Handprints

Izumi couldn't help but stare and wonder at the dark room through the other side of the mirror, eventually getting lost in her own thoughts she felt herself nodding off.

"What in the hell!?"

She jolted awake to a voice. Izumi's eyes darted around as she squinted to see the source of the noise.

Her heart dropped to see the boy shadowed in dim light, staring right at her in disbelief and shock.

Neither said a word, and yet the silence was deafening. Izumi's mind was racing, and she was wondering what to do.

Should she try and run or should she stay calm and wait it out? The silence continued for a minute, or so it seemed. Finally he spoke.

"For real though, what the hell?" He asked in a dubious tone.

Izumi didn't reply immediately, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of an answer. Her mind continued to race, still shocked at being discovered.

"Don't tell me you're one of those ghosts! Was I not supposed to give my toothbrush away or something? The boy asks indignantly, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow.

Izumi blinked at him confused after a quick moment. "Ghosts...? I'm not a ghost!" She yelled through the glass. "What makes you even think that?! And what's a toothbrush?"

The boy stared at her dumbfounded, as though it were a stupid thing to say.

"What do you mean? It's a thing where you... Wait a minute!" He interrupts himself. "We're getting ahead of ourselves here! What are you doing in my house?!"

Izumi started panicking, because even she didn't know how to answer that.

"I- My.. I-" She stammered before shaking her head slightly.

"Look..." She starts over. "I promise I won't hurt you, and you're not in any sort of danger. This experience is just as strange to me as it is to you. It may or may not be contrary to what you're thinking right now but truth be told, I'm not even sure how I got here."

A blank expression washed over Keizo.

"Please don't get the wrong idea, I don't think I'm supposed to be here and I really don't know why I ended up here either..." She pleaded softly.

He stared at her skeptically through the mirror. After another long silent pause he responded, 

"Well, there's no doubt that you're not supposed to be here..."

"I think I believe you... But then, what exactly are you?" Keizo followed up.

"I'm a human, like you... I think..." She says hesitantly. "Your world looks exactly like mine, but more advanced or something. I have no idea how, but I've seen things in that room alone that are impossible to me." Izumi says, pointing behind him.

"Like that."

He turns and stares at the spot Izumi pointed at.

"My hair dryer by the wall?" He asks, a bit confused.

Then after a second, he turns towards her and speaks. "So let me get this straight, you're a human like me, but from another world and somehow you've unexplainably ended up in my mirror?"

"Yes..." Izumi nods, unsure what to do next.

"You're serious?" He asks.

"I swear it. I've never been more serious in my life." Izumi says confidently, her eyes locked on his.

"Your skin. You're completely pale." He points out with a raised brow. "I'm really trying hard not to look, I swear, but you don't seem to be wearing anything either..."

Izumi remembered this then suddenly ducked and hid under the mirror. "That's... That's because I don't... I don't have any clothes. They're gone."

"Oh..." He replies, leaning over the counter.

The conversation ran into a lull. Neither were sure how to continue from there. Izumi kept glancing up at him occasionally, seeing if he was going to break the silence at any time, but even the boy seemed lost in thought. The longer they remained silent, the harder it got to ignore the tension.

Eventually, he spoke up. "Given the highly awkward set of scenarios that just played out, I at least want to make it slightly less so, if possible..."

"Yeah... Yeah, sure." Izumi agreed.

"Alright, um... My name is Keizo Tezuka, I'm an 18 year old senior student at Matsuyama High School living in Japan. I like mathematics and don't care too much for reading books. I suppose there's no harm in giving out my name since we already met." He says scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

"Uh... My name's Izumi Hannei, I'm 17 years old and used to live in my homeland of Magnaria. I studied all sorts of things at school and I guess there isn't any harm in telling you that, since we met already." She responds nervously.

Izumi also consciously left out the fact she was a magic user, partially because she didn't want any more trouble but mostly to make the atmosphere easier to tolerate.

"Right, thanks, and... Um... I'm sorry too." He apologizes. "Y'know for all the prodding and the questions. It's only natural when you see something as odd as a stranger from another world in your mirror." He chuckles.

"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you took it better than I thought. I'm not sure what would happen if it were someone else." She assures him, smiling weakly.

There was another awkward silence that was beginning to suffocate them both. Neither knew what to say, nor what to do. A few more moments passed by, until Keizo finally decided to break it.

"It's Friday in my world tonight. Meaning I don't have school for two days and typically a day where I stay up late. If you've got anything you want to say or ask, go right ahead." Keizo offers.

"Okay. Thank you. That actually does sound good." She smiles warmly, peering her head back up into view.

✧ ✧ ✧

Keizo wasn't sure of exactly what just happened. He was still a bit shaken up by the sudden encounter with Izumi, which basically amounted to meeting a strange girl in his mirror, who had just seemed to randomly appear out of nowhere while he tried his hardest not to scream like a little kid.

She wasn't even that spooky looking.

The opposite of a ghost was exactly how he saw her, although perhaps he shouldn't underestimate people in mirrors who came from another world, place or wherever.

As the past couple hours went by, they both gradually began to relax and talk again without much awkwardness.

"Okay so run that by me again..." Keizo said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"You heard me. Banished." Izumi answered with confidence.

"But... It just doesn't add up, why a place like this?"

"Most of what goes down in my homeland doesn't add up half the time." Izumi says with a shrug.

"Are you still confused about the trial or how I managed to find you here?"

"Both... at the same time, I actually kinda lost you after a while." Keizo admits.

"Right, well, no worries at all! Let me try breaking things down differently this time..." Izumi says nodding, taking a breath.

"My homeland of Magnaria likes to boast about its systemic ways, but really, what goes on behind closed doors is where the root of all evil lies. Our government has its own rules, policies and procedures that govern what happens inside the country. These same rules often flip on a dime when it is convenient to whoever needs to benefit from said changes. There is a huge corruption problem and our current king doesn't seem to care one bit, and it was a pretty huge deal for me too because I was an obvious target." She states.

"Not many people even understood why the king, his divine council of mages and all the other lackeys were so keen on casting me away. I know why though. I was an easy scapegoat."

"What exactly did you do to warrant such a bad response?" Keizo asks.

"It's not even something I did, but more like something people perceived or were led to believe I did." Izumi replied. "I debated myself on whether or not I was going to say this, but here goes..."

She takes a breath.

"I studied magic and arcane spellcasting back home." She says with her eyes closed.

"Wait, actually?" Keizo's eyes widened. "Y'know what, somehow I don't doubt that. Would you mind showing me?" Keizo asked, trying to contain his excitement.

"Gosh you really are taking this well, I thought for sure you'd be freaking out or seriously worse..." Izumi laughed.

"Nah, nothing really surprises me these days." He answered nonchalantly.

"Alright then, I'll start with something simple, how about some water magic?" She asks.

"Ooh, like the kinda things you'd find in nature!" He smiles broadly.

"Elemental, yes, most magic comes in forms of elements found in nature, there are a few other categories but we'd go until the end of time If I tried covering the entirety of arcane and modern spells." Izumi says, getting herself ready.

"Gentle stream I summon thee, take this form! Aquia Aetherea!" She chants.

Twin flares of light beamed and circled around one another, growing bigger, almost like it was under pressure before bursting, causing Izumi to fly backwards and the flares to bounce off the walls rapidly followed by an immediate dissipation into the air.

Keizo watched with a shocked expression. "Crap! was that supposed to happen!?" He cried out to her. "Are you alright!?"

"Good news, I'm fine!" She calls out, trudging slowly back to the mirror. "There's bad news though, it looks like my magic doesn't work here..." She pouts.

That spell was meant to create water that could be manipulated into small streams, but it seems that my magic is either severely debuffed or completely nullified here. They must've known I'd try something so they put up a barrier or something in here to prevent any magical effects." Izumi says with a dejected sigh.

"Well, whatever the case is, that was still pretty cool!" Keizo says. "I mean, no, not cool, that looked like it hurt... I meant the lights and the flares-"

"I get you, I get you... you're like every other little kid I used to spellcast in front of." Izumi says giggling, but her smile soon fades. "I guess I'm nothing now though..."

"No way. I don't think that's true." He insists. "I bet you can do lots of stuff, it's just contained and restricted now, all of that energy is just waiting to be let out!" Keizo offers, giving her a reassuring look.

"I hope so, but... I honestly feel like I've been cut off from all power, everything I was able to do before is gone." Izumi frowns sadly. "Now that I look back, I really should've expected that outcome sooner than later..."

"Ooh! This brings me back to where we left off in my story!" Izumi beams.

"Sorry~" Keizo says sheepishly.

"No biggie at all!" Izumi says. "So basically I have an astronomical hunch that I was scapegoated because I was always pushing the limits of what I could do as a mage. It was getting to the point that not even the professors could figure out what exactly I was doing, so they figured I must've done the forbidden thing, that all must never even think about doing, something punishable by banishment... Stealing the Codex of The Trinitarium."

"Stealing the what now?" Keizo says, his head spinning at the sudden flurry of words thrown at him.

"It's a book written by Sir Festus Imamari, a skilled high mage and the last ruler of Magnaria before he fell to our enemies in a war that happened about a century before I was born."

"Some name..." Keizo deadpans.

"I know, right?" She says. "Although now that I think back to it, he wasn't exactly the greatest leader or person in general, but the way he wielded magic was something I wish I could see rather than learn about at school." Izumi muses.

"Anyway... The Codex, let's call it that for simplicity's sake, is a series of texts that serve purpose as a detailed extension of the laws that govern what people can and can't do with magic and also has a really huge record of different spells." She explains.

"To some people though, especially the country folk, it's just a ridiculously large book containing really big words and it's essentially the entire history of ancient to modern magic."

Izumi stretches out her nimble arms to symbolize a large timeline.

"It's a sacred relic and the professors at my school called in these shady auditors from the Divine Council who would scrutinize my performance daily. One day, they set me aside then promptly accused me of thievery and gross abuse of The Codex and made it super public." She continues.

"Lord above knows I didn't steal it... Honestly it's probably just misplaced, or, it could genuinely be stolen. It doesn't matter which way I slice it though, I was a threat to them, and they just wanted a perfect excuse to banish me and have me cast into exile." She says, doing ironic jazz hands.

Keizo takes all of this in.

Another world on the brink of total governmental implosion. A sacred relic gone missing, and a magical girl whose true power is yet to be unveiled, standing in front of him droning on about things that can only be described as absurd, insane and surreal, all at the same time.

It felt like one of those over-the-top video game descriptions that Keizo would read online. Things like the epic adventures and other crazy things that would happen in fictional worlds, yet this felt ten times more real than any game out there.

"You've been dealt quite a terrible hand, huh?" He finally says unable to keep it in anymore.

"Indeed, I have." She replies with a sad sigh. "I knew this was bound to happen eventually... My father had warned me of my situation long before and always told me to be careful..."

She tries to hold in a cry as she recalls memories of the past. "It's only natural that the people that once protected me would do something like this when they found out what kind of mage I am. I never realized at the time that they would do anything as drastic as banning me without any direct proof."

"Oh god..." Her breath hitches. "I don't have anyone to turn to anymore. What do I even do now!?"

Izumi's voice starts cracking and tears begin to pool at her eyelids as she cries silently.

Keizo feels the pain in her voice and decides to make it stop.

"Hey, hey, listen... You're not alone, remember? I'm your newfound friend, you can count on me for anything, okay?" He comforts her.

She wipes away a tear that snuck its way out of her eye, looking directly at his face.

"That means a lot to me... Thank you..." She smiles brightly, putting her hand up to the mirror.

Keizo reaches out and presses his hand against the glass. He closes his eyes and takes a breath.

"This night's been getting crazier by the hour, but it's a good kind of crazy." He says amiably.

"Meeting you has changed my life, it's definitely changed for sure. Thank you, too." Keizo says softly.