The important thing was its effect.
Kanata widened his eyes after Tatsuya appeared in front of him without any sign of self-acceleration magic.
Kanata who was unable to react, was hit and dropped his CAD, Tatsuya thrusted his fist into Kanata’s solar plexus.
Kanata groaned aloud while folding his body to fall, plunging, forward.
The strike just now was not a combination of vibration magic. It was a pure fighting technique, the waves in Kanata’s body that were to counter vibration waves wasn’t of any use.
Tatsuya tried to strike Kanata in order for him to fall unconscious. He didn’t have any intention to kill him, but he didn’t mind going to any length as long as he didn’t die in the aftermath. However, it ended prematurely by the quick force of the ball kick which was aimed at Tatsuya’s head.
Tatsuya promptly jumped back, disabling the ‘Sound Bombs’ which were strewn around him.
Kotona was sent out by Katsushige immediately after the ‘Sound Cannon’ was shot down. Kotona and Kanata were about 30 meters apart at that time.
Yet, when she rushed him at about 10 meters, she was brought to a halt as Kanata collapsed onto the road.
Kotona operated her CAD in regret even when she called the name of her younger brother.
The Modified Body ‘Bard Series’ was a group of magicians who were especially good at Systematic Vibration Magic, especially in interfering with sound waves, and they were magicians made for combat. However, the tendency of their specialized magic for fighting was different.
Kotona was good at search operations, detecting interference, bewitching and damage mitigation type magic’s rather than combat magic.
Her special magic included ‘Passive Sonar’, ‘Silent Veil’ and ‘Sound Bomb’. Although ‘Sound Bomb’ was classified as a combat magic, it also served the purpose of being an auxiliary magic to straddle the enemy rather than defeating them. She wasn’t as good as her brother in direct attack magic such as ‘Sound Cannon’ and ‘Phonon Maser’.
However, when she saw that her brother was in a pinch in front of her, she quickly dealt out the combat magic she was good at. She could use
‘Sound Bomb’ which generated a large spherical acoustic from a selected point at a distance, although at this distance, both she and her ally would be caught in.
However, Kotona and Kanata had a layer of air surrounding them for the purpose of multiplied information strengthening with sound. For both of them, information enhancements protected their bodies from the magic others used almost as if it were as natural as their Eidos skin. Harmful
‘sound’ to the body would turn harmless in sight of this defense.
She used her entire body to shoot the magic based on such a calculation.
However, Kotona’s ‘Sound Bomb’ magic activation sequence was decomposed by Tatsuya.
“He aimed at 24 points of magic at once!?”
Kotona raised her voice in surprise. Any bystander would have thought that it was such an aimless talk, when she should have prepared to deploy her next magic. For her, Tatsuya’s ability to disable magic was genuinely surprising, and didn’t expect that Tatsuya’s ability was this high and led to this much stagnation which created countless chances.
Tatsuya suddenly disappeared from Kotona’s view.
He just jumped diagonally to the sky, but Kotona’s eyes couldn’t adjust to his movement.
It was a simple leap with only self-acceleration magic at the moment of his jump. Although there was a considerable amount of gravity that affected Tatsuya, it made him combine it with inertia neutralization, which was very familiar to him. Furthermore, Kotona couldn’t follow Tatsuya’s movements with either her magical sense or even with her naked eye, as he hadn’t used a continuous magic.
He changed his direction using acceleration magic in the air.
When Kotona noticed the change in magic, Tatsuya’s body was already imminently close.
If the opponent had been Kanata, Tatsuya would have landed a kick.
However, as his opponent was Kotona, he also had a little hesitation.
Tatsuya wasn’t suddenly waking up to feminism. To strike at this momentum, he was concerned that he would accidentally kill Kotona’s because of her delicate body.
Tatsuya stretched out his hand at the same time he landed on top of Kotona, he suppressed her at once with the remaining momentum.
Kotona’s body fell in a moment, and politely enough to not injure her, Tatsuya laid her down on the road.
When Kanata recovered enough to be able to stand up from the damage he received from Tatsuya, he saw the figure of his older sister being held down and strangled by Tatsuya.
“Get away from nee-san!”
He quickly picked up his fallen CAD from the road and unleashed Phonon Maser at Tatsuya.
Even Tatsuya wouldn’t escape unscathed if it hit him. No, if a magician had a high rank barrier magic, it might be prevented like Katsuto or Minami, however if the barrier was erected too late, it was a fatal attack had it not been Tatsuya.
The heat rays of the Phonons had subsided halfway through.
The coherent waves were lost in the instant the Magic Sequence was decomposed right after it was activated, and it was as if the waves disappeared midway.
The Phonon Maser actually hit Tatsuya in a split second. However, the irradiation time was too short to even wear his clothes.
“Why?”
He couldn’t believe that his special magic had failed him, and Kanata triggered Phonon Maser once more.
A second, third and the fourth time followed.
However, his magic was canceled by Tatsuya again and again in every instance.
Tatsuya jumped again.
This time, toward Kanata.
However, Tatsuya’s body was shot down in the air by an explosion caused by compressed air.
“Onii-sama!”
When he heard Miyuki’s voice, Tatsuya immediately stood up after being knocked down.
“Katsushige-san, what is the meaning of this!”
She patted her chest in relief for a brief moment, then Miyuki raised her voice in fierce condemnation of Katsushige.
The compressed air bullet just now was made by Katsushige.
Katsushige didn’t answer Miyuki but proceeded to create compressed air bullets again.
The unfathomable speed at which Tatsuya was eliminated was the result of the magic Shibata Katsushige, candidate for next Yotsuba Family Head, excelled at.
Katsushige specialized in ‘Density Manipulation’. Its underlying magic was convergence-based system, therefore, it had a wide range of applications. Manipulation of density in solids, liquids, and even gas.
For instance, if he loosened the solid density partially, a hole would occur. The avalanche earlier was done by distributing the density of the snow, by building a spot where the snow density was lessened continuously.
By manipulating the density of a liquid, he was able to produce a stream of high pressured liquid. It was also possible to reverse the flow against gravity.
By manipulating the density of a gas, it was possible to produce a gas stream and release compressed air as a blast, like a suction vacuum machine.
Katsushige specialized in ordinary magic, quite unlike Yotsuba Magicians. However, he is, by most definitions, an excellent magician who takes pride in the wide range of situations his magic can be applied to, along with his high invocation speed, the large number of invocations he can simultaneously conduct and the large scale at which he can alter phenomena.
Upon seeing that he had been unable to keep up with eliminating his Magic Sequences, Tatsuya set his decomposition to target the dynamic structures causing the fluctuation in air density.
The interference potential trying to create areas of high air density and the interference potential trying to prevent high air density both struggled for supremacy.
As a result, Katsushige’s magic ended up misfiring.
“What!?”
A startled voice leaked out from Kanata’s throat.
The difference between Katsushige and the Tsutsumi siblings was that he didn’t stop his hand even after his specialized magic was prevented.
Katsushige now fully joined the fight, and was working on the next magic to attack Tatsuya.
However, there was a sudden intense rising of air current which made Katsushige stop his hand.
The violent gust that arose against Katsushige’s center of mass was the result of a magic that was invoked in the skies above him.
The wind being gusted up into a vortex right above Katsushige had started being cooled down by a sharp decrease in pressure as it condensed the moisture within it into fine particles.
The wind which was sucked up into a vortex directly above Katsushige, was a response to lean air impact which was cooled by rapid depressurization, condensing the particle of fine water moisture within the area.
The decrease in pressure was due to the Nitrogen, of which nearly 80%
of the air is made of, simultaneously liquefied in large volumes.
Miyuki had triggered ‘Niflheim’ with a high interference strength beyond Katsushige’s.
A mist of liquefied Nitrogen mixed with the flowing vortex of air and developed into falling raindrops due to gravity.
From above Katsushige, sleet poured.
While ice was made of water crystals, these raindrops were drops of liquid Nitrogen reaching -200 °C.
Katsushige erected a double barrier to reflect the rain and vacuum coating.
The low temperature due to the evaporation of the liquid Nitrogen is deadly to those under it even if they are not directly in contact with it.
Katsushige’s movement was halted.
Tatsuya jumped three times.
Kanata pointed his hand gun-type CAD at Tatsuya, but he couldn’t keep up with Tatsuya’s movements which changed direction when he kicked the air three times.
Unlike his sister, Kotona, Kanata was blown away mercilessly by a jump kick from Tatsuya.
“Onii-sama, are you alright!?”
Miyuki rushed to Tatsuya who was looking down at Kotona and Kanata who were lying on the road.
— Katsushige didn’t attack.
“Are you injured!?”
Miyuki was worried if he was injured from Katsushige’s first compressed air bullets, but he told Miyuki ‘I’m alright. It didn’t end with any unhealable wounds’, and after confirming Tatsuya’s safety, she put on a faint smile.
“Thank goodness.”
Miyuki breathed in relief deeply in front of Tatsuya.
Minami came next to Miyuki and held out a hand towel for Tatsuya.
“Tatsuya-sama, please use this.”
“Ah, thanks.”
Miyuki sent a sharp look, not to Minami for handing a white hand towel to Tatsuya, but to Katsushige.
“Katsushige-san, I’ll ask you again. What did you mean by that intervention earlier.”
Before Katsushige even answered the question, Yuuka came next to Miyuki with an overlapping voice of condemnation.
“Katsushige-san, I never thought that you were such a despicable guy who would resort to that kind of trick. You didn’t only prevent Tatsuya-san’s victory against Kotona-san and Kanata-san, you’ve also broken the agreement by committing a shameless act as to launch a sneak attack.”
Tatsuya interrupted Miyuki’s and Yuuka’s interrogation for some reason.
“Miyuki, Yuuka-san, too, can we continue this talk later?”
“Why?”
Hearing Tatsuya’s request, Katsushige closed his mouth.
“If you left the two of them as is, they will suffer quite an after effect.”
Tatsuya’s answer was exactly Katsushige’s current concern.
“There shouldn’t be any lifelong side-effects for them considering the level of modern medicine and magical treatment that we have, but I think it would be better if they received immediate medical treatment.”
Tatsuya didn’t wait for Katsushige’s answer, he looked back at Miyuki.
“Let’s proceed as soon as possible.”
Miyuki nodded silently. She didn’t even show a hint of discontent to refute her brother’s words.
Minami received the hand towel from Tatsuya after he wiped his face carefully, and folded it roughly with her hands.
Tatsuya looked at Yuuka.
“Yuuka-san, may I ask you to drive us?”
Unlike Miyuki, Yuuka frowned her eyebrows in frustration.
“Tatsuya-san, are you okay with this?”
Yuuka directed her eyes toward Katsushige.
Katsushige was applying medical treatment to Kotona and Kanata with a desperate expression. Even though he was attending to the two alternately and not simultaneously, it was an intense process that would have been difficult even for medical magicians. Moreover, he probably deserves high credit for not being driven by his personal feelings and for trying to not prioritize saving Kotona alone.
However, even after seeing that, the unfavorable impression of what Katsushige did during the ‘duel’ earlier didn’t fade one bit for Yuuka.
“Isn’t it okay? Though… I would have no reason to blame Katsushige to begin with.”
Tatsuya answered, in a manner that fairly surprised Yuuka.
“Eh? I mean, weren’t we ambushed?”
“His job was to not let Miyuki proceed further from this point. I thought there was a high chance that the three of them would come and attack us since the beginning anyway.”
When Tatsuya spoke so indifferently, Yuuka wore an amazed face.
“That’s why you let Kotona-san fall towards Katsushige-san?”
Tatsuya didn’t answer Yuuka’s sudden denouncing question.
“Moreover, my purpose is for Miyuki to attend the New Year’s Gathering safely. Given that some preparation is needed, we must be able to arrive today. That’s why I want to go to the Main House as soon as possible.”
“I see… As long as Katsushige-san doesn’t further hinder you, you don’t really care about anything else.”
Yuuka glanced at Katsushige once more. It seemed like the first aid for Kotona was finished, even though she hadn’t regained consciousness, enough to stand up by herself. Originally, she only fainted from the trauma so she wasn’t supposed to take too much time in regaining consciousness. Now, he was concentrating on Kanata, and Katsushige squatted by his side.
“Understood. If you’re okay with it, I have no problem either. Let’s proceed first.”
The four of them entered the car then Yuuka started to drive.
When they passed by Katsushige who was continuing treatment while on the road, Katsushige failed to pay any attention to Tatsuya’s group.
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