Once the weekend came, First High was finally shaking itself free from the competition’s “operations shock.” Having reconsidered their representative selections after the notice that came on July 2, event practice resumed on Saturday the seventh. Regular exams would be starting on Tuesday, but the new reps were supposed to get at least one practice in together before that. In particular, for the new events Rower and Gunner and Shields Down, mock battles had been planned so the competitors could get a feel for the event. The Cross-Country Steeplechase’s setup was too involved, however, and hadn’t yet been prepared.

For Rower and Gunner practice, they used the Battle Board waterway as it was, procuring targets from the biathlon club and the hunting club. For Shields Down, they created a makeshift ring on the athletic field for each gender, and mock battles for that had started right after school ended.

Right now, in the girls’ ring—though the standard of twenty meters long and wide and one meter high was the same for the girls and the boys—the girls’ solo rep, Tomoko Chikura, was facing off against Erika.

Apart from the difference in size, Shields Down enclosures looked like a boxing ring with no ropes or posts. However, the floor was made of material that made it harder to slip on and kept vertical vibration to a minimum. On that canvas perfect for running around on, Erika was, in fact, running around as she pleased.

“Ugh, she’s fast…!”

For a while, Tomoko had been trying to push Erika out of the ring using Deviation Release. The spell’s original use was compressing air on one side, then rapidly expelling it on the other side where the target was located.

Unfortunately, the spell hadn’t been able to keep up with Erika, who was using self-acceleration magic. Erika’s body stepped in zigzagging patterns, and the moment Tomoko lost sight of her, her shield was blasted by a fierce impact.

Erika had applied Landslide to bash her shield into Tomoko’s. The technique could be called a shield-bash version of Landslide. At the moment of contact, she’d maximized her own shield’s inertia. As a result, her attack had launched Tomoko and her shield clear out of the ring.

After Tomoko Chikura fell onto her back atop the cushions laid outside the field, Erika jumped down from the ring, offered a hand, and pulled her up. Hattori, watching from beside Tatsuya, sighed. Noticing Tatsuya was glancing at him, he turned to look at the boys’ ring, where Sawaki and Leo were crossing swords—or more accurately, crossing shields—with the chosen pair team consisting of Kirihara and Tomitsuka.

The shields used in Shields Down were made of wood; the boys’ were over 0.5 square meters and the girls’ over 0.3. Their forms were defined to allow a handle and no more than two curved surfaces. In other words, as long as the shield didn’t have an undulating surface, edges that folded in on it, or anything of that sort, it could be circular, rectangular, or even star-shaped.

As a result of attack pattern simulations on its athletes, First High had adopted spindle-shaped shields. Kirihara pointed the tapering point on his at Leo and thrust.

Leo, having dropped his weight in the center of the ring, caught Kirihara’s attack. It was amazing that he didn’t even budge, but Kirihara, who didn’t lose his balance even with the recoil of being completely blocked, was just as skilled.

They both stopped. Aiming for that opening, Tomitsuka launched an attack on Leo.

Avoiding Sawaki, whom he’d been staring down, Tomitsuka quickly wheeled around to Kirihara’s right side. In contrast with Kirihara’s shield, which was one-handed and fixed to his right arm, Tomitsuka’s had two handles running along its length and was designed to be held with both hands. Readying the shield to his front right, he tried to aim a skewering thrust on Leo.

“Ahh?!”

But a moment before he could land his move, a sudden gust of wind hit him. Just as he’d gone around Kirihara’s right, Sawaki had come around to Leo’s left. Sawaki, with his one-handed shield fixed to his left arm, sent his right fist flying toward Tomitsuka.

A pneumatic-pressure wave caused by the speed of his fist—this was Sawaki’s specialty. The spell worked by layering his hand with a thick covering of air, accruing no extra weight but widening its surface area, then using his magically accelerated fist to blast an opponent with a mass of air. The Shields Down rule forbidding direct attacks on parts other than the shield only applied to physical attacks involving solids or liquids—there were no restrictions for gas-based strikes.

Tomitsuka’s short body tumbled onto the canvas. He barely managed to avoid getting knocked out of the ring, but without any means of fighting at long distance, he was effectively neutralized for the moment. Kirihara, shield locked against Leo’s, saw this and moved his empty left hand to the CAD wrapped around his right arm.

There was a trick to get out of this two-versus-one situation. The spell he planned to use to destroy Leo’s shield was a High-Frequency Blade using his shield as a medium. He applied both a high-speed vibration spell and a self-destruction prevention spell to his shield.

The vibrations transferred to Leo’s shield through the contacting edge, and—

“Guh?!”

Kirihara’s shield half shattered. He’d given a groan of surprise without meaning to, but no one could blame him. If his shield had broken from the vibration reaction, that meant Leo’s hardening spell had beaten his self-destruction prevention spell with brute force.

Kirihara now stood stock-still, and this time Leo rammed his shield edge into his. The magically hardened shield split Kirihara’s clean in half.

Another sigh escaped Hattori’s lips when he saw the practice match’s outcome. He shook his head a few times, then reluctantly spoke to Tatsuya.

“Shiba… Was it really the right choice not to have Chiba and Saijou be our reps?”

They’d actually had this conversation during the competitor selection process, but the one who had most firmly opposed it had been Tatsuya.

“If not for the restriction on attack areas, they would be powerful competitors in their own right.”

“You mean they can’t win with the current Shields Down rules? You said that during the selection, too, but now that we’ve seen them in a match…”

“Chikura and Kirihara just aren’t used to how to fight in Shields Down yet. Minami?”

After mildly rejecting Hattori’s concerns, Tatsuya spoke up to Minami, who was watching the practice from just outside the girls’ ring.

“Yes, Big Brother Tatsuya?”

Minami was about to run over to him, but Tatsuya stopped her with a hand, then walked over to the girls’ ring himself. Next to Minami was the freshman girl who would be the other half of the pair team in the rookie Shields Down event, her face taut with tension.

“Erika?”

“What?”

As Tatsuya walked, this time he beckoned to Erika. She had been keenly watching Leo’s fight but immediately came over.

“Erika, could you be Minami’s practice partner?”

“For a solo match?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm… All right.”

After giving Minami a comprehensive sizing-up stare, from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head, Erika nodded, seeming convinced for the moment, and got into the ring.

“Minami?”

Calling after Minami to stop her from getting right up into the ring after her, even though she was confused by this unexpected development, Tatsuya whispered something into her ear.

When Erika saw that, the corners of her lips turned up in a smirk.

“I’m sorry for making you wait, Chiba. I am ready when you are.”

After Minami stepped up into the ring and gave a polite introduction…

“Can’t wait to see what strategy he left you with.”

…Erika responded with a dangerous-looking smile.

“Both of you, on your marks.”

The Nine School Competition didn’t have judges in the field, and Shields Down was no exception, with no staff on the canvas. Instead of a beep to signal the match’s start, Tatsuya blew a whistle.

Erika immediately charged Minami. She didn’t feint but it wasn’t because she was underestimating Minami. She couldn’t restrain her curiosity over what kind of plan Tatsuya could have given her.

As Erika rushed toward her, Minami quickly and calmly used her CAD.

Erika’s body stopped dead for a moment. The motion was made possible only because the inertia applied to her body was neutralized, but the fact that she had stopped was not because of something Erika had intentionally done.

Minami had deployed an anti-object barrier and hit Erika’s shield with it. Erika didn’t feel any recoil because the target inertia had been minimized. But the same went for Minami, too. Without receiving any impact whatsoever, she moved to her next spell.

Erika’s body floated up into the air. She hadn’t jumped. She’d been stranded on the barrier Minami had made diagonally. Gravity still worked even though inertia had been neutralized, which meant she could still plant her feet. But now that she’d been cut off from solid footing, she had no way to resist.

“Hey…!”

Erika frantically tried to knock out the neutralization spell, but unfortunately with her skills, she couldn’t change a spell’s ending condition on the spot. And if she maximized her inertia now, it would only cause her uniform motion to continue. As a result, the advancing Minami’s barrier carried Erika out of the ring like a feather.

“Was that…Juumonji’s Phalanx?” murmured Hattori, shock in his voice.

“No. That spell was just continuously moving a single-layered anti-object barrier.” Tatsuya denied Hattori’s speculation out of hand. “The principle is the same as simple movement magic. Movement spells continuously change a target object’s position. All she did was switch the target of that change from an object to the barrier’s deployment coordinates.”

“Is it really that easy…?”

Hattori’s shock wasn’t allayed—in fact, it had intensified. If such a thing was so easy, anyone would be able to recreate the Phalanx’s offensive capabilities.

“The spell Minami used and Phalanx have different difficulty levels,” answered Tatsuya. “The offensive type of Phalanx sacrifices the anti-object barrier’s duration to push its strength and speed to their limits, continuously creating more layers. Minami’s spell emphasizes durability; you can’t expect it to have enough pressure to crush a target.”

Tatsuya left Hattori’s side and walked over toward where Tomoko Chikura was. Erika, who had fallen from the ring, and Minami, looking embarrassed after emerging from the ring, had also assembled there.

“Man, you sure got me. Never thought someone would knock me out that easily.”

“If you charge in so obviously, of course she’ll hit you with a counter. That trick of yours requires enough speed that your opponent can’t perceive it happening.”

“…I’m impressed you knew.”

Tatsuya shifted his gaze from Erika, who was disappointed at her secret technique’s flaw being mercilessly pointed out, to Tomoko.

“I believe you now understand how to cope with opponents who rush in for close combat.”

“…I can’t use barriers like that, you know.”

“But vector-inversion spells are your specialty, right?”

Apparently thinking Tatsuya wasn’t aware of her magical forte, Tomoko’s eyes widened slightly.

“…Well, yes, but…”

“All you have to do is reverse the appropriate vectors right before your opponent’s shield makes contact, raise them into the air, then throw them out of the ring with a movement spell.”

It was more unexpected from Tatsuya’s perspective that she’d thought he wouldn’t know about her specialty. He was both an engineer and a chief of operations for this year’s competition. For both roles, not knowing the competitors’ strengths and weaknesses would’ve been ridiculous. Perhaps that was why his remark came off as a little brusque—although it was more likely that was simply his true character.

Whatever Tomoko thought about his attitude, though, she seemed convinced for the moment of his advice. Erika looked like she wanted to say something in her place, but Tatsuya’s attention had turned to the vibrating information terminal in his inside pocket.

He took out the terminal and read the message. Then he turned around and spoke to Hattori, who was standing behind him.

“It looks like Pillar Break is all set up. I’ll be heading there, so could I trouble you to take over here?”

“Yeah, thanks for your work. You can leave it to me.”

This had been planned from the start so Hattori agreed at once.

Just to be sure, Tatsuya looked toward the boys’ ring. Next to a senior engineer, who had taken Sawaki’s CAD to perform minor adjustments on it, Chiaki Hirakawa was intently listening to something Tomitsuka was saying. She was probably asking him what he thought of the competition CAD. Deciding she wouldn’t cause an issue, Tatsuya bowed to Hattori and Chikura before calling Erika and Minami and heading toward the Pillar Break practice area in the training woods.

Every year, the fifty-meter outdoor pool in the back of the training woods was used for Pillar Break practice. It wasn’t a pool for swimming, but for fluid control practice. It was normally empty and covered up, but when the time came, students would fill it, create ice pillars, then use magic to stand them up. Only after going through that process would the Pillar Break practice finally be able to start.

The prep work had traditionally taken quite a lot of time, but this year, they finished it in a quarter of the time.

“Oh, Brother. The preparations are complete.”

This was all thanks to Miyuki, who had refrained from doing so last year because she was a freshman, taking on a major part of the work this year. Tatsuya, too, had estimated it would take about half as much time as last year, but Miyuki’s skills had gone above and beyond his expectations. It had taken almost the same amount of time filling the pool as it did to finalize preparations for Pillar Break practice.

“Good work. That was pretty fast.”

“I couldn’t possibly make you wait, Brother.”

Miyuki’s remark was, suitably for her features, very in line with the ideal that Japanese women traditionally aspired to, but the gaze she fixed on Tatsuya betrayed her voice and face. Her eyes spoke volumes. Her true intentions had been to take back Tatsuya as soon as she could and it was obvious to anyone who bothered to look. Kanon, for example, was making a clearly fed-up expression in the background.

“Who in the world could’ve known she’d make twenty-four water pillars simultaneously, then freeze them all into the right shape all at once,” muttered Kanon sardonically.

On the other hand, Shizuku seemed interested in the spell Miyuki had used. “Did you put that fluid-control spell together, Tatsuya?”

“It was my idea to apply similar-figure duplication theory, but Miyuki is the one who brought it to a usable state.”

“Oh, but it was you, Brother, who built an activation sequence based on the magic that I use intuitively.”

The older brother and younger sister each yielded the achievement to the other. Not only Kanon, but even Shizuku, turned aside as if to say Yeah, whatever.

“…Anyway, if we’re done setting up, let’s get started.”

At Tatsuya’s words, Miyuki immediately assumed her position.

Kanon and Shizuku had been somewhat slow to react, and that couldn’t have been purely their fault.

As previously noted, the fifty-meter-long, twenty-meter-wide, five-meter-deep pool was not meant for swimming. Therefore, sanitation management was not very strict. Judging by the pool’s walls and bottom, the foundation was simply highly water-repellent clay that had been pressed into place. All that made this the perfect place for Pillar Break practice.

The bottom of the pool was divided by white lines the same size as a Pillar Break field, and a slender pole stuck up out of each of the four corners. Scaffolding was laid across the ground ten meters from each of the pool’s lengthwise ends, and the competitors faced off from atop them.

On one stood Miyuki.

On the other stood Kanon and Shizuku.

It was a two-on-one handicapped match, but that didn’t mean Kanon and Shizuku definitely held an advantage.

Save for special exceptions, magic could not be compounded. If Kanon and Shizuku both flung spells at the same time and didn’t work well as a team, only one of their spells would activate. In the worst-case scenario, sometimes neither spell would have any effect. This problem was present in the other pair events as well, but they predicted it would be particularly arduous for Pillar Break.

“Shizuku, do your best!”

Honoka cheered Shizuku on. Setup for Mirage Bat was taking a while, so she’d come to watch Pillar Break practice—that was the “official” reason, but she mostly wanted to be near Tatsuya.

“Miyuki, you can do it!”

As if competing with Honoka, Izumi rooted for Miyuki, though she was slightly embarrassed about doing so. She was a Pillar Break rookie rep, and despite harboring somewhat biased thoughts, she was actually there to observe.

“Then let’s begin.”

Following Tatsuya’s remark, the simple signal they’d set up glowed red, then changed to yellow. As it shifted into green, magic sprang forth in the pool.

Kanon, sitting on a folding chair, was looking away from everything, her expression aggravated. Miyuki and Shizuku, both standing, exchanged troubled looks, wondering what to do.

This was the fifth practice match in a row, and despite Miyuki doing almost all the Ice Pillars setup, she’d won all five. This wasn’t a reaction unique to Kanon—anyone would be unhappy with results like that.

“Chiyoda on offense and Shizuku on defense—I think your tactics are generally correct.”

And without paying attention to Kanon’s attempted appeal to her own displeasure, Tatsuya spoke to her unreservedly while adjusting her CAD.

“Are you saying I didn’t lose in magic? Then what’s the problem?”

“There isn’t a problem, per se—you just don’t have enough practice as a team. That’s natural, of course, since you only started today.”

“…What went wrong?”

“Chiyoda’s magic activation area and Shizuku’s Information Boost area were slightly overlapping.”

Upon hearing Tatsuya’s explanation, Shizuku stepped in front of Kanon and bowed her head.

“I’m sorry, Kanon, it was my mistake.”

“Right. You probably spread the boost effect to our entire playing field to oppose Miyuki’s area-of-effect magic, but Information Boost is meant to be used on single objects, not on areas. And you don’t lose until literally every pillar is gone, so you’ll want to think about narrowing your Boost target down.”

“Okay, I will.”

“Brother, don’t you have any advice for me?”

While Shizuku continued looking up at Tatsuya with a face like a puppy waiting to be petted, Miyuki moved in front of her with a smile.

“If you lose, I’ll give you advice. But if you go easy on them, I’ll scold you instead.”

“Scold me…? I—I would never purposely lose. It would be rude to Chiyoda and Shizuku.”

Miyuki replied with a tone that seemed blustering, but the edges of her averted eyes had slightly reddened.

Kanon watched them with a dumbfounded look. In truth, she wasn’t satisfied with Tatsuya being the engineer in charge of their practice instead of Isori. She had wanted to nitpick the job Tatsuya was doing somehow, but seeing Miyuki and Shizuku practically hanging from him made her think to herself that she’d endure until the real thing while she laughed bitterly on the inside.

July 7, Saturday night. During this season marked by long days, you could still call it early evening, but the Saegusa family’s principal residence was deathly quiet.

The current family head Kouichi’s eldest son had already married and now lived in an apartment with his wife in the heart of the city. His second son was always sleeping at the magical institute the Saegusa family had established separate from old Lab Seven, and that had essentially become his living quarters. The two older children were sons of his late first wife, and there was a chance that they were avoiding their younger sisters, who were born to his second wife. They certainly weren’t on bad terms, but reservations likely lurked somewhere in their hearts.

As for his daughters, his eldest, Mayumi, was at yet another party and still hadn’t come back. Tonight’s wasn’t a social gathering connected to the Numbers at a salon but a Tanabata party held by the university. Still, as always, she’d probably be back close to midnight.

Kasumi and Izumi had quickly taken baths and shut themselves up in their rooms. They’d given him the rapid-fire “I’m tired today,” so they might have already been asleep by now.

Kouichi, however—though he was exhausted like his youngest daughters—couldn’t rest. While he was working in his study, the subordinate he’d been waiting for arrived.

“Enter,” he responded to his knocking, urging entry.

The person was Nakura, his current confidant.

“What did Gongjin Zhou say?”

Blocking Nakura, who was about to offer the usual niceties, Kouichi asked for a simple report. Nakura, actually appearing to be glad to have cut the pleasantries, answered impassively.

“He requested the current Kudou leader accept defectors from the GAA.”

“Hmm… What was his true reason for contacting the Kudou?”

“To interfere with the performance testing of the Parasidolls, combat gynoids possessed by parasites, during the Nine School Competition and to make the gynoids go berserk and harm the competitors. Our source said he will not go so far as to kill them. I believe this point is trustworthy.”

“How will he do it?”

“By using a madness-inducing spell made for the parasites.”

“…Exotyped magic to interfere with spiritual beings.” Kouichi said that to himself, appearing very interested. But then, wiping that interest from his face, he turned to his desk. “Excellent work.”

The words implied that he wanted Nakura to leave. But Nakura didn’t silently obey.

“Would it be wise to leave this be?”

“It doesn’t matter,” answered Kouichi, his back still facing the man. “The Parasidoll performance tests will be conducted during the Cross-Country Steeplechase event. Freshmen won’t be entering it.”

“Then it doesn’t matter as long as your relatives don’t come to harm?”

Nakura’s voice held no criticizing tone, but Kouichi, as if he’d noticed something he couldn’t overlook, swiveled his chair around to face Nakura.

“Why should I have to bend over backward for the children of other families?”

At Kouichi’s question, Nakura admitted his own mistake and lowered his head. The simple fact that they were connected to Zhou meant that caring about other families would be hypocrisy.

“And the hard-liners in the JDF were the ones who meddled first this time. The Parasidoll test itself is how the Old Master is taking advantage of this series of events to try and create an opportunity to replace magicians with machines. It’ll make no difference at this point even if another conspiracy or two is layered on top of it.”

The mastermind was in a group close to him, so Kouichi knew all about how the large-scale changes to the Nines had been made.

The ones who had started the whole thing had been a group of anti-GAA conservatives in the JDF. They were the faction that had opposed the peace treaty they had signed with the GAA last November.

They’d insisted that they should take advantage of the GAA losing one-third of its total fleet to deal even greater military blows, removing the threat of the GAA over a long period of time. In other words, they wanted open war. Before the Yokohama Incident, almost nobody in the JDF agreed with that opinion, but afterward, their group had certainly gained some supporters.

But in the end, they hadn’t gone any further than threatening military action. The circumstances had strengthened the hard-liners’ bonds, and they’d grown into a faction that JDF command couldn’t afford to ignore.

Accepting pressure on the magic society as tolerable was, in large part, to soothe the hard-liner dissatisfaction. As a result, the Nines had chosen events with strong military overtones.

Anything beyond that was Kouichi’s own speculation, but Retsu Kudou was probably trying to bend the current state of affairs for his own benefit rather than cut it off entirely. He had drawn the hard-liners’ interest with the pretense of magic weapon experiments, and he wanted to show the Parasidolls taking down normal magicians to convince them it would be more effective to strengthen their military by advancing Parasidolls research, since they were made to be weapons from their inception rather than being magicians turned into weapons.

Kouichi didn’t have any proof of this. It was nothing more than a hunch deduced from what he knew of the situation. But however he thought about it, that method, rather than sacrificing young magician boys and girls to develop weapons, was more like the Retsu Kudou he knew.

“Nakura, there’s no need to worry. Even if Lord Makoto is caught in the trap, things will be wrapped up as necessary.”

Kouichi trusted his former master that much.

Sunday, July 8: Tatsuya was visiting FLT’s R & D Section 3. “Despite it being the weekend” would not have been an appropriate way of putting it. It would perhaps actually be more suitable to say it was because he didn’t have school that day.

Unusually, Tatsuya was alone. Regular exams would be starting Tuesday, so Miyuki was at home studying. Tatsuya could always cram if he had to.

As always, the lab was filled with researchers who had forgotten the concept of weekdays and weekends. Everyone seemed to be working like busy bees, since Section 3 was just coming to the end of a new product’s development.

A CAD controlled entirely by the mind—a product that would cause a technological breakthrough in machine-based magic-casting assistance. Six months ago, Rosen Magicraft had released a fully thought-controlled model, said to be the first in the world, and FLT’s new product would be an extension of it, intended to seriously compete in the market.

Still, Rosen and FLT were approaching the product concept from two different directions. Rosen’s CAD was a specialized one, fitted with a mechanism that allowed the user to control the buttons with psionic waves; for a portable object, it fell into a fairly broad category of devices.

In contrast, the fully thought-controlled CAD that FLT had developed specialized in a single function: outputting an untyped magic activation sequence to control the CAD. All CADs, of course, output an activation sequence corresponding to the target spell. Controlling it with an untyped spell instead of using your fingers, however, was the concept this device had first realized.

Although FLT’s fully thought-controlled model required the additional installation of pairing software onto the CAD, one could use it with a device they were already familiar with, which was a great advantage. At least, that was what R & D Section 3 assumed. The pairing software covered 80 percent of CADs sold within the last five years, whether it was a multipurpose type or a specialized type. And users could control them with nothing but psionic waves—this new product would create a large additional market demand that went beyond manufacturer boundaries.

Today was the day of its final testing before being made into a product, and if they didn’t find any problems, the plan was to announce its imminent commercialization. By the time Tatsuya showed up in the monitoring room, the tests had already begun.

“Good morning. Am I a little late?”

“Good morning, Prince! No, you’re right on time. I’m sorry— We couldn’t wait, so we started early.”

Ushiyama lowered his head, his face apologetic, but his eyes were sparkling with joy.

It wasn’t a smile that made fun of Tatsuya but the kind offered when a craftsman created satisfactory work.

“I see. I suppose I don’t mind…”

Moving his eyes to the wall-mounted monitor, Tatsuya wore a smile much like Ushiyama’s.

“It looks like it’s going smoothly.”

The large display showed twelve testers simultaneously going through the trials. They used each of the eight types of magic, one after another, replacing the CAD each time.

“Oh yes, everything thus far has been perfect! We’ve brought the time lag down below our assumptions as well.”

The testers were only using beginner-level magic. It was a common sight to see during testing of newly developed CADs, but two things set this scene apart: One, they weren’t touching the CADs’ buttons with their hands. And two, a medallion-like device hung from a small chain around each of the testers’ necks.

Hidden inside their clothing was a silver matte disk, three centimeters across and six millimeters thick. That was the fully thought-controlled CAD. The monitor, which was set up to make psionic light visible, showed the medallion CADs drawing in the testers’ psions and outputting activation sequences. As Tatsuya used his information body-perceiving vision ability to watch one tester through the monitor, he saw the activation sequence output from the medallion at his chest change into a psion-controlling magic program within the tester and saw the psionic waves converging and being absorbed with pinpoint precision into the button on the bracelet on his left hand.

CAD buttons were both electrical switches and psion signal receptors with a mounted reaction stone antenna. The touchless button already fitted into the CAD beforehand sent psions directly to this antenna, thus serving as a replacement for finger-based controls, but frequently if the user wasn’t used to controlling their psions, they would specify the wrong activation sequence, so the CAD’s own misrecognition rate was no small value. This time, their fully thought-controlled model had been developed with the concept of allowing even magicians inexperienced with psion control to accurately designate activation sequences and to eliminate CAD misrecognition rate.

The means Tatsuya and the others had adopted for that purpose was the development of an untyped spell that would send the converging psionic waves precisely into the induction stone antenna. Users would output the activation sequence for casting magic by using magic. It was certainly a roundabout method, but the psionic waves required to operate a CAD only needed to have a simple construction, so the added burden on the magician was very close to negligible. Given the merits of being able to accurately specify an activation sequence just by thinking about it made this circuitousness a mere triviality.

“Why don’t I test it as well?” Tatsuya asked.

“Yes, please do. Hey! Bring the Prince a prototype!” Ushiyama called.

Accepting the medallion-shaped, fully thought-controlled CAD from a researcher who ran over, Tatsuya headed into the testing room.

In the afternoon that day, the Shiba siblings went to the city subcenter. More accurately, Miyuki brought her brother there.

The new model CAD tests progressed without any issues and ended in the morning. Because of that, the time originally set aside for bug fixes became a moment to rest instead.

Tatsuya had returned home with a souvenir—one of the fully thought-controlled CADs, no longer dubbed a prototype but a finished product—only to find his younger sister waiting for him with a sullen look, stress having spoiled her mood. She didn’t take it out on him, of course—she almost never did anything like that—her eyes just seemed unhappy and as if she were struggling against something.

Tatsuya, however, couldn’t leave his little sister like that. Ever since enrolling, she’d kept her written exam grades at number two in her class. (Her overall grades were, of course, static at the top.) There was never a topic of study she wouldn’t be able to understand, but she also wasn’t the type to care about rankings. Exam studying couldn’t have been the source of Miyuki’s obvious stress.

Is it competition prep…? wondered Tatsuya, before proposing that they go out for a change of pace.

“An outing with you, Brother? I’ll go! Yes, please!”

Miyuki’s answer was, as expected, fervent enough that Tatsuya winced. Basically, she’d just wanted him to pay attention to her. He felt like she was going a little too far with it, but in the end, it was just a sister fawning over her older brother. Tatsuya realized this belatedly—but he certainly wasn’t averse to his sister doing that, either.

“Minami, what about you?”

Tatsuya asked mostly to be considerate of a housemate.

“No, I have studying to do as well, and I’d like to get a little bit of cleaning done.”

Minami answered with a polite bow and politer refusal. She was conflicted—perhaps she should accompany them to carry out her Guardian duties. In the end, though, the feeling that won out was that she had better things to do than keep herself inside their mushy little bubble.

Tatsuya had been the one to suggest going out, but it had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, so he had no actual plan. He decided to leave their destination up to Miyuki; as a result, though, they went shopping in the Shibuya city subcenter.

Miyuki had something of a love of finery. Her interest in makeup was still weak, but Tatsuya believed she liked trying on clothes. Her real feelings were slightly different—she liked showing herself off, all dressed up, to Tatsuya—but in any case, whenever the two of them went out, they tended to visit stores of that nature. Even now, they were going through a fashion mall that had just been built.

The many tenants of this building weren’t running their own businesses individually but rather jointly doing sales on each floor; nothing demarcated them. One section would have party dresses on display, while the one right next to it might be an underwear shop, making it an awfully uncomfortable place for a man to accidentally walk into.

At first, Tatsuya had made sure to be careful, but since all he was doing was simply following Miyuki around, he couldn’t avoid all of it. And it wasn’t as though he was harboring any inappropriate thoughts, so he decided it would be strange to claim he didn’t want to pass by underwear shops or swimsuit stores.

Today, however, that backfired.

When Miyuki asked an employee if she could try on a few very airy summer outfits in a casual clothing shop, they found that unfortunately, none of the fitting rooms nearby were vacant. Both Miyuki and Tatsuya would have been fine with waiting for the previous patrons to finish, but the employee, whether flustered by Miyuki’s beauty or oddly taking a liking to her, forcefully guided Miyuki to an empty fitting room on the same floor.

It was the fitting room in a swimsuit store.

Tatsuya waded through the women’s swimsuits crammed into a line in the same manner he always walked, but even he decided it wouldn’t be good to stand right in front of her fitting room. As Miyuki disappeared behind the door, he told her that if she needed something, she should call him on his terminal, then began to wander away from the area.

His consideration, however, went unrewarded. As he tried to walk from the farthest of the four fitting rooms, hidden from the floor by a wall, past the other three and out onto the sales floor pathway, he came face-to-face with two girls in front of the front-most fitting room. Girls who were underclassmen he was well acquainted with.

“Shiba?! What are you doing over here?! This is the women’s changing room!”

Crying out and approaching him was Kasumi Saegusa, in a boyish outfit with an animal-print T-shirt and jean shorts cuffed at the bottoms.

“This isn’t a changing room, Kasumi, it’s a fitting room… Wait! You’re with Miyuki right now, aren’t you?! Where might she be, if it’s okay for me to ask?!”

Drawing near to Tatsuya with sudden excitement on display after sighing and correcting her older twin sister’s mistake was Izumi Saegusa, in a somewhat revealing sleeveless dress of a feminine, very frilly design, with a wide neckline and a skirt that came up five centimeters above her knees.

And if these two were here, he had a pretty good guess as to who was in the fitting room. Tatsuya, overwhelmed by a sense of crisis, quickly moved to leave—but he was one step too late.

“What are you two shouting ab…out?”

The fitting room being so ridiculously sealed had worked against her. Mayumi could hear her little sisters making a racket outside, but she couldn’t tell what they were saying. Meaning to reprimand them, she opened the door.

He could feel her staring at his back. If he were to run away after all that, he’d come under suspicion of peeping instead. Staying would be better than being accused of crimes he had no recollection of ever doing, but it would still be awkward for a while. Making those calculations quickly in his head, he steeled himself and casually turned around.

The situation was very close to the worst possible scenario he could have envisioned.

She obviously would never have come out naked, but the worst scenario would have been Mayumi in her underwear.

As she stood there dumbly, eyes wide, in front of Tatsuya, the cloth she wore was just barely covering her chest and below her waist and only down to the base of her thighs—a white bikini.

Her ample chest, out of place on her petite body, wasn’t entirely hidden by her top, which ended up displaying some very visible cleavage.

Her surprisingly plentiful hips and slender waist produced voluptuous curves.

Her defenseless thighs appeared as smooth as marble and seemed soft wherever Tatsuya looked.

“Wha…? Ta… This…”

“Please calm down, Saegusa.”

He held both palms out in front of him toward Mayumi, who had begun to tremble, and shook them slightly to try to defuse the situation. In other words, he tried to communicate with body language that exactly matched what he’d just said.

Surprisingly, his persuasion (?) succeeded. Mayumi, still facing him, eventually stepped back, returning into the fitting room, then shut the door with a soft sound.

“Kyaaaaaa!”

What he heard from inside the fitting room was doubtlessly Mayumi shrieking. This time, Tatsuya managed to successfully withdraw.

“I was wondering what on earth could be going on…”

“I’m sorry for the noise…”

After Miyuki gave her simple, honest thoughts, Mayumi made herself small and offered an apology.

“No, it isn’t your fault. In fact, I should be the one apologizing.”

They were in a café being run in the fashion mall. Around the table were Tatsuya, Miyuki, Mayumi, Kasumi, and Izumi.

“I was the one who dragged Brother into a place like that… I’m terribly sorry to both you and him.”

Miyuki had been the one to invite the other four here. She’d said to Mayumi that she wanted to have a proper conversation about the clamor that had just occurred, and the Saegusa twins, going with her, marshaled Tatsuya as well.

“No, you’re not at fault here, Miyuki. It wasn’t like…he saw me naked or anything. I-it was just a swimsuit, so it was strange of me to get embarrassed. Sorry for screaming like that, Tatsuya. I was just a little surprised, that’s all.”

Mayumi was trying to play the part of their senior or perhaps of an adult. But at the same time, it was clear to everyone but her that her remark was an effort to admonish herself as well. Considering how her cheeks had gone red and her eyes were wandering unsteadily, it was obvious she was still rattled by what had happened.

Tatsuya didn’t say anything at first. If he denied what Miyuki had said, it would come off as him covering for a family member, and apologizing to Mayumi, too, would probably just end up making her more embarrassed.

“No, I can’t blame you,” was about all the response he could manage.

One girl here, though, wasn’t satisfied with that. Kasumi was secretly—though it almost wasn’t concealed at all—fuming about him embarrassing her sister.

To put her feelings into words, it would be You’re the one who saw my sister in an embarrassing outfit without permission! But the fact that it wasn’t You’re the one who was peeping! seemed enough to imply she still had some reason left, but either way, it was unfair anger as far as Tatsuya was concerned.

Fortunately for him, perhaps, was that Izumi didn’t sympathize with Kasumi’s silent outburst.

“What plans might you have after this, Miyuki?” Izumi asked.

Right now, her attention was on one person—Miyuki.

“I was going to look at some Western clothes for a bit longer, then go home,” the female Shiba explained. “Exams are next week, after all.”

“In that case, may I possibly come with you?” Izumi asked.

Izumi, her ability to think rationally having gone completely out the window, pleaded to come along with Miyuki. While giving her a look that was a bit too rife with desire to be characterized as “innocent.” Izumi was faithful to her nature, and Miyuki struggled to maintain her smile against the request.

“Well, if Brother says he’s okay with it.”

“Izu, you can’t cause trouble for other people’s families.”

Miyuki’s answer was neither a yes nor a no, but Mayumi’s response was clearly reproving. Izumi was always quick on the uptake, though—and once her sister had gently reprimanded her, she snapped out of it.

“You’re right. Please excuse my rudeness, Miyuki.”

If that had been where it ended, the Shiba siblings and Saegusa siblings would have parted ways peacefully. Kasumi, however, was a little more honest with her own feelings than her twin.

“Yeah, Izumi. You can’t get in the way of the Shiba-Shiba date.”

“Date?!”

The flustered cry came, for some reason, from Mayumi.

“Kasumi, we’re not exactly on a date here,” explained Tatsuya calmly. In fact, his response could accurately be expressed as impassive—and that ruffled Kasumi’s feathers, as usual.

“Saying it’s not a date when a boy and girl in high school go shopping by themselves isn’t very convincing, you know.”

Mayumi, with much trepidation, took a peek at Miyuki’s face.

The Shiba sister, for whatever reason, had a look that implied she was trying to keep herself from breaking into a smile.

“When the boy in high school is her older brother and the girl in high school is his younger sister, I think it’s very convincing.”

“Well, siblings going on a date seems very unproductive to me!”

“Kasumi, you’re really being rude,” interrupted Izumi, her tone of voice purposefully strict. She could very easily tell that Kasumi was being stubborn and unwilling to back down.

Kasumi herself could tell she was stepping into a bottomless swamp, too. But for some reason, whenever she talked to Tatsuya, she ended up being stubborn over trivial things. It was rare for Kasumi, who was essentially openhearted, and even she felt doubt, since this wasn’t like her.

Independent of her feelings, though, her mouth moved on its own.

“Talented magicians have a responsibility to the next generation! Or are you saying you’ll be with Shiba until—”

“Kasumi.”

But Tatsuya stopped her tongue running out of control with a voice that was purposely not too loud.

“If that’s the case, then wouldn’t spending your day off with your siblings be unproductive, too?”

“!” Kasumi grimaced, and her face went red.

Tatsuya returned her frustrated glare with a cool expression.

Then, a moment later, he looked away, stood up, and bowed his head to Mayumi. “Saegusa, we’ll be taking our leave now.”

“Oh no, allow me.”

Seeing the payment slip in Tatsuya’s hand, Mayumi hurriedly got up.

“No, I did something immature in front of an underclassman, so this is my apology.”

But Tatsuya didn’t take her up on the offer and headed for the register instead.

Miyuki stood up, bowed to Mayumi, and followed after him.

Kasumi, lips drawn back as though she were about to cry, and her two sisters, watching her worriedly, were left behind at the table.

After leaving the store and walking a short distance, Miyuki turned around. The Saegusa sisters weren’t following them, of course. With a slightly relieved expression, she spoke to her brother.

“Umm, Brother, I don’t think Kasumi meant anything by what she said.”

Tatsuya replied with a momentarily confused expression, but then he gave a pained grin and nodded.

“I don’t, either.”

Miyuki’s tension loosened at his answer, and she breathed a sigh.

“I know Kasumi didn’t mean to say that. I used that logic because I didn’t want to let her say anything beyond that, but… Maybe it was a little too mean of me.”

Tatsuya was smiling in a self-deprecating way, but Miyuki knew he wasn’t really beating himself up over it.

“…I do like how you aren’t too kind to other girls.”

“…You have a wicked streak of your own, don’t you?”

“Hmph!” said Miyuki, puffing out her cheeks.

The childish act made Tatsuya smile, this time without any pain in it.