Chapter 3

The next day, after school.

In order to get everything for the presentation together, Tatsuya went to the library. He really would have rather been focusing on his analysis of the sample (the Ni no Magatama Relic), but he couldn’t neglect (to help with) the Thesis Competition preparations.

Libraries these days were almost entirely digitized, with paper books making up only a slim fraction of available data. If he could view that data online, he wouldn’t have had to walk all the way here, but the stuff Tatsuya and the rest of the team needed was strictly controlled, inaccessible from outside.

And it was when he ventured into the reading room, looking for an open booth, that he stumbled across someone he knew coming out of one of the private rooms.

“Oh, hello, Tatsuya.”

“Saegusa, getting some autumn reading done?”

He’d last seen Mayumi about a week ago, so it didn’t warrant a typical “Hello, it’s been a while.” Instead, he replied with a harmless greeting.

At least, he thought it was harmless. Mayumi pouted a little, unhappy. “You know, Tatsuya…I’m a senior, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Yes, I know that…” said Tatsuya, understandably confused at her saying something so obvious, as though it were incredibly important.

“High school seniors have university entrance exams, remember? I wonder why you didn’t consider that I might have been studying… Do I look that carefree?”

Mayumi’s explanation only made Tatsuya more bewildered. “…You mean, you haven’t been recommended yet?”

She had excellent grades, the position of student president, and she was even famous as a magical sporting athlete with numerous championship trophies. If that wasn’t enough for a recommendation, what was?

But her answer was already ahead—and to the side—of Tatsuya’s thoughts. “Huh? Tatsuya, you didn’t know? I refused recommendations. It’s an unwritten rule at First High that anyone with student council experience turns them down.”

“…That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Only ten people per magic high school can get recommended for Magic University, after all! We have more people taking the exam than other schools, so we want to use those ten spots effectively.”

“So borderline students can get preferential recommendations?”

“You’re exaggerating a little, but…basically, yes.”

“That’s, uh…”

It made some sense, but he still felt like something was wrong with that. Mayumi didn’t look like she had any doubts, though, so he stopped himself from pointing it out.

Tatsuya’s stammering made Mayumi look at him askance, but her interest quickly flew in a different direction. “What are you here for, Tatsuya?”

It upset him that she made it sound like him being here was a surprise—he was a regular at the library, and certainly used it more frequently than she did—but he didn’t need to hide anything. “I’m here to get some things together for the Thesis Competition.”

“Oh, that’s right. Rin wanted you to help, didn’t she?”

…Help. Right… From someone else’s perspective, maybe it looked like that. Though it was a team competition just like Monolith Code, where individuals shined, one couldn’t see each member’s contribution to the thesis. It wouldn’t be strange to think of everyone besides the main presenter as a mere assistant.

“…Oops, we’ll just get in the way out here, so let’s go inside,” said Mayumi, gesturing to the small room she had just come from. “You were going to use it anyway, right?”

Holding the room like that was bad manners, but it wasn’t like there was a line outside the door. Tatsuya nodded without reservation.

Three people in the viewing room would have made it hard to move around in, but even two made it feel pretty cramped. Mayumi was small for a girl, but ever since last autumn, Tatsuya’s build had surpassed that of an average grown male. He wasn’t huge or anything, but his shoulders were wide enough to take up a fair bit of space when he sat. With him sitting in front of the terminal and Mayumi on a spare stool, their shoulders were pressing against one another.

All alone with a beautiful girl in a cramped room.

But even this situation would neither excite Tatsuya nor give him the jitters. Mayumi knew that from past experience. And as for considering herself a beautiful girl… Well, it was an objective fact, so she could leave that aside, too.

As Tatsuya used the terminal with practiced hands, not bothered at all that their shoulders were touching, Mayumi, feeling no irritation, disappointment, or paradoxical caution, resumed their conversation from before.

“I’m sure it was sudden for you, but I hope you do your best.”

“…It was certainly sudden.” The abrupt conversation without any prelude threw him off a little, but he managed to link it with the previous interrupted conversation and avoid asking what was sudden. “It isn’t something for you to worry about, though, is it, Mayumi?” he asked in reply, sounding pretty unconcerned, his eyes still glued to the monitor.

“Well, no. But for Rin, the theme this year goes beyond winning or losing in the competition.”

“Which reminds me—they didn’t ask you to be their substitute?”

“I wouldn’t be able to handle the topic. And I’m not very good at using magic continuously for complicated processes.”

Tatsuya felt like his question and her answer didn’t link up all the way, but Suzune had a thorough understanding of Mayumi’s strengths and weaknesses, so he decided to interpret that as Suzune having eliminated her from the list of candidates beforehand.

“Rin’s helped me out with a lot in the past, so it’s too bad I can’t help her in a time like this…”

It was hard to tell from her tone whether she was talking to herself or to him, and, not seeing any way to respond to her fading words, he ended up silently typing on the terminal, continuing to pull the data he needed.

“That’s why I want you to do your best here, Tatsuya. I think you’d be able to help her.”

“Does Ichihara have some kind of special attachment to the theme this year?” asked Tatsuya, less out of curiosity and more because that sounded stronger than mere encouragement.

“In a way, it’s the first step toward Rin realizing her dream.”

That answer didn’t tell him anything concrete, but he didn’t plan on asking any more about it. He felt Suzune’s dreams didn’t have much to do with him, anyway.

But contrary to his plans, Mayumi didn’t stop talking. “To elevate magicians in society. And not through political pressure, but through economic necessity. By making magic an irreplaceable factor in economic activity, magicians can truly be released from their fate of being born as weapons. A gravity-controlling, magic program–type thermonuclear fusion reactor would be a strong way to do it…is what Rin is always saying. Writing this thesis is the first real step.”

Tatsuya turned to her suddenly and stared at her, his eyes wide.

Mayumi winced. “Huh? What?”

“I’m surprised. Ichihara’s thinking the very same thing…”

“Huh? As you?” she asked, voice high and eyes wide.

He nodded, expression still shaken.

In truth, the idea of elevating magicians in society by having them supply economic benefits wasn’t originally Suzune’s or Tatsuya’s idea. Though it had few supporters, the idea had first been proposed over twenty years ago. But there weren’t even any signs of it happening yet. Even now, the primary use of magicians was for military goals. World affairs were in a lull right now, so cases of magicians being used as weapons had decreased.

Still, some said the development of magicians—not of magic—was, to this day, 90 percent for the pursuit of military objectives. And with things as they were now, it was bound to stay that way. Most magic they could put to use for people’s livelihood could be replaced with machines. Whether that be controlling temperature or accelerating objects—though you wouldn’t get as dramatic an effect as with magic, if something was necessary enough to social activity, you could more stably supply that with nonmagic technology.

There was no need to substitute it with magic.

There was no need to replace highly advanced automatic devices with magicians.

There was no need for magic technology to control or program those devices.

As long as magic wasn’t actualizing a technology that current science was unable to reproduce, the liberation of magicians through economic benefit was no more than an idealistic daydream.

On the other hand, a thermonuclear fusion reactor that ran off a gravity-controlling magic program wasn’t original to them, either. Research on nuclear fusion reactors had come to its limit fifty years ago, but now the research was on whether magic could realize it or not.

Unfortunately, that research was on the decline right now. Maintaining a continuous nuclear fusion reaction with gravity-controlling magic was deemed so difficult a technique that it was counted among the Three Great Practical Problems of Weighting Magic—and the solar energy cycle was, at the moment, providing more than enough energy to advanced nations.

You could barely find anyone, at least now at the end of the twenty-first century, who discussed the connection between the elevation of magicians in society and the possibility of gravity-based thermonuclear fusion.

“I had no idea someone else with such an obscure idea was so close to me this entire time,” said Tatsuya, more out of actual admiration than surprise.

For some reason, Mayumi narrowed her eyes at him. “…Yeah, well, I’m glad the two of you are getting along.” Her tone of voice sounded cranky, too, not just her look.

“Well, I don’t think the issue has to do with us getting along…especially since our methodologies seem to be completely different.”

What is she sulking about? he thought, his reply a little defensive.

“But it’s the same concept, isn’t it? Tatsuya, is Rin the kind of woman you’re into?”

“What?”

“Shoulder to shoulder with such a beautiful girl, and you didn’t even think of doing anything. Well, I’m sorry for having such a childish body.”

What in the hell is she talking about? was Tatsuya’s undeniable impression.

First of all, just because people had the same research theme, they were more likely to end up as rivals than partners. And Mayumi was simply short—she didn’t have a childish body. Even he thought of her as having a mature, provocative figure.

There were so many misunderstandings he needed to clear up that he couldn’t even figure out where to start.

“…I’m not an exhibitionist. I wouldn’t make a move on a woman in front of surveillance cameras.”

Tatsuya must have been pretty baffled himself, because the first response he could think of was not a very appropriate one.

“Huh…?” His reply seemed suggestive but was actually just not well thought-out. Mayumi began to fidget, and her eyes started to wander. “Umm, then, what if there were no cameras or people? Like, if we had a hotel room to ourselves?”

“If you were making advances on me, I would accept without hesitation.”

With a clatter, the red-faced Mayumi and her stool both ran into the wall; it seemed like she was trying to get as far away from him in the cramped room as she could. That was when Tatsuya finally realized he had misspoken.

Repeatedly saying the first thing that came to mind had created a misunderstanding he could have avoided.

But he felt that making any more excuses would be digging a deeper grave. Deciding it was fortunate the conversation had ended, he looked away from her and focused on his data collection.

And yet Mayumi, who appeared to have sensed danger, didn’t try to leave the viewing room.

Three nights after submitting the thesis to the school, as Tatsuya was processing some data on his personal workstation, he noticed their home server was under attack.

The attack was coming from multiple avenues simultaneously, meaning this was no amateur hacker. This was the work of a professional data thief. That meant they hadn’t coincidentally found his address—they’d aimed specifically for his house’s global address.

No matter how many times he fought it off, the attacks kept coming. They were being incredibly stubborn. I’ll have to change the address again, said Tatsuya to himself, sighing and booting up his tracer program.

The next day, during lunch break, Tatsuya was visiting the counseling room.

He was speaking to Haruka.

And, of course, talking about puberty problems wasn’t on his agenda.

“…However, they cut the connection in the middle. I wasn’t able to find the attacker.”

Haruka didn’t bother to hide her displeasure—or even pretend she felt differently—which wasn’t an expression very fitting of a counselor at all. But considering Tatsuya hadn’t come for counseling, and given their past experiences, nobody could unconditionally blame her.

“…And? Just so you know, I can’t do network tracing.”

Tatsuya almost laughed at the woman’s sullen voice, but he didn’t want her getting any angrier, so he didn’t let this show. “I know your field of expertise, ma’am. I don’t want to trouble you with that much.”

“Then what is it?” Caution crept into Haruka’s face. She’d learned to immediately be on her guard whenever Tatsuya said something that sounded reasonable—because there was always another side to it.

“I was wondering if you could tell me what you knew about groups that have been dabbling in secret information trafficking regarding magic lately.”

Seeing Tatsuya give her a forced, calming smile, the woman scowled. “…You know what confidentiality means, don’t you, Shiba?”

“Of course.”

“…” Haruka’s lips formed the beginnings of a word.

She probably wanted to say, “Are you kidding me?” he thought. He’d have been thinking the same thing. He still didn’t feel bad about it, though.

“…Since the end of last month to the beginning of this month, there have been numerous illegal immigration incidents in Yokohama and Yokosuka,” began Haruka, her voice sounding like one big sigh.

It wasn’t easy to cut off connections after already going along with one of his generous offers. It was an elementary method to build up information connections for those in the intelligence field. And to have it directed back to her… Haruka must have been regretting this bitterly.

“The prefectural police and the bay police are working together, but they haven’t found anything significant. At about the same time, manufacturers providing parts to Maximillian and Rosen have been meeting with a series of burglaries.”

Maximillian and Rosen were two of the top CAD makers in the world. In other words, they were targeting businesses related to magic device production.

“Do you mean to say it’s related, ma’am?”

“Given who we’re talking about, it’s nothing certain. Shiba, I think you should bring your thesis on physical media instead of putting it online.”

That last piece of advice was the only time her voice wasn’t tinged with carelessness. When Tatsuya tried to confirm her true intentions again, Haruka smoothly averted her eyes and looked at her desk.

The move implied she couldn’t say any more.

And Tatsuya knew by now when to withdraw.

After school, in the disciplinary committee room, Tatsuya was talking to Isori about the hacking attempt last night.

“…Did they do any damage?” asked Isori, leaning in worriedly.

“No, that much is fine,” replied Tatsuya with a wry shake of his head, putting his hands out in front of him. Isori would quickly change into a tall, androgynous, pretty girl, just with a swapped school uniform, so pressing closer to him like this, even if it had no meaning in terms of physical distance, didn’t make him very comfortable. Of course, he couldn’t let those feelings show, so he had to be careful not to lean back unnaturally. “More importantly, was your house all right, Isori?”

Isori gave him a blank look for a moment, then frowned and lowered his voice. “Do you mean the hacker was after…?” he whispered, his voice sounding oddly provocative.

I heard he worries about not having many guy friends, but I guess they don’t hate him—they just want to keep their distance… thought Tatsuya, though he said something else. “I looked at the commands they were using. They seemed to be after documents related to magical theory. Considering the timing, I can’t deny possibility of a connection to the competition.”

Actually, given the timing, there was one other factor that was highly probable, but he couldn’t be that honest about it. Besides, you could never be too careful.

Isori’s frown deepened, and he started to think about whether he’d seen any signs like that. “Not at the moment, anyway… Maybe you should tell Ichihara about it, too.”

“You’re right,” he agreed immediately, having already planned on doing so.

Then, a cheerful voice broke in: “Kei, here I am~,” it said in a way that might have a music note dancing at the end. Without waiting for a response, the person sat right down next to Isori, took his arm, and started acting playfully. It was, of course, Kanon.

“Tatsuya, I haven’t seen you in a while.”

That was Mari, who had come in beside Kanon. Her words nearly had a sigh attached because of Kanon’s behavior.

It was tricky for Tatsuya to say whether a dozen or so days was a “while” or not, but considering they’d seen each other every school day up until last month, maybe it was bound to feel like a long time. “Yes, it has,” he replied, standing up and offering his seat to Mari.

“Oh, why thanks,” said Mari with a grin, not trying to compromise, before sitting down.

A handsome woman as usual, he thought, answering, “You’re welcome” and bringing another chair next to her for himself.

“So, Tatsuya, how has Kanon been doing?”

A sudden, unexpected question. Well, maybe it was natural for the previous chairwoman to think about how the current one was doing, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t why she’d called him and Isori here.

“Mari?!”

But looking at Kanon’s panic, he began to understand why she’d asked. Such a charming junior-senior relationship, isn’t it? “I don’t patrol with her anymore, so I don’t know about that part of it,” said Tatsuya, deciding to learn from their relationship, charming as it was. “She keeps things very tidy and orderly. She’s especially good at getting rid of things. Though sometimes she gets a little too into it,” he explained in a monotonous, deadpan voice.

Mari and Kanon both fidgeted uncomfortably. Mari knew she was never any good at keeping things clean, and Kanon had made a few mistakes now, throwing out things they actually needed and confusing whoever happened to be looking for them.

In that way, Tatsuya hadn’t just been speaking about Kanon. Mari understood it as sarcasm, but Isori wasn’t her, and didn’t seem to understand that. Isori turned to Kanon and warned her, though only his words were strict (?), while his tone was soft. “…Shiba says things like that, but you have to do a little more paperwork by yourself, too, okay? Relying on me is one thing, but when I’m not around, you make him do a lot of it, don’t you?”

Kanon answered, “…But I’m bad at it. I think we just need the right people doing the right jobs.”

Her current sulking and fawning created a large gap between this and her usual imposing figure—the one that came out when Isori wasn’t around. Tatsuya and Mari saw that and grinned drily.

“…Well, let’s leave that discussion for another time,” said Tatsuya, who figured that was enough, prompting Mari to move on to the main subject.

“Yes, let’s. I actually wanted to talk about Thesis Competition security.”

“Security? Is the disciplinary committee going to be handling it?”

“Yeah.”

“Security” done by students at an event held outside school sounded odd to Tatsuya, but he was the only one who seemed put off by it. They probably did this every year.

“But not security for the venue itself. The Magic Association is assigning professionals for that.” Mari didn’t want to leave any misunderstandings up in the air, either, so she began explaining before Tatsuya asked. “What I wanted to talk about was personal security for the team members, and guards for the presentation materials and devices. The competition uses valuable material that only the people related to the university are privy to, after all. It’s pretty well-known among outsiders, too, so the competition members sometimes end up being targets of industry and university spies.”

It was such a timely topic that Tatsuya was a little startled. He knew this was possible, but honestly, he couldn’t keep himself from feeling surprised. “…Like trying to hack into their home servers?”

“Well, it is just a high school event… I call them spies, but I mean, I don’t think any small-timers could do something crazy, like infiltrate a network just to get a little bit of extra pocket change. At least, I’ve never heard of it…”

That would make sense, thought Tatsuya, mulling it over. In the modern world, simple unlawful access to a network was a serious crime. The theft of information in a network was given a heavier punishment than robbery. And the falsification of data was on the same level as attempted murder. Coupled with the strengthening in network security, cyber crimes weren’t worth it as a business for full-time criminals.

Which meant the attack last night must have been…

As Tatsuya’s thoughts were elsewhere, Mari approached the core of the subject. “What we need to watch out for are purse snatchers or people walking away with our things. Four years ago, one of the presenters on their way to the venue was attacked and injured. After that, the schools started assigning escorts to the participating members starting a few weeks before the competition.”

Thankfully, he snapped out of it before missing anything he’d need to ask her to repeat.

“That goes for us, too, of course. Escorts are selected from the disciplinary committee and club committee executives, but we honor each member’s personal wishes on who is actually guarding whom.”

“I’ll be the one to guard Kei!” interrupted Kanon, as though it were obvious.

Definitely charming, thought Tatsuya, but this time he managed not to let a dry chuckle escape.

“…Well, Isori has no complaints, so that’s decided. You’ll have an aide, too, of course…but, Kanon, don’t kick them away like some kind of horse, all right?”

“That was mean! I wouldn’t do that. I’m not a little kid.”

Seeing her cheeks puff out didn’t lend much credence to her claim that she wasn’t a little kid, but the other three non-kids politely ignored it.

“We’ll have Hattori and Kirihara guarding Ichihara.”

“The club committee chairman will be her personal guard?” asked Tatsuya flatly.

“He’s no match for Ichihara,” replied Mari with a mean grin. “Anyway…the issue is what to do about you,” she said, still grinning.

“I don’t need one,” he replied instantly.

Mari nodded, not trying to get him to reconsider. “Any guards we give you would just be warm-up catchers. And they’d probably just get in the way. I’ll tell Hattori what we decided.”

Tatsuya crooked his head to the side, belatedly noticing something. “By the way, why are you the one doing this, Watanabe?”

To supplement the part he purposely didn’t say, he was asking why Kanon, current chairwoman, wasn’t doing this, and why Mari, previous chairwoman and now retired, was bending over backward to coordinate the disciplinary committee and club committee.

“No real reason, to be honest…” she stammered.

Tatsuya arched an eyebrow slightly. Overprotective, I see.

Mari got the message and looked away awkwardly.

First High’s school store had a selection that far surpassed the average high school shop.

One could say the same for all nine of the magic high schools, but they had been compelled to expand by necessity so that students could easily acquire hands-on magic teaching materials difficult to find in regular stores.

It didn’t change that they were still school stores, however, and some things simply couldn’t be found there. When that happened, one needed to go out to buy them.

And while this, too, was a commonality among the nine schools, shopping districts that could only be called “castle towns” formed around the magic high schools, so students could buy nearly anything they needed that the school’s selection lacked—equipment, consumables, books, miscellaneous goods. That First High’s shopping district was especially well-stocked has already been touched upon.

The recording film for the 3-D projectors they were using for the Thesis Competition happened to be out of stock in the school store, so Tatsuya and Isori had come to a stationery store near the station to purchase some. With the day to submit their draft to the school coming up tomorrow, they couldn’t wait for the school store to restock.

“I didn’t mean to trouble the two of you with something a freshman could do by himself…”

They had already exhausted over half the journey there, but Tatsuya said this anyway for two reasons: one out of sincere apology for bothering his upperclassmen, and two, the stronger reason, out of being fed up with Kanon clinging to Isori without a care for who saw.

The grass was always greener on the other side, and it seemed the reverse was also true. Or maybe everyone else just sort of understood. Kanon was the only one flirting; Isori, for his part, made it look like she was being a little unmanageable, so at least he wasn’t beyond help.

Incidentally, Miyuki had remained at school. Kanon had a justifiable reason for coming—since she was Isori’s escort—but Miyuki couldn’t neglect her student council duties just because Tatsuya was stepping out for a bit. And she knew Kanon was going with them, so she was probably typing away in irritation right now.

“No, I’d feel bad leaving everything to you, Shiba. I want to check the samples anyway.”

And the preestablished harmony was that the generally earnest Isori would reply that way.

Tatsuya wasn’t about to send them away at this point anyway. It had almost been a complaint, so he didn’t get into an argument with them. Things stopped with him shutting out a creepy, suppressed, mezzo-soprano giggle from his sense of hearing. Once he decided to ignore it, he wouldn’t worry about it anymore. That was something he was glad he was able to do.

After another five minutes with their current pace, which kept slowing down, the three of them arrived at their destination. And there, too, Tatsuya finished his purchase right away, told Isori he would wait outside, and left the store.

As he finally got some alone time and was just feeling refreshed, he noticed a pair of eyes watching him. He didn’t remember anyone tailing them. Even with the annoying, stereotypical (?) high school lovers’ talk, he hadn’t stopped paying attention to his surroundings.

Still, though, it was such an easy-to-detect stare that anyone would notice it, not just Tatsuya.

This store was on the shortest route to the station from school, basically right in front of the station. If you stuck around there, you could easily catch students on their way home. The person had probably been hiding out and waiting for him. They were physically hidden, but given how much hostility he still felt on him, the person clearly didn’t have anything friendly or peaceable in mind. But they were being too artless and crude about it compared to, for example, the sniper who had shot Tatsuya the other day, for him to actually be on his guard against them.

Just as he was wondering what he should do, Isori and Kanon exited the store, having finished their shopping.

“Sorry for making you… What’s the matter?” asked Isori immediately.

Tatsuya was astonished at his classmate’s sensitivity; his own face was not that easy to read at the moment. To prove it, Kanon muttered “hmm?” in confusion.

Isori specialized in stationary magic like delayed activation spells and conditional-activation spells, but his power of observation was something else—maybe he was actually better suited to perception magic than functional magic.

“Nothing. I think we’re being watched, that’s all. I was just…” He didn’t feel any real need to hide it, so he told Isori the truth. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get to the end of his answer.

“What? Is it a spy?!”

Right before Tatsuya could finish and say, “wondering if I should do something,” Kanon interrupted.

Loudly.

She’d basically just shouted to the scoundrel to run away, and as expected, he felt the gaze secretly watching him leave and the person’s presence grow distant.

But Mari hadn’t named Kanon her successor for nothing. She quickly asked, “Where?,” watched where Tatsuya looked, and took off at a run without hesitation.

“Kanon, magic—”

“I know! Trust me, Kei!”

He’d probably tried to remind her because he didn’t trust her, but Isori, who missed his chance to follow, and Tatsuya, who now had to temporarily serve as Kanon’s substitute, could only watch her go.

Kanon was both a top-class magician of her generation and a sprinter in the track and field club. She obviously didn’t have the leg power to compete evenly with top non-magician athletes, but an average high schooler, even a male one, wouldn’t get the better of her very easily.

As she dashed, her skirt flapping in the wind, she soon caught sight of a small figure running away. And she was wearing the same uniform as Kanon.

Though it caught her by surprise, it was Kanon’s motto not to worry about things and just do them. She had absolutely no proof this girl had been the one watching Tatsuya, but that didn’t slow her pursuit. Kanon felt that it was her. She accelerated, trusting her gut.

She quickly closed the distance, and when she was just ten yards away, the girl looked back over her shoulder.

It was her actual face—no mask or sunglasses.

Kanon stared hard at the girl’s head, burning her briefly visible profile into her memory.

Her limiting her focus on a single point, however, hadn’t been anything the girl had plotted—just a coincidental gift. But regardless of her intent, it did create a hole in Kanon’s alertness.

Kanon noticed the small capsule the girl had dropped behind her only after she had turned back away from her—and the fact that the capsule fell between them.

Crap, thought Kanon. She reflexively stopped and shut her eyes. She tried to cover her face with her arms, but unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough.

A brilliant light shone in through her upraised arms and stung her eyes through her eyelids. Several pedestrians who had been watching the chase scene in interest shrieked.

Leaving her left eye closed (the one she couldn’t cover), she looked with her right, which had avoided harm.

The girl had gotten onto a motor scooter to flee.

Kanon’s right hand flung over to her left arm. The bracelet that hung low on her wrist absorbed psionic particles, and it quickly expanded an activation sequence in accordance with the number Kanon typed in.

But before she could read it, it was destroyed by a psionic bullet that had gone around her body from behind.

“What are you doing?!”

“Kanon, don’t!”

It happened at exactly the same time. It overlapped between them as she turned back around and Isori yelled, running over.

Tatsuya was standing still behind Isori, his handgun-shaped CAD raised. Isori came beside her as she stood frozen in surprise at her fiancé’s reprimand. He was using his CAD as he ran, and had finished constructing a magic program. He aimed at the scooter, which had already taken off, and activated an emission-type spell called Road Extension.

The tires of the scooter, which had just begun to get away, began to spin fruitlessly.

No matter how much its motor spun, it didn’t go forward. The road went on in a straight line, but she couldn’t escape it. A labyrinth made of a single path.

The secret was to control the distribution of electrons between the tires’ points of contact and the road to bias the Coulomb force toward repulsion, bringing their coefficient of friction close to zero. In words, that was all the spell did, but it was actually a dreadfully technical spell that required a complex magic program.

Thanks to a spell that amplified the compositely emitted gyroscopic force, the scooter couldn’t fall to the side, either. Its tiny initial acceleration was eaten up by the electrostatic repulsion, bringing the girl’s scooter to a standstill.

She could no longer get away.

Isori, Kanon, and even Tatsuya thought so. It was reasonable thinking, a natural judgment. Common sense dictated she couldn’t get out of this situation.

But there was something they didn’t know.

This girl was a complete amateur when it came to fighting.

And the more an amateur gets cornered, the more nonsensical their actions become. Desperation attempts, one might call them—but that desperation leads to escaping seemingly inescapable situations surprisingly often.

The girl pushed a button covered with plastic to the side of her left handlebar. Normal scooters didn’t have a button there. To begin with, the covered button looked like it was used for an emergency bell. It was meant to be used a single time, and the button did, in fact, trigger a “disposable” gimmick that certainly seemed to be a onetime thing.

The back of the seat suddenly exploded.

Its cover flew off, and a double rocket engine within began spitting out flames.

The scooter immediately shot forward as though it was hit by something. The girl riding it was flung back, but she kept her hands tightly on the handles.

Tatsuya watched, speechless, as the girl and the scooter quickly grew smaller and smaller.

She hadn’t let go of the handlebars because she was wearing gloves for that very purpose. At least she thought that part through, he thought.

But cramming a liquid-fuel rocket under the seat wasn’t exactly what he’d call sane. Given the amount of fuel, estimated from the combustion duration, if worse came to worst and the scooter fell down and created sparks, she’d die in the explosion—and so would people walking nearby.

The fact that it even drove straight and stayed upright after being ignited by a rocket was a miracle. Normally, the sudden burst of acceleration would force person’s hands off the handlebars and they would be thrown off. If Isori hadn’t coincidentally applied that spell to amplify gyroscopic force, if the front wheel’s coefficient of friction hadn’t already been infinitely close to zero, that’s exactly what would have happened.

If Kanon’s spell had been the one to stop her instead of Isori’s, the scooter surely would have toppled over and caused a horrible tragedy.

“What is that girl thinking…?”

“I guess this means we were all lucky…”

Tatsuya seemed to think the same thing as his two upperclassmen.

After abandoning the modded scooter, the girl rolled into a boxy automobile prepared by a collaborator, her shoulders heaving.

Right behind her were spouting flames. She hadn’t imagined they’d be this terrifying. Hallucinations of her skirt, the back of her blazer, her hair, all burning, attacked her endlessly.

The station wagon’s driver remained silent. He had no comforting words to give her.

That was reasonable; they weren’t friends, just allies.

The girl hugged her shoulders. It was the only way she was able to endure. One girl, cowering motionlessly in a seat in a station wagon darkened by smoked glass.

Eventually, as her terror waned, the regret slowly rose, torturing her mind. She had reflexively fled when she was being chased, but now that she could think about it calmly, she didn’t have to.

All she was doing was watching.

Her guilt was taking away her ability to think straight, and she knew that. The very fact that she felt guilt caused her an unbearable anger.

She knew she wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing. Others knew her as an indoor type, and she’d never felt the need to change that. Because her dear older sister was the same way.

She looked up to her sister’s talents in academics, but she wasn’t as talented. Instead, she figured she would try to be an engineer and put her hobby of tinkering with machines to good use.

Then why am I going along with all these shady people? she asked herself.

The answer came back instantly, from inside her own mind.

She couldn’t forgive him.

She didn’t care about being rewarded for succeeding.

All she wanted was to see him mortified.

Suddenly, she chuckled. She just realized she’d gotten the better of him. There was no time to look out her rearview mirror, but surely he was watching in blank amazement as she made her clean getaway…

Her laugh was dark, masochistic, and tinged with madness. The more she laughed, the more it broke her.

Nobody in the station wagon, however, stopped her.

Inside an old building on the edge of Tokyo and Ikebukuro. From the outside, it looked like a general store management office. But in one room were tons of old computer monitors, tightly packed, with men staring fixedly at them, wearing whatever they pleased.

One of them, a middle-aged man, made a bitter face as he watched them—a screen monitoring the station wagon, showing a girl laughing maniacally inside.

“That girl—is this going to be all right?”

The man wasn’t worried about her body or mind. The girl had bungled this; they were only worried someone might track them down because of it.

“That car’s members were chosen by the great Zhou. No matter what happens, I don’t believe anyone will learn of our presence here.”

“The upstart mediator…” the man replied bitterly, imagining the person who had prepared this hideout for them. “How far can we really trust him?”

—He didn’t like it, but trusting him was all they could do. That was unmistakably what was running through the man’s mind.

“What about the Relic?” he said, suddenly changing the subject to get rid of the gloomy mood.

One of his subordinates at another monitor turned around and stood up. “There’s no trace of anyone taking it out of Four Leaves Technology, but its current location is unknown.”

“Hmph… Four Leaves, eh? Such an annoying name. No relation to the Yotsuba, right?”

“Shì. We investigated them but found no evidence of a connection. Besides, magic-related businesses in this country frequently use ‘four leaves’ and ‘eight leaves’ in their names.”

“Blasted confusing,” spat the man in distaste, animosity, and irritation. Even so, a tiny bit of awe came through.

Hachou, or “eight leaves,” was favored as a name carrying two magical meanings: the four families and eight types of modern magic, and the Garbhadhatu Mandala, with the eight Buddhas at its center. However, shiyou, or “four leaves,” was used in a more secular way. The name Yotsuba of the Ten Master Clans was a sort of taboo among those who had anything to do with magic. If a Japanese business had a name containing some reference to “four leaves,” spy groups and criminal organizations would be wary of any possible connection to the Yotsuba family and hesitate significantly more before meddling. Taking the Yotsuba not saying anything on the topic as a good thing, many businesses used names meaning “four leaves” in an attempt to “borrow the influence of the tiger.”

It was mere child’s play, but its effectiveness couldn’t be understated. They themselves were spending a lot of time and effort to be careful of the Yotsuba right now. The thought gave the man even more reason to look bitter.

“…Keep watching Sayuri Shiba. Did you learn anything from going to her house the other night?”

A different subordinate answered him this time. “It seems a pair of siblings, children of her husband’s former wife, live there.”

“Was she trying to curry favor with her stepson and stepdaughter?” he asked, his face implying that was absurd. He asked another question, this one businesslike. “What do we have on those two?”

“Both are freshmen enrolled at the National Magic University Affiliated First High School.”

But that reply seemed to interest him. “Their names?”

“The older brother is Tatsuya Shiba, and the younger sister is Miyuki Shiba.”

“Tatsuya Shiba?” The name sounded familiar to him. He called the man watching the monitor on the station wagon.

“He is the revenge target of our on-site collaborators.”

“I see. A Magic University–affiliated high school… This might work out well for us.” The man let a chuckle slip, then looked like he was thinking for a couple of seconds, staring into empty air. Abruptly, he gave a new order: “Add activity targets to National Magic University Affiliated First High School. Get people from other jobs if you need to. And bolster our support of the girl. Teach her that the most effective way to get her revenge is to leak confidential information. And give the girl a weapon as well.”

After this string of orders, he finally turned to a young man with a large build. “Superior Lieutenant Lu.”

“Shì.”

“Take on-site command. If you find any stray dogs sniffing around, get rid of them,” he commanded before leaving the room.