Of countless choices

“… I’m pretty sure that books shouldn’t do that” Reisen commented. Some part of her was amazed at the fact that something could still surprise her, by that point.

“Well, maybe normal ones.”

She raised an eyebrow at them. “Why, do magic books usually do this?”

Yukiya frowned, pursing their lips. “… okay, yeah, no, they don’t.” Their initial shock forgotten, they crouched down and inspected the tome, gingerly tracing its contours.

“What did you do, by the way?”

They ducked their head even more, seemingly embarrassed. “I just… That’s a magic book, obviously, and I remembered that sometimes they require… uh, special incantations to be read, you know.”

She did not, in fact, know. However, she could understand. “What, like computers and passwords?”

They sighed, their shoulders drooping. “Yes, Reisen, sure, if that’s the comparison you want to go with. Anyway, they sometimes need those for someone to see what’s written inside, so I simply…” They gestured vaguely with their hand. “… tried a few spells, you know?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, even though they weren’t even looking at her. “So you’re telling me that you did random magic on an ancient tome you knew nothing about.”

“If you say it like that it sounds really bad…”

Reisen rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but thankfully nothing actually disastrous happened, so we can count it as a victory.” She patted them on the head. “Good job with the hacking.”

Yukiya didn’t seem convinced by her metaphor, but one couldn’t always have everything.

She squatted down near them. “Wasn’t that a bit too easy, though?”

The kid shrugged, looking at the pages: some letters had become words, but it had stopped there. “Well, funnily enough, the majority of older books tends to be locked by simpler incantations for some reason.” They thought about it for a moment and then amended with: “Or maybe we just got lucky.”

“I see. So now what happens? I imagine you have to continue your spell to make other words appear.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Nobody commented on the fact that none of them actually knew what they were doing, but every type of progress and discovery was reached through trial and error. Yukiya focused yet again on the tome, skimming the pages and doing their magic: despite herself, Reisen watched in some kind of fascination how, little by little, more and more letters and words appeared on the paper, forming sentences and paragraphs until the whole book was covered in writings. The kid flipped through the pages to be sure that everything was there, and when they closed the tome the title was perfectly legible too, all golden, elegant, embossed letters where before it was barely visible.

“Of eternal balance” Yukiya read.

“Which is to say?”

The kid shrugged, unsure. “Balance is typically associated with the earth element, so I’m expecting it to contain consequential incantations. However, everything here seems way more advanced and complicated than anything I’ve ever seen inside magic books.”

“Well, that’s good” she decided, standing back up. “It means that my parents were right about this being an important tome.”

Yukiya stayed silent for a few seconds, and then looked at her. “Reisen, can I…” They trailed off, glancing away, but then got back on track. “Can I borrow it?”

“No, I searched for it because I wanted to use it.” She rolled her eyes, and before they could take her seriously – they really had to work on that – she added: “Of course you can, I took it for you.”

The kid jumped to their feet, the book safely clutched in their hands as if it was their most prized possession, and the smile they gave her, complete with an aura of sparkles and flowers, was nothing but blinding. “Thank you, Reisen!”

At that, she realised she’d lied: that smile was blinding and contagious. “Don’t mention it. Now, though, let’s return to the shop. I don’t want to leave it unsupervised for too long.”

“But no-one ever comes in” the kid commented with all of their childlike, unfiltered innocence, even cutely tilting their head to the side.

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “That’s not the point, Yukiya. Also, we do have customers.”

“I’ve been the only one for all the time I’ve known you.”

“You’re a nitpick, that’s what you are. Now come on.” She stomped back to the shop, getting hurriedly followed by one troublemaking mage, with the intention to return to her metal pieces.

She actually managed to train for quite a while, passing from levitation to transmutation due to Yukiya’s insistence, but, after that the kid had started trying out some of the simplest spells present in the magic tome, they lifted their gaze, stopping whatever they were doing.

“Reisen…!”

Hearing a certain degree of distress in their voice, she glanced away from the poor unfortunate piece of metal that was being subjected to her experiments, but as soon as she actually saw the expression on Yukiya’s face she completely forgot about her training: their motions had frozen altogether, and they seemed scared. All of a sudden, she was thrown back to when the kid had sensed the chimaera, their behaviour being eerily similar to the one from that day. “Yukiya?” she called, fearing that they wouldn’t have answered her; thankfully, however, they reacted and turned to her at the sound of their name. “Kid, what’s happening?” Because something was occurring, she was sure of that. She just hoped for that something not to be another elemental beast.

Their eyes were wide when they said “Something is not right- Near here? This magic signature…”

“That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever; you know that, right?” They evidently weren’t interested in explaining more at the moment, because she’d not even finished speaking when Yukiya got up and ran outside, still clenching the book in their hands. “Oh damn, here we go again.” At least she was pretty sure they wouldn’t have disappeared on her. Small blessings. She followed them, becoming more and more worried with each passing second, and found them looking into the distance. “Yukiya?”

They seemed in a haze, but that time they answered. “I think… the Sankyu Falls.” They turned to her, suddenly anxious. “We have to go, Reisen, this is the same thing I felt when I sensed the chimaera-”

She put her palm up in front of her. “Kid, hold your horses, the only thing we have to do now is to talk to Nagai and granny Miyako, nothing else.” Was her tone stern enough?

The answer was no, it probably wasn’t, since they complained right away. “But, Reisen-!”

“No buts, kid” she interrupted them, grasping their forearm with decision and dragging them in the direction of the vampire’s shop: they yelped, but unless they used magic she was way stronger than them.

Nagai must’ve had the same idea as her – believe it or not, it happened from time to time –, since the two of them met him halfway to his place. He seemed nervous and frazzled too, which Reisen at that point simply assumed was the normal state for a mage as soon as they felt something strange in the Force or whatever that was for them.

“Hagane, Tsuchifuji!” he exclaimed as soon as he saw them, coming to a halt in the middle of the street. He must’ve been truly distressed, because he simply had his sun umbrella and crooked sunglasses with him.

In any case, Yukiya didn’t stop to exchange pleasantries. “Did you feel that too?”

“Yes, I was just coming to find you two and Miyako. Is it what I think it is?”

“If you mean the same magic signature of the chimaera, yes, I fear so.”

“We should-”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence, because in that moment the kid’s head whipped to the side, and Nagai’s followed a second later. Obviously Reisen didn’t sense anything at all, and she was seriously beginning to have more than enough of that whole magical nonsense, but she did feel vaguely left out at times, so she looked at what they were staring at too: she guessed that the both of them were right for being worried, because a plume of what seemed smoke was rising in the air above the Sankyu Falls. The few people that were near them got curious, probably wondering what was happening, and started muttering to each other after witnessing that, concerned.

“We have to go” Yukiya stressed: Reisen may not be able to sense magic, but she could see the nervous energy coursing through them.

“This would be the perfect moment for the Mages Association to actually do their job and get here” commented the vampire, with the tiredness of a hundred lives, basically reading her mind. “Anyway, I’ll come with-”

The “you” at the end got swallowed by the deafening sound of a sudden explosion. Of dozens of them, to be precise. Reisen closed her eyes by instinct, shielding her face with her arms, surrounded by the sudden cacophony of scared cries and hurried steps. When she tentatively reopened them, blinking a few tears away, her first impulse was to check if her friends and the few other people around her were safe – thankfully, it was the case –, but all of her attention was taken by her world – her home – being in flames: blazes of reds and oranges inundated the streets, setting fire to the wooden traditional houses. Apart from the fact that it was an affront to historical preservation, she couldn't believe that her town, Narai of one thousand buildings, was burning.

The good side, however, single silver lining in that ocean of smoke clouds, was that its residents could count on one of the most skilled water wizards of the entire prefecture. Sure enough, Nagai recovered from the first scare and, with barely any hesitation, worked his magic: he extended his hands and each water tap in the immediate vicinity exploded, answering his command and creating twirling rivers in the air that started extinguishing the countless fires. More than that, in a show of power for which even Reisen had to be impressed, he made it so that there was an effect similar to rain, where translucent droplets raised and then fell from the sky in a blessed downpour, covering as much terrain as his eyes could see.

“This… this is water magic” commented Yukiya in awe and solid respect, despite the surrounding pandemonium.

She wordlessly agreed. She had never seen the vampire quite so focused, or so angry. His sun umbrella had fallen on the ground and his skin was getting sunburnt, but he didn’t seem to care at the moment.

“Evacuate the premises, I’ll take care about this-”

“Not so fast” a known, humourlessly cold voice interfered.

Reisen’s gaze flew in the direction it was coming from: the sharper features, the single fox tail and the soft, light down that covered the exposed parts of her body were new, but Reisen would’ve recognised those vermilion eyes and red hair anywhere. She clenched her fists. “You!”

Oshibi tilted her head to the side. “Me, indeed.” She focused her gaze on Reisen, ignoring the others. “It’s time for a rematch.”

“I don’t think so” Nagai snarled. “This time, I’ll be your opponent.”

Oshibi narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t meddle, you-”

Whatever her insult would’ve been got washed away and drowned by a wave evoked by Nagai, that hit her in the middle and sent her skidding many metres away. “Go!” he told the two of them, barely glancing in their direction. “I’ll hold her off!”

Reisen had no intention to fight Oshibi, not when the latter had fire at her fingertips, not without a weapon, and the water wizard was definitely the best choice if they wanted to win, so she nodded tightly and ran away, bringing the kid with her before they could even think about protesting.

After they had moved away from the biggest danger, however, Yukiya went at it again. “Reisen, we have to go to the Sankyu Falls!” they exclaimed, quite literally digging their heels in. “We’re the only ones who can deal with what’s happening there!”

Damn it, damn it, damn it all! Reisen actually stopped, but not because the kid made her. She stomped her foot on the ground. “Damn it!” she shouted. She was conscious of the fact that Yukiya was worriedly staring at her, but she needed to let go of at least some of her irritation. She pinched the bridge of her nose, forcing herself to focus. “… I know, kid, and I hate that.” They shouldn’t have been forced to fight, it shouldn’t have been their responsibility. It was wrong on so many levels, but it was their reality right now. “If you want me to come with you, however, I’ll need a weapon.” Returning to her house was way too dangerous, so she retrieved her keys, one of the very few items she always brought with her, from her skirt pocket, removed the keychain and gave it to Yukiya. “Do your magic, please, oh child of wonders.”

Despite the situation, the kid let out a surprised chuckle. “Sure.”

After they transformed her keychain into a sword, however, she frowned toward the Falls. “How are we going to get there, though? Last time I checked, by foot it took hours…”

Yukiya smiled with a mix of cuteness and confidence, putting their arms behind their back, and she instantly knew that something was amiss. “Reisen, do you trust me?”

“… Yes?”

“Then hold tight.”

Flash forward to a few minutes later, and the two of them were travelling an impossible distance at breakneck speed on the least safe trolley in existence, held together by stone, metal, wood and prayers: while Yukiya was having the time of their life, however, Reisen was clinging to them with one hand and gripping her home-made sword with the other, wondering if that would’ve been the cause of her death.

When they finally reached the Sankyu Falls she got off as quickly as she could – she didn’t want to hear anyone complain about her driving skills ever again –, but her relief was short-lived.

“Good afternoon, Tsuchifuji Yukiya” a new voice greeted. “I was waiting for you.”