Outside the window, the rain was still falling in a thin, steady drizzle.
Getting a call from your girlfriend on a gloomy rainy night—only to be dumped without mercy…
It was the kind of development that fit a certain "special plot" all too well.
Arato Sora set down the receiver and looked up at Aozaki Touko.
She met his gaze head-on.
"So Aoko took your right to inherit the Aozaki family?" he asked.
Arato Sora knew bits and pieces about the Aozaki household.
In all the things Aoko had ever said, the heir had always been Touko.
He'd also heard, through Aoko, how much effort Touko had poured into becoming that heir—
Cutting away nearly all personal time, throwing herself fully into everything related to the family.
Because of that, Touko had practically never lived the life of an ordinary girl her age.
Otherwise, Arato Sora—Aoko's childhood friend and boyfriend—wouldn't have only met her once as a child and then never again, not even a single time.
"Let me correct you," Touko said.
She smiled brightly, the picture of a composed intellectual behind her glasses.
But in those orange eyes, there was only a surging, icy indifference.
"She didn't just take my inheritance. She took everything. I'm completely cut off from the family now."
"A homeless dog."
Then, still smiling—
"I will kill Aoko."
"…"
For a moment, Arato Sora couldn't tell whether Touko was serious or simply speaking in a fit of rage.
Touko watched him fall silent, and her smile bloomed again—sunlit, almost cheerful.
Yet on that rational, cold face, hatred churned so violently it could barely be contained.
"In the world of magi, sisters trying to kill each other isn't rare," she said.
"Aoko broke up with you to isolate you from a certain danger."
"And now I'll tell you everything and drag you straight into it."
Her malice was blatant.
At that point, Arato Sora understood perfectly: Touko was treating him as a tool to hurt Aoko.
And in the same breath, he remembered something Aoko had once told him—about her sister.
The story went something like this:
When they were kids, Aoko and Touko suddenly decided they wanted pizza.
The moment the thought struck, Aoko immediately sprang into action. She ran for dozens of kilometers, intending to order pizza from a shop in the city.
But because she took so long, the store was closed by the time she arrived.
She ran all that way for nothing.
When she finally got home, she found Touko already eating pizza.
Touko even greeted her with interest, casually telling her she'd saved some pizza for Aoko.
Aoko, still in disbelief, ate while looking at Touko with outright admiration.
And then, in the end, Aoko realized something else:
The three cows and two chickens their family had been raising were gone.
In other words—
For the sake of that pizza, Touko had sold off everything at home, clean and complete.
Aoko's sister, Touko, didn't care about the process.
Only the result.
If achieving what she wanted required paying a price—
She didn't mind paying any price.
"Arato Sora," Touko said calmly, her gaze fixed on him, "are you interested in stepping into the world of magi?"
Why would she do this?
The reason was obvious.
This would hurt Aoko the most.
Mystery attracts Mystery.
The higher the Mystery, the greater the danger it calls.
Entering the world of magi is like walking into a coliseum.
Some twist of fate will always gather the beasts together, forcing them into conflict—until one strongest beast is carved out in blood.
Aoko chose to break up with him for the same reason:
She didn't want to drag him in.
And the first danger she drew in after inheriting the family wasn't some distant threat—
It was the person standing in front of Arato Sora right now.
Aozaki Touko.
The sisters would inevitably clash in the future.
Touko, raised on the "common sense" of magi, would not hesitate to kill the people around Aoko.
If Arato Sora stayed with Aoko, he would become one of her "people."
Which meant Touko would mark him as an obstacle to remove.
So Aoko created distance immediately.
But…
As someone who had grown up as an ordinary person, Aoko had probably underestimated Touko's state of mind.
There was no need to wait for some later return.
Even when everyone believed Touko had already left Misaki Town, she came back—and struck at what Aoko cherished most.
"This sounds dangerous enough that I should be allowed to refuse, right?" Arato Sora said after hearing Touko's explanation.
"I analyzed your personality," Touko replied.
She lightly adjusted her glasses.
"Even knowing the world is dangerous—if you have the chance to obtain power that can resist that danger—you won't refuse."
"I could go find Aoko," Arato Sora offered as his reason to reject her.
Touko's lips curved into a strange, mocking smile.
"If you understand Aoko at all, you already know she won't agree."
"…True," Arato Sora said, nodding.
His idiot girlfriend, Aozaki Aoko, was the kind of person who could be very self-righteous.
Just like now—dumping him unilaterally to keep him away from danger.
If Aoko decided that learning magecraft would put Arato Sora at risk, she would reject it without hesitation.
Aoko's "kindness" was never performed for other people.
It was performed for herself.
She did what she believed was right.
A benevolent tyrant—that was exactly what she was.
She wouldn't demand repayment from those she helped.
But she also wouldn't think too much about how the people she helped actually felt.
"That idiot probably placed some kind of warning on you," Touko said, her sneer deepening. "If anything happens to you, she'll come running immediately."
"I haven't accumulated enough power yet, so you don't have to worry about me laying a hand on you for the time being."
Arato Sora could clearly feel it—whenever Touko spoke Aoko's name, the contempt was laced with hatred.
"How can I be sure what you teach me is real?" he asked.
"I don't need to lie to you," Touko said flatly. "Right now, I care about you more than Aoko does."
Her malice poured out without restraint as she smiled.
"If something Aoko cares about becomes something else entirely—if, even emotionally, you start leaning toward me—wouldn't that be the best revenge?"
She didn't want Arato Sora to come to harm—not now.
She was desperate to pull him closer.
"If you want to confirm whether what I teach you is true, verify it yourself," she continued. "Once you step into the world of Mystery, you'll quickly discover that Mystery has always been right beside you."
"You can find another teacher and have them validate everything I teach you."
Malice and hatred tangled together—contempt wrapped around a heavy, almost obsessive importance.
Touko stared at Arato Sora.
And yet, somehow, it felt as if her eyes didn't truly see him at all.
Arato Sora held her gaze.
For no clear reason, a strange sense of pity rose in his chest.
This person…
Other than revenge, she had nothing left.
"Then I'll be relying on you from here on, Touko-san," he said, nodding once.
-------
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