“Elia, wait!” the investigator shouted. “Don’t do it, Elia, please!”

“I will never see him again because of you…”

“Eleonor!”

“You… it’s all your fault… I’ll kill you!”

Elia was too hungry for revenge to hear the warning. She lunged at the Violet with her dagger. Its blade whistled in the air and cut some of the transformed Emilia’s long hair. The witch tried to bring Elia down with her tail, but the girl bounced away. This was nothing like she had fought before: the former graceful and skilled Battle Mage turned into a violent butcher from a madhouse, who had somehow managed to get a knife. Instead of sharp, perfectly calculated attacks, Elia assailed the fairy with random strikes of her elegant dagger, missing over and over again. Her terrible screams echoed: “Die! Die! DIE!”

Finally, the Amber tricked her rival with a fake movement and slashed the mermaid on the forehead.With the inhuman cry, the witch raised her hands to the bloody wound, knocking down her own hat. Enraged, Elia raised her hand again for a blow, but hit a magical cage instead: Shadow, with the mana supplemented by Mirabel, enclosed Elia in a blocking spell. The witch’s eyes were filled with purple blood oozing from her forehead.

“Help… help me…”

The merrow slowly shrunk and transformed into a normal person. Falling to her knees, she began to fumble blindly, searching for the fallen artifact in the lilac clouds above the ground. Niji rushed over and grabbed the hat that had fallen next to her.

Suddenly, all the sounds around the Elementalist vanished, and a deafening heartbeat tapped in her ears. Niji’s vision darkened, a bloody net crossed the scene before her eyes. The fog thickened and desaturated. In the distance, the outline of a lab desk appeared, its surface flooded with purple liquid. One world overlapped with another.

“What is it? What’s happening?”

The last thing Niji remembered before losing consciousness was Shadow’s black and white mantle and the pungent smell of lavender around him.

October 8, 2015

Indeed, it took a month to finish the enchantment.

Aoi looked incredibly tired, but happy nonetheless. New horizons always inspired her, and Takeshi was infected with her enthusiasm as well. First, breathe life into a doll. Then, into a droid. And finally, into a new body. Aoi believed that her unspent love, embedded in her Celestial magic spell, played a significant role in stabilizing the illusion.

He heard about the results in the evening while waiting on the front steps of the Academy. The world around them was withering from the dampness and autumn winds, but Takeshi was in an exuberant mood.

“It’s over, Izumi-kun. There are two of them now. Eleonor no more, but Elia and Elio. We did it!”

“Blessed be our Mother! Are they alright?”

“A bit weak at the moment, especially Elio—no surprise here. But everything will be fine, the vitality of his body is already beyond doubt. Tomorrow we can go see them in the MedCorps.”

“I am so happy to hear that! Sensei, you’re great! To perform such subtle magic… this is fantastic! A sheer miracle!” Takeshi’s eyes shone with admiration, and Aoi blushed slightly.

“It was you all along. I’m not stealing your credit.”

“It’s not rocket science to come up with a crazy idea. The pure awesomeness lies in the mastery of bringing such a grandiose project to life. You’ll astound the whole magical community.”

“For Eleonor’s well-being… pardon, for Elia and Elio’s, we’ve decided not to disclose anything about the process. Please mind, Izumi-kun, that all this is now classified. I’ll get NDA papers later today.”

“That is a wise decision,” the student nodded.

An awkward pause fell. Takeshi was looking somewhere behind Aoi, obviously impatient. Feeling a bit lost, she wondered how she could continue their conversation, and in the end she said: “I’m sorry you were not invited to the final stage. It was quite… unsafe.”

“Daijoubu desu yo. I know you just didn’t want me to witness Eleanor’s possible death.”

“Stop reading my thoughts, Izumi-kun.”

Takeshi laughed at his teacher being so embarrassed. “You are very well aware that it’s prohibited magic available only to Viols. I am just trying to become a little bit more observant… in some aspects.”

“That’s commendable,” the Celestial mumbled sourly, when the front door opened and a beautiful girl with long pitch black hair arranged in an intricate hairstyle stepped out of the building. A little bashful, she greeted Aoi and then turned to the Sage.

“Sorry for being late. Yaoguay was a bit reluctant to go back to the Unknown. It would be too cruel to drag it all the way with us: I can guarantee a couple onlookers would swoon. Shall we go?”

Students bowed their goodbyes to their teacher and left the courtyard. Feeling on cloud nine, Takeshi took Hitomi’s hand in his. “It’s true how good it feels to find your soul mate. I hope Elio and Elia will achieve their harmony too,” he thought.

He knew that Aoi had been standing on the steps for some time, watching them leave. The next day, she would apply to the PRISM magical crime department and a month later would abandon her position in the Academy.