Chapter 3

The train station used by First High was simply called First High Station. It was a nearly straight path from there to the school.

With how trains had changed, midtrip train transfer meetings didn’t happen anymore. But for this school at least, walking with friends from the station to the school was a frequent occurrence.

He’d already seen many examples of that yesterday—the second day of school—and he’d even witnessed it multiple times this very morning.

Still, what is this? It’s just too sudden, thought Tatsuya.

“Tatsuya… Were you acquainted with the president?” asked Mizuki.

“We just met the day before yesterday on the day of the entrance ceremony… At least, I’m pretty sure we did.” Tatsuya himself cocked his head in puzzlement at Mizuki’s question.

“Sure doesn’t look like it,” commented Leo.

“She’s running all the way here!” added Erika.

Tatsuya had confidence in his memory. He could positively assert that he and Mayumi Saegusa had first met the day before yesterday.

But as his friends had said, she definitely wasn’t acting like she had just met him.

“…Maybe she’s coming to invite you, Miyuki?” suggested Tatsuya.

“…She called out your name, though,” noted Miyuki.

Surrounding him were Mizuki, Erika, and Leo—the group he could already call “the usual” without it feeling strange.

They had done the same yesterday. Just as Tatsuya had come to school with Miyuki, as he had always done until now, the three of them called out to him one after another as if lying in wait for him—one while he was inside the station, another as soon as he left the station, and the third directly after that—and joined up with them.

As far as things went, he didn’t dislike it or anything. It was a nice way to start off the day.

But as the five of them leisurely walked the rather short path to the school gates, a voice called out “Tatsuya!” If it had been anyone else, they surely would have been embarrassed by it. As soon as he identified the petite girl jogging over to him, he just knew (without proof) that today was going to be another stormy day.

“Morning, Tatsuya! And good morning to you as well, Miyuki.”

Tatsuya felt that her treatment of him was rather rude compared to Miyuki, but she was a senior and the student council president.

“Good morning, President.” He needed to endeavor to respond with suitable politeness. After Tatsuya, Miyuki showed her a polite bow.

The other three gave greetings that were more or less polite, but they couldn’t help but be rather hesitant. Being nervous in this kind of situation was more normal.

“Are you by yourself, President?” He knew the answer just by looking, but he was also asking whether she was planning on following along with them like this.

“Yup. I don’t particularly meet up with anyone in the morning.” Her affirmation also confirmed the implied question.

But…she was still acting overfamiliar toward him.

“I had something I wanted to talk about with you as well, Miyuki… Would you mind if I came with you all?” Those words were directed at Miyuki.

She was still speaking rather informally now, but the way it sounded was different.

And apparently that wasn’t just Tatsuya’s imagination.

“No, I don’t mind, but…”

“Oh, I’m not trying to tell you anything confidential. Or shall I wait until later?” she asked, smiling and looking at the other three, who were standing rigidly a few feet away. They expressed with words and gestures that she could feel free, and Mayumi bowed to them and another smile escaped her lips. Tatsuya, however, couldn’t help but look glum.

“President… Is it just me, or are you treating one of us a little differently?”

“What? Oh, my, was I?”

Sure, now she changed how she spoke—but even if she played dumb, her tone and expression gave it away. Tatsuya wasn’t one to get angry over this much, but that isn’t to say he didn’t feel any stress.

Miyuki hastily brought the conversation back to her. “What did you want to talk about? The student council?”

“Yes. I’d just like to explain it at ease at some point. Might you have any plans for lunch?”

“I think I’ll be eating in the cafeteria.”

“With Tatsuya?”

“No—he’s in a different class, so…”

She probably remembered what happened yesterday. Mayumi nodded a few times to Miyuki’s reserved answer with a look implying she knew how it was. “There are a lot of students bothered by the strangest things.”

Tatsuya glanced beside him. As he expected, Mizuki was nodding along. It looked like she was still hung up on what happened yesterday.

But, President, wouldn’t you saying that cause controversy? thought Tatsuya to himself.

“Then why don’t you have lunch with me in the student council room? You can bring your lunch box, and there’s a vending machine, too.”

“…Is there a dining server placed in the student council room?” replied the normally serene Miyuki, without being able to conceal her surprise.

Her surprise wasn’t only the positive kind, either.

Why would an automatic waiting machine, the sort usually placed in unmanned airport cafeterias and dining cars on long-distance trains, be stationed in a high school student council room?

“I’d rather not say too much before having you in there, but we do end up working late some days.” Mayumi smiled awkwardly, a little embarrassed, and continued with her invitation. “And if it’s the student council room, then there’s no problem with Tatsuya coming with you.”

At that time, just for a moment, Tatsuya thought he saw her smile change to a sly one—or an evil one, more frankly. Regardless of her expression, though, her remark had still been troubling.

“…Yes, there is. I’d rather not have any trouble with the vice president.” He had no intention of interfering with his sister’s student council activities, but Tatsuya had to get a word in.

The male student who had given him that glare from behind Mayumi on the day of the entrance ceremony must have been the second-year vice president.

There was no mistaking that sort of glare. If he were to casually go and eat lunch in the student council room, there was no doubt in his mind the young man would pick a fight with him.

“The vice president…?” Mayumi’s head tilted to one side, and then she theatrically clapped her hands together. “You mean Hanzou? You don’t need to worry about him.”

“…Are you referring to Vice President Hattori?”

“Yes, why?”

At that moment, Tatsuya strongly resolved himself to never give Mayumi a reason to give him a nickname.

“Hanzou always eats lunch in his club room.” Mayumi, of course, continued her solicitation without dropping her bright smile, and without a care for those thoughts of Tatsuya’s. “If you like, everyone else may come with you as well. It’s my role as a member of the student council to inform people of our activities, after all.”

However, Mayumi’s sociable offer was met by a refusal in the direct opposite tone of voice. “Thanks for the offer, but I think we’ll pass.”

It was an awfully blunt way of refusing her.

The atmosphere began to take a turn for the worse because of Erika’s unexpected attitude. But as long as Tatsuya didn’t know what she truly thought, he could neither overturn it nor follow up on it.

“I see.”

The only one that didn’t change was Mayumi, who still smiled.

It seemed less that she was dense and more that she was aware of circumstances they were not… Tatsuya had no particular reason for that guess, but it was still his guess.

“Then, what about just you and Tatsuya?”

Miyuki looked at him, her eyes asking what they should do. It would have been fine for him to refuse until just now, but considering the attitude Erika had just taken, refusing without coming off as abrasive would be difficult.

“…I understand. Miyuki and I will take you up on the offer.”

“Is that so? That’s good. Then we’ll leave the details for then. I’ll be waiting!” Mayumi spun around and nearly skipped away.

What is so much fun for her? Despite headed for the same school building, the five that saw her off plodded along.

A sigh escaped Tatsuya’s lips.

Lunch break came quickly.

His feet felt like lead. But his conditioning wasn’t so poor that he would get exhausted just from walking up to the second floor; what really felt like lead was his mood—his feet feeling like lead was just a metaphor. It meant that he was starting to have second thoughts about this.

In contrast, Miyuki’s footsteps were light. He didn’t venture to ask why. He was at least smart enough to know what she was enjoying.

They headed for the end of the fourth-story hallway.

The door there was made of plywood and looked the same as the other classrooms. The differences amounted to a wood-carved plate buried in the middle, an intercom on the wall, and numerous security devices likely skillfully camouflaged.

The plate read STUDENT COUNCIL ROOM.

Miyuki was the one who had been invited—Tatsuya was just an extra. He yielded the duty of knocking to Miyuki. (Of course, only in a figurative sense. There wasn’t actually a knocker on the door, just an intercom.)

Miyuki gracefully asked to be let in, and a bright word of welcome returned from the intercom speaker.

There was a soft sound of the door unlocking, so quiet that you wouldn’t notice unless you strained your ears. Tatsuya placed his fingers on the door handle. Angling his body to be in front of his sister, he opened the door.

He knew that there wasn’t any particular reason he needed to be cautious…but this was a habit that was part of them at this point.

“Welcome! Don’t be shy—come on in.” A voice addressed them from directly ahead, at the desk in the back.

Mayumi smiled, and Tatsuya found himself wanting to ask what on earth she was enjoying so much. She beckoned to them with her hand.

Miyuki passed in front, and Tatsuya followed behind. He stopped one pace in front of the door, and Miyuki two. She placed her hands together and looked down, giving a perfect bow that you could put in a textbook.

Tatsuya couldn’t emulate such a refined act. The way she spoke and acted had been instilled in her by their late mother, someone Tatsuya hadn’t had much contact with.

“Umm… How very polite of you.”

At the sight of a bow that could get her into a party in the Imperial Palace, Mayumi seemed to falter a bit as well.

There were two other officers seated, but they were engrossed in her aura. A third, the only nonofficer seated, the disciplinary committee president, maintained a calm expression, but Tatsuya got the impression she was forcing herself a little to put on a poker face.

My sister seems like she’s really going for this, he thought. However, he didn’t know exactly why Miyuki had done something so intimidating.

“Please, sit down. We can talk while we eat.”

As if her pace had been ruined by Miyuki’s preemptive strike, a shadow crossed over Mayumi’s tone of voice, which was casual at best and overfamiliar at worst.

She was probably pointing out the long meeting table. The fact that there were no information terminals embedded in it in this age was probably in anticipation of its being used for food and drink.

In any case, she pulled out a chair and had Miyuki sit down at the table, a thick wooden one unusual to see used as school equipment. Tatsuya took a seat next to her, farther from the head of the table. His sister would always stubbornly make him sit farther up the table from her, but she understood that she was the guest of honor today, so she seemed to be enduring it.

“Would you like meat, fish, or vegetarian?”

Astonishingly, not only was there a waiting machine—it had multiple meal options. Tatsuya chose the vegetarian meal, and Miyuki the same. One of the sophomores—if he recalled correctly, she was Azusa Nakajou, the secretary—began to manipulate the machine, which was positioned along the wall, and which was about the size of a chest of drawers.

Now they only had to wait.

Mayumi sat at the head of the table; next to her, across from Miyuki, was a female senior; next to her, across from Tatsuya, was the disciplinary committee chairman, and next to her was Azusa. Mayumi, having regained most of her composure, broached the topic.

“We were introduced during the entrance ceremony, but just in case, I’ll introduce everyone again. To my left is the accountant, Suzune Ichihara, also known as Rin.”

“…Only the president may call me that.” Her face was proper, though each part of her face had the impression of being harsh. She was tall, and her limbs were long. The word beauty would have been a better way to describe her appearance than pretty. She certainly looked more like a “Miss Suzune” than a “Rin,” which came from a different reading of one of the characters in her name.

“And next to her—you know her, right? She’s Mari Watanabe, the head of the disciplinary committee.”

This wasn’t really a conversation, but nobody seemed to care. Maybe that meant that this was what usually happened.

“And then the secretary, Azusa Nakajou, also known as Ah-chan.”

“President… Please, stop calling me Ah-chan in front of underclassmen. I have a position to think of, too, you know.”

She was even smaller than Mayumi and had a baby face. Even if she didn’t intend for her upturned eyes to look pouty, she still looked like a child about to cry.

I see. That must be “Ah-chan,” thought Tatsuya. That’s unfortunate.

“These members, with the addition of the vice president Hanzou, are the student council members this year.”

“Except me, anyway.”

“Right. Mari isn’t with us. Oh, looks like it’s finished!”

The panel on the dining server opened, and the meals came out on trays. The food lacked individuality, but they were all served correctly. There were five in total.

One’s missing…, thought Tatsuya. It wasn’t his place to speak, so as he wondered what to do, he saw Mari patiently take out a bento box.

Miyuki, seeing Azusa stand, also left her seat. The automatic waiting machine had, as its name implied, a function to automatically serve people, but if you didn’t have a table specifically for it, it was faster to use human hands.

Azusa placed hers on the table first, then took Mayumi’s and Suzune’s in her hands. Then Miyuki carried hers and Tatsuya’s to their seats, and the strange meal together began.

They started off with a harmless topic.

Although, among Tatsuya and Miyuki and the rest of them, there were basically no common topics. The conversation naturally drifted to the food they were currently eating.

There was no helping the fact that they were ready-made meals, since they were automatically cooked, but recent processed food was not all that inferior to normal cooking, though that was compared to average cooking. They couldn’t deny that it was missing something.

“Did you make that bento yourself, Watanabe?” Miyuki’s intent behind that question was simply to facilitate conversation; she didn’t mean anything in particular by it.

“Yeah,” nodded Mari. “…Is that strange?” She responded with her own hard-to-answer question in a voice that sounded a little deliberately mean. She wasn’t saying it with any actual nastiness—she was only teasing her underclassman, since she appeared to be such a proper person.

“No, not at all,” objected Tatsuya without skipping a beat before she could make Miyuki confused.

“…I see.”

Tatsuya’s eyes were on Mari’s hands—more precisely, her fingers. Did she use a machine? Did she make it herself? How good was she at cooking? How bad was she…? Mari felt like he was seeing through all of it, and she was embarrassed.

“Perhaps we shall pack our own lunches beginning tomorrow as well.”

Tatsuya naturally averted his gaze at Miyuki’s casual remark. “Any bento you would make would be a very attractive prospect, but we don’t have a place to eat…”

“Ah, that’s right… We need to figure that out first…”

Their conversation—not the words being exchanged themselves, but rather the air between them as they spoke—seemed a little too friendly for family members of their age of opposite sex.

“…It’s like a conversation between lovers.”

Suzune dropped that bombshell without smiling an inch.

“Is that so? I would consider being her lover were we not blood related, but…” But Tatsuya replied in jest, and the bombshell failed to explode.

Or perhaps the bombshell was dropped on someone else—Azusa’s face was flushed red in seriousness. “…I’m joking, of course,” he declared flatly, without smiling an inch. There was no trace of panic in his words.

“You’re not much fun, you know,” evaluated Mari cheerlessly.

“I’m aware of that,” responded Tatsuya in monotone.

“All right, all right, let’s stop, Mari. I understand it’s frustrating, but it seems that normal methods won’t work on Tatsuya,” interrupted Mayumi with a wry smile, having seen that there would be no end to it if she didn’t.

“…You’re right. I take back what I said. You’re pretty interesting, Tatsuya.”

She grinned—it was a handsome grin, despite her being a pretty female student—and overturned her appraisal. First the president, and now the disciplinary committee chairman.

It seemed he would get used to being called by his first name whether he liked it or not.

“Let’s get to what we’re here for, shall we?”

It felt a little sudden, but it wasn’t as though high school lunch break was very long. They were already finished eating, too. Tatsuya and Miyuki both nodded at Mayumi’s words, which had returned to their formal tone.

“Our school believes that student autonomy is important, and the student council is given broad authority within school. This is a general trend among public high schools, not only this school.”

Tatsuya nodded to let her know he was listening. Control and autonomy were like waves breaking on the shore and retreating—their size differences tended to change in accordance with each other. After the complete victory at the Battle of Okinawa three years ago and the elevation of Japan’s voice in the international arena, the nation saw a recoil away from the excessive importance placed on central control. It reflected unrest in internal affairs, stemming from the fact that the country’s diplomatic environment had always been inferior. Society then swayed to place heavy emphasis on autonomy. And as backlash for that, certain private schools that still had strict management systems were gathering popularity from parents. The world couldn’t be measured so simply.

“The student council here—traditionally, rights are collected on the student council president. You could call it a heavy concentration of power on that person.”

Feeling uneasy at that statement was probably rude to Mayumi. Tatsuya drew back the reins on his mind.

“The student council president is chosen by election, but the president chooses the other student council members. Relieving members from their posts is also something entrusted only to the student council president. In all other committees, save for a few, the chairman has the right to appoint and dismiss members.”

“The disciplinary committee I lead is one of those exceptions. The student council, the club committee, and the teachers’ association elect three disciplinary committee members at a time through mutual election.”

“So Mari, in a sense, has the same level of authority as me. Now, under this system, there is a limit to the term of office of the student council president but not for the other members. The president’s term in office is from the first of October to the thirtieth of September of the following year. During this time, the president can freely appoint and dismiss members.”

He was starting to figure out where this was going, but he didn’t interrupt. Instead, he nodded again to show his understanding.

“The usual custom is to make the freshman representative of the new students a member of the student council. The goal is to train a successor. Not all freshmen who become officers this way are chosen by the student council president, but that is how it has been for the past five years.”

“So you were the head of the students when you enrolled, too? I should have known.”

“Ah, well, that’s right!” she stammered, her eyes wandering and her cheeks flushing ever so slightly,

Tatsuya’s question had been a sort of flattery. He knew the answer when he asked it, but despite likely being used to hearing it, Mayumi looked honestly bashful. The fact that she was blushing for real, perhaps, meant that she wasn’t that sophisticated…and she looked, at best, like someone the same age as him. —But maybe coming off as seriously embarrassed at just this was in itself an act.

“Ahem… Miyuki, I hereby request that you join the student council.”

“Joining the student council,” in this case, of course meant becoming a student council officer.

“Will you accept?”

There was a short pause as Miyuki’s gaze lowered to her hands. She turned around to Tatsuya and silently asked him. Tatsuya gave her a small nod, full of encouragement. She looked down again, but when her head came back up, her eyes were worried for some reason.

“President, are you aware of my brother’s grades?”

“—?” Tatsuya very nearly cried out at the entirely unexpected development. What is she thinking, bringing that up so suddenly?

“Yes, I am indeed. They are incredible… Frankly speaking, when a teacher showed me his answers in private, I lost a little confidence in myself.”

“If you’re going to let in high-achieving, efficient individuals, then I believe my brother would be a better choice than me.”

“Hey, Mi—”

“If it’s just desk work, then I don’t think practical skill grades have anything to do with it. In fact, knowledge and judgment should be more important.”

Miyuki almost never refuted something another person was saying with her own remarks. And she had done so even less with Tatsuya.

“I am greatly honored by your wish that I join the student council. I would very much like to be part of it, but is there no way my brother could come with me?”

Tatsuya covered his face. He wanted to look up and groan. Had he had such a negative influence on his sister? She must have known that taking a nepotistic attitude like this would only invite unease, so why?

Her action was not merely blind—it was a premeditated crime.

“Unfortunately, we cannot do that.”

The answer came not from the president but from the seat next to her.

“The student council officers are selected from among the Course 1 students. This isn’t an unwritten rule—it’s an official regulation. It is the sole restriction placed upon the appointing and dismissing powers given to the president. This regulation was decided upon when the student council system became how it is now, and to overturn it we would need to have every student agree on a revision to the limitations of the student council. Two-thirds of the student body need to vote in agreement for it to go through, so with the Course 1 and Course 2 students being essentially equivalent in number, modifying the system is realistically impossible,” declared Suzune dispassionately—or, if anything, remorsefully.

It was easy to understand from her tone that she, too, held a negative attitude toward the current system that discriminated between the Course 1 and Course 2 students as Blooms and Weeds.

“…I apologize. Please forgive my speaking out of place.”

That was probably why Miyuki was able to apologize honestly, as well. Nobody was about to reproach her as she stood and bowed her head.

“Umm, well then, will you accept a position as secretary for this year’s student council, Miyuki?”

“Yes, I will work my hardest. I look forward to working with you all.”

Miyuki bowed again, though in a slightly more reserved manner this time, and Mayumi nodded with a satisfied smile.

“Please go ahead and ask Ah-chan about what your job actually entails.”

“President, I said…to stop calling me Ah-chan—”

“If you have nothing else to do, would you be able to begin coming starting today after school?”

Not even paying attention to her baleful protest, Mayumi continued the conversation at her own pace.

“Miyuki.” His sister had glanced back at him, but before she could say anything, Tatsuya said this short word with a slightly strong emphasis, recommending that she assent.

Miyuki’s eyes showed agreement, and she turned back to face Mayumi. “I understand. I should come here after school, then, correct?”

“Yes. I’ll be waiting for you, Miyuki.”

“Excuse me… How come you call me Ah-chan, and just call her Miyuki…?”

It was a natural question, but again, she was ignored.

…Tatsuya started to feel sorry for Azusa.

“…There’s a little longer until lunch break is over. Can I have a moment?”

Of course, it was also the fault of Mari stealing everyone’s attention by raising her hand abruptly, though not in a bullying or teasing way to her.

“The student council’s nomination for the disciplinary committee still hasn’t been decided for the last empty spot created by last year’s graduates.”

“Didn’t I say I was still in the process of selecting one? Not even a week has passed since the current year started. Don’t rush me, Mari!” Mayumi discontentedly chided Mari on her impatience, but Mari didn’t respond to it.

“If I’m correct, the stipulation for selecting student council officers said that, aside from the student council president, you must appoint Course 1 students.”

“That’s right.” Unfortunate though it may be, said her face as she nodded.

“The Course 1 restriction is only for the vice president, secretary, and accountant, correct?”

“Yes. The officers that make up the student council are the president, vice president, secretary, and accountant, after all.”

“So that means if the student council’s appointee for the disciplinary committee was a student from Course 2, it wouldn’t be against regulation.”

“Mari, you…” Mayumi’s eyes opened wide, and Suzune and Azusa made dumbfounded faces as well.

This proposition seemed to be just as tremendous as Miyuki’s earlier remarks. This Mari Watanabe seems to enjoy practical jokes a whole lot, thought Tatsuya.

—However.

“Nice!”

“Huh?” Mayumi’s unexpected cheer caused a stupid groan to escape him.

“That’s right! There’s no problem if it’s the disciplinary committee, is there? Mari, the student council names Tatsuya Shiba to the disciplinary committee.”

And all of a sudden, the situation had changed into something totally different.

“Wait a moment, please! What about my thoughts on this? I haven’t even gotten a clear explanation of what a disciplinary committee member does.” Tatsuya raised his voice in protest, more out of his danger sense going off than based on logical thought processes.

“Your sister hasn’t received a concrete explanation of her job in the student council yet either, has she?” Suzune suddenly took the wind out of that sail, though.

“…Well, that’s true, but…”

“Now, now, Rin, it’s all right. Tatsuya, a disciplinary committee member is a person who maintains discipline in school.”

“……”

“……”

“…Is that all?”

“That may not sound like very much, but it’s a pretty tough…er, I mean, rewarding job!”

For now, he ignored the part Mayumi smiled past and rephrased. There was a more fundamental discrepancy in their mutual understanding.

“That isn’t what I meant…”

“What?”

Mayumi didn’t seem to be playing dumb. Tatsuya slid his gaze to the right.

Suzune’s eyes were sympathetic. But she wasn’t about to throw him a lifeboat.

Next to her—Mari looked amused.

Next to her—when their eyes met, panic entered Azusa’s face.

He stared. He peered into her eyes, which were bouncing and wandering left and right.

“Umm, our disciplinary committee is an organization that manages people who violate school regulations.”

—She was as timid as her appearance suggested.

“It’s called the disciplinary committee, but things like dress code violations and being late are handled by a weekly autonomous committee.”

This student council having “personality” was an understatement—would she really be able to survive in a place like this? Self-induced though it was, Tatsuya began to worry.

“…Umm, did you have a question?”

“No, please continue.”

“Um, yes. The disciplinary committee’s main responsibility is to expose those who violate school regulations by using magic, and to control disturbances where magic is used.

“The head of the disciplinary committee gets the final say in the offender’s punishment, and along with the student council president, who acts as representative of the student body, attends the disciplinary meeting and can offer her own opinions. In other words, it’s a combination between the police and the prosecutor.”

“But that’s amazing, Tatsuya!” said Miyuki.

“Come on, Miyuki… Wait a moment before giving me those ‘it’s decided!’ eyes… I just want to make sure of something.” Instead of turning to Azusa, who had been explaining, he turned to Mari.

“What?”

“By that explanation, the disciplinary committee members need to stop fights by force if they happen, right?”

“That’s about right. Even if magic isn’t being used, that’s our duty.”

“And when magic is used, we need to stop it.”

“Before it’s used at all, ideally.”

“Excuse me! I’m a Course 2 student because my practical skill grades were poor!” Tatsuya finally raised his voice. It sounded like you needed enough power to hold down an opponent with magic to do this job. However he thought about it, it wasn’t a role they should be giving to a Course 2 student with inferior magical abilities.

However, the reprimanded Mari readily gave a too-simple answer with a cool face. “That’s okay.”

“What is?!”

“If it’s a contest of strength, then we have me… Whoops, looks like lunch is just about over. I’d like to continue this after school—would you mind?”

Lunch break was certainly almost over, and the conversation was certainly not one to be left at vagaries.

“…All right.”

Agreeing to show up here a second time made him feel like this situation was inevitable, like his outer moat and inner moat had already been breached, but Tatsuya didn’t have any other options.

“Okay, then come here later.”

Tatsuya stifled his feeling of how unreasonable this was and nodded. Miyuki, while still considerate of her brother’s feelings, couldn’t hide her own happiness.

Thanks to the proliferation of educational terminals, a theory was once popular that school was unnecessary. It supposed that because you can have class over a network, taking such long trips to and from a school was a waste of time and energy.

In the end, this “unnecessary school theory” never evolved out of a fad. However far interfaces advanced technologically, virtual experiences would never be reality. For things like practice and experimentation, sufficient learning effects couldn’t be gained unless it was a real-life experience accompanied by real-time question-and-answer sessions—and there was learning promotion effect in learning in a group with others of the same age. These two points had been proven by trial and error using human experiment-like trials.

Class 1-E was currently right smack in the middle of one of those practicum classes.

That said, there was no teacher present for the real-time question-and-answer session. It was an easily understood example that the fruits of academic research weren’t necessarily adopted logically.

The students of 1-E were following the control procedure displayed on the wall monitor and manipulating the stationary educational CAD. Today’s class was a primer to a primer—learning how to control this machine used in class.

It was real-life guidance, but there was still a task to perform. There was no teacher overseeing them, so submitting a task was the only standard of this course. Today’s task was to use this CAD to make a small push car about thirty centimeters long move from one end of a rail to another, then back, three times over.

Without actually touching the push car, of course.

“Tatsuya, how was it in the student council room?”

As Tatsuya was standing in line waiting to use the CAD, no sooner had he been poked in the back than Leo shot him a question. His face didn’t seem to be hiding anything, so he must have just had a keen interest.

“It got a little weird…”

“Weird how?” Erika, who was in front of Tatsuya, spun around and tilted her head.

“They told me to be on the disciplinary committee. It was so sudden. I wonder what that was all about.” Tatsuya, too, tilted his head in thought. What was that about? was really the only thing he felt like he could say about it.

“Yeah, that is pretty sudden.” Leo seemed to feel the abruptness as well.

“But isn’t that pretty impressive? You got scouted by the student council!”

Mizuki, however, seemed to feel differently. She had stopped on her way back to the end of the line to rechallenge the task (not that she had failed or anything) and was looking at Tatsuya with admiration. The lines to the left and right of them getting a little noisy was probably because his other classmates felt the same way as Mizuki.

But Tatsuya couldn’t honestly accept Mizuki’s words of praise. “Is it? I was just along with my sister.”

Erika gave a small, wry smile at Tatsuya’s stubbornly skeptical attitude. “Oh, don’t be so mean to yourself. What does the disciplinary committee do, anyway?” she asked. Tatsuya explained in summary what Azusa had told him, and the three’s eyes went wide.

“That definitely seems like a troublesome job…” Leo sighed; beside him, Mizuki flip-flopped and gave a worried expression.

“Isn’t that dangerous, though…? Erika, what’s wrong?”

Erika looked displeased—actually, she looked angry for some reason. “…God, so selfish…” Her gaze was strangely averted. Her words, spoken while glaring at empty space—were they rebuking someone not here?

“Erika?” repeated Mizuki.

“Eh? Ah, I’m sorry. What a terrible story. Tatsuya, it’s dangerous. Just turn it down!” Erika tempted in a purposefully bright voice, her stern expression giving way to a mischievous smile.

“Huh? No, it sounds fun! You should do it, Tatsuya. I’ll root for you!”

Tatsuya knew she was trying to cover something up with a joking tone, but what was she trying to cover up?

“But if you have to mediate in fights, you could get mixed up in some attack magic, right?” asked Mizuki.

Now he thought he knew who she was referring to when she said “selfish.”

“Yeah. And there will probably be guys who would hate you for no reason because of it, too.”

But the atmosphere wasn’t right for him to get more information from Erika.

“But don’t you think Tatsuya would be better than some overbearing Course 1 kid walking up uninvited?”

And he had no intention of barging in on the conversation with the question.

“Hmm… You might be right.”

“Erika, don’t be so easily convinced! If that’s the case, he just shouldn’t get into fights, right?”

“But, Mizuki, even if we don’t intend to, sometimes you have to put out the fires before they start, right? Like what happened yesterday.”

Mizuki groaned. “That was—”

“People get away with false accusations and charges all the time. It’s the world we live in.”

In fact, the winds had started blowing in a bad direction, making Tatsuya feel the need to block it off. “Hey, Erika, it’s your turn.”

“Ack, sorry, sorry!”

Urged on by Tatsuya, Erika, panicking a bit, took her position. He could tell just by looking at her back that she was giving it her all. She didn’t seem at all like the idle chat had dragged her down. She appeared to be the type of person who could switch her brain quickly from one thing to the next. Frivolous though she might seem, perhaps she was actually serious at heart.

Erika’s back moved up and down slightly—she was probably taking a breath.

After a pause, he “saw” the psionic waves—a form of light invisible to the naked eye, but detectable by magicians—from behind her. It was the light of the extra psions not used for the activation program deployment or the execution of the magic program that followed. There wasn’t as little excess psionic light as a well-finessed magician, but for a freshman in high school, it was pretty high level. When the excess light reached a certain level, it would be accompanied by a physical luminescence because of photon interference, but perhaps the fact that it didn’t happen that way meant that she had it well under control.

The cart placed in front of the CAD began to run, then looped back again. It repeated the process three times. She must have been satisfied with the result herself—Tatsuya could see her making a furtive fist with her right hand as if to say, Nice! The cart was certainly moving more briskly than in the previous practice session. Specifically its acceleration and deceleration both were quick.

For this practice, you accelerated the cart to the halfway point on the rail, then decelerated it to a stop at the end, then accelerated and decelerated in the other direction, making three full round trips. The activation programs registered in the CAD were magic program “blueprints” implementing six acceleration/deceleration technique sets. There was no designation for how great the acceleration should be, so that part of it ended up reflecting the student’s capacity. The fact that the cart had moved energetically meant that her magic had been that good.

Erika went around to the back of her line with an unconcerned face—you couldn’t tell at all that she had just done a secret fist pump. To replace her, Tatsuya stepped up to the stationary CAD.

He adjusted the height of the legs supporting the CAD with a pedal, then pressed the palm of his hand against the translucent white panel covering the entire surface of its housing, which was about the size of a filing cabinet, and began to circulate psions.

Resisting the urge to grimace at the noise feedback in the activation program, he constructed a magic program.

After appearing to stumble two or three times, the push car safely began to move.

Today’s practicum was purely to get the students used to the CAD they’d be using in class—time wasn’t being kept. But that was something that nobody but Tatsuya himself was aware of.

The time it took to get the push car moving was clearly longer than when Erika did it. No, not only Erika. It might be faster to count up from the bottom of the twenty-five students in 1-E.

The energy of the push car itself didn’t unfavorably compare to the other students. So it didn’t stand out in particular.

But Tatsuya himself was acutely aware of the results, and it made him want to heave a sigh.

He was grateful they hadn’t been envious or jealous of him, but being sent off with a hearty “Good luck!” sort of ruined the mood—it would just bring his spirits down instead. It was all the more difficult, because Tatsuya himself didn’t have any enthusiasm in the first place.

After school, he trudged to the student council room, his feet even heavier than they had been during lunch.

Atmosphere-wise it was a slightly miserable composition, but Miyuki held her tongue out of understanding for his warped sentiments.

Their ID cards had already been registered with the authentication system (he was opposed to already considering himself to have entered the disciplinary committee, but Mayumi and Mari had both had their own way with him), so they entered without incident.

He was greeted by a sharp gaze teeming with distinct hostility. The origin was on the other side of the workstation console buried in the wall. Sitting in the seat that had been empty during lunch.

“Excuse us.”

Again, he couldn’t brag about it, but Tatsuya was used to this type of look and atmosphere. Is that sad? When he maintained his poker face and bowed slightly without a word, the hostility dispersed as though it had never been there. Although it wasn’t as if the hostility toward him had disappeared—it had just shifted to interest in Miyuki, who had taken her place standing in front of him, and nobody needed to explain that to him.

The glare’s owner rose and approached the siblings. No—maybe it was more accurate to say that he approached Miyuki. Tatsuya recalled his face. He was the second-year student who’d sat right behind Mayumi during the entrance ceremony—which meant he was the vice president of the student council.

His height was about the same as Tatsuya’s. His breadth was a little on the thin side.

He was put together, but his features bore no special mention, and his physique was nothing particularly special. He didn’t give an impression of being very physically strong, but the radiance of the psions encroaching upon the surrounding air spoke to the young man’s excelling magical power.

“I am the vice president, Gyoubu Hattori. Miyuki Shiba, welcome to the student council.” His voice seemed a little wound up, but considering his age, he was exhibiting enough self-control. His right hand twitched—perhaps because he considered shaking hands, then stopped himself.

Tatsuya didn’t have the mind to inquire why he stopped.

Hattori returned to his seat after that, completely ignoring Tatsuya. He felt a hint of indignation from behind Miyuki, but it disappeared instantly. Nobody other than Tatsuya, who was standing right behind her, would have noticed it. Tatsuya privately put his hand to his chest, relieved she had managed to control herself.

Without a care to his anxiety—though considering that they were strangers he just met, there was no helping that—they were welcomed by two casual greetings, without touching on the vice president’s action, which had caused it.

“Hey, you’re here.”

“Welcome, Miyuki. And thank you for coming as well, Tatsuya.”

The one who lightly waved to him and who was already treating him like a friend was Mari, and the one who naturally treated him differently was Mayumi. Of course, neither of those things exactly got on his nerves.

Tatsuya had already arrived in the state of mind that said worrying about these two wouldn’t get him anywhere.

“Sorry to get right to it, but Ah-chan, could you…?”

“…All right.”

Her state of mind was one of resignation as well. Azusa cast down her eyes in sadness for a moment, then smiled awkwardly and nodded. She guided Miyuki over to the terminal on the wall.

“Okay, we should get moving, too.”

He felt like her tone of voice had changed quite a bit in just one day, but Tatsuya figured that was probably because this casual way of speaking was more Mari’s thing.

“To where?”

Tatsuya, however, hadn’t been given a royal upbringing, and didn’t care how she talked. He simply responded to what he was told.

“The disciplinary committee HQ. I figure it’ll be easier to have you see everything. It’s the room right under this. Oh, but it’s connected in the middle.”

Tatsuya paused before replying to Mari’s answer. “…That’s an odd structure.”

“I agree,” she said, rising from her seat. However, before she got all the way up, she was stopped.

“Please wait, Watanabe.”

The one who stopped her was Vice President Hattori. Mari responded to him using a name he wasn’t yet familiar with.

“What’s up, Vice President Hanzou Gyoubu-Shoujou Hattori?”

“Please don’t call me by my full name!”

Tatsuya unthinkingly glanced at Mayumi. She bent her head a bit, wondering why he did so. I never thought “Hanzou” was his real name… It was completely unexpected.

“Okay, then Vice President Hanzou Hattori.”

“It’s Gyoubu Hattori!”

“That’s not your name; it’s just your official position. In your family.”

Indeed, the term gyoubu-shoujou referred to a junior to the traditional “minister of justice” position in premodern Japan.

“I have no rank right now. The school has accepted my registered name of Gyoubu Hattori! …But that isn’t what I wanted to say!”

“You were the one hung up on it.”

“Now, Mari, there are some things that Hanzou won’t give ground on,” remarked Mayumi.

Everyone turned to glare at her, as if to say, You’re not one to talk.

But she showed no signs of responding to them.

Maybe she didn’t even realize it.

And for some reason, Hattori didn’t say anything, either. But it wasn’t quite like he didn’t know how to deal with her—Tatsuya got a glimpse of a different sort of emotion than the one he’d had with Mari, and it was quite interesting to him.

Insofar as he was a third-party witness to it, anyway.

But he couldn’t remain a spectator for more than a few moments. “Watanabe, what I wanted to talk about was the disciplinary committee replacement.”

The blood that had risen to his face all receded. Hattori regained his composure as if this were a time-lapse video.

“What?”

“I’m opposed to naming that freshman a member of the committee,” opined Hattori calmly—perhaps suppressing his emotion.

Mari frowning at that didn’t seem to be an act, necessarily. He couldn’t tell whether her expression was one of surprise, one of being fed up with him, or what emotion she had, though. “Don’t be silly. President Saegusa is the one who nominated Tatsuya Shiba as the student council’s selection. Even if it was an oral nomination, it doesn’t change the effectiveness of the nomination.”

“I heard he hasn’t accepted yet. It isn’t an official nomination until the person accepts it.”

“That would be Tatsuya’s problem. The student council’s opinion has already been articulated by the student council president. The decision is for him to make, not you,” said Mari, looking between Tatsuya and Hattori.

Hattori didn’t spare a glance for Tatsuya. He was purposely ignoring him.

Suzune looked at the two of them calmly, Azusa in a fluster, and Mayumi with an unreadable, archaic smile. Miyuki was meekly keeping herself by the wall. However, Tatsuya was on edge, though in a different way from Azusa—he didn’t know when his sister might spontaneously discharge again.

“There is no precedent for nominating a Weed to the disciplinary committee.”

The epithet in Hattori’s response raised Mari’s eyebrows slightly. “That’s a prohibited word, Vice President Hattori. The disciplinary committee has decided that it’s a discriminatory term. You’ve got some balls using it right in front of the committee’s leader.”

Hattori didn’t appear frightened by her words, which could be taken either as a reprimand or a warning, or both.

“There’s no point in keeping up appearances, is there? Or do you plan to reprimand more than a third of all the students in this school? The distinction between Blooms and Weeds is recognized by the school and built into the school system. And there’s enough of a gap in skill between them to form the foundation for that distinction. Members of the disciplinary committee are tasked with using real ability to crack down on students who don’t follow the rules. A Weed’s real ability is inferior, and thus they cannot serve in it.”

Mari answered Hattori’s arrogant declaration with a cold smile. “The disciplinary committee does see real ability as more important, but there are many kinds of ability. If we just need someone to be overpowering, we have me. Whether I’m against ten people or twenty, I can deal with them all myself. The only ones who can fight on an even level with me are President Saegusa and Chairman Juumonji, after all. By your logic, we wouldn’t need talented people lacking in real combat abilities. Or do you want to fight me, Vice President Hattori?”

Mari’s words had confidence and results backing them up. But though Hattori winced and lost the mental battle against her, he didn’t seem to have any intention of raising the white flag. “I’m not making myself the problem. It’s a matter of his aptitude.”

Of course, Hattori firmly believed what he was saying was correct. Less powerful Course 2 students couldn’t be part of the disciplinary committee, since it demanded the use of force. That fact was proven by the reality that no Course 2 student had ever been chosen for the disciplinary committee.

But Mari’s own confidence was stronger than his. “Didn’t I just say there’s more than one kind of ability? Tatsuya has the eyes and mind to read into activation programs as they’re expanding and predict the magic they’re executing.”

“…What?” asked Hattori reflexively—he hadn’t expected those words. Maybe he didn’t believe what he’d heard.

Reading into activation programs. There was no way someone could do that. That was common sense to him.

“What I’m saying is he can tell what kind of magic someone was trying to use even if they didn’t actually activate it.” But Mari’s answer didn’t change. She spoke without uncertainty that it was the truth and that it was possible.

“The rules of punishment of our school vary based on the variety and scale of the magic the person tried to use. But if you do like Mayumi does and destroy the activation program before the magic program goes off, we won’t know what kind of magic they were trying to use. But if we let the activation program expand, we’re putting the cart before the horse. If you can cancel the activation expand while it’s in the deployment stage, it’s safer that way. We’ve always had trouble deciding how to punish attempted criminals, and we sometimes have to let them off easy. He’ll be a huge help in that regard.”

“…But would he be able to stop the magic from executing at the scene of an actual crime…?” His tone couldn’t conceal his shock, and Hattori attempted to somehow argue against her.

“That goes for Course 1 freshmen, too. Even for sophomores—how many people do you think have the skills to stop an opponent’s magic from activating by using your own after they start?” Mari flat-out rejected what he said, but that wasn’t all. “And besides, there’s one other reason I want him on the committee.”

Even Hattori couldn’t immediately find any words to respond with.

“Until now, no Course 2 students have been nominated for the disciplinary committee. In other words, Course 1 students have been in control of magic-related offenses committed by Course 2 students. Like you said, there’s an emotional gap between the Course 1 and Course 2 students here. The system of Course 1 kids controlling Course 2 kids and not the other way around is making it worse. As head of the committee, I would prefer not to do anything that would promote this attitude of discrimination.”

“Wow… That’s amazing, Mari. You thought of all that yourself? I completely thought you just liked Tatsuya.”

“President, please.”

Mayumi nearly shattered the mood, but Suzune held her in check.

One bore a reproachful look.

The other shook her head.

The first was Mayumi, and the second Suzune.

The emotional confrontation, still not yet decided, continued to spew its toxins.

“President… As the vice president, I oppose Tatsuya Shiba’s election to the disciplinary committee. I admit that Chairman Watanabe has a point, but I still believe that the disciplinary committee’s original goal is to suppress and expose violations of school rules. A Course 2 student lacking in magic ability isn’t fit for the post. Your mistaken appointment of him will surely come back to hurt your credibility in the end. I urge you to reconsider.”

“Wait, please!”

Tatsuya panicked and turned around. As he had feared, Miyuki had finally lost her patience. He had been too caught up in Mari’s speech to time controlling her properly. He hurriedly attempted to stop her, but Miyuki had already begun to speak.

“This may sound forward, Vice President. My brother’s grades in practical magic may not be sterling, but that’s only because the way they evaluate the practicum test doesn’t match up with his strengths. When it comes to real combat, nobody can beat him.”

Her words were filled with confidence, and Mari lightly opened her eyes wider. Mayumi’s vague smile went away, too, and she gave Miyuki and Tatsuya a serious look. But there wasn’t very much seriousness in Hattori’s stare back.

“Shiba…” Hattori was, of course, talking to Miyuki. “Magicians must be able to think calmly and logically and take everything in stride. Partiality toward one’s family members may be inevitable for normal people, but as people aiming to be magicians, we cannot allow our eyes to be clouded by nepotism. Please take that to heart.”

He sounded like a relative showing her the way—he didn’t seem to mean anything by it. He was probably just trying to be an excellent upperclassman who looked out for other Course 1 students, if a little self-righteously. —In this case, though, it seemed evident ever since Miyuki began to argue that his way of speaking would have the opposite effect.

As expected, Miyuki grew more riled up. “A word, if I may—my eyes are not clouded! If we just look at my brother’s real power—”

“Miyuki!” He held his hands aloft before Miyuki, who was on the verge of completely losing her cool. She looked taken aback, then, in shame and regret, closed her mouth and looked down.

Tatsuya, who had stopped his sister with words and gestures, moved in front of Hattori.

Miyuki had definitely said too much. She even nearly said something she never should have. But Hattori was the one who made her go that far. Tatsuya had no mind to make Miyuki to be the only bad guy here.

“Vice President Hattori, would you like to have a mock duel with me?”

“What…?”

Hattori, the challenged, wasn’t the only one struck dumb by the unexpected proposal. Mayumi and Mari were also staring hard at the two of them, astonished at his bold, unpredicted counterattack.

With the stares of everyone in the room on them, Hattori’s body began to tremble. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, you substitute!”

Someone yelped—was it Azusa? The other three, as might be expected of upperclassmen, were keeping their calm. And as for the one on the receiving end of the insult, he was making a troubled sort of face, giving a faint, wry grin.

“What’s so funny?!”

“Shouldn’t magicians always keep their calm?”

“Pah!” Ridiculed by his own words, Hattori spat out a quick grunt of frustration.

Tatsuya’s tongue didn’t stop there. He didn’t feel like stopping it. “I don’t think you would understand my personal combat skills in practice unless you fought me. It’s not as though I want to become a member of the disciplinary committee…but if it’s to prove my sister’s eyes aren’t clouded, then I have no choice,” he murmured, as though he were talking to itself.

That only made it sound unnecessarily provocative to Hattori. “…Fine by me. I’ll teach you to respect your superiors.”

He didn’t let his agitation last for long—proof, perhaps, that he wasn’t all bark. His controlled tone of voice instead spoke to the depth of his rage.

Mayumi spoke up without a moment’s delay. “With the power invested in me as student council president, I hereby acknowledge the mock battle between Gyoubu Hattori of 2-B and Tatsuya Shiba of 1-E as an official duel.”

“Based on the student council president’s declaration, as the chairman of the disciplinary committee, I hereby acknowledge this duel to be an extracurricular activity grounded in school rules.”

“It will be held thirty minutes from now in Seminar 3. The duel will be private. Both combatants are permitted to use CADs.”

Mock battles were an act of violence, and prohibited by school rules—a measure to prevent things from escalating to fights.

After Mayumi and Mari solemnly stated that they didn’t care, Azusa frantically began typing on her terminal.

“Three days in, and the cat’s out of the bag already…” Tatsuya grumbled in front of the door to Seminar 3. He had exchanged his license, stamped by the student council president (these things were still made out of paper) for his CAD case.

He heard a near-crying voice from behind him. “I’m so sorry…”

“There’s nothing for you to apologize about.”

“But my actions have caused you trouble—”

He turned around, took half a step, and held his hand out to her head.

Miyuki gave a start, then closed her eyes. But at the sensation of him gently stroking her hair, she timidly brought her head up. Her eyes looked ready to burst forth with tears at any moment.

“I told you on the day of the entrance ceremony, remember? You always get angry in my place, since I can’t. You’re always saving me… So don’t say you’re sorry. There are different words for this situation.”

“All right… Good luck,” replied Miyuki, wiping her tears and smiling. Tatsuya smiled back with a nod and opened the door to the seminar room.

“I didn’t expect that.” As soon as he opened the door, he heard that phrase.

“Expect what?”

The one to welcome Tatsuya to the seminar room was Mari, who had been named as the referee.

“That you were the type who loves a good skirmish. I had you pegged for someone who didn’t care about what other people said.” Though she said it was unexpected, her eyes glittered in anticipation.

Tatsuya used his steely self-control—well, perhaps that’s an exaggeration—to suffocate the deep sigh that had made its way into his throat.

“I thought it was the disciplinary committee’s job to stop this sort of personal struggle.” A somewhat sarcastic remark leaped out instead of the sigh, perhaps inevitably.

But Mari didn’t seem to respond to it at all. “It’s not personal. This is an official match. Mayumi said so, remember? We may look at your abilities first and foremost, but that policy doesn’t just apply between Course 1 and Course 2 students—in fact we normally apply it to two Course 1 students. A Course 1 and Course 2 student using this method to settle something is probably a first, though.”

I see. That means they’re actually encouraging settling matters by force when they can’t be solved through talking. “Did these ‘official matches’ become more frequent after you became the head of the disciplinary committee?”

“Yeah, they have been.” Her completely frank response even made Miyuki, standing behind Tatsuya, grin drily. Then her expression suddenly got serious, and she brought her face toward his. “So are you confident?”

A whispered question, spoken so close he could hear her breathe.

Miyuki’s beautiful eyebrows shot up at her altogether too-close distance, but Tatsuya, whose vision was dominated by Mari’s meaningful grin, fortunately (?) didn’t notice his younger sister’s excessive response. Mari’s long, slitted eyes looking up at him from half a head below, and the faintly sweet aroma drifting to him—Tatsuya realized he was feeling sexually aroused.

The moment he realized it, the object of “himself” became a phenomenon born with him, and he cut it off. He converted his excitement into a simple stream of data.

“Hattori is one of the top five magic users in the school. He may be more suited for group combat than individual fights, but still, not many people can beat him one-on-one,” whispered Mari in a glossy alto, yet without a hint of sex appeal.

“I don’t plan on competing with him head-on.” But Tatsuya answered her curtly and in a mechanical voice, without showing a hint of unrest.

“You’re pretty calm… I’ve lost a little self-confidence,” she replied, clearly amused.

“Huh.” Tatsuya nodded vaguely, without trying to give a different response.

“If you were cute enough to blush at times like these, there would probably be more people willing to help you out, you know.” She flashed him a grin and withdrew, making her way to the starting line in the middle.

“How annoying…” She must be the type to demand chaos where there is order, and bring order where there is chaos, thought Tatsuya. For those making peaceful livings, she was nothing but a troublemaker.

He breathed another sigh—this one at the remarkably troubling interpersonal relationships he’d made since enrolling here.

He opened his CAD case. Inside the black attaché case, there were two handgun-shaped CADs. He took one of them, unloaded the magazine, and switched it out for another.

Everyone but Miyuki watched him with deep fascination.

“Sorry for the wait.”

“Do you always walk around with more than one like that?”

Specialized CADs were limited in the number of activation programs they could use. Multipurpose CADs could store ninety-nine activation programs, regardless of family. On the other hand, specialized CADs could store only a combination of nine activation programs belonging to the same family. A CAD was once developed to make it possible to swap out the activation programs recording storage mechanism to make up for this fault, but the specialized type was favored by magicians specializing in specific types of magic programs in the first place. There wasn’t much need for an increase in magic variations. The majority of people would only end up using one type of magic even if they carried more than one piece of storage on them.

But Tatsuya’s answer, given in response to Mari’s obvious curiosity, displayed that he was part of the minority. “Yes. I don’t have enough mental faculty to use a multipurpose type.”

Hattori, standing in front of him, gave a derisive snort upon hearing that, but it didn’t even make a ripple in Tatsuya’s mind.

“All right, then I’ll explain the rules. Any techniques that would result in the death of the opponent, whether direct or indirect attacks, are forbidden. Any techniques that would result in irreversible injury are forbidden. Techniques that directly damage the opponent’s flesh are forbidden. However, direct attacks not resulting in more than a sprain are permitted. The usage of weapons is forbidden. Unarmed attacks are permitted. If you want to use kicking moves, take your shoes off now and exchange them for the school’s padded shoes. The match is over when one side admits defeat or when a judge determines it’s impossible to continue. You must back up to the starting positions and not activate your CAD until the signal is given. Not following these rules will result in an immediate loss—and I’ll step in and stop you myself, so you’d better be prepared if you don’t. That is all.”

Tatsuya and Hattori both nodded, then faced each other from the starting lines, five meters apart. Neither of their expressions were tense, nor were they scornful or provoking. However, Tatsuya caught a glimpse of relaxation in Hattori’s face. They were too far apart for either’s hands to reach the other. Even with the momentum of a pro football player, using magic would be quicker at this distance.

Since this was a contest of magic, it was only natural that attacks using magic were established as advantageous. In this sort of duel, the one who hit with their magic first usually won. Even if they couldn’t knock the opponent out with one hit, the opponent wouldn’t avoid damage. There weren’t many people possessed of the mental fortitude to calmly construct spells while taking damage from magic. As soon as you were hit by a magical attack, any magic you were in the middle of creating would fizzle. It would be over once your opponent pressed their attack.

And with the rule that they activated their CADs at the same time, Hattori had complete confidence that he, a Course 1 student, couldn’t possibly lose to a pretentious new Course 2 student. The CAD was the fastest magic-activating tool. Even if you snuck in something other than a CAD before the signal to start was given, it wouldn’t match the CAD’s speed. And the speed of executing magic using the CAD was the greatest point of evaluation in terms of one’s grades in practical magic. It could also be said equated to the greatest difference between Blooms and Weeds.

Tatsuya’s CAD—a specialized type in the shape of a handgun.

Hattori’s CAD—a multipurpose type in the orthodox bracelet form.

Specialized CADs excelled in speed, and multipurpose ones in versatility. However, even though specialized types won out in speed over multipurpose types, that wouldn’t be enough to fill the gap between a Bloom and a Weed. That went double if the opponent was a new student.

Hattori considered that there were no factors that could defeat him—and that could be called neither hubris nor carelessness.

Tatsuya pointed his right hand, holding his CAD toward the floor…

…Hattori placed his right hand before the CAD on his left arm…

…and both waited for Mari’s signal.

The room fell deathly silent.

And at the very moment silence had established complete dominance over them—

“Go!”

—the official duel between Tatsuya and Hattori commenced.

Hattori’s right hand flew over his CAD.

Though he had to press only three simple keys, his motions were entirely without hesitation. The type of technique he originally specialized in was wide-scope attack magic for midrange and farther. In a close-range, one-on-one battle, he was comparatively worse.

But that was only comparatively so, and in the year since he had enrolled at First High, he was undefeated.

There were those he might yield to. Mari, who was a specialist in personal combat, whether against a single person or a group. Mayumi, who could freely use astoundingly swift and accurate gunning magic. Juumonji, the head of the club committee, nicknamed the Iron Wall. Aside from those three giants, he would boast that neither students nor teachers could outdo him.

That wasn’t necessarily a subjective opinion.

Hattori immediately finished expanding a simple activation program—he had gone for speed—and in a flash, he began to execute his magic.

A moment later, he very nearly screamed.

His opponent in this match, this first-year kid who didn’t know his place, had gotten so close that he was filling his vision.

He hastily corrected his coordinates and attempted to fire off the magic. It was movement magic, one of the fundamental families of magic. Hattori’s magic program had locked on to his opponent, and it should have blown him over ten meters backward, the impact from which would have taken him out of the fight.

But his magic fizzled out.

It wasn’t that he had failed to process the activation program.

His enemy had disappeared.

The coordinates used by magic programs didn’t require much in the way of precision, but when the target in your vision suddenly disappears from it—and thus from your awareness—an error would occur no matter what. The psion information bodies that should have altered the target’s state of movement dispersed without any effect.

Panicked, Hattori looked right and left. Then he was rocked by a violent “wave” from the side.

Three of them hit him in sequence.

Each separate wave overlapped inside his body, forming a giant undulation, and took his consciousness away.

The victor was decided in the blink of an eye.

The term insta-kill was extremely appropriate—the match hadn’t lasted five seconds.

On the other end of Tatsuya’s pointed CAD’s muzzle was Hattori, collapsed in a heap.

“…The winner is Tatsuya Shiba.” Mari was actually hesitant in announcing the result.

There was no joy on the victor’s face. He looked like he had just done what he needed to, without any emotion.

He gave a light bow and headed for the desk his CAD case was on. He wasn’t trying to strike a pose. It was clear he had no interest whatsoever in his victory.

“Wait,” Mari called out to stop him from behind. “Those movements… Did you expand a self-accelerating technique beforehand?”

At her question, Mayumi, Suzune, and Azusa reflected on the duel they’d just seen. At the same time the signal for the duel came out, Tatsuya’s body had moved right in front of Hattori. And in the next moment, his body was in a few meters to Hattori’s right side. It was so fast it looked like teleportation—a movement a physical human body should have been incapable of making.

“I believe you’re in the best position to know otherwise.” But this was as Tatsuya said.

As the referee, Mari had been keenly watching for any false starts activating their CADs. She had also theorized the presence of another, hidden CAD in addition to the one she saw, and had closely observed the flow of psions.

“It’s just that…”

“It wasn’t magic. It was a physical technique, plain and simple.”

“I can vouch for him. That’s the martial art my brother uses. He receives guidance from a ninjutsu user named Yakumo Kokonoe.”

Mari caught her breath.

She excelled in interpersonal combat, and she knew the name Yakumo Kokonoe quite well. Even Mayumi and Suzune, who didn’t know of Yakumo as well as Mari did, couldn’t conceal their surprise at how profound the old arts were, and how they allowed one to achieve movement on the level of magically assisted action using purely physical techniques.

Of course, they weren’t only surprised.

Mayumi offered a new question, from the point of view of someone studying magic.

“Then was the magic you used to attack ninjutsu as well? All I could see was you looking like you fired a wave of just psions, and nothing else.” Nevertheless, her voice and word choice were stiff and formal, possibly because of the amazement that she couldn’t conceal.

It was bad manners for magicians to pry into how exclusive techniques used by other magicians worked. But Mayumi, who could easily fire psionic bullets as her own special magic, couldn’t seem to suppress her interest in the mechanisms used by Tatsuya’s attack, which appeared to have used psions—particles without a physical function—as a weapon, to damage Hattori.

“It isn’t ninjutsu, but you’re correct that it was a psionic wave. It was a basic vibration-type spell. I only made psionic waves.”

“But that doesn’t explain why Hanzou went down…”

“He got sick.”

“Sick? From what, exactly?”

Taking care not to appear exasperated with the confused Mayumi, Tatsuya flatly continued his explanation. “Magicians can detect psions in the same way as visible light rays and audible sound waves. This is an indispensable skill for actually using magic. However, as a side effect, magicians exposed to unanticipated psionic waves actually feel like their bodies are jolting around. That was what he felt, and it had an effect on his physical body. It’s the same mechanism as in hypnotism, where if you suggest a person got sunburned, actual blisters appear on them. In this case, because of that rocking sensation, he essentially came down with a bad case of seasickness.”

“I don’t believe it… Magicians are exposed to psionic waves all the time. He should be used to them. Typeless magic goes without saying, but even activation and magic programs are types of psionic waves. So how on earth did you create a wave strong enough to cause a magician to lose his footing…?”

The one to answer Mayumi’s question was Suzune. “I see. Constructive interference.”

“Rin?” Even the sagacious Mayumi couldn’t understand what she meant from only that.

Of course, Suzune’s explanation wasn’t finished. “He created three psionic waves with different frequencies, set it up so that the three waves would combine right where Hattori was standing, and produced a strong, triangular wave. I’m impressed you can do such precise calculations.”

“You’re very perceptive, Ichihara.”

Suzune was struck dumb by Tatsuya’s calculation abilities, but Tatsuya thought to himself that she was more amazing for being able to realize that after seeing it only once.

But it seemed that Suzune’s actual question led elsewhere. “Still, how did you activate three magic waves in such a short period of time? With that level of throughput, your practical evaluation shouldn’t have been so low.”

Tatsuya couldn’t help but give a wry smile at being told outright that he had poor grades.

Instead, Azusa, who had been repeatedly glancing at Tatsuya’s hands unsteadily for a while now, timidly suggested an answer. “Umm, could your CAD be the Silver Horn?”

“Silver Horn? Silver—you mean the mysterious, genius magic engineer, Taurus Silver?”

Asked by Mayumi, Azusa’s expression immediately brightened. Azusa, sometimes teased as a “device nerd,” merrily began to speak.

“That’s right! The miraculous CAD engineer who works for Four Leaves Technology, whose real name, appearance, and profile are all shrouded in mystery! The genius programmer, the first in the world to implement the Loop Cast System!

“Oh, the Loop Cast System is, well. Normally, your activation program is erased every time you activate magic, and in order to execute the same technique again, the activation program needs to be reexpanded from the CAD, but loop casting is an activation program where you add the ability to take the activation program during the final phase and make a copy of it in your magic calculation region, which lets the magician keep activating the same magic for as far as their calculative capacities can handle it, which was all supposed to be possible in theory for a long time, but they could never quite distribute the calculative ability well enough to handle both the execution of the magic and the duplication of the activation program, so—”

“Okay, okay! We know what loop casting is.”

“Is that so…? Anyway, the Silver Horn is the name of a specialized CAD model that was fully customized by Taurus Silver! Obviously it’s optimized for loop casting, and even its ability to activate magic smoothly with the minimum amount of magic power received high reviews, and in particular, it’s superpopular among the police! So much so that despite being a model currently in production, it’s been featured in tons of premium deals! And that one is a limited-edition model where the gun barrel is longer than a normal Silver Horn, isn’t it? Where on earth did you get that?”

“Ah-chan, calm down a little, okay?”

Her chest was rising and falling heavily—had she run out of breath?—and her eyes were heart-shaped as she gazed at Tatsuya’s hands. If Mayumi hadn’t chided her, she might have gotten so close that she would have pressed her face against it.

On the other hand, Mayumi’s head tilted again with a new question. “But, Rin, that’s still strange, isn’t it? His CAD may be highly efficient and optimized for loop casting, but loop casting in the first place, it’s…”

Suzune tilted her own head as well when this subject was broached instead of nodding. “Yes, it is odd. Loop casting is purely used to activate the same exact magic more than once. He may have used vibration magic all three times, but loop casting automatically keeps creating whatever the magician sets up. It couldn’t have created multiple waves with the differing frequencies needed for that constructive interference. You can probably create different frequency waves in sequence required for the interference with the same activation program if you made the part that determines the frequency into a variable, but if you had to make that into a variable along with the coordinates, intensity, and duration… Are you telling me you pulled all that off?”

This time, Suzune had stumbled on her words for real. Tatsuya casually shrugged off her gaze. “Multiple variables aren’t part of evaluating processing speed, or calculation scope, or interference intensity, after all.” Mayumi and Mari stared at him fixedly, and Tatsuya answered them by bragging with the same uninterested tone of voice as before.

“…One’s evaluation of magical power during the practical exam is decided by the speed at which he activates the magic, the scope of the magic program, and the intensity with which he overwrites the target information. I see—I guess this is another example of tests not measuring someone’s true abilities…”

The groaned answer to Tatsuya’s cynical words came from Hattori, who had sat up on the floor.

“Hanzou, are you all right?” Mayumi bent over a bit and leaned forward and looked at him.

“I’m okay!” Hattori hastily stood up, as if to get away from her suddenly close face.

“I’m sure. You were awake the whole time, after all.” Hattori’s words couldn’t have been spoken if he hadn’t heard what the girls had been talking about. Mayumi straightened back up and nodded, convinced.

Hattori replied to her, “No, I actually wasn’t conscious at first!” His face went red, and he urgently began explaining himself again. “Even after I woke back up, everything was hazy… I only got control of my body back just now!”

He looked very—how to put it?—Tatsuya could easily predict what kind of emotion he was feeling.

“Is that so…? Nevertheless, you seem to have understood everything we’ve been talking about.”

“… I mean, even though it was hazy, it still got to my ears, I guess…”

And it seemed Mayumi herself was fully aware of the emotions Hattori directed at her.

Is she evil?

But there was something out of place between the image evoked by the word evil and the atmosphere she gave off, so Tatsuya stopped thinking about it. He had also realized it didn’t really matter all that much. He got back to what he’d been doing before Mari stopped him.

…Though it was nothing that exaggerated—he was just putting his CAD back in the case. He pretended not to notice Azusa’s wishful staring at his hands. And he ignored his sister’s gaze as she tried to help him.

Because Miyuki wasn’t very good with machines.

She wasn’t completely averse to technology or anything, but because his CAD was tuned very specifically, it wasn’t something a normal high school student would be able to deal with. (On the other hand, CADs given only the most minor of adjustments, like the practical ones used in school, wouldn’t let Tatsuya fully display his skill.) Even if Miyuki helped, the truth was she would only end up making it take longer.

As Tatsuya was rummaging around, resetting the security and exchanging the cartridge, he heard footsteps and felt a presence approach him from behind. It looked like his excuses were over. He didn’t mind leaving what he was doing until later, but he still didn’t turn around.

“Shiba…”

“Yes?” answered Miyuki in an evasive tenor.

There were only two males in this room, and one was Tatsuya. Even if his tone of voice made him sound like a different person, there was no mistaking who was talking.

“About before, well… I said some rude things, like you having favoritism.”

And there was no doubt about who the voice was speaking to, either.

“No, my eyes were what were clouded. I hope you can forgive me.”

“No, I said some pretty cheeky things. Please forgive me.”

He knew even over his back that he was bowing very deeply.

Tatsuya locked his case shut, smirking at Miyuki’s adult behavior. Just who was the older sibling here, anyway?

Then, he deliberately turned around.

Hattori’s face betrayed a momentary falter, but he immediately regained his self-assured expression.

Was this breather in preparation of making a truce or a herald of a rematch?

Those possibilities both disappeared without being realized. In the end, Hattori and Tatsuya simply glared at each other, and the former turned on his heel.

He sensed that Miyuki beside him was a little miffed, so he gently patted her shoulder.

She would be working with Hattori in the student council from today on, so it wouldn’t do her any good to let this leave a bad taste in her mouth. As if Miyuki understood his intent, she quickly calmed down.

“Let’s go back to the student council room,” suggested Mayumi. With that, everyone present began to move.

As Suzune, Azusa, and Hattori followed behind her, Mayumi looked like she wanted to complain about something.

Mari was behind them. When she realized Tatsuya was looking at her, she shrugged to him without letting the other four see.

After Tatsuya gave his CAD back to the office, he came back to the student council room. As soon as he got there, Mari suddenly latched on to his arm.

Miyuki, being taught how to use the workstation along the wall by Azusa, looked to him and raised her eyebrows. He tried to send her a I couldn’t do anything about it message with his eyes…but he doubted whether she understood it. He might have had a momentary lapse as he forced his body not to give its automatic reaction of throwing Mari off of him, but the girl still seemed to have quite a high level of martial ability.

“Okay, a whole bunch of unplanned things happened, but let’s get to the committee room. That was the original plan, after all.”

Without regard for Tatsuya’s inner thoughts (which were mostly ones of bewilderment), Mari pulled his arm along.

After seeing Tatsuya make an uncooperative face, Miyuki finally returned her eyes to the terminal—albeit reluctantly.

Hattori hadn’t looked up from what he was doing even once since Tatsuya entered the room. It seemed like he had come to terms with his emotions and had decided on ignoring him. That was something Tatsuya was grateful for as well.

Mayumi was thoughtlessly waving to him with only her hand. What did she want to do—or say…? She was probably the most baffling person he had met here.

But that, too, was something for later. He struggled (well, pretended to struggle) to get his arm out of Mari’s, then obediently followed her.

There was a direct staircase down to the disciplinary committee headquarters in the back of the room, where there would normally be an emergency escape.

Are they ignoring fire safety regulations? thought Tatsuya, but despite the students being just that—in training, magicians in the making—there still wasn’t much point in adhering to fire laws in a place filled with superior magicians. One could get rid of fire by using vibration and deceleration magic, and smoke could be eliminated with binding/movement compound magic. In reality, large-scale fires in superskyscrapers were one of the most spectacular arenas for magicians.

He changed his mind—he supposed he could let it slide as long as it wasn’t an elevator.

He followed her through the back door and set foot into the headquarters. Mari indicated the chairs in front of a long table.

“It’s a bit of a mess, but you can sit wherever you like.”

A bit?

Certainly, it wasn’t so messy that you couldn’t move across the floor or couldn’t sit down because of things piled up on the chairs.

But having just come from the extremely neat and tidy student council room, he couldn’t help but feel a bit of resistance to calling this “a bit messy.”

Documents, books, portable terminals, CADs—things of all kinds were burying the surface of the long desk table. There was a chair pulled halfway out, so he strolled over that way and took a seat.

“The disciplinary committee is like an all-male household. I keep telling them pretty strictly to keep everything in order here, but…”

“If nobody’s here, then it’s not going to get clean.” Tatsuya’s remark could be taken as sarcasm or comfort—Mari’s eyebrow twitched.

“…Well, patrolling school grounds is our main job. We can’t help the room being empty.”

The two of them were currently the only ones in there. The disciplinary committee had nine members, but this deserted room seemed like it could fit twice that. It made the mess amplify the sense of chaos in the room. Of course, Tatsuya wasn’t paying attention to the state of affairs of the room as a whole, but the various items all over the table.

“Either way, Chairwoman, can I clean these things up?”

“What…?” Tatsuya’s sudden request caused Mari to raise an eyebrow in surprise.

—Contrary to his expectations, she seemed to be the dramatic type.

“As someone striving to be a magic engineer, it’s difficult for me to endure seeing CADs in such a disorderly state. And it looks like there are terminals here that have been left in hibernation.” Still, though, it didn’t change Tatsuya’s response.

“A magic engineer? Even though you have personal combat skills like that?” Mari seriously seemed confused by what he said.

The duel before ended pretty simply and easily, but high-level personal combat skills that could be described as “insane” had been used during it.

“With my talents, I wouldn’t be able to get any more than a Class C license, no matter how much I struggled.”

However, when Mari tried to argue against his masochistic answer, which he gave like it was none of his concern, she was astonished to find that she couldn’t find the words to do it with.

In many countries, magicians were managed with a license system. Many of those places had introduced a national standard of license issuing, and this country was one of them. Whether for employment at a corporation, in a public office, or for starting your own business, a certain license was required to do jobs depending on their difficulty. It was set up so that those with higher-ranked licenses would be paid higher rewards. There were five levels in the international licensing system, from A to E. Being chosen for a license was based on one’s speed, scale, and level of interference of constructing and executing magic programs, just like the practical skills evaluation in schools. In fact, the schools’ skills evaluation standards were created to be in alignment with the international license evaluation standards.

There were some places using special standards such as the police force and the military, but in those cases you would be evaluated only as an officer or as a soldier, not as a magician.

“…Anyway, may I clean the table up?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. I’ll help too. I can give you the rundown as we work.” She hastily rose. Maybe she was a more considerate person than she seemed.

Though maybe Tatsuya, who had begun organizing the documents in front of him, was more impudent for still sitting down.

Of course, the fact that feelings and results didn’t necessarily match up was just how the world worked. The speed at which they worked was the same, but for some reason, in contrast to Tatsuya steadily creating a space around his hands, he still couldn’t see a glimpse of the surface of the long desk in front of Mari.

Tatsuya glanced up at her.

Then he sighed a little.

Mari gave up and stopped. “Sorry. No matter how hard I try, I’m just bad at this.”

Tatsuya thought to himself that maybe the current state of the room was mostly her responsibility. He was adult enough not to say what he thought, however.

“You really seem to know what you’re doing, though.”

“With what?”

“Filing papers. I thought you were just piling them up at random, but they’re all properly sorted and everything.”

“…Sorry, could you not do that…?”

Perhaps now becoming serious, Mari was glancing at him flipping through the piles of papers, about to lean herself on the desk and sit in the space he had cleared. It made her skirt hem nearly touch his arm. Her long and slender lower legs and calves were stretching from her skirt, which subtly hid her thighs. He may not have been able to see her skin through her leggings, but he could still see how they were shaped—and that was enough to be undesirable for his mental health.

“Oh, sorry.”

She didn’t sound sorry at all, but this, too, was something he didn’t need to point out. —If she had been doing it on purpose, it had obviously had the opposite effect, and as they say, silence is golden.

Tatsuya silently moved his chair and got to work on the next area. He dug out a few book stands from the piles of papers and began to stand books on them. Both paper books and book stands were rare items in this day and age. Even more so if they happened to be grimoires.

“The reason I scouted you—come to think of it, I explained most of it already, huh? Making punishments for attempted criminals more appropriate, and to repair our image toward Course 2 students.”

“I remember, but for the image part, wouldn’t that have the opposite effect?” Finished with straightening up the books, he got to work on the terminals. “…Can I look at these?”

His request for permission to look at the work-in-progress data on them was granted by an affirmative nod. He turned the hibernating terminals back on, then shut them down, left them in their closed states, and gathered them all into one place.

“Why do you think so?”

“We could never interfere in anything before now. If you were suddenly under the control of another underclassman who you thought was in the same situation, you wouldn’t think it was very funny.”

He rose from his seat and started rummaging through a cabinet on the wall. As he piled the terminals on the empty shelf, he heard the irresponsible reply of “I guess that’s true.”

“I think the other Course 1 students would welcome it, though. You’ve at least talked about it to your classmates, right?”

“Well, I have, but…” After he finished lining up the terminals, he fished around in another cabinet. “I think it would cause twice as much animosity for them as it would welcoming.”

He found what he was looking for. He stood up straight and turned his shoulders, taking off his jacket and rolling up his shirtsleeves.

“Well, they’re gonna feel animosity. But they just enrolled a couple days ago. I don’t think they’ve been that poisoned by discriminatory thoughts yet.”

“I wonder about that.” Tatsuya rummaged through the items inside the cabinet, then his hands came back out holding a CAD case. “I’ve already gotten one of those I won’t accept you declarations yesterday, after all.”

He wrapped his exposed wrist in a grounding wristband and reached out for the big clump of CADs.

“You carry something like that around? …Are you talking about Morisaki?”

“It’s actually pretty handy… Do you know about him?”

“He’s gonna be part of the committee—he’s the teachers’ recommendation.”

“Wha—?”

The strength drained from his hands checking the CADs’ status. He hastily grabbed it back up before it fell back down on the desk.

“Huh, I guess even you get surprised.”

“Well, yes!” Mari began to grin, and Tatsuya answered her with a sigh. He wished she’d stop with this weird sense of rivalry.

“He caused an issue yesterday, so I can get them to repeal their recommendation. I actually planned to do that, but you’re not unrelated to the incident, either.”

“I am a concerned party.”

“Yeah. I scouted someone who claims to have been involved, so it would be hard to refuse him.”

“Why not just not let either of us in?”

“Do you not want to?”

Tatsuya stopped working again at the sudden, straightforward question.

For now, he placed the CAD in his hands inside the case, then looked up. Mari was sitting up against the desk, looking down at him. She wasn’t smiling. She was giving him a piercing, eyes-half-closed stare.

“…In all honesty, I think it’ll be a pain.”

“Hmph… And?”

“It’ll be a pain, but I also don’t think I can withdraw at this point.”

A mean-spirited, complacent smile rose to Mari’s face again. Its crookedness brought her sharp beauty 20 percent higher.

“You have things tough, too, don’t you…?”

“And you’re pretty twisted, too.”

Unfortunately, Tatsuya had to admit that she had him there.

“…This is the disciplinary committee headquarters, right?”

That was the first thing out of Mayumi’s mouth when she came down the stairs.

“How’s that for a greeting?”

“I mean, what happened, Mari? No matter how much Rin warns you, no matter how much Ah-chan pleads with you, you’ve never tried to clean up before!”

“I will firmly oppose such baseless slander, Mayumi! It wasn’t that I never tried to; it’s that I never actually cleaned it!”

“For a girl, that seems even more troubling.” Mayumi gave her a narrow-eyed, slanted glare, and Mari immediately turned her face away.

“It doesn’t really matter… But yes, that’s how it is.”

After setting eyes on Tatsuya, who was peering into the maintenance hatch of a fixed terminal, Mayumi nodded, convinced.

“So he’s making himself useful right away, then.”

“Well, that should do it,” he answered with his back still to them. He shut the hatch and turned around. “Chairwoman, my inspection is finished. I swapped out a few damaged-looking parts, so you shouldn’t have any further issues.”

“Thanks a lot.” Mari nodded, relaxed, but it somehow looked like there was a bit of sweat forming around her temple.

A cold sweat.

“I see… Since he called you Chairwoman, you must have successfully recruited him,” said Mayumi in a carefree voice, bursting with understanding and acceptance. She put on her own malicious smile.

Tatsuya answered without looking at her. “I don’t really think I had any right to refuse in the first place…”

Mayumi didn’t seem to appreciate the attitude. She put one hand on her hip, then stuck her other index finger out at him, puffed out a cheek, and glared at him with sulking eyes. As far as he could tell, the whole thing was a huge act. She argued, “Tatsuya, I’m like your big sister here. Don’t you think you should treat me a little more nicely?”

…Tatsuya immediately wanted to tell her that he had no big sister. He got the feeling saying so would only make his situation worse, so he refrained. She was so stereotypical in everything she did that it wasn’t creative at all.

Tatsuya secretly thought to himself that she should be the one treating him a little more respectfully.

He had gotten this impression drifting through the air this whole time…but now, for some reason, it was something he didn’t feel like ignoring.

“President, this is just to make sure, but there’s something I want to know.”

“Hm? What is it?”

“We never met each other before the day of the entrance ceremony, right?” Tatsuya asked, filled with an intent of Aren’t you acting overfamiliar with me? Mayumi’s eyes widened.

However, they rapidly returned to their former size, and as they narrowed further, her smile, which could only be described as “wicked,” covered her alluring face.

Tatsuya realized he had just made an extremely poor decision.

He remembered when Mari made the same sort of smile. I see—birds of a feather really do flock together, he thought, trying to escape reality.

“I see, I see how it is… Heh-heh-heh-heh…”

The word impish described her smile to a tee.

“Tatsuya, you think you actually met me before that, do you? That our meeting on the day of the entrance ceremony was fate!”

“No, umm, President?”

What on earth was she so excited about?

“Maybe we met each other far in the past. Two people, pulled apart by fate, once again brought together by it!”

If she really was enraptured by this idea, it would just make her a very dangerous person. But the part where she was making sure he could tell she was putting on a conscious act made her even worse.

“…Unfortunately, though, that was definitely our first meeting.”

“…I thought as much.”

“Mm! Did you feel like it was destiny? Did you?”

She made fists in front of her chest and started moving toward him, looking up at his face. She was excited. Oh, how sly she was. And it suited her so well… She was truly wicked.

“…I’m sorry. Why are you having so much fun?” He answered her question with another, but still didn’t receive an answer.

She only continued to look at him, filled with hopefulness. She’s a sadist, noted Tatsuya to himself.

Anyway, he probably needed to answer her. Tatsuya sighed, almost as if breathing out smoke, and answered after a moment. “…If this is fate, then it’s not destiny—it’s doom, for sure.”

His answer made Mayumi’s face cloud over and she turned away. A lonely murmur of “Oh…” reached Tatsuya’s ears. Her form, seen from behind, radiated sorrow.

Tatsuya was aware he had said something pretty brutal. He had said it because he’d judged Mayumi to be entirely fooling around. But if even a little bit of how she was acting was real, he decided he needed to apologize.

However. His sense of guilt didn’t last very long—whether fortunately or unfortunately. In this case, him not knowing immediately what to do had borne fruit.

“…Damn.”

Something leaked from her mouth as if she had been outlasted, her shoulders drooping in dejection.

This time it was Tatsuya’s turn to widen his eyes. It was very faint, but it was certainly not a classy thing to say—did she just swear?

“Umm, President?”

“Yes, what is it?” When she turned back around, her face had the classy smile that had charmed all of the new male students.

“…I feel like I’m beginning to understand you better.”

In front of the exhausted Tatsuya, Mayumi had removed her false mask and showed him her true face.

In other words, her wicked smile.

“Let’s stop with the jokes, shall we? Tatsuya doesn’t seem to take well to it.” Mayumi, without a modicum of guilt, declared everything had been a joke.

“It’s not gonna go like how it did with Hattori, Mayumi. Doesn’t seem like your charms work on him,” said Mari teasingly, just when it counted.

Mayumi couldn’t let that one pass. She made a testy face and responded, “Please, don’t say anything so scandalous. It makes me sound like I’m toying with any underclassman I can get my hands on.”

Regretting having asked a careless question, Tatsuya began trying to put things back together. If these two poisoned him any further, it would be his own faults on display this time. “Umm, well. What I wanted to ask was—”

“Mayumi having a different attitude toward you is a sign she approves of you, Tatsuya. She probably felt that the two of you have something in common. This girl feigns innocence all the time. She can’t show her true colors except to people she approves of.” Mari’s expression suddenly became serious, and Tatsuya felt a sense of imbalance in it.

“Don’t trust anything Mari says, Tatsuya! But I guess it’s true that I approve of you. You don’t really feel like a stranger. Maybe I’m actually the one who felt like it was destiny.”

You couldn’t hate that face, so mischievous she might have stuck out her tongue. It threw off his pace even more.

Seems I don’t have much of a chance of winning against these two head-on, he thought.

Mayumi had come downstairs to tell them that she’d be closing up the student council room for the day. And she had used the opportunity to see how Tatsuya was doing, but that ending up being the main purpose of her coming down here probably wasn’t his imagination.

They had been busy with all sorts of things right after the entrance ceremony, and they’d reached a place where they could pause.

“Okay, then I’ll see you up there!” Mayumi waved her hand and went back up to the student council room.

Starting tomorrow, things would get noisy because of the contest every club would participate in once to recruit new club members. Since the disciplinary committee would start having more to do because of it, even Tatsuya and Mari had just been talking about calling it quits for the day.

Modern information systems didn’t require the time to start up and shut down like they used to. You just switched it off—and then you could leave it lying on the floor for months without anything happening to it. Even if you forgot to hit the switch, it would automatically go into hibernation. He had already completely and thoroughly organized them, so now all he had to do was set up their security features.

But just then, with perfect timing—or maybe bad timing—two male students entered the disciplinary committee headquarters.

“G’morning!”

“Good morning!”

The brisk, assertive voices rang throughout the room.

“Whoa, big sis, you were here?”

Where am I and what time period is this? thought Tatsuya.

The short-haired guy, who wasn’t very tall but had an awfully rugged build—the sort a headband would make sense on—had called someone Ane-san as though they were very accustomed to doing so.

They must be talking about Watanabe… He looked at the person in question, and she looked subtly embarrassed. He felt an out-of-place relief at the fact that she had normal sensitivities, slight though they may have been.

“Chairwoman, we have completed our patrols for the day! No arrests were made!”

The other one had a relatively normal appearance and a relatively normal way of speaking, but his posture was excessively proper.

His report, delivered while standing at attention, gave him the air of a soldier, or police officer, or perhaps a kid who hadn’t grown out of his energetic phase.

“…Could you have cleaned up the room, big sis?”

The first guy looked around the completely changed state of the room in suspicion and began to walk toward the dumbfounded Tatsuya. He didn’t look that heavy, but strangely, the term lumbering would have fit his gait.

As soon as he saw Mari nonchalantly stand in his way—

“Ow!”

Whap!

There was a satisfying noise, and the guy was crouching on the floor holding his head.

In Mari’s hand was a firmly rolled-up notebook that she had taken out at some point.

Where on earth had she gotten it from?

“Don’t call me ‘big sis’! How many times must I tell you before you understand?! Is your head just a decoration, Koutarou?!” shouted Mari angrily at the male student, now cradling his head, completely ignorant of Tatsuya’s questions.

“Please, stop hitting me like that, Bi—er, Chairwoman. By the way, who is he? A new recruit?” grumbled the male student named Koutarou without seeming like he was in very much pain. He hastily changed the title he was using when she jabbed the notebook in his face with lightning speed.

Mari’s shoulders drooped before the face of Koutarou stiffened in nervousness, and she sighed. “Yes, he’s a new recruit. Tatsuya Shiba, from 1-E. He’s here as the student council’s nominee.”

“Huh… You’re a crestless?” Koutarou looked in fascination at Tatsuya’s blazer and then took a good look at his figure.

“Tatsumi, that expression borders on prohibited terms! I think you should call him a Course 2 student in this case!” Though Koutarou seemed to be appraising Tatsuya, the other male student didn’t try to caution his attitude itself.

“You know, he’ll pull the rug out from under you if you underestimate him. This is just between us, but Hattori just came back from getting the rug pulled out from under him.” But Mari told them the truth with a grin, like she was teasing them, and their expression immediately grew more serious.

“…Do you mean this guy beat Hattori?”

“Yeah. In an official duel.”

“Amazing! Hattori, undefeated since enrolling here, lost to a new student?”

“Don’t shout like that, Sawaki. I told you to this is just between us, remember?”

It was extremely discomforting to be looked at so intently, but they seemed to be upperclassmen and his seniors in the disciplinary committee. His only option here was to endure it.

“That’s pretty reassuring!”

“So he’s got talent, Chairwoman?”

Their expressions changed so simply it was almost anticlimactic.

The speed at which they switched—he wanted to call it admirable.

“Weren’t expecting that, huh?”

“Huh?”

It was all so sudden, and he didn’t understand what he’d been asked. Luckily, Mari didn’t seem to be expecting an answer when she asked it.

“This school is filled with people basking in superiority and drowning in inferiority because of the stupid titles Bloom and Weed. Honestly, I’m just sick of it. So the match today was a rather thrilling experience, I have to say. Fortunately, Mayumi and Juumonji both know I’m like this. The student council and club association only choose people that have relatively less of that sense. They can’t get anyone who has zero sense of superiority, but they’re all people with great actual skill. Unfortunately, it didn’t go all the way to the third person—elected by the teachers—but for you, this should be a pretty comfortable place.”

“I’m Koutarou Tatsumi from 3-C. Nice to be workin’ with you, Shiba. We’ll welcome anyone skilled with open arms.”

“I’m Midori Sawaki from 2-D. Welcome to the club, Shiba!”

Koutarou and Sawaki both wanted a handshake.

As Mari said, there was no hint of disdain or contempt on their faces.

He now knew that they had been appraising him on his real ability from the very beginning and didn’t care a bit whether he was a Course 1 or Course 2 student.

It was, indeed, a little unexpected. And it certainly wasn’t a bad atmosphere, either.

He returned their greetings, then took Sawaki’s hand. But for some reason, Sawaki didn’t let go.

“Juumonji is the president of the extracurricular activities oversight committee, or the club committee for short.”

Was it so he could tell him that? But he could have let go of his hand if that was all it was.

“Also, call me by my last name—Sawaki.”

The force he was putting into his hand snapped Tatsuya back to reality. He was squeezing so hard it might have creaked like a floorboard, and Tatsuya couldn’t suppress his surprise.

It seemed like students excelling in more than just magic had gathered at this school.

“Please, take care not to call me by my first name.”

That seemed to be a warning.

He didn’t have to be so roundabout with him—Tatsuya wasn’t in the habit of calling his upperclassmen by their first names, but he had to politely return his greeting.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he answered, twisting his right hand slightly and pulling it from Sawaki’s.

Tatsuya’s display of martial prowess brought surprise more to Koutarou’s face than Sawaki’s himself. “Hey, you’re pretty good, aren’t you? Sawaki’s grip is almost a hundred kilos.”

“…Yes, certainly not the strength of a magician,” he replied lightly, putting himself aside.

At the very least, he felt like he’d be able to get along with these two.