Chapter 2

A week passed after the new term began.

The student council presidential election would be announced very soon. Even the unconcerned freshmen (particularly those in the Course 2 classes, E through H) began to talk about who would run and who was likely to win.

Tatsuya had said his good mornings to his classmates and just booted up the terminal at his seat when Mikihiko, who had come earlier, said good morning to him.

“Good morning, Mikihiko. You come early a lot.”

“Ha-ha, I do. I finally got them to let me participate in our morning gongyo services recently, so I’d like to take it a little easier… I guess it’s a habit.”

The term gongyo was originally a Buddhist term, but because of its syncretism with Shinto, Mikihiko’s Shinto family performed it as well. Morning gongyo was basically an early-morning religious ritual. Mikihiko had said they’d let him participate, but Tatsuya knew from fragments of what he’d heard from Mikihiko and Erika in the past that he actually meant “I’m able to participate again.”

He felt both happy and envious of his friend for steadily regaining his strength and then improving even beyond that. Mari had joked to him in the past about Mikihiko transferring to Course 1, but now Tatsuya thought he might actually be the first upward transfer.

“By the way, Tatsuya. You might think this is weird to ask, but…”

“Is it weird?”

The question sounded blunt to others, but both of them had already learned that if they responded politely, the conversation wouldn’t get anywhere. They silently matched each other’s pace.

“Well, I don’t think it’s that weird. Is it true that you’re going to run for student council president?”

“…What?”

Oh, he’d heard what Mikihiko asked just fine. Tatsuya’s response came from a sense of surprise that was too big for him to handle.

“Well, I mean, there are rumors saying you’re going to run for it.”

“Rumors…?” Hadn’t Mikihiko been the one to suggest he run last week?

“It wasn’t me!” Tatsuya hadn’t intended to sharpen his glare, but Mikihiko hastily claimed innocence, adding gestures to his defense. “Mr. Tsuzura asked me after school yesterday in the practice room. He said, ‘Is it true that Tatsuya Shiba is going to enter the running for student council president?’”

Mr. Tsuzura was a licensed teacher whose area of expertise was magic geometry, though he had deep knowledge of magic engineering as well. He taught juniors at the moment.

Previously, he was a lecturer at Magic University. Known as an excellent young scientist in the academic world, he was considered close to having the position of assistant professor, but his way of thinking—and his words and actions, too—tended to be a little too freewheeling. He’d been thrown into an affiliated high school partly as a reprimand by their PR department…but he didn’t let it bother him. In fact, he reveled in being able to do whatever research he wanted.

Perhaps because of such traits, he was one of the most helpful teachers to Course 2 students, and despite Tatsuya being in a different grade than he was assigned, he’d come to Tatsuya for a chat several times.

“I didn’t know false rumors like that were spreading…”

“Oh, so it’s false, then? You mentioned you weren’t going to run, so I thought it was a little strange.” Mikihiko’s expression looked let down.

Tatsuya nodded, astonished. “I don’t think I’d get any votes even if I ran, and I didn’t want to do so anyway. Why are rumors like that going around the teachers?”

“Who knows?” Mikihiko wouldn’t have been privy to the internal affairs of the faculty room, and as expected, he could only tilt his head in doubt.

Tatsuya hadn’t asked the question expecting an answer, either, though. It was more like an idle complaint.

“It ain’t just the teachers.”

Contrary to his expectations, though, an eavesdropper nearby provided evidence that Tatsuya really didn’t want to hear.

“My seniors in my club are making remarks like that, too. Everyone seems weirdly open to the idea,” said Leo, from one seat over.

Erika, who was leaning against Mizuki’s desk, agreed. “Oh! Now that you mention it, I overheard something yesterday. That a freshman disciplinary committee member was running for student council president. That would have to be you, Tatsuya, wouldn’t it?”

Would it? Tatsuya didn’t want to agree, but now that Leo and Erika had brought their own similar information to Mikihiko, he couldn’t deny it.

“Me too…”

Are you kidding? Mizuki, too? Tatsuya wanted to collapse over his desk.

“Yesterday during counseling, I think I remember the topic coming up.”

But after hearing the rumor, he decided to be positive and proactive in dealing with this.

In more concrete terms, he felt like it was time to ask Haruka a few questions. Whether or not that was positive, though, might have garnered a few objections.

The biggest dissenter in terms of Tatsuya’s course of action being expressed as “positive” was probably Her.

“It’s still first period.”

Her attitude was unbecoming of a counselor. When Tatsuya entered the room, she scowled at him. She seemed to be wounded from when he’d cheated the No-Head Dragon information out of her—though as far as he knew, he was under no contractual restrictions as to how he would use the information he’d bought.

“I finished my work for first period.”

Of course, Haruka could dislike him all she wanted. It wasn’t even an itch for Tatsuya. They both shared certain secret information with each other, but the cards in his hand were stronger.

“…Blasted honor students.”

“I’m no honor student. My practical skills exam scores were just barely passing.”

“…Yes, but when you say it, it sounds sarcastic.”

One might possibly have been justified in calling them close enough that they needed no formalities between them.

“It’s the truth. Anyway, there was something I was worried about, so I wanted to hear your opinion on it.”

Haruka’s eyes widened at his suggestion, and, perhaps on reflex, she straightened up in her seat. “You can talk to me about anything.”

Sure, that was a splendidly professional mind-set to have, but she did seem to lack the ability to learn quickly. It was about time she figured out that the topics a counselor could talk about didn’t always have to extend to any “worries” he had.

“What I’m worried about are the student council elections coming up at the end of the month.”

“Yes, they seem to be having issues finding candidates to run. What’s wrong? Did someone ask you to convince your sister to run?”

“Yes, that would certainly worry me as well. But the thing I wanted to talk to you about today was a different rumor.”

“A rumor?”

“Yes. Apparently, the faculty have been saying I’ll run for student council president. You wouldn’t happen to have any idea about that, would you?”

Tatsuya looked straight into Haruka’s eyes as he said that, and for a moment—only a moment—her expression said Oh, shit to him.

“I heard from Shibata that you talked about it yesterday. I would very much like to hear the details.”

He’d been watching her closely enough, however, to spot any change in her expression, no matter how quick. Tatsuya wasn’t about to let that slip. “I know this sounds ridiculous, but you wouldn’t happen to be starting these rumors, would you?”

Haruka’s facial muscles went through a hectic cycle of tightening and loosening. When she finished, she put on a common, insincere smile. “Oh, come on. That is ridiculous. I would never do anything so irresponsible.”

Her lips weren’t drawn back at all. She seemed to have improved her ability to pull together facial expressions.

“…How on earth did a false rumor like that get started?”

“Oh…so it was false after all. Well, that makes sense… You’re not one to bear the full brunt of something. You’re more the mastermind, the secret agent type.”

“I won’t deny that.”

They exchanged mean-looking grins. That could have been an effect from their shared tutelage. That wasn’t enough of a commonality for them to warm up to each other, though.

“So how, exactly, did the false rumor of me running for student council president get started?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know much about it myself.”

“I see. I would be fine with what parts of it you do know.”

“…”

Tatsuya waited for Haruka’s response as though he’d just made the most obvious question in the world. She then realized no amount of playing dumb would get her anywhere.

“…I’m not exactly sure who started it…but it ended up being like a game of telephone: ‘Hattori won’t be running, Nakajou won’t be running,’ ‘Now the student council is having trouble finding candidates,’ ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if Shiba ran…’ At some point, it went from ‘Apparently Shiba isn’t going to run’ to ‘Apparently Tatsuya Shiba is going to run.’ ‘Wait, Shiba?’ ‘Yes, the one from the disciplinary committee.’ ‘Oh, the one who appeared in the rookie competition? Huh, wouldn’t that be a sight?’ …And that’s basically how it happened.”

After listening to that, Tatsuya became so exhausted he felt like he was going to slide off his chair onto the floor. “…That’s so stupid. Why did the teachers believe that?”

Still, rumors were by nature stupid and irresponsible. If his classmates or upperclassmen were idly chatting about it, it wouldn’t have bothered him. He knew he couldn’t let everything bother him.

But in the faculty room? Even teachers like Tsuzura who were excellent—at least in terms of intelligence—were treating it seriously? He couldn’t exactly bury his head in the sand over this.

Though he still hadn’t rejected the possibility of someone purposely manipulating information, either.

“The teachers actually seem to be taking it more seriously than the students. We controlled all the information about what happened in April, but the faculty knows the truth.”

“…About the incident with Blanche?”

“Mmhmm. A lot of the teachers think very highly of you for being the central factor in resolving it.”

It was a surprise to Tatsuya, and he knew it shouldn’t have been. He hadn’t thought he’d stood out that much during the incident… All he could say was that he wasn’t being aware enough.

“Juumonji blacked out all the information, so we don’t know exactly what happened. But we know you got rid of terrorists by using force, and that’s why they think so well of you. And since the student council president at a magic high school is a job that demands the use of force sometimes, there are a bunch of teachers who think it would be interesting if someone with such dominating ability held the spot, even if it was a freshman.”

…This is not looking good, thought Tatsuya.

As he thanked Haruka and excused himself, he knew he’d have to do something about it.

Before he left the counseling room, he didn’t forget to tell her that he wouldn’t look into how she had gotten her information.

Unfortunately, there were only so many ways he could deal with groundless rumors. And he wouldn’t be able to do it on his own. So maybe he should have been happy to welcome her as a foothold to breaking the deadlock.

He tried to use that fact to comfort himself, but it didn’t do anything to quell the annoyance he felt right now.

Twenty-five members per class was relatively low. At least in the sense of being able to see what everyone was doing at a glance. Even if he didn’t want to know, it was hard to deny that twenty people (everyone minus the four he’d chatted with before classes started) were, without exception, stealing glances at him and trading rumors.

He could hear the fragments of sentences, like “I knew it” and “president” and “election,” being passed around.

He didn’t think he’d ever felt this uncomfortable before.

After turning back around in his seat, he suddenly realized Mayumi was standing in front of him. She’d barged into the freshman classroom (though upperclassmen in this day and age didn’t think so much about boundaries like that) and stopped in front of him. As soon as he turned to face her, she put her hands together, trying to make herself look cute (!) and said, “Tatsuya, please. Do you have a moment?”

Behind her stood Suzune, looking exasperated. He put her to the side for now.

Tatsuya glanced at the digital clock in the corner of his screen. Five minutes left until second period started. Given how long it would take the two seniors to get back to their own classroom, they only had about a minute to talk.

“We can just make it official student council business, and we won’t get demerits,” answered Mayumi, reading the silent question from Tatsuya’s expression, her hands still clasped. Her hands were subtly lower now, though, looking a bit less like someone asking a favor and more like a maiden praying. That was a bad sign.

She probably could have easily folded her hands at her chest and made her eyes water, too.

Second period, like first period, would be a classroom lecture on their terminals. Twenty or thirty minutes away from class wouldn’t be an issue for him at all.

He stood, exchanging glances with his friends, and nodded to Mayumi.

Mayumi came around in front of his desk, replacing him, and held up the ID card to the reader—complete with its special privileges.

They brought him to the student council room.

They always gathered in here for lunch, but Tatsuya knew why they’d brought him this time.

“Sorry for pulling you out of class, but we’re burning daylight,” apologized Suzune.

“No, it’s fine,” said Tatsuya, shaking his head.

“Thanks. It makes me feel better to hear that.” After an exaggerated exhalation, Mayumi broached the main topic. “It’s about the student council elections…”

As he’d thought. He already had an answer. “I think this is still too early for Miyuki.”

“Miyuki is… Wait, how did you know that?” Mayumi’s eyes widened in haste—was he a mind reader?

Tatsuya gave a pained grin and explained. “You wanted to talk to me without Miyuki here. That’s why you took me out of class instead of asking during lunch break, right? Considering the time left, I thought it must be about Miyuki running for office.”

He hadn’t been trying to show off his deductive powers by answering her before she asked. Just Mayumi was one thing, but if she was teamed up with Suzune, he was afraid that if he didn’t take the wind out of their sails right away, they’d be able to talk him down.

For now, his preemptive strike was right on the mark. He needed to secure guaranteed victory before his opponents—particularly Suzune—had a chance to regroup.

“I’m sure there are examples out there of freshmen being student council presidents. But it’s still too soon for Miyuki. She’s not fit for leading an organization yet.”

“…Didn’t she have a president-like role during middle school?” asked Suzune.

“I stopped her,” he denied immediately.

“She seems fit for the job…” remarked Mayumi.

“She’s still a child. I know I might be too helpful to her sometimes, but she doesn’t have enough control over herself yet. I at least want her to be at the point where her magic won’t go out of control,” said Tatsuya, showering them with rebuttals.

They both looked like they had more to say—mainly to change the “might be too helpful” to “definitely too helpful”—but they couldn’t argue that her magic going out of control was a shortcoming they could ignore in a student council president.

“But that leaves us in a bind. We need to announce the candidates tomorrow, but we don’t even have any.”

“I was led to believe there was a week until the paperwork deadline for running.” Couldn’t a candidate still appear in that time?

Mayumi shook her head at Tatsuya’s “in the first place…” argument, her face dark. “One of the student council’s jobs is to narrow down the candidates for the next president. If we don’t, we’d have a flood of them, and it would be out of control.”

“…I would think having many candidates in an election would be for the better.”

“Even if it develops into people firing magic at each other? They’d all be tough guys trying to lead the school.”

She was right. If that happened, things would become even worse than club recruitment week. “…I really don’t think… They’d actually want to be president, though, wouldn’t they?” Since they wanted to be student council president, they wouldn’t want to cause disturbances like that.

“You’re being optimistic, Tatsuya,” said Mayumi, flat-out eliminating his sensibilities.

“Our school’s student council president has a lot of privileges, and they’ll be thought of highly after they graduate as well. The student council four years ago actually advocated for a free, democratic election. Once the number of casualties reached the double digits, they took down their ‘free election’ signboard, the president strongly recommended the vice president as the next president, and they finally got the situation under control. It’s in the school records.”

Tatsuya’s doubts were all wiped out by Suzune’s surprising insider story. “…What kind of developing country are we in, anyway?” he groaned.

“It just means high school kids aren’t adult enough to exhibit perfect self-control when given great power like magic,” said Mayumi, putting her hands together and again assuming an imploring pose. “So, you know? She might still be a child from your point of view, but I’m sure Miyuki would be fine. They do say that people grow into their positions.”

So it’s come to that, thought Tatsuya. Mayumi was very determined—she hadn’t been president this year for nothing. Still…

“You don’t have to worry about Miyuki,” he pointed out. “I would think if Nakajou were to announce her candidacy, that would be enough. Isn’t she the most suitable for next student council president based on order and actual merit?”

Mayumi fell silent, her face sour.

“…You’re certainly correct, but…” Suzune couldn’t seem to say any more, either.

Yes. He knew very well what they weren’t saying: They’d brought the topic to him because Azusa was refusing no matter what. It was clear; they didn’t have to explain.

What he said next, though, was completely out of both Mayumi’s and Suzune’s expectations. “…If you’d like, I can persuade Nakajou for you.”

“What? …Tatsuya, you’d do that for us?”

“Yes.”

Mayumi seemed so surprised, she didn’t know what face to make. But after his words slowly permeated her mind, she suddenly grabbed his hand.

“You’ll really do it? Then yes! Yes, please! I knew I could count on you, Tatsuya!”

She started swinging their hands up and down. Tatsuya and Suzune exchanged pained grins.

That day, as though her small-animal danger instincts had warned her away, Azusa didn’t come to the student council room for lunch. Tatsuya figured that, at this rate, she might make up some reason she couldn’t come after school, either, so after fifth period, he decided to march into Azusa’s classroom. (Magic high schools had five periods in all: three in the morning and two in the afternoon.)

He looked into the classroom from the door. Azusa was hurriedly getting ready to go home. She probably would have escaped before getting caught if not for her earnestness keeping her in front of her terminal until class ended, thus bringing her to ruin.

Along with his sister, who would never balk at such neglect of rules when she was with Tatsuya—she probably wouldn’t hesitate to even dirty her hands with a grave crime—he stepped foot into the classroom of 2-A.

He received Who the hell is that? stares, mostly from the boys. Still, they were mature enough not to flare up at an underclassman just for coming into the room. Of course, part of their difficulty at taking action was the pressure coming from the girls’ stares, which were keenly interested, as though they were assessing a brand product in a store.

Tatsuya gave all those stares the cold shoulder and walked straight to Azusa’s desk. She’d realized he was approaching a few moments ago, but he’d gotten to her while she was still hesitating to run away and instead only looking worried.

She gave a hesitant, insincere smile as she stood up. Her hands tightly grasped her bag, but her feet didn’t move. Tatsuya and Azusa were nearly one foot apart in height; normally he would speak to her from a distance so as not to intimidate her, and when they were close, he would bend a little. Today, though, he purposely took up a close position and looked down on her.

There was a cool (?) smile on his lips, but his eyes stared hers down, preventing her escape. “Nakajou.”

Tatsuya’s appearance wasn’t outstanding, nor was his voice rich enough to listen to in ecstasy. But, perhaps thanks to his throat and lung capacity, which had been forged in combat training, his voice was deep and far-reaching. Young girls might have found it harsh or adult-like.

“There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

And timid young ladies might have found the pressure in his voice difficult to oppose.

“Umm, I can’t really today…”

“It won’t take very much time.”

She’d managed to search for a way out anyway, but Tatsuya put a tiny bit more oomph in his voice to cut off her escape route.

As Azusa blinked in surprise at his overbearing attitude, the classmates watching them (mostly girls) moved from meaningful looks to hushed whispers. Along with what bits he could make out, like “surprisingly pushy” and “wild man” and “maybe kind of cool,” he felt another persistent gaze on him.

Miyuki, feeling both conscious and unconscious flirtation in those stares, had quickly gone downhill in terms of her mood. And that aura of distaste coming from behind him—from Miyuki, in other words—was putting a lot of pressure on Azusa.

“I only need five minutes.”

“…Well, if it’s really just five minutes…”

Taken in—more like forced into agreement—by the conventional objection of a dirty salesman, Azusa followed him out.

She wore no manacles or ropes, and he didn’t hold her hand, but it looked pretty clearly like he was dragging her away for questioning.

“I’ll be short,” began Tatsuya as soon as they sat down at a table in the corner of the café. “Nakajou, please run as a candidate in the student council elections.”

“I figured that’s what it was… Did the president ask you to persuade me?”

“Yes.”

At first, she’d requested he persuade Miyuki, who was sitting next to him, not Azusa. Tatsuya didn’t say a word of that.

“…I can’t do it. Student council president is too big of a role for me,” she said with a shake of her head, looking down and balling her hands in her lap.

Her attitude was more stubborn than he’d expected. She even looked like she was about to cry. She might have actually started if he pushed her too much. Though, no, that was highly likely.

But if that was all it took to make him give up, he wouldn’t have agreed to this in the first place. “Hattori is being recommended for the next club committee chairman, so there aren’t any candidates for the student council election. If you don’t run, we’ll have to have an election without the student council being in control of it.”

“That’s all right, isn’t it? There are plenty of people more suitable than me for the job,” she responded rather aggressively.

Tatsuya heaved a sigh.

“…”

“…”

Before even ten seconds had passed in silence, Azusa began to fidget. She shot a glance at Tatsuya, and when she saw he wasn’t going to respond, her eyes went to Miyuki for a moment instead.

Miyuki looked back, her lips in an enigmatic, unreadable smile. Azusa felt like it was sucking her in, and quickly looked away…

…back to Tatsuya. This time, their eyes met.

Azusa’s face locked up, and it looked like she was about to groan.

Tatsuya sighed again. “Is a repeat of the tragedy from four years ago really okay with you?”

Miyuki, listening in, thought the word tragedy was an exaggeration. He thought the same way.

Azusa, though, was white-faced. She looked like she was in shock.

“I hear over ten people were heavily wounded. I would expect you to know more about the details than me.”

In her unrest, her lips began to tremble pathetically.

But Tatsuya attacked once more. “There are video records from it, aren’t there? Serious injuries caused by magic… I’m sure nobody would want to see stuff like that.”

The main job of the student council secretary was to manage the student council records. If a huge incident like that was in them, it would have at least drawn her attention while she was organizing.

As expected, Azusa started to tremble all over now.

“I wonder if history will repeat itself…”

“Wh-what…do you want me to…?”

She looked completely beaten. Miyuki, who had been silent ever since arriving at the café, answered her in a kind voice. “If you were to run for student council president, we wouldn’t have to see such terrible things. It’ll be okay. I’m confident you can do a good job.”

Azusa’s eyes wavered. The brother threatened, and the sister offered help. It was a beautiful good cop–bad cop combination.

“Oh, now that I think of it…” Tatsuya, loosening his serious expression—a faked one—brought out the next piece of “candy,” pretending he’d just remembered something. “I received two flight devices to review from FLT that go on sale next week…”

As soon as she heard that, her eyes flared to life. The white in her face changed to the crimson of blood as she unfurled herself and leaned over the table. “…You mean the Silver model specialized CAD for flight magic? The latest in the Silver series said to be the most efficient at implementing flight magic, when it was just announced in July?!”

Tatsuya nodded. Azusa stared deeply into his face.

Her eyes said, Gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme…

“Well, they’re for review purposes, so they’re not for sale, and they don’t have serial numbers…”

Azusa gulped. A haze started to form around her eyes, as if she had a fever.

“But their specs are no different from the commercial versions, so I was thinking I’d give you one as a gift when you became student council president.”

“Really?!” cried Azusa, standing up. Her chair clattered over behind her, but she didn’t seem to notice any of the curious glances their way. Her mind wasn’t relaxed enough to do so, even if she’d wanted to.

“Yes. You’ve been a big help to Miyuki, too, so I thought a congratulatory gift for the new student council president would have to be at least that good…”

“I’ll do it! I’ll take on anyone! I’ll get elected to student council president for sure!” she declared with power, glaring at illusions of opposing candidates she couldn’t yet see.

She’d entirely forgotten about three things: that he’d come here to threaten and cajole her into taking the spot because there was nobody else in the first place, that it would be no more than a vote of confidence at this rate, and that she’d been firmly refusing to run just a little while ago.

As Azusa descended into a manic state, Tatsuya and Miyuki secretly nodded to each other.