairly well in the race, and since I wanted some money to buy gifts to show my gratitude, I signed up. I wanted to thank Akishi for all the extra demos, and Arashi for watching the clouds and sunsets with me.

I was going into town for the first time, and on my way back, I saw a very interesting looking water-eroded marble boulder in a small valley by the side of the road. I went there to take a look, since I really liked eroded rocks with intriguing shapes and patterns.

I heard talking and I looked through a small hole on the rock. I remembered what had happened during this episode only after I woke up, and during the dream I was not aware of this encounter. Later on it would be self-explanatory as to what exactly happened to cause that.

There was a special place called Himeyama. At Himeyama, the student council called all the shots. They made all the decisions and their instructors followed orders from the student council. Himeyama was a place where the nobility and royalty attended, and the instructors being only minor lords at best, naturally viewed themselves as, well, more like servants than academy faculty members.

Major members of the student council at Himeyama were composed of a group of elite users of magic called the Five. All of them were major nobility and royalty, and they had lavish private residences (Unlike Kageyama, where everyone stayed in small, plainly furnished dorm rooms.).

At Himeyama, the five were not addressed by their names, and there were severe consequences for violations. The leader of the Five, who reigned supreme, was Yukari, and the only acceptable way to refer to her was apparently Her Majesty of the Lofty Amethyst Palace. People told me that she was a mastermind of schemes and plots and intrigues. She wanted to rule over the world and had no morals. She was a ruthless, merciless warlord. She had plans for entire cities to be slaughtered if they stood in her way.

The next in the five was Midori, and I was to remember to refer to her as Her Highness of Emerald Palace. People told me that she was an expert in manipulating the human mind.

Then there was Kasumi, known as Her Excellence of Ruby Castle, whose expertise was analyzing situations.

The fourth was Yayoi, her Eminence of Peridot Castle. She was one of the most dangerous. She could turn people into dolls, and no one would notice when the spell was cast. The person carrying the spell had no feeling of it. Then all of a sudden, when Yayoi activated the spell, from near or afar, the person would become her puppet, with no chance of putting up even the slightest resistance whatsoever.

Finally the youngest, at age fifteen, is Ryō, Her Highness of Rose Quartz Hall. Due to her age, Ryō had not received her own castle or palace, but apparently she was the most experienced and the fiercest on the battlefield, and had vowed to earn an estate for herself by the spoils of war instead of through inheritance. Ryō was also the Lord of the Dungeon, most skillful at torturing and interrogating prisoners. She spent most of her free time either devising new methods of interrogation or designing new equipment for torture.

There stood the Five, on the other side of the water-eroded rock, and they were planning attacks on Kageyama.

I heard Yayoi suggest turning students into dolls, and try to gain access to the room where designs for the spell that protected the academy would be located.

I heard Ryō asking whether it would be okay with the rest if she tortured and slaughtered the whole academy and then made Kageyama her own estate, and she could be known as Her Highness of the Mountain of Shadows afterwards.

I heard Kasumi and Midori discussing how to compromise the fellowship among instructors and elders, and I heard how Yukari would make a bloody example of Kageyama for anyone who dared to withhold themselves from voluntarily offering their full surrender and submission to her.

I heard Kasumi lauding the idea, since all other academies were trade colleges with no share in the supreme arts. If Kageyama, with its centuries of tradition in swordsmanship, magic, and alchemy proved to be no match against the superior Himeyama, then any potential resistance would be discouraged.

I heard Midori describing how grand the empire would be after Yukari reigned over every person and every land. I saw Yukari show a faint smile as her ego was satisfied by Midori’s skillful command of words...

I was debating about how to get out of there and alert Kageyama of Himeyama’s scheme, and I was lost in my thoughts. When I returned from my imaginary conversations and what-if’s and maybe-I-should... I found the Five standing right behind me, with their shadows enveloping me. I was scared and terrified. I could not say a word.

Ryō said she would have fun with me, seeing that I must be just waiting for her to make me into a toy of hers. “Be patient” she told me, as I was destined to be hers.

Midori said that when a young girl was just about to cry, her watery eyes would make her heart itch, and the shimmering of light in tears that were just about to roll was the most beautiful sight in the world.

Yayoi cast a spell on my neck, and Kasumi agreed that it would be convenient to turn me into a doll every now and then, so as to have an espionage device.

Kasumi then commented that I seemed to have a good amount of talent, probably on par with Arashi’s, but in magic. If I ended up in advanced studies, I could try to resist the spell after I found a chance to detect there was something unusual on my body.

Midori then held the top of my head, and invaded my mind and my body with her magic. Flames engulfed me on the inside, and it placed barriers to prevent growth in the Arts, while burning away most of my talent and capability.

The four of them took a step back and bowed their heads. I watched in horror as Yukari walked toward me, and slowly raised a finger of hers to within a few centimeters of my forehead. Then, Yukari erased my memory of the whole encounter, from hearing the conversations right to that moment, and she also placed three spells inside me. One in my mind to slow down my thinking and the sharpness of my faculties, one in my spine to slow me down in my movements, and one in my heart that would turn me into a remote-controlled explosive device at her command.

I only remembered these after I woke up. During the rest of the dream I had no recollection of what had happened at the foot of the mountain. I lost consciousness and fell asleep.

I woke up toward the evening and found myself by an interesting looking rock. I must have gone over to take a look, and fell asleep there.

I went back to Kageyama, and could not run very fast. It should not have been that tiring, even for uphill, as it was considerably easier than jumping between rocks.

I was very exhausted when I finally got back and went to bed soon afterwards. I found myself very sleepy during the day, and restless in the night, with very shallow sleep. Toward my eighth birthday, I had lost all capability to understand Akishi’s demos, and I felt no inkling of entering the silence at all.

Life became very depressing as a result. I believe by my ninth birthday I had entirely given up. I asked Arashi to watch the sunset with me for the last time, and I felt a bitter mixture of complicated emotions. The setting sun was warm, the lap of Arashi was comforting, my heart was in despair, my tears were flowing...

Arashi let me stay there, with my head on her lap, until the evening wind was too cold for me. I knew that was the end for my efforts to stand beside her. I had watched the sunset with her for the last time.

I signed up to be a kitchen helper in the morning, and a cleaning staff in the early evening. I enjoyed cooking and it made me feel like a member of Kageyama again when I served food in the cafeteria and said hi to my former classmates. Cleaning duties, on the other hand, were depressing hours of loneliness. Reminding me that I had given up and had been left behind, my mind often wandered.

As an evening cleaning staff, I went into the Hall every day of the week. I cleaned classrooms, offices, laboratories and storage rooms. I often found myself lost in daydreams when I was cleaning, and would eventually snap out of it toward the late end of the night.

Now as I’m writing this down in my journal, I think I must have been turned into a doll to flip through documents and manuscripts. It would be useful for Himeyama to have an accurate understanding of the opponents’ knowledge and abilities, and the proof of this guess is that, after I suddenly snapped out of my daydreams, I did not have any recollection of what I was thinking about. But I never found that suspicious, probably due to Yukari’s spell on my mental capacity.

Now as I am writing this in my journal, I wonder... I found out about what had happened by the water-eroded rock because I retrieved my memory back from what was once locked up part of my mind, whereas when I was turned into a doll, my awareness must had been forced into hibernation. Since my ‘self’ was never there when I got turned into a doll, I was not able to know what had happened or what the doll did when I woke up from the dream earlier today.

As part of my cleaning duties, I also went to the central tower that sat atop the Main Hall. The offices for instructors of swordsmanship took up two floors, and above those floors sat the library, which took up five floors. On the top was the section of forbidden books.

Akishi once explained to me that since forbidden magic and alchemy always demanded a greater price to be paid by the user than the promised gain, a gain which only happened by a slim chance, these titles, considered dangerous elsewhere, were available for open browsing here at Kageyama.

Located on top of the library was the chancellor’s office and a series of small locked rooms. I found myself daydreaming for long hours standing in front of those doors. I suppose that Himeyama was trying to gain access to them. Maybe important security documents and charts were kept there, but I would never know.

I guess, now I’m writing this, that being an evening cleaning staff was a very efficient way to effectively spy on Kageyama.

I was a kitchen helper and cleaning staff for, I think, a total of seven years. I was sixteen after those seven years, and Arashi was twenty one, Akishi was twenty five, and Hideo was twenty three, soon to be twenty four.

That year Arashi got married. Arashi had become one of the elders with her mastery of the sword. She was an instructor at the age of seventeen, and was elevated to the prestigious status a year and half later.

Hideo became a successful alchemist, and established his own workshop at Kageyama. I wasn’t aware of how the two got together, but I was a little envious and resentful. I thought Hide’o was not good enough for Arashi.

I bought an obsidian brooch for Arashi, and gave it to her as a gift the day before the marriage. I wished her all the best. Lots of students gave gifts to her that day. I believe, at that time, Arashi had become the icon of Kageyama. More students joined after hearing the Legendary Elder who had advanced in ranks well past the rest of the world, at the age of eighteen and half.

The wedding was supposedly grand and sweet. I did not go. I sat alone by the west cliff for the entire day that day.

People talked about it for days afterwards, and the cake was supposedly sublime. I excused myself from my kitchen job during those weeks because I did not want to be part of it.

Eventually I could not take all the gossip about how lovely the new couple was when I was working in the kitchen or serving meals, and I quit my kitchen job. I spent my days in the library reading, and my evenings cleaning.

Two years later, Arashi was pregnant. I stopped interacting with others at all. I even stopped talking to Akishi, who had become one of the chancellor’s assistants. I did not want to hear people eagerly discuss what baby clothes to prepare.

The infant was born, and Arashi became mother to a little baby girl named Ran, which meant orchid. Ran was sent to the caves with a pile of baby clothes, many of them made by students and instructors. Then, a week later, news came back from the cave. Arashi’s aura, which was visible whenever she concentrated her strength into her sword, was seen on Ran. This aura protected Ran every single moment, and eventually the director of the cave decided to take the baby to the opening, and the baby did fine in the outside air. This was the first time in history that a human child could survive on the outside of a crystal cave after three days of being born. Usually, the mother’s spirit was only able to protect the child for three days after birth, and that was the time that people had to bring babies to caves for their own safety.

Ran was brought back to Kageyama. There was an enormous celebration, as now a family could finally be together.

I had finished reading all regular books on magic a year earlier, and did not find them helpful in getting some ability back in me. I then started reading books on forbidden magic and alchemy.

A month after the joyful return of Ran to Arashi, suddenly all the protection magic for the academy malfunctioned, and magic attacks rained on the academy. Students were running in every direction for protection as well as in attempts to escape, while faculty members were desperately trying to fix the protection mechanism.

I stayed put on the top floor of the library. Above me were the chancellor’s office and the security rooms, where lots of teaching staff were trying to reactivate spells, and below me were the offices of sword instructors. I was fairly safe. I heard explosions, shouting, yelling, running, and even a faint cry of a baby amidst all the chaos.

After an hour, things quieted down outside, and I waited slightly longer. I didn’t leave the library until I heard people talking at normal speed and reasonable volume.

I had to talk to a few people to understand what happened during the last two hours.

The elders tried to intercede the attacks, with varying degrees of success. Arashi was able to swing her sword from the ground and cut apart the floating matrix that generated the attacks, which were bolts of elemental energy.

Just when the elders were about to breathe a sigh of relief, shadow figures appeared. The elders went out to meet the enemy, but the opponents were not engaging in battle, and soon the elders were dispersed, trying to catch the invaders. Sensing that something is wrong, Arashi went to check on the alchemy workshop of Hide’o, and found the place empty, with blood everywhere, and her husband nowhere to be found. Arashi got a feeling of what the enemy might be after, and rushed to the nursery that had been set up by the academy for her daughter. She saw students and service staff fight to the death to protect her daughter, and she saw shadow figures, very skilled assassins, trying to kidnap the child. Arashi tried to kill the assassins, but she could not inflict damage on the shadow figures, whereas their sharp claws caused Arashi’s clothes to be drenched in blood.

Arashi did not want her child to end up being captured by the enemy. Holding Ran tightly to her chest, Arashi dashed for the west cliff, and she leapt off. Right at that moment, the protection spells were fixed, and the shadow figures vanished.

I ran down the mountain to the foot of the cliff. It was difficult terrain, and quite a few members of the academy were in the middle of a search.

I joined them, and eventually I saw the brooch I had given Arashi on the ground. I looked up, and saw Arashi, with Ran well protected by her arms and hands, caught up between tree branches, unconscious.

We carried Arashi back. I think Akishi was holding on to Ran for a moment longer.

The next morning, Akishi informed me that the academy had decided for me to take Ran out of Kageyama, and hide in far away mountains. They would not tell me where to hide, and I had to decide for myself, but the idea was that when viewed from Himeyama, Kageyama and my hideout should be in a completely different direction.

Turned out the attacks were initiated by Himeyama. The chancellor’s best guess after the facts had come in, was that Himeyama wanted to capture Arashi’s entire family, probably to conduct research into Ran’s special case, and maybe to harness the power of auras for their own gain.

Akishi should not take on the task as she was related to Ran, and being the chancellor’s assistant, people knew her likeness, so Himeyama’s intelligence network could easily trace Akishi. They chose me because I had been staying in the library for the past many years, and I was not as noticeable as a mere evening cleaning person.

I agreed, and a special basket was made for me to bring the baby with me. It looked like a regular picnic hamper, but had alchemy material and magic spells in the construction process. Baby would sleep comfortably during the journey as if time froze, and magic barriers would block out the transfer of sound and smell in and out of the basket. If someone were to examine the contents, they would even see a mirage of half eaten sandwiches.

I took some money, food, clothes, and some books -- forbidden titles at my request -- and left Kageyama. I traveled toward Himeyama in a slightly off direction and found a suitable quiet valley in a very mountainous region of the land a month later.

I was not told when to return, but when I heard news about ‘Kageyama Town’s First Annual Fireworks Festival’, that would be my cue to return.

Now as I am writing in my journal, I wonder why Himeyama did not just take control of me and bring Ran to them. Maybe they needed both Arashi and Ran. Maybe they thought if they used Ran as a hostage, Arashi would charge at Himeyama and fight to her death instead of turning herself in. Or maybe Himeyama just thought the whole plan was unnecessary and they just did not bother. I guess I would never know.

I opened the hamper after settling in, and found Ran perfectly asleep, as if the month-long traveling did not even exist. One month was the maximum limit they could make time freeze with alchemy, and I used that time allotment to the maximum.

I took care of Ran, and bought a few goats for milk from a nearby town. I did not try to go to villages, which were nearer, as I worried that villagers would be alerted by a stranger in the region, and Himeyama could find my hideout as a result.

I made dolls for Ran with her small infant clothes as she grew up. Life was rather peaceful. I spent a lot of time reading as Ran played happily on the grass and on the moss. I think I got my breakthrough at getting ability in magic, but the price was great.

I could obtain magic by sacrificing my physical body. The more I sacrifice, the more chance of success. I could sacrifice my spirit for the magic to be powerful, and the more I sacrifice, the greater the strength. If I sacrifice my entire physical body and my entire spirit, I would be unstoppable and invincible for one certain attack, and would afterwards disappear from the world.

There was another catch: I needed to envision my own magic. I could not use any existing spells or matrices. My magic ability would only exist if I can imagine it into existence, something that this world had never seen.

Ran started learning to talk, and I tried to get her to tell me when she needed to go potty. Days passed in seemingly endless succession. I was happy.

Later that year, I went into town for my monthly shopping trip, and heard that the town by the foot of Kageyama was going to have a great fireworks festival. Regular craftsmen, alchemists, magicians were all invited to show their talents, and every town had posters advertising the event. Ran had turned two, and she would return to Arashi now.

We packed up and I tried to travel only during the night. Ran no longer fit in a hamper, besides I did not have another special hamper to use for my return trip. I had no talent in alchemy, and it would be impossible for me to correctly activate it for a return trip that would take place at an unknown time in the future.

After much difficulty, after people started going back to their own towns, talking excitedly about the fireworks they had seen, I managed to return to Kageyama.

I saw Arashi standing at the top of the mountain path. I waved to her, and she ran down the road. I was going to greet her, but she just took Ran out of my arms, gave me a letter, and dashed off, disappearing into the distance.

Quite confused, I stood there speechless for a short while, and eventually looked at the letter, and it was addressed to the chancellor.

I delivered the letter to the chancellor’s office and left. It was not until a week later that I found out about what had happened.

Arashi woke up from her coma about two months after the attack, and she immediately asked for the baby. To her great dismay, the school administration told her that the baby was being cared for in secrecy out of safety concerns, and she would not get a chance to see the baby until she recovered.

Arashi kept her anger inside and tried her best to regain her health. It was not until two years after the attack, that she could prove to the academy that she had regained all her strength. Arashi asked to be reunited with her daughter the very next minute after her demonstration of strength and ability, only to be told that the school did not have Ran’s location, either. They had to advertise a festival as a code for the baby to be brought back. Since then, Arashi had waited every day at the top of the path waiting for her separation from her child to end, and every evening she went back to her room fuming with rage and disappointment.

When the last day of the fireworks festival passed, Arashi wrote a letter condemning Kageyama for their inconsiderate plans and their self-righteousness, that she was not consulted before they finalized their plans. She was insulted by their “we did it for your own good” attitude, and she had severed all ties with the academy when the letter would be delivered to the chancellor. Arashi was no longer affiliated with Kageyama in any way.

An ultimatum arrived soon from Himeyama, demanding unconditional surrender. I guess after they heard about Arashi’s departure, they figured that Kageyama was already good as dead.

Everyone wrote to Arashi. Everyone put in little mementos from their days with her or included little stories of their memory of being with her. We all knew that Kageyama would be no more. We would put on a brave resistance that would not bring shame to the proud tradition of centuries, and we would die standing, as gallant warriors. Elders with their expertise in magic drew a matrix, and using Arashi’s belongings left in her room, they were able to get the matrix to transport the box of letters to where Arashi was.

I wrote a short note as well. I felt guilty since I was the one taking Ran away from Kageyama, and I spent almost two years with the cute baby girl when Arashi lived in agony. I apologized to Arashi for taking part in the rude offense against her, and I wished her a happy peaceful life with Ran.

Come to think of it, I did not hear anything about what happened to Hide’o. I still don’t know where he ended up.

The day of the attack came. Everyone fought bravely. However, the military strength of Himeyama was crushing down on Kageyama. The sheer multitude of soldiers in their troops was unbelievable.

I was in the library, with my last attempt at summoning magic. I really liked my days at Kageyama, and I was willing to die for it.

Our chancellor was the first in the formation, followed by the elders, then the instructors, and finally students and service staff. Some were fortunate to die in battle, but most of them were captured alive after being badly wounded.

I still had not succeeded in summoning magic, and was taken prisoner when Himeyama’s forces conducted a thorough search of the campus.

Then the Five appeared. Yukari pronounced that due to our failure to properly surrender, we were to be rightfully disciplined. Ryō’s eyes were glowing.

One by one, members of Kageyama were tortured to death at the hands of Ryō, who had taken along all her newly designed devices for this “leisure outing” of hers. We were all made to watch. Those who tried to look away from the unbearable sight were brought close to the scene, had their head forcibly held up, and their eyes fixed with spells so they could not close their eyelids.

Being the only one without previous injuries, Ryō saved me for the last, and she asked around for a wager to be made on how long I would be kept alive while being ‘played’ with.

I had all my nails pulled, all my bones broken into tiny pieces, one at a time, while Midori used her magic to keep me from losing consciousness. I think Ryō was just about to light my feet on fire when I saw Arashi appear; I guess she decided to come after all.

Suddenly, I felt that I could move again, and that might be a hallucination. However, I knew that for some reason, I would immediately succeed if I summoned magic by sacrificing my body.

I imagined a great sword of light and shadows, and chanted Lumen Hilare in my head. My body turned into tiny particles of light, and that light was like a cloud, without form. My spirit was freed from the torture device, and my consciousness resided with my spirit.

I imagined my left hand with thumb, index, and middle finger gathered into a single point, as a symbol of the divine trinity, and my right hand was held over it, forming the Chi-Rho hand gesture of the orthodox saints. And a singular sphere of light appeared between where I imagined my hands to be. The magic had successfully taken shape.

I imagined seeing this sphere becoming a ray of light, then I imagined swinging this ray to dot the sky with lights, and finally I imagined the ray and the dots all becoming swords of light and shadows.

I was successful in every step.

I offered my spirit as the price, and commanded the swords to rain on the Himeyama forces. It worked. Every single one of them was dead, including the Five.

I saw a hollow sphere that Ryō had that was hanging off her belt. It was made of golden thread and silver lace, and probably also rose gold feathers. It had something in it. It was dangling right in front of me as I was being tortured.

Anyhow, when swords of light and shadows pierced Ryō, one of the swords destroyed that decoration, and I had a sharp pain in my spirit being, as if some part of me had been annihilated. I guess she somehow took a fragment of my being and imprisoned it there, and now a part of me was gone forever.

After Himeyama forces were wiped out, I started to disappear, starting from the feet of my spirit body. I saw Arashi taking out a little doll, which looked familiar. I guess it was one of the dolls I made for Ran. Arashi tried to channel my consciousness into the doll. I thought she was successful, as then I was ‘looking’ at her through the eyes of the doll.

But then, I heard her say that it had failed. Somehow my soul was not complete, and she could not preserve my soul in the doll. So I guess Ryō somehow took a fragment of soul and trapped it in that hollow sphere, which had just been destroyed.

I saw Arashi slicing open time and space, and she sent me into it, and told me to live in a different world, where an incomplete soul can exist. And she wished me peace and happiness.

As I am writing this, I wonder why Arashi came for me. Maybe taking care of Ran as a single mother was very hard, and she thought of the two years that I had raised Ran by myself, without any support, and had to avoid raising suspicion from anyone.

Maybe she had the little doll with her so that she could give it to me, or maybe to bury it with my body. I really don’t know. Maybe she remembered the days when we watched clouds and sunsets on the west cliff, where she leapt off, or maybe she had read my apology and came to give the little doll to tell me that I was forgiven.

I guess I would never find out.

I finally woke up from the dream, and it was about an hour past midnight. I think I lived a total of fifteen years in that dream. It felt a bit surreal that it had only been three or four hours in real life. I was a bit shaken, distressed, and bewildered. I think I spent some time lying awake speechless before I fell asleep again.

As I am writing in my journal right now, I guess, well, who knows.

Maybe a portion of my soul is actually missing. I am never fully “there”. A portion of my consciousness has always been disengaged -- lost somewhere in outer space, as people would say.

Even in bed, I was never able to be fully present in the moment. I asked my spouse to try BDSM stuff on me, in a desperate attempt, hoping to get me to be in the moment with the help of pain, but it had never worked.

So maybe that’s just because my soul is incomplete. Well, that explanation is as good as any.