Tatsuya received the call from Minami right after he got off from the commuter.
“How is Minoru? I see. You made the right choice for not asking for help from the front desk.
Contacting Fujibayashi would be the best choice… Yes, no problem. In fact, she told me in advance to contact her if something happened to Minoru. I asked for you to do simple nursing since she’s probably heading to the hotel now… No, I didn’t give him any medicine… Ok, that’s good. It’s probably a little troublesome for you alone to do it, but I’m counting on you… Yes, I’ll leave it to you.”
Miyuki looked up anxiously at Tatsuya who had just finished the call.
Moved by her gaze, Tatsuya called the number that had been registered in his information terminal.
“Fujibayashi-san? This is Shiba. Actually, Minoru is sick now, and Minami is nursing him, she said that his breathing looks painful... CR hotel, room XXX… I’ll leave everything in your care.”
“Was that just now Kyouko-san?”
From the side, Mayumi’s voice came out with an anxious tone.
“Has Minoru-kun’s condition worsened?”
Questioned by his sister, Tatsuya nodded in silence.
“Shiba, is it okay for us not to go back?”
Masaki asked so with a serious face. They had just met yesterday, but he seemed to be seriously worried about Minoru.
“I’ve contacted his relative, she will reach the hotel in about one hour.”
“Sudden illness? Kyouko-san’s relative?”
Mayumi hadn’t met Minoru yet.
“The youngest son of the Kudou Family. He was helping us out as a guide around Kyoto for a little while before.”
“The Kudou Family’s last son, is he that Minoru-kun? I heard he has a weak constitution.”
It was surprising that Mayumi knew about Minoru. As expected of the eldest daughter from the Saegusa Family, rumored to be the most socialized in the 10MC.
However, even for Mayumi, she still did not know about Minoru’s constitution. From the information she received, she imagined Minoru to have a similar constitution to that of Itsuwa Mio. Since Mayumi often visited Mio, she had been preconditioned to associate everyone with poor health from Mio’s appearance.
“He is sickly, but he doesn’t look frail. I haven’t heard from his doctor, so I don’t know much about the details, but it seems like his magical power is too strong that it causes an excessive load on his body.”
“…Can such a thing happen?”
Mayumi tilted her head with a puzzled and skeptical face, while Miyuki showed her face from the other side to see what was happening.
“At any rate, since Fujibayashi-san is rushing there, we can proceed with our planned investigation.”
Mayumi was acquainted with Fujibayashi. Even before the Yokohama Incident last year; from the relationship between their houses. Of course, she knew the situation of Fujibayashi Kyouko and the Kudou Family.
On the other hand, Masaki did not know a thing about Fujibayashi. Yet, he didn’t add on any extra comments from his mouth.
Nakura’s corpse had been discovered across at the river bed of Katsuragawa (Katsura river), right beside the Arashiyama (Mt. Arashi) district at Nakanoshima Park. Just before the Katsuragawa River, towards the south, there were small sandbars scattered.
The site of the police investigation seemed to be over; Tatsuya was able to enter the site without any problem. Of course, there were no blood stains that remained. Although, using Elemental Sight might help to trace and verify the data which he had obtained earlier, Tatsuya decided not to waste any effort there.
“Was it here?”
“Yes.”
Masaki asked, Mayumi nodded. Masaki was quite optimistic for this investigation.
“This much momentum, it is unlikely that he was shed from upstream.”
Miyuki said so while looking at Tatsuya. Tatsuya thought, apparently, his sister had poor skills to be a crime detective.
“That’s a possibility that probably doesn’t exist.”
Tatsuya stopped his answer there, he didn’t say the following words, that there hadn’t been any signs of a trail of blood to be found in this area.
“Shiba, what do you think of the situation? Was Nakura-san approaching the criminal that stood here, or did the perpetrator approach him after Nakura-san arrived first?”
“I don’t know.”
Tatsuya immediately answered Masaki.
“The conclusion wouldn’t come out even after we think about it. In the first place, we don’t know if Nakura-san and the perpetrator had made an appointment to meet up, or if Nakura-san was just attacked randomly by the criminal.”
“…Certainly.”
Masaki did not show any useless rebound, and seconded Tatsuya.
“Onii-sama, what should we do now?”
After Miyuki asked him, Tatsuya turned to Mayumi.
“I want to investigate the surroundings a little bit, do you mind?”
Mayumi was surprised from the sudden offer, and answered, ‘Yes, I’m the one who asked for your assistance, if you have anything on your mind, I will follow it’.
Tatsuya did not stay by the Katsuragawa river bed, but headed upstream across the Togetsukyou
Bridge. Rather than going back, it was further forward in the direction of the Arashiyama district at Kameyama Park; there was a small warehouse at the peak of the eastern part of Mt. Ogura.
Tatsuya headed there according to the clues obtained from the shaman he met at the tofu shop nearby Kiyomizu Temple, the place where Zhou Gongjin had been hiding. He did not tell that to Mayumi, but she was following him without any complaint.
Autumn had deepened, Mayumi was overdressed in her own way with a pair of sandals. In contrast with Miyuki who wore long pants and sneakers, Mayumi wore heels with long sleeves and a long dress. She mustn’t have fully understood what they were going to be doing and just dressed confidently, still it wasn’t an extreme up and down hiking course.
Inevitably, the four of them moved at a slower pace.
Within the park, in the slope area, there was a sign stating of a ‘bamboo forest’. Tatsuya headed there without hesitation. Mayumi found it to be uncomfortable that she hadn’t found any hesitation in him.
“Hey, Tatsuya-kun.”
“What? Are we moving too fast?”
Hung with Mayumi’s voice, Tatsuya halted his feet. Masaki and Miyuki also halted together. “No, we don’t, but.”
Now that he mentioned it, Mayumi noticed that she was starting to lose her breath. She could understand that Tatsuya’s and Masaki’s breath would not be affected, but even Miyuki did not show any sign of fatigue, she found this unreasonably indescribable.
“Tatsuya-kun, do you have any place in mind? You seem to be very sure of where to go since earlier.”
After Mayumi pointed out so, Tatsuya realized that his attitude was certainly unnatural as she had said. He wanted to dispose of her suspicion, not because he wanted to continue his lies, but he didn’t want to involve Mayumi. To Minoru, he said that he was a direct descendant of the 10MC officially since the first time they met, Masaki was also not suspicious after his involvement, since they hadn’t had any excessive contact more than usual. However, Mayumi was a close friend. It would feel awkward once she got dragged into his own circumstances. Although she wouldn’t ask Tatsuya to ‘take responsibility’ over the matters, but she would end up lending her power to Tatsuya. Tatsuya did not want to break the appearance of him lending his assistance to Mayumi, this was his lie.
He was troubled without much to say.
He wavered for a second.
Only for a second, since he had no time to do so the next second.
“Onii-sama!”
Miyuki extended her interference area.
The onibi’s that flew towards them disappeared, swallowed by her magic. The Ancient Magic ‘Onibi’ was not a physical fire, it was a magic with visualization of fire. There was no way that it could possibly breakthrough Miyuki’s interference area.
The enemy seemed to perceive that well, and pounced the wind blades next. However, it ended up the same. Whether they be blades or compressed air blades, he must maintain his magic continuously under the strong interference.
“Ichijou!”
“Leave it to me!”
Tatsuya attacked from the front, with Masaki behind. The two people took their stance to protect Miyuki and Mayumi.
Thin straps extending from the left and right of the bamboo grove towards Miyuki. Blue, red, white, black, and yellow breaded with 5 colors.
Tatsuya caught it before it reached Miyuki.
Waves similar to Cast Jamming came out from the braid.
(Esoteric system trap from Ancient Magic rite!)
Unlike Cast Jamming which scattered the Psion noise to inhibit magic activation in space, this method effectively sealed the opponent’s magic by pouring the noise directly through the string. Tatsuya decomposed the noise without disassembling the strap itself. He tore the string apart with his own hands.
Tatsuya had strong physical power, yet he did not boast superhuman strength like a juvenile villain. Originally, such a strap might need the brute force of two people to haul it in each hand.
However, it stunned their opponents, now that they’d seen their magic was broken in such an unexpected way. Tatsuya used that chance to figure out where they were hiding.
Tatsuya raised his guard. Furthermore, he noticed that someone had disappeared. Tatsuya assumed the barrier was erected to protect themselves from him and his friends, but the barrier was made to prevent the public from entering the area.
However, it was to their convenience too, that they had no worries of being seen by the public.
The strap extended to Masaki and Mayumi, Masaki pushed it back with a gush of wind.
The wind itself hadn’t affected the magic actuation inhibitor sequence in the strap, since it was a product of magic.
The bamboo in the forest buzzed violently, the leaves danced in the wind.
Mayumi activated her magic. It was the original form of her specialty ‘Magic Shooter’, the magic that rained a hail of dry ice, ‘Dry Blizzard’.
Carbon dioxide concentration in the air was 350 to 400 ppm. About 3/10,000 to 4/10,000. It was within normal standards, in fact, it did not contain less than the common area. However, this number only accounted for up to 10,000 meters in the troposphere, and it’s possible to form the dry ice from pressurized carbon dioxide only within two meters.
Components of the air were evenly distributed in the atmosphere. When the distribution was disrupted by magic, the Eidos would try to rectify this. Targeting a specific gas in a narrow area, in this case, collecting the carbon dioxide, and concentrating them together. Since nature tried to rectify this phenomenon, the concentration of molecules in the area where the magic was activated would cause the airflow which replaced the gas molecules to decrease.
The magic to make dry ice was a carbon dioxide convergence process, the gas molecules were replaced with a speed which exceeded the speed of sound. It was an interesting phenomenon to be observed at the microscopic level. Yet, the event modification triggered by the magician didn’t actually change the configuration of the macro-gas molecules at the atmospheric level.
The technique focused on unilaterally converging carbon dioxide, which was the raw material for the dry ice; in a narrow area, the world will immediately procure the raw material shortage in order to counteract the effect of the natural phenomenon modification caused by the magic.
Hails of dry ice stormed in the bamboo forest. Its speed was 500 to 600 km/h which was far slower than the speed of sound. The bullets were also much lighter as compared to lead bullets.
However, they had been hardened by magic and were enough to pierce through human flesh.
Six men came out of the bamboo forest in a hurry. There weren’t any serious injuries, perhaps due to the magical shield to avoid the dry ice bullets. Still, there were traces of blood on their limbs.
On the other hand, two magicians were dragged out by Tatsuya, and immediately Miyuki activated her magic to drop the temperature of their bodies into a point of hibernation. His sister had some resistance towards killing others, hence, Tatsuya struggled to actuate the limiter for her magic power.
Tatsuya used his hand, forming a karate chop pose with Decomposition Magic. Ha hadn’t brought with him his Silver horn this time. He wore a specialized CAD in bracelet form on his wrist instead. He could add multiple directions to the antennas which in turn, would provide a similar effect to a short sighted auxiliary support.
The CAD that was attached to his chest used thought-operated input commands. This forced him to use a new fighting style which didn’t require the use of his hands during combat.
After all, at this distance, Tatsuya could activate his Decomposition Magic even without a CAD or sight auxiliary. His aim was, the bamboo above the head of the person in hiding whose Psion’s were detected earlier. There might not have been any blood splatter from the blow, but the magicians’ decided to close their eyes.
Since they shut their eyes, the traditionalists couldn’t verify the identity of their attacker. They had understood that this deliberate attack was a warning. It was not an indiscriminate attack, which meant hiding any further wouldn’t serve any purpose.
Soon after, they decided to show up, four traditionalist magicians came out of the bamboo forest. Including the two that he had dragged out earlier, there were 12 assailants detected, yet another one was still missing.
“Ichijou!”
“Leave this to me!”
Tatsuya knew very well the extent of Masaki’s capabilities. He was never worried about Masaki in the first place, and now he reaffirmed that such a worry was baseless. Tatsuya focused to take care of the four opponents in front of him.
In front of Masaki, there stood six magicians. He knew that the opponents were of the traditionalists Buddhist sect beforehand. Thus, there was no confusion in his preliminary action.
From behind Masaki, a sign of magic being activated could be detected. Mayumi was ready in p
osition to use magic. Masaki and Mayumi both had distinguished power.
The 10MC, the eldest daughter of the Saegusa. A rival from first high, the former student council president who was considered a genius in long-range shooting precision magic.
However, Masaki had no purpose to fight Mayumi.
The technique earlier, Dry Blizzard. Masaki found out by sight that she purposely reduced the power.
Although as a result, she failed to neutralize the opponent. It did manage to smolder the enemy, but Masaki thought that was due to the idiocy of the opponents.
He wondered if she was not used to the battlefield. The older traditionalist magicians appeared in front of them.
Ancient Magic had inferior speed as compared to Modern Magic.
This was an undeniable truth.
The traditionalists from the Buddhist sect knew about this. They were developing a technique called ‘Ichijishu’ that could activate magic with a much faster time, close to the activation speed of Modern Magic.
Nevertheless, it was still impossible to surpass the speed of Modern Magic. Modern Magic was created by fusing ESP and magic, and it was fast.
Masaki thought so.
However.
“Down!”
Masaki directed his favorite gun-shaped CAD, the traditionalists cried simultaneously.
Immediately, Masaki’s magic started to take effect, the right hands of the traditionalists lit up in fire.
“What!?”
“What the heck is this!?”
They didn’t think it wasn’t an illusion. No, it was not. The men’s clothes were already on fire.
First from the right hand, to the elbow, they were burnt black, before the unpleasant smell rose to Masaki’s and Mayumi’s nose, the smell of burnt protein.
“Ugh…!”
Mayumi held her mouth. She seemed to have a nausea due to the smell instead of the sight.
Masaki was staring at the sight and forgot to pull the trigger of his CAD.
From the right hand that was still burning, a sword of flame was coming out.
The flame swirling around the sword, a double-edged stick, wrapping around it like a dragon.
If Mikihoko had been present, he would have identified the sword.
Kurikara Sword (Buddhist sword of wisdom; cuts through 3 passions: desire, anger, confusion), and.
Two people held the swords, and they plunged at Masaki.
The four of them, they had no time to ask any questions. Masaki put his specialized CAD into his right hand and operated a general-purpose CAD on his left wrist to put up a barrier.
However, this barrier was easily torn down by the sword in a single swing.
Kurikara Sword was a K?manoriken (the sword of acala that made the devil surrender). It cut through the ‘magic’. By that logic, it had the power to cut through the phenomenon that was altered by magic.
“Impossible!”
While his barrier was torn apart, Masaki shouted in reflex.
The sword swung in front of his eyes.
A gust of wind blew from the side and hit the two traditionalist magicians.
“Ichijou-kun, slash the magic!”
In spite of the few words that were said to him, Masaki understood Mayumi’s warning. The gust
of wind was created by a phenomenon modification. Not the magic itself, it was a result of an ongoing phenomenon re-writing process. The effect of the flaming sword, fell short.
Masaki re-gripped his red CAD which had fallen from his right hand.
The Magic Activation Selector was placed on the trigger.
Their right hands were getting thinner——burnt down over a period of time——the six traditionalists raised their flaming sword all at once.
The look on their faces expressed anguish.
Masaki fully understood that these magicians had no conscious of what they were doing. ——These magicians were only flesh puppets.
——In place of the threads which manipulated marionettes, he used magic to manipulate their limbs.
Masaki pointed his red CAD at the bodies of the six puppets.
——The magic which controlled them was slashed?
——My ‘Explosion’ should not have resulted in such a lousy thing.
Masaki pulled his trigger six times in succession.
The dolls protected the flaming swords with their bodies. It was a poised magic defense.
Neither Masaki nor Mayumi knew what good that would do.
After all, it had no meaning.
The feet of the traditionalists who were just meat puppets had burst open.
Red flowers bloomed.
The flowers bloomed in the air, due to the red blood cells which were scattered from the skin after the plasma was vaporized.
Masaki adjusted his ‘Explosion’ power, and purposely used it at an un-fatal level just to neutralize the opponents.
In no time, each of the traditionalists had a leg that burst open one after another.
Burst open.
Burst open, again and again.
Six red flowers bloomed, which were immediately scattered by the wind.
The six magicians fell miserably to the ground, with one of their legs bursting open.
Due to the severe pain they experienced, the fire in the swords had extinguished.
Their right hands had carbonized from their elbows; little remained.
One of their legs had ruptured, blood vessels, muscles and skin, with the exception of his bone which turned to shreds.
Mayumi held her mouth at the ghastly sight.
Quite an obstinate young lady from the 10MC, as the usual reaction would have included some vomiting.
Masaki turned back to face her, there was neither hesitation nor regret on his face.
The same phenomenon occurred before Tatsuya.
The four magicians’ hands were lit on fire.
The difference was here.
Those hands were covered by white mist.
The flame tried to resist the cold air, the cold air went over the skin and burnt them.
The magical flame that was supposed to burn, succumbed to the overwhelming ‘magic’.
Needless to say, it was Miyuki’s magic.
Miyuki’s magic could freeze the spirit itself, it wouldn’t be difficult for her to freeze a Magic Sequence.
Tatsuya pointed to the enemy’s feet.
The blood from the four enemy’s thighs had blown all at once.
The defeated magicians overturned. The noise of pain arose and shook their control strings.
Vibrations propagated in the reserve direction.
(Over there.)
Tatsuya looked sideways through the bamboo forest, with an unvoiced glare.
A disturbance from in the thread was caused by a Psion, no Psion waves could escape Tatsuya’s ‘eyes’.
He turned his right hand in the direction of the bushes.
He dealt with the spiders who had rained over his head with his left hand.
The spider disappeared without a trace, simultaneously, a scream from the bushes was heard.
“This still feels awkward.”
Tatsuya soliloquy said so, he tried the prototype of the fully thought-operated CAD bracelet ‘Silver Torus’ instead of the Silver horn specialized CAD (Torus meant ring rather than Taurus), he was commenting about the combination response.
“Seems like it will take quite some time to master it smoothly.”
However, Miyuki mentioned a reverse evaluation.
Both of them had something else to think about, namely the scream behind the bushes and the six people who laid before their eyes. However, Tatsuya knew that the Houjutsu user wouldn’t be able to escape due to the pain, Miyuki also believed that there wasn’t any prey that could flee her brother.
Tatsuya threw the Houjustu user that he had dragged out of the bushes. The man was quite old, he appeared to be at least in his 60’s.
The Houjutsu user was forced to regain consciousness violently. He stabbed himself with a long needle through his waist, apparently shutting off the pain from being shot at the thigh. Tatsuya wondered if it was a kind of acupuncture method.
The Houjutsu user only did that, he did not resist any further. It seemed like he was hit by a wave of pain again the moment he tried to use magic. He was hesitating as if he should beg for mercy or if he should just give up.
“Tatsuya-kun, Ichijou-kun, what should we do with them now?”
Tatsuya faced Masaki.
The first one to open his mouth was Masaki.
“Originally, I would interrogate this man, but.”
Masaki saw the Houjutsu user who is an old man that sat down on the ground with a defiant face.
The only one who still conscious among the assailant group was only this old man.
“He doesn’t seem to be able to give a straightforward answer, since they’ve been defeated, the Ancient Magic ward should also have collapsed.”
“People… Might come, huh?”
“That’s right. I think we can claim that we counterattacked them in legitimate defense, but… their charred right arms was their own doing.”
“However, an interrogation done by civilians like us is not recognized. We are likely to get arrested due to suspicion of… Torture, unfair arrest, intimidation, assault, right” “Exactly my thought.”
“Tatsuya-kun, what do you think?”
“While I don’t think that we’d get arrested, I agree with the other arguments. More importantly, let’s try to ask for a wise detective to hand them over to.”
Mayumi pondered while frowning her eyebrows, before giving up and sighing.
“Let’s contact the police.”
“Senpai, I will contact the police.”
After saying so, Miyuki took out her information terminal.
“Miyuki-san, I’ll leave it in your care.”
While Miyuki called the police, Mayumi and Masaki kept their sight on her.
They were not aware that Tatsuya was watching the Buddhist sect traditionalists that laid on the ground.
Both of them also did not realize that Tatsuya did not focus his eyes on the injuries.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login