by Tsutomu Sato
But she felt like she had a harder time this morning than usual.
She was a little dazed.
She couldn’t sense her brother in the house.
He had probably left for his morning training.
This was usual, too.
Her brother stayed up later than her every night and woke up earlier than her every morning.
Waking up earlier than him like she had the day before yesterday really was a rare occurrence.
She had worried about him hurting himself in the past.
Now she knew that was needless anxiety.
Her brother, that person—he was special.
People around him called her a genius.
They praised her as special, somebody different from them.
They don’t know anything.
The really amazing one, the really special one, the true genius, is my brother.
He is in a different dimension.
They don’t understand.
Those girls giving me compliments while hiding their envy will never understand.
Truly isolated talent goes beyond jealousy—it inspires fear.
Not awe, but fear.
She knew. She knew how their father, overcome with that fear, had treated his flesh and blood, and how unfair his behavior was.
Her brother believed that she didn’t know about it.
So she pretended she didn’t.
Their father—that man despised her brother’s talents. He had given him a false sense of failure. Even now, he was plotting how he would break her brother’s mind, his spirit, and those wings of his that could carry him far above the skies. She actually knew about that.
It was absurd.
He had tried to chain him up and throw him in the corner, but in the end, he was made fully aware of how much his son’s talents surpassed his own.
He eventually gave him assets to compensate for his freedom.
He watched as his powers of restraining, his one and only talent, crumbled before his very eyes.
The only thing that man had done was force upon him a false name and steal from him the admiration of the world.
Even though the man must have known her brother had no interest in such things.
…She was losing control of her thoughts.
She began to feel like she was someone else.
She got the feeling she wasn’t entirely awake yet.
Maybe she hadn’t gotten enough sleep.
She knew the reason.
It was because of what happened last night.
She had been calm at the time.
Her confused brother had seemed funny for once—even cute.
Her emotions had surpassed his.
But she left him, then went alone to her room and lay down in bed—and then she couldn’t remain calm.
The throbbing in her chest wouldn’t let her sleep.
She had lost her composure, and couldn’t get to sleep.
He was so dear to her.
But…
These aren’t feelings of love.
They can’t be love.
That person is my brother—she had told herself that ever since three years ago.
Three years ago, when that person saved me, and when I realized his true value… Even since then, I’ve done my best to become someone fitting for him to call his sister.
I’ve always hoped that one day I could help that person the same way he saved me. I still want nothing more than to become someone who is capable of helping him.
I don’t desire anything from him.
My life should have already expired, and he saved me.
I may be nothing more than shackles binding him right now…
But one day, I want to be the key that sets him free.
I want to be useful to him.
For the time being, that means making breakfast.
He could eat breakfast over there as well…
…but I know he’ll politely leave some room and come back.
I’ll have him eat a delicious breakfast.
Because that’s what I can do right now.
Miyuki gave an energetic lunge and stood up, then stretched a long, high stretch.
Magic High School had many unique aspects, but its fundamental system didn’t differ from normal schools.
There were club activities here at First High as well.
In order to be recognized by the school as an official club, you needed to have a certain number of members and achievements—this point was the same, too.
But for Magic High School, there were many clubs closely related to magic.
The nine high schools affiliated with the National Magic University would face off against one another in a certain major magical competition, and their results tended to reflect upon the images of each school. In terms of how much the school put into it, it might have been more than how much elite sports schools support traditional national sports. Clubs that achieved excellence during this battle, called the Nine School Competition, would gain many amenities, ranging from the club’s budget going up to each individual member’s standing within the school improving.
The contest to acquire promising new members was an important event, since it had a direct effect on a club’s influence. The school not only recognized it but even seemed to actively encourage it.
Thus, the great struggle of all the clubs scrambling to gain new members reached its fiercest point at this time of year.
“…That all means clubs cause no end of trouble around this time.”
The place: the student council room.
Tatsuya listened to Mari’s explanation as he savored the taste of the bento Miyuki had made for him.
“Sometimes their solicitations are so extreme that it can obstruct classes. There is a specific time set up for these new student recruitment wars. It begins today and lasts for one week.”
Those were the words of Mayumi, sitting next to Mari.
Miyuki was sitting next to Tatsuya, like always.
Suzune and Azusa were absent. They had been here yesterday because Mayumi had summoned them. Apparently, they normally ate lunch with their classmates.
In addition, Mari had brought a homemade bento again. Mayumi had been pretty grumpy being the only one eating a mechanically prepared meal from the dining server, but her mood finally seemed to have improved. She had declared that starting tomorrow, she’d make her own bento, too.
“During this time, the clubs are all going to put up invitation tents. It’s not just your tiny, rural festival atmosphere. They’ll all be scrambling to get their hands on anyone sneaking around who scored highly on the entrance exams, as well as the new students who have achievements in sports and things like that. Of course, there are rules—outwardly, anyway—and clubs that break them will be penalized by the club committee, but unfortunately it’s not unusual for things to come to blows or even firefights in the shadows.”
Tatsuya made a doubtful expression at what she said. “I thought we didn’t permit students to carry around CADs.”
You could still use magic without a CAD. But for things to evolve into anything as extreme as a firefight, you would basically need to use one.
Mari’s answer baffled him.
“They have permission to use them for demonstrations for the new students. There are inspections here and there, but it’s essentially a free pass. So during this time of year, the school ends up turning into a wild, lawless zone.”
Well, yeah, of course it does, he thought reflexively. Why would the school just let something like that slide…? Normally, they’d take measures to prevent it, like making inspections stricter.
His next question was answered by Mayumi before he asked it.
“Even the school wants to win trophies at the Nine School Competition. That might be why they tolerate all the rules violations—to get more students into the clubs.”
Compulsory participation in extracurricular activities had been banned by the compet
ent ministry a few decades ago as a violation of the students’ human rights. But the streets were brimming with students scouted for club activities, and realistically they overlooked sports scouting, using academic freedom of choice as a front for both, making it a self-contradictory and meaningless ban. But although it was just a front, it was effective enough that you couldn’t just ignore it outright.
“Anyway, that’s why the disciplinary committee will be on full alert for one week, starting today. Boy, am I glad we got a replacement member in time,” she said, glancing to the side, probably sarcastically.
“Good for you for finding someone good, Mari!” Mayumi replied, warding the sarcasm off with a smile. Neither of them twitched an eyebrow—this sort of exchange must have been an everyday occurrence, all year round.
Tatsuya swallowed the last bite of his food, then put his chopsticks down. His teacup was filled back up from next to him. He took a sip of it and offered a measly resistance.
“Won’t the clubs be targeting people with the best grades—so Course 1 students? I don’t think I’ll be very much help.”
Mari had already declared her public stance that Course 2 students should be in control of other Course 2 students, so this statement was sabotage in disguise. But…
“Don’t worry about it. You’ve got plenty of firepower to bring to the table.”
…it was wholly dismissed.
Having been cut down from the front like that, there was nothing else to be said.
“…I see. Okay. We’re patrolling after school, right?”
“Once your classes end, come to the HQ.”
“All right,” accepted Tatsuya obediently. It was an odd reaction, somewhere between being sportsmanlike and being too quick to give up.
Next to him, Miyuki looked to Mayumi for instruction. “President… Will we be included in keeping things in order?”
We meant the student council officers. Tatsuya felt content seeing that his sister, who was always a little moody in her interpersonal relationships despite being sociable on the surface, had already blended into the student council.
“I’ll have Ah-chan help out the patrols. Hanzou and I need to be waiting in the club association room in case anything happens, so I want you and Rin to mind this place while we’re gone.”
“Understood,” nodded Miyuki faithfully, but Tatsuya could tell she was a little disappointed. He hadn’t thought she was the type that liked battle, but ability-wise there was no problem. Maybe she wanted to try out the new restraint-family techniques he’d inserted on her CAD.
Tatsuya, while misunderstanding that if he asked her she might cry out No! and then say something under her breath like …Tatsuya, you’re stupid, asked the question that immediately came to mind.
“Nakajou is going to be patrolling?”
The hidden emphasis was that Azusa wouldn’t be reliable. It was another statement in disguise like before, but this time it was addressed, perhaps because someone else had done it.
“I can understand you being nervous about it because of how she looks. But you mustn’t judge a book by its cover, Tatsuya.”
“I understand that, but…” Tatsuya had actually been concerned about Azusa’s timid personality. She must have immediately understood that vague part he’d tried to say. Mayumi, smiling, shook her head.
“She’s a little—well, maybe a lot? Anyway, she’s weak spirited, and that’s the fly in the ointment, so to say. But Ah-chan’s magic comes in really handy at times like these.”
Mari made the same sort of dry smile. “You got that right. If we’re talking about how good she is in situations where there’s a huge uproar we can’t settle down, there’s no better magic than her Azusa Bow.”
Modern magic was a technology—most magic had been formalized and shared. Of course, there were secret techniques as well, but the greater portion of magic was public and recorded in databases. Those spells were normally classified by family and effect, but highly original techniques were given their own names.
“Azusa Bow…? That’s not an official nickname, is it? Is that outer magic?”
However, as far as Tatsuya knew, there was no public magic called Azusa Bow.
Many spells that weren’t public were not of a family. Was it outer magic?
That had been what Tatsuya asked, but…
“…Are you saying you know literally every magic nickname?”
Instead of answering his question, Mari asked one in return, her voice astonished.
“…Tatsuya, are you actually linked up to a huge database from a satellite or something?”
Mayumi’s eyes were wide, and she meant it.
Miyuki felt the urge to burst out into laughter at the responses of her upperclassmen, but this wasn’t the first time she’d witnessed this kind of scene. She didn’t have to try very hard to retain a modest expression.
In modern magic, which had its start as research into supernatural abilities, the phenomenon of magic was not analyzed and classified based on its outward appearance, such as “making fire” or “shooting wind,” but rather by its function.
It was split into four families, each of which had two types:
[ACCELERATION / WEIGHTING]
[MOVEMENT / OSCILLATION]
[CONVERGENCE / DIVERGENCE]
[ABSORPTION / EMISSION]
Of course, exceptions exist to any system of classification, and there was magic that wasn’t classifiable even in the four-family / eight-type schema of modern magic.
Magic that didn’t belong to any of the four families were broadly separated into three categories.
The first was perception-type magic, which had been called ESP. (ESP, in this case, didn’t refer to supernatural abilities as a whole but rather to the perception type.)
The second was magic that didn’t alter events by temporarily overwriting the eidos, the information bodies accompanying those events—but rather magic with the objective of controlling the psions themselves. This was called typeless magic. Mayumi’s specialty, firing clumps of psions, was the model example of typeless magic. The magic Tatsuya had used to knock Hattori out hadn’t strictly been vibration family magic but typeless magic. However, there were spells in the form of psion manipulation that fell into one of the four families and eight types. The distinction between magic from one of the four families and typeless magic wasn’t very sharp.
And the last was magic that dealt not with physical events but with mental phenomena. This was called outer magic. Outer magic was magic that wasn’t part of any of the four families—it couldn’t be classified as one. It spanned many things, from divine magic and spirit magic, which used spiritual things, to mind reading, ethereal separation, and consciousness control.
As if satisfied he’d shown normal surprise, Mayumi finally began to detail the Azusa Bow. “Like you guessed, Ah-chan’s Azusa Bow is outer magic, of the emotional interference type. It has the effect of guiding all people in a specific area into a trancelike state.”
Emotional interference–type magic was a subset of mental interference magic. Instead of affecting a person’s thoughts or consciousness, it affected their impulses and emotions.
“The Azusa Bow doesn’t make them fall unconscious, and it doesn’t hijack their minds. It only causes them to fall into a state in which they can’t oppose her. But it works on an entire area instead of just one person. So unlike most other mental interference–type spells, it can affect multiple people simultaneously. It’s just the right magic to bring along for pacifying excited crowds!”
Tatsuya furrowed his brow upon hearing her supplementary explanation. “…Doesn’t that sort of magic have class 1 restrictions on it…?”
The usage of outer magic was controlled more strictly than magic from the four families due to its oft-unique characteristics. Among them, the usage conditions for mental interference–type magic were particularly harsh.
Even just limited to the explanations given here, this magic could be used as a
terrifying brainwashing tool. That was because people placed into a trance were much more open to suggestion.
If the existence of this magic was known, then the stream of dictatorial governments, terrorists, and cult leaders trying to use it would be endless.
When Tatsuya pointed that out, Mayumi smiled and told him not to worry.
“Can you really imagine Ah-chan being a dictator?”
“She could always be forced into cooperating.”
“That’s even less likely. She’d get all teary eyed just from picking up a few coins on the road. With her mental state, she’d be crushed by feelings of guilt, and then she wouldn’t be able to use magic at all, right?”
The established theory—almost common sense at this point—was that magic was influenced by one’s mental state.
If she had such a virtuous character, then just being aware that she was involved in the heavy crime of mass brainwashing could cause her to become unable to use magic.
Of course, if she was extremely timid, then one could always make her depend on them and then use her, but there was no need to pursue this train of thought any further.
There was a more general issue at hand.
“I believe the laws restricting mental interference–type magic apply no matter how good Nakajou’s character may be…”
It was pointed out by Miyuki, and Mayumi struggled to find words.
“…Umm, that’s okay, Miyuki. We don’t let her use it outside school.”
Her answer in desperation was incoherent.
She didn’t seem the type to be weak when driven into a corner, but if Mari hadn’t assisted her here, then she might have ended up in a pretty bad state.
“Mayumi… The way you say it will give them a considerable misunderstanding. Nakajou has special permission to use outer magic only if she’s at school. It’s a little trick—a loophole in the usage restrictions being looser for research organizations.”
“I see.”
“So there is that sort of method.”
“Yes, that’s right…”
Mayumi faked a smile at the Shiba siblings’ nodding, convinced, at Mari’s follow-up.
Afternoon classes ended, and though he was reluctant, Tatsuya was about to head for the disciplinary committee room when a high-key voice stopped him.