by Yuu Miyazaki
“Let’s see, room 211…” This time, Ayato made sure to check on the map before heading to the room.
While they were split into separate wings, middle school and college students shared the same floors as the high school students. Ayato found that somewhat refreshing. Every student who saw him walking by gave him a curious stare, which was bewildering, but he decided not to let it bother him and returned the attention with smiles and waves.
Room 211 was a corner room on the second floor. A fresh nameplate bore the name AYATO AMAGIRI. He knocked cautiously before entering.
“Hey, there you are. Took you long enough.” Eishirou, lying on his bed, waved lazily in greeting.
“Yeah, it was one thing after another… Wow, this is bigger than I thought.” His room was about two hundred square feet and came with a bed and desk. A single bag, casually placed atop the brand-new sheets, contained the few belongings that Ayato had arranged to have shipped.
“Is that all your stuff? You didn’t bring much.”
“Yeah, just enough to wear. You don’t seem to have a lot either, though.”
There were some handwritten notes and piles of papers on Eishirou’s desk, but other than that, it was practically bare.
“I don’t have a lot of hobbies. Just my work with the newspaper.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Ayato. “I’ve got a question for you, Mr. Reporter. There’s this student called Lester—what kind of a guy is he?”
“Lester? Lester MacPhail?”
“That sounds right… Someone was saying he’s ranked ninth.”
“That’d be him. Lester, the Ax of the Roaring Distance.” Eishirou sat up and touched his mobile to call up an air-window. It showed the very same tall, sturdy male student whom Ayato had met earlier.
“Lester MacPhail. First-year at Seidoukan Academy High School, Page One, ninth place. He excels at physical combat that allows him to make use of his body, and he’s peerless in close combat. But he tends to struggle against opponents with special powers like Stregas and Dantes. He wields an ax-shaped Lux, the Bardiche-Leo.”
“Wow, you’re good!”
“Well, that was all information you can find on the Net. If you want something more, that’s a different story.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this.” Eishirou meaningfully rubbed his thumb and fingers together.
“You’re going to charge me!?”
“Come on, what did you expect? The students at this school—actually, the others are pretty much the same, too, so the students of Asterisk—mostly fall into two categories. One is those who are going all out to fight in the Festa, like the Princess. And the other is people who’ve long since given up on the Festa—like me.”
“Yabuki, you’re not even going to try?”
“Nope. It’s not like just any Genestella can win here. If you’ve been here awhile, you can’t help but notice the differences in people’s strength. And you realize there are barriers you can’t overcome. So, the question is, what do people who’ve dropped out of the competition do?”
“What do they do? I don’t know.”
As Ayato began to get lost in thought, Eishirou laughed and puffed out his chest. “Simple! We find things we want to do and ways to make money that aren’t fighting in the Festa. For me, it’s the school newspaper.”
“I had no idea being in the newspaper club was so lucrative.” Making money for personal gain was not an activity that one usually associated with student clubs.
“Hey, have some respect. Not to toot my own horn, but we do pretty well, y’know. You must’ve seen images of Asterisk on the Net or on TV. If it’s a picture taken on a campus, you can bet it came from one of the student journalism clubs. There’s a convention against outside media setting foot on campus.”
Now it made sense. “Ha-ha, I get it… So you and your fellow reporters sell those kinds of images and information to media companies.”
“Bingo!” Eishirou grinned and raised a finger. “There are lots of others who run a trade. Like the Society for the Study of Meteoric Engineering… They take on work customizing Luxes, and they’re way better at it than the Matériel Department. Well, no match for Allekant—they’re the best at technology out of the six schools—but still. And don’t go saying this too loud, but a lot of the gambling around school duels has students as the bookies.”
“The school doesn’t crack down on that kind of thing?” It seemed to Ayato that gambling and bookmaking strayed far outside the realm of student activities.
But Eishirou wagged his uplifted finger and clicked his tongue. “Who’s going to raise an objection these days to money changing hands? The IEFs run all the schools in the first place.”
The integrated enterprise foundations prioritized the stimulation and development of economic activity. Essential to that objective was the flow of cash, and consumerism was encouraged as a global trend. Asterisk, too, was built with all that firmly in mind.
“And what else…?” Eishirou went on. “Right, there are some that join the entourage of stronger students. Especially Page One students. There are a lot of perks to being close to them.”
“Oh? Is that… Does Lester have people like that?” Ayato remembered the two students standing behind Lester.
“You mean these guys?” Eishirou opened two more air-windows, one displaying the thin boy and the other one the pudgy boy. While their physical features made for a sharp contrast, they had the same obsequious look in their eyes.
“Yeah, it’s them.”
“The skinny one is Silas Norman. He is a Dante, but doesn’t have much to show for it. Some telekinetic powers. The fat one is Randy Hooke. He was in the Named Chart once, but not anymore. He uses a bow Lux.”
“You really are good with intel…” Ayato was honestly dumbfounded. It was one thing to keep track of the strongest students—but having ready knowledge of their hangers-on to boot was on another level.
“Heh. Impressed you, did I?” Laughing, Eishirou closed the air-windows and leaped off the bed. “Okay, then. Let’s get something to eat. I’ll show you the cafeteria.”
“Before we go, there’s one more thing I want to ask about Lester.”
“Oh?”
“Is there…something between him and Julis?”
Eishirou grinned at the question. “Oh, I get it. I was wondering why you wanted to know so much about this guy all of a sudden. You really are after the Princess, huh?”
“Th-that’s not it, at all…” It was true, though, that the girl was on his mind a lot, for reasons Ayato couldn’t explain.
“It’s fine, I don’t care. But like I said before, it’ll cost you.”
Eishirou waited for Ayato to nod in consent, then opened another air-window.
This one showed a video. A girl wielding swaths of flame danced brilliantly on the display. Opposing her was a giant of a boy. He was swinging around an ax the size of his huge body, but it was clear that he was losing the fight.
“This is from last year’s official ranking matches. Lester was ranked fifth at the time. The Princess was seventeenth.”
“You mean…”
“Yup. She won. This is the fight that made her Page One. A match to remember.”
“And for Lester, a match he’d rather forget.”
“You could say that. In fact, Lester challenged the Princess in two more official matches, and he lost spectacularly.”
Official matches were selective examinations held once a month by the school. Because the consent of both parties was necessary to duel, one could decline indefinitely. To prevent high-ranking students from using that as a loophole to keep their position, they were required to fight at least once a month. As a rule, in an official match, a high-ranking student did not have the right to decline a challenge from a lower-ranked student.
“Still, you can only challenge the same student twice,” Eishirou explained. “Otherwise, you might have people throwing matches.”
&nb
sp; “So that means Lester can’t challenge Julis again in an official match.” That’s why he’s so obsessed with dueling her, Ayato thought.
“Lester has a lot of pride and a temper to go with it. It’s probably driving him crazy, not getting back at her. I don’t think he stands a chance, though,” said Eishirou, pocketing his mobile. “What do you think?”
In that matchup, Lester was at a disadvantage, but he did have considerable skill. Luck counted for something in a fight, too, so nothing was certain.
“Going from that video, I don’t think it’s impossible for him,” said Ayato. “But…their eyes are different.”
“Hmm,” Eishirou mused.
Julis’s eyes weren’t seeing Lester in that video—they were fixed on something far away, beyond her opponent. In contrast, Lester’s eyes were focused on Julis alone. At that rate, Lester couldn’t hold a candle to Julis.
But her far-off gaze… Ayato had seen something like it before.
“Thanks, Yabuki. So, what’s that intel come to?” As a scholarship student, Ayato wasn’t charged tuition or matriculation fees. But he didn’t exactly have a lot of money. In fact, his family’s run-down dojo was on the verge of shutting its doors. He did have some spending money saved up from part-time jobs, but if he wasn’t frugal with it, he might run out quickly.
“All right! Time to eat! Let’s get going, Amagiri!” Eishirou forcefully draped his arm around Ayato’s neck and more or less dragged him out of the room. “We get a choice between the Japanese meal and the western meal. What’ll it be?”
“Uh, um, then Japanese, I guess…?”
“The Japanese option today is grilled marinated Spanish mackerel, fried tofu, and stew of daikon radish and fish paste… Okay, I’ll take your fried tofu.”
“…Huh?”
“That’s my fee this time. Consider it a new student discount.” Eishirou grinned, then unwrapped his arm from Ayato’s neck and clapped him on the back. “See? Aren’t I a great guy?”
“I might think so…if you didn’t say so about yourself.” Ayato smiled and returned a slap to his roommate’s back.
CHAPTER 4
REMINISCENCE AND REUNION
It was an early summer night with the scent of fresh grass rising in the air.
That day, the boy had been made to kneel in seiza, the traditional Japanese manner, back held rigid and behind resting on his heels, in a corner of the dojo. The pain showed on his childishly charming face only as a sulk, faintly illuminated in the gloom. He didn’t even know anymore how long he had been in that position. Still, he refused to move from it, out of his own pride and defiance.
Suddenly, a door opened and a gentle voice wafted in, accompanied by the moonlight. “Honestly… What did you do this time? Dad was furious.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” said the boy, pouting, and turned away.
The girl who had opened the door crouched down with her back to the moonlight and let out a curt sigh.
She pushed back her long black hair and looked down at the boy with a troubled gaze. She was five or six years older than him, brimming with energy that was complemented by her short-sleeved sailor suit uniform.
“Ayato.”
“But, sis! Those guys—”
“Ayato!” The edge in her voice made the boy flinch. “A real man doesn’t make excuses.”
He had been holding back by sheer force of will, until now. His face twisted and his eyes filled with tears.
“But if you’re really sorry, then I’ll listen to your side of the story,” she said.
“Really?” Now his expression lit up brightly.
“Are you sorry?”
“Yes, I’m sorry!”
“You won’t do it again?”
“Nope!”
“Really and truly?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Really, really truly?”
“Hey, sis, remember when Saya was saying that no one likes girls who take things too seriously?”
Bonk. The girl’s fist came down on his head.
“I’m sorry. I mean it.”
“Very well.” She nodded gravely. “Sit there.”
“But I’m already sitting.”
“S-sit down properly! Seiza!”
“I’ve been sitting in seiza.”
The girl cleared her throat, face reddening, and took a pair of glasses from the pocket of her uniform.
“I always wonder if you’d be better off just wearing your glasses all the time, instead of trying to look cool,” said the boy.
“You shut up! I’ll do what I want with my glasses!” The conservative black-framed glasses suited her face nicely, but she didn’t care for them. “So. What happened?”
Finally, he thought, they were getting to the point. The story tumbled out of him. “I didn’t do anything! They just kept bothering me for a match and wouldn’t let up!”
According to the boy, the altercation began when some students at the dojo teased him for doing nothing but swinging his sword at practice.
His father strictly forbade him from sparring or fighting with the other students. Sometimes they picked on him for it.
The dojo didn’t have many students, but most of them were Genestella, since the government had recommended martial arts as a way for Genestella to train their minds and build character.
The boy had his doubts about that. The others just wanted to show off their own strength.
There were harsh laws in place to punish any acts of violence by Genestella against civilians. And minors received no leniency, which might have been why Ayato, as a fellow Genestella boy, found himself a target of teasing.
“And they said bad things about you…!” The boy angrily chewed his lip.
The girl was also among those studying swordsmanship at the dojo. While she was not forbidden as strictly as her brother from engaging in combat, she almost never faced the other students. The students in question here had only joined the dojo recently, and they had never seen her in a match.
But the boy knew that his sister was the most skilled student at the dojo.
“That’s why I agreed to fight them!” the boy blustered. “Just for a little bit—!”
The girl didn’t need to hear the results to know what they were.
“Hmm.” She thought quietly for a few moments and chose her words carefully when she spoke. “I see. I agree that you’re not at fault, Ayato.”
“I told you!” The boy looked up at her happily.
She pinned him with a stare and added reprovingly, “At the same time, you’re not in the right, either.”
“Huh?”
“Ayato, do you know why Dad forbids you from fighting anyone?”
The boy shook his head. He had asked his father the very same question himself but never received an answer.
“You have great strength inside you. But sometimes, strength can hurt people. And you could even hurt yourself, Ayato.”
“But I’m not hurt at all, see? I don’t hurt anywhere…”
“That’s because you’re still relying on your strength.” The girl’s voice went a little harder. “As long as you’re giving yourself up to your own strength that way, you won’t feel pain. But at the same time, you won’t be able to feel the pain of others, either. Dad and I don’t want you to grow up to be that kind of person, Ayato.”
He looked at her blankly.
“Everyone has the right to fight for their dignity. That’s why you’re not at fault. But you don’t know how to take responsibility for your actions yet. And you can never be right if you’re not responsible.”
“…I don’t get it.” He knew that she was telling him something important, but he could hardly understand any of it.
“It means you’re not ready yet.”
“Then when will I be ready?”
“Hmm, I don’t know.” Thinking, the girl touched her chin and tilted her head. “If I had to say… Maybe when you find out what it is that you have to do, Ayato.”<
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“What I have to do…?”
“Yes. That’ll come when you’ve decided how to use the strength you have.”
The things she was saying were still a little too complicated for him, but the boy gave a small nod.
“Very good.” Satisfied, the girl nodded, too, and patted her brother’s head.
Something occurred to him, then. “What about you, sis?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“Have you found the thing you have to do?”
For a moment, she looked surprised by the question but then gently smiled at him. “Of course. The thing I have to do…,” the girl began and leaned down to hug her brother tight. “…Is protect you, Ayato.”
“Me…?”
“That’s right. It’s the most important thing in the world to me.”
“Then I’m going to protect you, too, sis! That’s the thing I have to do!” The boy was completely serious. To him, too, it really did seem like the most precious and important thing there was.
But the girl smiled mischievously, then flicked his forehead with her finger and laughed. “What a thing to say! Don’t you know you have to be stronger than me to say that?”
For that, he had no retort. He knew that his sister was far stronger than him.
“Besides, you have to be careful with promises like that. You’re a boy, so a day will come when someone really wants to hear it from you.”
“I don’t get it.” The boy hung his head, dejected.
She squeezed him again, much more tightly than before. “I know. That’s okay for now.”
“…Sis?”
“Thanks for sticking up for me, Ayato. I love you.”
Tossing aside the light blanket, he sprang up out of bed like a jack-in-the-box.
He glanced at the clock to see that it was a little after four in the morning. Outside the window there was nothing but predawn shadows.
“There I go dreaming about memories again…”
Ayato managed to turn off the alarm almost as soon as it started beeping and then began to do his stretches. Habit was a fearsome power. After that day, he had been completely exhausted, but he now found himself wide awake at his usual hour.