Prologue What once was: Lost in time
At the start of the 21st century, magic became a phenomenon no longer existing in fiction and became a scientifically quantifiable resource. Due to the massive global chill that kicked in during 2030 food started to become scarce and small scale conflicts started to develop worldwide. Magic although used as a key component in an attempt to prevent worldwide starvation was not an omnipotent tool and tensions started to worsen relations between countries.
The tensions would last for another 15 years before war broke out in 2045. No country was able to remain neutral as border conflicts and battles over food and supplies erupted throughout the world. A year after the war started the International Magic Association was formed to prevent the furthered devastation of the world from the effects of nuclear weapons.
Another 15 years into the war with nuclear weapons still remaining a real threat it became the responsibility of magicians to police countries that were on the brink of using nuclear weapons. Whether from another country or their own, magicians were authorised to act and stop any country that was about to add nuclear weapons into an already volatile mix.
The story starts in the year 2060 where the Great Asian Alliance has occupied the Korean peninsula and is moving short range nuclear weapons into the peninsula in what could only be a repeat of the Cuban missile crisis a century ago.
In a barracks located on Okinawa, a group of men and a single woman were opening their weapon lockers and strapping on their combat amour in preparation for the mission they were about to embark on.
"Hey, so how much ammo are we actually going to bring? Seeing as Mitsuya-san here can just reload our guns for us."
"I already told you to load up as per normal, if we get split up and you run out don't come crying to me."
As the random pre-mission chatter continued, Mitsuya Tokihiko let out a small inward sigh as the teasing went on. In a small squad of 5 with him being the youngest, he was often the brunt of jokes and ribbing among his squadmates who were in their late 20s while he was the only one on the early side of the same age group.
"Five magazines should be enough, if we get into a firefight that would need any more than that we're already screwed." their team leader, Kazama Yasuo said as he filled his own load bearing vest with magazines.
"No grenades this time round Naofumi-san, it's outdoors and if we attract to much attention it'd be the end for us."
At the advice he was just given, Chiba Naofumi gave a curt nod and removed the two grenades he had placed in his breast pockets and placed them back into the weapon locker before closing the door and latching it
The five men having completed their loadout made their way swiftly to a small fishing vessel that would be used to smuggle the men in under the guise of returning from a fishing expedition. The frigate itself wasn't large in size or sophisticated on the outside and would not attract much attention from a cursory inspection; however below deck a small command outpost was built into the holding area where fish was usually collected which Isori Hisaya quickly ran over to and started setting up.
As the age of computers became more and more advanced, multiple methods of input became commonplace. With keyboards, touchscreens, smart assist and even holographic interfaces. Immediately customising the settings to her own preferences, Hisaya even linked multiple stations to her own and starting multi-tasking at mind boggling speeds, bobbing her head slowly to an imaginery song as her shoulder length hair swayed with every beat.
"Playing with your computers again? And you wonder why they call you a gamer girl." Satomi Keisuke said teasingly as he casually dropped his bag in the corner.
"Now now Kei-kun, there's a reason why you don't say things like that... Oooops there we go."
His back turned towards the action behind him as he lowered his bag, Tokihiko casually warned Keisuke about the possible repercussions behind his careless remark. Almost as if he predicted it, Tokihiko turned around and caught a mouse in midair literally inches away from Keisuke's face.
Although the mouse was suspended in midair with Keisuke staring cross eyed at it, it was not in contact with anything and was simply floating in front of Keisuke's face. The only logical explanation for its current floating state would be that magic was invoked. As for the invoker...
"See what I mean? Now you've gone and made her angry. This is why you leave Hisaya-chan to her business and don't bother her... Hey!"
Before he could finish his sentence, Tokihiko was forced to drop the current mouse he was holding and catch the next one now aimed at his own face.
"What was that for?!"
"I've told you so many times to let him take the hit and to stop protecting him!"
"What's wrong with protecting your best friend-ow! Tokihiko why didn't you stop that one?!"
As Hisaya's face broke into a smirk, Tokihiko nonchalantly looked the other way as the third mouse found its mark. In the darkness of the room Keisuke was completely unable to stop the flying black mice hurled at him and after rubbing his face quickly made himself scarce via the nearest bulkhead.
"Now if you had simply let the first one through I wouldn't have to throw so many."
Now with only the two of them in the command post, Tokihiko slowly picked up the three mice and walked over to give them back to Hisaya.
"Well, you could call it male camaraderie I suppose."
After making his comment Tokihiko took a seat opposite from Hisaya and removed his CAD from his arm and plugged it into the terminal.
"Maintenance? Or fine tuning?"
"Fine tuning, I rather not do maintenance in a moving vehicle."
Even though she could continue the conversation, Hisaya nodded and continued her own work as a silence settled between the two only broken by the soft hum of the ship's engines.
CAD fine tuning ususally took up a lot of concentration and the slightest distraction could have catastrophic results. As rows upon rows of alphabets and numbers scrolled down Tokihiko's screen, Hisaya snuck in a peek here and there but never said anything.
"It's alright to talk, I'm not doing anything major, just fiddling with the Activation Sequence of some of the smaller spells I might have to use."
Although she wanted to ask "this late?" the question never left her lips and she decided on having small talk instead.
"Tokihiko, has it been decided who's going to be cooking tonight?"
"I heard Yasuo-taichou wanted to give it a shot, something about trying to make a new kind of udon."
"He really likes cooking doesn't he?"
"Well everyone's gotta have their own hobby. Kudos to him for picking up something useful."
"Hey guys, Yasuo-san's done if you want to eat. Make it quick too, we'll be arriving in about an hour." Naofumi called from the bulkhead before walking off.
Tokihiko and Hisaya made their way down to the galley. Keisuke and Naofumi were happily slurping their udon on one side of the table while Yasuo calmly ate his on the other.
Hisaya and Tokihiko carefully ladling out their own share quickly joined the table as the 5 ate their meals quickly until a bell rang.
"We're arriving. Suit up and prepare to head out."
The march to the site itself was not long but Tokihiko could feel the tension as the group made their way to the outskirts of the launch site. The launch site itself was on an open plain with trees dotting the landscape here and there. On a hill a kilometer away from the actual site, the 4 men pulled out their binoculars and started to survey the area.
"4 guards around the barracks."
"Machine gun emplacements around the launchers, they look a decade old."
"The machine guns or the launchers?"
"Be serious Keisuke. 3 guards on each side per missile tent. So make that 18 guards in total."
"5 guards patrolling the fuel trucks. Could we use those as a diversion?"
"I'd rather not. We want to be in and out as quickly and quietly as possible I don't want to wake the whole area up." Naofumi replied.
"Isori, anything we're missing?" Yasuo said into his radio.
"Changing of the guard should occur in about thirty minutes. They rotate every four hours."
"That's our window. Let's go."
The group quickly double timed their way towards the site trying to make as little noise as possible. Aside from a quick scuff, the soft sound of footfalls was the only sound made.
After 10 minutes of quick jogging Tokihiko and the rest of the group arrived at the perimeter.
Whether by luck or by misfortune a patrol was coming around as the group hid inside a cluster of shrubbery in ambush.
The moment the guards passed by a pair of hands grabbed both of them and pulled them into the bush where two cracks were heard and silence enveloped the area once more.
"Changing of the guard, 15 minutes." Yasuo said softly as he checked his watch.
The group making their way to the missile tents, Naofumi accidentally stepped on a broken twig. The noise itself while not very loud attracted the attention of the nearby guards and footsteps from several directions made their way to them.
Before anyone could react, Tokihiko had tapped several keys on his CAD and pressed the activation key.
The group returning back to the bush after they had taken out the perimeter patrol guards 3 minutes ago, Naofumi flashed an apologetic look to the rest of the group.
"I will never get used to that I swear. How many more chances do we have?"
"Four. Five if I don't have to rewind more than five minutes each time."
Normally this conversation would sound out of place in any situation, but it had become a norm for the group. A group always chosen for the most dangerous missions with the least amount of intel. Formally known as "Special Ops Team 3" but informally known as the "mixed magic operational squad". One of several teams that only contained magicians and the only squad in the battalion that contained only magicians in a tactical unit.
The rewind that Tokihiko spoke of was none other than the rewinding of time. Or, to be more precise, the compilation of a person's memories and consciousness to be sent back to a select point in time. While rewinding time itself would be more feasible and contain less risk magic itself was not an omnipotent tool and to rewind reality itself would require considerable interference strength.
With that in mind the group made their way to the missile tents again Naofumi taking care to avoid the twig he had stepped on earlier.
"Alright we're in position. Naofumi-san if you will." Yasuo said tersely in the conveniently placed bush 20 meters away from the guard patrol.
Even at 20 meters, Naofumi simply lifted his rifle strap over his head and gave it to Keisuke for safe keeping before pulling out a small combat knife.
"Knocked out or out for good?"
"Knocked out would be best. We can't make a scene under any circumstances."
While Yasuo gave the instructions Naofumi was tapping out a sequence into the CAD on his arm. As the magic activated several moments later, Naofumi was out of the bush and on the patrol in an instant, a result of self applied Speed Magic.
Before the guards could react to Naofumi's sudden attack Naofumi had already swung the hilt of the knife into the first guards jaw. Without slowing down to check the results of his first attack, he had already slammed the temple of the second guard with his free hand balled into a tight fist.
Unfortunately for him, the third guard's reaction time was fast enough to catch his colleagues go down like flies and opened his mouth to sound the alarm.
Unfortunate for the guard that is.
Before a sound could even escape the guard's lips Naofumi had already begun to react and smothered the guard's mouth with a gloved hand before moving himself around. Clamping his hand tight to muffle the guard's soft screams Naofumi had a minor look of regret on his face as he buried the 5 inch knife into the back of the guard's neck before lowering him slowly.
The team making their way into the missile tent, Tokihiko stifled a laugh as the team made their way into the tent. Although no sound escaped it seemed that his team were also thinking along the same lines.
(Are you kidding me?! What's the point of having 3 guards stationed at each of the 6 entrances when all three tents are connected? And what's with the lack of guards inside?!)
"Looks like it's all clear for now. Don't let your guard down. Let's get to disabling the missiles."
"Hey... Isn't the Geiger counter a little low for being within meters of a nuclear warhead?"
For the rest of the team who had their Geiger counters in their pockets this sounded a little strange and the next several seconds involved everyone else pulling out their own Geiger counters in case Tokihiko's was faulty.
"Yeah, nothing but background radiation on mine as well. Could the shielding be very well done?"
"On a decade old junk? That thing should be seeping by now. Something's definitely up." Yasuo said as he started visually inspecting the missile.
"Kazama-taichou! This missile isn't nuclear, they're using chemical weapons!"
"What? Confirm it!"
"Yeah this one over here too! It's tabun!"
At this startling revelation, it suddenly dawned on them why the Great Asian Alliance's magicians were turning a blind eye.
Nuclear weapons were banned by the International Magic Association. But this ruling never extended to chemical or biological weapons. In the region of Korea where they were currently, it was said that more than half a century ago, an unstable government had gathered weapons of mass destruction. These missiles were likely part of that stockpile.
In order to avoid wasting time, Keisuke immediately started working by opening the first plate to get at the control panel on the closest missile.
Several seconds later an ominous beeping sound came from the panel Keisuke was working on as every person in the tent turned to stare at him.
"Ummm well so... Apparently there's some anti-tampering fail-safe programmed in."
"..."
Almost nonchalantly, Tokihiko tapped in a familiar sequence into his CAD.
The team now returned back before Keisuke opened the first missile started to consider other possible options to disable the missiles.
"Self destruct? How much damage would it cause if these missiles detonated here?" Tokihiko asked Yasuo.
"Too high. The nearest population center is 40km north. All we need is a wind change and we'd wipe a whole city out."
"If the missile's computer systems have anti-tampering systems maybe the missile itself doesn't? We could take out the warhead core and leave behind some really expensive duds."
"Sounds like a plan. Good idea Keisuke. Everyone move out."
Keisuke working on the first warhead while Tokihiko worked on the second, Yasuo started working on the third and all three carefully eased the payload out of the missile until Naofumi ran to Yasuo with a grim look on his face.
"Leader, you all need to see this."
The group following Naofumi to the far side of the third missile to by the looks of the table and boards with maps full of pins was an impromptu war room. The board with the map detailing friendly and enemy troop placements with enemy troop placements being more numerous. Upon closer examination the table was covered with poorly organised papers detailing troop deployments and future ventures that the Great Asian Alliance planned to undertake.
"All this intel... the JSDF are going to promote us if we bring all of this in!"
"Hey, anyone here read chinese?" Yasuo asked while picking up one of the troop deployment forms.
"Let me see that," Tokihiko replied as he took the offered sheet, "Let's see... Deployment of thirty thousand troops via destroyers Shenyang, Kaifeng and Dalian... two diesel submarines... landing craft... target... Tsushima island?!"
"We have to get this intel back asap. Start packing whatever you can!" Keisuke said loudly as he started to pick up papers and stare at the board trying to memorise as much as he could.
"No. We leave it all here. We never saw this and we were never here." Yasuo said, placing a firm hand on Keisuke's arm.
"Why not?! We could stop the invasion and counter practically everything they throw at us if we have all this!"
"No... Kazama-taichou is right..." Naofumi muttered.
"What is he right about?" Keisuke replied, a look of worry starting to cross his face as he started to put back the papers.
"What do you think will happen, if the Tsushima invasion fails. The missiles that they have here are duds and all that intel on the Tsushima invasion nearby. Do you really think they would be incapable of making that link?"
"No... You can't mean..."
"Right now the weapons they constantly find sabotaged whether nuclear or now chemical are being sabotaged by an unknown perpetrator. What do you think will happen to the country that is revealed to be responsible for all these incidents?" Tokihiko said with a grim look.
"The Great Asian Alliance will realise that it's us and increase hostilities towards us."
Being the one to answer Tokihiko's question Yasuo started to try and rearrange the papers on the table back to the position they originally were.
"Tsushima island has a population of 50,000. You have no right to make that decision. Not alone."
His voice starting to rise from carefully reined anger, Keisuke watched as Tokihiko bowed his head unable to meet his gaze.
"Does anyone? Even the whole committee of joint chiefs? We're not doing this because we can we're doing it because we have to. If we act on this now, we will face the full wrath of the Great Asian Alliance. Right now their forces are tied between multiple skirmishes with multiple countries. The moment we do something to tip the scale... We won't just face a loss of 50,000. A few ICBMs and the losses will skyrocket into the millions. This war's been on for too long Keisuke, too long. Billions have died. We cannot have another 7 digit figure added to that roster."
Before anyone could say anything else, the sound of shuffling feet outside put the entire group on high alert. Judging by the amount of footsteps it was at least half a section. Although not a word escaped the squad's lips the sentiment spread easily enough.
Time to go.
Quickly packing the cannisters of neurotoxin away, the squad quickly made their way out in the opposite direction of the footsteps towards the far doorway. As he was the one closest to the door Keisuke yanked the door handle and made his way out the door.
Without checking his corners.
His sense of danger going off the moment Keisuke opened the door, Tokihiko did not manage to yell out a warning and instead opted to drastically increase his speed. Building the activation sequence from scratch he input the values needed to cast Non-Systematic Magic Self Acceleration. Hurtling out the door and into Keisuke, Tokihiko barely managed to push him out of the hail of bullets that appeared the moment both of them shot out the door.
"Hisaya ready the ship we're coming in hot!" Yasuo yelled into his communicator as the squad flicked off the safeties and started firing back at the assailants.
In the chaos that ensued, Tokihiko tried to reach for his CAD to send the squad back in time until what he saw nearly made him freeze in horror: his CAD had been grazed by a bullet and was no longer functional.
"Tokihiko! Are we shifting?!"
"Negative! My CAD's shot!"
With his CAD inactive a large portion of his magic had been sealed off. Although he was capable of building his activation sequences from scratch, under duress he was limted to six processes. To make matters worse, there were several enemy magicians around limiting magic he could use due to giving away his position via psion fluctuations.
Every few seconds a suppressed shot would be heard as one of the group would take a shot at their pursuers. Nearly halfway to the boat however a cry of pain was heard not from the pursuers but from the squad. Blood oozing from the through and through wound in his chest, Keisuke collapsed as the squad turned around and rushed back.
Naofumi being the one who reached him first immediately lifted him in a fireman's lift and continued running back to the boat. The boat appearing in their vision as they shook off their pursuers and started sprinting, the group hit the deck out of breath but alive.
Most of them at least.
"Keisuke? Keisuke can you hear me?!" Tokihiko yelled, tapping Keisuke's face as Naofumi lowered him onto the deck.
Tokihiko's hands started to dart back and forth all over Keisuke's body desperately checking for vital signs. No air movement in airways, no chest movement, pulse not present.
"I'll start CPR!"
Desperation in his voice and actions Tokihiko quickly started moving his fingers down counting the ribs to where he was going to start the chest compressions until Naofumi placed his hand firmly on Tokihiko's shoulder.
"He's gone. The only thing we can do now is give him a proper burial."
"We can't do that! I promised his family that I'd bring him back! How am I supposed to tell his wife and kid that I failed?!"
Pumping while counting out the compressions, tears started to stream down Tokihiko's face as he bent over to breathe air into his mouth. Ignoring the looks of pity cast his way Tokihiko repeated the cycle several times until he finally stopped.
"Are you finally accepting the truth?"
The psion flux emanating from Tokihiko answering the question by itself, Tokihiko slowly built the activation sequence for Non-Systematic Magic "Reversal".
Reversal, the spell to rewind the time of the target's Eidos to any point in the past. Setting the target of the spell to Keisuke, Tokihiko started to rewind Keisuke's body slowly to the point of injury. Tissue repaired itself, skin meshed together closing the open wound.
But magic is not an omnipotent tool. That which can alter real world phenomena cannot create miracles. Even though the damage is repaired, the spark that is life cannot be returned once lost.
The psions Tokihiko had been building up slowly starting to dissipate now that the spell was completed, Tokihiko started building yet another activation sequence.
"Just give it up already..."
"One... More... Try..."
Grounded deeply in the ways of the world, although magicians possessed the power to bend reality via altering of the Eidos, a magician must always maintain a firm grasp of the world. But what if, a magician lost his grasp of the world?
Could the impossible really be made possible?
The corpse that lay before them coughing as it came back to life, Keisuke looked around at his squadmates as if awakening from a forgotten dream.
"What happened? I feel like I got hit by a... Whoa Tokihiko why are you glowing?!"
Having violated the world's restorative power to maintain temporal continuity, the world was faced with one of two options. Revoking Keisuke's return to life, or the removal of the force that made it possible. With the latter being more permanent than the former, Tokihiko started to disappear.
Although there was a smile on his face, a tinge of sadness could be seen in his eyes as he gave a small smile.
"It looks like... My time's up guys..."
- End of Prologue-