Tokyo Ravens - Volume 2 - Chapter 2.2

Part 2
"This is practically an insult! You Bakatora, this is too shameful!"
Natsume roared her complaints.
However, Harutora, who was lying on the desk, had long since lost the energy to respond, with invisible black smoke flowing out of his head. Touji sitting next to him didn't come to his rescue, watching from afar instead.
"I always thought you were an idiot, but I didn't think you would be so dumb you didn't know anything! It's a wonder you even got into the Onmyou Academy! Even if I'm not Kurahashi Kyouko, I still doubt whether you sneaked in through the back door!"
"Don't keep calling me idiot idiot, I just don't know......"
"That's why I'm saying you're an idiot! You're aiming to become an Onmyouji but somehow you don't even know the types of shikigami, that just proves that you're a genuine, huge idiot!"
The afternoon class had come to an end, and it was time for class to let out.
The reason Natsume was this angry was the afternoon class. Actually, nothing peculiar had happened, just an inevitable outcome.
Simply put, it finally came to light that Harutora had absolutely no knowledge about anything related to Onmyoudou.
"What types of General-style shikigami are there? What's the difference between the Rikujin-shikisen and the General-style Rikujin? What relationship is there between the scale of a spiritual disaster and the danger level?"
"......Uh, well......"
"What 'uh, well'! What in the world were you doing before!"
She yelled hysterically, not even hearing Harutora's "Studying in a normal high school......'
The teachers responsible for the class had originally thought Harutora was joking around, deliberately answering incorrectly. In the end, he was still a Tsuchimikado even if he was a new student, so some of the teachers even thought Harutora had been angry.
But, they gradually frowned and became stunned, finally choosing to ignore the existence of Harutora. All of the teachers who came in the afternoon showed similar reactions, and Natsume's face became paler and paler until she finally stared fiercely at Harutora with her face flushed in utter shame.
"He crammed before entering, so he forgot it all after the test."
Harutora laid on the table, and stared resentfully at Touji after hearing him speak indifferently and mercilessly. "Also--" Touji didn't back down, continuing to say:
"'General Onmyoudou' divides shikigami into two types. One includes deities, spirits, and beasts - these kinds of traditional spirits that exist as shikigami are called servant shikigami, but now most modern shikigami are now made by infusing magical power into a manmade vessel. In addition, manmade shikigami are divided into simple manmades which were created purely by the practitioner's magical power, and standard manmades which can hold external magical power. Simple manmades must be directly controlled or issued orders beforehand, but standard manmades can act autonomously to some degree, and in particular there is also a type of high-level manmade which can think on its own and can be said to have an independent personality."
"......Why is a normal kid from an ordinary family like you so knowledgeable......"
"Because I'm not an idiot."
"Th, Then what do defensive shikigami, general or domestic shikigami mean?"
"Those are methods of creation or usages, and there's no such thing as a domestic shikigami."
But, other than Touji, the other students who had viewed him as a 'new student from the Tsuchimikado' were all extremely surprised at his showing himself as an amateur. They were the same as the lecturers, first surprised, then doubting whether he was serious, and then more and more astonished, greatly disappointed, and then finally so stunned they weren't even able to laugh or get angry. Even Tenma was amazed, and it really hit Harutora hard.
But needless to say, Kurahashi Kyouko was the one who changed the class atmosphere the most. A ridiculing and contemptuous gaze naturally shot out to the master of the shikigami, and Natsume shrank her body in humiliation, lowering her head.
"This is the biggest shame I've experienced in my life......"
She mumbled painfully, her face livid and her shoulders trembling. Her tone was quite grim, and the tense atmosphere she gave off had no trace of a relaxed 'hahaha, this is way too much'.
"A crash course...... You have to take a crash course, and it has to be a focused crash course from hell! You have to take back the half year, no, the sixteen years of your life that you're behind. First are 'Introduction to General Onmyoudou' and all the reference books relating to 'Onmyoudou Second Level', and 'Modern Shikigami Theory', 'Extended History of Yin and Yang'...... There's also classics, you have to read the 'Kinugyokuto Works', every volume of 'Arts of Divination', and also the very basic 'Cycles of Change', 'Principles of the Five Elements', 'Essays in New Onmyouji', and several of the 'Imperial Directive'......" [3]
Natsume rambled on, and it sounded like an incantation to Harutora's ears, and even an incantation with 'evil' or 'dark' attributes.
"......Harutora, you live in the dorm, right?"
"Uh, yes."
"Then we'll begin your crash course in the dorms."
"Uh, but it's a male dorm......"
"I'm also a 'male student'."
"Uh, but......"
"You don't need to worry, I know a magic that will let you stay awake even through the night, and it can last for a whole week if you ignore the side effects."
She looked seriously at Harutora, her eyes flashing with a dangerous madness without any intention of joking. Even the exhausted Harutora unconsciously froze, his body stiffening.
But just then......
"...Natsume, the guy from noon came again." Touji's words were like a bucket of cold water.
The suit-wearing guy who had appeared during the noon break was waving his hand at them from the corridor outside the classroom. Natsume made a sound of surprise, her tone returning to normal.
"Oh no, I forgot about after class......"
"I, I see, it's really unfortunate, but we'll have to postpone that crash course--"
Harutora was planning on proposing that they forget about the matter, but Natsume suddenly stared at him, making him shut up like his mouth had been sewn shut.
Natsume took out a notepad, scribbling down the names of books with a mechanical pencil.
"...Here. The library should have all of these books, so go borrow them for now."
After writing that, she tore off the sheet and gave it to Harutora, herself hurriedly putting away her things.
"I'll return to the dorm later, so go read through those books first. No, you have to finish them, that's an order!"
After resolutely stating those words, Natsume rushed out of the room, her figure disappearing into the corridor with the man. The shikigami who had been left behind didn't even have the chance to say a word of opposition.
He looked down at the paper. All over the column of literature and reference books were words that he had never seen before, so it seemed that he would have to start by learning how to pronounce these words.
"Great, Harutora, Natsume-sensei seems very motivated."
"Touji, you couldn't have read all of these books before, right?"
"Unfortunately, because of physical problems, I get anemic once I read anything from before the Heisei era." [4]
His good friend's frivolous tone finally made Harutora relax his shoulders, sighing.
Speaking of grades, Harutora had originally been the preeminent king of failing, and in his previous high school he had often had to take remedial classes. No wonder he would encounter setbacks upon entering the academy and suddenly being expected to study a specific field like Onmyoudou.
"Have all the students here read and memorized these books?"
"The students who passed the Onmyou Academy exam to enter should more or less have read them."
"Are all the classes from now on going to be like that?"
"Didn't Tenma say, the first-year classes are centered around lectures."
Harutora collapsed back onto the table, and Touji looked into the distance while stroking his chin. The pupils of their eyes were hazy, and they had long since lost the energy to get angry.
"I feel like I'm barely hanging on......"
"The classes here are more tiring than I imagined."
"Is there any magic to improve the brain?"
"What kind of idiotic magic is that."
They opened their heavy eyes, talking about foolish topics. After speaking, the two of them went silent, looking at a daze towards the podium in the front.

The students all seemed too busy to talk, and only the two of them were left in the classroom.
Not long after, Harutora started leisurely folding the paper.
He folded it into two sides, making a paper airplane. Then, he lightly swung his arm. He and Touji silently watched the paper airplane leave his hand and slowly fly through the classroom, hit the blackboard, and fall a short distance onto the podium.
"......I'm so hungry."
"I'm hungry too."
"......Let's go."
"Okay."
Harutora had predicted correctly. Sure enough, the future would be difficult.
The Onmyou Academy had specifically prepared a student dorm to let students from around the nation gather here to live.
The dorm was split into male and female dorms, and the former was located a ten minute walk away from the academy. It was different from the newly constructed academy building, and even Harutora and Touji's ages added together were far less than the history of this dorm.
The dorm's outer wall was constructed of red brick. After they passed through the entrance, on one side was an eating area and lounge, and straight ahead was the modified shower and bathing area. Harutora had been assigned the second room on the second floor, and Touji was one room down.
There was still some time until dinner.
Harutora walked up the second floor with heavy steps, parting with Touji in the corridor.
The dorm room was six tatami mats large, and the tatami mats left by the previous student were still in Harutora's room, having never been switched.
After returning to his room, Harutora sighed deeply with a "Haaah......", rolling around on the floor without taking off his uniform.
He had arrived to the dorm yesterday evening and had first organized his luggage, but the only thing in his luggage other than the change of clothes stuffed in his bag was bedding. In addition, the only furniture in the room was a folding table, so it didn't look lived-in at all.
The empty room was just like the present Harutora - the Harutora who wanted to become an Onmyouji.
"I'm exhausted......"
He looked blankly up at the ceiling as he muttered. The ceiling was completely different from the one at home, and his environment had indeed changed.
...I'm really in Tokyo......
The first time he had come to Tokyo it was his first time living alone even though it was a dorm. Unfortunately, the exhilarating feeling of liberation from yesterday evening had disappeared after only a day.
"I'm just too useless......"
The teachers' stunned faces weren't much. Their attitudes afterwards as if Harutora didn't exist had been the hardest to bear. In addition, he hadn't profoundly felt the cold gazes and knowing smiles from the unfamiliar classmates during class, and he had only recognized how much that blow exceeded his imagination after he had left the academy and was on his own.
...He felt like he was being left out.
But, this situation was much better compared to the situation that Touji had predicted at the start. So far, Kurahashi Kyouko was the only one caught up over Harutora being a Tsuchimikado, so this had nothing much to do with the feeling of distress and alienation that plagued Harutora.
The problem was with Harutora himself.
"Damn......"
He had studied once before the entrance exam for the Onmyou Academy - he believed it counted as serious. But he only realized now when he was truly here how naive his thoughts back then had been. He had studied at best for half a year, and he feared that the 'sixteen wasted years of his life' that Natsume had spoken of was not an exaggeration.
Even so...
...'That's an order!'
"......Tch."
He couldn't help but click his tongue.
"I came here as a dropout......"
It had been his own decision to transfer, so he couldn't expect to be treated specially.
But... the thought 'I came here especially for you' refused to leave his head. He had given up on his past life to come to Natsume's side; however, she had only been happy at the start, and upon noticing Harutora's ignorance - actually, she should have had suspicions long ago - she had immediately betrayed him, crying 'this is the biggest shame I've experienced in my life.' What kind of a joke was that, he was the one who got shamed, Natsume was just feeling embarrassed by herself.
"Come to think about it, could that girl be treating her shikigami like a pet she raised?"
He had never come in contact with the Onmyouji world in his life, so naturally he was amazingly ignorant. She should have wanted to console him upon seeing her childhood friend this pained, reassuring him by showing with a tender voice and gaze... Don't worry, Harutora, I'm here......
"Impossible......"
He tried to imagine it, but he couldn't put together that scene no matter how he tried. If Natsume were that cute of a girl, he wouldn't have let himself become distant from her during middle school.
As he thought and thought, the face of a dead friend suddenly emerged in his mind.
"......Hokuto."
He recalled the happy times when he, Touji, and Hokuto had fun together. Even now, his heart hurt once he thought that those times would never return.
No, though the shikigami who was a girl on the outside - Hokuto - had disappeared, the practitioner who controlled her should still be somewhere in the world, and it wasn't impossible to regain those nostalgic times. Maybe he could see the true Hokuto - the person who had controlled Hokuto, and one of the reasons that Harutora had stepped into this world.
He wanted to see Hokuto.
He wanted to see her and talk freely with her some day. What would Hokuto think if she knew that he had entered the Onmyou Academy and was suffering there? Would she be happy for him, or encourage him?
Maybe she would also be stunned at his uselessness, but even if she were stunned, she would still laugh and tell him to cheer up afterwards. She had a sharp tongue, but she definitely wasn't the same as Natsume who thought that such performance reflected on her own self.
"Ah, Hokuto told me long ago that I should ask my dad about Onmyoudou basics."
Harutora twisted his body on the floor while muttering.
Then, he suddenly rose.
"Right......"
He recalled that his father had given him a farewell gift before he left home.
It was a shikigami - that is, a shikigami talisman.
He hastily rushed over to his athletic bag stuffed full of clothes.
"I forgot because I was too busy yesterday......!"
Since your goal is to become an Onmyouji, you are a member of the 'Tsuchimikado'.
His father had said this back then and given the talisman to Harutora as he was about to leave home. He remembered that this was the first time his father had mentioned the name 'Tsuchimikado' to him.
Harutora didn't even know what kind of shikigami this was, and he hadn't even thought about asking to clarify. But, his father had given him this shikigami while specially mentioning the name 'Tsuchimikado', so even if he didn't expect a tremendous servant shikigami like Natsume's dragon Hokuto, he still couldn't help but expect a shikigami that was perhaps useful and prestigious like that white horse Yukikaze. In addition, since the main family had a dragon, the branch family was naturally a tiger. It could even be a strong one to make the teachers and students admire him, a fearful, extraordinarily strong shikigami......
"Found it!'
He took out a paper envelope the size of a playing card. The paper was thin, like a protection charm a shrine would sell, and the back was sealed with wax, with the word 'Tsuchimikado' written on the front in ink along with the pentagram family mark. Inside was placed a shikigami charm - the charm that the shikigami used as a vessel. But...
"......Crap, how do I use this?" He had used healing charms and had also used protection charms reflexively in the incidents before. Outside of charms, he had also once used - though he had just swung it around randomly - the strong 'Protection Sword'.
But, this was his first time touching a shikigami charm.
Maybe Natsume would know how to use it, but after encountering that attitude, he wanted to surprise Natsume if he could.
"......Could this have an instructions manual?"
Hoping weakly, Harutora planned on opening the seal on the back.
That moment, a tingle abruptly ran through the pentagram on his cheek.