True Magic

"Magic is simply science that we don't understand…"

Or is it?

No, no it's not.

True magic is the endless love and imagination every child has, something that few people keep with them as they age.

And that magic can be something we normal folk can't actually see

Unless…

Unless someone with that magic loves us enough to break through the barrier of this reality and the reality beyond.

That, is the true reasoning behind the nature of chunibyo.

"True magic is something that only someone with the endless loving heart and imagination of a child has."

It's a little chilly…

Nibutani shivered slightly as she finished zipping up her jacket and walked toward her destination, which wasn't too far away anyways.

Why she was going over to Dekomori's place late evening on a weekday was rather pointless in her opinion seeing how she saw the delusional girl every day directly after school. However, it was practically routine for her at this point.

Nibutani sniffled a little, feeling the chill of the snowy air force its way through her nose and into her lungs.

If she had been asked a year ago if she knew who Dekomori Dekomori was she would've given them a polite smile and told them no before going on with whatever she had been up to before. However, after spending almost a full school year and half a summer visiting the girl under their parents' request on top of Dekomori being part of her club at school, Nibutani was used to the girl and her insane antics.

Originally she had met Dekomori at her parents' request and the possibility of a job. The job itself hadn't been too hard, she was asked to make Dekomori's Chunibyo fantasy world go away, and in the beginning she had tried to.

I should've brought a thicker jacket, Nibutani sighed to herself and tried to bundle herself more snuggly in her hoodie to no avail against the cold. Sure the thought of turning around and fetching her jacket crossed her mind, but she had already taken the short train ride over to Dekomori's station and would end up late if she did that.

Despite her attempts to change Dekomori's delusions go away, if anything they got worse. Especially when she had gotten ahold of Nibutani's Mabanoki, the main source of Nibutani's Chuunibyou related embarrassment.

So after a while Nibutani had simply trained her how to hide the delusions and how Chunibyo really worked. How Chunibyo wasn't a mental illness, rather it was a series of abilities that only people like them could activate and even see and experience unless they wanted normal people to see them.

For example…

Tucking her red tipped from the cold nose into the base of her hood, the cold metal of the zipper further chilling her nose, Nibutani spoke a few words, cupping her hands together in front of her into a tiny ball. "From the depth of the spirits around me," she mumbled almost completely inaudible through the fabric of her jacket, "I call upon thee to give me the warmth of fire."

Instantly her palms and inner side of her fingers grew toasty warm, a soft orangish glow peeking out through her cupped hands and threatening to make her seem mentally deranged, however, as Nibutani gently pressed her hands together, the glow dimmed and she touched her nose as if lightly rubbing at it like it was itchy. Transferring some of the heat coating the inner side of her hands to her nose and face.

With her nose and face free of the danger of the cold nipping at it, Nibutani continued walking, tucking her hands into her pockets with her eyes focused on the world in front of her.

If she wasn't careful Nibutani would slip between realities, a trait most new Chunibyos struggled to prevent, to a reality that appeared just like earth. However, Nibutani would be able to tell the difference between dimensions by the many tiny fairies that would float in the air around her, the odd lighting on snow, and highlighting of things relating to nature in her eyes like snow, water, dirt, plants, etc.

The Disibyo reality blurred the lines between Earthen reality and the dimension of Chunibyo, an ironic name with how normal people believed it was a disease delusional people had and it scarred Chunibyo users for life. Even Nibutani, who had been training her Chunibyo abilities for four years now couldn't escape the embarrassment of the things she did as a junior high and elementary school student compared to normal people.