by Tsutomu Sato
“Then you say we should wait here like this?”
“I am unsure what decision to make in that regard. We should not let unauthorized conduct be, but I don’t believe this crime deserves a hasty resolution if it means destroying school property. I inquired as to whether or not the school could open the door using the security surveillance system, but I was denied a response.”
That meant they couldn’t force a resolution for the situation. Accordingly, Katsuto’s stance was close to that of Suzune’s. Then they couldn’t do anything but wait like this.
Tatsuya gave a polite bow and stepped back, and Mari shot him with an unhappy stare. He hadn’t been urged on by her thorny gaze, but he took his portable terminal out of his pocket and booted it into call mode.
They could only wait, but if they weren’t going to do anything else, he wouldn’t have stood up and asked the question.
The call tone rang five times, then connected. “Is this Mibu? It’s Shiba.”
A few more surprised looks were directed at him.
“…And where are you now?”
Even more sets of perplexed eyes stared hard at him.
“I see—the broadcasting room. That is…unfortunate.”
A moment later he grimaced—possibly because a loud voice had shouted back at him before the volume controller could kick in. They couldn’t do any more than speculate, though, given the canal-shaped receiver was almost completely soundproof.
“No, I am not making fun of you. Mibu, please, consider the situation a little more calmly… Yes, I’m sorry. Now then, what I called you for…”
Mari’s, Suzune’s, and a few others’ ears perked up. They must have known they still wouldn’t be able to hear the voice on the other end, but they didn’t want to let a single word Tatsuya said slip by them.
“Chairman Juumonji has stated that he will accept negotiations. We still don’t know the student council president’s opinion—oh, the student council president thinks the same way.” Suzune gestured and Tatsuya immediately corrected himself. “With that said, they’d like to meet with you to determine a time and place for the negotiations… Yes, right now. That way the school won’t have to get involved… No, I can guarantee your freedom, Mibu. We’re not the police, so we can’t throw you behind bars or anything… All right.”
He took his ear from his calling unit and stowed the device along with the rest of his terminal, then turned back to Mari. “She said they’ll come out right away.”
“Was that Sayaka Mibu?”
“Yes. She gave me her private number so that we could meet, but it seems to have come in handy for another reason.”
Behind him, Miyuki cast her eyes down a little. It wasn’t so pronounced that it would seem unnatural, but he immediately knew she was doing it to hide her irritation behind her long hair.
“You’re a quick worker, you are…”
“You misunderstand.” Tatsuya didn’t notice it, however, since his awareness had been partially on Mari’s false accusation—for better or worse. At the very least, she had the good sense not to recklessly give him a sharp pinch in the back or anything. “Anyway, I think we should get ready.”
Without looking behind him (in other words, at Miyuki), he suggested their next course of action to Mari, Suzune, and Katsuto.
“Get ready?” Mari looked at him, wondering what he was saying.
Tatsuya looked back at her, exasperated, wondering what she was saying. “We need to get ready to arrest them. They stole a key. They probably brought their CADs with them, and they might have other weapons, too.”
“…I thought you just said something along the lines of guaranteeing their freedom.”
“The only person I guaranteed freedom to was Mibu. Also, I didn’t suggest anything that would imply I was negotiating on behalf of the disciplinary committee.”
This time, not only Mari, but Suzune and Katsuto as well, were taken aback.
The only exception present chided him lightly. “You’re a bad person, Tatsuya.”
“It took you long enough to notice, Miyuki.”
“Hee-hee, I suppose so.” Her tone of voice, though, was tinged with amusement.
“However, Tatsuya, regarding how you saved Mibu’s private number to your terminal—that is a different matter. You will tell me all about it later, won’t you?” added Miyuki with a broad smile and an even more amused tone of voice.
“What’s going on here?!”
Perhaps as they’d expected, and perhaps as was only natural, Sayaka pressed Tatsuya for an explanation.
Including her, there had been five people taking over the broadcasting room. As Tatsuya had thought, they possessed CADs, but didn’t have any other firearms or bladed weapons with them. Tatsuya personally felt that showed a complete lack of resolve, but they didn’t think they were doing anything wrong, so maybe it was a matter of course that their efforts had been unsatisfactory.
The four aside from Sayaka were arrested by members of the disciplinary committee, but they only confiscated Sayaka’s CAD. Mari had given consideration to Tatsuya’s reputation, and this was the result. Tatsuya himself felt he didn’t necessarily need to keep any oral promises, though.
Sayaka’s hands were reaching for his chest, and Tatsuya held her wrists in his. He had smoothly grabbed the hands trying to grab his collar, and he looked back at her indignation without expression.
“You tricked us!” She struggled to break her hands free, and Tatsuya simply let them go. She tried to complain further, but a voice addressed her from behind.
“Shiba has not tricked you.”
The heavy, strong tones caused Sayaka to tremble briefly. “Chairman Juumonji…”
“We will hear your excuses. We will also accept your negotiations. But acquiescing to your demands and accepting the actions you’ve taken as proper are separate issues.”
Sayaka’s aggressiveness faded. She swallowed her anger at the power of Katsuto, the overseer of all extracurricular activities.
“That may be true, but could I get you to release them?”
But then, with those words, a petite person stepped between Tatsuya and Sayaka. She had her back turned to him, as if to shield him.
“Saegusa?” Katsuto said dubiously.
“But Mayumi…” Mari began to argue.
Mayumi cut her argument off before it could begin. “I think I know what you want to say, Mari. But Mibu can’t meet with us to plan the negotiations by herself. And she’s a student of this school; she can’t run away.”
“We would never run away!” Sayaka snapped reflexively at her.
Mayumi, however, didn’t directly respond to her words. “I’ve just returned from consulting with the head life coach. They will apparently leave the matter of the stolen key and the use of the broadcasting facility without permission to the student council.”
Her explanation was nonchalant, describing both her lateness and the position they were currently placed in. Still, Sayaka and the others didn’t show fear. Regardless of the right or wrong of the situation, Tatsuya felt that their nerves of steel were praiseworthy.
“Mibu, I would like for you all to meet with the student council regarding the negotiations; could you come along with me?”
“…Yes, we will.”
“Juumonji, I will see you later, okay?”
“Understood.”
“I’m sorry, Mari. I hesitated to do this because it seemed like I’d be stealing your glory.”
“I may feel like that just a little bit, but practically speaking, there’s no advantage to getting any glory. Don’t worry about it.”
“You’re right. All right. Tatsuya, Miyuki, you two may feel free to leave for the day.”
There was a very short period of time where they were surprised, and Miyuki was the first one to recover from the situation. “…Thank you, President. We will take our leave.” She gave a polite bow. Tatsuya silently followed suit, then they left.
The next day, Tatsuy
a and Miyuki left the house earlier than usual.
Not to get to school early, but to get to the station early.
Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait very long.
“Good morning, President.”
Mayumi was small in stature even for a girl, but she wasn’t the sort who would get lost in a crowd. Her silhouette gave off a much stronger sense of presence than others, allowing Tatsuya to pick her out immediately.
“Tatsuya? Miyuki, too. What’s the matter?”
Their ambush seemed to come as a surprise to Mayumi—well, of course it did. She had no leeway to put together her usual jovial attitude, and instead gave an unsophisticated, unexceptional response to them.
Surprising her wasn’t their goal this morning, though. Tatsuya didn’t bother with any needless fooling around and got to the point right away. “I was wondering about yesterday. Would you tell me how your discussion with Mibu and the others after that ended up?”
At Tatsuya’s demand, Mayumi’s eyes widened a bit. “How surprising.” Not only did it come out in her expression, it also came out in her words. “Tatsuya, you don’t seem like the type of person to pry into the affairs of others.”
“I wouldn’t if it were unrelated, but that’s not the case.”
“I see.” Upon hearing his answer, though, she nodded as though convinced. Tatsuya was already related in no small way to the activities of their “willing coalition.” Even if he’d wanted to treat it as someone else’s problem, they weren’t going to let him off the hook. Mayumi agreed, feeling that he was entitled to hear what would happen now—and even if she hadn’t, she was going to announce it to everyone first thing in the morning anyway. “They demand equal treatment of Course 1 and Course 2 students. But they don’t seem to have given much thought to anything concrete they want to do. It actually felt more like they wanted the student council to work out the specifics. So it turned into a rather heated dispute. We had originally wanted to talk about negotiations afterward yesterday, so we ended up deciding on a public debate in the lecture hall after school tomorrow.”
“Things escalated quickly…” The way in which Tatsuya was surprised could actually be called reserved. The impression coming from him was more one of “finally” than anything else, so he wasn’t very surprised. He considered dragging them into a fair fight would lead to the quickest results and fastest resolution in the first place, even if it left a bad taste in some people’s mouths. But his reaction was probably pretty in the minority. As a case in point, the development had not been something Miyuki had expected—her eyes were wide and she was unable to speak.
“I can understand the tactic of not giving those engaging in guerrilla warfare any time to spare, but that means we don’t have time to think of a plan, either. Who from the student council will be participating in this debate?”
Tatsuya’s question was answered with a smile that said well done from Mayumi. She pointed at her face.
“…You, by yourself, President?”
His tone was half-believing but half-dubious. And Miyuki was completely at a loss for words.
“I’ll have Hanzou come up on stage with me, but I’ll be the only one talking. Because, as you said, there’s not enough time for a briefing. And by myself, there’s no threat of us bumping heads against each other for slight discrepancies in viewpoints. I’d be afraid of emotions being brought in to manipulate impressions, in that case.”
“So with a logical argument you cannot lose?” asked Tatsuya. Mayumi gave him a confident nod.
“And also,” she continued lightly, her voice imbued with a hint of anticipation, “if they do happen to possess concrete evidence enough to defeat me, then all we have to do is incorporate that into managing the school.”
It almost sounded to him like she was hoping she’d be out-argued.
Just after the announcement that the unprecedented debate would be held tomorrow, the coalition (as the “coalition of the willing who aim to abolish discrimination at school” came to be called) immediately energized its activities.
Though in an unrefined way, they tried to increase their supporters as well—coalition members recruiting sympathizers began to be seen in every nook and cranny of the school before classes, during breaks, and after school.
They all wore white wristbands with blue and red edges. Tatsuya wondered if they decided it wasn’t worth hiding anymore or if they just didn’t know what the symbol meant—he thought it was the former. He still couldn’t agree with the thinking that ignorance was an excuse, though. He believed blame to be attached to actions rather than an internal thing.
However, it didn’t necessarily make him want to hamper the coalition’s actions. It was only natural they’d want to get their hands on many sympathizers and “have a discussion” with them. He had no intention of interfering with people unrelated to him who were deluding emotionally immature high school students with emotional words and dragging them down into a bottomless swamp. (Though that was a terrible thought in a number of ways.)
On the other hand, if it was someone he was related to—though as a student of First High, nothing that happened in the school was really unrelated—he was not about to allow these deceptive temptations.
“Mizuki.”
After school, on the day before the debate, he spotted a confused freshman being spoken to by what was likely a senior wearing the wristband in question on his right hand. Mizuki was clutching some sort of paintings to her chest, so she was probably in the middle of delivering things for her club. The fact they were using non-digital materials in this day and age probably meant there were more than a few people in the school art club who preferred it that way, but that didn’t matter right now.
“Oh, Tatsuya!”
She saw him and gave a relieved expression. Judging by her look, she’d been wrapped up with this for a fair amount of time.
First, Tatsuya scanned the upperclassman from his head down. He was tall, and though at first glance he would seem scrawny, he actually had a body trained in martial arts.
He’d seen that figure before.
It was none other than the male student who had attacked him with magic and fled during the absolute nonsense that was the club recruitment week.
“I am Shiba, from the disciplinary committee. If you keep her for too long, you may be seen as a nuisance, so please step back.”
He suddenly addressed the upperclassman without stopping to glance at Mizuki’s expression. Still, though, he didn’t try and interrogate him about the incident that happened during the new student recruitment week. He would never have admitted to anything even if Tatsuya did ask, and if he turned around and said they were false accusations, it would have the opposite effect. Tatsuya slid between Mizuki and the upperclassman with an air of nonchalance and faced him directly.
There was no emblem on his left breast.
On his face were small, square glasses. They didn’t look fake.
“All right. I’ll leave for now. Miss Shibata, I am free at any time, so if you change your mind, give me a call.”
The upperclassman was acting supremely gentlemanly (though more the Italian kind than the British kind) and pulled back. Once his departing figure disappeared from the hallway into the stairwell, he asked Mizuki about everything.
“He’s the captain of the kendo club. He said his name was Kinoe Tsukasa… He has pushion radiation sensitivity, too. He wanted to know if I would be part of a circle he made with other students with sensitivities.”
Tatsuya didn’t expect Mizuki to come out and reveal the issue with her “eyes” herself. However, he was already convinced she had pushion radiation sensitivity, so he wasn’t all that surprised.
“And what did he say? That you should share your burdens?”
“No, he said that his symptoms had improved a lot since entering the circle, so maybe it would help me, too…”
“Oh my.” Pretty sketchy, he didn’t say.
He didn’t need to say it t
o understand Mizuki felt the same.
For the obstructions caused by magic-related senses being too sharp, controlling those sensing abilities was the one and only way to combat it. And in order to come to be able to control that ability, proper training was the fastest route.
Even without personal care from an instructor, the school’s program was the closest to “proper training” you could get, so it was rather hard to think that a small circle of students could provide an even more effective regimen. It would be one thing if the circle had an instructor to guide them, but the whole reason behind the Courses 1 and 2 split in the first place was the hopeless lack of teaching faculty.
“I told him a few times I was too busy with classes…”
“Right. It’s better to not be greedy and go along one step at a time, right?”
Mizuki nodded in agreement with his commonplace advice and headed for her club room.
Tatsuya started walking in the other direction and thought. It was probably coincidence that he’d come across her being accosted. But everything other than that couldn’t have been a coincidence. The whole “circle” business was no more than a front, or perhaps bait; doubtless the kid’s real plan was to lure her into their group. Judging by how the coalition had taken the practical measure of attacking him before going active, that senior was the real thing. At the very least, he wasn’t someone who’d been lured in, but someone who did the fishing.
The captain of the kendo club, Kinoe Tsukasa …
I need to try looking into this senior in depth, he thought, making up his mind.
After dinner, during the time he would have usually been washing off the sweat and dirt from the day, Tatsuya was speeding along on an electric bicycle he’d just bought.
His destination was the Yakumo temple.
He didn’t go there on foot because other than early morning and the middle of the night, there would always be the eyes of train passengers and passersby. The use of magic without proper reason was an act that carried a criminal punishment. Even a minor wouldn’t escape substantial punishment.
