Last night, Zero said it. "In the finals, fill the control term first." Back turned. Never looking back. Left those words alone on the stone steps in the night road. Then vanished. Dice tried to type the words into his terminal memo. Battery at three percent. He stopped. Grabbed his textbook instead. Pencil. Final page, right edge. Small. Next to the control term's blank space. Then forgot to plug in the charging cable. Went to sleep. Beep beep beep beep beep!!!! Six in the morning. The terminal screamed. Alarm at three percent battery. Dice lifted his face from the pillow. (Three percent... same as yesterday?) Looked at the ceiling. Out the window. Toretta's dawn still dim——the sound of a magic bus running across the commercial district's stone pavement starting in the distance. The autumn equinox morning was cold. Damp air from the Rua River flowing through the open window. Blaze Festival——Partiale's biggest magic contest, held every autumn equinox, the nation's celebration——finals were today. "Let's go!!!!" Dice jumped up. Grabbed the textbook. Gripped the terminal. Checked the control term while charging. Still blank. Of course. Yesterday and the day before, the formula wouldn't complete. Searched on the terminal. Typed "control term completion method [advanced]." Thought he typed it. A video opened. "Good morning! Starting today, the self-help hour that changes your life!" A cheerful man's voice filled the six-o'clock room. Dice looked at the screen. It said "control happiness completion method." "What's control happiness!?!?!?!?!?" The video man continued anyway. "Completing life's control with happiness. That's today's theme! Let's start with deep breathing!" "I don't need this!!!!!!!!" Stopped it. Closed it. Typed again. This time checking each character on screen. "Se." "I." "Gi."... Three minutes later, Dice finally found "magic control term completion advanced." Five seconds after that, he noticed the charging cable wasn't plugged in. "…………" Screen went black. Battery: zero. Dice stared at Toretta's sky outside the window for three seconds. "I'm charging it!!!!!!!!" ── "Lily! Let's go!!" Shouted down the hallway. The door opened. Silver long hair appeared. Purple gradient catching the morning light. Odd eyes——left gold, right silver——still not fully awake. Already dressed. Perfectly. Lily held out a terminal toward Dice. "I researched it." "Oh, festival finals information!!" "Yeah." Dice leaned in to look. "...This is food stalls, right?" "Yep. This year's finals venue food special. From last year's official Blaze Festival article. Says the fried rako at the stalls is amazing." "That's not what we need to research!!!!!" "But it's important, can't concentrate on an empty stomach." "I'm not saying it's not important!! But the finals info!! Match order, competition zones!!" "...Oh." "You just realized!!!!!!!!" Lily pulled the terminal back. Thought for a moment. Then said with perfect calm. "Zero probably knows." "That's true but!!" ── Blaze Colosseum——fifteen thousand capacity arena at the south end of Toretta's commercial district——Zero was already at the front entrance. Black coat. Black hair with red mesh. Arms crossed. Facing forward. Completely still. Two drinks and energy bar packages hanging from his hand. When Dice and Lily approached, Zero silently held them out. "...Thank you." "...Thanks." Only two. Not three. Nothing in Zero's hands. Lily whispered to Dice while taking hers. Same expression. "Thought he bought three again but only two. Cute." Voice too loud. Not a whisper at all. "Lily!!!!!" Zero walked forward silently. His ear tips slightly red. Maybe from the dawn chill. Had to be. Lily leaned close to Dice again. Silver hair brushed his cheek. Too close. Way too close. "See, he's embarrassed." Dice reflexively looked away. At the colosseum's stone wall. Morning light painted it orange. For no reason, his chest did something strange. One beat. Wrong rhythm. Stopped thinking about it. Pushed it down before thinking. "Let's go!!!!!!!!" Said it quietly. Walked with long strides. ── The waiting room was filled with tension and Saltia particle smell. Saltia particles——the magical power source living in the body, excessive consumption dulls taste and smell——the metallic air unique to worn-out participants. Magic light sources lined the white ceiling. Dozens of people doing final checks. Some repeating incantations. Some confirming hand signs. Some staring at walls, frozen. Zero stood silently next to Dice. Took a folded paper from his coat pocket. Silently held it out. Dice took it. Unfolded it. Neat handwriting. Three lines. "Control term completion concept——decide the magic's 'endpoint' before completing the formula. If you see the end, the middle formula naturally converges. Work backwards." "...You wrote this yesterday?" "Doesn't matter." Dice stared at the paper for a while. Then without speaking, took out his textbook and tucked the note into the final page. (When he says 'doesn't matter,' that's when it matters most.) Lily had said that yesterday. She was right. Lily stared at Zero's profile. Then whispered to Dice. "He's such a busybody." Zero faced forward. Said nothing. His ear slightly red again. ── The field was vast. Blaze Colosseum——the spectator seats filling up for the finals, even morning matches had people up to the upper stands——standing on the stone floor, the pressure of stares came from all directions. Judge's table in front. Three dispatched from the Sonority Institute——Partiale's magic user certification and management authority——sat quietly with notebooks. Dice took his stance. Started the incantation. First character. Second character. BOOM!!!! The adjacent block exploded. Magic control failure. Smoke rose. Heat wave came. Spectators stirred. Dice's incantation broke at the seventh character. One sound. He stumbled. (——Don't stop.) Zero's three lines glowed in his head. Decide the endpoint. Work backwards. Kept going despite the stumble. This time, didn't stop. Hand sign shifted. Noticed. Corrected on the spot. Half the control term——the part of the textbook's blank formula that Zero's note showed could be worked backwards from the "endpoint"——he supplemented in his head while chanting. The sensation of the formula converging. Strangely, he understood. The magic activated. Output didn't waver. One judge whispered something to the next judge. Quickly wrote in the notebook. Numbers appeared on the electronic display. Above the passing threshold. Dice didn't know what face to make for a moment. (....He wasn't laughed at.) Wasn't laughed at in the actual performance. First time. Realizing that, he froze instead. Stared blankly at the display. All strength drained from his body. One step back. Something's wrong. Happy or scared, can't tell. More confused. A voice flew from the upper stands. "That's our friend!!!!!" The stranger next to her gave a subtle nod. Dice laughed on the field. Zero, arms still crossed, narrowed his eyes watching the field. He knew since handing over the textbook that the control term's remaining half was still blank. Yet Dice passed. He took a moment to confirm that fact. That kind of look. The one-round-clear display lit up. Perfectly timed with that moment—— Beep beep! "Battery at fifteen percent. Low battery warning." "Why now!!!!!!!!!!!" Zero glanced over his shoulder once. Said nothing. Took one deep breath. ── All blocks finished. The colosseum's main stage——afternoon now, stands completely full. Vendor stalls lining the outer ring, the noise different from morning. The sound of footsteps on stone pavement, the quantity of people, all different——the announcer took the stage. Announcing favorites to win. Voice into the microphone. That moment. Light gathered at the stage center. No sound. No tremor. Just light converging to one point. Something without clear outline, quietly, existing there. All lights went out. Fifteen thousand people held their breath. Lily silently grabbed Dice's sleeve. Not hard. Just grabbed. Dice didn't notice right away. He was looking at that presence. The voice——or maybe not a voice, but words reached them. "Ancient magical furnace resonance exceeded threshold. The Great Casting Covenant——the international treaty signed by five nations one hundred twenty years ago, establishing joint management of magical furnaces and restricting magical weapons——collapses. The wedge connected to this world is being pulled out." Three seconds. Light vanished. Lights returned. The colosseum exploded. Roars and confusion and screams mixed together. Fifteen thousand people in chaos. The operations committee's loudspeaker announced the tournament suspension. Staff ran. Dice took out his terminal. Tried to research what happened. Opened the screen. "Battery at 0%——powering down." Just that displayed for one frame. Screen went black. "…………" Froze. Lily looked over and slumped. Only Zero took out his terminal and started checking news alerts. The only person here who could gather information. Dice looked up at the sky. "Why does the world's crisis and dead battery happen at the same time!!!!!!!!!!!" "I told you to charge it first." Perfectly reasonable. Completely reasonable. Dice opened his mouth and said nothing. Mouth stayed open. Zero finished reading the alert. "Ancient furnace anomalies were recorded half a year ago." The three went silent. Lily realized in that moment. She was still holding Dice's sleeve. Slowly let go. Dice recognized that sensation a beat late. Looked away. At the colosseum ceiling. Nothing. Nothing at all. Zero started to stand. Was about to say "separate operations"—— Staff guidance began. A wave of people surged. Fifteen thousand moving at once was like this. Understood it firsthand. "Don't let go!!" Lily grabbed both Dice's and Zero's sleeves. Left and right hands. "Wait!!" "..." The three got dragged through the crowd, parting people, escaping the colosseum. Zero, being pulled along, said once in a small voice. "Let go." "No." Instant answer. Zero went silent. ── The stone steps outside the colosseum held the night air. Same place as the night before——the finals night. Same stone steps. Eternal-night lamp stone pillars casting orange light, illuminating the stone pavement. Participants already leaving. The steps were quiet. Night wind came from the Lumiere River direction. Damp. A little cold. Three sat side by side. Waists down. Lily hugged her knees. Looked up at the sky. In Toretta's night sky, light fluctuations different from usual were visible. The ancient magical furnace——sleeping in the Cantiga Mountains, managed jointly under the Great Casting Covenant——its anomaly seeping into the night sky. Wavering light bands. Unnatural fluctuation. Zero kept reading alerts. The terminal's white light illuminated his profile. Dice held his dead terminal. Took out his textbook. Opened the final page. The control term's remaining blank half, there in the orange light. "If the covenant collapses, Novalis-class shouldn't care." Novalis-class——the lowest rank of Partiale's magic user certification, what Dice and the others held——he used that word. Even if it was true, something caught. "I care." Answered without pause. Zero stopped for one beat. "I know." Returned his gaze to the terminal. Didn't say "don't care." Said "I know." That temperature difference lingered. Zero's complexity was in those two words. Dice said nothing more. Lily, still looking at the sky, said quietly. "My world had nights like this too." No one asked anything. "We'd all sit on stones and talk about what to do tomorrow." Her voice was quiet. The Kansai intonation melted softly into the night wind. Different from her usual easygoing way of speaking. A way of confirming something. A way