Chapter 6

Today Rionne had replaced her battle dress with some light blue jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt. She appeared relaxed on the outside, only her slightly piercing gaze hinting at her intense concentration as she studied this completely unremarkable middle-class home in a corner of Suginami City.

Both Naomi and Rumiko were with her. The succubus asked curiously, “What do you see?”

The elf wizard was scanning the door and window frames meticulously. “I would rather avoid being trapped inside this house.” Her gaze shifted briefly towards Naomi, but then she shook her head. “I was about to ask how reliable these people are, but that would be to insult your skill.”

The tall redhead snorted. “Not a bad question, actually. The Fuyutsukis are some of the most lethally dangerous people on this planet. Yet they live like this.”

Rionne nodded slightly. “Living modestly usually speaks of wisdom. Or of great skill at subterfuge.”

“They got both. They aren’t your average magicians.”

Then footsteps approached the closed door, and it opened from the inside. A boy who did not appear older than ten years appeared. “Ayase-san, Kurono-san,” he said, addressing Naomi and her succubus friend with a slight bow. “You’re welcome here, as always.” Then he looked at the elf wizard, and the bow was deeper. “Archsorceress Laurescient, we are greatly honored that you would visit us. Please make yourself at home.”

The formal greeting took Rionne by surprise. Intuition guided her next. “You don’t strike me as someone who has read Katsumasa-san’s works.”

An amused grin appeared on the boy’s face — and it did not belong to someone of his age at all. “Their entertainment value is decent. But the insights they offer on your realm are priceless.”

Rumiko regarded the perplexed elf with amusement. “Yeah, Ryuuichi-sensei is like that.”

This only amazed Rionne further. “This boy is your mentor?”

“You disregard him at your peril, Rionne-sama,” Naomi warned.

The atmosphere inside was heavy with the warm smell of pastry being baked. A low, happy hum escaped Naomi’s lips. “That smells delicious.”

“Up the stairs, please,” Ryuuichi said politely. “My mother said it would be a waste not to introduce Rionne-sama to the delights of local desserts. We all here hope she’ll be impressed.”

“Whoa, girl, you’re in for a treat,” Rumiko warned playfully. “When Rinka-sensei puts her heart into it, even the gods themselves want a slice.”

The elf grinned. “I’m looking forward to it.”

The second floor was the main living area of the house. A large couch set in front of a huge TV, then a wide wooden table where a homemade meal of sashimi and nigiri had been laid out. And behind the table, a counter, and the kitchen area itself.

This place was Rinka’s dominion, who looked as unremarkable as it was possible for a Japanese woman to get without delving into stereotypes. She was middling in height and heavy in build, flat-faced, her eyes slits, many lines of gray flecking her black hair, which she wore tied in a bun. “Oh, Rionne-sama, welcome! Please take a seat! I had hoped to finish this before you arrived, but things happened.”

“No apologies are necessary, Lady Rinka,” the elf replied with great deference. “In fact, I should thank you for having me.”

“Nonsense. Who wouldn’t be honored to host the great sorceress Laurescient? We heard a lot about you from Leafspeaker Hilde. Even before this whole mess with Katsumasa-sensei. If I had known you’d end up here…” A sheepish grin. “Hiroshi-san wanted to tell you, but I believed it would have just caused you gratuitous pain about a reality you had never had contact with. It was a bad call. We could have spared you all of this.”

The guests sat around the table. “I can understand the reasoning behind that decision,” Rionne said slowly. “I accept your apology regardless.”

“Thanks.” Rinka still shook her head. “Hearing it from Kurono-san still hurt. Nobody should go through what you experienced.” Naomi shifted in her seat slightly at that.

“It has been traumatizing,” the elf admitted, “but also a learning opportunity. I can understand why you would decide to settle in this world. How did you get acquainted with the Leafspeaker?”

“Our son was born in your realm. We only got here seven years ago.”

A phone rang somewhere. “Dad’s almost here,” Ryuuichi informed. “He asks if he should get something.”

“Let Rionne-sama sample the wine, would you please?” Then, to Rionne herself: “We got something we thought you might like, but we’re not sure.”

The succubus observed the scene with amusement. “I always wonder why you bother buying stuff when you can just create it out of thin air.”

“Restraint, Ayase-san, restraint!” Rinka chided Rumiko playfully. “You tug at reality, reality can tug right back. If you’re lucky, it will just be uncomfortable, but you don’t bet on luck.”

A shrug. “I don’t get that. Reality has never ‘tugged’ at me like that.”

“Reality is tugging at you all the time,” Ryuuichi pointed out as he poured a bit of red wine for their elf guest. “The wards in your aura aren’t merely decorative. Beware of survivor bias.”

Rionne held the glass below her nose with soft motions and eyes closed, taking in the fragrances. Her cheeks colored up slightly, then she took a small sip. It was sweet, fruity, and had a fresh aftertaste. “I would like to take a few vases of this delicacy home.”

Rinka laughed. “Tell your father the wine was a success, Ryuu-kun. He could bring a few more bottles of that Porto brandy.”

“‘Porto brandy…’ I will remember the name.” Rionne put down the glass, then turned to Rumiko and Ryuuichi. “Something puzzles me here. I was trained to draw upon the Tapestry to power my spells. It does not exist here, and yet my magic still functions. From Lady Rinka’s words I infer the risk of repercussion exists if a spellcaster is brazen or reckless, but how would that happen exactly?”

Unexpectedly, Naomi answered that. “I know magic myself, but I didn’t get it studying; I was invested with it. I had to experiment and discover the limits myself.” A snort, then she shook her head. “I almost burned down my best friend’s house. It’s a miracle I didn’t set myself on fire.

“But anyway,” she refocused, “Ryuuichi-sensei, you, I, most other immigrants I’ve met—we share a framework of sorts: formulae, principles, foci, that kind of stuff. That your Tapestry-based magic still works happens, I believe—and Rinka-sama will correct me if I’m wrong—because you don’t just bring along your physical self, the system you are accustomed to using also makes the trip with you.”

“Mostly correct,” Rinka approved, “with two caveats. For starters, her system will eventually warp to accommodate ours the longer she stays here.”

“Plus, mother and father are not bound by frameworks,” Ryuuichi pointed out. “They don’t need a Tapestry, or anything like one. But that comes at a price. In their case, accidents are much more dangerous.”

Rionne kept her eyes on Rinka. “You spoke of two caveats. What is the second one?”

That elicited an enigmatic smile. “That is only for you to hear at a later date, Rionne-sama.”

A few minutes later, a car arrived and parked in the entryway. The door opened, and Katsumasa and Ryuuichi’s father Hiroshi climbed the stairs to join them at the table. The writer bowed. “Good evening, everyone. Thank you for letting me join you.” He hefted a plastic bag. “I decided it was good manners to bring something for dessert, but what’s in the oven smells delicious…”

Hiroshi grinned. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with short auburn hair, moustache, and goatee. Rionne turned towards Katsumasa. The writer could only hold her gaze for a moment before looking away. “Nice to see you again, Rionne-sama.”

The elf kept her eyes on him, then sighed. “I was excessively harsh with you. I wish I had known better.”

“Neither of you should be harsh on yourselves either,” Hiroshi said gently. “Katsumasa-san did not experience the rough awakening many with latent power have to suffer. In this he was fortunate. That he mistook what he saw for having an unusually vivid imagination was inevitable.” He looked at the elf. “Rionne-sama, maybe you’ve figured this out on your own already, but actual magical awakenings here are extremely rare.”

A nod. “That much I had surmised. There is magic here, but it’s almost untapped.”

Katsumasa did not raise his gaze. “Back when I was a math teacher… math students normally don’t come to you with questions you can’t answer, but I got those. I always answered, ‘I don’t know right now, but we can find out’.” He breathed deeply. “Now I feel like I have been assigned to a course way beyond my level.”

Hiroshi smiled at him. “You’ll make a great mage. You already have the one thing whose lack dooms most practitioners: humility.”

Rionne bowed her head in agreement. “That’s a rare quality among apprentices and fellow wizards.” Then she admitted with some discomfort, “I am not a good teacher. I stopped taking pupils because I am too quick to berate or punish them. Katsumasa-san outstrips me there already.”

Naomi smiled slightly. “I didn’t get that feeling at AnimeJapan when you were posing with that newbie cosplayer.”

The elf was thrown off balance. “I have those moments, too, but… I have yet to learn the pace of others rarely is my own. I mastered magic considered beyond mortal skill, and it was considered beyond mortal skill for good reasons.” She shook her head. “Because I am gifted, I have grown to expect everyone to be. I cannot reconcile that.”

“What’s it with those faces, both of you?” Rinka put a salad bowl on the table, then another with steaming miso soup. “You’re both devoted to knowledge and learning. Rionne-san would have made an amazing mathematician if she had been born here. And Katsumasa-san would have mentored many successful wizards if he had been born there, on top of becoming one himself.”

The writer smiled. “Mathematics doesn’t compare with reality-bending skills, but I see your point.”

“Ah, but mathematics does bend reality, Katsumasa-san,” Hiroshi corrected politely. “It just takes a few more steps.”

Rumiko grinned. “There, now you can kiss and make out. How about we eat?”

Shortly after the meal, the doorbell rang. Ryuuichi went to the door and came back with another guest. “Rionne-sama, meet Sugiyama Kanae-san,” he introduced him formally.

Sugiyama bowed. He was as tall as Hiroshi, but bulkier and stronger-looking than the mage. He also appeared older, maybe in his early fifties, some wrinkles adding worldliness to a round and flat face. “A pleasure that you would let me join you. Apologies for the late arrival—shrine duties have kept me busy.”

Rinka smiled at him. “You’re not tricking me, Kanae-san. It’s not a coincidence that you arrived just in time for the cake.”

A quiet laugh. “I’m neither confirming nor denying that.” Then he surveyed the faces of those present. “Kurono-san, nice to see you. You’ve been busy, I gather.”

Naomi nodded politely. “Life as usual, sensei. The NGO work, the school, handling cases, helping migrants…” She gestured with arched eyebrows at Rionne.

The elf scrutinized him and found herself scrutinized in turn. The man’s eyes had a distinct quality: they were both piercing and quiet. His hands were broad and calloused, his arms heavy and supple. His entire body was a physically imposing machine that seemed to move with grace nonetheless. “I understand you are Naomi-san’s master?”

“You may call it that way,” Sugiyama allowed as he took a seat next to Hiroshi. “I’m just a fighting instructor.”

Katsumasa had remained mostly quiet during the meal, listening to exchanges and anecdotes, absorbing as much as he could about a world entirely new to him. “Nice to meet you, Sugiyama-san. I’m Katsumasa Shinichiro. I hope you’ll forgive the dare, but I assume your duties as shrine keeper involve work that usually stays away from the public’s eye?”

Sugiyama smiled at the writer. “You’re perhaps the one person here whom I should least tell about my line of work. Or would be, if our hosts had not filled me in about you. The answer to your question, in short, is yes.”

The writer looked slightly unnerved. He addressed Hiroshi: “Excuse me, but what did you tell him?”

“That you’re a seer in the making, one who sees things, but who cannot yet direct his perspective.”

“Kurono-san suggested, and Sugiyama-san agreed, that we should introduce both Rionne-sama and you to him,” Rinka explained, “if for different reasons. In your case, you must know how we guard our world and what we do to keep it safe. It is part of Sugiyama-san’s duties to watch out for incidents that reveal us or people like us to the rest of the world.”

Rionne observed the exchange without knowing what to make of it. “I surmise my very presence here constitutes a situation Sugiyama-san stands watch for, but I also think there are other reasons for his visit involving me.”

“You bet,” Naomi said. “His shrine is a gate to the Mirror Maze.”

A blink. “The ‘Mirror Maze’.”

“Your way home,” Sugiyama said simply. “A frontier between our world and others.”

Rionne’s head snapped towards Naomi, but then she stopped to think. “If I am only learning of this now…”

“I could have told you that from the get-go, that’s true,” the tall redhead allowed. “But now you’re going to tell me that you’d have missed out on a lot if I had.”

A slow nod. “I would.”

“If I might ask,” Katsumasa stepped in, “what is the Mirror Maze exactly? And how does one travel to other worlds through it?”

Naomi grinned slightly. “Someone as cultured as you surely has heard that you should never start a journey without knowing where you’re going.”

The writer squeezed his eyes closed. “Lewis Carroll? No — he said something like ‘if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there’.”

“Close enough,” Hiroshi approved. “The same happens if you enter the Maze. ‘Guard your thoughts well. A wandering mind finds itself in dark places.’”

Rionne bowed her approval. “Grim, but accurate.”

“Now, what the Mirror Maze is exactly…” Sugiyama kept his pondering gaze on the writer.

Who nodded. “If you believe it’s something I shouldn’t see, then I shouldn’t see it.”

The shrine warden shook his head. “In your case I believe it’s best if you know. You might get an incomplete or dangerous picture on your own.

“Imagine for a moment that you step into a mirror. You'll find yourself in a perfect reflection of the room where the mirror is at first. But the moment you exit that room, the world changes. It becomes not a reflection of physical places, but of the culture near the Maze entrance.”

Rionne's concentration was total now. “And in between both peripheries?”

“The real inhabitants of the Maze,” Sugiyama replied. “Those who call it home. A typical one is what we would call a ‘sphinx’. Creatures who speak in riddles, see more about us than they should, and demand tribute for passage.”

“There are other ways through, you know,” Rumiko commented. “The door to my apartment opens to this realm or my home realm depending on which code you type on the lock. That’s how my mom tossed my ass here.”

“Other ways exist, true,” the shrine keeper agreed. “About your door—I’m certain that cost your mother quite an investment. Surely she had to ingratiate herself with a powerful guardian that keeps that path open for you, present them with a rare and costly offering. There is also just sneaking through, as your friend Kurokami likes to do every so often,” he added dryly, “but that’s hazardous and irresponsible. Doing that creates holes that can be used to cross by things that shouldn’t make the crossing. In either direction. Sometimes by accident, even.”

That last tidbit startled Katsumasa. “So… say some random person happens to walk down the wrong street at the wrong time? What happens then?”

“They vanish,” Sugiyama said grimly. “Sometimes forever. They can be tracked down and rescued, but it’s extremely hard. Kurono-san here has experience with that.”

Naomi shook her head. “Not a pleasant one. There are places you really, really don’t even want to know about. If some poor idiot ends up there, chances are they’re not coming back. And if they do, the experience utterly shatters them.”

Hiroshi repeated, as seriously, “‘Guard your thoughts well.’”

Rionne wore a thoughtful expression. “I surmise direct shortcuts leading from this realm to mine are nonexistent.”

Sugiyama frowned. “A doorway might exist, just like Ayase-san’s. But then again, it might not. You can use magic to find gates, but they’re vanishingly rare to begin with—and when you find them, most often the only way to know where they lead is opening them. And as my student just said, there are doors you don’t want to open.”

An understanding nod. “So I must brave the Maze to return home.”

“Most likely. I’ll let you know when the timing is right to make the crossing—sometime around a week from now, if conditions hold.”