Saturday, September 29. This year, both the student council general assembly and student council elections ended without any trouble. To prevent invalid votes like last year, the election ceremony had adopted a system of giving students one-time-use, close-range wireless cards upon entering the hall, which they would then use to vote while they were seated. Like every year, there was only one nominee, so the cards had been prepared with two buttons: confidence and no confidence. With a firm push of a round symbol, their vote would be sent to the tabulator.

The electronic signals would send only once. That was why they were one-time use. The cards were a development of electronic tags, and though they were cheap, they were still more expensive than paper. Some, of course, weren’t sure a mere high school election needed to spend that much. But a company under the Kitayama family empire solved the cost issue, and so they’d gone with this method. In so doing, Shizuku’s family was steadily entrenching themselves in First High and other magical industrial and academic fields that had lagged behind in certain societal advancements.

Leaving aside such adult matters, as a result of the new form of electronic voting granting students instant vote-casting abilities, Miyuki, with an incredible 100 percent vote of confidence, became the student council president. Nobody had even considered voting no confidence as a joke—either out of adoration or out of fear… Both seemed possible, and it was hard to tell which it was.

“Anyway, to Miyuki getting elected student council president! Cheers!”

With Erika taking the lead, soft drink glasses were lifted high. The chorus of Cheers came from Miyuki’s family, friends, and underclassmen gathered in Einebrise—specifically Tatsuya, Leo, Mizuki, Mikihiko, Honoka, Shizuku, Minami, Izumi, Kasumi, and Kento. Kasumi had very little personal connection with Tatsuya’s group, but today she’d been dragged here against her will by Izumi.

“Well, I guess it was pretty much bound to happen.”

Nobody argued the remark Erika made right after the toast ended.

“But of course! Anyone other than her being First High student council president would be unthinkable! She has the ability worthy of being the representative of our school! The talent! The beauty! The gracefulness of demeanor! This result is none other than grace from the heavens!”

In exchange for nobody objecting, one underclassman grew very excited.

“You…think so?”

And Miyuki, whom she had closed in on, was very much backing away in her seat. Kasumi seemed to be ignoring her younger twin sister’s madness as hopeless as she sipped her drink aloofly.

“Miyuki, have you decided on your cabinet members?”

The one who bravely, or rather, in total disregard for Izumi, asked that question when everyone else—including even Tatsuya—hesitated to say anything, was Shizuku.

At her words, Izumi directed an even more passionate gaze at the local ice princess. Honoka seemed like she was on the edge of her seat, too, but her eyes were darting between Miyuki and Tatsuya.

Miyuki could feel their gazes, but she decided not to look at them—especially Izumi—and answered Shizuku’s question.

“I’m thinking of asking Izumi to be vice president.”

Izumi let out a cheer that was pretty much a shriek. Finally embarrassed, though, Kasumi broke her earlier show of indifference and covered Izumi’s mouth.

“I’m having trouble deciding on the others, though. I would like Honoka to help as well…” she said, glancing not at Honoka but at Tatsuya.

Perhaps sensing Miyuki’s hesitation, not only Shizuku but Honoka as well refrained from asking the same question again.

Despite certain overly excited female students, from a broader perspective, the party ended peacefully, respecting the shop’s atmosphere. And due to it being Saturday, the sun hadn’t gone down yet by the time they’d left. Still, once Tatsuya and the others arrived back at their house, the western sky had changed from madder red to a deeper indigo.

The food they’d ordered at Einebrise had been light fare, but they’d eaten quite a bit of it. Given that tomorrow was Sunday, Tatsuya, Miyuki, and Minami all decided to forgo dinner tonight.

There was a short kerfuffle between Miyuki and Minami as to who would make the tea, but Tatsuya gave the final word, saying they were celebrating Miyuki today. That brought her out of the kitchen and back into the living room; as if to make up for it, she led him to the three-seater and sat next to him at point-blank range.

When Minami entered the living room holding a tray and saw the two of them, her eyebrow twitched. Still, without saying anything and without making any more of an expression than that, she placed milk tea in front of Miyuki and coffee in front of Tatsuya, then stood next to the table.

Today, even Tatsuya didn’t tell her to sit down. In fact, he planned to release her from her chores, too, and let her go back to her room. But Miyuki apparently had something to talk to her about, and before she picked up her teacup, she spoke to her.

“Minami?”

“Yes, Big Sister Miyuki?”

“To tell you the truth, I’d like to have you in the student council as secretary.”

There was no conspicuous change in Minami’s face, but she tightened up, tensing. It didn’t take Tatsuya long to realize she did so to hold in her shock.

“…All right,” she answered very shortly, her voice not modest but stiff.

In truth, she probably felt opposed to joining the student council. But considering her mission as Guardian, she understood it would be useful in various ways to belong to it. The noncommittal response was an expression of that mental conflict.

“I see. You’d also be freed from the CAD carry restriction. You should probably become a student council member.”

“That’s right, Brother.”

Tatsuya supported Miyuki’s proposal, and Miyuki happily closed what little space was left between them.

Seeing her sibling masters going very close to zero distance, Minami realized that it wasn’t going to matter what she said.

Though Tatsuya may have begrudged it—and Miyuki the more so—the siblings’ day would not end after only a peaceful conversation like this. Once teatime was finished, Tatsuya used the same telephone from before in his room to make a call. The number he dialed was a direct line to the head of the Yotsuba. But Maya didn’t answer it.

“Mr. Tatsuya, I’m terribly sorry, but the mistress is currently indisposed.”

A surly explanation from Hayama. Seems like she’s pretending to be out, Tatsuya thought.

But that didn’t offend him. His business tonight was not something he needed to convey to Maya directly. It was enough to have an alibi—the truth—that he’d informed her in advance. If he could leave his message with Hayama, he could actually achieve his objective more smoothly than if he’d been talking to Maya.

“Then I’d like to inform her regarding the mission I received the other day.”

“I will hear it,” said Hayama, immediately nodding as though he’d predicted the request.

“I’d like to ask for the Kudou family’s help in searching for the target. I’ve already contacted the Fujibayashi family and made an appointment to meet with the previous Kudou head.”

“Oh…”

He couldn’t tell just from the voice whether Hayama was truly surprised or if he was just feigning it. Although, he wasn’t sure he was ever able to tell even when looking directly at the man’s face, either.

“You’ve decided to ask for General Kudou’s help rather than request assistance from the Independent Magic Battalion?”

“Wherever the original request came from, I decided it was better to avoid indebting myself to the JDF on a Yotsuba job.”

“And that you would indebt yourself to the Kudou?”

“It’s highly likely this Zhou person is allied with the Traditionalists, right? If he is, it’s a good idea to borrow the Nines’ help—they’ve been opposed to the Traditionalists for a long time. And the Kudou have a personal favor to pay back to me from the incident last month. Whether we owe them or they owe us, if things go on for too long, we’ll be stuck in a relationship. I thought it would be best to settle accounts before that happened.”

He heard Hayama’s jolly laughter through the receiver. He must have seriously thought it was funny. I wasn’t trying to amuse the crowd, here, thought Tatsuya in a wet-blanket way as he waited for Hayama to reply.

“You’re so young, Mr. Tatsuya, but you understand the subtleties of society quite well.”

Perhaps a benefit of his age, Hayama immediately recovered from his outburst of laughter. Still, though, he wasn’t trying to hide how amused he was.

“You’re right. Asking for the Kudou’s aid is a wise choice for several reasons. Very well, then. I’ll make sure the mistress knows that.”

“Thank you.” Tatsuya bowed to the telephone, even though he knew he wasn’t visible.

“You don’t need to relay every condition for obtaining their assistance to us. The mistress has told me to leave matters in this affair up to your discretion, whether it’s with the JDF or other Clans.”

After dropping that huge bomb at the very end, the butler hung up.

Hayama, who had been talking to Tatsuya with the receiver on speaker mode, put down the phone and bowed deeply to the person on the other side of the desk.

“Mistress, it is as you’ve heard.”

Tatsuya’s guess that Maya was pretending to be out had been correct. But even he hadn’t imagined she would be in the same room, listening in on him.

Maya had been holding her mouth shut painfully. It seemed she was having great trouble stifling laughter. Realizing, perhaps, at Hayama’s address that the call was over, she broke out laughing in a voice unbefitting a noblewoman.

Even faced with his mistress’s somewhat unrefined behavior, Hayama’s attitude remained modest. Not only did he not remonstrate her—his eyes, directed at Maya, didn’t even have a hint of criticism in them.

But then, maybe because she felt uncomfortable under his unimpressionable gaze, Maya’s laughter soon faded out.

“I’m sorry, Hayama. Tatsuya just says the most adorable things. I couldn’t help myself.” Maya dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief to wipe up the tiny tears that had formed. And then her expression shifted into one of complete seriousness. “Who on earth taught that boy such twisted wisdom?” she wondered, still serious, tilting her head.

“I believe what Mr. Tatsuya said is not mistaken…” Hayama explained.

“In one aspect, he’s right. But it’s not normal.” Whether or not it was because her nephew had been surprisingly defended, Maya’s tone suddenly turned less interested.

“Normally, you would try to build bonds through owing and repaying favors.”

“Perhaps Mr. Tatsuya thought it unnecessary to have that bond.”

“He’s so young.”

Hayama offered nothing to those words. Still, sensing that he was critical of her banter, she decided to change the topic.

“By the way, how goes the search for Gongjin Zhou? Have you found any new leads?”

Despite the sudden conversational shift, Hayama’s answer was fluid. “No new leads, Mistress. The last we saw of him was when we allowed him to escape after the small battle at the end of last month, next to Sanzen-in Temple in Kyoto.”

“That’s where the trail has gone dry, then,” she muttered bitterly. “I doubt a famous temple like Sanzen-in would accommodate foreign magicians trying to bring this nation harm… The Traditionalists must be working behind the scenes again.”

Banding together and transcending schools and styles for the protection of ancient magic traditions—it sounded good when you put it that way. In reality, however, even though the Traditionalists willingly participated in old Lab Nine, the organization of ancient magicians harbored misplaced resentment toward the families of the current Nine for the childish reason of not having been given their desired outcome. Now they engaged in indiscriminate, disorderly, harassing, hostile actions toward them. Maya hated them in a different way than the families of the Nine: for their infantile mentality.

“Mistress, should we not relay this information to Mr. Tatsuya?”

“No need. We have Mitsugu doing an exhaustive search of the Oohara region, right? Besides, he wouldn’t stay very long in the same place.”

Hayama gave a wordless bow to his master’s remark.

Tatsuya’s life lately had fallen into a pattern: at night, real-time development (i.e. practice) of the new spell at Yakumo’s temple; sleep; early-morning training; and after that, school if it was a weekday or theoretical development of the new spell if it was a holiday.

Today, September 30, was a Sunday. Once again, after breakfast, he holed up in the basement laboratory and poured his efforts into resolving the points of issue with the new spell.

“…No problems in the baryon-extraction process. If dismantling was all I had to do, it would be easy—and I’ve gotten the speed and uniformity up to the required standards.”

Words murmured to himself, not accidentally but purposefully. Right now, Tatsuya was in such a corner that he had to speak aloud like this to get his ideas in order.

“The movement-type spell that comes after it doesn’t have a problem, either. It’s essentially the same as gas movement. I could use Lorentz force like Lina, but considering FAE’s properties, it would be faster to move it directly with magic.”

Tatsuya heaved a sigh. In the end, this was his only conclusion:

“The key must be the mechanism for finishing the activation of the movement-type magic within a short enough time for FAE to have meaning.”

After using dismantling magic, he had to complete the movement-type magic in an extremely short period of time, before the laws of nature regained their compelling force. If he just had to output a magic program, he actually had an advantage over regular magicians because he had flash casting. But to complete the spell, he’d need influence. He’d never had any more influence than he needed for Dismantle and Regenerate—and that was the problem.

Feeling the need for a change in pace, and since it was lunchtime anyway, Tatsuya decided to go up to the first floor.

It wasn’t long after he finished climbing the stairs that he sensed the abnormality. The presence of something inhuman looking at the inside of the house.

A compound form? No, a synthetic spirit?

Synthetic spirit was the modern magic name referring to certain kinds of shiki (like shikigami or shiki demons). Spirits were psionic information bodies that lingered in the Idea even after their corresponding phenomenon had passed, becoming isolated. Synthetic spirits, then, were isolated information bodies brought forth and created by artificially inducing this spirit creation process, mainly with ancient magic techniques. However, not all shiki—isolated information bodies able to be employed toward a directed purpose—came about as a result of this method. In fact, it was more common to capture an isolated psionic information body possessing the core of a pushion information body that had occurred naturally, and then simply use that.

This isolated information body was stopped in midair, stuck to the lengthwise surface of the wall around the house. It was blocked by the same defensive spell used on First High’s outer wall, seemingly unable to enter. Nevertheless…

No idea what kind of data that thing’s gotten.

Tatsuya didn’t believe he knew every magical technique under the sun. He couldn’t ignore the chance that this shiki had functions he didn’t know about and had searched the inside of the house from outside the defensive spell.

He set his eyes on the synthetic spirit again, through the house’s walls, analyzing its structural information.

An isolated information body constructed only of psions…

If it had no pushion information body core, it was indeed a synthetic spirit. In which case, he could dismantle it completely the same way he could with a magic program.

Tatsuya reached out with his right hand toward the synthetic spirit. He held no CAD.

[Variable input: target synthetic spirit’s structural information]

A process to construct a magic program, as a replacement for an activation sequence that would be output by a CAD, surged from the data sector in Tatsuya’s magic-calculation region, then was sent into its execution sector.

[Magic program projection: Dismantle, activate]

An invisible flash of light burst out.

The synthetic spirit’s structural information binding was completely split apart, and its psionic information body was reduced to a clump of chaotic psions, swallowed into the information dimension—the Idea.

As soon as he opened the living room door, Miyuki pressed him for answers.

“Brother, what was that just now?”

Her pressing, though, wasn’t out of anger; the look on her face was one of concern.

“You saw that?” breathed Tatsuya in admiration.

Miyuki must have picked up on the fact that he’d used Dismantle. Being impressed with someone noticing magic he’d used was, in another light, a show of pride in believing his magic couldn’t easily be noticed, but this was not conceit. In fact, Minami, who had followed after Miyuki, didn’t seem to understand what they were talking about.

“I didn’t perceive it clearly enough to say I saw it, but…I had a feeling you’d just used Dismantle.”

“Yeah. A synthetic spirit was spying on the house,” explained Tatsuya, nodding; he hadn’t intended to tell her personally, but he also hadn’t intended to hide it from her. “I think the job I took on the other day was the reason.”

“You mean this was the doing of—Gongjin Zhou, was it?”

“It was probably one of his subordinates or someone trying to protect him,” Tatsuya explained, giving an uncharacteristically obvious sigh. “They must have tailed Fumiya and Ayako.”

Miyuki and Minami widened their eyes at that.

“Wait… I can’t believe they would let that happen with Ayako there.”

Miyuki’s shock was founded in her belief that his guess was absolutely true, but Minami didn’t look like she had room to doubt that, either.

“Probably on purpose.”

“Ayako purposely led the enemy to our house?!”

Psions began to swirl around Miyuki, the symptom of a magical misfiring.

But Miyuki had matured, too. Before her unconscious magic could manifest, it was held in check by her will. Tatsuya watched as this happened, his eyes narrowed in approval.

“Not exactly, I think. What probably happened was that Ayako… Actually, both her and Fumiya were forbidden from throwing them off or contacting them in any way.”

Miyuki didn’t completely regain her calm upon hearing her brother’s opinion, but she did get some of it back. “I suppose…we don’t even need to think about who forbade them. But why in the world would she do such a thing?”

“We won’t know the truth unless we ask, but she might intend to use me as bait.”

“As bait?!”

Miyuki was naturally angry. Tatsuya smiled. “Miyuki, don’t be so mad. I just said we won’t know the truth unless we ask.”

“But…”

Miyuki was already in tunnel vision—anything other than that possibility was unthinkable. But Tatsuya didn’t chide her for that.

“And it’s a logical move to use me as bait. We’re up against someone strong enough to deal a major wound to Mitsugu Kuroba. We still don’t know everything he has up his sleeve, either. If you look at it tactically, she’s not mistaken to place me in the line of fire—I’d never ultimately be hurt. So don’t be upset,” he said, still smiling.

“Brother!”

But that answer, even more so than the stuff about being bait, was intolerable for Miyuki.

“Please do not speak in such self-neglecting tones! You must know it is not enough for you to simply not die or not have any lasting wounds!”

Her unexpected show of determination left no room for Tatsuya to make excuses.

“And above all, I beg you to consider how I would feel if I learned you were hurt even a little bit!”

“…Sorry,” managed Tatsuya in apology. “Minami, sorry for making you wait. Lunch is ready, isn’t it?” he asked her, trying to change the subject.

“Yes, Big Brother Tatsuya. Big Sister Miyuki, please come to the dining room as well.”

The fact that Minami didn’t consider doing anything like teasing Tatsuya even a little pointed to how she really was a good, honest person.

At the exact time Tatsuya dismantled the synthetic spirit, or shikigami…

“Whoa!”

In a small park about five hundred meters away from Tatsuya’s house, a man around thirty sitting on a bench suddenly cried out in surprise.

The man sitting next to him frantically looked around, left and right. The perception-blocking field he had up was working properly. Though he knew nobody would perceive them and that nobody would remember their voices, he still lowered his own and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“The shikigami was erased…”

“Erased? Not returned or stolen?”

The first man shook his head several times as if to say he didn’t understand. “I suddenly lost contact with it.”

“You mean the person in that house used a dispeller?”

“No! …Well, I don’t know.” His bewilderment reaching a peak, the man gave a squeal before settling down somewhat. “I didn’t feel magic being used. You didn’t, either, did you?”

“Well, no, I suppose not…”

These two were the ancient magicians probing Tatsuya’s house, each with his own role. One of them controlled the shikigami, and the other ensured safety. In order to prevent any damage from a “rebound,” the one keeping watch had used a bounded-field spell and also had up a magical radar that would sense the initial signs of magic.

“But a shikigami would never vanish naturally without a spell to influence it, would it? And I doubt you’d mess up controlling it.”

“Of course not! But…”

Giving another perplexed look, the man shook his head, slightly downcast.

And then a shadow suddenly fell across the ground where his eyes were looking.

The two men let out a cry. Their shock was at the figure who had clearly perceived them and approached, despite the one man having put up a field that would prevent anyone from coming close. But upon seeing the person clearly, the men’s shock changed to caution and combativeness.

They were aware of the amicable relationship between the Shiba siblings and the Ninefold Temple. The name of its head priest, Yakumo Kokonoe, was like thunder in its fame, and it had been engraved upon their minds before they’d even undertaken this mission. They glanced at each other for a moment, then decided to run away rather than take the initiative.

The instant they began to rise, the monk standing in front of them rang a vajra bell, as though he’d been waiting for it.

The clear tone rang out from three directions around the pair.

Clearly taken aback, the man who’d been sitting on the right looked to his right, and the man who’d been sitting on the left looked to his left.

Two other monks, looking almost like twins to the one in front, were shaking vajra bells in the exact same way.

As the two men were getting up, the strength left their legs.

By the time they realized they were under a spell, the greater part of their consciousnesses had already faded.

Tatsuya, who had visited the Ninefold Temple again that night to use its underground training facility, was invited into a monk’s room shortly after arriving. It was the room he’d used for discussion during the Parasidoll incident. As he took a seat, Yakumo began to speak without any preface.

“Seems you’re wrapped up in another troublesome matter.”

With just that, Tatsuya realized he was talking about the shikigami from earlier that day. “I’m sorry, Master. Did I make work for you?”

Now that he thought about it, a long-range search spell being used in the next town over, in what was basically their backyard, was not something Yakumo—or rather, his disciples—would sit back and allow to happen unopposed.

“I have quite a few hot-blooded disciples, you see,” said Yakumo with a pained grin, an indirect affirmation of Tatsuya’s question. “What happened this time?”

Tatsuya vacillated over how he should answer or if he should even answer at all. But only for a brief moment. He decided to take the middle ground between answering and refusing to answer.

“I took on a job, and I think this trouble was related to it.”

“A job? From Kazama?”

“No, not from the military.”

Yakumo’s eyes narrowed into a smile. And as they did, a strong light shone from them. “May I ask the details?”

“It will probably have me going to the Kyoto area. I’d like to settle things myself without bothering you with this, Master.”

The corners of Yakumo’s lips turned up more. His eyes softened, and his subtle smile become a real one. “You can speak your mind. I have something of a connection with the Traditionalists myself.”

Tatsuya was surprised he would come out and mention them by name, but because of that, he was now sure the casters who had been probing his house had fallen into Yakumo’s hands.

“So the ancient magician group that people call the Traditionalists was related to this after all?”

“They’re not exactly called that—they just call themselves that. Though…”

Yakumo being a stickler on that point struck Tatsuya as amusing, but he refrained from letting it show. “All the more reason I can’t ask for your help on this, Master. Infighting among ancient magicians would be no laughing matter.”

Many among the nation’s ancient magicians reacted to the moniker Traditionalist with more than displeasure. The ones calling themselves that in the first place hadn’t exactly remained loyal to the traditional arts—they were the ones who had participated in old Lab Nine, seeking modern magic know-how. For spell casters who strictly adhered to tradition, seeing those opportunists calling themselves traditional seemed a shameless act. Many casters involved with shadier work also belonged to the Traditionalists, so suggestions that the Traditionalists needed to be purged were certainly more than whispers among members of publicly known ancient magic groups.

“Well, well. It seems I’m still a long way from enlightenment.” Perhaps realizing that he’d been feeling uncharacteristically belligerent, Yakumo gave an embarrassed grin.

“By the way, you’re keeping the guys who were peeping on the house here, right? I have one or two things I’d like to ask them, if it’s okay.”

“I don’t think that would work right now.”

Yakumo’s answer to Tatsuya’s question came with a smile that would freeze the pit of your stomach.

“They’re a little tired at the moment. I have them resting somewhere quiet.”

Tatsuya, of course, wouldn’t let that degree of pressure bowl him over. Insincere smile still on his face, he continued his inquiry, tone casual. “I see. Then would you be able to tell me their identities, at least?”

“Sure. They were feral magicians employed by the Traditionalists.”

“Feral?” repeated Tatsuya dubiously. “You mean freelancers?”

“You could call them that.”

“I didn’t know we had them in Japan.”

Magicians were a rare human resource. Nations were exhaustive in their management of them, from children to the elderly, from upstanding citizens to criminals. Tatsuya himself was an exception, in a way, removed from public management—but people like him were, for the most part, assets the Twenty-Eight kept as part of their private combat force; one could say the nation was indirectly managing them through the Ten Master Clans system. The fact that there were magicians with practical magic capabilities who weren’t part of any organization came as a novel surprise.

“Well, sure. There’s quite a few cases where someone can’t learn modern magic, but they still learn to use a specific spell.”

“…Does that mean there are a lot of ancient-style freelancing magicians?”

“I couldn’t tell you a precise number, but I believe there’s more than a few of them.”

That all pointed to the possibility that Tatsuya might need to take on more magicians than he’d imagined thus far. He mentally adjusted the job’s expected difficulty upward.

October 1, 2096: First High’s new student council was inaugurated. Its members: Miyuki Shiba as president, Izumi Saegusa as vice president, Honoka Mitsui as treasurer, Minami Sakurai as secretary, and Tatsuya Shiba as executive secretary.

There were, of course, objections to this mysterious role of “executive secretary.” Even the faculty, which normally only ever gave the student council work and never interfered, asked them what was going on. By school rules, the student council member makeup was one president, one vice president, one treasurer, and one secretary. No executive secretary included—but when Miyuki gave a peremptory smile and said that it was simply a nickname and that it was officially a secretary, she shot down all opposing viewpoints. Not a soul could give voice to the reasonable objection of why they needed that nickname at all.

Tatsuya remaining a student council member was also something a majority of the students wanted. If Miyuki were to go out of control, only Tatsuya could stop her. That was a view shared by the juniors and seniors, and they knew that if they drove Tatsuya out of the student council, she would go crazy.

In this manner, this year’s First High student council did in a way present a look of dictatorship through fear, but it had also caused a somewhat beyond-redemption state where the students under its control thought it was a fun thing. Perhaps it might be called dictatorship-by-idol. For the dictator, it was a kind of paradise.

Of course, Miyuki had no ambitions to rule anything and even less of a desire to become a dictator. In truth, the role of student council president was a reluctant one for her. Her genuine feelings were that her brother should be the president instead. With the addition—a dangerous delusion no matter who you asked—that if he were president, then she could devote all of herself to him, whether it was as vice president, secretary, or tea pourer.

In any case, Miyuki didn’t want to place Tatsuya in a position lower than herself. That would constantly remind her of their relationship as members of the Yotsuba family, and she couldn’t stand that. By going so far as to trump up the executive secretary title, which was useless in official matters, she settled things in a way that pleased her.

Anyway, with all that in play, Miyuki had spent an hour during lunch break and after school persuading those dubious, objecting, and opposing viewpoints to Tatsuya’s installation as executive secretary into oblivion, and now calm had finally returned to the student council room.

As though he’d aimed for that exact timing, the new disciplinary committee chairman—which had changed along with the new student council inauguration—came to the student council room for greetings.

“Umm, I look forward to working with you for the next year.”

“Thank you. I do as well, Yoshida.”

With Mikihiko nervous and unable to rid himself of his formality toward her despite maintaining a friendly attitude, Miyuki gave him back a smile filled with familiarity.

Contrary to the majority prediction that Shizuku would take over for Kanon, Mikihiko had been chosen as the new committee chairman. The committee had taken a vote from its nine members, and Mikihiko got five votes, while Shizuku got four. Incidentally, Mikihiko had voted for Shizuku, and vice versa. Some had tried to block Mikihiko’s induction, as he used to be a Course 2 student, but with Shizuku radiating an imposing aura from her whole body that said that’s annoying and dumb, most of the members had yielded.

Shizuku, for her part, was ignoring Mikihiko and having a nice little girls’ conversation with Honoka: “Isn’t it great? Tatsuya got to stay in the student council.” “Yep…”

Normally the first meeting after elections between the student council and disciplinary committee was all about who to replace the retired disciplinary committee members with, but since the student council’s recommended committee members all happened to be juniors who stayed with the committee, Mikihiko’s conversation really did end as only a greeting. He seemed to be thinking about the rest of the various paperwork still to be done and looked like he didn’t have enough time for it. Tatsuya caught him and brought him to a stand-alone terminal in the corner of the room.

Sensing something amiss, Mikihiko sat down in front of the terminal Tatsuya was standing at and asked in a low voice, “What’s wrong, Tatsuya?”

“I want you to look at this first.”

Without directly answering the question, Tatsuya typed on the terminal’s keyboard with one hand.

Rows of characters and graphs came up on the monitor.

“Is this an activation sequence?”

The machine-language activation sequence hadn’t been converted into psion signals but instead into an easily readable modeling language and graphs.

“This is…an activation sequence describing the structure of a shikigami? I’m surprised you found data this rare.”

“It was a coincidence. Anyway, what I wanted to ask was, does shikigami structure vary by school?”

Mikihiko seemed to think he’d found this in a library somewhere. Tatsuya asked about what it was in a roundabout way, without saying he’d analyzed and put together the structure on his own.

“Of course, yeah. And they’re usually pretty easy to spot. This one, for example… I think it’s based on a shugendo system. I’m pretty sure it’s a shikigami used by casters in the Touzan school of shugendo.”

“Shugendo has factions?”

“They’re not factions so much as schools of thought—or, I guess, sects. This is Shingon Buddhism-type shugendo.”

“Shingon? I thought shikigami were a technique in onmyoudou and Taoism. Esoteric Buddhism has ways to employ shikigami, too?”

Mikihiko nodded, feathers preening a bit. “Sure do. But esoteric Buddhists call them doctrines. They’re essentially the same.”

He casually looked back at the monitor and then made a surprised face. “What’s this? It’s been arranged, and in a weird way…”

After staring at the monitor for a short while, Mikihiko peered up at Tatsuya, looking like he’d figured it out.

“I get it. I know why you were sneaking around the subject now. You found this on an underground website, didn’t you?”

“Why would you think that?”

Tatsuya’s question was an honest request for an answer, but Mikihiko nodded, his face one of understanding. “This shikigami is clearly for spying, isn’t it?”

“Is that right?”

Tatsuya meant that in the sense of Shikigami had such subtle usage differences?

But Mikihiko seemed to have interpreted it in a more limited way. “It’s clearly something you’d use for illegal purposes.”

“I see. So it was dangerous… I made the right choice coming to you with this. I’ll erase the data.”

“Yeah, that’s for the best.” Mikihiko grinned, still perky from the casual flattery.

Mikihiko returned to the disciplinary committee HQ to draft his patrol records—apparently, it had been quite a while since the chair person had done their own activity logs. A short time before closing, he went to the club committee to say hello to its new chairman.

“Igarashi, congratulations on becoming chairman.”

“Y-yes! Thank you very much, Chairman!”

The new chairman was nervous—or rather, hysterically skittish—with Miyuki there.

“We will probably need to call on the club committee many times to keep the student council running smoothly. I look forward to working with you.”

“S-s-s-same goes to you! We will probably need to have the student council members’ help with several things. I hope we can help each other in the future!”

Izumi, watching Miyuki and Igarashi’s interaction from a short distance away, whispered, “He seems a little unreliable,” to Honoka, who was standing next to her. Honoka simply gave her a pained grin in response.

Miyuki and the new club committee chairman’s meeting ended, and the student council members started preparing to go home, too. This “preparation,” unlike schoolwork in the previous century, didn’t require them to take home any textbooks. As for gym and practice uniforms, they could use the school’s cleaning service for no charge. On a regular day, they’d be bringing at most their personal information terminal and a few other small items, and if using a CAD with exchangeable storage like Tatsuya, the cartridges for it. With almost no time required to get all one’s belongings together, the main “preparation” involved things like checking data backups and verifying leftover tasks.

“The new chairman Igarashi seemed a little weakhearted—or rather, quiet, didn’t he?”

While they worked, Izumi suddenly, as though just remembering, gave her impressions on the new club committee chairman, Igarashi, to Miyuki.

“Yes, he seemed quite nervous. I wonder why?”

“Nervous?” said Izumi rather dubiously.

“Miyuki, did you know about Igarashi before?”

With Miyuki wavering on how best to answer Izumi’s very straightforward response, Tatsuya threw her a life raft. “Yes. We’re in different classes, but Igarashi is near the top in practical ability grades, so we’ve been grouped a few times in data measurements. But I think Honoka or Shizuku would know him better than me. I believe they’re in the same club.”

When Miyuki glanced at her, Honoka said, “He’s the little brother of last year’s girls’ biathlon club president.”

“His magic of choice isn’t right for it, so his competition results aren’t great. But his actual skills, at least, are excellent.”

“At least?” repeated Tatsuya, sensing something behind Shizuku’s choice of words.

“Igarashi is, well…not exactly weak-willed, but he has a tendency to step back when push comes to shove. It leads him to making reckless decisions when cornered and self-destructing… Maybe the best way to put it is his personality isn’t good with competition.”

“He’s better as a staff officer or a vice general. He’s not really meant to be a leader.”

After Honoka struggled to choose a more mild way to express it, Shizuku ruined it by coming down with a more severe evaluation.

“Come to think of it, why wasn’t Tomitsuka made chairman?” offered Mikihiko, who had once again come to the student council room after finishing his disciplinary committee work.

“It was really looking like he was a shoo-in going into it, huh?” remarked Kasumi casually, perhaps used to it because they were both disciplinary committee members.

“I’m sure Hattori had his own ideas in mind.”

Implying it was the job of the club committee to come up with their own chairman, Miyuki urged an end to the gossip about Igarashi before it could turn into backbiting.

With the student council elections over, at a stopping point after the new student council member choices, preparations for the Thesis Competition were finally in full swing. Though the Kyoto version gave pure academic fields the advantage, any magic theory competition would always require a magical demonstration, and the creation of the experimental tools for that was proceeding at a fever pitch.

Unlike last year, though, that work wasn’t located in the courtyard but mainly in lecture halls. The bombastic work scenes of last year had retreated into the shadows; now, students silently struggling with intricate blueprints were the focus of observation.

On a second-level seat in the lecture hall, looking down at the work led by Isori to create a projection-type magic circle, Tatsuya was having a security meeting with Mikihiko.

“…Then it’s all right if we choose volunteer security members from everywhere again this year and not just from the disciplinary committee?”

“Of course. There’s no way the nine people in the committee could handle everything themselves anyway. I wanted to recruit volunteers from the local security force, too, not just our representative guards.”

“Hattori is in charge of the whole security detail this year, right?”

“He’s currently in an online meeting with the students in charge of other schools’ security.”

“They weren’t mad that a First High student has been in charge of everything for two years in a row now?”

“No, that’s fine. Apparently, there’s an unwritten rule that whichever school wins Monolith Code at the Nines gets to nominate the head of security.”

“Really? I didn’t know it was like that.”

“Yeah. I guess Juumonji wasn’t in charge last year just because he was from the Ten Master Clans, huh?”

Leo and Erika had broken into Tatsuya and Mikihiko’s conversation. They’d been quiet until now so as not to get in the way, and as such, their remarks here seemed unintentional, caused by surprise more than anything else.

“Yeah, that’s the first I’ve heard of it, too.”

“I actually didn’t know until a little while ago, either. I guess there’s things you’d never know about unless you asked.”

Despite the interruption, though, neither Tatsuya nor Mikihiko, respectively, looked like they minded it.

“Anyway, Tatsuya, which do you want to handle? Escort or security?”

“You’re assuming I’m going to help out at all.”

“Well, of course. I’ll be relying on you.”

That was a brazen way of putting it, but Tatsuya didn’t indicate any refusal to Mikihiko’s request—he just grinned without saying anything. He’d come to talk to Mikihiko to get the student council and disciplinary committee on the same page and helping each other, but he’d been willing to help out personally as well.

“Let’s see—I’ll go with local security, then.”

Being in Kyoto would be more convenient for his “work” anyway.

“Then let me help you out there.” Thinking something upon hearing that, Leo suddenly raised his hand. “And if it’s local security, we’ll need to prepare beforehand.”

…Actually, it was plain as day what he’d thought of.

“What? No, I’m going with Tatsuya to Kyoto, so you go be a bodyguard instead. That’s what you’re good at, right? Being a meat shield?” objected Erika in a tone that certainly did not sound like a joke at all.

“The whole point of a meat shield is to get beaten and stabbed! I’m a human being, you know!”

“There’s also the option of getting shot.”

The last part, of course, was a joke. Mikihiko was more interested in the first half of what she’d said, because it had sounded serious. “Erika… If you’re going to Kyoto, then you’d be staying over, right?”

“Well, of course I would.”

These days, it certainly wasn’t impossible to do a round trip between Tokyo and Kyoto in a single day. On business, in fact, it was the obvious choice. However, they needed to set up security this time, so they needed to not only look around the new Kyoto International Conference Hall, where the competition would be held, but a fairly wide area around that building as well. It was hard to imagine something like last year happening so quickly again, but they couldn’t let themselves slack off on security after something like that had happened last year.

“Does that mean…you want to go on an overnight trip with Tatsuya…?”

“Don’t…don’t be stupid!”

Erika, suspected of the desire for a premarital voyage, for some reason didn’t blush but paled.

“Wh…what…?”

Her energy was determined—no, desperate—actually, like her life depended on it, and it made Mikihiko trip over his words. When he heard this, the color drained from his face, too.

“What would you do if Miyuki heard you?! We’d be in serious trouble even though it was a joke!”

Mikihiko’s eyes quickly darted up and down, left and right. They were the eyes of someone at the center of a battlefield. Like a man facing death around every corner, and that was no exaggeration.

Not that Miyuki wouldn’t take it as a joke—it was more that they’d still be in trouble even if she knew it was. Erika knew Miyuki wouldn’t tolerate the very thought of what was within the joke to be spoken aloud. Mikihiko thought that was too possible—no, it was inevitable. Couldn’t he feel an absolute-zero chill pressing toward him even now…? He was seriously afraid.

But being so openly cautious and terrified was in itself imprudent behavior.

“…That’s my sister you’re talking about, you know.”

Creaks came from Mikihiko’s and Erika’s necks as they turned their heads toward where they’d heard the voice.

They found Tatsuya giving them a cold, penetrating grin.

“Geez, Miki… You had to go and shorten our life spans, didn’t you?”

“My name is Mikihiko…”

The usual argument from Mikihiko lacked energy. In reality, he harbored more sympathy for Erika right now than ever before.

Tatsuya hadn’t directly harmed them, exactly. He’d just given them that freezing-cold look. But that alone was enough to make Mikihiko feel like it had shaved years off his life.

It wasn’t the coldness of snow or ice. It was the chill of a polished blade. Something that would threaten your life more directly.

Erika felt something along the same lines, and her expression was exhausted, lifeless.

“Would you two give it a rest?” Tatsuya complained sullenly. “That’s still rude.”

Tatsuya probably wasn’t yet convinced of his friends’ attitudes. That sense of power crushing them was already gone from his look, but it bore no explanation that he was unhappy. It wasn’t only the involved parties, Erika and Mikihiko, but the bystander Leo as well who strongly felt the need to change the topic.

“Uh, anyway, can’t we just all be on venue security? Chiyoda is probably gonna stick real close to Isori, and Nakajou has Kitayama, right?”

Though nothing had actually been done to him, Leo must have figured it would be immature to stay angry forever. The one to respond to his tact was Tatsuya.

“It’s not only Shizuku. They’re having Chikura and Mibu help guard her, too.”

Seeing Tatsuya’s aggressive response to the change of topic, Erika and Mikihiko breathed sighs of relief. Well, they didn’t actually do anything like that—they weren’t that careless—but it was plain from their attitudes that their tension had dissolved.

“And Kei’s good enough not to even need a bodyguard,” noted Erika.

“Kirihara apparently volunteered for Minakami’s escort, too,” said Mikihiko, referring to the bodyguard role for their other representative, Kerry Minakami.

Leo groaned when he heard that for some reason. “Minakami, huh… I feel like he needs a bodyguard least of all.” It seemed like he wasn’t satisfied with Kirihara guarding Kerry. “If you went down the school rankings of combat power, it’d be faster to count from the top for him, right? I guess Mikihiko would know that, though, since he put the team together.”

As Leo said, Kerry was one of the members of First High’s rep team, along with Hattori and Mikihiko, that snatched victory in this year’s Monolith Code. The powerful man had shown impenetrable defensive abilities and hadn’t allowed the enemy to interfere with their monolith even once.

“Regardless, Minakami has a wealth of knowledge about people’s magic on an individual basis. And the reason he could completely block off enemy attacks during Monolith Code was that he has this amazing special ability where the first time an opponent uses a spell, he gets a perfect read on it, and then the second time and later, he can cancel it out with the optimal counter-spell.”

Magic programs couldn’t interfere with magic programs. Information Boost was a technique to make an opponent’s spell misfire by raising the event stability, or how hard it is to alter events. Area Interference brushed aside an opponent’s event influence by applying event influence without a specifically defined alteration to a target zone. Neither of them actually interfered with the opponent’s magic program itself.

But if the spell resulted in interference with physical phenomena, it was no more than that: a physical phenomenon. Which meant that the results of two different alterations canceling each other out was perfectly possible. For example, if you used magic to place a decompressed mass of air in the flight path of a compressed-air bullet, the fact that one air mass was higher pressure than the air around it and the other was lower meant those things would cancel out, and when the magic program was unable to maintain its definitions, it would throw an error. In other words, the spell would stop. The phenomenon was called magic-canceling. If you had a much higher power of influence than the opponent, you could blot it out with an event alteration in the other direction and maintain your own spell. But if yours was only a little higher, it would clash with the event’s self-stabilization and the canceling phenomenon would occur with higher priority.

However, in order to consciously perform magic-canceling, you needed to accurately predict what sort of event alteration your opponent was going for, including its coordinates. This nullification of magic via canceling out was easy to say but hard to pull off.

“The thing where any magic he’s already seen once won’t work anymore? That’s kind of awesome.”

Even Leo, who made that light joke, fully understood how advanced the technique was.

“Ha-ha-ha. Anyway, what I mean is, Minakami is actually better at theory,” said Mikihiko as he went along and laughed at Leo’s childish joke, offering an answer that wasn’t really an answer.

The one who resolved the concerns about whether Minakami needed a bodyguard was Erika. “What you mean is, Kirihara would be the shield for that first shot,” she suggested, still bound to ideas of meat shields.

“Oh, I get it!” said Leo, immediately accepting it as soon as it was about someone other than him.

“The two of you, I swear…”

Mizuki’s cold eyes bored into them.

The shift from collective to small-group public transportation didn’t apply only to trains. It had become conventional to use “commuters,” or driverless taxis, to go between your home and the nearest station. To do so, you would use your Resident ID to call a commuter to your house, and when going from the station to your home, you would catch an empty car at the platform in front of the station. For street corners where there was no commuter platform, you could access the public transportation network from your portable device and call an empty car.

Tatsuya and the others, too, lived a normal life in this aspect, using commuters to go back and forth between home and the station. It wouldn’t be necessary if they could use magic, but unfortunately, magic usage was tightly restricted by laws and ordinances. Modern society was still not so lenient toward magicians to let it be used willy-nilly on the streets.

Even now, having come very late due to Thesis Competition prep work, Tatsuya, Miyuki, and Minami were waiting in front of the station under a sky dyed violet.

An absence of empty cars in front of the station was not that rare a thing. Having no wait time ever would mean there was an excess of cars in the system—in other words, a system of oversupply was wasteful and unnecessary.

Besides, the allocation of cabinets was linked to their service data, so the system almost never made you wait more than five minutes. That is to say, enough of them were available that their users wouldn’t feel inconvenienced.

In fact, the three of them waited only about two minutes this time around. A commuter approached in the designated lane in front of the station. It stopped once at the arrival platform, about ten meters from the boarding platform where Tatsuya and the others waited, and a single man who looked to be in his early thirties alighted from it. The doors closed automatically, and seeing the wheeled vehicle start moving again without going out onto the public road and instead slowly approach them, Tatsuya put his right hand into the pocket hiding his CAD.

Startled, Minami looked up at Tatsuya’s face, then hastily over toward the commuter. As she watched, before the parked cabinet’s door could open, psionic waves burst from inside.

Before Tatsuya could pull out his CAD, Minami constructed a cylindrical anti-object, heat-resistant barrier. The targets of protection were herself and Miyuki. The reason she hadn’t put Tatsuya behind the barrier was so it wouldn’t obstruct his movement—the result of repeated training for the last half a year.

However, the psionic waves that poured out of the vehicle’s interior weren’t for casting magic.

Psionic noise scattered chaotically, echoing, overlapping. No effects that would block magic like Cast Jamming. Instead, its density was far higher than Cast Jamming, enough to block the magical perception to identify the psions. You could probably call it a psionic smoke screen.

Self-destructing a synthetic spirit?! Is it like a psionic time bomb?!

With Miyuki and Minami falling into confusion, Tatsuya immediately saw through to what the attack really was.

If this is a magical smoke screen, then next… “Minami, Descending Whirlwind.”

“Y-yes, sir!”

Minami cast the spell as soon as his words were done. A rotating water jet molded into a violent wave before abruptly changing into a thick mist.

It would have been a struggle to create even a simple magical wind had it been after the dispersion of mist. The air that was the target of her airflow manipulation would end up mixed in with the tiny water droplets under the enemy’s influence.

But the point in time Minami cast the spell was before the mist reached their group. The only reason the difficulty of manipulating airflows increased when tiny, highly dense water droplets mixed in with the air was that the droplets obstructed the caster’s aim; being damp after you finished taking aim wouldn’t hamper the spell.

As a result, the air, drawn near from the sky by the Descending Whirlwind spell, created a raging whirlwind on the ground. It blew outwardly, with Minami at the center, immediately blowing away the veil of mist that had blocked their vision.

The short man who had jumped out of the commuter parked right in front of them locked eyes with Tatsuya, who was at the front of the school-age group of three. A small, modern crossbow was gripped in the man’s hand, and his eyes were wide with astonishment—apparently, it surprised him that his magical dazzler had been so quickly broken. However, it would have been too nice to call getting flustered over something a little unexpected inexperienced. All it was…was an opening.

And Tatsuya would never let that go. He flung out his right leg toward the man. A dropping, spinning kick—that slammed the crossbow out of the man’s hand.

Tatsuya continued around, bending his leg and preparing a side kick.

Released, the attack gouged the man in the gut. He crashed into the commuter cabinet behind him and slumped against it. He must have hit the back of his head—not only did he not stand up, he didn’t even make a move after that. Either his consciousness was fading or he was out cold.

The crossbow’s safety was apparently already disengaged; when it fell to the road, an arrow fired from it. Fortunately, though, it bounced harmlessly against the road.

As his leg came down, Tatsuya sensed a shimmering of psions—someone trying to build a magic program—to his right. He whipped around in that direction. The one who had given off the magical premonition was the man who had left the commuter at the arrival platform.

This time, Tatsuya tried to pull out his CAD for sure—but stopped halfway through.

Before he could react, Miyuki had already intercepted.

The first one to commence the magical build process was the man, assumed to be an enemy. But the one who actually activated her spell first was Miyuki.

Their assailant fired his spell. Tatsuya’s information body perception ability caught the magic program shooting toward a spot a meter above his sister’s head. And he also saw that magic program dissipating, unable to do anything.

“Brother, that was visible, right?”

Miyuki’s question was a confirmation of whether the psionic wave sensors next to the roadway cameras had recorded the enemy’s spell—in other words, to build an alibi for justified self-defense.

“Probably. And even if it didn’t, we have witnesses, so it should be fine.”

He realized that at least four other people aside from them in this station had reacted to the initial psionic wave and expanded activation sequences. He saved their faces in his memory as well. If they were magicians, they would have seen the exchange just now.

Even during the siblings’ short Q&A session, the man fired his spell three times.

Miyuki’s Area Interference blocked them all.

The stranger set about building a fifth magic program. This spell wasn’t for attacking—it was for escaping.

The enemy turned on his heel.

“You won’t get away,” declared Miyuki quietly.

The man vanished from sight for a moment, and then when he regained color a moment later, he fell face-first with the movements of a stringless marionette.

Tatsuya squatted next to the man and put a hand to his neck. Next, he held his hand up to the man’s nose, confirming that he was still breathing, albeit weakly.

“That shouldn’t leave any lasting effects. You’ve gotten better, Miyuki.”

What she’d used was a spell that lowered a person’s body temperature and took away their bodily functions. It was a difficult technique to temper, leaving aftereffects on the target if you were just a few degrees too low, but this time it had been skillfully kept within a range so as to not overdo it on the attack. Soaking up the praise, Miyuki thanked her brother, her cheeks flushing slightly.

The man’s face was a mess, though, since he’d fallen in a semiconscious state and couldn’t break the fall. She was a blushing beauty in front of a man stained by bruises, scrapes, and a nosebleed. If an outsider were to view the scene, they’d get a pretty surreal impression.

Still, as for the severity of their wounds, the short man Tatsuya had kicked away had it far worse. Tatsuya had tied up the man’s hands and feet so that he couldn’t escape and left him on the roadside. In terms of relative inhumanity, Tatsuya would certainly be declared the winner.

“Big Brother Tatsuya?”

He didn’t bother to consider aiding the target they’d brought down; when Minami addressed him, he simply stood back up.

“Please look at this.” She held up the crossbow bolt in her hand.

“Arrow of Demons’ Bane, as I thought,” murmured Tatsuya quietly. The bolt was actually floating above her palm.

“…You have some idea as to what this is?”

It must have struck Minami as strange that he didn’t show even the least bit of surprise. Her abstract question was a reflexive one.

“Well, I only saw it right before I kicked him.”

Minami wasn’t flabbergasted; there was no screech of In that instant?! like there might have been with others. She was a maid and a bodyguard raised by the Yotsuba; she’d seen many who seemed to defy common sense during her training at the main Yotsuba residence. In fact, because of their differences in level, her standard was fixed firmly on the nonsensical end. To her, and perhaps her alone, Tatsuya’s physical abilities were plenty within a “sensical” range.

Tatsuya had only glanced at it, but Miyuki gazed at it fixedly. “A tool for obstructing magic, used in ancient magic, right?”

“Technically, a tool that disrupts magic using spiritual beings,” Tatsuya explained. “It doesn’t have much effect on types of magic that directly fire a magic program at a target.”

Miyuki tilted her head to the side. “Did he believe we were magicians of ancient magic?”

“Well, unlike the real Arrow of Demons’ Bane, this arrow would be lethal enough just by striking its target…” muttered Tatsuya cynically, gazing at the highly sharpened arrowhead.

From its appearance alone, it was a perfectly regular, short arrow made for crossbows, its only distinctive features that the shaft and the arrowhead were integrated, and it used real bird feathers. But the shaft, which appeared to be simple compressed wood, was actually fashioned from a specially compressed material made from incantations (or at other times, mantras or Shinto prayers) written on wood that’d been shaved down the long way—like a thin roll of paper, all bundled up together. Though its name and construction were reminiscent of Shinto rituals, Shinto-type casters wouldn’t be the only ones using it. It was a common tool of ancient magicians who used letters as a medium.

“Yeah, this is a weapon with SB magic in mind. Unless they just made a mistake and attacked the wrong people, they must have had a reason to mistake us for ancient magicians.”

But before he could say any more, police approached through the crowd, announcing themselves.

“We’ll talk about the rest once we get home.”

The incident had happened in front of the station nearest their house. There were plenty of witnesses, and they were doubtlessly caught on the roadside cameras. Running away would be a foolish move.

Tatsuya sighed, thinking about how long they’d be in custody for questioning.

The three of them were released from the station after approximately one hour. Even that could be called quick. The reason their position as victims hadn’t been immediately treated as suspicious must have been because they had data from the roadside cameras and psionic wave sensors.

“And now it’s really late.”

Considering just the time of day, it wasn’t late enough to be called that. But his mental fatigue was making it feel a lot later than it really was.

That didn’t go only for Tatsuya, either.

“Yes, it is… I’ll get dinner ready at once.” Exhaustion was leaking through Miyuki’s voice as well.

“Big Sister Miyuki, you must allow me.” Minami, too, spoke in an unusually tired tone. Was it stubbornness, then, or earnestness that made her still fight for her right to stand in the kitchen? It was probably both, Miyuki found herself thinking.

“Really? Then maybe I’ll leave it to you.”

“Yes.”

Looking taken aback at how easily the Shiba sister had given in, Minami headed for the kitchen without changing her clothes first.

“Brother, I will prepare for tomorrow.”

But at that next remark, Minami turned around in surprise. A faint color of worry was apparent on her face. Tomorrow was the day they’d be visiting the Kudou estate. She was caught between two warring responsibilities—between needing to assist with those preparations as a maid, despite it only being an overnight stay, and the fact that she had to get dinner out soon.

“You don’t need to rush like that. Why don’t you both get changed first? We can take our time getting ready for tomorrow after we eat.”

“Yes, Big Brother Tatsuya. I will do that.”

For Minami, who could no longer make a move, Tatsuya’s words were a lifesaver.

“Big Brother Tatsuya has given us a command. Let us go, Big Sister Miyuki.”

Without giving Miyuki any time to put her two cents in, Minami chased her master up to the second floor.

In the end, Miyuki and Minami jointly pursued the preparations for Tatsuya’s part alone, and then they got themselves ready separately. Tatsuya had been smiling one of those what-else-can-you-do smiles as he watched them having fun fishing through his closet, discussing which things to bring.

And thus, after sitting down in the living room for their delayed teatime, Tatsuya began to speak to them about the earlier attack.

“Those guys earlier must have been ancient magicians. The Arrow of Demons’ Bane points to that, though the invisibility spell the other one used to try to escape wasn’t the kind that interferes with the reflection and refraction of light. Instead, it was a mental interference spell that makes it harder to perceive the caster. It’s in the same family as the technique Retsu Kudou used at the Nine School Competition opening ceremony last year.”

“Then were they sent by the Kudou family?” Miyuki asked.

Tatsuya shook his head. “If they were Kudou family casters, they wouldn’t have mistaken us for old-school magicians. They were probably sent by the Traditionalists, in fact—the faction opposing them.”

“Fumiya spoke of these Traditionalists as well… Their name is quite extravagant, but what traditions do they even espouse, and what do they entail?”

Miyuki tilted her head, dubious. Anybody who didn’t know the origin of the name Traditionalist would have certainly felt the same way.

“I doubt there’s much of a meaning at all,” Tatsuya quipped, grinning painfully at Miyuki’s harsh remark and shaking his head. As he did, though, he suddenly looked mildly surprised. “Minami, you seem to know of them.”

“Yes. I was taught at the main family house that they are a magical society to be cautious of. If I recall, they are an assembly of ancient magicians betrayed by old Lab Nine, who wish for revenge against the Ten Master Clans.”

Minami, who hadn’t shown any signs that she harbored doubts, did indeed know about them.

“I think it’s too much to decide their goals are revenge, but everything else is the same as what I know.”

A slight difference in perception still existed between them, but knowledge was always filtered through the process of its conveyance, so one could say this much was unavoidable.

“As for the reason they mistook us for ancient magicians… Miyuki, do you remember the other day when a synthetic spirit was trying to spy on the house?”

“Yes—that was this past Sunday.”

“Master’s pupils apparently captured the casters who did that.”

“Oh… Then they mistook us for students of Sensei’s as well?”

Miyuki nodded, convinced. On the other hand, though, it didn’t seem to sit well with Minami.

“What’s wrong, Minami?” asked Miyuki. “You know about Yakumo-sensei, don’t you?”

It wasn’t exactly keen of her, but Miyuki still noticed it and implied that if Minami had something to ask them, she needn’t hold herself back.

“Yes, well, I do, of course, know of him… But why would Lord Yakumo have captured the magicians searching this house?”

The light in Minami’s eyes was more than a simple question—it was suspicion. Miyuki didn’t know what was bothering her, but Tatsuya did.

“Actually, you’re misunderstanding. Miyuki and I aren’t under Master’s protection or anything.”

Minami had thought that if Tatsuya not only learned martial arts from him but entered under his patronage, that would be a kind of betrayal against the Yotsuba family.

“Master is always saying he’s a shinobi before a monk. As a shinobi, he probably can’t leave people sniffing around his neighborhood alone. Even if he’s not the one they’re spying on.”

“Is that how it is?”

That explanation seemed to finally persuade Minami; the suspicion vanished from her eyes.

“I learned two things thanks to the attack today,” Tatsuya said. Now that her odd suspicions had cleared, it was time to get down to business. “First, that the enemy—probably the Traditionalists—are clearly targeting us.”

Tension shot through Miyuki’s and Minami’s faces.

“Second, that the enemy doesn’t know our true identities.”

Miyuki successfully held back her surprise, but Minami gave a small cry.

“We know almost for certain the enemy was trailing Fumiya and Ayako. They would have to know that they’re Kurobas and that the Kuroba are a family with ties to the Yotsuba. At the very least, Gongjin Zhou would have known the Kuroba handle shady business for the Yotsuba.”

And then, as if finding something funny, Tatsuya let out a chuckle.

“Brother?”

“Er, sorry. When I said the Kuroba handle shady business, it made it sound like the Yotsuba family handle the aboveground jobs, and that made me laugh. Don’t worry about it.” Tatsuya shook off the thought and got back on topic. “What I mean is, he may know that people related to the Yotsuba came to visit us, but not about our connection to the Yotsuba. In fact, they don’t even consider us magicians who are subordinate to the Yotsuba. If they did, they wouldn’t have come out with spell equipment to use against ancient magic.”

“You mean that…they see us as ancient magicians employed by the Kuroba, who themselves are subordinate to the Yotsuba?” Minami asked, her stomach tight with a vague sense of danger.

“That’s what it would mean. The enemy knows we exist but not who we are. They don’t know why the Kuroba chose us as collaborators.”

“In other words…there’s a possibility the enemy’s attacks could extend past us?” Minami finished.

Miyuki’s eyes widened a little, and Tatsuya’s narrowed slightly. “Yeah,” he affirmed. “We can’t ignore the chance that they’ll target someone like Erika or Mikihiko. Or the chance that they’d take Honoka or Mizuki captive.”

“Should we not ask Aunt Maya or Mr. Kuroba to assign bodyguards to them?” Miyuki was able to stay relatively calm because her brother wasn’t in a panic. Still, she knew this situation called for haste. The fact that she’d suggested going to Maya without hesitation was proof of that.

“Let’s not ask Aunt Maya. We might ask for bodyguards, but they might end up being used as bait.”

“Then what about Sensei?”

“Sounds expensive, but…I guess we don’t have a choice.” Tatsuya downed the contents of his cup and stood. “I’ll go see him now.”

He’d planned to head there to practice the new spell anyway, but he was ready to leave immediately. His attaché case with the CAD he used for the experimentation was waiting for him at the front door, too.

“You two get some sleep. And make sure to lock up,” he said to the women, removing his Trident CAD from the storage box near the front door and equipping it. A moment later, he completed his outfitting by throwing on a thin blouson over his head.

““Yes, of course.””

Seen off by the women of his household, who bowed and spoke in unison, Tatsuya stepped through the front door.