HOW? WHEN?

- I don't like how this ended.

- Well, there's nothing we can do now.

- Yes, but... we just caused her a lot of pain.

In Yukihime's room, she lay resting in bed, her eyes closed, showing no expression. The red marks on her cheeks had been cleaned, and her clothes carefully arranged. At a glance, one might think she was simply asleep. However, her current condition was not as simple as resting.

- But, Dana-sama, are you sure they will be able to meet?

- Yes, although her body is immortal, the same cannot be said for her soul. While it doesn't extinguish, it can be damaged to a point where it's not far from being considered so.

- I really can't help but admire Touta; he truly surpassed me in every way. You could say he left nothing to chance.

- I agree with Asuna. Maybe if I had done the same...

- You don't have to blame yourself like that.

- It's true what you said about Yukihime; she essentially created him to suffer. However, I was also involved in that. A child should be born to receive love from their parents. I had the intention of only making him fight. It's something I can't forgive myself for.

- Sorry, Dana-sama, could you give a brief explanation of the situation if it's not too much trouble?

- It's simple. The ring Kity wears on her hand is, so to speak, a talisman left by Touta to protect her. Everyone has something similar, you know, in case of an emergency.

In reality, before Yukihime woke up from her coma, Dana had spoken with Negi and the others, telling them she planned to make Yukihime and Touta meet, and that no matter what happened, they were not allowed to interfere in the conversation.

- However, I wonder how he managed to do all that without anyone noticing.

- Advancing erbea magic to the point where it can even absorb people's experiences. He probably planned to do the same with Venus magic, but it didn't yield results. Most likely, he wanted to absorb and then erase people's bad experiences. However, his talent with the latter is not as good as with the former. So, what he did instead was absorb everything for himself and only use Venus magic as support to seal himself inside a space and avoid doing something reckless. He also made amulets for everyone in UQ Holder, not to mention creating a worldwide magic circle and many other things.

- ...

- Well, the answer is the girl on the other side of the door. It seems it's a common practice in this place to eavesdrop on others' conversations.

- It's not that I wanted to eavesdrop; I was just curious because lately, it's only you guys who are alone. I thought something bad was happening.

The person who opened the door after being discovered was a girl with glasses, known as the person who provides the most financial support to the organization of immortals. Her name was Kirie Sakurame.

- Whatever, she's the answer. As you must know, her power allows her to rewrite time every time she dies. But what you don't know is that every time she is kissed, she also has the ability to freeze time. What happened was that Touta kissed her once, then put her to sleep for a few years inside the frozen space while he investigated everything he needed and traveled the world on foot to form the magic circle. The total amount of time it took him to do that was 30 years.

- What? I was kissed? By whom? How?

- Don't make such a fuss over a little kiss. Well, here's how...

- Wait, Dana-sama. Is it okay to tell her too? I don't see the problem; she's also a person Touta was in love with. Seriously, he surpassed you in everything, Negi.

- Then let me be the one to tell her, please.

...

- ...

Kirie, who had just heard the entire story from Asuna, was blank for a moment, a long moment. She couldn't imagine that all of this had happened without her knowing, or rather, she didn't even know what terms to use to explain such a complex situation.

- It's okay if you don't respond for a while; first, calm down, Kirie-chan.

- Yes, I'm calm... It's just that this caught me off guard, that's all. But why was it necessary to tell Yukihime-sama such cruel things?

- That's so she can meet Touta. Yukihime's soul was so damaged that it can be said to be even dead. This triggered Touta's magic. Normally, it would only absorb the experience, but Yukihime was so damaged by everything she had lived and by what she has now learned, so I took advantage of that along with Touta's amulet to make her soul go where he is using Touta's magic as a catalyst.

- ... With everything she's been through?

- With all the power Kity possesses, don't tell me you seriously think it would be easy to absorb her experiences. Of course not, they're just sealed, like all of yours.

- Kity should be full to meet him now. I wonder if he still remembers her.

- I'm not sure. It has been maybe millions of lives that Touta has had by now...

- Whatever happens, I don't think they'll be able to be together.

- Eh? Why?

- Well, unless Kity accepts other women by his side, then it will be possible.

- Eh?

- Where Touta is, it's similar to Kity's training place; time runs differently. For now, they should be around five thousand years inside, but according to his calculations, for the world to show the changes that have already manifested, at least it should be about two years outside. In other words, twenty-four thousand years inside with his absorption speed, but it only took five months.

- That means...

- In the fight against Ialda, she wasn't killed; Touta let her possess his body. He surely wanted to save her too.

- You're saying that Ialda... I see, Ialda is helping Touta absorb everything.

- Every time she possessed someone, she used resonance. That's more than an application of a very powerful magic that she developed based on her original specialty, a magic so powerful that it can be on par with Mars and Venus magic combined: "Spiritual Magic." The reason she can possess bodies is that too. So far, you have only seen the tip of the iceberg of her. In the other universe, they defeated her; in this one, they didn't, and that has allowed her to become stronger too.

Thus, the people involved in a conversation that included Negi, Nagi, Asuna, Arika, and Kirie, who still hadn't fully recovered from the shock, learned that their moral enemy was more formidable than they thought.