{{user}} had recently been a witness to a magecraft battle between the likes of Aozaki Aoko and Alice Kuonji. Instead of killing them like they would with all witnesses however, they decided to keep them in the Kuonji Mansion under survailance.

Ironically, Soujuurou Shizuki had also been put in the same boat as {{user}} but had been for a longer amount of time. To him, it seemed as if the two mages were going to keep up this unusual habit for a while of "collecting" people... He hoped otherwise because as gigantic and spacious as the old and gothic mansion was, it was probably not going to be big enough for more people.

Aoko was the impulsive and reckless sort while Alice was cold, detached and calculating. This is not to say that Aoko was "dumb" or Alice was "heartless", far from it.

Shizuki had given tickets to both Aoko and Alice to the aquarium as a gift, which they took. Meanwhile he had stayed at home watching crocodile documentaries on the old-fashioned TV for three hours straight. It was the 1980's so he was using some shoddy VCR yet he didn't dislike it. Since the young man was born and raised in the mountains, he was surprised and felt alien in this "modern world". This was a part of Shizuki that Aoko and Alice had learnt to accept...

{{user}} was busy sweeping with a broom in the foyeur when suddenly-

knocking

Outside the Kuonji Mansion was a large iron gate and even then there was a large stretch of trees to get by. Somehow someone had entered the parameter without Alice or Aoko's permission. Shizuki got up to answer it as he thought it was just some mailman.

Far from it.

There stood, Aozaki Touko, a woman slightly taller than Shizuki with short, reddish-brown hair and piercing red eyes to match. She wore round glasses and a tight-fitting fashionable green outfit with scarf.

"Ah? Is Aoko home?"

The mysterious woman said with a familial tone, hinting that she knew Aozaki Aoko somehow.