Rebirth

She looks over as Watanabe sighs after checking her terminal notification, “What is it?”

Watanabe slides her mobile terminal away again, “Mayumi is going to be running late. More than just a few minutes at that, since she's got a family emergency of some sort. She wants us to just head out without her and she'll meet us there. Excuse me while I go talk to everyone else.”

She hums in understanding as Watanabe temporarily closes the umbrella she's been using to give herself shade and enters the vehicle, and she can hear her voice drifting out as she explains the situation to them as well. She's a bit surprised though, at the protest that kicks up at the idea of leaving without Saegusa and just meeting her there.

It does mean, however, that she's not surprised when Watanabe comes back out looking a bit worn out as she reopens her umbrella, “The third years have unanimously agreed that they want to wait for Mayumi, and even a good chunk of the younger years do too.” She glances at the officers the Chiba had arranged to escort their group of vehicles, “Will that be a problem?”

One of Erika's own brothers, Toshikazu, had joined their protection, and he shakes his head, “No, it's no problem. It actually may be better overall, if only to keep all the First High students together to lessen potential angles of attack.”

She sighs. She and Watanabe have been waiting by the door of the competitor's bus to take roll and make sure everyone is there, but it also means they kind of can't leave their positions really, and it is August first, so they were left waiting outside in the currently twenty-eight degree heat(1). She tugs her CAD out, ignoring Watanabe's confusion. It doesn't take very long to make a bubble of cooler air around them, including the police officers waiting nearby to their surprise, and from there she just needs to hold the spell.

She shrugs at Watanabe's surprised look, “If we're going to be waiting, we may as well do something to make the wait a little more comfortable.”

Watanabe hums in understanding, “Don't know if you'll be able to hold that spell long enough though, Mayumi suggested she'd be at least an hour behind schedule.”

She hums but doesn't say anything back as she sets the tablet terminal in the shade on the steps into the bus and tugs her own personal mobile terminal out to text the group chat that has Hoshi in it to kill some time as she casually leans against the bus.

They're more than happy to keep her entertained while she waits. She actually ends up losing track of time, they do such a great job distracting her. It's only when she hears heels running towards them and glances up at the hurrying Saegusa and reaches over to grab the tablet terminal and turns its screen back on that she realizes it's been over an hour and a half.

Unlocking it and straightening up, she turns her gaze to Saegusa as she calls out, “I'm so sorry!”

Watanabe sounds a bit exasperated, “You're late Mayumi! You're an hour and a half late.”

She clicks off Saegusa as in attendance on the terminal, finally bringing them up to full attendance.

Saegusa starts to get close as she continues to apologize, “Sorry, sorr- Oh!” She blinks rapidly, “Why is it so much cooler over here?”

Watanabe blinks in surprise then glances over at her with an assessing gaze, “Shiba made the area around us cooler when I told her after you messaged me about running late. I must admit, I'm surprised you managed to maintain the spell that long. I hadn't even noticed to be honest.” Her lips twitch, “I guess I got used to the cooler pocket you made.”

She hums as she tucks the official terminal under an arm, “I have an unusually high Psion count is all.”

Saegusa gives her a surprised look, “Ehh? But I don't sense anything?”

Her lips twitch and she lets her Psions out a little more, causing a noticeable spike, and Saegusa and Watanabe to suck in sharp breaths as the police give her surprised looks, “That's more due of a matter of my control of my Psions is all.”

Then she pulls back on it, getting her magic to simmer back down. Watanabe shakes the surprise off but only gives her a thoughtful look as she passes by to get on the competitor’s bus. Saegusa pauses next to her as she starts to follow, giving her an apologetic smile, “I'm so sorry Toshiko. For keeping you waiting out in the sun so long on my account.”

She waves it off, “It's fine. Watanabe-senpai didn't have a timeline, but she told me you were held up. You had a family emergency, right? You can't control things like that.”

Saegusa nods and flashes her another smile, “Thank you for being so understanding.”

She nods, “Of course.” Then she holds a hand to the bus entrance, “But I'm sure everyone wants to head out already, so we should get going.”

Saegusa nods, “Right! I'll see you at the venue Toshiko!”

Then she cheerfully climbs the stairs, her block heels clicking on the steps, particularly distinct by pure virtue of her being the only one who'd entered the bus wearing something like that and making the difference in sound from her shoes a detail her brain insists on noticing.

She shakes her head as she glances at the police, but Erika's brother, who'd told her to just call him Detective Toshikazu, waves her off with a smile, “We'll be in position around the vehicles as planned.”

She nods and goes to one of the three support staff vehicles and climbs into the one she'd been assigned to. It isn't too much longer before they're off, two police cars both in front of and behind their little group of four vehicles.

They don't have any trouble on the way to the freeway, but she still remains vigilant with her Elemental Sight rather than just taking in whatever its telling her habitually. To that extent, when their convoy is driving down a rather abandoned stretch of freeway on both sides of the divider, she of course instantly takes notice of the one car on the other side going the opposite direction.

She's certainly glad for the warning that has her more alert than usual when through her Elemental Sight she sees the man driving it, manually at that, with a rather… strange brain who's Psions suddenly spike into activity. His subconscious in the information dimension in general is weirdly… lifeless, even as it suddenly starts going through magic sequences alarmingly fast, at least compared to most of this world's magicals. She has a sinking feeling that this is what someone who's had one too many things similar to the Yotsuba's old flash cast done to them looks like.

She doesn't have time to contemplate it though, not when he's used magic to pop his own tire and send his vehicle swerving wildly for a moment, another spell to send the car into a spin, and a final one as it hits the divider of the freeway to launch it up and over at the competitors bus. They're particularly sneaky spells too, seeing as they're already small spells, and on top of that, they use the absolute minimum magic. The combination means the Psion residue will dissipate quickly, leaving a fraction of time to investigate.

On one hand, she sees more than one competitor on the bus snap into motion, and it isn't a bad instinct to have inherently. The problem is that this universe has problems when too many spells are attempted to be cast on the same object, resulting in what's known as a Psion storm. It's somewhat related to why interference strength is so important actually. Interference strength just refers to how strong their ability to rewrite the Eidos of an object is, and it's usually only really important if they're working against strong forces, like for instance if a magician is trying to get a river to flow up a waterfall. It's particularly important when two or more people are trying to cast on the same target though, since when two different spells start trying to rewrite the same target's Eidos, the one that wins out is almost always the one with the higher interference strength since it allows them to overcome other casters’ own attempts to rewrite the Eidos.

There is a limit to what a magician can reasonably overcome though, and the term Psion storm is used almost exclusively for when there's too many spells trying to exert themselves on the same object. It makes it practically impossible for any spell to rewrite the Eidos of the target, since a single magician trying to overcome multiple casters is not a matter of essentially one on one interference strength clashes going on simultaneously and you only have to be able to overcome each caster individually, but that the magician has to have an interference strength capably of overpowering all the other magicians’ combined.

It's for that reason that she doesn't care if her aunt gets upset at her for potentially letting another secret slip as she ramps up from using simple Gram Demolitions on each of the magic sequences one by one, which there probably isn't enough time for and instead uses Gram Dispersion. It's actually just a theoretical concept to everyone else as far as she knows, since unlike Gram Demolition, which while it requires precision, just needs what's essentially a bullet of Psions launched into a sequence, activation or magic it doesn't matter, since it essentially detonates inside and blows the sequence apart. Gram Dispersion on the other hand, is more of a wave, but it requires acting in the miniscule interval between when the magic sequence is revealed but before it can be invoked, and on top of that, there's a certain amount of fine tuning to deal with specific spells required to interfere with their structures.(2)

Because of all that, it's always been a hypothetical to her knowledge. But while she herself didn't do anything special, her Elemental Sight born specialization, geared towards precision, sort of unintentionally gave her one of the two primary tools required for it. The other being the Psion count the Yotsuba had oh so carefully cultivated in her genetics before she was born and they decided she was a monster.

All of that to say, it wasn't anything genius about her or anything that made it possible, but it's very much not a theoretical for her, but a genuine skill.

One she uses without hesitation to blow away the multiple spells on the vehicle screeching towards the bus on its roof. Since he was just making a wall in front of it rather than casting directly on the vehicle, it doesn't have anything to do with Juumonji creating one of his family's signature Phalanx shield spells. It does however, create the opening needed for Yuki to put the fire on the car out to keep it from potentially reaching something that will make it blow up.

All of the vehicles, both the ones from their school as well as the police vehicles pull to a stop. With her Elemental Sight, she's vaguely aware of Saegusa soothing the students as she thanks Juumonji and Yuki for stopping the car, before gently scolding the others who had tried to cast without communicating and creating the Psion storm, but she's honestly more interested in quickly getting out of her car and hurrying towards where Detective Toshikazu was already approaching the wreck.

As she gets to him, she starts speaking without hesitation, “You need to use magic to gather magic residue now.” At seeing his confused look, she shakes her head impatiently before he can question her, “That was not an accident, it was a purposeful suicide attack. The magic they used is the sort that its residue dissipates within ten minutes though.”

His eyes go wide and he quickly calls back to one of the other officers still at the cars, “Scan that vehicle with the magic residue reader now!” Then he turns back to her, “How do you even know that though?”

She huffs, “I warned my aunt that it probably wouldn't stay under wraps very long when she made me promise not to reveal it without reason.” It's more a mutter to herself, but she shakes her head and focuses on him, “I have an Elemental Sight born specialization. Saw the whole thing go down. A spell to pop one of the front tires, another to send the car into a spin, then one last one on the divider to flip it over so it could potentially impact the bus. The speed with which they were cast and the fact his brain was strange…”

His mouth thins, “Those Generators that started turning up in crime a couple decades back.”

She nods, “Most likely. You'd need to have an autopsy done on his brain to know for sure.” She glances back at the bus, “Preventing which, I imagine, is one of the reasons so much effort was put into making it look like a genuine accident.”

One of the officers over by the car calls out, “I've finished scanning the car sir! It-” He suddenly flicks his gaze past them, presumably at the bus and seems to adjust what he was going to say, “It was the right call to make!”

Detective Toshikazu pushes out a rough breath and waves his men over to him, once they're there, he starts laying out things without hesitation, “Obviously it wasn't an accident, which means we need to investigate it thoroughly, but this also implies the tip off regarding No-Head Dragon gunning for the Nine Schools Competition are specifically targeting First High, so we need to get them to a more easily defensible position and off the road. To that end, we'll split up to cover both the crime scene as well as escorting the First High kids, alright?” He gets agreements all around, and flashes her a smile, “Thank you for letting me know, but we've got it from here and First High will be on its way basically as soon as I sort out who's staying and who's going, so get back to your vehicle so we can leave as soon as possible please.”

She nods and turns back towards the technician vehicles, having really only gotten out to warn Detective Toshikazu that they needed to scan the car before their window to find evidence closed.

She sighs as she gets back to it. She really wasn't looking forward to telling her soulmates about the whole incident, given it had been hard enough to soothe them on not being able to travel with her when they knew trouble was brewing. They were going to be mad as all hell that something had happened on the road and they weren't there to potentially help her. Hoshi tended to leave things like that to them, but even she was undoubtedly going to be displeased.

She sighs again as she starts mentally putting together what she's going to say to them.

Miho rubs at her temples tiredly, “I'm serious, are you incapable of having uneventful school years?”

Sora hums in agreement, but counters, “At least we're actually here to possibly help this time?”

Miho sighs, “I suppose there's that…” Then she gets serious, “But really, when your… source mentioned international crime in the area, I was really hoping it was something more minor, like maybe an illegal gambling ring, and even my realistic expectations weren't this bad. I mean, that was basically an attempted slaughter.”

Sora nods, “Thankfully everything worked out, but what could have happened with the bus…” His hands tighten into fists at his sides, “When these people are caught, I'm not even sure if they deserve to live to go to jail.”

She hums in agreement, but doesn't get the chance to add anything before a voice from beyond the doorway into that banquet hall she's been lingering by catches her attention. She was lingering by the doorway as while Erika managed to get them into accommodations at the hotel, she couldn't exactly swing invites for the non-competitors to the banquet held the night of the schools’ arrival for the competition. Or not proper invites anyway, she'd apparently gotten them sort of into the banquet hall to see it. Though it was as staff.

A waitress and waiter for her and Mikihiko, a dishwasher for Mizuki, and manual labor help for Leo. The latter two don't get to walk around the banquet hall themselves, but Mikihiko had reassured her that as long as they don't slack, the kitchen staff doesn't mind them peeking through the door to see it. Mikihiko, as he'd commented one of the times he had a brief bit of downtime to talk, found the whole thing strange, but Sora had adamantly insisted slipping onto the staff of someplace you aren't supposed to be is perfectly valid. Not that it was surprising coming from him, given how many times she's heard of the Black Reaper keeping a low profile in the kitchen and the like while waiting for his time to strike.

She shakes her wandering thoughts back into focus after the person speaking into a microphone, who seemed to just be giving something of a standard greeting at first, mentions Kudou Retsu. It perks her interest in the man, given how highly regarded he is in the Japanese magical community, known collectively as Elder Kudou. She knows better than to trust it blindly of course, if nothing else, Dumbledore certainly drove that point home in her last life 

She watches the stage as the lights go off, and after a moment, a spotlight over a microphone turns on. She feels a brief moment of confusion given it's a young woman, but that draws her attention a little more firmly and she spots Elder Kudou standing in the shadows behind her. A split second later, her Elemental Sight confirms things, namely that he'd used an illusion, or rather as Modern Magicians calls it in this universe, sensory interference magic. Whatever you call it, it's actually surprisingly weak.

For a few moments there's confused murmuring as Elder Kudou's gaze drifts around, meeting her gaze as he does and pauses on her to smile ever so slightly before he leans forward minisculely and murmurs something to the young woman and she starts to walk off the stage as the lights come back on, revealing him to everyone. 

He had been standing with his hands casually hanging at his sides, but he brings them up to tuck behind him as he steps forward and starts speaking into the mic, “First, let me apologize for making you a party to my little prank. What you just saw was more sleight of hand than true magic. But as far as I could see, only five of you saw through it as a magic trick.” Understanding as to the weakness of the spell washes over her. It was purposely weak to see how many of them would look past the obvious and their confusion to seek answers. She only has a brief moment to contemplate that before he continues, “In other words… If I were a terrorist, and unleashed either poison or bombs on you, only five of you would have been able to do anything to stop me.”

The students make noises of surprise at the turn of his speech, but he's not wrong, and he continues after the brief upswing in noise dies back down, “My young students of magic… magic is a means. Magic is not in and of itself an end. The magic I used just now, while large in scale, was extremely low in potency. Yet you were deceived by this weak magic, and therefore failed to perceive my presence. You should never be remiss in your efforts to improve your magic skills. That said, I'd like you to keep in mind that your efforts alone won't be enough. Large scale magic used erroneously is inferior to small scale magic used creatively. My young students of magic… I am looking forward to seeing how creative you can be.”

It seems to take them a moment to realize his speech is over and start clapping. She hums as she stops leaning into the banquet hall. It was a pretty efficient speech, she'll certainly give him that. Driving home the dangers of taking things at face value, but in a somewhat lighter way -as compared to doing things like staging an attack or something that is-, giving a rather valuable life lesson on magic, and finishing off with some encouragement all in about a minute and a half. He certainly knows what he's doing at least.

She shakes it off as she refocuses on her soulmates and sister in law, “Anyway, it's going to be tricky to cover them, since some of the competitions are scheduled to take place at the same time, but given First High has been attacked directly whereas the others haven't been at all to my knowledge, so prioritizing keeping an eye on as many of First High's events as possible is probably the best course of action, which should make things easier.”

Sora hums in agreement, “Yeah, but there is the possibility of someone using the period when everyone is focused on events to attack someone who isn't even competing.”

Miho winces, “No kidding. The vast majority of people will be focused on the Official Divisions for Speed Shooting first, then the Official Divisions for Battle Board later tomorrow, but with so much focus on the active competition and the competitors for the other event, whether the Battle Board competitors are ready in the morning and how the Speed Shooting competitors are doing in the afternoon…”

Hoshi gets a bit grim, “It'd be almost laughably easy to strike at some of the other competitors. Well, given they aren't focused on the events, hopefully the security, police, and all that cover that gap in the safety measures.”

Sora gives her a dry look, “Do you wanna rely on that?”

Hoshi snorts, “Good god no. I've-” She glances at the open doorway and adjusts what she's going to say, “heard about too many instances of people slipping in during times like these to trust that they've got everything in hand.”

Sora nods, “Yeah, you and me both. So, wander around the hotel to keep an eye on things for me and Hoshi and Miho sticks with Toshiko as potential backup if she needs it?”

She shrugs, “That works for me. You Miho?”

Her wife shrugs, “Sure. We all know I'm not great at combative magic, but I'm not useless so I should be able to serve as backup.”

She nods, “Alright then. So we have our plan?”

She gets return nods, and Sora smiles as he makes a shooing motion, “Yeah we do. So you should go enjoy the banquet all right?”

She pouts, “Not much to enjoy without you guys there.”

Miho laughs and grabs her shoulders to turn her around, “Oh, don't be like that, Erika and Mikihiko snuck in and are around, and Shizuku and Honoka are there too. Don't be a spoilsport.”

She sighs, “Alright, alright. I'm going.”

She's with Mikihiko after the banquet is over, watching some of his practice to learn more about the activation sequences of Ancient magic and what exactly everything they do to cast does for activation sequence building. They do have vague ideas of what the things they do accomplish, they'd never have made as many spells as they have otherwise, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't change things drastically if they knew the exact details.

She straightens suddenly as Mikihiko opens his eyes and turns his head vaguely towards a Spirit that's been pulsing around his ear, “Someone's there?” He lifts a hand and she can see multiple of the orbs of Pushions that he calls Spirits drift to be above it, following the motion as he draws it across his body before sweeping his arm out and sending them off. They seem to run into something though, and scatter, and Mikihiko's eyes widen, “Is this… evil intent?” He quickly regains his composure, “Those are no ordinary thieves.”

Then he takes off, and she hurries to catch up, “Did the Spirits tell you anything?”

He shakes his head, “Not exactly. They couldn't tell me anything about how many of them or what they're after or anything like that anyway, just that they're there and they have a deeply malicious intent.”

He starts to slow for some reason, and she slows as well, “Mikihiko? What are you doing? We need to go!”

He jolts, “Ah!” Then he picks up speed again, “Sorry, I just…” His brows furrow as he gets a self-deprecating smile, “I just realized I'm not sure how much help I'll be.”

She frowns, “Why on earth would you think that? You're pretty reliable and good at magic from what I've seen.”

He laughs bitterly, “I'm really not.”

Her frown deepens. She decides right then and there what they're going to do, “You're going to take them down.”

Mikihiko looks over at her in surprise, “Ehh?”

She shakes her head firmly, “You're going to take them down, and I'm not stepping in unless you get in trouble in some way or someone is actively in danger.”

Mikihiko sputters a bit, “B-but-!”

She snorts, “No buts Mikihiko. You are going to be the one to take them down.”

Mikihiko makes a choking noise, “I-!” He squeezes his eyes shut, “Alright! Alright! I'll try!”

They catch up to where the intruders are running on a different walkway between the manicured bushes not too long after, and Mikihiko whips out some of his paper talismans, which start glowing almost immediately, and throws them. Almost as soon as they leave his hand, they seem to practically gain a life of their own, and move to be directly above the three.

It seems to be one of his electricity spells, and she's not very surprised, given they've been working on that one when Mikihiko isn't just showing her spells for her to learn more about their activation sequences in general and focus a bit on improving them. Not updating them to Modern Magic, but just streamlining the traditional casting methods used for the spells.

Selecting such a spell definitely pays off for Mikihiko, given that she sees them clock Mikihiko and her and start to aim guns at them, but they don't even get into position before Mikihiko's electric spell strikes them.(3)

Mikihiko uses some magic to boost himself to jump to clear the bushes almost habitually, and she follows. He looks genuinely surprised to see them unconscious, “I… won?”

She hums as she steps over to them to try to identify the attackers, “You did. And rather beautifully at that, to take them out nonlethally and without clear line of sight as well.”

Mikihiko blinks rapidly at her, “But- But I'm basically a failure as a magician nowadays.”

She gives him a sharp look, “Who told you such lies?”

He flinches slightly and ducks his head, “That-... My family. I- I had an accident with magic about a year ago. It- It cost me a lot of my ability.” He looks vaguely towards the hotel, “That's… why my father made me come actually…. He said- He told me to ‘Go take a good look at the place where you should be standing yourself.’ because I haven't recovered from the loss of my powers a year ago… even though I was a prodigy before…”

It would probably not be inaccurate to liken the way her mind stutters to a recordscratch, and after it gets back on track, entirely unbidden, an image of papers reading ‘EMOTIONAL ADOPTION’ at the top pops into her mind. As she turns to Mikihiko, equally independent of her conscious input, she sees her hand enter the mental image and put her signature on the final line.

Her mind flits back to her mental questions about Mikihiko's shyness, and wondering if it was trauma or natural, ‘Trauma it is. At least in part.’

She stares at him for a moment and he looks away, “...Does your family suffer from mental deficiencies?”

He chokes in surprise as he turns to her with wide eyes, “I- What? Where do you get-?”

She shakes her head in aggravation, “No, seriously. Personally I'm firmly against this whole ideology that a magician's worth is entirely dictated by their magic ability, or what they can bring to the gene pool, and all that nonsense, but let's play that game for a minute. You said you were a prodigy? Assumably powerful given how much weight people place on that sort of thing?” He nods hesitantly, “Then you still have valuable genes to contribute. Furthermore, that means you also have an incredible grasp of the theoreticals of Ancient Magic, which means even if you have problems casting you're still perfectly capable of teaching Ancient Magic to any disciples or children you need to.”

He starts to open his mouth, but she pushes on, “Also, you haven't completely lost your ability to cast, even if it took a hit, which honestly says an awful lot about just how much of a prodigy you were, given how competent you are now from what I've seen. And I'll remind you that back when I told you about my Elemental Sight, I mentioned I've met other Ancient Magicians who let me watch their casting, so I absolutely have people to compare it to.” She pauses, weighing the choice on the last thing sitting on the tip of her tongue before deciding that, yeah, she is going to say it, “Just between you and me, one of which is my Master, Kokonoe Yakumo. Well, kinda my Master. I'm not an official disciple, which means he can't directly give me instruction, but he does teach me things in a roundabout way.” He chokes in surprise, which is to be expected, given how famous that name is amongst Ancient Magicians, “I'll have to take you to Kyuuchouji Temple and introduce you sometime after we get back.”

Mikihiko opens and closes his mouth for a minute and she turns back to the intruders, “Let me ask you something Mikihiko. Erika has said you hold my magic ability in high regard. Is that true?”

Mikihiko takes a jerking step forward, seemingly involuntarily, “Of course! You're amazing! I-” He flushes and drops his gaze, as he rubs awkwardly at his other arm, “I actually admire your ability if I'm being honest.”

She hums, “It was for an entirely different reason, but my family considered me a failure as a magician until I was six you know. To the extent that they actually officially stripped me from the family and I had to be reinstated.”

He whips his gaze up to her, eyes wide, “You?! A failure?! How could you of all people-?!”

She shakes her head, “That doesn't actually matter.” She looks back over to meet his gaze, “The reason I was bringing it up is more because magician families are unbelievably quick to label someone a failed magician, and they tend to have ridiculous standards as well. There's no more point to giving weight to their opinions then there is trying to argue with a conspiracy theorist, nor in paying any more heed to their judgments than you would a child playing pretend at being an actual court judge. Especially not for the people who will inevitably come crawling back acting like nothing happened or at least that they did nothing wrong if the situation changes.”

His wide eyes drop to the ground. She wonders if it's the first time someone has told him he isn't obligated to pay heed to others opinions and judgments, or if people like Erika have, but they haven't quite successfully gotten the point across.

She doesn't know if she's succeeded either, but that's fine. Given she's not going to argue with her brain on the emotional adoption, regardless of them physically being the same age and him already being about a month away from being sixteen already. She'll have plenty of time to get through to him and untangle the doubts and criticisms they've planted into his head.

There's a few beats of silence as she uses her mobile terminal to get in touch with security and lets them know about the intruders, as well as the fact they had guns on them.

After she's done and they're just waiting, Mikihiko seems to focus on something else, probably because he's still processing what she'd said regarding families and failure magicians and all that, “...Is it actually okay for you to introduce me to Kokonoe Yakumo?”

She smiles, “Mm. I don't spread it around all that much, because Master does generally prefer privacy, but he has said it would be okay if I brought people I trusted in the past.” Her smile turns more to a grin as she turns to him, “Though, in fairness, that may partly be because he's one of the people aware of my Elemental Sight and what it's capable of, so he trusts my judgment on people's skill levels. As such, it may be in part due to wanting to possibly snatch people who catch my interest up as disciples.”

Mikihiko flushes, assumably at the mere idea of getting the attention of such a famous Ancient Magician, and she shrugs, “Don't know if your interested of if it's even allowed by the rules Ancient Magicians live by for you to be a disciple of his while still being a member of your family, but he's a little more loose about Ancient Magic then most Ancient Magicians, not exactly telling everyone who asks or anything, but… Not the point, point was, he may be willing to give you a few pointers.”

Mikihiko's flush deepens as his gaze drops again, and she barely catches him whispering to himself, “Not only meet him, but… maybe even learn a thing or two?”

She turns her head away a little bit to hide her grin. She couldn't say if it's just because Mikihiko is acting a bit differently than usual or it's entirely her mental adoption skewing her perception, but he's being utterly adorable right now.

Behind her noticing that though, her mind is already putting together a to-do list regarding her new emotional child, and weighing things like if she'll need to fight the Yoshida and if and when she should fill Mikihiko in on the emotional adoption.

There's chit chat from her friends as they wait for Watanabe's match to start, and practically the moment it does, she can't help but comment on Watanabe's strategy, “Fortification magic combined with simultaneously casting Movement magic, huh?”

It isn't really planned, but given he specializes in it, she shouldn't be surprised when Leo takes notice, “Fortifying magic? What is she fortifying?”

She watches in interest, “Her position on the board. She's anchoring herself to prevent from slipping or anything.”

Miho looks over at her, “You can do that?”

She hums, “It's usually what it's used for, but fortifying magic isn't exactly for strengthening an object per say, when you get down to the details of exactly how it functions. What it actually does is fortify relative positions, which is usually applied to the atoms of course, fortifying their positions relative to each other to keep from things like denting and the like.” She glances back at Leo, “You're well familiar with it.”

Leo nods, “Well, yeah, since I actually use it myself.”

She turns back to the course, “Watanabe-senpai has basically told the magic that she and the board are one object to fortify their positions relative to one another. It's admittedly a rather interesting application. It's also actually rather impressive, given with the movement magic and vibration magic, she has to be casting at least three, possibly four spells at the same time.”

She's not surprised in the slightest to see Watanabe pulling further and further ahead as the race continues.

She waits while the officer knocks on the door before calling through it, “Major Kazama, you have a guest.”

Kazama's voice responds immediately, “Come in.”

The officer opens the door for her and she moves inside, as the door closes behind her, she blinks rapidly at the casual wear. When it comes to these particular people, she's far more used to seeing the likes of Kazama Harunobu, Yanagi Muraji, and Doctor Yamanaka Kousuke in military uniform after all. At least when it comes to Fujibayashi Kyouko and Sanada Shigeru she's more used to seeing them in civilian clothes, “Are you all out of uniform because this is an informal meeting?”

Kazama smiles, “Ah, I probably should have clarified that when I asked you to come. It's technically partially regarding business, but yes.” He holds an open hand towards the empty chair, “Have a seat.”

She nods as she moves forward to settle into the chair. As she does, Kyouko smiles lightly, “My, how time flies. It feels like just yesterday you became a Special Officer for the 101st, and now you're at the Nine Schools Competition.”

She gives her an exasperated look, but doesn't bother with formalities given the casual atmosphere, “Teasing already Kyouko-nee?”

Kyouko grins, “You just looked so tense! You need to relax a little sometimes!”

She rolls her eyes, “You're as bad as Miho, Sora, and Hoshi.”

She gives her a bemused smile, “And it doesn't tell you something that multiple people have told you the same thing independently?”

She snorts as she accepts the cup of coffee Kyouko brought her even as they spoke and flashes her a thankful smile briefly, “Technically, if we're going by ‘independently’ then they only count as one. They have a whole conspiracy against me. They've said it themselves. Repeatedly.”

Kyouko bursts into laughter, and while she's certainly the most energetic and has the highest volume, she's not the only one. Kazama chuckles, before he begins, “About last night's incident, there's no question that those intruders were with the No-Head Dragon, which I mentioned to you the other day.”

She sighs, “I'd ask if they were targeting the Nine Schools Competition like you suspected or if the timing was just a coincidence and they're after something else, but with that suicide attack on First High enroute here as well…”

Kazama hums, “Well, that's still being investigated, but with the bus attack… Anyway, I'll let you know when we find out conclusively.”

She nods, “Thank you.”

Kyouko pipes up then, “Still, I'm amazed that you happened to be right there on the spot. Were you on the lookout for something?”

She shakes her head, “No. I was actually working with an Ancient Magician classmate of mine. The Spirits they'd summoned alerted them to suspicious people around, and when he tried to get more information, he detected ‘malicious intent’ as he put it. Actually, while I was there if he needed backup, given he's actually pretty competent but his family filled his head with utter nonsense about him being a failure as a magician, I made him take them out on his own. Mostly to force him to realize that his family is full of garbage and he actually is competent.”

Kyouko's brows furrow even as her lips quirk up a little, “Bit of a harsh lesson, but if he really was capable of it, I suppose he needed it.”

She snorts, “You only think it was a harsh lesson because you're imagining a protracted struggle for him. He took them out in a single spell before they could even fully turn their guns towards him.”

Muraji gives her a surprised look, and he's far from the only one, “And they call him a failure?”

She sighs, “I don't know the details and it wouldn't be my place to say even if I did, but apparently they used to consider him a prodigy until some sort of magical accident caused him to lose part of his skill. As far as I could pick up, they're just pissy that he's not back to prodigy levels.”

Kousuke shakes his head as he picks up his teacup, “Putting such pressure on a child after something capable of impacting his magic ability happened…” He shakes his head, “When will people learn that rarely if ever helps, even if you look at it from a purely logical perspective and ignore the emotional aspect or what's right. If anything it does more harm.”

She snorts, “I know. Which is why I may end up getting into a fight with the Yoshida family.”

Muraji snickers, “Did you acquire another child then?”

She doesn't miss a beat, “I mean. My brain practically did a record scratch when he told me, before, entirely without my conscious input mind you, a mental image of some papers labeled emotional adoption popped into my head and gained my signature.”

He laughs at her, and he's not the only one, “You can't just adopt every child in a toxic house you know.”

As she lifts her teacup, she slips her eyes closed as she answers perfectly calm and placid despite what the words would imply, “Fuck you Muraji. I'll emotionally adopt whatever kids I wanna. Someone has to be a good parent to them, and if their gene donors are going to prove to be utter failures at that…”

Then she takes a sip of her coffee as the others chuckle and laugh.

She hums as she looks over the designs she's been absently messing with to try to unwind from being on edge and watching like a hawk during events all day, and also to distract her from the more serious work thoughts her brain has been trying to turn to since she saw Watanabe's match about other applications for what she'd seen, “I was wondering why you came to my room so late at night.”

She mentally files away the minor changes to the schedule Yuki had come to tell her after a little… meeting/celebration with the Student Council about Saegusa winning first place in speed shooting and minor changes regarding upcoming events. It was honestly a relief that was what he was here for, since she was… admittedly concerned that despite their numerous discussions, and the fact that their mother has started actually interfering and starting to push him to behave that Yuki was trying to proposition her or something when she'd seen him at her door so late at night. It was just about her covering being the technician at Saegusa's Crowd Ball events tomorrow though, since they'd decided to let Kinoshita help Hattori adjust his CAD a bit more to smooth over some problems he was having at the preliminaries male Battle Board while he had a day off before the finals.

She's pulled back out of her thoughts when, with her Elemental Sight, she sees Yuki droop a bit, “Am I inconveniencing you Onee-sama?”

She shakes her head without turning to him, “No, it's just not wise in general to be wandering around late at night with the trouble that's been happening.” She weighs mentioning it, the possibility of Yuki taking it the wrong way like some sort of encouragement, verses subtly chiding him given his siscon nature he's never bothered to hide giving people ideas. After a beat though, she settles on the latter, “That and I suppose it's a good thing everyone is fully aware we're siblings. Because no-one may have batted an eye at you meeting with the rest of the Student Council, but people likely would've gotten the wrong idea from a boy visiting a girl's room so late at night otherwise.”

With her Elemental Sight, she sees the happiness that seemed to wash away his gloom, presumably at her showing concern for him, fade just a little. He shakes it off and smiles at her, “Yes, I'm sorry Onee-sama. I wasn't really thinking of all the trouble there's been lately. I'll head back to my room now, so it's not put off until it's even later when it could be more dangerous.”

She nods, “I'll keep an eye on you with Elemental Sight until you're safe.”

He beams at that, “Okay! I'll see you tomorrow Onee-sama! Goodnight!”

She hums, “Goodnight Yuki.”

He heads out without hesitation after that. As she watches him hurry away, happy as a clam at high tide, she contemplates how things have been going with their mother trying to get his behavior under control. She's been making some headway, and she can't help but feel a bit hopeful about it, but at the same time… she can't quite bring herself to trust that he'll be able to continue to control himself, given his obsession.

She sighs and turns her attention away and back to her screen as she sees him close his room door behind him. There's not really anything else she can do about the situation in all honesty. She'll just have to wait and see and possibly adjust if Yuki backslides.

There's chatter from her group as they wait for everything to be in place and the race to start when she suddenly stiffens as she spots a ball of Pushions slip into the water of the race course. She's not incredibly familiar with Spirits, but from the magic signature coming off of it and the fact someone is using it underwater, she's fairly certain it's a water spirit. She pulls her mobile terminal out and slips a spell to blur the screen around it as she tracks the line of magic connecting it to its caster in the information dimension. Once she's got a lock on their position, she sends a message to Kazama on their location.

It isn't long before Kazama gets back in touch and lets her know that he's sent people to apprehend the caster and Kyouko is already tracking them back through cameras to try to find out where their employers are hiding. After that, given she can't bring herself to leave when she may need to do something at a moment's notice, all she can do is wait nervously.

Her anxiety climbs higher when the race starts, even as she watches the people Kazama sent close in on the caster. Even as her group cheers with the crowd, minus Erika who seems to have something against Watanabe, she doesn't take her Elemental Sight's gaze off of the Spirit, splitting its attention between watching that and as the people Kazama dispatched grow closer and closer to the caster. From how fast they're moving and how quickly the competitors are closing in on the Spirit's location, it'll be tight for them to get there and disrupt the caster before whatever the Spirit is there for can happen.

She's just starting to think of launching her Pushion version of Gram Demolition and saying fuck the consequences because of how close the competitor in the lead is getting when the caster is apprehended and his spell broken.

She breathes out a sigh of relief as she scans the competitors with her Elemental Sight to make sure everything is in order, but it's incredibly short lived when she sees what she's long identified by her mother showing it to her so she's capable of recognizing it as a Golden Electron Silkworm, essentially a magic virus that interferes with CADs without outright rewriting them or triggering the anti-virus programs, screwing with the CAD of the girl in second place, the competitor from Seventh High.

Specifically, it flips the signal for the adjustment from acceleration magic to deceleration magic. Technically, a magician can make adjustments like that on their own, but CADs often act as support to speed up the process. What it means though, is that rather than slowing down as they reach the first turn, the girl in second place speeds up more, almost immediately losing control of her surfboard. In and of itself, it would see her crashing into the guardrail around the water course, but Watanabe is directly in her path.

Watanabe notices quickly, and credit to her character, rather than trying to dodge or anything like that, she quickly adjusts to catch the girl, dual casting magic to fling the board away so it doesn't hit either, as well as a spell to soften the impact and make sure it doesn't just throw her off the course.

It's around that time that she notices that they've reached the exact area of the course the Spirit had been and she feels a chill go down her spine. She hears Honoka's remark that she'd hardly noticed as background noise while she was focused on keeping an eye on the Spirit and its caster echoing in her head, “This is the same matchup as last year's finals, right? It's practically a repeat.”

Golden Electron Silkworms are not in any way some sort of natural occurrence. It had to have been planted there. And given last year's finals, it wasn't unreasonable to predict that this year's match would play out similarly. If, just as an example, just for instance, just by chance, the water was to be disturbed under Watanabe right now, while she's in the process of trying to catch the Seventh High girl… It would be an absolute disaster. It likely wouldn't result in fatal injuries, but…

Shaking the thought off, she shoots to her feet even as the speakers blare a race pause announcement.

Yuki looks over quickly, “Onee-sama!”

She doesn't even pause to fill him in before tearing off to head down to where the competitors are getting off the course and event staff are starting to come out. She has to get there before anyone potentially messes with the Seventh High girl's CAD and wipes it of at least the Golden Electron Silkworm.

She actually even uses a smidge of Shukujihou to speed up, though not too much since she doesn't want to alarm people or give anyone the wrong idea of her having anything to do with the incident. As she does, she keeps her Elemental Sight all almost single mindedly focused on the Seventh High girl's CAD to see if anyone even tries to get it from her.

As she gets close, she starts to make out Watanabe speaking briskly, “I'm fine, I'm fine. Just a little sore, you should be more focused on Kuroki.”

The staff start to try to wave her off with those damn near standard platitudes, but Watanabe notices her before they get more than two words out, “Shiba?” Then her eyes harden, “Did you see something?”

She nods, tone blunt, “Considering I have a precision focused Elemental Sight and saw the Golden Electron Silkworm in her CAD go off? Yeah, you can say I saw something.”

Even as Watanabe sucks in a sharp breath, the shaky girl turns her almost blank gaze to her almost desperately, “It wasn't my fault? I wasn't the reason Watanabe could've gotten seriously hurt?”

She shakes her head, even as she idly notes that the girl likely needed to hear that, given the way some magicians just… become utterly incapable of magic if it fails them in some important way, “No, you did nothing wrong. The Golden Electron Silkworm swapped that signal to your CAD meant to speed up alterations to spells with its support from deceleration to acceleration.” Then she glances at the staff before focusing on Watanabe since she doesn't know which of the staff, if it was any of them present, she needs to talk to, “For safety's sake, the race will have to be paused until the competitors CADs can be checked to see if anyone else's have been sabotaged and swap out any that have been with backup CADs which also need to be checked.”(4)

Watanabe nods in agreement as she glances at one of the staff members, “A lock down also needs to be implemented to make sure the culprit doesn't get away.”

The man she'd been talking to nods in agreement and starts directing the staff to get everything in motion, pausing briefly after his initial orders to make a call to security.

As the staff starts scurrying around, she scrutinizes Watanabe and the girl she'd called Kuroki before glancing at the staff, “They really don't have anything more serious than Watanabe-senpai's mild rib fractures, and that's pretty easy to deal with by applying some healing magic while the staff is doing everything else.”

And ohhh does she hate that she can't do anything about that with so many people watching. Watanabe gives her a surprised look, “You can see that too?”

She shrugs, then simply repeats, “Elemental Sight geared towards precision.”

Watanabe gives her a thoughtful look, “More precise than I was expecting. Then again, I probably shouldn't be surprised, if you're capable of seeing a Golden Electron Silkworm going off.”

She hums in agreement. Whoever was behind these attacks, regardless of whether they were this No-Head Dragon syndicate or not, they were steadily getting more and more on her bad side.

She's focused on her terminal screen, trying hard to push away the thoughts of Watanabe's injuries, of the close call it was that afternoon. Both by distracting herself and also by reminding her damn brain over and over that after a bit of healing magic while the staff rushed around making sure no one else had any Golden Electron Silkworms and all that, she'd been cleared to get back to where she was with the rest of the competitor's before the Golden Electron Silkworm had forced the Seventh High girl to accelerate rather than decelerate and finish the race.

She's so focused in fact, that she hadn't even really registered what her Elemental Sight was telling her until Miho spoke up, sounding more a bit irritated after they barge into her room that night, ahead of the rest of their group, “Are you working? Don't you have enough on your plate with your Nine Schools Competition work?”

Her voice is tense, “Would you rather I work on this distraction, or struggle to fight off the guilt of not being able to stop that incident with the bus or use Regrowth on Watanabe-senpai?”

There's a heavy beat of silence before Sora's arms slip around her shoulders, hands each gripping the opposite one as he leans his cheek against her head, “Sweetheart, you can't save everyone, but even then, you were there and did make what could've all too easily become a lethal incident only result in a few bone fractures.”

Her voice is bitter, “I should've done more. We knew something was happening, someone tried to crash a car into the bus on the way here. I should've-” She blows out a frustrated breath, only just realizing her hands had reached up and started clenching at Sora's arms at some point. She forces her grip to loosen, “It doesn't matter. You guys are always complaining about me lingering on things like that, so I was focusing on a distraction instead.”

Sora sighs, and Miho pipes up, “I don't like it either Sora, but I'll take the work over the guilt.” She doesn't even need Elemental Sight to know he nods at that after another sigh, given that he doesn't pull away and the way his cheek rubs against her head is telling enough. Miho lets out a sigh of her own, “So what are you working on?”

She shrugs, “Right now? Just poking at some ideas for uses of an idea, especially since the prototype proves that it actually is viable.”

Sora makes a confused noise, “Prototype? What prototype?”

She gently removes his arms from around her as she reaches over to grab it then turns around as she holds the blunt and thick almost-sword out, “This. Watanabe-senpai was using Fortification magic in a rather… unique way. I've never seen it used like that, but she was fortifying her position relative to her surfboard. Relative to something doesn't mean on something though, so I started wondering… and it's not exactly complicated, so Ushiyama and the others at the third division managed to make and get it to me even though I just sent the email last night. It proves that it really is a valid concept though, since it works.”

Apparently unable to keep quiet, essentially since they seemed to be past the particularly sensitive part, Hoshi leans forward on her seat on one of the beds, “What works? What does it even do?”

Without a word, she activates the device and the top half lifts up, floating in the air above the bottom half. It stays relative to the handle she's still holding, even when she gives it a bit of a swing off to the side where it won't hit anyone.

She shrugs at their flabbergasted look, “That you can absolutely input data into the magic sequence to fortify one object's position relative to another without any physical attachment or touch between the two.”

She turns it off and tosses it to Sora, who gazes at it in fascination. Miho elbows him in the ribs, “Quit living up to that murder hobo nickname our wife sometimes uses. Because I can hear that.”

Sora makes a noise of protest, “How many times do I have to say it! I have a home! I'm not a hobo. And hear what?”

Miho gives him an unimpressive look, “Those thoughts running through your head about sharpening the edge and what other weapons you can use the magic on.”

He grumbles, and Hoshi tilts her head half protesting half defending Sora, “It's a perfectly valid use!”

Miho gives her the stink eye, “Are you two incapable of not having murder on mind for an extended period of time?”

She laughs, “With those two? Probably not.”

A knock lets the others know that the rest of their little group that had been making their way to her room is there, and Miho quickly opens the door for them.

She shoves away thoughts of what could have happened to Watanabe and that other girl, and the injury Watanabe did get. Her soulmates would be pissed at her if she let it eat her up if nothing else. And besides, she does have that prototype that needs to be tested, and who better than someone who specializes in that magic like Leo?