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

Fujibayashi, dumbfounded at the sight unfolding on her monitor, pulled back to her senses at an amused laugh audible from behind her.

“…Well, what a surprising, interesting thing he’s shown us.”

When his granddaughter swiveled around in her chair and gave him a stare incriminating him for his imprudence, the Kudou elder cleared his throat. Then, his tone suggesting he was trying to excuse himself, he said, “That last psychokinetic blast came from the 3H, didn’t it? I’ve never heard of anyone developing robots that could use psychic powers.”

Fujibayashi was sitting at the monitor console of a psi-wave sensor. There was no mistaking the measurement results displayed in front of her.

“…Neither have I. I don’t believe it’s possible for current technology.”

“I shouldn’t think so. With present technology, it’s impossible to reproduce preternatural powers, whether magic or psychic. Which would mean a nonmachine element resides in that 3H.”

“…” A slight breath, which could have been interpreted as a sigh or a groan, escaped Fujibayashi’s lips.

“So the demon has inhabited the robot, has it?”

“…”

“I’ve received reports about the parasites, but I didn’t hear anything about this.”

“We haven’t received reports of it, either,” answered his granddaughter with a hard expression. “I’ve only heard about it through personal conversations.”

“No, no,” replied the Kudou elder, waving his hand to soothe her. “I wasn’t criticizing you, Kyouko. I don’t exactly have the right to anymore. I was just thinking about how fascinating it was.”

The poker face Fujibayashi was wearing broke down.

She looked up at him, unrest in her eyes—and saw glimmers of ambition on her grandfather’s face, the likes of which she hadn’t seen on him in a very long time.

“To think—that you could use a humanoid robot this way…”

The usual Fujibayashi might have noticed something.

But right now, she was upholding the usage procedure set out by the system—as an operator, not as a hacker. Under the circumstances, even the Electron Sorceress couldn’t notice an onlooker using methods the system hadn’t been designed for.

The onlooker watching at that very moment, Maya Yotsuba, took the shade-shaped monitor device off her eyes, leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes.

In terms of the time, it was about ten seconds.

Then, after storing the monitor inside her desk, she took the handbell on the desk’s side and shook it. A clear sound rang through the quiet room where she sat alone.

“You called, Mistress?” asked the elderly Hayama, her butler and confidant, as he opened the door and walked over in front of her.

“Would you please call Mr. Aoki?”

“Of course, Mistress.”

With a polite bow, the butler Hayama left the room again.

This time, there was a slight wait.

She heard no footsteps, but a hastened presence drew near and knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

“Excuse me, Mistress,” came Hayama’s relaxed voice.

The sense of restlessness was emanating from beside him. Along with Hayama had entered another butler, this one significantly younger (though still older than Maya).

“I’m sorry for calling you so late, Mr. Aoki.”

“Please, don’t be. I would instantly go to the ends of the earth should you call me there, Mistress.”

Aoki hadn’t mastered the art of teleportation—the concept hadn’t been realized anyway—so physically he couldn’t be there instantly, but he always spoke theatrically, so neither Maya nor Hayama minded.

“Forgive me for the suddenness, but there is something I’d like you to obtain for me.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Aoki was the treasurer entrusted with the Yotsuba’s asset management. If she’d called him, it was for more than mere shopping. Either it was something expensive even for the Yotsuba (and exorbitantly expensive for the rest of the world), or it was a rare or unsold product that was difficult to purchase in the first place.

But even so, no tension colored Aoki’s face. He knew answering these types of requests was his entire reason for being here, and despite having problems on the personality front, his actual abilities were certainly no less than first-class, both when acting legally and illegally.

“I’d like you to buy the 3H P-94 on loan to the Magic University’s Affiliated First High School as soon as possible. You may spend as much as you need and use whatever methods you need.”

It wasn’t unusual for Maya to suggest money was no issue, but she rarely outright told him to do it by any means necessary.

“If you can’t obtain it, then manage things so that its proprietary rights are not transferred from its current owner. Especially so that it doesn’t pass into the other Ten Master Clans’ hands. You don’t need to worry about money in that regard, either.”

And her laying out precise methods and conditions in case he failed was a first, at least for Aoki.

“At once, Mistress.”

Aoki looked rattled for a moment, but he bowed to her respectfully, without letting his nerves show in his voice.

After Aoki withdrew with hurried steps, Maya gave a searching glance to Hayama, who was still waiting beside her.

“…Wasn’t there something else you wanted to say?”

But in the end, he hadn’t been able to maintain his poker face, and Maya decided to urge him on herself.

“I understand it may be rude, Mistress, but…”

His interest drawn out, he bowed as he gave a few prefacing words. It was a practically clichéd phrase, but the odd tone of voice signaled to Maya that the topic wasn’t a very pleasant one.

“Would it not be wise to refrain a little more from making use of Hlidskjalf?”

Nevertheless, she couldn’t stop him from remarking—admonishing her—at this point. The advice was painfully true, as expected. Maya frowned, but she couldn’t display any anger, either.

After all, Maya, its operator, knew more than anyone else—with the exception of the six remaining operators with the same access rights as her—that using it had more than just benefits.

“…It is a pure and complete product of scientific technology. There should be far less risk of side effects than with magic, which still has no shortage of black boxes.”

“Lady Maya, forgive me, but that wasn’t what I meant by my remark.”

Maya herself knew her argument was just splitting hairs, and once Hayama cut that away, she gave an awkward sort of look.

“And in terms of black boxes, Mistress, we don’t even know where the Hlidskjalf mainframe is set up. There have been no lies yet, but there is no guarantee it will remain that way.”

Hayama’s claim certainly had logic behind it.

And Maya understood the dangers he hadn’t described.

“Yes… I believe you’re right, Mr. Hayama. I seem to have been relying on its information-gathering abilities too much lately.”

“Its capabilities are certainly a lot to give up. In my humble opinion, perhaps Mr. Tatsuya would be able to learn where the Hlidskjalf mainframe is located. Or perhaps that if we can directly access it, we can gain exclusive control over it.”

For Maya, those remarks were completely unexpected. Taken by surprise, she thought for more than a few moments, then finally shook her head.

“It’s still too soon.”

Her answer left room for interpreting what was “too soon.”

Hayama bowed, then left his mistress alone in the room.

“This isn’t good, though…”

Miyuki had been taking care of Honoka, whose eyes were spinning—or, more specifically, who had gotten dizzy and fallen. But when she heard Tatsuya’s monologue unintentionally escape his lips, she turned around.

“Yes… You’re right. Brother, shall we leave this place for now?”

The answer he got was an exceedingly natural one, and he almost simply agreed.

Well, we could, but…

He got the feeling that if he started taking her quick-witted nature for granted, it would come back to bite him one day. Still, something else warranted more concern at the moment.

The reaction earlier, that large-scale psychic display, must have been seen by the Aoyama/Akasaka area. Undesired guests would be upon them presently for all sorts of reasons.

The parasite who had been writhing around until just now had settled down, as though his power had run dry. Tatsuya had already tied his hands behind him just in case, but even he didn’t know how much of a point there was to the maneuver. For the moment, as long as the vessel—the host’s physical body—was still intact, it couldn’t escape from there. But if it came to it, there was one final method: having the opponent self-destruct.

Yeah… Wonder if there’s some ancient spell for the job.

“Tatsuya!”

“Sorry we’re so late!”

Speak of the devil—well, think of them—and hear their voices. It looked like they’d finally made their entrance.

But he didn’t intend to blame them for being “late.” They’d been searching around for the parasites on their own, not slacking off. He couldn’t complain.

Yes, he told himself—complaining about them waltzing in nonchalantly after the entire quibble had ended would be unreasonable.

“Umm…Tatsuya? Your face looks kinda scary.”

“My face looks tough to begin with.”

“Well, that’s not really what I meant, but… If you’re doing it on purpose, it’s a lot scarier.”

Tatsuya glanced at Mikihiko, who was hesitating a little for some (?) reason, then addressed the extra person—the one he hadn’t expected. “Leo, you came, too?”

“Yeah. I got them to let me tag along. Partly for rehab.”

“Well, don’t overdo it. Anyway, Erika?”

“Hmm? What?”

When he addressed Erika, who was looking at the captive with a harsh look, a surprisingly calm voice came back.

“We need to leave this place as quickly as possible,” he said, going straight for the matter at hand. “Did you prepare a way to carry the three of us?”

Relieved that she hadn’t done something excessive like suddenly driving a stake into their captive’s heart, Tatsuya gave a quick glance around, but he could only see the two motorbikes that the three of them had used, no other vehicles. But even beyond that…

Tatsuya hadn’t seen which two had ridden tandem.

“Huh? Why?”

Erika, who had turned around at Tatsuya’s words, was making an honestly mystified face.

“What do you mean why, Erika?”

This remark was not Tatsuya’s. Mikihiko had interrupted with a face that couldn’t hide his impatience.

“Didn’t you sense the thought waves before? That was a lot of magic power that just scattered all over. I don’t think the regular police will be the only ones coming this way.”

“But we were prepared for that from the start—is what I’d like to say…but I guess we shouldn’t make trouble for the three of you.”

Aside from her slightly watchful look, it was the same Erika as always. At least, to the extent Leo and Mikihiko wouldn’t notice.

“Umm, we can take him to the storehouse at Miki’s place. Is that okay?”

Erika had said “storehouse,” but of course it wasn’t a literal storehouse. The act of purposely bringing them into Yoshida family jurisdiction rather than a Chiba family facility meant they had an appropriate spell or technique to seal the parasite’s magic and bind it.

“Is that okay, Mikihiko?”

“Huh? Of course it is. I mean, that was our job to begin with.”

By “our,” he must have meant “ancient mages.” Maybe he wanted to say sealing demons was an onmyouji’s job (although Yoshida’s family were Shinto, not Onmyou practitioners).

“All right, then me, Miki, and I guess Leo will take over here. You three should go home.”

“Wait, why?” asked Tatsuya dubiously, ignoring Leo’s anger at the I guess part. “We’ll wait for you to load up.”

The answer was a rather inarticulate one.

“Tatsuya, well, that is…” stammered Mikihiko.

Tatsuya followed his gaze. Pixie’s skirt was torn here and there, and Honoka’s half coat now had several additional unintended slits in it.

“…We’ll call a car.”

“I think that would be best.”

Tatsuya decided to leave this place to Erika’s group.

The siblings’ house was inside the self-driving vehicle control area, but Honoka’s apartment was outside the control area for automatic cars. Honoka wouldn’t be able to go home with the self-driving commuter he’d summoned with his information terminal. The four ended up transferring to cabinets at the station.

Not having much attention on them despite their considerably unconventional fashion was a welcome aspect of cities.

Without drawing more stares than he thought they would (though with Miyuki with him, it was impossible to draw no attention whatsoever), Tatsuya and the others climbed into a four-seater cabinet.

“Oh, umm, Tatsuya…?”

Because the act of getting inside was so natural, Honoka only had doubts after the cabinet had already pulled away. They were going in the same direction, but they couldn’t get out of the cabinet halfway there…

“I’ll take you back,” Tatsuya stated.

Hearing that, Honoka—who couldn’t exactly admit that that was exactly what she wanted—fervently but modestly turned him down…even if she couldn’t hide an expression of happiness.

Four-person cabinets featured the ability to change the seating layout to facing.

Next to Tatsuya was Miyuki, and across from them was Honoka.

Diagonally across from Tatsuya was Pixie (who was being treated as a passenger, not luggage). He glanced at the robot, then turned his gaze to Honoka—then repeated the process in silence.

“…Brother, if you don’t give Honoka a word or two soon, she won’t last,” whispered Miyuki from beside him, unable to remain indifferent as their classmate became visibly tenser each time Tatsuya’s eyes set on her.

“Right. Sorry,” said Tatsuya, coming around at his sister’s reprimand. It seemed like he was unaware he’d been doing it. “All three of you did a good job tonight.”

His congratulatory words were probably a mere preface. Him counting Pixie as one of their number was proof. He did perhaps approve of Pixie doing a stand-up job in her own right, but it was clear from the way he didn’t distinguish between humans and robots that he hadn’t thought about it very much.

“And hmm. Honoka, how should I put it…? Do you feel any kind of exhaustion?”

His next words weren’t an explanation but a question. Honoka shook her head, even while flustered at the sudden query.

“I see… Pixie, what about you? Are you exhausted—? Well, that’s not the right way to put it. Do you feel any consumption of the psions and psycheons that comprise your main body?”

“The consumption is within the range of natural recovery, master.”

“I see…”

“Brother, whatever might you be worried about?”

“It’s not that I’m worried, really, it’s just…” said Tatsuya, shaking his head at his sister. Then he turned his gaze to Honoka again. “When Pixie released that powerful psychokinetic blast earlier… Honoka, did you get a sense of what happened?”

“…No, why? What do you mean?” asked Honoka in response, unease wavering in her eyes.

The question had been significant enough that he couldn’t blame her for feeling uneasy.

Although, of course, it hadn’t been spoken with the intent to deliberately fan that unease.

“I’d like you to listen calmly.”

Tatsuya himself was baffled enough to want to preface it with that.

“Just before Pixie fired the psychic blast, she’d been supplied with psions from you, Honoka.”

“Huh?” Honoka’s eyes went wide, dumbfounded.

“…Do you mean to say that Honoka provided Pixie with strength?”

“No, didn’t exactly seem like that,” Tatsuya replied, his voice showing an unusual lack of confidence. “It was similar to the process of injecting psions into a CAD when you want to expand an activation sequence. Something like…priming. Or maybe resonance.”

Honoka turned a fearful stare on Pixie.

The robot girl—or rather, the parasite possessing the 3H type P-94—didn’t seem to mind. Of course, her expressions didn’t change, so they couldn’t know for sure.

A magician and a machine had exchanged psions.

The phenomenon itself was a familiar one for Tatsuya and all other modern magicians as well. But the phenomenon occurred with a machine fitted with a system specifically designed to do that from a magical engineering perspective. A 3H didn’t have any functions like that.

Machines didn’t have any abilities beyond what humans gave them. They would never learn new functions on their own.

Therefore, this phenomenon hadn’t occurred between her and Pixie’s machine body but between her and Pixie’s actual body. It was the only explanation.

He couldn’t blame Honoka for feeling uneasy or being captivated by fear.

“Mizuki said something like that… There really does seem to be some sort of path between Honoka and Pixie. And it seems like—”

Suddenly, Tatsuya stopped talking. He seemed uncomfortable for some reason, like he was having a hard time getting the words out. Miyuki directed a dubious look at him.

He felt her unspoken question through his skin, and with a resigned expression, he continued, “…It seems like the medium for it is your hair ornaments, Honoka.”

“Huh?”

Honoka’s emotions had been busy with surprise and fear until now, but this time her surprise stood out most strongly.

She wasn’t the only one who was surprised.

Miyuki stared closely at the elastic tying Honoka’s hair.

“Specifically, those crystals. I don’t have any idea what sort of logic is at work here, but…”

Honoka put her hands to her crystal hair ornaments. It was an unconscious act, not something she’d expected a particular result from.

But a moment later, something happened—something that seemed to prove Tatsuya’s speculation.

An incorporeal light released from the center of Pixie’s chest.

It wasn’t a strong light. Visually speaking, it was about as bright as a lantern.

But the synchronization was too strong to doubt the connection.

Tatsuya’s and Miyuki’s eyes both focused on the hair ornaments.

Honoka closed both hands around the decorative jewels, almost as though afraid of them being taken away.

“Setting aside the operative principles for now… We’ll have to find a way to control it,” Tatsuya whispered, his tone soft, like he was trying to soothe a small and cautious animal.

Indeed, Honoka’s caution changed to surprise as she returned his stare.

Tatsuya moved his gaze from her to Pixie. “It seems like buying Pixie was the right move, at least.”

Tatsuya’s high school group wasn’t the only team active that night. He hadn’t gotten in touch with Mayumi or Katsuto, so the Saegusa-Juumonji forces weren’t doing anything, but the Chiba family had dispatched quite a few people to carry out Erika’s intent. Erika having come running with only her small unit meant nothing other than they were the strongest out of all the members mobilized tonight.

Erika, Leo, and Mikihiko. For all but one of them, their grades left something to be desired. Their abilities in actual combat, on the other hand, went above and beyond. Even with adults added to the equation instead of just high school students, if you excluded skill at handling weapons, their capabilities would still place them in the upper ranks.

Of course, because they’d been the only ones acting, they were left in a situation where they had to wait for an escort car while keeping watch over the bound parasite…but someone more troubling found them before their escort.

“You there, what are you doing?!” came the loud interrogation as a car (with a motor) stopped on the other side of a streetlight. A pair of young men in police uniforms ran over to them.

When they saw the men, consternation entered Mikihiko’s face, a brassy smile appeared on Leo’s lips, and Erika silently directed them a challenging stare.

“What is this?! You’re all in high school, aren’t you? What are you doing here?!”

When they saw the two men lying on the road, hands tied behind them, the taller one sharpened his voice. That was, perhaps, the natural reaction for a police officer to have upon seeing civilians tied up and lying in the road at night.

“No, well, you see…” Mikihiko, thinking they were being questioned, racked his brains trying to find an excuse.

But Erika pushed him aside and gave an overbearing counterquestion: “I should be asking you. Who are you?”

“What was that?!”

“Hey, Erika!” Mikihiko hissed, staring at her in utter disbelief as the men bristled.

“Mikihiko.” A hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him closer. He turned around to see Leo with an amused grin.

“Didn’t you hear me? I asked your names and rank,” repeated Erika, sniffing away the threatening gazes the police officers were giving her. “What, you don’t know? There aren’t any policemen in this area right now. They were ordered to leave. Even that stupid brother of mine wouldn’t cut corners at a time like this.”

Erika’s words came with no proof.

If they were actual police officers, they should have mockingly laughed her remark off.

But the young men in front of her appeared, unfortunately, rattled.

“What? That’s not possible.”

Their confusion went away in an instant. But Erika didn’t let it slip, and she wouldn’t have cared if she’d gotten no reaction at all anyway.

Because she hadn’t been bluffing.

“If you were going to disguise yourselves, you should have pretended to be detectives in personal clothing. Then I would have at least heard you out. Well, that’s all I would have done anyway,” added Erika, nose in the air.

As the taller man moved to reprimand her, his colleague stopped him. That one stepped forward instead. Comparing the two, he wasn’t as tall, but he had a more toned physique. He was notably more intimidating.

“You can try to get out of this with whatever nonsense you want, but we’ve caught you committing a violent crime. You’re coming with us.”

“Really? You’re still gonna play the fool, huh?”

It wasn’t enough to intimidate Erika, of course. Like before, she returned their provoking gazes with a cold stare.

“That’s too bad for you,” she went on. “We stopped these two men during an attempted rape. It was, what do they call it, a citizen’s arrest. And we were just waiting for actual police officers to get here. This is no place for imitations. Am I making myself clear here?”

Mikihiko watched his childhood friend as she smoothly concocted a reasonable-sounding story. He knew it was a lie, but it was very convincing—and because of it, he was a moment late noticing a presence creeping up on them.

“Miki!” “Mikihiko!”

Without a sound—not metaphorically but literally silently—a dark shadow came upon him from overhead. By the time he was aware someone had jumped over the wall surrounding the cemetery, it was too late for him to intercept them.

He felt an impact on his shoulder.

He only realized someone else had knocked him away after he’d unconsciously fallen in a forward roll.

Leo had raised his arm overhead, blocking a swung club. Mikihiko could guess how powerful the blow was just from the sound it made, and it was enough to easily break any normal person’s bones. But Leo had caught the blow with ease. And while he did so, he shot out a fist that cut through the wind toward the person who had just now landed.

“Ugh!”

But he pulled his fist back after making only a shallow blow on the assailant’s body.

Then, under the feeble streetlight, Mikihiko saw the glimmer of electricity.

The man was wearing a suit that could pour a high-voltage current into anyone who came into contact with it.

Leo backed off a step, clutching his wrist. The man wielding a club assumed a stance for a follow-up attack.

“Leo, get back!”

Mikihiko whipped his left arm around. A folding fan–shaped CAD flew out of his sleeve, and he caught it with a practiced motion.

He tried to fire a support spell at the man who had attacked Leo, but then some kind of ring struck his CAD from the side. He didn’t drop it, but he had to cancel the spell.

The object that had canceled Mikihiko’s spell curved around and flew back to where it came.

After it had returned to the hand of the enemy who threw it, he finally realized it was a sort of boomerang. Of course, a normal boomerang would lose all its kinetic energy upon collision with a target, not return to the user. It must have been some kind of magical weapon.

Leo, having been hit by an unforeseen electric attack, had rolled onto the road to avoid the club being swung down at him to create some distance, and he was still recovering his posture.

Mikihiko didn’t have the time to be concerned with him.

There was more than one enemy.

No sooner than he heard the shh of compressed air releasing did a bullet the size of two old-fashioned juice cans strapped together come flying at him from the other side of the street.

Mikihiko launched a mass of wind to intercept the shell.

The moment after he saw it stop in midair, a net shot out of it and spread out, flying toward him. On each of the octagonal net’s corners, there was a super-small rocket motor, flaring with fire to make up for the canceled kinetic energy.

They make those?! Mikihiko squawked in his own mind.

It wasn’t all that fast, but he had no idea what kinds of gimmicks this net had in it. He used a jumping spell to dodge it.

A figure waiting for him in midair. A torus-shaped throwing weapon closing in on him.

Meticulous positioning, like a chess problem.

And an average caster would have been out-positioned by it.

But Mikihiko wasn’t average. He’d gotten back all his former strength from when they’d called him the wonder child, and he’d gone even further.

By jumping once again in midair, using the air as a foothold, he evaded the three rings as well as their owner’s attack.

From the air, he looked down at the man who had missed his swing with a slender weapon—probably something like a horsewhip.

There was shock in the man’s face as he looked back up.

It was finally Mikihiko’s turn.

He reached out with a bent leg.

His foot touched the man’s forehead.

That very movement was a “seal” that triggered magic.

An electric net spread out from the point of contact between his foot and the man’s forehead, quickly rushing over the man’s body.

Mikihiko kicked off the wind again and landed on top of the wall.

From there, he searched for signs of Leo and Erika.

Leo had recovered from the initial attack. He was having a barehanded battle with the man holding a club. He wasn’t taking damage from the electricity, probably because he’d wrapped himself in a suitable spell. The man he was up against was quite skilled in his own right, but Leo had the edge in both speed and power.

The issue was Erika.

One of the men who had spoken to them first had been a lousy performer, but he was a very skilled fighter.

After all, he was bearing out Erika’s driving strikes. Either he was wearing special armor underneath his uniform or the uniform itself was specially made.

But tough was all he was—he couldn’t do anything against Erika’s sword attacks. Every time her sword hit him, fine particles erupted from the surface of his clothing and scattered. Erika, cautious, hadn’t taken the final step to finish him.

If her weapon had been a little longer, he wouldn’t have given her so much trouble. But her weapon today was a short club that could transform into a kodachi. Avoiding the particulate sprays, which were likely to be drugs, she was forced into a dip-in, dip-out style of fighting.

Now that he had a bird’s-eye view of the situation, Mikihiko realized something. The three of them were being pulled away, little by little, from the parasites they’d tied up.

The men hadn’t stepped closer to the parasites than the three were yet. But if they kept dragging them away at this rate, their captives could be gone before support arrived.

They had to finish this quickly, even if it meant being somewhat forceful.

It was a moment after he made the decision. The opponents had probably also decided they couldn’t hold out any longer.

With regards to the opportunity, Mikihiko’s decision and the enemy’s decision matched…

…and the enemies were one step quicker to move.

He heard the sound of something falling toward him from overhead.

Both Leo and Erika separated themselves from their enemies, Leo kicking his away and Erika showering hers in a flurry of strikes.

“Get down!” he shouted, just as a cocoon of air covered Erika and Leo.

Mikihiko had created a defensive barrier.

The bomb falling from overhead burst before hitting the ground, swathing the streetlights in a curtain of smoke.

He heard several metal pieces dropping in succession.

The wind Mikihiko created blew away the smoke curtain.

Then it became clear what had happened.

A metal arm, hanging out of the air by thick wires, had grabbed up the parasites’ bodies and was now quickly retracting. The wires originated from a jet-black vessel that had at some point appeared in the night sky, blending in with the darkness.

It was surprisingly small and quiet, but there was no trace of it using magic. Without a sound, without any magical waves—and because of that, they hadn’t noticed the unknown flying ship that had risen above them.

The captives themselves had disappeared into the gondola.

Erika let out a shock wave, then took a stance as if to slash upward. Her slashing attacks didn’t have strategic-class magical power, but she might be able to cut the gas tank of a flying ship and shoot it down.

“Don’t, Erika!”

But Mikihiko stopped her, and she grudgingly disengaged. She knew as well as he did that shooting an airship out of the sky in a place like this would cause a massive tragedy.

The assailants had vanished from sight as well while Erika’s group was preoccupied with the airship. It was clear the fake police officers and the airship belonged to the same force.

“Well, that throws a wrench into things…”

Mikihiko nodded deeply, feeling completely the same.

Erika turned around to him, an awfully insincere smile on her face. “What should we tell Tatsuya?”

“Well, we should call him, right?” asked Mikihiko, looking to Leo for help.

Leo shrugged at the stare. “Well, it’s late, and we’d be bothering him.”

“Ah-ha, that’s right—it is quite late. Let’s just do it tomorrow.”

The three of them laughed empty laughs, which were caught by the night breeze in the capital and blown away.

“Sample secured.”

At the JGDF counterintelligence department Section Three, with its base of operations in the basement of a certain building in Ichigaya.

When the report came in from the dispatched stealth airship, the assistant division chief (they only used company positions in this department rather than JDF ranks, for camouflage) nodded with relief.

“Despite the accident, we seem to have accomplished our objective.”

When the agents disguised as police officers had been put to sleep by the group of high school students and the Home Helper Robot, the word demotion had flashed across the back of his mind. But now he sighed in relief. It looked like he would get through this without damaging his superior’s mood.

He knew that the “samples” they’d captured were the “vampires” making the rounds in the news, but he didn’t know that the vampires’ identities were former magicians possessed by things called parasites. He also didn’t know that one of the vampires they’d captured was an ex-soldier from the Old Mexico region in the USNA or that he’d retired because he’d lost his magical abilities after an accident during training. All the assistant division chief had gotten was an order to capture vampire samples.

He’d been keeping a watch on Tatsuya’s group because he’d been told that there was a high chance they’d make contact with the vampiric samples. As for why a bunch of high school kids, despite being up-and-coming magicians, would be related to these vampires—well, that was unknown to him.

However, when his subordinates had been easily disabled, the notion that they were mere high school students had disappeared. But that only presented more questions, like why high school students were that strong. In the end, though, it looked like his subordinates wouldn’t have to worry themselves over abnormal high school students any further. That was another reason the assistant division chief was relieved.

Now his job was only to “preserve” the sample for a time. His subordinate, the division chief, would take care of the rest of the paperwork. Part of staying alive in a group like this was not prodding into higher affairs. He knew vaguely that the request to obtain samples hadn’t been from the government but the wishes of their sponsor, and also that the true requester seemed to be a certain family pulling the strings behind that sponsor. But he had absolutely no intent to elucidate the details.

“Bring them into the ‘ice box’ as planned. And go heavy on the drugs, just in case.”

After ordering his subordinates to disable the magicians by putting them into a state of hibernation with low-temperature anesthesia and to store the vampires into their facility, the assistant division chief got out of his seat to tell his superior that the operation was complete.

“I see that Kouichi still loves his schemes. Part of his personality at this point, I’d expect.”

The words alone made it sound like her grandfather was complaining, but his voice actually sounded faintly amused for some reason. Fujibayashi decided not to ask.

Counterintelligence Section Three’s sudden intervention via spy ship had surprised Fujibayashi, too, but her response after that was swift and exact as always. She immediately pinpointed the group the airship belonged to from its radio communications.

And then, as always, she’d broken into the Ichigaya basement room’s line with skills that brought no shame to her moniker, Electron Sorceress.

“Your Excellency, what might Mr. Saegusa be after?”

She’d called him “Your Excellency” and not “Grandfather” simply because she knew she was on the job right now. Retsu Kudou understood that as well, so the aloof, distant title didn’t bother him.

“Not even I know what’s in Kouichi’s head. I can make a pretty awful guess, though.”

Nevertheless, the Kudou elder didn’t seem to want to match his granddaughter’s way of speaking, and his own tone of voice was the comfortable sort one would have toward a family member.

“An awful one…?”

“Mm. Maybe Kouichi found out Maya’s interested in the parasites and decided he wanted one for himself.”

“Ms. Yotsuba is interested in them?”

“The Yotsuba entrust their intelligence to a branch family called the Kuroba. And the Kuroba seem to have tried to wipe out the parasites. They’re apparently still investigating things now.”

“A branch family tasked with intelligence… The Yotsuba really are unique.”

“Well, the twenty-eight families themselves are like branch families of the magic technician development laboratories. You’re right, though. Aside from the Yotsuba, nobody has a system based on branch families.”

Kudou gave a self-deprecating grin, probably remembering where he himself came from. Fujibayashi didn’t bother to awkwardly comfort her grandfather, and instead waited for his next words.

“That all aside… He must have found out that the Yotsuba had a strong interest in the parasites and decided he wanted to get involved, too. He wants to get stronger than the Yotsuba, no matter what he has to do. It’s certainly sad that he still hasn’t escaped the nightmare from thirty years ago, but still…”

As Kudou spoke, it looked to Fujibayashi like he was reminiscing about the distant past. It didn’t seem like a good past, certainly, so she addressed him in a slightly firm voice to pull him out of it. “What should we do, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe that leaving counterintelligence Section Three to do as they please is a good idea.”

“Indeed… Though had they played their cards better, we might have been able to.” As Fujibayashi hoped, Kudou returned from his world of memories and directed his mind to the present. “Kyouko, can we leak this information to the Yotsuba anonymously?”

“I believe we can, but why?”

“Then that’s all we need to do. Maya will think of a way to deal with the rest.”

To have Maya Yotsuba settle Kouichi Saegusa’s scheme… It seemed like a cruel mistreatment to Fujibayashi, who knew the circumstances. But she wasn’t about to object to her grandfather’s plan, either, so she set right to work at the console.

When the Shiba siblings got home from dropping off Honoka at her apartment and leaving Pixie in the garage they got her from, the date hadn’t quite yet changed, but the time was still such that one had to call it the middle of the night.

Still, considering their age, it wasn’t particularly late, either. The skirmish had been far from their full combat powers, but their tense nerves were keeping them on edge, too.

“Brother, it’s Miyuki. Might you have a moment…?”

After eating, bathing, and finishing several other things she could find to do, Miyuki visited her brother’s room. Rather than being in his lab in the basement, he was, unusually, studying something other than magicology—probably because he couldn’t get to sleep, either.

Tatsuya had a textbook open as a sort of substitute for a sleeping pill. Despite the fact that they were siblings, it wasn’t proper for one to visit another’s bedroom (also their private room), but he figured talking to his sister might give him a good distraction.

“It’s okay, you can come in.”

“Yes. Please excuse me.”

Tatsuya lowered his display from its vertical position on the desk’s back to a horizontal one on the desktop, then turned around at the sound of the door closing.

“……What did you need?”

Only he could have prevented himself from stammering or his voice from cracking.

Nevertheless, it still resulted in an unnatural pause.

Without immediately answering her brother’s question, Miyuki took a seat on his bed, her expression proper.

Tatsuya couldn’t stop himself from wondering, internally, what was happening.

He was certain his sister wore pajamas to bed.

Had Shizuku’s recent outfit infected her?

In short, Miyuki was in a nightgown.

More concretely, in a negligee.

She did have a proper gown on, of course, and her belt was tied tight.

But her skin was barely visible through the thin fabric over her upper chest and below her knees, making it more alluring than seeing it directly would have been.

It’s fine because I’m the only one here, but… Does she not fully realize how old she is?

As her brother, he secretly feared for her lack of caution—but whether that was appropriate for the situation or not, there was no judge here to give a decision.

Miyuki, in the meantime, gave a happy smile as though satisfied Tatsuya was staring a hole through her, then quickly went back to a serious expression.

“I’m sorry, was I interrupting your studies…?”

“No. You know I don’t need anything like that.”

Depending on how you took that—actually, most people who heard that would have taken it as sarcasm, but Miyuki wasn’t envious, nor did she admire him for it or even praise him. She simply accepted the words as the regular way of things.

Tatsuya stood from in front of his desk and moved to the bed. He sat next to his sister. With enough space between them, of course.

Urged by his questioning sidelong gaze, Miyuki nervously broached the subject.

“Brother… Miyuki is confused.”

“Confused?” Tatsuya parroted back.

It was a sudden remark, though a reserved one. He looked at her with seriousness.

But his sister wasn’t looking at him. “I just don’t think I understand anymore. What is magic? What are we, magicians…?”

Perplexity passed over Tatsuya’s face.

It was a more advanced question, and one he certainly hadn’t expected. He considered this topic one belonging in the realm of philosophy more so than magicology.

It didn’t seem like the kind of thing he could handle, but nevertheless, he didn’t have the option of brushing off what Miyuki had to say.

“Why the sudden question?” he said, urging her on for the time being.

“Magic and psychic powers are fundamentally the same. Brother, you know more than anyone that this is more than just theory—it’s fact.”

“‘More than anyone’ might be exaggerating things, but… Why?”

“On the other hand, parasites—demons use magic, too. There was no difference in the activation process between the magic they use and the magic we use.”

“Indeed.”

Miyuki, who was staring at her clenched fists in her lap, turned to face her brother. Her hand rested in the open space Tatsuya had left, and she leaned forward, looking up into his face.

Unease wavered in her eyes.

“I thought…I thought it was because the demon had possessed a magician. I thought the demon was using magic through the magician’s mind.”

Behind that unease lurked fear.

“But when I saw the psychic powers Pixie used and asked you about it afterward, I realized I was wrong.”

“The psychokinetic blast earlier?”

“Yes…”

There was a short pause before her next words. Miyuki was scared of putting the rest out there. She feared explaining her reasoning, and the possibility that Tatsuya would confirm it. That was what Tatsuya sensed.

“Telepathy is an ability that works between two minds. I didn’t think it was strange when a parasite, which is originally similar to a mental body, could use it. And when I heard she used psychokinesis to create facial expressions, I figured it wasn’t too farfetched and didn’t worry about it.”

Miyuki’s face drew slightly closer.

He could see the flicker of emotion in her eyes, more clearly than before.

“However, with the psychokinesis earlier… It had a rough structure, but it couldn’t have been anything other than a movement-type spell. A spell that triggered via resonance with Honoka, right?”

“…Yeah,” nodded Tatsuya with hesitation.

He’d been ambiguous about it earlier, but he was nearly certain the phenomenon that occurred between Honoka and Pixie was “resonance”—where the energization of one’s magic-calculation region heightened the energy levels of the other’s magic-calculation region—the sort observed, rarely, between those closely related by blood, such as identical twin magicians.

“Three-H doesn’t… Machines don’t have the ability to generate magic. That means the psychic power Pixie used wasn’t its host’s ability… It was the parasite’s—the demon’s—ability.”

Miyuki lowered her gaze for a moment. When she looked back up a moment later, her stare seemed to cling to him.

“Magic and psychic powers are the same thing. That would mean the demons have the same power as we magicians.”

Tatsuya finally realized what his sister was so anxious about.

“In Japanese, the word magic figuratively means ‘demonic method’… Does our power originate from them?”

His sister’s face drew even nearer.

Just before it got close enough that Tatsuya could feel her breath, he stood up from the bed.

It looked as though he’d smoothly evaded her, but that wasn’t it.

He squatted in front of Miyuki and brought his eyes to her level.

“Miyuki… You’re overthinking this.”

Lithely putting her hands down to support her tilting body, Miyuki received Tatsuya’s gaze—and accepted it.

Tatsuya put his palms around his sister’s shoulders and slowly sat her back up straight.

“In Japanese, magic might come from the term demonic method, but in English, for example, it means ‘the skill of a magus.’”

“Ah,” gasped Miyuki softly.

“We still don’t know much about the forces that magic comes from. We understand the system of causing an alteration in events by overwriting eidos using a magic program. But why can we do that? Why does the human unconscious have what we call a magic-calculation region? You could say we have no idea.”

Tatsuya made a troubled face, the kind a master might give to a favorite pupil more talented than he to admonish her for a misunderstanding, and smiled a little.

“We’re not even certain the magician is really the one producing magic. Just because a demon used magic doesn’t automatically mean there’s a link between magicians and demons.”

“Yes…yes, you’re right…”

“And besides, we think the parasites are actually independent information bodies originating in the human psyche. If they come from a person’s mind, then their power is something humans gave them. You could have the opinion that magicians’ magic doesn’t come from demons but that demons’ magic comes from human magicians.”

“Yes… You’re right, Brother.”

The unease had been wiped from Miyuki’s eyes.

Tatsuya felt like it was too early for her to be convinced, but this was more constructive than her making mountains out of molehills. He wasn’t about to put a damper on it.

“You were having trouble sleeping because you were worried you might be kin to something inhuman like demons, weren’t you?”

Tatsuya hadn’t asked that with the intent to tease his sister.

But it flipped a switch inside of Miyuki, and her face immediately flushed a wonderfully bright red. She froze, forgetting even to hide her face. When she managed to restart herself, she spun around and put her back to him.

She climbed farther onto the bed, sitting with her legs disorganized—unusual for her—and remained stock-still, facing the wall.

It wasn’t that embarrassing… thought Tatsuya, at the same time feeling like her reaction was oddly cute.

“In that case…”

He brought his lips close to her ear and whispered.

“…until you go to sleep…”

At a level that spoke of a mischievous intent.

And sure enough, Miyuki’s body gave an exaggerated shake. The shake was so hard she might have flown into the ceiling.

“…shall I stay by your side?”

Miyuki slowly turned her head around to look at him, and with her face red, eyes upturned, and voice feeble, she answered.

“…Will…will you hold my hand?”

Maybe I went too far, Tatsuya thought.

Without any right to refuse, Tatsuya now had to sit at his sister’s bedside in her room until she went to sleep, holding her delicate white hand.

Fortunately, she sent off for dreamland quickly.

Seeing his sister’s happy sleeping face was enough of a reward for Tatsuya, but he still couldn’t avoid feeling mentally exhausted by it.

Without turning the lights on, his gait unsteady, Tatsuya left Miyuki’s bedside behind him.

Without a sound, he closed the door, then went back to his room.

On the way, Tatsuya realized something.

Miyuki, who had advanced education as a magician, based on just one facet of magic, had linked magicians to the demons.

She had seen magicians as something separate from other people.

If even Miyuki, who knew magic very well, could be entrapped by such an impression, then it wasn’t strange for non-magicians, who didn’t know magic very well, to see magicians and demonic inhuman beings in the same light.

No, it wouldn’t be strange at all if they thought magicians were something other than human. Something altogether inhuman…

The next morning.

Right after Tatsuya got to school, Erika, Leo, and Mikihiko grabbed him and pulled him out of the classroom. Mizuki watched with a confused, flustered expression, but rescue was beyond her abilities.

Their destination was the roof.

It was already first thing in the morning before the temperature rose, and they were outdoors, on the roof, exposed to all the wind. Nobody else was there, and Tatsuya didn’t want to stay very long, either.

“You had something to talk about?”

He couldn’t have the three of them clamming up on the roof. But his friends had gone on and on about unimportant trifles on the long way here, so even if he prompted them to get on with it in a somewhat irritated tone of voice, nobody could turn around and say Tatsuya had a short temper.

The three exchanged glances, then all gave resigned looks at the same time. Their faces remained that way as they spoke, the result of compelling an unprepared spokesman.

“Tatsuya, well, actually…”

The one who nervously started to speak was, perhaps as expected, Mikihiko.

“What, did you let the parasites get away or something?”

Tatsuya had only given them a chance to get this whole thing over with, but when he saw Mikihiko audibly gulp and draw his head back, a sigh escaped him in spite of himself.

“I’m not going to get mad at something like that, so quit worrying. Thinking about capturing more is a pain, but… We can’t do anything about them now that they got away.”

He didn’t hide his disappointment, but this wasn’t something they could never take back. Expressing as much, Tatsuya turned to return to their warm classroom.

“No, that’s not it, Tatsuya!” cried Mikihiko, desperately trying to keep him from leaving.

“That’s right!” continued Erika. “They didn’t escape! …Well, I mean, I guess they did, but…”

As the two of them stumbled over their words, Tatsuya turned his gaze to Leo.

“Someone swooped in and grabbed ’em,” he confessed.

“They were that strong?”

Tatsuya’s reaction might have been slightly different from a normal person’s.

But for Tatsuya, that was the most interesting part.

It had been nearly a year since entering the same class as them. At this point, Tatsuya rated their abilities as almost on par with first-rate combat magicians and, more concretely, members of the Independent Magic Battalion.

They weren’t up to Kazama’s or Yanagi’s level yet, of course (without using the Trident, Tatsuya couldn’t match them, either), but pitting them against any of the middle-ranking soldiers would probably make for a good match.

“It may sound like we’re being sore losers, but I don’t think they were really that strong in terms of their abilities,” explained Mikihiko.

“But they came fully armed,” put in Leo. “Never seen a suit that shocked you whenever you punched it before.”

“The guy was wearing awfully tough armor, but every time I hit it, this powder sprayed everywhere,” said Erika. “I should have brought a weapon with more reach.”

“I see.”

Those were quite unique armaments. Thanks to that, he ascertained their opponents’ identities immediately.

“And then the parasites got taken away on a black airship. It makes me so mad!”

“Well, I’m glad nothing worse happened.”

Erika looked at him, a little confused, not at his words so much as his tone. “Tatsuya, you know who they were?”

“Probably. I didn’t fight them personally, though, so I can only guess.”

“Who were they?”

Considering the characteristics of the answer, it wouldn’t have been weird for him to evade the question or just remain silent.

“The Japan Ground Defense Force’s counterintelligence Section Three. I think they’re the only ones who would use such interesting gear and a stealth-equipped airship.”

But Tatsuya gave it to them straight. It didn’t seem that they were trying very hard to keep it a secret. Maybe they were trying to get not just Erika but Leo and Mikihiko wrapped up in his own affairs as well.

“Is that…something you know because you’re part of the Independent Magic Battalion, Tatsuya?”

Nevertheless—

“I don’t remember telling you what unit I belonged to…”

—he had to tilt his head in confusion when she pointed out something he didn’t remember.

“…Oh, you asked Miyuki.”

“Well, after what happened, of course I’d want to ask.”

Erika was referring to the MOVAL suit. Even she, who had a clue as to his true identity, hadn’t gone so far as to link Tatsuya and the Scorching Halloween.

“After fighting the invaders with my real abilities, I had to tell you about my chain of command in case something happened, so it’s fine. But don’t tell anyone else.”

“I know. I don’t want them to nab me as a spy suspect.”

Those who broke the law for the protection of state secrets were synonymous with suspected spies. Unlike the latter half of the previous century, even Japan had become a normal enough country to have a majority of its populace feel like that was disgraceful.

“Hey, if we know who we’re up against, don’t we know where they brought the parasites to?” asked Erika hopefully, very quickly pulling out of her earlier mood.

However:

“We can’t narrow it down if we don’t know what they’re after,” Tatsuya responded flatly, shaking his head. This was how reality worked.

“Right, right… They’re a government agency, so they can probably have as many bases as they need,” agreed Mikihiko.

“Well, they’ve got a budget,” countered Leo. “They can’t just have a hundred. But they’re probably hidden all over the place, so well even a thorough search wouldn’t work.”

As they said, they were up against a state agency this time. They had far more quantity and quality of operational resources than a foreign power staking an illegal invasion. The home field advantage they’d had until now was on the enemy’s side this time.

“Well, we don’t have to worry about it much. Those guys who showed up yesterday won’t be the end of it, and we know the parasites are after Pixie. We’ll just have to make sure nobody can barge in this time. We’ll set a trap.”

A terribly evil grin spread across Tatsuya’s face as he comforted the three of them. —And despite comforting them, Erika, Leo, and Mikihiko all winced and leaned away. But Tatsuya didn’t seem to care about that one bit.

“Anyway, let’s get back to class already. I’m getting cold.”

Nobody here was the sort to complain about this level of cold, but that didn’t mean they didn’t feel it.

With nobody else objecting, they followed after Tatsuya.

Colonel Balance got the phone call right at the same time Tatsuya was having his conversation with Erika and the others on the school rooftop.

“I apologize for calling so early, Miss Balance.”

“Oh, it’s you.”

Displayed on the videophone screen was a face she’d just met yesterday, a girl in her middle teens calling herself an agent of the Yotsuba, one Ayako Kuroba. This morning she was, once again, buried in ribbons, lace, and frills.

“Are you not going to—? No, excuse me.”

Excluding times when the completion of her duties depended on it, Balance was fundamentally a moralist. Hence, why she’d almost gone out of her way to lecture the girl, clearly of schooling age, after seeing her too busy with things other than classes on a weekday morning.

“Thank you very much for your consideration,” noted Ayako with a friendly smile, sharply picking up on what Balance was about to say—and how she changed her mind about it. “But you needn’t worry, Miss. I’ve already acquired enough credits to graduate.”

Balance didn’t have a good understanding of what Japan’s secondary education system looked like, so she couldn’t discern if what the girl said was true or a lie. But she did understand that their relationship was cordial enough not to make an issue of it.

“No, I said something pointless. Anyway, did you have something to tell me?”

Balance asked this question as a way of putting things diplomatically. She didn’t seriously believe Ayako would provide her with beneficial information today, either.

“Yes. Yesterday, the JGDF counterintelligence department’s Section Three captured parasites. We discovered that one of them is a magician formerly belonging to the USNA military. I am here at the behest of our leader, who felt we should inform you of this.”

Her saying “I am here at the behest of…” over the phone wasn’t a problem. Balance wasn’t that particular. The information she’d given directly before that was of far more consequence.

“The parasites have begun moving again?”

“One of our family has suggested that after the parasites’ vessels were destroyed, they found new hosts. Here are the ones that have been captured.”

As she spoke, she sent an encrypted data file to Balance’s terminal. The military officer looked at the decoded file’s contents, then checked one of the personal profiles, which included facial photographs.

“Three parasites have now been taken prisoner. This is the only one we’ve identified thus far, but if you wish, we can tell you where they are being held.”

Just looking at the contents didn’t give a good sense of how crucial this ex-magician was. But Balance didn’t have the choice of leaving it aside.

“Please do, Miss Kuroba.”

“Very well.”

The girl bowed to her on the screen, and with that, the data was sent. Balance gave a simple word of thanks so as not to be rude, then hung up and immediately looked over the data.

Her expression changed into one of dangerous severity.

She went over to a specially encoded transmitter and quickly punched in a message.

The message contained instructions to prepare for mobilization tonight.

The recipient was Major Angie Sirius.

The first engagement of the day was first period, rather than homeroom or an assembly. Before them was the kind of task where students read a text, then answered questions about it, with a voice-reading function usable should the student wish.

Tatsuya usually just let the text automatically scroll by, but today he had earphones in. As he dismissed the synthetic speech coming in over the wireless receiver, he thought about something unrelated to classes.

He had, in fact, learned of counterintelligence Section Three’s name and traits through the Independent Magic Battalion.

But he hadn’t learned of it as just one part of several in the information bureau.

Within the information bureau, this section particularly was under the Saegusa family’s influence. Their team was actively at the family’s beck and call. More accurately, perhaps, at the beck and call of their sponsor, of which the Saegusa family was pulling the strings behind the scenes. But their name had come up as a candidate on his list of virtual enemy factions.

That didn’t make sense to Tatsuya—assuming this incident had been carried out at the Saegusa family’s behest. The method of bringing a stealth airship right into the heart of the city and stealing the parasites with it seemed far too violent for them.

Tatsuya didn’t know their leader Kouichi Saegusa’s temperament, so he couldn’t say for sure this wasn’t how the Saegusa family did things. But this style had been forceful, almost like a gamble. If they’d been doing this sort of thing in the past, they and the Yotsuba would have collided headfirst a long time ago.

So what could have been the intent behind this havoc?

Maybe Section Three hadn’t carried it out on the Saegusa family’s orders—maybe they’d been reckless on their own.

If the military has taken action that deviates from their sponsor’s will…then their motive must have to do with an objective that relates to why the military exists in the first place.

What was a military’s objective? It was an agency of force to actualize national influence and the only way the nation had to properly and directly resist other nations’ direct violence upon them. Their characteristics were complex, not something you could sum up in a couple of sentences.

But if you were to treat them as a phenomenon, their goal was surprisingly simple.

A military’s objective was to win.

Any other objectives were merely incidental. Victory itself took many forms, and in situations where you simply had to not lose, not losing itself was a kind of triumph.

In any case, their objective was to win. Anything after they’d won was governmental territory. Militaries had to think only about winning.

Therefore, militaries sought power.

Even if its intelligence bureau’s complacency caused it to act recklessly, it was no more than the result of having sought power.

After he’d thought that far, Tatsuya felt a slight chill along his spine.

Was Section Three considering trying to put the parasites—the demons—to military use?

That struck him as incredibly dangerous. The main tool used in the smear campaigns spreading across the USNA now was criticism that they’d invited the demons into this world. That they’d done so with military-like ambitions. They were false pretexts, no more than agitation, but wouldn’t plotting to put the parasites to military use give the anti-magician demonstrators that exact excuse?

Actually, it would be the same even if the Ten Master Clans were pulling the strings.

He changed his mind: The risks were the same whether this was counterintelligence Section Three making a rash act or if they’d done it on the Saegusa family’s orders.

Improper behavior though it may be for a youngster like himself, he had to give the Saegusa a warning. He felt bad for Mayumi, who was about to take her exams, but he had to get her to make time for him. With that thought in mind, he sent a summoning text message from his own portable terminal to Mayumi.

And though he said he felt bad to himself, he didn’t actually care about Mayumi’s convenience right now.

He got a response to the message he’d sent Mayumi in the middle of class, just a minute after he’d sent it. He had attached the “urgent” code to it, but…

She was taking the general exams, right?

There wasn’t much time left until the exams. Though there was virtually no worry of her failing, it made him think, Is this okay, Miss Exam-Taker?

Still…maybe it was none of his business. He’d gotten a reply to his urgent message right away, so he wasn’t in a position to complain.

As he was thinking about it, he opened the message.

Tatsuya had said, There’s something I want to talk about, so could we meet within the next day or two?

And yet Mayumi’s response was, Please come to the student council room immediately.

It seemed she was at school despite it being a free attendance day for her.

Right now, she wasn’t in a classroom or the library but the student council room.

…Seriously, is this okay, Miss Exam-Taker? Tatsuya wondered genuinely.

Tatsuya was the one to bring the matter to her, and it was preferable to do this sooner rather than later, so he got up and went to the student council room. It was a full-blown classroom escape, but while it was difficult to fool the systems keeping track of the lecture progress, it wasn’t impossible.

Using his ID card, which had been reset with entrance privileges without him knowing it, he opened the door. Since class was still in session, Mayumi was the only one waiting there for him.

After exchanging pleasant greetings—with Mayumi fine with it but Tatsuya wondering what attitude he should have—Tatsuya sat directly in front of her and then immediately started to give her the rough outline.

“…That’s about it. I believe that airship belonged to the information bureau’s counterintelligence Section Three, rumored to have ties to the Saegusa family. I don’t know why on earth you wanted to make off with the parasites. But if you’re considering using them for military purposes, that would be dangerous. We don’t know for sure how to destroy them, so I think we should be sealing them.”

“Counterintelligence Section Three? I may be a minor, but even I didn’t know that despite being a member of the Saegusa. I’m surprised you know about that.”

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t ask what my information source is.”

“…Well, you probably have a lot of your own things going on, so I won’t. More importantly, why didn’t you tell me you were going out to capture the parasites?”

“Because I figured bringing more people along would make them cautious, and we wouldn’t be able to lure them out.”

“Is that really all?” Mayumi gave Tatsuya a frustrated look momentarily. “It does make sense, I guess…” she muttered with a half shrug, though, after seeing his face remain completely steady, she aborted the gesture in the middle. “Anyway, you want me to explain this to my father, right? And get the information bureau to give back the parasites they snatched to Erika and the others?”

It didn’t matter, but Mayumi had at some point started referring to Erika by her first name. Erika made a peeved face whenever she heard it (even though Mizuki did it and she didn’t care, so it probably depended on the person), but Erika had never stopped calling Mikihiko “Miki,” so from, say, Tatsuya’s perspective, she got what she deserved.

…Tatsuya shook his head to drive the drifting thoughts from his mind. “I won’t tell you to get them to give them back,” he prefaced, then added, “but once you’ve verified the reason they took the parasites away, if they’re trying to deal with them in any way other than sealing them, I’d like you to warn them off. Tell them that if the fact that the information bureau is taking advantage of the parasites leaks to the public and magicians face disadvantages because of it, they’ll be the ones paying for the damages.”

“That’s a scary thought.”

Tatsuya’s voice had mild annoyance mixed into it, but the light wavering in his eyes spoke volumes that this was not a mere whine or complaint.

“Considering what’s happening in the USNA, I believe the threat is necessary.”

Mayumi knew as well as he did that the bitterness toward magicians was getting more severe by the day. If the same thing happened in relatively small Japan, then Japan might end up seeing clashes that didn’t just end at arguments well before the USNA did.

“…Will do. I’ll talk to my father. But I can’t promise any results, so don’t expect too much. Unlike Juumonji, I don’t have free reign over the Saegusa.”

Tatsuya expressed a bit of surprise at what Mayumi added on.

“…What?”

“Nothing… I was just thinking that the Saegusa have surprisingly paternalistic traditions.”

“Oh, well then, how is it with your family?”

Either she was embarrassed or angered—Tatsuya couldn’t quite make out Mayumi’s true intent.

But he’d still said something he hadn’t needed to. Reflecting on that a little, Tatsuya decided to answer her question with a playful jab. “My father pretty much doesn’t have any authority at all. He’s too busy spending all his time at his new wife’s apartment for that.”

Mayumi’s gaze flickered across his.

Whenever he saw her react in such a purely disheveled way at something so minor, he thought to himself that she was still a girl, even though she was older than him. She appeared mature sometimes, but he still couldn’t call her an adult woman.

“I think I made it clear at least that she’s not his lover.”

“How grown-up of you.”

“No, I’ve just given up,” answered Tatsuya in a completely resigned tone of voice. “Though I…don’t really want to consider growing up to mean giving up.”

Sometimes ill omens turned out to be nothing.

Tatsuya’s prediction that the JGDF’s intelligence bureau was trying to do something bad using the parasites never became a reality.

But it was difficult to call it fortunate.

Because the next morning…

A spy asylum facility belonging to counterintelligence Section Three has been attacked, and everyone was killed by the captured parasites.

So read the message he received from Mayumi.