Rebirth

Juumonji makes a choked noise behind her, “Shiba! How-?!”

She turns to him and tilts her head, tone mild, “There's a reason Elemental Sight is a bornspecialization for me. I'm not a genetically modified magician, so it's not by human design but rather by the design of nature as it's a necessary component in two other born specializations I have.”

Saegusa opens her mouth, “What-?!”

She's cut off by the door opening as Major Kazama smoothly interrupts, picking up where he cut Saegusa off, not here for the incident, but all too intelligent enough to piece things together from what he would've overhead at minimum, “-it is touches on classified information.”

Kyouko speaks up at that point, “Special Officer Obara Ryumi, some of the information control on you has temporarily been disabled.”

Since she's not being treated as a civilian and it isn't being hidden at the moment, she steps forward to salute in greeting to Kazama and Kyouko, who salute back to release her from the obligation to hold the position until saluted back or verbally told otherwise without having to waste time and she immediately falls into parade rest.

As she does, Juumonji glances between them, “Shiba..?”

Kazama drops into his own parade rest as he greets the crowd, “I'm Major Kazama Harunobu of the JSDF.”

Juumonji seems to recognize the name, “So you're that Major Kazama then? I'm the acting Master Clan Conference representative for the Juumonji clan, Juumonji Katsuto.”

Kazama nods at him, then turns his gaze back to her, “Fujibayashi, give the rundown on the current situation.”

Kyouko nods, “Yes sir.” Kyouko quickly uses her magic to connect to the terminal the large TV she and Kazama were standing somewhat in front of but off to the side, putting in a password then pulling up a vague tactical map, “At this time, our forces stationed at Hodogaya ward are battling the invaders.” The map zooms out a little for more tactical data, “We also have one battalion each from Tsurumi ward and the city of Fujisawa rushing to this site. The Kanto Branch of the Magic Association has taken a defensive position on its own.”

Kazama nods shallowly, “Good job. All right, Special Officer. In light of these circumstances, our battalion has just been ordered to add our support to the defense. In accordance with the JSDF special assignment regulations, I'm hereby ordering you to mobilize as well!” There's surprised gasps from most of the kids, probably at her being called for actual military action, and Kazama adds to them, “The JSDF requests that this Special Officer's rank remains confidential. Please be aware that this is based on the JSDF's security protection law. I hope you understand.”

She glances at Sora, Miho, and Hoshi, and it's her sister-in-law who speaks, “Don't worry. We'll take care of things here.”

She nods, but doesn't get a chance to say anything before Shigeru's voice pipes up from behind her at the door towards the back of the room, “Special Officer?” She turns, “We have your mobile suit ready for you in our trailer. Let's hurry.”

As she nods, and starts towards the door as Kyouko adds, “Don't worry Special Officer, my squad and I will be providing protection for everyone here.”

She glances back with a grateful smile as she heads out with Shigeru.

There wasn't exactly a private changing room in the truck since it's just meant to serve as transport, not where they change into gear, but it's not hard to maintain privacy by just tossing up an optical spell to create a cylindrical wall of pitch black.

Once she's done changing, she drops it and turns to Kazama and Shigeru, who'd also turned their backs just in case of any spell hiccups, “I'm done.”

Turning back towards her, Kazama nods, “Then effective immediately you are to rendezvous with Yanagi's unit Special Officer.”

She salutes, “Understood.”

She heads towards the door of the trailer, activating the flying magic on the mobile suit in the doorway and taking off towards the map indicator pinging Yanagi and his squad's location. She doesn't get very far though, before by pure dumb luck she happens across a drone. Tracking the signal going back and forth between it and the enemy ship, mostly just to locate where the camera and control broadcasts were going to specifically, she destroys it with Decomposition.

Following the other threads of signals, she starts ripping them to nothing but loose atoms one by one as she continues on her way to Yanagi. There aren't a whole lot of them, which isn't surprising given its a fairly small area they're attacking, so she's done well before she's touching down on the road near Yanagi and saluting rather than greeting him more casually since she's mobilized.

Yanagi gives a brief salute of his own, “Hey Special Officer.” He immediately moves to business after the greeting, “We know who the enemy is now.”

He holds up the highly recognizable -at least in certain circles like the military- and hated green metal box, her voice coming out at a livid hiss at the sight of it, “A sorcery booster?” She feels entirely valid for being so angry, given while there are electronic aspects, the main component in a sorcery booster is a magician brain. He's not wrong about it confirming the enemy, given the fact that there's only one place that makes the accursed things, “So it's the Great Asian Union again after all.”

Yanagi nods, then moves along, “Sorry to spring this on you, but there are civilians in the station plaza who've summoned helicopters to get the evacuees out. We're going to head for the station now, and help with the escape.”

She nods, since he hadn't used words like ‘orders’ and the like making it awkward in her opinion to salute, “Understood.”

The unit heads out almost immediately after. As they approach, she feels a flicker of worry about the black cloud moving towards the first helicopter. A beam of magic cuts through it, but it only cuts away part of it, then reforms. Another beam is just as ineffective, but she can't blame the caster, since the only other choice is to watch from the sidelines as whatever that black cloud is brings the helicopter down.

The black cloud is made up of what looks like locusts, but she can tell they're chemicals gathered up and given form. Magical constructs in layman's terms. Given they're technically all individual spells and it'd be a bit more complicated to go after them specifically but they're only being so cohesive because of one, it's easier to go after the control for them with more targeted Gram Dispersion.

She follows the line of magic in the information dimension back to the caster, reporting to Yanagi, “Sir, cohesion control disabled, however if the caster is left unchecked…”

Yanagi hums as the helicopter in the lead touches down, “I was just about to order you to leave the evacuation protection to other personnel and hunt the caster down myself.”

She nods, “Understood sir.”

She could obviously do it entirely though the information dimension, but it was generally easier to use Decomposition with visual sight on the target. Something with the 101st in general, and that certainly included Yanagi, absolutely knew. Given they had no idea how long this battle would take and therefore how long they'd have before risking a slower magic calculation area overclock, she can only assume that's why Yanagi told her to ‘hunt down’ the caster. Explicitly to save her as much strain building up as possible so she wasn't knocked out of the fight too early out of slow overclocking risk. She's always personally likened overclocking to a mountain lion that's aware humans can be dangerous. Push it to desperation, and it'll hit hard and fast, maybe killing in an instant, maybe taking longer but still lethal- that's usually what people think of when they think of overclocking. But those humans are just as capable of persistence hunting the mountain lion if the circumstances are right- and that's slow overclocking. Being run into the ground by a marathon you just could not handle.

Yanagi makes no attempt to stop her as she flies off, so that definitely backs up her thought process. She still feels a bit bad to be leaving them to watch over the innocents without her there if they get into serious trouble. It's an important job obviously, given they're using chemical attacks, and against civilians, innocent people no less, but that doesn't mean she likes it. She has the consolation that the 101st in general and Yanagi's squad in particular are highly capable, but that doesn't shake off all of the guilt, given ‘highly capable’ doesn't mean they can't be overrun and beaten. At least if something like that happens Sora and Hoshi are around, and if push comes to shove, they will use their previous life's magic.

It was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, but it will have to be enough.

Having finished chasing down the magician behind the chemical locust thing, she returns to the area of the evacuation and Yanagi's unit, landing on a building just in time to view a conversation between Saegusa and the subordinate in charge of her helicopter have a quick exchange regarding picking up the outer defense teams Saegusa's evacuee groups had made.

As the helicopter rises, perhaps recognizing her specifically from her Black Flower CADs, which were the only noticeable difference between herself and the rest of the unit, through a window in one, Saegusa spots her and sticks her tongue out playfully before smiling. She feels a flicker of amusement before reporting in through her radio, “Saegusa Mayumi has made it safely onto one of the helicopters. She'll be going to pick up some other students she knows the locations of before they remove themselves from the danger zone.”

She swiftly gets a response from Yanagi who wasn't in the direct area but higher up keeping an eye on things, "Understood. After verifying that the VIP has departed from the combat zone, return to the main unit.”

She nods habitually even as she points her CAD down towards a corner of one of the buildings in the plaza the evacuees had just left, “Yes sir.”

Then she pulls the trigger, Decomposing the physical structure of the attacker's body with a rocket launcher that had started to aim at Saegusa's helicopter into atoms with Mist Dispersion. She does it a few times actually, destroying attackers aiming at the leaving helicopter before turning to the unexpected guest that had shown up just as she was finishing up.

She recognizes Detective Toshikazu, and not wanting to potentially alarm him since the flight suit isn't well enough known to be recognized at a glance, she answers him semi-truthfully, “Special Officer Obara Ryumi of the JSDF 101st magic equipped battalion. I can't stay to answer questions though, as my current mission is still in progress.”

Without another word, she reactivates the flight device and takes off. Yanagi had told her to only regroup after Saegusa had successfully withdrawn after all, which at minimum means she needs to stay with them until they've picked up the other groups and start off.

Honoka was with Saegusa, and was using her optical magic specialty to cover the helicopter with images of the surroundings instead, making it essentially invisible in simple terms. The pickup for the group made up of Erika, Leo, Mikihiko, Mizuki, and Yuki goes perfectly fine, and she'd been waylaid enough by the attempted attackers and Detective Toshikazu that they're already moving on to pick up the group made up of Watanabe, Chiyoda, Isori, Kirihara, and Sakuya when she herself moves to catch up.

Their luck seems to run out at that point though, given that it's right when they're starting to group up to get picked up by the helicopter that things go to hell in a handbasket. Namely, she sees all too well with her Elemental Sight that while Saegusa takes out the enemies that had been pinning the group down before they group up, after they do is right when another group that had taken cover from Saegusa's rain of ice needles pops up. They don't hesitate to start attacking now that Watanabe's group is no longer behind cover, and while Kirihara notices before they open fire and shouts a warning to the rest while pushing Saya, Mibu that is, out of the way and behind him. Even as he does, Isori turns to Chiyoda and quickly throws himself on top of her while Watanabe quickly rushes over to a small piece of cover.

Clearly using some sort of self acceleration magic, Kirihara tries his hardest to deflect the high powered rifle shots with his Sonic Blade reinforced sword, but all too soon, one gets through and rips his leg off. Saya shouts his name in horror, and Isori lifts himself enough to stare at him going down in dismay. It's a mistake of its own, given it lifts his back enough for a larger piece of grenade shrapnel to lodge itself in his back. It's probably a good thing the flight suit has a full helmet, given the situation makes her want to yank on her hair in frustration. She was too far away to get a good lock on the bullets or the shrapnel to use Decomposition on them, but if she'd only been there-!

She pushes herself faster, trying to get there as quickly as possible. Even as she does, she supposes as many personal issues as she has with him that Yuki deserves credit for how quickly he hopped out of the helicopter, using deceleration magic on himself before he reaches the ground and unleashes his not quite a born specialization inborn magic, Cocytus, on all of them in one go. She lands silently behind him at about the same time he lands, immediately turning her CAD on Isori. He was still alive, though even if he survived he would absolutely be paralyzed if the circumstances didn't basically give her the go ahead to use Regrowth on him. Not that it really mattered. Unlike with Watanabe's cracked ribs at the Nine Schools Competition, she wouldn't have cared about maintaining secrecy if a situation like this had come up without her practically being given the green light.

Chiyoda gives her a frantic look, face a mess of tears, as she points her CAD at Isori, “What do you think you're doing?!”

She doesn't have time for her though, so she ignores her frantic questions as she pulls the trigger to initiate her Regrowth to restore Isori to his physical state before he got hit. The shrapnel piece is pushed out of his back on its own by the rapid but not instantaneous action of his injured body knitting itself back together. As soon as it's over, Isori straightens a bit from the way he'd been slumped limply on top of Chiyoda, looking dazed and confused. Without hesitation, she turns her CAD to Kirihara, but regardless of whether they're just stunned into silence or if they understand why she's pointing her CAD at them now, no one makes a peep. Kirihara's leg is restored just as swiftly.

He's not as out of it as Isori had been, but then again, he didn't get the same sort of injury and get knocked out cold just from the shock. Yuki looks up at her with pinched eyebrows, “Onee-sama…. Are you alright?”

Watanabe gives Yuki an alarmed glance before turning to her swiftly, “Does doing... whatever that was hurt you?!”

She shakes her head, “No.”

Yuki gives her a frustrated look, “Not physically, but the way Onee-sama's magic works she experiences the pain they experienced. All of it. Isori-senpai and Kirihara-senpai were injured for about a minute each. Which means all of the pain they experienced in that minute was compressed into less then a second for Onee-sama.”

Watanabe looks slightly horrified, “...You didn't even flinch.”

She glances at her, “I have a high pain tolerance.” She shakes her head before looking off in the direction her HUD said her unit was in, “You need to get going though. I'm supposed to stick with you before you start to withdraw, and only meet up with my unit after. So I have to stay until you get loaded onto the helicopter at least.”

Watanabe jolts, but her Hundred Families training seems to kick in at that point as she turns her serious gaze to the others still on the ground, “There's no time to waste then! Grab the ropes Mayumi let down and get on board! We can't be holding up-” She flicks a glance at her, “Special Officer Obara from assisting her unit!”

That seems to shake everyone out of their stupor enough that they start moving quickly to get loaded up.

Once they are and the helicopter is heading off, she turns and starts towards the unit, quickly finding them on the tops of buildings -undoubtedly having landed to save themselves what they can here and there to stave off slow overclocking- in an engagement with multiple armored personnel carriers and the strange bipedal single person tank… things that have been all over since this mess started down on the road. Unfortunately for the 101st, it doesn't take them long to take Yanagi's unit down with their multitude of turrets designed similarly to the high powered rifles to be good against magicians.

Unfortunately for the enemy, she gets there before any of them die, and swiftly uses Regrowth on all of them, one by one, getting the members of the unit back on their feet swiftly.

They don't seem to really know what's happening at first, but after one of the armored personnel carriers focuses their turret on a group of the unit right in front of her and guns them while she's busy focusing her Decomposition on the lethal shots aiming at members of the unit and she swiftly uses Regrowth on them. Once she's done with that, she gets a brief moment to strike back herself and turn one of the bipedal attack vehicles to atoms, which is around when she starts hearing horrified gasps of the nickname the GAU had given her ripple out, “Mahesvara!”

She suppresses a twitch of irritation. Mahesvara was an alternate name of Shiva, and for one thing, it just seems… incredibly disrespectful of the GAU towards people who practice Hinduism that they gave her a nickname from one of their Deities. For another, it feels incredibly pompous to her to use a Deity’s name, to place one on a remotely similar level, regardless of whether you follow that religion or not. Finally, she knows the last time she tangled with the GAU and was given that nickname by survivors who saw her and later had their freedom traded for that she was just barely a teenager and hidden under the combat suit that was dredged up for her at that, but Shiva was male.(1)

There's not much she can do about it though. Even if she tried to make it clear she disapproved of the nickname to those who surrender and survive to try and get it back to them, they'd just either twist her words as her being insulted as propaganda against Hindu practitioners, or they'd misunderstand and use it to try to insult her themselves.

As they finish up there, something made particularly swift by the fact no one surrenders, she bites back a frustrated sigh.

Mikihiko is still trying to process what he'd seen through the Spirits he was watching things on the ground with to keep an eye out for more attacks, the revelations he'd overheard that had been relayed at the overwhelming confusion to those who'd stayed in the helicopter. After all, they could see for themselves just fine what happened from where they'd been waiting by the doors, either to potentially fire more magic if more attackers showed up, jump down themselves if necessary, or to help those climbing up the ropes get the last bit up into the helicopter.

His attention is grabbed when Kirihara huffs out a breath that sounds tinged ever so slightly with hysteria, “What the hell just happened? I think it would be an easier to swallow if you told me it was all a hallucination.”

Isori, unsurprisingly, sounds like he's also in more than a bit of disbelief, “But it wasn't a hallucination. Both the fact that I almost died and that your leg was severed are incontrovertible facts.”

Sora hums, “Yeah, that magic of Toshiko’s does that to people the first time you see it in action.”

Watanabe turns to him, “What kind of magic was that?”

Sora shrugs, “It's a born specialization. Regrowth. Toshiko theorizes that it and her other born specialization are why her Elemental Sight is a specialization rather than a supernatural power, and why its geared towards precision rather than what's essentially vague summaries, since it's arguably the backbone to the other two.”

Watanabe holds up her hands and starts waving them back and forth, “Hold up. You're telling me she has three born specializations?”

Miho sighs, “Mm. Elemental Sight, geared not to get the vague summary as Sora put it, but towards such precision that if she wanted to, she could track a single atom, and is even capable of reading what's known as the Eidos changelog, a record of the Eidos up to twenty-four hours prior.” He chokes on air, and he's far from the only one, though some people gasp or suck in sharp breaths, “Regrowth, which allows her to restore a previous Eidos state, not dissimilar to restoring a previous version of a document and overwriting the current one in the process. You didn't technically see the third, but there's not a whole lot of point trying to hide it when it's all too likely some of the magician families will pull footage before it can be wiped, so… Decomposition which lets her destroy any Eidos data. If Regrowth is the ability to restore a previous file version, Decomposing is the delete option.”

Saegusa's face scrunches up, “Delete what?”

Sora snorts, “Whatever she wants. Your activation sequence, the energy making up a fire, the structure to your body that makes it more than dust on the wind and gasses…”

There's a stunned silence for a few beats before Honoka speaks up, “How… How is Toshiko even capable of casting anything else?” She shrinks back as all gazes turn to her swiftly, “T-That is- My inborn talent isn't even a born specialization but- I- I mean, it definitely impacts how much I can cast just with that, so…”

Yuki stirs from where he'd been staring Sora and Miho down sullenly, “She found her own work around. Don't ask me what it is. She hasn't told me, or basically anyone else for that matter. She refuses to release whatever technique she used, as she feels there's way too much possibility to abuse it.” Yuki tosses the three at the other end of the helicopter a dirty look, “Or rather, she refuses to tell most people. She's told Sora, Miho, and Hoshi for some reason.” He wonders, as he registers those words, if Yuki even realizes he basically just told them all that Toshiko didn't trust him with it, yet had trusted the other three rather than having it be a secret she took to her grave, “What I do know is that Onee-sama was born with ninety-five percent of her magic calculation area taken up by her born specializations. Then suddenly one day she's casting other things and saying they only take up about half of her magic calculation area now.”

He tosses Miho and Sora a strangely victorious look at that point, and even more confusingly, Saegusa and Watanabe suddenly share a loaded look. Watanabe mouths at Saegusa, ‘One upmanship?’

Saegusa nods. No one else seems to catch it, since they're all staring at Yuki, but then again, he's started to realize recently that his… emotional adoption has somewhat unintentionally put him in a position to see more of what's going on behind the scenes with Toshiko and Yuki. He knows he's been learning more than the rest of his friends, as he'd made the mistake of asking Erika and the others if they had any clue why Yuki seemed to have problems with Sora, Miho, and Hoshi, only to get extremely weird and confused looks. He's pretty sure he's the only one who picked up on Yuki being sullen as he stared at the other three in the first place, and he'd only caught it as he'd been turning to them to see if he could get anymore information from the way they were taking it and his gaze slid by them at just the right time.

Sora hums, “Yeah, but by her reckoning, you shouldn't think very highly of the fact she can cast, so it's probably best not to mention it to her. She'd feel like she was giving you a false impression of her ability if you did. Yuki isn't wrong that she's told us, and I won't betray her trust by telling you details, but it'd be false to think she's working with half a magic calculation area. Without details? She figured out a way to essentially double her magic calculation area, though it does require constant upkeep.” He glances at Leo, “For the record since you asked once, that's why she eats so much, because while there's a certain point where dumping more into making it larger isn't worth it. It's about double, and it increases her required caloric intake a lot. Regardless, it wouldn't be unfair to essentially consider her as having two magic calculation areas. One that's no different than anyone else's, and one that's taken up entirely by her born specializations.”

Chiyoda shakes her head, “That's still amazing. Even if she isn't working at half power constantly, the fact she was able to double her magic calculation area to begin with and constantly maintains it…

Hoshi snorts, “Oh we know. Toshiko seems under the impression that it's less amazing just because she's not working with only half of a normal magician's magic calculation area like people assume when they hear that her born specializations take up half of what she currently has though. In my personal opinion though? It's more amazing she figured out how to double it and constantly keeps it running than just operating at half a normal magic calculation area. Then again, Toshiko may have both a keen eye and be confident in general, but she's always been a bit blind to her own capabilities and accomplishments.”

Sora snorts, “That's because she's a damn perfectionist. Tell her to protect one hundred people and even if she successfully does so for ninety-nine, she'll consider it a complete and total loss because she failed one. Regardless of the fact she succeeded with the other ninety-nine and didn't let it slow her down until they didn't need her protection anymore. And then she'll promptly spend six weeks overhauling the security, the plans, the procedures, basically anything relevant to try to prevent it from happening next time.”

Watanabe gives Sora a surprised look, “Really?” He nods, and he's not the only one of the trio, and Watanabe drops her gaze, “Huh… I saw the workaholic thing you accused her of back when she first joined the Disciplinary Committee, but I never saw…”

Miho gives her a flat look, “That's because, again, simultaneously confident in general, and also she tends not to let things like that show.” She looks away mulishly, “You should've seen her in private after your Battle Board incident or the attempted suicide attack on the bus before that, even though there was really no conceivable way for…”

Hoshi plants her elbows on her knees and leans her head on her hands, “Honestly, if you ask me, Toshiko is as good as she is because of that perfectionism. Not in trying to perfect herself in the more normal way, but in constantly fighting to do better next time pushing her forward unrelentingly.”

Erika chews on her bottom lip, “How is she a course two student? I mean, if that's the case, then…”

Miho barks a laugh, before giving them a tired look, “When you go to cast, there are certain things that are going to slow you down, pushing the buttons for CAD and all that. But when it comes to raw casting speed without those things? Toshiko’s raw casting time actually exceeds how fast First High's testing devices are capable of measuring. Toshiko was distracted enough that it only occurred to her about a month before the school testing, so she only had about one distracted month to practice manually slowing herself down to speeds it could register. She overdid slamming on the proverbial breaks, and she didn't really care since the teachers weren't much use to her anyway. She actually prefers being in course two where she can get everything out of the way then shift to other things. Like… do you even realize she usually has all of the day's work, from every period, done within the first two hours? The rest of the time she's working on other things entirely.”

A stunned silence descends on the helicopter at that, no one seeming to have any clue what to say to that.

It's broken into by Mizuki, who had taken her glasses off to try to help keep an eye out for threats, suddenly gasping and turning towards a window. She wouldn't have been able to see anything before turning of course, but just having them off increases her general sensing awareness.

He asks almost immediately, “Mizuki? What's wrong?”

Mizuki remains gazing out the window a moment before turning as she starts, “Um… Near the Bay Hills Tower where the Magic Association is located, I thought I saw a beast-like aura…”

His brows dip a little in concern, “Beast-like?” Then he grabs his talismans and holds them in front of his face as his eyes close, activating a spell that will let him peer through the world. It doesn't take him long to get to the Tower, and within moments he's watching a large man wearing armor step out of a vehicle, his aura washing over him like a tiger lunging for him, “Enemy attack!”

Kanon seems confused, “I thought the enemy retreated before the volunteers' attack?”

He shakes his head, "A small number of enemies launched a surprise assault from the rear with a terrifying amount of spell power. We have to turn around quickly, the Magic Association is in danger!”

He directs the last part at Saegusa. A bit of indecision passes over her face and she looks over at Watanabe, but before either of them can say anything, the Saegusa employee that was up front calls back, "Lady Mayumi.”(2) She turns towards him, and he continues, "There's an emergency call on the line reserved for the Ten Master Clans from the Magic Association.”

Saegusa nods as she accepts an ear piece, “Patch it through.” He's not privy to what's said, but it seems to kill any indecision in her, "Nakura, turn towards the Magic Association.”

As she hands the earpiece off, she pulls out her own mobile terminal and quickly gets in touch with what turns out to be Juumonji, given his somewhat strained voice, a bit anxious, but also frustrated, and confused, speaks before Saegusa can, "Saegusa, what's going on?”

Saegusa didn't bother with pleasantries anymore than he had, "Juumonji, we will head towards the Magic Association. The helicopter will immediately turn around, so we won't take very long. Juumonji, you focus on the enemy you already drove away rather than worry about turning back to the Magic Association.”

Juumonji accepts it surprisingly easily, "I'm relying on you!"

Saegusa ends the call with a final, "Leave it to me!”

Even as they'd been speaking, the helicopter had been turning to the Magic Association building rather than towards leaving the combat zone.

It isn't too long before they're hovering over the defensive forces still covering the building while Juumonji and the rest push the invaders back being absolutely demolished by an enemy wearing armor.

Yuki starts to pull out his CAD, but Saegusa quickly intervenes, “Yuki, stop! Do you want the Magic Association members' magic to fail as well!?”(3)

He can't blame Saegusa for interfering, given Yuki, from what he's seen, seems to favor wide area magic, which could very easily be an absolute disaster. Not only in the potential of catching the Magic Association defense forces in it, bit even if it didn't, it would be all too likely to make it so they couldn't cast themselves from not being able to overcome Yuki's interference strength blanketing things to assert their own spells.(3)

Yuki just pushes past the concerns though, “Don't worry, I will end this in one strike!”(3)

Saegusa shakes her head, "No, if something goes sideways, is Yuki the only one who will pay the price?” Yuki doesn't look happy, but puts his CAD away, “Yuki, please protect the branch headquarters itself. I know this seems like I'm leaving all the responsibility to you, but the only one who can hold the fort is probably Yuki.”(3)

It genuinely surprises him that Yuki doesn't seem to pick up on Saegusa's ‘strategy’ being more to keep Yuki out of the way and agrees readily, but no one points it out, despite the fact he's pretty sure Yuki is the only one who doesn't notice.(3)

Saegusa pushes on, “Kirihara and Mibu will accompany Yuki, and can the two of you protect Shibata as well?” They both nod firmly, so she turns her gaze, "Isori, Kanon, and Yoshida, you three take care of the enemies besides the warrior in white." Once she gets firm nods, Saegusa glances at Watanabe, "Mari." 

Watanabe nods firmly, "Ah, we'll handle that guy. Erika, Saijou, you two are with me." 

Leo grins widely, "I was going to do that even without you saying so!”

After that, it's a quick rush to get changed into combat gear for Watanabe while the rest of them do their own last minute checks and quick strategizing before they disembark the helicopter. Part of him feels like they're wasting precious time, but the other part knows full well that if they hadn't taken the time to make the initial general plan, they were creating an opening for confusion for who was meant to handle what. Furthermore, taking a few moments to get better prepared and have firmer plans with their smaller groups could very well be the difference between victory and defeat.

There weren't a whole lot of enemies thankfully, and it doesn't take very long for him, Isori, and Chiyoda to deal with the others while Watanabe, Erika, and Leo tag team the main threat. Honestly, Isori and Chiyoda were a fantastic enough team on their own, that he feels like he was more there to speed things along and serve as emergency backup. That being said, it certainly suited his abilities better than what he caught of the others’ fast paced fight, given he saw Leo get punched in the chest and tossed into a car hard enough that he spat out a bit of blood. If even Saijou ‘I got hit by a motorcycle and didn't even have time to use protective magic but was fine’ Leonhardt was spitting blood, it doesn't really matter if it was the punch to the chest/abdomen area or how hard he was thrown into the car that caused him to spit blood. Either one would very likely kill Mikihiko himself.

He was very much not built for the kind of fight they were having. Not how heavy hitting it was, and not how physically fast paced it was, given even against a beast of an opponent capable of doing that to Leo, they still wrapped up with him around the same time it took for Isori, Chiyoda, and himself to wrap up with the handful of others.

It's as he's spreading his senses out to double check they got everyone that he catches the faintest whisp of it, and immediately takes off as his mouth blurts out some excuse or another.

As he runs, his mind can't help but drift a bit, turning over the fact that a few months ago, after everything that's happened in the past year, he would've hesitated. Would've questioned if he was imagining it, given how faint the whisp of magic was. Would've questioned what he was even supposed to do if he was correct, but- but-!

‘You're pretty reliable and good at magic from what I've seen.’

‘You mean like you said you couldn't take down those three intruders with guns we found but dealt with them nonlethally easily in a single spell?’

'Prediction... Mikihiko eliminates Kichijouji.'

…Toshiko was one of the strongest people he knows, something only made even more apparent by the recent revelations, and she believes in him. She thinks he's capable, and reliable, and good at magic. And she'd not only introduced him to Kokonoe Yakumo, but he seemed to agree with her assessment about him.

…..He wonders when he started valuing her opinion and assessment more than someone as famous for his Ancient Magic capabilities as Kokonoe Yakumo.

Regardless, he bursts around the corner and finds exactly what he thought he sensed. His own damn cousin, Kazuhiko(4), slinking away after having used some sort of concealment magic.

Kazuhiko seems surprised to see him, but before he can even try to say anything, he bursts out in anger, “I knew I sensed your magic on a concealment spell! And don't even try to claim you were attempting to get away from the fighting or anything! I may have only caught the tail end of it, but I know you were casting it on something- some one that was slipping inside the Magic Association! You-! Why would you betray Japan!”

Kazuhiko's expression darkens before he spits out angrily, “I haven't betrayed Japan. You and I both know they'll be caught, be driven out, by the JSDF.”

He shakes his head, “That doesn't excuse helping them!”

Kazuhiko snorts, “I traded them a little bit of assistance for a plethora of magic knowledge from the continent. It was far too good of an opportunity to pass up, and you know it. Besides, it's not like they'll really learn anything there. Ancient Magicians have done a phenomenal job keeping our knowledge out of the Magic Association and other such places hands, and there's really no secrets with Modern Magic.”

He clenches his teeth, “There are plenty of secrets! If nothing else, how could you risk that there's something valuable in there!”

Kazuhiko snarls, “There isn't, any Ancient Magician worth their damn salt knows that.” Then he gives him a condescending look, “Then again, you aren't worth your salt, are you? You're nothing but a failure, one who turned to a Modern Magic school to try to make up for your shortcomings. A failure who went full in, or did you think any of us missed that you were casting with a CAD in that stupid competition?! If anyone is a traitor here, it's you. You're a traitor to Ancient Magicians! I can not understand why Uncle hasn't thrown you out of the family yet! It can't even be just to protect family secrets, given you'd have had to reveal those to that Modern Magic technician!”

He shakes his head in fury, “None of that has anything to do with betraying our country to an enemy! If you thought you'd get away with this, that I'd let you get away with this, you're sorely mistaken!”

His cousin bares his teeth, “Already a failure, and a traitor to Ancient Magicians in general, but now willing to fully betray your family, huh?! You really have no place in the Yoshida family! Do you think they'll forgive you for something like this?! You were already on thin ice before, but now this as well!”

If he'd shouted those words at the Mikihiko from even just a month ago, it would've devastated him. He absolutely would've faltered and let him get away, either unintentionally because of him faltering or quietly stepping aside, unwilling to rock the boat when he's already such a failure, terrified to lose what little he has left, but- but-!

‘You have more in your corner than you realize Mikihiko. Don't forget that and let things shake you.’

‘Emotionally adopted or not, do I seem like the sort of woman who abandons my kids?’

‘The Yoshida can fucking fight me if they want to even try to take you back.’

He clenches his teeth, “I don't care!” Kazuhiko jolts back in surprise, clearly caught off guard by the fact he's not the same Mikihiko he was even a few months ago, terrified of being abandoned and desperate for approval, “I couldn't care less if the Yoshida decide to throw me out of the family! I actually have people in my corner for once, who's presence isn't conditional on whether I'm a prodigy or not, and that's worth far more than the majority of the Yoshida who have always been nitpicking and whose support has always been highly conditional!”

“Damn right Miki has others in his corner who don't care a lick if he's the Yoshida prodigy or not.” He turns swiftly as Erika steps up beside him, and she flashes him a grin, “Though, given how close you two seem to be since the Nine Schools Competition, I have a feeling you were talking primarily about Toshiko.”

And some part of him wants to die of embarrassment. Because there's a knowing gleam in Erika's eyes, and she's far too sharp for him to even begin to hope she hadn't picked up on Toshiko emotionally adopting him and treating him like her son, even if she was actively trying not to be obvious about it. His only real consolation is that between being sharp in general, particularly sharp when it comes to relationships specifically, and that she knows him all too well and is one of the few in First High that Toshiko has a personal relationship with, she's probably the only one.

If nothing else, Leo, stepping up to his other side as he pounds his gauntlet shaped CAD into his free hand with a huge grin likely doesn't, “Couldn't have said it better myself!” Leo glances at him as well, but thankfully it's just with amusement rather than anything knowing, “Though really Mikihiko, you couldn't come up with something better than ‘I'll be right back!’ while trying to slip away to see if it really was a family member's magic?”

He flushes slightly, but it's actually a relief to get a distraction like that from Erika knowing, “In fairness, I was so focused on it possibly being my own damn cousin helping the invaders that I wasn't actually paying attention to whatever excuse my mouth was coming up with. I was probably hoping you guys would think I had a bathroom emergency.”

Watanabe damn near gives Kazuhiko a heart attack when she pipes up from behind him, “We thought about it. Tossed the possibility aside two seconds later since Isori pointed out that under the circumstances, anyone reasonable would've said ‘bathroom’ even if they wanted to keep it vague for privacies sake.” She points her sword at Kazuhiko, “So what's it going to be? You gonna do the first smart thing you've done today and surrender, or are you going to continue being foolish and try to squirm out of this?”

Kazuhiko gives them all a hateful look, but raises his hands, “I wasn't expecting to fight anyone today, so I'm not exactly prepared for it.” His acidic gaze lands on him, “And I'm not like some traitors who let a Modern Magic technician know enough about our magic to program a CAD with our spells.”

He snorts, “For the record, and since she hasn't really tried to hide it, the reason I wasn't ejected from the Yoshida family is because that technician you hate so much has an Elemental Sight born specialization that let's her see Pushions as well as Psions. Which means Ancient Magicians can't honestly hide their magic from her anyway, not without the fact she respects our secrecy and doesn't allow herself to take in our magic. Father let it go in light of that. And with the fact that she's too much of a benefit to Ancient Magicians, since she can actually fully pinpoint what everything we do does exactly for building activation sequences, since we have those too.” Without any real input from him, his face twists like he just saw something disgusting, “Unlike your actions, that is too good of an opportunity to pass up.”

Kazuhiko's expression goes utterly blank at the very idea, and he hardly even seems to register as Watanabe moves forward to cuff him.

He shakes his head as Kazuhiko is collected and led off by the Magic Association security guards. He's not entirely sure how his family will take this, if they'll think he crossed the line. It doesn't really matter though. He wasn't entirely truthful when he said Toshiko being in his corner wasn't unconditional, but given those conditions were based on moral lines, he's absolutely confident that she'll continue to back him up even after this mess.

His cheeks flush slightly as he realizes the very next thought that crossed his mind in the wake of that confidence was a question of whether she'll be proud of him. He buries his face in his hands in the wake of that realization, uncaring of what everyone else will assume it's about.

He really has been emotionally adopted. And Spirits help him, his own brain has even accepted that emotional adoption.

The almost crushing advantage of the personal flight the suits were equipped with made it almost laughably easy to start pushing the main forces back. There were certainly wings, given how spread out the invasion is, but from her understanding, Juumonji and Ichijou had gathered volunteer magician forces and were dealing with them.

Her unit was already getting close to the ship they'd snuck into port camouflaged as a cargo ship, raining hell down on anything that doesn't surrender fast enough to save itself.

Be it from just rifles whose penetrating power was increased by magic, Yanagi casting magic that leaves a line that when crossed, easily flips one armored personnel carrier back onto another, or even her own Mist Dispersion, they honestly have little to no fighting chance. Especially since when they do score a hit, -when she lets something through because there's only so many things she can split her attention between and unless it's going to be a kill shot, she's actually under orders not to try to deal with every bullet aimed at an ally- whoever got hit is perfectly fine in mere moments.

The last of them finally seem to break and try to quickly turn their vehicles around to head back to the ship, but apparently their command has also given up the battle, given that she's hardly turned her attention away from the retreating vehicles and onto the ship before she's watching it leave the port.

Someone else in the unit lowers down to be in polite speaking distance, which is actually more to let them know who's doing the talking since the flight suits are all identical and as a protection against sound based magic, they're soundproof and simply project the sounds the microphones on them pick up from their surroundings after a split second for potential adjustments such as lowering the volume. It's part of why they communicate through coms built in constantly, since communication options are limited to that or opening up their face plates and potentially exposing themselves to harm.

She barely hears the unit member over her meticulous scan to locate who all they abandoned to make sure no one slips through their fingers, “Captain Yanagi, should we pursue them?”

Perfectly capable of being a professional despite how lighthearted he often comes across as, Yanagi doesn't even need to think, “Leave the stragglers to the backup unit. We're launching a direct assault on the enemy ship.”

She doesn't know if Kyouko had been monitoring the communication channels, or if it was just stupidly lucky timing, but Kyouko's voice comes over the com right after that, “Captain Yanagi, please refrain from any direct attacks on the enemy ship.”

She can practically hear the frown in Yanagi's voice, “Fujibayashi, what's the deal?”

Not bothering with his frustration, Kyouko answers the actual question, “The enemy ship is equipped with hydrazine fuel batteries. If we were to damage the vessel in Tokyo Bay, the adverse effects on marine life would be too severe.”

The frustration seems to have fallen out of his voice at that at least when Yanagi replies, “Then what do you want me to do?”

Rather than Kyouko, it's Kazama who replies, “Fall back, Yanagi.”

She can't blame Yanagi for his surprise, given she hadn't expected it anymore than him, since even if the unit under Yanagi's command was more suited to fast and hard strikes rather then slow meticulous cleanup, she would've thought they'd be ordered to serve as backup to minimum, “Commander?”

Kazama's voice is placating, “Don't get the wrong idea. This doesn't mean the end of the operation. Let the Tsurumi and Fujisawa units handle the sweep of the enemy remnants, and return to base for now.”

Yanagi quickly spreads the order, and they're soon on they're way.

Not a whole lot happens as they move, there's a bit of grumbling at being ordered to fall back, but given they're undoubtedly tired and sore from phantom pains of the hits she's Regrowthed away, even that's fairly limited. All too soon, they're landing and Kazama is handing over overall command of the 101st to Yanagi before ordering her to follow, he leads her, Kyouko, and Shigeru up to the top of the Bay Hills Tower.

After they reach the top, Kazama glances at Kyouko, “How did the sweep operation go?”

Kyouko glances down at her mobile terminal, “It's more or less done, and no, there weren't any problems. Though there's still some sporadic fighting going on, that should die down some tonight.”

Shigeru steps forward, “About the evacuation shelter that got buried beneath Sakuragisho station, a temporary tunnel is scheduled to open up by tomorrow.”

Kazama nods then turns his gaze back to Kyouko, “What about the enemy vessel?”

Kyouko doesn't miss a beat, likely anticipating the question and having already drawn the info up on her terminal, “It's heading south down Sagaminada at thirty knots. It's approximately halfway between the Boso Peninsula and Oshima.” She looks back up, “There should be no issues if we sink it there.”

Kazama nods firmly at her, then turns to Shigeru as he holds out a keycard, “Unlock the Third Eye seal.”

Shigeru accepts the card, “Roger.” Then he turns back to where the case for it had been set down, slotting it in before giving the verbal password it still requires, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”

The case projects a synthesized voice, confirming the password before unlocking and opening to show the long ranged sniper integrated CAD, Third Eye, a specialized weapon made specifically for her Decomposition. Shigeru lifts it and turns to her to hold it out somewhat gravely. She's barely accepted it, looking it over for flaws as she thinks about what she's going to be asked to do when Kazama speaks up, “Special Officer Obara. Sink the enemy vessel using Material Burst.”

She nods, “Yes sir.”

Then she makes her way over to the edge of the tower rooftop. Much like the weapon integrated CAD she'd used back when she first met Kazama and Shigeru, it technically had the ability to fire rounds to be used as a target, but that's more of a backup.

Kyouko pipes up from behind her, “Establishing a link with the surveillance camera in the stratosphere.”

On the HUD inside her helmet, the camera feed pops up and quickly starts zooming in to what her turn of the twenty-first century Calanthe part of her mind insists is an unrealistic degree. Distance doesn't really matter the same way in the information dimension as it does in the physical world, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have a range. It's more that the further away something is, the more information it has to go through to potentially reach her, and after a certain point, the rest of the world beyond becomes little more than static, the signal lost in transmission to her location. After that point, she wouldn't be able to tell a pindrop on the very edge from a nuclear explosion far enough away that the blastwave doesn't enter her range.

That being said, there were ways around that. Specifically, a live feed camera works basically the same way following signals for the drones she'd destroyed earlier does. Similarly to Decomposing and Regrowthing something to make it practically a flare. It's not actually through the camera that she uses it specifically, but rather the camera, the image it's showing, lets her focus her attention to what the camera itself is focused on in the information dimension.

Given it's a single ship this time, it's better to minimize the explosion so as to not cause a tsunami. It's for that exact reason that the target she picks is a single drop of water. It's far enough away not to potentially damage peoples eyes from looking towards it habitually, so she doesn't need to worry about that, and all too soon, she's using that magic for the second time in this life.

She lowers Third Eye as the camera feed starts to go all staticy, and while it's not really necessary since they can see it with the explosion in the distance with their own eyes, professionalism has Kyouko piping up behind her, “Confirming an explosion on the same coordinates as the enemy vessel. Due to the explosion, unable to confirm the situation at this time, but we can infer that the vessel has been sunk.”

Turning away from the sea, she focuses on them, “Any risk of tsunami?”

Kyouko answers without hesitation, “We're good.”

Shigeru nods and turns to Kazama, “Third Eye has lived up to its design.”

Kazama looks at him briefly and nods before turning back to her, “Good work.”

Before anything else can be said, Kyouko's mobile terminal starts ringing, and she quickly pulls it out and looks it over, “We've received word from GHQ.” She narrows her eyes briefly before turning to Kazama, “The Great Asian Union is now gathering on Zhenhai Navel Port. We're being ordered to deal with them at the Geojedo Base.”

She's not even surprised that it kicks off a scramble to load up in a military plane and take off. Hopefully though, this will be the last piece of this nonsense to deal with.

Kazama is standing in front of the large screen in the control room she's been brought to after a quick pitstop, and doesn't hesitate to start, “As anticipated, the enemy fleet is preparing to go into battle. Take a look at this image.” The screen behind him shifts to a satellite feed of the port, the image zoomed out enough to see a plethora of ships in the area, “This was taken five minutes ago.” Not a live feed but an image then, “If all goes as estimated, the enemy will leave the port two hours from now at the latest. Whereas the enemy fleet has already finished mobilizing, our own navy unfortunately only started mobilizing yesterday. At this point, our only option is to engage the enemy's navel forces with land or air based firepower. We're in for a bitter fight. Therefore, in order to overcome our current situation, the Independent Magic Equipped Battalion will be deploying Strategic class magicians and annihilate the enemy fleet.”

The image on screen turns to a black and white of outlines before a red circle starts to radiate out over the port area, and she bites her tongue to hear it all before she says anything, letting Kazama continue, “This operation has already been approved by the Joint Staff Council.”

He doesn't add anything else though, and she slips her eyes closed, “Was it you that came up with this strategy, or someone higher up?” Even with her eyes closed, Elemental Sight means she's aware Kazama gives her a confused look, “It's an important question to me.”

He blinks, “Ah. It was made by my superior, Major General Saeki Hiromi. Why?”

She opens her gaze to pin him, “Because it tells me who's orders I should always question from here on out.” Kazama gives her a surprised look, “Don't look at me like that. I will sink the fleet, but I will not do so in the harbor where countless innocent civilians will get caught up in the detonation. Wanting to sink it while it's still in port is an emotional decision born of rage. You're free to pass that along to this Saeki Hiromi.”

He flinches at the accusation, brows furrowing, but from the look in his eyes, he's questioning Major General Saeki more than anything. She turns towards the door, “Call me when they start to leave port, I'll deal with them when they're far enough away that it won't affect the civilians at or around the port. In the meantime, since it sounds like it's going to be a bit, I'm going to take the opportunity to get changed out of the flight suit.”

Kazama doesn't protest her leaving, if anything, he calls out a vague understanding as he stares up at the image of the radius her magic was expected to make. He's far from the only one who's been forced to take a moment to slow down and consider what they're being told to do and experiencing what seems to be a rising discomfort.

It takes long enough for her to be called back that she has plenty of time to change and even grab something to eat in the base cafeteria while she dug into this Saeki Hiromi. When she gets back, Kazama looks more frustrated than she's ever seen him before, “Everything alright sir?”

He jolts, “Ah? It's fine, I just had a… disagreement with Major General Saeki is all.” He waves his hand, “She was trying to insist her strategy was not driven by emotion but rather a desire to send a message.”

She snorts, “Seeing your ships all disappear in a single explosion visible even from where you are is a message in and of itself, but if she wants a message, fine. I'll give her a damn message.” She glances at him, “If possible, you may want a live feed camera image facing the sea far enough away inland it won't have issues from the detonation.”

He furrows his brows in confusion, but quickly starts ordering them to move one close by into position. It only takes a few minutes before they're told it's in position and watching. Only then does she use the Third Eye, target the antenna of the ship in the middle, and set off a blast big enough to take them all out in one stroke. Once she does, she shifts her focus to the smaller image showing the port and reaches through it to the local information dimension to target a spell a bit off shore. Specifically, one that ignites a message in the sky, large enough for everyone at the port city to see.

Kyouko quickly piggybacks on the satellite and hacks into a local camera feed to see it properly before pulling it up on the massive screen, for them all to see her written message, “Stop trying. I could've just as easily hit those ships in port as I did on the open sea. What do you think that death count would've looked like? -The magician your forces have called ‘Mahesvara’ since Okinawa.”

Muraji snorts behind her, “Yeah. That's a message alright.”

She lowers the Third Eye and hands it off to be sealed away again, then shakes her head before turning to Kazama, “Did you need anything else sir?”

He shakes his head, a small smile playing on his lips, given she knows Kazama isn't bloodthirsty, she assumes it's more relief that it's over and the threat to the Japanese people has passed without them having to become immoral monsters in the process, “No, that's everything. Your released Special Officer Obara. Go home and get some rest.”

She salutes one more time before leaving, all too eager to head back home and call her soulmates before getting some sleep after the busy day.