The first year of middle school.

  It was not a distant memory, roughly four years ago.

  The annou of his parents’ death made him stand bnkly in front of the door. He couldn’t do anything. At that point in time, he simply didn’t have the strength to drastically alter the world.

  For ohe w of Honkai prevented him from spitting out future knowledge easily. The fear of losing that advantage (without doing anything signifit) was always on his mind. Without that, he couldn’t do anything aloaying close to some signifit people was his best bet.

  Aleph couldn’t help but feel envious of the muns (overpowered characters) in fictitious works he read.

  The deaths of Aleph’s parents wasn’t something he predicted. No, rather, honkai has always been a matter he remained powerless with.

  During this period, Aleph opted to revise his pns crazily—in an attempt to find a way he overlooked for thirteen years.

  One day, the mirror not far from his desk shone brightly.

  “Ah? Ah?”

  A girl’s voice came from it.

  Under Aleph’s shocked gaze, a girl’s face rojected by the mirror. It wasn’t refleg his room but a pletely different one!

  “Huh.”

  “Eeh?”

  The two couldn’t react for a while.

  “This… is iing.”

  “... we do the introdus first?” Aleph asked. “I might have something to verify…”

  “Sure. I don’t mind. But, you’re first.”

  The girl’s pleasant voice came out from the mirror.

  “I am Aleph... From the Far East.”

  “...Tokisaki Kurumi. Japan.”

  “...”

  Aleph nearly fell from his chair.

  “Did you just say… Japan?”

  “Yes? Is there something wrong with it?”

  He wao say ‘Yes, it’s wrong on so many levels!’ but suppressed himself. Thinking that the girl’s not that old, he had to expin it in a clear manner.

  “On my side… there’s no Japan.”

  “...”

  “Do you have a Mu ti?”

  His question made her silent.

  “...No.”

  “What about honkai?”

  “...her.”

  Both Aleph and the girl realized the implications from this. The former took the ce to decre it.

  “We might be from different worlds.”

  From then onwards, the two slowly ied with each other. They discovered that their mirrors could ect between 8PM and 9PM in the evening. Although time was short, the two were still able to use it to transmit some on knowledge in their worlds.

  Kurumi’s world was a traditional ohout any signs of supernatural powers and likes. It resulted ialking more about his world filled with honkai.

  “If this mirror allows travel… don’t think of ing here. It’s a dangerous world.”

  “What about you?” She asked.

  “Me? It all depends on luck. Right, luck…”

  Aleph slowly got out of the quagmire with the mirror’s power. He had someone whom he could fide in, something he couldn’t do since his birth. At the very least, he didn’t tell someone… rather, he couldn’t.

  Despite his efforts, Fire MOTH was deeply hidden in his world. His specialization lied ironid software engineering.

  What’s frustrating was that the knowledge he deemed “safe” to be let out was already found. The rest of his theories are ected to the exoskeleton and robotic designs of his past life. Aleph was worried that showing eveip’ of the iceberg will force him to reveal his full designs, in turn accelerating honkai’s colpse.

  The above event would derail everything he knew iure. It wouldn’t matter if he could directly affect MOTH’s progress himself, though he couldn’t. At the very least, he had to wait until he could leverage his knowledge before it got wasted.

  In the end, it resulted in him not telling anything to others.

  ‘No… I’m too careful before. I o take risks, somehow.’

  Aleph saw a fw in his mentality and ged it. Perhaps it was caused by the mirror, but he didn’t feel as anxious as taking risks before. It was the time he published several slightly normal theses with his identity as a middle schooler.

  Time tinued passing. Aleph slowly unveiled his cards, winning some while losing some. He built up several tacts oer another.

  As for Kurumi, her i with the mirror and his world waned. All that mattered now was to talk with this unordinary friend.

  “Hm? You’re reviewing in advance?”

  “Why, is there something wrong?”

  Aleph was surprised to see Kurumi’s homework on the high school level.

  “No, it’s good. In this part…”

  Things tinued like that for three years. The ey of their middle school revolved around them using the mirror to talk to each other. Aleph’s mentality ged greatly, daring to take some risks to ge the future just to tact Fire MOTH.

  When he published the theory about a theoretical framework of a nuclear rea, he caught the eyes of MOTH.

  It was also at that time did he unloother fun of the mirror.

  *****

  ***

  *

  All of these memories fshed in Aleph’s mind oer another.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah. I just thought that our first meeti different.”

  “Hee? Is that it?”

  He tinued walking along the middle schooler Kurumi. It was currently their summer vacation before she entered high school.

  More importantly…

  “ I see how it works?”

  Aleph said the same thing as his past self.

  “Um, sure. Later, when there’s no other people…”

  Roughly a year after they met, Kurumi gained a special power. It pletely overturheir knowledge about Kurumi’s world. A special being like a goddess desded out of nowhere and asked Kurumi whether she would like to bee the protector of others.

  Kurumi uantly agreed, gaining the so-called Sephira Crystal. Akin to typical magical girl ahey had a name—Spirits.

  ‘I should’ve trusted my damned instincts back then…’

  Although Aleph didn’t have any foreknowledge of Kurumi’s world, he knew several remarkable magical girl anime, some of which had brutal twists. It emphasized the cept of equivalent exge—gaining some while losing some.

  ‘That bastard goddess… no, what if she was a demon..?’

  Aleph didn’t show these thoughts outwardly. He tinued ag as he did before. Kurumi toured him around their city while he acted as a tourist.

  Soon, they arrived at an abandoned stru site.

  “This is your secret base? Why does it feel like a pce where ghosts live?”

  “You are n. Five people died when steel bars fell. That’s why this pce was deserted.”

  “...”

  Ahing he discovered was Kurumi’s pent for scary things. That, and her love for animals.

  Meow-!

  As he had expected, cats came out oer ahey are all strays she adopted over these years.

  Seeing her surrounded by dozens of cats, he unknowingly smiled.

  ‘I did the right thing back then, after all.’

  The mencholic thought briefly calmed Aleph from what was about to happen .