Chapter Twenty-Three — Three Minds, One Headache
📍 The Capital — Hotel Room | Morning
Kiyoshi stretched and looked over at Sakura. She was already dressed, arms crossed, staring at the wall with an expression that could have started a fire.
"Shouldn't we head for the quest?" he asked.
"Yeah." Her voice was flat. "That's — the witch said she'd be at the bar."
I'll give her a taste of my dagger, Sakura thought, her eyes going sharp.
Kiyoshi looked at her face. He looked at her eyes. He looked at the very specific way her jaw was set and the very particular stillness in her shoulders.
She seems really upset, he thought. I sense some serious intensity from her. What happened?
The door burst open.
Daishi stood in the frame with his bag already on his back and the energy of someone who had been awake for two hours waiting for this moment. "Master, let's go! This is my first quest. I want to beat some ass — and that hot witch is going to see me and say, 'Ooh, Daishi, you are so cool.' I can't wait. Come on, come on!"
Sakura's hand moved sideways and smacked the top of his head without her even looking at him.
"Get your head on straight," she said.
Daishi rubbed his skull, completely undeterred.
"It's not good to go on an adventure with an empty stomach," Kiyoshi said, standing and grabbing his coat. "We should eat first and then meet the hot witch."
Sakura's mood, which had been sitting at a low simmer, shifted.
She turned and looked at him slowly. "Meet the hotly witch." Her voice was very even. "Oh. I see. You want to go so she can say, 'Ooh, Kiyoshi, you are so cool.' Is that it?"
Kiyoshi took a step back. "Hey — it's not like that. I was joking."
"Were you."
"I was definitely joking."
"Master," Daishi said quickly, with the tone of someone trying to defuse something before it became a problem, "I think we should get moving."
📍 The Capital — Restaurant | Morning
They found a place near the hotel that was already open and busy. The smell of warm bread and cooked meat hit them at the door. Daishi's eyes went wide.
They were halfway through ordering when a familiar voice came from behind them.
"Hey! Kiyoshi! Good morning!"
Kavato was already seated two tables over, waving, his new alchemy master card visible in the pocket of his coat. His face had a particular quality to it this morning — the look of someone who had slept well for the first time in a while.
Kiyoshi grinned. "Good morning, Kavato." He paused, deliberately formal. "Or should I say — Master Alchemist Kavato?"
Kavato waved a hand, playing it up. "And who is speaking to me? Would that be the Holy Sword Healer of Ramiya? The legendary Healing Sword himself?"
They both laughed. Genuine, easy laughter, the kind that comes from people who have been through something together and made it out the other side.
Daishi looked between them and sat up straighter. "And I," he announced, "am the future legendary inventor."
Kavato turned to him with a completely straight face. "Oh, absolutely. The potential is obvious."
Daishi looked extremely satisfied.
"If everyone is done," Sakura said, sitting down with the particular posture of someone who had not forgotten a single thing from the night before and was choosing to focus on breakfast rather than discuss it — "we should order, eat, and go."
Kavato glanced at her. Then at Kiyoshi, quietly. "Why is she so upset?"
Kiyoshi shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure."
This, Daishi thought, watching all of them, is complicated. I can't blame her for being angry. I can't blame Master for not understanding. He doesn't even know what he said. She knows he doesn't know. She's angry anyway. He reached for his bread. This is a genuine headache.
They ate. Sakura ate in focused silence. Kiyoshi ate and kept glancing at her sideways and deciding not to ask. Kavato ate and made polite conversation with Daishi about the capital's food. The restaurant was warm, and the bread was good, and after a while even Sakura's shoulders came down a fraction.
📍 The Capital — In Front of the Bar | Later Morning
Mahori was outside waiting for them.
Except it was not quite the Mahori from yesterday.
The woman standing in front of the bar had black hair that was completely dishevelled — loose and tangled like she had slept on it and not looked in a mirror after. She wore a pair of round glasses. Her nails were painted black. She was scratching the back of her head absently with the end of a wand, staring at some middle distance that had nothing in it. She was also — and this was noticeable — slightly shorter than the woman from yesterday. Slightly less of everything, in all directions.
She looked at them when they stopped in front of her.
"Who are you again?" she asked.
Sakura stared. "Are you serious?"
The woman blinked. Then something shifted in her face — recognition arriving from somewhere distant. "Ah. That irritating voice. I remember now. You're Sakura, from yesterday, right?"
"My voice is irritating?" Sakura's eyes went dangerous. "Take a look in the mirror. You pervert."
The woman's expression changed. The vague absentmindedness dropped away and something else took its place — still calm, but the kind of calm that has teeth in it. She tilted her head.
"Pervert? Me?" Her voice was soft and precise. "You've got the wrong person, kid. But since you want to keep talking — say one more word and I'll cut out your tongue and attach a lizard-man's in its place. Or I'll take one of your eyes — your eyes are actually a good size — I accidentally broke both eyes on my goblin test subject and your eyes would be a perfect fit. Or actually I'll take both and figure out the tongue separately. Or maybe I'll—"
Kiyoshi and Kavato both moved at the same time. One hand each, covering Sakura's mouth from both sides before she could respond. She made a sound behind their hands that communicated her feelings clearly without any words.
"Mahori," Kiyoshi said quickly, "we're very sorry. Please don't — we're sorry."
The woman looked at them for a moment.
Then she straightened. And something changed — not just her expression but her entire physical presence. Her hair smoothed itself out, the glasses vanished, her posture shifted, her height increased by a visible amount, her build filled out, and in her hand appeared a long golden wand. She looked like a composed, elegant priestess who had never once in her life been dishevelled or scratched her head with a wand.
She looked at Sakura with an expression of polite, measured calm.
"I apologise for her behaviour," she said. "Allow me to explain."
They found a place to stand near the bar entrance. Mahori — this version of Mahori — stood in front of them with the golden wand at her side and the bearing of someone about to give a lecture they have given before.
"This happened approximately a hundred years ago," she began.
Daishi's jaw dropped. "You're that old?"
She looked at him. Her composed expression didn't change but something in her eyes did. "How can you call me old when I look like this?" Her voice was perfectly pleasant. "You're such a sweet little kid. Heaven's Lightning."
A bolt of lightning dropped out of the clear sky and hit Daishi directly on the top of the head.
He stood there for a moment, sparking, hair fully vertical.
Then he sat down on the ground.
"He'll be fine," Mahori said, without looking at him. "Now. A hundred years ago, I was conducting experiments on my own mind. I was attempting to create a mental copy of myself — a duplicate consciousness that could operate separately. The experiment failed in a specific way. Instead of creating a copy, it split my existing consciousness into three distinct minds. All three of us share one body. We are all Mahori. We are not copies of each other — we are the same person, divided. We know each other completely because we share the same origin. We do not fight. But we are different."
She paused to let that settle.
"There are three of us. I am Mahori Tiya. I am a healing mage and an MP booster — my magic focuses on restoring and amplifying the magical capacity of others. I tend to be present in ordinary situations, daily life, explanations like this one."
She gestured to the air beside her, as if indicating someone standing there.
"Then there is Mahori Vami. She is the one you saw outside just now — the glasses, the wand, the experimenting. She is a bookworm and an experiment obsessive. Her magic uses circles and covers all elemental types — she is an element image mage. She rarely comes forward unless she hears about experiment materials or something academically interesting. Then it is very difficult to get her to go back."
Another pause.
"And then there is Mahori Aki."
Her appearance shifted. The priestess clothing became a swordsman's uniform — fitted, practical, built for movement. Her black hair gained a deep red shade at the tips, like the end of something burning. When she spoke, the voice was the same voice but with a different weight behind it.
"That's me." Mahori Aki looked at all of them with the calm assessment of someone who has already calculated every person in the room. "For the record — yesterday at the bar was not what you thought it was. I was examining the unusual power I sensed inside Kiyoshi. It is not a curse. It does not behave like any classification I know. I needed to get close to examine it properly. I am not interested in children."
Kiyoshi opened his mouth.
"Ask one at a time," Mahori Aki said. "And keep it short."
Kiyoshi closed his mouth. Reorganised. "Where do Mahori Vami and Mahori Tiya go when you're present? And what happens in a fight? And how do you divide the time?"
Mahori Aki looked at him. "That was three questions."
"..."
"Mahori Tiya built a small house inside our shared mind," she said. "When one of us is present in the body, the others rest there. we have the same base mind, so we understand each other better than anyone else could understand us. If there is ever tension, Mahori Tiya manages it. She's good at that."
She folded her arms.
"The division is not equal. I am present most of the time, and for anything involving combat, I am always the one who takes over. Mahori Tiya is present for most daily and social situations. Mahori Vami appears rarely — only when something triggers her research instincts. When that happens, she is difficult to dislodge." A slight pause. "We each have our own uniform. The dress you saw at the MMM — we all wear that sometimes, by preference. But in our own time, we wear what suits us."
She looked at Kiyoshi with a direct, flat look. "The power inside you. I do not know what it is yet. I intend to find out."
She would be at minimum S rank, Sakura thought, watching Mahori Aki stand there with that particular stillness that very strong people had. To perform an experiment that complicated on her own mind — and survive it, and maintain function across a hundred years — she has to be a genius. She's strange. She's alarming. But she's not lying. I think she's actually trustworthy.
She is, Kavato thought, watching the same woman, an absolute psycho. To experiment on her own consciousness at that level — she has to be a class 3 inner core mage at the mage tower at minimum. Possibly higher. This woman is terrifying and I am going to be very polite to her for the entire duration of this quest.
Daishi was still sitting on the ground. His hair was slowly returning to its normal direction. He looked up at Mahori Aki with the expression of someone reassessing their life.
📍 The Capital — Rajiro Port | Midday
Rajiro Port was on the eastern edge of the capital, where the water met the city wall and the ships sat low and heavy with cargo. The air smelled of salt and rope and engine smoke from the smaller steam vessels. It was busy — merchants, adventurers, port workers moving in every direction.
They joined the line for the crossing to Heraki.
While they waited, Kiyoshi looked at Mahori Aki from the side.
Then, quietly, he activated his Eye of Wisdom.
The information tried to load. The familiar structure of the skill — rank, classification, details — reached for her and came back with nothing. Not an error. Not a blank. Just:
[ The rank is too high to display. ]
Kiyoshi stared at that for a moment.
Then he put it away and looked at the water instead.
The ship was boarding. The plank was down, the crew moving, the other passengers filing on ahead of them.
Whatever was waiting in Heraki — it was ahead of them now. The water was grey-green and wide and the wind was coming off it cold and steady.
They boarded.
✦ CODEX — Chapter Twenty-Three ✦
World Archive: Entries Relevant to Chapter Twenty-Three
ENTRY 090 — MAHORI: THE THREE MINDS
One hundred years ago, the witch known as Mahori attempted to duplicate her own consciousness through experimental mind-magic. The experiment failed in a specific way — rather than producing a copy, it divided her existing consciousness into three distinct minds, all sharing a single body. All three are Mahori. None of them are copies. They are the same person, split.
They share a base mind and therefore understand each other completely. They do not fight in the conventional sense. Mahori Tiya built a small mental space — described as a house — inside their shared consciousness, where the inactive minds rest while one is present in the body.
They each have preferred clothing but share a common dress they wear at formal or neutral occasions — the outfit seen at the MMM.
ENTRY 091 — MAHORI TIYA
The healer and MP booster. Present most often in daily life, social situations, and calm circumstances. Manages tension between the three minds when it arises. Composed, elegant, carries a long golden wand. Appears as a tall priestess figure. Her magic focuses on restoring and amplifying magical capacity in others — she can raise an ally's effective MP significantly in combat.
ENTRY 092 — MAHORI VAMI
The researcher. Appears rarely — only when experiment materials or intellectually significant phenomena are present. When she surfaces, she is difficult to bring back. Dishevelled hair, round glasses, black-painted nails, slightly shorter and less imposing than the other two. Carries a standard wand. Her magic uses circles and covers all elemental types — classified as an element image mage, meaning she can call on any element rather than being fixed to one.
ENTRY 093 — MAHORI AKI
The fighter. Present for the majority of the time and exclusively present during combat. A magic swordsman — uses a long sword with fire element enhancement. The strongest of the three in direct combat. Described as a monster on a rampage when she fights. Her hair has a red shade at the tips. Calm and direct in manner. Not talkative. Examined Kiyoshi at close range in the bar because she detected an unusual power inside him — not a curse, not any classification she recognises. She intends to identify it.
ENTRY 095 — THE MAGE TOWER: CLASS SYSTEM
The mage tower maintains its own internal classification system separate from the standard adventurer rank system. Class 3 inner core mage is a designation reserved for mages whose magical capability and theoretical knowledge place them among the most advanced practitioners in the country. There are fewer than twenty confirmed class 3 inner core mages alive at any given time. Whether Mahori holds an official classification with the Mage Tower is unconfirmed.
ENTRY 096 — RAJIRO PORT
Eastern port of the capital. Primary departure point for sea routes to Heraki. Handles both cargo and passenger traffic. The crossing to Heraki takes approximately half a day by standard vessel.
End of Chapter Twenty-Three Codex.