Maidens of Cygnus - Volume 5 - Chapter 6.2

“Mina, it’s morning. Wake up.”

Marika’s body was gently shaken, and she opened her eyes.

“Today’s the important tournament, isn’t it?”

“The tournament!”

Her dozing consciousness woke up all at once and Marika quickly got up.

“Good morning, Mina.”

“What time is it!?”

Marika asked with an anxious expression to Alisa, who was standing and smiling next to the bed.

“It’s still 6:10.”

Marika, looking listless, patted her chest in relief. The reception for the preliminaries starts at 8:30am and the bouts start at 9:30. Getting from here to the preliminaries venue takes less than an hour. She has plenty of time.

But Marika made no complaints like ‘It’s too early’.

“Asha, thanks for waking me up.”

Usually, she would have already woken up by herself at this time. Marika was aware that if Alisa hadn’t woken her up this morning, she would have overslept.

“You’re welcome. Mina, go wash your face. I’ll make breakfast in the meantime.”

While saying “OK”, Marika left the bed and headed to the bathroom. Alisa’s voice, “Don’t cut corners”, followed her from behind.

The venue for the preliminaries is the Tokyo Budokan[9]. Marika and Alisa arrived before 8 o’clock.

Fortunately, it wasn’t raining. Though it wasn’t sunny either. Maybe the multitude of clouds that can be seen in the sky to the south are an effect of the typhoon heading north in the southern sea.

All competitors entering from First High are from the Magic Arts Club. To participate in this tournament, they must have sent an application via web up until a week before the event and reconfirm at the preliminaries venue on the day of, between 8:30 and 9:00. So that all participants from First High go to the reception together, they scheduled to meet up in front of the venue.

8 o’clock still has not arrived. There is over thirty minutes until the reception starts. The reconfirmation process is simple and ends quickly so there is no need to be that fast. Marika was thinking that she would be the first from First High to arrive.

As she expected, still only few people were in front of the venue.

But unlike what she expected, there was one lone First High student there.

And once Marika realized, she hurriedly ran on over.

“Chigusa-senpai!”

Waiting there was the Club President of the men’s division, Chigusa Tadashige.

“Sorry for being late!”

“There is still time, and nobody other than you and me has arrived yet, so you don’t need to apologize.”

The meeting time was decided to be five minutes before the reception starts, so 8:25. Like Chigusa said, she is early and there is plenty of time.

“No, I mean for keeping you waiting!”

“Tookami-san, you really are a model sports girl.”

He admired her with the face of an objective observer, but given than Chigusa had also been standing by himself at the meeting place for several dozens of minutes, the same could be said for him.

When Chika finally arrived in front of the Tokyo Budokan, it was 8:28. Two minutes before the start of the reception, three minutes after the meeting time. — Well, about this much can be said to be within the margin of error, so there’s no issue.

From First High, four boys and three girls from the Magic Arts Club are participating. The number of female entrants aged 18 or less announced beforehand for the Kanto region preliminaries was a total of 15. For the male entrants, 25. Considering the special characteristics of the sport, while the Tokyo region has a large population, this is probably about right. Worth noting the only magic high school students are from First High.

As the top four can participate in the final event, the girls go through the preliminaries if they win twice. Once if luck in on their side.

The reconfirmation ended at 9am. There were no absentees for the girl’s 18 and under division and there was one for the boy’s 18 and under division. There was something wrong with his web application.

Though this merely a digression. It is unusual, but no major incident. Right after the reconfirmation deadline, the tournament table was created using a random generation program and the matches were announced at 9:10.

There will be seven bouts in the first round of the girl’s 18 and below division. One girl will go to the second round without a fight. The lucky fighter was First High’s Club President, Chika.

“You’ll fight the President in the semifinals, huh?”

Looking at the tournament table, Alisa talked to Marika, sounding somewhat relieved.

“Yeah. Fortunately Yokoyama-senpai and I got separate blocks, we might have gotten lucky with the draw.”

Marika was also frankly relieved. With this, the First High participants won’t have concerns about defeating each other in the preliminaries.

“Marika, don’t let your guard down.”

Chika approached Marika from behind as she talked with Alisa and gave her a pep talk.

“Yes.”

Marika’s face became tense.

“Yeah, that’s a nice face. Marika, your first opponent is known for kobudo[10]. I didn’t know she switched to magic arts, but I was told she uses ‘qi’.”

“‘Qi’, huh...?”

“I only heard about this, but it looks like she uses a technique similar to ‘Phantom Blow’.”

“That’s the Non-Systematic Magic that inflicts hallucinatory pain, right?”

“Right. You can’t take it lightly just because it’s a hallucination. Pain will disturb your movements. It’s also possible that she would take advantage of you stopping by reflex to deliver a decisive blow.”

“Understood. I’ll be careful.”

Nodding to Marika, who obediently accepted the advice, Chika walked up a classmate who came to support her.

Once Chika was sufficiently far away, Marika began talking to Alisa.

“Asha... You can use magic even if you aren’t a magician?”

That must have been difficult to ask when Chika could still hear, as it seems to put into question Chika’s words. It was just regular consideration.

“I guess it depends on how far you stretch the definition of magic, but... I heard that you should be able to reproduce Non-Systematic-Type Magic quite well even if you’re not a magician. Depending on the magic, if you train, you may be able to use it better than a magician, even with no talent for magic.”

“I see...”

“Though I don’t think anyone our age would have finished that kind of training.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

Alisa’s words were sincere, not simply consoling her, but Marika did not appear genuinely convinced or reassured. 

◇ ◇ ◇

The first bout was closer than Marika expected.

Her opponent, Hada, just like she heard from Chika, was a ‘qi’ user. A ‘Fa qi fighter’, according to what she said at the time she registered as an entrant.

Marika, having half-baked knowledge of Chinese martial arts, thought ‘Not Fa jin[11], Fa qi...?’. But even if she were to be asked what Fa jin is, she wouldn’t be able to answer. Fa jin and Fa qi, to her, were equally impossible to decipher, so it was a meaningless question.

But even if the principles are unclear to her, she was made to understand what kind of effects Fa qi produces with her own body during the bout.

She didn’t know why, but Hada’s attacks were going through her guard. It wasn’t dealing damage through the guard. Her arms, forming her guard, were receiving the opponent’s fist strikes properly. It was clearly different from when the guard is broken and the impact of the strike is felt through it. Despite fully maintaining her guard, with some space behind it, the damage of the fist strike was delivered to where it would have if there was no guard.

But ‘Reactive Armor’ was not penetrated. Even in the case she used fortification magic on her forearm protector, when the magic was weak the damage would go through, but when the magic was applied well the damage was shut out.

Erika’s ‘Shadow Slash’ made Marika, covered in ‘Reactive Armor’, unable to fight. Considering that reality, Hada’s technique and the technique Erika called a ‘Shadow Technique’ were likely different things. But to Marika, it seemed that ‘Shadow Slash’ and Hada’s fist strike had an intrinsic common feature.

Perhaps thinking about those kinds of things during the bout was foolish. The bout dragged on, and there were even times where she was pushed back quite hard, but ultimately Marika got a KO in Hada in eight minutes.

Worth noting that she didn’t use ‘Reactive Armor’ as a finishing technique. She also never used the ‘Glide’ Erika taught her.

And, after the bout, Marika got a harsh scolding from Chika for getting distracted during the bout.

As already previously stated, the only magic high school students participating in the girl’s 18 and under division are the three from First High (this can be said not just for the girls, but also the boys). Consequently, the other participants either didn’t meet the admission criteria, regarding their talents as magicians, to be admitted into a magic high school, or chose ancient magic over attending a magic high school, or couldn’t use magic in the first place. Either of these.

Out of all participants, the most numerous are the ancient magicians in the making. After them are those who have qualities of magicians, but aren’t attending a magic high school. Below that are those who don’t have any unusual abilities, including magic (Hada falls under this category), and following that are those who own abilities that aren’t magic.

Marika’s second round opponent, Yamazaki, having an unusual ability, falls into the minority that is the last category. She is a psychic.

In the second round, Marika, at first, was more confused than she was struggling. Her movements were slightly off. Her footwork, her defensive movements, her blows, all of them were slightly off from what she intended. Because of that, she couldn’t connect a telling blow. Unable to see through it, she had to guard against attacks she wanted to dodge. That situation continued from the start until about two minutes in.

There had to be some trick. It wasn’t that her rhythm was being disrupted. Yamazaki was up to something. Marika became aware of that after two minutes, when she changed her fighting style to focus on grappling.

She finally noticed that her opponent was using psychokinesis when she felt the arm and leg she was using to start a submission being pulled outwards. If Yamazaki had used stronger psychokinesis, Marika would probably have figured it out at an earlier stage.

Yamazaki most likely intentionally controlled the output in her use of psychokinesis to make it hard to notice. She was undoubtedly trying to force Marika to make wasteful movements to drain her stamina.

As evidence of that, right after Marika switched to blows that emphasize the power of each strike, abandoning the smaller repeated blows that were more susceptible to the effect of the psychokinesis, Yamazaki also changed her fighting style. She switched to a popular method of using psychokinesis in Magic Arts, using it as an attack that sent Marika’s body flying or made her fall to the ground.

When a magician and a psychic fight in Magic Arts, prior to the popularization of the completely thought-operated CAD, it was considered advantageous for the psychic. But with the popularization of that CAD, the advantage was reversed.

By eliminating the time lag of operating the CAD, the speed difference between activating magic and activating a psypower was reduced to a point that it can be ignored. And with that, the number of tools at a magician’s disposal is everything. Though the kinds of magic one can use in Magic Arts bouts are restricted, psychics, who fundamentally can only use from one to three kinds of abilities at most, have completely different breadth of tactics compared to magicians.

Even in this bout, that separated victory and defeat.

Four minutes into the bout, Marika advanced to the semifinals.

“Congratulations. With that, you’re qualified for the national tournament.”

Alisa, who had been watching, went to the victorious Marika to congratulate her.

“Thank you, Asha. Mei, thank you for coming to cheer for me too.”

Alisa wasn’t alone, next to her was Mei who she had brought along.

“Congratulations, Marika. I didn’t get here on time to catch the first round, but you really made this one worth watching. So it isn’t just magicians, psychics also practice Magic Arts, huh?”

Since the completely thought-operated CADs became popular, it has become difficult to distinguish magicians and psychics apart just by looking at them. But Mei seemed to know that Marika’s opponent was a psychic just by watching her for a few minutes.

“Only a few, though. Back when I started there were more psychics. But the completely thought-operated CADs became popular, so their numbers gradually decreased.”

“Why?”

Alisa asked, seemingly curious.

“Must be because the advantage of being a psychic disappeared, right?”

But Mei appeared to understand the reason without having it explained to her.

“Until the completely thought-operated CAD became popular, we had to move our hands to operate the CAD, so psychics, who don’t use CADs, could get the advantage in terms of speed. But once the completely thought-operated models became widely used, that advantage was lost.”

“...It feels a bit wrong to quit just because the handicap you were given until then disappeared... I wonder if those people really liked Magic Arts.”

Once she heard Mei’s explanation, Alisa muttered a question with an unconvinced face.

“Looking at it the other way around, I believe those who continue doing it until now are doing it because they really enjoy it.”

Marika’s comment, always looking at the positive side, made Alisa smile, her expression saying ‘That’s so like you, Mina’.

The quarterfinals for the boy’s 18 and under division, which had one more bout compared to the girl’s due to the number of competitors, came to an end, and all participants for the national tournament’s 18 and under divisions were settled. The three girls from First High made it to the tournament without issue. On the other hand, from the four boys, three of them made it and one was defeated in the preliminaries. It was the result of a bout between two First High students in the quarterfinals.

At this result, the sounds of discontent from the First High students were only in the cheering seats. The competitors, including the one who lost, showed no dissatisfaction. They accepted this was the way the tournament was.

“In the end, it’s an individual competition.”

Marika was asked about the friendly fire by Alisa, to which she replied indifferently.

“The goal of everyone in this tournament, including me, is Japan. As we win and advance to the next rounds, we’ll have to face each other at some point. It just happened to be in the preliminaries in this case.”

“...Then the next bout against the President is also one step towards winning the national tournament?”

The first bout in the semifinals of the girls 18 and under division is between Marika and Chika.

“I got lucky.”

Marika said, and then turned her back to Alisa and picked up her headgear that was on top of a table.

“Because even if I lose here, I can get revenge at the national tournament.”

She said, still turned around.

Then she turned only her upper body, holding the wrist of her right hand, that was holding the headgear being her waist, with her left hand.

“Though on the other hand, even if I win today, we’ll have to fight again.”

Marika said, then faced forward, and along with a “Well, I’m going”, she headed to the ring for the semifinal.

Marika and Chika, two First High students, entered the ring for the semifinal.

Their eyes met through the transparent face shield of their protective headgear. These two have faced each other many times in club activities, but it had been a while since they fought in bout format. Specifically, it has been about a month and a half since their last bout format practice to put the finishing touches for the competition with Third High held in early July.

At the referee’s signal, the two stepped forward and bowed to each other.

“Marika, come at me with all you have.”

Chika raised her head and addressed Marika.

“I will, President!”

Marika raised her head and replied to Chika.

The referee’s right hand, raised, was brought down with force. That is the signal to start the bout.

Right after that, Marika abruptly approached Chika.

Marika launched a long-reach front kick to the middle section.

Chika attempted to catch that kick while backstepping, but the strength with which Marika pulled her leg back was bigger than hers. Marika’s posture, supported by a pivot foot, wasn’t disturbed at all.

Surprise crossed Chika’s face. True, her reception had not been perfect. Instead of catching the ankle or calf and lifting them like usual, she merely propped them up.

But, in a situation where you’re standing on one leg and you’re tripped up, falling backwards, or if not falling at least staggering would be normal. No matter how strong the legs are, it is not normal that it would have absolutely no effect on your posture.

Marika, with small steps, closed the distance by as much as Chika increased it, and once again launched a front kick.

She lunged her foot straight ahead, a kick that was like a jab. She hit Chika’s body three times in quick succession. They looked like light kicks, but the impact was greater than what it appeared, dealing damage to Chika.

Unable to ignore it, Chika responded to the third kick with a front kick of her own.

The kicks hit at the same time. From the sensation felt from her feet, Chika realized what Marika was doing. Chika knew what her kouhai was working hard on yesterday and the day before, as they practiced in the same place.

Practicing the fortification magic she learned from Leo at the training camp. And improving the self-movement magic she learned from Erika.

At the start of this bout, what Marika showed was the latter.

Self-movement magic is magic that manipulates your own spatial coordinates. Not just moving to a different place, staying in one place is also ‘manipulating your own spatial coordinates’.

Marika was using the self-movement magic to fix herself in one spot.

After hitting each other with the front kicks, Marika briefly distanced herself from Chika. A fresh start seemed to be exactly what Chika wanted too, as they both circled each other and tried to find a gap in the opponent’s defenses.

While attentively observing Chika, Marika, in a corner of her consciousness, was wondering ‘Did she already realize?’.

Marika is fighting this bout with a theme. It’s not that she threw away the victory, but she’s intends to prioritize it over the outcome of the fight.

Just like she said to Alisa, Marika’s goal is simply to win the national tournament. Even if she loses this bout, she is already qualified for the main event. The pairings for the main tournament are also drawn at random, so even if she loses the semifinal, she won’t be at a disadvantage.

Instead, Marika thought that making sure whether this fighting style would work against a formidable opponent such as Chika in a bout, rather than practice, was more important to win the national tournament.

Meeting and fighting the graduate Chiba Erika at the training camp last week, had a strong impact in Marika’s heart, deeply imprinting a vivid impression on her.

She is a university student no more than 4 years older than her. But Chiba Erika’s skills are polished to a point she wouldn’t at all expect of someone like that. Marika felt the depth of ‘martial arts’ in her.

She’s probably gone through bloody conflicts with lives on the line, Marika thought. Marika hasn’t seen life and death situations, let alone experienced them. So ‘bloody conflicts with lives on the line’ was merely her imagination.

However, the shivers she felt in that fight were a real experience, not just imagination. The techniques learned from swordsmanship and hand-to-hand combat are different, but, to Marika, it seemed that Erika was at the summit of what she should aim for. Put simply, Marika was affected by Erika’s skills. Maybe it is more appropriate to say that she was captivated.

In these past three days, Marika couldn’t forget the words Erika told her. Even now they still remain in her consciousness.

—There is no such thing as perfect defense.

—Your strength lies in a proactive offensive that makes full use of your tough defense.

At first glance, this advice seems conflicting. But Marika understood what Erika wanted to say. Or at least, she felt like she understood.

Believe in your ‘armor’ and attack the opponent. Defeat the enemy before they break through your ‘armor’s’ protection.

That is how Marika interpreted Erika’s teachings.

In this bout, Marika is trying out tactics focused on offense based on that interpretation. It is a fighting style that, if a small mistake is made, could turn into a suicide charge tactic, and taking that risk into account, delivers a strong blow.

She is fully aware that it is a tactic that doesn’t work well in Martial Magic Arts, as she could lose on points. Over that, she decided to test how far she could go with it.

Strong blows go hand in hand with strong recoil. Just like wide artillery shots require a firm fort, a strong base is required to increase the strength of a strike.

What should be done to accomplish that? The orthodox method would be to train the lower body. But she is already doing that, and if she wants more than he has right now, years of training are needed. What can be done until the national tournament that is right around the corner?

The answer Marika arrived at was ‘to fix her own body in place with magic’. Though it is fixed, that doesn’t mean it restrains the movement of her limbs.

In theory, tightly locking her whole body at the moment of impact should maximize the strength of the strike. But in the next instant, she’ll deliver a high-risk, high-reward blow, as she’ll be unable to move. Marika was neither overestimating herself nor optimistic enough to think she could learn such a risky technique in such a short time.

Instead, so that her body wouldn’t move back from recoil, so that her balance isn’t disturbed, she fixes her own spatial coordinates. She applied the ‘Glide’ Erika taught her. With this magic, she stops the recoil and transmits 100% of the power of the punch or kick to the opponent without fail.

Using self-movement magic in order to not move, a reversal of the concept. In practice, it is not that difficult. You just need a flexible way of thinking. Marika found this application by herself and put it into practice.

Once she actually tried it, she felt its effect. She really felt like the light, jab-like kicks, were manifesting power close to a full powered front kick.

But the impact that her opponent’s counter brought was also stronger than usual. The reason was clear if she thought a little, but Marika hadn’t taken it into account.

She had to recognize that it was careless of her. Marika made a mental note to make sure not to forget to use shield magic or fortification magic when attacking with her body stopped.

The time they spent glaring at each other was less than ten seconds. By nature, Magic Arts bouts are short. A slow situation continuing with a wait and see approach does not happen often.

This time, Chika made her move. She used a low kick as a feint, and when Marika raised her leg to guard, she closed the distance at once. As Marika is adopting tactics that emphasizes strikes, Chika went for a submission.

There certainly are also fighting styles that show off one’s own strength by beating up an opponent after purposefully letting them use their signature move. But fighting in a way that doesn’t allow the opponent to show their power is the right move. If the enemy wants a strike battle, bring them into a grappling battle and crush their rhythm. It can be said that this way to progress the bout is true to the principles.

Chika initiated a tackle. However, even though Marika’s legs were restrained and the body weight was piled on her, she did not fall.

(She’s keeping her position with movement magic!?)

Chika, keeping her composure, immediately guessed the reason.

Chika and Marika stopped moving.

Marika aimed for Chika’s back, just below the neck, with an iron hammer — a strike using the pinky side of her fist.

Chika predicted that attack, unwrapped the arms she used for the tackle and laid face down on the floor on her own accord.

Marika’s iron hammer ended in a miss.

Chika stood up like she was hopping and coiled around Marika.

Not to knock her down — not to move her, she went around to the back of the still standing Marika.

A standing submission. Like this, there is no issue even if she can’t move the opponent.

Aiming for a chokehold, Chika twined her arms around Marika’s neck. Concluding that she couldn’t shake off from it properly with her pivot foot fixed in place, Marika interrupted the movement magic.

For continuous magic, it is currently mainstream to set short activation times and renew it frequently, and the same goes for ‘Glide’. This method has been trending since flying magic was implemented with the same method.

However, Chika predicted it. No, should it be said that she led Marika to do it? Still in a grapple, Marika was dragged into a pin by Chika.

Marika doesn’t mind pinning techniques, but she is a striker-type, good with striking techniques. Chika is the same.

The many differences in how they handle the unexpected due to experience appears in the fields they’re not good at rather than the ones they are, as well as with techniques that aren’t used often compared to those that are. Even in club practice, Marika suffers many defeats from Chika’s pins.

If she just wants to escape Chika’s submission, she should activate ‘Reactive Armor’ to brush aside the limbs twining around her. But Chika also knows well how to proceed. By relying on ‘Reactive Armor’, she was clearly going to receive several ‘effective hits’ once they split.

In hand-to-hand combat bouts that allow magic, if one party hides themselves inside a magic shield, it could create a situation where a bout never ends. To avoid this, a rule was established where one to three points are given to attacks that would be telling blows had magic not been used, and once the accumulated points reach ten, the fighter who had points taken from loses by technical knockout.

This telling blow is an ‘effective hit’. Though it is called a ‘hit’, points are given not just to striking techniques, but also throwing techniques. Also, grapples — strangleholds and locking techniques — are not regarded as effective hits.

‘Reactive Armor’ is strong magic. If it’s a strike at interpersonal level, it will almost completely nullify it. But in a Magic Arts bout, the fact that it is too strong also becomes an obstruction.

The barrier is so powerful that, in practice, it is possible not to notice that she’s being attacked with punches and kicks that have their power slightly increased with magic. Which means that points are taken without her bring aware of it, resulting in a loss by technical knockout.

Maybe because they’ve fought many times on a regular basis, Chika is proficient at forcing Marika into a technical knockout. Marika made full use of her regular techniques, somehow escaping Chika’s pin without using ‘Reactive Armor’.

She used the magic ‘Jump’ and quickly got on her feet, distancing herself at the same time. It’s a fresh start. But using the same fighting style as before will put her in danger of once again falling victim of a standing submission. After that counter, Marika discovered a new challenge.

The bout between Marika and Chika was a long fight, exceeding ten minutes.

“...Good work out there. That was unfortunate.”

And, as Alisa’s words indicated, Marika lost in the end.

Bout time 13 minutes. Chika’s win by technical knockout.

Marika was adequately cautious, but at the very end Chika caught her in her trap.

“Aaaaaaaa...”

“W-what’s wrong, Mina?”

Alisa was confused by Marika’s sudden strange reaction.

“Aannoyiiiing!”

“...”

Once Marika squeezed her voice out, all expression disappeared from Alisa’s face.

“...It was for a great purpose, wasn’t it?”

Mei, at Alisa’s side, muttered with an astounded voice.

“...Right.”

Alisa finally returned just one word to Marika.

“Right!? Even though I was so careful!”

Marika shouted with so much energy she could stomp her foot on the ground. No, after she shouted, she actually did stomp her foot.

“Careful, about the TKO?”

Alisa made a perfunctory remark in the form of a question. The comment itself fit Marika’s situation properly, but her tone was flat and had no emotion.

“Yeah. It’s really annoying!”

Though Marika didn’t show any signs that she paid any attention to that. Maybe she didn’t even notice.

“Then you better be even more careful at the national tournament.”

“That’s right. It was very educational.”

Marika’s tone suddenly became calm.

At the abrupt change in attitude, Mei murmured “I guess she calmed down...” with an exasperated voice.

Side note, in the Kanto region preliminaries, the girl’s 18 and under division ended with a victory for Chika.