A YOUNG LADY’S SPLENDID (?) DAY OFF

November 2, AD 2095. The whole nation was in a good mood from its victory in battle.

The night before last, the news had reported that the Japan Ground Defense Force had wiped out the Great Asian Alliance fleet, along with its base, using a secret weapon. And late last night, the scoop that Beijing had sounded out Washington for peace mediation was revealed. Some doubted the scoop’s credibility given the extremely swift developments, but only a select few citizens had maintained such calm reasoning ability.

Many Japanese turned into impromptu military commentators; boys normally uninterested in politics spoke loudly at school about diplomacy and realistic power politics.

This time, annoyed and troubled stares from the girls weren’t enough of a damper.

It wasn’t only inside school, of course. Sighing at the entertainers on the screen and their irresponsible merriment, Mayumi Saegusa switched off the TV.

It was currently 10:00 AM. Considering today was a weekday, it would normally be a time to be at school. But like yesterday, every magic high school, each an involved party in the Yokohama Incident, had the day off, and First High was no exception.

As someone waiting to take the university exam early next year, she had complex feelings about getting the day off from study. But as someone not only present during the incident but also very much central to the whole thing, she would take rest where she could get it.

…Unfortunately, she couldn’t bring herself to unwind.

“Madam, I apologize for interrupting you while you’re relaxing.”

Did she know I turned off the TV? thought Mayumi when she heard their housekeeper’s well-timed voice over the intercom.

“I’ll be right there,” she replied, getting out of her seat. She really only had to order their HAR’s voice-recognition interface to unlock the door, but for whatever reason, she decided to walk over and open it herself.

On the other side was the housekeeper assigned to catering to her personal needs. Certain subcultures, still widely supported today, might describe her by the clothing she wore by something starting with an m, ending with a d, and followed by the honorific san… Still, it was a practical uniform, whose skirt reached down to her calves and collar covered up to the base of her neck and without any large opening in the back.

And anyway, in this house, the presence of housekeepers wearing this sort of clothing wasn’t unusual in the slightest.

“What is it?” asked Mayumi of the housekeeper in her midtwenties, with no reason to think the outfit was strange at this point.

“The master has called for you.”

Upon hearing that, Mayumi frowned slightly. Again? she grumbled to herself. He already asked me about every little tiny detail yesterday.

The housekeeper’s next words, though, confused her.

“He is waiting for you in the reception room.”

Despite that, she kept any indication of her confusion to herself.

…The reception room? Not his study?

That was the question Mayumi now had.

“Is it a guest?”

“It appears so.”

She couldn’t call their time together a long one, but this housekeeper was essentially assigned specifically to her. Through this short exchange, Mayumi gleaned that the housekeeper didn’t know who the guest was.

“Please tell him I’ll get changed right away.”

“Will you require assistance?”

Mayumi thought for a moment, and then it hit her. With today’s fashion world, there weren’t many opportunities to try on dresses you couldn’t don yourself.

“I’ll be okay. I’ll make sure to be formal enough.”

Which meant the helper unit had been ordered to suggest it. As expected, the housekeeper bowed respectfully to her reply and left.

After lifting her dress’s ankle-length skirt around her thighs and adjusting its lace-edged hem, Mayumi knocked on the door to the reception room.

“Come in.”

The voice sounded like it was coming from inside the room, but it was actually a flat-surface speaker built into the door panel playing a recording of her father’s voice, reproduced with a level of precision that made it almost impossible to tell it apart from his physical voice. As part of his family, she knew he was being formal with her.

Evidently, today’s guest was not the sort one could speak too candidly around.

“Please excuse me.”

Assuming a mask 20 percent more ladylike than usual, she lowered her tone and quietly entered the room.

Eyes still down, she glanced at her visitor’s face.

The man and woman sitting across from her father were both familiar to her. And not the kind of familiar where she wanted to give them much of a welcome. Still, she didn’t exactly hate them.

But without breathing a word of it, Mayumi set a benign smile on her face and walked over next to her father before giving an elegant bow to their two visitors.

“Welcome, Mr. Hirofumi. It has been a long time since I last saw you, Ms. Mio.”

The young man had stood before she’d addressed him. The woman, though, who had the appearance of a young girl, remained seated. Nobody here frowned at that, either.

After all, Mio Itsuwa wasn’t sitting on the sofa but in a wheelchair.

However, her brother Hirofumi Itsuwa seemed to feel guilty about it, though not so much that he thought it was rude. His greeting in return was a little ambiguous.

“Yes, thank you, Ms. Mayumi.”

“Please take your seat. And you may feel free to remain seated, Ms. Mio.”

“Thank you very much, Ms. Mayumi. And yes, it has been quite some time.”

In fact, it seemed like Mio was the one who had taken the offensive suddenly. She returned Mayumi’s words with a cherubic smile.

Like every time they saw each other, as she timed taking her own seat with Hirofumi sitting back down, she had to wonder if the woman was really older than her.

Mio Itsuwa had turned twenty-six this year. That was an undeniable fact. But the facts paled when seeing her in the flesh like this.

She was only one or two centimeters shorter than Mayumi, but that was where their physical similarities ended. In a word, she was immature. She had a distinct lack of femininity.

In truth, her legs could still move. But because of her incredibly weak constitution, her body couldn’t endure long periods of walking.

She’d started using a wheelchair after turning twenty, but she’d always been frail, never able to do much exercise. That meant she didn’t eat much, which in turn implied she was never able to get healthy. It was a vicious cycle. Her stunted figure was a result of that.

As far as anyone could see from her clothing, she had very little chest, too. So little that calling it nonexistent wouldn’t have been an exaggeration. Her waist was slender like a young girl’s as well. Her body was close to that of a girl in her low teens, judging purely on her size.

Her facial features were just as childish as her physique. Her looks combined with her figure to somehow give an impression of someone who wasn’t quite fully a “woman.”

Still, regardless of her youthful appearance, she couldn’t go out much after graduating from university, and she had apparently taken most of her postgraduate classes online. What could someone like her be here for?

I’m pretty sure she’s not here just because Mr. Hirofumi is, she wondered to herself.

“We came today to say our goodbyes,” began Mio, probably having detected the doubts in Mayumi’s eyes and preempting them.

“Are you returning home?” asked Mayumi, clamping down on the slight panic she felt at being read like a book—despite having zero reason to feel that way.

The main Itsuwa family house was in Ehime Prefecture, but ever since Mio had to go to Tokyo in order to commute to university, she’d been living in a separate residence. After she’d finished postgrad, her younger brother Hirofumi had just advanced to it, so they’d still been living together.

“Yes, we will be, but before that…” Mio paused, then gave the classic I’m hiding something smile. An unhappy scowl, though a very slight one, came over Hirofumi’s face as well. “I’m being deployed.”

“Deployed… You’re going to war?!” cried Mayumi in spite of herself after putting together what the word meant. “I’m sorry. But may I ask why…?”

Quickly apologizing for her bad manners, Mayumi turned confused eyes on Mio and her father.

“The public announcement will be next week, but this is an official decision.” The answer came from her father. “Ms. Mio is headed to the base in Sasebo first, and then they’ll go with the JMDF west over a sea route. Even we haven’t been told of their destination, but their objective by doing this is to convince the GAA to form a peace treaty… I know I don’t need to say this, but don’t tell anyone until the official announcement.”

“Yes, I understand,” nodded Mayumi immediately to her father’s reminder. Still, the only part that convinced her was the “no telling anyone” part.

Mayumi knew the reason the military had brought in Mio. She was one of only thirteen publicly recognized strategic-class magicians in the world, who probably numbered less than fifty in total including those who were in hiding or who were being hidden. She was the one and only user of strategic-class magic in Japan that the Japanese government had officially recognized.

Her strategic spell, Abyss, was mainly for intercepting maritime powers, but it had more than enough destructive potential as a means to attack surface positions. The simple fact that she’d be with the military was sure to place immense pressure on the enemy.

But this time, Mayumi got the feeling even that reason wasn’t logical enough. The previous military action had begun with an invasion onto the Yokohama shoreline and had ended with the complete destruction of the Korean Peninsula’s southern tip. In point of fact, that matter had ended on October 31. As long as Japan wasn’t looking for greater results, like gaining cessions in return, a counterinvasion was no longer strategically necessary. Without the intent to pursue things so aggressively, Mayumi had to say that having Mio accompany them for weeks when her health was so uncertain brought more demerits than merits.

Mayumi wasn’t thinking about it clearly enough to explain it in words, but this was generally the sense of oddness she was feeling now.

“I’ll be going with my sister.”

He must have nursed similar dissatisfaction. But now that the government had made its decision and the Itsuwa’s head approved, Hirofumi couldn’t overturn it. The Itsuwa family had determined he’d be the next family head, but he still wasn’t the actual head, so objecting at this stage wouldn’t change the situation. Instead, the determination to at least go with his sister and help her was clear from his face.

“Actually, though…”

As a grimness drifted from her brother, Mio, perhaps wanting to cheer him up, shifted her tone into a lighthearted, jovial one.

“I just wanted to see Ms. Mayumi become my brother’s wife.”

It was more than effective at changing the mood. Just in the exact opposite direction than she’d intended.

They couldn’t laugh at it—bringing this topic up given what they’d just been talking about was commonly called a “death flag.”

“Mio…”

“…I’m sorry.”

As the severity in the air strengthened, Mio, cautioned by his grave voice, wilted, crestfallen.

“A-anyway, we can talk about that again once Hirofumi comes back,” put in Kouichi quickly, maybe out of a sense of responsibility as their host.

Mio’s smile returned, albeit a weak one, while Hirofumi and Mayumi, struggling to decide what kind of face to make, ended up without any expression at all.

This was the reason Mayumi said it had been a while since seeing Mio but not Hirofumi. The reason she’d randomly thought to herself was that Mio simply hadn’t come along with him.

Hirofumi was one of her marriage candidates. Actually, since Hirofumi was the leader of the Itsuwa family, it might be better to say that Mayumi was one of his marriage candidates. Both of direct Ten Master Clans descent, both a similar age, with him being a successor and her the eldest daughter with an older brother who would succeed. The conditions were favorable.

To tell the truth, Katsuto from the Juumonji family met the same conditions, and Kouichi was of the mind to have Mayumi marry either Hirofumi or Katsuto. (Masaki of the Ichijou family had been excluded due to being younger.)

She had her own ideas, of course. There would be other marriage talks in the way that she wouldn’t be able to get out of, so things hadn’t yet progressed to betrothal. However, Hirofumi and Mayumi had eaten together several times at one of their family’s homes and gone to the theater a few times. Contrary to the adults’ ideas, though, neither of them really cared for it, which was why they now both wore poker faces.

Still, Mayumi was sensible enough to know that this silent ritual would only drag the mood down. “So when do you depart?” she asked, trying to arouse their interest.

Hirofumi couldn’t completely hide the relief he felt—Mayumi didn’t like his weak defenses in this regard—when he answered, “We leave for Sasebo this weekend. I hear we’ll be departing from land next Friday.”

Mayumi, for her part, didn’t let so much as a split-second expression let him on to her dissatisfaction. “My, that is sudden… Please do be careful. I’ll be waiting for your safe return.”

Armed with a catlike, impeccable mask, she bowed deeply while still seated.

“Thank you.”

As she stared down at her fingernails, she thought to herself that she was free to go now.

“Actually, we wished to ask for your aid in advance of this campaign…”

So when she heard Hirofumi suggest that, she had to try a little to control the speed at which she rose.

“Me, you mean?” she asked, purposely tilting her head a little childishly, implying that there was nothing she could do for him. The act wouldn’t have bothered her boulder-like classmate in the slightest, and her mature—read: cheeky—underclassman would have seen through it and given her a chilly stare. Hirofumi, however, let his eyes wander, unable to conceal his unrest.

“Well, when he says assistance, he means that we’d like to borrow your knowledge.”

But it didn’t work on Mio. Either it was ineffectual against members of the same sex, or despite her childlike looks, she was still a big sister.

“After all, this is, as you said, very sudden. We haven’t had enough time to prepare for it.”

“I understand what you mean.”

Mio put a hand to her cheek as though sincerely troubled. It made her seem a little more like an adult, but it also felt like a child overreaching herself, and so it ended up looking much more heartwarming than attractive. But Mayumi, not about to let down her guard, hid a sense of caution and nodded.

“Fight magic with magic and magicians with magicians. It’s a commonality.”

Hirofumi continued, having gotten backup (?) from his sister and recovered his calm. By “commonality,” he probably meant it was the same for both Japan and the GAA and any other country. Interpreting it as such, Mayumi awaited his next words.

“They likely know full well that my sister will be with us.”

Mayumi noted her agreement. Japan had no intention of keeping Mio’s participation under wraps anyway. Their plan was to register Mio and Hirofumi to the roster of high-ranking officers as possessing the right to engage in hostilities.

The deterrent would only work if the enemy knew about them. Secret weapons, in the truest sense, couldn’t be used as negotiation tools for coaxing an enemy into compromise.

“They should understand as well as we do that marine forces are ineffectual against her Abyss. Therefore, we predict they’ll use air power and magic as the backbone of their interception force.”

The movement-type, strategic-class spell Abyss caused the sea’s surface to collapse into a spherical shape anywhere from a few dozen meters to several kilometers in radius. Warships engulfed in Abyss’s zone of activation on the water would slide down the steep ocean slope or simply fall, as well as capsize or drown in the giant waves caused by the water’s surface reverting upon the spell’s cancellation. An Abyss one kilometer in radius would create a hemisphere one kilometer deep at its lowest point, easily enough to engulf submarines.

With too little distance, the displaced water would surge before the spell ended, causing damage to allies as well. Despite that flaw, though, Mio’s strategic magic, with its firing range of dozens of kilometers, was considered the archenemy of any naval forces, above or below the water.

At the same time, however, Mio’s Abyss was completely ineffective against airpower. She could only activate it on a continuous surface of water, and in order to attack a ground facility with it, they’d have to inject enough underground water ahead of time. It had many restrictions on its usage.

Hirofumi knew the enemy force’s composition because they didn’t have any other choice.

“We can leave their airpower to the JDF, but we’ll have to think about magician countermeasures on our own.”

That, too, was an unobjectionable fact.

Whatever the formalities, at the heart of things, it didn’t matter whether you belonged to the government, the military, or were a civilian. All Japan’s magicians, whether modern or ancient, belonged to a community that had the Ten Master Clans at the top, and they held to autonomy. JDF magicians would be with them, too, of course, but they would belong to the same category.

“Ms. Mayumi, in Yokohama, you witnessed the enemy’s magic, and our allies’ magic that defeated them, right? We’d like you to tell us what you know about any tendencies the enemies had in their spells and about effective magic to use against them.”

It was a truly difficult, troubling question. There was no reason to doubt the necessity of providing information. She couldn’t refuse, nor was it anything she had to refuse—but still.

“…I didn’t see very much of the enemy’s magic, since I was very far in the rear. The only time we actually crossed swords was during the sniper attack from above our helicopter.”

There had actually been a second time—when she destroyed the upright tank—but she hadn’t lied on purpose. It simply hadn’t left much of an impression on her.

Hirofumi certainly didn’t doubt her words, but he wasn’t satisfied with the answer. “I heard you strove to get ordinary people out until the very end, though.”

“Ordinary people” meant non-magicians. It was a bias, seeing magicians as something special and those who weren’t magicians as powerless. Mayumi had always felt that view only made things worse for both sides. But now wasn’t the time to point that out.

“You misunderstand. It wasn’t until the very end… And it was my classmates and underclassmen who held the enemies off while we were waiting for the helicopter.”

“Then would you be able to introduce us to those people? Especially to the freshman who actually fought against the GAA’s magicians?”

The first thing that came to Mayumi’s mind was a certain mature, cheeky, but still dependable upperclassman. A freshman who had turned a large truck to dust, been surrounded by brilliantly glowing psions, and used a healing technique that was nothing short of a miracle.

But a moment later, almost at the same time, the simple term state secret came back to her, paralyzing her from speaking.

“Ms. Mayumi?”

Mio gave the clammed-up girl a dubious look. She wasn’t the only one with suspicion on her face, though. Hirofumi, obviously, too—but Mayumi started to panic at her father having doubts.

“Oh, well… If you visit the Juumonji family, I think they’ll be able to tell you the details.”

“Katsuto, right…”

Hirofumi was by no means a mean-spirited person. In fact, he was a quite agreeable young man. But for a while now, Mayumi had considered him, in a normal way, too good of a person.

She knew he felt a sense of competition and inferiority toward the boy two years younger than him, and she understood that she couldn’t blame him. But given the context, showing jealousy wasn’t very commendable of him. Especially showing it to the point that a much younger girl would notice.

Mayumi stamped her mental report card with a “pass,” then feigned innocence once again.

“As for others who might help… Mari Watanabe, Kei Isori, and Kanon Chiyoda, all from the Hundred. I can contact them if you wish.”

“Yes, please do.”

Well, commenting only on his flaws just made her feel less cheerful.

In a businesslike manner, Mayumi counted off the names, then promised to set up a meeting for them.

After that, Mayumi called Mari, Kei, and Kanon straightaway (Katsuto wasn’t home). After making appointments with all of them, she and her father saw the Itsuwa siblings out.

Her real intentions now were to take a short break. But judging from her father’s expression, it looked like it would be a little longer before she was released.

“Mayumi, I’d like to talk to you for a moment, if you have time.”

As expected, after they left the hotel-sized porte cochere and came back to the entrance hall, which was big enough to host a ball, Kouichi stopped her.

“Let’s talk in my study.”

Without waiting for an answer, he immediately started walking.

Kouichi’s appearance strongly resembled that of an elite businessman from the latter part of the last century. If forced to explain in detail, his physique’s most distinct detail were the slender lines, and his facial features came off as amiable rather than dignified. His tone of voice was soft to match, but his way of being the family head by not giving his family choices in matters like this was much like the other Ten Master Clans heads.

Adopting a pointlessly rebellious attitude wasn’t Mayumi’s style, either. Still clothed in her long, stifling dress she wouldn’t normally wear, she followed after her father.

The study only had classic bookshelves, an imposing desk, and a single high-backed leather chair. Kouichi sat in the chair right away, meaning Mayumi would have to listen to his words while standing. This was the usual fare, so at this point she didn’t mind it.

“I didn’t hear the freshmen’s names in the list you provided,” began Kouichi without any preface to his daughter standing about two meters away. “I heard the young Chiba lady and the second son of the Yoshida family played quite a role, too.”

My tanuki of a father, thought Mayumi. His appearance was more like a fox than a tanuki and more like a wolf than a fox, but she was convinced that when it came to her father, what was on the outside didn’t match what was on the inside.

“As you know, they are still freshmen, so I thought it would be difficult to explain that part well to Hirofumi and Mio.”

And you got a detailed report from Nakura anyway, didn’t you? she thought as she watched her father say “ah.” Just yesterday, she’d had to go through a questioning that started in much the same way. He was stubborn, more like a hunter than a raccoon sprite.

“But they apparently fought incredibly well for freshmen, didn’t they? Especially her, the one who was all over the Nines—”

“Miyuki, you mean?”

“Yes, yes. Miyuki Shiba, wasn’t it?”

She thought she saw his lightly tinted, false-glass frames glinting. The glasses were for hiding his fake right eye, but she’d had suspicions that there was some kind of special gimmick built into them as well.

“She seems like a very talented girl. Top of her class this year, vice president of the student council—and if all goes well, she’ll be student president just like you.”

“Yes, she is an extremely talented girl. And a very pretty one, too.”

“Oh, so even you think so, Mayumi?”

“Even meaning as another girl? Well, in my opinion, her beauty transcends gender.”

Kouichi’s lips softened a little.

There was no muddled lust showing in his left eye behind his glasses.

And that only aroused Mayumi’s caution further.

“Well, well… Not only can she master difficult spells like Inferno and Niflheim, she can even use incredibly powerful and unique exotyped magic… I’d like to see it sometime. Can’t we invite her here?”

“I don’t know… I would have to ask her.”

“Right. Would you mind asking if she has time? And Miyuki has an older brother, doesn’t she? You said he helped you during the Nines, remember? This is a good opportunity, so I’d like to invite them here together, partly to thank him.”

His amiable smile wouldn’t clue others in to his inner thoughts. His tinted lenses wouldn’t let them see the intention in his eyes. However—they’d known each other her whole life. At eighteen years old, any one-sided relationship where only one could see through the other would change.

So that was his goal…!

In the helicopter, she’d made Nakura promise to keep it a secret. The episode concerning Tatsuya’s singular spell shouldn’t have made it to her father’s ears.

But she didn’t think none of it had gotten to him.

She wasn’t optimistic.

Nakura was a crafty old fox; he would have implied the hidden truth to his employer in a way that wouldn’t break his duty to secrecy. And her father was a battle-hardened veteran; he would have dug up whatever information he could from him.

Her father suspected him—Tatsuya Shiba.

Suspected him for something he didn’t know, for something he hadn’t figured out yet.

The desire to know smoldered within Mayumi as well, but her desire to let the secret sleep was still the stronger.

She was unconsciously afraid of revealing it and ruining their current relationship.

“I’d have to ask about that, too…”

That answer was all she could manage right now.

After staying shut in his study and looking at his desk for a short while, the Saegusa family head looked up at a soft knock at the door.

“Enter.”

Unlike the reception room’s door, his study’s door didn’t have a built-in speaker. His low voice, almost a mumble, couldn’t logically have gotten through the thick door and into the hallway.

But with no repeated knocks, the study’s door opened without a sound.

The one who entered was a middle-aged butler with neatly combed gray hair—Nakura.

“Any results?”

His question was fragmentary, but Nakura, after walking up to his master, respectfully held out a memory card to him.

Kouichi took the paper card printed with minute, microscopic patterns, set it on his scanner, and called a decrypted document up onto a display he unfolded on his desk.

“The 101^st Brigade’s Independent Magic Battalion… That’s trouble. That was the unit the Yotsuba are so enthusiastically approaching, wasn’t it?”

“They do appear to make contact from time to time, but their goals are unknown.”

“I would think there is only one reason any of us would contact the military.”

When Kouichi said “any of us” here, he didn’t mean just the Saegusa family or just the Ten Master Clans but every magician in Japan.

Japanese magicians didn’t desire government positions. They were forbidden by the Ten Master Clans from acquiring “public” influence endorsed by the state.

In exchange, they built their continued existence upon providing their magical skills to politicians, the military, the police force, and the economic world—to people with varied types of influence. By becoming a tool they’d continue to use rather than a disposable one—by becoming an indispensable tool—they had worked their way up to be servants controlled by a master. For that, they needed two things: to continue to be useful and to be seen as necessary. An ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship was required.

To acquire that, they needed more than just a quantity of strength.

The sharpest swords carried a fear for the user that their blades might turn upon him. An ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship needed to be built on trust that there would be no betrayal.

If a magician was in contact with the military, it was to acquire and maintain trust, to build a mutually beneficial relationship, or to solidify such a relationship. This idea was common sense to those with knowledge of magician affairs.

But Nakura didn’t agree with what his master said.

“Major General Saeki created the Independent Magic Battalion with the goal of organizing the Ten Magic Clans’ independent magical forces. Its leader, Major Kazama, is considered by the retired Major General Kudou and the Ten Master Clans to be a critical figure. The Yotsuba may be quite heterodox, but I’m given to believe even they couldn’t use his unit for their own purposes.”

Kouichi frowned. “…This is the first I’ve heard of this.”

“The Independent Magic Battalion has never mattered to the Saegusa family’s interests in the past.”

Then why do you know about something like that? Kouichi wanted to ask, but he held the question in. If Nakura explained that he’d just found out now, that would be that. And even though he was of long service to the family, Kouichi didn’t think of him as one of them. Nakura probably felt the same way.

“…Then why are the Yotsuba in contact with the Independent Magic Battalion?”

Instead, he asked after something else. And a moment later, he figured it out for himself.

“I believe your idea is correct.”

Nakura had no mind-reading skills. Neither did Kouichi. But Kouichi was sure that Nakura had arrived at the same guess as he had.

Kouichi removed the card from the scanner and held it between his right index and middle fingers, then waved his hand nonchalantly. The thrown paper card shone in midair and burned up in the blink of an eye.

Nakura bowed and turned around before putting the ashes into the garbage bin.

On a corner of the expansive Saegusa family residence, there was a building with a long, slender, rectangular motif. Simple but not boorish, it was the Saegusa private shooting range.

It belonged to the family, but it had been made primarily for Mayumi. It was built five years ago, when Mayumi had won her first trophy at a national competition.

With nervous strain building up, Mayumi had holed herself up in the shooting range right after lunch, and three hours had already passed. One by one, she raised her specialized CAD, which looked like a long staff with a grip attached, and fired at the targets.

She shot.

She destroyed.

Since she was shooting magic, not using real bullets, her hands wouldn’t get tired, but the mental fatigue would have been even greater.

But Mayumi had a lot of pent-up gloom, and even that exhaustion felt good to her.

As she continued shooting one after the other with no regard for pacing herself, she ran through their entire target stock without realizing it. She glanced at the clock and was belatedly surprised at the time. After standing her CAD up on the rack, she started to clean up—but didn’t get very far.

“Sis, we’re home!”

Just as she removed her goggles, which were also an information terminal, someone suddenly hugged her from behind, forcing her to change her plans before getting to clean up.

“Kasumi, don’t run up and hug her like that. You’re bothering her.”

“Come on, Izumi. Why do you have to be so whiny?”

“Because you’re always impolite.”

It wasn’t really a bother—she’d just stumbled—but she was honestly grateful Kasumi let go right away (or rather, that she was peeled off).

“Kasu, Izu, welcome back.”

Mayumi straightened herself while the twins were arguing like always and welcomed her younger sisters back for real.

“Thanks, Big Sister.”

One of the girls bowed politely, hands at her sides: Izumi Saegusa, the younger of the two twins. She was an effeminate girl with a straight bob cut that reached her shoulders.

The one who had hugged her was the older of Mayumi’s twin younger sisters, Kasumi Saegusa. In contrast to Izumi, she had a boyish look with her hair cut short.

They were identical twins, but since their style and moods were polar opposites, nobody would normally mistake one for the other.

“What were you practicing? Not live bullet movement magic, right? Virtual-region magic?”

“Was it piercing magic that extends a virtual region? Big Sister, you’ve been practicing that kind of spell a lot lately.”

But they shared a sharp eye when it came to magic.

If Mayumi had to say, she’d call herself the type to prioritize the feel of using magic over its theory, and the twins emphasized the feel in the same way. Their instinctive insight into knowing what kind of magic was triggered might have been even better than Mayumi’s. They’d figured it out again, too, from the bullet holes left in the targets.

Mayumi loved her younger sisters to the point where she pampered them too much, and they were both attached to her. Lately, though, she’d been seeing them get a little cheeky. She put it down to their age.

“You were doing a lot of shooting, Big Sister,” sighed Izumi, sharply noting that there were no remaining targets.

“I bet Hirofumi came again!” grinned Kasumi. “He always puts Sis in a bad mood.”

Mayumi had erased her expression right away to hide her surprise, but she didn’t think it had fully worked. These two really had sharp intuition. Or maybe I’m just too easy to read? she thought, getting a little blue.

“Even though I don’t think he’s a bad guy,” added Kasumi.

“He isn’t a bad person, but that’s all,” stated Izumi. “He’s not very reliable, which makes him a bad match for our sister.”

“Your grading is too strict, Izumi. What kind of person would be good, then? Like Katsuto?”

“Wait, Kasu, Juumonji and I aren’t—”

“Well, there’s certainly nothing wrong with his looks, but he doesn’t, shall I say, understand a maiden’s heart. That part is a little unfortunate.”

When Katsuto’s name came up for no reason—which Mayumi truly believed—she quickly tried to untangle her sisters’ “misunderstanding,” but neither of them were listening.

“Shall I say? You don’t need to pretend to be someone else around me, you know… And how is a man supposed to understand a maiden’s heart anyway? We don’t know what men think about, either.”

“That won’t do! Think harder, Kasumi! Maidens only need to understand a man’s heart after they’re already dating! The man has to be the one to win the girl’s heart.”

“Win her heart? …Well, whatever. So what besides looks would they need?”

“True love, I guess…but that’s a really high hurdle to start with, so maybe just falling in love.”

“I’ve known you ever since we were born, but I didn’t know you were so romantic about stuff. I thought you were just a prude.”

“I happen to take offense at that… But anyway, I’m not a romantic. You just don’t pay enough attention to these things.”

“Okay, okay. I’m not very girlie anyway. Anyway, who would fall in love with her? Hattori?”

“Kasu! How do you even know who Hanzou is?!”

Even Mayumi, who had been left in the dust at some point (since the beginning, actually), couldn’t let that one go. She had literally no recollection of ever introducing Hattori to her sisters.

“Oh, we know all the dirty bugs flying around you, Big Sister.”

“Izu— You two haven’t been spying on me, have you?! Anyway, can we stop talking about who I’m dating?!”

“Come on, Sis. We have school, too. We can’t personally go there to spy on you.”

But you’d get other people to do it?! she screamed to herself, but nobody could hear her, of course. Actually, the twins might have heard it in one way or another, but they didn’t show any signs of it.

“And we’re worried about you,” said Izumi. “You’re so beautiful, but you’re eighteen now and you’ve never dated… You’re about to graduate from high school, too.”

“It’s not that I can’t, but my position…” She trailed off, realizing that finishing the sentence would sound like an excuse. And a pathetic, sad excuse at that.

“Besides, neither of you have ever dated a boy, either!”

She tried to veer away from the topic but hadn’t realized this was a pretty pathetic thing to say in its own right—at least, not until her sisters counterattacked.

“Well, we’re only fifteen.”

“But I had two people confess to me today. I politely turned them down, though. It is certainly difficult to meet the right person, isn’t it?”

“That’s because you’re a prude, Izumi. You should just give it a shot.”

“And you’re just a big risk. None of the boys you’re friends with think of you as just a friend, you know… If you keep being so carefree, you’re going to get a painful reality check someday.”

As her sisters’ conversation faded into the background, Mayumi, now aware of how pathetic she was, felt depressed.

November 4.

The day classes’s lunchtime finally continued:

“President—or rather, Mayumi. You seem very tired.”

Mayumi, who had visited the student council room saying she’d help do ex post facto cleanup, was being watched by Azusa’s worried eyes.

“Mm, I guess. But I’m fine.”

“Maybe you should have rested until next week.”

Today was Friday. There were classes on Saturday, too, but the seniors were essentially allowed free attendance now, so plenty of students were studying at home today and tomorrow.

“And sometimes you’re more tired than you think you are.”

“You’re right. That’s why I came to school.”

Azusa looked at her in blank confusion.

Well, other people wouldn’t be able to understand that she’d come to school because being at home wore her out even more.

She also kind of felt like explaining it would be embarrassing.

So instead of answering Azusa’s doubts, she put a hand to her mouth and gave a little audible yawn.

She overlapped her hands on the table.

She put her cheek on top of them.

With her suddenly collapsing on the table and starting to take a nap, she sensed Azusa’s eyes going wide, but she didn’t care, and soon she was snoring away.