A story that takes place during episode 16.

A glance over at George confirms that, yes, indeed, the cloaks which they had been wearing - as stupid and as flamboyant as they had looked at first - were useful to a great extent, forming shields and thus blocking the boy genius' Invisible Bullets, rendering his greatest attack practically useless. Ah, well. That was quite unfortunate, but it's not like George has no other attacks, Ichijou reasons.

He was faring pretty well, though, until another one of the opposing teammates uses Illusion Magic, almost landing a hit on George and Ichijou has to aid him quickly, so as to make sure that he isn't knocked out too quickly. After all, although George's brains are the best around (save for maybe that Tatsuya character, but that's probably only when it comes to Magic Engineering) he's delicate, and Ichijou doesn't want to risk him getting out of the game.

It takes George less than a few seconds to realize who saved him, and he flashes smile over at Ichijou.

"Masaki!"

Obviously, the words cannot be heard from this distance what with the magic and the general explosions, but Ichijou is able to read the boy's lips and he smiles back, giving the boy genius a small nod of acknowledgement. George nods back and turns his attention back to his opponents, fingers already at his CAD and pressing numerous buttons to create an Activation Sequence that renders one of the students from the First High School useless and flat on the ground in seconds.

Well, seems that the loss of his Invisible Bullets isn't too much of a hindrance.

Ichijou circles back around to look for Tatsuya, since he has lost sight of the other boy dealing with George, and quite suddenly he notices that the teenager is dashing towards him, twin gun CADs clenched in his hands as he runs up to the prince.

Out of instinct, Ichijou throws his gun forward and pulls the trigger, activating Air Bullet and setting up multiple 'shots' around Tatsuya's rapidly approaching body.

But maybe it was the pressure that caused Ichijou to do the impossible and lose his cool, or maybe it was just sheer panic, but Ichijou realizes a bit too late that he hasn't adjusted the spell.

If the panic hadn't set in before, it certainly had now.

It's not that Ichijou really underestimates Tatsuya's ability to survive the attack - if anything, he would only be mildly surprised if he didn't get out of it with anything more than a rib fracture or a couple broken bones - but the mere thought that he might use his magic to kill someone innocent, someone not deserving of it-

That thought makes him as afraid of himself as he was three years ago.

Tatsuya is spinning, now, flipping out his guns and firing them in rapid succession at the glowing sigils, obliterating them into sparkling shards of light in mere seconds; Ichijou would be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little impressed. But there are many of them, and as he lands on his feet, some are beginning to visibly gather up enough power for the Air Bullets to take effect. Tatsuya shoots some of those, as well, throwing up one of the guns in the air and shooting with the other before catching it again, but by the time he's done, there are still two left and they're too far away from each other to be both annihilated.

They both fire, and suddenly Tatsuya is in the air again, but it isn't of his own accord. His body is flying, flying off of the impact and Ichijou can hear the audience - not just the First High School students, but many of the Third High School ones as well - gasping in horror and shock.

And Ichijou himself can't find it in him to move as Tatsuya's body hits the ground, rolling over itself time and time again as he can hear the bones cracking even from this distance.

And suddenly he's thirteen again, still wet behind the ears as he decided that he would volunteer for the front lines and fight against the Great Asian Alliance, bursting at the seams because he's finally going to be useful for once since he's learned Rupture. But his thirteen year old stomach doesn't expect that the definition of being useful means having to learn about the internal organs of a human being in a hands on experience, that it means that he'll have to bear the weight of hundreds - maybe thousands - of men's deaths on his still weak and shaky shoulders.

Being thirteen isn't that great when you could be spending your Summer texting your friends (he hadn't known George back then, though, so its not like he had many friends worthwhile enough to text to begin with) and organizing sleepovers and hitting on girls but instead you're spending it killing men who probably have their own thirteen year olds at home. Oh well, at least he'll have stories to tell to his classmates when he gets back home, right?

Wrong, because his classmates smile and call him 'hero' and then change 'hero' to 'monster' when they think he isn't listening or doesn't notice.

He tried changing that name to 'Crimson Prince' at one point, so as to glorify his killing, but those were just childish and, now that he thought about it, monstrous endeavors. One simply doesn't glorify killing. And the only real reason that 'Crimson Prince' stuck was because they twisted the phrase almost as if to represent the blood-crazed prince antagonist of some sort of light novel, not a glorified war hero.

But every time, every single time he had killed a man, he had been able to shake it off and push himself forward by telling himself that it was for the good of the people, that with every life he took ten more were spared because how else could a thirteen year old keep himself going?

But now at sixteen as he looks upon Tatsuya's innocent body, suspended in mid-air for a millisecond, he feels such an incredible amount of self-loathing that all he can do is stare and hope beyond hope that the boy isn't dead, isn't maimed for life because he isn't going to be saving anyone by destroying Tatsuya.

And then, he blinks once, and Tatsuya's eyes are flashing blue and time is spend up to it's normal pace and Tatsuya lands on his feet at the ground beside him. He isn't limping or wincing or showing any signs of pain, either, not like how the other victims of Air Bullet have been effected, and when Tatsuya brings his fingers to Ichijou's ears, he doesn't feel fear or pain or disappointment at all.

There's just suddenly red liquid running down his cheek (it takes him a moment to realize that, for the first time, this blood doesn't belong to some stranger) and he falls to the ground.

But whether he's limp from the pain or from relief, Ichijou doesn't really care.

Monsters seem to come in all shapes and sizes, after all. It's nice to know you're not alone every once in a while.