Chapter 9: I'm Something of a Magician Myself

I didn’t sleep a single wink.

My thoughts kept racing around, replaying what we had said.

I didn’t want it to happen—that by some mistake she was gone, the mirror shattering before she reached safety.

My alarm went off, startling me.

I raced to shut it off, collapsing back onto my bed.

School day.

Great.

I get to pretend even harder than normally.

I went to the mirror and got ready—if dragging a half-dead version of myself through the motions counted as ready.

Izumi was not there. I told myself she had her reasons.

Mika wasn’t outside today either. She’d sent a text I half-read—caught a cold.

Figures.

A few classes later, I found myself wandering.

As I walked through the halls, a few kids from my next class were murmuring.

Test day.

Test day?

My stomach dropped.

English.

Ah crap. Of course it is.

Before I knew it, I was staring down at my test sheet.

Fifty questions. Words I half-recognized. Sentences that refused to make sense no matter how long I looked at them.

I rubbed my eyes and exhaled slowly.

There had to be a way out of this.

For half a second, a thought surfaced—patterns, structure, answers revealed themselves to me in plain sight.

Psionics.

Then it was gone.

No. I wasn’t doing that.

Even if I could, it’d still be cheating. And I didn't agree with crossing that line.

The clock ticked louder than it had any right to.

I looked up again.

Too late.

The bell rang.

Chairs scraped back as everyone stood.

“Kurosawa.”

I froze.

“Your paper?”

I looked down.

Blank.

***

I found myself sneaking away to one of my old hideouts.

The rooftop.

Solitude.

Peace—strange, considering it sat atop a building packed with people who would probably never know it existed.

Not that it mattered now. I wasn’t going back.

Not for a little while, at least. I needed to clear my head.

Think things over. Evaluate everything—and everyone.

Naturally, Izumi came to mind.

I thought about how she must feel.

Her fate decided by actions not her own. By systems. By people she couldn’t fight.

Anger welled up in my chest.

If she died—

I clenched my fists and forced myself to breathe.

No. She wouldn’t.

I had to improve my magic. I had to get stronger.

Because no matter how much I wanted to hide from it, the truth still remained—Izumi was right.

Maybe I did have some untapped potential. Maybe that strange pull through the mirror between us wasn’t a fluke. Maybe her being sent to me meant something.

Like fate wasn’t throwing darts in the dark.

It was aiming.

What if… what if I was the key?

What if I was the one who could break her out?

The idea sounded insane.

But not as insane as doing nothing.

She was trapped—enduring something I didn’t even want to fully imagine—and I was busy pretending this wasn’t my problem.

For God’s sake, I’d done magic.

Actual magic.

And I kept undercutting it with dry jokes, pretending it wasn’t monumental. Like if I laughed it off hard enough, the responsibility would disappear with it.

That was it.

I had to do something.

Because showing someone your world while they were trapped in something psychologically crushing—without trying to save them—

That was the cruel part.

I formed an aquasphere in my palm. A small one.

It hovered until I released it unexpectedly.

The tiny ball splashed on the floor.

I pursed my lips and grumbled.

That was one of the drawbacks of using this particular spell. It gave me trouble sometimes. Especially when I did it without thinking.

“No,” I muttered. “Stay.”

I tried again.

Water gathered in my palm, obedient at first—then it wobbled, surface rippling like it couldn’t decide what shape it wanted to be.

The moment I focused on holding it, it destabilized, sloshing, threatening to spill.

I frowned.

That was backwards.

I let it drop. Splash.

Okay. Different approach.

I didn’t think about containment. I thought about pressure. About balance. About how water didn’t resist shape—it negotiated with it.

The next sphere formed without protest.
Perfect.

Not rigid. Not strained. Just… there.

Suspended. Smooth.

The surface reflected the rooftop lights like glass.

My breath caught.

“Oh,” I said quietly. “Oh, I get it.”

The sphere stayed when I relaxed my hand.
My chest vibrated—soft, subtle, like a phone buzzing under my ribs.

I ignored it.

I dismissed the water and snapped my fingers, barely thinking.

Heat bloomed.

A flammasphere ignited midair, tight and contained, its edges curling inward instead of lashing out. It hummed, eager but leashed.

I laughed once, sharp and disbelieving.

“No way.”

I dispersed it and stomped my foot.
The rooftop answered.

Stone groaned. Dust jumped. A compact mass of gravel and fractured tile rose into a rough orbit around my shin before slamming back down with a crack.

“—Okay, maybe not that one.”

I winced, staring at the spiderweb fracture spreading across the concrete.

Environmental damage. Noted.

My chest vibrated again—stronger this time.
I rolled my shoulders and started moving.

Not spells. Drills.

I flicked a pebble into the air and tried to catch it with a microburst of air—missed.

Tried again—caught it. Faster. Again. Again. I closed my eyes and snapped my fingers, letting reflex override thought.

Heat. Water. Air. Earth.

Each success made my chest hum, like something inside me was nodding along.

I prodded my own arm with a blunt gust of wind, testing reaction time. Dodged. Faster. Again. I jumped, landed, redirected momentum with air instead of muscle.

I wasn’t stronger.

I was cleaner.

The magic wasn’t something I was forcing through myself anymore. It was meeting me halfway. Filling gaps. Anticipating intent.

I started improvising.

Not Magnarian spells. Not anything Izumi had taught me.

Little things. Stupid things.

Condensing air under my feet just long enough to change direction mid-step.

Spinning water into a cutting edge that never quite sharpened, just suggested it. Layering heat inside stone until it cracked exactly where I wanted.

Reinvention wasn’t the right word.

More like… remembering something I’d never been taught.

My breathing slowed.

The vibrations steadied.

At some point, I stopped smiling.

I stood still, hands at my sides, the rooftop scarred but intact.

Yeah.

I could hold my own.

The door creaked open behind me.

I flinched so hard I nearly summoned something by accident.

A janitor stepped out, pushing a cart that squeaked in protest. He took in the cracked tiles. The damp patches. The faint scorch marks. The pebble that was definitely settling back onto the ground from a height it shouldn’t have been at.

He squinted at the cracked tile, then at the scorch marks, then finally at me.

“Kid,” he said, voice gravelly but not unkind, “this rooftop’s old. I’m older.”

He nudged the cart forward with his foot.

“They don’t pay me enough to care.”

He paused at the door, glanced back once.
“Stay outta trouble. School’s been closed for a little while, guy.”