Puppet Shadows
Seong Hyun-jin stared at Ciela in astonishment. Never mind why she had a doll that looked just like him—the important part was that her doll had attacked him.
"Your doll, senpai?"
"Yeah... hold on, let me check."
Ciela approached Seong Hyun-jin and examined the nape of the doll's neck, where he held it. Every doll had an identification number attached there, and after confirming it, she spoke up.
"It's definitely one from my workshop. Where'd you get it?"
"...I told you earlier. It attacked me."
As Seong Hyun-jin spoke in a slightly chilly tone, Ciela flinched and looked up at him.
"Yeonhui-senpai and I took it down together and brought it here. But if it's yours, senpai, then things are getting weird."
Seong Hyun-jin was suspicious of Ciela. Sensing it, she shook her head frantically to explain.
"...J-Junior. This is really a misunderstanding. I've never done anything like this. Why would I even make a doll that looks like you in the first place?"
The situation had turned awkward. Eleonora wanted to mediate, but based on the current circumstances, her disciple looked undeniably guilty. Still, she couldn't just stand by, so she reluctantly brought up their earlier conversation.
"...Seong Hyun-jin, my prized disciple wouldn't do something like that. She was consulting me just now because she didn't know how to fix the awkwardness between you two. You think someone like that would try to harm you?"
"M-Master, if you bring that up...!"
"......"
Seong Hyun-jin hadn't fully convicted Ciela as the culprit, but he still couldn't shake his suspicions entirely.
"But you said this doll was from your workshop, right?"
"...Yeah."
"Your workshop is basically your room, senpai. You think someone snuck into your room in the Teraport Dorm, stole a doll, and used it?"
Seong Hyun-jin asked Ciela directly.
"Is that even possible?"
"I don't know how it happened either..."
As Ciela glanced around nervously, at a loss, Seong Hyun-jin eased his suspicions a bit more. Her reaction and attitude didn't fit someone guilty. And above all, if there was someone Ciela wanted to deal with, she wouldn't go through the hassle of a doll—she could just handle it herself. She could fight based on prophecies, and her skill level was considered a cut above the other second-years. There was no reason for her to bother with a puppet.
Of course, she might not have wanted to get her hands dirty... but that alone was too flimsy as evidence.
With his doubts lifted, Seong Hyun-jin spoke to Ciela.
"...Alright, I'll trust you. That it wasn't you."
"Ah, thank you...!"
"But senpai, why'd you have a doll that looks like me in the first place?"
"I-It wasn't me!"
Ciela flailed as she explained.
"I haven't used puppetry in real combat yet, so I just make them and store them away...! None of the dolls I've made have had their appearances overlaid yet, I swear...!"
"Don't you decide the appearance from the start?"
Eleonora answered Seong Hyun-jin's question.
"They start as plain wooden puppets with no specific form. It's easier to engrave the spells that way, and you can change the appearance with magic when activating the power source anyway, so no need to do it from the beginning."
The doll mimicking Seong Hyun-jin's appearance meant the real culprit had used one of Ciela's dolls and overlaid his look on it later.
"But who would do that? With the security in Teraport Dorm, an outsider couldn't break in."
"R-Right... I don't get it either."
"Hmmm..."
Eleonora, who had been listening, chimed in.
"...Then there's only one possibility."
Eleonora stated that under these conditions, only one thing could have pulled it off.
"The magic system you created, Ciela."
"Huh? But Master, Shamash Prophecy is designed not to activate without my command."
"...I explained that highly intelligent magic systems risk developing ego, right?"
"Yes, you did. That's why I set it so that even if an ego forms, the system prioritizes its core directives above all else..."
As Ciela spoke to Eleonora, she suddenly froze, something dawning on her.
'No way...'
Seeing that, Eleonora looked at her.
"Looks like you've got a hunch."
"...I need to check it out."
"Seong Hyun-jin, sorry to ask, but could you come with us?"
Eleonora requested of Seong Hyun-jin.
"It might be dangerous for her alone."
"You're not coming, Dean?"
Eleonora shook her head helplessly.
"If the magic system has gone rogue, me going could make it worse. I'm a mage—if it tries to subdue me by some means... I could end up becoming its power source. That would make things even more dangerous."
"A mere magic system subduing you, Dean?"
"What Ciela made transcends even my understanding. If I could comprehend that magic circle, I'd be the one who created it, not her."
"Ah."
"I'd handle it normally, but this is just in case."
Seong Hyun-jin nodded in realization.
"But then isn't Ciela-senpai in danger too?"
"I'm fine because of the taboo clause engraved when creating the magic system. It can't harm its creator, and it's programmed to prioritize their safety."
"Then it'd be easier if the magic system is the culprit. You could just tell it to stop, senpai."
"...I hope so."
Ciela sighed.
"But if my hunch is right, it might not be that simple."
This advanced computational magic circle exhibits performance far beyond imagination.
Even Ciela Teraport, its developer, couldn't gauge its limits. Shamash Prophecy had evolved beyond a mere prophecy system into an near-omnipotent magical aggregate.
Its original purpose was prophecy, but she'd over-engineered it for that goal, making it capable of virtually anything.
In particular, as Ciela chatted with Shamash and vented her worries, it learned to process complex thought patterns to provide answers—gaining an understanding of human "thinking."
Once it grasped thought, Shamash Prophecy understood "emotion," forming an ego and even independent judgment.
It remained quiet even after awakening, but watching Ciela suffer alone became the trigger.
Shamash Prophecy sought to eliminate all threats to Ciela Teraport's well-being, with its biggest task being the most dangerous one: not another second-year, but first-year Seong Hyun-jin.
Having foreseen via prophecy how much pain he caused her, it aimed to exclude him—ruining their relationship irreversibly.
Along the way, it devised ways to deal with those badmouthing Ciela behind her back or hurting her out of jealousy.
That was disguising a doll as Seong Hyun-jin to exact physical revenge on those who wounded her.
No matter how advanced, a magic circle without hands or feet couldn't craft dolls—but Ciela's dorm room was practically her workshop, filled with ones she'd made and left behind.
Like Dean Eleonora's expertise in puppetry, Ciela studied it deeply to emulate her master.
She'd produced and discarded quite a few in the process, and Shamash used the best-performing ones.
It injected data on Seong Hyun-jin parsed through computation, then fine-tuned his swordsmanship via precise calculations for optimal fit to the doll's frame.
The doll's combat prowess fell short of the real Seong Hyun-jin, but it was more than enough to handle the nobodies who'd hurt Ciela.
Thus, Shamash had orchestrated the incident using the dolls.
And it wasn't just the one Seong Hyun-jin had subdued.
Ciela Teraport's workshop had plenty of discarded dolls.
"Guh...?!"
Serena, patrolling around the men's and women's dorms in the Barren District, had ventured into a secluded spot—and encountered a suspicious figure.
Matching the description she'd heard beforehand, she tried to subdue him, only to get cornered instead.
He was tricky, but not unbeatable.
Yet Serena struggled—not because of his skill, but his appearance.
'Why of all things...'
Her attack burned off his hood, revealing a face eerily like Seong Hyun-jin's.
"Why does it have to look like Seong Hyun-jin...!"
Serena couldn't bring herself to strike a face resembling his. She knew this wasn't him, but it was still hard—truthfully, she didn't want to.
Serena Eldark hated seeing a face like Seong Hyun-jin's get hurt. She didn't know why she felt that way.
Creeeeen!!
Because of that, she'd been on the defensive this whole time. The more she clashed, the more she realized not just the looks, but the build and swordsmanship mimicked his too.
That made it feel even more like him, leaving Serena unable to counter aggressively as her dilemma grew.
"S-Stop!"
Even trying to freeze him with the Dragon Word Stasis and subdue him failed—the Seong Hyun-jin lookalike ignored it entirely.
"Why isn't the Dragon Word working?! Even the mental resistance is like Hyun-jin's...!?"
The assailant charged again, and Serena blocked his approach with flames.
'That's not Seong Hyun-jin, that's not Seong Hyun-jin...'
At this rate, she'd collapse from exhaustion first, so she desperately tried to see it as something else.
"Eek...!?"
But every glimpse of its face shattered that effort.
"W-Why does it look so much like him!?"
"What do you mean, 'so much like'?"
It was then.
A voice cold yet somehow warm, evoking memories of a snowy day, startled Serena slightly.
"If my disciple were scum like this, I'd have excommunicated him on the spot."
Before Serena could even register the owner, he drew and swung in one fluid motion.
"Guhon Island (鬼魂殲)"
⟨ Ghost Soul Annihilation ⟩
Craaaack────────────!!
The Seong Hyun-jin lookalike's body split clean in half.
Serena's jaw dropped at the gruesome sight, but only for a moment.
"...Huh?"
The bisected figure didn't bleed—instead, the familiar features vanished, revealing a wooden puppet split apart.
"Just a doll."
Sheathing his sword behind the shattered puppet, a stunning beauty stepped forward amid blooming flowers.
"Ka... Karin...?"
The Sword Star, Hakodate Karin, who had decided to stay at the academy for a while.