(13)

As the brunette made her way down the school hallway, her mind was reviewing the events from a couple days past. She'd used magic for the first time. Actual magic, not just magical energy channeled through a conduit. To say she'd been enthused with the experience would have been an understatement.

... Sarasa and the other girls had not been enthused. Sarasa and the other girls lost their minds.

Apparently, Witches couldn't create more than minor effects related to their element unless they were transformed. Sure, the magic was still there, but since their spells weren't something they studied, the transformation needed to act as a bridge.

Casting could be trained, yes, but humans apparently were multiversally notorious for poor mana control, and it was considered laborious to wrangle it enough to cast even simple spells. Witches, despite their ludicrous mana pools that rivaled the mightiest of greater demons, were apparently no exception to this.

Still, at least that could be done, however unlikely it would be or how much effort it would require. It would only make her a prodigy, not a freak. No, what had them flipping their lids even more than that was what she cast.

Because Witches didn't study their magic, it was virtually impossible for one witch to cast from another's spell list. Like the transformation, itself, too much of it was defined by the differences between the Witches as unique individuals.

When Haru had explained what she'd seen through her empathy at the time, she couldn't confirm it was actually the blonde's own mental form as her sight didn't apply to herself, but it had clearly been close enough to allow the spell Sword Witch had seen twice previously.

Theories had quickly fired back and forth across the table, though the brunette, herself, kept quiet and let them go. It was still a science she knew too little of to contribute.

At the end, Sarasa had ordered her escort be resumed, albeit not for her protection this time. The theory that had survived the table free-for-all with the fewest war scars was that casting Flare Witch's spell had something to do with how familiar she and Haru were.

If it were possible for her to learn more spells from the other girls by getting to know them better, Miss Sada had insisted, then it would expand her utility in battle. Even with the demon weapons in her possession and the martial prowess the echo of the other life had brought her, Sword Witch was still a Witch almost in name only, and lagged fatally behind the rest of the team.

This was the first day since that soda shop meeting that she was going to be walking home with Reina, and while the girl had been nothing but considerate, she still felt uneasy being alone with her. She just knew that Reina was going to ask about her reaction back then, and she wasn't sure what she'd tell her.

She went to turn into a T intersection, and her deep inner reflection was interrupted by a massive stack of papers that attempted to tackle her to the ground.

She was still picking herself up off of the ground in the wake of the crash, papers floating toward the ground, as a timid voice began fretting over her.

"Oh no, oh no, I didn't see you there, I'm so sorry!" It was a tiny-framed girl with black hair and big glasses that took up much of her face.

The girl seemed so terrified at the prospect she'd hurt someone that she reminded the brunette of Ran. She put on her best crooked smile and rubbed the back of her own neck. "Don't worry about it," she assured her, "I'm tougher than I look. I can take a high speed collision or two."

That struck the girl flushed and speechless, and the brunette took that opportunity to start gathering up the papers for her back into a stack.

"Oh, oh, no, don't worry, I can get that!"

"It's no trouble," she reassured the timid girl as she kept at it. "I don't mind helping. So if you don't mind me asking, where's the fire?"

"There's a fire?!" The momentary panic broke into another awkward fidget as she realized it was a figure of speech. "O-oh, um ... Prez needed these ..."

"Prez? You mean the student council president?"

The girl nodded, preoccupying herself with gathering the papers into the right order so she didn't have to maintain eye contact for longer than necessary.

"That's Tamashini, right?"

"Yeah," the bespectacled girl nodded. "But I'm also late for my club, and if I miss too many days, they'll kick me out, so ..."

"So you were in a hurry," she concluded. "Well, was there anything else you had to do after you delivered these papers?"

"N-no, this was the last thing ..."

With the stack reassembled, the brunette nodded and picked it up as the two stood. "Then I'll tell you what, I'm actually on my way to see her now. I can take these to her and you can get on your way to your club."

"What?! No, I can't trouble you with that!"

The brunette just smiled brightly at that. "You're not troubling me at all! I told you I'm already going to see her, anyway, and this way you can get to your club!"

"Well, that's true," the girl admitted hesitantly. "Okay ... if you're sure, um ..." She studied the brunette's face, clearly trying to come up with a name.

"Nariko Kelly," she replied, offering her hand. "But please, call me Riko."

The girl's handshake was almost feather light. "O-okay. I'm Hisoka. Cho. Hisoka Cho. Thank you for ... for your assistance ..."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Hisoka. And really, any time I can help, I'm happy to do so."

* * *

Hisoka had scampered away from the brunette after that, hurrying down another hall to lose herself in the vacancy of the nearly empty school, but her thoughts were still on her.

That was Nariko Kelly?! She'd heard Reina - only here in her own head, with no one around, did she dare refer to the high class student president by her first name - talk about that girl before. From what she'd heard, she expected her to be boisterous, aggressive, arrogant ... loud.

And yet she'd been incredibly nice. Friendly. No hesitation about greeting a complete stranger who just ran her over like a complete blind idiot. She had a similar feeling of strength Hisoka got from watching Reina, whom she idolized above all others. Was everyone she surrounded herself with so strong?

Everyone, except for you.

She hadn't even been upset that Hisoka had rammed right into her. People had gotten mad at her for far less, but Nariko - Riko - had acted like nothing bad had happened at all.

It's because she's strong. It wasn't kindness. It was pity. The ultimate privilege of the strong. The weak cower when they are wronged. The strong look down on the weak that wrong them and call it kindness.

If she were strong, she'd never look down on others. She knew too well what it was like being weak.

That's right, because you're better. You would be better. Never look down on them. Never pity them. Let them know exactly where they stand next to you. Mercy is just another word for pity, and honesty is its vaccine.

If she were strong, she'd be able to show her goddess, Reina Tamashini, just how strong she was, and punish that bully for daring to speak her name.

Unnoticed in the empty corridor, darkening in the coming dusk, the shadows seemed to cling to her form for a little longer than it took her to leave them as a red light like burning coals glimmered faintly in her eyes.

* * *

"Don't worry about the vase," Reina said without looking up from her paperwork when she heard the door open. "It's fine."

"Sorry, I've seen that movie, and I'm not falling for it."

It was a heartbeat or two before the student president realized she hadn't heard the shattering of the ceramic being knocked from the table and sent crashing to the tile floor. And the voice wasn't the squeaky, hysterically apologetic one that she was supposed to be hearing.

She stopped writing as if waiting for reality to correct itself for yet another heartbeat before she looked up, and her eyes widened in surprise.

"Kelly? Where is Hisoka?"

The papers were there, and the size of the girl holding them wasn't much bigger than the one that was supposed to be there, but the grinning brunette was not the mousy assistant she should have been, and sure enough, that potted plant stood untouched less than half an arm's length to her side.

"Oh, uh, I bumped into her in the hallway." If it was Hisoka they were talking about, Reina suspected that wasn't just a figure of speech. "She was running late for another club, so since I was heading this way, anyway, I offered to bring these papers for her."

The upperclassman watched as Nariko brought the aforementioned papers and set them on an open corner of the desk. Right, she was to be escorting her home today. But then, why had her precognition so clearly been of Hisoka?

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"Uh, you alright, there, boss?"

Nariko's words made her realize her attention had been drifting as they snapped her back to the present. "... Yes. Yes, I'm fine."

"Really?" the brunette asked. "Because you look like your entire faith in the world just came crashing down because a pot's still intact." She motioned back toward it. "If it bothers you that much, I can go back and Master Sword it for you."

"That ... won't be necessary, Kelly, but thank you for offering."

What did her premonition mean? If Hisoka was the one that was supposed to be there, did it mean Nariko wasn't? Yet those were specifically the plans that they had made, and this was specifically the time her teammate should have arrived, more or less. If Nariko wasn't supposed to be here in the council office, where was she supposed to be and why wasn't she there?

"And there she goes again."

For the second time, Reina's mind snapped back to the present and onto Nariko's face, filled with growing concern for her.

Nariko pulled a chair up to sit across the desk from her, propping her elbows onto the table as her hands held her chin. "You sure you're alright, Princess? I can go ahead and head home on my own today if it's not a good time."

Reina took a sharp intake of breath as she sat up straighter and shuffled some of the documents before her. "No, that's alright. I'm almost done here, and I had plans for our evening if you were interested." She wasn't accustomed to getting false premonitions, but for now, it didn't matter. She had to focus on the task at hand.

The brunette across from her sat up straighter, too. "Sure, what did you have in mind?"

"Before your spar with Flame Witch," the raven-haired girl replied, "you'll recall we discussed that I practiced fencing. In fact, I'm a member of the school's fencing club. They happen to be in practice right now, and I thought you might like to see it."

"Oh!" Nariko's eyebrows went up in surprise. "Absolutely, that sounds like fun! I actually haven't seen much of the school's clubs since it started."

The president chuckled and closed her eyes with a slight smile. "Given everything that has happened, I had suspected that might have been the case.

"As a disclaimer, I'm not trying to recruit you, but even as things are, you should strongly consider joining a club. Not only is it important for your academic future, but its opportunities for social networking also cannot be overlooked."

The amnesiac brunette slumped a bit with a sigh. "I've thought about it, but I'm not confident in my choices. I don't really know what kind of club Nariko would choose, and if I chose wrong, I could draw a lot of unwanted attention."

"You should speak with Chiaki, then," Reina advised. "She knows you better than anyone else on the team, and can help you make a choice that won't strike anyone as unusual. Perhaps by pursuing such hobbies as our Nariko would pursue, but which might not be your own first choice, Thunder Witch may be someone you can grow to better understand, as well."

She was treated to a rare sight of Kelly dropping her guard as her slump became a full slouch into the chair and she scrubbed at the side of her head. "Man, pretending to be somebody else is such a pain ..."

This made the upperclassman chuckle, however, as she couldn't help but think how much this supposedly true behavior was still so extremely like the actual Nariko.

"I'm sure it's exhausting, but please keep doing your best. Try not to worry about it being perfect. You seem to naturally follow her patterns, anyway, enough to even fool us when you didn't even know to try. So long as you don't make a big to-do about martial arts she never studied, ramble about things she's never experienced or act like a clueless tourist in her own hometown, you should be fine."

"Yeah," Riko grumbled, "pretty sure I blew all of those in the first week."

"And yet your cover remains intact," Reina concluded. "My point is proven. You don't need to be a perfect clone of Nariko to pass as her. You can make mistakes, slip up, even differ in some interests. Just relax and do your best."

After that, the two settled into an amiable silence as Reina finished off the paperwork. Especially right after having seen such a traditional Nariko behavior, she had been worried Kelly was going to be disruptive if she had to wait very long, growing impatient and petulant. Fortunately and quite to the contrary, the brunette was quite peaceful about it, and the raven-haired girl only had to tune out the autonomic tapping of her crossed foot.

When curiosity got the better of her and the president asked about it, it turned out more obnoxious behavior hadn't always been absent from this version, either.

"Through Herculean effort and to the great fortune of my physical health at the hands of everyone around me," she had explained with a grin, "I eventually learned how to practice being bored."

With that, in short order, the last of the work was done and the two girls were on their way. Reina looked down at the brunette as they walked through the deserted hallways. She knew they were a year apart, and Nariko had only just started her first year of high school. Further, she knew she, herself, was on the tall side.

Still, she couldn't help but see the middle schooler that had joined the team seemingly not even all that long ago. That she'd let such chaos as this befall someone under her care was a stab to her heart.

The brunette seemed to notice her staring and looked toward her, driving Reina to look straight ahead. There was a moment of silence, then ...

"I'm sorry about what has happened to you, Kelly. It's my job as the senior team member to protect everyone, and you're suffering because I couldn't do that."

"That was what you were worrying about?!"

Her surprise surprised her, and Reina looked back at Nariko's disbelievingly raised eyebrow. "Well ... yes," she replied. "I take my responsibilities very seriously, and their failure rests heavily on me."

But her underclassman just shook her head dismissively. "No, no, I get that. You're absolutely the super straight laced valedictorian type. It's in no way whatsoever your fault, so of course you'd dwell on it." Though it was Reina's turn to arch an eyebrow, the brunette ignored it. "It's just not what I'd been worrying you'd bring up the first time nobody else was around."

The president looked forward again and was silent for a moment, her face frowned in focus. "You're talking about the soda shop, where you said you didn't recognize anyone just before I came in."

Nariko didn't answer, but she didn't need the confirmation.

"Yes, I've thought of that, too. I don't believe I've ever been looked at that way. You didn't just recognize me. You were terrified of me. Yet I can think of no one I have ever had dealings with that I left in any state to justify such a reaction."

She actually cupped her chin as she continued her train of thought. "That you recognized me means that I have met your alter ego before, and our glamour effect means it couldn't have been from any interaction you may have had with Sacred Witch. Your interaction must have been with Reina Tamashini, and it left you terrified of me."

Her eyes closed as she concluded her line of thought. "Fortunately, it seems to have been an effect that has passed from you."

"It hasn't," Nariko corrected, and again she kept looking forward despite the surprised expression on Reina's face. "I'm sorry, but I'm still deeply freaked out by you being here. I'm just shoving it onto a back burner because I understand it's not your doing. I promise, I won't ever hold it against you personally."

Reina sighed and looked toward the opposite wall. "That is comforting, Kelly, but, I confess, a bit outdone by the revelation that my very presence disturbs you."

It was the brunette's turn to be silent for a bit, and when she spoke again, her tone had gone solemn and grim. "I did see you before ending up here, as Nariko. All of my memories are fried like a bad image cut, so I can't say how or where. I can say with certainty it was toward the end. I can also say that you weren't you, not as you are now."

"... I was younger?"

"The opposite. Reina, I saw a young woman. Not a high-schooler. An adult."

"That's impossible," she stated the obvious. "That would make you from the future."

But again, Kelly shook her head. "I'm not convinced of that, either. The date, when I look at a calendar, it strikes me as right. Certainly not five, eight, ten years off."

"Are you certain?" she tried again. "If you were Kelly from the future, that would explain far more about your similarities."

"I'm very certain I wasn't Kelly at all. We barely look related."

"You are saying that you do, in fact, bare some resemblance to her?"

Nariko thought for a moment, reflecting on that first morning. "The comparison I made when I saw her face in the mirror was of a younger half-sister, or a somewhat near cousin. I could see similarities because I knew the face I was comparing it to, but I doubt you would have guessed any relation to look at us without standing us side by side."

"How interesting ..." Rather than put off by the comparison, Reina seemed intrigued, and tapped her chin as she thought for a moment. "What are the odds, that out of eight billion people on the planet, the one you are practically an identical mental match for also has physical similarities to you?"

"I can't imagine it's many degrees higher than finding an identical mental match in the first place," Nariko countered her upperclassman easily. "That's already in the range of impossibility."

"True," the raven-haired girl conceded. "It still doesn't do anything to answer how you encountered an older me, though."

"Parallel universes?" the brunette offered with a shrug. "We're already dealing with magic, demons, higher dimensions, cosmic arcana and miniskirts. What's one more stupid thing to the mix?"

The president lowered her head and chuckled. "While I concede your point, we at least know that all of those things exist, and I'd rather not jump to assuming things we don't even know are possible as answers if there is some solution that doesn't require such a leap."

Kelly, meanwhile, scoffed. "Says you. Before I ended up wrapped up in all of it, I'm pretty sure I figured most of those as pure fiction."

"And now you know better," Reina pointed out. "It was only natural that when you didn't know about them, you wouldn't readily consider them as solutions. If I happen to discover proof of parallel universes before bed tonight, I promise I will contact you first thing tomorrow with my apology."

"Deal."

"In the meantime, I will keep steering the conversation back to what happened between your alter ego and mine, however."

Nariko sighed and hung her head. "Of course you will. You want to know what happened to freak me out about you."

"Very much so."

The brunette went silent for a longer time, looking toward the window and at the reflection of the girl's face against it.

"... Well, as always, I can't say," she finally answered. "At least not in any sort of detail. It's all just impressions, like those quizzes where all you have is a black silhouette and you have to guess what you're looking at. If I had to nail something down, then I have a feeling that she was somehow directly involved in what happened to me. In why I'm here."

Nariko's gaze had shifted forward again, but she suddenly seemed to lock up, stopping in her tracks, her eyes not focusing on anything. Reina saw a spot of red growing under one nostril.

"Kelly?" she asked, stopping, as well. When that got no response, she moved in front of her and put a hand on the shorter girl's shoulder. "Kelly? Nariko, can you hear me?"

* * *

She had been talking about her last fragments of memories with Reina when something clanked in her head. It didn't click, as if into place, but ground like stuck gears. For a moment, she could have sworn she saw a white cat's swinging tail. Sarasa's? Maybe, it was impossible to tell, and the next instant, her head was nothing but static.

Glass. No. Stone? Transparent stone? Black hair floating as if in liquid. Red eyes. She'd come here. Why? Where? Darkness. Blue torches. Voices. Great, booming voices. Guilt. No, condemnation. An alarm.

"Kelly! Kelly, answer me! Answer me, Kelly!"

The static blurred thicker and faded to nothingness, which in turn came back to the lights of the hallway and Reina's face inches from hers.

* * *

Tamashini recognized the instant Kelly's eyes were taking in her surroundings again and felt the unnatural stiffness in the younger girl's body collapse until only her own hands were holding her up. "Thank heavens. Are you alright, Kelly? You really scared me, there."

The girl's mouth worked for a moment without producing anything, then it was a heavy, laborious sound as she spoke. "What happened?"

"That's what I would like to know. We were walking along, then you just locked up. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you had some sort of seizure."

Nariko gave a groan and rubbed her face with the heel of one hand. "I was in ... I mean, I think I got lost in the fragments."

Reina's eyes widened as she knelt down further to follow what the girl was saying. "You remembered something?"

But the brunette shook her head. "I wouldn't call it remembering. It was just nonsense. Bits and pieces that didn't go together in any way I could tell. They're already fading."

Reina watched as the girl touched the red under her nose at the sensation of wetness and examined the end of her finger. "... Perhaps we should save such mysteries for another time. Whatever happened, I would hate to make it worse. I'll walk you home and you get some rest."

Nariko looked up at that. "What about your club?"

"I'll tell them you weren't feeling well, and I walked you home," the president reasoned. "They'll understand."

"No!" The girl went to stand up quickly, but stopped. "I mean, I wanted to see the club. I'm fine, really, and the distraction will be good for me."

Tamashini watched her for another long moment, evaluating her condition, then relented. "Alright, but if there is even a hint of another episode like that, it's straight home."

The brunette nodded in agreement and got back to her feet as the two headed down the hallway again.