Chapter 4

CADs were the symbol of the superiority of modern magic, having made faster, more delicate, more complex, more wide-scale magic possible, compared to the traditional support tools like wands, grimoires, and amulets.

But they were not actually superior to traditional tools in every way.

They were precise instruments and required more frequent maintenance than traditional tools. Tuning the transmission and reception systems that were aligned with the psionic wave properties of the user was especially important.

CADs used the psions sent from the magician as the main ingredient (or perhaps ink, or paint, would be a more suitable analogy) to output activation programs, which were psionic information bodies. Skin was a good conductor of psions, so the magician would absorb the activation programs through it and use it as a blueprint to build a magic program. It was said that spells using a CAD could vary from 5 to 10 percent in activation speed depending on how well tuned the CAD was.

Psions were said to be particles embodying thoughts and intentions. Everyone had their own sort of thoughts. If you had a hundred people, there would be a hundred kinds—if a thousand people, then a thousand kinds. Psionic waves had traits that differed slightly from person to person, and CADs that hadn’t been tuned to that wouldn’t be able to conduct the exchange of psions with the magician as well.

There were plenty of other aspects that made the CAD easier to use, too.

Tuning CADs was the job of magic engineers, and this was the reason skilled ones were so highly prized.

Incidentally, the properties of psionic waves would change with the growth or decay of one’s body, and they could even be influenced by one’s current physical condition. Strictly speaking, it changed on a day-to-day basis.

So by nature, it was desirable to perform adjustments according to the user’s physical state every day, but adjusting CADs required fairly expensive and dedicated equipment.

If you were the army, the police, a central government agency, a top-class research institution, a famous school, or a large corporation with vast assets, you could get the CAD-adjusting equipment and personnel by yourself, but at the mid-to small-business or personal level, you couldn’t really set up a place to tune them in your own home. For magicians belonging to such places, bringing their CAD for routine inspection to a magic device specialty shop or the manufacturer’s service station once or twice a month was as much as they could do.

First High was a top-class, elite school even in this country, so as one might expect, it featured school-use adjustment facilities. Normally, students would bring teachers and tune their CADs at school.

But due to special circumstances, there was brand-new CAD adjustment equipment set up right in Tatsuya’s house.

After dinner, Tatsuya had gone down to the basement, which had been remodeled into a workroom, to tune his own CADs, when he heard the voice of essentially the only other person living here.

“Don’t be shy. Come in. I was just reaching a good spot to take a break.”

He wasn’t lying. In fact, Miyuki had spoken to him precisely because she had estimated when he would be reaching that break point.

“Excuse me. Tatsuya, could you adjust my CAD for me…?”

In her hands was her portable terminal-shaped CAD.

As she approached, more of the pleasant, faint smell of soap tickled his nasal cavities.

She was wearing a simple gown, like the kind a patient at a hospital might wear for an examination.

“Are your settings not right?”

It was the standard wear when having adjustments done.

“Oh, heavens no! Your adjustments are always perfect.”

Her excessive praise was par for the course, so he didn’t bother trying to correct her. He had enough experience to realize that arguing over it would be too unproductive.

But he had just done a full maintenance on it three days ago. Normally he did that once a week, so she must have had some sudden reason for it.

“It’s just that, well…”

“You don’t need to hesitate. I always tell you that, right?”

“I’m sorry. Actually, I was wondering if you could swap my activation programs…”

“What, was that all? You really didn’t need to beat around the bush. It just makes me worried instead.”

He mussed up his sister’s hair a little and took the CAD from her hands.

Miyuki looked down, a little embarrassed.

“What family do you want to add?”

Ninety-nine activation programs could be recorded in a multipurpose CAD at one time. This was a limit that didn’t change, even for Miyuki’s CAD, which had been further tuned even from the latest technology.

On the other hand, variations on those activation programs were practically infinite based on how much of the program you wanted to be hard-coded and how much you wanted your own magic calculation region to deal with.

In general, people adopted a pattern where the coordinates, intensity, and ending conditions were given as variables as additional processing for their magic calculation region, while other factors were built into the activation program. However, plenty of people would instead build the intensity into the activation program so they could decrease the calculations needed and increase the casting speed. There were many defensive magic programs that used one’s own relative coordinates as a fixed value, too, and practice classes would introduce techniques using contact magic that made all values fixed.

In contrast to those examples, Miyuki liked to register activation programs that were more flexible by eliminating as many of those fixed values as possible.

Miyuki could master far more numerous and more varied types of magic than the average magician was able to learn, and she was only fifteen. For her, the ninety-nine-spell limit was too small.

“Binding-type activation programs… I want to increase the number of personal combat variations.”

“Hm? I wouldn’t think, with your deceleration magic, that you’d need to have more in the way of binding magic.”

Even among her extensively diverse trump cards, she particularly specialized in deceleration magic. With cooling magic, a variation of the deceleration type, she was even able to approximate a state of absolute zero.

“As you are well aware, most of deceleration magic consists of techniques that apply to an entire person, and it’s hard to apply them to single parts. Slowing down or cooling individual parts isn’t impossible, but it takes too much time to cast. I had a thought while observing today’s duel. I believe I am lacking in spells placing an emphasis on speed that can disable an opponent while doing the least amount of damage.”

“Hmm… I don’t really think you’re the type for that, though. Surprising opponents and confusing them with your speed is a tactic, but your magic power is absolute and overwhelming. Isn’t a more orthodox strategy a better fit—nullifying an opponent’s magic by interfering with the area around them, then hitting them with magic that outclasses the scope and strength of their defensive capabilities?”

Area interference was a technique to nullify an opponent’s magic by placing the space around yourself under the effects of your magic power. By covering a fixed region with magic that said “events here cannot be altered,” you could obstruct the opponent’s magic-induced event alteration.

As Tatsuya said, Miyuki’s area interference was incredibly powerful. Even if she lost the initiative in a magic fight, there was almost no chance of her sustaining damage. The basic tactic in magical combat of being the first one to land an attack on the opponent wasn’t actually a very high priority for Miyuki.

“…Will you not do it?”

But Tatsuya didn’t say no to his timidly questioning sister.

“No, there’s nothing I won’t do. Let’s see… In the student council, in terms of strategy against student opponents from the same school, you might need this sort of thing. All right. I’ll try adjusting your activation programs in the same family so that I don’t have to shave off some of the magic you have now.”

When coaxed by Miyuki, Tatsuya would never refuse. But he didn’t forget to give her some advice.

“You should really think about carrying another CAD with you.”

“You’re the only one who can use two CADs at once, Tatsuya.”

“I’m telling you, you could do it, too, if you tried.”

Miyuki turned away in a huff, and he stroked her hair a few times while grinning drily. Rubbing her hair or her head was Tatsuya’s basic solution for getting his sister’s mood to improve.

The effects were immediate.

Miyuki narrowed her eyes in pleasure at the gentle feeling of her brother’s hand snugly on her small head.

“Then let’s take your measurements first,” he said with a technician’s face, once he saw that his sister’s mood had improved.

Miyuki took a step back, reluctant to pull herself away from the sensation of his palm, and smoothly took off her gown.

What appeared was her immodest, half-naked self.

The only thing covering her body as she lay down on the measurement table was her white underwear.

The pure, snow-white color—the situation was changed to an extraordinarily lascivious color.

Even if she was his sister—no, because Miyuki was an incomparable beauty, he shouldn’t have been able to remain calm in this situation. Her body’s abundant charms would drive any man crazy.

But when Tatsuya’s eyes met her gaze teeming with unhidden embarrassment, they didn’t show a single hint of emotion.

He had become a living, breathing machine, constructed to observe, analyze, and record.

Without entertaining any emotion, and acknowledging the situation for what it was, Tatsuya had become the realization of the ideal state that magicians hoped to reach.

“All right, you’re all done.”

At Tatsuya’s signal, Miyuki sat up on the table.

This sort of measurement wasn’t something that was performed just anywhere.

In fact, adjustments involving such precise measurements were on the rarer side.

At the school’s facilities, you would put on a headset and place your hands on a panel to get it to measure you.

Tatsuya handed Miyuki her gown back without looking at her. As she put it on, she glared at Tatsuya’s back with a glum face.

Her brother was sitting on his backless chair, facing his terminal as if nothing had happened.

No, there was no “as if.”

Nothing had actually happened, and he did this every week.

If he let himself pay attention to this, there would be no end to his worries.

It wouldn’t make his embarrassment go away, and he also didn’t want to get rid of it entirely—but above that, he didn’t think anything.

He was making a point not to think about anything else.

Her brother remaining calm was something Miyuki was grateful for as well.

Usually, anyway.

“You’re mean, Tatsuya…”

“Miyuki?”

Tatsuya’s voice was overturned by Miyuki’s coquettish whisper.

Her brother’s agitated, confused voice, which she heard only very rarely.

He found himself with that voice, a discomposed heartbeat, a heightening body temperature, and a mysterious satisfaction.

Miyuki, with her gown on but not closed in the front, nestled into his back as if to get him to carry her. As she rubbed her cheek to his, as she pressed her soft, twin bulges against his back, she continued to whisper into her brother’s ear.

“Your sister is so embarrassed, and yet you always look so calm…”

“Um, Miyuki, what?”

“Or do you not include me as part of the opposite gender?”

“It would be bad if I did!”

It was a sound argument. However, the moment it manifested into words, they became chains of iron, dragging that which he didn’t need to think about to the forefront of his mind.

“Am I not to your liking? Do you prefer people like Saegusa? Or do you prefer people like Mari? You were talking to them quite intimately today…”

“You were listening?”

She couldn’t have been.

Miyuki had been learning how to use the information systems in the student council room from Azusa the whole time.

Besides, if she had tried to eavesdrop, there would have been no way he wouldn’t have noticed it.

But he didn’t have the kind of time to build and systematize an argument against her.

“Well, I knew it! I suppose they are beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Hello? Miyuki? Are you misunderstanding something here?”

“Ogling all the beautiful upperclassmen surrounding you…”

At some point Miyuki’s hand had grabbed her CAD.

“…Tatsuya needs to be punished!”

“Gwah!”

Caught completely by surprise and at his wit’s end, Tatsuya’s body convulsed from the vibration wave fired by Miyuki, and he slid out of his chair and to the floor.

The span of time he’d been unconscious was less than one second.

He didn’t release his consciousness for more than a moment.

He wouldn’t allow himself to go down for more than a moment.

That was his original magic—and it was like a curse.

When he naturally opened his eyes, there was a flowery countenance looking at him from above.

“Good morning, Tatsuya.”

“…Have I done something to make you mad?”

“I really apologize. My practical joke went too far.”

Though her lips apologized, her face smiled. It was a cute smile, appropriate for her age. His sister rarely relaxed her mature attitude outside the house.

The only thought that came to mind when confronted with such a smile was that, well, it didn’t really matter anyway.

It really was a pair of siblings messing around childishly.

Whatever extreme measures she took, she was incapable of hurting him with finality.

“Give me a break…”

He grabbed her outstretched hand and, while his mouth was grumbling, his face, too, was smiling.

She awoke at the usual time.

But she felt like she had a harder time this morning than usual.

She was a little dazed.

She couldn’t sense her brother in the house.

He had probably left for his morning training.

This was usual, too.

Her brother stayed up later than her every night and woke up earlier than her every morning.

Waking up earlier than him like she had the day before yesterday really was a rare occurrence.

She had worried about him hurting himself in the past.

Now she knew that was needless anxiety.

Her brother, that person—he was special.

People around him called her a genius.

They praised her as special, somebody different from them.

They don’t know anything.

The really amazing one, the really special one, the true genius, is my brother.

He is in a different dimension.

They don’t understand.

Those girls giving me compliments while hiding their envy will never understand.

Truly isolated talent goes beyond jealousy—it inspires fear.

Not awe, but fear.

She knew. She knew how their father, overcome with that fear, had treated his flesh and blood, and how unfair his behavior was.

Her brother believed that she didn’t know about it.

So she pretended she didn’t.

Their father—that man despised her brother’s talents. He had given him a false sense of failure. Even now, he was plotting how he would break her brother’s mind, his spirit, and those wings of his that could carry him far above the skies. She actually knew about that.

It was absurd.

He had tried to chain him up and throw him in the corner, but in the end, he was made fully aware of how much his son’s talents surpassed his own.

He eventually gave him assets to compensate for his freedom.

He watched as his powers of restraining, his one and only talent, crumbled before his very eyes.

The only thing that man had done was force upon him a false name and steal from him the admiration of the world.

Even though the man must have known her brother had no interest in such things.

…She was losing control of her thoughts.

She began to feel like she was someone else.

She got the feeling she wasn’t entirely awake yet.

Maybe she hadn’t gotten enough sleep.

She knew the reason.

It was because of what happened last night.

She had been calm at the time.

Her confused brother had seemed funny for once—even cute.

Her emotions had surpassed his.

But she left him, then went alone to her room and lay down in bed—and then she couldn’t remain calm.

The throbbing in her chest wouldn’t let her sleep.

She had lost her composure, and couldn’t get to sleep.

He was so dear to her.

But…

These aren’t feelings of love.

They can’t be love.

That person is my brother—she had told herself that ever since three years ago.

Three years ago, when that person saved me, and when I realized his true value… Even since then, I’ve done my best to become someone fitting for him to call his sister.

I’ve always hoped that one day I could help that person the same way he saved me. I still want nothing more than to become someone who is capable of helping him.

I don’t desire anything from him.

My life should have already expired, and he saved me.

I may be nothing more than shackles binding him right now…

But one day, I want to be the key that sets him free.

I want to be useful to him.

For the time being, that means making breakfast.

He could eat breakfast over there as well…

…but I know he’ll politely leave some room and come back.

I’ll have him eat a delicious breakfast.

Because that’s what I can do right now.

Miyuki gave an energetic lunge and stood up, then stretched a long, high stretch.