Chapter 2

Modern short-range public transportation was based on the idea of carpooling, having shifted from mass transport mechanisms to smaller numbers. This change had started thirty years ago and was nearly complete in metropolitan areas, having already spread to 80 percent of provincial towns and cities. In the remaining 20 percent of locations, no public transportation existed in the first place—people had their own cars.

When it came to short-distance commutes to work or school, devices to ferry many people at once, like linked trains and big buses, were now almost completely unused. It had been a long time since the days of middle and high school students using the same trains or buses to go to and from school together.

In almost all cases, Tatsuya went straight from school to the station, but occasionally he stopped by a café or a fast food place on the way. The road from the school to the station was about half a mile long, but the short route hosted many closely packed commercial establishments meant for students. There were not only eateries but also a myriad of bookstores, stationery stores, and clothing shops. Magic education–related goods were particularly abundant; the stores were patronized not just by First High students and faculty but also by a significant number of people on vacation.

The group of eight had just settled down at one particular café with a relatively orthodox appearance, one that they frequented enough to have started being treated as regulars there.

“What? Tatsuya, they picked you for the Thesis Competition?”

The group’s detour today had come about when Mikihiko had asked why Tatsuya had been called to the geometry laboratory. And, unable to wait for their food orders to arrive for the reveal, Mikihiko had asked again. Feeling that the hastiness was a side of his friend he hadn’t seen before, Tatsuya had gone ahead and explained the scene from earlier.

And that had been Mikihiko’s reaction.

Tatsuya had already mentioned it to Miyuki and Honoka before, when he went to get them from the student council room, but the other five, including Mikihiko, widened their eyes in perfect circles of surprise.

“But don’t they only pick three people from the whole school for the Thesis Competition?”

“I guess so,” answered Tatsuya lightly to Mizuki’s question. Their expressions were polar opposites.

“You guess…? You don’t feel anything, Tatsuya?”

Mizuki was dumbfounded, and Erika looked a little amazed as she made her own comment.

Next to them, Leo grinned in amusement. “Guess this much is only natural when it comes to Tatsuya, huh?”

“Almost no freshmen have ever gotten into the Thesis Competition,” Shizuku objected.

“But a few have, right? The faculty can’t just ignore a genius who can add new spells to the Index.” Leo, still smiling, objected right back.

“Don’t call me a genius,” warned Tatsuya, seeming genuinely bothered by it, not just embarrassed.

“You really don’t like being called a genius, do you…?” asked Honoka, mystified, neither sarcastically nor meanly.

“The word is too convenient,” answered not Tatsuya but Miyuki. Her brother just gave a pained smile at her response; he didn’t say she was wrong.

“But it’s still amazing!” insisted Mikihiko, blowing away the dark clouds that had begun to drift in, maybe worried about the dangerous mood. “Supernature picks up the winning thesis every year, and even the rest of the papers get into academic magazines all the time.”

Supernature was the name of a scientific journal in England known as the highest authority on modern magic topics. On the other hand, it tended to be authoritarian, not too friendly for high school students to read. But Mikihiko was not the only one who read it; Tatsuya, Miyuki, and Shizuku, and the other members in the group did, too, and they knew its name and status well.

“Oh, but… There’s not much time left, is there?” asked Mikihiko, now worried, a complete change from his excitement.

Tatsuya started to get suspicious at how extreme his ups and downs were today—maybe something happened with him, too. He didn’t let the suspicion show, though, and nodded. “Nine full days before we have to submit it to the school.”

“What?! But that’s right around the corner!”

“It’ll be fine. I’m just a sub, and they’ve been writing the paper since before summer break.”

Tatsuya smiled and waved his hand to soothe Honoka, who had gone a little pale in the face. The gesture made everyone think Oh, right and breathe a sigh of relief.

“Still, this was very sudden,” remarked Miyuki, frowning. “Was there some sort of trouble?”

“Apparently, the older sub fell ill,” answered Tatsuya simply, still offering a smile. He hadn’t explained this before, but he didn’t need to hide it, either.

However, his simple answer wasn’t enough to fully satisfy his sister. “That is quite unfortunate, but it still seems too hasty.” The circumstances seemed convincing enough for her mind but not her heart. “I’m sure they chose you because you’re right for the job, since you could handle being made part of the thesis team right away, but…”

But Tatsuya’s substitution was already set in stone—and it was very much like Miyuki to think of a logical reason like that to convince herself otherwise. This time, it wasn’t necessarily an overestimation of him, but he thought agreeing unconditionally would seem too narcissistic. “That’s not it. If Ichihara’s research theme was something I didn’t know anything about, even I would have turned her down.”

Tatsuya decided to deal with it using his “smile and partially disagree” method. That wasn’t to say Miyuki was perfectly happy with this attitude, but while she was searching for words, someone else tossed a new question at him:

“Huh. What’s the paper about?” asked Leo, leaning forward with curiosity.

One girl did give Leo a cold look, clearly wondering if he’d even understand if Tatsuya told him, but both the questioner and respondent ignored her completely.

“The technical problems of thermonuclear fusion reactors run by gravity-based magic programs and ways to overcome them.”

“…I have no idea what that means.”

Of course, the questioner could only partially reply to such an intense, straight-man response.

“…That’s a pretty wild theme,” groaned Mikihiko, face sullen. “Isn’t that one of the Three Great Practical Problems of Weighting Magic?”

“Since they chose you, I thought for sure it would be a thesis on CAD programming,” said Mizuki, expressing surprise.

“Oh, me too!”

“Kei is one of the members, too… With that theme, I think the team would be amazing enough to win the whole competition for sure.”

Shizuku and Erika seemed to agree with Mizuki. His friends probably thought this theme was too much for Tatsuya—and for high school students in general.

Well, that was only natural. Implementation of a gravitational thermonuclear fusion reactor wasn’t one of the Three Great Problems for nothing. Tatsuya decided to smile along with them and worm out of the conversation.

It was only Miyuki who failed to partake in the calm smiles. She created one on her face, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She knew what research on a resident gravitational thermonuclear fusion reactor could mean—and she knew that her brother was most serious of all about it.

After splitting up with their friends at the station and returning home, the siblings found a city commuter in their parking place. They exchanged glances.

Tatsuya went up to the front door first and opened it.

Upon seeing the plain, unfamiliar pumps at the entrance, Miyuki stopped in her tracks, grimacing and sucking in her breath. Tatsuya gently put his arm around her shoulders. He stepped up onto the wooden edge of the entranceway with her, and then heard the pattering of slippers as somebody approached at a jog.

“…Welcome home. Friendly as usual, I see.” The words came at them, tinged with a teasing note.

Tatsuya immediately narrowed his eyes and slightly tightened his grip on his sister’s shoulders as she gave a start. “It’s been a long time since you came home, Ms. Sayuri,” he answered, his voice cold to match his gaze.

This time, the petite woman greeting them was the one to react. “Y-yes, well, it’s rather convenient to be closer to the office.”

“I get it,” Tatsuya said curtly to their stepmother (though the siblings simply thought of her as their father’s second wife—who hadn’t come back to the house in nine months).

Despite her homecoming, she had neither a room nor place to sleep here. After marrying Tatsuya’s father, they had been enjoying a married life as a couple on their own near the top of a high-rise apartment building that was a five-minute walk from Four Leaves Technology’s main office. She’d never stayed here since the union, and yet she still lived here according to the resident registration—so Tatsuya’s words had been pure sarcasm.

Seeing their father’s second wife losing her cool from such a trivial jab actually made Miyuki settle down and regain her calm. Tatsuya’s arm still around her, she turned and brought her face closer to her brother so she could snuggle up against him. The act was performed in complete disregard of others watching. Normally, even when they were by themselves, she never did anything this assertive—or immodest. She was purposely acting as though nobody was looking.

“I will prepare dinner immediately. Is there anything you would like to have, Brother?”

“I’d eat anything you make. There’s no rush, so go get changed.”

When her brother looked only at her to answer, without sparing so much as a glance to Sayuri, Miyuki giggled a little, superiority achieved. “I will. Please do tell me if you have any requests on what I should change into. I would wear any outfit if you wished it, Brother.”

“All right, don’t get carried away.”

He pretended to poke her, and Miyuki drew her head back and danced up the stairs to the second floor.

“Well then,” said Tatsuya to Sayuri—who was idly standing nearby—after Miyuki went out of sight, “let’s hear what you have to say.”

The unreserved manner of speaking made her frown a bit in displeasure, but nevertheless, she sat down across from Tatsuya in the seat he offered. “I feel bad for hurrying you, but I would like to finish while your sister is absent,” she said. “It seems both of you still don’t like me much.”

She must have felt it was pointless to keep up appearances; as soon as she sat down, her attitude became franker. Not caring that he was looking, she leaned back on the sofa and crossed her legs. She had the spirit of a scientist, wearing no ornaments or makeup and only a pantsuit, so he had no issues with where to look—of course, she could have been wearing a tight miniskirt and he wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.

“Miyuki doesn’t seem to. Her father remarrying within half a year of her mother dying would leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth. She may look mature, but she’s still only fifteen.”

“…And what about you?”

“Such emotions mean nothing to me. That’s how I’m put together.”

“…Well, fine. Whether you mean that or not, I can’t do anything about it. But if you’re going to go that far, I’d like it if you heard me out. It may have been half a year for the two of you, but it was sixteen for me.”

Oh, right. She dresses to make herself look young, but she’s the same age as our father, thought Tatsuya, an idea sure to make an enemy out of all the women in the world.

Sayuri Shiba, formerly Sayuri Koba, had been in a romantic relationship with Tatsurou Shiba before he had married Miya Yotsuba. However, the obstinacy of the Yotsuba in their pursuit of high-quality genes had forced the initial two to separate. Tatsuya was aware of that, so he could somewhat understand wanting to complain.

But that was purely a problem between his father, his mother, and her—it was no business of the siblings. Considering their mother knew about their relationship during her lifetime, there was even less room for sympathy.

“In any case, what have you come all this way for today?”

Sayuri had unconsciously tried to postpone the subject; she caught her breath at the question but then managed to begin speaking naturally again. “…I’ll give it to you straight. I want you to help at the labs at the office again. And leave high school, if possible.”

“It’s not. If I’m not a student at First High while Miyuki attends, I won’t be able to fulfill my duty as her Guardian.”

An unreserved refusal to an unreserved demand.

“Even if you didn’t continue with school, another Guardian would surely be assigned to her.”

“Magicians are in short supply everywhere you look. Even the Yotsuba wouldn’t be able to find a replacement Guardian so easily.”

“You’re saying there are no escorts as talented as you.”

“When it comes to Miyuki in particular, that’s correct.”

This exchange was one they’d had over and over in the past.

Sayuri exhaled, giving a heavy sigh—one that didn’t look entirely fake. “The company isn’t flexible enough to let such talented staff goof off, you know.”

“It was never my intention to goof off. I’ve already contributed massively to the company’s profits this term. You’ve been flooded with flight device orders from the USNA Marine Corps, haven’t you? Those alone should increase profits over last term by twenty percent.”

Sayuri frowned in frustration. There was no room for objection.

Originally, FLT was known as a manufacturer of magical engineering–related tools and items, not of completed CADs. It had, without a doubt, been the success of the Silver model that caused the company to rise to fame as a CAD maker—in other words, Tatsuya’s merits. The recent flight device in particular was a groundbreaking product that some analysts predicted would launch FLT as the number one manufacturer of specialized CADs in the world.

These achievements must have made Sayuri jealous—she’d first joined the company as a researcher, then was reassigned to the management division after not producing many conspicuous results.

But even without those personal feelings, she had a reason she couldn’t say, “Okay, I see” and leave. “…Then could I at least get you to help analyze this sample?” she said, removing a large jewel box from her purse and opening it very carefully.

Inside was a single translucent orb with a reddish tinge.

“…That’s a Relic of the Ni no Magatama family.”

Among those pursuing magical research, a “Relic” referred to an “OOPart” with magical properties. Materials that couldn’t be judged manmade but that also were clearly not naturally formed were called Relics. For example, antinite, which caused Cast Jamming, was classified as a Relic.

Furthermore, true Relics—the Yasakani no Magatama, to name one—would never fall into the hands of scientists.

“Where did they excavate this?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see. A matter of national defense, then.” As a non-foreign manufacturer with top-class tech, FLT was often entrusted with military-related tasks. “You said ‘analyze’—I’m not undertaking the task of duplicating a Ni no Magatama, I’m sure?”

Sayuri’s expression stiffened.

Tatsuya heaved a sigh. “How could you be so impulsive? These things are too hard for modern technology to artificially synthesize. That’s why they’re called Relics.”

OOPart was an abbreviation for “out-of-place artifact.” In other words, they were objects created in such a way that they surpassed the technical standards of the age from which they were excavated. It didn’t mean modern technology couldn’t reproduce them. A Relic, though, was too difficult for modern tech to reproduce, which is why it possessed the grandiose name in the first place.

“This job came as a firm request from the National Defense Force. We can’t refuse it.”

He could somewhat understand the management decision. It wasn’t just FLT—any businesses involved in magic essentially operated as usual until the government demanded otherwise. In other words, the magic industry was the defense industry.

The only ones who purchased magic engineering products, including CADs, were magicians, who could use magic at a practical level. The market for them was incredibly tiny compared to other industrial goods.

Given the rarity of magicians, the small size made sense. Experts said that, in Japan right now, the total number of magicians who were in magic-related professions or magical study came out to be about thirty thousand. Even if all of them bought a new CAD every year, the domestic CAD marketplace would only contain thirty thousand of them during the year. While some actually went longer before buying a replacement, plenty of magicians owned up to five or six. However, that didn’t change the fact that the market was just too small.

Plus, because national policies promoted magic, magic-support devices needed to be made available cheaply. The retail price of CADs was kept low enough so that an average household’s income could support buying their child one as a gift upon entering high school.

This scale and structure certainly wasn’t an industry that could survive independently. Therefore, nations took expert assistance measures when it came to the magic industries. For example, Japan subsidized 90 percent of a CAD’s purchase cost. Their storefront prices were a tenth of the business’s calculated unit price. Japan also gave very generous grants to businesses’ research funds under the pretense of contract research. Even the tallest giants in the industry, like Maximillian and Rosen, couldn’t defy their respective governments. This was a fate shared by all players in the magic industry.

“But even the National Defense Force should know the reason behind the nickname Relic. They’d understand that if something was classified as one, it would be impossible to artificially synthesize. Why are they making such an unreasonable demand?”

Sayuri needed more than a short pause before composing an answer. “The Ni no Magatama seems to be able to store magic programs.”

But her answer, spoken with hesitation, had enough power behind it to break through Tatsuya’s careful expression. “Has that been proven?” he asked, only managing to make himself sound dubious through full mobilization of every ounce of acting skill he had.

But it worked, and Sayuri failed to notice how interested he now was. “It’s still supposition, but we have enough in the way of observational data for the military to act on.”

Tatsuya pretended to nod gravely. “If it is true, they wouldn’t be able to ignore it. I can understand that.”

Tatsuya’s goals weren’t only the ones involving the ability to store magic programs. If someone were to implement and popularize a system to store them, semi-perpetual magic devices would no longer be a dream. Forces with no magicians could be equipped with magical weaponry. If the Ni no Magatama had the ability to store magic programs, and if it could be reproduced in large quantities, the military would see a proliferation of magical weaponry.

But at the same time, it was important to the point that they couldn’t just accept the request and then come back with failure.

“Considering FLT’s current achievements, I wouldn’t think this is worth taking such a risk for,” Tatsuya said.

“The dice have already been cast.”

“Without any chance of victory?”

Considering their utter lack of know-how in reproducing Relics, the risks were too large.

Of course, Sayuri understood that all too well. “There is a chance. Your magic. With it, we can analyze it.”

Now that she’d made her intentions clear, Tatsuya chuckled. They didn’t need his intellect—they were after his unusual ability.

Just like they always were.

“Nothing is saying even my magic could duplicate it…but if you absolutely must insist, then please send the sample to R & D Section 3. I show up there frequently.”

And Tatsuya didn’t particularly mind it. He, too, was desperate for any clues regarding the storage of magic programs. But since his goal was that function, duplicating the physical Ni no Magatama was of secondary importance compared to the magic storage ability itself. Because of that, he wanted to avoid being manipulated by lab workers at the main office. Besides, the schedules for the main office’s laboratories tended to be packed, so it’d be inconvenient one way or another.

“…”

But the proposition wasn’t one Sayuri could accept. In her position, she needed to take FLT’s power politics into account. She couldn’t let R & D Section 3 have all the glory. Besides, as a more serious and more ridiculous reason, neither she nor her husband could let Taurus Silver—Tatsuya—have any more of an influential voice than he already had. Their main office’s labs could start with Tatsuya in its deliverance of results, but he had many sympathizers in Section 3—pretty much all of them were aligned with him, in fact—so even the other researchers’ achievements could end up being attributed to him (or so Sayuri suspected).

With no way to agree to Tatsuya’s requests, Sayuri bit down and made a sour face, as expected.

“Or shall I hold on to it for you?”

Tatsuya meant the suggestion as a way to help Sayuri, who was paralyzed by conflict. And it was, in fact, the deciding factor in her breaking free of the standstill.

“Fine, then!”

Unfortunately, though, it didn’t cause agreement but a breakdown in negotiations. Sayuri desperately wanted the main office—herself included—to be the one to achieve the Relic duplication. For her, Tatsuya mentioning that he’d hold on to the sample—in other words, do the research on its duplication personally—was preposterous. Of course, she’d come to him with an absurd proposal in the first place. Nobody had ever done this before. Right now, though, she lacked the composure to notice.

She stood up, her temper lost. “Yes, I see! It was a mistake to count on you for help!” She shoved the jewel case into her purse, quickly turned around, and rapidly headed down the hallway. Tatsuya followed at a steady distance, speaking to her in a businesslike tone as she put on her shoes at the entrance.

“You’re in possession of valuables. Shall I escort you to the station?”

“I will be quite fine by myself. I’m going home by commuter anyway!”

“I see. Please be careful.” Tatsuya bowed to her courteously, without showing any sign of offense at his stepmother’s stinging response.

“Miyuki?”

At Tatsuya’s call from the front door, Miyuki, who had changed into a one-piece camisole, timidly came down the stairs. Near her exposed arms, up her shoulders, and along the nape of her neck, was a tinge of crimson. Not, of course, from makeup, but clearly from shame at her previous behavior.

“Tatsuya, I…I’m sorry for doing something so childish.”

She was using the word childish, but her attitude made it seem like she meant disgraceful. And yet, while clearly aware of that, Miyuki was still showing her skin like this. It seemed she was still subconsciously being influenced by her previous suggestiveness.

As she kept her eyes averted from him, Tatsuya stroked her cheek, then slid his fingers toward her chin. Then he used his index finger to tilt her jaw up.

Miyuki’s almost bewitchingly fair skin reddened from her chest to her shoulders. Under her smooth, silky hair appeared a young and lively beauty, scarlet at the eyes.

“U-um…”

Though having taken up a posture of embarrassment at the act—it seemed like he was going to kiss her—she didn’t take her gaze from his.

The fingers on her chin crawled back up her cheek. Miyuki absently closed her eyes, and…

“Nya?!”

…gave a short, muffled yelp.

“Wh-what are you doing?!”

“Scolding you,” said Tatsuya, grinning at his younger sister, who stepped back and glared at him, face red. (It was a natural reaction, considering he’d suddenly grabbed her nose.)

“I swear…you’re quite mean,” she pouted, turning a cheek to him.

After chuckling for a moment, Tatsuya’s face fell back into seriousness. “I’m going out for a bit. You make sure to lock up here.”

“Tatsuya?” said Miyuki, wanting an explanation, her own face drawing back in surprise at the out-of-the-ordinary command to stay at home.

“I need to go back up a woman who doesn’t have much of a danger sense.”

Tatsuya took off his uniform blazer and gave it to Miyuki as she scowled with displeasure. “…How much will they force on you until they’re satisfied?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t pretend I didn’t see this. Ms. Sayuri has a sample that could give a hint as to how to store magic programs,” he explained, elucidating the real reason behind his “backup” as he took off his necktie and handed it to Miyuki.

That seemed to make sense to her, but then her frown deepened. “If that is the situation, then I suppose you must. Please be careful.”

The conversation they’d had in the archives after school was fresh in her mind, too. She couldn’t hinder her brother’s goal out of hatred for their father’s lover. Without telling him not to go or saying it was unnecessary, Miyuki took Tatsuya’s blouson from the coatrack.

She put it on him, then Tatsuya removed gloves and a helmet from a storage box by the front door and put motorcycle boots on his feet. Then he gave a collected, polite bow to Miyuki seeing him off and said, “I’ll be right back.”

As she sat inside the self-driving commuter, Sayuri felt like Earth’s gravity had doubled.

To put it in clear words, what she felt was regret—she’d screwed up.

She thought she’d gotten accustomed to the negotiations that came with her move to the management division, but it hadn’t taken her very long to lose her temper. She was ashamed of herself and couldn’t help but feel depressed.

It was always hard for her to keep calm when talking to that boy. Her stepson.

And she knew why.

The fact that he was the son of her rival in love. His talent and achievements as a technical expert. That uncanny gaze, revealing no emotion. When he looked at her, she didn’t feel human; she started to feel like a target of observation, a mere object.

But what she did not yet understand was that this feeling was a reflection of people treating him like a tool to be used.

What she did know, however, was that she had to get him to cooperate by any means in order for this project to work. Now, because of her short temper, it had gotten a lot more difficult.

As she stared out the window, she heaved a sigh. Suddenly, she perked up, noticing the strange lack of traffic on the roads. Then she realized she hadn’t passed by any cars going in the other direction for a while now. This was a residential area, but it wasn’t that late yet.

The irritation in her mind changed to unease. She called up traffic information from the commuter panel. The traffic control center had been reporting that cars destined for the station were being routed through a detour to avoid an accident in the area.

In any case, now that there was a reasonable explanation, Sayuri sighed in relief.

As he followed Sayuri’s commuter car on his electric bike, Tatsuya also felt the traffic was too sparse. Voice information coming from his helmet’s receiver was telling him the same things as her commuter panel.

But he found no part of that to be a relief. He didn’t doubt the information itself saying the road was closed due to an accident. He’d watched Sanada and Fujibayashi team up to try to hack into the traffic control system once, so he knew how difficult it was to get into. Still, he wasn’t optimistic enough to believe there were enough simultaneous accidents jamming the roads to block off every single car on all the roads from his house to the station.

It wouldn’t be that hard to locate cars run by the traffic system. Commuters in particular, being part of the regional community-shared traffic body, always transmitted identification signals to prevent car thefts via hacking. The signals themselves weren’t kept especially secret. He’d been tracing Sayuri’s commuter from the moment he’d left the house.

And when his stepmother’s vehicle was finally in sight, he spotted another car, not under the traffic system’s control, tailing her at a close distance.

A warning blinked on the commuter panel. The message said a noncontrolled car was approaching from the rear.

Sayuri didn’t think much of it. Some people still liked to drive in this day and age as a hobby. Since she’d originally been in the tech field, she knew drivers like that always wanted to modify their car to turn the traffic control system off. If she worried about every noncontrolled car that ever came near, there’d be no end to it.

For now, she sat back in her seat and silenced the harsh alarm.

Seeing the black car accelerate, Tatsuya immediately revved his motor.

His motorcycle had the advantage in acceleration. Given his distance and their relative positions, though, the black car reached Sayuri first.

No sooner had it overtaken the commuter than it cut right in front of her, causing its collision-evasion system to kick in.

The commuter rapidly ground to a halt, and so did the other car.

Two men got out and ran over.

On the road, where surveillance cameras monitored every inch, this was an incredibly reckless move. The method would make sense if they were illegal immigrants; any citizen or legal alien could be immediately identified from the camera images.

Tatsuya turned his headlights as bright as they would go and pointed them at the two men as they tried to pry open the commuter’s door. He left them on as he got off his bike and ran forward.

A moment later, one of the men pulled out a handgun, while the other came at Tatsuya with his fist. On his fingers were brass rings, shining dully in Tatsuya’s motorcycle headlights.

Grating psionic noise was coming off the men.

Cast Jamming. Magic-obstructing waves created by antinite. One attacker to disable magicians, and one to finish them with a gun. It was an effective textbook tactic for dealing with a small number of magicians—but only if they were run-of-the-mill examples.

The gun’s muzzle pointed at Tatsuya. Right at his heart. The aim was precise enough that he wouldn’t fully dodge it even if he immediately tried to get out of the way, and he could feel a clear murderous impulse behind it.

But the man was never able to pull the trigger.

Tatsuya’s finger had initiated his own CAD before the other man’s could move.

The handgun broke into pieces and scattered across the road.

One of the men, or perhaps both, shouted something. Their tones were agitated, and given the distance he couldn’t make out exactly what they said. His ears did pick up the words Cast Jamming, though; the attackers were probably surprised theirs hadn’t worked. Or maybe they were screaming about why the gun fell apart despite the magic obstruction.

Their argument wasn’t Tatsuya’s concern either way. It didn’t matter that they were preoccupied with unnecessary things. He wouldn’t change his plan of attack. He pulled his CAD trigger again.

The man who had been holding the gun gave a scream and fell sideways onto the road, gripping his thigh and writhing.

A moment later, the bruiser clutched his shoulder and staggered. Groaning wordlessly, he broke out into a sweat and fell to his knees, then passed out and toppled forward. His mind couldn’t stand the total destruction of skin, muscle, veins, nerves, and bones that had occurred inside his wound, which looked like it was made by a super-thin needle.

Localized disassembly of a human body via the dismantling spell Mist Dispersion.

What part of the body, when stabbed correctly, would inflict physical pain that exceeded a person’s mental tolerance? What part of the body, when shot correctly, could obstruct the mind’s control of one’s limbs? Tatsuya had a thorough knowledge of such matters, having used his own body and those of others for it.

He walked around the two fallen men and approached the black automobile. He kept his CAD leveled at the car, not attacking right away. If he carelessly damaged a hydrogen fuel car with compressed gas cylinders, he could cause a sizable explosion. The cars were normally fitted with safety mechanisms to hedge against such danger, but terrorist bombers used cars with those safeties removed. That was the way of the real world.

If Miyuki were present, he wouldn’t have needed to worry about combustion, but unfortunately, she was minding the house. To the right of the road was a somewhat large river, and to the left was a line of houses. Given the possible damage to the residences and the roads, he decided he couldn’t use such an aggressive method.

But that decision, to put it into harsh terms, was a kind of carelessness on his part.

Suddenly, he felt a killing intent aimed at him from above and to the right.

Partially out of reflex, he moved to dodge. Not a moment of delay or pause.

But even he couldn’t avoid an assassin’s bullet flying at a supersonic speed.

A burning pain shot through his chest.

The bullet pierced his left breast…

…and the impact sent his body careening.

The sniper had been incredibly precise. He’d just barely managed to avoid his vitals getting hit, but his lung had been shot clean through. The sound of the bullet came a moment later—it must have been pretty far away. Nevertheless, if not for Tatsuya taking evasive action, the bullet would have gotten him in the heart.

“Brilliant” was an understatement when it came to this sniper.

Tatsuya used the momentum of his fall to roll behind Sayuri’s commuter. The bullet wound had already healed. Normally, even fatal wounds would disappear in an instant thanks to his magic.

But that didn’t mean he felt no pain. He broke out into a cold sweat, feeling the intense aftershock of his pierced breast and penetrated back.

Right now, though, he didn’t have time to spare for his phantom pain. He estimated the enemy’s position again. Based on the direction and angle of the bullet, and the location of obstructing buildings, the sniper was somewhere in the cluster of commercial buildings across the river.

They were currently about a thousand yards away. Given the ease with which they hit a person at this distance and the small size of the hole in his back, the sniper was using pointed, full metal jacket rounds. The commuter’s frame was made of synthetic resins, so to such a weapon, it would be best to consider it not much of an obstacle, either.

And to make things worse, the sniper wasn’t using magic. If they had, he would have pinpointed them no matter what type of spell they used. But if the sniper wasn’t using anything but pure shooting skill, then the distance made them hard to spot, even given Tatsuya’s ability to perceive information bodies.

The two bodies lying on the road began to float up. The black car’s door opened, and the bodies were violently sucked inside.

Tatsuya didn’t try to stop it. Disabling the movement spell acting on the two men would have been easy, but eliminating the sniper threat came first.

He searched for the information bodies of the bullet that pierced him. Bringing his ability to analyze them to full operation, he began to read out the information inherent to the bullet.

The bodily fluids clinging to it.

His flesh’s resistance.

The wind.

Gravity.

Gas pressure in the chamber.

All the changes added to the bullet flowed into Tatsuya’s mind as compressed information. From them, he sorted through the original shooting position data and singled it out.

The process moved from the bullet to its trajectory, and from there to the sniper, going back through information, through the world’s memories, through time.

From the present to the past.

And…

…from the past to the present.

With the sniper’s location at the time they fired the bullet as a foundation, Tatsuya followed the memories of state changes written into the Idea—the information bodies of the world itself, recorded as information within all things.

It led him to the sniper’s current position.

Found you.

His mind’s eye fixed its sight on the sniper’s eidos—the units of information that distinguished the sniper from other events and entities within the world’s information.

He could tell the sniper was aiming at him again. The second shot hadn’t come yet because it was taking time to switch from anti-personnel piercing rounds for penetrating bulletproof armor to anti-object high-speed piercing rounds for penetrating an enemy behind an obstacle.

Tatsuya could see all of that—he had all the sniper’s physical information. Good fortune was the only thing he could call this as he pulled the trigger on his spell, which dismantled the sniper’s entire body.

About ten minutes after the black driverless car escaped, Tatsuya decided the danger had passed and stood up from behind the car.

He peered inside to see Sayuri unconscious. This didn’t concern him whatsoever—he had been fairly confident he knew her condition from seeing how the commuter never started up again. The airbags from above, below, the left, and the right had buried her in the seat like a package filled with cushioning. The system to secure passengers from accidents had been fully functional. She wouldn’t have even been shocked too much. The mental strain had probably been what had caused her to faint.

Sayuri was counted as part of the Yotsuba, albeit at the family’s very fringes, so she was supposed to have at least some tolerance to violence.

You’d think she was just an average civilian, Tatsuya thought.

After stowing the airbags, which had been developed to be reusable, he restarted the car in complete self-driving mode.

As the commuter began to slowly drive away, Tatsuya followed after it on his bike.

By the time they got to the station, Sayuri had regained consciousness. A bit pale in the face, sure, but she still had her composure. Of course, Tatsuya didn’t know what she’d been like right after waking up, since he’d been on his bike. After escorting her to the cabinet platform, she shoved the box with the Ni no Magatama into his hands. It seemed to Tatsuya to express how she felt—stubbornly and desperately trying to act tough.

Once he’d seen her off, he returned home and immediately headed for the telephone. He hadn’t used a mobile phone at the station because it could have been tapped, of course.

“…Don’t worry about the road cameras. We’re already handling them.”

“Thank you very much, Major.”

He had called the secret line to the Independent Magic Battalion’s headquarters.

Tatsuya needed to conceal his two positions—as a combat personnel belonging to the Yotsuba of the Ten Master Clans, and as a special duty officer of the Independent Magic Battalion. His top priority was stopping the road cameras from identifying him with their image data.

Tatsuya straightened and saluted Kazama on the monitor.

“Still, they were quite tenacious. You may not have been in an urban center, but firing a rifle in the city?”

“I won’t deny that I miscalculated, sir, but his skill was incredible.”

“You said he wasn’t using magic, right?”

“He wasn’t, sir. I have no doubt.”

Using a bullet-guiding spell always created a reaction in the form of an event alteration. Using a super-sense spell always carried psionic waves to the identified target. If he’d used magic, there was no possible way for Tatsuya not to notice.

Kazama knew of his perception as well as the next guy. “Hmm… Is it possible to snipe someone at night from one thousand yards away with only an optical scope?”

He looked down, possibly staring at a map of the sniping area. Tatsuya was no amateur when it came to sniping, but in terms of gun-based sniping, Kazama was far more knowledgeable. Tatsuya couldn’t guess what he was wondering about, but he clearly noticed something just by listening to the story.

“…Only so many groups in the world can get their hands on such a skilled sniper. This may actually give us an easy clue as to who they are.”

“I’ll leave it to you, sir.”

The best defense was a good offense. If you disabled the enemy before coming under attack, you could keep your own attack hidden. For Tatsuya, now that they’d crossed blades, peaceful resolution—such as not going after the enemy as long as they didn’t attack anymore—was an impossibility.

“Hmm? Wait a moment… I just got a report. Looks like we found the car.”

The license plate on the black self-driving car had been hidden, but not well enough to fool the crime-prevention road cameras laid out on the streets. Since they knew exactly when and where the car had been, it was easy to pinpoint.

“Once we’ve looked into this, I believe we’ll deal with them—I’m sure you don’t mind, right?” Kazama said, looking for confirmation.

“My apologies for the extra work, sir,” said Tatsuya easily.

Personally chasing someone he’d let escape was a meaningless fixation, and one to which Tatsuya had no connection.

Dinner was quite a bit later than usual thanks to the unexpected street brawl, but Miyuki never even raised an eyebrow as she briskly set Tatsuya’s meal in front of him, wearing her busy, frilly, pink apron.

“Your apron…” he muttered aloud.

“Did you notice?” Miyuki smiled as she turned.

Miyuki frequently wore simple, mature designs. He didn’t know whether to call this “girlish,” but the apron was fanciful and cute, and one Tatsuya had never seen before. “Did you buy that earlier?” he asked.

Right before splitting up at the station the day before, Mizuki and Erika had dragged Miyuki into a variety shop for teens. Tatsuya had waited outside on a bench, but they’d left the store more quickly than expected. When asked what they’d bought, Erika kept saying it was a secret, so he’d never gotten an answer.

“Mizuki needed a replacement, so I bought one, too… Does it look strange?” asked his sister, a little uneasy, perhaps because it was so different from what she usually wore.

He could have just muttered a simple “yes,” but instead he looked closely at her attire again.

The apron’s length was about the same as a dress’s, like it was a two-in-one “apron dress.” A mini apron dress, at that. The frills, which looped around the shoulders and crossed in the back, along with the wide ribbon tied behind her waist into a bow, were cute, and her bare thighs peeking out from the hem were captivating.

Not something she could show other people, I think.

“No, it suits you very well. Enough to want to put it in my very own glass case and secretly adore it.”

When he put those feelings into words, they turned into a somewhat strange expression.

“Tatsuya…that seems quite abnormal.”

Her words alone might have been spoken with a sigh, but her expression made it very obvious she was trying to hide her embarrassment.

Tatsuya didn’t get involved with that, instead smiling and picking up his chopsticks.

After dinner was over, the siblings moved from the dining room to the living room. Tatsuya sat down on the two-person sofa as Miyuki placed a cup of coffee in front of him, then set down her own and sat next to him.

“By the way, what did that person want?” asked Miyuki, leaving a little space between them, legs together and hands on her lap, looking at Tatsuya obliquely, unable to entirely conceal her curiosity. “You mentioned she had a sample with the ability to store magic programs.”

“Well, I have to do some research to find out if that’s actually true.” He knew the question would be coming, and he had an answer prepared. “As always, she asked me to help.” Not that he’d prepared a reasonable-sounding lie or anything, though. “But this job seems interesting.”

“Will you accept it?” Miyuki was simply keeping the conversation going—she knew just from what she’d heard that her brother couldn’t possibly turn the job down.

“Things being what they are, I can’t pretend not to know. She gave me the sample, after all.” He looked at the end of the table where Sayuri’s big jewel case was sitting.

Afraid of more attackers coming to rob her, she’d forced Tatsuya to take it. She’d also pledged to leave things to R & D Section 3, so Tatsuya had no qualms with the situation.

“Is this the sample? The one that might be able to store magic programs?”

“Yeah.” As Miyuki silently asked what on earth it was, Tatsuya opened the box. “A Relic of the Ni no Magatama family,” he explained to Miyuki as she looked inside.

Miyuki covered her mouth with her hands and looked at Tatsuya, eyes wide. “Why would that person give you something like this?”

“It’s a military request. They wanted her to copy it.”

“But that isn’t reasonable…” Miyuki understood, though not as much as Tatsuya, what Relics were and how absurd an experiment to copy one would be.

“I’m sure the military understands that, too. They must think it’s still a challenge worth taking on.”

A magic program interfered with eidos (the bodies of information attached to events), temporarily rewrote those bodies, and carried out an alteration of that event in line with what was written in the magic program—that was how magic worked. For example, a sphere with a red surface would have the information “reflects mainly red light” and “shaped like a sphere” attached to it. If you used a magic program that said “reflects mainly blue light” to overwrite that information, the sphere would change color to blue. By overwriting the natural information with a magic program, the program’s information would temporarily become an event expression, aka “incident information.” The effect would last until the magic program disappeared and the original information took root again.

Though magic programs had the most important role in magic execution, simply storing a magic program didn’t amount to magic, as this example showed. But if you were in a state where your own eidos were overwritten and you could store the magic program you used to overwrite them, you could extend the duration of the applied spell’s effects. If you could store a magic program as “incident information bodies” to replace the eidos originally held by an object, it was possible.

In other words, objects that could store magic programs could become objects to store magical effects.

Theoretically speaking, storing a spell that rewrote temperature meant that it was possible to maintain highs of hundreds of degrees or lows of negative tens of degrees without providing any energy. And if a magic program that overwrote movement speed could be stored, there was potential to create a pseudo-perpetual motion device.

“Just saving magic programs isn’t a substitute for magicians, but the ability to save magic programs is essential to mechanically executing magic. I’m not interested in whether the Ni no Magatama can be copied, but if it really can store magic programs, I very much want to uncover the system behind it.”

“I know you can do it, Tatsuya.”

At some point, Miyuki had gotten right up next to Tatsuya on the sofa. As she encouraged him with her soft voice, her face dangerously close, she softly rested her head on his shoulder.

Miyuki had two policies—to personally do as many chores as she could, and to never leave Tatsuya’s care to machines. She wasn’t obsessive enough to do the dishes by hand, though. She was still a student, and her list of things to do piled as high as a mountain. She had to pick and choose.

After leaving all the bowls and dishes to their HAR (home automation robot), Miyuki went to her desk.

Magic high schools still required the study of topics other than magic. They did not require exams on them; instead, they placed more emphasis on daily homework. Right now, she was working on her math homework. She found math difficult compared to other topics.

For some time, she’d been staring at a problem she just couldn’t solve, so she looked away from her display for the moment.

With the processing that powers modern computers with advanced interactive interfaces, one would never need to solve numerical calculations or anything unless you were someone quite deep in the field of mathematics. Still, mathematical thinking sometimes helped with putting together new spells, which is why her brother told her to take it seriously.

Miyuki gave a languid sigh. At times like these, she started to get jealous of her omnipotent brother. Maybe I’ll ask him to help… she thought lazily, before quickly shaking her head so hard it almost made noise.

Tatsuya would have gotten right to work on analyzing the Relic. She was already a bind on Tatsuya’s freedom—she couldn’t trouble him any more than that. The only reason he’d entered First High was because she had. At least, that’s what Miyuki figured.

It was true that you needed a magic high school diploma to advance to the National Magic University, but as with everything, there were exceptions. For example, those who accomplished academic significant deeds, like discovering a Cardinal Code, could gain entry regardless of whether they had a diploma or not. If he wanted, Tatsuya could be accepted right now, and Miyuki had no doubt he’d breeze through the entrance exams.

Miyuki knew he could only achieve his goal at a higher-level research institution like the university, and she understood this high school life was only a diversion for him. The reason he had to do it anyway was because he was Miyuki’s Guardian.

For the Yotsuba, Guardians were tasked with the protection of specific individuals, even at the cost of their own lives. A tragedy had once befallen a girl of direct descent, so they had chosen “combat slaves” to protect the Yotsuba bloodline.

On the surface, they were the same as bodyguards. However, given that bodyguards were temporary, Guardians were clearly a different concept. The Yotsuba didn’t decide someone was going to be a Guardian at birth, but once they chose one, the assignment never ended. Normal bodyguards who worked on a twenty-four seven system were no different, but Guardians had no right to quit the job. They could leave if the one they protected dismissed them, but until now, Guardians had all been Guardians for life.

Tatsuya could move with some freedom because he could carry out his guard duties even from a distance, as physical distance didn’t influence magic. They didn’t have telepathy linking them or anything like that, but Tatsuya was constantly using part of the unconscious region of his brain to observe her, with his sight that could perceive eidos. Well, it was less observation and more that he had a spell cast on her.

But even Tatsuya couldn’t use magic while asleep. The distance between them didn’t matter, but he still had to match her pace of daily life. Miyuki could match her own life cycle to Tatsuya’s during days off and extended breaks, but on school days, Tatsuya had to match Miyuki—in other words, match the school system’s cycle. Plus, even though physical distance didn’t affect magic, it was still easier to deal with various threats if nearby.

Still, this was all a result of Miyuki not releasing Tatsuya from his Guardian duty. If she did, she’d be assigned another Guardian, probably female and the same age. Because no matter how short the supply of magicians was, Miyuki was the strongest contender for succeeding as head of the Yotsuba.

Of course, Miyuki hadn’t wanted Tatsuya’s guardianship because of selfishness alone. The mission of a Guardian was of the utmost priority in the Yotsuba family. As long as he was assigned to her, they wouldn’t make him do other, more tedious things. They’d never make him play the bad-guy role, either. Nobody could criticize him strongly, whether it was their father or their father’s second wife.

They couldn’t force him to help them.

That was part of why she wanted him to go to the same high school as her—but she knew her dependence on her brother, her not being able to leave his side, was at the root of it.

She let out another sigh. She couldn’t have her way with her own heart, nor could she get any further with this homework.

Thirty minutes later, she decided that, well, she didn’t have to ask him for all the answers. She could just show him the ones she already had.