Chapter 7
Even though today was Sunday, Tatsuya still had to go to school.
Not for remedial classes. There was still one week until the Thesis Competition, so of course he still had to make preparations.
But right now, he was headed in an entirely different direction than school on board his beloved electric motorcycle. His sister's pristine arms were wrapped tightly around his waist, her soft bosom was pressed against his back.
This wasn't a date.
Nor was it a simple trip.
Their destination was the FLT research labs. Heeding Yakumo's suggestion, they were going to return the relic specimen. He wasn't going to return it to the company, but 3rd Research Division that served as Taurus Silver's operational headquarters. While there weren't any plans yet to begin the analysis there, Sayuri had already expressed her consent when he got the specimen, so there wouldn't be a problem if the specimen was stolen from there. (Shouldn't be.)
They forewent public transit because they were worried about another attack.
At full speed, it would take roughly an hour to reach the research lab. Public transit took a longer detour, so it was far more expedient to take the motorcycle. For Tatsuya, who had rigorously trained his physical body, and Miyuki, who was capable of using inertial resistance magic, there was normally no need to take a break for a trip of this distance. However, shortly after leaving the city proper, Tatsuya pulled over the motorcycle next to a cafe that opened in the morning.
After urging the confused Miyuki indoors and taking a seat by the windows, Tatsuya finally answered his sister's questions after ordering two drinks (they already ate breakfast at home).
"We're being pursued."
Resting both elbows on the table, Tatsuya covered his mouth with his interlaced fingers and whispered to Miyuki.
"Eh!?"
Miyuki was barely able to suppress her volume.
"I didn't notice it at all...... Is it a car? Or a motorcycle like us?"
She leaned her head forward and whispered in her brother's ear.
The blushing waitress might have turned her head aside, but given her frequent, sly glances this way, she was only pretending not to see them. Of course, Miyuki wouldn't bother contemplating what the servers would think. (Speaking of which, she probably hadn't noticed her actions would easily lead to a misunderstanding.)
"It's a crow."
Tatsuya's concise answer prompted a "Ha?" from Miyuki as her eyes widened while she briefly turned the idea over in her head.
"......A familiar, is it......?"
"Yeah. And with a chemical congregation, too."
There were observation systems that were avian machines disguised as animals, devices buried within animals, using Ancient Magic on animals, or a chemical congregation in the shape of a bird.
Chemical congregations are objects that have materialized due to pushion energy.
The physical form was only for appearances' sake and was created by using psion particles as a foundation and applying life-refracting illusion magic to create the figure, then applying Weight, Speed, Move-Type Magics or a field with similar effects so as to give off the impression of a physical body.
On the surface, creating a chemical congregation seemed like a pointless exercise, but applying a few simple magics to the medium would allow the user to see and feel through the medium, making it a simple task to issue orders to the medium with a few simple changes. At the same time, creating one of them was a fairly simple process.
"......Doesn't appear to be a Magician from this country. Where did this Magician come from?"
Only Ancient Magic possessed the magic to create chemical congregations. The name "chemical congregation" was applied by modern magic researchers when they were researching Ancient Magic. What Miyuki meant was that it had been a long time since this country used chemical congregations as familiars. Today, most Ancient Magic users used familiars that didn't possess a physical body.
After the waitress brought the coffee and milk tea, Tatsuya spoke again.
Although he was wordlessly matching Miyuki's gaze while waiting for their drinks, this only deepened the misunderstanding. However, the two of them were either slow on the draw or just that thick since they didn't betray any reaction at the surrounding stares sent their way.
"Their identity remains unknown. If Mikihiko were here, he might be able to tell us."
Tatsuya set their cups aside and took hold of Miyuki's hand.
A ruckus broke out around them, causing the two of them to notice how conspicuous they were. Still, retracing their hands in embarrassment would only be admitting defeat, and there was a pressing need for them to hold hands. His sister wore an expression that conveyed her helplessness at the misunderstanding, while Tatsuya continued onward with a serious expression on his face — that only served to fuel the flames.
"It would be unwise to lead it all the way to the research labs."
"............"
"Miyuki?"
"Eh, ah, yes, you're right."
Tatsuya wanted to cover his head and sigh at the sight of his sister's wandering eyes and mystified expression, but managed to throttle that urge.
"The chemical congregation's location is here."
Tatsuya transformed the image of the chemical congregation as a target into psion signals and passed it across their joined hands into Miyuki's unconscious magic calculation area in her nervous system.
The moment magic is invoked, Magicians need to plug in the target's data into the magic calculation area. This data is every Magician's perception in digitized form and was something that generally couldn't be shared. Tatsuya and Miyuki were using magic unique to the Yotsuba Family and thus were able to transfer psion signals through physical contact.
"Miyuki, take it down."
A simple order.
At this time, Miyuki returned to a more serious expression.
"......Understood."
After a brief hesitation, Miyuki nodded.
Miyuki wasn't going to disobey Tatsuya's order.
The cause of her hesitation came from her understanding that magic sniping was her brother's area of expertise and that she was far less capable than her brother in this regard.
"Right now, I don't want to reveal my hand yet. The target will flee in the time I take to bring up the CAD. Miyuki, it's up to you."
"Yes!"
Excitement suffused Miyuki's face as there was no way she wouldn't give it her all once her brother asked it of her.
And so, with the fingers of her right hand interlaced with Tatsuya's left, she slightly dipped her head and lowered her eyelashes — her embarrassed posture was certainly ironic for these siblings. Beneath the table, her concealed left hand swiftly brought out a CAD and started operating it.
There was practically no delay for her magic invocation.
Tatsuya's "sight" beheld the familiar's body instantly freezing along with the magic that was sustaining that fake body, causing the chemical congregation of psion particles to scatter.
"Seemed like an amateur......"
"Eh? What?"
Miyuki piped up from the back seat after hearing Tatsuya's murmuring. Her posture hadn't changed from before, with both arms wrapped around her brother's waist and her chest and face pressed tightly against her brother's back.
She was still in an ebullient mood after flawlessly destroying the familiar in the cafe and her brother's subsequent praise, so even her voice was filled with joy.
In this situation, objectively speaking she was being careless, but no one would reprimand her here. Her conversation partner did not do so and merely answered her question.
"We only had one pursuer using long distance magic who attacked Sayuri first and then tried to follow us. In other words, their target is undoubtedly the Magatama. Of the suspicious crowd recently lurking around us, a portion of them must be here for the relic. But if that's the case, their determination wasn't enough."
"Wasn't it because Onii-sama's airtight defenses? There's a huge risk picking a bone with Onii-sama over a second-rate relic after all."
Miyuki's answers always automatically triggered her bro-con concerns, actions of reflex born of powerful thoughts and feelings.
(So, that's just risk and reward, is it......?)
However, within Miyuki's perfectly natural answer, Tatsuya felt that he had caught a glimpse of the true nature behind this sequence of events.
They lost them. When Chen heard this report, he clenched his teeth as a bitter expression crossed his face. Originally, he was unhappy with such a passive stance like remote observation in areas he couldn't reach (where neither he nor his opponents could reach). On top of that, their opponents had realized this in 15 minutes and taken out their observer. This tragic turnout of events only deepened his displeasure.
(All this did was raise our opponent's hackles.)
Even if he tore them a new one, his incompetent minions would only shrink back even more, so Chen chose not to say anything. Yet, a burning fury was plainly spreading from his body.
"Do we know where Shiba Tatsuya is heading?"
"They should be heading for the FLT research labs of the R&D 3rd Division."
The subordinate who answered Chen's question was overly nervous. In order to avoid angering his superior, he had chosen the most limited answer that was least likely to rouse his wrath.
"ETA?"
"Approximately 40 minutes from now."
Looks like he couldn't just keep asking one question at a time.
"As soon as they arrive at the estimated time, order the network team to immediately attack the FLT research labs."
Without waiting for his subordinate's reply, Chen already gave out the next set of orders for the mission.
This morning, the research lab inhabited by the individuals whom the workers at the FLT main branch derided as "Captain Taurus and his companions", the R&D 3rd Division, was consumed by chaos that was completely abnormal.
"—Hurry up and cut all the lines before wasting time worrying about it! Copy? Make as many as you can and that's it!"
"Number 10, disconnect complete. Commence reconnect!"
"Idiot! What kind of buffoon reconnects the system when being hacked!"
"OK, hacking path determined!"
"Tracing program commence!"
By the time he heard all the roars coming from inside the entrance, Tatsuya had a pretty decent grasp of the situation.
"Ah, it's the young master!"
After standing there for a minute, Tatsuya's outstanding assistant Ushiyama finally noticed the siblings. (In terms of how outstanding, Ushiyama was able to produce the hardware pieces that Tatsuya wanted for Flying-Type Magic as well as finish the "Mini Communicator" in half a day based on a rough blueprint and have it delivered to Tatsuya. He was that kind of a person.)
Anywhere else would be a different story, but this had to be the first time that Tatsuya had been left unannounced for at least ten seconds. In other words, the situation was very serious.
"My terrible apologies! I can't believe I ignored your arrival...... Hey! Who's the lazy bum who neglected to announce the young master's arrival!"
Ushiyama's angry roar was the loudest to date. It was a piercing sound wholly incompatible with his weak, frail appearance.
That voice caused over half of the workers battling it out with the terminals in the office to freeze in terror.
Seeing this, Tatsuya colored in displeasure.
"Don't stop! Keep an eye on the monitors!"
"Ah, yes!"
Tatsuya's order rivaled Ushiyama in intensity and immediately received a reply.
Seeing everyone once again enter a life or death struggle with their machines, Tatsuya relaxed and turned his gaze away only to find Ushiyama in a state of extreme anxiety.
"Hackers?"
He didn't know if Ushiyama's thoughts still dwelt on the electronics in front of him, but this was an unpleasant topic for Tatsuya and especially Ushiyama.
Tatsuya cut to the chase in order to avoid staying on this topic for too long.
"Ha, well......"
Despite the indecisive nature of Ushiyama's words, he wasn't upset in front of Tatsuya. While Tatsuya was still contemplating the comings and goings, Ushiyama started explaining.
"It's hackers for sure...... But it still feels strange. The infiltration technique itself is superb, but they don't appear to be looking for anything in particular. It's like they have no specific objective and are just roaming around based on luck."
"Individual interest?"
"Not the work of one person. Based on the MO, this isn't possible without a sizable team, even if our opponents were government organizations."
"Even then, they still don't have an objective, eh...... May I take a look at the stolen data?"
Tatsuya asked this question because since their enemy was running on blind luck, they might have stumbled onto something valuable.
"Well, they haven't taken anything yet."
Still, Ushiyama's answer was still within Tatsuya's expectations.
"......How long has it been since the hacking started?"
"Approximately ten minutes."
In other words, the moment Tatsuya and Miyuki arrived here. —Almost as if they predicted when they would arrive. By choosing to attack the servers at this particular time, Tatsuya felt the situation to be highly unusual.
"The infiltration attempt has stopped."
"Don't let down your guard! Everyone remain on full alert today! ......Ah, my apologies. So, what may I do for you today?"
Tatsuya briefly explained the chain of events regarding the relic, the company's contract, and his personal objectives. At the same time, in a separate area of his consciousness, he was chronicling the recent attempted thefts that were cropping up around him.
"We're under attack from FLT servers."
"Disconnecting as planned."
According to Chen's orders, the hackers cut the line. Seeing this, Chen spoke to Lu Gonghu standing next to him.
"What do you think?"
"......Status unknown."
Lu's attitude was slightly inappropriate when addressing a superior officer, but Chen didn't hold it against him and continued to speak.
"After being hacked for over ten minutes without any interruption, Shiba Tatsuya would undoubtedly question the security of the labs."
Chen valued his second officer not for his decorum, but for his calm objectivity and overwhelming combat power. Verbosity was not necessary.
"Even if Shiba Tatsuya is related to FLT, he wouldn't easily hand over the relic to an insecure research lab."
"Logically, that would be the case."
"I know what you're saying. Shiba Tatsuya is a high school student. He wouldn't leave such a hot item on himself. In this situation, we must consider how to obtain the data from the lab."
Lu wordlessly expressed his agreement to Chen's words.
"We will probably need you to act."
"Leave it to me."
Chen nodded broadly at his second officer's answer. Suddenly, his face darkened as he seemed to recall something.
"Speaking of which, Zhou is about to see how that little girl is doing."
Chen's voice was not positive. It even contained an insulting impression, with many mixed emotions buried within. It was fairly easy to guess exactly how Chen viewed Zhou.
Still, Lu didn't object to his superior's tone and kept his eyes forward as he waited for the next order.
"Make the little girl disappear before he visits."
This was not the order Lu was expecting. Not only would this go poorly with Zhou, Chen would also lose a valuable collaborator.
Nonetheless, Lu Gonghu's expression did not question anything as he silently accepted this order.
Even though today was Sunday, since they had to go to school, they couldn't just wear casual clothes either.
Some normal high schools (the general term applied to high schools of letters and science) did permit their students to wear casual clothes to school, but they were the decisive minority within normal high schools.
Magic high schools required uniforms regardless of whether class was in session.
The siblings dropped by the house for a change of clothes.
At this time, the personal line in the house rang. This was a call that could not be transferred. Restricting the message from being sent to portable terminals was to prevent other people from prying. The fact that this setting was activated indicated that the sender believed the contents to be highly confidential.
"Onii-sama, what is it?"
Miyuki, who took slightly longer to change, arrived to where Tatsuya was standing by the phone and discreetly glanced at the display.
"A message is it? From who...... Eh? Hirakawa-senpai!?"
Of course, Miyuki knew all about the attempted sabotage incident.
After hearing this, she did not bear a very sympathetic view of the Hirakawa siblings.
"Apparently she hopes we will return the call."
After perusing the contents of the message, Tatsuya hit the redial button before Miyuki could say anything.
The other side picked up the line after one ring.
"Hello, Shiba-kun? My apologies for asking you to call me back......"
Among the representatives for the Nine Schools Competition, Hirakawa Koharu was one of those who openly displayed a friendly welcome to Tatsuya from the get go. Still, they were only mere acquaintances. She was someone who disliked conflict and was typically courteous to anyone other than herself. In fact, she stood out for her timid nature that was completely different than Azusa.
Yet, from another perspective, timidness could also be seen as "gentleness" or "accommodating". Actually, it was highly possible more people believed that was the case.
"Hardly, we were the ones who were late. We just stepped out for a bit."
The hour right now would be quite tardy for normal classes.
It was hardly surprising that they weren't home during the weekend, but Koharu must have been waiting anxiously for Tatsuya to return her call. The fact that she picked up the phone after one ring was clear evidence of this.
The video transmission was now very common. Even though video cams had become practically universal, this was only a change in technology.
Human emotions had not progressed to the point where they were willing to allow their peaceful homes to be exposed before another's eyes, or let someone watch them change without hesitation.
There were households with dedicated phone rooms, but the overwhelming majority placed their phones in the living room and alerted the other side about opening the video cam.
Koharu's face did not appear on the display and the monitor remained black.
"Please don't worry about that, I was the one who requested to talk over the phone."
Still, it was apparent from her voice that she had lowered her head with a dark cloud over her face.
"These past few days, well...... My sister has caused you considerable trouble."
Nay, rather than saying a "dark cloud", perhaps her face was "utterly pale".
"It was only an attempt after all. As nothing happened, please do not worry too much. I don't mind either."
This wasn't just a line to help the other person relax, these were Tatsuya's true feelings.
"But, she still caused a lot of trouble...... Originally, it was already enough of a bother that Shiba-kun had to replace me. It is my ineptitude that caused this child to dig herself into such a deep hole. Causing you such difficulties during this critical period cannot be simply written off as a mere attempt. Although I can only apologize...... But I am really, really sorry."
On the other side of the unconnected video screen, Koharu undoubtedly bowed deeply in apology.
Her voice naturally gave off that impression.
However, Tatsuya's honest feelings were "Even if you apologize like this......"
He didn't wish for an apology, and hearing these depressing and self-demeaning words only served to sour his mood.
Honestly, he never took Chiaki's actions, or more like "what she wanted to do", to heart.
He never really even thought about it.
"I understand. On Hirakawa-senpai's behalf, we'll just write the whole thing off."
Hoping to quickly bring this call to an end, he halfheartedly comforted (?) her.
"Thank you very much. I hoped that Shiba-kun would say that."
She was impressive indeed if she could discern Tatsuya's real intent through those words. Looks like there was a serious misunderstanding.
"Hardly...... Then, goodbye."
"Ah, wait."
Tatsuya's attempt to hang up while Hirakawa was soothed appeared to be premature.
"What is it?"
There were many things demanding his attention. In other words, he simply didn't have time.
Tatsuya had to take extra care not to let his impatience bleed into his words.
"Well, I know a simple apology isn't sufficient."
Is it this again, Tatsuya thought. Tatsuya honestly wanted to give up on this endlessly looping conversation.
"I don't know if this can help Shiba-kun."
Fortunately, he was worrying needlessly.
"I found phone logs between Chiaki and the criminal organization. Although this contains that child's personal data...... But I still want to give it to Shiba-kun. Please use it as you see fit, Shiba-kun. Anyways, I'm sorry for bothering you while you're so busy. Thank you for listening to me for so long. Goodbye."
The call ended.
Without waiting for Tatsuya to reply.
"Even if they're siblings, hacking is a crime......"
Tatsuya murmured these words as if speaking to Koharu as he gazed at the data log icon in the adjacent frame.
"Onii-sama, what is it?"
She probably heard Tatsuya muttering to himself.
Miyuki approached again with a slightly concerned look on her face.
"So, what are we going to do."
After giving a subtle, vague answer, Tatsuya considered Koharu's intentions.
She was trying to use this to make amends. Although she didn't come out and say it, there was no other plausible explanation besides this one. Hirakawa hacked her sister's personal communications because she wanted to know who led her sister astray. Yet, her actions didn't paint her in a better light. Giving Tatsuya this information, she was hoping that he would avenge her, Tatsuya speculated.
(I wonder if this constitutes as cunning......)
The fact that he would use a term like a woman's cunning definitely pointed towards his insufficient life experiences.
"......Oh well. Allow me to make use of what I have."
Setting aside Miyuki with a completely perplexed look on her face, Tatsuya dialed another number.
Even with the data log that provided an abandoned access point in hand, he wasn't confident he could sniff out his quarry on the net.
But he knew someone who could.
The sky was raining when the two of them reached school. Although neither Tatsuya nor Miyuki brought an umbrella, fortunately they avoided being drenched.
Also, Miyuki was a member the Student Council who held the privilege of bringing CADs to school (though Tatsuya also held that distinction).
Wet clothes were swiftly dealt with by Miyuki's magic, leaving no trace behind.
However—
"Given the rain, looks like our field activity will be impossible......"
"There's nothing we can do about that."
Tatsuya shrugged his shoulders as Miyuki frowned at the dark clouds overhead.
So far, the preparations had been going according to schedule. Working indoors would be a little cramped, but then it's not like they wouldn't hit their deadline if they didn't do anything.
Personally speaking, he was originally going to do calibrations in the repair room for the Robotics Club, so weather really didn't bother him.
"Then, I'm off."
"Yes, please do your best, Onii-sama."
Miyuki still had Student Council business waiting for her as she regretfully bid farewell to Tatsuya.
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