Chapter 4.6

Fujiko hardly recognized Miyuki anymore.

There was the matter of her clothes; it was strange seeing her in anything but abundant frills and ribbons.

But the imaginarium embracing her tunic alone overpowered Fujiko’s senses. She had to open one eye just to glimpse Miyuki’s silhouette behind the imaginarium. Not even the other Egregore were this blinding.

So this is the power of ascension.

Miyuki hung in the air like a prisoner awaiting trial. Her judges towered over, each bearing a different look in the face of her Question.

“Destroy the eye of the castle?” Khali repeated. “What kind of Question is that?”

“By all accounts, a legitimate one,” Gentiane replied. “See? In her hands. The imaginarium responded.”

“Well, you have my Permission.”

The Egregore all turned their gaze to Dahlia.

“What?” the child shrugged. “She clearly intends to fight us to get her Answer, so I’m staying out of this one.”

“This castle belongs to the Egregore,” Fang Fang replied. “To abandon its defense is a dereliction of your duty.”

“Ha!” Dahlia laughed. “Tell that to the witch who intends to attack it.”

“I’d abandon this Question if I were you,” Khali said. “A fledgling Egregore against the rest of us won’t look pretty.”

“You may be right, Lady Khali, but every Egregore’s ascension comes with a release of imaginarium,” Miyuki smiled, “and thanks to Lisa Everest’s machinations, I have more than enough to contend with all of you.”

“Thanks, Lisa,” Khali rolled her eyes.

“Shut up, Khali,” Lisa growled. “Permission denied, Miss Kobayashi. I’ll be seeing to your end myself.”

“What are you talking about?” Director Arataki snarled. “Are you telling me you’ll stand with the other countries against–”

“Oh shut up.”

With a snappy wave, Lisa hurled the director to the base of the clock tower. Fujiko heard the crunching of bones, and the old man crumbled to the ground, moaning.

“I don’t know if you just don’t get it, or if you’re unwilling to,” Lisa snapped, “but you were a part of this Story too, Arataki, and you happily moved for me. But you had to ruin things at the end, didn’t you, listening to a stupid girl?”

“You have no one to blame but yourself, Miss Everest,” Miyuki said. “What kind of destiny were you trying to escape when you decided to steer a whole country’s destiny for yourself?”

“And the rest of you, my fellow Egregore,” she continued. “What did you do when you found out about Lisa’s Story? Did you all just give your Permission, what happened? What possessed you to allow one of your own to do this to others? Were the claims of making the world a better place just a lie?”

“It’s not our way to interfere with the projects of other Egregore,” Gentiane replied.

“So you did nothing?” Miyuki laughed. “Does that mean you won’t interfere when I try to blow the Eye of Castle Gramarye to smithereens? Of course not! Because my life, and Fujiko’s life, and Mamoru’s life, and Captain Nakamura’s, and everyone in this city pale in comparison to your ritualistic obsession with Questions and Answers, with ascensions and imaginarium. I can’t blame you. I used to be the same way. But I won’t be, not from this moment forward, not anymore. If Miss Everest and the rest of you are where that road inevitably leads, then I’d rather burn this life, my love for magic away, and the foundations of this castle with it.”

Miyuki looked down at Fujiko. The anger in her eyes softened for a moment, and Fujiko spotted one final time the old Miyuki.

The future is right there. Run towards it! Tell it that you’re here!

And then she was gone.

Before anyone registered where she was, Miyuki’s fist buried itself halfway in Lisa Everest’s face. The witch’s head snapped sideways like a blurry sketch. The blow cracked the air, and Lisa spiraled, cannonballing until she slammed through a parapet and vanished into the inner ring of the castle.

Miyuki sprinted up the clock tower. Khali raised her hand. The golden threads in her hair extended and dived over the ramparts, coiling around Miyuki and tightening like snakes.

Khali gripped the threads like reins and pulled, yanking Miyuki off the wall, flinging her into the outer walls and dragging her body across broken concrete.

But when Khali tugged again, the threads straightened and refused to budget. A heave arrived from the opposite end, through cloudy rocks and debris, and Khali was ripped off by the ramparts. Miyuki, having gnawed at the threads still wrapped around her with her bare teeth, launched off the wall.

“Shit,” Khali cursed. “Incant.”

One of the jeweled bracelets on Khali’s wrists dematerialized and wrapped her in golden film. Miyuki twirled midair and landed a kick. Khali’s ward burst into sunlit particles. The witch crashed onto the fields below along with her flailing threads, while Miyuki landed further downrange.

“Gentiane,” Fang Fang said. “Help them.”

“Baba Yaga!”

Porcelain hands, stained with rusted red grime, crawled out of erupted stone. Lisa Everest, blood falling from her scalp, glared at the battlefield from afar.

“Don’t just stand there!” Lisa Everest shrieked. “After her! Stop her!”

Baba Yaga blinked and did not move.

“Our agreement has come to an end,” she called back. “Your experiment has failed. I’m under no more obligation to assist you.”

“Treacherous bitch,” Lisa spat. “Incantation!”

Lisa snatched her fountain pen and scribbled her signature onto The Now. Ink leaked from the pen and gathered at Lisa’s feet. From within the scarlet pool, a familiar character returned: a faceless phantasm, this time dripping with red ink.

Khali rose from the crater stamped at the center of the field, sigils and jewels across her body blooming like constellations. From above, Gentiane tucked her novella away and leapt down to join her fellow witches. She brought a finger to her lips.

“Shh,” she said. “Silence.”

Instinct shouted at Miyuki to side step. An empty vacuum consumed the space where she had been standing. No air, no sound; the grass inside curled limp while the soil blistered and plumed.

The revived phantasm cried an ear splitting howl and screamed across the field, crashing into Miyuki with its three arms. A hail of golden threads nipped at her heels, while Gentiane’s persistent whispers gave life to airless pockets, but the only thing they caught, what anyone ever caught, was a trace of Miyuki’s shadow.

A hand grabbed the phantasm’s mask and slammed it into the earth. The phantasm hit the floor with a concussive boom, and the field cratered along with it.

But was there a point in jamming a headless face into the ground?

Yes, to drive its head deeper into the dirt.

Miyuki buried the thing beneath six feet of gravel and shattered its Existence Formula by clenching its mask in her hand.

She skipped backwards as Khali’s threads snapped at her again. They multiplied, rose over the field and criss-crossed like laser fields at an art museum. Miyuki hopscotched around them then spotted a path out of the wired maze. She curled her knees and launched herself towards it.

Khali clutched her threads, narrowing the passageway that she had opened for this express purpose, while Gentiane emptied the space of any sound. But Miyuki activated the glyphs below her feet, and she streaked out of the corridor before thread or vacuum could glance at her and closed the distance between her and Khali.

“Like I’d let you get close again!” Khali roared.

A jungle of golden vines sprouted from beneath the earth and rose high enough to form a canopy blocking out the moon. They dove, crushing through everything beneath them except for Miyuki’s silhouette, because how could the golden thread touch an afterimage?

Khali’s eyes snapped to her right.

“Fuck–!”

Miyuki’s fist burst through one, two, three of Khali’s bejeweled wards, smashed her face in, and sent her flying with vapor trailing behind her. Her body cracked open the upper levels of the clocktower, several floors below the main dial.

Miyuki squared off against the last standing witch, who seemed unperturbed that two of her fellow witches had just received an unwanted facelift.

“Incantation,” Gentiane began. “Si–”

“That’s enough.”

Fang Fang descended from the upper ramparts below the clock tower. She landed before Gentiane and nodded at her to step aside.

“I’d rather not see Gentiane get hurt,” Fang Fang said, “so it seems I have to step in. I apologize, Miss Kobayashi.”

“Apologize?” Miyuki replied. “For what?”

“By my oath,” Fang Fang recited. “As life draws breath, so will I protect the time There.”

The witch raised a hand towards the sky. Beneath the moonlight, she drew from the scabbard of the universe a sword, silver from blade to pommel.

Fang Fang's gaze caressed the sword. She glanced at Fujiko, whose own eyes were struck at the sight of that blade. In yet another moment of recognition, Fujiko and Fang Fang crossed eyes, and Fang Fang shook her head ever so slightly before finally settling her gaze on Miyuki.

“I apologize, Miss Kobayashi. It’s impossible for you to beat me.”