Chapter 3

It was Monday morning, the beginning of the second week of the new term.

Upon arriving in the Class 2-E classroom, Tatsuya was greeted—as had once been the norm—by Mizuki, who sat next to him.

“Good morning!” she chimed.

“Good morning, Mizuki.”

She met Tatsuya’s salutation with a smile—albeit a slightly awkward one.

If her smile had been perfectly natural, though, Tatsuya would’ve found it off-putting. But seeing his classmate forcing herself to be casual, he felt suddenly grateful for his friends.

If he’d been in Mizuki’s place, he was sure he’d want to keep his distance from anyone as suspicious as he was. Mizuki wasn’t deeply involved with the world of magicians, so it was no surprise that she’d be wary of the dreaded Yotsuba name—especially when it was someone who’d hidden their true identity for close to two years. And yet, here was Mizuki, an ordinary girl, making an effort to reach out to him in friendship. Tatsuya’s emotional sensitivity was not so poor that he’d take this for granted.

Just as he took his seat, the hall-facing window immediately to his right rattled open.

“Good morning, Tatsuya!”

Greeting him through the window was Erika. Leo wasn’t with her this morning, but Tatsuya avoided pointing that out, remembering how Erika had once angrily rebuked, Don’t pair us up like it’s the obvious thing to do!

And they weren’t a couple, after all, so it wasn’t particularly odd for them not to be together.

“And morning, Mizuki!” she finished.

“Morning, Erika!”

Mizuki smiled her trademark sunny smile, at which Erika nodded, satisfied. “That’s the spirit!”

Noting that Erika’s interference had brought about this change in Mizuki’s demeanor, Tatsuya ventured to ask, “What’s up, Erika? You seem happy.”

“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing,” replied Erika, as Tatsuya had expected.

When morning classes were over, Miyuki stood up and prepared to head to the practicum building to wait for Tatsuya. The practicum building had instruction rooms that were used for group combat training, and it had been their lunchtime spot for the past several days.

It would soon be a week since they’d started secretly having lunch together to avoid prying eyes. Miyuki was happy to get to spend time alone with Tatsuya, but it was a constant, lonely reminder of their inauspicious, uncelebrated relationship.

Just as Miyuki was leaving to meet up with Tatsuya, a voice called out to her from behind.

“Miyuki.”

It was Honoka.

“What is it?”

Honoka’s face was stiff with nervousness. Although her own expression didn’t betray it, Miyuki was nervous, too. It had been about a week since she’d exchanged any words with the girl other than what was needed for official student council business.

In fact, the entirety of Class 2-A was nervous, holding their breath and looking on as Miyuki and Honoka regarded each other.

“It—it’s lunchtime, right? Um, want to come to the student council room with me?” Honoka asked.

Miyuki couldn’t immediately reply. She herself had wanted to make up, but she’d never imagined that Honoka would take the initiative and approach her first.

Before Miyuki’s uncharacteristic silence could be misinterpreted as rejection, Shizuku cut in from the side and, with a few words, came to both Miyuki and Honoka’s rescue. “Oh, can I come, too?”

With a bright smile, Miyuki nodded to both of them.

By the time Tatsuya—who’d received a message on his portable terminal—arrived in the student council room, Miyuki, Honoka, and Shizuku were already sitting at a table.

But nobody was holding chopsticks yet. Miyuki’s bento box was unopened, and Honoka and Shizuku had nothing in front of them.

“Here he is. Thank you for making it.”

“Yes, and come have a seat, Tatsuya.”

Miyuki and Honoka both stood and gestured for him to sit. His place was next to Miyuki and directly across from Honoka. Shizuku also stood and went to the room’s dining cabinet where her and Honoka’s lunch trays had been kept warm.

The four enjoyed a pleasant meal. Honoka and Shizuku provided the table’s discussion topics, while Tatsuya and Miyuki broached nothing on their own. It was clear that Honoka and Shizuku were delicately avoiding subjects related to the Yotsuba family.

After Tatsuya and Miyuki returned their bento boxes to their carrying bag, and Honoka and Shizuku slipped their lunch trays into the dining cabinet’s return slot, Miyuki prepared tea for the four of them, and it was only then that the mood changed.

“Miyuki—”

Honoka suddenly stood and spoke, her voice and expression both stiff with nerves.

“Yes?” Miyuki’s smile disappeared, and she looked up at Honoka with a serious face.

From the side, Shizuku watched them both carefully. Tatsuya, too, quietly observed.

“Well… The thing is… I…” Honoka desperately wrung the words out of herself.

Miyuki waited, her eyes not straying from Honoka for even a moment.

“I-I’m not giving up!”

Miyuki, Tatsuya, and Shizuku all looked at Honoka—to see her intentions and to measure her determination.

“I’m not giving up on Tatsuya!” Honoka finished, not faltering despite the heavy gazes upon her.

“I can’t let you have him,” replied Miyuki without missing a beat. She then gracefully stood and extended her right hand to Honoka, as though offering a handshake.

“Losing isn’t an option for me.” Honoka took Miyuki’s hand, her smile brimming with competitive spirit.

Miyuki also smiled. That said, it was too sharp, too determined an expression to be called pleasant.

Tatsuya tried to force the faintest of smiles onto his face but couldn’t even manage that. Two girls had just declared themselves rivals for his affections. Unsurprisingly, he had no idea what kind of expression he was supposed to have.

Then there was Shizuku, who was even more stone-faced than usual. Well, normally she was merely hard to rouse, but she was far from expressionless. However, in this particular moment, she was deliberately maintaining a neutral expression.

The truth was that even now, she wanted Honoka to give up on Tatsuya as soon as possible. But Honoka had chosen to compete with Miyuki for Tatsuya’s heart. Shizuku knew a brutally thorny path lay ahead of her friend, and she was desperately trying to keep that knowledge from showing on her face.

The student council meeting held after classes were over for the day had a happy, cheerful atmosphere for the first time in quite a while. Both Izumi and Minami noticed the change, but neither girl was the type to pry. Their relief at the oppressive mood lifting was nonetheless obvious in their faces and demeanor.

But not everyone was so tactful—as one might expect in a room full of high school students.

It was near the school’s closing time when Kasumi came up the stairs to the student council room and whispered, “Hey, Izumi. Does the mood here seem, I dunno, different somehow?” Though her voice was hushed, it was still somehow very audible.

“Does it? I don’t know—it seems the same to me,” replied Izumi with a pleasantly calm expression, which made it strangely hard to argue with her.

Kasumi realized she’d somehow said something to make Izumi angry, and despite not really knowing what was going on, she nodded and backed off. “Huh? Uh… Oh, okay.”

“What’s up with the mood in here?”

Mikihiko, having also just come up from the discipline committee room, had a reaction that was a bit less problematic than hers.

“What mood?” Tatsuya asked him.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” he answered—in the same way he would have before winter break and exactly the way he hadn’t been the past week.

Mikihiko and Erika must’ve been nudged to shape up at the same time, Tatsuya mused, but of course he didn’t say so aloud. He couldn’t help the slight smirk that came unbidden, though.

“What’s up, Tatsuya? Something good happen?”

“Maybe. Just a small thing, though.” It was a small thing—but also an unmistakably good development. Both for Miyuki and for himself, Tatsuya concluded, then switched his attention elsewhere. “Anyway, let me see today’s report.”

“Here you go. No particular problems on campus.”

Tatsuya glanced over the sheet of e-paper Mikihiko handed him, then input the student council’s signature on it via a hardware key.

“Was there some kind of trouble off campus?” Tatsuya asked as he returned the paper to Mikihiko. His interest had been piqued by the other boy’s careful specification of on campus.

“Yes… There’s been an increase in incidents of students being surreptitiously photographed and followed.”

“Stalkers?” To Tatsuya’s dismay, this was the first he’d heard of it. His hands had been so full with his own problems recently that his attention had been focused on his immediate vicinity and no further.

“It’s not that simple—apparently they’re from a humanist group.”

“You’re saying an anti-magician group is targeting the students of our school?”

Tatsuya’s eyes gained a sharp intensity.

Miyuki and Honoka, who had been chatting amiably as they prepared to head home, also stopped and looked to Mikihiko.

“Apparently, there haven’t been any actual assaults on students. But we have had a few start to come forward with reports of verbal abuse.”

“Minami,” Miyuki called, sitting back down in the student council president’s seat.

“Yes, president.” Minami stood and began to approach, but Miyuki stopped her with a look.

“Have the incidents the disciplinary committee chief raised been acknowledged in the student council?”

“One moment please,” Minami replied, flipping the switch on the desktop terminal she’d already powered down. Unlike the appliances common in the early part of the century, its boot time was close to zero, and the search screen was soon ready on the display.

Minami input the search terms and read out the results. “Twenty-four students have reported a total of thirty-eight incidents. In each case, they were reported to law enforcement, but no concrete response was recorded.”

“They’re just ignoring it?!” Honoka cried out in disbelief.

“It’s hard to take action against just verbal abuse,” Shizuku sighed.

“Setting the covert photography aside, it’s also hard to prove that we’re being followed,” Mikihiko added, frustrated.

Tangible enemies, like the ones they’d faced in the Yokohama Incident, could be fought back and beaten. But this nebulous aggression whose perpetrators were indistinguishable from law-abiding citizens left no opportunity for retaliation. If they used force against these offenders, they’d become the villains. And they couldn’t even be certain who their enemy was.

“We should issue a warning to the entire student body. In addition to warning them of the possibility of assault, we need to caution them against overreaction or else we’ll be the real criminals,” Tatsuya agreed.

“Understood. I’ll see to it immediately,” Miyuki replied.

It was Saturday, January 19, the weekend after the second week of the new term.

The morning classes had concluded, and the rest of the school day would be devoted to extracurricular and student committee activities.

Kasumi and Izumi Saegusa headed to the dining hall to replenish their energy before said activities began. Izumi had wanted to have lunch with Miyuki in the student council room but found herself unable to refuse Kasumi’s spur-of-the-moment suggestion: “Hey, let’s have lunch together for once.”

Both Kasumi and Izumi were quite well-liked among the juniors and seniors, but that was doubly true for the freshmen. Neither of them was particularly nurturing, so no Kasumi Army nor Izumi Royal Guard had formed, but in staying out of any cliquish infighting, they had become broadly adored. This was in marked contrast to the Shippou Group that had formed around Takuma, thanks to his assiduous mentoring.

Since they didn’t have a set group of admirers, it wasn’t hard for them to keep to themselves. Even so, they quickly accumulated a ring of lunch tray–holding freshmen around them.

It was a particular feature of Kasumi and Izumi that the students who approached them were predominantly girls. This wasn’t a Miyuki-type situation, where the boys were too intimidated to approach them, but rather attributable to their mascot-like status among the girls.

And so, despite the many students surrounding them, not a single one interrupted their conversation, so the two were able to speak freely to each other in between slurps of their soba and tempura lunch.

Izumi ate as fastidiously as her image would suggest, but Kasumi, too, had good table manners, breaking the chunks of tempura into bite-size pieces and eating them neatly. Since neither girl was the type to talk while chewing, the conversation proceeded rather slowly. The gentle, pleasant ambience of their lunch certainly made it difficult to guess at what the pair’s conversation was.

“The school certainly has been gloomy the last two or three days.”

“You mean the rumors going around about Miyuki and Tatsuya? I am getting rather tired of this sordid fuss that everyone seems determined to continue with.”

“…Um, what does sordid mean?”

“Dirty or improper.”

“Oh, so you want people to get their minds out of the gutter and to mind their own business, basically.”

“To put it simply, yes.”

“Why didn’t you just say that?”

“I don’t want to cast aspersions on our upperclassmen like that. I’d generally like to believe the students of this school are proper ladies and gentlemen.”

“Seems like the same thing to me. If anything, the way you said it is nastier, Izumi.”

“Not at all, Kasumi. I don’t think everyone’s nature is inherently dirty and low—I simply think the circumstances have temporarily made people inappropriately curious,” Izumi replied with a pious expression, reaching for the small bowl on her lunch tray. (Incidentally, the lunches at First High came in large, medium, and small sizes.)

“I don’t think you can necessarily hide your real feelings behind fancy vocabulary, though,” Kasumi muttered as her sister’s attention turned to focus on the bowl. Kasumi knew her younger twin well enough to know that if they didn’t blow off steam regularly like this, conversations with Izumi would become intolerably tense.

But apparently, Kasumi had jumped the gun just slightly.

“Did you say something, Kasumi?” Izumi sniped as she put her chopsticks to the small bowl and looked up.

“Nothing at all,” Kasumi replied, likewise reaching for her own bowl.

Kasumi slurped her noodles with a bit more gusto than her sister. Izumi furrowed her brow at her elder twin, then began to move her own chopsticks.

Having succeeded in using table manners to deflect the conversation, Kasumi put her bowl down and resumed talking as though nothing had happened. “By the way, what’s the mood like in the student council room? It looked pretty peaceful from the small glimpse I got, but…”

“They’re only a year older than us, but everybody seems to be acting like adults, I believe,” Izumi answered in a tone that was not entirely complimentary. “Honoka Mitsui in particular seems to have quite a few feelings on the matter…but she’s been cheerful and pleasant to both Miyuki and Tatsuya, which is to her credit.”

“Huh… Well, I guess the president and Tatsuya have kept the lovey-dovey stuff to a minimum, so they’re trying to be conscientious anyway.”

Izumi scowled at the term lovey-dovey, but there was nothing incorrect about Kasumi’s statement, so she didn’t quibble. “I’m quite certain that no matter how close the friendship, no human relationship can go well without mutual conscientiousness and respect.”

“So you’re saying that good manners are important even with close friends?”

“Certainly. To say nothing of people who aren’t even particularly close but still amuse themselves with irresponsible rumors—and since there are more people like that than there are conscientious friends, one can hardly help the mood turning sour.”

Izumi paused there.

“But that’s just common sense,” she added, as though she’d suddenly remembered as much.

The many classmates listening intently to Kasumi and Izumi’s conversation all looked shamefully down in unison.

Around the same time, the dining hall at the Magic University was bustling with students.

Among them was a visiting student from the Academy of Defense’s Special Warfare Research Department. She was one of two female students who sat across from each other, a magic officer in training at the Academy of Defense. Not that anyone would know from looking at her—she looked not just like an average student at the Magic University but indeed any female student at any ordinary college.

“Geez, Mari! You don’t have to laugh that much!”

“Sorry, sorry! It’s just, Mayumi, you and him…?”

The visiting student was Mari Watanabe, a former head of the First High disciplinary committee, and her shoulders shook with mirth even as she apologized. Opposite her was a former First High student council president, Mayumi Saegusa, red-faced and glaring.

Mayumi’s flush was clearly more from embarrassment than from anger. There was nothing intimidating at all about the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. “Stop!”

“I’m sorry, really.” Mari only managed to contain her laughter when Mayumi turned her back on her to sulk. “It’s just…the head of your family making you and Tatsuya get married—”

“It’s not a marriage! It’s just an engagement!” Mayumi snapped, folding her arms.

Privately, Mari didn’t see what the difference was, but she kept that observation to herself. “So why is anybody talking about having you and Tatsuya getting engaged anyway?”

The Magic University’s schedule was more flexible than the Academy of Defense’s, but that didn’t mean that students had unlimited time for lunch, so Mari tried to move the conversation along.

“Well, you know about the big controversy, right?”

It had been Mayumi who’d brought the topic up. She’d wanted to complain about it. She turned back around to face Mari, being perfectly aware herself that further sulking was just a waste of time.

“The Yotsuba thing? I dunno—it was unexpected for sure, but at the same time I can kind of see it. I was surprised, though.”

Describing the news as unexpected but somehow not unexpected sounded contradictory, but Mayumi didn’t object to the observation because she’d had the same reaction Mari did.

“How much do you know, Mari?”

“How much? I mean…that the Shiba siblings are actually cousins who are both directly related to the Yotsuba family, that Miyuki Shiba was named as the successor to Yotsuba family leadership, and that she and Tatsuya Shiba are now engaged. What, is there more?” asked Mari suspiciously.

Mayumi closed her eyes and nodded. “So that really is all that’s been made public. It turns out there’s more to the story.” Mayumi leaned forward over the table, and Mari mirrored the movement. “The day after the announcement of Tatsuya and Miyuki’s engagement went out, the Ichijou family lodged a formal protest.”

“A protest?” asked Mari, with an expression that said I didn’t know you could do that.

Mayumi smiled wryly. “Yes, on the grounds that marriage between two closely related people may harm an important national asset—our magicians’ genetic potential.”

“Asset? How…?” Mari looked appalled. While the Ten Master Clans weren’t generally uncomfortable with this way of thinking, this would have been a very odd phrasing indeed among the Hundred Families and magicians further outside the influential core.

And Mari’s discomfort was quite justified—reasonable, even. In this context, asset was synonymous with property. Calling genes assets was not far from defining magicians like Mari and Mayumi as livestock. One wrong step could lead to a dangerous political ideology where genes were valued over individuals.

“I gotta say, this is one thing I really don’t like about the Ten Master Clans,” said Mari.

“I don’t like it, either, but in this case, it’s for a good cause. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy about something as personal as my engagement being used for convenience.”

“Is there more than that?”

Mayumi sighed as the conversation approached its crux. “So the Ichijou family objected on the grounds of marriage between close relatives and simultaneously proposed an engagement between their oldest son, Masaki, and Miyuki.”

“Well, that’s…sort of annoying and thoughtless…” Mari trailed off.

Mayumi’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, but I do think an engagement between Masaki and Miyuki is still more desirable than one between her and Tatsuya. Setting aside whatever their personal feelings are, that is.”

“So it’d be a political marriage that would make the magic world happy.” It struck Mari more like a mating of thoroughbred horses than a political marriage, but even she hesitated to say that out loud.

“Yes, but…it wouldn’t be only for the families’ benefit, I don’t think. I mean, Masaki’s the oldest son, so ordinarily he would be in the position of bringing his wife into the household.” Mayumi’s gaze shifted around awkwardly; she was obviously uncomfortable. “I think another reason the Ichijou family took such a forceful approach is that Masaki does have feelings for Miyuki.”

“…Oh-ho.” Mayumi grinned, finally catching on to Mari’s awkward expression. “So that’s how it is. Your father’s trying to get you engaged to Tatsuya because you like him, eh?”

“No!” Mayumi’s face was bright red as she slammed her palms down onto the table. If there hadn’t been an acoustic isolation field in place, the sudden noise was definitely loud enough to have drawn the attention of others in the dining hall. “That scheming old bastard has the wrong idea about me! And he’s just using me to harass the Yotsuba family!”

“Oh?”

“What’s with that insinuating expression on your face?! This is a real problem for me!”

“So you don’t want it?”

Mayumi fell silent at the pointed question. Mari’s lip curled into an impish smile.

Realizing that she was in danger of confirming her friend’s suspicions, Mayumi forced her frozen tongue into motion. “It’s not that I’m against it… I just can’t look at Tatsuya that way. It’s impossible imagining being engaged to him.”

“Why’s that?” Mari instantly pressed the attack.

“Why? I mean…”

“Sure, if he’s just Tatsuya Shiba, he wouldn’t be a match for Mayumi Saegusa from the Saegusa family. But if he’s a direct member of the Yotsuba family, that’s a different story. As a potential son-in-law for the Saegusa family, he’s got both the blood and the talent.”

“He’s two years younger than me!”

“I don’t think a two-year age gap is that big of a deal. And anyway, does he even seem younger than you? If I were looking at the two of you side by side, I’d guess you were the younger one.”

“H-how dare you! In that case, there’s not much difference between him and you, either!”

“Uh, exactly what part of me looks younger than Tatsuya?!”

“You were always cozying up to him for help! Ooh, I can’t finish this, Ooh, the terminal’s messed up, Ooh, I haven’t finished writing this report. Maybe you’re the one with feelings for Tatsuya!”

“Excuse me, I have Shuu!”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with whether you do or don’t like Tatsuya, does it?”

Mayumi and Mari glared at each other, then both suddenly looked away.

Both of their faces were red. Normally this would have been the moment when they each summoned a smile and changed the subject to put the childish argument behind them. But this time, that didn’t happen.

Mari was the one who’d lost her temper at Mayumi’s escalation, but she soon regained a serious, stern demeanor. As she turned her gaze back to Mayumi, there was no trace of smile.

“Mayumi, what is it you really want to do?”

Mayumi flinched at Mari’s shockingly serious tone. “Wh-what kind of question is that?”

Mari fixed her friend with a stern gaze. There was nothing remotely resembling a joke to be found in Mari’s face. “It’s not good for Tatsuya’s sister, but it doesn’t seem to me like there’s any downside to this prospect for you.”

“What’re you talking about? I don’t even like Tatsuya—”

“Just shut up and listen,” Mari said sharply. “I know perfectly well why you’ve never had a boyfriend. I also know that you never pursued any sort of relationship with the oldest sons of the Juumonji and Itsuwa families because you wanted to push back a tiny bit at having your future decided for you.”

Mayumi made no refutation of Mari’s statement, but it wasn’t because Mari had hit the bull’s-eye—Mayumi wanted to let the other woman finish her point.

“You were always saying how you couldn’t see Juumonji as a romantic partner, right? But isn’t that because from the very beginning, you couldn’t help being aware of him as exactly that? More than just being your classmate, he was a fellow member of one of the Ten Master Clans. So you saw him not from the point of view of Mayumi the high school student but as Miss Saegusa, the eldest daughter of the Saegusa family.”

Mayumi said nothing. She simply listened to Mari, her face an expressionless mask.

“Whether he was attractive as a boy didn’t matter—it was about whether he was suitable as a member of one of the Ten Master Clans. Romantic feelings are never going to grow from seeing someone like that. Even if you grew to respect him, you’d never love him.”

Mari continued, disregarding Mayumi’s unresponsiveness.

“But Tatsuya was different. When you met him, he was just a younger kid at school, and you got to know him and like him, and then only later found out he was part of a major clan. I personally think that your admiration for him is really just attraction, but I won’t insist on that. I do know that you at least like him as a person. Am I wrong?”

“You’re not wrong. I don’t believe my regard for Tatsuya is romantic, but the rest of what you said is more or less right.”

Mari nodded at Mayumi’s brief answer. “This is the first time you, the eldest daughter of the Saegusa family, have been allowed to date someone you even like.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Okay, so—what do you want to do? No, that’s a bad way to put it. Mayumi—”

“What?”

“Do you want to do nothing and simply wait and see? Or do you want to do something?”

“I don’t like just waiting. But are you saying there’s something I can do?”

“This is where I’d normally tell you to figure it out yourself, but… hmm. I don’t know—you do have the option of trying to figure out exactly how you feel about Tatsuya.”

Mayumi started to say I already know that but stopped herself. “What would be the point of that?”

“If you knew for certain that you had romantic feelings for Tatsuya, then your interests and your father’s would be aligned. You could pretend that he was using you, while in fact you’d be the one using him.”

“Me, using that sly, old bastard? I admit the idea is appealing.” Mayumi felt a sinister smirk begin to form on her face, but she quickly suppressed it. “Wait, how am I supposed to be certain about something like that?”

“Well, you could just try going out with him, right?”

“Go out with somebody I don’t even like?” As she said this, Mayumi realized her logic had become comically circular, so she walked it back and tried again. “Or I mean, someone I don’t know whether I like or not?”

“That wouldn’t be weird, right? People say stuff like that all the time—Let’s start as friends.”

“No, that’s the kind of thing you say to someone you don’t already know. It’d be really awkward for me and Tatsuya to start as friends. For starters, what if I’m wrong? I split up an engagement and then say, Whoops, sorry, I’m not into you after all? That’d be unacceptable!”

“You think?”

“Obviously!”

“Huh… Well, I guess in that case you’ll just have to date him without his sister finding out.”

“What? Why?!”

“Do you want to find out how you feel about Tatsuya or not?”

“No, that’s what I’ve been saying this whole time!”

“Okay, so why are you coming to me for advice?”

Mayumi’s expression froze.

“Lately all you do is complain to me about the arranged marriage meetings you have to suffer through. So maybe this is the first time someone who’s already engaged has come up, but that’s not the only reason you’re not just letting it play out, is it? If it were really that clear to you, all you’d have to do is say you refuse to consider anyone who’s already engaged.”

“…I tried that. The old man just keeps pushing.”

“Probably because he sees right through you. The truth is, you don’t hate the idea.”

“…”

“Mayumi, as long as you don’t know what you really want, you’re just going to keep getting swept along by your circumstances.”

“That’s easy for you to say…” Mayumi was completely at a loss. If she were pushed any further, she’d probably burst into tears.

Mari glanced conspicuously at her military chronograph. “—My time’s up. Mayumi, make sure to think this through, okay?”

“Yeah… Thanks, Mari.”

As Mari stood to leave, Mayumi rose sluggishly to her feet, too.

Upon returning home from school, Tatsuya frowned at a piece of mail from an unusual recipient. It wasn’t electronic mail, strictly speaking, but rather a direct message on the message board system used by First High students and alumni.

The sender was Mari.

Tatsuya wondered if she’d sent it to the wrong person, but there was no way to determine that without opening the message. He briefly considered using a hack to inspect the contents without triggering the message’s read receipt but decided that would be more trouble than it was worth. If he were certain he wasn’t going to encounter Mari afterward, he wouldn’t have hesitated, but there was no guarantee of that.

Keenly aware that this was likely going to lead to trouble, Tatsuya opened the message.

The first thing he saw was that he was indeed the intended recipient.

The message began with a simple, seasonally appropriate greeting. It then included recent events in Mari’s life and an inquiry as to Tatsuya’s well-being—all in all, it was an unusually formal piece of personal correspondence. Perhaps the result of officer candidate school.

The letter’s actual point was a simple matter.

She wanted to meet tomorrow evening.

Private correspondence needed to be kept private—but perhaps this was an exception. He couldn’t very well meet another girl alone without telling his fiancée.

Before replying to the message, he went and knocked at his sister’s bedroom door.

“Mari Watanabe said she wants to meet with you?” Miyuki looked at Tatsuya with a very dubious expression. He’d supposed that a little bit of concern would be unavoidable but found it surprising at how little Miyuki seemed to trust him.

“I was rather bewildered myself at the sudden invitation,” Tatsuya said, trying to emphasize the casual innocence of the situation. “We just saw her not long ago at the graduation ceremony, after all.”

“I wonder what she wants, then.”

Miyuki did not suspect Tatsuya of anything; she was suspicious of Mari’s possible motives.

Tatsuya was a very desirable man (Miyuki thought). She knew Mari had a boyfriend, but it was entirely plausible (to Miyuki) that Mari would consider it sport to pursue an affair with Tatsuya anyway.

“I doubt she’s angling for an affair,” said Tatsuya bluntly, as though he’d seen right through Miyuki’s wild imaginings.

Miyuki’s face immediately turned red.

Tatsuya continued, pretending not to notice, “Watanabe’s got a fine boyfriend in Naotsugu Chiba, after all.”

“…Well, perhaps they had a fight,” Miyuki shot back, pretending at anger to hide her embarrassment.

“If she wanted someone to complain to, I’m sure she’d go to Saegusa.” Tatsuya smiled at her transparency, only to have his face turn serious. “…Actually, probably the other way around,” he murmured.

“The other way around? You mean, Saegusa complaining to Watanabe?”

Tatsuya nodded. “This wouldn’t just be limited to Watanabe. Any First High alum wanting to talk to us now has got to have something to do with our family situation.”

“I…suppose you’re right.” Miyuki’s immediate reaction was annoyance at the way some people ignored things like timing and circumstances and just imposed on other people however was most convenient for them. But she understood that such people were the minority and the exception to the rule and that, in this case, there was no way of knowing which it was.

“We’re ignoring the exceptions where there’s no way of knowing, okay?” Again, Tatsuya saw right through his sister.

“…”

Again, Miyuki’s fair skin flushed.

While she looked down abashedly, Tatsuya continued his analysis: “If we’re anticipating actions taken in response to the Yotsuba announcement, they’re most likely to come from others in the Ten Master Clans. It’s quite plausible that Saegusa is caught up in whatever the Saegusa family head is planning. Those plans probably upset Saegusa, and given her and Watanabe’s relationship, it’s also likely that she then went to Watanabe for advice.”

“Don’t tell me—!” cried Miyuki, her face still slightly red. She seemed extremely distressed.

Tatsuya paused his deduction, not understanding why Miyuki was so flustered. “What’s got you so upset?”

“You…you don’t suppose the Saegusa family is trying to get her engaged to you, do you?”

Miyuki’s notion took Tatsuya by surprise. It was easy to see why the possibility made her uneasy.

“…I don’t know, that seems like a bit of a leap to me.”

It wasn’t impossible to imagine. But to Tatsuya’s mind, it was merely a very small probability, and it seemed very far from a realistic concern. Given what he knew of Mayumi, it was hard to imagine her contenting herself with being a pawn in a strategic marriage.

“I wonder…” Miyuki herself didn’t think Mayumi would easily let herself be controlled by her parents. But if Mayumi had feelings for Tatsuya—that was a different story. “No, you’re right.” Miyuki nodded, banishing the worries from her mind. “So what will you do about Watanabe’s invitation?”

“Well, I can’t ignore it. And I would like to know why she went to the trouble,” he replied, trying to avoid stirring up his sister’s feelings further.

At 5:55 PM the next day, Tatsuya went to a café near the Academy of Defense’s Special Warfare Research Department (SWRD) campus. SWRD’s curriculum was devoted to the use of magicians in the military and the training of magicians as military officers. It shared considerable research efforts with the Magic University, so its facilities had been built close to the university.

SWRD students were exempted from dorm living, but Mari had still proposed a meeting location near campus, as she had drills to attend even on Sunday.

Tatsuya had arrived at the designated spot five minutes early. At 5:59 PM, Mari appeared.

“Hey, Tatsuya, sorry if I made you wait. It’s been a while, huh?”

“It has.”

Mari removed her high-collared coat, revealing a pantsuit that wouldn’t have been out of place in a corporate or government office. If she’d come directly from the Academy of Defense, she would have been in uniform. “I rent a room close to here,” she explained, noticing Tatsuya’s glance at her clothing—which meant that she had picked the café not because it was close to school but because it was close to where she lived. “But I did have drills today, just so you know! I’m sorry to ask you to meet me at such an odd hour.”

“It’s fine. What is this about?” Tatsuya didn’t mean to be short with her, but as she had mentioned, it was rather late for a man and woman to be meeting each other alone. Given the location, it was likely that other Academy of Defense students frequented this place. Tatsuya wanted to get this meeting over with as quickly as possible in order to minimize the chance of misunderstandings.

“…I see your point. We’ve both got class tomorrow, so let’s save the small talk for another time,” Mari offered, ordering a hot coffee via the table’s built-in terminal. “But I don’t want to get interrupted, so hang on for just a second.”

As stated, Mari was silent until her coffee arrived. She seemed to be collecting her thoughts for what she was about to discuss.

Perhaps fortunately, this café was not a so-called traditional establishment. Less than a minute later, there was a chime from the tabletop terminal. When Mari returned from the counter with her order, she squared herself before Tatsuya, then suddenly leaned toward him.

“Tatsuya, how do you feel about Mayumi?” she whispered.

Tatsuya answered with equal abruptness: “I think she’s an excellent magician. She lacks for neither talent nor experience. As a person, she handles both public and private matters most admirably, hence my favorable impression of her.”

“…You know, I hate it when you’re like that.” Mari glowered. Tatsuya had understood perfectly well what she’d been asking, and his answer was a barefaced deflection.

Tatsuya met Mari’s scowl evenly. He didn’t even leave her time to reach for her drink before replying, “So why are you asking me a question like that?”

“I’ll ask you again,” Mari insisted in reply. “What do you think of Mayumi as a member of the opposite sex? Just tell me whether you like her or not.”

“I don’t believe that feelings toward the opposite sex are as simple as that.”

“And yet, here I am asking you.”

Tatsuya had no obligation to answer Mari’s question. It seemed to him that there were more downsides than upsides to any possible answer he could give.

And yet, he answered anyway. Not because he’d been bullied into it but because he wanted to see what would happen.

“I like her.”

“As a girl? In that way?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. Okay…”

For Tatsuya, the emotion of attraction to the opposite sex was not a very weighty one. It was among the emotions within him that had been artificially limited and as such was merely something that could be processed. Any such attraction was insignificant compared to his love for Miyuki. But he had no obligation to tell Mari that.

“Is it a romantic feeling?”

“No. If anything, it is only for her as an object of sexual desire,” said Tatsuya evenly.

Mari flushed. “O-oh, so you do have those kinds of feelings.”

Tatsuya mused that Mari was quite wholesome, which was a bit unexpected. The taboo against premarital sex that dominated in the era notwithstanding, she’d been dating her boyfriend for quite some time.

Of course, not even Tatsuya was so insensitive as to blurt that out.

“Of course I do. Sexual desire is a fundamental component of a natural reproductive instinct.”

It wasn’t a lie. But there was a limit to the strength of his sexual urges, and they would never be strong enough to dictate his actions—such was the influence of his true mother Miya’s reconstruction of his psyche. Thus, Mayumi being an object of sexual desire didn’t mean he was at all inclined to pursue her. But he had no obligation to tell Mari this, either.

“Watanabe, what is it you’re trying to accomplish by asking me how I feel about Saegusa?”

His conversation partner still hadn’t recovered from her fluster, but by forcing the topic, he pulled her out of her embarrassment, and she composed herself. “Would you consider going out with Mayumi, Tatsuya?”

“…By going out with, I assume you mean in a romantic way? Do you not know about me and Miyuki?”

Mari felt herself flinch away at the cold retort, but she pressed on: “I know that you and your sister are actually cousins and that you’ve been engaged.”

“So you ought to know perfectly well that there’s no way I can date Saegusa.” The temperature of Tatsuya’s gaze dropped even further.

I thought temperature-control magic was his sister’s specialty, Mari thought as she braced herself to stave off frostbite. She knew that if she fell unconscious she wasn’t going to die of hypothermia, but somehow that felt like a real possibility.

“The Ichijou family is interfering with your engagement, isn’t that right?”

“You’re well-informed. Did you hear this from Saegusa?”

News of the Ichijou family’s formal objection was still not widely known. While Tatsuya and Miyuki’s engagement had been legally acknowledged—although obviously if the truth were to come out, that acknowledgment would no longer stand, and there would be criminal charges for the Yotsubas’ falsification of public records—the Ichijou family’s actions were nonetheless already making the announcement into something of a scandal among certain circles of magical society. Given all that, Tatsuya had not openly discussed the subject much.

“Yeah, I did. And by the way, Mayumi’s getting this, too. No—don’t misunderstand me. I mean that Mayumi is being forced into the same position as the eldest Ichijou son is.”

The iciness in Tatsuya’s eyes vanished. It was replaced by a different chill, this time one that made Mari want to squirm in her seat.

“…Unbelievable.”

Tatsuya’s remark was aimed at the Saegusa family’s calculation, but internally he was profoundly shocked at something else. Mayumi was being put forth as a possible engagement partner for Tatsuya: In other words, Miyuki’s concern had been right on the money. Despite her youth, it seemed Miyuki’s female intuition was a terrifying thing indeed.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” Mari casually replied.

Tatsuya met her remark with a sharp gaze. “Did you really? Do you really understand this?”

“Understand what?”

“That it won’t be my reputation that suffers, it’ll be Saegusa’s.”

Mari’s eyes seemed to soften. “You’re a nice guy.”

“This is just basic consideration, in my view.” Nothing was soft about Tatsuya’s eyes.

“If Mayumi didn’t have any particular feelings for you, I would’ve backed off. I would’ve told her there was no need for her to end up with the short end of the stick here. But she doesn’t understand her own feelings.”

So? Tatsuya’s eyes asked.

“Mayumi doesn’t know how she really feels about you. She doesn’t understand what the nature of her affection for you is—she isn’t even trying to understand. She won’t face her feelings for you.”

“And you don’t imagine that that’s because she understands her own position all too well?”

“Oh, she understands her position, all right. She can’t just choose whoever she wants as her partner. Romance and marriage are unrelated. And if that’s how it needs to be, then romance is meaningless. That’s what she thinks.”

“I think she’s gotten ahead of herself, don’t you? It’s true that high-level magicians generally aren’t allowed to remain single these days, but it’s not like people aren’t allowed to choose whom they marry.”

“And what about you? What about your sister?”

Now it was Tatsuya’s turn to fall silent.

Mari did not press the question of Tatsuya or Miyuki’s feelings any further.

“I want her to experience love. Maybe it’s overbearing or meddlesome of me, but I don’t want her to make a perfectly informed surrender. You’re a man, so maybe you won’t understand.”

“You’re right. I don’t understand.”

“I figured. But try to understand this,” Mari began, sincerity evident in her voice. “Mayumi feels affection for you. You might be the first and last man who can ever give her the experience of love.”

It was clear she was only thinking of her close friend’s feelings.

But Tatsuya shut her down. “You’ve gotten ahead of yourself, too.”

“Tatsuya, you—!” Mari fumed, gaping.

Tatsuya’s rebuttal stitched her mouth shut. “I may not know Saegusa as well as you do, but I don’t think she’s as weak as you think she is. She doesn’t seem like the kind of woman to just abandon everything she thinks and believes to do whatever her parents tell her. I think she’ll find love eventually, even if it’s not me.”

Tatsuya stood and looked down at the stunned, silent Mari.

“In any case, what you’re asking remains impossible. I am Miyuki’s fiancé.”

The bill had already been take care of.

Tatsuya walked out of the café.