February 2024

  ***

  Portal gained sentience – a confusing process, to come out of the grand nothing and immediately be possessed of intellectual capabilities. It was horrifying. It looked around, finding only bookshelves upon bookshelves.

  Gradually, knowledge about this place, its history and Portal’s function came to it – it understood its role, and all it needed now was a master.

  A few minutes passed, and Portal waited patiently, looking stoically ahead with its eyeless stare – its perception of its surroundings was shaped by all the faint traces of mana in the air and in the objects - it could see colors as well as shapes, but not in the way a human would. Granted, Portal didn’t exactly have a point of reference for what a human’s sight looked like.

  Finally, someone stepped into sight, looking around. A woman, as far as Portal could tell. She was wearing a strange white coat, and a hooded sweater underneath that hid the upper half of her head. She inspected Portal thoroughly before she clapped her hands together and showed a smile.

  “There you are! Hello, Portal.”

  “Pick me up and I will be yours.”

  “I will, but only temporarily. You will do something very special for me, Portal!” the woman exclaimed.

  “Like what?”

  “You’re the one who will get the ball of fate rolling, towards the salvation of this multiverse. But that is still a few years off! For now -”

  The strange woman stopped speaking as a spell hit her from the side, engulfing her in flames and making her stumble.

  One of the sorcerer king’s wizards. Pity, she was nice.

  The flames died down and the woman looked to wherever that attack came from, blocking more incoming spells with barrier spells of her own. Only the fringes of her strange coat were singed, and she appeared lively.

  She was driven out of sight and the wizard in crimson robes followed. From there on Portal could only hear the sounds of their struggle.

  “Blast!” a loud thud, a groan and multiple books spilling out of a shelf could be heard.

  “Fireball!” the sound of flames, crashing against something hard and dying down. Portal was glad that it couldn’t hear the sound of burning books, as the action was way too close for its liking.

  “Atomize!”

  “You wench! What did you do to my-”

  Suddenly, the wizard fell silent. The strange woman came back, dragging him along the floor. The last vestiges of a spell book vanished out of his hand into the tiniest particles. The wizard himself was struck by an arrow in his chest and remained motionless.

  “Ugh. I can’t have him bleed all over the carpet or she will know that something is up.”

  She pondered a while before she snapped her fingers and gestured for something – a portal opened under the corpse, and it simply fell through.

  I see. She doesn’t need me. She will leave me here until this universe itself collapses…

  “There we go. A world not connected by the Anno Magicae Zero incident. With the divergent flow of time the corpse should be completely decomposed in… oh! Now.”

  The eccentric woman gestured for another portal and a skeleton in wizard robes fell out.

  “Now I need him up there…” she looked up at the higher floors and moved the corpse with another portal.

  Portal itself observed with some interest – she looked like she prepared something.

  “Alright, now we have your task! Currently, a young girl is being chased by something dangerous, and I need you to get her out of that situation.”

  The hooded woman turned around and produced a note with coordinates on it.

  “You can read these, right?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then please open a portal between that place and… two rooms over in that direction…” the woman pointed to one of the doorways.

  “…on my signal, alright?”

  As she was done speaking, the strange woman looked at her wrist – she appeared to wear a chronometer of some kind.

  “I’m awaiting your command.”

  There was a pregnant silence between the two of them. The hooded woman stared intensely at her time-measuring device, then after a time she counted down from four fingers, and then…

  “Now!”

  ***

  That was how Portal met Mana. The stranger retreated to the upper levels and waited for the girl – then she startled her into hitting the shelf by tossing the skeletal corpse over the railing. As Portal fell out of its comfortable shelf and was lying on the ground, it could see the strange woman above peeking over the railing, giving the book a thumbs-up before she vanished to who-knows-where. She never relinquished her ownership over Portal, it later realized – but it still didn’t feel like it was being stopped from obeying Mana’s commands.

  Moon of the Forgotten King, 1067 AR

  ***

  Mana stared incredulously at the Broker – Madame Bille - and couldn’t find any words she wanted to say. The woman gave no sign that she would attack Mana – in fact, she tugged her strings again and reverted her marionette bodyguards to their previous state, before she folded her hands together and looked Mana in the eyes, arms resting on her desk.

  “You appear shocked. Sadly, I expected that. But don’t be worried, I-”

  “It’s all your fault!” Mana shouted now, after finally finding an emotion to settle on: anger. Madame Bille didn’t respond to that, simply looking at her with her crimson eyes.

  “Your puppets chased me into the alley… it jumped at me so that I would fall through the portal into the library…! It’s your fault that I had to see that dead world! It’s your fault that I lived through two lifetimes! It’s your fault that I am involved in some race against time before Marisa turns violent!” Mana shouted and shouted. Tears gathered in her eyes and flowed freely as she aired out her frustrations.

  “I should have been a normal girl, but instead I’ve been exposed to so much pain…! And it’s your fault that I’m being exposed to other worlds so much that my appearance changes entirely on top of all of it!”

  There was a little pause – then Madame Bille spoke.

  “In a way, yes. But you chose to do those tasks for me. Because you are a good girl – because you followed a feeling of responsibility. First for the legacy of the Aranon, then for your lover. And if you allow me to elaborate, it’s technically still all your fault, because-” Nicola responded with a stern expression – and Mana snapped, not letting her finish. She rushed at her, attempting to blast her, but the magic runes on Nicola’s wooden talismans simply negated her attempted assault.

  She let out a scream of frustration and jumped over the table, pushing Nicola backwards until she fell out of her chair and straddling her to punch her face repeatedly.

  Nicola didn’t resist – her head jerked from side to side with each of Mana’s punches, and she looked back at the girl every time, with sad eyes. Mana didn’t understand what the possible meaning behind those eyes could be – but she didn’t want to understand, she just acted out to make herself feel better. She continued, bloodying Nicola’s face and watching it mend in front of her eyes. She let out another frustrated scream and grabbed Nicola by the collar before she made a portal appear behind her. She hesitated only shortly, looking at the ground from way above as she pushed Nicola through the opening in reality.

  The Broker’s body fell a long distance and Mana followed. They were approaching a fort, nestled close to the river next to the large city, and Mana could see people in colorful vests wielding weapons moving in the courtyard.

  Nicola’s body was smashed into pieces upon landing and multiple people turned their heads as Mana broke her fall with the appropriate spell, looking at Nicola’s pieces with cold fury.

  “Get up! I’m not done with you!” she shouted, balling her hands into fists.

  “This is just part of what your tasks took from me! I remember what dying is actually like! I lost my innocence because of you! I should have been a normal girl, I should have -” Mana couldn’t even manage to speak more, tears streamed down her cheeks, and she gritted her teeth.

  As she expected, the core of Nicola’s body regenerated, and the bits and pieces of strewn gore vanished. Nicola sighed and stared at the sky before she got on her feet.

  Guards approached now, humans, elves and dwarves with spears, flintlock rifles and halberds which they pointed at Mana.

  “Tell your men to stand down, Bernuil!” Nicola shouted towards one of the dwarves, whose markings identified him as the captain - he scoffed and gestured for his men to lower their weapons, but he still complained about the order.

  “She assaulted you, Madame! Even if you say so, we can’t just overlook that kind of…”

  “You can and you will!” Nicola shouted his way, and he got startled for a moment. He grimaced and looked the other way.

  “You’re our ruler, Madame…”

  Despite the exchange one man still drew closer to Mana – who right now didn’t think rationally. She extended a hand, ready to blast him backwards, as Nicola appeared right in front of him, negating the blast spell with her wooden talisman. This time she gave Mana a cold look, and after a swift teleport in her direction, she held the young witch by the collar.

  “Beat me up, maim me, ‘kill’ me, whatever you need to do to feel better, Witch Queen. But if you ever threaten my people, there will be hell to pay. Do you understand?”

  Mana’s eyes went wide and even through her anger she nodded as Nicola let out a long sigh before she teleported them both away.

  They landed inside a large marble hall – and Mana guessed they were inside the town’s castle. Pillars stretched out in every direction, and some light came in through stained glass windows. Nicola still held Mana by her collar, looking at her.

  “You’re a good girl, Mana, so don’t drag out this foolishness and just listen to me…”

  “No! Leave me alone!” Mana slapped Nicola’s hand aside and ran away from her, towards a corridor leading out of the marble hall.

  She ran past statues, paintings – and even wooden marionettes standing guard. None of them moved to interfere, only moving their heads to observe as she ran past them. She wanted as much distance between herself and Nicola as possible, so she kept running, despite not knowing where she was going – and utterly forgetting about her ability to simply slip somewhere else via her portals.

  “Not that way!” Nicola suddenly warned her from a corner she turned – but Mana just made a rude hand gesture towards her and kept going.

  “Stop right now, Mana!” she heard Nicola shout behind her – and as she turned another corner, she saw a stairway leading down. Marionettes stood at the sides and crossed their halberds to try and stop her, but Mana had enough of it all. She extended both hands and cast Blast at the marionettes, crashing them into the wall. They slumped down, losing some limbs and helplessly stared at her as Nicola’s voice came from them in a slightly distorted manner.

  “It’s dangerous in the dungeon! Don’t go down there, Mana!”

  “More dangerous than being with a villainess?” she shouted back – then she was grabbed by her shoulders and Nicola looked her in the eyes.

  “You just simply need to listen to me, Mana, and I will explain everything! Why is that so hard to understand?”

  Mana struggled, pushing against Nicola. “Why are you so nice to me?! You attack people with those puppets! You hurt them! You fight against Magical Girls! Are you just using me?! Mama almost had to close her shop because people are afraid of your puppets!”

  Nicola wanted to answer, but in her moment of distraction Mana managed to hit her with a Blast spell without her talisman activating, slamming her into the nearby wall – the villainess let out a pained groan as Mana kept running deeper into the dungeon. She ran past cells containing rotting torture instruments and a shiver ran down her spine as she imagined what Madame Bille might have been using them for.

  She ran deeper and deeper, passing by a few beams of wood with strange carvings in them that glowed in the dark – a dark which grew thicker the deeper she ran into the dungeon. Before long, Mana stood in a completely black void, utterly disoriented.

  “A visitor,” Someone whispered near her and she turned around in a panic, but she didn’t see anyone.

  “An associate of the murderer!” another voice spoke. The voices were cruel and otherworldly, reminding Mana of the strange statue woman who made her remember with the Amaranth – every syllable was accompanied by a snake’s hiss and dripped with malevolence.

  “We shall make her regret coming here. We shall make her regret and repent for everything!” a third voice spoke. Mana wanted to turn around and try to run into the direction she assumed she came from, but her nape was grabbed from behind and she froze in fear.

  “Oh, how delicious. She has so many things she regrets. We shall make a feast of her!”

  Mana tried to blast the creature behind her, but she suddenly felt herself falling – deeper and deeper into the strange abyss that surrounded her.

  Period of Calm Skies, 1477 in the Era of Plunder

  ***

  Mana was on the ground – with Marisa straddling her. Marisa’s face was enraged, her white robes soaked in blood as an arrow stuck out from her chest. She was holding Mana down, choking her in the sand of a small desert island’s beach - and as soon as Mana’s mind registered the feeling of suffocation, she kicked her legs.

  “You tried to kill me, mistress!” Marisa shouted, applying a dangerous amount of pressure to Mana’s windpipe with her thumbs.

  “All I’ve ever given you is love! And you pay me back with suspicion! You try to kill me! You plan to have me locked away and make me forget if I ‘misbehave’!”

  Mana reached out a hand – to try and touch Marisa’s face to calm her down, but she wouldn’t relent.

  “You’re siding with this Arisu! You don’t even know her, but you’ve already decided that you’re going to pick her over me! I don’t have your love; you just use me for your pleasure!”

  Tears welled up in Mana’s eyes – all her self-doubts were being vocalized by this strange Marisa – things she actually believed she was doing, and things she was afraid she was doing unconsciously – she felt a heavy weight on her body, felt it pushed into the ground, like her own feelings of guilt were given weight and put on top of her.

  She wanted to deny Marisa, or at least explain herself, but no words left her mouth as the clone continued to choke her.

  Just as she felt like her consciousness would slip, the strange scene around her dissolved, and she found herself drifting through the darkness again.

  Period of the Scorching Sun, 1463 in the Era of Plunder

  ***

  Mana was tied up and stood on the plank of a ship. She realized after a glance down at her own body that she wasn’t Mana, but Bonnie.

  As she looked back up, she saw the jeering crew of her former ship, with Marco pointing a pistol at her head.

  “I loved you!” he shouted.

  “I have loved you since we were young. I thought we could have something special between us, but I was never more than a friend and a convenient bed warmer for you, wasn’t I? You preferred to fuck those nobles we ransomed, convincing yourself that you’re oh so much better than the crew because you abuse their feelings of gratitude towards you! But you’re just a thieving, raping marauder like the rest of us! And your obsession with ‘adventure’ cost people their lives!”

  Bonnie gritted her teeth and averted her eyes – but looking towards the water below turned out to be a mistake as well.

  She looked into the hollow eyes of five bloated corpses who reached for her – they were trying to grab the hull and pull themselves out of the water, but couldn’t find purchase, uselessly sliding back into the water while moaning her name in the process. A cold shiver ran down her spine as she tried to walk back onto the ship, past Marco, but he held her back by her shoulder.

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  “Die, Bonnie! And join the men your selfishness condemned to death!”

  He shot her. She felt like a hammer hit her shoulder, followed by a hot, burning sensation – she lost her balance and fell into the water, screaming until she hit the surface and salty liquid filled her mouth and lungs.

  The bloated corpses were all around her, touching her body, grabbing her throat and crushing her windpipe, tearing her clothes off her body… and the scene vanished again.

  Mana was Mana again, floating through the infinite darkness.

  “Make it stop, please!” she pleaded into the void, but no one answered her.

  Month 3, Year 34 of Chief Technocrat Castor’s Rule

  ***

  Mana ran down the long corridors of the strange facility. She was being chased by people in lab coats, who bled black goo from their eyes and mouths. Some were missing arms, some were crawling on the floor because they were missing legs, but all of them were the scientists who went missing or got injured during the containment breach which released the mimics.

  “It’s your fault!”

  “You should have never come in here!”

  “You lured the witch in white to this place!”

  Mana ran, with tears streaming down her face, trying to get away from the horde. Yet whenever she turned a corner and looked back, they were right behind her and kept pace, even the ones on the ground with missing legs. She let out a scream and ran again, while sobbing uncontrollably, trying to find a way out – any way out. After running through another door she suddenly found herself in a white room – and the door she entered through didn’t exist anymore.

  She breathed a sigh of relief until she heard the quiet chuckle of a girl.

  “Running away from the things you did, hm?”

  Arisu stood in front of her – this strange girl her future self knew, but who was a stranger to her entirely.

  “I can’t quite blame you. You did so many things wrong on your journey.”

  Arisu laughed and stepped closer, her hands behind her back as she smiled at Mana.

  “What do you want? What could I possibly feel guilty about over you?” Mana shouted now, trying to walk backwards, away from Arisu.

  “So you are aware that you are being tormented with your own feelings of guilt. Good.” Arisu closed the gap between the two with a few hops and kept her face right in front of Mana’s.

  “You’ve been playing with the thought of siding with Marisa, haven’t you? If she gets her way and I’m never born, everything will be alright, isn’t that so?”

  Mana went pale, and her heart hammered in her chest as Arisu dredged up the thoughts she only once played with before burying them.

  “Are you aware who else will die for her plan? Are you aware of what’s at stake? Of course you’re not. I am a stranger to you, a stranger you can conveniently throw away as long as it satisfies that sentient spell book you’re mating with.”

  Arisu’s face turned into a twisted, grinning visage.

  “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?”

  Mana turned away from Arisu and ran as fast as her legs could carry her, all while Arisu’s laughter filled the room behind her.

  “Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Everyone just leave me alone!” she screamed – but no one was there to hear her, save for her own feelings of guilt.

  Moon of the Forgotten King, 1067 AR

  ***

  Mana yanked awake, surrounded by darkness and empty prison cells. She was being dragged across the floor, she realized.

  Is this another vision of guilt?

  She panicked and looked around – the first thing she saw was marionettes which faced the darkness she was being pulled away from. Three women with blood red glowing hair that appeared to sprout snakes danced between them, slowly dismembering the wooden soldiers as they uselessly flailed their limbs and swung their weapons.

  “Foolish girl! You should listen when an adult tells you something!”

  That voice belonged to Nicola – Mana looked up and saw that it was her who dragged her along the floor.

  “No! No, leave me alone!” Mana shouted, fully expecting it to be another strange vision, but Nicola wasn’t deterred – the woman tossed a glance over her shoulder and uttered a quiet curse under her breath – then she simply tossed Mana ahead.

  “Run!” she shouted Mana’s way as she drew a rapier and pointed it towards the darkness – her hand shook violently and her face was pale, with sweat running down her forehead.

  “Your wrath should be directed at me and me alone, Furies! Leave this child out of your sick and twisted ‘justice’!”

  Mana crawled away from the scene as the three women surrounded Nicola, who clutched a hand to her chest and struggled to stand up straight – she swung fruitlessly at the attackers, looking over her shoulder towards Mana as the first of the three women already rammed a dagger into her side, causing her to let out a pained yelp.

  “Move already!” she shouted with whatever strength she had left, then she gestured something with her left hand. Purple strings on it were pulled taut and Nicola moved her fingers – with the tugs a command was issued, then she collapsed on the spot and two of the three women were all over her, stabbing the woman on the ground repeatedly with their wavy daggers.

  The third woman approached Mana, her blood-red eyes piercing her – and then she felt wooden arms closing around her chest which lifted her off the ground. Mana’s entire field of view was turned around and rushed towards the dungeon’s exit, as she was carried by a wooden marionette.

  ***

  Mana was brought to a room with some couches around a fireplace. The moment she was put down on one of the couches, the marionette simply hung its head and stopped moving, as if all life faded from it.

  There was a faint sound like the wind, but Mana realized that it was Nicola’s wailing reaching her ears even all the way from the dungeon – and her body shook violently as she hugged her knees.

  Why did she save me? Isn’t she a villain?

  Her eyes darted around, and she shakily raised a hand to open a portal to her hideout. The blue glowing ring appeared in the middle of the room, and she could see the beach. Just one step and she would be out of this nightmare. She could just forget about Nicola, about Madame Bille and go back to a leisurely life as Mana Kanno, a regular girl with magical abilities and a girlfriend who looked just like her.

  “But you’re not that kind of selfish, evil witch, are you? Because otherwise you would have already stepped through.”

  Mana got startled and turned around. There was another person on the couch –a strange woman wearing a white lab coat. It was seared at the fringes, with cracked protective glasses hooked into the chest pocket. It was split at the back, to allow passage for a nonhuman appendage. A blue-furred tail, which swayed slowly from side to side as the woman stood up from the couch and dismissed Mana’s portal with a gesture. As Mana looked up at her she stared into her own face – visibly a bit older, with its striking golden eyes – and two cat ears sitting atop her head, adjusting in various directions as the other Mana offered the younger one a smile.

  “Hey there, younger me. You’re having one hell of a day, aren’t you?”

  Golden eyes met golden eyes - and Mana couldn’t find the words. She sat there, with her mouth agape as she stared at her older self.

  “Ah, right. You’re very confused right now.”

  Older Mana stopped for a moment and her ears twitched, adjusting in the direction of the distant wails – then her face took on a rather sorrowful expression.

  “Poor Nicola. Suffering so much right now…” she said, turning her head towards the younger Mana again. “She’s a good woman at heart. She’s just very… eccentric. And her idea of helping the ‘growth’ of Magical Girls can be a bit much at times, but it comes from the heart. It pains me that she had to go through all of that to save me… if I had just listened to her in the first place… if you had just listened to her.”

  Mana blinked and tried to find something to say – she settled on a burning question.

  “…how old are you?”

  Older Mana raised an eyebrow and cleared her throat.

  “Rude. But as you wish, I will tell you: I am you, from twenty-two years in the future. I am thirty-six years old, and I am here to give a few words of wisdom to my younger self, since I remember that that’s what I did – and what I needed to hear the most in that very moment.”

  Mana let out a little laugh at the claim, then she stood up and examined ‘herself’. Her other self was barely a hand taller than her, making her exhale in a sigh.

  “I’m not growing at all,” she said, then her eyes wandered lower, below her other self’s shoulders. Her face took on a dark expression.

  “It didn’t grow at all.”

  Older Mana let out a loud laugh, then she ruffled the younger one’s hair.

  “Again: rude! And utterly childish to be so focused on your breast size. Your wife loves them like this, so don’t be discouraged.”

  “Wi-” Mana was utterly befuddled and examined her other self again – surely enough, there was a ring on her left hand.

  Next her eyes were drawn to the employee badge the older woman was wearing. Next to the depiction of a raven was a company logo in big bold letters, written in English. ‘One-Eye – Interdimensional Material Research Division’ Mana could read – and further down was more information and a name written in Roman letters.

  ‘Head of Research

  Mana Ta-‘

  Her reading was interrupted by a finger. Older Mana obstructed her family name with a smile and took the badge off to stow it somewhere.

  “Sorry, that’s a spoiler, dear Mana. I can’t let you know too many things about the future.”

  “You’re…”

  “Oh please, did you think you would stay single forever?”

  “But Marisa…”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “But Marisa!” Mana shouted.

  “Again: don’t worry about it, Mana.”

  Mana narrowed her eyes, but then she relented, letting her shoulders hang – until she felt a hand on one of them.

  “Good, here’s what I’m here to tell you, Mana: everything will be alright. You’re scared of what will happen with Marisa, you’re confused about Nicola… all these things are natural reactions, so I am not blaming you in the slightest. But right now, I need you to believe in yourself and push ahead. Do what you think is the right thing.”

  Mana looked away, swallowing heavily.

  “All of this is happening because of her… I don’t know if I can ever trust her again.”

  “Actually!” the older Mana started, looking at her younger self.

  “It’s all my fault.”

  ***

  “What do you mean?!” Mana shouted at herself – her older self.

  “Well, have you ever wondered how things were so neatly arranged for you to find Portal and start your journey?” the older Mana had an almost mischievous smile on her face, only accentuated by her cat-like features.

  Mana was stumped for a moment – she thought some of the details over again – the marionette that attacked her cornered her and waited before it lunged – and just in that moment the portal behind Mana opened to pull her into the library. And there was something that didn’t add up. Multiple conversations she had in the past about the nature of the library replayed in her mind.

  “…is it your fault that I landed here?”

  “…maybe!” SLAM “Ow, ow, ow, don’t hit my spine against the railing!”

  “Magic books in the library are inert, useless heaps of pages with strange prints on them – until a person gets close enough that they might be found. In that moment, a soul on the verge of rebirth is stolen and used to awaken a book’s consciousness and magic powers.”

  Mana pulled Portal out of her sleeve and stared at it for an awfully long time, her lips trembling.

  “Mana, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to conceal the truth from you, but…!” the book started, but the older Mana put a hand on its spine.

  “It’s alright, Portal. I’ll tell her,” the older Mana said as she made eye contact again.

  “It was me. I came back twenty-two years into the past and arranged all the pieces that made sure that I would become the Witch Queen of the Infinite Library.

  “I told Madame Bille to launch an attack that day – I told her to corner you in that specific alley. I went to the lowercase Roman letters section and made Portal absorb a soul – I picked it up and used it to create a portal that would bring you into the library. I even tossed a dead wizard down the abyss, timing it just right that it would startle you and make you hit Portal’s shelf – your partner and gateway to many more books inside the library.”

  Mana’s world collapsed around her. It was so easy to blame Nicola – the Broker – for all the terrible things that happened to her. For her missed chance at a normal life, for the loss of her innocence. But she did all of this to herself?

  “Why?!” she shouted and wanted to punch her older self, but the woman simply grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her closer.

  “Because it was done to me. And it had to happen to the next Mana. All things need to happen to you the way they did to me, or everything will fall apart.”

  “What do you mean?!” Mana shouted, tears welling up in her eyes again.

  “I arranged for the little treasure hunt Madame Bille sent you on. I approached her and made her play the role of the Broker - a mutually beneficial agreement as our interests fully aligned. She would have achieved her goal without our cooperation, I am certain, but I might have sped up the process a little. I placed the book with the Broker’s coordinates in the library, and Odin in his infinite wisdom chose to play along, because he saw all the things that depended on it.” The older Mana spoke quietly to her younger self, in a low, calming voice.

  “And what could possibly depend on all that?” Mana asked, sniffling as she buried her face in the older one’s chest.

  “It’s so that Arisu can be born. She is very important, you see. Not just for us, personally, but for… well. For everything. Everyone.”

  Mana pushed herself off the older one, looking to the side.

  “I’m just some pawn for some kind of messiah?” she asked bitterly.

  “Oh, you’re so much more than that, Mana. You’re going to be one of the most powerful spellcasters of this new, strange world your Earth is turning into. You’re going to be a figure of hope, you’re going to be the best friend someone could ask for…” the older Mana gently embraced her younger self, running her hand through her hair in an utterly calming gesture.

  “…and a good mom, too.” The younger Mana concluded – which appeared to land a critical hit on her older self as she cringed and turned her head away with a furious blush, clearing her throat.

  “…is it that obvious?”

  “Yes. You’re just like mama.” Mana replied in a dry tone.

  “…I do remember feeling and saying that,” the older one admitted with a sigh.

  “Well that’s a little annoying! I love mama but learning that I’m becoming just like her is still off-putting!” she commented with a little laugh and ruffled younger Mana’s hair again.

  “So, my parting words of encouragement to you, young me: The path ahead will be scary and uncertain. You will cry, you will feel like giving up. You will feel utterly hopeless sometimes and you will lash out at some of the people you care about the most. But in the end, it will all be alright. It will all be worth it. At the end of all your hardships lies boundless joy and love, so go and be the heroic witch you know you can be!”

  She winked at Mana and opened a portal which appeared to lead into a strange, white desert, with pillars of sand on the horizon that slowly flowed into the endless masses below. Oddly enough there was no heat coming through the portal.

  “Well, off I go. Go and do the right thing, you hear me? And uh… well, you will tell Nicola that you met me regardless, so I won’t bother telling you not to. Tell her I said hi!”

  With that, the older Mana vanished through her portal, leaving a thoroughly confused, but determined younger girl behind.

  The dungeon was still shrouded in darkness – only the blood-red hair of the cruel women illuminated the surroundings. Nicola was lying on the ground, with pained wails and screamed pleas for forgiveness escaping her as her body was being racked by her own guilty visions, much more intense than what Mana experienced. The ‘Furies’ sunk their daggers into her immortal body over and over again, only interrupted by the sudden blue light of a portal ring appearing next to them.

  Mana jumped through the portal and pointed both her hands at the three women tormenting the Broker.

  “Leave her alone! Now!” she warned the strange women.

  “Oh? Or what?” one of them asked with a hiss and the three of them laughed. They walked closer as Mana summoned fire arrows. She knew that she would be made to succumb to more visions before she could shoot them – but she wasn’t here to fight – only to distract them.

  With a gesture she opened a portal under Nicola and watched her limp body slide through it – the three women turned around and leapt towards the portal just as it closed, letting out frustrated screams.

  “Betrayal! Trickery!” One of them howled and they turned around, storming towards Mana – only to find her vanishing through a portal as well.

  ***

  “Foolish child! You utterly moronic, bumbling…!” Nicola was angry – quite overtly so – but she kept her anger to a string of curses while she leaned back on the couch, staring ahead into space. Mana brought her water and dabbed away the sweat on her brow as the ‘villainess’ kept on rambling. After a few minutes, though, after she calmed down enough, she grabbed Mana and pulled her into a tight hug.

  “Thank you for coming back for me.”

  Mana blinked and returned the hug before she stared at the floor. “I got talked into it… kind of.”

  “By yourself.” Nicola concluded.

  Mana nodded and furrowed her brow. “I have one remaining question about all of this: if you knew what to tell me because she knew… because you told me… how…?”

  “You’re asking where that knowledge came from? The coordinates to all these worlds and that the spells I so badly required were located there?” Nicola looked at Mana with tired eyes, then she looked at her own completely torn and perforated clothes with a long sigh. She snapped her fingers and vanished in a swirl of shadow before she re-emerged as a young woman who looked barely older than Mana, wearing a simple linen tunic. Her hair was noticeably longer than the Broker’s, too, loosely falling over her shoulders.

  Mana almost stumbled backwards.

  “How… what?!”

  “I can disguise myself, Mana. That is how I was able to give you those rings. This girl right here is called Holda, but you may continue to refer to me as Nicola, if you wish.” The girl spoke in a higher pitch than Nicola and smiled sweetly at Mana.

  Mana raised an eyebrow now.

  “Are you actually not Nicola?”

  “No, I am. The Broker was a disguise to play into your future self’s little game, but I didn’t feel the need to come up with a new name,” Nicola answered promptly.

  “Anyway, back to your burning question about the origin of your knowledge. I wanted to talk about it while we take a stroll through the city. Would you like that?”

  ***

  Mana and ‘Holda’ walked side by side down the road leading from the castle gates to the city below; they passed patrolling marionettes on their way down, which wore colorful uniforms and wielded either flintlock rifles or halberds.

  “It’s strange to see them not covered in razor blades,” Mana commented.

  “I thought it apt that moving marionettes should wield terrifying weapons when they suddenly appear in your world.” The young Nicola responded.

  “That way the Magical Girls would be much less inclined to possibly see them as people who can be reasoned with.”

  Mana cocked her head in confusion.

  “Why fight them with marionettes?”

  “To help them push themselves. For improvement.”

  Mana ended up only more confused than before.

  The two reached the market and Nicola turned around in front of some cages containing strange lizard-chicken creatures.

  “What came first, Mana? The egg or the elwetritsch?”

  “The… huh?”

  “It’s a kind of chicken. Don’t get distracted, Mana.”

  Mana furrowed her brow at the young woman who gave her a little mischievous smirk in return.

  “That’s a trick question. Without the chicken there’s no egg and without an egg there’s no chicken… maybe if we go back far enough in time for evolution…”

  “Not the point, Mana.” Nicola smiled, much to Mana’s annoyance.

  “What I’m getting at is this: You are on your journey because your older self arranged for it. And your older self only knew how to arrange it because she got sent on that journey herself. The information that made this journey possible in the first place has no point of origin.”

  Mana furrowed her brow and thought it over.

  “How does that happen?” she finally asked.

  Nicola simply shrugged her shoulders. “I like to describe it as ‘the Universe playing a prank on itself’. Strange things like these happen by the very act of picking up something that enables time travel. Stable loops such as yours are the result of such a thing.”

  She looked directly into Mana’s eyes as she continued.

  “This is why I need to warn you: whenever it is that you pick up your tome that allows for time travel, use it sparingly and wisely. And when you have interactions with your future self be sure to memorize what she does. Then repeat it. Do not attempt to break the cycle – we are powerless in the face of such anomalies and can only play our parts in them. To try and avoid the events of a time loop is to invite disaster.”

  Mana nodded at Nicola, who smiled at her in turn. “You’re a good girl, Mana. And you will probably become a net positive for this twisted world we inhabit. I am glad that I got to know you.”

  Mana blushed and looked to the side. “I’m trying. But in twenty-two years I’m still letting you take the blame for my actions, I don’t know how to feel about that.”

  Nicola chuckled. “As I said, don’t deviate from the script now that it is written.” She suddenly narrowed her eyes and looked somewhere in the middle of the market.

  “I’m afraid our time together is over for this weekend, Mana.”

  “Hm? Why?” Mana followed Nicola’s gaze and saw a woman wearing green, who wandered around wide-eyed. She stuck out a little, despite dyeing her glowing hair black. “Wait, Minerva is the help you were waiting for?”

  Nicola nodded, gently pulling Mana along and out of the way of the sightseeing Magical Girl.

  “My assassin.”

  Mana raised a brow, so Nicola turned her way and elaborated.

  “I’ll have her get rid of the Furies, one way or the other. They’re distant relatives of hers, so maybe she can do so with diplomacy.”

  Mana nodded, then they watched as Minerva approached a large statue in the middle of the square.

  “With that done, we will be able to get rid of the abomination I mentioned…” her eyes lingered on the statue and a sorrowful expression remained on her face before she focused again.

  “Go to Marisa. Spend as much time as you can together, before the inevitable hard times start. I wish you the best, Mana.”

  The young-looking Nicola opened a nearby crate, which turned out to contain a marionette and gestured with her dangling strings – the puppet stood up and took on the form of a plump woman, who went and manned one of the empty stalls on the market.

  A final little wave later, and Nicola was on her way to stand next to Minerva.

  “Admiring the statue, madame mage?”

  “I was wondering what the story behind it might be. It feels sad, somehow.”

  Mana only heard the start of the conversation as she walked away, looking for a quiet corner where she could walk through her portal. She was going to spend as much quality time with Marisa as she could before September – she remembered her older self who traveled with Arisu mention that month.

  July 2046 AD / 38 AM

  ***

  Kay, a junior researcher at the One-Eye institute, was hunched over a data panel and sifting through petabytes of information, as usual in his line of work. His finger tapped on the desk as he was suddenly startled by the sudden appearance of a portal.

  “Gah! Please, Mana, I told you to summon portals next to your own desk instead of almost on top of mine!”

  “Oh, quiet, you. So, found anything while I was gone?” the cat-eared woman leaned over his desk to look at the data in front of her, and the younger man could only sigh – then he noticed the state of her lab coat.

  “What in the world burned you?”

  “Wizard.”

  There was an awkward quiet between both of them as she judged that word enough explanation.

  “Right… anyway, the data on Aranon hatcheries is coming in convenient now that there’s more incidents of… crossbreeding between the newly arrived merfolk and… humans who honestly should exercise better self-control. We should be able to build something like it in a few weeks, just in time for when our lucky parents… spawn.”

  Mana listened to him and nodded, moving to a window and pulling the blinds down with a finger to have a look at the world outside.

  “At least now I know how my ancestors a few thousand years ago ended up… crossbreeding in a way that gave me cat ears when I got hit by magic.” She gave Kay an awkward smile. “Would have been tempted to experiment a little more with off-worlders if I weren’t married, you know?”

  Kay furrowed his brow – he had thoughts about that statement and some things he heard about Mana, but he kept them to himself for now.

  “Where did you go, anyway?” he asked to steer the conversation away from hybrids and spawning.

  “I just got the ball of fate rolling.” Mana said as she grabbed a photo from her desk – it depicted the head researcher at a much younger age, with five other women surrounding her. As far as Kay could tell, the picture was taken in Italy, maybe even Rome, with the antique statue behind the group.

  “So that this moment can happen,” Mana added with a nostalgic smile.