The library’s high shelves cast long shadows across the wooden study desk where Homura sat, her posture rigid, fingers tracing the faded ink of a grimoire older than the academy itself. The scent of dust and parchment clung to the air, thick enough to taste. Around her, the muffled whispers of other students blurred into white noise—irrelevant.

She turned a page with deliberate precision, her purple eyes flicking across diagrams of mana channels and leyline convergences. A half-empty inkwell wobbled as she jotted notes in the margins, her handwriting sharp, almost mechanical.