Chapter 9

The next day, Tatsuya and Miyuki left the house earlier than usual.

Not to get to school early, but to get to the station early.

Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait very long.

“Good morning, President.”

Mayumi was small in stature even for a girl, but she wasn’t the sort who would get lost in a crowd. Her silhouette gave off a much stronger sense of presence than others, allowing Tatsuya to pick her out immediately.

“Tatsuya? Miyuki, too. What’s the matter?”

Their ambush seemed to come as a surprise to Mayumi—well, of course it did. She had no leeway to put together her usual jovial attitude, and instead gave an unsophisticated, unexceptional response to them.

Surprising her wasn’t their goal this morning, though. Tatsuya didn’t bother with any needless fooling around and got to the point right away. “I was wondering about yesterday. Would you tell me how your discussion with Mibu and the others after that ended up?”

At Tatsuya’s demand, Mayumi’s eyes widened a bit. “How surprising.” Not only did it come out in her expression, it also came out in her words. “Tatsuya, you don’t seem like the type of person to pry into the affairs of others.”

“I wouldn’t if it were unrelated, but that’s not the case.”

“I see.” Upon hearing his answer, though, she nodded as though convinced. Tatsuya was already related in no small way to the activities of their “willing coalition.” Even if he’d wanted to treat it as someone else’s problem, they weren’t going to let him off the hook. Mayumi agreed, feeling that he was entitled to hear what would happen now—and even if she hadn’t, she was going to announce it to everyone first thing in the morning anyway. “They demand equal treatment of Course 1 and Course 2 students. But they don’t seem to have given much thought to anything concrete they want to do. It actually felt more like they wanted the student council to work out the specifics. So it turned into a rather heated dispute. We had originally wanted to talk about negotiations afterward yesterday, so we ended up deciding on a public debate in the lecture hall after school tomorrow.”

“Things escalated quickly…” The way in which Tatsuya was surprised could actually be called reserved. The impression coming from him was more one of “finally” than anything else, so he wasn’t very surprised. He considered dragging them into a fair fight would lead to the quickest results and fastest resolution in the first place, even if it left a bad taste in some people’s mouths. But his reaction was probably pretty in the minority. As a case in point, the development had not been something Miyuki had expected—her eyes were wide and she was unable to speak.

“I can understand the tactic of not giving those engaging in guerrilla warfare any time to spare, but that means we don’t have time to think of a plan, either. Who from the student council will be participating in this debate?”

Tatsuya’s question was answered with a smile that said well done from Mayumi. She pointed at her face.

“…You, by yourself, President?”

His tone was half-believing but half-dubious. And Miyuki was completely at a loss for words.

“I’ll have Hanzou come up on stage with me, but I’ll be the only one talking. Because, as you said, there’s not enough time for a briefing. And by myself, there’s no threat of us bumping heads against each other for slight discrepancies in viewpoints. I’d be afraid of emotions being brought in to manipulate impressions, in that case.”

“So with a logical argument you cannot lose?” asked Tatsuya. Mayumi gave him a confident nod.

“And also,” she continued lightly, her voice imbued with a hint of anticipation, “if they do happen to possess concrete evidence enough to defeat me, then all we have to do is incorporate that into managing the school.”

It almost sounded to him like she was hoping she’d be out-argued.

Just after the announcement that the unprecedented debate would be held tomorrow, the coalition (as the “coalition of the willing who aim to abolish discrimination at school” came to be called) immediately energized its activities.

Though in an unrefined way, they tried to increase their supporters as well—coalition members recruiting sympathizers began to be seen in every nook and cranny of the school before classes, during breaks, and after school.

They all wore white wristbands with blue and red edges. Tatsuya wondered if they decided it wasn’t worth hiding anymore or if they just didn’t know what the symbol meant—he thought it was the former. He still couldn’t agree with the thinking that ignorance was an excuse, though. He believed blame to be attached to actions rather than an internal thing.

However, it didn’t necessarily make him want to hamper the coalition’s actions. It was only natural they’d want to get their hands on many sympathizers and “have a discussion” with them. He had no intention of interfering with people unrelated to him who were deluding emotionally immature high school students with emotional words and dragging them down into a bottomless swamp. (Though that was a terrible thought in a number of ways.)

On the other hand, if it was someone he was related to—though as a student of First High, nothing that happened in the school was really unrelated—he was not about to allow these deceptive temptations.

“Mizuki.”

After school, on the day before the debate, he spotted a confused freshman being spoken to by what was likely a senior wearing the wristband in question on his right hand. Mizuki was clutching some sort of paintings to her chest, so she was probably in the middle of delivering things for her club. The fact they were using non-digital materials in this day and age probably meant there were more than a few people in the school art club who preferred it that way, but that didn’t matter right now.

“Oh, Tatsuya!”

She saw him and gave a relieved expression. Judging by her look, she’d been wrapped up with this for a fair amount of time.

First, Tatsuya scanned the upperclassman from his head down. He was tall, and though at first glance he would seem scrawny, he actually had a body trained in martial arts.

He’d seen that figure before.

It was none other than the male student who had attacked him with magic and fled during the absolute nonsense that was the club recruitment week.

“I am Shiba, from the disciplinary committee. If you keep her for too long, you may be seen as a nuisance, so please step back.”

He suddenly addressed the upperclassman without stopping to glance at Mizuki’s expression. Still, though, he didn’t try and interrogate him about the incident that happened during the new student recruitment week. He would never have admitted to anything even if Tatsuya did ask, and if he turned around and said they were false accusations, it would have the opposite effect. Tatsuya slid between Mizuki and the upperclassman with an air of nonchalance and faced him directly.

There was no emblem on his left breast.

On his face were small, square glasses. They didn’t look fake.

“All right. I’ll leave for now. Miss Shibata, I am free at any time, so if you change your mind, give me a call.”

The upperclassman was acting supremely gentlemanly (though more the Italian kind than the British kind) and pulled back. Once his departing figure disappeared from the hallway into the stairwell, he asked Mizuki about everything.

“He’s the captain of the kendo club. He said his name was Kinoe Tsukasa… He has pushion radiation sensitivity, too. He wanted to know if I would be part of a circle he made with other students with sensitivities.”

Tatsuya didn’t expect Mizuki to come out and reveal the issue with her “eyes” herself. However, he was already convinced she had pushion radiation sensitivity, so he wasn’t all that surprised.

“And what did he say? That you should share your burdens?”

“No, he said that his symptoms had improved a lot since entering the circle, so maybe it would help me, too…”

“Oh my.” Pretty sketchy, he didn’t say.

He didn’t need to say it to understand Mizuki felt the same.

For the obstructions caused by magic-related senses being too sharp, controlling those sensing abilities was the one and only way to combat it. And in order to come to be able to control that ability, proper training was the fastest route.

Even without personal care from an instructor, the school’s program was the closest to “proper training” you could get, so it was rather hard to think that a small circle of students could provide an even more effective regimen. It would be one thing if the circle had an instructor to guide them, but the whole reason behind the Courses 1 and 2 split in the first place was the hopeless lack of teaching faculty.

“I told him a few times I was too busy with classes…”

“Right. It’s better to not be greedy and go along one step at a time, right?”

Mizuki nodded in agreement with his commonplace advice and headed for her club room.

Tatsuya started walking in the other direction and thought. It was probably coincidence that he’d come across her being accosted. But everything other than that couldn’t have been a coincidence. The whole “circle” business was no more than a front, or perhaps bait; doubtless the kid’s real plan was to lure her into their group. Judging by how the coalition had taken the practical measure of attacking him before going active, that senior was the real thing. At the very least, he wasn’t someone who’d been lured in, but someone who did the fishing.

The captain of the kendo club, Kinoe Tsukasa …

I need to try looking into this senior in depth, he thought, making up his mind.

After dinner, during the time he would have usually been washing off the sweat and dirt from the day, Tatsuya was speeding along on an electric bicycle he’d just bought.

His destination was the Yakumo temple.

He didn’t go there on foot because other than early morning and the middle of the night, there would always be the eyes of train passengers and passersby. The use of magic without proper reason was an act that carried a criminal punishment. Even a minor wouldn’t escape substantial punishment.

As for the criminal act of riding a motorcycle—it was not one at all. Traffic laws as of 2095 AD said that you could get a motorcycle license after graduating middle school. It wasn’t age-based; instead, you fulfilled the requirement by completing your compulsory education.

Around his waist were wrapped arms that were slender, yet not the slightest bit bony. Two bulges from his sister pressed up against his back. Certainly in the throes of puberty, no doubt, but definitely something—yet not paltry, either. For a girl who had just turned fifteen (Mizuki was born in March), there was no doubt that they were at least more than average.

That didn’t mean Tatsuya’s heart was trying to pound its way out of his chest, though. She was his little sister by blood, so of course (?) not.

And the trip was only about ten minutes long. With nothing immoral occurring either mentally or physically, the two of them arrived at the Yakumo temple.

The usual rough greeting at the gate didn’t happen. This visit wasn’t for training—they’d made an appointment by phone beforehand. Of course, there wouldn’t be any polite greeting either, so they headed through the intimately familiar temple grounds for the priests’ living quarters.

The Yakumo priest living quarters were based heavily on one-story residential building designs from the early twentieth century. They might have actually been constructed during that era; neither Tatsuya nor Miyuki had ever found out.

There was no light at all outside. And not because it was just old—it seemed intentional.

Not only were there no outdoor lights, but there was no light coming from the building, either. The night sky was cloudy, too, so no moonlight or starlight was shining, and the high walls blocked the city lights, making the temple grounds essentially pitch black.

It still wasn’t so late they’d definitely be asleep, but maybe the priests went to bed as early as they awoke. He’d never heard of ninja maintaining an “early to bed, early to rise” attitude, and he couldn’t imagine it, either. And besides, they’d promised they’d visit, so it was impossible that nobody was awake.

Miyuki softly extended a hand to Tatsuya’s arm. The force of her grip on his sleeve wasn’t very strong, nor was her hand shaking. Still, Miyuki didn’t have the kind of night eyes Tatsuya did, so it wasn’t hard to imagine she was feeling some instinctive anxiety at the darkness. —Well, even with one arm blocked off, he could just use his own inherent magic if it came to that, so he let his sister do as she pleased.

The temple grounds weren’t cramped, but they weren’t particularly wide, either. Before long, they arrived at the entrance to the living quarters. There was no video intercom, of course, but there wasn’t even a doorbell—that was definitely intentional—so Tatsuya went to open the sliding door and announce their arrival. But as his hand touched the handle on the door…

“Over here, Tatsuya.”

…he heard a voice calling him from the veranda, where he’d not sensed any presence before.

He felt a twitch on his arm through his grasped sleeve. Tatsuya, mildly exasperated, didn’t feel like giving a dry grin. He was thinking to himself how childish it was for someone his age to be having fun scaring people by suddenly calling to them from the dark.

Of course, if Miyuki hadn’t been the one to get surprised, Tatsuya probably wouldn’t have felt anything. In that sense, his little scheme had been partially successful—if this was really a scheme, anyway.

Personally, he would have liked to do an about-face and leave, but he’d come here tonight for a reason. He swallowed back that bitter feeling and went around to the veranda toward where the voice came from.

The man would have looked a little like a priest if he’d been sitting cross-legged in meditation there, but he also thought this was more like Yakumo. Tatsuya had known him for two and a half years, but he was still an elusive one.

“Good evening, Master. Were you resting?”

“Hey, good evening, Tatsuya. And you, Miyuki. And no, not at all. Not even I would fall asleep after making a promise.”

Yakumo brushed off Tatsuya’s sarcastic remark so smoothly that it was Tatsuya who found it surprising, since he’d assumed he would be in and out of sight, slippery as an eel.

“Sensei, please excuse the late-night visit. If I may ask… If you were not resting, then why have you put out all the lights?”

“Hmm? Oh, it’s custom. We don’t turn on the lights when we don’t need them. We’re shinobi, after all.”

Tatsuya had misunderstood that as mischief-making. He reflected a little on his mistake, telling himself that it was bad to let his own biases creep into his situational judgment, even if it normally happened differently.

Of course, he didn’t breathe a word of that while Yakumo was watching.

The man didn’t seem to notice anyway that Tatsuya had called his character into doubt. He looked up at the two of them, narrowed his eyes, then quietly spoke almost in a monotone. “Still, that prana you siblings have sure is something. It’s even more splendid when you look at it without any lights around.”

“Our prana?” asked Miyuki, tilting her head.

“It may be easier for you if I called it pushion emissions,” answered Yakumo with an unusually serious expression. Narrowing his already narrow eyes wasn’t a jealous expression at all, either—he was staring hard at “something” that was difficult to see. “Miyuki’s prana glitters and shines, knowing no bounds, and there isn’t a single unnecessary drop of Tatsuya’s outside him. And connecting you—”

“Master,” said Tatsuya suddenly, interrupting him.

Yakumo’s narrowed eyes returned to their former state, and he gave a somewhat mischievous look. “Whoops, sorry, not allowed to go there, right?”

“No, I’m the one who should apologize for my rudeness.” Tatsuya gave a slight bow, signaling the end of this discussion.

Of course, Yakumo understood it. “So what have you come for today?”

“Actually, there was something I wanted you to use your strength to look into,” prefaced Tatsuya in answer to his question. He then explained Kinoe Tsukasa. “It’s fairly certain this senior is a member of Égalité, but I think he also has a direct and strong link to Blanche. Would you happen to know through Kinoe Tsukasa what on earth Blanche might be planning?”

“Égalité and Blanche, eh… That’s well within my means to investigate, of course.” Yakumo nodded easily to Tatsuya’s request phrased as a question. His words, too, could either be boastful or a rash promise, and it sounded natural for him to speak that way.

And Tatsuya knew that in reality, the man could do something so trivial as probing into terrorist organizations active domestically before breakfast.

“I am a man of the cloth, however. I don’t get involved with the affairs of the common people. And if you’ve gotten that far already, wouldn’t it be easier to ask Kazama? He has that young lady Fujibayashi with him, right?”

Tatsuya hesitated for a moment, then bitterly began, “…I’d rather not rely on the major—”

“Your aunt wouldn’t sympathize?” interrupted Yakumo, not allowing Tatsuya to finish his sentence. “With the circumstances, I suppose you’d need to come here.”

Tatsuya silently bowed his head. Not out of gratitude for his decision to listen to his request, but out of apology for his consideration.

Yakumo lightly waved a hand in front of him, suggesting apologies were unneeded, then gestured for Tatsuya and Miyuki to take a seat on the veranda.

Tatsuya sat next to Yakumo, and Miyuki, quite a bit more reserved than her brother, sat next to him; then Yakumo spoke.

“Kinoe Tsukasa…formerly known as Kinoe Kamono,” he began without any preface. “Neither parent had any manifestation of magical factors. In other words, he’s part of a ‘normal’ family, but it’s a branch family of the Kamo. Although it is a branch, their blood relation is fairly thin, so there really isn’t a problem with calling it a normal family. Kinoe’s ‘eyes,’ though, were probably a kind of reversion.”

Tatsuya’s eyes widened—Yakumo was speaking as though he’d predicted his exact request—but he wasn’t as surprised as his sister.

You couldn’t keep up with Yakumo if you took the time to be surprised at everything the man said.

But he did still want to say this: “Master, have you ever heard of privacy?”

“Sure, I looked it up in a dictionary once.”

Tatsuya’s criticism had essentially ignored the fact that he was the one who was requesting an invasion of someone’s privacy in the first place, and Yakumo played dumb without even a hint of guilt.

Both of the men decided not to look at Miyuki, who was holding a hand to her temple.

“Anyway, how did you know I would be asking you to look into Kinoe Tsukasa?”

The fact that Tatsuya changed the topic so abruptly showed how he wasn’t able to completely ignore Miyuki’s attitude.

Without objecting to the shift, Yakumo followed suit and put it behind them. “It didn’t have anything to do with your request—I just know about him.”

“…For what reason, may I ask?”

“Well, I’m a priest. At the same time—or rather, above that—I’m a shinobi. Fish cannot live without water, and shinobi cannot live without a constant influx of information. I make a point of looking over people who have a history that might make them cause a problem in the right place at the right time.”

Tatsuya narrowed his eyes just slightly. “Does that include us?”

Without raising his voice too much, Yakumo laughed, amused. “I tried to, but I didn’t know what I was getting into. Information about the two of you has been perfectly manipulated. I suppose I should have seen that coming.”

A somehow dubious air floated between the two of them. Miyuki hastily spoke, as though trying to get rid of that dark cloud. “Sensei, how are Tsukasa and Blanche related?”

Tatsuya’s and Yakumo’s faces softened at the same time at the atmosphere of Miyuki trying her best. They hadn’t wanted to go at it for real anyway—they were glaring at each other jokingly. The feigned tension disappeared immediately.

His expression loosened, Yakumo answered Miyuki’s question in a tone that suggested he was making small talk. “When Kinoe’s mother remarried, her new husband brought his son, Kinoe’s older stepbrother. He’s the leader of Blanche’s Japan branch. Not only as the outward-facing representative—he handles everything behinds the scenes, too. A real leader.” In contrast to his lax expression, his answer was anything but peaceful. “Kinoe likely enrolled at First High due to the will of that stepbrother of his. They were probably aiming for something like what’s going on now, but…I don’t know exactly what it is they’re planning. No doubt it’s something wicked, though.”

“I see…” Tatsuya slowly nodded to Yakumo’s words, thinking about something.

“Sorry for not being able to give you the most important bit.”

“No, you were a great help.”

He wasn’t just being diplomatic. He didn’t think the man would be able to answer right away in the first place, and just the fact that Kinoe had been changed from “someone we might need to watch” to “someone we need to watch” meant a whole lot. He mentally jotted down a timetable—tomorrow, as early as he could before the debate, he’d casually recommend that Mari keep an eye on Kinoe Tsukasa.

Once that was settled, he realized there was one more thing he needed to ask. “By the way, Master. How strong are the abilities of Kinoe Tsukasa’s ‘eyes’?”

Yakumo put a hand to his chin at the question. It didn’t seem like he was trying to put on airs; it looked like he was seriously thinking about it. “Let’s see… Strong enough for me to see the pranic waves they emit, at least. He shouldn’t have the power to read the prana hidden within you. At the very least, he doesn’t have the kind of power to see prana that your classmate does, Tatsuya.”

The last phrase Yakumo said caused Tatsuya to frown. “You’ve already investigated Mizuki, even?”

At that, Yakumo gave the most teasing, malicious smile he’d given all night. “You’re interested, too, aren’t you?”

Tatsuya barely fought back the urge to swear under his breath. It was obvious the man had seen right through him anyway, but letting it show in his attitude would be altogether galling.

“Interest” wasn’t referring to the kind a boy would have in a girl of the same age. It was nothing so sexual as that. If he were to put it simply, Tatsuya was on guard against Mizuki. At her strange ability that could reveal the prana hidden inside him, just as Yakumo had suggested.

“I’ll skip right to my conclusion and say that I don’t think you need to be cautious around her.” Tatsuya gritted his teeth, and that seemed to satisfy Yakumo. The man wasn’t smiling anymore. His easygoing tone of voice and careless attitude were the same, but it wasn’t the face of someone who would amuse himself with jokes or wordplay. “Even if she could see your prana, she wouldn’t be able to understand it. If she were as well-versed in magic as you, she would know not to brandish her eyes recklessly.”

The words had been intended to set his mind at ease, but Tatsuya found himself feeling doubtful. It was clear Yakumo hadn’t meant to do that, but he felt like he’d been once again presented with the fact that he was a nonstandard article, something separate from the stereotypical magician.