Tatsuya Shiba is one of the most (if not the most) badass characters I've ever seen. Being ridiculously overpowered is awesome, so I'm writing this to make him even better.
This is a story about Shiba Tatsuya if the operation done by Miya actually succeeded in giving him a complete and proper Magical Calculation Area. His skills as a magician will be on par with Miyuki (minus Decomposition and Regrowth).
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei isn't mine.
(Yotsuba Mansion, 2083)
Knock! Knock!
"Come in." Her voice came out almost like a whisper. It was soft, but seemed loud in the heavy silence broken only by the knocking at her door. She could hear the hinges squeak as she continued to stare outside her window. The night was brilliant, lit with stars. More dazzling than her sister's.
"Miya-sama. You're as beautiful as ever."
"I'm a married woman, doctor." A small smile crept onto her face.
"I was merely complimenting your appearance, Miya-sama." Of course. He had been working for the Yotsuba family for decades, and she knew he meant nothing of it. "In times such as these, I believe a small compliment can go a long way."
"You are too kind." She finally tore her eyes away from the stars, and turned around. An ornate wooden table separated the two. He stood upright with his long white lab coat, glasses, and old face. One arm hung to his side, but the other held a small plastic bag. "Are we ready?"
"Yes, ma'am. Just give the word, and we will begin preparations for the operation." Miya looked at his impassive face. Despite his words, he seemed to show no emotion. Or perhaps she simply couldn't recognize any emotion. Countless years of abusing her magic had left her own mind crippled in ways she didn't know. Her memories stayed intact, as did her intellect, and skill. However, there was always this feeling eating away in the back of her mind. She felt like she was losing something. She just wasn't sure it was exactly.
"Good. Prepare the room." She nodded. He bowed before lifting up the bag.
"And these?" He dumped the contents onto the table. It was piles upon piles of hard drives taken from every computer that contained information on their experiment.
"I'm sorry, but you know what we must do. We cannot risk that data being released to the public. It is far too unethical." She knew that was his life's work that she was erasing. His many years spent researching and experimenting were all scattered upon that wooden table. "It's your work, doctor. Therefore it should be your right to end it. I trust you will do so before our operation is finished."
"Of course." Whether or not he was shielding his emotions from losing many decades of his life, she could not tell. However, she did stop him before he walked out the door.
"Dr. Kitayama." He did not turn around. "It has been a pleasure working with you these past years. You are the reason this project bore fruit."
The man did not turn, but still bowed one last time before walking out of the room, drives in hand. Sometimes a compliment, some appreciation, was all anyone really needed.
(Yotsuba Mansion, East Wing)
(40 hours before the operation)
Miya reached her son's room to hear his fingers rapidly flying across the keyboard. Tap, tap, tap, tap! She opened the door to see what her son was doing, but only stared in shock as the video on his screen played out in front of her.
There she was. CAD in hand, with Dr. Kitayama beside her. Activation sequences appearing on the screen. Then, Kitayama spoke.
"Miya-sama, the operation is a success. An Artificial Magician has been created." Miya looked at the boy on the operation table. She remembered him. Small thing. Youngest son of a lesser family. Born without magical potential, he was a large disgrace to his family. They gave him up for the experiment without batting an eyelid.
The video cut. It was Dr. Kitayama again, only this time, at his desk.
"Ah, the date is March 15, 2083. The subject has unfortunately died this morning at approximately 12 o'clock noon. It has been almost 60 hours since the operation was completed. We don't know what happened. While the operation was successful in creating another Magic Calculation Area in his limbic system, he did not gain any ability to manipulate the information bodies at all. Despite the operation, he is still unable to use magic. The Artificial Magician Project has failed."
Then the log ended. There were no more logs. No more experiments. This was that last one.
"You know, we did figure out why he died. His brain overloaded. It couldn't make sense of the information bodies." Miya made her presence known, and her son instantly spun around with a shocked look on his face. "Don't worry, you're not in trouble. As long as word of this reaches out to no one."
Much of the tension that had suddenly appeared on his face eased. He would never rat out his family.
"I came to tell you that you will be having an operation in less than two days time." She watched as his eyes darted back to the screen, then back to her. She merely nodded. "Now tell me, where did you get those disks. I had them destroyed."
Kitayama would never have betrayed her like this. He knew the implications if that researched was leaked. Not only would it tarnish the Yotsuba name, but it would bring down the Ten Master Clans on them all at once. Neither she nor her sister was prepared for that.
"They were. I was curious, so I fixed them. I'm sorry." Tatsuya looked down. His cheeks reddened, evidently still ashamed at what he had done despite her forgiveness.
"No matter. Whether you know what is happening or not does not change my decision. The operation is still scheduled for two days time." She moved to leave, but stopped as he grabbed the hem of her dress.
"Wait." His voice was soft. Like he was almost afraid. "Your method... It's wrong. The operation won't work."
She was less angry than curious to his words. She knew it was going to work. The theory was sound.
"Nonsense. Your Magical Calculation Area is already dominated by your...abilities. Adding another will only serve to give your mind the space to work on actual magic." The words 'actual magic' seemed to sting as the boy twitched at those words. However, the truth often hurts the most. Tatsuya Shiba was not a magician. At least not as of right now, anyways. He was born with the ability to destroy information bodies, and restore them to previous states. Magic was the innate power to manipulate these information bodies. To change and edit them to your will. In the purest sense and therefore in the Yotsuba's eyes, Tatsuya was a non-magician. The lowest of people, but not for long. That was the goal.
"Tatsuya, the boy in the video died, because his brain tried to analyze the foreign information bodies. For a non-magician, it overtaxed his brain. Even though you're not a magician, your brain will not overload from analyzing the information bodies. There is nothing wrong. What this does prove, however, is that non-magicians will never become magicians." This was good. She hoped it would stay this way. To think that non-magicians could acquire some dominance over the field of magicians is nigh blasphemous. This was the exact result she had hoped for.
"But the experiments before that? They were on a magician." So he had watched all of the videos.
"Yes, but those operations all failed."
"Not the last one. The last magician, I mean." She narrowed her eyes. Was her son doubting her experiments?
"It did fail. She died hours later."
"Not because of the operation."
"The operation is the only explanation. How else could she have died?"
"It's because you're creating two completely separate Magical Calculation Areas. " Tatsuya began, but then looked up for permission to continue. Miya nodded in a way that meant 'keep going'. "After the operation she has two Magical Calculation Areas. They are distinct, and cannot communicate with each other."
Miya nodded. That was the basis behind her Mental Design Interference: to create a separate Area for the brain to use.
"That's the issue. When the girl tried to cast magic, her brain took in the information, but allocated it randomly to each Area. The brain doesn't understand how to use its resources, only that it can, so it dumps part of the information in the original Area, and part of it in the new Area. But that means all the information is a jumbled mess. Trying to draw out magic and change from incomplete information is impossible, so the brain takes in more to try and fill the gaps.
"This doesn't work because the necessary information isn't out in the world waiting to be gathered. It's in a completely isolated Calculation Area. The second half of the puzzle can't be found. So when the brain draws more information, it only grabs more jumbled garbage. This process stacks recursively. More mess means no magic. No magic means gathering more information. More information just creates an even larger mess. Soon, the brain overloads from the sheer amount of information trying to be stored. That's why having two distinct Magical Calculation Areas won't work. It's flawed."
As Tatsuya spoke, Miya nodded and followed his logic. His theory seemed to explain the problem well. She nor the other researchers ever thought about this as the reason. They didn't know exactly how her Mental Design Interference worked. They were there for the theories, and to work through the experiments, but armed with only partial understanding, they didn't get very far.
Tatsuya however, seemed to have dissected her role in the experiment down to the last cell. He saw what she was doing. How she was doing it. He then projected it, and extrapolated a conclusion. However, his conclusion wouldn't change anything.
"This will not be an issue for you. In your case, your brain cannot even allocate data to your original Calculation Area. There's simply no space. All of the data will be transferred to your new Calculation Area, and that will be all."
"Yes, but inefficiently." Another curveball. Efficiency?
"Explain yourself."
"The architecture you are designing for the new Magical Calculation Area is not the same as my brain's original one. The response time will be slow and limited. If I am able to use magic, it would be slow and impractical."
"Then what are you trying to say?" She wasn't sure what his point was. Inefficient, possibly. But having a bad magician was better than having no magician, right?
"...Mother, what would you do if you had a General CAD that was too slow?" A simple question.
"Get a Specialized one." It dawned on her. "...You want a specialized Magical Calculation Area that mimics the way your own brain works?"
He nodded.
"Impossible. I am the one casting the magic, and I don't know how your brain works. There is no Activation Sequence that we can develop that will do such at thing."
One last surprise.
"Not true." Tatsuya switched tabs, and out popped CAD engineering software. He had been typing a long list of code. "This is the Activation Sequence. I analyzed every time you used your magic hundreds of times until I got this right. I think... Anyways, I changed some stuff around, but this should work. I modeled it after both my mag – I mean, abilities."
She looked at the code. It was incredibly similar to her own, yet different as well. Many pieces were changed, but the overall integrity of her magic still held. It might just work. Wordlessly, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her CAD. She held it out to him.
Tatsuya immediately understood, and delicately took the CAD from her hands. He connected it to his computer and uploaded the file. Upon completion, Miya left her son alone without another word.
She couldn't say anything. What was there to say? He was not a magician, and he was a failure to the Yotsuba family. Then why was she smiling?
At the end of the day, she retired to her bedroom, the smile still present on her face. He was a non-magician, but even so, her conversation with him that morning proved one thing to be true: if there was one thing she could praise, it was his intelligence.
(Yotsuba Mansion)
(5 minutes before the operation)
"Mother." Tatsuya laid down on the operating table. The cold metal sent chills down his spine. "After I become a magician, can you promise me one thing?"
Miya looked at her sister. Maya was smiling. 'After I become a magician.' Perhaps he deserving of that respect.
"Yes?"
Tatsuya could already feel the anesthetic kicking in. His senses dulled and his mind grew weary.
"You'll never use your magic again... It hurts you. I know it. Promise me."
But Tatsuya never heard the next words as he drifted off to sleep.
Log 114. Dr. Kitayama; Yotsuba. Artificial Magician Experiment/
"This is Dr. Kitayama. I know I said the last one was going to be the last log, but I lied. We had one more experiment to do. The subject's name is Shiba Tatsuya, tentatively Yotsuba Tatsuya. It depends on what happens next. There's good new and bad news. Bad news is his limbic system has suffered some damage. This was to be expected. He'll lose some strong emotions, but it seems as if the Magical Calculation Area has settled in very nicely within his mind. I fear what might have happened had Miya-sama not refined her magic. At least in his current situation, strong stimuli should still be able to revive those deeper emotions, although I cannot be certain.
"More bad news. Shiba Miya has also suffered mentally from her magic. It drains too much, and is of a very high cost. Something peculiar happened. Right before the operation began, Tatsuya requested that Miya-sama stop using her magic for good. A tall request, but it will ultimately be beneficial to her health. With some proper rest and reduced stress, she should recover without any problems.
"Good news. Well, ah. I sort of already mentioned the good news. No matter. I'll repeat myself. The new Magical Calculation Area has settled in very nicely within his mind. It seems to have fully integrated itself with Tatsuya's original Magical Calculation Area. Theoretically, Tatsuya should have full command over magic like any other magician. This, coupled with his...abilities. Can we call them magics now? I do not know. Regardless, this new Tatsuya will be quite the fearsome magician, indeed. Only time will tell how this will pan out.
"One more thing. All of the other logs will be deleted. I cannot bring myself to part with decades upon decades of my life. So I shall keep this one log alive. No files, no data, just this one recording. If anyone else reads this, do not search for the other 113 logs. They no longer exist. Hah. Just look at me. Talking as if this was going to be some historical documentary or something. As if something like this would ever be that important. Chances are I'll take this to my grave. That should be pretty soon.
"Ah, I'm rambling. I suppose I will end the log here. The date is April 30, 2083. It has been a pleasure working here. I am proud to say that the Artificial Magician Experiment is a success."
-End of Log-
Bam! Chapter 1.
Ok, so I know I broke some rules here, but that's how it has to be.
Tatsuya can use regrowth before Okinawa, but it isn't as instant.
I hope you didn't find the explanations too confusing. If you've read the light novels, they get pretty technical. Let me know if you think it should be toned down.
Please leave a review with any concerns or criticisms. Thanks!