The Door
"...The sea?"
When Blow opened his eyes after losing consciousness, what met him was nothing short of pitch black.
No near and no far, no high and no low—only a darkness in which nothing existed at all. The word sea left his mouth for one reason: he had felt something seeping in around his toes.
...Is this that place I came to once before? Or...?
He spent a long while steadying his breath until his composure returned, then took one step forward, and another.
"So it was real."
Faced with the White Sphere, Lisleia swallowed against a dry throat and stood gazing at the Spirit of Space.
Its surface was unnaturally smooth, as if something from another dimension had forced its way through. The unknown thing sent a chill through her unlike any ordinary fear, and at the same time her heart swelled and hammered with a rising curiosity she was doing her best to quiet.
...How long has it been? This might be the first time since Tana.
Her eyes were hard, but her mouth was stretched to her ears. Gaze locked on the sphere, Lisleia spoke to Mnevoir, who stood beside her swallowing dryly.
"Strange-looking thing, isn't it?"
"...It's exactly as the students described. I thought there would be at least some difference."
"First time you're seeing it too, then? Today?"
"Yes. To be honest, I'm a little frightened right now."
"That makes two of us."
At Lisleia's frank admission, the eyes of Getier and Christina, standing behind them, trembled.
"He's awake."
Into the sight of everyone who had been holding their breath came Blow, his face calm, his eyes gleaming sharp. As if the shackles binding him were uncomfortable, he shifted this way and that and summoned magic circles. Before they could fully form, they dyed indigo or violet and crumbled away.
"Well, I laid Supreme Tier magic on him just in case, and it's a good thing I did. That nearly went badly. Hervena, you'd better take one or two of those circles, same as just now."
"Yes."
"Even I could overload if magic of that level keeps pouring out. Assistant Christina, mind lending a hand as well?"
"...Yes!"
Christina, who had been backing away in fright, only then came to stand at Hervena's side. Inwardly she marveled at how perfectly composed Hervena remained, then steadied herself and began nullifying the circles alongside her.
Meanwhile Lisleia stabilized her own magic, let out a deep breath, and turned her eyes to Jane, who was watching the experiment with a tense face.
"Hey, white hair. You were there that time, weren't you? Any difference from now?"
"No. None."
"Hmm... Then we should take it that this Spirit of Space comes out when its host is under threat."
"I believe it does have to burn through all the mana."
"Well, if a mage's mana is gone entirely, that also means the mage is dead."
Stroking her chin as she said it, Lisleia found herself meeting the eyes of Blow, who was already glaring at her.
"Today, let's make putting this sphere back in our only goal. If we can put it in and take it out freely, the rest gets easy."
"That is correct."
"Anyway, we need to know what his mind is seeing right now. He'll remember, won't he? You said it was the same last time."
"Yes. He said he was in a space similar to the Realm of Night."
"Good. Then."
As the sphere's presence grew familiar to her eyes, Lisleia stepped into the magic circle, and everyone watching swallowed hard and stared at her.
"Mnevoir, before we send it in, shall I just lay a hand on it?"
"You mean to make contact?"
"A little dangerous?"
"I would say so."
"I'll just give it one little tap."
Lisleia summoned a tree branch and rapped the White Sphere with it. As expected, the sphere gave no reaction at all.
"Awfully quiet. If it's a spirit, it ought to show some sign of it."
"The young master does not look quiet to me."
Blow, as he was now, thrashed as if in pain, twisting his body every which way.
Lisleia flicked her fingers and summoned one more shackle, stroked her chin, then whipped her head toward Mnevoir.
"Yeah. Let's just put it straight in!"
"Yes..."
"Magic Bureau—you lot think so too, don't you!"
"O-of course!!"
"Look at you, scared stiff."
"......"
Lisleia glanced at Getier's thoroughly frightened face, let out a short laugh, and nodded to Hervena and Mnevoir.
"Let's begin."
"Deploying spatial magic."
In a darkness that seemed ready to swallow everything, Blow stopped walking, closed his eyes, and breathed deep, fighting to keep his composure.
Last time Hervena and Senior Yulia pulled me out. I'll be able to get out this time, too. I know I will.
So he soothed himself, drawing the air in deep and letting it out. In, and out. In, and out once more.
When roughly ten minutes had passed by his own reckoning, the dampness underfoot vanished all at once, and something hard and gritty met his feet.
...Something's wrong.
The moment he sensed the change and eased his eyes open, light stabbed in, and a groan slipped from his mouth. He covered his face with his palms and fought to grow used to the brightness.
When, after a long while, the scene finally settled into his eyes, his breath caught hard in his throat.
A rusted green gate.
It was the very Green Gate House where he had lived when he was first sent to that other world—with the father who ground him underfoot day after day, a man who belonged under the heading of beast rather than human.
Merely facing it set his heart pounding as if it might burst, and he felt sweat spring up over his whole body. Blow took one step back and dragged in a rough breath.
The neighborhood around the house was exactly as he remembered it. Row houses stood in a long line, broken glass bottles set along the tops of their walls. Across from them, on the utility pole beside him, a single yellow streetlamp hung precariously and cast its light over him. Beneath it sat a used-clothes collection box whose white lettering had bled away to nothing, and food-waste bags no one could say when they had been thrown out lay scattered about with their tops torn open.
Have I been sent back?
In the broken mirror that swam into his uneasy eyes, he was reflected in several shards at once: hair red as blood, and clothes that did not belong to this place at all.
I haven't turned back into Han Ji-hoo. Then why is there no sign of anyone? Not a single house has its lights on.
Uneasy, he looked from one end of the alley to the other. Both ends were sunk in a darkness he could not name—the dark of night, or the dark of the place he had come from—and that only made him tremble harder.
Should I go that way?
He had just made up his mind and set his foot toward the right when heavy footsteps began to approach from the far left.
"What are you going to do once you go in?"
A voice he knew far too well came flying at him out of nowhere. Hair standing on end, Blow looked—and there was Han Ji-hoo, face gaunt, eyes swollen from who knew how much crying, coming toward him with Grandpa.
Joy and fear tangled together in him, and he turned, searching for somewhere to hide. The two of them were already within arm's reach, and they came to stand before the green gate without so much as a glance his way, exactly as if he were not there at all.
They can't see me?
They moved in a way that left him no other conclusion. Han Ji-hoo, standing directly in front of him, let out a deep sigh and murmured in a voice that was barely there.
"He's not the kind of person who'll listen just because you talk to him."
Even so, Grandpa was smiling—a smile you could barely see. Exactly as Blow remembered. What caught Blow's eye now, though, were the fingers trembling ever so slightly.
"Wait. You stay here."
With those words Grandpa patted Ji-hoo's shoulder and stepped toward the green gate, which did not look as if it would open. Ji-hoo shook violently, hid himself behind the very utility pole where Blow stood, and watched Grandpa as if the man might be swallowed by the dark.
I was that terrified.
Watching Ji-hoo scrub roughly at his face again and again, Blow felt his chest fill with pity for the person he had been.
At last he, too, stood beside his past self and turned his eyes on the Green Gate House. Thinking back, it had been strange. After Grandpa went into the Green Gate House and came out again, everything had been settled all at once. And from that day on, the man he had called father—Blow had never met him, never even heard word of him. He had been through countless things in that other world, but nothing had defied sense the way that had.
...Should I go in?
If what he was seeing now was only a memory, then perhaps the door that had shut with a metallic clang would not open. Because the Han Ji-hoo of that time had been standing outside, just as he was now—biting his nails until they bled.
At last Blow steeled himself. He patted his past self's shoulder the way Grandpa just had, and lightly closed his hand around the handle of the green gate. A cool, pebbled texture came through the rust-flaked metal.
He pulled.