I unlocked an old, rusty gate. The gate groaned, rust flaking off it as I pushed it aside.

Alessi’s smile greeted me. She was wearing a beanie hat that I had designed for her, her silver-tinted skin framed by a white wig and cloth flowers. An earring made out of her crystal gemstone hair was glittering in the darkness. Her beetle-carapace armor looked well-polished and spotless.

I stepped out of the wards of Nemendias, entering the catacombs tunnel that was leading to Diamondias.

Agatha grunted as she passed the body of ex-Keeper Nora to a group of chimera led by Alessi.

I hugged my sister tightly with a big smile and briefly told her about my adventures in Nemendias, not mentioning anything about Nemmy herself.

“How are things in Diamondias?” I asked.

“Pretty fun,” Alessi bobbled excitedly. “We’re selling crystals faster than Antoine can make them! The shop's lack of a sign isn’t deterring customers at all. If anything, at times the humans are lined up outside waiting for us to let them in.”

I nodded with a knowing smile.

“Why does a shop without the sign sell stuff so well?” Emerald asked curiously.

“Ah,” I turned to her. “I had purposefully chosen to keep our shop sign-free. Some clubs back on Earth did the same thing and it worked great. Lack of a brand is also a brand. Customers don’t know what to expect, so it leaves room for the imagination. Word of mouth, quality and exclusivity is what keeps the price of the products made by Antoine very high.”

“I see,” the youngest Amadea Princess nodded.

“Take care of Miss Enirii Frishreich for me,” I pointed a hand at Nora, speaking to Alessi. “Make sure she wears a wig and glasses at all times and doesn’t get up to no good. Assign one of the hunters as her security detail. She’s a Vow-free asset of Baroness Amadea and I’d like her out of my hair in Nemendias.”

“Will do,” my sister nodded.

“We’ll all hang out in the catacombs soon,” I said. “I’ll find a nice large room that we can turn into a movie theater on the border of Barrie and Nemendias Ward where we can all meet up safely.”

“What’s… a movie theater?” Agatha asked.

“A theater where all of the actors are Depictomancy constructs,” I explained.

“What is with you and taking jobs away from people and giving it to magical beings?” Agatha asked.

“Relax, my Empress - your job won’t get outsourced to magitek,” I stuck my tongue out at her.

“I’m serious,” Agatha huffed. “If I didn’t know better I’d think magical beings were funding you.”

“Pfff,” I laughed. “Nah. I am creating new jobs for everyone everywhere, magical avatars and people alike. Movie theaters are going to be huuuuge and they will create a massive entertainment industry sector, trust me.”

“Right,” Agatha said.

She didn’t look like she believed me.

“How are things with Licor?” I asked, ignoring her sour face.

“Better than ever,” her expression softened up. “He’s really excited for night classes. Hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I have no plan,” I shrugged. “But it’s not my problem anymore."

"Because you pawned the job off to a magical construct?" Agatha mulled.

"Exactly," I nodded sagely.

. . .

A girl was slowly traversing through the dark gothic halls. She was about as tall as Agatha. Modified, or perhaps ancient version of the black robes of a Nemendias student sat on her body. She was wearing soft shoes that did not make a sound when she stepped on the marble floors beneath her.

A large black hood was covering her head. A white, paper-mache style mask with a multitude of slit-like holes dotting it concealed her face. She was wearing black stockings and black leather gloves. There was a bone-wand in her hand, a crystal tipped core shimmering with blue flickers. She carved deep into the ward of Nemendias, slowly wove wide hexagrammatic patterns with her magic with every step she took.

A large, brass pocket watch was hanging from her leather belt held there by a brass chain.

“That’s her, huh?” I asked.

“That’s her,” Nemendias nodded.

I was currently sitting within the office of the Keeper of the Keys, peering at the scene before me through a tiny keyhole-sized gate that Nemmy had formed in front of my face.

As I watched the masked bandit traverse the hall, I defined, observed the chain that bound her Eurekan artifact to her belt. I was certain that it was similar to the Diamond Heart because the watch left no imprint in the Astral whatsoever. It was a dark, pocket-watch shaped void that was not affected by magic.

“Let’s un-student this ghost as much as possible,” I said after about ten minutes of observation. “Everyone ready?”

Nemendias and Agatha nodded.

Three small pinhole gates opened around the girl in the white mask.

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“Minus ten thousand points for this student for damaging the ward of Nemendias!” Nemmy barked with the voice of the Keeper, pointing her finger through the first pinhole gate.

A memory erasing and knockout spell burst from Agatha’s armacus, passing through the second pinhole. It slammed into the girl's head.

I thrust Endy through the third pinhole, striking the chain of the pocket watch.

The girl yelped. A blood red, brilliant, enormous [-10’000] flashed above her head. The chain that held the pocket watch to her side shimmered and stopped existing. She started to fall backwards as Agatha's spell paralyzed her.

“Take that!” I laughed.

The entire figure of the masked girl ignited with silver-tinted radiance and then she rapidly became transparent and vanished as if she never existed to begin with.

“She teleported… again,” Nemmy commented. “She’s in… in the North section now.”

“Show me,” I said.

The pinhole over my right eye revealed another hallway.

The ghost was there. Her pocket watch chain was perfectly intact. She was not asleep. There was a brilliant [-10000] glowing over her head.

She looked up at the number.

“What? Why didn’t the rewind undo you?” She muttered.

She pointed her bone-wand at the number and tried to make it go away by cutting through ward-magic. The number shimmered, but remained in place.

“Sucker,” I commented. “You can’t rewind this number because it’s tied to your soul.”

The girl did not hear me, because there was a sound-cancelling shield over the observation pinhole.

“She rewound herself,” Agatha commented.

“Yeah, her power is definitely time-related,” I said. “The pocket watch made that rather obvious. When it comes to Eurekan tools form generally follows function.”

The girl waved her wand at the number over her head again. The ward of Nemendias around her hummed dangerously focusing on her person. The girl hissed a swearword and vanished with a frustrated growl.

“What…” Nemendias uttered.

“Yes?” I turned to the Nora-shaped avatar of the school.

“I have a... distinctive memory of her. Two thousand and sixty four years ago. She has the number [-10000] over her head unlike other instances.”

“Damn. She’s somehow meddling with causality,” I said. “I thought you said that time travel doesn’t work.”

“Apparently… it does,” the avatar of Nemendias shaped like Nora shuddered. “One hundred and sixty four distinct instances of her with the negative number now! She’s looking through my libraries for a way to get rid of the number.”

“Can she rid herself of the number?” I asked.

“She cannot,” Nemendias shook her head. “The wards know that she’s a dangerous law-breaker now on the verge of expulsion. My hands are untied. As soon as she appears somewhere, the shields around her are set to maximum defense. If she touches anything, she gets zapped by lightning magic. Before, she was treated as a nameless student, now the wards are actively trying to pacify her if she interacts with anything.”

“This seems very bad,” Agatha muttered. “What if she makes sufficient changes in the past to make us all stop existing? What’s preventing her from say… murdering Lord Innocentai so that he never builds Nemendias?”

I gulped.

Nemendias turned to Agatha with a worried expression.

“Twenty four thousand instances of a girl with [-10000] trying to rid herself of the label,” she said.

“Has she violated causality before? Do you remember if she ever talked to people in the past?” I asked.

“She avoids people, vanishing before anyone gets near enough to her,” Nemendias said. “Most of her appearances are during summer when there are no students or teachers here.”

“We might be safe then,” I mulled.

“Might be safe?!” Agatha growled. “Why does everything you do result in greater disaster?”

“Not everything I do results in disaster,” I muttered defensively. “I think she understands that she’s violating causality and is purposefully limiting her impact on the future. She’s likely bound to a single goal by Eunice. If she purposely avoids encountering herself, this is proof that there are limits to what she’s permitted to do.”

“Those are guesses!” Agatha commented.

“Forty six thousand and twelve instances of her with the negative number,” Nemendias said.

“Is time a soup?” I asked.

“Hrm?” Nemmy looked at me.

“Why is there a lag, a small delay in causality changes? Why didn’t the instances appear right away? Why do they take time to get to us? Why is the progression growth linear? Why can we remember the changes? Is that because we're thinking about her actively?” I mulled.

“I do not know,” Nemendias said. “The negative ten thousand points is barring her from stealing food from the kitchens. As far as back as I can remember I’m attacking her successfully, repelling her! I think that she’s getting… smaller. She’s becoming more erratic too.”

“Freaking astral depths,” Agatha muttered, rubbing her face and looking terrified.

“She’s back,” the magical avatar said.

The keyhole in front of my eye opened again.

“I can’t do it,” the girl with the pocket watch muttered, her voice crackling. “I can’t do it… please stop hurting me… please.. I can’t go on like this. I’m so tired. I can’t do it… I’m so thirsty and hungry. I can’t keep going. I almost ran into myself that one time… please. I need to talk to the Master…”

“Nemmy, can I wield your avatar as the Keeper?” I asked. “Can I talk through you to her?”

“Sure,” Nemendias said.

“Manifest Keeper Nora in the room next to her and walk to her,” I said. “Make a pinhole over her right eye so that I can see everything I am doing.”

. . .

The magic-woven duplicate of Nora Frid Antienni walked out of the room, revealing herself to the whispering, shaking, half-mad ghost.

“I work for Eunisii Ei. I can give you water and restore your points back to zero,” she said, repeating my words.

The white, paper-mache mask came up. The girl stopped her frantic whispering. She froze like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Yes? Yes, yes, yes,” she nodded rapidly. “Oh thank the Goddess! I thought that I was screwed!”

“Before I do,” I said. “Our master would like to know what you’ve accomplished thus far.”

“I, um, I did what I was asked,” the girl stuttered. “I went back five thousand five hundred years into the past to weaken the wards.”

“They don’t look weakened to me,” I commented. “Eunisii is VERY disappointed in your performance.”

“I’ve been trying,” the ghost muttered, her hands shaking. “I’ve been trying so hard! I can barely remember where I’ve been and where I haven’t been… my mind is coming apart… it’s hard to remember things when I rewind my body. I’ve made a mistake… I can’t recall what it was… but that damned -10000 won’t let me get food anymore! The ward keeps zapping me.”

“I will have to find another user for the watch,” I said, channeling Eunice’s tone when she was speaking to me. “Give it to me.”

“N-no,” the girl muttered. “I c-can’t… I… must fulfill my mission. I must weaken the ward enough to take full control of it!”

“You will fulfill it here with us, in this epoch. You are destroying your soul and body,” I said. The avatar of the Keeper put her left hand forward, opening her palm. “How far did you rewind yourself to stop your body from succumbing to hunger and thirst?”

“Five years,” the girl said, trembling.

“If you rewind yourself further, you might become too young and stop being a student here,” I said. “When you do, the ward will vaporize you on the spot and your mission will be over. Give me the watch.”

“N-no,” the girl trembled. “I am not permitted to surrender the watch to anyone other than my Master.”

“Our goddess is preoccupied with her End-gate work,” I said. “Come with me to my office. I will give you food and water. You will need to grow up again, regain what you have lost because of your foolish mistake. You will study in Nemendias again, and we will all modify her ward together.”

“Who’s we?” the girl in the mask asked.

“Eunissi’s eighth high-cendai is studying here too. She will assist you. She bears an Inarian artifact just like you do. You can see the currents of magic to confirm that she’s one of us, yes?”

“Y-yes,” the masked girl nodded.

I turned away from the pinhole and smirked at Agatha and Nemmy. I gave the Arcanarium’s avatar a thumbs up and the pinhole in front of me vanished.

“You were supposed to kill her, not befriend her,” Nemendias commented.

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” I shrugged.