Wednesday evening found Eva anxiously waiting for Hanako to arrive for her next practice session. She’d spent quite a while getting everything set up. On the low table in the middle of the room was an incense burner holding a few sticks of incense she had gotten from Prof. Yamanaka. Set around it was a spread of printouts, and a few playing cards. She’d prepared them in the hopes that they might be useful for her student to form more clear mental pictures for the illusions she’d try to weave.

Set before Eva, on the opposite side of the table, was a pair of big ceramic bowls. One was filled with sand to extinguish anything she unintentionally sets on fire. While the other was empty and more for hopefully catching embers and sparks so she wouldn’t need the other one.

Deciding to use the time somewhat productively, rather than waiting restlessly, Eva took a deep breath and closed her eyes. As her body relaxed, her mind began to wander, soon latching on to the ethereal connections to her various shintai. It took her a few moments until she managed to differentiate the two, but soon she began to try and stretch her spirit towards the mask Hanko was carrying. Her progress was markedly slow, but the Kitsune didn’t mind that. SImply moving her consciousness from one shintai to another had become worryingly easy for her. Thus she was currently trying to connect fully to the mask, without giving up control of her body.

Every time she felt her sense of touch growing more fuzzy, she stopped her progress for a moment. Then she carefully held on to her mental tether to the mask as she tried to regain her senses. After which she slowly returned to inching closer to connecting to the mask.

She felt she was finally getting to the point where she was ‘seeing’ a fuzzy image through the mask’s eyes, when the sound of a door being opened shredded her concentration. Opening her eyes she hastily looked to the door, but was a bit confused when the door was still closed. Though now with her mind confined to just her body again, she faintly picked up the sound of Yukiko greeting Hanako animatedly. The young Yuki-Onna had been invited to play as part of a local showcase of traditional music for the surrounding elementary schools, and had been in uncharacteristically high spirits since.

“Hello Eva.” The young business woman said as she slid the door to the tatami room open.

“Hi. Come sit, I’ve prepared a few things that should help us move you to the next step.” Eva replied happily as she waved a hand towards the table. In an attempt to impress Hanako a bit, she let a pair of embers drop from her hand during that movement. They slowly drifted towards two of the incense sticks before igniting them.

Hanako, much to Eva’s chagrin, didn’t look overly impressed by this though. Seemingly less impressed or surprised, and more just vaguely intrigued with how her eyes had followed the embers and were now focused on the burning incense as she walked up to the table.

“You mean doing actual magic?” She asked as she kneeled down on the other side of the table.

“Yes. I thought we could try some illusions tonight.” The Kitsune confirmed with a nod, looking down at the things laid before Hanako. While faint trails of smoke began to stretch towards the ceiling from the lit incense. “Nothing too complex yet don’t worry. For a start, we could start with having you change this ace of spades here.” She explained before pointing at the card in question.

“Sounds good, so how do I do that?” Hanako inquired, before quickly continuing. “Well after the whole drawing magic from the mask we’ve been practicing.”

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“You’ll need to first form a firm mental image of how you want the card to look. Then focus on making it actually look that way.”

“Okay.” Hanako said with a confident nod. She then took the mask out of her bag and placed it on her lap. As she closed her eyes, Eva noticed her breathing slow down. Carefully observing as a trickle of magic was drawn from her mask, Eva was wondering how well this first try would work. To her surprise, there soon appeared some smudged red lines above the card. While it wasn’t actually distinct, Eva took a guess as to what Hanako wanted to show and spoke up once the lines stopped changing much.

“So was that supposed to be just a change to an ace of hearts?”

As Hanako was startled, the lines that had appeared immediately vanished, and she opened her eyes.

“Ah yes. Was it that good?”

“Not quite.” Eva said, holding up a hand to placate her disappointed looking student. “But I took a guess after seeing some red lines over the spade on the card. In my experience of first working illusions, it is harder to have a firm enough picture in mind if what you want to make appear is too close to what you want to replace with it.”

“So you say I should have tried for a card of a diamond suit?”

“Maybe. Or something that isn’t a poker card at all. I can’t know what would be easier for you to keep distinct from the card we have here.”

“Okay. Can I have a moment to think of something?”

“Sure.” Eva said with a nod. “And don’t hesitate to check for references on your phone. I found it easier in the beginning to work from more recent memories rather than older ones.”

“Ah, I see.” Hanako said, before pulling out her phone and looking up something.

A few moments later, she put the phone away again, closed her eyes, and began to focus once more.

This time, the whole card changed. And while it was still fuzzy and out of focus looking, it was fully replacing the original card. Soon Eva found herself looking at a strange card with a fuzzy black and gold border around it, a box filled with smudged text she couldn’t quite make out, and a fuzzy image of a figure in white clothes. While it was clearly washed out and needed Hanako to keep a clearer picture in mind, it at least left no appearance of the ace of spades peaking through.

Not wanting to distract her again, Eva kept quiet this time, until her student asked “How’s it this time.”

“Try seeing for yourself.” The Kitsune encouraged her and waited for her to open her eyes.

Which she did soon after, causing the corners of her mouth to sink as she tried her best to hide her disappointment. This caused her to lose focus and the card wavered and grew even more hazy before the Illusion unraveled to reveal the original playing card.

“That was kinda sad.” Hanako mumbled as her head dropped down.

“Not at all.” Eva said with a smile. “It was already a major improvement over the first attempt. I am sure you can get this down tonight. At least the card changing trick.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, though what was it you tried to change the card into?”

“Ah it’s Prism, a hero card from a new game an old college friend in america had me trying out and playing.”

“I see. Well it clearly seemed to have worked better for you than trying for an ace.” Eva said with a shrug. She then gestured towards the bowls before her and continued. “Though as there’s not much danger, I’d like to practice something I’ve been working on myself. If you don’t mind, that is.”

“Ah no, I can still ask you if I have a question though right?”

“Of course, after all that’s why we are here.” Eva said with a friendly nod as she conjured a small blue flame in her hand.