Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei - Volume 03 - Nine Schools Competition (I) (20 page)

This "something" seemed to order Mizuki to turn back.

Like threatening her to desist her advance.

However, her feet did not come to a halt.

Logic demanded that she turn back, but Mizuki was a member of the magic community and destined to walk side by side with magic, so Mizuki's instincts instructed her to use her pair of "eyes" to ascertain what this something was.

There were very few people in the Technical Skills Building, so there were no sounds of friction or loud laughter.

The overhead lights on the ceiling maintained a degree of brightness that made for comfortable browsing of tiny letters.

Just as usual.

No, this was a school for magic instruction and this was the Technical Skills Building frequented by many individuals.

If an incident had occurred, it couldn't have gone unnoticed by the instructors and upperclassmen.

In comparison to ordinary high schools, magic high schools had no place for ghost stories or urban legends.

Since no alarm was triggered, that meant that the unusual situation that Mizuki detected was the product of magic.

Otherwise — the true spiritual manifestation that could not be detected by modern magic.

An ominous feeling wrapped around her heart and caused her back to quiver, but Mizuki pressed forward as if being herded in or dragged in without her control.

As Mizuki was led upstairs, she noticed a faint, pleasant smell lingering in the air.

She had encountered this fragrance during Magic Medicine class.

The fragrance was a combination of many incense woods that produced a sedative effect.

She pursed the pulse towards the medicine labs.

The irregular pushion lights seemed to be caused by a certain student's magical experiment.

After verifying that this wasn't a true spiritual manifestation, Mizuki let out a sigh of relief.

And so, the sense of curiosity that was lurking behind her wall of unease peeked its head out.

One of the fundamental lessons first taught in Magic Technical Skills class is that one must never intrude on another person's magic experiment site without permission.
Unannounced guests run the risk of accidentally triggering the magic area and may even cause the magic to spontaneously burst out of control.
The school has repeatedly reminded them that it is extremely dangerous and foolish for Magicians-in-training — such as new students like them — to barge into magic experiments unannounced.

However, the current Mizuki had completely forgotten that warning.

Mizuki's misdirected sense of caution prompted her to surreptitiously sneak over and nudge a small crack in the door.

She meticulously avoided making any noise and peeked into the room's interior from the crack.

In that instant—

Mizuki was barely able to swallow her scream of terror.

No, rather than being one of terror, it was simply a scream of surprise.

Inside the medicine lab, there were many blue, sky blue, and dark blue orbs dancing through the air.

Each orb had an independent "strength" and "consciousness".

Mizuki knew through "visual confirmation" that all things in the natural order possessed differing strengths that did not tilt towards any particular direction, but maintained a constant state of flux.
Mizuki was quite familiar with scenes of "strength"-based natural phenomena that congregated as floating orbs.
In her "eyes", the myriad details of the world were similar to the pushion flow that the human consciousness released.

However, this was the first time Mizuki felt that the floating congregates possessed a "consciousness".

(Spirits.
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.
?
)

Is this what they call spirits — she thought.

Mizuki was deeply moved by this, enough to abandon all other thoughts.

And the person who summoned these spirits was—

"Yoshida-kun.
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.
?"

Completely abandoning any caution whatsoever, Mizuki softly murmured.

This was an entirely subconscious action.

Even so, the one whose name was called was no pushover.

Especially because he was situated in a private location where no one would pass by and the fact that someone witnessed his secret "magic".

"Who's there!"

A completely reflexive inquiry.

His words were laced with the fury of being discovered, causing the "consciousness" in the "orbs" to react.

"Ah!"

As the orbs swarmed forward, Mizuki screamed and clenched her eyes shut.

Simultaneously, a "strong gust" approached from her flank, forcing her to duck down.

But this was a flow of psions that would neither disturb a hair nor rustle her dress.

The gust swept back the swarming orbs and protected Mizuki, but she had no way of knowing with her eyes closed.

Trembling with trepidation, Mizuki slowly opened her eyes to find Mikihiko hatefully glaring at Tatsuya, who calmly accepted this gaze without expression.

".
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Mikihiko, relax, I don't want to throw down with you here."

At Tatsuya's sudden appearance, Mizuki could only stare with wide eyes from her kneeling position.
Before her, Tatsuya had two empty hands raised before him.

This was universal for both Magicians and mundanes, a sign that the person in question did not wish to fight.

Mikihiko revealed a thoroughly astounded expression and his enmity vanished at the same moment, as if it had never appeared in the first place.

This quickly dispelled the tense atmosphere.
Mizuki finally shed her frozen posture and rose with a crestfallen Mikihiko in front of her.

".
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Tatsuya, my apologies, I didn't mean to do that."

Mikihiko looked like a lost child without a home.

All of a sudden, Mizuki felt the urge to "comfort him", but was anxious because she couldn't find the appropriate words.

Fortunately, they managed to avoid the awkward period of silence.

"I don't mind, so put your mind at ease.
At the end of the day, it was Mizuki's fault for disrupting the caster's concentration during the magic invocation phase."

"Eh?
Me?"

Mizuki hurriedly turned around only to find Tatsuya mischievously smirking at her and quickly realized that he wasn't really scolding her.

"No, it's not her fault."

However, Mikihiko didn't see it that way.

When he rejected Tatsuya's comment, he spoke in a fairly rapid manner.

This was probably because Tatsuya's comment hit too close to home, causing him to panic slightly.

"It is only because of my own inadequacy that I would become frantic at just being called by name.
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Also, I'm sorry I forgot something very important.
Thanks, Tatsuya.
Thanks to you, I didn't accidentally hurt Shibata-san."

"She would be fine even if I didn't do anything.
Just then, that was Spirit Magic right?"

Mikihiko nodded at Tatsuya's question, but hesitated for some reason.

"Based on the Buddhist spirits of heaven and earth, our family calls it 'Divine Earth Magic'."

Even so, Mikihiko stuck by his guns, probably because this was a non-negotiable point for Magicians.

Spirit Magic is a type of Ancient Magic which uses independent Information Bodies commonly called "spirits" to interact with other Information Bodies.
Magic studies often refers to this magic as "Spirit Magic", but also shortens spirits to SB (Spiritual Being), but users generally refer to them as "spirits".

"I don't have the ability to identify spirits, but I do know that you're the one controlling the rite.
On top of that, Mizuki actually managed to bypass the dispersal ward, so it would be fairly difficult for her not to surprise you."

"How did you know about the ward.
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Oh right, Tatsuya also studied Ancient Magic, so you would know if a rite is effective or not.
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Looks like you are truly out.
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No, you've surpassed the limits of my knowledge."

"You can go ahead and say 'outrageous'."

Tatsuya spoke in a teasing manner, to which Mikihiko replied with a wry smile — the tense corners of his mouth relaxed.

"At any rate.
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No matter how much you don't want other people to see you, I think that setting a ward within the school labs also qualifies as an outrageous action."

"True."

Their combined laughter completely erased the previously tense atmosphere.

"Just now, were you using summoning magic on natural spirits?
This is the first time I've seen it."

".
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Hiding anything at this point is fruitless.
Tatsuya is correct, I was using water spirits to practice summoning magic."

Mikihiko gathered the burning incense wood from the table stove and answered Tatsuya.

Beside him, Mizuki was using a cleaning cloth to wipe away the ashes that stuck to the tabletop.

Of course, Mikihiko wanted to politely decline this gesture, but Mizuki's diligence proved particularly stubborn on this point.

"Water spirits.
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Unfortunately, I only know that they are the congregations of pushions.
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Mizuki, what did you see?"

"Eh?
Ah, me too, the only thing I saw were blue-colored orbs."

Hearing Tatsuya's question, Mizuki made a vague smile and shook her hands in a wavy manner before her.

Because Mizuki was still holding the wet cleaning rag in her hand as she did this, a small portion of the murky water splashed onto Mikihiko's face, but she was wholly unaware because the question caught her completely off-guard.

As Mikihiko himself.
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he also seemed unaware.

His eyes were wide open as his expression tensed.

"Colored.
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?
You can see differences in color.
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?"

"That, uh.
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Yes."

Mizuki didn't understand why Mikihiko wore (from Mizuki's perspective) a terrified expression, so she answered back in a quavering voice.

"For example.
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blue, sky blue, or dark blue.
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Ah!"

Mizuki didn't dare to look Mikihiko in the eye, so she didn't stare directly at him as she replied.
However, she let out a small cry upon noticing the small droplets of water on Mikihiko's face.

"S-s-sorry!
That.
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Oh, right, handkerchief, handkerchief."

Mizuki scrambled to get her handkerchief from the school bag to wipe Mikihiko's face.

However, Mikihiko roughly grabbed her extended hand.

And dragged the terrified Mizuki right before him.

Mikihiko caught the off balance Mizuki and stared at her eyes from such a close proximity that it seemed like he was about to kiss her.

"Uh.
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This.
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."

Mizuki was so confused and frantic that she was incoherent, but Mikihiko didn't seem to notice that.