BLACK CLOVER: Through the Looking Glass

*TAP TAP*

The steps of the Black Bulls and Golden Dawn reverberated in the whole treasury. The place had gold scattered on the floor that glinted with golden light, along with many gems that were spread all over.

Other than gold and jewels, there were other things spread around, namely expensive-looking vases, pots, scrolls, and pieces of art that any noble would pay a hefty sum to have on their wall.

This thing was only affirmed more by the looks of surprise on the faces of the nobles and royals in the room as well. Even Wilhelm could not help but salivate at the sight of gold and imagined himself knocking every single person here out unconscious, bagging everything here, and blaming it all on the Diamond Kingdom.

But this thought was too short to last as Wilhelm started to look around the treasure for something that he had wanted for so long.

'A magic staff. I want a giant magic staff.'

Evidently, Wilhelm never grew out of his obsession with looking like a textbook wizard with a staff. For this, he started to scour through the treasures for the staff as he dug through the heaps and piles of gold and jewels.

"Not it…not it…not it…"

*Few moments later*

"What is wrong with people here? Do they have something against magic staff or what?" Wilhelm muttered dejectedly as he sat on the pile of gold, then he got up and started to look around the place more for something else.

"Might as well look for a magic artifact."

Saying this, Wilhelm scourged through the heaps of gold yet again and started to store small things of more value than gold. Namely records, trinkets, or things of probably historical significance.

As he went through this, he came across a wall that had a small portion of it indented to the inside. It resembled a door with a handle on it and was made entirely of gold.

"Seems like a trap." Wilhelm muttered as he created a glass clone of himself and it walked towards the door under his control. Just like a normal person would, the clone pushed the door open.

*Grrr...*

With the sound one would expect from a heavy metal to make when dragged on the ground. As it moved back, the place behind it became visible and was perfectly lit due to the magic stones used as a light source.

Not satisfied with the lack of action, Wilhelm sends the glass clone further inside to check for traps, but once again was met with silence once again.

'Eh, what type of people are they? They did not even put any traps here.' Wilhelm complained internally as he went inside and…

"Are you kidding me?"

…looked at the items in the room with a deadpan.

The reason for this was because this room turned out to be an armory, that not only had swords, spears, shields, and wands but…

"This place even has a ring but it does not have a staff.

Okay, I am done with it. Now I don't want any staff. Sword will do just fine." Wilhelm muttered with a frustrated look.

With a slight hunch, Wilhelm scanned the contents of the room. On the wall was a stand for weapons that led to the inside of the room, which had mainly swords on it, followed by some spears. On the end of the room were shields, which looked like it was made for a more ceremonial purpose than practical one. Just in the opposite direction of the shields was a shelf where wands were stored behind glass.

But the one thing that captured Wilhelm's eyes was a book. A lone single book in this entire room was placed on a pedestal within another glass surface.

Wilhelm leaned over the pedestal, and scrutinized the book as his eyes widened in realization…

'Is this…a grimoire? I can sense magic from it, even if it is very faint.

But how can a grimoire that has morphed for an individual exist now? This thing should be older than Captain Yami. This means the person to whom it belongs must be alive till now, but humans don't live that long.'

Wilhelm thought as he decided to do something. He sent his glass clone as he scurried back to the entrance of the room. This was followed by a sound of glass breaking when…

"Hey!"

…his grimoire floated away from his waist without him willing it, opened it, and shone in a bright light as glittering dust started to come from inside of the room, floating into the grimoire.

Seeing it Wilhelm realized what was happening.

'The grimoire from the inside… it's getting 'captured' by my grimoire.'

Such a thought passed inside his mind as he kept his gaze still on the grimoire it felt like forever until finally, the light died down and his grimoire floated back into his hand, with its cover shut.

As it landed on his hands, Wilhelm moved the grimoire around as he studied its cover. Instead, of the previous cover that is made from a combination of glass and flower petals, the cover changed.

Now it was a combination of glass, petals, and small shiny dots on the black sky resembling a stars on dark black sky.

'Yes, that grimoire was integrated into mine. That grimoire also had stars in the black sky too.

 Anyway, let's see what is inside.'

He spoke internally as he flipped the grimoire open and reached the new page in his changed grimoire. A spell. A single new spell.

"Regulus Aur-"

*RUMBLE*

"AhhH!"

But before he could finish what he was saying, two things happened spontaneously.

The ground shook a bit, preceded by the sound of an explosion, and the Diamond Kingdom guy's grimoire on Wilhelm's waist that he took from Luck started to burn.

"Arsshh!"

Without a single thought, Wilhelm batted the grimoire away and started to breathe through his closed teeth in a painful muffled grunt as he gazed at his waist that despite being in brief contact, burned through his cloth and into his skin.

Clutching it, he leaned on the wall and spoke with a creased face, trying to look away from the pain, "Remember to strap foreign grimoires over the armor, not under it. Noted. Argh!"

In that brief time, the grimoire that he took floated and sped away.

'What happened? His grimoire floated away that must mean he woke up, but how? Why did it burn though? He uses mineral magic and if he could have used fire magic, then why did he not use it?

I'll find answers to those questions later. I need to go to others if he woke up.'

*RUMBLE*

'Yup, he woke up.'

Wilhelm thought as he tried to move but as soon as he moved his leg…

"ARGHH!!!"

…he grunted in pain as his freshly burnt skin caused him great pain by even moving an inch.

"I.Will.Kill.Him." Wilhelm spoke with venom in his voice as he moved slowly, clutching his side in pain.

As he dragged himself slowly to the entrance, he took in the scene in front of him.

In front of him, stood that Diamond Guy inside a mineral giant with flams flickering on his body. Through the reflection inside the minerals, his limbs were visible to Wilhelm who realized that the flames that hurt him, healed his enemy, who was this close to hitting Mimosa who was healing Noelle. He could also register Asta who was just about to save them too. He could have saved them by a good chance, but that is not what Wilhelm wanted.

There was something that nobody knew about Wilhelm, not even his teammates. When he gets angry, he stops using something that is his greatest weapon.

His brain.

And now, Wilhelm was angry.

His senior ran away to fight.

Asta does not know how to use his brain.

Noelle is not able to use her magic properly.

Klaus is a douche.

But the biggest problem of them all.

He was in pain.

And he made it known.

"REGULUS AURUM!!!!" He shouted looking at the man with looks that could kill with a feeling that the spell was something that could solve all his problems almost instinctively.

And solve the problems it did.

*RAWRRRR*

*CRASH*

*BOOOMM*

All of it happened in an instant. From the magic circle in front of Wilhelm's arms, a gigantic Lion towering over the mineral giant appeared, radiating large mana, crackled with electricity, and lunged at the mineral giant and the guy within it. In an instant, it rammed into it and then exploded with a thundering sound.

"AHH!!!"

*THUD*

*CLANK*

Due to the sudden attack from Wilhelm, Mimosa shrieked in surprise while Asta who was out to target, landed on the ground with a thud and his sword dug into the ground.

On the other side, Yuno and Klaus looked at Wilhelm wide-eyed.

'He can use double attribute magic too…' Klaus thought.

Yuno stilled his gaze on the place where the mineral giant was, which was covered with dust. As it settled, who presented him was not any enemy, but a deep scorched earth.

'He killed the enemy in a single attack that we all could not defeat.

…

I need to get strong.'

Then, something happened in front of the eyes of all. Golden glowing dust particles from the scorched earth started to flow towards Wilhelm whose grimoire was floating wide open. The sight enraptured them all, save for Wilhelm who was gloating on the inside.

"What is it?"

"I don't…know." Mimosa replied to Asta's question breathlessly, while Noelle who was lying on the ground in front of her stirred a bit.

'How was it, Diamond Guy whose name won't be remembered by anyone and does not have any corpse to bury, huh?' Wilhelm asked with a wicked satisfied grin and was waiting for his grimoire to acquire Mineral and Flame magic, especially the latter one to heal his injury.

It took a while until the light stopped shining and Wilhelm's grimoire landed on his hand, that changed once again. The cover not only had glass, petals, and a star pattern like before, but it also had flame and mineral patterns like the Diamond Guy's grimoire had.

As soon as the grimoire touched his hand, Wilhelm did not even look at its cover and quickly moved to the page where he had Fire Magic. Immediately as it appeared in front of his eyes, under the watchful eyes of others, he used magic.

[Fire Healing Magic]

Flames manifested on his waist and the wound sizzled a bit, but instead of burning him, gave him a soothing feeling that flowed inside his body, calming him down.

'Finally, no more pain.' Wilhelm thought as he sighed in relief.

"Wilhelm, that was so cool?" But the relief was short-lived as Asta ran up to him, and said with an excited face, something that Wilhelm could not reciprocate.

"Thank you." But he replied nonetheless.

"Yes…ah..um…you were wonderful." Mimosa said with a shy expression that Wilhelm immediately unraveled but was way too tired.

"Thank you."

"That magic, it belonged to that Diamond Kingdom magic knight. How could you use it?" Klaus asked with confusion on his face and moved his glass up.

"I can take magic from the people I kill. I killed him. I took his magic." Wilhelm said without any hesitation for one reason and one reason alone.

'I need to make it known at one point in my life. Doing it now when I am in a squad seems a good enough reason. I can always lie around it but it will not be convincing to Captain Yami or others in high position, neither can I fool them.

It will only give me negative points from them. Better be open about it and at least get plus points from those whom I can get from. They have killed too and will not object me to doing the same, as long as I don't become a serial killer and not kill innocents.'

Hearing his words, all of them paused and before any wrong idea could be cemented in their mind, Wilhelm spoke.

"Don't worry, till now I have only 5 magic. 2 I got from this guy, 1 that I got without killing anyone just now, the lion was from there, and 2 magic that I got from bandits that tried to kill me.

When I got my grimoire, it was only a cover with no pages, but it was a 4-leaf grimoire nonetheless. Some people decided that it would be fine for them to snatch my grimoire from me, even if they had to kill me.

The fact that they did not know that grimoire disappears when you kill the user illudes me till now, but hey, I do not expect them to be smart.

Anyway, many people ganged up on me and among them only 2 had grimoire, but for a person with a grimoire that could not use any magic, it was as good as a death sentence.

By struggling to an inch of my life, I fought them and had to kill the people with a grimoire. It was the first time I killed anyone."

He said and took a deep dramatic breath and saw that everyone's eyes were on him. Mimosa and Noelle who had woken up had worry in their eyes, Asta and Yuno looked at each other as if resonating with the story more than they should while Klaus and Luck looked at them with their usual face, though Klaus' was more serious than usual for him.

Then, he continued in a soft tone.

"I don't enjoy killing. I never will.

That is the reason that despite having this grimoire for this long, till now I only had 2 magic.

Even now, I resorted to restraining him, but seeing that he was about to kill Mimosa and Noelle…I-"

"No, you don't need to say more." Mimosa said as she grasped his hands and gave him a soft look which made Wilhelm feel bad for lying to her.

'Am I lying?

I am…not. I don't like killing. I did not kill those bandits. I did not kill Lotus. I did not kill that Diamond guy.

I am not lying. I am saying the truth in the most heart-wrenching way.'

Wilhelm self-inspected, which others took for him too ashamed to face him. At this, Luck was the first to jump the gun.

"Hmmm~ I don't see anything wrong with it. You just saved our lives after all. If anything, you got stronger."

"He is right. You did not kill a person here. You saved an ally." Klaus followed up.

Yuno, instead of speaking something, shrugged Asta who with one shared look understood and said to Wilhelm.

"Yeah. You saved Noelle and Mimosa. And the only reason you had to resort to killing was that without your help, I was too weak to do anything."

"You saved a Royal's life. You should be grateful instead of being down." Noelle supported Wilhelm in his own way.

Looking at every one of them, Wilhelm spoke with real emotion in his eyes, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Just fight me." Luck said with excitement.

"Nah." But Willhelm rejected swiftly.

"Why?" Luck said like a child who was denied of his favorite food.

"Because you are too weak." Wilhelm said with a look that washed all good emotion away from the heart of all, bar Asta and Mimosa.

***