Perhaps it was pure coincidence.
Perhaps it was fate.
Perhaps it was nothing but a mere chance; a sighting.
Or perhaps it was all?
After all, no matter how obsessive you are about the topic of magic,
nonetheless, you are still a human being, at a loss for any sort of otherworldly power, no matter how much you yearn for it.
But, surely— Arthur Kirkland's eyes could see quite well enough to discern reality form the hallucinatory delusions filling the now heavy atmosphere.
He was often told that he was delusional— that he could see things others are too ignorant to notice. But even someone who could see such hallucinations could nonetheless still know what are real and what are not.
Surely these things are not real.
And yet, they seemed to be quite so.
In what seemed like an endless cascade of falling cards with psychedelic images crudely drawn atop, Arthur stood in the midst of all the confusion.
How did he get into this mess again?
All he simply did was follow that highly mysterious yet strangely beautiful new student.
Desperate to catch her attention despite her warnings for him to stay away, he followed the girl closely behind.
And that was it. That was all there seemed to be.
And yet, in less than a second, the surroundings seemed to morph into an unrealistic illusion, hogging the two— that is, Arthur and the girl— and encasing them within its phantasmal barrier.
Not even running away would be fruitful, he had decided a minute ago. Escaping the fallacious barrier all on his own was hopeless.
He squinted, trying to follow with his eyes the path in which the girl had went.
She seemed leagues away now, and yet Arthur could still clearly see what she was doing.
He could only stare in bewilderment.
In what seemed like a short showcase of spins, turns, and jumps, accompanied with a series of magical flurries, the girl, once wearing the school uniform, has now managed to transform into another sort of outfit.
Arthur, both bemused and amused, could only watch on. To him, the prospect was merely a magical show he was meant to enjoy.
That was until a strange-looking creature flitted by and landed on his shoulder. With a body similar to a fly, only gigantic, and wings made out of the same cards cascading only a bit earlier, the creature was simply terrifying— it was as if it were a horrid mutant created from an experiment gone terribly wrong.
He tried swatting it away like one would a normal fly, but to no avail— it was either simply too huge to move away, or it deliberately stood its ground on his shoulder.
Or at least, that was what he thought, until an excruciating pain swelled up his body, coming form his neck— the exact same location where the creature was. He screamed, scratching at his neck and trying to pull the mutant away in a fruitless attempt.
And suddenly, just as how fast the pain had begun had it almost immediately disappeared. The next thing he saw was the creature writhing in pain on the floor, wings still slightly twitching.
"I warned you to stay away."
A small yet firm voice made him shoot his head up at its direction.
Behind him stood the girl, clad in what seemed like a black Japanese naval uniform, only with a few alterations. In her hand was a blade Arthur couldn't quite put a name on, but he was almost certain it was a naginata.
Dark brown eyes met his emerald hued ones in a blunt stare, the expression on her face cold and hostile.
"I warned you to stay away," she repeated once more, turning her back on him. "You should've stayed away. …this is the consequence of your actions."
Before Arthur could open up his mouth to say a word, the girl walked away, the heels of her boots clicking as she walked. Fear suddenly gripping him, he ran after her— not as an attempt to catch her attention once more, but rather seeking for her as some sort of protection.
Although he was supposed to be of the stronger, opposite sex, he was more certain that the girl could keep him safe rather than he can to her.
Swinging her weapon loosely in her arms, her steps soon turned into runs, and she lunged at a bundled cluster of the same mutilated flies.
"…hey, hey…—" Arthur gasped out, breaths becoming painstakingly short as he desperately tried to keep up with the girl. "Stay away," the girl would reply, swinging and stabbing at a few more of the creatures.
Arthur was still uncertain whether this was a dream, though— if it was merely just a projection of his mind playing visual games on him again, simply just to keep him entertained. Yet it all seemed so real— the pain of the bite still swelled on his neck, his heavy breaths shortening by the minute, his vision getting blurry as the girl, who was still fighting the creatures, whizzed past again and again.
He was almost certain he would pass out at any given minute now. Although this was a mere delusion (or so he thought), he was slowly becoming tired. Not to mention that the girl, once again, seemed so far away.
And just when he thought that he had completely lost sight of her, she burst out of one of the doors situated around the fallacious barrier, repeatedly striking a thorny vine with her blade.
There was nothing he could do, save for watching on idly, simply dumbfounded.
The girl had managed to slip away from his view once again, and he decided that he was most likely done for— abandoned by his only saving grace, left alone in a twisted realm with no hopes of getting out.
Just as he was deciding on meeting his imminent fate, more thorny vines and card-winged creatures burst out from the doors surrounding the area where he stood. The background seemed to collapse away, and at last, he could see the whole imagery as to what was going on.
The girl was stabbing at a fairly colossal creature with a terribly mutated body, whose entire form seemed to consist of one greenish blob, with said thorny vines spread around and writhing with life.
Again, Arthur found himself at a loss for anything to do. He could only watch in both horror and confusion.
A stab, a slash, and a jab, she repeatedly lunged at it, until it was evident that it was gradually weakening. Its vines coiled around its base, and its hallucinatory barrier was slowly crumbling into pieces.
Arthur felt as if he had seen an apparition. Even if the barrier had finally disintegrated and he was back to the earlier surroundings of the abandoned building, his eyes still remained with both shock and horror.
"…I warned you, haven't I."
That same small, firm voice shook him out of his thoughts once more. Glancing upward once more, the girl, whose face had managed to keep the blunt, cold expression, stood behind him, head slightly raised in an arrogant manner.
Arthur scratched the back of his head in an awkward manner, glancing away in a deliberate attempt to avoid the other's glare. Though, occasionally he would take short glimpses— and soon, he found out that the girl was no longer in the black naval uniform, and was instead back to the clothes she was in earlier that day— her school uniform.
"…I… I'm sorry."
The girl sneered and scoffed, keeping her head held high.
"Better not do it again."
She turned on her heels, flipping both her skirt and her short, black hair in a dismissive manner.
He could only sigh and watch as she walked away.