The Irregular at Magic High School, Vol. 11: Visitor Arc, Part III

He was pretty sure they hadn’t learned of his and Miyuki’s relationship to the Yotsuba—or even predicted it. Thus, there wouldn’t be a large force to stage an intervention following him around.

Besides, he didn’t think Japan’s intelligence agencies, despite their support from the Saegusa, would run the risk of clashing with the Yotsuba.

What would happen if they stirred up trouble? The COIA, Public Safety, and the intelligence bureau would have already learned the answer from the incident the siblings’ mother and aunt were embroiled in when they were still young girls. They were only incidental to their revenge, not the targets themselves, but nevertheless, the memories of such thorough destruction weren’t the kind to be forgotten in a mere two or three decades. To say nothing of the fact that the Yotsuba’s power—their power to enact violence rather than their influence—had strengthened even more since then.

Tatsuya stopped thinking about it there. A new set of eyes had joined the group, watching them.

A new—and abnormal—gaze.

A different quality from a human’s. The gaze of a demon.

Giving a mission to observe three high school students and one household robot to professional secret agents meant there was no helping the fact that they relaxed their efforts somewhat.

Part of building a career was learning where you could let up a bit. That wasn’t to say there were no incredibly serious people who would throw themselves completely into everything and never cut any corners, but here, because relaxing one’s efforts and slacking off seemed similar, the situation was different.

“Letting up” always tended to give a bad impression, but at its core, it referred to how someone paced themselves. It meant not pouring ten units of energy into something that only needed five.

Instead of always putting in ten units of energy, regardless of the job’s difficulty, only using five for jobs that needed five would, despite being slower to finish each individual piece of work, end up completing more work in the end. Growing accustomed to something was just one more skill to learn.

But it was true that letting up wasn’t solely advantageous. There were downsides.

These middling spies disguised as police officers had completed many tailing and spying missions. Their bountiful experience was unconsciously directing them to withhold some of their focus, and this time it worked against them.

The mission they’d been given was to immediately capture and kidnap the targets under the guise of an arrest should they use any form of magic.

Their magic-usage detector went off.

They didn’t react to the change on the meter—they reacted to the alarm itself.

A moment later, a brilliant light washed over their vision like a flood.

An unexpected preemptive strike.

An unlikely hostile act.

And just like that, their counterattack sunk to the bottom of a sea of illumination.

“Tatsuya, I put everyone who was watching us to sleep.”

“Nice work.”

Despite thanking the prideful Honoka, it was a fair struggle for Tatsuya to keep his face from drawing back.

The strange presences drew steadily closer. Nonhuman…parasites, almost without a doubt. The humans watching them would cause issues for their dialogue.

Using magic arbitrarily on the streets was an illegal act. There was no way the gazes sticking to them like cling tape belonged to well-meaning citizens or proper public servants, but because they were improper, being seen having a magical shoot-out would be even more inconvenient. Tatsuya had told his companions about the observers so they would take care not to carelessly use magic until the eyes were off them.

In fact, had Tatsuya been allowed to finish, he would have said that part.

But Honoka made the move before he could.

And if anyone stops and questions us, you’ll be here to do something about it, right?

Honoka had made a wonderfully broad interpretation of that sentence. In reality, she was on cloud nine, excited that Tatsuya had asked her for something for the first time ever.

Normally, she was relatively opinionated and prone to assumptions, so not even Miyuki, much less Tatsuya, had paid it any attention. But today was somewhat different from usual.

Honoka’s specialty magic was light wave–oscillation magic. Her best techniques were light-controlling ones.

After learning about the observers’ locations from Tatsuya, then warping and amplifying light around herself and spotting them, she’d promptly created a big ball of awful, strobing light literally before their eyes.

The light of a brainwashing spell—Evil Eye.

When Tatsuya realized that, even he started to panic.

The subliminal effect had just been to put them to sleep, so he didn’t interfere with its activation, but he wasn’t confident that judgment had been the correct one. In magic, spells with subliminal effects were treated as bad as illegal-level spells that directly harmed a person’s physical body. If any actual police officers had caught her, she’d have gotten more than a warning. They’d have slapped her with a jail sentence, despite being a minor—an imprisonment under the pretext of “volunteer labor using magic.”

Astonished at the speed and precision, which were incomparable to the terrorist organization Blanche’s leader, and her skill at triggering Evil Eye against four opponents at once, Tatsuya felt an immediate need to change locations.

“Let’s get away from here before their friends come running,” he suggested to his friends, belatedly thinking, Maybe bringing Honoka along was a mistake after all…

“What a troubling young lady…”

Fujibayashi sighed unconsciously. She was sitting in front of the monitor of a psion-wave radar that could detect unlawful magic usage. It was combined with an urban-area surveillance system—it used mainly the roadside cameras, in conjunction with a poison gas detector and an illegally high-output electromagnetic wave detector.

“But she’s incredible. Her name was Honoka Mitsui, right?”

From behind her, she heard a voice plainly praising her skills as a magician.

The easygoing, grandfatherly remark, without any ulterior motives, caused Fujibayashi to want to sigh again. “That’s right, Grandfather. She’s Honoka Mitsui, a freshman at First High.”

Retsu Kudou nodded to himself in thought. “Considering her name and her specialty type of magic, I wonder if she’s part of the Elements bloodline of light.”

“I don’t know that much. Shall I investigate?”

“No, there’s no need to go that far.” The elderly Kudou shook his head at his granddaughter’s question, maintaining his likable smile. “Anyway… The strong attract the strong, and unusual powers attract unusual powers, I suppose. There are many interesting people around that boy.”

“True—and not only in the ability aspect but the personality one.”

As she made that casually biting comment, Fujibayashi’s fingers, covered in thin gloves meant for operating devices, quickly danced over the touch panel console.

From a systems’ point of view, the urban-area surveillance system was stubborn and hard to use, both on the hardware and the software side. Instead, it provided flexibility on the management end. Even a few government officials had been indiscriminately caught on camera at bad moments. Without manually restricting its records, they couldn’t have put together such a comprehensive surveillance system.

Even for these vampire incidents, in order to secure exemption for unlawful magic usage, it had been arranged by the Saegusa and Chiba so that data would not remain in the system.

Mayumi had been in charge of that, as an information control measure, but with her exams just around the corner, Fujibayashi was replacing her.

Of course, in her case, she was managing the console on her own, without anyone making her do it. Unlike Mayumi, Fujibayashi didn’t have the mind to leave this to others. She knew that while the Saegusa leader was helping his daughter with information concealment, when it came to Mayumi’s soldiers, he was also having Fujibayashi keep an eye on Mayumi in secret—and that her grandfather was in turn keeping an eye on that.

She was operating the system as a proper user, rather than hacking into it, so technically the work was easier than usual. At the same time, the control scheme was inflexible and incommodious.

But there was no helping that.

She’d been the one to accept Mayumi’s request, but her real role had been to manipulate things into having that happen so she could get in. She couldn’t do whatever she wanted this time.

Especially not with her grandfather watching her from behind.

For both her and those who had dispatched her (meaning the person who had plotted to have her as the replacement), this situation where the elderly Kudou was present was an unforeseen one.

Fujibayashi didn’t ask him why he was here.

He may have been her grandfather, but that didn’t mean they were particularly close. She knew that as a member of the Fujibayashi family, she couldn’t act too familiar toward the previous leader of the Kudou family.

And if sparks did ignite between the Saegusa and the Yotsuba, it wouldn’t be strange to see Retsu Kudou acting to extinguish the flames.

Kyouko Fujibayashi’s grandfather was one of the very few people who knew Tatsuya Shiba’s true identity.

“Birds of a feather flock together…or perhaps he was the one they flocked to, rather than the other way around. Either way, the stars he was born under must not have been very peaceful.”

“Yes. Perhaps it only looks like he has them wrapped around his finger, when he’s actually wrapped around theirs,” agreed Fujibayashi idly, still watching the monitor.

If she had turned around to look at her grandfather’s face, she might have realized there was something underlying his remark.

But it didn’t happen.

When he’d said “birds of a feather,” he’d meant Kazama and the other members of the Independent Magic Battalion, including her. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—his granddaughter didn’t catch on.

As predicted, they didn’t enter Aoyama Cemetery.

They hadn’t needed to.

As the three people and one machine enjoyed a leisurely (?) nighttime walk along its high walls (built after the war to prevent misguided individuals from taking photos and doing other things irreverent toward the dead), they sensed a clear presence closing in from the front.

“Master, three parasites are approaching,” came Pixie’s telepathy.

Tatsuya stopped. He’d allowed her to use telepathy, rather than making her use her onboard speakers, in order to draw out the parasites.

He’d also ordered her to convey her thoughts to Miyuki and Honoka as well.

As Tatsuya came to a halt, so too did the girls, bringing themselves up to his sides.

Neither of them appeared scared, but they couldn’t hide how tense they were.

Tatsuya wasn’t exactly immune to the tension, either, so he wasn’t unhappy with their attitudes.

As they previously discussed, he pushed the SEND button on his portable terminal. It would send his current location, acquired from his navigation system, to Erika and Mikihiko. They would probably head here right away with a party of soldiers from the Chiba family. The plan was to wait until they were in position, then shift to capturing the parasites.

Of course, he had no intention of waiting for his friends to arrive should the parasites do something different.

Tatsuya removed his silver partner from his left inside pocket. He let his right hand, holding the handgun-shaped, specialized CAD—the Trident—dangle naturally at his side, then waited for the demon-possessed humans to arrive.

Miyuki stood back-to-back with him, covering his six, with her information terminal–shaped CAD. Honoka, her right hand hovering over the bracelet CAD on her left wrist, stood beside him, looking in front and behind them in alternation.

The stance was fairly sure-footed, and he found a smile rising to his face in spite of everything.

The unexpected act had loosened his tension.

The wellspring had been concern over the two girls’ safety. But now that he was assured of their prowess, it had gone away.

He focused again on what lay beyond the streetlights’ luminescence.

Three figures, approaching them from the front. No hesitation in their gaits. As Pixie herself said, the parasites could obviously detect her location.

The distance closed farther, without either party making a move.

When they were close enough to tell their clothing apart, two parasites who had drawn near them stopped.

The remaining one continued toward Tatsuya.

As its form grew clearer, he felt a strengthening sense that something was wrong.

He quickly figured out what it was.

A conflict between the information coming to his eyes and what he could personally sense.

The man wore an extremely average peacoat and chinos. The coat wasn’t to hide his body type—and this time, he wasn’t wearing a mask. His eyes, mouth, hands, and feet were nothing out of the scope of the ordinary. Nevertheless, despite the man’s human form, Tatsuya could feel something decidedly not human. Perhaps it was the demon’s energy…?

As Tatsuya watched the man closely, the closing of the distance between him and the parasite stopped when they were close enough to hear each other’s voice and make out the other person’s expressions.

“Tatsuya Shiba, we want to talk.”

Tatsuya had no intention of speaking up first, so the parasite kicking things off was as he’d planned. And the fact that it was via the form of mostly peaceful conversation was also technically within his expectations.

But he was a little surprised the parasite had called him by name.

“What should I call you?” asked Tatsuya in exchange.

The man possessed by the parasite almost opened his mouth but was unable to resume the conversation. Tatsuya thought to himself that losing one’s words over something so trivial was quite human of it. It looked like the person’s emotional base didn’t change despite his personality being hijacked.

Or perhaps the term hijack indicated a mistaken understanding. Guessing by what he’d heard from Pixie, the parasites’ main body only had primitive awareness. It seemed to him their emotions hadn’t progressed past an equal point, either. Maybe he should assume they hadn’t enough individuality to hijack a person and that they used the assimilated person as a base to construct a new individual. Tatsuya decided to assume that moving forward.

“Marte.”

As Tatsuya thought about it, the parasite gave a short answer. A name to reply to the question of what to call it. Bits and pieces of information told Tatsuya it meant “Mars” in Spanish or Italian.

It made sense. The man’s Japanese pronunciation was fluent, but his features were clearly Caucasian. Tatsuya only had informational knowledge, since he’d never been outside the country, but the man in front of him was possessed of Hispanic characteristics. Whether Marte was his real name or a code name—well, it was exceedingly likely to be a code name—it wasn’t strange for him to introduce himself as such.

Tatsuya, of course, didn’t know that there were rank groups in the Stars like planet-rank and satellite-rank. He knew only about the literal “stars,” as the name of the group would imply. Therefore, he didn’t understand that the name Marte was a reference to the Stars’ planet-rank code of Mars or that it originated in the host’s envy and regret of having once had the training to be a planet-rank candidate but ultimately failing to join the Stars.

“Then, Mr. Marte—or should I say Señor Marte?—what on earth do you want?”

Thus, this question had no deeper meaning. The man’s “Mars” code name was no more than a label to Tatsuya, and he diverted the conversation offhandedly.

“‘Mister’ is fine, boy.”

In turn, the parasite calling itself Marte mocked him irritably. But all Tatsuya thought was that he had quite a short temper.

“Sure. Anyway, what is it?”

Tatsuya wouldn’t have minded a contest of traded provocations to stall for time, but he saw his companions steadily losing their cool, so he decided to move forward with the conversation.

“…Tatsuya Shiba. We have no further intent to remain hostile toward you.”

It appeared that this “Mr. Marte” found his full name a more courteous approach than “boy.”

Not that it mattered much to Tatsuya (in the sense that he hadn’t expected any courtesy from the start).

“I don’t understand—you’re being too vague about this. Who is ‘we’? And who is the ‘you’ you’re being hostile toward?”

More importantly, it was far more crucial that he resolve what the man was talking about.

“…We demons have no further intent to engage in any hostile actions toward you, the magicians of Japan.”

He outright called himself a demon…

Not a devil, not a ghost, not a specter—a demon. That appeared to be how they perceived themselves. He hadn’t heard this term from Pixie, so they must have discussed it ahead of time.

Tatsuya almost let out a pained grin. He was aware people called his dismantling magic the Demon Right. They’d dubbed it that because when he activated it, he pointed his right-hand CAD at the target. But that didn’t mean he felt any affinity for the term.

“And? Wasn’t there something else you wanted?” Tatsuya pressed. There were things he wanted to ask about the parasite’s short statement, but for now, he decided to let him say what he would.

“In exchange for promising to end hostilities against you, we want you to hand that robot over to us.”

Pixie gave a shiver. Or at least, it looked like it—Tatsuya was probably seeing things. No matter what was inside, robots had no connection to such biological reactions.

“…Now look, Mr. Marte. Would you mind talking a little more politely? I don’t have any way to answer unless you explain why you want us to hand it over.”

“I hadn’t thought explanation necessary. In fact, you should have no reason to take that robot’s part.”

“We’re the ones who decide if we have a reason or not.”

Marte frowned at Tatsuya’s answer. But even his displeased expression, considering the man appeared a generation older than him, didn’t look strange.

“…We wish to release our comrade who is imprisoned inside that robot.”

After hearing the answer, Tatsuya faked a confused head tilt. “Is your comrade not allowed to have a robot for a host?”

Marte’s expression grew even more severe. “We don’t know what you think, but we are living creatures. And our mutual connections are much stronger than you humans’. Is the fact that we want to get our comrade, a living creature, out of a lifeless vessel so difficult for you to understand?”

But his tone of voice was still controlled.

“No, I understand it,” replied Tatsuya in a simple way, just like the man. But he did it because Marte’s answer aligned with the information he’d already gotten from Pixie and didn’t serve to draw his interest. On the other hand, it meant he’d gotten evidence to back up Pixie’s claims. Wondering whether his reply was enough, he continued to speak, trying to plan the timing for their strike. “But how?”

“We will destroy the machine. Should the current host be lost, we can move to a new one.”

“I see… That’s his offer, Pixie. Do you wish to be released from there?”

“No, I don’t, master!”

Tatsuya hadn’t been serious with the question. As long as she had the desire for self-preservation despite residing in an inanimate object, he couldn’t call it right to let it be destroyed. Also, the 3H’s basic programming included the three laws of robotics: never to hurt humans, to obey humans, and to defend oneself as long as it doesn’t interfere with the first two laws—insofar as they could be applied.

However, the intent of refusal indicated by the telepathy was much stronger than he’d predicted.

“I am me. My wish is to belong to you, master. That is who I am.”

It didn’t stop at primitive self-defense instincts. It contained an emphasis on the self.

“I do not care anymore what sort of being I originally was, nor where I received the wish constituting my core. I do not want to stop being me.”

Tatsuya wasn’t the only one who heard Pixie’s telepathy. The three other parasites heard it—as did Honoka and Miyuki.

Honoka pursed her lips tightly.

A smile broke out onto Miyuki’s lips.

“That’s what she says, Brother.”

“Yeah.”

A faint grin was on Tatsuya’s lips as well. Strangely, the unexpected, impassioned speech wasn’t causing a pained grin.

For whatever reason, he felt no aversion to the feelings this demon living inside a robot had.

“Anyway, I expect you can guess our answer already, but…” said Tatsuya. “Before I spell it out for you, there are two or three things I want to ask.”

“It seems you were more foolish than we thought, Tatsuya Shiba. We are disappointed… Fine, then. Say what questions you have.”

“Before, you said you didn’t have any intention of engaging in hostilities against magicians, right? Why wasn’t it against people instead of against magicians?”

There was no answer.

No—curled in scorn, the lips were the answer.

“If we had accepted your request, you demons wouldn’t act hostile toward magicians. Then how would you act toward non-magician people?”

“…”

“After you destroyed Pixie’s body, what would you have her inhabit next? No, you don’t need to answer that. I know without having to ask.”

“…You possess only superficial cunning that requires no real wit.” Seeing Tatsuya’s steely gaze and the girl behind him preparing herself, Marte shrugged as if on purpose. “We don’t get it. We’re telling you we won’t be your enemies anymore. Why are you not satisfied with that? We demons are not compatible with humans in the same way that you magicians are different from other people, am I wrong?”

“Really, now?” Tatsuya shamelessly interjected into the speech the parasite had suddenly broken into. It was more like a propaganda pitch than anything. There was no way he had the commendable mind-set of worrying about how shameless his tone was.

“My host was a magician as well,” said Marte, making an exaggerated gesture to bring his palm to his chest.

Perhaps this man, before he’d been possessed by the parasite, had been an expert at inciting crowds. If he was, the code name Marte (Mars) was a mismatch. The name Mercurio (Mercury) seemed more suitable.

In blatant disregard for Tatsuya’s chilling glare, the parasite’s speech grew more fervent. “That is why I understand the way humans treat magicians.”

“And what way might that be?”

“To humans, magicians are tools and lab rats. A magician’s wishes are too trivial for humans to take notice of. They treat you as tools to use a power called magic and only see you as experiments to draw out even more of that power.”

None of this was different from any old speech, but Tatsuya decided to let this parasite finish and see what happened.

“Why do you do right by people who think of nothing more than using you? You should have no such obligation. You have your own wishes, your own hopes. Don’t you?”

Tatsuya watched Marte’s face closely as he finished his speech. Marte returned the stare with a true look of sincerity.

Tatsuya sighed. “I don’t think magicians are the only ones who get taken advantage of anyway,” he responded carefully to the bristling parasite host. “How should I put this… This all sounds like by-the-book stuff.” And then he twisted his lips into a scornful smile. “For someone who just treated me like a fool…you sure are stupid.”

Rage wavered in the man’s eyes.

Was it the parasite’s emotion or the host’s?

Marte tried to say something, but Tatsuya interrupted, continuing. “You won’t harm magicians. That’s fine—it really is. But you’ve already hurt my friends. My magician friends. Do I have any reason to believe that you won’t hurt them in the future when you haven’t given even a word of apology? It’s no different from the catchphrases that proclaim to ‘protect a magician’s human rights.’ You’re feeding me lies and trying to get something out of me. The sheer audacity of the idea.”

Tatsuya paused his long remarks, then smirked once again, as though he found this all a bore. “Come to think of it, I never gave you my answer. Well, it’s no.”

“You impudent little—”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘you’re going to regret this.’ There, I said it for you. It’s embarrassing even talking to you.”

Death shone in Marte’s eyes.

He waved his right hand and a knife appeared from his cuff. Judging by the cord connecting to the handle, it wasn’t just a dagger—it had some kind of gimmick built in.

The other parasites took out their own knives as well.

When Tatsuya saw them, he narrowed his eyes coldly. “So easy to understand. I’ll make this easy for you to understand, too.” With as much affectation as he could manage, he grinned. “Put down your weapons and surrender peacefully. If you do, we won’t have to hurt you. I promise you treatment—you’ll be happy lab rats.”

“You…human…dog!”

The parasite that controlled the human was now being dominated by the overwhelming emotions of its host.

A Möbius loop of control and submission.

The “magician” Marte probably had a lot of hatred and bitterness toward the humans who’d controlled him before he’d been possessed.

There was enough anger in his scream to betray that.

Without an activation sequence expanding, the signs of magic activation appeared. As Tatsuya thought, the parasites didn’t seem to need activation sequences nor incantations to use magic.

Of course, Tatsuya was much the same. Before the parasites’ magic triggered, Tatsuya’s dismantling destroyed the information bodies about to alter events.

An unusual ability, the natural predator of all magicians—the direct dismantling of information bodies.

That spell, Program Dispersion, was effective even on nonhumans.

A silent battle with no sound or light.

But Marte, who had taken an offensive position predicated on being able to activate magic, stood petrified at the unexpected situation of his magic being canceled.

Tatsuya wasn’t about to let the opening go unpunished.

His four limbs shot through where they connected to his body, Marte fell over onto the road.

Even with the parasite inside, he couldn’t go against his fundamental anatomical structure. He might be able to ignore the pain, but he couldn’t move his limbs now that the tendons were severed.

Tatsuya pointed his empty left hand at the parasite on the road.

If he destroyed his physical body, the parasite would scatter in search of a different host.

If he had Miyuki freeze him with magic, he would self-destruct and escape.

The parasite didn’t require activation sequences, so even if he couldn’t move his body, he could probably still use magic.

In order to disable the parasite, he’d have to deal damage directly to the mental information body.

He clenched a ball of psions in his palm.

There was no guarantee doing this would have any effect.

But Tatsuya didn’t hesitate. If this didn’t work, then he’d just have to bring along a caster skilled in ancient sealing spells.

Hesitation now would do more harm than good.

He simply willed “rejection” and thrust his left hand toward the parasite.

The tough, compressed psionic bullet struck the parasite in the chest.

Not its brain but its heart.

This was something he’d decided after discussing Pixie’s information with Yakumo. The parasites didn’t possess physical organs but a person’s mind. Therefore, there was no essential reason to strike one part of the body over another. In that case, they’d concluded, it was best to strike at the place most deeply connected to the rest of the body—the heart, which distributed fuel for the body’s cells.

The effect was more dramatic than expected.

Like a lobster fished out of the ocean, the parasite’s body bent and stretched madly.

He writhed.

The body infested with the parasite was rejecting it.

Tatsuya’s thoughts, fired into the parasite, were rejecting the parasite, while also being rejected by it in turn.

“Brother!”

But unfortunately, he didn’t have the time to carefully observe.

Miyuki’s cry sounded desperate.

But Tatsuya hadn’t taken his “eyes” off her.

If any danger was threatening her, he would have sensed it without her saying anything.

Sure enough, when he turned around—

On the other side of Miyuki, who had frozen her opponent’s clothing rather than the actual limbs and was now suppressing their magic with her Area Interference—

—was Honoka, having a hard time with the enemy’s armament device, which he controlled via wires, and Pixie, who had shielded her from an attack.

“Honoka!”

“I’m all right!” she answered firmly.

A strong light shone in Honoka’s eyes.

It was the light of her will, her desire to never become a burden for them.

The light in Honoka’s eyes…

…and in her hair ornaments.

Tatsuya felt a rapid heightening of psi-wave activity.

It was a sign that her thought energies were amplifying.

It wasn’t magic.

It was more direct—thought interference.

A moment later, a powerful psychic blast fired out of Pixie.

The event-altering force, unrefined in its precise control but ferocious, shook the interference field Miyuki had constructed.

An interference field made by Miyuki, whose strength was preeminent among all currently living magicians.

Tatsuya fired a newly constructed psionic bullet into the parasite his sister had been fighting.

A dance of rejection reproduced.

But right now, that wasn’t what Tatsuya or Miyuki were concerned with.

There, a simple kinetic state alteration event influence—in other words, a psychokinetic blast—had been fired.

Honoka’s eyes were spinning at the sudden powerful psionic wave, and Pixie stood in front of her to protect her.

The parasite they’d been fighting blew far away into distant vision.