September 2024

  ***

  It was deep in the night, and Mana couldn’t sleep, both because Arisu clung to her in bed and mumbled to herself, suffocating the young witch with her body heat, and of course due to her nerves. Now that she had learned the spells to face Doppelg?nger and stole the infinite library besides, there was nothing else to do but to await the time of their confrontation, at the place where it was going to happen. Mana wasn’t filled in on every detail about what was going to happen, but Arisu told her enough. Hitoishi was going to use the crown in which Mana stored the ‘Containment Field’ spell to confront a particularly nasty monster, and Marisa planned to steal it, leaving her entirely vulnerable against the monster’s attack. Theoretically, the theft of the Amaranth potion should already do the trick, but Doppelg?nger from the future knew that the Mana from her timeline would chase her down for it, so she made her younger self steal yet another piece as insurance.

  Mana vividly remembered; Containment Field was the first major spell she retrieved, and Doppelg?nger tried to take it from her. The two fought over it, and Mana ended up shooting an arrow through the clone’s chest – and then Marisa finally won out over the hateful book she was created by.

  Mana stirred and gently pulled Arisu’s arms off her body, leaving her pillow there in her place, which Arisu quickly squeezed tightly against herself.

  In a way all of this is happening because of her, isn’t it?

  A twitch went through Mana’s face as she looked at the girl in her bed. She caught herself having a rather undesirable thought again.

  “Go ahead. Discard me. Discard any human who is inconvenient to your short-term pleasure. Because that’s who you are: a selfish, evil little witch, isn’t that right?”

  The fake Arisu’s voice echoed in her mind and she clutched her head, shaking it violently afterwards.

  Serves me right for having those thoughts.

  She hurried out of the bedroom and went downstairs, where she sat down on the living room couch. She stared into the darkness and let out a sigh. She pulled the library out of her pajama’s breast pocket, filling the room with the shimmering light of the magically created marble. Such a small thing, which had such a huge impact on her life. Without this, she would have remained a normal girl, one with slightly better grades than the rest, with a still nebulous desire to go into science – she didn’t even put any thought into which field she wanted to study. She would simply drift through her life, an ordinary person who cheered for the Magical Girls of her world from the sidelines, letting all the paranormal and interdimensional incidents pass her by.

  But because some wizard, in a different world, had the idea to create an infinite library to create spellbooks a thousand years ago, she was now a witch. One who collected powerful tomes, conversed with the very real gods of religions which have fallen out of worship on Earth, and explored multitudes of worlds, be they dead ocean planets or even Dyson spheres in the far future. All these wonderful things happened because of the library, as well as all the pain she experienced. Without the library she would have never met Doppelg?nger and Marisa. She wouldn’t have been entrusted with the legacy of a dead world. She wouldn’t have remembered her past life. She wouldn’t have fallen in love, and she wouldn’t have to confront the pain of locking her loved one away for at least a year today, if it weren’t for the library she held in her hand.

  “Looks beautiful. Is that some kind of magic item?”

  The voice asking this question belonged to her father. Mana blinked and looked over her shoulder as he approached and sat down next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She simply nodded in response to his question.

  “Figures! But what are you doing down here in the middle of the night? Trouble sleeping?”

  Mana nodded again and put the marble down on the couch table before she faced her father.

  “You remember the girlfriend I told you about, yes?”

  He nodded in response to her question. “We thought it was Arisu; but she was just messing with you?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Mana let out a long sigh and stared at the ceiling.

  “My real girlfriend… this is all going to be really weird. Will you listen to me, without judgment?”

  Her father nodded, and Mana took a final, deep breath before she told him her full story.

  ***

  It took a while to get through everything. To explain that her girlfriend was a spell book, creating a magic clone based on Mana’s appearance, fueled by the soul of her sister who never was. That Arisu was said girlfriend’s reincarnation, and thus by extension, the reincarnation of her unborn sister as well. Putting all these events into words made Mana incredibly self-conscious about her situation, but her father, while raising an eyebrow here or there, never interrupted her, or questioned her story. He simply listened.

  In the end he scratched the back of his head, looking at the ground.

  “Now I kind of want to go and give Arisu a big hug, but… as you tell it, she’s not really your unborn sister, is she? It’s like…” her father appeared to struggle for words, then he snapped his fingers.

  “Like an organ transplant?”

  Mana raised her brows and opened her mouth to say something, but she struggled for a moment as the banality of that statement hit her, then she blew air through her nose and only managed a suppressed shout. “Don’t call it that!”

  “Sorry, sorry. But I could see that you doubted if you were doing something weird or gross, so I’m trying to find some real-world equivalent to make you feel a little better.”

  Mana blinked and looked at him as he continued.

  “You said everyone’s soul just passes to the next person, without memories. So, if you kiss someone who has the soul of your late sibling it wouldn’t be much different from if your sibling gave your partner their extra kidney, right? Just because a part of them is inside, doesn’t mean that it’s them entirely. In my opinion, a person is more than just the sum of their parts.”

  Mana furrowed her brow and looked back to the marble.

  “I really don’t know if I would pick that as a comparison… but thank you for understanding,” she finally managed to get out.

  “So, now that we have the background established, what’s keeping you awake at night, hm?”

  Mana showed an awkward smile as she stared at the floor and gathered her thoughts. Her father had a strange way of making her feel understood, but she felt thankful for it, regardless.

  “Tomorrow I’m going to face her. She has been overtaken by the spellbook’s will and is trying to prevent Arisu from being born. But that also means that things are going to change. The Marisa I know will be gone for at least a year and imprisoned while we try to find a way to free her from Doppelg?nger… And I’m not sure if she will even survive after that year is over. Everything I’ve built these past seven months is being taken away from me and I can’t even imagine a future without her.”

  Her father listened and nodded along. As she was finished, he reached out, gently patting her head and she leaned into the gesture with closed eyes.

  “You know, I felt lost at one point as well. Like my life was over.”

  Mana looked up at her father, who stared ahead, reminiscing.

  “It was shortly before you were born, actually. Did you know that I originally wanted to be a scientist?”

  Mana’s eyes went wide, and she stared at her father. “What? No, I never heard about anything like that!”

  “I don’t talk much about it, but I wanted to go into biology. Genetics, to be specific. My grades at school weren’t that good, so I tried to start as a lab technician. Getting vocational training for that would improve my chances to get into a university later, you know?”

  Mana nodded and kept listening to him for now.

  “Things went okay for a while, but I started to realize that it’s not a fit for me. I started performing better in chemistry while I fell behind on biology. Especially when it came to memorizing the scientific names of various species, I could never get any of that in my head!” he chuckled awkwardly and fiddled with his hands.

  “I dropped out after I was almost done. Two and a half years went up in smoke and I was left with nothing to show for it. My entire world changed, as my plans which I made for my future, involving your mother and I, simply ceased to be. I felt worthless and was on the verge of withdrawing entirely into my shell.”

  Mana kept listening to him, unsure where he was going with this, but still curious.

  “It was your mother who pulled me out of my slump with a stern scolding. She got me to sign up for a different vocational school that would take even a drop-out like me, which is how I ended up working with computers. It felt a bit weird, to be almost three years older than my classmates, but I made it work.”

  He smiled to himself, then he reached out to pat her head. “You were born a few months after I enrolled in that school, you know?”

  Mana stared at him, then her face heated up as she puzzled together what that could mean regarding her mother’s scolding and other motivational methods.

  “I graduated when you were still too small to realize that I wasn’t really working a job, but I got hired soon after, and now your mother and I can support you together…” he trailed off a bit before he leaned in to give her a hug.

  “What I mean to say, Mana, is this: no matter how hopeless you think your situation is… if you keep moving forward and you have people to support you, it will all work out in the end. And we, your parents, will always be there to support you. Regarding your girlfriend… you’re at the start of your life. If it will take you one year to save her, and to share more happy moments with her, it might seem very long right now, but you’re strong. I’m sure you can endure it and, in the end, secure a happy future for both of you.”

  Mana nodded and let out a sniffle as she clutched her father’s clothes, burying her face in his chest. She remained like that for a while longer, seeking her father’s comfort.

  Mana and Arisu were sitting on a small office building’s roof, overlooking that of a nearby, smaller office building. While theirs was generally not accessible to the people working inside, the one they looked at had a door and an ashtray. This was where they were going to have their showdown with Doppelg?nger, and Mana felt nervous just imagining it.

  “Relax, Mana. Everything is going to be alright,” Arisu spoke to her, gently putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “The fact that we’re here doing this in the first place is proof enough. If we don’t succeed today, there’s no future Doppelg?nger convincing her past self to go and interfere with… Hitoishi.”

  Arisu made a strange, short pause and Mana furrowed her brow. She did that before, when she talked about Nicola and was about to say something else, before simply using her title.

  “I do have one question, though…” Mana asked as they kept watching the building. The door to the roof opened and she saw Hitoishi step outside, quickly looking around before she fiddled with a chest fastened to her hip, pulling out a crown. Mana recognized it as the one she put the ‘Containment Field’ spell inside of. Hitoishi placed it on the ashtray, before putting a ring on one of its spikes. This one Mana recognized as one of the minor spells she collected, without a grand attached adventure that gave her access to more knowledge of the Aranon: ‘Remote spell’. It was trapped in two different rings, and one could use the other to work magic. Hitoishi obviously planned to activate the crown from somewhere else.

  “Hm… and what’s the question?” Arisu asked, with her eye on Hitoishi.

  “Is this another time loop? Is she only succeeding because we’re helping her? I’d feel a little bad if another person’s fate is decided entirely because of me…”

  Arisu shook her head and smiled, looking at Mana. “No. She’s doing all of this out of her own strength. It’s true that she will only be able to fight her opponent today because of the artifacts you collected, but all we’re doing here is stopping Doppelg?nger from interfering with how things were supposed to happen.”

  Mana nodded and kept staring at the roof as Hitoishi finished her preparations and vanished back inside. Arisu stood up.

  “Let’s go over there and watch over the crown.”

  ***

  “You look a little down, Mana,” Arisu observed, leaning against the rooftop door. She sometimes glanced backwards, as if to make sure that Hitoishi wouldn’t come back up the stairs to check on things.

  “Well, why wouldn’t I? If we succeed today, I’ll be alone again for a whole year.”

  Arisu looked at the ground and didn’t answer for a few minutes, before she looked directly at Mana.

  “You’ll be able to visit her while she’s in that facility, right?”

  “And she won’t remember our adventures. I want to talk to her about all the crazy things we did, and all the strange sights we’ve seen. What’s happening is that she will be given a ‘normal’ life in a fake Tokyo.”

  Arisu went quiet again and considered Mana’s words. An awkward silence continued before Mana let out a sigh and stepped next to Arisu, patting her shoulder.

  “But even though it will come at a cost, I’m with you. You seem to be a good girl, and I don’t want her to erase you, either. I will catch her, and I’ll find a way to save both of you in the long term!”

  Arisu smiled as she heard Mana’s words, moving in for another hug, but this time she stopped short of embracing her, staring past Mana with a serious expression. Mana turned around and found herself face to face with Doppelg?nger, who looked at them with cold eyes.

  “Already replacing Marisa with her next life, are you, mistress?” she spoke in a mocking tone, stepping closer.

  “Step aside! I will grab this crown and watch Arisu’s mother die without it. I should have grabbed it months ago instead of getting distracted by our little fight!”

  Mana stepped in the way, narrowing her eyes at Doppelg?nger. The magic clone let out a little ‘tch’ and walked faster, and just as she was in front of Mana, the witch could feel magic energies gathering. The exact same magical signature she trained for.

  Mana only needed to quickly gesture with her fingers and the intended Stasis spell quite literally went ‘poof’, letting out that sound as the arrangement of magic around Doppelg?nger was impotently released and returned to its normal flow. The clone stopped with a furious expression, looking incredulously at her hand.

  “Oh, mistress, you shouldn’t have done that… no, no… making me look like a fool is going to be your last mistake!”

  She looked like she was about to cast another spell, but Mana quickly summoned a portal under her feet and Arisu was on the move, jumping above Doppelg?nger and hitting her with the ‘Blast’ spell to launch her through the opening, straight into the infinite library, far away from Hitoishi and her crown.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Countless books were scattered as Doppelg?nger caught her fall with ‘Brake’ and looked at the duo in front of her with a frightening, hate-filled visage.

  “No! No, no!!! You’re ruining everything! Can’t you see, mistress? We’re going to make sure that you will never lose Marisa! Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?!”

  Mana didn’t listen and attempted to summon magic chains around the clone’s body, but Doppelg?nger wasn’t going down that easily. Mana had to abort her cast to erect a barrier in front of herself and Arisu as Doppelg?nger flung a fireball their way. Its force was normally bad enough, but in this place, it immediately fed on the surrounding paper and wood. The bookshelves caught fire, and the blaze spread uncontrollably, illuminating Doppelg?nger’s mad smile.

  “I will burn you if I have to! Anything to render you unable to resist! I can just heal your body and take it over after!” she shouted before she blasted Mana and Arisu towards the bookshelves on the opposite side of the room.

  Mana grabbed Arisu’s hand and used the Brake spell to prevent them from injuring themselves.

  “What now?” Mana spoke in a hushed voice as she watched Doppelg?nger weave a few spells together, summoning her monsters to her side. The minotaur and golem which Mana already knew appeared, but Doppelg?nger didn’t stop there. A skeleton wearing heavy plate armor and wielding a two-handed sword appeared, as well as an imp. Arisu bit her lower lip as she looked at the assortment of monsters.

  “I’ll take her summons; you go and capture her!” Arisu declared and leapt over the chasm in the middle of the library, firing off some of the spells she copied off Mana. The imp went down almost immediately, impaled by a flame arrow which even exploded upon impact and left no trace of the creature, while the minotaur shielded itself and the skeleton warrior from the blast with its tower shield. Doppelg?nger’s face contorted into a twisted grin as she was about to cast a spell of her own towards Arisu, but Mana followed her new friend’s lead and jumped over the chasm of the library in a magically assisted leap, tackling Doppelg?nger and falling through a portal with her.

  ***

  ???

  ***

  Mana and Doppelg?nger fell into deep snow, covering the mountain range that housed an entire spellcasting civilization, whose lights were shining through the marble columns carved into the cliff faces. Doppelg?nger coughed and sputtered as she got herself out of the chest-high snow, growling as she faced Mana. The witch was shivering to her core as the cold of their surroundings soaked into her; under her robes she was dressed for summer, and she felt it.

  “Always getting in my way! Always interfering, scheming, tricking! I am at the end of my patience, mistress!” Doppelg?nger shouted and the witches started their proper duel. Mana’s fire arrow collided with Doppelg?nger’s fireball in the air, exploding with a loud bang and knocking large chunks of snow off the mountain peaks. Mana had to watch her footing and use her magic platforms to avoid being swept away by the rumbling masses of snow that accumulated into an avalanche, and Mana could see that the inhabitants of the mountain city and academy which she attended a while ago were prepared for this. Shielding spells activated, automatically, Mana assumed, and redirected the snow, keeping the carved hallways safe from the crushing weight of the avalanche, which kept rolling down the mountain into the uninhabited valley at the base.

  Doppelg?nger fared a little worse and had to use her portal to get out of the rolling snow, landing on a platform to face Mana, who was feverishly looking for an opening to restrain her. She could have prevented Doppelg?nger from using her portal, but she was still trying to save Marisa’s body, putting her on the defensive.

  Both witches now stretched out their arms, and their two Blast spells met with a loud bang that echoed through the air, causing a swirl of snow to rise up and reduce visibility while more avalanches were started by the shockwave. Mana immediately repositioned, hoping to get the drop on Doppelg?nger from an unexpected angle, but as she circled to where the clone last stood, she was gone, either following the same idea, or anticipating Mana’s next move.

  “Mistress! Mistress, where are you?” Mana could hear the mocking sound of her own voice from behind the white void surrounding her. She slowly lowered herself into the snow, keeping stable footing on a magic platform as she minimized her silhouette. Still, the cold was getting to her and her teeth clattered quietly in her mouth as she waited for Doppelg?nger with bated breath.

  “Come on out! I promise I won’t hurt you! I need your body, after all…”

  She couldn’t hear footsteps and concluded that Doppelg?nger was walking on magic platforms of her own. She could only vaguely make out the direction the voice was coming from but was not certain enough to try and fire a spell and risk giving away her position.

  She narrowed her eyes as she could see a silhouette in the still swirling snow, which approached her slowly.

  “I can feel that you’re around here somewhere, mistress!” Doppelg?nger’s voice sounded closer now, and Mana went for it. She jumped out of the snow and extended her hand, shooting a paralysis spell at the silhouette, making it fall over, into the snow. Mana sprinted forwards and readied her Bind spell but stopped dead in her tracks as she realized in horror that it wasn’t Doppelg?nger she hit with Paralyze. The gross little homunculus was stiff as a board and slowly sunk into the snow, with its featureless head unable to convey how it felt about this situation.

  “Too bad, mistress!” she heard Doppelg?nger shout from the back, before she felt her clone’s body collide with hers, pushing her forward into an open portal.

  ***

  ???

  ***

  Mana found herself back in the world of darkness. Countless shadow creatures were crawling in the darkness around the two witches as Mana gathered her wits and turned around to blast Doppelg?nger away from herself. She gritted her teeth as she saw her clone land in the middle of those shadowy creatures, but just as she hoped that Doppelg?nger would be able to fend them off to guarantee the safety of Marisa’s body, something utterly unexpected happened.

  The sea of shadow creatures parted and Doppelg?nger stood up in their midst, looking at Mana with a mocking expression.

  “What… why aren’t they…?”

  “Attacking me, mistress? Very simple! My older self received an offer and a blessing!”

  Mana had to jump high into the air and perch atop a magic platform to avoid the swarm of creatures coming for her, looking incredulously at her clone.

  “What do you mean?!”

  “The ruler of this domain is very interested in our quest to prevent the existence of Arisu! So, they gave my older self the coordinates to this place, as well as a mark that prevents the mimics, or Shadows, from attacking her! And she shared that blessing with me, naturally!”

  Doppelg?nger stepped closer to a shadow lion and started petting it while it growled in response. She kept eye contact with Mana as she spoke her next words.

  “You were overwhelmed the last time you were here, hm? And this time… this time you have to deal with me as well. Don’t even think about using a portal to run, mistress! I will simply open a large portal of my own and unleash all of these creatures onto Tokyo if you do!”

  “That doesn’t make sense, Doppelg?nger! Don’t you want my body intact to take it over?!” Mana shouted while blasting multiple of the shadow creatures that approached her. “These things bit limbs off people!”

  “Only those without a shred of talent for magic!” Doppelg?nger responded with a cackle. She jumped into the air and flung a fireball Mana’s way who caught the explosion with her barrier spell before the clone landed on a platform at level with the witch.

  “Us magically gifted are absorbed and transform into something beautiful! And the best thing is, it’s reversible! You’ll be safe and secure until I’ve done what I need to do!”

  Doppelg?nger shot a Blast spell at Mana as she was busy fending off another wave of winged creatures, catching her unaware and sending her falling towards the ground. She felt anger boiling inside her after Doppelg?nger’s explanation and decided to do something reckless. She turned around in the air and plunged down head-first, much to Doppelg?nger’s horror, as she could tell from the shouting behind her – and then she could see it in her face as she entered a portal to directly tackle her clone. The two witches fell towards the ground, with the white one still reeling from the attack while Mana opened a portal to Tokyo.

  September 2024

  ***

  The two witches landed in the middle of a playground, kicking up a cloud of dust. Tall apartment buildings looked down at them from all sides while they wrestled each other on the ground. All thoughts of magic were gone as the two girls exchanged punches or tried to close their hands around the other’s throat. Nearby parents quickly came and collected their children to get them away from the dangerous-appearing girls while other adults looked on helplessly, trying to separate them. None of them even realized that the witch in white attempted to blast them away in retaliation, while the witch in black prevented anything from happening to them with timely barrier spells.

  Mana finally managed to get her hand free to point it at Doppelg?nger, casting Bind to wrap her in magical chains, but the procedure was too slow and the witch in white effortlessly utilized ‘Break Spell’ to her advantage, dissolving the chains into nothing. Mana cursed, but that moment of distraction came costly. Doppelg?nger headbutted her, making her yelp in pain and flinch backwards, and releasing her grip on her clone in the process. Before Mana could regain her senses, Doppelg?nger had already opened a portal, and while Mana reacted as quickly as she could to close it, she saw multiple black shapes slithering through the opening before it closed.

  A cold sweat and a feeling of dread set in for Mana. She immediately shot spells at any shadowy shape she could, but some of them quickly reached the surrounding people. Some men who gathered around to try and break up the witches’ fight disappeared, only to be replaced by dolls or discarded beverage cans. Toddlers vanished out of the arms of their mothers, replaced by stuffed animals. The mothers’ screams were cut short as well, as they turned into various playground items.

  Mana looked from person to person, seeing their faces of terror as they vanished, one by one. Panic overtook her, and visions of the mutilated scientists of Thirram flashed in front of her mind’s eye. She rushed forwards, to the closest item marking a vanished person, but Doppelg?nger hit her in the back with ‘Blast’, catapulting her to the ground.

  “Let me help them!” she screamed at the clone, who approached with a cold expression in her eyes.

  “Oh no, mistress. I told you I would do this if you tried to escape with a portal. Now all these people are going to die, and it’s your-”

  Doppelg?nger didn’t get to finish. A bright light blinded both her and Mana, before Arisu jumped through a portal, blasting Doppelg?nger backwards with a spell. Right after, three colorfully clothed girls jumped out of the portal as well, looking around in confusion. Mana recognized them as the Flower Brigade.

  “All these items around here are Shadows! Go and help the people inside!” Arisu shouted their way.

  “Eh? Won’t the red one come and scold us because those are her monsters and it’s dangerous?” the leader of the group, Violet, asked with clear confusion written on her face.

  “She can’t come today! Please!” Arisu shouted their way, and the girls exchanged looks before they spread out and touched the items one after the other to vanish inside. Doppelg?nger in the meantime managed to get back on her feet and tossed a fireball in Arisu’s direction, which collided in a loud explosion with Mana’s barrier.

  “No, no, no!! You cheating little usurper! You knew we would end up here and went to get help! No matter, go and have some fun with the Shadows, then!”

  Doppelg?nger opened a portal while Mana was still keeping up the barrier and vanished inside.

  “She’s going back to steal the crown! Mana, go after her!” Arisu quickly spoke to her in a panic. The first people abducted by the mimics were returning, looking around in confusion as the Flower Brigade gently put them down and hurried to the next Shadow lures.

  “I’ll help save these people first!” Mana announced, but Arisu shook her head, grabbing her shoulders.

  “You can’t! Please, Mana. I’ll help save these people… so please save my mama!”

  Mana blinked. “Wait, so one of your mamas is…”

  “Just go!” Arisu shouted and Mana nodded, before Arisu put an envelope in her hands. “Go there after you’re done!”

  Mana obeyed, jumping through a portal back to the office building where this long day began.

  ***

  Mana found herself back on the taller building neighboring the office with a generous view of the ash tray holding the crown. The windows of the building’s first floor were shattered while Mana could see the purple energies surrounding the building. Oddly enough, it appeared like most people on the street couldn’t see them. Only a young girl with colorful hair like her own turned her head like she was staring at the strange cube of energy before she was pulled along by her mother.

  More eyes were glued to the shattered windows, but after inspecting a note taped to the door reading ‘FIRE IS OUT. TRIPLE EYE HAS BEEN INFORMED’, they simply kept walking. Just one of the many strange incidents happening in the city in the past one and a half decades. Business as usual.

  Doppelg?nger was already here, but she was simply standing on top of the cube, which appeared to carry her weight. She was locked out, recognized by the magic item as an otherworldly entity. As Mana jumped over the chasm between the buildings, she had to summon a magic barrier, however, or she would have phased through the boundary and crashed into the roof.

  “Congratulations, mistress. You delayed me for long enough,” the clone hissed her way.

  “Then give up and give Marisa back to me!” Mana shouted, and the clone narrowed her eyes.

  “What for? Even if I give her back to you, you condemned her to die. Her life will fade, after you traded it so conveniently for Arisu’s. The question is when and where. No… I won’t allow it. I will fulfill my purpose before you have the chance to kill me!”

  Marisa leapt at Mana, who braced herself with a barrier in response, only to be met with the clone’s mad grin as Mana’s arms were grabbed from behind. She let out a short scream as the golem identified itself by almost crushing her wrists with its rocky grip.

  “Ahh, and we can’t have Arisu pop in and interrupt us this time, either… let’s go to a random spot in the delightful infinity of the library!”

  ***

  The golem cracked the floorboards of the library as it fell a meter through a portal, still holding Mana by her wrists. It now held her arms spread apart, to prevent her from using any of her magic that required hand gestures, while at the same time giving Mana the feeling that she was being crucified.

  “Ah… I’ve been waiting for this for so long, mistress! I will change the future and end the meddling of your ever so slightly taller self! And now it’s all within my reach…”

  Marisa reached out for Mana’s cheek, and she recoiled from the touch of this abomination puppeteering the body of her girlfriend.

  “Stay away from me!” she shouted at Marisa, who only showed her a mad grin.

  “Oh, I won’t! In fact, I will get much closer. I’ve been putting this aside for so long because I thought that Arisu’s existence would be a problem! But if I merge with you now, then everything will be alright! I will simply avoid the beach from now on, and…”

  Mana stopped listening to Doppelg?nger’s rambling about changing the future, of breaking out of the time loop. Instead, she prepared. Hidden within her sleeve she opened a small portal, and a marble fell into her open palm. A rumble went through the library, and a loud creak interrupted Doppelg?nger. She looked around, first confused, then her face contorted in horror as her nature as a book let her feel what was happening.

  “What did you do?!” she shouted, looking at Mana. Slowly, the bookshelves bent, like they were bowing in front of the two witches, but the longer things went on, the more it became apparent that they were all headed for the small bauble Mana held in her closed fist. Doppelg?nger’s eyes teared up as she looked around helplessly, then an afterimage of hers appeared, then another, and another, until an overlapping trail of them was moving all the way to the marble.

  “Ever wondered what happens if you take a marble-sized universe into itself?” Mana managed to speak, even as she felt her body screaming to withstand the forces working on this place, trying to fold her dimensions in on themselves to fit into their new, paradoxical shape. Doppelg?nger’s face was now three times as long as it was wide.

  “Stop it! We’ll die!” she shouted with a strange, ever-shifting pitch. She ran towards Mana, reaching for the hand with the marble, but she recoiled as her arm elongated as if the shimmering jewel was sucking her in. Mana’s own fingers had already vanished inside, and she endured excruciating pain to keep her bluff going.

  “Then we’ll die together! I just hope your soul will escape to be reborn as Arisu…” Mana pushed through between gritted teeth. Doppelg?nger now tried to open portals, to escape somehow, but nothing happened, as Mana’s training to counter the portal spell paid off and she had no other spells to defend against. Magical energies, twisted and contorted by what was happening to the library, fizzled out as Mana undid the process of weaving them into usable form.

  “No! No, no…! Please, mistress, have a heart! Don’t let me die!” Doppelg?nger shouted, and her facial expression shifted, changed. Marisa was back, looking at Mana with teary eyes, but Mana knew that this was only temporary. Doppelg?nger was merely using her as a bargaining chip.

  With some strain, Mana managed to open one of her own portals, right next to Marisa, showing a street in Tokyo behind its glowing ring.

  “Go through there and you’ll be safe!” she commanded. Marisa looked towards the portal, then to Mana again. There was a profound sadness at this turn of events in her eyes, even as stretched as she appeared by the library dimension’s collapse, but she obeyed. She stepped through the portal, and it closed behind her.

  Month 6, Year 34 of Chief Technocrat Castor’s Rule

  ***

  The moment Marisa stepped through the portal into another world, her body snapped back into its correct form. She let out a sigh of relief as she examined her fingers, which were all back in their correct shape and length. It took a moment for her to snap out of her amazement.

  “I have to save Mana!” she announced to herself, but as she turned around, Doppelg?nger assaulted her mind, forcing her on her knees. A terrible pain split her skull as the book attempted to forcibly get back control.

  There will be no heroics! We will save ourselves!

  Marisa gritted her teeth, frustrated that the book’s voice came to her in the form of her own thoughts. Relief came in a rather unexpected way. The street she found herself in, which looked like a typical street in Tokyo, was suddenly lit up by floodlights, and she felt a strange energy take hold of her.

  “Extradimensional specimen has entered the containment facility. Initiate memory alteration!”

  Those were the last words she heard before she forgot. She felt Alter Memory working on her mind, while a magic suppression field kept Doppelg?nger in check. Memories of a happy family life, of school and fun activities with friends, all those things replaced the crippling fear of death and the suffocating need of affirmation from her beloved Mana. And soon Marisa the witch became an ordinary girl, possessing no memory of evil books or alternate dimensions.

  Mana quickly let the marble fall through another portal, back into her bedroom. The golem behind her weakened and finally collapsed, just as the library took back its proper shape. The young witch coughed and took a few deep breaths, wiping the sweat off her brow. Her gambit was risky, but it paid off. She kept the universe marble as a last resort, and for good reason: she didn’t know if the library would simply collapse or if the effects of warping reality were even reversible, so she simply trusted in the fact that her future self was still around and never told her not to do this.

  Mana rested her back against one of the bookshelves and stared into the emptiness above her, where the floors filled with shelves continued into infinity.

  “She’s gone now… for a year at least,” Mana mumbled to herself. “Guess I can visit her. But it wouldn’t be the same…”

  “And once that year is over, I’m positive that you will find a solution, Mana,” Portal chimed in, and she smiled a little in response.

  “Thank you. For everything, Portal.”

  “I will always be by your side as your ally. Please never forget that, Mana.”

  She fished the envelope Arisu gave her out of her robes and unfolded the letter inside, deciding to read it now. She furrowed her brow as her eyes darted over the lines, and she put it back into her breast pocket.

  “Seems like Arisu wants me to go to this auntie Sayaka of hers now. Or maybe my older self told her about this.”

  Mana grimaced as she got back on her feet and stepped through a portal back to Tokyo. She stood in front of an apartment building, but there was no sign of Arisu anywhere. Instead, she saw Hitoishi, ringing the bell of one of the apartments before she collapsed in front of the door.

  Mana didn’t hesitate in the slightest and immediately rushed towards her.