Rental Magica

This is what he saw in his right eye.

There was a bas.e.m.e.nt.

Without even a millimeter of deviation, the walls spread in four directions, making a rectangular room.

It was a dark, quaint magician"s workshop.

The air was saturated with the ether of mystery, and there were old magic squares drawn all over the floor. Flasks, beakers, and pentagram goblets were arranged on the shelves. In the nooks and crannies of the room, "innocence" was being dispensed so the ether didn"t become contaminated by noxious gas. There were also dolls and picture books that had been scribbled inside of.

Entering the workshop were two people.

A brazen, young girl with golden hair, and an old man wearing his black robe as usual.

"Father, what are you going to evoke today?"

"Hey, father, tell me about the magic you used earlier."

She had a lively voice.

The girl happily followed the old man wherever he went. She jumped with surprise at his familiars, and her eyes sparkled at even the most trifling of divinations. She had memorized the old man"s techniques in an instant.

The man narrowed his eyes every time. His daughter only became more adorable as she grew older. The old man delighted in her great genius, and instructed her in all of his own secret techniques without regret.

"Addie, when you evoke Shax, you must use the triangle of Solomon. It"s because he likes lies. Regarding the symbolism of the triangle..."

"Addie, before that, place the doll and purify it. If you are not pure in mind and spirit, you will contrarily be used by the demon..."

He had a stern, low voice.

However, it was gentle.

The small bas.e.m.e.nt workshop was filled with a simple happiness befitting of magicians.

Until that day.

Suddenly his vision changed.

It was a night where the moonlight from what was probably a full moon seeped into the mirror-affixed lighting window.

"What"s that...?"

The girl tilted her neck.

In the faint light, the old man deformed his hollowed cheeks and made a crude smile.

"It"s a seed."

"A seed?"

"It"s a seed I"ve been seeking for a very, very long time."

His eye color was unusual. The girl pretended not to notice, but they were a bleary color, seemingly possessed by something.

In the palm of his wrinkly hand was a tiny, crimson seed.

A pure red... seed?

"A catalyst?"

"Yes, there is a certain magic I want to try. With this, I can finally realize that."

As far as the girl knew, the old man was the greatest magician in the world.

Of course, if there is one type of magic, then there is another that can overcome it, but in the practice of the summoning of Solomon"s Seventy-Two Demons, there was surely no one greater than the old man. At the same time, there couldn"t be any way for him to improve in the magic arts of Solomon.

Special Magical Ability.

To be good at something is to be lacking in something else. No magic was omnipotent. As long as humans remained human, limits would stand in their way.

However.

Taking a deep breath, the old man made a curt, bizarre statement.

"I--want to become magic."

And time flowed again.

The workshop was stained with the same color as the seed.

Red.

Crimson.

Torn apart, being torn apart, crushed, being crushed, arms, legs, chest, scattered around the workshop.

Blood, and blood, and blood, and blood, and flesh, and blood, and blood, and blood, and bone, and bone and teeth and blood and blood and blood and blood and hair and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and nails and blood and blood and blood and blood and lips and blood and blood and fingers and blood and blood and blood and blood and intestines and blood and blood and blood and ears and blood and blood and blood--were painted across the four walls of the workshop.

And then.

He saw what tumbled into the bounds of the magic circle.

The old man"s freshly severed head.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah--!

The shock only managed to call his conscience back into his paralyzed body.

There was a sound of dragging.

He felt that he was being pulled along by someone.

The floor seemed to be concrete. He felt pleasantly cool, but slightly in pain. It seemed like he was being pulled along by the collar, his ankles occasionally sc.r.a.ping across the ground.

His vision was still dark. He couldn"t move his body at all.

Nevertheless, his right eye reflected a complex picture. The pentagram of Solomon he had learned about from Honami, and a ring in the shape of a bay laurel used for warding off demons both flickered before his eye near his collar.

He understood.

These were Adilisia"s fetishes.

Huh? Why can I see those sorts of things?

His thoughts were desultory.

He was dragged a little further.

Apparently they had reached their destination. Adilisia was breathing heavily, even though she didn"t seem to have moved a very great distance. She was definitely lacking exercise. Her physical strength was more like a normal girl"s.

A soft hand lightly touched his face.

"... Why."

Adilisia"s voice sounded like she was crying.

"Why... do even you enter here?"

Her words seemed to be accusing him of something.

He couldn"t understand.

But he was glad that he seemed to be alive.

Once again--this time completely--Iba Itsuki lost consciousness.

"President! Addie?"

{I, i, it"s no use! If you foolishly approach it and those ripples come out again, you"ll be going for wool but coming back shorn!}

The white cat, panicking, restrained the witch rushing at the ocean surface.

"I, I know, but..."

Honami extended her white neck and gritted her teeth regretfully.

She stared at the pure white sea.

Yes, it was white now.

After Itsuki and Adilisia were sucked in, the ocean surface froze all of a sudden. The hundred square meter ocean had turned into white frost.

One could feel the cold air across the bridge of the nose to the cheeks, causing the walls of the nostrils to become paralyzed.

It was a change that was difficult to believe, but that was the scene of the reality they now faced.

{I don"t know what this means, but I have a feeling it"s turning into an excessively large-scale ceremonial magic art. Since it devoured "s demons, they can"t have done this...}

Byakko-kun narrowed his eye. The cold air had reached the broom, and it made the white cat shiver, blowing through his long hairs.

{For the time being, let"s pull back and regroup. Other members are probably also here, so if we can get to them, we might be able to go over the situation with them.}

"..."

{Er, Honami-san?}

"..."

{Honami onee-chan!}

Mikan"s voice came through.

"... I understand. I can"t just jump in recklessly."

She stayed quiet for a long time, and then placed her hand on the brim of her pointed hat.

"Since I can"t jump in, it"ll be alright. ... Rather, if we don"t look into this further, we won"t be able to get the president back," she said in a low voice, her face hidden by her large hat.

Byakko-kun nodded, and directed Honami away, standing on the end of the broom.

Following him, Honami ran her finger across the broom.

"... I"m sorry, Icchan."

With that, Honami gave a small sigh.

Mikan and Nekoyashiki were waiting in the middle of the frozen ocean.

At the tip of the frozen ocean that gave off the impression of a polar ice cap, a hole of about eight meters in diameter was open. It was the remains of Mikan"s spirit barrier. Honami took Mikan and Nekoyashiki out separately on her broom.

First, they got out of the cold--from a thicket on Mt. Nyuu that the didn"t reach, they looked down at the frozen ocean.

"Yeesh, it was cold down there. It"s like a refrigerator, isn"t it? I thought I was going to freeze to death."

Inside the thicket, Nekoyashiki, wrapped in his four cats, breathed into his hands and rubbed them together.

Honami"s eyes glinted at his words.

"He"ll be alright in there, right...?" she asked.

"Hmm. It depends on the style of spell, but I don"t think the coldness would reach the inside of the ocean."

"Why?"

"To have frozen right as both "s leader and our president fell in, it"s like it was carefully aiming and then froze at that moment, right?" Nekoyashiki answered, pointing at the frozen ocean. "That is to say, can it not be considered that the magician who spread this was waiting specially for those two?"

"You mean he was expecting president onii-chan to fall in?" Mikan interjected, looking up at Nekoyashiki.

"No, our president probably had nothing to do with it. He was a completely normal person until just recently, after all. --However--and I mentioned this a bit earlier-- tried to obstruct us from doing this offer a little too obsessively, didn"t they?"

"..."

Honami closed her mouth at Nekoyashiki"s words.

She remembered what happened in the park a week earlier.

"Fighting us normally at full power, probably wouldn"t lose. That makes the fact that they tried to obstruct us even stranger. For all that, their reason was... because they didn"t want this to be seen?"

That wasn"t logical reasoning.

If you thought about it even a little, that was common sense. At the end of the day, the question of "What could this be?" didn"t lead to a single answer.

"What are you thinking of, Nekoyashiki-san?"

""s leader wanted to hide this situation. However, before we get to that..."

The sleeves of Nekoyashiki"s haori fluttered as if they were dancing.

As he turned around, a single white paper flew out from that sleeve.

It was a seal.

He affixed it to a tree behind the group, and in an instant it exploded from the inside. It was as if the trunk had hollowed out and filled with blasting powder.

"... Do you plan on coming out now?"

"My goodness. That"s quite a greeting."

A relaxed voice flowed through the air.

From the other side of the scorched tree, a man gave an exaggerated bow. Seeing his usual unreadable, expressionless face, Mikan clung to Honami"s waist.

"... Kagezaki oji-chan."

"It"s been about half a day, hasn"t it?"

Kagezaki lightly patted his dirtied suit.

His horribly average appearance didn"t fit the surroundings.

He was an employee of the .

Honami didn"t know any more than that. He was in contact with various organizations, and Honami had seen him several times since she was in the inst.i.tute in England, but she had no idea what kind of magical arts Kagezaki specialized in.

Because he was so average, he contrarily got carried away in his normalcy--you could say that he was an uncanny existence beyond atypicality.

"Were you watching us?" Honami asked, menacing.

In contrast to her, Kagezaki gave a thin smile, handling his words gently.

"Not at all, I have to be here too to a.s.sess the "job." Moreover... there are rumors floating about that has violated a taboo, so I"ve come to confirm or deny that."

That simple, carefully aimed word carried a special meaning.

More than Honami or Mikan, Nekoyashiki"s conscience was focused on Kagezaki. Perhaps startled by the change, even the cats wrapped around Nekoyashiki turned toward Kagezaki.

"... A taboo, you say?"

"Yes." On his bleach-white face, another surface-only smile floated as Kagezaki slowly continued his words. "Oswald ・ lenn ・ Mathers--the original leader of and the father of Adilisia ・ lenn ・ Mathers--is believed to have, during his lifetime, attempted to become magic."

Itsuki felt a soft touch on the back of his head.

It was incredibly comforting, and the hand smelled good. He felt as though he wanted to simply vacillate forever like this.

He felt something tickle his throat, and when he opened his eyes, he saw golden hair and a pair of emerald eyes.

"Eh...?"

"Huh...?"

Their eyes were less than a finger"s distance apart.

For several moments, the two simply stayed like that, petrified.

"Eek..."

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!" Itsuki shouted with great vigor. In that moment, he tumbled from his knees, the back of his head slamming hard into concrete.

"Ow!"

Thanks to the pain, he fully regained consciousness.

Seeing the blonde girl sitting in front of him, he blinked his eyes several times repeatedly.

"--A, a, Adilisia-san?"

"... I, if you are that surprised ahead of me, then I will not have any time to be surprised, you know. Is that also one of

"No, that, it wasn"t anything like that... what were you..."

"I just intended to measure your temperature. It would not be strange for there to be some strange residual curse in your body after falling into an ocean tainted to such a degree with spell power, would it?"

"I, I guess you could say that, but..."

Then, he finally noticed his surroundings.

"Ah, that"s right. Are you alright, Adilisia-san?"

"I don"t know."

Her face turning deep red, Adilisia turned away.

"No, I didn"t mean anything weird; are you injured?"

"Huh...?"

The girl frowned, puzzled.

"Say, those tough-looking demons were destroyed, right? Are you going to be okay, Adilisia-san?"

Adilisia gave a small sigh and smiled at Itsuki"s words.

"As usual, you know absolutely nothing, do you? Unlike simple demons with ether bodies, mine are flesh and blood. They would not disintegrate from something so simple as spell power interference."

In high spirits, she pointed to the chest of her jet-black dress.

She was the same old Adilisia. It was as if the weak face she made the moment they fell in was a lie.

Itsuki was somehow happy at her behavior.

"So... where are we?" he asked.

He turned his head several times, looking around.

For now, they weren"t in the sea of the . They were in the corner of a room with naked concrete walls. They were in a large s.p.a.ce like a parking lot, and there were several sharp-cornered pillars standing. The dust-covered floor was cracked, and there were rusted, suspicious machines scattered about. What little light there was came from a white lamp affixed to the ceiling.

"Is that... by any chance..."

He strangely recognized the area.

He felt that he had seen this on the reference doc.u.ments before coming here. That is to say, it had appeared from time to time on Furube City"s regional TV before.

... Is this... the goblin factory?

It suddenly hit him.

"... Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!"

In that instant, a scream ran from his fingernails to the top of his head.

"------! Wh, what on earth are you..." Adilisia protested, covering her ears with both hands.

"B, because it"s... I didn"t think this could be the goblin factory! I, if you think about it, then from those strange stains, they look as though ghosts might come out of them like in the TV programs..."

The girl looked at Itsuki incoherently explaining things with a curious expression.

"You... for someone who was not afraid of my demons, what reason is there for you to be afraid of childish tricks?"

"I, I guess you could say that, but..."

Repeating the same phrase that he had said earlier, Itsuki then grumbled about how they weren"t the same thing.

He was genuinely not above such shame.

He was a loser who took the concept of manliness and slapped it, crushed it, tossed it in the garbage, and finally disposed of it in s.p.a.ce.

"Well, I suppose that is like you."

Adilisia lightly shook her head. Her golden curls shook elegantly as she did.

"... Now that I think about it... we"re not wet?"

"Somehow."

"But I thought we fell into the sea... There"s even air down here, what"s the deal?"

"My my. You are unexpectedly direct about the workings of your mind."

As if confirming something, Adilisia clapped her hands together and nodded as she said, "This will do."

"What will?"

"First, see the current situation with your own eyes. It"ll be faster than if I explain things, I think."

Standing up, the girl approached the window.

It could be called a window, but it was crude, with a broken shade draped over it. The sash and the gla.s.s had disappeared long ago, and a rusted frame and the shade were all that remained of what was once a window.

Adilisia lowered the shade.

"------!"

Itsuki"s jaw dropped.

Outside of the window stretched a frozen ocean.

Of course, a tattered factory like this couldn"t support so much ice. Plus, even though it was ice, not the slightest bit of cold air could be felt.

"This is... the bottom of that ocean?"

"Yes. The has not ended yet."

Adilisia, closing her eyes, nodded again.

Itsuki tried to arrange his thoughts.

After getting a.s.signed the "job" by the , we came to erase this . This meant that we had to fight with , who also took the offer.

However, a sudden, unusual change occurred in the .

The ripples and the whirlpool emitted from the sea destroyed the demons that Adilisia called out. This interrupted the fight. I then fell with Adilisia-san into the . Finally, it looks like the sea froze after we fell in.

What happened?

... What a relief, he thought absentmindedly.

To a high school student who could just see ghosts, such things weren"t under his control, or rather, he didn"t have the strength to do anything anyway. This was only the third magician-like work he had taken on since becoming a president, and it was the first full-blown job of those.

He drooped his head glumly and heaved a sigh.

"What is the matter?" Adilisia asked from beside him.

"Well, it"s just... I was thinking if we couldn"t escape somehow."

"If that is the case, then you may do as you like. I have something to search for. After going to all the work of entering inside the , even if I were alone it would be fine."

Instantly sliced in two.

If he impeded her, she would probably abandon him in an instant. Or rather, she seemed like she would be a willing suicide a.s.sistant if he were to get in her way.

The girl crouched down over the concrete and sc.r.a.ped something out with a sc.r.a.p of metal. It looked like a magic circle. Inside the large circle, there were several pentagrams and squares intertwining with one another. And then, as if to enclose those shapes, she bit her pinky finger and wrote out letters in blood.

Itsuki gulped at the act of self-mutilation, but suddenly asked,

"... You"re looking for something?"

He tilted his neck.

"..."

Adilisia"s finger stopped.

She had a face that bluntly said, "d.a.m.n it!"

"You mean it"s in this ? So you tried to stop us from taking this offer because you were looking for that?"

"... I, I will tell you, but..." The girl curled her hands into fists and raised her face. "This is a state of emergency, thus it cannot be helped that we are together. I will not give you any more information than is needed."

"Ah, y, yes. Understood!"

Flashed at by Adilisia"s emerald eyes, Itsuki immediately bowed.

However, he was a bit late, as Adilisia tapped her magic circle, seeming regretful.

"... It"s no use."

"Wh, what"s wrong?"

"My fetishes are insufficient. The equipment I have now and this impromptu magic circle are lacking spiritual significance, even though I tried compensating for it with my own blood."

Irritated, she bit the nail of her thumb. Under normal circ.u.mstances, they were at a complete loss for anything to do.

A fetish...

"Say, how about this?"

Itsuki unclipped the badge on his collar.

In an instant, the color of astonishment filled Adilisia"s eyes.

"L, lend me that, right now!"

The girl leaned forward.

However--in a rare move, Itsuki pulled that badge away from her.

"H, hold on a second."

"What is it?"

"I"m not going to just give this to you for nothing."

"... Are you asking, that I help you to escape? If that is the case then, I will simply take it from you by force."

There was an extraordinary murderous intent lurking in the tone of Adilisia"s voice. It was a scale of absolute zero that seemed to freeze Itsuki to his fingertips.

"N, no, just listen! If you have something to search for, then I"m fine with that. If so, I"ll even cooperate. In return, what do you say we help each other get out of here?"

Adilisia glared as if evaluating him.

"... You say you will cooperate with me?"

"Yes! It"s not unheard of, stuff like this. "Bitter enemies placed in the same boat give and take?""

Spouting out a four-character kanji compound[1] that made little sense in the current situation, Itsuki"s heart raced wildly. Itsuki was obviously no match for Adilisia in magic, and he wasn"t confident that he could even beat her in a fistfight. As such, his life was on the line in this negotiation.

"..."

Adilisia took a single breath, as if perplexed.

"However, there"s still a problem."

"Is it by any chance that you have to keep what you"re looking for secret?"

As Itsuki turned toward the water, the girl fell silent. Looks like he hit the mark.

"You know, I"m still a president. If there"s a secret you have to keep, I"ll never tell anyone. I"ll keep it a secret from Nekoyashiki-san, Mikan-chan, even Honami! ... Or is even that not enough?"

"Are you telling me to trust you? Without even forming an official geis between magicians?"

"You were the one who was handling me like a normal person, right? Couldn"t you at least trust me that much?"

Finally, somewhat weakly, Itsuki placed his hand on his cheek.

The golden-haired girl lowered her shoulders.

"Are you talking about, equivalent exchange?"

"Ah, wasn"t that one of the basics of magic that Honami talked about?"

"Yes, of course it has a simple meaning in transactions, but it also means that what you have and what you do not have are of the same value. In this situation, you are saying that the fact that you are not a magician has the same value as the fact that I am."

"Er, what do you mean?"

Itsuki goggled his eyes at her.

"You are telling me to believe you because you are not a magician, correct? ... That is fine then."

"Huh?" he replied again.

Adilisia"s face turned slightly red, and then she turned away.

"I said that I would trust you! So, lend me your badge."

"A, alright."

Adilisia wrenched the badge out of Itsuki"s palm, and placed it in the center of the magic circle.

Then,

"With a polished silver pentagram of this caliber, there will be enough spiritual significance. Using the mirror, it can be made into a symbol of amplification as well. --Hmph, anyhow, it seems like that Honami is your company itself, president."

"Ah, speaking of which, do you know Honami? I was wondering because she called you "Addie.""

"We were cla.s.smates in an English inst.i.tute. She was famous for having revived the lost Celtic Magic."

"Is that... something amazing?"

"Originally, there were a large amount of poems and gardols that were only transmitted by mouth and took twenty years to memorize."

"T, twenty years..."

"In the later part of its history, there was the Ogam script, but in the beginning and the middle of Celtic Magic--the druid"s method of learning was entirely oral. That girl did fieldwork in England and patched together various oral traditions. Thanks to that, the pile of papers from the report she presented reached the ceiling, but just the face of our teacher at that time was enough of a sight."

"..."

Remembering the desk buried by the contract doc.u.ments from last week, Itsuki made a glum face.

So she was totally serious when she said, "Why can"t you do this much in just a day?"

It"s no wonder than that she looked at him so blankly.

He felt that it was harmful to have an overachieving student as a teacher.

"... Shall I begin the ceremony? Using the pentagram, I will evoke a demon with an impromptu ceremony. You might get possessed by the demon if you are too close, so please move away a bit."

"Oh, r, right."

In a flurry, Itsuki retreated back.

Making a surprised face at his appearance, Adilisia spun her words.

"--I do invocate and conjure thee."

Her voice was slow and quiet.

"--I do invocate and conjure thee."

Again, she whispered the same spell, holding the pendant of Solomon on her chest.

"--I do strongly command thee, by Beralanensis, Baldachinensis, Paumachia, and Apologle Sedes: by the most Powerful Princes, Genii, Lichide, and Ministers of the Tartarean Abode: and by the Chief Prince of the Seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion--"

"..."

Itsuki gulped down a gob of saliva, gazing at the scenery that hid a bizarre feeling of tension.

There was a slight pain in his right eye.

... What was that? he asked himself, holding his eyepatch.

Just before he was about to fade away, a voice sounded in the back of his head. However, even though it seemed like he would normally lose consciousness at times like this, he strangely felt a slight sense of fear.

Slight...?

No. It wasn"t slight at all. In that instant, there was a rumbling, and his fear was completely shattered. Instead, the emotion he felt when he heard those words was a rising, uplifting feeling.

I feel like I"ve always heard that voice before...

His thoughts continued on without him.

That is...

He remembered.

--When he was in kindergarten.

--He was in the being chased by a monster.

--A hallway covered in dust. A tear-stained kindergarten uniform applique. The one he saw when he fell over

--"Icchan! Icchan! Icchan!"

He heard the crying voice of a girl from far away...

"Follow me!"

"Ah..."

From that one order, he returned to reality.

To the ether body floating in the center of the magic circle directly above the badge, Adilisia was holding out the pentagram of Solomon.

"--Behold the Pentacle of Solomon which I have brought here! Therefore, in the name of the king, thou must follow my order!"

An ether body like white smoke quivered.

Finishing off, the golden-haired witch continued.

"Come forth, Eligol! Firm knight commanding sixty armies!"

"!"

Eligol.

The strongest knight, and the last demon that Adilisia had evoked in the fight above the sea. When Itsuki had seen him, he had mentally prepared himself for defeat like an unbreakable spirit of one who died at war.

But.

--Poof!

Eligol appeared on Adilisia"s shoulder.

"Poof?"

Of course, that"s not really what it sounded like, but that was the mimetic word that came to Itsuki"s mind. However, it was very fitting.

Eligol"s armor shone in the light of the white lamp. He had his heroic crimson flag. He had his sharp lance and the green snake wrapped around his arm.

It was the exact same silver knight as before.

... However, he was palm-sized.

"Wh, wha, what is that?"

"P, please do not laugh! It cannot be helped! It took me a year to call out that Eligol from before. Evoking him so suddenly, of course he would only be a shadow of his true form."

"Ah... ha, ha..."

His mouth hanging open, Itsuki nodded.

Special magical ability.

Each magical art had its strengths and weaknesses.

The demons that Adilisia could summon with her Magic of Solomon were extensive, all-purpose, and very powerful, however to call out the true form of those demons required an enormous amount of time and preparation.

When those things were lacking, results like this occurred.

"... gh"

"I, I will tell you beforehand, his nature as a demon has not declined in the slightest despite his size. He will not be any use in battle, but he will be useful enough for now!"

"I, I got it. I won"t laugh. Since I won"t laugh, please don"t let him stab me with that spear."

Running from Eligol, who was poking his spear in Itsuki"s direction, Itsuki held his head and made a wish.

Meanwhile.

A single crow fluttered down to a point halfway up the mountain, similar to the position of Honami and the others.

It was as dark as night. If it were a genuine bird, it shouldn"t have been able to fly.

Stopping the crow in his arm, a black-clothed person made two, three large nods.

"--It seems like our leader has evoked Eligol again," he notified a young man next to him.

They were the magicians of that had accompanied Adilisia. After Adilisia and Itsuki were swallowed by the frozen ocean, they scattered secretly among the mountain.

"Alright, we will stay on standby as long as our leader lives. If, by any chance, there is some kind of disturbance from , but we cannot let any word of this situation escape these grounds."

The young man pointed out some directions.

Then, once more, the crow took to the sky.

If a crow could have the intelligence of a magician, it might be surprised.

Several magic circles appeared on the area halfway up the mountain, focusing on the center of the frozen ocean.

That is--using one mountain as a stage, ten individual magic circles intertwined to form one giant, complicated magic circle.

"A taboo..."

Nekoyashiki"s voice paused.

The normally airy, lighthearted onmyouji"s face stiffened like a stone. The hairs of all four cats wrapped around him stood on end.

Mikan, who was shying away, and even Honami, with her cape being held onto by Mikan, swallowed their breath at the gravity of the word.

"No way... seriously?"

"No, it"s just a suspicion. I haven"t found any evidence."

Kagezaki shrugged, his appearance as usual as ever. It was a movement like a doll"s, as if it were a lie.

"However, so long as you have suspicion, you can launch an investigation. You all know how much of a sin it is for a magician to become magic, correct?"

"..."

A silence fell.

As if taunting the three, Kagezaki continued to speak.

"Spell power is an incredibly easy energy to manipulate. The control of that manipulation is called magic. Depending on the spell power that has leaked out, spell wave pollution can occur. Normally, spell wave pollution doesn"t last long, and its scale comes to light. Even a large-scale spell wave pollution, such as this , will disappear without a trace with the dawn."

Self-purification was at work, even in spell wave pollution.

Just as a river flows into the sea, as an animal"s corpse changes into earth, spell power as well sooner or later flowed and then disappeared. That was the truth of nature.

Kagezaki"s lips became twisted.

"However, in the case that a magician has become magic, none of this applies. Yes, you could say it"s like the difference between fire and nuclear power. A magician that has become magic expels spell wave pollution simply by existing. Furthermore, in this case, the spell wave pollution is not purified by nature. Remaining like in cryogenic stasis, nearby soil and animals--and occasionally humans are "infected" along with it. Some different species like mermaids and werewolves are born in such a manner. In modern terms, perhaps you could say it"s like radioactive waste?"

With a smile like a noh mask, Kagezaki finally whispered,

"--Of course, in exchange for all that, you can gain power incomparable to that of plain old magic."

The reason that magic was kept away from the public at large was not because it was some huge secret.

It was because it was dangerous.

Otherworldly power lures magicians very easily, and in exchange for that, corrodes reality very easily.

What the did was largely for that reason. That is to say, the a.s.sociations within it watched each other so as to prevent the violation of a taboo. It was a conviction agency for the purpose of restricting and erasing magicians who have violated a taboo.

That"s why everyone was afraid of it.

Kagezaki--was a magician who punished magicians.

"I know all that." Going up against Kagezaki"s cruel smile, Honami flashed her Ice Blue Eyes. "So what are you telling us to do?"

"No, no, I"m just confirming things. If really has broken a taboo, there is a need to add a fitting penalty from the ."

His words had a formal sound to them.

Then, a high-pitched voice interrupted the two staring at each other.

"--Ho, Honami onee-chan?"

"What, Mikan?"

"Um, is president onii-chan going to be okay like this? Because if president onii-chan is "infected" with spell wave pollution--"

"Ah..."

Honami became speechless.

If it was normal spell wave pollution, then anything bad that happened would heal in a number of days.

And then, even if this really was spell wave pollution born of a taboo, a magician could possibly be saved from a worst case scenario.

However, Itsuki was--.

I have to get back to Icchan--

"--?"

Honami, biting her lip, put her hand to the collar of her sailor uniform.

"Honami-san?"

"Right now, the president"s badge is--"

For a moment, she felt her badge as if entranced by it, and then suddenly stiffened.

"Nekoyashiki-san, we might not make it in time."

"What do you mean?"

"The president!"

As Honami spoke, she ran off toward the frozen ocean. In a panic, Nekoyashiki and Mikan followed her.

"... Make it in time, huh?"

Kagezaki gazed at the backs of the three with empty, soulless eyes.