Aozaki Aoko Case File

Aoko had little interest in contemplating Kouzou Asagami's moral standards. Whether his actions stemmed from ignorance or fear, his ultimate decisions led to the tragic fate of Asagami Fujino in the original timeline. Whether or not he was a good husband or stepfather made no difference to Aoko, who had no qualms about spending money to hire someone to rescue Fujino from that hellish future.

Also on her hit list was the small-time gang leader of Mifune City, Keita Minato. By conventional standards, this boy should currently be an ignorant and naive child. However, Aoko's moral boundaries were always flexible. She didn't mind giving Nanaya Kiri an additional job request—after all, she wasn't overly virtuous. That said, considering Kiri had spared the life of someone destined to kill him—Kouma Kishima—it was clear that the King of Assassins was reluctant to harm children. To avoid straining their good relationship, Aoko decided against involving him.

Instead, she dispatched her magical familiar, Stark. Under normal circumstances, Stark couldn't share her spells when far from her. However, Aoko recently discovered that creating small magical items didn't permanently drain her life force. Typically, a magi would experience a permanent loss of vitality and physical aging when crafting magical items. Aoko speculated that her ability to recover this lost vitality after a good night's sleep might be due to two reasons:

Her Fifth Magic had long fixed her physical state, preventing external factors like magic items from altering her body.

Her constitution. Even before becoming a magician, Aoko rarely felt fatigued and had extraordinary stamina. Her lesser source was also significantly stronger than ordinary magus, so the minor life force expenditure might simply go unnoticed.

Nevertheless, Aoko refrained from mass-producing magical items. This experiment was merely to test Stark's long-range capabilities, something her familiar was quite enthusiastic about. Aoko crafted a silver anklet and clasped it onto Stark's left paw. To the casual observer, it would appear as if Stark was a wild animal marked by a zoologist, drawing little attention.

The truth, however, was that the anklet was enchanted with three daily uses of the Acid Arrow spell. Aoko ensured that young Keita Minato would meet a most unpleasant end.

Hehe.

Thinking about it made Aoko chuckle. While she despised the detached moral compass and values typical of Magus, it seemed her principles weren't much better.

...

About a week later, Aoko received a reply from Nanaya Kiri. Kouzou Asagami was found dead in his office, a steel needle piercing his skull. His death was surprisingly peaceful. Meanwhile, Fujino had stopped taking the pain-numbing medication. Following Kiri's strong suggestion, she visited the local hospital for a thorough check-up, where a spinal inflammation condition was reportedly diagnosed. She is currently undergoing treatment.

The Asagami Group had plunged into internal chaos, but Fujino and her mother remained unharmed. It seemed the family's reception of them was relatively tolerant for now.

Around the same time, Aoko spotted a news article about a bizarre incident in Mifune City. An 11-year-old boy named Keita Minato had died mysteriously. Investigations revealed that his body had been destroyed by a highly corrosive liquid, leaving him in a gruesome state. Looking at the pixelated image of his remains in the newspaper, Aoko couldn't help but burst out laughing. The censorship had somehow made the scene appear comically absurd, and she couldn't stop giggling.

Aoko thought of herself as kind-hearted for stopping Keita's descent into depravity before he became a true scoundrel. Her actions were simply those of a benevolent young lady unwilling to let good kids turn bad.

With this, all the items on her recent to-do list were complete.

In her free time, Aoko half-heartedly attended school while dedicating most of her efforts to researching magecraft and arcane magic. During this period, the only particularly useful spell she discovered was Trigger Magic. This spell marked a turning point in a Wizard's power. A Wizard who meticulously prepared Trigger Magic or Chain Trigger Magic daily became extraordinarily difficult to kill. This was one reason Wizard was so formidable.

Aoko configured her Trigger Magic to cast Gate the moment she was struck, instantly teleporting her away from danger. This was a classic use of Trigger Magic, ideal for self-preservation-oriented Wizard. Aoko implemented it as a failsafe in case she couldn't react quickly enough to activate the Fifth Magic manually.

Though practical, this was the only useful spell Aoko had discovered recently; the rest were strange and impractical. She found little motivation to learn them.

At the end of December 1989, Aoko submitted her application to Tokyo University by mail, completing the first step of the process. Confident in her abilities, Aoko believed that acing the first round of standardized high school exams would easily secure her a spot for the second phase, allowing her to enroll at Tokyo University by April. Life gradually settled into a routine for Aoko.

...

Meanwhile, Kohaku and Hisui balanced learning magecraft under Alice with attending a local private school in Misaki, arranged by Aoko and Touko's father. After all, understanding basic knowledge was essential before delving deeper into magical studies.

Caren wasn't exempt from being sent to school either. Officially, she was a distant relative's child from overseas with Japanese ancestry, and she was enrolled in the same school as Kohaku and Hisui. Sella and Leysritt handled their daily commutes.

The two homunculi quickly adapted to their new task, and they even began showing hints of humanlike emotions. Intrigued, Touko spent some time studying how Einzbern's homunculi developed such sentiments.

As Einzbern's original homunculus, Irisviel already possessed emotions, her clones weren't ideal research subjects, leaving Touko focused on Sella and Leysritt.

By January 1990, Aoko's high school in Misaki held its first round of standardized exams. On the day of the test, Aoko casually rode her beloved motorcycle to the exam site, bringing only essential stationery and identification.