Trap

Noa closed his eyes. 

The park he was standing in with Miyori was barely worth the name, a small patch of green grass with a few labeled shrubs and a swing set across the way. 

He turned to face the district they'd been examining and lifted his hands. 

Don't think, he told himself. Just try to feel. 

Miyori mentioned they'd said something about energy, at that lecture-thing she'd been to. She hadn't sounded impressed, and he could understand why. A great deal about magic was practical; you had to follow predictable rules to reach predictable outcomes. Sure, magic was also a thing of instinct, but children were taught to distrust their instincts past a certain point. Magic that wasn't carefully controlled was magic doomed to fail at the crucial moment. 

But Noa's magic had a way of helping him at crucial moments, when he trusted it. Maybe his instincts weren't right all the time…but maybe they could still give him an edge.

Besides—whatever this spell, this garden, the Isekis were trying to create was, it had interacted with Noa and his magic a few different times now, drawing him in. 

Could he use that? 

He stood, breathing and trying to feel the path of his blood as it moved through his arteries and veins. Blood magic as a concept was treated with so much disdain that people overlooked that blood was magic. 

So maybe the magic he was seeking was calling to his blood, and if he just got quiet enough….

He thought he felt a tug, but then again, maybe he was imagining it. He knew the direction he needed to start in, after all—back into the business district. 

"Come on," he said. 

They walked to the end of the block, and he half-heartedly swung his arms around, feeling the arc of them. It felt just a little lopsided—probably by coincidence—so he followed that. 

Miyori fluttered along with him, watching him closely. "Are you, like…dowsing?" 

Noa could feel his face going hot. "I guess that's basically what I'm trying to do, yeah. I told you it was stupid." 

"I mean…" Miyori said. It sounded like she was searching for a reason to disagree and couldn't quite find one. "It can't hurt, I guess?" 

"Yeah." His embarrassment wasn't helping him focus. "Look, it's leading us back to your place anyway, so just…indulge me a bit?" 

"Sure." 

They walked a little aimlessly, Miyori following Noa's lead. He tried to ignore her presence, but found he couldn't, quite; even with his eyes closed, he thought he could guess where she was, small and fluttering. 

Maybe he was sensing her, too, but more likely he was just self-conscious. 

He walked along until he didn't. He turned and stared at the blank wall beside them. "Let's go this way," he said, and Miyori followed him as he circled around the building. 

"Do you feel something?" she asked. 

"Maybe." 

In truth, he wasn't sure. Rather than overthink it, though, he hurried over to a manhole cover, splaying his fingers over it. 

Something hummed underneath. 

He tried pulling it up, but the cover was locked in place. There were a few lines on either side, painted onto the street; places where the system connected. They pointed to the building up ahead. 

Noa stared up at it. It was several stories tall and rather the worse for wear. "Is that an opening up there?" he asked, pointing. 

"I'll check." Miyori fluttered up…and then disappeared. Apparently it had been open after all. 

Noa waited, shading his eyes as he stared at the side of the building. 

There was a creak to one side, and then Miyori appeared around a corner, gesturing frantically. 

Noa hurried over. Turning the corner, he could see a door opened just a crack. 

"This is absolutely breaking and entering," Miyori said anxiously. "But there's no one inside. Hurry and see if there's anything that makes this worth the risk." 

Noa stepped into the building. It was some sort of warehouse, with large pallets and boxes stacked almost floor-to-ceiling. It was barely lit, and he stepped slowly to avoid tripping. 

Maybe it was the dark, or his nerves, but he thought he could feel the pulling sensation more strongly than ever. 

Stepping through seemingly endless shelves, he came upon a large, metal cabinet in a corner. The area around it was wide open, swept clean where many other corners carried dust. 

Noa reached for the door. It was smooth and featureless, except for a single divot…and, as he'd expected, it was locked. 

He bent his attention on the door, reaching for his magic. Likely he was going to open it and find nothing, but after going this far, literally breaking and entering, he wouldn't be satisfied until he'd checked for himself. 

The door withstood his first attempt to open it. That made sense, especially if it was magically locked. 

Noa exhaled sharply and tried again, willing it to move even if it meant something breaking—

Something sharp closed on his hand where it had touched the door, and suddenly it swung open without resistance. 

Noa shook his hand out, staring at the cabinet's interior. 

There was definitely magic inside—a now-deactivated circle on the inside of the door which had been holding it shut. Glowing symbols, an interface for spells controlling lighting and something else—lifting spells, probably, to get things up and down, maybe temperature control—

But in the center of its own circle, surrounded by the other symbols Miyori had shown him, was the wisteria. It was dark as ink, but gave off an oddly iridescent purple sheen. 

The reflected light caught on his fingers, one of them welling dark from the bite of the door. But Noa found that he hardly cared. The light from the circle was mesmerizing, drawing him in—literally. 

He'd thought he was extending his hand thoughtlessly towards the circle of his own accord, but when he thought better of it and tried to pull away, his arm instead slammed into the symbol.

It flickered to life, and tendrils of light flickered out of it, wrapping themselves around his wrist. 

Then a wail like a siren echoed from every corner of the room. 

Miyori squeaked in fright, barely audible over the din. "Noa-kun?" 

Noa tugged his hand away as hard as he could, but it wouldn't budge. Like that night on the street outside the festival, with Sato and the others chasing him—but worse.

The circle began to hum, then shake, vibrations sinking into the bones of Noa's hand and up his arm. He felt his fingertips go numb and oddly cold. His vision began to blur.

"Stay back!" he yelled, as Miyori reached for him. "I'm going to try to—" 

He used all his might to try to pull away—physical, then magical—but it did nothing. Worse than nothing; his magic was pouring out of him like he was bleeding.

Miyori was fluttering around him, looking increasingly panicked. "What do we do? Is there a way to turn it off, or—" 

Noa pulled his pen out of his pocket—it wasn't a stylus or wand, but it was all he had. He reached for the bottom of the circle, where the spell presumably connected with the rest of the city's infrastructure, and slashed with all his might. 

Whatever the connection was made of bent and flowed around his pen as though it was alive. 

He was so cold. And the room was still screaming. That was an alarm—it had to be. Someone would be coming to answer it. 

He took a deep breath, and then shrugged awkwardly out of his bag. "Can you carry this?" he asked Miyori. 

"Yes, but—" 

"Take all my stuff and get out of here," he said. "Find somewhere to hide all this. Whoever catches me can't know what we were doing." 

Miyori shook her head, panicked. "But you—" 

"This is bad, but if they figure out we're on to them, it will get so much worse. At least one of us needs to get away." He forced a smile. "Who knows? Maybe I can bluff them, or run again. But I don't want you to get caught, too." 

Miyori looked between him and the circle, an agonized expression on her face. "I'll hide this and come back," she said. "There might still be time. Don't give up, okay?" 

"Okay." He said it as reassuringly as he could. The ringing in the room was starting to be drowned out by the ringing in his ears. "Now go. Before you get caught." 

Miyori took the bag and rose with impressive speed, disappearing into the darkness. 

Noa gritted his teeth and tried one more time to free himself, wrenching at his arm with everything he had. 

He felt his knees hit the ground, arm still held above his head, and fell forehead-first into the circle. 

Everything went purple and then very, very dark.