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This week's update is a little shorter, mostly due to some IRL things that got in my way. I'll be back in full force next week, though. Thanks as always for your continued generosity and support.
Chapter 35
Nagoya, Japan
Saturday, August 6th, 2050
I was rudely awoken the next morning as I rolled off of my bed. I say off, not out of, because I hadn’t slipped under the covers. A single, malformed Svalinn’s Mercy floated in the air above me. “Sleep casting? What in Our Father Below’s name would have me…”
Indistinct flashes of my dreams danced through my mind. Thousands of insects swarming over me, crawling into my mouth, stinging me over and over again. It wasn’t a rare dream, after my repeated run-ins with Haru Obe. I preferred them to the ones where Kiyo met that fate instead. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore.
I was still in the clothes I’d worn the night before. I must have come back and collapsed right onto my bed. What was that stench? A quick sniff revealed it was me, as I managed to smell like smoke, sweat, and the antiseptic cleanness of a hospital all rolled up into one. It made me wonder how Mariko had been able to stand it. No wonder she had been suspicious.
“Damn it all, another worry to add to the pile.” I yawned as I stood, feeling like I’d barely slept at all. The still-drifting Svalinn’s Mercy nearly collided with my forehead. “Keeping that up all night doesn’t help matters.” A snap of my fingers dispelled the half-baked defensive magic as I made my way into the bathroom. I didn’t look much better than I felt, with dark circles under my eyes worthy of Kiyo after an all-nighter.
I stripped off my polo shirt and my heartrate spiked again. A small cloud of ash floated off me, and more carbonized bees rained down on the tile floor.
By Our Father Below, there had been that many crawling over me? Just how many times had I been stung? I’d been awfully drowsy before All Heal forced the venom from my body. If I hadn’t been able to cast that spell when I had needed it…
A devil doesn’t know fear, naturally. However, a rational assessment of the situation showed how badly the whole situation could have gone. I continued to shudder, my hand over my mouth to prevent any noise from escaping. I didn’t scream, but I wanted to. My fingers trembled as I removed my pants, spilling dozens of charred insects at my feet. “So many.”
I felt a bit better after I had showered the signs of battle off me. It was a new day, after all. I was there, and Obe was not. It took much more fuss and worry than it ought to have, which emphasized my own words to Maggie the night before. Mercy was a luxury that I didn’t have time for. When the time came to strike, I would have to do it without hesitation.
I’d been telling the truth to Mariko the night before when I said I was awfully homesick. I missed the world of rational self-interest, where I knew the knife was coming for my back, so it wasn’t a surprise. I longed to be my true self again, to speak in my native tongue, and enjoy the pleasures of being a young devil about town without worrying about hurt feelings. There were no tender feelings to hurt back home, properly speaking.
I’d awoken earlier than normal, which I chalked up to nerves. I took the chance to check my mailbox on the lower floors for word from Fera. I wondered if Maggie had passed along my tip about the supposed invasion of Malaysia. I hadn’t heard any news, one way or another. If it had already been thwarted, I wondered if the Anti-Demonic League would inform the public to show how brave and mighty the Wizard Corps was. Perhaps they would sweep it under the rug to keep the populace in blissful ignorance? They might worry about spooking people after the United Kingdom had fallen the year before. I couldn’t decide which fit their modus operandi better.
The only letter waiting for me was a survey asking me to rate the school’s dining facilities, which swiftly found its way into a dumpster. I didn’t feel like making the trip back up the elevator. I still had my healthy respect for heights, and I still didn’t trust the contraption, so I preferred to minimize how many rides a day I took on it. Seeing that there wasn’t much time before I had my appointment with the headmaster, I decided to call Kiyo.
She answered before the first ring was done. “Magpie!”
“Aren’t we eager this morning? How are you?”
“Just how late did the headmaster keep you last night, man? I never heard back from you!” I could hear her pout through the phone.
“My apologies, Angel. I was exhausted by the time I was done, and I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow last night.” The technical truth was still the best way to lie.
“It’s not fair that you got punished and not me. I never knew the headmaster was such a jerk.”
“Yes, well, let’s do as he said this time, shall we? No reason to bring it up and awaken his wrath again. We learned that last night.” Please, I begged her silently. Please for once in your life don’t blurt out what’s on your mind. Go back to being the shy girl who can’t share her feelings worth a damn.
“Alright,” she conceded. “I don’t like it, but I know when not to poke the bear. Still, you should’ve called. I was worried about you, Magpie.”
There was that warm sensation that always made me forget my common sense. I decided to indulge a bit. I’d earned a little fun. “It was a hard night, but knowing I’d get to spend the day with you made it all worthwhile.”
I could hear her gulp through the phone. “Sheesh, man, it’s too early in the morning to get all romantic on me like that.”
“I needed to wake you up somehow. We have a busy day ahead of us.”
“Mission accomplished,” she said. “You’re better than an energy drink for that. Speaking of that, where are you at? You eaten yet? I can get us some breakfast.”
I couldn’t help but grin. “That would be lovely. I’m already in the mailroom, so I’ll meet you at the base of the tower.”
She showed up a few minutes later holding a pair of energy drinks, and she tossed me one. “Hybrid Vigor?”
“The other stuff doesn’t have enough caffeine,” she said between sips of her own can.
“I hate to be a nag, but this doesn’t seem to be a proper breakfast.”
“You sound like my mom,” she said with a sarcastic roll of the eyes that would have gotten her a good flogging back home.
I knew that all too well. I’d had to train it out of myself when I was fourteen. I had the scars to prove it, though the medicated lotion from the school’s nurse had reduced them a bit.
“What’s the matter, Magpie?” Kiyo sidled up to me, entwining the fingers of her free hand with mine. “You’ve been kinda off lately.”
There was that conflict again, the desire to go home fighting with the urge to stick around. I shoved them both aside. There was no coming back after the night before, if there ever had been. My choice was made, and it wasn’t helpful to dwell on it. “I have been. Don’t you worry, my dear. Things have been difficult, and they’ll be difficult again in the future. For now, though, we should just enjoy ourselves while we can.”
Chapter 36
Headmaster Tachibana was all smiles when he greeted us at his shack. “Ms. Jones, Mr. Marlowe, good morning! Ms. Jones, is something the matter?”
“I think we know what,” she said cryptically.
I held my breath for a moment, but he nodded. “Yes, well, that is the reality of school life.”
“Yeah, I guess. Still seems harsh, sir.”
“Discipline is important, and self-discipline is better to learn while you’re young.” He patted his own belly, giving it a good wobble. “You’ll thank me for it someday.”
“If you say so, sir.” She clearly meant my supposed laps, and he meant the end of our conjugal visits. It would have been funny watching them talk past each other, if my guts hadn’t tied themselves in knots worrying that they might start speaking the same language.
Tachibana clapped his hands together, a smile lighting up his round face. “Let’s get down to business. I know you both have better things to do than help me tinker.”
“Did you fix the, ah, bugs from last week?” I asked.
“I think so. It should be properly calibrated now. I also found a way to fit it onto a smaller fabricata.” He held up an arm brace that rather reminded me of the Band of Truth. “Who wants to go first?”
“I’ll take one for the team this time,” said Kiyo, slipping on a pair of gloves from her pocket. “Magpie’s suffered enough this week.”
Her wording raised an eyebrow from the headmaster, but he averted his gaze so she could ready herself. She stripped out of her uniform, under which she wore one of the skintight, camo-printed fabricata suits we had used during my first War Game. The brown and tan bodysuit stretched from her neck down to the tips of her fingers and toes. I wore the same chafing uniform beneath my own clothes, though apparently I needn’t have bothered. If I looked at her from the corner of my eyes, it was almost like she wore nothing at all. If only the headmaster hadn’t been right there, I might have been able to enjoy myself.
Sadly, there was work to be done. She slipped the circular fabricata onto her arm. “Should I put my magic into it?”
“No, I’ll provide my own so we can turn it off at will. We don’t need a repeat of last week.”
“To put it mildly,” I said. On our last test of the Peace Bond Mark II, I had been rendered immobile for a half hour when Kiyo tapped me on the shoulder. We had been forced to wait until the magic I’d charged it with ran out, since the alternative was to use potentially deadly magic to batter down the barrier. Another embarrassment to leave out of the report.
Tachibana waddled over to a fabricata on the other side of the room. It bore a circular device similar to the translator’s battery, which connected to a dish that reminded me of what Kiyo and I had seen on the roof, though it was all on a smaller scale. He took a moment to cast a charging spell on it, Raiden’s Blessing, which my Mimic helpfully logged away for future use. I hadn’t taken the time to learn a charging spell after Maggie showed it to me, since I didn’t want to encourage her to see me as nothing but a battery. As I monitored the energy flowing through his hands, I noted that it was a surprisingly intensive spell, equivalent to several uses of Magic Bolt.
“Are you ready?” he asked, sliding on hard, plastic goggles.
“Should I have a set of those, sir?” I asked. “If there’s a danger, that is. We don’t all have a bubble around us.”
“Oh, these? They aren’t for protection.” He tossed them over. “They give me a real time readout of the runes the Mark II executes.”
I eyed them suspiciously. To my eyes, there was nothing special about the eyewear. “It can’t be all that complicated, can it?”
“Try them on.” I complied, and he flipped a switch near the base of the dish. “The left eye shows what the transmitter sends, and the right will display the information that the receiver sends in return.”
A dizzying array of runes scrolled past my eyes, and a faint red aura surrounded Kiyo. I couldn’t make out a bit of it, but from the satisfied smirk on Tachibana’s face, he didn’t expect me to. “Would you like them back, sir?”
“Yes, please,” he said as he took them back. “How do you feel, Ms. Jones?”
“Pretty much normal,” she said. She patted her stomach. “I’m cut off, just like before.”
“Good, good. Touch your toes. Perfect, now raise your arms over your head. Keep stretching. Do you feel any stiffness?”
“Nah,” she said, standing on one foot and holding her other leg behind her. “Well, I slept funny last night, but the Peace Bond isn’t fighting me.”
“Why is she red?” I asked. “I seem to recall the Peace Bond being transparent last week.”
“I decided this would make it simpler to test. Mr. Marlowe, are you ready? Start with a Proxy Spell.”
There was some irony in using one of the neutered spells that Mr. Maki had taught us, when they were the approved alternative to the Peace Bond. I didn’t voice that, though. “Fireball!”
Kiyo flinched as she was wreathed in my most convincing faux flames. “I’ll never get used to that.”
“Now do you have any stiffness?” asked the headmaster.
Kiyo bounced on the balls of her feet and threw an experimental punch. “No, sir.”
“Very good. The mere presence of magic isn’t enough to set it off.” His fingers glowed as he willed magic into the transmitter before him. “Mr. Marlowe, I’ve turned the sensitivity on the suit to the maximum level. Go ahead and give her a poke.”
I stifled the obvious joke and softly jabbed a finger into her shoulder. My progress stopped an inch away from her body. The field was oddly cool to the touch, almost like glass.
It was much more dramatic on her end. She let out a surprised cry as runes woven into the suit glowed a bright blue, visible even through the shield. Her arm was left at an awkward angle, and she couldn’t move it despite her best efforts. After a moment’s grunting, she gave up. “Alright, now I’m stuck.”
I winced in sympathy. I’d been rendered immobile by my own suit during the War Games. It rather felt like wearing a steel straitjacket.
“Now do a kill shot, Mr. Marlowe.”
“Of course.” I loomed over her. “Where would you like it, my dear?”
“Wherever you like.” She gave me a saucy wink after checking that the headmaster’s attention was elsewhere.
I considered being saucy right back, but I didn’t want to push my luck. I flicked her right on the nose. At least, I would have if the Peace Bond hadn’t stopped my finger mid arc. The rest of her suit lit up and the paralyzed girl toppled into my arms. Instead of the softness I’d expected, though, I was presented with that same glassy sensation.
“That’s certainly a letdown,” I said to myself.
“I don’t see what you mean,” replied the headmaster. “That worked flawlessly. Hold her still for a moment.” He strode over and knocked on Kiyo’s right shoulder. “Perfect! Once she’s technically ‘dead,’ the runes didn’t activate again.”
“That’s great. Can we get me unstuck? Please? My nose is itchy.”
Headmaster Tachibana tapped his headset and examined the flying readouts. “No need, Ms. Jones. Unless I miss my guess, the battery will run out right about… Now.”
On cue, the runes running across Kiyo’s suit sputtered out, and she let out a surprised oof as the gap between us vanished. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir, that was an awful lot of magic for a minute’s uptime.”
Tachibana cocked his head at me. “Oh, using your Mimic to spy on my casting?”
“Me, spying? Perish the thought,” I replied, forcing joviality into my voice. “It’s involuntary.”
“Either way, you’re right. To be on the safe side, I’ve been forced to increase the output of the Peace Bond’s shield from what it was before, and I set the transmitter to triple the output on the shield when it detects a ‘death’ state.”
“Um, how is that going to work?” Kiyo straightened up, fidgeting uncomfortably. “There’s going to be like thirty of us going at once. You’re a pretty kickass wizard, and it sounds like that was a good chunk of your reserves. Won’t we run out of juice?”
The headmaster shook his head and chuckled. “A ‘pretty kickass wizard’, eh? I can’t say I’ve ever been called that before.”
Kiyo held up her hands, before bowing in apology. “N-no offense intended, sir.”
He waved off her concerns. “I’ll take that as a compliment. And you are right, the staff of the school doesn’t generate the collective reserves in a whole day to protect everybody in Class 3-B, once the fighting begins. To say nothing of the other students. We will have to cross that bridge once we reach it. Speaking of, Mr. Marlowe, if you would be so kind as a top off the Mark II?”
I jogged across the room and took hold of a pair of metal rods projecting from either side of the small battery. “Of course, sir. Raiden’s Blessing!” The runes spun about my hand, and my soul’s energy poured into the vessel. “What’s next?”
“Repeated testing, the cornerstone of fabricata engineering and spellcraft,” said Headmaster Tachibana as he adjusted another dial on the transmitter. “We repeat it with minor variations until it breaks, then go back and figure out why. First, we need to make sure creases in the suit don’t interfere with the sensors it uses to register hits. Ms. Jones, take a seat over there and fold your arms over your stomach.”
She complied, wearing a resigned frown as she sat. “Nuts. This was easier when it failed right away.”
“Failure is always faster than success,” replied the headmaster. “Test Two, begin!”
“Chin up, Angel,” I said, preparing another Proxy Fireball. “I’m sure this won’t take too long.”
**************
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