I woke up to my alarm, at home this time. I recalled what happened to me last night, so I quickly looked around the room to see if there was anyone there. Nobody. I frantically searched around the house, to no avail. Well, at least I'm home and they aren't after me anymore.

I looked into my closet and found the box full of chuuni crap missing. So it wasn't just some strange dream that I saw.

Now that I thought of it, it felt like I tripped last night or something. Some strange place that I'd never heard of, and meeting Alexei of all people. Did the fumes from the flames have some sort of hallucinatory effect? But then how did I end up back home?

I remembered that I got whacked on the head quite a bit yesterday, and as if on cue, I developed a splitting headache.

It was a Friday, so (after painfully dragging myself to the kitchen) I ate something, packed up and was on my way to school.

As soon as I walked into class, I was greeted by Lana. Lana was a friend of mine at school who I'd developed strong feelings for. She just about reached my shoulder in height, and she was cute to a fault. I was fairly certain that there were maybe five other boys who had a crush on her at any given time. Her treating me like a close friend probably made every other guy in class feel some sort of envy towards me.

"Hey, hey, Roma, you free after school today?"

"Lana, school hasn't even started. Why are you bothering about after-school now?"

"But you always run off right after classes end... I never get a chance to ask you to hang out!"

"Alright, alright, fine, I have some time in the evening."

"Yaay!" she cheered victoriously, and ran off to her friends. Seriously, she could have just texted me the evening before or something. Well, not like I'm against talking to her.

The rest of the day proceeded unceremoniously. I stayed in my seat after the classes ended, and soon enough Lana walked over.

"Hey, so where do you wanna go?" I asked her.

"I dunno, I was thinking a cafe or something," she offered.

"Oh cool, I heard of this new place that opened up right by the river," I suggested. "We could go there."

"Sure, why not?"

I expected her to run back to her friends to tell them where we're going, but... she didn't? Did that mean we were going to go by ourselves? Just the two of us? Was this my chance? But wait, a guy and a girl hanging out after school - wasn't this... a date?

With me panicking about the implications of what was happening, we walked out of the school together. We were in the middle of conversation when out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a figure in a hooded robe on the other side of the street, staring at us. She looked really out of place, but for some reason people just walked past her without batting an eye. I decided to ignore it and made way towards the nearest station.

We popped out a short distance from the cafe, so we walked towards it. I could feel a stare piercing me, so I figured someone might be trying to follow us. I grabbed Lana's hand and made haste towards the cafe, in hopes of losing it. I looked back at Lana to explain why I took off out of the blue, but she averted my gaze as soon as I tried to look at her.

Eventually, we made it to the cafe. It was a tiny shop by itself, but it had lots of outdoor seating by the riverside, so we could grab a table with a nice view.

I apologized again for grabbing her and running all of a sudden, and she looked down on the table and said in a timid voice, "Don't worry, it's okay." Wow, that was so cute. We sat in silence for a good few seconds, and then I offered, "Let's go get something."

We walked in and got ourselves some crêpes. We sat back down by our table.

"Hmm, this tastes pretty good."

"Yeah, it's better than I expected. Guess business is booming here."

We enjoyed our food over some small talk, and then decided to take a leisurely stroll by the riverside.

We were making small talk when Lana slowed down and pulled at my sleeve to stop me. "Hey, Roma," she said in a timid voice. "There's something I want to talk to you about."

She looked like she was taking her time picking out her words.

"Look at the sun in the distance," she said, pointing at the sky. Time flew while we were chatting away, and it seemed to be setting already. 'Winter is soon,' I thought. "Doesn't it look pretty?"

"Yeah, it's really picturesque," I replied.

"Do you remember that time when we went to the arcade with our friends for the first time? When all of our friends ran off early and only the two of us were left by the park by sunset?"

"Yeah, I do."

She looked down again, sighed, and then faced me. I turned towards her too.

"I think that is when I first realized that..."

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I noticed something moving quickly behind her.

"That I had feelings for you."

That wasn't something, but the figure in robes that I saw earlier! And it was holding something shiny... a knife? Oh no, this is terrible!

"Roma, I-I like you."

I wasn't listening to what she was saying at this point. My eyes widened in panic as I thought about what was coming. I need to save Lana!

"Will you go out with me?"

"Lana, move!"

I pushed her aside just as the mysterious attacker was going to stab her, and took the brunt of the attack.

I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. I lost my balance and fell onto the ground, trying to pluck out whatever seemed to be embedded in my stomach. The robed figure just stood there, staring at me.

I realized that the figure might have been after Lana, so I yelled, "Lana, run! I'll deal with this!"

Except I didn't know if I could deal with this. My stomach was in excruciating pain, and the knife went so far in I couldn't even feel it for some reason. I looked at Lana again and saw her standing there, wide eyed, not even moving a muscle.

The robed figure chose to speak at this moment. "As expected of the exceptional outsider. You really are resistant to magical attacks."

Magical attacks? Was she one of those quacks again? Was I really going to die to the hands of a person fucked in the head? (※ This was the opinion of Roma alone, and only at this moment. Delusive people are not "fucked in the head.")

I felt around for the knife again and realized that my hands weren't feeling any blood. I looked at them and saw that they were... the color of a palm. Not red, not soaking with blood, just a normal pair of hands. I looked at my stomach and saw that there wasn't even a speck of red on it. It still hurt like crap though.

I looked back at the robed figure, or more precisely, what she was holding. It was a knife, sure, just an abnormally... thick one? I could tell from a distance that it was quite dull too.

"Just what is that thing?" I asked.

"This?" she pointed at the knife. I had assumed she was a lady because of her voice. "This is a wand." To prove her point, she waved it around a few times and it became a normal stick. Just like the one that I saw yesterday, with the raincoat girl. What was her name... Natasha?

"It didn't stab you because I performed a magical attack. You still took the physical force, but if you didn't resist the mana, it would have cut a hole through you the size of a soccer ball," she explained.

I stood back up despite the pain that my internal organs were screaming with, and turned again to Lana. "Lana, listen, this woman is cracked in the head. Run while you can, or she'll cause you pain too."

Lana stood like a statue, fixated at the spot where I was laying just now.

"I slowed down time for us both so that she doesn't hear what I was talking about. To her we're moving so fast right now that her eyes cannot register the changes in our state." I looked around and indeed, people seemed to be frozen. The waves in the river were not moving either. We really were stood here, frozen in time.

"Alright, dear, I can't hold up this magic forever. I've confirmed everything that I wanted to, so now I'm going to wipe all their memories of this incident. It seems I can't wipe yours, but it's not like anyone would believe you anyway." She followed up with a giggle.

Wait, everybody's memory? That had to include Lana too, right? I recalled that we were having an important conversation right before this happened. What was she talking about? Then it hit me that she had just confessed to me. No way in hell would I allow her to forget that!

"Hey, you're not wiping her memory, you understand!" I yelled at the woman.

"Oh really~? But protocol is protocol, dear. I don't want to get denounced and stripped of my magic, you see, so I don't care whether you want me to erase her memories or not."

How much more is this woman going to ruin my day? I charged at her, but she interrupted me with an incantation faster than I could comprehend, followed by, "「Immobilise!」" My legs froze and I fell at her feet. I wriggled myself to lay face up and yelled at her, "Don't you dare wipe her memory! She just confessed and now she's going to forget that she ever did? Don't you fucking dare!" I struggled and somehow freed myself from the magic, but she spoke the same incantation and I fell over again.

"That's a lot of struggling, dear. Alright, alright, I'm moved by your persistence. How about striking a deal~?"

"A deal? What deal?" I asked, still half-yelling.

"The protocol only says that they must have no recollection of what happened. So I can get away with placing a block on those memories, which you can remove yourself after I'm done and out of here," she explained.

"And how am I to get rid of the block?" I asked.

"For that, dear, there is a magic university in this city," she replied.

A magic university? Oh, that place I was at yesterday? Yeah, I remember that.

"Get yourself acquainted with magic there," she continued, "and you will be able to have her remember."

"Why do you want me to go there? And how do I get there? Do you study there too?" I fired a barrage of questions. It is to be noted that I was significantly calmer after being told that the amnesia could be temporary, but I was still quite enraged at the person who could have left a soccer ball-sized hole in Lana's stomach, had I not reacted quickly.

"Oh, I wonder~" she replied to my questions. How could a person piss me off so much with just their speaking manners?

She yet again spoke an incantation faster than I could follow, ending with a 「Memory Block!」. Then she turned back to me and said, "She, and everyone who saw what just happened, have forgotten all about it. Now, how about sending you both back home? After all, this date never happened, so you must both be home right now."

Once more, before I could say anything, she spoke unnaturally quickly, ending with 「Disperse!」, and I unceremoniously blacked out for the third time in my life.

---

I woke up and found myself in my bed. I looked at the time. 8 P.M. 'Fuck, I need to make dinner,' I thought. I tried to recollect what happened some time back, and was glad to know that I still remembered all of what happened. My crush confessed to me right as she was about to get stabbed by an insanely annoying witch, and then she wiped the memories of the confession from my crush and sent us both back home.

Still, the University, huh? I had no clue how to get there. Maybe I could get in touch with Alexei or someone somehow. How exactly though? Lots of questions, and no answers.

And I experienced some magic that I really couldn't describe as anything but magic. If what I had seen back then, with a river full of unmoving waves, or people frozen as if they were statues could be attributed to a dream or hallucinogen, then her confession would be a figment of my imagination too.

But I wasn't going to let that happen. I was going to make her remember. And I would answer her.

Having determined my goal for the next... however long it would take, I cracked an egg and made myself an omelet for dinner.

But as it would turn out, things wouldn't go so smoothly.

---

Meanwhile, in the hallways of the University.

This time, there were three figures in the darkness of the corridors. One wearing a hooded robe, another wearing a raincoat, and another wearing naught but normal clothes.

"Good job on that, Lena," said the one in normal clothes. "We can expect him to try to come in contact with us sometime soon. Natasha, watch after him to see if he tries to find us."

"Understood, Alexei," replied the one wearing a raincoat.

"What about my reward, dear Alexei?" asked the one wearing a hooded robe.

"Fret not, Lena. The one from Xi'an shall be joining us shortly," replied the one in normal clothes.

"Oh, I absolutely cannot wait~" replied the one in the hooded robe.

The three figures dispersed in different directions, with the, "click, clack," of boots echoing through the halls as they vanished out of sight.