Her eyelids were weighed down by the unstoppable force of her sins. She found herself scribbling characters of text down on the stacks of paper in front of her, the stapled ones rearranged in order from case to case. Mira had spent hours working out her past, how reincarnation had worked — yet her unique magic did not allow her to dig far into context.
Nonetheless, she focused on the repeated cases of injuries.
Right, that should have been what she focused on in the first place. Aside from the complications about her messed up memories, her past self and her current self, she knew more than to not dwell on it too much. Shizuka, a name that she had whispered to herself many times as she sat on her wooden chair, could only make her visualise a girl with chocolate hair and hazel eyes. Mira couldn't recognise her face. She thought she knew the hazel eyes that shimmered when the pair of orbs met the cutest things sold in merchandise stores, yet the Shizuka that she had visualised now was nothing more than a scribbled face damaged with black ink.
Mira sighed as she swept her bangs from her field of vision. She knew she would have overblotted if it weren't for Valaine's mana restraining magic, something that was rarely taught to people and only for those professionally thriving in the magic protection industry — a field of study that was still new to this day. Glad that she was given assistance, Mira decided to let go of her personal shizazzles for now and analyse the current situation.
"Right, Mira, Nikki — ugh, whoever! focus! Focccusss!" She quietly hissed to herself as she placed her two index fingers to the side of her head, trying to communicate with who-what-when-where-why. Her pewter grey jacket rustled as she did so. "Tenth mana potion of the day, velvet heartbeat!"
In an instant, her room shook; the small plushies that she had gotten as a present for making into NRC toppling off the side of her bed, the dust that whisked down the corners of the walls like the first snow and the timber ever so slightly thumping to the waves of her unique magic. Like her unique magic's name, Velvet Heartbeat, she was able to figure another clue out in a single beating of her tired heart.
"Hmm, mah boi Ruggie did it again, huh?" She clicked her tongue before her thin arms reached out for the spare sheets of paper. Mira couldn't help but feel like something was caught in her stomach every single time Ruggie was involved with Leona's plan on injuring his opponents right before the Magical Shift tournament. In fact, she knew very well of his personality and ways of plotting, but it seemed that her mind wouldn't stop bouncing and dancing in irritation when she realised that her dear friend was being used.
This time, the victim was Trey.
"Trey Clover, class 3-E, number four on the roll of age eighteen," she mumbled, as her eyes closed. Through her eyelids, she saw coordinates, grids, diagrams and before she knew it, her imagination was overwritten with new information scattering in her brain. Once she opened her eyes, she got to work. Writing the personal information of the new victim and recording his appearance by using summoning magic to print his student picture on the sheet of paper with the wave of her magical pen, Mira slumped back on her chair in success.
Using her unique magic and drinking over the limits of mana potions took quite the toll to her body. Rubbing her eyes and yawning, her arms jiggled out to ease the muscle pain. Scratching her scalp and groaning in realisation that she had yet to take a shower, she mentally promised to the body that she would wash off soon. In the meantime, she glared back at the never-ending piles of documents that were left to complete into crushing Savanaclaw's dorm leader's scheme.
The last thing I want to do is cause a situation where he overblots, but that is waaay too risky. No one would forgive me if I caused it, too.
Although she was reluctant not to cause too much trouble, she couldn't stop herself from imagining the cured Leona Kingscholar that she had planted in her mind if her series and courses of actions were to bear the sweetest fruit. Her lips curled into a ghost of a smile as her amber eyes burned in a waltz of paroxysm.
—But I'm still not going to rule that possibility out~ ♪
🌻
"He hasn't come out of his room for more than a day besides when he goes to the bathroom at night...but he keeps asking for sticky notes and paper to be slid under the door otherwise."
Yuu cuddled her legs as she sat in front of Mira's room. It was a breezy afternoon and Ace had decided to visit the Ramshackle dorm for the millionth time. She was still clad in her school uniform, the only person who wore an ash grey vest and no armband. Unlike Mira who only wore the button-down long-sleeve shirt with the ends rolled up to her elbows, Yuu was brought up to become strict on her uniform ever since she was little.
"Hm? What makes you think he comes out to go to the bathroom? If you were sleeping and all, he probably uses the notes and paper as his toilet paper supply!" Ace snickered before knocking on the door. "Heeey, open up, Amir-paisen! Geez, did something happen the other day?"
"W-Well...he's having a self-reflection moment..."
"That takes him more than a day!? Just what the heck did he do?"
Of course, Yuu couldn't possibly reveal the contents of their conversation from that day; especially when the mother and daughter had told her not to. She rolled her neck before standing up, hearing her back crack in the process. Yuu had rested her body in the same position for minutes, yet it felt like hours trying to convince Mira to open the door to see how she was doing. After the shocking pain that her dormmate had received from Yuu's comment about her past, perhaps she was angry with her for realising so; or maybe she was curious to figure out more.
"Wait? What are you here for again?" Yuu tilted her head to his direction before Ace tensed up. He still wasn't used to the Prefect's pretty girl-face that had always caught his attention, also taking into account that she was always kind and accepting even when he had tried to run away from cleaning 100 windows. He wondered if everyone was like that in her world.
"J-Just to kill time?" He replied in an unsure tone. She hummed in understanding before making her way to the lounge. Ace followed suit, yet he looked behind him to see the door still unopen. She still needed to talk to someone about her discussion with the headmaster from the other day when they were out playing Magical Shift, especially since Mira herself wasn't aware of the situation that she was in. Yuu knew she was a professional at the game, which meant that if she had decided to participate with Diasomnia, then she would be prone to more danger.
"That reminds me, Ace, we need to talk about something."
"Hm?"
"The increasing number of students getting injured in suspicious accidents," she stated as she brought a finger to her chin in thought. "The headmaster had told Grim and me to investigate it, but we don't really know where to start. He said that ten people had already gotten injured, none of them being severe, but perhaps they could all be foul play. W-Well, so we investigated during school today..."
"Ah! No wonder you guys looked so suspicious!" Ace widened his mouth in realisation, pointing to them both.
Grim cringed in return of his reaction, then placed his paws to his hips. "What if Yuu's the one reading too far? To me, it all just sounds like they were clumsy or got caught up in the excitement for the tournament."
All three of them paused when they heard loud footsteps pouncing on the timber floor as they whisked their heads to the end of the hallway near the foyer. There, was a panicked Deuce shouting from the distance. "Ace! This is bad!"
"Huh? Why are you so flustered?"
Deuce stopped his tracks without a single breath. "Clover-senpai got hurt from falling down the stairs!"
Yuu squinted her eyes in suspicion. Falling down the stairs? Trey Clover? As much as she knew about him, he wasn't the type to lose his footing -- especially near the stairs. She glanced at the other two, Grim and Ace, as they both yelped in surprise.
"Ffgna!" Grim shouted in disbelief. "You can't mean...that unflappable glasses-wearing Trey is—?"
She fiddled with her fingers as she looked at Deuce. "Following from what Grim had said before, I really don't think senpai is the type to get caught up in the excitement..."
Although she felt perplexed with how things were escalating, she needed to let Mira know about the consequences just in case she might get hurt. Standing up from the sofa, she dashed to the hallway and up the stairs to find the right room, dorm number 4, the one with the door decorated in weird vinyl stickers of food and soft drinks that Mira herself had made using summoning magic; Yuu finally realised how much of an idiot she was for not noticing that this world didn't have the branded logos that were stuck on the door until now. She took a deep breath before knocking on the door repeatedly.
"Amir-san! We need to talk, this is urgent!" Yuu said as she continued banging her fist on the door. Despite knowing that Mira could hear it, she knew that her friend wasn't going to open it any time soon. In a fit of anger, she grabbed Grim from the foyer after sliding down the stairs again, before rushing back up and placing Grim near the door. "Grim, burn the door down, please!"
"Ffgna!? The door!?" Grim asked in a loud voice, surprised that someone like Yuu would be impatient enough. "Gaah — Alright, but you owe me a can of tuna after this!"
Yuu stepped away before seeing blue flames erupt from Grim, the door burning away like a crisp as she coughed, the wood dust and smoke getting into her lungs. Ace and Deuce, who were still confused as they sat in the foyer's entrance, dashed up the stairs to see the commotion.
Deuce folded his arms as he yelled. "Oi! What are you guys—"
Yuu opened her eyes after clearing the smoke with her hands, yet she covered the tops of her eyes with the other arm. Squinting to see through the smoke, she managed to make out a figure who walked out of the door. "Amir-san! P-Please don't get angry, we need you to help us investiga—"
"It's done," Mira gasped, not paying attention to the mess in front of her as she embraced stacks of paper in her palms. She then blinked, staring at the broken door in front of her and the two Heartslabyul members shockingly scanning at her physical appearance. Mira cocked her head to the side to see Grim's tired expression from letting out his flames, his body in the hands of Yuu, who fell down from the impact of the flames.
Yuu scanned her dormmate's stance. From the unkempt hair tied up with a cute red ribbon that seemed to be able to hold on ever since she was trapped in her own room, the eyebags that enveloped her marmalade orbs that danced with fire and the thin grey jacket over her white shirt and sweatpants — she looked like a hikikomori. Even so, it didn't seem like Mira even noticed her style was way off of her first impression.
Mira gave them a smirk of mischief. "As long as I'm here, you guys will be fine~! You know, I wasn't just doing some self-reflection. And no, Ace, I wasn't using notes as toilet paper — thank you very much. So? Where are you guys going? I'll follow suit."
"A-Ah, apparently Clover-senpai got injured—"
"That I know," Mira hummed before flipping through her papers. "I was spending time by bonding with my unique magic — more like trying to get to know it better so I can use it further. It's similar to cultivating like those Chinese webnovels—! Now, now, let us go."
Leona Kingscholar — I'll break through your plan.
🌻
"Pardon the intrusion."
The group entered Trey's room after making their way to Heartslabyul's dorm via the Hall of Mirrors, rushing as fast as possible in order to gain some sort of information. On the way, Mira asked Yuu for as much information as possible; such as the number of incidents recorded and the people who were involved. Yuu had recognised the look of confidence written on her dormmate's face.
"Clover-senpai, are you alright?"
Grim smiled innocently. "Yo, glasses! We heard you're down so we came to pay our respects!"
Mira covered her mouth in order to not laugh. Grim, he's not dead.
Amber met shamrock and Mira immediately gave him a lopsided smile, her lips flinching as Cater pulled out his phone. Stepping back, she made her way to the door slowly as the others gave her a confused expression.
"Amir-chan~! Hm? You're not wearing your uniform. Anyway, it's been a while since we met face-to-face, so you know what this means right?"
"N-nO, no Tik Toks please—!"
Cater puffed his cheeks before sighing heavily, his arms out in defeat. "Haaah, alright — then how about this? Cheese~!"
"Hwah!" Her eyes met with the lens of his phone camera as her hand naturally made a peace sign, her lips curling forward as her right eye winked comfortably. Hearing the snap of the button, she released her posture and slumped her back. As much as Cater was quick to take photos, Mira had the talent to quickly adapt to her surroundings; especially when he tries to take photos together and she doesn't notice. Mira twitched her eyes in irritation as she realised that she had dropped her papers when she involuntarily posed.
"Nice! You're so quick to pose before I even snap a pic of you, as expected of Amir-chan~ time to post this on the MagiCam!"
"Uhm, so about this Trey guy's incident..." Mira quickly glanced at the glasses-wearing man who seemed to have an injured leg. She hummed as she tapped her finger on her chin several times, then making her way back to the stack of notes from the ground. "Hmm, please tell me more about how you felt. Was it like the others where they lost their footing because it seemed that they had lost their sense of attention?"
"It wasn't Trey who lost his footing," Riddle answered with a little guilty tone straining from his voice. Mira tilted her head to question his monologue before his eyes met her's. "It was me."
"You don't need to feel guilty for it, Riddle," Trey gave him a reassuring smile before resting a hand on his face. "I did my best to catch myself, but my right foot is toast. I'll be on crutches for a while."
"I see — this means Trey has saved you then," Mira examined his body before a light bulb flashed comically on top of her head. Her eyes gave a little judging look of his small size, especially since he was a single centimeter shorter than she was. "I mean, that's probably the only way he is able to injure himself unless there's some other factor that I'm not known to."
Deuce, on the other hand, recognised the injury and gasped. "That's a pretty bad injury!"
"I'm probably completely out of this year's Magift games," the victim answered as he adjusted his black-rimmed glasses. Mira perked her head up, quite confused with the calm demeanour. Was Heartslabyul not frustrated with losing their important star member?
Grim propped a can of tuna on the man's lap. "I wasn't going to do this if it wasn't a big deal...but here's a get-well can of tuna."
Yuu blinked to find the can of tuna that she had owed Grim being given to Trey, to her surprise, as she gave him a proud smile like a mother would to their troublesome son who finally did the right thing. Mentally taking note to praise him later, she pursed her lips as she cheered in silence when Trey thanked him for the get-well gift. She eyed Mira who was still skimming through the documents and files that she had spent her wellbeing on. Wondering what was written in there, she scooted closer and leaned forward.
"You can read these later once I explain things." Mira, who recognised the latter's figure drawing closer in pure curiosity, slapped the papers on Yuu's head. Progressing with her work she cleared her throat and adjusted her jacket sleeve out of the way. "I apologise if I offend everyone in some case, but I actually did a lot of research prior to this conversation."
Riddle gave her a stricken look. "You mean when you were cooped up in your room for more than a day?"
She jolted slightly, drawing her hand to her heart. "The way you phrase it pains me deeply, but you're not wrong at all. Strictly speaking about research, I used my unique magic several times to shorten the boundary in terms of the recurring incidents by not sounding specific. Anyhow just for clarification, can you two explain how you got caught up with the mess?"
"Hmm, I had something to take care of...so I went to the third-year classrooms during lunch. Then," Riddle began as he caught everyone's attention. Mira immediately slipped her magical pen from the breast pocket of the plain white shirt before looking up, indicating to continue. "I told Trey that I'd be late on the way so the members can start without me when we were in the stairways...but when I was able to leave, I somehow lost my footing even though I made sure to check where I was going — I still felt myself falling. Trey went out of his way to keep me from falling down the stairs and got injured..."
"I would think you would be good at falling after flight class," Trey joked as he gave Riddle an affiliative smile to indicate that he was all fine. "It's no one's fault that I sprained my ankle."
"For what I know, this is getting a bit suspicious," Yuu said with an unsure tone. Mira caught her train of thought, knowing that Yuu was a lot sharper than she had looked. "I mean, with all these incidents going on that seem so similar to each other, it's hard to believe that this all comes from carelessness."
"Now, now, Riddle-kun," Cater patted Riddle's shoulder, feeling the negativity whisk in the air like smoke. "There's no need to get all gloomy. It sucks because of what happened to Trey-kun, but you'll just have to fill in his part well."
"Ah, yeah. You're right..."
Mira managed to hold on to the way Cater spoke before lazily slipping away from the crowd of people surrounding Trey, giving them a little expectant glance as she exited the room. Cater, who caught the signal first, bore a wide smile as he took his phone to his pockets.
"I think it's about time to let Trey-kun rest. Disperse, disperse~!" He waved his arms as a sign of dismissal as everyone followed behind him, Grim giving the victim a little stare of worry before also making his way out. They made their way down to Heartslabyul's lounge, where Riddle crossed his arms to stop everyone; his eyes now sharp and ready to take action.
"So, Cater? Is there something you don't want to talk about in front of Trey?"
Cater blinked before turning his head at Mira, the latter nodding before slapping the papers on the table they were surrounding. She ushered him to continue his opinion as she skimmed through to find the right one to show them, using Cater as a tool to take her time.
"As expected of Riddle-kun," Cater praised. "You catch on pretty quick. Prefect-chan and all, do you know anything about how Trey-kun got hurt?"
"A-Actually," Yuu muttered, nervous about how she should have sounded. With all her might, she began to explain about the headmaster using her and Grim to identify the cause for the trouble. From interviewing the victims that morning to how she knew in the first place, she managed to concisely express their point of view.
"I see, so that's what the headmaster thinks..." Riddle slowly nodded in understanding. Cater, who also seemed to acknowledge their perception on the dilemma, stated his thoughts with 'I thought so, you guys didn't come to just wish Trey-kun well'.
"The thing is," Riddle waved an arm as he explained his part of the situation. "I thought something strange was going on, so I had Cater gather information."
"I found out there were candidates like Riddle-kun and Trey-kun who had gotten caught in the same type of problem."
"At that time, I didn't trip over anything or feel like someone had pushed me from behind," Riddle stated. Yuu found herself shivering as if she were in some mystery film as Grim hid behind her. "But...how should I put this, it felt like my body moved on its own."
"Everyone else was saying something similar!" Grim grunted as he placed his paws on his hips in disgust. He was hating over the lack of information that they had gotten, not realising that a whole library of context was Mira herself, as he complained.
Mira, who managed to find the right document, cheered in triumph before stepping back into the group. "Clearly it's because the injured are all Magift candidates. I'm sure Riddle and Cater have caught up on that fact already, so I think it's time for me to highlight what's in this document that I piled up earlier."
Handing the papers to Riddle, he took it and flipped the pages.
"These are all the profiles of the victims and their dorm," Riddle hummed before furrowing his eyebrows. "But there's nothing else. Why the dorms?"
"Look carefully," she chirped before leaning forward — pointing at each and every dorm of the page. He did as he was told, before his eyes widened in realisation.
"W-Wait! There aren't any members of Savanaclaw or Diasomnia who are injured—!"
"Really!?" Cater gasped before taking the papers, skimming through the profiles to clarify that none of the said dorm members has been hurt. Mira crossed her arms and puffed her chest in glee, finally being recognised for her talent in researching.
"With all the information I have drafted here," she murmured, seeing that members of Heartslabyul were walking across them. Mira had to make sure that they did not get involved as much as possible, due to the fact that the could get hurt next despite not being members of the Magical Shift tournament. Once they left, she looked back and turned up the volume of her voice. "It's safe to assume that Savanaclaw is looking to win by other means, cheating."
"Savanaclaw?" Yuu questioned before looking at Mira. "Aren't you pretty close with that dorm? You even ate dinner there once."
"T-That's not the point right now," Mira answered, her frustrated and tired countenance showing through her stuttering. "I mean, it is, but it also isn't. Ugh, I want to solve this as quickly as possible as well, okay? As much as I know, Savanaclaw hasn't won a single point from Diasomnia. By loosening up the other dorms before aiming at Diasomnia all at once by attacking Malleus before the Magical Shift tournament commences, this is how he planned everything from the start."
"I see...but why start now?" Riddle asked as Mira jerked her head from the table. She gave him a goofy grin before tapping her forehead.
"My unique magic is Velvet Heartbeat. I told Yuu and Grim that it allows me to search for people and dig up dangerous information, but technically my unique magic allows me to dig through almost every question I yearn an answer for, but the more specific I go through the higher the chances of overblot," she elucidated in a serious tone. "During the research that I did in my room, I tried my best to be as broad as possible — which increases the number of questions I can ask before exhaustion, and I used you as my base information."
"Me?" Riddle pointed to himself.
"Yes, yes!" She smiled effortlessly for no reason. "You participated in the October Inter-Dorm Magical Shift tournament discussion. With this, I knew that Malleus was appointed to be listed in the hall of fame."
"Y-You don't mean—"
"This was probably what drove him to start now," she concluded with a sigh. "Personally, I didn't want to get involved with this situation but..."
"But?"
She shook her head. "Ahaha, nothing."
I can't tell them Ruggie is the perpetrator for these incidents.
—Why?
"Well I'm going to head back to the Ramshackles for my slumber," Mira yawned, her arms flailing widely to display her exhausted appearance. "If anything happens or if there are more incidents, do contact me as soon as possible. It helps to gain information without any effort or use of my unique magic. Now now, I bid y'all adieu."
Performing a little curtsey and a close-eyed smile in front of Riddle and the others, she whisked her head to the exit of the castle.
That was when Yuu caught and realised that behind Mira's curled lips, her eyes weren't smiling with her at all. Mira was as strong as the blustery winds that howled within the moonlight, but what Yuu saw in the poor girl's heart was a calm breeze stopped by time; the time that had passed with all the suffering she had to go through to investigate what had happened to her peers.
Mira just wanted everything to be back to normal and smiling with her Savanaclaw friend.
Her amber eyes paused its blaze as she stood there in front of her dorm, confused.
...Friend?
Were we just friends—?