Chapter 4

Morning began at school, and right away, everyone was practically levitating with excitement.

Today all afternoon classes were canceled, and the student assembly, campaign speeches, and voting would be conducted.

In an age where even assemblies for individual classes had mostly disappeared, it was a very big event.

Not only that, but for the student assembly, they planned to enact a proposal to make a huge change in the system of student autonomy.

The conflict between the supporters and the opposition had actually begun behind closed doors before summer vacation began.

In addition to the current student council president Mayumi Saegusa’s popularity, the actual proposal was difficult to contest on the surface. Still, perhaps affected by the Course 2 team’s achievements in the rookie Monolith Code event, there were far more supporters than opponents. And yet the stubbornness of those who remained its opponents felt much more dangerous to those keeping an eye on the present situation. That only made the atmosphere at school even more restless.

“Everyone here? Great. I’ll go over our positions one last time.”

After morning classes ended, all the disciplinary committee members met in the committee headquarters.

The members were on rotations and frequently acted out of sync with one another; everyone being together in one place was a rare sight. The student council election was one of the few affairs the disciplinary committee would mobilize all its members for.

“Our posts are mostly inside the auditorium. The school system keeps watch outside. The self-government committee’ll support us with that.”

There were nine disciplinary committee members in all. They had to provide security for a venue containing the entire student body of 560 kids, so they didn’t have the ability to deal with suspicious persons outside. Even without them, any villains who invaded from outside wouldn’t be the students’ job to deal with.

“Chiyoda and I are at the big doors. Tatsumi and Morisaki, at the entrance…”

She seems unusually into this, thought Tatsuya as he listened to her instructions. She was speaking quickly and clearly, which was unusual for her to do among friends.

“…Sawaki, you’re to the left of the podium. Shiba, on the right. That’s all.”

Everyone, including Mari, stood up and nodded.

Tatsuya would be at one of the stage wings. If some rash person were to jump up and try to attack one of the officers onstage, then he and Sawaki would be the last line of defense…but Tatsuya wasn’t worried very much about things like that.

Leaving school with Mayumi yesterday had taught him that. No student at First High was reckless enough to attack her. Or rather, to attack her inside the school. The upperclassman boys would all know that…

“Get to your positions right away. Shiba, you wait here a sec.”

Once they were alone, Mari went back to her usual tone. “Sorry for being sudden, but how did it go yesterday?”

He didn’t need to ask the topic. “There were three attacks,” he said.

Mari’s face drew back in tension.

“Targeted at me, anyway.”

After she heard that, though, she got confused. What was he talking about?

“Well, I seem to have underestimated the president a little.”

“…Would you mind explaining?”

“Well, basically…it was her fan club,” managed Tatsuya.

Mari looked convinced. “They misunderstood and got jealous?”

“Miyuki was there, too, so you’d think they’d realize it wasn’t that sort of situation…”

The wave of (mental) exhaustion came back to him when he remembered what happened yesterday. At least, that was how Tatsuya felt about it. “Well, all I had to do was turn on my CAD. They didn’t seem to be bold enough to take any real action. They probably didn’t want to do something stupid and have the president hate them.”

“I see…”

“I suppose they wouldn’t have been able to do anything about that crossfire of eyes on them even if they wanted to… They knew they’d get ganged up on as soon as the president aimed one attack at them.”

They were fanatics, sure, but they didn’t want to die like dogs. Suicide bombings happened because people could get their enemies (or their enemies’ supporters) caught in it. No sniper would take the shot if they knew it would give them away and not get through the bulletproof glass anyway.

Feeling like they were idiots for being worried about her, they exchanged smiles tinged with exhaustion.

…Which was why Tatsuya’s level of enthusiasm was at an all-time low.

With an attitude of super-seriousness—feigned—with no meaning to it beyond creating an alibi for himself, he stood beside the stairs at stage right.

When he thought about it, the problem was simply who was allowed to be selected for the student council. Even if the position of student council president had considerable practical implications, it didn’t mean very much to graduate as the vice president or secretary. Under First High’s system, the president could select two vice presidents, four vice presidents, etc., if he or she wanted. The issue of whether a Course 2 student could be an officer was a matter of honor, an issue of pride.

And the pride riding on this was pretty weak.

Maybe the ways of the secular world have poisoned me too much…

For the sake of ideals, for the sake of money, for honor, for pride… Tatsuya’s world was filled to the brim with situations where human lives had a low market value. The stage nearby, where people tried to seriously approach resolving their differences of opinion with logic-based discussions, made him feel like he was watching an unrealistic old movie on a silver screen.

“…For those reasons, I propose that we abolish the system of limitations that determine eligibility for student council officers.”

Now that Mayumi was finished outlining her agenda, one of the students in a row of seniors quickly raised her hand. She was a Course 1 student he didn’t know. (Which meant she wasn’t in the Nine School Competition, which meant she didn’t have enough ability to be chosen as a member of their team.) She moved to the questioning seat.

Modern sound-collecting microphones had the ability to pick up everyday conversation from fifty meters away, so having a question chair itself was just a formality, a way to make it look good.

Each of those pieces of equipment, both small and large, steadily took the realism away from what he was watching.

“…On the face of…your argument is sound…”

The words of the questioner, of the opposition faction, only reached his ears in a broken, disconnected fashion. He wasn’t wearing earplugs, of course. He was unconsciously filtering out any remarks that could possibly cause trouble.

“Is there a current problem with the system that requires you to change it? What I mean is, is there a Course 2 student you’d like to choose for the student council?”

Tatsuya frowned—her intentions were clear. (He didn’t feel the need to hide his expression, since he had nothing to do with the question itself.) He figured the best thing would be to dodge the question somehow, but Mayumi must have had a plan—or maybe she wasn’t thinking at all—because she answered frankly.

“I am vacating the position of student council president today. I will not be naming any new officers, so I haven’t given any thought to that.”

“But you could try and make it so the next president can elect a Course 2 student near to their heart, couldn’t you?”

“Near to her heart,” she says… thought Tatsuya. It didn’t take long for her to be blunt.

“I have no intention to let retired emperors make all the decisions in the student council.”

Her slightly silly tone caused a few chuckles.

“Naming the next officers is the sole prerogative of the next president. I have no intention whatsoever to interfere with that.”

“Which means that there are Course 2 students the next president wants to surround herself with. That’s the reason you suggested changing the system, isn’t it?”

Stinging words began floating through the auditorium. Evidently Tatsuya wasn’t the only one to think What the hell?

“Please, quiet down.” Miyuki’s clear voice called for attention, helping them to move along.

Because she was currently a related party to the question Mayumi was being asked, Hattori had taken over as facilitator temporarily, with Miyuki supporting him. (Incidentally, the student assemblies here didn’t have a moderator to act as a neutral intermediary.)

“…My answer to that question is no. The reason I make this proposition now is because this is my last chance to do so. Because I believe it is the student council president’s duty not to leave any seeds of conflict for my underclassmen.”

In his mind, Tatsuya gave her a wow. Evidently, she could come off as imposing even outside sports fields.

“If there are no Course 2 students actually named to a position, it wouldn’t be cause for opposition.”

On the other hand, the questioner—he thought her name was Asano—seemed to have gotten stubborn.

“This is not an issue of whether or not such a candidate exists, Ms. Asano. Systems reflect the ideas of the group. A system in which Course 2 students can’t be officers, where regardless of their abilities they cannot hold office, is a declaration that they don’t have the right to be officers. This sort of elitism is wrong.”

That was a pretty drastic way to put it, thought Tatsuya.

But there was a loud applause in the auditorium after that. And Course 2 students weren’t the only ones causing it.

“You’re trying to trick us with words!”

Even the dullest of minds would have been forced to realize the unfavorable situation in the auditorium. Despite that—or perhaps as a natural result—Asano’s voice reached hysteric proportions.

“There’s a Course 2 student you want in the student council. That’s why you want to abolish the requirements! Your real motive is favoritism, isn’t it?!”

A few sporadic desperate voices in the audience agreed, but they were immediately squelched by a storm of boos. The tempest’s high waves were descending on the questioning chair as well.

“President Saegusa! Your real goal is to get that freshman over there in the student council, isn’t it?!”

As Asano shouted hysterically, her finger pointed straight at Tatsuya.

“I know all about it! You went together to the station yesterday after school!”

That remark was most likely made out of despair and self-abandonment.

Mayumi’s face stiffened.

But that one statement produced a surprisingly large effect.

The storm of booing ceased, and it became silent.

The students all looked back and forth between Mayumi and Tatsuya.

He saw Mayumi’s face redden just slightly and thought, That face is only going to make this misunderstanding worse! But with all this unwanted attention on him, he couldn’t say that out loud.

The thing to overcome the situation was a chilling remark made from up on the stage.

“Is that all you would like to say?”

Before he knew it (probably just a moment ago) Miyuki had stood up.

Her cold eyes stared down straight through the face of her upperclassman.

Even from the back of the stage—no, likely even more so from there—her eyes held a sublime, queenlike dignity that sealed the lips of the upperclassman attempting to fabricate gossip.

Her magic…it’s not going off.

Tatsuya immediately checked to see if she was letting her magic run away with her, but this pressure wasn’t from magic.

Despite there being no active magic, the chill of severe winter that could take away your freedom of movement was emanating from the stage. Even Tatsuya could feel it.

“Your previous remark contained personal slander that we cannot overlook. Therefore, with the power vested in me as assistant facilitator of these proceedings, I order you to leave this place. If you are unhappy, then please demonstrate proof that President Saegusa does, in fact, harbor special feelings toward a certain freshman.”

“Well…” Of course, Asano faltered at that. Mayumi having feelings for Tatsuya was no more than pure speculation, and saying that was her motive for this proposal was no more than slander. She knew that.

As she stood there unsure of what to do, Miyuki continued to stare coldly at her. Her eyes, not her magic, were filled with disdain, as though she was trying to freeze the girl’s mind. And now, the agitator who had attempted to involve her brother in a slanderous remark was indeed standing stock-still, unable to move a finger.

Authority, hierarchy, rank… High school students had little societal experience, and so were far removed from those concepts. But this scene was elucidating exactly the kind of situation the word solemnity would be used to describe.

“Allow me to amend that. You don’t need to leave the auditorium. However, we will not be answering any more questions from you. Asano, please return to your seat.”

The one who finally tried to get things under control was the one acting as facilitator, Hattori. Yes, finally—even he had been overawed by Miyuki’s pressure.

Miyuki gracefully bowed, then returned to her chair. Asano, without anything left to argue, wobbled back to her seat.

In the end, the opposition faction’s attempt at interference came to naught. After that, the auditorium had been filled with a tense air. There weren’t even any cheerful hoots or jeers going around. Little by little (in a rather weak ending) the electronic votes were collected, the proposal to abolish the student council officer restrictions passing by a majority.

Then, finally, it was time for Azusa’s election speech.

It was closer to a general policy speech, since she was the only candidate. Still, there would still be a formal vote of confidence (using paper votes, not electronic ones). Azusa stepped up to the stage, her face a mix of enthusiasm and nervousness.

She quickly bowed and was met with a loud applause. There were some whistles and cheers in there, too, but they quickly stopped once she began her speech.

Tatsuya and Miyuki, being uninformed about things related to entertainment, wouldn’t have known this. But the auditorium felt like when a cute and feminine female singer got up on a live stage, crowded around by male fans.

Something he also wouldn’t know was how, despite being the top achiever in both theory and practice in their class, the lack of any arrogance, alongside the presence of humility and sociability, had already coupled with her appearance and created a slightly different position at school for her than Mayumi’s had been—that of an idol who was easy to get along with.

She presented her political views and policies with unexpected eloquence (though maybe it was rude to call it unexpected). It was essentially a continuation of the current student council’s stances. Many parts of the speech certainly tended toward high school student–like ideals, but in general, it went acceptably… The occasional strange cheers of “You can do it!” and “You got this!” were, perhaps, just part of the fun.

The trouble happened when she referenced the next student council officers.

“…With respect to today’s decision, I would like to appoint capable officers to the next student council, regardless of whether they are in Course 1 or Course 2.”

“Does she mean the Course 2 kid over there—?”

“I didn’t know Azusa liked wild younger men—”

It started with truly low-level hoots. They were the basest of comments born from the opponents’ unhappiness after having found themselves quashed right at the start without having gotten a chance to do much. In their subconscious they probably figured Azusa would ignore them rather than argue.

What a miscalculation that turned out to be.

They were right in that Azusa said nothing to the jeers, but…

“Who was that just now?!”

“How dare you make fun of Nakajou!”

“If you’ve got something to say, say it to all of us!”

“Hang the cowards!”

…it was only because other people started shouting that she didn’t have the time to.

A little skirmish broke out in the middle of the auditorium, a grappling contest between the opponents who had heckled Azusa and her fans nearby.

“Please stay quiet! Return to your seats!”

“Silence, please!”

“Everyone, please calm down!”

Miyuki, Hattori, and Mayumi raised their voices several times, but the students were now too frenzied to hear them. The ring of fighting quickly grew bigger—and the jeering comments less tolerable. It was a fight between children all clumped together, no skills or anything involved. But forcing your way between them would only get yourself caught up in it and jostled around. If nobody cared about people getting hurt it would be simple, but… Tatsuya, his head hurting thinking about how hard this would be to rein in, traded glances with Sawaki and Tatsumi and made up his mind to jump into the fray.

But his decision had come too late to be of use.

The moment an opponent shouted something exceedingly vulgar to place unjust suspicion on Tatsuya and Azusa’s relationship, a girl’s booming voice quieted the disturbance.

“Silence!”

The voice was so loud it seemed strange that there was no audio feedback from the microphone. It wasn’t the volume, though, but the firmness that had overpowered the minds of the students wrestling with each other.

The students looked over on reflex, and a moment later they closed their eyes on reflex, too, then blinked and looked back up at the stage.

There was a blizzard of psionic light raging on the stage. A tempestuous wrath threatening to erode the world away.

Modern magic altered the world by putting together information bodies representing false phenomena and projecting them onto the world. It should be impossible to trigger any magical effects without an organized presence of mind.

And yet the turbulent emotions were now dragging the rest of the world into their chaos. It was a power of influence that made no sense. At this rate, who knew when the entire auditorium would be iced?

Mayumi, Hattori, Suzune, and Azusa all reached for their CADs at once to hold the queen of the icy world, Miyuki, in check.

…Fortunately, however, the great magical battle between student council members, the worst possible scenario, was averted right before coming to pass. A male student had, at some point, stepped onto the stage, facing away from the audience and hiding her violent emotions from their sight. Both his hands went around her shoulders, wrapping up the power trying to remake the world. The act somehow appeared as though it had completely suppressed it.

From offstage, nobody could tell what the two of them were talking about, or saying with their eyes without exchanging words.

But until the boy pulled away from the girl and returned to his original spot offstage, everyone in school—the freshmen, the juniors, the seniors, everyone—had their eyes glued to how their eyes were locked (?) on to each other.

After that, as though evil spirits had left the room, the auditorium went back to perfect order. Nobody made rude comments, and nobody shouted cheers like it was some kind of concert. Once the rest of the proceedings were carried out in silence, the students, like domesticated sheep, lined up to cast their votes.

The results would be counted that same day by a third party hired with student council funds and announced in the morning…

“Congratulations, Ah-chan.”

“Nakajou, congratulations.”

“Congratulations, Nakajou.”

Before she had time to hear the congratulatory words in the student council room first thing in the morning, Azusa had been elected student council president. The issue had been settled—or, well, it should have been.

“…Shiba. You really don’t have to worry that much. Those votes were null and void, after all.”

“That’s too bad. You were pretty close, too, Tatsuya.”

The siblings, listening to Suzune’s almost-sympathy and Mari’s not entirely concealed amusement, both made sour faces as they looked at the tally.

Five hundred forty-four votes had been cast.

Of them, one hundred seventy-three were valid.

The voting breakdown for president…

“…I never thought it would turn out like this, though,” said Mayumi.

“Shiba with two hundred twenty, Nakajou with one hundred seventy-three, and Tatsuya with one hundred sixty-one…” mused Mari.

“…Please, wait. I understand we must accept so many people having misunderstood and voted for me, but…” Miyuki argued, controlling her voice but clearly not wanting to accept it. But that was as long as she could last. “Why are we counting votes for ‘the queen’ and ‘her royal majesty’ as votes for me?!” she cried tearfully.

“On the ballots, they are written as Queen Miyuki and Her Royal Majesty Miyuki Shiba and Lady Miyuki the Snow Queen… There really is no other way to interpret them,” Suzune said apologetically, trying to be soothing.

That wasn’t going to convince Miyuki, though. “What does that even mean? Do I strike them all as having a personality of…of perversion?!”

“…No, I really don’t think that’s what they meant,” denied Mari in haste, as though overpowered—actually, she had cringed a bit. “I don’t think anyone would have the guts to say that after seeing you up there…”

“Then did I really come off as so self-important?! Was my attitude truly that intolerable?!” Miyuki’s voice was quickly starting to descend into crying.

“…Miyuki, please, calm down. I assure you that nobody thinks that way,” said Mayumi in her best possible wheedling voice, trying to suppress her anxiety.

It didn’t have much effect. “Give me the ballots for a moment! I’ll find who wrote these things!”

“That’s crazy. How would you even do that?”

The common sense someone attempted didn’t help at all in this situation. Miyuki turned around to face Tatsuya, her eyes immediately starting to water. “Tatsuyaaa…”

As she drew close to him, her eyes imploring and tearful, he put his own bewilderment to the side for the moment. “That would be unreasonable, Miyuki. These are secret ballots, so it’s against the rules to investigate who cast what vote.” He patted her on the head, as if trying to persuade a small child.

“But…but…”

Now she actually started to sob.

This wasn’t completely unforeseen. He gently embraced her. “It’ll be all right,” he said into her ear. “You’re not a queen.” His voice was profoundly soft. “However others see you, you’ll always be a charming princess in my eyes,” he said.

“Tatsuya…”

Her crying steadily ceased, along with her irritation and anger. Everyone else in the room, who had braced for the true Armageddon, put their hands to their chests and breathed sighs of relief.

But then they had to keep a hand to their chests for a different reason. Miyuki had stopped crying but showed no signs of leaving Tatsuya’s arms. In fact, she was rubbing her cheek gleefully against her brother’s chest now.

The sickly-sweet scene was starting to give them heartburn.

During lunch break that day, the Shiba siblings didn’t show up to the student council room. But the council members weren’t worried; Mayumi had gotten a text from Tatsuya saying that, while Miyuki’s upperclassmen seeing her cry was one thing, them seeing her being hugged and coddled like that must have been embarrassing for her. He didn’t come off as the least bit embarrassed in his text, though.

Azusa was absent because she was celebrating with her classmates. Suzune, as always, didn’t show up unless she had something to do here.

Today, unusually, Katsuto came to the student council room.

“Yes, come in.”

“I came after I was finished with lunch,” he explained as Mayumi gave him some tea. He nodded a silent thanks and brought the hot water to his lips.

“What’s the matter today, Juumonji?” asked Mari, who was an outsider herself but had loitered around the place so long that she treated it like her own room.

“Nothing,” answered Katsuto. “Today is the day Saegusa effectively retires. I just came to see her as student council president for the last time.”

“I see. You’ve come to show your appreciation, then?”

“Oh, Juumonji. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Katsuto shot down their two-pronged grin attack with a sober face.

“…Huh. I thought Tatsuya reminded me of someone. He’s a lot like you in this respect,” remarked Mari.

“Shiba?” asked Katsuto. We’re alike? his eyes added.

Mari shrugged. She was under the impression they were alike on the surface, but Tatsuya was deliberate, while Katsuto was more spontaneous. She had the discretion not to say that, though. Shrugging it off wouldn’t be enough to evade the question, however, so she went for a sudden change in subject. “Speaking of whom, I was worried for a minute there yesterday…”

“You’re right…” said Mayumi. “But there was no need for worry in the end.”

They must have been curious about it, too, though, because both Mayumi and Katsuto were immediately drawn in.

“I couldn’t tell from below,” said Katsuto. “I take it that was Shiba stopping his sister?”

“Yes,” said Mayumi. “I couldn’t believe the output and control he had.”

Katsuto, as he said, couldn’t quite tell what had happened from offstage, but Mayumi had been right there. She’d seen it, and was pretty sure he’d used Program Demolition. It had only taken a moment to expand the psionic structure—a product of typeless magic, which molded the psions themselves rather than information bodies that would influence eidos. The netlike structure had engulfed the mass of wildly out-of-control psions and compressed them all with overwhelming power, pouring them back into Miyuki’s body.

A person’s physical body wasn’t what produced psions, but it was the medium through which they were released and absorbed. Activation sequences, which used CADs, were the typical example of that.

Tatsuya had stuffed the psions Miyuki had scattered about unconsciously back “inside” her, in a manner of speaking.

“I get that typeless magic is his thing, but I didn’t think you could control other people’s psions that easily. Even if they’re family. I guess we’d need to consider that Miyuki’s own psions were going completely out of control, but…” said Mayumi, offering her doubts.

“Maybe that was an old magic technique, too?” guessed Mari. “I think I remember the hermit arts being good at controlling psions…”

“No, old magic already takes a long time to learn, and they say that the hermit arts are a branch that takes especially long,” said Katsuto, indirectly pointing out that that wasn’t enough to explain what had happened. “Her strength is another thing, too. I don’t think we can ignore genetics playing a part…”

“But he said he wasn’t part of the Ten Master Clans, right?” This time Mari was the one to offer a rebuttal to Katsuto’s speculation.

“Yeah. He didn’t seem like he was lying.”

They were at a dead end now. Mari and Katsuto were left wondering to themselves about it before Mayumi suddenly said, “Let’s stop talking about it. We shouldn’t be digging into people’s family lines.”

Both Mari and Katsuto thought Mayumi’s sudden change in attitude was unnatural, but she was right. It was a breach of courtesy among magicians to investigate the bloodlines of others, so they couldn’t argue the point.

Of course, it was a secret thought of Mayumi’s that she hadn’t told them. She had taken to believing that if Tatsuya was an Extra, then investigating him would be taboo.

…And thus, without either Tatsuya or Mayumi meaning it, Mayumi became a conspirator in concealing Tatsuya’s identity.