The following morning was equally dreary in weather, as it had been the day prior. It brought Lizu nothing but reluctantly reserved frustration, wishing she could curse out the daring sky for ruining both days of her weekend to go picnicking with Inkaro. Why could it do this to her? Who does the one who controls the weather think they are for messing up her plan? She huffed up a storm of despondency, face buried into the folds of her bedsheets from trying to ignore the hammering rain hitting the roof. While she complained, Morilore sat atop the dragoltye's tail as it weakly swayed from side to side, dragging the lower half of it against the clingy, carpeted floor. Through muffled words from having her face neck deep in her sheets: "No use wasting spilt milk."

  Easing up on her ostrich impression, enough so to be greeted by the light of the bedroom once more, Lizu side-eyed her nightstand, implying it had personally wronged her.

  "And, Inkaro's off to the shop right now... maybe I could... no, too annoyed to bother doing that... reading it is then." Lizu pressed her tail against the carpeted floor firmly, lifting her lower half high off the bed and her chest area only slightly elevated from it, so only the top of her head was left in contact with the bed. With dangling limbs and chest, she spun on her head and flopped onto her back, followed by Morilore belly flopping onto her chest. "So, where's Inkaro right now?"

  "Previously. Ran into Nuenala at a store. Presently. Struggling to decide whether to buy semi or full skimmed milk with her," Morilore stated with meditative calm to her synthesised voice. Lizu felt chuffed at hearing the news.

  "Sounds about right," Lizu murmured, emotionally exhausted, as she reached out to her nightstand and picked up her touch-screen slate. Following a few elegant presses and screen swipes, Lizu opened up the digitised book library app and continued her in-progress book from where she left off: page "97/452".

  The pages' contents were dense, pacted to bursting had it been its physical counterpart. Its conciseness was almost nauseating to anyone who wasn't accustomed to reading such formatted writing, but for Lizu, it was just the right amount of challenge to keep her fully focused on the text: "As the ending event of the Golden Ultima War, the –something illegible– 's last standing creation used the remainder of their cursed essence to activate the Ttuning Device to rid the world of all forms of magical essence and transforming it into the energy source later on known as Memoria. With the new magical energy stemming from it being formed from magical essence, it naturally caused the substance to form some less-than-desirable offshoots. Classic humans making things more difficult for ourselves, go us -Ku."

  Finishing the ninety-seventh page, Lizu sighed mentally and verbally, very annoyed that she only got a single paragraph before finishing the chapter, meaning she'd read over seventy thousand words in two days out of spite.

  But even with her annoyance running rampant, Lizu had a thought pop up in her mind, leaving her to wonder something deeply to herself.

  "Hmm... It's still odd how there's a huge break in time where non-human races suddenly disappeared from any records during this Memoria Era. Maybe the sudden change in the atmosphere forced them into other realms or something until mana began to take memoria's place."

  "Hmm... maybe if I can figure out how to use memoria...." A slow grin clawed its way up Lizu's face as she had already convinced herself to go through with the idea before even fully thinking it through, in full. "I can totally get back on Inkaro's level by reviving a long-forgotten magic. Heheh, he'll be so jelly."

  She giggled like a loony, kicking her legs around like she was riding a bicycle, and, for the most part, readily skimmed through the text until it reached the first proper mentions of memoria. "Haha! He won't see it coming, right?"

  Morilore adamantly nodded, asserting she wouldn't snitch by placing her memories of any memoria-related events in her low-priority sections, including the memory of putting them in there. Lizu thanked the mana puppet for her cooperation before going into full-dive mode on her reading. "Memoria... Ego... To want is to dream... Calamity of Purple Nightmare."

  She read on, learning about some monster born from the darkest nightmare of a little girl in the medieval era, forced to watch her friend, whom she saw as a brother, die after he saved her from being crushed when their orphanage was suddenly set ablaze in a freak accident. Lizu thought it was honestly tragic how obvious it wasn't an accident, especially given that the records of the events didn't indicate the possibility of such events having transpired.

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  "No wonder it became a lost magic if negative emotions can so easily influence it... Better not let Yuuvia learn about it," Lizu murmured, allowing her intrusive thoughts to run through her mouth, as she read on, only half assured in herself that she wouldn't fall victim like the girl had to herself in the story. "I mean... It's not like Inkaro would ever be forced into such a situation... for me to...hmm."

  "Even still, if I hesitate before I try, then I'll never be able to use this memoria magic," Lizu remarked as she tossed her touch pad slate to one side on the bed. Reaching into her onesie, she rummaged around before pulling out her common-use grimoire.

  [Golden Spark][Type: Application][Rank: S]

  -A golden book with a pale golden grid texture engraved into its book cover with pale violet diamond-cut gems at the centre of each side.

  Pulling her birch mana ink pen from somewhere in her onesie, Lizu forced her grimoire open and swiftly scribbled away, mulling over how to put in safeguards so she doesn't let her ego influence her memoria more than she intends. Her scripting was intense, so much so that she didn't even hear or sense Inkaro had returned hours ago by the time she'd filled out seven pages of her Golden Spark's pages.

  [Ego Safeguard Section]

  [Import: Module Function{Detection, Observation, Monitoring}]

  [Define: Memoria = Ego Energy]

  [When Mana = 100%: Start Syntax]

  [While Memoria is present in Ego: transfer Mana into Ego: form mana zone]

  [Mana zone = shape(Cube)]

  [Check: Make-up: Memoria{Positive/Negative}]

  [When Memoria = Negative(5%): End Syntax: until Memoria = Negative(0%)]

  [When Memoria = Negative(20%: End Syntax)]

  [When Memoria = Negative(+0%): Infuse mana]

  [When Mana = 0%: End Syntax]

  "Seems like you're having fun, have you gotten over the rain raining on your parade?" Inkaro teased as he ascended the appearing and disappearing mana staircase, carrying a plate full of grape crepes in one hand, while holding a jar of jam in the other.

  "Hardly, that Stigmai of Water shall know not to make a fool of me when I find them!" Lizu grumbled as she clapped her grimoire shut before hiding it and her pen away inside her onesie, keeping her latest endeavour away from Inkaro, seeing it as a form of payback for him hiding his personal magic from her. The mere fact she was secretly doing what Inkaro had done to her for months left her heart pounding, not that Inkaro could tell it apart from the usual tempo of the girl's heartbeats whenever he was in her presence.

  "Not that it needs to be said, but are you a little bit happier to see me than usual?" Inkaro jested as she strolled around the bed and placed his very important cargo onto the bedside nightstand. Lizu scoffed in a playfully disapproving way, adding to her happy edge by running a tentative finger across Inkaro's closest hand and all the way up the guy's arm. Only once her arm reached the guy's shoulder, Lizu tightened her grip on Inkaro before pulling him down to and physically suggesting he sit beside her on the bed.

  "I dunno, why don't you check?" Lizu shot back. Following up her counter tease, Lizu puffed up her chest, proudly and boldly challenging Inkaro to physically check her pulse in the most intimate way possible.

  "I'm starting to think those picnic plans of yours weren't as innocent as you made them out to be," Inkaro said amusedly, watching the girl's grin grow more and more as he called her out. She didn't even try to deny it, not that her outbursts from earlier made it hard for Inkaro to surmise such a fact. However, Inkaro decided he'd indulge her just a little by using a technique Nuenala told him to use in such cases. So, while the girl was particularly distracted by her mental wanderings, Inkaro leaned forward before giving Lizu a small peck on the forehead.

  Lizu bluescreened, rendered mentally and physically immobilised for five minutes straight. The only form of reaction she made during that time was a drawn-out "waaaaahhhh?" of confusion as Morilore smugly looked the girl in the face.

  Eventually, Lizu snapped back to her senses, and her cheeks turned a bright pink from giddy shyness.

  "Heey... not on the forehead... we're not kids, at least kiss my horns if you won't do it on the lips." Despite her words that would suggest disapproval, Lizu couldn't hold back how much she enjoyed the affection Inkaro imparted on her, in the form of her enamoured giggles, revealing her words were just her trying to goad Inkaro into kissing her again. "Okay, maybe forehead kisses are alright, as long as you do it fifty thousand more times, at the very least."

  "Laying it on pretty thick, aren't you?" Inkaro remarked, catching a playful side eye from Lizu.

  "I don't believe that's the correct use of that phrase, you dummy. Bleh." Lizu stuck her tongue out at Inkaro like a snarky child, only to break out into a yawn that involuntarily ushered her into raising her gaze from Inkaro and spotting the lack of light present outside: "Wait, why is it dark out already?!"