Maidens of Cygnus - Volume 2 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Preparations for the Monthly Practical Skill Exams

May 3rd, Sunday.

Alisa finished her club activities for the Crowd Ball Club and returned to the school to join up with Marika, who had also finished hers, at the café terrace.

“Did I keep you waiting?”

To Alisa’s question, Marika honestly answered “Just a little”. At this stage of their relationship, they don’t need to be considerate of each other, like saying ‘Not at all’ here.

“Then, let’s get going?”

“Are you okay with not drinking anything?”

“I’m not that thirsty. If we take our time here we’ll be late.”

It’s not late enough to say it is almost evening, but the sun reigning the clear sky is leaning to the west. There is plenty of time if they were just going home, but they had plans to visit Mei’s house.

They’re not going there to play. They’re going to use the Isori Family’s practice grounds to prepare for the monthly practical skill exams.

The reason why not just Marika but also Alisa decided to take on Mei’s goodwill of offering them a place where they can practice magic as a replacement for a practice room was, needless to say, because they wanted to practice together. Of course, Alisa got permission from the Head of the Juumonji Family.

Alisa’s willfulness, which is not unlikely to lead to the leak of magic techniques, was accepted unexpectedly easily by her eldest brother and Head of Family Katsuto. Alisa felt it was almost anti-climactic.

Though Alisa was not surprised. It was Katsuto who brought her into the family from Hokkaido. He knows Alisa’s and Marika’s circumstances well. She understood that Katsuto had taken her friendship with Marika into account.

The Isori Family house is located in the northwest of Tokyo, near the border with the former Saitama prefecture. From First High School, it is about 30 minutes from one station to the other. In a straight line the distance is much closer than to Alisa’s and Marika’s houses, but modern public transports, the Cabinets, don’t make any stops on the way, so in terms of time there isn’t that much difference.

They soon found the Isori Family house. It stood on a site so large it was almost like some kind of factory. The building also looked more like a factory or a research institute than a house.

“This is... Even more impressive than I expected.”

Alisa expressed her admiration.

“I wonder, do they make anything in there?”

Marika asked that kind of question.

“I’m sure they make something, but it’s not a manufacturing plant. I think it’s closer to research institute?”

“Asha, do you know about it?”

“Didn’t I tell you before? The Isori Family are a worldwide authority on Engravement Magic, which is closely connected with magic artifacts.”

Marika folded her arms and pondered Alisa’s explanation.

“...I feel like I’ve heard this before. So basically, magic tools are made in Mei’s house?”

“I’m not really an expert on it though.”

While replying, Alisa pushed the gate’s intercom. Then she got her face closer to the mic to talk into it.

But despite that...

“It’s Mei. I’ll open it now.”

She said before Alisa even opened her mouth, leaving her a little puzzled.

Mei would be able to see through the camera who pushed the intercom’s button, so it is not strange that she would give her name before Alisa. But normally, wouldn’t the door be unlocked only after announcing their visit? It doesn’t feel that way at school, but is Mei actually impatient?

While thinking about it, not only were the gates unlocked, they also opened. Automatic doors themselves are not unusual, but there are not many examples of private houses where even the gates are automatic. Well, it didn’t look like a private house from the start anyway.

“Asha, it’s open, you know?”

Marika urged Alisa with a curious voice. She didn’t seem to feel any surprise or suspicions about Mei’s reception.

Marika pushed Alisa and the two stepped inside the perimeter of the Isori Family house. About ten meters before the door — or rather, ‘entrance’ — of the three-storied low-rise building opened, Mei appeared.

“Welcome. Come on in.”

Even if rationalism is the policy of the house, she should pay a little more attention to appearances... Alisa felt that way, right up until she saw what was on the other side of the door.

The entry hall to the Isori Family’s house was built like a high-class traditional Japanese inn. Taking a closer look, the metal sliding door, which looks like the entrance to a warehouse, has geometric patterns of an inconspicuous color drawn on its surface. Alisa knew that was a magic engraving. Unfortunately, she couldn’t understand enough to know its effects.

“It’s a Engravement Magic circle for thermal insulation.”

Seeing through Alisa’s doubts, Mei announced, somewhat boastfully.

“By thermal insulation, you mean it’s a measure against fires?“

It was Marika who asked.

“That is its most important function. In theory, just by engraving this door, the fireproof effect extends to the entire building.”

“That’s amazing... Most important, you mean it has other functions?”

That question came from Alisa.

Mei smiled, as if proudly saying ‘splendid question’.

“Yeah. We have plans to have external insulation in the future so that air conditioning and heating will no longer be needed.”

“Huh? But magic activated with seals...”

“Yeah. Engravement Magic is activated by pouring a large amount of Psions. And generally, when compared to the same magician using an Activation Sequence to activate the same magic, it tends to last for a shorter time. The stability of the activation process is superior, which makes it suited for dealing with emergencies, but it is said to be inferior for every day compared to magic with the use of a CAD.”

Mei anticipated everything Alisa wanted to say. And then her proud smile broadened even more at Alisa, who had question marks floating above her head. Mei smiled like a child boasting about their favorite toys.

“To overcome that shortcoming, our family is developing a mechanism that automatically supplies Psions to the Engravement Magic circle. We’re using Shiba Tatsuya-sama’s Stellar Furnace system as reference.”

“Isn’t the Stellar Furnace system a trade secret?”

Alisa curiously tilted her head.

“Obviously they can’t tell us everything, but I think they can tell us the know-how for supplying Psions. My older brother was also a member of that experiment.”

“Obviously we can’t know it all, but I think they would tell us the know-how for supplying Psions. My older brother was also a member in that experiment, after all.”

That experiment refers to the Stellar Furnace experiment conducted three years before at the same First High School these girls attend. At the moment, a team of First High students led by Shiba Tatsuya showed for the first time the feasibility of a Stellar Furnace. It is well known among people studying Magic Engineering in Japan that Mei’s older brother, Isori Kei, was in charge of the ‘Coulomb Force Control’ of the experimental device and was later one of the people who contributed heavily to the implementation of the Stellar Furnace.

“Mei, can I ask you something?”

Marika raised her voice.

“Sure, what is it?”

“Why do you call that alumnus by his full name?”

Marika’s question, however, had no relation at all to Magic Engineering.

“By the surname alone you can’t tell him apart from the former Student Council President, right? She is a famous person too.”

“Former Student Council President?”

“Shiba Miyuki-san. Shiba Tatsuya-sama’s fiancée.”

Mei’s answer was a little unnatural. — Not the contents, but her tone. It was like she started by calling her ‘Shiba Miyuki’ and then added the ‘san’ like she was forced to. Not just that, but when she said ‘fiancée’, a slight sense of resistance was transmitted.

“...Mei, do you perhaps hate that former President?”

Marika showed hesitation on whether to ask or not, but in the end she asked it.

Mei’s reflexively grimaced. She thought she had been able to hide her inner thoughts.

“To be honest, I don’t really like her.”

Mei reluctantly admitted Marika’s words were true.

“Because she’s the fiancée of the person you admire?”

“It’s not like that!... I’m a bit jealous though.”

“Yeah, yeah. I totally get that feeling.”

Marika nodded with a ‘know-it-all’ face, to which Mei felt more than a little irritated. She took a deep breath so that Marika wouldn’t catch that and calmed herself down.

“It’s not what you think. How do I say it... That woman, she’s too good to be true, it feels like she’s artificial.”

“She does?”

Marika didn’t really understand what Mei wanted to tell her, but Alisa, who knows what Shiba Miyuki looks like, thought ‘I get that’ when she heard it from Mei.

“...Now, enough about that. Let’s not stand at the front door talking forever and move to the practice area.”

Standing at the front door being just a waste of time is a good point. Neither Marika nor Alisa had any objections.

They both followed Mei’s back right away.

In terms of floor area, the practice area at the Isori Family’s house is inferior to First High’s practice building, but the equipment is not at all inferior. Particularly, the various measuring devices are an upgrade. Alisa, who usually uses the facilities of the former Tenth Research Institute, unconsiouly showed how impressed she was.

“The things you were bad at, for Marika was Movement-Type and for Alisa was Oscillation-Type, right?”

“I’m no more than ‘not bad’ at Oscillation-Type. I’m not confident enough to say I don’t need practice.”

Marika replied to Mei’s question, sounding confident.

“I’d like to practice both too.”

Alisa agreed with Marika.

“But won’t it be more efficient if you practice separately?”

Even though the advice gave priority to rationality, Marika shook her head.

“I think there are things we don’t notice if we practice alone.”

“You have a point... wait, don’t you just want to practice with Alisa?”

“Ehehe...”

Mei pointed it out and Marika dodged the question by laughing.

Mei was dumbfounded by her childish smile.

“Good grief... Marika, you’re like a child who can’t leave her parents.”

“What the!”

“No, maybe a little sister who can’t be away from her older sister.”

“I’m okay with that.”

“So that’s fine...”

Alisa watched from the side as Marika and Mei argued and giggled.

“T-Then, let’s begin with Movement-Type first. I’ll give you advice if I notice something too.”

“Thank you, Mei. That will be a great help.”

Alisa thanked Mei with an honest smile.

That straightforward and sweet smile made Mei flustered.

“This way.”

Hiding her lack of composure by turning away, she thought to herself ‘I feel I understand why Marika yearns for Alisa now’.

“What do you think we should start with?”

Marika asked, to which Alisa turned to Mei.

But Mei just gave a small shrug. She wasn’t being cold, she probably just couldn’t make the decision because she hadn’t seen Marika’s practice skills. Naturally, Alisa wasn’t offended by it.

“Then let’s start with the basic tasks for Movement-Type Magic.”

“Okay. If Asha thinks that’s good.”

There was no hesitation in Marika’s response. Far from it, she showed no hints of thinking about it, which caused a small, strained smile appear on Mei’s face.

Mei led them to the stationary CAD for use in training. It is of the same type they use during lessons at school. Next to it is a medium-sized electric pod installed on a 1.5-meter-tall self-standing pole.

Mei picked up the remote control that was placed by the side of the CAD and operated it. The electronic board displayed a timer with digits up to hundredth of a second.

The ‘stillness’ task of Movement-Type Magic is to make an object stay still in mid-air for a fixed period of time. To get a passing mark, if the task duration is less than 1 minute, the measurement error has to be within a second, if it is between 1 and 3 minutes the error must be within 3 seconds and if it is over 5 minutes the error must be within 10 seconds. The task is harder the higher the mass of the object to float, or the higher its volume, or the more asymmetrical its shape.

The easiest task is to float a hollow ball made of aluminum alloy the size of a baseball ball at shoulder height for 30 seconds. The way this exercise is done is by holding the metal ball with your hands and stretching your arms straight forward at shoulder height, then releasing the ball and letting it float. Conversely, the most difficult task is to use magic to float a bunch of fieldstones of irregular shape that were placed on the floor and hold them in place. This challenge is only for students aiming for extra points.

The task they are trying to tackle right now is the easiest one.

Marika put her left hand on the stationary CAD and raised her right hand to shoulder height while holding the metal ball with her palm facing down. At the same time she invoked the magic, the timer connected to the Psion sensor began.

The effect of the magic cut off, and Marika caught the falling metal fall with her right hand.

“You went 3 seconds over.”

Hesitant to say it, Alisa announced the result.

With a ‘Huh?’ on her face, Marika looked at the electronic board.

The digits displayed there were -3.14. The timer is set to decrease from 30 seconds and to add a minus sign once it passes 0. Which means that ‘-3’ is 3 seconds over. It was Alisa’s kindness that made her round the time down to the second when she announced the results.

“A-Again.”

With impatience in her voice and face, Marika declared she would repeat the challenge.

After that, Marika continued the ‘stillness’ practice for nearly an hour, while alternating with Alisa, but her success rate was below 50%.

Though that doesn’t mean nothing went well. Marika worked on various Movement-Type Magic tasks, including ‘stillness’, for nearly two hours, and increased her success rate in ‘shoot’, where an object is made to move with precision, to 90%, and ‘slalom’, where the object is made to move while avoiding obstacles, also reached a passing level.

“Marika, your problem seems to be initializing the variables correctly.”

Looking at those results, Mei summarized it like that. She pointed out that in the process of constructing the Magic Sequence, the addition of requirements not defined in the Activation Sequence, the ‘variables’, is not going well.

For ‘shoot’, the only requirement is where the movement ends.

‘Slalom’ is a series of short movements and the speed and coordination of magic activations is more important than accuracy.

In contrast, ‘stillness’ requires the input of two variables, the coordinates to keep the object in position and how long it lasts for.

“... Yeah, looks like that’s it.”

Marika seemed to know it herself, and nodded with her face showing her fatigue.

Also, Alisa didn’t practice much herself and spent her time supporting Marika.

◇ ◇ ◇

After school on Thursday. Alisa and Marika luckily managed to make a reservation for a booth in a practice room, where they were doing special training for the practical skills exams. This room is partitioned into six booths, and five booths, including theirs, were occupied. The last one has also been reserved.

“Oh, come on! I can’t do it at all!”

Marika suddenly yelled when she finished her tenth trial. Signs of people being startled leaked from the other booths. Flustered, Alisa ended up going around to apologize to the other booths, saying “I’m sorry for the noise”.

“Mina, stop that. We’re not the only ones using this room.”

“...Sorry.”

After Alisa came back from her apologies and scolded her, Marika became completely dejected.

She was so disheartened that Alisa, who didn’t intend on scolding her so strongly, became impatient.

“To start, I don’t think you should be this disappointed. You’ve improved, haven’t you?”

“... I still haven’t reached a passing mark.”

“It’s only been a week since this month’s practical skills started. Don’t be so impatient.”

‘You must not be impatient’, Alisa rebuked Marika with a voice that couldn’t hide her impatience.

At that moment, the sound of knocking arrived at their ears. It wasn’t the sound of knocking at the room’s door, it was on the booth partition.

“Izayoi-senpai... Is something wrong, for you to knock like that?”

Marika asked Souma with suspicion.

“What do you mean?”

He questioned her. Though it could be seen he was amused just by looking at his face.

“I mean, senpai, suddenly calling people from behind is your hobby, right?”

“A hobby... You’re making me sound like a pervert.”

“Isn’t it a hobby?”

According to Marika’s expression, that was a genuine question.

As expected from that, Souma’s face stiffened.

“...It was just a coincidence that I did that until now. It is absolutely not a hobby of mine or anything like that.”

“Ah, I see.”

Marika nodded, looking clearly unconvinced.

During this back-and-forth, Alisa was silent.

Souma didn’t dwell on the hobby comments any longer.

“...More importantly, are you at an impasse?”

Souma asked them the question he had previously intended to use as an excuse to talk to them.

Marika didn’t give him an answer. ‘Unwilling’ is written on her face. That was the answer.

“I could teach you if you’d like?”

Souma proposed with a people-pleasing smile.

“No, I’m sure you’re busy too, senpai.”

Alisa gently refused faster than Marika could answer.

“Really? I didn’t say you had to, anyway.”

Souma easily backed down.

Alisa felt it was unexpected, but she was relieved.

“But I think it isn’t efficient for you girls to practice on your own. You’re still in your first year.”

Neither Alisa nor Marika could refute his point.

“If you’re too embarrassed to learn from your seniors, how about talking with the teacher in charge of your class?”

“But sensei shouldn’t have time for private lessons, right? Also, if they give a private lesson, wouldn’t that be considered favoritism?”

Marika questioned Souma’s advice. This had also been the conclusion of the discussion she had with Alisa.

“It’s different when it’s practical skill guidance, but just asking questions is normal. Nobody will say anything about that.”

“Questions...”

A listless mutter came out of Marika’s mouth.

“...”

‘We didn’t consider this’ was written on Alisa’s face.

“It’s fine for you to talk to your teacher about the points you’re not doing so well at. Well then, keep doing your best.”

Souma said and then left them.

◇ ◇ ◇

When their time for using the practice room ended, Marika and Alisa each went to their respective teachers. The closing time of the practice rooms is 30 minutes earlier than the school’s. Seen from the opposite angle, students have no more than 30 minutes left at school. Though they’re going to ask questions to their teachers, they can’t ask too many of them.

But if they don’t have enough time, they can just continue the day after. Either way, because of Marika’s nature, she was compelled to act. And, surprisingly, there was something similar inside Alisa.

The practical skills guidance teacher of class A, Chikata Fujino, is consistently in the staff room, but Kitou Tomohiko, the teacher for class B who specializes in Magic Geometry, is often in the geometry preparation room on the third floor of the experiment building. Marika went to the staff room with Alisa, where she heard Kitou was in the preparation room and then headed to the third floor of the experiment building.

Kitou was the only teacher remaining in the geometry preparation room. Differently from what this suggests, it isn’t that the other teachers aren’t serious. The closing time stipulated in the law has already passed (noteworthy to mention that the teaching staff of the National Magic University-affiliated High Schools are civil servants — not just ‘deemed‘ civil servants — like the teachers at the Magic University, and their treatment is not that of an ordinary government official, but governed by special laws). That is to say, Kitou is working overtime. Not just at First High but any educational establishment, closing hours are not well observed.

“Excuse me.”

“Tookami, huh?”

Kitou saw Marika greet him while opening the door and immediately recognized who she was, as should be the norm.

“Please, have a seat.”

He pointed Marika to a seat next to his. She felt a little uncomfortable about sitting on a teacher’s seat, but after a short period of indecision, she obeyed Kitou. They see each other every day, but it’s the first time they’ve been this close. It’s not that she particularly avoided it, but there hadn’t been such a situation until now. Kitou isn’t the type to pay a lot of attention to individual students while teaching, he gives verbal guidance. Moreover, he might also have in mind that he has to keep a moderate distance from female students.

 (I just noticed. Sensei kinda looks like Onii...)

Kitou and Marika’s older brother, Tookami Ryousuke, have almost the same physique. She had noticed it before, but even his body shape is very similar.

They both are the type that looks slimmer in clothes. He’s hiding the well-trained body under his clothes.

(I wonder if sensei does something...?)

Her older brother Ryousuke practiced various bare-handed combat modalities, from modern combat sports to old fashioned martial arts, to the point he could be called a hand-to-hand combat enthusiast. Right now, Marika was feeling a similar scent from Kitou.

“Do you have any question?”

Kitou asked Marika after she sat down.

“Yes. There was a task on Movement-Type Magic I can’t do well.”

With that introduction, Marika asked for advice because she was deadlocked on the ‘stillness’ task.

“Tookami. There’s something you’re misunderstanding. The reason you’re not doing well in the ‘stillness’ task is not because you have low aptitude for Movement-Type Magic.”

That was the first thing Kitou said after listening to Marika.

“Is there another thing causing it?”

“It’s a weakness more than a cause. I was planning to say this in class in the second half of the month, but in your case it seems better to fix it early.”

“Fix...”

Marika’s voice was tense. She felt this was something important.

“First thing is that the ‘stillness’ task does not measure your skills in Movement-Type Magic. It is only incorporated into this month’s curriculum because it uses Movement-Type Magic.”

“Is that true?”

Kitou nodded calmly to Marika’s completely pointless question. Not making students anxious is an attitude worthy of a teacher.

“Let’s go straight to the conclusion. The reason you aren’t doing well in the ‘stillness’ task is because the variable setup is unclear.”

Variables are elements not described in the Activation Sequence that are necessary components for constructing Magic Sequences. The intentional lack of fixed values is to make the Activation Sequence versatile and it allows the magician to freely set them.

When the magician reads the Activation Sequence the variables are sent to the Magic Calculation Area in the form of an image and combined with the Activation Sequence to assemble the Magic Sequence. Variables define the effect of the magic, so if they are unclear, the desired effects won’t be achieved.

“But I think I’m visualizing it correctly.”

“Is the image specific? Is it not intuitive?”

Marika couldn’t answer Kitou’s question.

“Specific...?”

She couldn’t understand the difference between a ‘specific image’ and a ‘intuitive image’ to begin with.

“An important thing in magic is to be fully aware of all processes and effects.”

Kitou suddenly began talking in a lecturing tone.

“It’s not good to do it without knowing why. In exercise, it might be better to do it without being conscious of your body movement. But the reverse is true for magic. Even if you can do it unconsciously, you must always try to be aware of the process.”

Feeling like she’s being taught something extremely important, Marika unconsciously straightened her back.

“You can’t use magic accurately just with intuition. It is essential for you to think and be conscious of not only the process of invoking magic, but also the preparation steps, what phenomenon you want to modify, and the results after the modification.”

“I get it. It’s not ‘don’t think, feel’, it’s ‘think instead of feeling’.”

Kitou knit his brows in confusion. Apparently he doesn’t know the 20th century movie Marika was quoting from.[6]

“...Time is a ‘concept’ we cannot see. That is why an even clearer image is necessary. The reason ‘stillness’ was incorporated as a task early into the first year was to get you to learn how to set variables correctly.“

“Sensei. I understand the objective of this task now...”

Marika slightly tilted her head after speaking.

“But an image, isn’t that an intuitive thing...?”

“If the word image is hard to understand, perhaps it would be better to describe it as a concrete concept?”

“I didn’t understand any more than before.”

Is she turning defiant? But it’s not a bad feeling. It could be said that Marika’s attitude was rather refreshing.

The complicated expression with which Kitou looked at Marika was not any sort of glare. He seemed worried about how he should explain. It might be because he’s still young, but his earnest attitude towards teaching was visible.

After careful consideration, Kitou took out the key case from a draw on his desk and stood up. He then told Marika “Please follow me”.

Marika obediently answered “Yes” and got up.

Kitou brought Marika to the neighboring room. They didn’t go through the corridor. This room was on the other side of a door at the back of the preparation room.

Marika listlessly looked around the room with curious eyes. Today is the first time she has visited the geometry preparation room, so of course it was also the first time she has seen this room that can only be entered through the preparation room.

She was alone with a man in a room with only one exit. But despite that, for some reason, Marika wasn’t afraid or impatient.

She wasn’t overestimating her abilities. There is no doubt that her teacher Kitou has superior magic skills to hers. Marika is a Martial Magic Arts fighter and not just a powerless high school girl, but as she already perceived, Kitou is no amateur at combat either. Marika intuitively understood there was no way she would win, even not considering magic.

And yet, for some reason, she wasn’t even wary of him. She didn’t even wonder why that was the case.

“Sensei, this room?”

The question that came to her mind was not about her mental state, but ‘what is this room?’. There were no desks or chairs inside the room. Other than a cabinet by the wall, there were only workbenches with wheels whose counter could have its height changed between 50 centimeters, 1 meter, or 1.5 meters. 

“This is the room that we teachers use to test the tasks we create.”

Kitou readily answered Marika’s question. True, to create tests for students, a place out of sight from students is needed.

“Umm, is this okay? Isn’t it bad for students to enter this room...?” 

But she wondered if it was fine for him to tell this to his student. Marika felt such possibly unnecessary worries.

“You’ll be in trouble for getting in without permission, but I brought you with me this time, so there’s no problem.”

Kitou answered quickly. After he mentioned it, Marika thought that, sure enough, he wouldn’t have let her inside the room if it was a problem for her to do so.

But that wasn’t the only thing she was worried about.

“This CAD should be fine.”

Kitou said while taking a CAD shaped like a tablet the size of A4 paper from the cabinet next to the wall and placed it on the smallest workbench.

“Sensei. Are you perhaps going to give me practice skills guidance?”

“That’s the plan.”

While replying affirmatively to Marika’s question, Kitou took out an electric board with a pole stand attached from the rectangular cabinet. It is about the same size as the one in Isori Family’s house.

“Umm... Won’t this be seen as favoritism?”

“I don’t intend to only do this for you, Tookami. It’s the job of a teacher to respond to a student’s desire to learn, as much as time allows me to.”

Kitou promptly denied her doubts, Marika finally being released from her guilty consciousness.

“Sensei. I will help setting it up.”

Looking like she got over those feelings, Marika offered to assist Kitou.

“Then take this.”

What Kitou held out to her with the hand that wasn’t holding the stand was the aluminum alloy ball used in the ‘stillness’ practical skill. After handing Marika the hollow metal ball, Kitou set the electronic board beside the workbench with the CAD on it.

“To start with, just look at the timer. Don’t use the CAD and don’t activate any magic.”

“Yes.”

She didn’t understand why Kitou gave her that instruction, but agreed for the time being.

“What you should pay attention to is to not count the number of seconds in your head. Give your full attention to understanding the number of seconds. It’s fine to ignore the digits under a second.”

“Okay...?”

She could understand the significance of it all less and less. But Marika thought she should try to do as she is being told anyway.

On the board there was a six-digit number displayed. 02, colon, 02, colon, 02. They are ‘minutes’, ‘seconds’ and ‘hundredths of a second’ respectively. That numbers changed to ’00:30:00’.

“Let’s begin.”

The timer started running.

As Kitou told her too, Marika stared intently at the decreasing numbers.

“Were you able to embody the concept of 30 seconds?”

Kitou asked Marika right when the timer stopped.

He then added an explanation for the confused Marika.

“Instead of adding up each second, recognize 30 seconds as a lump of time.”

“...Please allow me to go again.”

After digesting and understanding Kitou’s words many times over, Marika requested a rechallenge.

“Alright. Are you ready?”

Kitou accepted the request and reset the timer.

“Yes.”

Marika’s expression tightened.

Kitou gave a signal and the numbers on the timer started running at the same time.

Marika’s tension did not disappear even after the zeros lined up on the display. Maybe this should be called a kind of Zanshin[7]?

“I feel like I understand now.”

“Now, raise your right hand to position to release the ball and watch the timer. Don’t use magic yet.”

“Yes.”

After that, she practiced recognizing the time many times without using magic. Kitou went along until ‘feel’ and ‘like’ disappeared from Marika’s answer.

Then, with closing time imminent, Kitou instructed her to actually use the magic and perform the ‘stillness’ practical skill.

“I’ll start now!”

She invoked the magic and the timer started running.

When the metal ball that was floating midair dropped onto Marika’s hand, the timer was showing -0.4 seconds.

An error of 0.4 seconds. Within passing range.

“This is my best result so far! Thank you, sensei!”

Marika quickly bowed.

“If you can’t practice magic at home, then you should train embodying the image. For embodying time, analog displays are effective than digital ones.”

Marika raised her face and Kitou gave her this final advice.

Marika bowed with quick movements once again.

Right after leaving the geometry preparation room, Marika checked her information terminal.

Just as she thought, she received an email from Alisa. It said ‘I’m waiting at Einebrise’.

Marika left the school gate with hurried steps and headed for Einebrise.

◇ ◇ ◇

It was already late, so Alisa and Marika didn’t stay very long at Einebrise and returned home on the Cabinet.

“Your question took a long time, huh?”

Inside the Cabinet, Alisa asked about the period of time between them splitting up and rejoining.

“You couldn’t find the teacher?”

“No. Sensei was in the preparation room. I was late because he gave me practical skills guidance.”

“He gave you a private lesson!?”

Alisa shouted out in surprise.

“Yeah. Thanks to him, I now know what I should practice. I’ll tell you later, Asha.”

“...Where did you get this lesson? Wasn’t the practice room already closed?”

Alisa asked while raising her eyebrows. Her expression clearly shows she’s not seeing the situation in a positive light.

“Next to the preparation room there’s a room where I could practice. It’s a room where they test the tasks they give to students.”

“Was there a room like that...?”

“The inside of the room can’t be seen from the corridor. It’s probably to make sure students don’t peek in. There was only one entrance in the back of the preparation room.”

“So it’s a half-locked room. Just the two of you, in a place like that...?”

Understanding what Alisa was suspecting, Marika blew a ‘Pfft’, suppressing her laughter.

“Asha, you’re overthinking it~. Sensei just taught me seriously. ”

“Really?”

“For realsies. He taught me seriously and with enthusiasm. Though I was surprised, during our normal lessons he gives off this calm vibe. Today he felt a little like Onii.”

“Like Ryousuke-san...?”

“Yeah. When you look at him closely, his figure looks similar.... Now that I talk about him, I wonder what Onii is doing right now.”

From then on, their discussion shifted to Marika’s older brother, Ryousuke, who has stopped contacting them after going to the former Canadian territory of the USNA.