Introduction Arc

## Chronology

The **Introduction Arc** (輸入編, *Yunyū-hen*?) is the first major story arc in the *Seventh Garden* main canon.

## Background

### Royal Biblia Academy

Main article: Royal Biblia Academy

One of three Magic Academies located in Japan and one of a total of twelve Magic Academies throughout the entire world, Royal Biblia Academy is among the most lauded of the three institutions found in Japan. Every year in April, the school accepts many new students into its sacred hallways starting from total greenhorns not even twelve years of age to more experienced students fifteen or sixteen years of age. Unlike its sister academies, only Royal Biblia Academy accepts late students, that is, students that are aged fifteen or sixteen and are entering Royal Biblia Academy as a fourth-year; both of its sisters only accept those children aged eleven or twelve. This year of 2021 too continues as normal, however, there is something very strange concerning a number of the new students.

## Chronology

### Entrance and Advancement Ceremony

#### The Ceremony

The ceremony was to start as normal, however, there was one key player missing: Natsuki Miyagumo had excused herself from attending the ceremony despite being the Student Council Vice-President, giving the reasoning that she should be scouting the Labyrinth in place of the perpetually absent Student Council President, Kaori Tokiwa, alongside keeping any surfacing sixth- and seventh-years at bay. Asuna Himenomiya attended the ceremony in Natsuki's place. However, the ceremony never started on schedule as the headmaster was late. He arrived ten minutes after he was supposed to arrive and he ripped apart the speech that Asuna had prepared for him in Natsuki's place. This greatly angered Asuna who was about to attack the headmaster but was stopped by her vice-leader. Angrily sitting back down, Asuna listened to the headmaster's new improvised speech in which with his closing words, he introduced to the main student body a single teenage boy, so far, the only transfer student accepted in the year.

In his speech, the boy concisely explained his origins: how he was discovered to have generated a Superbia Breakdown Phenomenon that wiped out the entirety of Tokyo's Shinjuku district, how he met the Trinity Seven of Avaritia, Natsuki Miyagumo, and how he was allowed to enter Royal Biblia Academy after creating for himself a third choice. He then declared his intention to become the true Magic King, inadvertently announcing his status as a Magic King Candidate, and how he wanted to become the Magic King for the purpose of making love with a lot of cute girls. This statement immediately made the boy the enemy of all students of the school as they threw whatever rubbish they had on hand at him; the boy himself paid no mind as he muttered to himself about how to navigate the corridors of the school.

Asuna, meanwhile, wasn't too distressed as she was busy scrutinizing the boy's neck around which hung two legendary grimoires, both of which are mythology-class, the Astil Codex and the Illias Fragment. Deciding that she would pay the boy a visit later, she listened to Miyako Uranami's speech as she introduced herself to the new students (Miyako's classes are only for those who are fourth-years and above so none of the students know of her outside of random meetings in the hallways and faculty room); the ceremony ended after several more faculty introductions. Elsewhere, Kaoru Tokiwa, who was attending the ceremony in secret in place of his sister, also scrutinized the new Magic King Candidate, simultaneously expressing interest in the boy's two grimoires.

#### The Foolhardy Fourth-Years and the Labyrinth

Immediately after the end of the ceremony, newly-indicted fourth-year Takeru Yatsumiya and his two female friends, Nozomu Fujisawa and Mayumi Yamazaki, became lost as they attempted to search for their new classroom. After wandering for an hour, Takeru came across the classroom and opened the door, however, he ended up finding a hallway that shouldn't be there. Instead of closing the door and walking away, Takeru and his friends entered the corridor which was actually one of the many random entrances of the Labyrinth. The group of three fourth-years continued wandering into the Labyrinth as they slowly began to realize that they weren't on campus anymore and by the time they decided to try leaving, they found themselves lost in the endless magic maze. After four hours of wandering, they finally encountered two people, Hiryū Hayashi and Sayo Takanami, both of whom were sixth-years. Takeru, having recognized Sayo, introduced herself to her and how he had read Sayo's thesis paper concerning the exploration of the creation of human-magical beast hybrids to which Sayo shyly congratulated Takeru for knowing despite that paper being something she had written in her third year.

Takeru, however, did not know Hiryū which angered him as he demanded whether or not Takeru knew of his own research paper, written at the same time as Sayo's. Sayo insulted Hiryū saying that Takeru had no knowledge because the paper was poorly written; this further angered Hiryū and he began to duel Sayo to which the newfound pressure released by the two seniors pushed Nozomu over the limit as she drew her wand with the intention of fighting. Unfortunately, Takeru was not fast enough to stop her from doing so and as such, the seniors took this as a sign that they were also ready to fight; all three fourth-years were killed in the ensuing battle royale as the two seniors fought each other and the fourth-years, only retreating when Natsuki and Asuna arrived on scene. Natsuki expressed regret in not arriving sooner to save the fourth-years to which Asuna simply said that death was commonplace in the magical world and that she shouldn't beat herself up too much over what were (to them) likely the actions of idiotic students, having wandered into the deadly recesses of the Labyrinth not even hours after the end of the entrance and advancement ceremony in which they were explicitly warned to avoid the Labyrinth.

### Daily Life

#### Divining the Magic King Candidate

Shorty after Asuna left the Labyrinth following the untimely deaths of three fourth-years, she began to search the corridors for the new transfer student. She eventually found him in front of the entrance to the dormitory for male students looking slightly lost while tidying his uniform. While Asuna couldn't exactly tell what the grimoires said, she was confident that they had said that she was dangerous; introducing herself to the boy albeit causing the grimoires (in book form) to shiver in fear, she questioned him about how he had obtained the Astil Codex and the Illias Fragment, two grimoires which Asuna stated to be ones that Kougetsu should not possess. The two grimoires shivered even more when Asuna revealed her Mystic Eyes of a Thousand Visions and she explained to Kougetsu what exactly her eyes were as he was not yet aware of what Mystic Eyes are.

Asuna then tried calming the two grimoires and Kougetsu, informing them that she approached him purely out of curiosity as it had simply piqued her interest that the headmaster had so specifically singled Kougetsu out. After safely diffusing the situation, Asuna wished the Magic King Candidate the best of luck, deactivating her Mystic Eyes and walking away, however, Kougetsu asked her about the nature of his magic. While she didn't stop, she told the boy what she personally thought of Kougetsu's magic: anti-magic. Kougetsu excitedly rejoiced while his two grimoires breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that they had managed to survive the encounter and with no one around, the two grimoires metamorphosed into human form. Now taking the form of Sora (Astil Codex) and Illia (Illias Fragment), Kougetsu was then led away by his two grimoires as they made their way to the cafeteria.

#### The Tea Party of the Mistress in Onyx Black

With the advent of the new year, Hikari Yukigawa, the well-known gothic-lolita lady of Royal Biblia, planned for the annual tea party she alwaysholds once a year to welcome the new students; she did this while forgoing her usual agenda and she had been doing this unofficial gathering since her third year (the Headmaster gave her permission, of course). She invited some students that she had taken an interest in to join her tea party, welcoming them as they start their first year in Royal Biblia Academy. While the tea party itself is hosted by Hikari, she enlisted the help of two of her friends to for the preparations, fifth-year "Lightning Crane" Arisa Asakura, and Aoi Amagase. Upon opening the tea party, Hikari begins conversing with the new students, answering any questions and misgivings they may have to the best of her ability. Of course, she kept up a cheery attitude to keep the new students happy about their new lives as students of Royal Biblia Academy.

As the party continued, everyone talked with each other while Hikari, Arisa, and Aoi walked around making sure that every tables' snack and tea are always full until the end. While the occassion usually calls for formal dress, due to how Hikari planned for it to be a simple unofficial gathering, everyone who attended were wearing their new uniforms, however, Hikari, Arisa, and Aoi were different: Hikari wore a black dress ornamented with blue roses, Arisa wore a white *yukata* with several black motifs, and Aoi wore a classic maid outfit. Of course, as the star of the party, Hikari stood out the most as the flashiest person present what with her gothic-lolita outfit and ambling around with a cup of tea in her hand (her free hand was lazing around behind her back). The party lasted quite long as it always does, lasting from the early afternoon to late in the evening. After the party was over, Arisa, who, as a heavily traditional Japanese person, is aware of the concept of tea parties (or more accurately, tea ceremonies), wondered to herself, buffooned at how this informal gathering could drag on for so long.

#### The Head of the Disciplinary Committee's Duel in the Labyrinth

On April 23, while she was busy going through documents and reports, Asuna Himenomiya, received a report from a panicked junior of the Disciplinary Committee, Shirabi Fujiwara, informing her that a student had been *consumed by the spell*. Clicking her tongue, she asked Shirabi to provide her additional details and her eyes widened slightly as she heard the student's name: Yuuka Yamauchi who was thirty-second name on the *Onoma Charta* making her quite a difficult opponent for anyone in the Committee aside from herself, Mahiru Amamine, and Hikari Yukigawa. However, neither were in office at the time so Asuna took it upon herself to face the student on her own; she charged Shirabi with finishing her paperwork as Asuna grabbed her overcoat and left her office, making a direct beeline into the nearest Labyrinth entrance.

As she wandered through the Labyrinth, Asuna lamented at how the school had lost a promising mage but she also quickly switched mindsets as it couldn't be helped; after all, the pursuit of magic equates to an endless chase into insanity. When she arrived at the workshop in question, Asuna found quite the scene. She wasn't particularly grossed out at what she saw which can only be described as a lump of flesh worthy of being called an eldritch abomination. This lump of flesh clearly was the student formerly known as Yuuka Yamauchi so Asuna quickly set to work. She drew on both of her treasured blades, Ame-no-Habakiri and Enma, and attacked the monster relentlessly but to her surprise, it had quite the regenerative power. In the end, as Asuna dislikes wasting time, she unleashed the Seventh Spellblade, Reliqusoria, and destroyed the monster's core before leaving; she merely clicked her tongue as she noticed how she had quite literally taken a shower in blood. After she had left, Asako Masayoshi, a junior member of the Committee, arrived on scene and left some magical red tape so as to stop curious students from investigating. Hikari, who was in the Labyrinth on patrol, also came across the workshop, praising Asuna's strength as she cleaned up the remnants of Asuna's bloody waltz with death that Asuna couldn't be bothered to do so herself.

### The Labyrinth's Incursion

#### The Rip

During third period, the last period of the morning, on June 24, a class of thirty sixth-years visited an alchemy lab in the Teien Research Building in order to begin a project in which the entire class would participate. About halfway through the session, an explosion tore through the classroom with four students being immediate casualties; several others were injured to various degrees and those who avoided any wounds began taking the wounded students and evacuating. The students separated into three groups with one splintering to visit the infirmary with all of the injured students, one running to report the incident to the student council, and the third group remaining behind to battle the onslaught of monsters that poured through an interdimensional rip in space; this was a phenomenon that only happened thrice before in the history of Royal Biblia Academy with the first recorded instance occurring in the spring of 574, the second recorded instance occurring in the winter of 1027, and the third recorded instance occurring in the autumn of 1684. In what would soon be called the Battle of the Labyrinth, the students of Royal Biblia Academy discovered that death is always right around the corner.

The Student Council Vice-President, Natsuki Miyagumo, and the Head of the Disciplinary Committee, Asuna Himenomiya, quickly arrived at the scene if only after slashing through numerous monsters that have already crawled out of the rip, feasting on the corpses of the unfortunate students who had died and encroaching into the corridor. Prior to arriving here, Asuna had issued a warning throughout the entire school charging all third-years and below as well as inexperienced fourth-years to hurry to the sides of their instructors to be protected while any fourth-year and above who are capable of fighting and have some experience are called to battle. While leaving the battles in the corridor to the students who had assembled, both Natsuki and Asuna charged into the alchemy lab with the intention of repairing the tear in space.

#### The Labyrinth Chase

As the chaos on the surface has been resolved, it was decided that the incursion should be continued, as the beasts inside the Labyrinth are still on rampage, and they need to be quickly wiped in one fell swoop because nobody knows if they are going to reach the surface again. Many students dived inside the Labyrinth, most notably the people who were stopping the advent of monsters near the core of the rip itself. They decided to lure the remaining monsters into the coliseum to be destroyed by Natsuki's cursed sword, Dainsleif. While Natsuki readies herself in the coliseum, the others were to lure the "critters" (which ironically has enlarged themselves that they can no longer be called critters) into the coliseum.

Hikari entered one corridor with her grimoire, Sheriruth Codex accompanying at her side. They were on an idle chatter at how the place itself is eerily quiet when suddenly an enlarged spider attacked them. Hikari, being trained in combat and magic by her father, stylishly resolved the problem without causing any injuries on herself. However, as she advanced further, she realized that something else is in there, which is the reason why the corridor is eerily quiet: a Basilisk, two of them even. She narrowly escaped death of it's Mystic Eyes by cutting the eye contact with a wall of flames.

Once she escaped the first one, a second one came in and as she should not see them, she relied on using heat detection using her magic. Hikari realized that the Labyrinth has changed itself and she won't be able to get out easily. As being a snake food isn't exactly her idea of dying, Hikari remembered that their mission was to lure as many monsters as possible towards the coliseum where Natsuki is waiting, she ordered Sheriruth to track down her magic as it is a ticket to survival. Her grimoire complied with the orders after some exchange of words, and rather quickly, found a passage that could lead to the coliseum. Hikari entered the passage with the two serpents tailing her and came out in the coliseum where she quickly apologized to Natsuki for troubling her with the annihilation and took a cover behind her.