Shirou, who returned from the Fairy Kingdom

"I am back!"

As evening approached, a girl's cheerful voice drifted from the entrance hall.

Aoko quickly passed through the entrance hall and the front hall, and came to the living room where she saw Yuzu sitting there.

It's obvious that she's spent the whole day here again.

But Aoko couldn't care less about that right now; she desperately wanted to see someone—

"Where's Shirou? You didn't bully him today, did you?"

Without looking up, Youzhu turned a page of her book and said softly, "She's gone out."

"He went out? Was he alone?" Qingzi frowned suspiciously.

"Ah."

Did he say what he was going out to do?

Yu-chu shook her head and said, "No."

Upon hearing her roommate say that, Aoko's expression immediately turned panicked.

"Why didn't you stop him? What if the child ran away again?"

Youzhu frowned slightly: "Didn't you tell me not to argue with him?"

If he runs away again this time, then we can assume he really has a problem.

"I already told you that child isn't a bad person!"

Aoko retorted unhappily, "If he really had bad intentions, he could have killed me countless times last night."

"..."

Yuzhu was actually somewhat dissatisfied.

Shirou had just finished drinking her tea when he suddenly ran out as if he had remembered something urgent.

I clearly didn't poison you...

Just then, there was a knock on the door from the entrance.

Aoko's eyes lit up, and Yuzhu also turned her head curiously.

—Shirou is back.

"Sorry, I suddenly remembered that I forgot to buy a few ingredients for dinner, so I went to the convenience store."

"What... if that's the case, you should have said so earlier."

Aoko pressed her hand to her chest and let out a long sigh of relief, while the boy said apologetically.

"I'm sorry to have worried you, Aoko."

Shirou's earnest apology stunned Aoko.

To hide her embarrassment, the chestnut-haired girl punched the boy lightly: "Seriously, you worried me to death! You idiot!"

"Hey...wait, Shirou, can you cook? Shall we make dinner?"

Shirou nodded: "Yeah, now that I'm staying here, I want to do something to give back to everyone."

"Shirou's cooking? I can't wait!"

Then, Aoko uttered a "girlish voice" that Ayumi had never heard before.

"Um, Shirou... can I help you too?"

"Of course."

"Hehe, that's great... Let me help you take these things over. Do you need to put all of these in the refrigerator?"

Shirou and Aoko walked into the kitchen chatting and laughing.

Youzhu: “…”

The inconsiderate outsider was taken away by the noisy roommate.

The once bustling living room suddenly became quiet.

no doubt--

This is exactly the environment that Yuju of Kuonji Temple had always dreamed of.

But why...

The girl suddenly felt enveloped by a strong sense of loss.

This is what has been lost...

or,

The terrible feeling of losing something.

--------------

Volume 2, Chapter 131: "Yama no Tō" and the Orange Attack

"Hey, Arisu, what do you think of Shirou?"

After dinner, while Shirou went to use the bathroom, Aozaki Aoko brought up this question to her roommate.

“You said he was a person involved in the Fifth Law, and the child didn’t seem to deny it, did he?”

In other words, Shirou has some kind of connection with "himself in the future."

The girl was silent for a few seconds, then replied, "I don't know," and continued reading her book.

"Even Youzhu doesn't know? I have a few guesses."

Aoko sat cross-legged on the sofa and began her analysis.

"The first conjecture, in a sense, is also the relationship that is most easily associated with—"

Look, Shirou also has red hair, doesn't he? So that child is my future descendant."

Yuzhu's eyebrows twitched: What does this have to do with red hair?

Aoko's hair was clearly not red.

Although Orange's hair is reddish, it's actually dyed; her original hair color is black, which Youzhu saw when she was little.

Aoko said, "Isn't there a similar plot in the manga?"

In order to change the fate of his incompetent ancestor, the grandson, who lives in the 22nd century, sends a blue cat-shaped robot from the 22nd century to his grandfather's side.

The situation on Shirou's side is as follows—

The grandson, who longed to help his grandmother in her time of need, used the Aozaki family's magic to travel to this era.

Yuzhu was speechless for a moment. You weren't thinking about these things all day when you went to school, were you?

"According to this logic, that child shouldn't be your grandson, but rather Doraemon, right?"

"So here comes the second hypothesis."

Aoko said, "This is also the most likely guess in my opinion."

Yuzhu's interest was piqued, and she subconsciously asked, "What is it?"

“Shirou is my familiar,” Aoko said.

"…………Varied."

The familiar expert, Kuonji Aratsu, was so shocked by her roommate's utterly absurd idea that she was speechless.

"Let's look at it from another angle? Shirou didn't actually jump to 1989 based on his own thoughts and abilities—"

That child was sent to this era on the request or order of "Aoko from the future."

"Aoko, your idea is indeed very interesting, it could be turned into a manga, but I must remind you that it's impossible."

Aside from exceptions like Kuonji, a magician's familiar is generally a small animal.

However, if you want to create a familiar with magic circuits, you can't use a living creature; you have to use the corpse of a small animal that has died.

Magicians use various techniques—for example, using accumulated hair as a medium—to resurrect the corpses of small animals into completely different creatures.

The reborn animals can understand human language or disguise themselves as humans.

Their operating principles will also change, and they will generally have a personality similar to that of the sorcerer.

Aoko probably meant that Shirou only has the appearance of a boy, but is actually a fantasy creature transformed from some kind of small animal... Arisu thought to herself.

However, given Shirou's formidable fighting prowess displayed in the forest and the amusement park, this is simply impossible.

Small animals are just small animals after all. No matter how outstanding their master is, their foundation as familiars is still too poor.

Yuzhu had heard that under certain special circumstances, familiars with powerful special abilities could be born.

For example, a nightmare made from a cat's corpse.

However, it is absolutely impossible for a familiar modeled after a small animal to possess the same powerful direct combat ability as Shirou.

...Actually, there is another situation.

That is, instead of using the corpses of small animals, use dead humans as materials to create familiars—

Playing with the dead is already the domain of evil and heretical sects.

Yuzhu gasped: "Has the future Aoko become an evil black magician?"

Yuzhu asked, "And why do we have to do that?"

Aoko, you're the kind of person who prefers to do things yourself rather than deal with the hassle of "creating familiars," right?

"Couldn't the reason for creating a familiar... be an act of defiance against someone?"

Aoko stared at her roommate without any attempt to hide it.

Yuzhu's eyes revealed immense sympathy:

"Just because you want to compete with me, you're playing with human remains... Aoko, I thought kindness was your only virtue."

"What are you thinking, you idiot!"

Sensing her roommate's rudeness, Aoko pouted and complained.

"Why are you so fixated on inanimate objects?"

"What's the meaning."

Aoko said, "Shirou is a living human being, and also my familiar."

"Wouldn't that be even worse? To dominate living humans."

Aoko quickly waved her hands: "No, no, no, what I mean is, Shirou became my familiar willingly!"

Yuzhu said calmly, "Then it's not a familiar, but a helper. The basic conditions for becoming a familiar are that you are not a sorcerer and not a living being."

Secondly, one must possess wisdom and the ability to compensate for the caster's weaknesses—these are the requirements for a first-rate familiar.

And they must be absolutely obedient... To be honest, no matter how outstanding a creature is, you can only make it a familiar after it dies.

Are you trying to say that the child willingly became Aozaki Aoko's slave?

"The word 'slave' is such an awful term!"

For some reason, Aoko's mood rose.

Aoko was already used to it; ever since Shirou appeared, Aoko's emotions had inexplicably been running high.

"Couldn't the connection between me and Shirou be something other than magic, curses, or contracts?"

"what?"

The witch girl couldn't understand: could there be anything in this world more binding than magic?

Aoko blushed slightly and spoke hesitantly.

"Yes, there are things even stronger than magic, like... love?"

The word that came out of the girl's mouth almost made Yuzhu choke on her own saliva.

After all, this word is quite different from the atmosphere of the girl Aozaki Aoko.