Despite this Azazel still managed to send one more magical bolt towards kazuki and this time he couldn't dodge.
The magical bolt struck Kazuki with devastating force, sending waves of searing pain through his body as he collapsed against the ancient altar. His protective mask had been knocked askew, the cavern's stale air brushing against his exposed skin. Through blurring vision, he saw Reina turn toward him, her face contorted with concern behind her mask.
"Kazuki!" she cried, momentarily distracted from the battle.
Azazel seized the opportunity. With fingers dancing through the air, his remaining rings flared with malevolent light as he directed a concentrated barrage of arcane symbols toward her unprotected back.
Valerius lunged forward, intercepting the attack with his armored form. The magical impact drove him to one knee, his sword raised in desperate defense as wisps of smoke rose from his scorched armor. Regulus pressed the advantage, forcing Azazel to retreat several steps, but the cultist remained dangerously composed despite his injuries.
The last thing Kazuki saw before consciousness slipped away was Azazel's hands weaving another spell, the remaining eight rings pulsing with deadly purpose as Reina turned back to face him, water coalescing around her outstretched fingers.
Then darkness claimed him.
---
Kazuki opened his eyes to formless darkness—not the comforting absence of light, but a void that seemed to actively resist illumination. The pain of his injuries had vanished, replaced by a peculiar weightlessness, as if his body had become inconsequential.
"Where...?" he began, his voice echoing strangely in the emptiness.
"An excellent question," came a response from behind him. "Though perhaps not the most pressing one at the moment."
Kazuki spun around, startled by the familiar cadence of the voice—his own voice, but subtly wrong, like hearing oneself on a recording. What he saw froze the breath in his lungs.
Standing before him was his perfect double—same height, same build, same face—yet fundamentally different. The duplicate wore an immaculate purple suit with a white dress shirt and black tie, meticulously pressed and fitted. But what truly unnerved Kazuki was the mask covering his doppelganger's face—a simple, blank visage with two eyeholes and a mouth hole, utterly expressionless.
"Who are you?" Kazuki demanded, finding his voice. "Where is this place?"
To his horror, the mask's blank mouth hole twisted into an unnatural smile—not merely the expression of someone wearing a mask, but the mask itself deforming, stretching wider than any human mouth should be capable of. The sight sent an involuntary shudder down Kazuki's spine.
"I am you," the duplicate replied, his voice lilting with barely suppressed amusement. "At least, I'm the real Kazuki Mizushima—not a knockoff like you. But you can just call me 'the Joker.' As for where we are..." He spread his arms wide, encompassing the formless void. "We're inside your subconscious, where I currently reside while watching you." The mask's smile widened further. "And I must say, you've been quite entertaining."
Kazuki took an instinctive step backward, though in the featureless void, the movement seemed meaningless. "That's impossible. I'm Kazuki Mizushima."
"Are you?" The Joker's head tilted at an unnaturally sharp angle. "Are you quite certain of that? What do you actually remember of your life before waking up in Azure?"
hmm? Fragments. Pieces. Nothing substantive." He began circling Kazuki slowly, his movements unnervingly fluid, almost predatory. "Don't you find that curious?"
Despite the chill creeping through him, Kazuki forced himself to stand his ground. "If you're really who you claim to be, then you can tell me how we got to Reina's world. What is Project Bifrost? What connection do you have to the Masked Ones?"
The Joker's mask shifted again, the smile becoming impossibly wide, stretching from ear to ear in a grotesque parody of mirth. "Ohh, so many questions! So eager to know!" He chuckled, the sound devoid of genuine humor. "How we got here... now that's an interesting tale."
He stopped circling, standing uncomfortably close to Kazuki. "Let's just say there was an... accident. A convergence of factors that neither side fully anticipated. Magic and science, colliding in the most spectacular fashion." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "You'd be amazed how thin the veil between worlds can become under the right conditions."
"That's not an answer," Kazuki pressed.
"Isn't it?" The Joker shrugged dramatically. "Maybe it's all you deserve for now. But I'll tell you something about Project Bifrost, since you're so curious." His posture changed, becoming more formal, almost professorial. "In our world—the real world—mana was discovered. Not widespread, not abundant, but present in a select few individuals. Care to guess what happens when governments discover people with abilities they can't explain or control?"
Kazuki's stomach tightened with dread. "They were taken."
"Give the knockoff a prize!" The Joker clapped his hands together, the sound echoing unnaturally in the void. "Snatched up, disappeared, classified. I was the head researcher tasked with studying these unfortunate souls—breaking them down to their component parts to understand what made them special." The mask's smile stretched wider, impossibly wider. "It was... illuminating work."
Kazuki felt sick. "You experimented on people?"
"I advanced human knowledge," the Joker corrected, wagging a finger. "And in the process, made certain... discoveries that challenged conventional understanding of reality itself." He leaned forward, the mask's blank eye holes somehow conveying an intense focus. "Mana isn't just energy, you see. It's a bridge—a connection to realms beyond our own."
Steeling himself, Kazuki asked, "And the Masked Ones? What's their connection to all this?"
The Joker straightened, adjusting his immaculate tie with gloved hands. "The Masked Ones are a fascinating case study in transdimensional influence. There's no disease, not in conventional sense. The rituals they perform are initiations—rewiring the subject's mind entirely to create perfect servants for the main cult." He gestured casually, as if discussing something trivial. "Those poor, twisted creatures you've encountered? Simply incompatible subjects. The spell went out of control, warping their bodies when their minds couldn't be properly... reprogrammed."
"They're victims," Kazuki whispered, horror mounting.
"They're failed experiments," the Joker corrected coldly. "The silent members you fought tonight are no more than moving corpses at this point—empty vessels animated by residual magical energy and rudimentary command structures." His tone turned almost appreciative. "Quite efficient, really. No questioning orders, no moral qualms, no hesitation in combat."
Kazuki's mind raced with implications. "And Azazel? Is he being controlled too?"
The Joker's mask shifted to something resembling thoughtfulness. "Azazel and the other high-ranking officials? No, they're quite aware of their actions. True believers, you might say. Though whether what they believe is true..." He chuckled softly. "That's another matter entirely."
Gathering his courage, Kazuki asked the question that had been forming since this bizarre encounter began. "Are we the same person? Was I... created from you somehow? Or are you some kind of split personality?"
The mask's smile curved into something more subtle, more genuinely sinister. "That," the Joker said softly, "is for me to know and for you to find out." He turned as if to leave, though there was nowhere to go in the featureless void. "But I will tell you this—from the way things are going, Azazel will probably kill your new friends. And since that could lead to your death as well..." He glanced back over his shoulder. "I find myself in the unusual position of offering assistance."
Kazuki blinked in surprise. "Why would you help me?"
"Your Original Spell is not a single-use ability as you've been thinking. It has a wide variety of sub-spells which you've barely tapped into." The Joker's tone became instructional, almost eager. "Remember the physical phenomena from our difference in height can drastically change air pressure in an area? Try connecting your body, or at least part of it, to different places."
"What do you mean?"
"Phase-shifting isn't just about passing through solid matter." The Joker made an expansive gesture. "It's about existing in multiple spaces simultaneously—creating connections between points that should be separate. Think of the potential applications! Pressure differentials. Temperature gradients. The transfer of kinetic energy."
As the implications dawned on him, Kazuki asked, "Why are you telling me this? What do you gain?"
The Joker began to fade into the darkness, his form becoming translucent. "You need to get much stronger by mastering the full extent of your Original Spell. If you struggle against a weakling like Azazel, then we'll be in for a world of pain when the real threats arrive." His voice grew distant but retained its unsettling clarity. "Besides, you're my masterpiece, Kazuki—essential for my future plans. I can't allow you to die, at least not yet."
"Wait!" Kazuki called out. "What plans? What are you trying to accomplish?"
But the Joker had vanished entirely, leaving only his disembodied voice echoing through the void. "Wake up, knockoff. Your friends need you... and I need you alive."
The darkness began to dissolve around Kazuki, reality bleeding back in like watercolors spreading across wet paper.
"Wake up..."
---
Pain returned first—sharp, insistent pain radiating from his shoulder where Azazel's magical bolt had struck. Kazuki gasped, his eyes flying open to find the battle still raging around him.
He lay beside the stone altar where he had fallen, the cavern's dim light pulsing strangely as his vision struggled to focus. His protective mask hung uselessly from one strap, exposing his face to the ancient air, but he felt no immediate effects from the exposure—perhaps the knights' concerns about airborne contaminants had been overstated, or perhaps the damage was too subtle to notice immediately.
Several yards away, Reina, Regulus, and Valerius maintained their desperate defense against Azazel, who had recovered some of his earlier confidence. The cultist's remaining eight rings glowed with sinister purpose as he wove increasingly complex patterns of transcription magic. Floating sigils multiplied around him, forming
barriers to deflect Regulus's sword strikes while simultaneously launching magical attacks that kept Reina constantly on the defensive.
The battle had shifted location slightly—they now fought near the edge of the platform where a twenty-foot drop led to a lower level of the cavern. Knights and cultists clashed on the chamber floor below, the knights steadily gaining ground but not quickly enough to provide reinforcements to the embattled trio.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Kazuki forced himself to a sitting position. The Joker's words echoed in his mind—disturbing implications mingled with tantalizing possibilities. If what his doppelganger had said was true, his Original Spell was capable of far more than he had realized.
"Phase-shifting isn't just about passing through solid matter... Try connecting your body, or at least part of it, to different places..."
The concept seemed absurd, yet no more absurd than the ability to pass through solid objects in the first place. If he could alter his relationship to physical laws in one way, why not others?
Azazel noticed Kazuki's movement, his masked face turning briefly toward the fallen man. Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Valerius lunged forward with a powerful thrust aimed at the cultist's heart. Azazel barely deflected the blow with a hasty barrier spell, but the effort cost him one of his remaining left-hand rings, which shattered from the strain.
Kazuki struggled to his feet, leaning heavily against the altar for support. His entire left side throbbed with each heartbeat, the magical injury spreading tendrils of pain through his chest and arm. But his mind felt strangely clear, focused by both desperation and newly awakened possibility.
"Reina!" he called out. "I need to try something!"
The water mage glanced his way, relief flashing across her face at seeing him conscious, quickly replaced by concern at his obvious injury. "Stay back, Kazuki! You're hurt!"
"I have an idea," he insisted, pushing himself away from the altar. "But I need to get closer to him."
Regulus, overhearing the exchange, shouted without taking his eyes off Azazel, "Whatever you're planning, make it quick! We can't hold him much longer!"
The knight-captain's assessment was painfully accurate. Despite their numerical advantage, the three defenders were clearly flagging. Valerius's movements had grown sluggish, his armor scorched and dented in multiple places. Regulus fought through obvious pain, blood seeping from beneath his damaged breastplate. Even Reina's magical reserves seemed to be dwindling, her water constructs less substantial than before.
Azazel, despite his lost fingers and diminished rings, remained dangerously effective. His transcription magic allowed him to accomplish with a single gesture what would take conventional mages complex incantations to achieve. Each remaining ring enhanced specific aspects of his spellcraft—some strengthening barriers, others focusing offensive power, still others accelerating the formation of magical sigils.
Taking a deep breath, Kazuki focused on the familiar tingling sensation of phase-shifting, but this time with a crucial difference. Rather than attempting to pass through solid matter, he concentrated on extending his ability in a new way.
"Reina!" he called out. "I need you to distract him!"
The water mage nodded in understanding, gathering her remaining magical energy to create a powerful wave that swept across the stone floor toward Azazel. The cultist raised his hands, rings glowing as he formed a barrier to block the attack.
That split second of distraction was all Kazuki needed. Summoning his remaining strength, he sprinted forward, ignoring the pain radiating from his injured shoulder. As Azazel's attention was fixed on Reina's water attack, Kazuki slipped around to position himself directly in front of the cultist.
Azazel's masked face registered surprise as Kazuki suddenly appeared before him. Before the cultist could react, Kazuki focused on the familiar tingling sensation of phase-shifting, but with a crucial new application. Instead of shifting his entire body, he concentrated only on his hand, connecting it to a different location—the upper reaches of the cavern where air currents moved with greater force than natural vents to the surface world.
The sensation was bizarre—Kazuki could feel his hand still physically attached to his arm, and yet simultaneously existing in that distant space where cool, rushing air flowed through ancient stone channels. The pressure differential between the two locations was immediate and dramatic.
With a sound like rushing wind, air compressed violently before shooting through the spatial connection he had created. It erupted from his hand as a concentrated blast of pressurized air that struck Azazel directly in the chest, sending the cultist staggering backward several steps toward the edge of the platform.