Chapter 12

First High had clinched the overall victory before the last day even came around, but the celebration party was postponed until after tomorrow. (“Again?” complained one voice, which was then ignored.)

Tomorrow would feature the Monolith Code finals tournament, which would bring the Nine School Competition to a close.

First High’s team had made it out of the qualifiers in first place for the tournament, as expected. Therefore, their players and staff weren’t currently able to party.

Still, it was the only event left. Over half of their members were currently idle. So they borrowed the meeting room to have a pre-celebratory tea party centered on Miyuki, who had clinched First High’s overall victory with her win in Mirage Bat.

Mayumi and Suzune facilitated the party, and the participants were mostly female players and staff. There wasn’t a complete absence of male students, though, as the male freshmen, save for those injured, were in one corner of the room holding their cups awkwardly. (The junior and senior boys had their hands full getting ready for tomorrow’s match.)

Not only Leo and Mikihiko, but also even Erika and Mizuki were here. That probably meant Mayumi’s plan was for this to be more than a simple congratulations. (Erika had firmly refused, but Miyuki had dragged her here anyway.)

But for some reason, Tatsuya was nowhere to be found.

“…He said not to wake him up until morning?”

“Yes.”

“That’s understandable.”

“He was going full drive this whole time…”

As the freshman girls traded rumors about a certain male student (in an order that was Erika, Miyuki, Shizuku, and Honoka), a junior couple approached them.

“Really? Your brother went to sleep already?”

It was Kanon and Isori.

“Yes,” said Miyuki. “He said it was too tiring even for him.”

“Well…that makes sense. He did get hurt, after all.” Isori nodded deeply. Then he looked next to her and his eyes widened a little. “Hmm? Erika?”

“Kei, are you done doing tomorrow’s adjustments?” asked Erika in a slightly teasing voice.

Isori gave a pained grin. “No, I’m taking a little break… Well, actually, Kanon dragged me here.” Kanon looked a little irritated at that, but it probably wasn’t just because she didn’t like how he said it. There must have been something else that had happened.

“…Oh, Erika, you’re acquainted with Isori?”

“They’re friends of the family,” said Erika, not noticing Kanon’s pouting at all—or at least not paying any mind to it—and turning her whole body to Miyuki. “The Isori family is always helping the Chiba family out.”

“It’s not that much,” said Isori, quickly shaking his head.

“No, no! It’s the objective truth,” joked Erika. “My broom is something we got Kei’s family to make for me. Wait, actually, didn’t you personally make it?” Erika produced her retracting baton CAD from thin air like a magician.

“Well, yes… The seal parts, at least.”

“You built the sealing spells yourself? That’s amazing…” Mizuki breathed in admiration.

“Kei’s a genius, you know!” said Kanon, sticking out her chest, forgetting that she was supposed to be grumpy. Isori started blushing more and said “no, no” again.

As conversation about his absence started to wane, Tatsuya slipped out of the hotel and headed to the parking lot used by the officers on base. The person he went there to meet had already arrived.

“I can’t believe you made a woman wait. Don’t you have any manners?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

They were both ignoring common courtesy, but she had a point—not about the woman thing but about being later than he promised—so Tatsuya gave a sincere apology.

Seeming let down by his lack of an excuse, Haruka didn’t complain anymore, either. She gestured for Tatsuya to get into the car she was leaning against. He did as she wished, climbing into the passenger seat, and then Haruka got into the driver’s seat.

Both the inside and outside of the car were dark. Without so much as a glance toward the ignition switch, Haruka took a portable terminal out of the door’s pocket. Seeing her do so, Tatsuya extracted his own terminal from his pocket. He wasn’t in the staff uniform but a black jacket gathered at the waist. It made his sides stick out a little, but Haruka pretended not to notice.

“You just need the map data, right?”

“If you know the members, I’d like that as well, ma’am.”

Haruka sighed and looked at her terminal as Tatsuya sent her data first. When she looked at it, her eyes went wide.

“Is it not enough?”

“No, it’s plenty,” she said, erasing her surprise and using her own terminal.

Tatsuya briefly skimmed the data she’d sent and nodded once. “Thank you very much, ma’am,” he said, bowing a little and moving to open the door.

“Insurance, right?” asked Haruka firmly.

“Yes, ma’am. Insurance,” he answered curtly. By the time the words reached her ears, his back had already turned.

Tatsuya watched until Haruka drove the electric coupe beyond the gate and out of sight, then peeled off the gauze covering his right ear and walked over to another car. The passenger-side door opened without him having to knock on the window. Sitting in the driver’s seat was a woman about the same age as Haruka.

“Who was that?”

“A public safety operative,” he said, not hesitating to reveal her identity as he grinned at Fujibayashi. “She says her main job is a counselor, though.”

Fujibayashi couldn’t help but giggle. “So she’s a part-time operative?”

“I don’t think she has any issues with ability. Entry-level semi-professionals are more likely than seasoned veterans to follow confidentiality rules to the letter, so I can ask her to do side jobs. Well…taking a side job in the first place is a violation of professional ethics, but money makes the world go round, right?”

Fujibayashi narrowed her eyes at the dark words, which he spoke as though they weren’t. And the words between them stayed cold and sober: “You know, I end up thinking this a lot… You’re not ten years older and committing age fraud, are you?”

“I believe it’s an issue of experience rather than age, ma’am. After all, I have all sorts of experiences on a daily basis.”

Tatsuya’s emphasis on all sorts made Fujibayashi casually look away. He wasn’t particularly expecting a response. He took a data cable out of the glove compartment, and then, with practiced fluidity, manipulated the panel in front of the passenger’s seat, sending the map data he’d received from Haruka to the navigation system.

“…Maybe I should ask for part-time payment, too.”

“I believe you should demand an overtime allowance, ma’am.”

“Labor laws don’t apply to us, you know.”

Even in modern times, where flexible hours were a mainstream part of how people worked, some laws had overstayed their welcome. With Tatsuya unable to manage even a forced smile at the dry office joke, Fujibayashi pushed the palm rest’s one-handed controller up.

The car, one of the most popular models these days, rolled off into the darkness in a perfect silence impossible to encapsulate in any manufacturer’s catalog.

The very man who had ordered Fujibayashi to work “overtime” was also welcoming a guest off the clock.

“Please come in, Your Excellency.”

The person Kazama had been personally showing in, without relying on an orderly, was Kudou.

Back in the senior’s day, there was no rule that the Ten Master Clans weren’t allowed to be in the public eye, or have high official positions. It had been essentially created because of Kudou himself, and what he experienced in the face of all kinds of strife and discord.

Kudou held the rank of major general when he retired from military service. Kazama was being formal with the elder of the Ten Master Clans not out of a personal reason, but in accordance with the discipline he was supposed to show in public.

Kazama was a B-rank licensed magician, and a member of a community of magicians headed up by the Ten Master Clans. However, he was an old-style magician classified as a ninjutsu user, so his feelings toward the clans, who symbolized modern magic, were somewhat distant, if he had to say it. (Of course, as the leader of a team, his feelings toward his subordinates were different.)

Therefore—but that might not be the right word—though Kazama’s attitude was polite, it didn’t exceed the bounds of formality.

“Leave us.”

“Yes, sir!”

After having the orderly who brought them drinks withdraw outside the room, Kazama once again looked at Kudou. “For what purpose have you visited us today? If you were looking for Fujibayashi, I’m afraid she is out right now on an errand…”

“I don’t feel the need to go through senior officers to see my granddaughter… Why are you so upset about it? I just heard you got out of Tsuchiura for once, so I decided to pay you a visit.”

“It’s an honor,” said Kazama, though he showed no sign of reverence.

Kudou cracked a dry grin. “I see your dislike of the clans is alive and well.”

“As I stated previously, you misunderstand me.”

“And as I stated previously, you don’t have to feel like you need to lie to me. We were created as weapons to begin with, but you old-style magicians are simply people who inherited ancient knowledge. It’s only natural you would feel discontent toward how we are.”

He pronounced the word people one syllable at a time as if on purpose. Kazama found himself frowning. “…Old casters are the same—we make our bodies into weapons. There isn’t much difference between you and us, sir. If I feel any discontent, it’s in how you emphasize to children and young people to think of us as something inhuman.”

Kazama’s comment could have been called vitriolic depending on whom you asked. But Kudou countered, his tone calm and collected. “Hmm…is that why you look after him?”

“…Him, sir?”

“Tatsuya Shiba. Miya’s son. You pulled him out of the Yotsuba, right?”

Kazama’s ensuing silence was less because he couldn’t find anything to say and more a pause to glower at the man.

“Well, it isn’t strange that I would know about it. At the time, I was the chairman at the Master Clans Conference, and now I’m a magic adviser to the National Defense Force. And I was a tutor to Miya and Maya, if only temporarily.”

“…Then you must know that the Yotsuba gave up all rights to Tatsuya. Our agreement with them was that he remains a guardian of the Yotsuba, and that as long as he can fulfill that duty without hindrance, he would submit to the military. And that other than him being a guardian, they would not claim any other right of priority over him.”

“Do you ever think it was unfortunate?” asked Kudou, leaning forward meaningfully.

“Unfortunate, sir?” repeated Kazama, at a loss.

Kudou smiled slightly, not appearing offended by this. “Yesterday’s match was splendid. I’d heard he was the only successful case, but I hadn’t imagined he would be that powerful.” Former Major General Kudou peered into Kazama’s eyes, as if searching for something. “In the future, he could stand side by side with the son of the Ichijou to form the center of our country’s magic military power. Don’t you think it wasteful that such a talented person would be stuck in one place as a personal bodyguard?”

“…Do you wish for the Yotsuba to weaken, Your Excellency?”

Kudou smiled thinly and nodded. “You certainly do put things bluntly. Part of the Ten Master Clans system is that each family holds the others in check, preventing any renegade magicians from appearing.”

Kazama’s silence indicated to Kudou that this was already something he was aware of.

“But at our current rate, the Yotsuba will grow too strong. Not long in the future, if Tatsuya Shiba and his younger sister continue to grow, and if Miyuki Shiba becomes Miyuki Yotsuba while Maya still lives, with Tatsuya as her instrument, then the Yotsuba could ascend to a higher level than all of us. No…” He paused, shaking his head. “Even now, the Yotsuba possess special skills the other families don’t, as well as very powerful magicians, though few of them. They already stand out among the Ten Master Clans.”

Kazama gave Kudou’s words a sardonic grin. “That family has upheld the tradition you mentioned of magicians developed to be weapons the most. In terms of combat strength, I would think it only natural that they stand out.”

“And that’s just the problem. Major Kazama, you’re right. Originally, we were developed as weapons—but it’s different now. If weapons are all we are, then we will be driven out of the human world.”

“Your Excellency.” Kazama’s words interrupted Kudou’s reminiscent remark. “Just as you know of our affairs, we know about some of your own, your grace. We are aware of the real reason you think so much about Tatsuya.”

This time, Kudou was the one to fall silent.

“In addition, I ask your permission to offer one piece of advice and one correction.”

“…Go ahead.”

“I don’t believe Tatsuya requires pity. He is not a simple test animal meant to be lavished with pity. In fact, I believe he would find it undesirable.”

“That was your advice, then?”

“Yes, sir. As for the correction… You spoke of the future, but Tatsuya is presently an important part of our forces. And this may sound like favoritism to you, sir, but Tatsuya and Masaki Ichijou are on entirely different levels of combat potential.

“Masaki Ichijou, when defending a point, would alone have strength rivaling that of a mechanized regiment. But Tatsuya has strength rivaling that of a strategic guided missile. His magic is a tactical weapon, which obviously requires layers of safeties. I believe that making him bear all the responsibility for managing everything would be the crueler option.”

Tatsuya did not sneeze several times in a row as the car headed east, as folk tradition would dictate.

The car Fujibayashi was driving—or more accurately, the car being guided by the traffic control system—was going east on the highway and would enter Yokohama City before night fell. To the east was the Port of Yokohama, and to the north (despite numerous direct daytime military conflicts in the area) was the Yokohama Chinatown, which had retained its prosperity even now that the twenty-first century was about to end. They parked on a hill overlooking the district.

“…They know foreign agents are swarming around here. Why don’t they lock it down or do inspections? What are those politicians thinking?”

Tatsuya stood next to Fujibayashi as she looked down at the shopping district, bitter remarks on her lips. He shrugged. “Well, the story is that this city is the main base of resistance for the Chinese who fled from their tyrannical government.”

“That’s obviously a lie!”

“As I said, that’s the story, ma’am.”

“But there are limits. We may have won, but we haven’t entered into a peace treaty with them yet. Japan and the GAA haven’t fired any shots for three years, but we’re still at war. Everyone knows they’re using the city as a base for spy activity, but nobody takes any drastic measures.”

Fujibayashi looked about ready to spit, but Tatsuya answered her in an aloof tone. “Maybe there are a lot of people who think the same way you do, Lieutenant.”

The implication—or at least, the one she thought she heard—made Fujibayashi’s eyes go wide. She stared at him. “…Do you know something?”

“No. It’s just a wish,” he replied, turning his back to put an end to the conversation.

In front of him he now saw the highest building in the city. High in price as well but physically the tallest building. In the place of what was once simply called the Park Overlooking the Port until the middle of the century, was now a three-piece, super-tall structure that looked out over both the Port of Yokohama and the shoreline.

It was called the Yokohama Bay Hills Tower: a multiuse building containing a hotel, a shopping mall, private offices, and television stations affectionately nicknamed “Bay Hills” by the city residents. The goodwill magic organization, the Magic Association of Japan, had its Kanto branch office here as well, rather than in Tokyo. (Their main office was in Kyoto.)

Of course, the fact that this building was a purely private establishment was a well-known fact among non-civilians. The National Maritime Force and Maritime Police had offices here disguised as private companies for the purpose of monitoring the entry and exit of vessels into and out of the Tokyo Bay.

Everyone also said that the Magic Association of Japan’s branch being here was a defensive precaution in case of emergencies. Tatsuya and Fujibayashi, though, knew that it was no mere rumor—it was entirely factual.

“Lieutenant, if you please.”

“I really might ask for overtime pay after this.”

The time was already close to midnight.

Fujibayashi pressed a small information terminal to the side of the emergency exit—a door that could only be opened from the inside. In her other hand, she used a CAD.

The door had no outdoor keypad, and no capability for being opened over a wireless connection. But the wall’s electrical conductivity distribution had been altered, and thanks to a hacking program using the wall as a medium, the door opened up for them to enter. Fujibayashi hacked into the interior surveillance system, too, and had it make an exception for the two of them.

The Yokohama Grand Hotel: a high-rise hotel built in Chinatown in the first half of the century with funds from Hong Kong. It had no relation to the New Grand Hotel, its predecessor, despite the similar name. One set of stairs up from the highest marked floor, in a place not known to the guests, was the true top floor. One of its rooms contained frantic moving preparations.

This room was the Eastern Japan HQ of the Hong Kong–based international crime syndicate No-Head Dragon. It was, so to speak, the control room for the syndicate’s operation in the entire eastern section of the country.

Though, since the Hong Kong funds that operated this hotel had been taken over by No-Head itself quite some time ago, it was perhaps more accurate to call this the control room for criminal operations.

Though it was being prepared for a move, the people inside weren’t taking any furniture. Their luggage consisted mainly of top-secret documents not recorded in any computer system. The paperwork was of such secrecy that it couldn’t be entered into a system, even one outfitted with the strictest of security, so they especially couldn’t be packed away by underlings. These men in the prime of life (albeit bordering on middle-aged), clad in brand-name suits, wiped the sweat from their brows with silk handkerchiefs, and their fingers, sparkling with gold, silver, and jeweled rings, awkwardly packed their things. Honestly, the very sight would have been amusing, if one were to watch.

Of course, for those involved, this was no laughing matter.

One of them abruptly stopped to curse. “Bastards… They won’t get away with this!”

You could almost hear his teeth grinding.

“I still can’t believe a Generator was subdued before getting any combat results…”

“That was unexpected. I had no idea the Imperial Special Forces would just come waltzing into the picture!”

“And now we all have to run away under the cover of night. Ridiculous!”

“One win is all it takes for them to puff up with pride…”

Now that everyone here had expressed their true feelings on the matter, all the welled-up complaints their exhaustion had prevented were now coming out.

“We’ll have our revenge on the Imperial Army. But dealing with that brat should be the first thing on our list.”

“The impudent child who completely undermined our plans?”

“Tatsuya Shiba, was it? Where’s he come from?”

“We…don’t know the details. We could only find his name, residence, school affiliation, and appearance. We don’t know of any dependents or his family makeup. We don’t know anything beside the fact that his parents are office workers. We couldn’t find a single bit of personal data on him except for things related to his daily life.”

“What the hell? The whole world knows this country has been putting all personal data into a database. Shouldn’t there be more than that in the private database?”

“We should probably assume the data wasn’t locked—that an organization deleted all data regarding him. There’s no other possibility.”

The officers of No-Head Dragon’s eastern Japan branch scrutinized their colleague’s face intently, then looked to one another in silence.

“…Isn’t he just a high school student?”

“You would need extremely high privileges to be able to completely overwrite a civilian database, even with national influence. Or enough influence to freely intervene with the highest authority in the nation…”

“Then who the hell was it…?”

Suddenly—while the men all paused their packing—they heard a muffled cry.

There were four figures standing idly in the corners of the room. They were Generators, given to the eastern Japan branch officers as protection tools. One of the four magic-generating devices, each assigned to one of four magic types and acting to prevent attacks from the outside—the Generator who had an active Information Boost up on the outside wall—had been the source of the cry.

It didn’t take long for them to realize why. They were made to understand:

There was a gaping hole in the south wall of the room.

It hadn’t been broken through, cut through, or destroyed: It had turned into concrete, sand, and powdered cement, leaving the steel frame, rebar, and pipes intact.

And the cry—it had been a cry of pain, from the recoil of the Information Boost spell being broken.

But the pained voice continued for only a brief moment. But it didn’t matter, anyway: The officers abruptly comprehended its reason for existence, with only a few moments of thought.

No-Head Dragon wasn’t a simple crime syndicate. It was a criminal organization that abused magic. To be appointed as an officer, you needed to be a magician. So of course, all the officers of the eastern Japan branch were magicians. They used magic, and could perceive it. And they could perceive what was happening right now.

The Generator’s body-information eidos skin—the defensive wall of boosted information every magician expanded unconsciously to protect them from other magicians—had been torn from the Generator’s person. That was why he’d cried out.

Though—it might be more visually faithful to describe it as armor dissolving and evaporating.

And a moment later, static appeared over the Generator’s body like it was a stereoscopic image, even though it possessed a physical body—and then its outline disappeared, along with the clothes it was wearing.

In the empty space where the Generator had been, a weak flame popped into existence. It was blue, purple, and orange. Without any time for the sprinklers to go off, it disappeared with a flash.

Tiny ashes fell to the carpet. They were the only remains of the Generator’s body.

The officers, scared out of their wits, couldn’t shout or scream. They simply exchanged gaping glances, terrified.

And then, all of a sudden, the phone rang.

It was the sound of a call from the secret line, which was only used within their organization.

One of the officers very slowly picked up the receiver. The panel indicated that there was no video feed. There was only audio for this conversation.

“Hello, east Japan branch of No-Head Dragon.”

What they heard from the speaker was the voice of a young man—of a boy.

Tatsuya and Fujibayashi had come to the rooftop of Yokohama Bay Hills’s north tower. There were television broadcast antennas and a radio communication relay up here. Fujibayashi pushed the same terminal as before against the relay and began pressing things on its touchscreen panel.

“…All right, hacking complete. I overwrote the radio communication to link everything here.”

“As I’ve come to expect from the Electron Sorceress. This is one thing I couldn’t imitate, no matter how I used my skills.”

“Thanks. I’d be out of a job if someone could imitate me so easily, though.” She smiled lightly, but deep down, the comment hadn’t seemed completely in jest.

“You cut the wired communication, right?”

“Captain Sanada already took care of that.”

Tatsuya picked up the voice communication unit attached to the information terminal in his left hand. After punching in the code Fujibayashi gave him, he set it up to talk and held it there, ready to go with a single push of a button.

He took his wind-breaking biker shades out of his chest pocket and put them on. Then he removed his long-barreled CAD out from its spot in his left shoulder holster. It was a specialized CAD, silver and shaped like an automatic pistol.

He stood before the fence at the edge of the roof and pointed his right hand down at an angle. His CAD’s “muzzle” was now aiming at the distant Yokohama Grand Hotel, down the hill.

“…So this is a Generator?”

“Yes, without a doubt. This is the first time I’ve captured one, but its features match the intelligence department’s reports perfectly.”

There was easily more than a half mile directly between the roof of Bay Hills and the top floor of the Grand Hotel. The pistol-shaped CAD Tatsuya held had no scope on it, of course. But even so, Fujibayashi didn’t ask him if he could see. She was fully aware that he could see just fine.

Fujibayashi herself saw in a different way than Tatsuya, but she could still see how many magicians and Generators were in that room.

“Magic-generating devices robbed of their humanity. The miserable end of magicians developed as weapons…”

Fujibayashi’s lips pursed.

“…I apologize, ma’am. I’ve said too much.”

She gave him a cold, silent stare, and Tatsuya offered an awkward apology.

Not all magicians consented to being weapons, of course; it was certainly an inappropriate remark, so he apologized. Though, he couldn’t deny the fact that he felt empathetic toward them.

Generators were similar to the way he was.

Consequently, within the bounds of his remaining emotion, he felt the greatest hatred. They were unpleasant and harmful beings. His mind wouldn’t falter when faced with destroying such devices.

The Silver Horn Custom, Trident… Tatsuya pulled the trigger of his favorite magically optimized weapon. It activated his original magic, Dismantle, which was designated a military secret.

The technique had dismantled the building’s outer concrete wall into a fine powder of its constituent parts.

While that physical hole opened in the wall, another hole opened conceptually, for the purpose of closing off any interfering magic, allowing Tatsuya’s “vision” to reflect the inside of the room more clearly.

The Generator was in shock at its active spell being broken apart. Normally, a magician wouldn’t take this much damage from his or her spell being broken; was this a negative effect of not being able to pause or suspend its magic under its own volition…?

Tatsuya’s analysis of the event may have been calm, but his will to attack—to kill—was alive and well. He discerned the Area Interference coming from the broken Generator, as well as the five officers and their other three magical guards.

Tatsuya pulled Trident’s trigger. He’d already input the information he’d collected on the damaged Generator—notably its Area Interference field, its eidos skin, and its physical body—as variables.

Three magic processes fired one after another with not even a fraction of a moment between them. The first process dismantled the Area Interference protecting the target. The second process dismantled the Information Boost protecting the target, while the third dismantled the target’s entire body, deconstructing it down to atoms.

It was no longer acknowledged as organic matter, and didn’t even leave behind a trace of the fact that it had once been a living creature. Everything broke apart into single elements and their ions: Proteins split into hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur; bones broke into phosphorous, oxygen, calcium, and other trace elements; and even blood, nerves, stored nutrients, and excretions fell apart—everything.

The light elements, represented by hydrogen, traveled along the ceiling and left the room by way of the hole in the wall.

The gas from the combustible elements linked with the released oxygen and spontaneously combusted.

The way it happened might have looked like a human body catching fire.

But the truth behind it was not that it was destroyed by fire—it was that it disappeared.

“Dismantle” consisted of three processes combined into one magic program: It took the magician’s body, which should have been protected by magic power, and wiped it out of existence, without allowing any opposition at all.

“Trident… I guess this is what it means when your hair stands on end…”

The specialized CAD had been tuned up to fire three spells simultaneously.

The Index had given the name Trident to a different kind of spell. But the Independent Magic Battalion knew that Trident was a ruthless, three-stage dismantling spell, and it was also the name of the CAD optimized for such a spell.

Fujibayashi couldn’t conceal a shudder and a murmur. Unconcerned, Tatsuya booted up the voice function on the information terminal he had standing by.

The relay hacking had stolen all meaning from the private line’s authentication system.

“Hello, east Japan branch of No-Head Dragon,” greeted Tatsuya, in an unnaturally cheerful tone.

The officer who picked up the phone turned back to his colleagues, unable to hide the wonder on his face. This line was for the officers to communicate among themselves; it was even private from the one they used to contact international HQ. Without being a branch leader or a member of the main council, you couldn’t use it, even if you were a member of the organization. In fact, you wouldn’t even know about this line. Furthermore, No-Head Dragon had no officers in their twenties, much less in their teens.

“…Who is it?”

Perhaps the only reason his tone of voice wasn’t imperious was because of the fear struck into his heart from the human disappearing act he’d just witnessed a moment ago.

“I’m much obliged for what happened at Fuji.”

The voice sounded like it belonged to a boy in his teens, but the way he expressed himself was far more mature than that.

“Such being the case, I’ve come to return the favor.”

As he spoke, the Area Interference field surrounding each of the officers suddenly vanished.

It wasn’t just the one on the phone. Everyone, save for the magical equipment that lacked volition, looked reflexively to one corner of the room.

Before their eyes, a weak blue flame flared up and disappeared. The sprinklers then reacted to the heat source and sprayed a high-pressure mist from the ceiling. The Generator, who had just been standing there, had evaporated without leaving a trace.

“Where is he?! Number Fourteen, where’s he coming from?!” shouted one officer, harried.

All magicians could detect what a spell had been cast on and from where it had been cast, based on the reaction from the event alteration. If someone had used a spell strong enough to disassemble a human body to the atomic level from such close range, then normally, there was no way they wouldn’t know where the spell had come from.

Even if they couldn’t detect the exact location, they should have been able to at least tell what direction the caster had been in, but they couldn’t. Which meant that the officer who shouted could no longer do anything but scream at the Generator to tell him.

In contrast, the remaining Generators didn’t get agitated—their mental functions for being agitated had been broken. They would not grow scared and panic, even if their partners were destroyed.

Number Fourteen sluggishly pointed to the hole in the wall. And past the hole, to the highest point in this city.

Another officer hastily reached for a sniper rifle. He put the digital optic scope to his eye and turned up the magnification. The upper body of a single boy appeared on the roof of Yokohama Bay Hills, illuminated by the waxing moon in the western sky. The man magnified the optical sight as far as it would go. He couldn’t see the boy’s eyes, as they were hidden under biker shades, but his lips were unconcealed, and he could see them distort into a derisive smirk.

As soon as he saw the twisted smile, the man cried out and hunched over. The scope had suddenly flown apart, disassembled, and a piece of it wounded his eye.

But the men didn’t have time to be worried about their colleague moaning in pain with a hand over said eye.

“Fourteen, Sixteen, get him!”

More than one voice ordered the Generators to counterattack. However…

“It is impossible,” said one in a robotic voice.

“It will not reach.”

Machines would do only what was possible. Generators had been reconstructed so they could use magic stably in any situation; they had no function to muster strength beyond their limits in desperation.

“Don’t talk back to me! Get him!”

The voice directed at Number Fourteen and Number Sixteen with a complete lack of intonation had come from the officer on his knees with a hand over his eye; his temper was shot.

A reply came from over the phone:

“Do you think I’ll let you?”

Noise appeared all over the bodies of Fourteen and Sixteen. Then they met the exact same fate as their two partners.

A sneering laugh came before the next words of ridicule. “Why not do it yourself rather than ordering tools to do it for you?”

But the strength to get angry at the sneer had been stolen from them. Their assailant was too far away to see with the naked eye; they couldn’t even make out the outline of a person. Nobody here had the skills to magically attack something they couldn’t see or otherwise perceive.

One man jumped for a landline. Another desperately tried to make a wireless call on a portable terminal. But the only thing they received were disconnected signals.

And yet, from their terminals’ speakers…

“That won’t work. The only one you can connect to from that room right now…is me.”

…came the same voice they’d heard on the first receiver.

“Impossible… Even the wireless…? How the hell…?”

“EM wave convergence. You don’t need to know how it was done.”

The men were smart enough to know what he meant by that. The knowledge only heightened their feelings of hopelessness.

“Anyway, on to business.”

The demon’s verdict ushered in more noise to the man holding his eye. His face twisted into a look of true despair. It continued to twist and contort—until he turned to dust and evaporated.

The humidity in the room had gone up from the three times the sprinklers had activated. At this point, no combustion happened to the atomized body. Their colleague simply disappeared without even so much as a ceremonial burial flame, and the other men’s faces froze.

One rushed for the exit. Noise had appeared on his back, and his contours had broken apart and dispersed into the air.

The remaining three officers in No-Head Dragon’s eastern Japan branch then realized their lives were now in the devil’s hands. They couldn’t run away from that fact any longer.

“Wait…! Please, wait!” shouted the branch leader after snatching away the receiver.

“For what, exactly?”

He had shouted his plea in spite of himself. He didn’t think the enemy would let them live—the enemy was deleting them like computer data; he had no pity or mercy. But unexpectedly, the man got a response. “We…we will not interfere with the Nine School Competition any more!” he continued into the pause.

“It ends tomorrow.”

“Not only the competition! We’ll leave the country tomorrow morning! And we’ll never come back!”

“Even if you don’t, others will, right?”

“No-Head Dragon will withdraw from Japan! Not just eastern Japan—I’ll have the western Japan branch pull out, too!”

“Do you have the authority to make such a promise, Douglas Huang?”

Huang’s heart stopped for a moment in shock. Desperately, he pushed forward, arguing his defense. “I’m a close aide to the boss! Even he can’t ignore what I have to say!”

“How are you able to say that?”

“Because I’ve saved his life! Our rules state that life debts must be paid by granting just as many requests!”

“Did you plan on begging for your life with that debt?”

Two sets of eyes pierced into Huang. They were murderous, hateful eyes, turned on a traitor. But he didn’t have time to be concerned about them.

“Don’t you need that debt to buy back your own life?”

“No! I don’t have to do that! The boss would never discard me!”

“Are you saying you have that much clout with him?”

“Yes!”

“Can you prove it?”

“I, well…”

“No-Head Dragon…you were not the ones who began that name. It was given to you by opposing groups, since its leader never appears before his or her subordinates. I hear it is very thorough—even when directly regulating subordinates, they are knocked out and brought to his or her room.”

A different kind of shudder shot through Huang than the fear of death or destruction. This man…knew far too much about them.

Who the hell had they started a fight with?

“If you say you have that much clout, then you must have seen your leader’s face before, correct?”

But he didn’t have time to think. To survive, he would have to take advantage of this flight of fancy the devil was showing him. “I am permitted to have an audience with him.”

“What’s your leader’s name?”

Huang closed his mouth. That was the highest secret in their organization. The fear and loyalty imprinted within him over many years won out over his fear at the current situation. But that only lasted a brief moment.

“—James?!”

Another of his partners had disappeared from this world. Extinguished, without even being allowed a human death. That seemed to him just as horrifying as the profanity toward the dead conducted by their leader.

“So that was James Zhu? That was unfortunate for the international police assigned to you.”

“Wait…”

“Will you be next, Douglas Huang?”

“Please, wait! …The boss’s name is Richard Sun.”

“What is his public name?”

“…Gongming Sun.”

“Where does he live?”

Huang told him everything he asked, from his residence in the upper-class residential district in Hong Kong to his office building’s name to the clubs he frequented. “…That’s everything I know.”

“Good timing. I had just finished questioning you. Excellent work.”

“You’ll believe me?”

“Yeah. You are definitely a close aide to Richard Sun, leader of No-Head Dragon.”

Huang had been overwhelmed, and his face was empty. Now, though, he felt a tinge of joy. But that tiny ray of hope he’d gotten…

“Gregory!”

…was completely erased along with his final colleague.

“…Why?! We didn’t take any lives. We didn’t kill anyone!”

“…We didn’t kill anyone!”

Over the voice communication unit he heard convenient reasoning—reasoning that only worked in hindsight. They had plotted mass murder, and it had been stopped by Yanagi, Sanada, and Fujibayashi. But Tatsuya didn’t point that out. “That has nothing to do with it.”

“What…?”

“Kill whoever you want. Don’t kill whoever you want. I don’t care.”

Tatsuya was fed up with all this posturing. He couldn’t do it anymore, and he stopped caring about making his words sound pretty. He’d heard everything he needed to. He no longer had to do it. “You made a move on something you should never have touched. That touch has incurred my wrath. That’s enough of a reason for you all to disappear.”

“…You’re a demon!”

“Maybe I am. But you’re the reason I can use this demonic power, Douglas Huang. Will draws out power—but emotion makes it stronger.” Tatsuya gave a thin, self-deprecating laugh into the mouthpiece. Its sound dissolved into the night wind, and in its place he spoke cold, hopeless words. “You drew out my one and only emotion. That’s how I can finally let this demonic power loose again.”

“Demonic power…? This spell—wait, is it the Demon Right?!”

That was his final cry. Nobody would ever hear his voice again.

Douglas Huang’s very existence had been erased from the world.