Contents

Cover

Insert

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Character

Glossary

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Afterword

Yen Newsletter

An irregular older brother with a certain flaw.

An honor roll younger sister who is perfectly flawless.

When the two siblings enrolled in Magic High School, a dramatic life unfolded—

Ninefold Temple, where Yakumo Kokonoe served as head priest, stood atop a small hill in Fuchu, a part of old Tokyo city. The temple was devoted to volunteer activities involving manual labor—which those from the temple would describe as “part of their training”—and was such a common sight in the neighborhood by now that at some point it had merged with local society and become an indispensable part of the town’s scenery.

Which was why, if a person from this town had the chance to examine an older map, even one from just a century ago, they would have stumbled upon a significant surprise:

They’d learn there had been no temple here originally.

They’d learn there had been no hill here at all.

In the latter part of the Twenty Years’ Global War Outbreak, a metropolitan area defense force had been stationed in Chofu, Fuchu, and Mitaka’s Musashino area, using the Chofu Airfield as their base of operations. This meant that the residents of those areas had been evacuated for about ten years, in accordance with the principle of separation of military and civilians. The hill on which the Ninefold Temple stood had been made from earth excavated from the construction site for a large-scale underground defense facility located here.

Unfortunately, the wider metropolitan area didn’t make it through the war without its own damages. Thanks to this Musashino Antiair Fortress, however, they were able to keep damage to these old city areas to zero. The defensive position itself, on the other hand, had come under attack by several forces; but in that sense as well, one could say the residents’ evacuation hadn’t been in vain.

All this resulted in an inevitably blank slate in the relationship between the town and its residents. The people only returned to their “homes” after the war ended and the town had been rebuilt at the government’s expense. However, it was far from a perfect replica of how it had been before.

When time came to shut down the underground defense facility, the authorities didn’t dismantle it—they’d only sealed its entrance. That, plus the rezoning, meant a not insignificant number of families were unable to return to their former dwellings. A promptly introduced advanced public transportation system had given a somewhat futuristic flair to the new town’s scenery, too.

The elevated tracks to run cabinets—a high-density form of public transportation for carrying small groups—weren’t the only new additions. New things, traditional things, facilities big and small, were added onto the townscape. The expansive temple built on the small hill, the Ninefold Temple, was established around this time.

It would be slightly—no, very—difficult to call this temple’s origins normal. As a reward for his cooperation with Magician Development Institute Nine, the previous head priest, Yakumo’s master, had been given this facility-slash-residence as a base to train disciples—the implication being that he would have shinobi disciples rather than regular monks-in-training.

For that reason, the Ninefold Temple’s outer appearance was designed to look especially old-fashioned as a means of camouflage. The aboveground area inside its walls had also been done in a style cognizant of the twentieth century.

In contrast, the basement housing the training facility was very, very deep underground and boasted an area vaster than the temple’s surface plot of land, was decked out with cutting-edge technology—and not only for ancient magic training. It was currently one of the highest-level modern magic training facilities out there.

When Kazama had introduced Tatsuya to Yakumo, he’d done so with this underground facility in mind. Yakumo’s skills as a martial arts teacher made him one of the best in the field. That said, Kazama’s intentions didn’t stop at improving Tatsuya’s fighting abilities. He hadn’t roped Tatsuya into the army so he could be a regular close-combat soldier. He wanted to develop the abilities of an extremely powerful magician who could fight on the front lines no matter what the conditions.

Instruction in martial arts and a facility where magical training was possible: When Kazama learned that Tatsuya’s home was so close to the Ninefold Temple that they might as well have been next-door neighbors, he had no choice but to take advantage of it.

At the moment, Tatsuya was in the lowest level of the Ninefold Temple’s underground training facility. The walls, floor, and ceiling had been built in three layers; starting from the inside, there was a layer of concrete ten centimeters thick, then a layer of lead thirty centimeters thick, and finally a layer of neutron-insulating concrete sixty centimeters thick.

It wasn’t a nuclear shelter. This was a room for magical training, from top to bottom. Why, then, was such strict insulation necessary? The reason had to do with how magic had advanced in the twenty-first century.

Modern magic research and development could trace its origins to a 1999 incident when a single American police officer stopped a nuclear terrorist attack using a strange ability, something people still called psychic powers at the time. Accordingly, modern magic R & D’s primary objective in its early days was to pursue methods to combat nuclear threats—specifically stopping and controlling nuclear fission as well as blocking and neutralizing radiation.

The focused research efforts had borne fruit. They had made so much progress that it was possible to claim that neutron barriers and gamma-ray filters were as good as completed. Nevertheless, the development and improvement of techniques to combat nuclear concepts continued to be frequently cited as a crucial facet of magic skill development.

What Tatsuya was trying to do in this room, though, was neither practicing magic to block radiation nor improving magic techniques to better control nuclear fission. In a certain sense, it was just the opposite.

The underground training room was currently serving as a pool. They hadn’t poured in the water so Tatsuya could swim, though. With the water up to his shoulders, Tatsuya wore short-sleeved training gear and held a handgun-shaped CAD. It wasn’t exactly a swimming outfit, but his face and hair were still both soaking wet.

Gripped in his right hand was something other than his favored custom Silver Horn. Anyone could tell from a glance at its unadorned surface that he was currently using a prototype. The greatest difference of all was a bayonet-like object fixed to the underside of its barrel. Bayonet-like, because the attachment was nothing but a thick metal sheet without any blade or edge, fastened in the style of a bayonet.

With his right hand below the water’s surface, Tatsuya pulled the trigger. Two activation sequences expanded underwater before being absorbed into his right arm. One of them was the output from the handgun CAD. The other was from the bayonet-like attachment.

The magic programs acted on the attachment. Water bubbled at the CAD’s tip. Tatsuya let out a groan through clenched teeth, then fell to his knees, dropping the CAD. His right hand had suffered a serious burn and was badly inflamed.

He sank into the water, up to the crown of his head. A moment later, he pulled himself together and stood up. His hair must have been soaking wet because he had been repeating this process over and over again. After taking many sharp breaths, Tatsuya lifted his right hand in front of his face, repeatedly closing and opening it. The lack of any burns was because he’d used Regenerate, but examining his hand was a partly unconscious act—the damage he suffered had run so deep that he couldn’t immediately shake off the sensation of it.

Once he finally got the feeling back in his right hand, he reached into the water. His fingers grasped the CAD, which had floated up to the surface. It had lost its bayonet-like attachment before the CAD had even sunk to the floor, but that, too, had been Regenerated back to normal.

Tatsuya readied the CAD in the water again. But then a voice rang low near his ears from out of nowhere to stop him.

“Tatsuya, it’s just about midnight.”

It was an air vibration technique, its methodology the same as the one used by Silvia Mercury First, planet-class magician in the Stars, the USNA’s magician force; only the activation process differed. Yakumo had used it to whisper to Tatsuya from outside the room.

“…Yes, sir.”

Tatsuya answered normally, but he knew Yakumo would pick up his voice with the technique.

Sure enough, immediately after Tatsuya agreed to end the training, the water filling the room began to drain away. After waiting for it to completely recede, he used a dispersion-type spell to pull the moisture from his skin, hair, and clothes.

Given his level of magic power, he couldn’t hope to get himself perfectly dry. Still, he could get out enough water to the point where it wouldn’t cause much issue. After finishing up, he operated the door switch on the other side of the wall using a weighting-type spell. Electronic devices couldn’t be built into the wall partitions because of the room’s properties.

This would be a locked room if you couldn’t use magic…

Tatsuya belatedly had that thought as he put a hand on the ladder leading back to the surface. After all, Yakumo had cut the power to the elevator.

Sunday, September 23, 2096. Despite having gotten back home right before the date changed last night, Tatsuya had gone out for early-morning training again today. Once she learned that from the message he’d left on their home server, Miyuki started to get a little worried about him not long after waking up.

Her older brother wasn’t one to stop even if she told him not to push himself too hard. Well, he might listen to what she said a little if she used tears to get her way, but that, too, would only be temporary at best. She’d just used that feminine attack last month. With some resignation, she decided that she should save the tears for a moment slightly more important than this.

In the kitchen, Minami had already started getting breakfast ready. Recently, Miyuki and Minami had been getting on quite well, and they’d started taking turns when it came to meal prep. With how far home automation had come, nobody had to devote too much time to cooking, barring special occasions, and the two had realized—albeit belatedly—that the sight of them fighting over the kitchen would have looked rather ridiculous from an outsider’s perspective.

Because of all that, Miyuki left the kitchen to Minami and headed to the bathroom.

In the changing room, she used the HAR, their Home Automation Robot, to take out a change of clothes for Tatsuya. His underwear was included in the bundle, too, but that was hardly enough to embarrass her.

Actually, when they’d been in their third year of middle school, she’d once wondered whether it would be better for her to feel a more maidenly sense of embarrassment when presented with male underwear, even if they did belong to her beloved brother. But when she’d privately imagined her cheeks reddening at the sight of his underwear, she changed her mind—such behavior would only make her a deviant, not a maiden. Though, if an outsider had seen her jubilant smile and attention to detail while preparing a shower for her elder brother, they’d maybe think it was too late to save her in more ways than one. (Of course, they’d never, ever say that to her face.)

She’d finished briskly preparing for her brother’s return home and was just about to set down a towel as the finishing touch when she suddenly hurried toward the front door, still holding the towel. She didn’t run in the house; that would be unladylike. (She made it a personal rule to never behave in a way that would bring shame on her brother, even if he wasn’t watching.)

The sound of the gate’s biometric authentication unlocking the door rang out through the living room and the kitchen. By the time Minami looked away from the cooking and left the kitchen, Miyuki was already waiting at the front door.

“Welcome home, Brother.”

“Thanks, I’m back.”

“…Welcome home, Big Brother Tatsuya.”

The slight pause between greetings was the time Minami had needed to reach the front door. She’d started moving right as the unlocking chime had sounded, but once again, Miyuki was way ahead of her. Back when Minami had first started living with them, she’d been unable to fully hide her frustration when things like this happened. Lately, though, she’d entirely given up on it.

And that was the right attitude to have. Miyuki had precisely identified Tatsuya’s presence when he was still over five meters away, and it wasn’t as though they were in combat. Frankly, Miyuki was the stranger one. If anything, Minami’s restraint in not making a face was enough to warrant praise.

“I’ve prepared your shower, Brother.”

“Thanks.”

As Tatsuya accepted the offered towel and headed for the bathroom, Miyuki followed after him, wearing a blissful smile.

Minami sighed to herself at the sight—even a live-in maid was permitted to vent sometimes.

It was Sunday, but because of previously mentioned circumstances, morning at the Shiba residence was progressing on its regular timetable—which meant that after breakfast came a leisurely teatime. Miyuki may have reached a compromise with Minami over breakfast prep, but she had yet to yield when it came to her brother’s tea and coffee. Minami had learned to allot this time for cleaning and laundry instead, lest the saccharine mood cause her pain.

Once Tatsuya had paid some compliments to her coffee, Miyuki finally settled into her own seat, deciding to bring up something that’d been on her mind for a while. “Brother, there’s something I’d like to ask you, if you don’t mind.”

“What is it?”

His wording was simple, but as usual, the tone he took toward his younger sister was gentle.

Emboldened, Miyuki cast off the remaining vestiges of her reservations. “Why are you not entered into this year’s Thesis Competition? I understand that the stellar reactor experiment you conducted on campus in April exempted you from the responsibility of submitting a thesis of your choice like the other magic engineering students, but that doesn’t mean you were forbidden from entering, does it?”

“Yeah, they didn’t tell me I couldn’t come or anything like that,” he replied, giving a smile while shaking his head, perhaps finding the idea that he’d be barred entry amusing.

“Then why…?”

“Because I don’t have time.”

Tatsuya’s answer was just as short as the question Miyuki had asked, but it was more concise than hers.

“Does this…have anything to do with the magic you’ve been practicing until late every night?” pressed Miyuki somewhat hesitantly, unsure and scared of whether she should pry any further.

But Tatsuya left her no reason to worry. “It does. I’m surprised you figured it out.” He reached a hand out to his sister’s head and softly stroked her hair in praise.

The hesitation remaining in Miyuki’s mind melted away at the gentle touch. “Could it be that you’re struggling with the development of a new spell rather than magic practice?”

“I should have known—you have me all figured out, Miyuki.”

Those words tickled Miyuki more than the hand caressing her hair, but she realized it was mostly flattery—or rather, a joke.

If he was simply trying to learn a preexisting spell, Tatsuya would never struggle that much. While his implanted virtual magic-calculation region had low magical output, one of its properties was that it could perfectly copy magic programs for use. As long as he could fully grasp a magic program’s structure, Tatsuya could acquire the spell just prior to its activation, no matter what it was. From that point on, everything came down to his processing ability. If it was possible for him to cast the spell, he’d be able to use it immediately without practice; if he couldn’t, then he’d never be able to use it, no matter how much he practiced. And given Tatsuya’s vision combined with his analytical prowess, there was no magic program he couldn’t analyze.

All this meant that his late-night struggles couldn’t have been due to an existing spell.

“I started developing this spell in March. It actually took a while to nail down the theory at first. I only managed to get to the magic program design phase in June,” he stated. “It definitely wouldn’t be ready in time for the Thesis Competition,” he added with a smirk.

After hearing that, though, Miyuki couldn’t share his smile. First was because her older brother—the true identity of the mysterious magic engineering genius named Taurus Silver—had taken three whole months to understand the underlying theory of a spell. And second, the fact that he’d started development specifically in March…

“This new spell you’re wrestling with… Was your confrontation with Lina the reason you decided to pursue it?”

“I’m surprised you figured it out.”

Tatsuya’s answer was worded the same way as before, but the nuance was quite different. This time, surprise and praise were obvious. She’d arrived at a mostly correct answer with only a hint or two. He was genuinely impressed with her.

“The spell I’m developing right now is a close-combat direct-attack spell based on FAE theory.”

“FAE theory…? If I recall correctly, that was the theory Lina’s weapon used, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. The magic theory that is the foundation of the strategic portable magic weapon Lina used, the Brionac… FAE: Free After Execution.”

Tatsuya’s voice was brimming with emotion. Was it reverence toward the scientist who had created this nearly divine weapon, or had his spirit of competition been roused? To Miyuki, it felt like neither and yet also both.

“Events produced as a result of magical alteration shouldn’t occur in the world at all, and so right after the alteration takes place, the restrictions of the laws of physics loosen for a brief moment. The hypothesis states that under normal conditions, it becomes possible to execute a second spell using only a fraction of the power usually required as long as it’s cast during the short time lag before the laws of physics come into effect again.”

There, Tatsuya realized his own mistake, then shook his head, giving a pained grin. “No, not hypothesis. The Brionac has already proven that FAE theory is correct.”

“Brother, I apologize, but there is one part of what you’ve just said that I’ve been having difficulty understanding. Would you be able to explain?”

Miyuki wasn’t asking the question just to humor him; it grew out of academic curiosity, of wanting to seize this chance to resolve a question she had. If this had simply been some arcane theory, maybe she would’ve avoided troubling her brother. FAE theory, though, was related to the magic Lina had used. Miyuki couldn’t bear remaining ignorant.

“It’s okay—ask away.”

“Except for single-process ones, spells are constructed from several successive processes. With most of them, a second process will take effect by continuing the event alteration after inheriting it from the first process. But even with that sort of spell, it doesn’t feel as though activating the second or any subsequent process becomes any easier. Would that not run contrary to FAE theory?”

“I see…” Tatsuya nodded at the question, his face implying she’d struck him in a blind spot. “That may be the most common misunderstanding magicians have.”

But he wasn’t taken aback because her indication had been correct—no, he was very surprised that even a magician as excellent as Miyuki had a misconception of this magnitude.

“Misunderstanding, Brother?”

“The idea that a spell’s processes are in and of themselves independent spells.”

Miyuki frowned, confused. Tatsuya, however, had planned on this. “Take this spell, for example,” he said, opening the sugar pot’s lid before lifting a sugar cube out of it up to eye level, holding it there for one second, and then returning it to the pot once again, all without ever touching it.

“Brother… It may only be a seasoning, but I don’t believe playing with food is appropriate.”

“Uh, right. Sorry.” When Miyuki immediately chided him, Tatsuya had no room to think of an excuse. Watching him apologize so sincerely brought an approving smile to Miyuki’s face.

“Anyway.” Feeling uncomfortable, as though their age dynamic had flipped, Tatsuya used a bit of force to get back on track. “I probably don’t need to tell you this, but the spell I used just now was Float. It’s a popular beginner-level spell and good for practice purposes. It has four processes in total: a weighting-type antigravity magic process to make the sugar cube float into the air; a movement-type magic process for suspending it in midair; a weighting-type gravity-control magic process to slowly lower it toward the sugar pot; and a movement-type suspension magic process to bring it to rest inside the pot without delivering an impact. But now that you mention it, explaining the steps like that makes it easy to misunderstand.”

“What part is incorrect?”

“Nothing’s incorrect. It’s just that this four-process spell creates the illusion that each of the processes can be considered its own independent spell.”

“That’s…an illusion?” said Miyuki, her confusion clearly persisting.

Tatsuya nodded deeply. “Float is a four-process spell, but those four processes comprise a single spell. Once the spell is cast, it constructs the magic program all the way up to that final suspension process, defines the variables, and then it’s done. If you don’t have enough magic power to cover all four of these processes…” He paused there, peering into Miyuki’s eyes to gauge her understanding. “The spell won’t break off midway through—it won’t work at all, starting from the initial antigravity process.”

Miyuki blinked in surprise. “You’re right… If each process really was an isolated spell, the whole spell would stop when your magic power ran out… It wouldn’t simply fail to activate from the outset.” As she murmured, she ruminated on what Tatsuya had just said. “Magic processes themselves aren’t independent spells. They’re nothing more than part of a single spell. That’s what you mean, isn’t it, Brother?”

“That’s right. You pick things up quickly, as always.”

Miyuki averted her eyes from his smile, blushing. Partly because she was simply embarrassed, but this time, it was more that she was ashamed of her failure to understand something this fundamental.

Tatsuya, for his part, hadn’t been sarcastic at all; his praise had been sincere. Miyuki understood this, but that only made her feel more pathetic for not grasping the concept sooner, despite being this man’s sister.

But she couldn’t look away from him forever. She forced herself to smile at him.

“Well, it’s tough to avoid misunderstanding stuff like this in an intuitive way, even if you theoretically understand the underlying logic really well, unless you actually experience it. Magic isn’t an academic subject, after all—it’s a skill. If you’ve never experienced a spell failing to cast, it’s only natural that you’d never wonder about the why.”

Tatsuya wasn’t usually very sharp when it came to human emotions, but things were different when it came to Miyuki. As soon as he saw his sister feeling down, he immediately offered her words of encouragement.

“Anyway, the important part isn’t why magic fails, but how magic processes are really just conveniences. When people in the past conceptualized the modern magic scheme of building magic programs out of activation sequences, it was just more convenient to break the magic program up into modules called processes in order to more efficiently describe the activation sequence.”

And again, Miyuki wasn’t dull enough to misunderstand that her brother was trying to cheer her up. Tatsuya had been considerate of her—her. That made her happy, and a little of the stiffness faded from her smile.

“Yes, Brother. Even I at last understand what you mean.”

Miyuki playfully conked herself on the head, flashing a silly smile that seemed to say Sorry your little sister is so slow. The expression was such a huge departure from her normal demeanor—characterized by her too-beautiful features that could sometimes seem extremely cold—that one look was all it took to almost boot Tatsuya’s mind into escapist mode.

“Magic processes are only parts of a spell. That’s why magic-induced event alterations are also singular entities even if they’re brought about by more than one process. When a process ends, if the event alteration is still ongoing as a whole, then the spell hasn’t taken place yet. That’s why the end of a process doesn’t provide the benefit of easier casting like FAE theory posits.”

“…That’s right. Full marks for that one, Miyuki.”

Seeing his younger sister adorably tilting her head to the side threatened to almost knock Tatsuya out again. He’d tried to camouflage the unnatural silence by pretending to mull over her answer, but he didn’t have any confidence that he’d managed to fool her.

And Miyuki’s smile, opening up like a glorious blooming flower, refused all of Tatsuya’s attempts at scrutiny.

How exactly are those two spending their days off?

Any student who knew enough about the Shiba siblings—meaning the majority of the First High student body—would run into this question at least once…

I bet they’re spending the whole day like passionate lovers, using every passing moment to flirt with each other.

No way. I don’t think even those two would go that far… At most, they’re probably just going on dates all the time, right?

So naive. Those two? They’re definitely going all the way…

…and it meant the spread of all sorts of rumors.

Their collective fantasies were partially accurate; it was true that the Shiba siblings spent their days off quite intimately, and they did go on dates.

This didn’t happen all the time, though. In reality, Sundays often saw Tatsuya out of the house. Usually, he’d either be at the FLT labs or responding to a summons from the Independent Magic Battalion. The frequency of his outings had increased, perhaps due to not worrying as much about leaving Miyuki at home ever since Minami had joined the household.

However, unlike recently, Tatsuya had no plans for the day. And Miyuki hadn’t said that she wanted to go out, either. The reason for that wasn’t the student council elections awaiting them at the end of the week but consideration for her brother’s physical condition: His training had been leaving him exhausted lately.

If she could freely speak her mind about how she truly felt, Miyuki would’ve said that she didn’t feel like having guests today, no matter who they were. And hosting their two current guests was something she especially wanted to refuse. Tatsuya and Miyuki couldn’t let their guards down around this pair despite their familial bond; they couldn’t show any vulnerability despite how they were supposed to be allies.

Those were no more than Miyuki’s personal feelings, though her reasoning was based on the well-being of her older brother. If Tatsuya wouldn’t send them away, then she had no choice (on the surface) but to welcome them as well.

After Minami showed them in, Tatsuya and Miyuki gestured toward the sofa. Once everyone settled into their seats, they addressed their guests amicably:

“Fumiya, Ayako, thanks for coming.”

“Yes, welcome, both of you. Make yourselves comfortable.”

Miyuki’s attitude was very much an empty diplomatic one, and Tatsuya would never drop his mental guard around anyone other than his sister. Their public demeanor, though, was thoroughly friendly and affectionate.

“Thank you, Tatsuya. And you, too, Miyuki.”

“It has been quite some time, hasn’t it?”

In response, the Kuroba siblings’ greetings were stiff and formal. There shouldn’t have been this striking of an experience gap between them and Tatsuya and Miyuki; in terms of age, the twins, born in June, were sixteen, just like the March-born Miyuki. Setting aside for the moment whether a sixteen-year-old was an adult or a child, the two would have long since mastered the ability to conceal any nervousness, assuming nothing truly dire had happened.

In other words, the business they’d brought with them had to be gravely serious; Tatsuya and Miyuki both gleaned that from their attitude.

“Come to think of it, Fumiya—thanks for taking care of Minami last month.”

Fumiya looked flustered by Tatsuya’s sudden show of thanks. Minami, standing next to the sofa, gave a short bow.

“And you saved me time, too, by taking out the security detail.”

“O-oh… Right, that incident.”

With the words taking out the security detail, Fumiya finally realized Tatsuya was referring to the incident that took place on the last day of the Nines, in which he’d knocked out the security guards surrounding the van Minami was being held in.

“No, that was nothing, really, so…” muttered Fumiya, about to continue with please don’t worry about it.

But Tatsuya’s interruption was faster: “It’s not exactly to pay you back, but,” he said, “is there anything I can help with?”

Fumiya didn’t know how to respond. Beside him, Ayako heaved a sigh.

“…I swear,” she said. “We really don’t hold a candle to you, Tatsuya. The way you launch surprise attacks with that cool face of near-complete disregard for the feelings of others…” She shook her head, her expression seeming to say What a bother, then directed her gaze to her twin brother, who stiffened. “Fumiya, why don’t we take him up on his offer? We were simple messengers to begin with. It isn’t as though we have much of a choice.”

“R-right. Okay…”

Fumiya nodded, looking resigned, then he took out a normal-sized envelope from the inside pocket of his uniform jacket, which he was properly wearing despite it being Sunday.

The front was blank. Tatsuya accepted the offered envelope and turned it over. His brow furrowed slightly. Miyuki, who had peered toward her brother’s hands from the side, didn’t say a word—she only gasped and put a hand to her mouth.

The name of their aunt, Maya Yotsuba, was written on the back.

“By request of the family head, we’ve come to deliver this to you personally,” said Fumiya.

Miyuki looked over at Tatsuya’s profile. He met her gaze with a nod, then took the letter opener offered by Minami and broke the seal.

The envelope’s contents were simple: a single sheet of letter paper. Tatsuya scanned it carefully until the end, then he handed it to his sister, who had been politely waiting for him to finish reading.

“Fumiya, do you know anything about what this says?”

Fumiya hesitated for a moment. “I do,” he said, answering without seeking help from his older sister.

“I see.” This time, Tatsuya directed his gaze to Miyuki. She’d just finished reading the letter herself. She shook her head a little, implying that she would leave this up to him. “It says here that she requests our cooperation in the capture of Gongjin Zhou…?”

“That’s what I’ve heard as well.”

This time, Tatsuya openly frowned. “I see. So it is a request, in the literal sense of the word, rather than a figure of speech.”

Fumiya and Ayako nodded in unison.

Miyuki picked herself up and faced Tatsuya. “Brother… Why would Aunt Maya request something of us?”

Her question in full was why hadn’t the head of the family simply ordered them to do something and instead requested it. Tatsuya felt exactly the same.

“On that point, she has a message for you.”

“A message? One she couldn’t even write down?”

In general, paper documents were more confidential than electronic data. If she hadn’t even written it on paper, then what on earth could the message have been?

Ayako didn’t directly answer that question, though. “Apparently, she would not mind were you to refuse this particular job.”

“She said what?!”

After unintentionally raising her voice, Miyuki turned to Tatsuya and murmured, “I apologize,” embarrassed.

Tatsuya understood his sister’s astonishment. That said, he wasn’t that surprised. Maya was the head of the Yotsuba family, but because of Tatsuya’s position as a Guardian, orders from Miyuki took precedence. In addition, thanks to the secret accord between the Yotsuba family and the JGDF’s 101^st Brigade, the latter had priority in commanding Tatsuya, excluding any missions relating to Miyuki’s well-being.

Miyuki viewed the Yotsuba family’s power as absolute—or rather, she tended to convince herself that no one could go against Maya’s orders because she didn’t understand the true power of other magician groups or military factions very well. Still, in reality, Maya couldn’t ignore the agreement between the Yotsuba family system and the military, either. And if she was to abide by those rules, there was almost nothing she could force Tatsuya to do.

Tatsuya was only obeying her because he was of the mind that it wasn’t yet time to oppose her. And that judgment wouldn’t change simply because she’d approached him with a humble attitude.

“Fumiya, tell Aunt Maya that I understand and accept.”

Miyuki and Ayako turned stares on Tatsuya that didn’t fully hide their surprise. Fumiya, however, bowed deeply to him. “Yes, I will,” he noted. “I’m sorry, Tatsuya.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“The mission to capture Gongjin Zhou was originally assigned to the Kuroba. We’ve produced nothing but disappointment, and now we have to burden you with our duty…”

The disappointment Fumiya spoke about referred to last month when they’d mobilized to capture Gongjin Zhou in Yokohama Chinatown at Maya’s orders. Not only had the current head, Mitsugu, suffered a grievous wound—his hand getting bitten off—but the Kuroba force’s encirclement had been broken, allowing Zhou to escape.

The shame was written all over Fumiya’s face as he explained.

“Fumiya, asking other people to help you isn’t a bad thing.”

Seeing that, Tatsuya uncharacteristically began playing the part of older brother.

“Especially if this was a Kuroba job. You shouldn’t hesitate to rely on me for anything, even if you have to swallow your pride to do it.”

“Tatsuya…?”

“I get the feeling that you want to do the tasks you were entrusted all by yourself. But it’s more important that the mission succeeds.”

Completing your own work with your strength alone was a manifestation of boyish perfectionism, which was but one aspect of the dangerous fastidiousness that children possessed.

“In some of our work, Fumiya, failure cannot be permitted.”

Tatsuya’s voice was harsh. But hidden within it was enough gentleness to make Miyuki envious.

“…You’re right. I misspoke.” And Fumiya didn’t need anyone to tell him that Tatsuya was worried about him. “I’m sorry—or rather, thank you, Tatsuya.”

As Fumiya lowered his head once again, Tatsuya returned an approving smile. “In any case, please tell me what you know so far,” he said, moving on to practical matters.

“Right. After escaping Yokohama, Zhou headed west by sea to flee into the Pacific, but we managed to stop him. After he landed in Ise, he traveled north, and we traced him to the Lake Biwa bridge, but then he evaded capture again. We believe he kept going that way and sneaked into the Kyoto region. Currently, we’re having our subordinates search the Oohara area.”

“Any information about possible supporters?”

“As far as we can tell, the Traditionalists are involved. They’re an organization of ancient magicians who are at odds with the families of the number Nine.”

“The Traditionalists, eh…”

“You know of them, Tatsuya?”

“I’ve heard a little from Master Yakumo. Not only have they gathered stray ancient magicians from throughout the country—they also seem to be plotting to bolster their organization by taking in immortalists, ancient magicians who have defected from the mainland. Come to think of it, some defected immortalists were apparently taking up with the Kudou family, too. Is there a possibility the Kudou are helping Zhou?”

“You don’t need to worry about that. Right after Zhou fled Yokohama, the immortalists who were with the Kudou family escaped old Lab Nine and joined the Traditionalists. And we didn’t only hear about this from the Kudou—we obtained direct confirmation of it as well.”

“The Traditionalists and the families of Nine joining forces behind the scenes is impossible… Which means we won’t have to worry about the Kudou turning on us.”

“Tatsuya?”

As Tatsuya stared into space, deep in thought, Ayako, who had left the explanation to her younger brother until now, hesitantly spoke his name.

“Nothing, sorry. Hearing that info is a big help.”

Catching the implication inside his gratitude that Tatsuya was done asking questions, Ayako rose from her seat alongside her brother.

While Tatsuya and Miyuki saw Fumiya and Ayako to the front door, Minami quickly tidied the table and prepared another serving of black tea. She no longer felt guilty about snatching opportunities like this from her master, Miyuki. Minami did properly respect Miyuki as her master while also revering her as a skilled magician and admiring her as a girl. But at the same time, she felt as though Miyuki was a slightly troubling master, one who detracted from Minami’s job as a maid. And her severe brother complex was a nuisance to everyone around them.

When she returned to the living room with the teacups, Tatsuya ordered her to sit down on the sofa where Fumiya had been sitting moments ago. Without a choice, she placed the cups in front of Tatsuya and Miyuki, then took her seat before noticing Tatsuya’s slight frown.

“Lord Tatsuya…?”

In Minami’s mind, Tatsuya was a much more sensible person than Miyuki—meaning he was much more fitting to be a master. The unease that washed over her that maybe she’d messed up somehow was no overreaction.

“Minami, could you get one more cup of tea?”

“Sir…?”

She realized she must have been making an awfully dumb expression in front of them, but she couldn’t keep the confusion from coming out on her face. Is another guest coming? she thought. At this hour?

“No, it’s not that.”

She hadn’t noticed it herself, but the question on her mind had been as plain on her face as her confusion had been. Tatsuya naturally picked up on it and flashed a slightly pained grin as he corrected her.

“What I meant was, this conversation might take a while. Get some for yourself, too.”

His explanation dispelled her doubts, but at the same time, it made her confused again.

He saw through that as well, though: “It wouldn’t be comfortable if Miyuki and I both had drinks but you didn’t.”

“…In that case, I will be right back.”

Stricken by a sense of defeat she didn’t quite understand, Minami dejectedly returned to the kitchen.

While waiting for Minami to come back to the sofa, Tatsuya opened Maya’s letter on the table. It was a single sheet of letter paper, on which only a brief matter was written. He tried using Elemental Sight to check the envelope and paper for additional information but found no particular trace of artifice.

“That means Aunt Maya’s request really is only to help them capture Gongjin Zhou,” he said, explaining the facts.

Suspicion thoroughly colored Miyuki’s face. “Why would Aunt Maya deliver it in the form of a request instead of an order? She never does that.”

“I’m wondering about that, too. We won’t know the answer unless we ask her, but…”

Tatsuya looked at Miyuki, then turned his eyes on Minami. It wasn’t a harsh glare or anything. Nevertheless, tension jolted through Minami’s spine.

“The two of you may not realize this, but Aunt Maya has never had the power to give me an order. Or more precisely, she does, but her commands have a low priority.”

Surprise and wonder became apparent on their faces. Miyuki and Minami both put a hand to their respective mouths; was it a fruit of their education on etiquette, or had the maid taken on a shade of the master?

“Ensuring Miyuki’s safety is my highest priority, needless to say, but the next highest thing on the list is missions from the Independent Magic Battalion. Aunt Maya’s authority ranks below that, in third.”

Tatsuya could feel Miyuki shift in a swoon, but he didn’t pay it any more attention. Even Minami, focused on his words as she was, didn’t direct that cold gaze on Miyuki for her brother complex.

“Until now, though, whenever she’s given me work, she’s always phrased it in the form of a command. Maybe she somehow knows when I’m not currently on a mission, but in any case, that was what she normally did.”

Then Tatsuya reached for his teacup. Maybe he’d gotten thirsty from talking, and maybe he was summarizing his thoughts as he drank the black tea—his motions as he returned the cup to its saucer were a little slower than usual.

“If she’s doing this in a way that’s not normal, then the circumstances must not be normal, either. For example, maybe this mission needs some kind of special treatment.”

Understanding appeared on Minami’s face, but unease showed on Miyuki’s. “Then this mission might be especially dangerous?”

“Our foe has gravely wounded the head of the Kuroba family and still evades the Yotsuba’s pursuit. Whether we need to capture him or kill him, it certainly won’t be easy.”

As Tatsuya answered, he gently stroked his sister’s hair reassuringly. Sensing that he didn’t think this would be too dangerous a mission, Miyuki regained her composure.

“The issue isn’t the difficulty of the mission itself.”

But as Tatsuya removed his hand and spoke, tension returned to both Miyuki’s and Minami’s faces.

“I’ve never been in a situation where I didn’t know the target’s location, and you could say it’s rare for the Yotsuba in general. I mean, as far as I knew, nobody had the skills needed to slip away from the family.”

Tatsuya sighed, thinking about how difficult this job would be.

“That’s the situation—and that’s the guy we’re after. This is clearly going to be a long, drawn-out mission.”

The expression on Miyuki’s face changed from tension to unease to loneliness. Seeing that, Tatsuya rather quickly added, “Not that I’ll be gone from the house for an extended period. We still have school, and I don’t know how to conduct searches anyway. To find him, I’ll have to call on others. I’ll probably only be at bat once they find him.”

“…Will it come to fighting?”

“Ah, Miyuki, don’t look like that. It’s not like I’ll be facing the target alone. I’m sure the role they want me to fill is to block his escape route.”

As Tatsuya spoke, he pointed to his own eyes. Understanding what he meant, Miyuki breathed a sigh of relief.

“But at times, there may be quite a few days when I do need to leave the house.” He pretended not to see Miyuki give him a moping, that’s-not-what-you-said stare. “When I do, Minami, you have to protect Miyuki.”

Minami hadn’t really understood why they’d made her sit in on this. Because of that, up until this point, she’d only been following along with what Tatsuya was saying, all the while feeling like it wasn’t her business.

“Yes, sir!”

In a certain way, this was like a surprise attack. When Tatsuya reaffirmed her mission as a Guardian, Minami unintentionally straightened more than necessary and answered so loudly that it was almost a shout.

Tatsuya didn’t even give a chagrined smile at her overly enthusiastic reply. “In terms of magic power, Miyuki is stronger than you, Minami. If we assume you’ll be in combat, she would have more useful spells. But that doesn’t matter.”

“…Yes, sir.” This time, she gave a steady answer, responding to the seriousness in Tatsuya’s voice.

“To the Yotsuba family, you are Miyuki’s Guardian. But more importantly, to me, you are one of the few magicians in whom I can place my trust.”

Tatsuya’s voice was dark and grave. The one who’d sent Minami here had been Maya. He knew she had an ulterior motive in doing so, and he was pretty sure Minami knew that, too. But he still trusted her. He’d made that decision based on what he had seen with his own eyes and deemed her trustworthy.

“While I’m gone, Miyuki will be in your hands.”

“Yes. I will not let you down.”

Minami didn’t intend on averting her eyes from that trust.

The Kuroba “family,” due to the nature of its “work,” frequently went on “business trips.” Because of this, they had hotels they regularly used all over Japan. In major cities, they had hotels prepared for them through the Yotsuba influence, or even more directly, funded by the Yotsuba. The hotel Fumiya and Ayako were staying in this time was one of the establishments under the Yotsuba umbrella.

This meant they could call the main Yotsuba residence from these places without worrying about wiretapping.

“We’ve delivered the family head’s letter to Tatsuya. We also have a message from him.”

Fumiya was reporting today’s results to the Yotsuba main residence.

“What did Tatsuya say?”

The number he’d called was the direct line for Maya, but she rarely answered the phone, so he was talking to Hayama instead. He didn’t mind reporting the outcome of the job ordered of him by the head to her butler Hayama—he was easier to talk to.

“He said he understands and accepts.”

“Anything else? Did he not make mention of whether he would be censured should he not accept the mistress’s request?”

“No, nothing like that at all.”

“I see. Fumiya, Ayako, excellent work. I will contact Tatsuya regarding more detailed future arrangements.”

“All right. Thank you.”

On the screen, Hayama gave a polite bow. That meant the conversation was over. Fumiya bowed as well, then hung up.

“I suppose that means our mission is done. It really was just delivering a message this time.”

Ayako, who had been listening to the conversation, spoke in a drained voice to her brother, who had heaved a sigh after finishing his report. If you took those words at surface value, they may have sounded like a complaint for an unresisting mission, but if you looked at her expression, you’d know she actually welcomed the fact that it had ended so simply.

“And it’s still only six?” Ayako continued. “We have more than enough time to go home. What do you want to do?”

After sitting down, Fumiya shook his head. “No, let’s stay here for the night. The family went through the trouble of arranging this extravagant three-room suite for us.”

“Extravagant… If you keep saying such lower-middle class things, you won’t even be able to stand in for Father, much less represent Lady Maya.”

After mildly reproaching her little brother for his banter, Ayako realized his “banter” contained an uncharacteristically sarcastic venom.

“Fumiya, are you not happy with this job?” she asked, tone turning serious.

“Not the mission itself, exactly,” Fumiya said, albeit with an expression that stated he did, in fact, have a complaint related to the mission. “I mean, I get that being the messenger is an important job in its own right, and I know I’m the right choice for delivering Lady Maya’s messages to him. But…”

“You don’t like the delivery condition she gave you, do you?” said Ayako, gently filling in his evasive answer.

“Well, of course not!” Her sisterly tone caused Fumiya to release the emotions he’d been keeping down. “Don’t do anything about the tail? Don’t try to shake them off? What’s that all about?!”

That was the condition—or rather, the restriction—imposed on Fumiya for this mission.

At first, when Maya had personally ordered him to deliver the sealed letter to Tatsuya, he’d had no complaints about being used as an errand boy. In fact, he’d been elated. Part of it was simply that he’d have a chance to see Tatsuya, but he was also satisfied at being entrusted with the intermediary role of delivering the request to Tatsuya, with whom Maya had what could not be called a very friendly relationship (at least on the surface).

After Maya had left, however, the butler Hanabishi—second in the Yotsuba family’s servant hierarchy, in charge of various arrangements that came with externally sourced work—had informed him of the points of caution relating to the assignment. When he’d heard them, Fumiya had felt like someone had dumped cold water over him. Not that he wasn’t happy about getting to see Tatsuya anymore—what burdened him wasn’t disappointment but apprehension.

“We know we were being tailed, but we weren’t allowed to do anything about it?! And because of that, we’ve helplessly led who even knows right to where Tatsuya and Miyuki live!”

“It’s all right, Fumiya. Nobody could ever expose the link between Tatsuya and the Yotsuba, no matter who it is. He might not be aware of it, but the more you look into his personal data, the more you’d conclude he wasn’t related to the family. That’s how thoroughly they manipulated it.”

Unfortunately, Ayako’s consoling words didn’t have much of an effect on Fumiya at the moment.

“I wasn’t worried about any of that. At this point, anyone tailing us would obviously be a group trying to protect Gongjin Zhou.”

Ayako didn’t deny his conclusion by saying he was overthinking things. When he’d escaped Yokohama, Gongjin Zhou was aware his pursuers were Kurobas. And at the Nine School Competition last month, following orders from the main family, Fumiya and Ayako had made an especially conspicuous display of being Kurobas.

“We’re already bothering Tatsuya with the Kuroba’s failure—but now, because we allowed someone to tail us, they might end up in the crosshairs. How can I look Tatsuya in the face after this?” lamented Fumiya, looking down, voice pained.

Ayako came to stand in front of her younger brother. “Fumiya.”

“Wha—mrgh?!”

As Fumiya looked up, Ayako tugged out his cheeks.

“What did you do that for?!”

Fumiya quickly brushed his older sister’s hands away, and Ayako realized she’d been fairly brutal in her pulling and that his cheeks had gotten red. Seeing her little brother’s teary-eyed objections made Ayako give a momentary, truly amused-looking sadistic grin, but she immediately swapped it for a contrived smile to smooth it over.

“Ayako?” He sounded highly dubious.

“You need to lose some of that tension, Fumiya,” she declared. “It would be one thing if we’d been tailed because of you making a mistake. But it was the family’s orders. You can’t help it, can you? This is nothing you need to feel responsible for. And even if Tatsuya was attacked, it would be fine. If someone did start poking their nose in his business, he’d be the one figuring out their identity, not the other way around.”

“Ayako…”

Sitting in a chair as he was, Fumiya gave an upturned glare at his sister. From an outsider’s perspective—loath though Fumiya himself may have been to admit it—the expression was nothing if not adorable, but Ayako reeled back, sensing an indescribable force behind it.

“What you’re saying makes sense, I guess, but I did see how amused you just were.”

“Come…come now, Fumiya. Amusement? Never. Oh! If we’re not going straight home, we should get our luggage in order.”

“We don’t have any luggage to get ‘in order.’ We’re only staying one night!”

“Anyway, I’ll see you at dinner, Fumiya!”

“Huh? Hey, get back here!”

Those words needlessly hastened the escape of more than just thieves.

Ayako fled into her own room and locked the door before Fumiya could catch up.

It was a little over a month until this year’s Thesis Competition. Yet it still was not the core of the First High student body conversation.

“Hope no crazy stuff happens like last year.”

“There’s no way it’ll happen. We don’t even need to vote in the first place. Even if a rival candidate showed up, Shiba would still win by a landslide.”

“She’s so great… I hope she gives a speech at an assembly soon… Damn it, if only her brother wasn’t around!”

“You’re dumb, you know that? She can’t have a boyfriend because he’s around. It’s not like with celebrities—he’ll never cheat on her. Can’t find a better deal than that.”

That was what the junior guys were talking about, and…

“I wonder who Shiba will pick for council members.”

“I’d say you’re jumping the gun…but you’re not. It’s a popularity contest every year. Nobody would be crazy enough to run against her, especially this year.”

“If the freshman Saegusa moves up to vice president, I wonder if Mitsui will be the treasurer.”

“Huh? Wouldn’t Big Brother Shiba be moving up?”

“‘Big Brother’? You know he’s younger than you.”

“Well, yeah, but doesn’t he, like, really feel like a big brother?”

“In that case, you might as well call him Brother like she does. I could get used to having a ‘brother’ like him.”

“All right, all right. Wouldn’t that mean Brother would become the treasurer? But nobody else can keep her in check, right?”

“Ahhh, I hope nothing like last year happens…”

…that was what the senior girls were talking about. Other, similar conversations could be heard from all over the cafeteria. The First High students’ interest was currently on the student council elections happening at the end of this week.

Of course, it would be another popularity contest this year, doubtless without any competitors.

And this year, there wouldn’t be any major themes for the general student council assembly, either, like the rule changes regarding the right to be elected to council positions. The male students were generally talking about how wonderful Miyuki would look during the speech assembly she’d definitely be speaking in, and the female students were focused on who she’d choose for the new members.

“Hear that, Tatsuya? They’re calling you Brother.”

“It’s bad manners to eavesdrop, Erika.”

Their conversations also reached the table of one of the related parties, Tatsuya. Not only their voices, actually. Nobody was shameless enough to obviously stare at him, but his antenna had picked up several stolen glances since coming here.

The group he was currently sitting with had five people: Tatsuya, Erika, Leo, Mizuki, and Mikihiko. Had Miyuki joined them, everyone would have been staring, and it would have been a real nuisance, so she’d held back and taken lunch in the student council room. Honoka and Shizuku had gone with her. It wasn’t as though Honoka had chosen friendship over love, though. She was also trying her best to avoid a situation where everyone would wind up staring at her.

“Tatsuya, are you not gonna try to be president this year?”

“No. And it’s not like I was in the running last year, either.”

Leo’s question was based on vote counts, and Tatsuya’s answer reemphasized that the votes he got last year were invalid. Void votes had been submitted in droves last year, and that was a letdown not only for Miyuki, who had been given disgraceful and embarrassing nicknames, but for Tatsuya as well.

“Well, I doubt anything like last year is going to happen again this year,” said Erika to intercede, maybe thinking it would be bad to get Tatsuya too worked up.

“There’s no way anyone’s crazy enough to interrupt Miyuki’s speech,” said Mikihiko, expressing his agreement in a profound tone.

“By the way, Tatsuya, who is Miyuki going to choose as the new members?”

The other three perked up at Mizuki’s question—and so did all the tables around them.

“Haven’t heard. We don’t talk much about that stuff at home.”

Tatsuya could feel waves of disappointment from several directions at his answer.

“Like I said, nothing has been decided yet. Please don’t rush me like that when the elections aren’t even over.”

Around the same time in the student council room, Miyuki was asked the same thing, and her answer was a frustrated one.

“Honoka, Miyuki’s not going to budge an inch at this point. You should give up.”

“Yeah… Sorry, Miyuki. I was being annoying.”

Thankfully, her good friend chiding her made Honoka, who’d already been faltering under Miyuki’s aura of displeasure, quickly hold up the white flag.

“…I was being a little harsh, too. I’m sorry, Honoka. I should perfectly understand why you’re concerned with where my brother will be moving,” Miyuki said as she cast a glance behind Honoka.

Following her gaze, Honoka turned around.

Pixie was there, having finished preparing their after-lunch tea.

“Urgh.”

Honoka’s face drew back. Shizuku lightly patted her shoulder.

When Honoka turned back around, Shizuku shook her head. “Too late for that, Honoka.”

Honoka hung her head in disappointment.

Azusa, Isori, and Kanon watched warmly, smiling painfully at the girl.

Izumi and Kasumi exchanged confused glances.

“Huh? Isn’t that Minami over there?”

“Oh, you’re right.”

As Mizuki and Erika made mystified faces, Tatsuya put a little astonishment into his voice. “Minami comes to the cafeteria with her own classmates sometimes, you know.”

She must have noticed them watching. Turning around with her tray in her hands, at the tail end of a group of (probably) classmates, Minami gave a bow. Tatsuya looked back to his two female friends.

“Yeah, guess so.”

“Yes, right.”

The two of them began to laugh a little, insincerely, before Erika tried to force through a change of topic. “By the way, Tatsuya, why aren’t you in the Thesis Competition?”

Tatsuya wasn’t exactly ignorant of their “expectations,” but Minami wasn’t a topic he would stubbornly stick to for a long time. He happily answered Erika’s question.

“No particular reason. I just didn’t make it in time.”

“Wait, what’s that mean?”

Mikihiko was probably the one with the most interest in this subject. He openly doubted Tatsuya’s answer, which meant he’d probably been listening in.

“It means just what it sounds like. Why…?”

Tatsuya tried to wrap things up with just that, but with all five people around him seeming to demand an explanation with their eyes, he changed course with good grace.

“After the stellar reactor experiment, I have a research theme I’ve been working on independently, but it’s not at a stage where I can present it yet.”

“Huh… Must be a pretty advanced topic, then,” said Leo, nodding deeply and letting out a leading sigh.

“I guess,” Tatsuya replied. “As for what it is—that’s a secret.”

He couldn’t possibly tell them he was developing combat magic utilizing FAE theory.

“Whaaat?” complained Erika, naturally.

“Erika, you shouldn’t push him,” Mizuki cut in.

“If he’s keeping it a secret, he must have a good reason for it,” Mikihiko added to both Erika and Leo. “Besides, even when he told us the magic theory behind something on the level of a stellar reactor, it wasn’t enough to sate our curiosity.”

Essentially, he was saying that even if Tatsuya gave a detailed explanation, they probably wouldn’t understand it anyway. But in terms of just intelligence, these two were no pushovers. Still, that was why neither Erika nor Leo argued against the idea; they understood, because they weren’t stupid, that acting strange and persisting would come back to bite them.

“By the way, Tatsuya, did they not ask you to be support?”

“Not yet anyway.”

“Kei is the leader this year, right? I thought you two were friends.”

“I’d obviously help if he asked, but I don’t think it’ll be my place this year.”

Rather than smiling and nodding (and lying), Tatsuya answered Erika honestly.

“Really? Why?” Mizuki wondered as well, tilting her head in confusion.

“Because they’re having it in Kyoto this year.”

“The Thesis Competition alternates between Yokohama and Kyoto,” Mikihiko explained for the group. “They have different judging tendencies. When it’s in Yokohama, they rate practical topics more highly, but in Kyoto, I hear they like purely theoretical themes better.”

Tatsuya nodded in agreement. “When it’s held in Kyoto, presentations about fundamental issues of magic, like the Cardinal Code hypothesis, tend to be ranked higher than ones about magic-using power systems and magic program development and activation sequence improvement for them.”

Finally looking convinced, Leo nodded several times. “So from your point of view, you wouldn’t be able to show off what you’re good at.”

“I feel like you’re still beyond high school level when it comes to purely theoretical fields, too…” Mizuki offered hesitantly, not seeming to buy it.

“Hmm. Maybe that makes it even harder for him.”

Rather than answering Mizuki, Erika simply said what came to mind.

“?”

“I doubt Kei would sulk or get jealous, but since their methods are totally different, it would probably be a real struggle just to reconcile them.”

“They’re that different?”

“Look—Kei’s the one who engraves seals on my CAD, right? I can kinda tell just because Tatsuya does maintenance on it sometimes. They’re helping the same spells, but their approaches are way different.”

“Oh… Right. Seal-based assistance is close to our ancient-style talisman arts.”

As his friends were saying whatever they wanted, leaving the central figure out, the bell for afternoon classes chimed.

Seven thirty PM. Usually a time when everyone would still be around the table after dinner. Today, though, as the virtual clock’s hands pointed to 7:25, Tatsuya withdrew into his room. And right now, using a voice-only telephone with enhanced security, he was calling a woman at her private number.

“Hello? Tatsuya? It’s Fujibayashi.”

This telephone diverted all of the resources that it would have used on image processing on a normal videophone to encryption, and it processed the high-load encoding with a speed that wouldn’t hamper their conversation.

“This is Shiba, ma’am. I apologize for calling so late.”

The reason he’d cut his standard evening time with Miyuki short was that he’d arranged to call Fujibayashi in advance.

“It’s rare for you to be the one to contact me. Anything wrong? Did something suddenly come up?”

“Something that suddenly requires promptness. Something with more importance than time.”

The meaningfully roundabout expression created a short pause.

“…For some reason, I don’t really want to know anymore.”

“I wouldn’t want to say this if I didn’t have to, either, ma’am.”

“…”

Fujibayashi used her silence to urge Tatsuya to continue. Still, it was doubtless that tonight, at least, Tatsuya’s tongue would not be affected by how Fujibayashi reacted.

“I’d like to request General Kudou’s assistance.”

Despite telling her he didn’t want to say this, he spoke his request with perfect fluidity.

“…You want my grandfather’s help?”

“Yes, ma’am. I don’t make this request to Second Lieutenant Fujibayashi, aide to the Independent Magic Battalion, but to the daughter of the Fujibayashi family and granddaughter of General Kudou. I’d like you to prepare a location for a personal meeting with the general.”

“Personal—related to your ‘work’ with the Yotsuba, I assume?”

This time, Tatsuya used his own silence to answer.

“I suppose I don’t have the option of refusing. Not after what happened last month.”

“I suppose not.”

Fujibayashi was taken aback and nearly let that fact slip into her voice. She’d been the one to suggest it, but she hadn’t thought he’d unabashedly admit this request for cooperation was also calling in a favor.

She’d need a few seconds before she said her next words.

Tatsuya was the one who restarted the conversation. “I don’t mean to make an impossible request, ma’am. In fact, I believe the general will gladly lend me his aid.”

“May I ask what this ‘job’ entails?”

“It’s to root out and capture an immortalist who escaped from Yokohama Chinatown.”

“…Ah. In that case, I can see why the Yotsuba would want to borrow my grandfather.”

He could sense through the telephone that Fujibayashi’s tension had calmed.

“You seem to know that the Yotsuba are struggling.”

The Yotsuba weren’t the ones trying to get Retsu Kudou’s help—it was Tatsuya personally. But he didn’t clarify Fujibayashi’s misunderstanding. The conversation seemed about to wrap up in his favor, and he didn’t want to give her needless information that might confuse the situation.

“The JDF is struggling, too, to tell the truth. If you’re going to take him on, Lieutenant Fujibayashi would greatly welcome it.”

Purposely referring to herself in third person was to get Tatsuya back a little for his earlier line. Still, for Tatsuya, this trifling wordplay didn’t even sting.

Fujibayashi had probably realized it had had no effect as well. She cleared her throat in an effort to eliminate the awkwardness in the air. And then, tone purposefully businesslike, she answered the young man’s request.

“All right. I’ll inquire as to my grandfather’s schedule. Should I reply by e-mail?”

“Go ahead. For the encryption, please use the Independent Magic Battalion’s.”

Tatsuya had only said this because of security considerations. But Fujibayashi grew suspicious—thinking that he was taking a dig at her over the blank-sender e-mail from the month before last.

“…Right,” Fujibayashi said, curtly hanging up, her attitude leaving Tatsuya wondering what on earth he’d said to offend her.

Feeling thirsty after his phone call, Tatsuya headed to the dining room. There, he found his sister drinking black tea by herself.

“Brother, would you like a drink?” she asked, quickly standing from her seat in front of the dining table.

“Yeah, I’m a little thirsty,” he answered honestly. He avoided asking after Minami; whether she was studying, cleaning, or bathing, it took only one look to know she wasn’t there, and it wasn’t like he needed anything from her.

“I’ll prepare something right away.”

Tatsuya would have been fine with water, but he didn’t voice an objection to the offer. He knew she liked taking care of him, and placing himself in her hands didn’t make him unhappy, at least. Just the opposite, in fact, so he had no reason to refuse.

“Please wait for a moment in the living room.”

Tatsuya, following his sister’s request, moved into the living room.

A little under five minutes of waiting on the sofa later, Miyuki appeared from the dining room, carrying two glasses of iced milk tea on a tray. He thought she’d just been drinking hot tea; she must have remade it, including enough for herself.

Miyuki placed the coasters and glasses on the sofa set’s glass coffee table without making so much as a tink. One in front of Tatsuya and one next to it…then Miyuki, as though it were her natural right—and doubtless she considered it such—took the seat next to him.

Tatsuya was sitting on a one-seater sofa, so today they couldn’t nestle up against each other. Miyuki, however, didn’t seem to find this disheartening. Giving a subtle smile, she put her mouth to the straw of her well-cooled iced milk tea at the same time her brother did to his.

Miyuki was the first one to remove her lips from the straw. Returning the glass to the table, once again with nary a sound, she shifted on the sofa and gazed at the side of her brother’s face.

Tatsuya noticed the gaze immediately. He put down the glass with a soft plink, after which he met her eyes.

“Your phone call earlier—it had to do with what we were talking about yesterday, didn’t it?”

When Tatsuya had withdrawn to his room, he’d told her his goal—to make a phone call—but he hadn’t said who he’d be calling or what for. But Miyuki seemed to have caught on. After yesterday, maybe the deduction wasn’t that difficult. Still, he was impressed that she knew.

“That’s right.”

“May I ask who it was you were calling?”

He wavered for a moment but, in the end, decided to answer honestly. “Second Lieutenant Fujibayashi.”

“…Brother, did you commission the Independent Magic Battalion’s assistance?” Miyuki wondered gently. Tatsuya shared her concern: of whether it was all right to allow the military’s intervention into Yotsuba affairs. But that was why he’d called Fujibayashi and not Kazama.

“No, what I asked Ms. Fujibayashi was if she could act as a go-between for me and General Kudou.”

“But is that not dangerous? Aren’t your communications with the unit censored?”

In this age, even soldiers were guaranteed freedom of private communication. Nevertheless, the technology to exchange highly compressed, ultrasonic wave data using a voice telephone device had been established over fifty years ago. To handle this, the phones set up in crucial facilities had censoring features on them to prevent information leakage. It was said this was for automatically cutting out all sound waves excluding those in audible range, but there had still been hardware inserted between the sender and the receiver that checked the sound waves passing through; you couldn’t deny suspicions that other functions had been added to them. Tatsuya, too, had been cautious and considerate of that point.

“It should be fine. I called the lieutenant’s private number. I doubt even Echelon III could eavesdrop on a line the Electron Sorceress used personally. Nothing to worry about,” he explained.

However, that was a careless remark that showed he hadn’t learned from the past:

“…Oh. Ms. Fujibayashi’s private number. I see.”

By the time he’d realized his mistake, it was too late. He just now remembered having struggled to pacify his sister after something similar had bent her out of shape last April.

“By the way, Brother, however did you acquire such a thing?”

Miyuki’s tone and expression both were exact replicas of the broadcasting room shut-in incident that had preceded the Blanche attacks. At the time, the tumult was already at their doorstep, so he’d managed to leave things unsettled, but…

How am I going to explain this?

Frankly speaking, Tatsuya didn’t have a single thing to be guilty about. It wasn’t only Fujibayashi—he knew Kazama’s private number, and Sanada’s, and Yamanaka’s, too. But he doubted Miyuki would be seriously convinced if he revealed that. She might pretend she was, but it would be sure to drag on behind her in her mind.

And so Tatsuya decided:

Persuading her would not come easily today.

As Tatsuya predicted, Miyuki’s mood was not easily mended. Nevertheless, she would never take it out on him or ignore him or anything like that; from a more worldly perspective, it didn’t even turn into anything that could be termed a sibling quarrel. Objectively speaking, Miyuki was simply sulking a little, but even so, Tatsuya exerted his utmost to “repairing his relationship” with his sister, and by Wednesday, two days later, they’d entirely reverted to the friendly siblings they always were.

And the current date was Friday, September 28. On this night, with student council elections finally coming tomorrow, a phone call from Fujibayashi came to Tatsuya’s house.

Saturday, September 29. This year, both the student council general assembly and student council elections ended without any trouble. To prevent invalid votes like last year, the election ceremony had adopted a system of giving students one-time-use, close-range wireless cards upon entering the hall, which they would then use to vote while they were seated. Like every year, there was only one nominee, so the cards had been prepared with two buttons: confidence and no confidence. With a firm push of a round symbol, their vote would be sent to the tabulator.

The electronic signals would send only once. That was why they were one-time use. The cards were a development of electronic tags, and though they were cheap, they were still more expensive than paper. Some, of course, weren’t sure a mere high school election needed to spend that much. But a company under the Kitayama family empire solved the cost issue, and so they’d gone with this method. In so doing, Shizuku’s family was steadily entrenching themselves in First High and other magical industrial and academic fields that had lagged behind in certain societal advancements.

Leaving aside such adult matters, as a result of the new form of electronic voting granting students instant vote-casting abilities, Miyuki, with an incredible 100 percent vote of confidence, became the student council president. Nobody had even considered voting no confidence as a joke—either out of adoration or out of fear… Both seemed possible, and it was hard to tell which it was.

“Anyway, to Miyuki getting elected student council president! Cheers!”

With Erika taking the lead, soft drink glasses were lifted high. The chorus of Cheers came from Miyuki’s family, friends, and underclassmen gathered in Einebrise—specifically Tatsuya, Leo, Mizuki, Mikihiko, Honoka, Shizuku, Minami, Izumi, Kasumi, and Kento. Kasumi had very little personal connection with Tatsuya’s group, but today she’d been dragged here against her will by Izumi.

“Well, I guess it was pretty much bound to happen.”

Nobody argued the remark Erika made right after the toast ended.

“But of course! Anyone other than her being First High student council president would be unthinkable! She has the ability worthy of being the representative of our school! The talent! The beauty! The gracefulness of demeanor! This result is none other than grace from the heavens!”

In exchange for nobody objecting, one underclassman grew very excited.

“You…think so?”

And Miyuki, whom she had closed in on, was very much backing away in her seat. Kasumi seemed to be ignoring her younger twin sister’s madness as hopeless as she sipped her drink aloofly.

“Miyuki, have you decided on your cabinet members?”

The one who bravely, or rather, in total disregard for Izumi, asked that question when everyone else—including even Tatsuya—hesitated to say anything, was Shizuku.

At her words, Izumi directed an even more passionate gaze at the local ice princess. Honoka seemed like she was on the edge of her seat, too, but her eyes were darting between Miyuki and Tatsuya.

Miyuki could feel their gazes, but she decided not to look at them—especially Izumi—and answered Shizuku’s question.

“I’m thinking of asking Izumi to be vice president.”

Izumi let out a cheer that was pretty much a shriek. Finally embarrassed, though, Kasumi broke her earlier show of indifference and covered Izumi’s mouth.

“I’m having trouble deciding on the others, though. I would like Honoka to help as well…” she said, glancing not at Honoka but at Tatsuya.

Perhaps sensing Miyuki’s hesitation, not only Shizuku but Honoka as well refrained from asking the same question again.

Despite certain overly excited female students, from a broader perspective, the party ended peacefully, respecting the shop’s atmosphere. And due to it being Saturday, the sun hadn’t gone down yet by the time they’d left. Still, once Tatsuya and the others arrived back at their house, the western sky had changed from madder red to a deeper indigo.

The food they’d ordered at Einebrise had been light fare, but they’d eaten quite a bit of it. Given that tomorrow was Sunday, Tatsuya, Miyuki, and Minami all decided to forgo dinner tonight.

There was a short kerfuffle between Miyuki and Minami as to who would make the tea, but Tatsuya gave the final word, saying they were celebrating Miyuki today. That brought her out of the kitchen and back into the living room; as if to make up for it, she led him to the three-seater and sat next to him at point-blank range.

When Minami entered the living room holding a tray and saw the two of them, her eyebrow twitched. Still, without saying anything and without making any more of an expression than that, she placed milk tea in front of Miyuki and coffee in front of Tatsuya, then stood next to the table.

Today, even Tatsuya didn’t tell her to sit down. In fact, he planned to release her from her chores, too, and let her go back to her room. But Miyuki apparently had something to talk to her about, and before she picked up her teacup, she spoke to her.

“Minami?”

“Yes, Big Sister Miyuki?”

“To tell you the truth, I’d like to have you in the student council as secretary.”

There was no conspicuous change in Minami’s face, but she tightened up, tensing. It didn’t take Tatsuya long to realize she did so to hold in her shock.

“…All right,” she answered very shortly, her voice not modest but stiff.

In truth, she probably felt opposed to joining the student council. But considering her mission as Guardian, she understood it would be useful in various ways to belong to it. The noncommittal response was an expression of that mental conflict.

“I see. You’d also be freed from the CAD carry restriction. You should probably become a student council member.”

“That’s right, Brother.”

Tatsuya supported Miyuki’s proposal, and Miyuki happily closed what little space was left between them.

Seeing her sibling masters going very close to zero distance, Minami realized that it wasn’t going to matter what she said.

Though Tatsuya may have begrudged it—and Miyuki the more so—the siblings’ day would not end after only a peaceful conversation like this. Once teatime was finished, Tatsuya used the same telephone from before in his room to make a call. The number he dialed was a direct line to the head of the Yotsuba. But Maya didn’t answer it.

“Mr. Tatsuya, I’m terribly sorry, but the mistress is currently indisposed.”

A surly explanation from Hayama. Seems like she’s pretending to be out, Tatsuya thought.

But that didn’t offend him. His business tonight was not something he needed to convey to Maya directly. It was enough to have an alibi—the truth—that he’d informed her in advance. If he could leave his message with Hayama, he could actually achieve his objective more smoothly than if he’d been talking to Maya.

“Then I’d like to inform her regarding the mission I received the other day.”

“I will hear it,” said Hayama, immediately nodding as though he’d predicted the request.

“I’d like to ask for the Kudou family’s help in searching for the target. I’ve already contacted the Fujibayashi family and made an appointment to meet with the previous Kudou head.”

“Oh…”

He couldn’t tell just from the voice whether Hayama was truly surprised or if he was just feigning it. Although, he wasn’t sure he was ever able to tell even when looking directly at the man’s face, either.

“You’ve decided to ask for General Kudou’s help rather than request assistance from the Independent Magic Battalion?”

“Wherever the original request came from, I decided it was better to avoid indebting myself to the JDF on a Yotsuba job.”

“And that you would indebt yourself to the Kudou?”

“It’s highly likely this Zhou person is allied with the Traditionalists, right? If he is, it’s a good idea to borrow the Nines’ help—they’ve been opposed to the Traditionalists for a long time. And the Kudou have a personal favor to pay back to me from the incident last month. Whether we owe them or they owe us, if things go on for too long, we’ll be stuck in a relationship. I thought it would be best to settle accounts before that happened.”

He heard Hayama’s jolly laughter through the receiver. He must have seriously thought it was funny. I wasn’t trying to amuse the crowd, here, thought Tatsuya in a wet-blanket way as he waited for Hayama to reply.

“You’re so young, Mr. Tatsuya, but you understand the subtleties of society quite well.”

Perhaps a benefit of his age, Hayama immediately recovered from his outburst of laughter. Still, though, he wasn’t trying to hide how amused he was.

“You’re right. Asking for the Kudou’s aid is a wise choice for several reasons. Very well, then. I’ll make sure the mistress knows that.”

“Thank you.” Tatsuya bowed to the telephone, even though he knew he wasn’t visible.

“You don’t need to relay every condition for obtaining their assistance to us. The mistress has told me to leave matters in this affair up to your discretion, whether it’s with the JDF or other Clans.”

After dropping that huge bomb at the very end, the butler hung up.

Hayama, who had been talking to Tatsuya with the receiver on speaker mode, put down the phone and bowed deeply to the person on the other side of the desk.

“Mistress, it is as you’ve heard.”

Tatsuya’s guess that Maya was pretending to be out had been correct. But even he hadn’t imagined she would be in the same room, listening in on him.

Maya had been holding her mouth shut painfully. It seemed she was having great trouble stifling laughter. Realizing, perhaps, at Hayama’s address that the call was over, she broke out laughing in a voice unbefitting a noblewoman.

Even faced with his mistress’s somewhat unrefined behavior, Hayama’s attitude remained modest. Not only did he not remonstrate her—his eyes, directed at Maya, didn’t even have a hint of criticism in them.

But then, maybe because she felt uncomfortable under his unimpressionable gaze, Maya’s laughter soon faded out.

“I’m sorry, Hayama. Tatsuya just says the most adorable things. I couldn’t help myself.” Maya dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief to wipe up the tiny tears that had formed. And then her expression shifted into one of complete seriousness. “Who on earth taught that boy such twisted wisdom?” she wondered, still serious, tilting her head.

“I believe what Mr. Tatsuya said is not mistaken…” Hayama explained.

“In one aspect, he’s right. But it’s not normal.” Whether or not it was because her nephew had been surprisingly defended, Maya’s tone suddenly turned less interested.

“Normally, you would try to build bonds through owing and repaying favors.”

“Perhaps Mr. Tatsuya thought it unnecessary to have that bond.”

“He’s so young.”

Hayama offered nothing to those words. Still, sensing that he was critical of her banter, she decided to change the topic.

“By the way, how goes the search for Gongjin Zhou? Have you found any new leads?”

Despite the sudden conversational shift, Hayama’s answer was fluid. “No new leads, Mistress. The last we saw of him was when we allowed him to escape after the small battle at the end of last month, next to Sanzen-in Temple in Kyoto.”

“That’s where the trail has gone dry, then,” she muttered bitterly. “I doubt a famous temple like Sanzen-in would accommodate foreign magicians trying to bring this nation harm… The Traditionalists must be working behind the scenes again.”

Banding together and transcending schools and styles for the protection of ancient magic traditions—it sounded good when you put it that way. In reality, however, even though the Traditionalists willingly participated in old Lab Nine, the organization of ancient magicians harbored misplaced resentment toward the families of the current Nine for the childish reason of not having been given their desired outcome. Now they engaged in indiscriminate, disorderly, harassing, hostile actions toward them. Maya hated them in a different way than the families of the Nine: for their infantile mentality.

“Mistress, should we not relay this information to Mr. Tatsuya?”

“No need. We have Mitsugu doing an exhaustive search of the Oohara region, right? Besides, he wouldn’t stay very long in the same place.”

Hayama gave a wordless bow to his master’s remark.

Tatsuya’s life lately had fallen into a pattern: at night, real-time development (i.e. practice) of the new spell at Yakumo’s temple; sleep; early-morning training; and after that, school if it was a weekday or theoretical development of the new spell if it was a holiday.

Today, September 30, was a Sunday. Once again, after breakfast, he holed up in the basement laboratory and poured his efforts into resolving the points of issue with the new spell.

“…No problems in the baryon-extraction process. If dismantling was all I had to do, it would be easy—and I’ve gotten the speed and uniformity up to the required standards.”

Words murmured to himself, not accidentally but purposefully. Right now, Tatsuya was in such a corner that he had to speak aloud like this to get his ideas in order.

“The movement-type spell that comes after it doesn’t have a problem, either. It’s essentially the same as gas movement. I could use Lorentz force like Lina, but considering FAE’s properties, it would be faster to move it directly with magic.”

Tatsuya heaved a sigh. In the end, this was his only conclusion:

“The key must be the mechanism for finishing the activation of the movement-type magic within a short enough time for FAE to have meaning.”

After using dismantling magic, he had to complete the movement-type magic in an extremely short period of time, before the laws of nature regained their compelling force. If he just had to output a magic program, he actually had an advantage over regular magicians because he had flash casting. But to complete the spell, he’d need influence. He’d never had any more influence than he needed for Dismantle and Regenerate—and that was the problem.

Feeling the need for a change in pace, and since it was lunchtime anyway, Tatsuya decided to go up to the first floor.

It wasn’t long after he finished climbing the stairs that he sensed the abnormality. The presence of something inhuman looking at the inside of the house.

A compound form? No, a synthetic spirit?

Synthetic spirit was the modern magic name referring to certain kinds of shiki (like shikigami or shiki demons). Spirits were psionic information bodies that lingered in the Idea even after their corresponding phenomenon had passed, becoming isolated. Synthetic spirits, then, were isolated information bodies brought forth and created by artificially inducing this spirit creation process, mainly with ancient magic techniques. However, not all shiki—isolated information bodies able to be employed toward a directed purpose—came about as a result of this method. In fact, it was more common to capture an isolated psionic information body possessing the core of a pushion information body that had occurred naturally, and then simply use that.

This isolated information body was stopped in midair, stuck to the lengthwise surface of the wall around the house. It was blocked by the same defensive spell used on First High’s outer wall, seemingly unable to enter. Nevertheless…

No idea what kind of data that thing’s gotten.

Tatsuya didn’t believe he knew every magical technique under the sun. He couldn’t ignore the chance that this shiki had functions he didn’t know about and had searched the inside of the house from outside the defensive spell.

He set his eyes on the synthetic spirit again, through the house’s walls, analyzing its structural information.

An isolated information body constructed only of psions…

If it had no pushion information body core, it was indeed a synthetic spirit. In which case, he could dismantle it completely the same way he could with a magic program.

Tatsuya reached out with his right hand toward the synthetic spirit. He held no CAD.

[Variable input: target synthetic spirit’s structural information]

A process to construct a magic program, as a replacement for an activation sequence that would be output by a CAD, surged from the data sector in Tatsuya’s magic-calculation region, then was sent into its execution sector.

[Magic program projection: Dismantle, activate]

An invisible flash of light burst out.

The synthetic spirit’s structural information binding was completely split apart, and its psionic information body was reduced to a clump of chaotic psions, swallowed into the information dimension—the Idea.

As soon as he opened the living room door, Miyuki pressed him for answers.

“Brother, what was that just now?”

Her pressing, though, wasn’t out of anger; the look on her face was one of concern.

“You saw that?” breathed Tatsuya in admiration.

Miyuki must have picked up on the fact that he’d used Dismantle. Being impressed with someone noticing magic he’d used was, in another light, a show of pride in believing his magic couldn’t easily be noticed, but this was not conceit. In fact, Minami, who had followed after Miyuki, didn’t seem to understand what they were talking about.

“I didn’t perceive it clearly enough to say I saw it, but…I had a feeling you’d just used Dismantle.”

“Yeah. A synthetic spirit was spying on the house,” explained Tatsuya, nodding; he hadn’t intended to tell her personally, but he also hadn’t intended to hide it from her. “I think the job I took on the other day was the reason.”

“You mean this was the doing of—Gongjin Zhou, was it?”

“It was probably one of his subordinates or someone trying to protect him,” Tatsuya explained, giving an uncharacteristically obvious sigh. “They must have tailed Fumiya and Ayako.”

Miyuki and Minami widened their eyes at that.

“Wait… I can’t believe they would let that happen with Ayako there.”

Miyuki’s shock was founded in her belief that his guess was absolutely true, but Minami didn’t look like she had room to doubt that, either.

“Probably on purpose.”

“Ayako purposely led the enemy to our house?!”

Psions began to swirl around Miyuki, the symptom of a magical misfiring.

But Miyuki had matured, too. Before her unconscious magic could manifest, it was held in check by her will. Tatsuya watched as this happened, his eyes narrowed in approval.

“Not exactly, I think. What probably happened was that Ayako… Actually, both her and Fumiya were forbidden from throwing them off or contacting them in any way.”

Miyuki didn’t completely regain her calm upon hearing her brother’s opinion, but she did get some of it back. “I suppose…we don’t even need to think about who forbade them. But why in the world would she do such a thing?”

“We won’t know the truth unless we ask, but she might intend to use me as bait.”

“As bait?!”

Miyuki was naturally angry. Tatsuya smiled. “Miyuki, don’t be so mad. I just said we won’t know the truth unless we ask.”

“But…”

Miyuki was already in tunnel vision—anything other than that possibility was unthinkable. But Tatsuya didn’t chide her for that.

“And it’s a logical move to use me as bait. We’re up against someone strong enough to deal a major wound to Mitsugu Kuroba. We still don’t know everything he has up his sleeve, either. If you look at it tactically, she’s not mistaken to place me in the line of fire—I’d never ultimately be hurt. So don’t be upset,” he said, still smiling.

“Brother!”

But that answer, even more so than the stuff about being bait, was intolerable for Miyuki.

“Please do not speak in such self-neglecting tones! You must know it is not enough for you to simply not die or not have any lasting wounds!”

Her unexpected show of determination left no room for Tatsuya to make excuses.

“And above all, I beg you to consider how I would feel if I learned you were hurt even a little bit!”

“…Sorry,” managed Tatsuya in apology. “Minami, sorry for making you wait. Lunch is ready, isn’t it?” he asked her, trying to change the subject.

“Yes, Big Brother Tatsuya. Big Sister Miyuki, please come to the dining room as well.”

The fact that Minami didn’t consider doing anything like teasing Tatsuya even a little pointed to how she really was a good, honest person.

At the exact time Tatsuya dismantled the synthetic spirit, or shikigami…

“Whoa!”

In a small park about five hundred meters away from Tatsuya’s house, a man around thirty sitting on a bench suddenly cried out in surprise.

The man sitting next to him frantically looked around, left and right. The perception-blocking field he had up was working properly. Though he knew nobody would perceive them and that nobody would remember their voices, he still lowered his own and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“The shikigami was erased…”

“Erased? Not returned or stolen?”

The first man shook his head several times as if to say he didn’t understand. “I suddenly lost contact with it.”

“You mean the person in that house used a dispeller?”

“No! …Well, I don’t know.” His bewilderment reaching a peak, the man gave a squeal before settling down somewhat. “I didn’t feel magic being used. You didn’t, either, did you?”

“Well, no, I suppose not…”

These two were the ancient magicians probing Tatsuya’s house, each with his own role. One of them controlled the shikigami, and the other ensured safety. In order to prevent any damage from a “rebound,” the one keeping watch had used a bounded-field spell and also had up a magical radar that would sense the initial signs of magic.

“But a shikigami would never vanish naturally without a spell to influence it, would it? And I doubt you’d mess up controlling it.”

“Of course not! But…”

Giving another perplexed look, the man shook his head, slightly downcast.

And then a shadow suddenly fell across the ground where his eyes were looking.

The two men let out a cry. Their shock was at the figure who had clearly perceived them and approached, despite the one man having put up a field that would prevent anyone from coming close. But upon seeing the person clearly, the men’s shock changed to caution and combativeness.

They were aware of the amicable relationship between the Shiba siblings and the Ninefold Temple. The name of its head priest, Yakumo Kokonoe, was like thunder in its fame, and it had been engraved upon their minds before they’d even undertaken this mission. They glanced at each other for a moment, then decided to run away rather than take the initiative.

The instant they began to rise, the monk standing in front of them rang a vajra bell, as though he’d been waiting for it.

The clear tone rang out from three directions around the pair.

Clearly taken aback, the man who’d been sitting on the right looked to his right, and the man who’d been sitting on the left looked to his left.

Two other monks, looking almost like twins to the one in front, were shaking vajra bells in the exact same way.

As the two men were getting up, the strength left their legs.

By the time they realized they were under a spell, the greater part of their consciousnesses had already faded.

Tatsuya, who had visited the Ninefold Temple again that night to use its underground training facility, was invited into a monk’s room shortly after arriving. It was the room he’d used for discussion during the Parasidoll incident. As he took a seat, Yakumo began to speak without any preface.

“Seems you’re wrapped up in another troublesome matter.”

With just that, Tatsuya realized he was talking about the shikigami from earlier that day. “I’m sorry, Master. Did I make work for you?”

Now that he thought about it, a long-range search spell being used in the next town over, in what was basically their backyard, was not something Yakumo—or rather, his disciples—would sit back and allow to happen unopposed.

“I have quite a few hot-blooded disciples, you see,” said Yakumo with a pained grin, an indirect affirmation of Tatsuya’s question. “What happened this time?”

Tatsuya vacillated over how he should answer or if he should even answer at all. But only for a brief moment. He decided to take the middle ground between answering and refusing to answer.

“I took on a job, and I think this trouble was related to it.”

“A job? From Kazama?”

“No, not from the military.”

Yakumo’s eyes narrowed into a smile. And as they did, a strong light shone from them. “May I ask the details?”

“It will probably have me going to the Kyoto area. I’d like to settle things myself without bothering you with this, Master.”

The corners of Yakumo’s lips turned up more. His eyes softened, and his subtle smile become a real one. “You can speak your mind. I have something of a connection with the Traditionalists myself.”

Tatsuya was surprised he would come out and mention them by name, but because of that, he was now sure the casters who had been probing his house had fallen into Yakumo’s hands.

“So the ancient magician group that people call the Traditionalists was related to this after all?”

“They’re not exactly called that—they just call themselves that. Though…”

Yakumo being a stickler on that point struck Tatsuya as amusing, but he refrained from letting it show. “All the more reason I can’t ask for your help on this, Master. Infighting among ancient magicians would be no laughing matter.”

Many among the nation’s ancient magicians reacted to the moniker Traditionalist with more than displeasure. The ones calling themselves that in the first place hadn’t exactly remained loyal to the traditional arts—they were the ones who had participated in old Lab Nine, seeking modern magic know-how. For spell casters who strictly adhered to tradition, seeing those opportunists calling themselves traditional seemed a shameless act. Many casters involved with shadier work also belonged to the Traditionalists, so suggestions that the Traditionalists needed to be purged were certainly more than whispers among members of publicly known ancient magic groups.

“Well, well. It seems I’m still a long way from enlightenment.” Perhaps realizing that he’d been feeling uncharacteristically belligerent, Yakumo gave an embarrassed grin.

“By the way, you’re keeping the guys who were peeping on the house here, right? I have one or two things I’d like to ask them, if it’s okay.”

“I don’t think that would work right now.”

Yakumo’s answer to Tatsuya’s question came with a smile that would freeze the pit of your stomach.

“They’re a little tired at the moment. I have them resting somewhere quiet.”

Tatsuya, of course, wouldn’t let that degree of pressure bowl him over. Insincere smile still on his face, he continued his inquiry, tone casual. “I see. Then would you be able to tell me their identities, at least?”

“Sure. They were feral magicians employed by the Traditionalists.”

“Feral?” repeated Tatsuya dubiously. “You mean freelancers?”

“You could call them that.”

“I didn’t know we had them in Japan.”

Magicians were a rare human resource. Nations were exhaustive in their management of them, from children to the elderly, from upstanding citizens to criminals. Tatsuya himself was an exception, in a way, removed from public management—but people like him were, for the most part, assets the Twenty-Eight kept as part of their private combat force; one could say the nation was indirectly managing them through the Ten Master Clans system. The fact that there were magicians with practical magic capabilities who weren’t part of any organization came as a novel surprise.

“Well, sure. There’s quite a few cases where someone can’t learn modern magic, but they still learn to use a specific spell.”

“…Does that mean there are a lot of ancient-style freelancing magicians?”

“I couldn’t tell you a precise number, but I believe there’s more than a few of them.”

The next morning, Tatsuya was exactly the same as he always was. Neither Miyuki nor Minami could tell whatsoever what sort of conversation he’d had with Yakumo the night before. But his being no different from usual was also a behavior that let them feel relieved that their safety had been somehow ensured.

Tatsuya himself, however, was far from relieved. He wasn’t the type to find relief with only a single layer of insurance.

After classes had ended, he was in the student council room. Since they had to go to the Kudou estate in Ikoma today at six, Miyuki had just excused herself for personal matters, leaving the remaining work to Honoka and Izumi.

“Shizuku,” Tatsuya said to his classmate, who had come to hang out.

“What?”

The response was unfriendly, but Tatsuya knew that didn’t mean Shizuku herself was being unfriendly, so it didn’t bother him. “Would you mind having Honoka stay over for a while?”

“Huh?!”

The one who raised her voice was Honoka; Shizuku only frowned a little. “Why?”

“Because it might be dangerous to be alone.”

“…Umm, what are you talking about?” asked Honoka, face pale with unease.

Tatsuya, of course, intended to explain his reasoning, insofar as was possible. “We were attacked yesterday when we got out of the station.”

“What?! Was anyone hurt?!” Izumi asked immediately, her voice loud. She turned to Miyuki.

“We’re fine. Neither I, nor Brother, nor Minami suffered even a scratch.”

Izumi put a hand to her chest and breathed a sigh of relief at Miyuki’s smile, then slowly returned to her seat.

“Like Miyuki said, nobody was hurt. But we don’t know what was behind the attack.”

That was half a lie. But the other half was truth, and in this case, that was more important.

“And the police?” asked Shizuku.

“They haven’t contacted us, so I believe they are probably still investigating it,” replied Miyuki.

“Then you don’t know who it was?”

“Only that they were ancient magicians.”

“That’s it? Any other ideas?”

“Like Brother said, we don’t know why they attacked us.”

“Then maybe…” Honoka, who had been listening to Shizuku and Miyuki’s exchange, began thinking in the direction Tatsuya wanted: “Was there a chance they weren’t after you personally, and they only attacked because you were in First High’s student council?”

Tatsuya didn’t exactly want to frighten Honoka, either, but in this situation, it was better that she remained cautious. “We don’t know. But as I said before, I think it’s best to avoid being alone.”

“All right.” Shizuku put a hand on Honoka’s trembling shoulder. “Honoka, please come to my house today.”

“…Okay, I will. I have to get ready, so can I leave with them?”

“That’s fine.”

Honoka was hesitant, seeming resistant to suddenly stay with someone else—even if it was a good friend—but in the end, she took Shizuku up on her goodwill and Tatsuya up on his advice.

Tatsuya’s secret maneuvers didn’t end there.

“…Anyway, we don’t know who’s after us in this situation.”

“Meaning it could be related to the Thesis Competition, but it also might not be.”

After telling Miyuki and Minami to wait up for him, Tatsuya went and gave the same mix of truth and lies to Mikihiko. Mikihiko had come to observe Isori’s work in the lecture hall again today, in addition to serving as a guard. His question to Tatsuya’s edited version of the story was just something to keep the conversation going.

“That’s right. As long as we don’t know their reasons, we can’t narrow down the target, either.”

It didn’t seem like Mikihiko was doubting what Tatsuya was saying. To defend Mikihiko a bit here, this was less an expression of kindness toward others and more because he’d accepted the weight of the fact that a First High student had been attacked at this particular time.

“Should we send more bodyguards?”

“No, Nakajou has enough people with her, and with the Isori/Chiyoda and Minakami/Kirihara pairings, they should be able to drive off most opponents.”

Leo, who had been listening to their conversation in silence, nodded several times. “More importantly, my concern is you guys and Mizuki. You’re the ones I’m closest to at First High.”

At the words closest to, the two young men looked slightly embarrassed.

On the other hand, the only one whose harsh expression remained, without even a smile, was the lone woman in the group, Erika. “I’ll be fine. Miki goes without saying…and I guess Leo will be okay, too.”

“I’m more worried about you,” Leo said, shooting the insult back. “You are a woman, despite everything else.”

But Erika’s response was different from usual: “Yeah. Like this moron says, I’m more worried about Mizuki. In terms of combat power, she’s just a regular girl.”

As if thinking the same thing, Mikihiko nodded at her remark, his expression nervous. “Yeah…”

“…Tatsuya, I’ll stick with Mizuki for a while,” Erika said. “Would leaving school together be enough?”

The three men all shook their heads.

“I just said you’re a woman, too, remember?” Leo insisted.

“No matter how skilled you are, it’s dangerous. They’re using ancient magic. I doubt you’d lose if you fought them head-on, but we don’t know what kind of tricks they’ll use. Right, Tatsuya?”

“I agree with Mikihiko. You’d be fine protecting yourself, but if you need to protect Mizuki, you’d have trouble.”

Leo’s simple objection aside—though his may have been the most effective—Mikihiko’s and Tatsuya’s views were reasonable, too, so Erika didn’t press the point.

“…Then you go with her, Miki.”

“What?!”

Erika didn’t forget to toss in an explosive counterattack, though.

“Yeah… Mikihiko, can I ask you to do that?”

“Huh? I…but—”

“Make sure to take her all the way to her house. And don’t forget to say hello to her parents, either. If you don’t, they could mistake you for a stalker.”

“Ugh…”

Mikihiko understood the necessity. But on an emotional level, he was very hesitant. Especially to the say hello to her parents part.

“I’ll tell Mizuki about it,” Erika said.

“All right, thanks,” Tatsuya added.

It wasn’t exactly a struggle between logic and emotion.

“…Fine. It would be too late if I said yes after something happened.”

Quashing his embarrassment and awkwardness under a noble pretext, Mikihiko decided to be straightforward.

After he finished taking all the usual measures, Tatsuya headed for Ikoma with Miyuki and Minami in tow. They’d be taking the same linear train from last time to Nara, then going by cabinet the rest of the way. Save for the spots where the ruins and historical buildings were concentrated, the Keihanshin region was equipped with a transportation network that rivaled the Tokyo metropolitan area’s.

The linear train was a hit once again with the two women of his home—enough to make Tatsuya consider traveling out a little farther next time. Privately looking forward to that, they headed from the eastern foot of Mount Ikoma toward the Kudou estate.

The Ten Master Clans had never had a custom of amiable visits to one another. At most, it was men and women of age looking for relationships and marriage, and even then, that wasn’t especially frequent from a normal viewpoint. Tatsuya and Miyuki, who were hiding their connection to the Yotsuba family, had particularly few opportunities of that nature. What that all meant was that this was naturally the first time they’d visited the Kudou estate, but their commuter had a reliable GPS it seemed.

When they arrived, it was 5:55, almost exactly as planned.

They alighted from the commuter and rang the doorbell. When the intercom came on, it wasn’t a servant but Fujibayashi.

“Welcome, Tatsuya. And Miyuki and Minami, too. I’m happy you all made it.”

“Thank you for going along with all this.”

That had been the plan right from the outset, but with Fujibayashi having come to Ikoma from Tokyo ahead of them so that she could welcome them here, even Tatsuya had to show his gratitude.

“Don’t worry about it. Don’t be shy—come on in.”

Having come to greet them at the gate, Fujibayashi invited the three of them inside with a smile.

Indeed, the front yard would have needed guiding through if you weren’t Tatsuya with his sort of clairvoyant abilities. Minami looked impressed, her eyes darting left and right. Miyuki’s gaze was politely fixed to her brother’s back, but she seemed at least a little moved by the verdant walls jumping into the corners of her vision.

The path from the Kudou estate gate to the front door was a maze made of hedge walls over two meters tall. They probably had a vehicle entrance elsewhere, although that, too, doubtlessly had some sort of trick to it. If the people entrance was a maze consisting of magical patterns, the vehicle entrance being a free pass was an impossibility.

This mansion is like a fortress…

Seen from outside the gate, it was certainly extravagant, but in all other respects it was a perfectly normal three-story Western-style construction.

Take one step inside the gate, though, and it was a house of tricks that would repel uninvited guests. Or perhaps it had been a lord’s mansion once, before being formally built into a fortress.

“I bet you’re surprised at how excessive it is.” Fujibayashi smiled, apparently sensing that Tatsuya was feeling appalled.

“This wasn’t something we made to defend against Traditionalist attacks. We’ve been building up this mansion’s defenses a little at a time ever since it was built, incorporating research results from old Lab Nine. Taking up residence in a mansion here was a decision made by the government at the time. And do you know why?” she asked, saying it like she was asking a child a riddle.

Tatsuya didn’t know what answer she was looking for, whether he should say he didn’t know or answer correctly, but he wasn’t exactly brimming with hospitality. “I hear it was to keep watch over Osaka.”

“How dull… You’re right.”

She really is like a little kid with a secret sometimes, Tatsuya thought when he saw how disappointed she was. This time, he pegged his thought as one to keep to himself.

“Brother, what were they watching over in Osaka?”

Still, there was a reason Fujibayashi had asked with such a look of triumph—Tatsuya’s knowledge wasn’t commonplace.

Though Miyuki had asked her brother, this time, Fujibayashi seized upon the chance. “Since Osaka is an international industrial city, it’s tolerant toward foreigners visiting and easy to find housing in. There will always be spies that will slip through surveillance, so if some incident were to happen, it was easy to lose the initiative.”

“And this was to solve that?”

“Yes. Spy magicians working behind the scenes is one of the wickedest nightmares in the minds of politicians. With old Lab Nine being such a success story, the Kudou family was given the mission of handling the foreign magician operatives running rampant.”

Miyuki pretended to be convinced by that explanation. But it still seemed like questions remained.

“You don’t need to hold back, Miyuki,” prompted Fujibayashi, realizing that as well.

“Thank you. I don’t believe it is very important, but… If the mission was to watch spies who infiltrated Osaka, I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be preferable to establish a base on the western side of Mount Ikoma instead of the eastern?”

For Fujibayashi, that casual question pricked a painful spot.

As she frowned, at a loss for words, the answering baton passed to Tatsuya.

“Being too close presents the danger of being incorporated into all of it.”

“You mean betrayal?!” Miyuki gasped.

“No, only that the politicians thought that way.”

The maze came to an end, and now the front door was visible. The conversation on how politicians viewed magicians ended without being dug into any further.

Retsu Kudou was already waiting in the reception room, although the current time was 5:59. Given that Tatsuya’s group wasn’t actually late, he had no intention of apologizing, and he didn’t actually feel any diffidence, either.

Faced with a most senior member of Japan’s magic world, Tatsuya’s mind and body were perfectly normal—

“Thank you very much for making time for us today, sir.”

—so normal that it was Retsu who gave a slight, pained smile at the pure, 100-percent formality.

“It has been a while. We haven’t met face-to-face since last summer, have we?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you for your advice at the time regarding the Electron Goldworm.”

“Not at all…” Hesitation appeared on Retsu’s face, but he overcame it momentarily. “Normally, I would have no obligation to appear before you, but you said you wanted to see me. I am happy we could meet again.”

“I’m much obliged, sir.”

After Tatsuya bowed, Retsu waved a hand to stop Tatsuya before he could continue the diplomatic exchange. “Shiba, you may think it self-satisfied of me, but first I’d like you to allow me to thank you. I thought through and was prepared to do what I did during the Parasidoll incident. As the defeated, I’ve no intention of making excuses, but nor do I intend to apologize. I do, however, feel sincerely sorry for causing trouble and distress for you.”

Retsu lowered his head deeply—while still sitting on the cushioned reception sofa. Tatsuya and Miyuki watched with unresisting looks; only Minami, who stood waiting behind Miyuki, glared at him with a cool, damp light in her eyes.

“I’m in no position to ask your forgiveness, but I do ask for at least this chance to apologize.”

“General, please raise your head,” answered Tatsuya, his voice sounding grateful. “Everyone has their own ideas on what is best. Even I, as young as I am, can understand a simple concept like that. I wasn’t able to tolerate what you were trying to do back then, General, but I don’t intend to reject your idea itself, that we must develop unmanned magical weapons.”

“…You do me a great service by saying so.” Raising his head, Retsu met Tatsuya’s gaze. They each peered into the other’s eyes.

It was Retsu who resumed the conversation, albeit at a delay. “I’ve heard about your business here from Kyouko,” he said. “The capture of Gongjin Zhou. This is a mission handed down by Maya—by Lady Yotsuba, yes?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

Miyuki had been standing next to Tatsuya, elegantly restrained, but inside, she reeled at the surprise. Sure, it was highly likely that Retsu Kudou knew about their circumstances—but she hadn’t predicted her brother would so easily admit to his connection with Maya.

“Would you happen to know who came to Lady Yotsuba with that request?”

“No, sir. I do not, and I believe it’s not necessary that I know.”

“Then you will accept being a playing piece for the Yotsuba?”

Retsu’s question seemed to test him—actually, it probably was a test—and Tatsuya once again said no, his poker face never changing. “Because I know it was best to keep me in the dark, sir.”

Seeing that Tatsuya didn’t seem to be bluffing, Retsu breathed a sigh. “I see… Then you even know of that person.”

Tatsuya didn’t answer. His attitude said No comment.

“It appears Miyuki doesn’t know… No, I apologize. I’ve said something foolish.” Retsu looked at the siblings in turn, then sighed again. “The Ten Master Clans are bound by rules established during the Clans Conference. One of those rules states that, excluding emergency situations, the Clans cannot conspire or cooperate without first going through the Conference.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tatsuya didn’t know the exact rules of the Clans Conference. It was the first time he’d heard of that rule, so he only agreed and nodded without giving any critical commentary.

“As a member of the Kudou family, I cannot accept the Yotsuba’s request for help. So in this case, I believe I will accept Tatsuya Shiba’s personal request as Retsu Kudou.”

““Thank you, sir,”” Tatsuya and Miyuki offered in unison.

For her part, Miyuki gave a modest smile, while Tatsuya’s face was still carefully devoid of emotion.

The meeting with Retsu Kudou ended before even ten minutes had passed, but it had been satisfying for Tatsuya. The whole accepting the request as an individual thing was an empty principle, but he’d gotten the promise that Retsu would ask personal friends for help as well. It was actually beneficial it hadn’t turned into an even longer conversation.

After withdrawing from Retsu’s presence, the three of them were invited by Fujibayashi to eat together. It wasn’t a dinner where they’d mingle with the current head of the Kudou, but a light meal—a show of consideration on her part. Tatsuya gratefully accepted the invitation.

Guided to a casual room among the Kudou estate’s many dining rooms, which seemed to be for children—not in the sense of small children, but a dining room for minors who had been brought together by their parents to deepen relationships with one another—they engaged in a bit of friendly chitchat while waiting for food to be brought in. Then everyone heard soft knocking and turned to look at the door.

“Come in,” called Fujibayashi.

The door opened politely.

“Excuse me. Grandfather told me to ask if I could join you all…”

The one who appeared was a boy about their age. His beautiful face seemed lost.

Minami sucked in her breath at the boy’s unworldly looks. He was so handsome that even Tatsuya couldn’t help but gaze in wonder.

He was utterly fey. In a word, this young man was the archetypal pretty boy.

Tatsuya knew of only one person who possessed a beauty equal to this boy.

And she, Miyuki, the archetypal beauty, stared at her counterpart, at a loss for words.

“Minoru, how long are you going to stand there?”

With a word from Fujibayashi, the fetters binding the young man and Miyuki dissolved.

“Sorry!”

The young man seemed appropriately flustered for his age. He walked over next to Fujibayashi, stopping across the table from Tatsuya and the other two.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” said the boy in a voice that was still somewhat ruffled as he began to introduce himself. “I’m Minoru Kudou, youngest son of the current Kudou head, Makoto Kudou, freshman at Second High. Tatsuya Shiba, Miyuki Shiba, Minami Sakurai—it’s an honor to meet you.”

When he suddenly said her name, Minami’s face reddened. Surprise wasn’t the only thing showing on her face.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Tatsuya Shiba,” said Tatsuya, rising and responding to Minoru’s greeting.

“I’m his younger sister, Miyuki. I see you know who we are, Minoru.”

Without a moment’s delay, Miyuki stood and smiled at Minoru. Both Tatsuya and Miyuki had spoken to Minoru, whom they were just meeting, in a friendly attitude, as though they harbored no sense of caution whatsoever.

In contrast to them, Minoru looked like he was sincerely shy about it. With his cheeks red, his almost mystical impression gave way to a more companionable image, but it didn’t change the fact that he was a pretty boy deserving of the prefix super.

“I had the pleasure of watching you all during the Nine School Competition. Oh—and please call me Minoru. I’m younger than you, so I would appreciate it if you talked to me informally.”

His looks rivaled Miyuki’s, but his surface personality seemed more normal than hers. He was the youngest child of the current head, so he probably hadn’t been raised for succession and was just a little softer around the edges for it.

“Then I’ll do just that,” said Miyuki, giving him a sweet smile and causing Minoru to avert his eyes in embarrassment.

That was when Minami finally restarted. “I’m terribly sorry!”

With a clatter, Minami stood. It would have been hard to call the act proper manners, but she didn’t currently have the ability to care about that.

“I should have already introduced myself! I am Minami Sakurai. It is quite a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lord Minoru.”

“Ah, no, it’s fine. But if you can, I’d rather you not call me lord…”

Minoru returned Minami’s tense, rigid attitude with an uncomfortable look.

“Sorry about that, Minoru, but this is kind of a habit of hers,” Tatsuya explained. “It’s just her nature. Would you mind overlooking it?”

But now that he’d assumed a humble position toward Tatsuya, this wasn’t something Minoru could strongly insist on.

“Oh. If you insist, I suppose…”

With the young lord willing to compromise, the room calmed down.

In terms of school year, Minoru and Minami were both freshmen in high school, and in terms of age, Miyuki, Minoru, and Minami were all the same—sixteen. However, the conversation between them, despite being of the same age and generation, wasn’t exactly bursting with excitement.

“Minoru… It’s not like this is a formal marriage interview. Don’t be so tense.”

The day after Tatsuya and the others returned from Nara, there was a new development in the search for Gongjin Zhou—but it hadn’t come about due to the Shiba family, nor the Kudou, nor the Kuroba, nor the Ninefold Temple, nor First High.

Instead, it had occurred within a high-class residential area in the heart of Tokyo. On those plush streets stood a mansion, blending in with the others, just as equally luxurious as those around it. Its owner, Kouichi Saegusa, had called to his study Saburou Nakura, his eldest daughter’s bodyguard and his current confidant.

“Do you remember a boy named Tatsuya Shiba?” he asked him after a half-baked greeting.

“An underclassman and friend of Lady Mayumi’s when she was in high school, correct?” he responded, in the most inoffensive way possible. Like his master, he remembered things other than that, of course, but he didn’t say them aloud.

Kouichi’s eyes turned onto Nakura. Because of those other things, the answer wasn’t a satisfactory one, but he didn’t vocally criticize him on that point. “That junior of Mayumi’s has made contact with the Kuroba twins.”

“The twins who attracted so much attention in this year’s Nines? The Yotsuba seem like they’re trying to steer the focus of those related to magic away from something by concentrating the spotlight on those siblings.”

“‘Something,’ eh…”

Kouichi’s tone made it sound like he knew, at the very least, what it was they were attempting to hide, but he didn’t say out loud what exactly that was.

“The Kuroba siblings visited Tatsuya Shiba’s house two weeks ago. And yesterday and the day before, Tatsuya Shiba visited the Kudou family. He apparently had a meeting with Sensei.”

“A personal talk with Retsu Kudou? That certainly doesn’t happen every day.”

Once again, Kouichi rolled his eyes to glare at him. “Nakura, cease your posturing.” This time, he did more than just give the man a look. “The Yotsuba have contacted Sensei through the Kuroba children. They cannot have any reason to request the Kudou’s assistance besides the incident the other day.”

Kouichi was aware of how the Kuroba team had let Gongjin Zhou slip away from capture in Yokohama Chinatown.

And the one who had reported that to him was Nakura.

Nakura hadn’t pointed out that the one who contacted the Kudou family was Tatsuya Shiba and not the Kuroba siblings. He knew, though Kouichi had never directly told him, what his master guessed was the relationship between the Yotsuba and Tatsuya Shiba.

“No matter how skilled the man may be, he cannot escape from the Yotsuba now that they have help from the Kudou.”

The man Kouichi referred to was Gongjin Zhou. At this point, Nakura figured Kouichi, who believed the Kudou and Yotsuba to have joined forces to search for him, was overthinking things. He had the evidence and factors to back it up, too. But he didn’t say that to Kouichi.

“I don’t mind if the Yotsuba kill him. But were they to capture him, it would almost certainly cause problems for this family.”

Without a word, Nakura bowed, expressing his agreement.

“We must not allow the Yotsuba to learn of the Saegusa’s connection to Zhou.”

On this point, Nakura’s thoughts differed from his master. He was sure the Yotsuba already knew they were accommodating the fugitive.

They probably had no proof, but the Yotsuba, and the Kuroba under their umbrella, didn’t need evidence—the Yotsuba lived in the shadows of society, same as the Saegusa. They thought differently than Kouichi, who liked to play with fire behind the scenes, though he ultimately didn’t live there. That was what Nakura thought, but because they were from different worlds, he’d decided he wouldn’t be able to convince his master verbally.

That was why he ultimately remained silent.

“You know where Zhou is, right?”

“I’m terribly sorry, but even I don’t currently know his location…”

Rage flashed onto Kouichi’s face.

Just before his master flew into a fit, Nakura finished his suspended remarks. “But I have a means of contacting him. I should be able to summon him here, too.”

Kouichi bit down and ground his teeth. He felt like Nakura had just played him. A moment later, though, he brushed it aside and regained his calm. His natural tendencies aside, he hadn’t come through so many hardships empty-handed.

“Then call him. And put an end to him.”

“Yes, of course.”

Nakura had no equivocations about agreeing to the order to kill someone. That was what he’d always been good at. Before gaining employment with the Saegusa, he’d worked a job not too different from that of a killer.

“If you need support, you can take as much as you want. No need to worry about home security.”

“No, I will be enough on my own.”

The flat response could either be taken as confidence or arrogance, and Kouichi frowned slightly. “He has the skill to break out of a Kuroba encirclement. And I believe you were the one who reported that to me, yes?”

Nakura maintained his expression even at that remark. “That’s exactly why. Forgive my rudeness, but the proficiency of those in this family would only lead to them dying pointlessly. I believe they’d be a hindrance, in fact.”

The comment was a scathing one, but no anger appeared on the man’s face. “All right. Feel free to do things your way.”

“I thank you.” Nakura bowed respectfully, even to the seemingly offhand order.

“Oh, and keep guarding Mayumi as you usually do.”

“Of course,” he answered, head still lowered, before leaving the study without meeting Kouichi’s gaze.

Tatsuya hadn’t obtained any concrete results regarding the search for Gongjin Zhou during his visit to Nara, but he’d met with an elder in Japan’s magic world who—though having declared his retirement—still possessed a lot of influence, and he’d gotten his cooperation.

A large group of magicians had attacked them with an ambush, but they’d turned the tables and captured them. The intelligence department had snatched them away, but it wouldn’t be that much of a struggle to secretly make use of whatever clues the department got from the captives.

Although he’d spent his Saturday jam-packed full of events, once he got to school the following weekday, a different sort of business awaited him. Today at last, Isori came to him for help, and Tatsuya was roped into creating, in the lecture hall, the experimental apparatus that would reproduce the effects of spell-assisting seals using a projector.

“…Then the problem is how much of an error margin the seal will tolerate. Am I understanding correctly?”

“Yeah. How far can the form be distorted and still produce the spell-assisting effects? That’s one of the main themes of our thesis.”

“Would you be able to show me the experimental data you’ve gotten so far?”

“Sure—here it is.”

Watching Tatsuya as he spoke to Isori were Miyuki (looking on in pride) and Honoka (gazing in rapt admiration).

“Honoka, Miyuki, I’m going back on patrol.”

Shizuku’s voice from the side made Honoka snap back to reality. “Oh—okay. Do your best!”

“Thanks for your work, Shizuku.”

“Yep. I’ll see you two later.”

As Honoka watched her go, Miyuki said, “We should be returning as well.”

After timing their farewell to Tatsuya so as not to get in his way, both of them headed back to the student council room. On the way, Miyuki asked Honoka if anything had changed.

“You haven’t felt like any strange people are following you around or watching you, right?”

“No, I’m fine. Uncle Ushio is worried for me, too. He actually went through the trouble of arranging people from a security company.”

“A magician security company?”

“Yeah… Morisaki’s family’s, actually.”

Miyuki’s look changed slightly upon hearing those words. Nobody could blame her. The security company run by the Morisaki family was rated highly by regular society and magicians alike. She knew that, but it was hard to overcome first impressions.

“Well, er, if Uncle Ushio decided on them, I’m sure it will be okay.”

“…You’re right. Shizuku’s father picked them out, so you shouldn’t have any problems.”

For some reason, it felt a little like a wet blanket had been thrown on them. Eventually, Honoka asked an uneasy question to get rid of that:

“Miyuki… How long should I stay at Shizuku’s house?”

Miyuki blinked, as though she hadn’t expected this question. “Did Shizuku’s family say something to you?”

“No, nothing like that! Uncle Ushio and Aunt Benio and all the people working for her family treat me way better than I have any right to—” Then she looked surprised, realizing she’d unintentionally shouted.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything like that.”

“No, um, it was my fault, Miyuki! The way I said it was confusing!” Honoka’s show of determination stopped her classmate from trying to take the blame any further. “Umm, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just wondering how long I’d have to have a bodyguard…”

Honoka’s unease was understandable. Though she was the daughter of a magician family created in a laboratory, she’d never gotten any training that placed her in the middle of combat.

Miyuki didn’t misunderstand that by taking herself as the standard. “At longest, I think it’ll only be until the Thesis Competition is over.”

Honoka probably hadn’t expected a clear answer in return—she stared back at Miyuki in confusion.

“It’s okay. Nothing scary will happen,” answered Miyuki with a gentle smile, the kind a person might give when reassuring a small child.

Honoka went red in the face and looked down.

They hadn’t been aware of this until last Saturday, but Mizuki and Mikihiko’s houses were unexpectedly near each other.

Mizuki’s was one station from the center of Atsugi.

Mikihiko’s was at the foot of the Tanzawa Mountains in Isehara.

They weren’t exactly close geographically speaking, but since a major cabinet line ran from Atsugi to Isehara, it was only five minutes between Mizuki’s closest station and Mikihiko’s.

“Umm, Yoshida, really, this is as far as I need.”

“No, because then what would be the point?”

Because of the Thesis Competition prep, they’d left school right before the gates closed. Since the theme Isori chose for this year needed more computer graphics–type work than device assembly, the art club Mizuki belonged to was in full swing. She personally was best at analog watercolor painting, but she was also quite skilled when it came to CG, it being a necessary illustrating skill these days.

Because of that, she was one of the last to be able to leave. Still, that meant Mikihiko’s title of disciplinary committee chairman could remain intact while he showed her home.

It was already October, almost ten days in. The autumnal equinox had long since come and gone, and the fall sun was quick to set. The impetuous stars had begun to twinkle in the sky. Yes, this was a well-traveled city area, and yes, they would be taking a commuter straight from the station-front to her house, but it wouldn’t count as bringing a girl home if he said Okay, see you tomorrow at the station. Mikihiko was correct on that front.

And Mizuki wasn’t unhappy about Mikihiko bringing her to her house, per se. But once the two of them got in the commuter alone, she never knew what to talk about. Neither of them were exactly conversationalists, so they’d discovered on Saturday and Monday that during the cabinet ride, they’d run out of topics.

The two of them alone, in a small car, without anything to say. For Mizuki, who had a very low threshold for embarrassment, this was a major mental burden on her—no, an ordeal.

They were currently at a loose end already while waiting in front of the station for their turn in a commuter, but the silence wasn’t an issue because they weren’t yet in a closed space.

“By the way, Shibata, you usually do watercolor painting, right?”

“Huh? Oh, yes.”

Nevertheless, Mikihiko had thought of something to talk about and couldn’t wait until they were in the car. Still, Mizuki would never think What an inconsiderate boy he is.

“That’s right. I like the gentler coloring of watercolors, so… These days you can get a lot more colors in computer graphics, but I’m one of those people who still wants to physically paint with a brush.”

It was Mizuki’s personality to try her best to answer anything asked of her.

“And you’re still really good at CG—it’s amazing.”

“Oh, no—I still have a long way to go, even with watercolors.”

Mizuki’s face was fairly red now as she tried to act modest, pleading wordlessly for him not to praise her any further. Unfortunately, Mikihiko didn’t have the experience to glean that from her expression alone.

“But your president said the same thing. That you have a really good sense for diagrams. Come to think of it, you had good grades in magic geometry, didn’t you?”

“Um, yes. That’s the only reason I get good scores on tests.” Mizuki gave a joking smile.

“Ah-ha-ha. I’m the same way. I manage to hang on to a high rank thanks to magic history and linguistics of magic. I’m just awful when it comes to magic engineering.”

“Well, you were always better with talismans… Oh—now that I think about it, you didn’t choose magic geometry as an elective. Why not?”

“Magic pharmaceuticals was more helpful for my spells, I guess. I do actually plan on studying magic geometry for real at some point, too.”

“Oh, so that’s why you see Mr. Tsuzura sometimes.”

“Well, it’s more like he’s calling me, but…”

These two always thought they had nothing to talk about, but given the chance, their conversations tended to be lively like this.

Still, no matter how much fun he had talking to Mizuki, Mikihiko never stopped being vigilant of their surroundings.

Even now, he could clearly sense the presence of a shikigami watching them. While taking care to keep the conversation going, he sent out a searching spell.

The spell didn’t reach across space but across meaning. Out of all the gazes focusing on Mizuki, he projected those with magical wave motion into his mind. Not all of the attention on her bore her malice or ill will; in fact, most of them were favorable or amorous. She didn’t stand out very much next to Miyuki or Erika, but despite her impression of plainness, she was certainly cuter than your average girl. And because her body had matured now that she was a junior, her physical beauty drew the eye as well.

Most of that noise was reflected because of the “magical wave motion” condition, but a few did pass through the filter and reached Mikihiko’s mind, putting him on edge in a few different ways. Even as he worked hard to tackle that, he continued searching for magicians and magical presences targeting Mizuki and him.

Fujibayashi had once called Mikihiko the child prodigy who’s grown up. One year of frustration before he’d met Tatsuya. One year of introspection after meeting him and getting mixed up in all sorts of dramatic events. The density of his growth over these two years rivaled ten or twenty years for the average person. The year since meeting Tatsuya especially let him develop as a magician.

As they were talking, their turn came. The commuter in front of them opened its doors automatically, waiting for them to board. Mikihiko let Mizuki get in first, turned to glance around, then used a Return spell, an ancient magic to banish a shikigami back to its user.

Everything with a front had to have a back. This time, though, the front and back weren’t just some abstract, metaphorical notion—but a structure’s back door and doorstep.

It may be an odd expression, calling a multiuse building’s entrance a doorstep, but in any case, back roads formed in the gaps of back-to-back buildings in shopping districts, opposite the front entrances decorated for visitors, even today. Garbage from each building went through a special underground tube to be automatically collected, and automatic cleaning machines, purchased on a region-by-region basis, traveled the streets, meaning there was no filth to be seen or odor to be smelled. Still, there were naturally places streetlights wouldn’t reach.

“Damn that little brat!”

On one such street, lurking in the dim light, a man who appeared to be around forty held down his hand and swore.

Blood was dripping from between the fingers of his left hand as it covered his right.

“He just Returned my shiki demon. I thought the second son of the Yoshida didn’t have his powers anymore!”

He showed no sign of ceasing his audience-free monologue—maybe he had a habit of talking to himself.

“And I can’t believe he’d Return it so violently… I was just watching him, that’s all.”

The blood loss seemed to be lasting longer than he thought it would; the man took out not a handkerchief but a scrap of paper—a talisman.

“Offering my own blood? Don’t make me laugh,” he said, placing the talisman on his wound and chanting an incantation. Considering how his final activation verse was Kyuu-Kyuu-Nyo-Ritsu-Ryou, he must have been either an onmyouji or a mainland mage.

“You’ll pay for this, you Yoshida brat. And my blood doesn’t come cheap.”

“Come on, it’s over. With your skills, old man, he’ll just turn the tables on you again.”

Aghast, the man turned toward the voice. He was no amateur. He always put up a bounded field that would block perception when he got to work on any of his “jobs.” He hadn’t forgotten the circle, either, that would warn him if anyone did approach. And yet he’d been taken entirely by surprise.

Without a word, the man removed a new talisman. No amateur would ever randomly stumble into his bounded field. Considering what the person had just said, they were doubtlessly an enemy.

But the man would never fire his spell.

“Hey, your back is wide open.”

Another young man had crept up behind the man, who had already turned around, and reaped his consciousness. Delivering an impact hard enough to knock someone out actually came with an unignorable possibility of lasting effects. But they didn’t seem to hesitate in the slightest.

“This pitiful excuse for a magician doesn’t even make for good training. Are you sure they needed bodyguards?”

“Don’t be like that. Enduring idleness is just another part of our training.”

The two young men who exchanged looks had very similar builds and features. The resemblance wasn’t natural, though—it was the similarity of those who had eaten from the same pot, who had overcome the same hellish experiences.

And above all, both their heads were equally shorn, down to a smooth shine.

During the downtime between first and second period the next day, Tatsuya visited the disciplinary committee HQ on a call from Mikihiko.

“Oh—Tatsuya. Sorry for calling you here.”

Having arrived first, Mikihiko watched for the moment Tatsuya entered the room and did something on the console at his hands.

The door locked, and on the front, it showed an “In Meeting” display.

“Don’t worry about it. What did you need all of a sudden?”

“We don’t have time, so I’ll be short. On our way home yesterday, Shibata was targeted,” he told Tatsuya, his eyes harsh.

Tatsuya pretended to be surprised. “Mizuki? She wasn’t acting like it at all.”

“She didn’t notice. We were just being watched from a distance by shikigami, and I broke all their spells.”

“I see,” said Tatsuya, making sure to sound relieved.

Mikihiko gazed at him, and then criticism came to his eyes. “Just like you predicted, Tatsuya.”

“Yeah. Thanks for sticking with her.”

“It’s just so strange.”

Tatsuya feigned incomprehension at what Mikihiko was saying and listened to the incriminating words that came next.

“Why do people like that need to be going after Shibata? They weren’t just some thugs. I couldn’t call them first-rate, but it seemed like they were used to criminal acts.”

“You mean they were professional criminals?”

“They certainly weren’t reputable magicians.” For a moment, Mikihiko had trouble speaking, but he didn’t stay silent. “Why would they be after Shibata? If their goal is the Thesis Competition, they would go after Isori, or Nakajou, or Minakami. Tatsuya, you’re hiding something from us, aren’t you?! That modified shikigami activation sequence you showed me before—you didn’t just randomly run across it. It has to do with you guys being attacked and Mizuki being targeted, doesn’t it?!”

No answer came from Tatsuya.

Mikihiko was the first one to look away. “Tatsuya… You always turn it down, saying you don’t need it, but I feel indebted toward you. You’re the one I have to thank for regaining my confidence and strength as a magician.”

Tatsuya tried to argue, but Mikihiko cut him off and continued.

“I wouldn’t do anything to disadvantage you. If you told me to help, I’d do anything I could. And if you wanted to keep something a secret, I’d never tell a soul.”

Mikihiko once again gave him a desperate look. The light in his eyes made it seem like he was somehow backed into a corner. “But if I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t have any way to protect Shibata!”

That was almost like confessing to Tatsuya that he had special feelings for Mizuki, but Tatsuya didn’t try to use that to divert the conversation—though Mikihiko was too worked up to notice.

“I can’t give you any details.”

“Tatsuya!” Naturally, Mikihiko pressed him.

“A foreign magician who guided enemy saboteurs here during the Yokohama Incident last year is being protected by the Traditionalists. I’m chasing him down.”

But at the fragment of truth that came from Tatsuya next, Mikihiko lost both his words and the color in his face.

“Sorry. That’s as much as I can tell you.”

“Oh, right… You’re in the—”

Right before saying army, Mikihiko abruptly clammed up. It wasn’t something he could ever say aloud, even inside a soundproofed field.

“No, I’m sorry,” he said. “And thanks for talking to me.”

He was under the completely wrong impression. Just as Tatsuya had led him.

And Tatsuya didn’t feel any guilt about that, either. It was still too early for the truth behind this incident, and his connection to the Yotsuba, to be known. Right now, it was still too dangerous for anyone to know. It was still too early to pull in Mikihiko as a collaborator.

“Tatsuya, you said the Traditionalists, right?”

“Yeah. I at least know that they’re protecting the target.”

“…Then I think I can help you. After school—no, that won’t work. Can we talk tonight? I’ll bring Shibata home, then come back to school.”

“All right.”

Maya hadn’t exactly given him a deadline, and from Tatsuya’s point of view, the whole thing wasn’t that much of a rush. He didn’t have a personal agenda against Gongjin Zhou, either. Frankly speaking, leaving it all alone wouldn’t have pained him in the slightest.

But he decided if that was what it took to placate Mikihiko, then he was fine with that.

Seven PM. As one would expect, even the Thesis Competition work was winding down at this point. Despite only male students sticking around, staying any later than this would be considered a problem for peacekeeping and discipline.

That usually left Isori, the competition team leader, in charge of anything after the gates closed, as he was previously a student council member. Normally, however, either the student council president or their representative was supposed to oversee things. When Tatsuya remained in the school, nobody gave him so much as a second look.

Since he’d had no free time of late, homework had been piling up pretty high—a report for a general-ed class, for example. After calling up his curriculum on a student council room terminal, he shot through all the accumulated things he had to submit.

Right after he finished his physics report, a chime went off, signaling a visitor to the student council room.

“Pixie, could you?”

“Yes, Master.”

Tatsuya ordered Pixie to respond to it—the girl had become the student council room’s exclusive maid. She’d received orders in advance to let Mikihiko through if he came.

“Sorry for the wait, Tatsuya.”

After sitting in a seat recommended to him by Pixie, Mikihiko started off with an acceptable greeting.

“Don’t be. I just got to a good break point,” answered Tatsuya.

Mikihiko gave him a doubtful look. Tatsuya hadn’t done anything with his terminal after he came in. The list of reports on its monitor was visible from where Mikihiko sat.

But if he made any unnecessary comments now, his sense of tension would break.

“This might sound sudden, but let’s pick up from this morning.”

He abruptly got to the point, not necessarily because he wanted to preserve the mood but because he didn’t want to let his own thoughts dull.

“I want to confirm one thing. Tatsuya, you’re certain your target is being protected by the Traditionalists, right?”

“The info comes from a trustworthy source.”

“I see…” Mikihiko thought about this but only for a few short moments. “First, I want to make my position clear. Those calling themselves the Traditionalists are, for better or worse, a very large faction of ancient magicians. You could break ancient magicians up into the Traditionalists, the factions supporting them, and the factions opposing them.”

“Really? My master said magicians inheriting real traditions hated them.”

He hadn’t actually gotten that fact from Yakumo, but he’d decided it was better to leave it at that and not invite unneeded suspicion.

“They do. But on the flip side, a lot of civilian magicians who feel like rankings and precepts are constraining have sympathy for the Traditionalists, who band together regardless of their schools.”

“Which group does your family belong to?”

Before, Mikihiko had said he would make his position clear. That must have meant he’d clearly tell Tatsuya whether he, or perhaps the Yoshida, were cooperative with or hostile toward the Traditionalists.

“The Yoshida family broke free of a certain religious discipline a long time ago. And we worship the kami, too, in order to discover a magic that will lead to godhood.”

That was a trait of magicians cooperative with the Traditionalists.

“And that’s why the Yoshida family stands against the Traditionalists.”

Mikihiko’s answer, however, was a curveball.

“The Traditionalists who were part of old Lab Nine think about magic in a fundamentally different way than the Yoshida. What we aim for is only magic to achieve divinity. Their doctrine that everything is acceptable as long as they can increase their power—we would never be able to align with them.”

Tatsuya couldn’t tell from the information he’d heard now whether that remark was Mikihiko’s personal feelings or values instilled in him by his parents. But even if it was borrowed, he certainly seemed to have a lot of respect for his own thoughts on it.

“Which is why this time, all that other stuff aside, you can rely on me. And if you wanted, I think I could give you my full assistance as a member of the Yoshida, too.”

“Wait, that’s… If I ask the Yoshida for help, I’d need to tell them everything.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

When it came to what Tatsuya couldn’t talk about, he and Mikihiko had two different things in mind, but Tatsuya was the only one who knew that.

“All right. Then we’ll try my second plan. I thought up a way where you don’t have to provide too many details,” said Mikihiko, giving a mean-spirited grin, one that didn’t exactly suit him. “I don’t know whether I should call it unfortunate or fortunate, but the Traditionalists’ main base is in Kyoto, where the Thesis Competition is being held this year.”

The information Mikihiko was so proud to give was at odds with what he’d heard from Fujibayashi and Minoru in Nara, but he didn’t have any way to discern which was correct.

“That’s what it seems like.”

Instead, he decided to hear Mikihiko out under the assumption both were true.

“We’d planned to dispatch a security team to begin with, to inspect the situation there, but I’m thinking I’ll go with them.”

“And?”

“Tatsuya, this is why you decided to be part of the security team, isn’t it?”

Mikihiko answered Tatsuya’s question with one of his own.

Instead of pressing for an answer, Tatsuya answered Mikihiko’s. “That’s right.”

“Then you can move about the city however you wish. Because you can say you’re taking a very broad look around the venue so that nothing like last year happens again.”

“Well, I appreciate it. Anyway, what about you?”

“I’ll be the decoy. I think I’ll use flashy search shiki from the new International Conference Hall and rub all the Traditionalists the wrong way with it.”

“I get it.” Finally understanding, Tatsuya grinned.

“If the Traditionalists lash out, we’ll have a justification for self-defense. And then it won’t be your job—it’ll be the Yoshida family’s fight.”

“What about the power discrepancy?”

“None of us would ever lose on one-on-one skill. And if the Traditionalists put in enough people to overwhelm the Yoshida, the other schools wouldn’t remain silent. What’s important is having them make the first move. The ancient schools are all very keen on pretexts. If we make the first move, they’ll stick to observing, but if they do, they’re sure to come in to arbitrate.”

Tatsuya ran a quick mental simulation of what would happen in that case. His fear was ancient magicians getting into flash magic shoot-outs, turning city streets into battlefields. If the police and JDF had their hands full putting it down, Gongjin Zhou would escape in the chaos.

But if the Traditionalists struck first and the ancient schools came in to arbitrate, he’d have an excuse to investigate the Traditionalists’ interior. Tatsuya could see that going very well for him.

“What if they don’t make a move?”

“Then my shiki will find your target, Tatsuya. He’s a Taoist from China, right? The wave motion of his psions would be different. After you put me through all that work, telling apart psionic waves is basically my special skill now. I’m confident no ancient magicians could hold a candle to me.”

“That’s some big talk.”

Tatsuya grinned but didn’t deny his boasting. Ancient magicians would tell magic apart. They didn’t customarily view psionic waves themselves like modern magicians did. This was because it was meaningless to observe psionic waves that weren’t spells. Psionic wave observation was a modern magic technique created during the process of researching technical usage methods of psions. And almost no modern magicians had the skill to gain practical observation data to reproduce the level of precision that, for example, the Stars had used when detecting the parasites on one’s own.

Mikihiko’s brag had enough evidence behind it.

“What about Mizuki?”

Mikihiko’s face, brimming with confidence, suddenly darkened. Tatsuya was amused by the ease of that change, but he knew, at least, that this wasn’t the right place to laugh.

“…It’s too dangerous to bring Shibata with us.”

“In that case, I’ll arrange for a bodyguard.”

“Would you do that?”

“Of course. I’m the one who got you guys caught up in this to begin with.”

Mikihiko breathed a sigh of relief—probably because he thought Tatsuya would arrange for a bodyguard from the JDF.

In reality, pupils of Yakumo’s were already protecting Mizuki, but just in case, he planned to dispatch a different group of magicians from what Mikihiko thought.

“When will you say something?”

“As disciplinary committee chairman, I’d have to lay the groundwork with the school… Probably Friday.”

“All right. I’ll tell Miyuki, too, so the student council can make things work.”

“…Wait, aren’t you part of the student council? You should do it yourself.”

Tatsuya didn’t answer that; he just grinned mischievously.

Mikihiko gave a pained smile and rose from his seat.

Thursday night, October 11, 2096, at a certain point in Kyoto.

The skies were jet-black, the thick cloud cover ready to rain at any moment.

Even the park, a place of recreation for the people during the day, nearly emptied in the middle of the night. And tonight, specifically, it was host to only two silhouettes. One stood by the river, and the other walked downstream to get to him.

“Lord Nakura, have I made you wait?” Gongjin Zhou asked as he approached.

“No, you’re right on time, Mr. Zhou,” Nakura replied, looking up to give a suitably friendly greeting.

They stood at a distance just wide enough that if they both reached out a hand, they wouldn’t connect.

“It’s been two months,” Zhou commented.

“Yes, and it seems like ages,” Nakura countered Zhou’s opening jab with a straight punch. “I would have liked to visit you, but I didn’t know where you currently take up residence. Please excuse this rudeness on my part.”

“I was surprised at the suddenness of the incident that forced you to relocate. Had I known before, I would have passed it on for you.”

“No, I don’t intend to ask you to go to such lengths. The enemy being who they are, it was inevitable, even if they didn’t know in advance what I was attempting to do.”

Nakura pointed out that Zhou had run from the Kuroba with his tail between his legs, and Zhou remarked cynically that the Yotsuba’s inside information was too much for the Saegusa family to handle. The comments were mean-spirited; they traded looks, Nakura’s steady and Zhou’s a graceful smile—though this sort of exchange was par for the course.

“Now then, Lord Nakura, what business might you have with me today?” asked Zhou without dropping his smile—as though he didn’t know how to make any other expression. He wasn’t impatient, though; the situation just didn’t call for a protracted conversation.

“Mr. Zhou, were you aware the Kudou have joined forces with the Yotsuba?”

Zhou’s eyebrow twitched. It didn’t lead to his smile vanishing just yet, though. “I was not… All for me?”

“We believe the Yotsuba family discovered that the Traditionalists were protecting you and requested the Kudou’s cooperation, as they’re hostile toward the Traditionalists.”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…” Suddenly, Zhou started to laugh loudly. “It seems I’ve certainly moved up in the world. I’m being targeted not only by the Yotsuba, led by the current world’s strongest, but also the Kudou, once the world’s trickiest.”

Zhou laughed in amusement. It was neither desperation nor the madness of a cornered beast. From the beginning, he had been quietly insane—that was the sort of impression his laughing gave.

“The Kudou have long since been at odds with them—I’m sure they’ve fully investigated the Traditionalists. We doubt it will be long before they discover your hiding place, Mr. Zhou,” remarked Nakura uninterestedly, unmoved by the metamorphosis.

Zhou calmed himself and responded sarcastically, “I see, yes indeed. I’ve stayed with everyone in the Traditionalists for close to two months now, but perhaps it’s time to make myself scarce. Now then, are you—or rather, the Saegusa family—offering to provide me a new hiding place?”

“Yes.” Nakura nodded.

Zhou looked at him dubiously—that must not have been the answer he was expecting.

“I will speak directly. The Saegusa cannot tolerate you falling into the Yotsuba’s hands, Mr. Zhou. We must not let them know of the connection between you and us.”

“And you will give me a place to which to abscond?”

“Yes,” confirmed Nakura to Zhou’s question, which expressed it not as a hiding place, but somewhere to run away to. “I will bring you somewhere the Yotsuba’s hands will never reach.”

“Ah… As for the name of this place—”

With a casual motion, Zhou reached into his pocket.

In the blink of an eye, a portable terminal-type CAD was gripped in Nakura’s hand.

“—I do hope it isn’t Hades!”

“No, it is a place called burn in hell!”

Both of them leaped backward at the same time. Zhou produced a paper strip—a lingpai, or command token—with a black luster from his pocket, and Nakura expanded an activation sequence from his CAD.

Zhou probably had the spell waiting from the start, because their spells triggered at the same time.

From Zhou’s token sprang a quadrupedal beast, completely black—probably a compound form made to look like a dog. The black dog leaped off the ground, then shot in a line toward Nakura’s windpipe.

Dozens of clear needles pierced its shadowy body from below.

Nakura’s feet were over the shoreline. The needles that had penetrated the Shadow Beast had been fired from the river.

“Water needles…” In the darkness, Zhou’s eyes saw the clear needles for what they really were. “How careless of me. It was a mistake to designate a riverside meeting place. It seems you have the terrain advantage.”

“And you’re using a spell to create animal compound forms using shadows as a medium.”

“Yes. I’m ashamed to tell you its name, as it is quite artless, but my master called it Shadow Beast. He was quite proud, despite its age, of it being a hybrid spell—western sorcery integrated with immortalism.”

“Western sorcery… The hellhound, then. I must have mistaken the time. I should have at least made sure the moon would be out.”

They weren’t leisurely exchanging lectures about their spells. Even as they spoke, the token Zhou held was spewing forth Shadow Beasts, and Nakura was intercepting them with water needles.

Zhou didn’t seem to be putting together a new spell. That meant the lingpai in his hand had probably been loaded with a great many Shadow Beasts. It had already produced over ten, yet it showed no signs of running out. Casting so many layers of magic on a single small token spoke to his bottomless reserve of strength.

“Still, I find I don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

But Zhou was the first one to ask a question.

Nakura’s expression didn’t change as he mechanically shot down all the illusory beasts Zhou was creating. Even his voice as he replied was practically devoid of emotion.

“Lab Seven’s research theme was colony-control magic. Magic that can simultaneously manipulate over a hundred objects at the very least. Far more than the number you’re controlling now. Could it be you’re holding back on me?”

“Funny. Against you, I wouldn’t be able to hold back,” answered Nakura in a voice that sounded surprised. The fact that his voice held more emotion than his remark drew Zhou’s attention. “Mr. Zhou, do you know the term Extra Numbers?”

More needles flew at Zhou. In the dark, they were almost imperceptible to the human eye, but Zhou sidestepped to easily avoid them.

His speed was likely more than could be achieved with muscle power alone. Did Chinese ancient magic have spells with the same effects as self-acceleration spells?

“I do know it. I hear it refers to magician families who were granted numbers in the magician development institutes but later had them stripped away.”

Needles flew one after another. Zhou was busy dodging them, unable to time his Shadow Beast production. The attacker had become the defender.

“Then do you know the reason those numbers were stripped away?”

“I’m afraid not. Actually, I do know it happened if those people didn’t exhibit the desired abilities.”

The needles turned into a pelting downpour. Zhou pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket.

The white handkerchief grew in size until it covered his whole body, protecting him from the shower of needles.

Nakura stopped his attacks.

Zhou let the cloth down, showing his face.

“I am one of those magicians who didn’t have those desired abilities at Lab Seven.”

“Oh—excuse my rudeness, then.”

Zhou unleashed a Shadow Beast.

Nakura used his CAD to barely shoot it down in time.

Zhou lowered the hand holding the lingpai.

Nakura, fingers still on his CAD, resumed his account of his experiences regarding the Extra Numbers.

“The basic form of colony-control magic is to prepare what you’ll use as bullets in advance, then control them.”

Nakura expanded an activation sequence.

Zhou readied his white cloth.

“But that didn’t seem useful in real combat to me. Battles do not only occur when you happen to be carrying cumbersome mediums. When one has an assistance tool called a CAD that was specifically developed to be something you could have on you at all times, must we carry unnecessary baggage?”

“As a follower of the ancient immortalist arts who cannot use magic without convenient spell tools to act as mediums, your commentary stings. Still, I don’t believe all CADs are things you can wear on you at all times, either. Some are modeled after large handguns, for example.”

“Ah, handgun-shaped specialized CADs. I don’t believe those are practical for combat, either.”

Nakura and Zhou, both maintaining a magic-ready state, eyed each other for an opening. Or maybe this conversation exchanged between them was itself a gamble to create that opening.

“In any case, I couldn’t appreciate the institute’s direction. That was why I arranged their colony-control magic to be usable at any time. It meant I couldn’t target more than a hundred things to control at once, but in exchange, I formulated techniques for giving form to liquid and using it as bullets.”

“How unfortunate.”

“As a result, I was stripped of my number.”

At this time, the order of their speaking had reversed. The one who planned this was Gongjin Zhou. And by that, Nakura was robbed of a shard of his awareness.

Zhou hurled his lingpai forward.

Taken by surprise, Nakura launched his needles at Zhou—not in a barrage, but in an arcing path.

A Shadow Beast burst out of the token in midair.

Nakura built up a new spell to intercept it.

The white cloth flapped and fell. Behind it, Gongjin Zhou was gone.

The Shadow Beast, hit by the water needles, turned into a shadow and melted into the night. The crowd of arcing water needles laced the empty air.

After falling onto the water’s surface, the lingpai spewed out a black shadow.

Nakura, catching that out of the corner of his eye, cast a jumping spell. By the skin of his teeth, he escaped the jaws launching out of the water spray.

Landing on the opposite shore, Nakura gathered himself, preparing for the next attack. But as he stared across the river into the darkness, a black horn pierced through his gut from behind.

The horn that stabbed through Nakura’s gut melted into a tar-like goop, then blew away on the night winds flowing across the water’s surface. Support lost, he fell, faceup.

He heard footsteps tramping through the river gravel in front of his head. Struggling, he looked, and the first thing he saw was the white cloth that had hidden his foe. From beyond it, the man was now walking toward him. He wasn’t unharmed, either; there were holes in the left shoulder and right side of his expensive-looking three-piece suit, stained with blood.

“It seems…it was not…an illusion…that fooled me.”

Nakura realized what had happened without it being explained. He thought he’d jumped to the opposite bank in his effort to get away from Zhou, but he’d actually jumped toward this bank and landed, turning his back to the enemy.

“Yes. It was always I who was fighting you.”

“Deceiving…directions… Is this…the immortalist art…of Qimen…Dunjia…?”

Nakura’s voice stopped and started and was hard to make out, but Zhou understood it without issue. “Yes. And I must say, it’s been a long time since I shed this much blood. In my experience, Saburou Nakura, you are more skilled than Mitsugu Kuroba.”

“Ha…ha-ha… Such…an honor…”

Zhou knelt down next to Nakura and spoke to him gently. “We once had drinks together. Do you have any last requests?”

“Requests…well… Perhaps one thing…”

“What is it?”

“Please…”

“Yes?”

“Die with me!”

Nakura’s shout was a rallying cry of his final strength.

Perhaps it was an incantation—literal curse words.

Nakura’s body exploded from the chest, his blood turning into needles.

Zhou covered his face reflexively; in a moment, he pulled his arms away and scowled at the red needles that covered them. “It was a final request. I would have been happy to oblige you.”

He groped around for the needle that had slipped through his arms and stabbed his ear, then pulled it out.

The needle melted back into blood, leaving a small scar on his earlobe. Sighing, he took out another lingpai from his jacket pocket.

The blood needles hit their event alteration time limit and all melted at once, at which point Zhou chanted a short spell.

The stabbing wounds on his skin began to disappear, like a clip of time-lapse photography (or high-speed playback).

“Unfortunately, it would take more than this level of magic to kill me.”

Zhou stood up, looked at his clothes, and sighed. He’d predicted Nakura would come at him with something—likely something close to a suicide attack. He had only able to cover his face with his arms because he was on his guard from the previous needle attacks.

“This won’t be much use anymore. It may be nighttime, but I would only draw attention looking like this.”

But he hadn’t fully predicted the attack would use Nakura’s own blood. Looking down at his clothes stained in a dead man’s blood, he sighed again.

Zhou took out the handkerchief in his pocket, which he’d returned to its place at some point.

No, not returned it—it was clearly a different one than the first.

The handkerchief wasn’t white but black.

He opened the dark-colored handkerchief, and a shadow spread wide to cover his body.

The black cloth, which had changed into a handkerchief, merged with the shadow, and then only Nakura’s corpse was left.

Friday, October 12: With only half a month left until the Thesis Competition on October 28, the hustle and bustle in school abruptly intensified. It was anticipated they’d have less work than the major operation last year, since Kyoto’s competition was mainly theoretical, but all hell was still breaking loose.

Isori was heading up the preparations for the presentation itself, which had reached the final stages. The security team had Hattori at the helm, and he was working hard at his training. Meanwhile, Honoka and Izumi were putting their heads together to make arrangements for transportation to Kyoto.

Of course, Tatsuya and Miyuki weren’t goofing off, either. As student council president, Miyuki was keeping a watchful eye over everyone’s progress, sending helpers to places falling behind schedule. In most cases, that helper ended up being Tatsuya. He’d already helped work on the presentation, taken part in the security team’s training, cleaned up some student council work that Miyuki, Honoka, and Izumi couldn’t get to, and on top of all that, he was flitting about to assist Miyuki with odds and ends.

Once Mikihiko arrived in the student council room, it was right before the gates closed after school, and Tatsuya had just managed to wring out a few spare moments between the pressing work.

“Hey, I’m here…”

Mikihiko seemed like he still wasn’t used to taking the direct stairs connecting the student council room and the disciplinary committee HQ. It was in stark contrast to Shizuku, who casually came and went between both rooms (and who was currently serving as a bodyguard for Azusa).

“You’re right on time.”

Even Tatsuya’s lighthearted greeting failed to take away Mikihiko’s tension. “Well… After seeing how busy you’ve been, I can’t exactly turn up late, can I?”

Upon hearing that, Miyuki offered a weak smile, with just a little resignation creeping into it. “It would be nice if everyone else shared your punctuality, Yoshida.”

Sensing that was a calm before the storm, Tatsuya urged Mikihiko to get down to business. “Mikihiko, why don’t we start right away?”

“Right, sure thing.”

Perhaps getting the same impression, Mikihiko unfurled the large-sized electronic paper he’d been holding rolled up onto the conference desk. It almost covered the entire desk, and on it emerged a map of the city of Kyoto.

“The reason I asked for a meeting today is to discuss our preliminary examinations regarding on-site security,” he began to explain, his tone businesslike. “Former club committee chairman Hattori is handling the preparations for security on the day of. He’s also handling the meetings with other schools on his own, and we can keep relying on him for these things.”

“Is it okay to not invite Hattori here?” Honoka asked.

It wasn’t Mikihiko but Tatsuya who nodded. “We have an understanding that we’ll just report the results of this meeting to him. Right, Chairman Yoshida?”

“Executive Secretary Shiba is correct.”

Mikihiko seemed to have trouble saying the title executive secretary. But he didn’t have the guts to ignore his job title in front of Miyuki.

“Former Chairman Hattori told me he didn’t need to be part of today’s meeting. All we’re trying to do is gather information. I guess he’s all right if we just give him the results.”

Finally, unable to ignore the strange feeling of speaking formally any further, by his last sentence, his tone had changed into a familiar one.

“Why don’t we get straight to it, then?” asked Tatsuya, immediately going along with it, maybe finding it easier to speak this way as well.

“Sure thing. Please look at this,” Mikihiko said. Despite his friendly tone, he still remembered his please and thank-yous to Miyuki. “This is the venue, the New International Conference Hall.”

“It’s quite far from the city center,” offered Izumi when she saw the map.

“Apparently, the locals were insistent they not have big conferences in the middle of the city,” Mikihiko answered with a wry grin, before drawing back his expression. “Unlike last year, there won’t be much traffic nearby. It would seem that criminals and saboteurs have few angles of entry, but if there’s a lot of nature around, that would give them plenty of places where they could hide and prepare their schemes.”

He reverted the map, which he’d magnified on the venue’s surroundings before, to the map of all of Kyoto.

“And if there isn’t anywhere to hide nearby, I think it’s possible they’ll set up their base of operations a short distance away.”

Then, as they’d decided in advance, Miyuki interjected, “Then you believe we should investigate a broader area than just the vicinity of the conference hall?”

“Yes. I’d rather not have a repeat of last year.”

Then Tatsuya immediately launched a second volley of support fire. “Agreed. We may only be high school students, but we still need to do what we can.”

Gazes brimming with surprise gathered on Tatsuya. Honoka and Izumi aside, he would rather have Minami—who already knew the circumstances—not look at him like that, but it was important for Honoka and Izumi, who would presumably be staying behind this time, not to harbor any suspicions toward her. He pretended not to be aware of the three sets of eyes.

“Anyway, Mikihiko, who will be in the group going to look at things in advance?”

“I’ll go,” replied Mikihiko.

“Will the school be all right without its disciplinary committee chairman?”

“I’m thinking of having Kitayama, currently acting as a bodyguard, look after the school. And I’d like you to come, too, Tatsuya.”

“I don’t mind. We probably need at least one of the security members checking the site out.”

“Brother, if it is all right with you, I’d like to accompany you.”

“You—the student council president?” Tatsuya asked opaquely.

Miyuki was actually better at those sorts of acts in times like these. “I’d like to meet with the manager of the hotel where everyone coming to cheer us on will be staying. I also want to find a shelter we can evacuate to should worse come to worst.”

“Miyuki, in that case, I can—”

“Honoka, you still have work I gave you personally, like transportation and budgeting, right? I’m only overseeing everything, so I haven’t taken on any particular work.”

“I…guess…” Honoka withdrew, looking disappointed.

After hearing Miyuki and Honoka’s exchange, Izumi looked like she wanted to say something, but before she could manage to, Miyuki preempted her. “Izumi, since you’re the vice president, I’d like to leave you here in my place while I’m away in Kyoto. Will you do that for me?”

“Of course. I’ll do my very best.”

Needless to say, Izumi honestly wanted to go with Miyuki to Kyoto, too. But she wasn’t one who could say no when her beloved Miyuki asked her to be her replacement. In fact, she was the type of girl who would get excited over Miyuki asking her to do something for her.

“What will the schedule look like?” asked Tatsuya.

“It’ll be a little tight, but how about a Saturday before the competition, staying over from the twentieth to the twenty-first?” responded Mikihiko.

“Seems like a good idea. Do you already have lodging in mind?”

“No, I figured we’d leave that until we decided.”

“I see. Minami?” Then Tatsuya addressed Minami as the final piece of their preparation.

“Yes?”

He’d explained this scenario to her, so she wasn’t especially surprised—she looked as calm, despite her age, as she always did.

“Sorry to ask this, but could you make a hotel reservation? Preferably the one we’ll stay in the day before the competition. It will be me, Miyuki, Mikihiko, and you, so four of us.”

“I’m going, too?”

“Yeah. I want you to help out Miyuki while we’re there.”

Izumi made a frustrated expression at that remark. She was probably thinking how much she wanted to be the one to support Miyuki. But she’d already accepted the job of being her replacement. If Tatsuya had asked her to do that, she would have easily retracted her previous statement. But she couldn’t even consider for a moment refusing something Miyuki asked her to do.

Once closing time came around, Tatsuya left the student council room with Honoka ahead of everyone else. Their destination was where Shizuku was standing guard for Azusa, who was leading the team making the experimental devices.

On the way, they met up with Mikihiko, who had just finished locking up the disciplinary committee HQ, and the three of them headed for the lab building. Unlike Isori, who was heading up work in the lecture hall, Azusa was using a fixture-type CAD, which was more for use in experiments.

“Shizuku!” Honoka called.

Shizuku turned to look at them, along with Tomoko Chikura, also a bodyguard for Azusa; Sayaka; and Kirihara, supposedly Minakami’s bodyguard, who was here for some reason.

“What’s wrong, Shiba? We put in a request to stay late. I think.”

Even Kirihara had finally stopped calling him my man Shiba. He called him Shiba now and called Miyuki President. One could call those the most appropriate forms of address, even.

“Yes, we received your application, but it’s still not good to keep female students at school so late.”

“…But, I mean…” said Kirihara to Sayaka, tilting his head. It seemed Sayaka was the selfish one here.

“Anyway, what is it?” asked Shizuku to Honoka just as things were getting awkward. She’d tried to read the mood and change the topic, but she was the only one Tatsuya and Mikihiko were here for.

“Kitayama, there’s something I’d like to ask you to do.”

“Me?” Shizuku perked her head to the side in a doll-like motion.

After a short chuckle, Mikihiko got to the point: “We actually decided to go to Kyoto to scout things out before the competition.”

“In case something like last year happens?” The words scout things out were enough for Shizuku to understand the official reasoning.

“Yeah. We plan to stay over from the twentieth to the twenty-first to check on some things. Would you mind doing the chairperson’s job for those two days?”

Shizuku, for some reason, looked over at Honoka rather than the bowing Mikihiko. “What about you, Honoka?”

“Huh? I’m…staying here.”

“Hmm…” Shizuku’s focus shifted to Tatsuya. “Are you going, Tatsuya?”

“Yeah.”

After thinking for a moment, she gave an agreement to Mikihiko.

“Thanks,” he stated in return. “That’s a big help.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, once again not looking at Mikihiko as he lowered his head, but at Honoka, who was averting her eyes from Tatsuya.

In the cabinet on the way home, Tatsuya was reading the news. He suddenly looked slightly surprised.

“Brother, is something the matter?” his sister asked instantly from next to him.

“Yeah—it’s this news article.”

He turned his information terminal toward her. A local article from the Kyoto area was displayed on it. He seemed to have started his information gathering and found a detailed account of a murdered corpse discovered in a famous sightseeing spot.

“The body was discovered this morning, and the victim’s name was Saburou Nakura… Ah! Isn’t that…?!” Right away, she’d figured out the reason behind his reaction.

“Is it someone you know?” asked Minami—reasonable, considering she’d never heard the name before.

“Unless he has the same name,” Tatsuya began carefully, “this is the magician serving as Saegusa’s bodyguard.”

Minami’s eyes widened. “Is it truly him?”

“Hard to say—there’s no photograph,” he explained—though he had a gut feeling this victim was indeed the older man guarding Mayumi.

“If it was…is there any chance it could be a coincidence?” Miyuki asked. Tatsuya and Minami both had the same question.

A Saegusa family magician had been killed in Kyoto, where chances were high that Gongjin Zhou was hiding. And in what the press was calling an unnatural death.

The article said the corpse was in a normally unthinkable state. Probably the result of defeat in magical combat.

To kill a magician with such skills as to be entrusted with the Saegusa’s eldest daughter’s safety, and one who was highly likely to have been an Extra—only so many people had that kind of skill. The man who had dealt a major wound to Mitsugu Kuroba, then broken out of a Kuroba squad’s encirclement and escaped, for example…

This certainly didn’t seem like a coincidence to Tatsuya.

She was, without a doubt, the most surprised upon seeing the news that Nakura had been killed.

“Father, please explain this!”

As soon as she was informed of Kouichi’s return, she’d barged into her father’s study.

“What’s going on? Why was Nakura killed?!”

She slammed her hands down on the thick desk and pressed her father, sitting behind it, for answers.

“How do you know that Nakura was killed?”

“Because the police station called me to confirm his identity!”

“And you accepted? What about university?”

“They couldn’t get in touch with you or my brothers, so they came to me!”

“What the hell are they doing…?” murmured Kouichi about his sons.

Upon hearing that, Mayumi’s emotions started boiling even more. “Does any of that really matter right now?!” She honestly couldn’t care less about her father or oldest brother disappearing, or her second-oldest brother pretending to be out—that was par for the course. “Stop trying to change the subject, please! What do they mean Nakura was killed?!”

“They mean just that. Nakura has been killed. We’ve lost a valuable man.”

“That isn’t what I’m asking you right now! Why was Nakura killed in Kyoto?!”

“That isn’t for you to know,” he snapped to brush her off.

But Mayumi wasn’t a weakhearted, pampered girl—that wasn’t enough to scare her. “Nakura is my bodyguard. I have a right to know the truth.”

Her tone had calmed, but her emotions were raging all the more intensely within. Anyone could tell that, not only Kouichi. He knew his daughter’s personality and sensed he’d need to compromise to a degree.

“I had dispatched Nakura to Kyoto for a certain job. He must have run into some trouble there.”

“A job? What sort of job?”

“A job of the utmost importance for the Saegusa family—one of the Ten Master Clans.”

“You didn’t answer me! What was it about?!”

“Something you don’t need to know.”

But he wouldn’t admit to there being a need to compromise any further than that.

That got through to Mayumi, too. She realized pressing him any more wouldn’t get her anywhere.

“…Fine. If you’ll excuse me.”

Harboring deep suspicions about her father, Mayumi left the study.

But Mayumi hadn’t given up on getting to the bottom of all this.

She and Nakura hadn’t actually been that close. He’d always been polite and civil with her, only ever attending to her as a servant. She’d always sensed something other, something eerie about him.

Nevertheless, she had known him and been with him for a period of time that was by no means short. And now, because of a job her own father had ordered him to do…

Mayumi didn’t believe it one bit when Kouichi said that he’d run into trouble. She was confident he hadn’t been wrapped up in something—he’d been killed during and because of his work.

Still, that was nothing more than her intuition speaking. She didn’t have any proof at the moment, and she understood that.

“What’s wrong, Mayumi? You keep sighing. And you don’t seem like yourself. Are you sick or something?”

“Huh? No, it’s nothing, Mari.”

“Certainly doesn’t look like nothing… If it isn’t, then you need to pull yourself together. Everyone’s been staring for a while.”

“Wait, really?!”

Mayumi hastily straightened and reseated herself, fixing her wide-open collar and deeply slit hem.

They were in the Magic University cafeteria, and it was lunchtime, the period between morning and afternoon lectures. A lot of the students got together at this time after eating, and when the noble daughter of the Saegusa of the Ten Master Clans was looking languid and slightly indecent, obviously they’d be looking at her.

Incidentally, Mari wasn’t here because she was skipping out on drills at the Defense Academy. The Magic University had a system of accepting an occasional student from the Defense Academy’s special combat graduate course—broadly speaking, lessons to foster magician commanders—and a student chosen by the academy would visit once per week to attend lectures. Mari had been chosen as that occasional student, and today was the day of those lectures.

At first, Mayumi pretended nothing was going on, but that didn’t last long. She was probably relieved, too, at a friend she hadn’t seen in a long time being in front of her. Realizing she was about to heave another sigh, she decided to stop playing tough.

“Mari, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Mayumi put her elbows on the table, covered her mouth with a hand, and spoke to Mari. It wasn’t very good manners, but this was the easiest position to take so that nobody would be able to read her lips. They allowed students to use soundproofing fields in the cafeteria but not spells that would block light so you couldn’t see inside.

“What is it?”

Mari assumed the same pose. From afar, they almost had their foreheads touching, adding to the feeling of secrecy.

“Mari, you know Nakura, right?”

“Your bodyguard? What about him?”

“Well, he’s been killed.”

“Killed—wait, what? …When did that happen?”

Mari was about to wonder aloud how she said that with a straight face, but seeing the swirl of combined sadness, annoyance, and rage in Mayumi’s eyes, she switched to a question midway through.

“It happened the day before yesterday, probably late at night. The Kyoto police called me yesterday.”

“Kyoto? You weren’t the one they were after, then?”

“Yes.”

“I see…”

Mari nearly let out a sigh of relief but managed to stop herself. She was pretending to be calm, but in her mind, she was rattled and on the verge of panic. She’d been frantically wondering what she would do if Mayumi was being targeted. When it turned out to be a needless fear for the moment, she finally regained enough mental leeway to lament the dead.

“I’m so sorry for your loss…”

“Thanks.”

A subdued air drifted between them. Perhaps, during that wordless time, they offered a silent prayer for the dead.

“Do they know what happened? Was it an accident?”

“Homicide.”

Mari expected that answer, too. That was always a risk when you were a bodyguard for the Ten Master Clans.

“But they don’t know why.”

Her friend across from her was desperately holding in her emotions, lest they explode out of her. Mari didn’t have to ask her or observe her to know that.

“My father only said he’d made him go to Kyoto for a job. He wouldn’t tell me anything about what the work was for or what kind it was. Obviously it was something shady, but for it to be something he could lose his life to…”

She heard a noise from Mayumi’s throat that sounded like a swallow. It was, without a doubt, a sob.

“But I don’t want to go on a hunt for vengeance,” continued Mayumi, managing to calm her emotions, making her voice sound even more willful. “I don’t, but— I don’t know, I feel like this is something I can’t ignore. Something I can’t leave alone.”

“Is it? Is anything backing you up on that?” pointed out Mari calmly despite being overwhelmed by her will.

“Not yet. I just have a gut feeling I have to do something. But I can’t ignore it. It’s driving me crazy.”

“I can’t…make much more time, by the way.”

The Magic University and the Defense Academy weren’t too far away—more specifically, the Magic University and the special combat graduate course’s separate building weren’t far from each other. Additionally, magician students were exempted from living in dorms out of recognition for the necessity to keep family or school magic information and personal spells a secret, so it wasn’t hard for the two of them to meet.

But like Mari said, the Defense Academy curriculum didn’t give much freedom compared to the Magic University. In fact, they had so many other things to do in their first year besides their mandatory drills that they basically had no free time at all. Mari personally wanted to do something for her distressed close friend, but schedule-wise, it was impossible.

“…Why not ask Juumonji or Tatsuya about it?”

Mayumi’s eyes widened at the sudden and unexpected—for her, at least—names being dropped. She blinked several times in a fluster. “Juumonji I would understand, but…why Tatsuya?”

“The Thesis Competition this year is in Kyoto, right?”

Mayumi felt Mari’s answer wasn’t good enough. “They’ll only be staying two days and one night for the competition, won’t they? And they’ll be so busy with other things, they won’t have any time to spare.”

“You know what happened last year. Won’t they at least go to check the place out beforehand?”

“Well, maybe. But knowing Tatsuya, he’ll probably be helping with the presentation and doing student council work. He’s so busy, and if I went through the trouble of going there myself… What’s that look for?” Mayumi asked Mari, noticing the fed-up look she was being given.

“There’s no point in either of us thinking about all that. Can’t you just ask him?”

It was such an obvious thing that Mayumi couldn’t even grasp a fragment of an argument.

“And why are you so worried about bothering him anyway?” Mari continued. “If you want help, wouldn’t you go to Juumonji first? He’s in university, too, and way more accommodating than Tatsuya. If I had to say who was more reliable, I’d say Juumonji.”

“Well, I, er… I guess I don’t want to bother the Juumonji family with Saegusa issues, since we’re both part of the Ten Master Clans…”

Mari wasn’t listening to those excuses. She heard them as sound, but she was completely ignoring the words they made. “Mayumi, don’t tell me.”

“Tell…you what?”

The expression Mari gave her was not the mean kind of someone teasing their good friend, but an oddly serious one that seemed sincerely worried about her.

“You’re not actually in love with him, are you?”

It took a few seconds before her words sank fully into Mayumi’s mind.

“With him…? You mean with Tatsuya?!”

“Don’t yell, you moron!”

AFTERWORD

Thank you for reading The Irregular at Magic High School so fondly and regularly. For those I’ve yet to meet, I hope you continue to support this series in the future.

How did you enjoy reading the first main story arc in a while? I’ve had many opportunities to write side stories recently, and this felt a little refreshing even to me as I was typing at my keyboard. All in all, it’s great to be back to it. It makes me feel like I’m composing a story I personally want to give form to. It was fun to write the side stories as well, but I think I can put more of my heart and soul into this.

Contrary to the schedule, the Ancient City Insurrection arc ended up being a two-part series, but considering it’s this episode in which an important character named Minoru Kudou first makes his debut, I can justify it to myself and say it was better this way. Another rival will be deeply involved in the story in the second part, making for a splendid costarring of characters, so please look forward to that.

Something else that we hadn’t initially intended was that the first part ended up being the Nara arc and the second part the Kyoto arc. And despite that, I’d find it hard to say I wrote enough scenes set in Nara, which is my greatest regret for this volume. I’d like to depict the local sights more properly in the second part.

As for the Nine School Competition sub-episodes, which I touched on in the afterword in Volume 13, I’d like to somehow get started on that within the year. If I don’t get it out there soon—well, it has a few inside stories that might impede how the main story progresses, so… I’m sorry, and I’ll do my best. (sweat)

Around the time this book hits store shelves, the anime will be reaching its climax, too. Just as some things were only written in the novels, other things were only depicted in the anime, so please enjoy both of them. And if you check out the Blu-ray and DVD releases as well, I think you’ll be able to enjoy them even more. (laugh)

Now then, I sincerely hope that you will do me the honor of reading the next volume, Ancient City Insurrection Arc, Part II, as well.

I hope for your continued support of The Irregular at Magic High School in the future.

Tsutomu Sato