In the distance, Tokyo's bustling nightscape glittered. Shirou and Aoko soaked in the artificial hot spring, relaxed and comfortably at ease.
The pool itself was not deep. When Aoko sat down by the edge, the water only reached halfway up her chest.
They looked like two large fruits floating on the rippling surface, the beads of sweat on them adding an extra hint of allure.
The two of them chatted idly, picking up the conversation whenever it came to them.
"Shirou, you're from the future, right?"
"Yeah."
"Can you tell me about the future?"
"As long as it's within the permitted range."
"Who does Shirou need permission from?"
"…"
Shirou said nothing, but Aoko looked as if she had just figured it out.
So it was "my future self," huh. Hehe.
Shirou answered some of Aoko's questions.
As for more sensitive topics, like, "What will I be like in the future? Just give me a tiny hint!" Shirou brushed them off rather evasively.
After soaking for about fifteen minutes, Aoko suddenly smiled and said, "Should we do something bad?"
Shirou had already been teased by her once before, so he was not going to fall for it again.
"What do you want to do, Aoko?"
"There was a bottle of alcohol with the dinner the inn brought earlier, wasn't there? Let's go get it and drink it now."
Aoko said nervously, "I've wanted to try this for ages.
You know, like in TV dramas, seeing a basin with wine glasses in it floating on the hot spring."
Shirou frowned. "Aoko, you're still underage. And you're the student council president."
"Shirou, you're so stiff. Japanese laws don't apply to Magi!"
With that, Aoko rose from the hot spring in an aggressive burst of momentum.
Hot water streamed down along the winding curves of her beautiful body.
The girl carelessly wiped herself off, threw a bath towel over her swimsuit, and headed into the tatami room to fetch the wine.
Shirou did not stop her.
He guessed it was because her decisive battle with her older sister was drawing near. Lately, Aoko had been in a state of extreme excitement.
And now that she had left Misaki, her daily life, her excitement had reached an entirely new high.
What was he supposed to do at a time like this?
Go along with her, of course. Shirou had not forgotten that the reason they had come out today was to help Aoko unwind.
So no matter how much of a scene Aoko made today, Shirou would probably accept it with a smile.
...
...
"Excuse me, big sister. What did you just say? I think I might have misheard you."
Although the Gold Wolf Boy still wore a smile, he had lost the composure he had shown at the start.
The girl's voice drifted out from the dense fog.
"You didn't mishear me. I said you're weak."
"Ha!"
A gust of wind whipped up around the Gold Wolf Boy's feet.
Perhaps it was because his emotions had changed.
The Beast's aura became a scorching gale, stirring a vortex at the center of the dense fog.
Beowulf had fought many powerful enemies before, but this opponent was clearly different from all those who had come before.
It was a feeling he could not quite describe. The wolf boy even began to wonder whether he was truly speaking with a living being at all.
"I see… So you're looking down on me, big sister…!"
As it spoke those words filled with anger, the golden beast's body began to grow.
Its hair burned like golden flame, its muscles were as hard as a demon's fangs, and its entire body was covered in bristling fur.
By continuously drawing Mana from the atmosphere, its form of existence drew ever closer to the fantasies of the Age of Gods.
Then the Golden Beast named "Beowulf" strode deeper into the dense fog with grand, fearless steps.
Even before a colossal Mystery it could neither understand nor perceive, the Golden Beast still held its head high, maintaining the bearing of a king.
"Come on. Let's play a real game of house!"
Within the dense fog, only the witch's whisper seemed to reflect reality, vivid as blood.
Suddenly, a faint breeze stirred.
In the dense fog, where nothing could be seen, he sensed danger approaching.
A monstrous bird appeared behind him to the right.
With an eerie pure-white body and deadly crimson beak and claws, it spread its wings and lunged at the Werewolf boy.
Its long beak and hooked claws drove toward the Gold Wolf's neck.
Beowulf did not move, and the monstrous bird that had appeared in the dense fog also froze mid-pounce.
At the last possible moment, the Werewolf boy had raised his right limb and blocked the attack.
He had used no spells, nor had he even relied on his powerful body. The Gold Wolf had blocked the monstrous bird's attack with nothing more than his fur.
Then.
"Riiip!"
The Golden Beast swung its claws, tearing the monstrous bird into scraps of flesh.
"What was that? It wasn't anything special after all… In the end, you're just a human Magus, aren't you?"
Beowulf wore a calm smile as he looked down at the monster's shredded limbs and entrails.
"This is where you end."
The girl's voice echoed, and the dense fog grew deeper still.
"?"
He had only blinked, yet the monster's body, torn apart just moments ago, vanished in an instant.
Anger surfaced on the Gold Wolf's face.
After all, no matter how noble its birth, no matter how many centuries it had lived, its thoughts still worked like those of a Beast.
Once it had struck, its prey had to leave a corpse behind. That was the proper order of nature.
"Hmph… Another one of those tricks called Magecraft, is it? Fine. Then I'll kill your true body."
Deep within the dense fog, he could see the unsteady shadow of a girl.
Beowulf's instincts told it that killing that girl would make this irritating fog disappear.
As for the strange monsters hiding inside the fog.
After that brief exchange, Beowulf was certain they were no match for it.
Touko Aozaki had once said that Mystery loses to a greater Mystery.
Although Beowulf had existed for only a "short" few centuries, that was merely the length of time since it had gained intelligence as a living being.
Its true birth went back much further.
Long before Mystery vanished from the surface of the earth, long before the Roman Empire conquered Britannia, and long before the "First Magic (Yumina)" was born.
The world was vast, but a fantasy like Beowulf was one of a kind.
Compared to it, both its master Touko Aozaki and her enemies were only in their twenties.
Their Mystery meant nothing before Beowulf.
More monsters attacked from within the dense fog.
A crocodile-like monster swam through the earth, but before it could bite the Golden Beast, Beowulf pounced and tore it to shreds.
A dragon-like monster emerged from the fog. The flames it breathed scorched the wolf's mane, but that was all. The Gold Wolf tore through its neck like a bolt of lightning.
The countless jaws that had instantly slaughtered the puppet army appeared as well. Innumerable teeth sank into the wolf's body, swallowing it whole.
But seconds later, those teeth scattered like buckshot. As if replaying a scene from myth, the Gold Wolf, burning like flame, appeared once more.
An enormous claw reached down from the fog-covered sky.
Judging from its proportions, the monster's true body had to be over fifty meters tall.
A blow from such a giant claw was enough to tear the world apart. If it landed directly, the young Gold Wolf would be crushed into a meat patty. Even a glancing hit would kill it on the spot.
Yet Beowulf chose to meet it head-on without the slightest fear.
Its fur stood on end, and its form seemed to become fluid.
As if showing its joy, the Gold Wolf howled wildly at the moon. Golden light blazed from it as its power erupted.
In the end, victory and defeat were decided in a single strike.
The Beast, transformed into a spear of light, leaped onto the white giant claw that could tear the world apart and bit through the wrist at the root with its fangs.
The Golden Beast roared its victory while bathing in the monster's splashing dark-red blood.
In the end, the witch's rose garden still could not create a monster stronger than the Golden Beast.
Beowulf proudly defeated every monster and came before the girl.
The monsters earlier had at least possessed some measure of strength, but the girl who was the true body of the dense fog was so fragile that the Gold Wolf almost laughed.
It had experienced the weakness of human beings far too many times.
Then Beowulf mercilessly swung its forepaw and smashed the girl's head like a watermelon.
Blood and brain matter splattered across the ground. The outcome was settled.
"As expected, I'm the strongest."
The Gold Wolf stared at the headless corpse lying on the ground and reached that perfectly obvious conclusion.
...
...
"Mmm... nn..."
Shirou's head felt heavy, so he twisted his neck a little.
Today's pillow felt strange. A bit firm, yet somehow soft, with a pleasant scent to it.
Still half-asleep, Shirou rolled over and buried his face in the triangular gap of the pillow.
Cool and refreshing. It felt amazing.
This was... fabric. And it seemed to be waterproof fabric...
"Hm?"
Sensing that something was wrong, Shirou's eyes snapped open.
What came into view was a familiar, vivid pattern. The pattern on Aoko's bikini.
Only then did Shirou finally grasp his current situation.
Apparently, he had fallen asleep while soaking in the hot spring.
Ever since the Fourth Holy Grail War, this had happened to him from time to time. This event jump had originally begun so he could ask Touko to make him a new body.
And while he was asleep, Aoko had moved him onto her lap.
In other words, a lap pillow.
So the fabric he had felt just now was...
Aoko's bikini. The bottom part.
"!!"
Shirou turned his head with a trembling heart and saw Aoko blushing bright red.
What have I done!?
He had been asleep, yes, but he had still buried his face near the inside of a girl's thigh... Even if she blasted him to pieces with a magic bullet on the spot, Shirou would have accepted it.
But Aoko showed no sign of exploding.
"Shirou...? You're finally awake?"
"I'm sorry. That was incredibly rude of me."
Shirou hurriedly moved away from Aoko's lap. She nodded as if to say not to worry about it.
"Aoko, when did I fall asleep?"
"When I went back to the room to get some sake. When I came back, you were already asleep.
I was going to shake you awake so we could drink together, but no matter how much I called you, you wouldn't wake up. So..."
"I see..." Shirou said apologetically. "Sorry. This was supposed to be a rare hot spring trip, and I ruined the mood for you."
Aoko shook her head with a serious expression.
"That's not true. Thanks to you, Shirou, I was able to properly relax."
Then she looked at the boy and asked carefully, "Shirou, your body..."
"It's just a small aftereffect. It won't affect combat or daily life, so don't worry about it."
Shirou looked away, and Aoko murmured, "How could I not worry about it?"
Shirou felt uneasy. He had never expected Aoko to discover his secret.
"So cold..."
Shirou shivered.
It was late December, and he and Aoko were sitting half-naked on the Japanese-style terrace of a hot spring inn. If they stayed like this, they were definitely going to catch a cold.
"It's getting a little cold. Let's go back into the hot spring for a bit, then get some rest."
As Shirou spoke, he tried to stand, but Aoko caught his wrist in a tight grip.
The girl suddenly pulled with force. Caught off guard, Shirou stumbled and fell into her unbelievably soft embrace.
"Aoko...!?"
Shirou's eyes widened.
A pair of slender arms wrapped tightly around the boy's small body from behind.
The two rounded mounds pressing against his chest sent an indescribably pleasant sensation through him.
The heat of the girl's skin wrapped around Shirou's gradually cooling body all at once.
He could not help remembering something he had once heard from Raiga Fujimura.
Supposedly, the reason sushi chefs could only be men was because women had higher body temperatures than men.
"Let's stay like this for a while, Shirou."
Aoko murmured softly.
"You saved my life twice before, and I still haven't had the chance to thank you."
"I can't do anything to help you. So at least... let me hold you like this."
"..."
Shirou had no answer. In the end, he reached out and hugged Aoko's smooth back.
The boy nestled in the arms of the girl wearing only a bikini.
He could feel Aoko's warmth all over his body, and a happy, gentle warmth rose in his chest.
It felt like excitement, and also like relief... Shirou's chilled body was gradually kindled by heat.
Then Aoko, who had buried her face in Shirou's hair, suddenly brought her lips close to his ear.
"So, Shirou... does my body feel good?"
"!"
Shirou jolted so hard he almost stood up right then and there.
Aoko! That is not something a girl should say, is it?
Shirou shot her a reproachful look.
Then their eyes met at an extremely close distance.
Shirou: "..."
Aoko: "..."
As if sensing something, Aoko shyly closed her eyes.
The girl's cherry-blossom-colored lips gleamed alluringly, slightly pursed as though asking for a kiss.
Together with her faintly warm breath, they gently fell against the boy's lips.
Shirou: "!?"
...
After blowing apart the girl's head, the dense fog covering the mountain completely receded, and moonlight once again spilled across the earth.
Beowulf also released his Gold Wolf form and returned to his usual appearance as a blond boy.
"Guess I really shouldn't put too much faith in Touko's words. She wasn't anything special."
The boy looked at the motionless girl lying on the ground and confirmed that she was completely dead.
"Ah, I forgot to ask her name... Oh well."
Beowulf lost interest in his defeated opponent. With both hands in his pockets, he turned to leave while thinking about how he should brush Touko off when he got back.
Yet the instant he turned around, a strange feeling arose in the Werewolf boy's mind.
Directly ahead of him, dozens of humanoid figures began appearing in the forest one after another.
"..."
Beowulf would not mistake them. They were the dolls created by Touko Aozaki.
I'm enough on my own, but Touko still insists on making this worthless garbage...
He had been thinking that one day he would tear them all apart, but tonight Touko had sent them straight to their deaths at the mansion.
"Huh...? There are still some left? Weren't they all wiped out just now?"
Amid that indescribable sense of confusion, the Gold Wolf saw even more dolls in the forest.
Their numbers were already nearly the same as when they had set out from the Magical Workshop.
The dolls climbed toward the mountaintop, aiming for the mansion where the witch lived.
"Huh? What's going on here?"
If Beowulf had ever lived in modern society, he would have known the term "déjà vu," which perfectly described the strange feeling he had.
Only then did the blond boy notice.
At some point, he had returned to the mountain path where everything had begun.
Before he could think, the white fog descended once more.
"Welcome to the Forest of No Return."
The witch's voice blended into the night, whispering softly.
"Come on, let's play a real game of house!"