August 5, AD 2092

Okinawa

Beach House

By the time the JDF’s coast guard hastened to their side, the suspicious submarine had already gone into hiding.

Miss Sakurai was furious, saying that this unnoticed entry into their waters was an unspeakable disgrace, but to be honest, I wasn’t very interested. I would have rather rested a little than looked for someone to blame. My mental exhaustion ran deeper than my physical exhaustion.

The person in charge of the guards said he wanted to hear the situation from me, but I really wasn’t in the mood to talk about it. That went for Mother and Miss Sakurai as well, not just me. We’d told them that if there was anything they wanted to know, they could ask us later. Then we had returned to the beach house.

Right now, I was lying down in my room. I’d taken a good, long shower, but my mind still didn’t feel clear. The spell my brother had used clung to my thoughts like a haze, like clouds during the rainy season. If my senses were correct, he had dismantled the targets by directly altering their constructional information.

But if my memory was correct, direct interference with constructional information ranked among the most difficult types of magic. I couldn’t do it, and I didn’t think Mother or Aunt Maya could, either. And yet, he did it without even a CAD…

Didn’t they leave him out of the succession candidacy because he had mediocre magical talent? Wasn’t he my bodyguard because he couldn’t use magic the way everyone wanted him to?

That’s what everyone had been telling me this whole time, and aside from the typeless anti-magic Program Dispersion, I’d never seen him use such a high-level spell.

He couldn’t use typed magic, the mainstay of modern magic, very well. Instead, he applied both his unique skill—anti-magic—and his high physical abilities to make a place for himself among the Yotsuba. Supposedly, that was why they made him my Guardian.

I didn’t know. I didn’t understand. He was my family. We were siblings. But I didn’t know anything. Until now, I didn’t even realize I didn’t know anything.

I was stunned.

When I thought about it, this was the first time we’d gone on a real vacation away from home since entering middle school. Wouldn’t that mean yesterday was the first actual time my brother was guarding me by himself?

I was six, and he was seven—those were our ages when he became my Guardian, and I the one he would protect. Six years later, he was still serving as my bodyguard.

But they could never leave my guardianship up to a child in elementary school—one who ran the risk of being kidnapped or injured.

That must have been why I didn’t know his true worth, his real power…

Then, who could I ask to find out who he really was? Mother? Miss Sakurai? Or perhaps Aunt Maya?

Just as I found a thread I could use to escape from the maze of my thoughts, there came a knock at the door. Startled, I hurriedly rose from the bed. As I combed my hair, I asked what they needed.

“I apologize for disturbing your rest,” said Miss Sakurai from the other side, her voice hesitant. “Someone from the Defense Force says he wants to talk to you…”

“To me?” I responded as I opened the door. I knew my attitude in doing so wasn’t very proper, but I was so surprised that I did it anyway.

“Yes…I told him that Tatsuya and I would answer whatever he wanted to ask, but…” Miss Sakurai looked at me with a very apologetic face, but it wasn’t like she was at fault… Seeing her so ashamed about it stung my own conscience.

“I understand. In the living room?”

Miss Sakurai nodded, so I told her I would get changed and come down right away.

The soldier who came to question us was named Captain Harunobu Kazama. After brief introductions, the man moved right to the reason he’d come.

“…Then, spotting the submarine was a coincidence?”

“The captain’s assistant was the one who spotted it,” answered Miss Sakurai. “Please ask him what led him to it.”

“Did you see anything about the submarine that might give us a clue to its nationality?” he pressed.

“It was underwater at the time,” she answered dubiously. “An amateur like me wouldn’t be able to figure that out. Even if it had been above the water, I don’t know anything about the characteristics of submarines.”

The question-and-answer session was between the captain and Miss Sakurai. It appeared that Mother had left everything in her hands, and at the time, I wasn’t calm, so I couldn’t interject with anything even if I’d wanted to.

“It fired torpedoes at you, correct?” the captain continued. “Do you have any ideas as to why?”

“Of course not!”

Miss Sakurai seemed pretty angry. She was unhappy with how the JDF responded to begin with, and the captain’s question, which implied they did something they shouldn’t have, struck a nerve. It made sense she would be angry with him.

As Miss Sakurai glared at the military man, he turned to Tatsuya instead. “Did you notice anything?” he asked. Maybe facing his way didn’t have any deep meaning. Maybe he just wanted to look somewhere else to dull the thorny mood.

“I believe they may have been trying to abduct us so that there wouldn’t be any witnesses, sir.”

But my brother’s reply was so clear and concrete that it seemed unnatural.

“Abduct?” parroted the captain, clearly surprised as well. But at the same time, he looked interested and prompted my brother to go on.

“The torpedoes they fired at the cruiser were foaming torpedoes, sir.”

“Really…?”

Foaming torpedoes? …Torpedoes that foamed—they caused a lot of bubbles…?

“What’s a foaming torpedo?” asked Miss Sakurai in my place as I wondered. She didn’t ask the captain—I think it was because her anger toward him hadn’t settled yet.

“It’s a torpedo made with chemicals in the tip that cause a chemical reaction, which makes a lot of bubbles over a long period of time,” answered my brother. “Areas filled with bubbles can render screw propellers useless. Because our sailboat had a high center of gravity, it’s likely it would have capsized, too. The weapon was designed to stop boats and capture their personnel while disguising it as an accident.”

“What makes you think they were doing this?” questioned the captain, looking at my brother with very keen interest. I was just shocked my brother knew about things like this.

“They jammed our cruiser’s radio, sir,” he answered. “That’s something you need to do if you want it to look like an accident.”

And I was even more surprised that, in the chaos of the situation, he’d managed to observe that the radio wasn’t working.

“…I don’t think that’s quite enough evidence to prove the type of weapon, though,” said the military man.

“Of course, sir. There was more to it.”

“You mean you have more evidence?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What is it?”

“I decline to answer, sir.”

“…” The captain was speechless against my brother’s casual, unhesitating declaration that he wouldn’t speak. Actually, Miss Sakurai and I were both surprised as well.

“Do you need the evidence, sir?” pressed my brother.

“…No, we don’t,” said the captain, looking like he wasn’t sure how to handle him.

“Captain, why not leave things at that?” said my mother suddenly, her voice sounding disinterested. She’d been silent ever since the introductions. “I don’t believe we can tell you much that will help your investigation.”

She sounded detached—and that made it difficult to resist.

The captain immediately recognized the implied refusal. “I agree. Thank you for your cooperation,” he said, rising with composure and thanking us.

My brother and I went outside to see the captain and the others off.

A car was parked on the road in front of the house, and two well-built soldiers stood at attention near it.

One of them looked at my brother’s face, and his eyes went wide.

I knew that face as well. He was the delinquent Leftover Blood soldier we got involved with on the promenade yesterday evening.

“I see.” Captain Kazama took one look at his soldier’s shock and nodded knowingly. “So you were the boy who punched Joe out.”

I reflexively went on the defensive when I heard that.

But after seeing the captain grinning in amusement, I relaxed.

Meanwhile, my brother didn’t show any physical response.

“You have an astounding natural gift, to have mastered the through-strike at such a young age.”

Even though the captain scrutinized my brother up and down, he didn’t show any signs of displeasure.

What’s a through-strike? It sounds like a really high-level martial arts skill…

“Private Higaki!” called out the captain, as though suddenly angry with him.

The delinquent soldier from yesterday perked up. Disconcerted by the captain’s firm stare, he ran up. He saluted, then remained at attention as his superior cast a sharp glance at him.

And then he turned back to my brother and lowered his head. “My subordinate was rude to you yesterday. Please accept my apology.”

The sight was such a surprise that I no longer knew what to say.

All he’d done was clasp his hands behind him, open his legs, and lower his head a little. As far as social manners were concerned, it was a crude apology. But it was just too much of a shock to see a stern-faced soldier like this captain apologizing earnestly to a kid like my brother.

“I am Private First Class Joseph Higaki, sir! I apologize for my rudeness yesterday, sir!”

On the heels of the captain’s words, PFC Higaki made his statement with a stiff and formal attitude—entirely different from yesterday—and, unlike the captain, bowed deeply.

It seemed to me he wasn’t actually a bad person. More importantly, he looked scared of his captain.

“…I accept your apology,” answered my brother after a pause.

“Thank you, sir!”

I didn’t have any argument, either. I never intended to interject in the first place.

As Captain Kazama began to accompany Private Higaki back to their large, open-topped vehicle, he stopped before going three steps and turned around.

“Tatsuya Shiba, was it? I’m currently stationed as a paratrooper magician unit instructor at Onna Base. If you have the time, please come visit. I think you’ll take an interest in us.”

Captain Kazama left us with that and, without waiting for a response from my brother, climbed into the car.