Pushing open the door.
Atop the tower, Miranda sat cross-legged in the center of the stone platform, as if waiting for something.
When she saw Hoffa open the door to the Astronomy Tower, she merely cast him a cold glance. She wasn't wearing her glasses, her face pale and gloomy, with dark energy swirling around her.
This was the harbinger of her shifting personality.
The air was thick with an oppressive sense of an impending storm. Dust on the ground floated weightlessly in the air, carried by terrifying waves of magical energy, creating a suffocating pressure.
Miranda paid Hoffa no mind. She calmly gazed at the distant Quidditch pitch, where the crowd's cheers were faintly audible.
Hoffa slowly approached her. With each step, the pressure in the air intensified. By the time he reached the stone platform where Miranda sat, the air had grown so dense it felt like trying to breathe through butter.
"Miranda."
Hoffa spoke with difficulty, his voice strained. "Come back with me."
Her gloomy expression softened for a brief moment, and she smiled gently.
"Did Goshawk give you a lesson? And now you're here to test your newfound knowledge on me?"
Hoffa shook his head and stowed his wand, raising both hands in a gesture of peace.
"Your grandfather asked me to use magic to restrain you, but I've always thought that was the wrong approach."
Miranda's expression darkened again, and she remained silent.
"I don't want to fight you, Miranda," Hoffa continued. "Don't be stubborn. Come back with me."
"Stubborn?" Miranda, still seated above, spoke calmly. "Do you even know what I'm thinking? This school—from the headmaster to the professors—is filled with nothing but war criminals.
They send innocent wizards to fight in wars, wars that are utterly pointless and unjust. So many lives lost, and in the end, nothing changes. I'm doing everything in my power to stop this, and you call it stubbornness? Do you think I'm Delacis?"
"Right or wrong isn't for us to decide, Miranda!"
Hoffa pushed back against the raging magical energy in the air, his voice firm. "Wizard conflicts won't end, and neither will human conflicts. This isn't something you can stop."
Miranda slowly turned her head, her expression shifting rapidly—regret and pain, then cold indifference.
Hoffa stood his ground, waiting. Waiting for Miranda to overcome the other personality within her.
Unfortunately, the girl before him ceased to struggle. Her fluctuating expression settled, leaving her as pale and grim as she had been that fateful night.
The psychic field around them shifted abruptly, and Hoffa felt his mental defenses compress sharply.
He realized the person before him was no longer Miranda. She had become someone else entirely.
It stood, towering over him, toying with its wand.
It asked, "I want to destroy this school. Do you have a problem with that?"
"I do," Hoffa replied.
"What does it matter to you? I can take you to a better place."
"This is my school. That's all that matters."
"Even if it means being just a pawn?"
"My choices are none of your business."
Miller was silent for a moment. Then, as though discarding trash, he threw his wand to the ground.
In that instant, the air pressure surged. Hoffa's shoulders sagged under the weight, and every inch of the observatory's floor cracked with tiny fractures as though struck by a massive hammer.
The figure's face began to blur, its features dissolving until only a mouth remained. Miller spread his fingers wide.
"Bach, do you even know why you exist? A dark nova is about to rise, bringing unprecedented change to this world. I'm giving you one last chance."
"Shut up, Nietzsche!" Hoffa snapped.
Silence lingered for a second.
Drip.
Phosphorus Bullet!
With a flick of its wrist, a blue, high-temperature fireball materialized instantly and hurtled toward Hoffa's face.
Without hesitation, Hoffa slipped into Phantom Walk, leaving the fiery explosion behind. The detonation rocked the Astronomy Tower, causing the entire structure to tremble.
In the gray-and-white world of his spectral state, Hoffa observed the chaos and madness caused by the explosion. Miller stood motionless atop the high platform, his robes billowing wildly in the turbulent air.
In Hoffa's hand, his wand morphed into a massive lion-headed gauntlet. Stone steps materialized beneath his feet as he ran higher and higher toward his target.
Miller noticed Hoffa vanish and tilted his head slightly before disappearing into thin air himself.
Invisibility Cloak?
Hoffa's gaze turned icy. While Miller had vanished from the physical world, he remained fully visible in the shadow realm Hoffa inhabited.
Quickening his pace, Hoffa charged forward.
He landed a heavy punch squarely on Miller's abdomen, forcing him to double over and knocking him out of stealth.
But this time, Miller was far from the fragile opponent he had been before. He fiercely grabbed Hoffa's arm and delivered a brutal headbutt.
It felt like being struck by a boulder. Hoffa was sent flying three meters and landed off the platform, his gauntlet scraping the ground and leaving a trail of sharp marks.
Damn it!
Groggy, Hoffa pushed himself up, wiping blood from his nose. His Meditation Technique quickly kicked in, clearing his head from the dizziness.
Above, Miller leaped heavily from the platform, landing with a resounding crash like a body forged of steel.
It advanced, charging at Hoffa with heavy strides. Hoffa sidestepped and clenched his hand into a fist.
Crushing Grasp!
Boom!
Two massive stone slabs rose from the ground, slamming together and trapping Miller between them.
The restraint lasted only a moment before the slabs cracked and exploded violently. It was as though Hoffa had restrained not a person but a pack of volatile explosives.
The shockwave forced Hoffa to stumble back three steps, and he cursed under his breath. Wrong one!
Sure enough, the next second, a whisper came from behind him.
"Still looking around?"
The real Miller had already moved behind Hoffa.
Its entire right arm had transformed into an icy spear, plunging down with force.
Hoffa's pupils shrank to pinpoints. The gauntlet on his arm rapidly morphed into a sharp shield.
Clang!
Spear met shield in a violent clash.
Hoffa barely managed to block the deadly strike.
"Still got enough magic left?" Miller taunted during the standoff, its eyeless face fixed on Hoffa.
Hoffa grinned.
Phantom Walk!
With no time to pull back, Miller's ice spear passed harmlessly through Hoffa's incorporeal form and smashed into the ground.
Miller retreated swiftly, recalculating its approach.
But in the shadow world, Hoffa unhesitatingly downed a vial of restorative potion. The volatile brew surged through his system like a shot of magical adrenaline.
The moment he emerged from the shadow world, Miller clasped its hands together.
From the ground, countless fragments of stone erupted, forming serpent-like heads that lunged at Hoffa. But in the next moment, Hoffa disappeared into the shadows once more.
Miller had not anticipated Hoffa using Phantom Walk twice in quick succession. Reacting quickly, it dismissed its spell with a sweep of its hand.
"Triple Iron Guard!"
A row of iron-clad warriors descended from above, shields raised to block Hoffa's advance.
Overplayed move.
This time, before the three iron guards could align their shields, Hoffa raised his hand.
His wand transformed into a barbed whip, striking like lightning from the void. It snaked through the gaps between the shields and coiled tightly around Miller, binding him layer by layer.
Immobilized, Miller could no longer move.
Phantom Walk ended.
Hoffa reemerged, standing ten meters away from Miller.
The steel whip, transformed from his wand, stretched taut and straight.
"You will never control me!"
Miller roared, and pale flames erupted across his body, burning so intensely that the rubble beneath his feet melted into glowing magma.
The violent magical energy singed Hoffa's hair and robes, bending them under the heat. He felt his wand trembling in agony, struggling to contain Miller's overwhelming power.
Hold on, buddy!
Hoffa gripped the whip tightly, his eyes opening wide as he activated his Meditation Technique.
His mental energy surged into the ground.
Crushing Grasp!
Boom!
The surface of the Astronomy Tower churned as molten-lava-infused stone hands erupted from the ground. One massive hand seized Miller, only to be shattered instantly by his mental force.
But then came another, then two, then three, then ten, then twenty.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Thick smoke and dust filled the air.
Dozens of stone hands piled upon Miller, layer after layer, crushing him beneath a mountain of rubble. Only his head remained visible, glaring defiantly.
He was trapped.
Hoffa coughed twice, withdrew his wand, and gulped down another restorative potion. Slowly, he approached the towering pile of debris pinning Miller.
"You've mastered your master's magic," Miller rasped, his voice hoarse but mocking. "A true prodigy of Transfiguration."
"Enough, Miranda," Hoffa said, his face pale. "Stop sinking into this madness. This isn't right!"
"Not right?" Miller laughed, a chilling, distorted sound like a bloodied cuckoo's cry.
"You—!" Miller lowered his head, beginning to struggle violently.
The massive stone hands, towering nearly ten meters high, started to quake. They could no longer hold him down. Hoffa's eyes widened in alarm.
"And what gives you the right," Miller snarled, his voice growing louder, "to stand on some moral high ground and judge me?"
"Do you even know what I've been through!?"
As he roared, Miller's head snapped upward, glaring at Hoffa with a twisted expression. The stone restraints shattered into fragments.
A wave of dark psychic energy surged outward, blanketing the entire area.
BOOM!
Hoffa felt his own mental field collide with something akin to a speeding train.
Miller lunged, transforming into a dark shadow that slammed Hoffa to the ground, pinning him under its weight.
The violent impact darkened Hoffa's vision. Before he could react, his consciousness was yanked into an illusionary world.
In that moment, the mental fields of both wizards intertwined, dragging them into a shared psychic realm.
Hoffa felt himself plunging through tides of dark energy.
He seemed to walk down a lightless corridor, or perhaps the depths of an abyssal ocean. Around him was nothing but despair, oppression, and an all-consuming darkness.
Ahead, a two-faced figure loomed, laughing and crying simultaneously.
"Do you want to know the truth?"
The dual-faced figure asked in a haunting voice.
Hoffa couldn't speak. The suffocating nightmare blurred his thoughts.
Their entwined mental fields plummeted together, landing on a decrepit, shadowed street.
Here, Hoffa witnessed a scene: a handsome middle-aged man knelt on one knee before a young girl. The man was none other than Gellert Grindelwald.
Grindelwald: "If you want to know the truth, you must make sacrifices. To end all conflict, are you willing?"
Miranda: "Begin."
Grindelwald placed his hand on Miranda's head. The scene dissolved into inky darkness, and Hoffa began to fall again.
This time, he landed on an island—Black Golan Island, the same island described in the spellbook he had studied. But unlike the previous vision, the roles were reversed.
Now, Grindelwald was bound high in the sky by towering stone restraints.
Despite his captivity, he laughed heartily.
Grindelwald: "Wizards are still human. Instead of controlling magic, a lifeless thing, why not control humans themselves? Wouldn't you agree?"
Armando Dippet: "What are you trying to say?"
Grindelwald: "What I mean is…" Grindelwald grinned. "Goodbye."
At the moment his voice faded, a silver flash streaked through the air.
A dagger, appearing from an unknown source, pierced Armando Dippet, emerging from his right flank.
As blood splattered, Dippet turned his head in shock, and the crowd erupted in screams.
"No!!!"
A figure stood behind Dippet, plunging a dagger into his body.
"Your ideals are outdated, Professor," said Nimon, his voice calm behind his mask.
Before Hoffa could process the horrifying sight, he was falling again.
This time, he plunged into a dense black mist so dark that it obscured everything. Within the void, there were only two figures.
Nimon: "Father, Britain is not your place. Everything I've done has been for the family."
Adelbert Goshawk: "Everything I've done has been for the greater good, for the order of the world."
As he spoke, Goshawk raised his wand against his son.
All the images vanished completely.
Hoffa's mental field was consumed by darkness, and for a moment, he felt as though he had become the young Miranda, experiencing her harrowing, pitch-black past.
The two-faced figure clung to Hoffa's back, whispering, "Do you see now? In this chaotic, mad world, my father and my family were mere sacrifices—victims of wizarding conflicts. And now, can you still stand there, self-righteous, and claim to understand me? Claim that I'm wrong?"
"Do you dare say my actions are unjust? I am not wrong. Wizarding conflict must end—at all costs."
Gradually, Miller's faceless voice faded into silence, dissolving into nothingness.
Around Hoffa, only darkness remained.
Thick, impenetrable darkness.
Negative energy surged like waves, crashing against his soul and body, growing heavier with every moment. He felt as though he were sinking into the bottomless Mariana Trench, unable to breathe.
At that moment, he finally understood everything.
He understood why Goshawk had chosen to keep the truth from him.
He understood why Goshawk always avoided this topic.
And he finally understood why Indor harbored such anger toward Goshawk.
Goshawk had killed his own son.
For war.
For betrayal.
For wizarding conflict.
Faced with the choice between family and ideals, he had chosen his ideals. He had chosen the school.
Hoffa realized that what Miranda hated was not her grandfather—not even Hogwarts itself.
She hated war. She hated the conflict between wizards.
The shadows of her past had wrapped around her, leaving her unable to escape.
The little girl was like the monster Hoffa had seen on the Bridge of the Past in Helheim, burdened with a heavy stone tablet, struggling to move forward.
He understood everything now. He understood the deepest source of Miranda's pain and resentment.
But this time, he felt no retreat. No sympathy for Miranda. And he was not shaken by her words.
A roaring flame of determination ignited in his mind. He remembered the words the Thunderbird had spoken to him in the Underworld: "If you don't let go of the past, how can you face a new life?"
At last, he understood Taras's choice.
Memories of the past year flashed before him like a mirror reflecting his journey.
Hoffa forced himself to open his mouth, breaking free from the nightmare's hold, and spoke in a trembling whisper:
"Mi...ran...da..."
Each syllable felt as heavy as a mountain.
"Even though...your past was dark, impossibly dark!"
"But..."
Hoffa swallowed hard, steadying himself.
"But."
His trembling hand gripped his wand tightly, sparks of electricity flickering to life, surging from his left hand to his entire body.
"But!"
Hoffa suddenly opened his electrified eyes wide.
In the oppressively dark mental realm, a glimmer of light appeared.
"But, Miranda!!"
Hoffa roared with all his might.
The light instantly transformed into an electrified greatsword, more than forty meters long.
He raised the sword high, his voice thundering as he shouted with every ounce of strength:
"People live in the present!"
(End of Chapter)
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