Enrollment Arc, Part II

by Tsutomu Sato

  In contrast, man-to-man combat magic that launched your opponent was completed with just movement magic—one process. The objective was to damage the opponent in the first place, so there was no need for an extra process to soften the impact.

  “I’d think five would be more than enough to use in combat…”

  In general, consumer-use magic required more layers of processing than did combat-use magic. As Mizuki said, one-to five-process magic would probably cover the majority of combat spells.

  “It’s not like I’m not studying magic for combat, though. I still need activation programs to get the most out of spells with more than one step, and I’m slower than others at doing that, so I’m naturally seen as inferior—which is fine,” he said, giving another thin smile. For some reason, though, Mizuki looked up at him with a film over her eyes. For a moment, Tatsuya got a terrible feeling—had he made a fatal mistake somewhere? But that calculation error itself was quickly shown to have been a mistaken result.

  “That’s amazing, Tatsuya… I really respect that!” she said, fascinated, folding her hands in front of her. For Tatsuya, anyway, she had just said something he couldn’t ignore.

  “Huh?”

  “Normally people want to be magicians because they can use magic…but you actually have a real goal in mind for studying it…”

  “Um, well, that’s true, but…”

  “I must mend my ways!”

  “Err…”

  “I was really only studying magic to learn how to control my eyes, and I’ve never really given much thought to what I want to use magic for in the future, but from now on, I’ll be certain to think about it!”

  What? She…she wasn’t trying to keep the stuff about her eyes a secret? thought Tatsuya at last, but he couldn’t get a word in edgewise because her energy was overwhelming him. “Hello? Miss Mizuki?”

  “I see, I get it. If you have a clear objective, then of course you wouldn’t fall apart just because someone spoke badly about you. If you can achieve goals that are important to your life, then your grades in school are really just secondary! That’s what makes it worth living. Everyone lives their lives searching for meaning—”

  “Hey, Mizuki, what are you all excited for?”

  Mizuki’s solo recital—during the middle of class—continued until Erika cut in.

  At last, Mizuki noticed the strange stares of her classmates—or the blank stares, really—and blushed and looked down.

  As he watched her do so, he kept his expression discreet so as not to let his cynicism show on his face.

  Meaning of life? That was far more than what it was. He never had the option of living a life without magic. He wasn’t going to become a magician because he could use magic. He had been made into a magician despite being unable to use magic.

  Magic had been a curse for him ever since the moment he was born. All he was doing was struggling to change it into something he could tolerate.

  But… If it was normal to become a magician if you could use magic, then it wouldn’t be odd in the slightest for magicians in the making to reject magic.

  And then he thought…that maybe, just maybe, he’d made a slight error in his thinking.

  And then, at lunch break, Tatsuya ended up staying behind anyway…because Erika and Leo begged him to.

  “A thousand and sixty milliseconds… Keep it up. Just a little more.”

  “I-it’s so far away… I had no idea point-one seconds could be so far away…”

  “You don’t say time is far away, stupid. It’s long.”

  “Erika… You got a thousand and fifty-two milliseconds.”

  “Ahhhhh! Stop it! I was making fun of him to take a break!”

  “I-I’m sorry…”

  “No, it’s okay, Mizuki. Gotta face reality, no matter how harsh it is to you…”

  “…I don’t give a damn about this stupid play thing you’re doing! Stop treating people like toys!”

  Erika and Leo had been cooperating to fail at the exercise ever since class was in session, so they’d asked Tatsuya to coach them.

  “Leo, you’re taking too long to take aim. You’re not trying to be a perfect marksman, here.”

  “Yeah, I know, but…” Leo, who no longer had the energy to hide his complaints, nodded in agreement.

  “Well, I suppose you do… Well, guess I’ll share a trick with you—what if you aim it first, then read in the activation program?”

  “Wait, you can do that?”

  “Yeah, but it’s a trick. It’s not practical, and it would only work here, so I don’t really want to teach you how…”

  “What? Please, Tatsuya! I don’t care if it’s a trick or a cheat or whatever, just tell me!”

  Leo put his hands together over his head and begged. Tatsuya sighed. “Don’t put words in my mouth. It’s not against the rules or anything… Geez, and I’ve been saying how bad I am at application this whole time, too. If you want to learn, you should ask someone with actual skill.”

  “You say you’re bad at it, but you’re better than me! And you even know how compilation works on the inside. You’re the only one pointing out what I’m doing wrong, too.”

  “I said I’ll teach you—no need to flatter me… And as for Erika…”

  “What could it be? I don’t care if it’s a cheat or against the rules or whatever, please tell me! My stomach is growling!”

  “I said, stop putting words in my mouth! Uhh, right, as for you… I don’t know what the issue is.”

  “Whaaaat?”

  “Frankly, I don’t understand why you can’t do this. You’re compiling far smoother than I was.”

  “No way! Don’t abandon me, Tatsuya!”

  Teary-eyed—probably as an act—she put her fingers together and looked up at him, clinging to him with her gaze. He sighed again.

  The two of them act the exact same way, he thought. But he said something else. “Well, how about this? Erika, when you’re reading in the activation program, try putting your hands on top of each other on the panel.”

  “Huh?” At that, Erika—and Mizuki as well—gave him blank stares. “…That’s it?”

  “I’m not confident or anything, so if it works out, I’ll explain why.”

  “O-okay… I’ll give it a shot.”

  After Tatsuya saw her put her doubts to the side for the moment and face the stationary CAD, he started to lecture Leo on the “trick.”

  Excess psionic light glimmered, and numbers other than the time were displayed on the top part of the small, round target. It was a scale attached to the target, showing the maximum pressure applied by the single weighting-type spell. It was set up so that it would record the time it took to actually activate when the scale detected a certain amount of force.

  “One thousand ten milliseconds. Erika, you went down forty milliseconds all at once! Just one more push and you’ll have it!”

  “O-okay, I got this! I feel like I can do this now!”

  “One thousand sixteen. Don’t hesitate, Leo. You know where the target is. You don’t need to bother looking at it.”

  “G-got it. Next time for sure!”

  As Tatsuya and Mizuki reset the measure, Erika and Leo closed their eyes, stretched their arms, and focused their minds, each in their own way, to get ready to try again.

  Then, from behind Tatsuya came a reserved voice.

  “Tatsuya, may I be so rude as to interrupt…?”

  He knew the voice belonged to his sister without needing to turn around.

  Erika, though, did turn around at the multiple pairs of footsteps.

  “Miyuki… Oh, and Mitsui and Kitayama, right?”

  “Erika, don’t lose focus,” chided Tatsuya. “Sorry, Miyuki. One more and we’ll be good, so just wait a minute.”

  “Eh?”

  “I understand. I truly apologize, Tatsuya.”

  Miyuki smiled and gave a slight bow when Tatsuya turned around and apologized.

  Leo grimaced at the noncha
lant pressure that had been placed on him. Tatsuya nodded his head to him. “Okay, this is the moment of truth.”

  He hadn’t raised his voice, but his tone had been peremptory.

  “Right!”

  “Okay! This is it!”

  The two of them, brimming with spirit, turned toward the CAD panel.

  “We’re finally done!”

  Erika’s cheer was the bell announcing the end of the lesson.

  “Hoo… Danke, Tatsuya!”

  Tatsuya lifted a hand to Leo’s word of thanks and addressed Miyuki. She was coming this way with a smile. Her two classmates, Honoka Mitsui and Shizuku Kitayama, followed with their own smiles, though hesitant.

  “Excellent work, both of you,” she congratulated Erika and Leo, then asked, “Tatsuya, I’ve brought what you asked for… But is this enough?”

  Tatsuya shook his head. “Well, there’s not much time left anyway, so it’s about the right amount. Thank you for coming, Miyuki. And Mitsui and Kitayama, as well. I apologize for making you help me out.”

  He had already gotten to the point where he’d seen them around and spoken to them on occasion, but the two surrounding Miyuki were still only acquaintances; they weren’t yet friends to him. That was why he seemed a bit reserved when he spoke to them.

  “No, not at all—this was nothing much!”

  “We’re okay. I’m actually pretty strong.”

  Honoka’s answer came with unexpected strength, and Shizuku’s with ambiguity as to whether she was serious or joking. He thanked both of them again, then took plastic bags from the three of them, including Miyuki.

  “Here.” He held them out to Erika and Leo.

  “What?”

  “Sandwiches…?”

  Inside the bags were sandwiches and drinks they sold at the store.

  “If we went to the cafeteria to eat, we wouldn’t make it back in time for our afternoon classes,” he said, taking a bento box from Miyuki.

  “Aw, thanks! I was totally starving!”

  “Tatsuya, you’re the best!”

  He gave a dry grin to his mercurial friends, then sat down in a nearby chair when Mizuki, too, addressed him in a reserved way. “…Is this all right? Aren’t food and drink not allowed in the training rooms?”

  “That’s just for the area around the information terminals. School rules don’t have much to say about eating and drinking in the classroom.”

  “Wait, is that true?”

  “Yeah. Reading the school rules carefully would tell you that. I completely thought it wouldn’t be allowed myself, so I was a little surprised,” answered Tatsuya calmly, picking up his chopsticks. Mizuki was convinced and held out her hands.

  “Huh… Well, in that case, don’t mind if I do!” Leo unwrapped his sandwich and began to devour it.

  “Please, you wouldn’t have minded anyway,” retorted Erika, biting into her sandwich in an oddly refined fashion.

  At the lively table—well, they didn’t have a table, so they brought over some chairs—Tatsuya and the rest of the party that had stayed behind began their late lunch.

  Miyuki and the suppliers had brought just drinks for themselves and joined the circle.

  “Did you three already eat?” asked Mizuki, probably in consideration.

  “Yes. I was told by my brother to eat before him,” answered Miyuki.

  “Hmm, that’s a little unexpected. I thought for sure you’d say something like I could not possibly partake of my food before my brother!” Erika’s retort was spoken with more of a smirk than a grin.

  They could tell from her face she wasn’t serious. Those who heard her didn’t reply seriously, either.

  —Except for one person.

  “Oh my, you really understand, Erika. Normally, you’d be right, of course, but I did so today at my brother’s command. I cannot reject my brother’s words with my own selfish hesitations.”

  “…Normally…”

  “Yes.”

  “…‘Of course,’ huh…?”

  “Yes, that’s right, why?”

  Erika’s smirk was starting to cramp, and Miyuki replied to her with seriousness, tilting her head to the side.

  As if to wipe away the suddenly much heavier air, Mizuki began to talk in an unnaturally high tone of voice. “Miyuki, your class started practice today, too, right? What were you all doing?”

  Honoka and Shizuku exchanged glances.

  Their expressions were tinged with awkward reserve.

  Miyuki, though, contrary to her classmates’ attitudes, didn’t make a big deal out of it; she lifted her lips from her straw and answered immediately. “I don’t think it was any different from what you all were doing, Mizuki. We were provided a dull-witted device and made to do boring practice that could never have any practical use outside a test environment.”

  Everyone aside from Tatsuya looked taken aback. Those were blistering remarks for one who portrayed herself as a proper lady.

  “You seem like you’re in a bad mood.”

  “Yes, and I am displeased. The exercise would have been more useful to practice alone,” answered Miyuki, smiling, to her brother’s almost-teasing words, speaking in a pouty—and yet still obvious to onlookers, a fawning—voice.

  “Huh… Maybe all that tutoring wasn’t such a good thing.”

  “I will admit that I am blessed. I apologize if I’ve offended you,” said Miyuki, bowing seriously.

  “No, no, you didn’t offend me at all,” replied Erika, waving a hand lightly.

  “It’s only natural they’d separate the students with potential. Even in our dojo, people without potential get left alone.”

  “Erika, your family runs a dojo?” asked Mizuki.

  “It’s a side job, but yeah, we do a little of the old style of kenjutsu.”

  “Oh, so that’s why…” Mizuki nodded, convinced. She was probably thinking of when Erika smacked Morisaki’s CAD out of his hands with her extending baton.

  “Chiba… You think it’s only natural?” That was Honoka, hesitantly getting a few words in.

  “You can call me Erika. Actually—I command you to call me that!”

  “What do you keep acting so high and mighty for?”

  Leo’s exasperated retort seemed to give Honoka just enough time to recompose herself. “Then you can call me Honoka, too, Erika.”

  “Okay, got it! It’s natural, and maybe that’s why Course 1 kids get instructors and Course 2 kids don’t?”

  “…Yes, that’s right,” said Honoka slowly, nodding.

  “Then it’s only natural, right?” said Erika, nodding without any reservation. “It’s the obvious thing to do, so I don’t see why you or Miyuki need to feel bad about it,” she declared absently.

  “…You really put things bluntly, eh?” asked Leo.

  “Hmm? Leo, are you just mad about how things are?”

  “No, I don’t think there’s any other option either, but…” His answer was stammered, unusually for him.

  “I see! But I think it’s only natural, not that there’s no other option,” she answered, crisply and smoothly.

  “…May I ask why?” said Honoka.

  Erika cocked her head to the side. After a short silence to let her get her thoughts in order, she scratched at a temple with a finger and said, “Hmm… I’ve just thought it was only natural this whole time, so it’s a little hard to explain… Well, like, our dojo doesn’t teach skills for at least half a year after students join.”

  “That right?” nodded Tatsuya, very interested.

  “We only teach how to move your feet and practice swings at the beginning. And we only have to show them one time, and then watch as they do their practice swings over and over. Then, if they get to a point where they can really wield a katana, we start teaching them skills.”

  “…But then wouldn’t there be students who would never get to that point no matter how long they tried?”

  “Yeah, there are!” nodded Erika to Honoka’s question. “And th
ose kind of people—they want to ignore their own lack of effort. The thing is, if they don’t get used to the motion of swinging a katana and moving their bodies, then they’ll never grasp the skills we try to teach them.”

  “Oh…” grunted Mizuki.

  Erika glanced at her, then continued. “And to do that, they need to swing a katana on their own. They learn how by watching. There’s plenty of examples all around them. It wouldn’t make any sense to wait for something to be taught to you. And thinking you’ll be taught from the beginning is a naive way of thinking, too. The instructors and the masters are people currently in training themselves, you know? They have their own training to do. Guys who can’t absorb what they’re taught would be talking nonsense if they asked for someone to teach them.”

  Tatsuya watched quite interestedly as Erika, suddenly excited, went on and on with her strong declarations.

  “…Thanks for the explanation, I guess, but both you and me were just getting Tatsuya to teach us, remember?”

  “Ack! Ouch! It hurts when you say that.” Leo’s indication made her grimace, but her absent attitude didn’t change. “I mean, that was, like, something we had to do to get out of the immediate problem we were having… But I think if the person you’re teaching isn’t at a suitable level for you to teach them, then it’ll end up bad for both ends. Well, the worst thing is when the one teaching can’t keep up with the one being taught.”

  She gave a quick, meaningful wink.

  Tatsuya smirked in an ill-natured way. “Unfortunately, it looks like we got the worst result today. In the end, my record was over a hundred milliseconds slower than yours, Erika.”

  A thin bead of cold sweat ran down Erika’s temple. “Oh, uh, I wasn’t, I didn’t mean that… C-come to think of it, you didn’t reveal how the trick worked! Hey, why did my time go down so much just by putting my other hand on top?”

  She forced the topic to change.

  It was clear to everyone she was diverting the conversation, but it seemed like if they persisted too much, they’d be feeling the unpleasant effects of it much later, so Tatsuya obediently let the topic be changed.

  “What? It’s simple. You’re used to a one-handed style for your CAD.”