Azusa
The bus began to move and they were finally on their way home. For many of the students from First High this was when it hit home that the Nine Schools Competition was really and truly over. They were on their way back to their normal lives.
Azusa wondered whether any magician, or magical engineer for that matter, really had a normal life. The life of a magician and those the engineers and technicians who supported them was different and apart from the general population. The public knew about magic and magicians but rarely saw them in public. They mostly heard about them from the news or from accounts of battle where mages did powerful and devastating things. They seemed to be awe inspiring weapons that were apart from the people. Different. Inscrutable. Maybe not even human. And people tended to hate and fear what they couldn't understand.
Part of the reason for the NSC was to let the public take a peek into the world of magicians and alleviate some of that fear. The events were televised across the entire country as a series of sporting events and people loved sports. They picked a "team" and rooted for them...or against them. Who could be afraid of their favorite team? It also exposed the public to magic in a very limited way so that it wasn't completely foreign and it gave them the feeling that the students were one of them and not some "other".
The public got to see these magic students as people and not just some branch of the military. These competitors did their best to win, were bowed and frustrated when they lost and raised their arms in joy when they won. They did amazing things on the field of play, but they made mistakes too. They were people, just like everyone else. The competition served other purposes, of course, but in Azusa's mind, this was the most important.
They certainly got a show this year, she thought, as she curled herself into a ball, closed her eyes and feigned sleep. She was taking up the whole seat, but she didn't care. One of the few benefits of being such a tiny person was being able to lounge comfortably on a bus bench. Mayumi-san and Mari-san sat across from her having an animated discussion. Thankfully, they toned it down when they saw Azusa was trying to sleep.
It was a little rude of her to ignore her friends like this, but Azusa needed some time to process everything that had happened. The past week and a half had been crazy and hectic for her as a magic tech. She had been dealing with people while trying to tune competitors' CADs and running around from event to event, so by the time she managed to get to her room in the evenings she would be mentally and physically exhausted and could only sleep. Now that it was all over it was time to try to absorb all the things she had learned over the past few days and try to make sense of it all.
She guessed it really all started with the Student Council. At First High, almost everything did. Or seemed to. This was Azusa's second year, both in high school and in Student Council where she served primarily as secretary. Mayumi-san, who was now a third year student and Council President, had asked the shy and quiet Azusa to join the Council just after student orientation. The request had shocked the little freshman and left her speechless. Saegusa Mayumi-san, one of the heirs to the Saegusa family of the Ten Master Clans was asking her, Nakajo Azusa, to be on the Student Council? This must be some sort of dream-or nightmare. Mayumi-san, seeing her discomfort, attempted to explain.
"I've seen your test scores. You magic abilities are good, but your technical knowledge scores are second to none! The Council would really like to bring you on board so that we can get a point of view from the engineering side of things and I believe that you would be perfect for the job. What do you think?"
All of this was delivered with a dazzling smile, which Azusa would learn later, was a weapon all by itself. A weapon that the President used quite often to get her way. But right now that smile was a ray of sunlight bursting through the clouds of a lonely freshman's existence.
Being obsessively drawn to magic technology from an early age, Azusa had been a loner. She was always busy learning some new tech if she wasn't taking apart some old piece of hardware or software to see how it worked. She was an otaku when it came to these sorts of things so she never gave much thought to friends, relationships, or even just interacting with others. She was very much her father's daughter in that respect.
Also very much like her father, her hero was Taurus Silver, the mysterious genius level engineer who worked for Four Leaves Technologies. FLT was one of the cutting edge engineering firms in the country and Silver-sama was the most prominent of their cadre of great programmers and engineers. Anyone who was involved with magic knew who Taurus Silver was.
Of his many accomplishments was the Loop Cast System, which allowed magicians to repeatedly invoke the same magic sequence without restarting the activation sequence. It greatly increased the efficiency of repetetive tasks, allowing users to quickly work the same spell over and over while conserving their energy. His mastery over both hardware and software was unparalleled! He pioneered many other software and hardware related breatkthroughs while still managing to remain incognito. Taurus Silver wasn't his real name and the public didn't even know what he looked like. Azusa always pictured him as a blonde, handsome young man in his twenties. Just thinking about him got her excited enough to bring on her asthma and she had to slow herself down and remember to breathe. While she never thought much about boys in the romantic sense, she did have dreams of meeting Silver-sama and maybe even-well, that wasn't important. He was her hero and she spent a lot of idle moments wondering just who he could be.
The subject at hand, though, was the fact that she was just a bit succeptible to kind words from people she wasn't familiar with. Especially when those people were her social superiors.
Hearing Mayumi-san's flattering words and seeing that kind smile directed at her had a magic all it's own and she found herself nodding and accepting the offer from this beautiful and awe-inspiring person.
"Great! Please be at the Council meeting room tomorrow after school. We look forward to welcoming you there, A-chan." With a wink and a smile, the President departed like a soft summer breeze that left Azusa staring with a confused expression on her face. "A-chan?", she murmured.
That first year went by surprisingly smooth for her. She learned to balance her Council duties with her insatiable desire to learn new technology. In the process, she developed a reputation within the Council and throughout the school as a dependable and almost genius level engineer. The only bad thing she encountered was the President insisting on calling her A-chan. The way Mayumi-san said it came off somewhere between affection and teasing. It was never said as an insult, but still it was embarrassing. Azusa didn't mind so much when they were alone or even in front of the other Council officers, but Mayumi-san insisted on introducting her to others that way too. She always protested it, but it never did any good. Mayumi-san had nicknames for some of the other officers too, but that didn't make Azusa feel any better. Fortunately, no one else tried to call her that childish name.
It was in her second year that things got interesting. Soon after the entrance tests for new students were completed, Azusa learned that not one, but two people had beaten her magic theory test scores from last year. And by more than a couple of points too. Not only that, but they were brother and sister! Shiba Tatsuya and Shiba Miyuki.
Rumors were already circulating about these two and their "special relationship" with one another. How they went beyond just a bit beyond the bounds of sibling affection. The fact that they lived together without any adult supervision just made all the rumors juicier. The few stories repeated in her presence made her squirm uncomfortably.
Curiosity aroused from their test results, she told herself that she would have to meet this interesting pair, but with her duties and her "hobbies" she never found the time. Soon enough, however, the time found her.
A special Council meeting had been called. Not that unusual, considering that it was the beginning of the new school year and vacancies in the Council and other school bodies had to be filled. Evidently, Mayumi-san had a candidate in mind and wanted to introduce that person to the rest of the officers. That was a formality, really, since as Council President, Mayumi-san had the power to appoint whomever she wanted. Well, anyone from the Course 1 curriculum, anyway.
It certainly was a special meeting, since Watanabe Mari was present. As Public Morals Committee head, she wielded as much power as Mayumi-san. The PMC functioned as the police force on campus. They made sure that students didn't abuse magic on school grounds and had the power to apprehend any violators. Mari-san and Mayumi-san complimented each other nicely in their respective roles and were personal friends as well.
Azusa wasn't informed about the candidates until she arrived in the Council chambers. She thought it was odd that they hadn't told her before since the person being invited was to assist Azusa in her secretarial duties to begin with and the new person would be under her charge while she became accustomed to working with the rest of the officers.
Listening to Mayumi-san and Mari-san chat before the start of the meeting, Azusa learned that the nominee was to be Shiba Miyuki. Well, she would finally get to meet this new prodigy. Too bad she couldn't meet the brother too.
"Mayumi, why did you invite the brother too?"
"If you had seen them interact for any length of time, Mari, you would know that Miyuki-san would never accept this position without Tatsuya-kun's consent. By inviting him we can get our answer immediately." The look in the President's eyes said there was more to it than that, but no one asked what that something else could be.
Well, it seemed that she would get to meet the brother after all. This should be interesting. And it was. The first thing she noticed was that while the sister had the eight pedaled bloom insignia on the breast of her jacket, the brother did not. He was a Course 2 student. With his test scores, how could that be? Looking into it later, she discovered that while his results in magic theory were extraordinary, his practical skills test scores were so low that he was lucky to have been accepted into school at all. While it was normal for students to be more proficient in either practical skills or theory, it was quite odd to see such a wide gap in those skills. It was the first of many interesting things she would soon learn about Tatsuya-kun.
Oh, and those rumors? A bit exaggerated, but only a bit. For the most part, they acted as normal siblings. It was quickly evident that Miyuki-san practically worshipped her older brother to the point of embarrassment. For his part Tatsuya-kun acted like a normal aloof older brother, though he sometimes uttered something completely outrageous. Like he would have Miyuki-san as his lover if she wasn't his sister. Azusa had almost fainted from mortification. Even Tatsuya assuring them it was a joke didn't alleviate all the awkwardness such a declaration caused. Needless to say, the subject was changed immediately. There were other interactions like that that Azusa witnessed, but she tried very hard to forget them.
The result of the meeting was that Miyuki-san became a council member, which was no surprise. What was unexpected was that Mari-san accepted the reluctant brother Tatsuya-kun into the Public Morals Committee. Shiba Tatsuya. A weed.
First High divided their students into two Courses. First, there were the Course 1 students, casually known as 'Blooms'. These were the students with high magical talent as shown by their practical test results. Practical magic scores always trumped magic theory scores at First High. These students had actual teachers in their rooms and not computer instructors.
Miyuki-san was also a Bloom. She was one of the strongest magic users that Azusa had ever seen and her test scores reflected that. Her scores in practical application of magic were as good as her brother's were bad. She also had the bearings and manners of an aristocrat without the arrogance. In short, she was a lady through and through. Her personality was just as beautiful as her appearance. Except, of course, for that brother-complex thing.
Tatsuya-kun belonged to that other class of students. Course 2 students, or Weeds. Azusa hated that term. They were all students at the same school and just like any normal school, some people excelled more than others while some were not quite as gifted. It didn't mean they were any more or less than anyone else. Even though school rules forbade the use of it, "Weed" was still commonly used as a disparaging term towards those who were seen as magically inferior to Blooms. Fortunately, most of the Student Council felt as Azusa did, which was part of the reason why Tatsuya was brought on board.
Over time she began to hear stories about Tatsuya-kun's combat prowess. She even witnessed it herself at the NSC and with his mock battle with Hattori-san.
Not surprisingly, what Azusa remembered from that fight with Hattori-san (the actual battle itself only lasted 5 seconds or so) was that Tatsuya-kun used a Silver Horn CAD. A FLT product, it was made to maximize the Loop Cast System developed by Silver-sama. It wasn't just a CAD to her, it was a work of art! After Tatsuya-kun was declared the winner, she got so excited seeing it that she lost all sense of decorum in her frantic attempts to climb Tatsuya-kun so she could at least touch it once. Mayumi-san had to practically pry her off of poor Tatsuya-kun. Immediately after, she would be mortified by her actions, but at that moment she just couldn't control herself. She felt devastated when he put the CAD back in it's case and locked it. After her embarrassing display she didn't have the courage to simply ask him if she could hold it.
It was apparent to everyone by the end of the games that the tests for practical magic did not test everyone's capabilities completely. With her own eyes, Azusa saw him do amazing things in combat situations, but those skills were nothing compared to his engineering skills. At least that was true in Azusa's mind.
Her first real glimpse into his skills was when he, a Course 2 student, was chosen as an engineer for the NSC by the Student Council. Some of the Course 1 students objected, so Tatsuya-kun was asked to display his skill level by adjusting another student's CAD while everyone watched. It was crucial that competitors be able to trust their engineers. If a CAD maintenance was done badly enough it was quite possible that the device could harm the magician trying to use it. CAD maintenance was considered one of the lower skill levels in engineering, but would be the most common task at the competition.
Azusa was confident that Tatsuya-kun was at least moderately skilled. She had heard him from time to time comfortably conversing about very high level engineering concepts, some of which even Azusa wasn't terribly familiar with. She also knew that Tatsuya-kun was responsible for Miyuki-san's CAD maintenance. He was the only person Miyuki-san trusted with her CAD. This was why it was Azusa who first proposed that Tatsuya-kun be invited as an engineer. A first year student had never served as a competition engineer before, not to mention a first year Course 2 student. But, as Mayumi-san said at the time, 'There has to be a first time for everything!'
Just before this testing, she finally got to touch the Silver Horn. Azusa noticed one day in the Council room that Tatsuya-kun had gotten a new holster for it. Even the holster was a beautiful piece and Azusa couldn't help but ask if she could examine it. He allowed her to and she meticulously went over every detail. She already knew she was a device-otaku, and she was okay with that, but over a holster? Seriously? Well, she did get to look at the CAD while she was at it. And she didn't drool or anything so it was okay, right?
The test of Tatsuya-san's skills was in the Club Management Headquarters. The room was full of candidates for the competition, both contestants and engineers. Many of them, Azusa could see, wanted the 'Weed' to fail. Slots in the competiton were prized and many resented the fact that a Course 2 student would be chosen.
It was decided that the guinea pig for this test was to be Kirihara-san. He had volunteered and the fact of his dislike of Tatsuya-kun was well known. He would certainly not give a favorable verdict through any sense of loyalty to Tatsuya-kun. The test itself was fairly simple. He was asked to copy Kirihara-san's CAD schematics onto the competition-use CAD, making any necessary adjustments without changing the Activation Sequence.
What he managed to do with that display of skills was pretty impressive. He copied a student's information from his personal CAD onto the competition CAD, but he did it all manually. And he did it in the safest possible manner. Most technicians relied on the maintenance software and it's graphs in order to do their tuning. To Azusa's amazement, Tatsuya-kun was reading the datastreams as they flew across the screen to do his tuning. She had to admit that even she couldn't do that. That level of skill was beyond a mere highschool student, even if most of the people in the room couldn't understand exactly what happened in front of their eyes. Many of the technical team that were present understood, but not many others. Tatsuya-kun had to be on the technical team at all costs, Azusa decided. No doubt about it. Kirihara-san's judgement that the competition-CAD felt just as good as his personal one was amazing considering that the competition-CAD's specs were much lower than his personal CAD's.
When the inevitable negative comments were made about his skills, it was the quiet and shy Azusa who spoke up and tried to explain to everyone why Tatsuya-kun just had to be on the team. Fortunately, she was backed up by Club Leader Juumonji Katsuto, who had the respect of everyone there. The real surprise was that Hattori-san, who had been humiliated in his loss to Tatsuya-kun in their duel, also spoke in favor of his membership on the team. Thus it was decided.
Over the course of the 9 days of competition, Azusa heard about, or witnessed with her own eyes, the genius of Tatsuya-kun. His strategies for those under his charge made contenders into champions. First High took first place under all events that Tatsuya-kun had competitors in. In two events Tatsuya-kun's women swept first, second and third places. An astouding feat that had never happened before.
Unfortunately, his charges were only the first year women. The upper class men and women still resented him for being a Weed, and surprisingly, so did the first year men. It was only the first year women who learned to not only trust him with their CADs, but to depend upon him for their competition strategies, paving the way for their dominant performance in all their events. By the end of the NSC, their trust in him bordered on worship. The Student Council also began to trust and lean on the Shiba brother and depended on him to deliver in what became a very close games. People were attending matches just to see what the guy would come up with next. When she was able, she found herself doing the exact same thing.
He even created CADs for some of the competitions, most notably Shizuku's rifle CAD for the shooting event she easily won first place in. The technology wasn't quite original because integrating a general CAD into a rifle form with a sight attached had been tried previously, but with dismal results. The originality came from the fact that Tatsuya-kun's device worked splendidly. He was even nominated to have his name entered into the National Magic University Complied Magic Encyclopedia Index of True Names (or just 'Index' for short) for it. That was an accomplishment that every engineer dreamed of having and was almost unheard of for a mere high school student. It meant that you had come up with a design or a concept so exceptional and important that it was considered a national achievement. Azusa was astounded when Tatsuya-kun declined this great honor and instead suggested that Shuzuku's name should be submitted as the developer instead. He said it was because he would be too embarrassed to have a magic associated with his name that he couldn't even use. This made no sense to Azusa at all.
What really hit Azusa hard wasn't even an achievement, it was merely a comment by some random person in the crowd during the Mirage Bat competition. She had already been reflecting on all the amazing achievements of Tatsuya-kun. She knew his skills well surpassed those of a highschooler. But it didn't really hit home until she heard someone on the crowd say "It's as if we're up against Taurus Silver out there!".
All of the achievements ran through her mind at the comment. The devices, the high class magics that he had incorporated into the women's CADs. Some of those magics had never had their activation sequences published. But Tatsuya-kun did it. There was only one explanation. It wasn't 'as if' the other schools were competing against Taurus Silver...
She recalled a conversation she had with Tatsuya-kun where she had wondered aloud who Silver-sama might really be and what he might be like. He had jokingly responded that perhaps Silver-sama was a Japanese teenager like them. Azusa had laughed it off as silly at the time, but now... He had also mentioned being a beta tester for FLT, which is how he had acquired that exquisite Silver Horn CAD. But, why would a teenager in high school be chosen to test cutting edge technology? She hadn't considered it at the time, but now it made perfect sense. The thought that kept running through her mind was a refrain of "How can this be?". The next thought was "What should I do?".
Azusa was always a bit nervous around Tatsuya-kun. Even though his engineering prowess awed her, his prowess and proficiency in violence scared her. Now that she felt she knew his 'secret', her apprehension doubled. The first time she saw him after her revelation, they happened to be alone in the Command Tent, the others having gone to eat, she assumed. When she saw him she froze. She thought that the word "Silver-sama" was only whispered in her own mind, but Tatsuya-kun's head came up sharply and looked at Azusa in a slightly ominous way. She was sure she wasn't imagining it.
Before she knew it, she blurted out "Are you...?" She stopped mid-sentence as his gaze became even more piercing. It felt like those eyes could cut her in half. She had never felt so scared in all her life. Holding her eyes with his own, he shook his head at her once. Not in denial, but in warning. She could feel the heat in her face ignite. She thought she might completely burn up on the spot. She realized that she really really didn't want to have this conversation with him. She managed to spit out nervously "Of c-c-course you aren't! How silly! What am I thinking?"
He looked at her, confused now, and asked "Are you alright, Azusa-san?"
Grateful for his change of subject she replied "Oh, umm, yes, I think I'm just tired and I'm afraid of making any mistakes."
He gave her a kind smile, something she rarely saw directed at anyone other than his sister. It was hard to believe he had just looking at her as if she was an enemy he was about to dispatch. "Just do your best as you always do and everything will be fine, Azusa-senpai."
With this he turned and left the tent, probably to get some rest himself. He worked tirelessly for the team and he must be as exhausted as Azusa, but he never looked it. He was always the same, composed guy as usual.
Azusa resolved at that time that she would never divulge what she had discovered. Not because she was afraid of Tatsuya-kun (she still was, a little bit), but because she considered him a teammate, and even maybe a friend. If he chose not to reveal himself as Silver-sama, it wasn't up to her to expose him. He must have his reasons.
She still had a difficult time reconciling the fact that she was going to high school with her hero! She knew that over time that would work itself out and she would be able to look at him as "Tatsuya-kun" instead of "Silver-sama" again someday. Probably.
With that comforting thought, she was able to get just a little sleep for the rest of the bus ride. She was met at the door of her home by her cheerful mother.
"Dear, there was a package delivered to you a few minutes ago. It was brought over by special courier too! Did you find an admirer that you didn't bother to mention to your poor mother? Anyway, it's on the kitchen table. Don't forget to wash up before dinner!"
Azusa took the package with her up to her room. She had no idea what it could be or who it could have come from. All she knew is that it was a little heavy. The package was plain, with only Azusa's name and address on it. No return address. She stared at it as if it would tell her who it was from if she just listened hard enough. That was crazy. She must be more tired than she thought. Shaking her head to clear it, she unwrapped the package.
Like the wrapping, the box was plain. It was a very nice, black lacquered box, but what made her gasp was the four-leaf logo of FLT Industries embossed on the small gold plaque affixed to the lid. Her vision became blurred with tears and her hands shook so much that she had to put the box down on her bed and begin her breathing exercises to calm herself down.
After she steadied herself and wiped away the tears, she reverently, lovingly, opened the box.
What she found made her gasp. Laying nestled in the foam packaging was a Silver Horn II CAD. Special model, limited edition. This wasn't even on the market yet! Its silver casing gleamed from the sunlight coming in through her window as if it was winking at her. She was mesmerized at the beauty of it. Joyful tears flowed freely down her face now and she discovered another surprise. Under Taurus Silver's engraved name her own name had been inscribed on the long barrel too.
Next to the device was a small piece of paper with a note, which read:
To Nakajo Azusa, my fellow engineer who always does her best.
T.S.
Overwhelmed, Azusa collapsed on her bed and cradled the box to her chest. "Thank you, Tatsuya-kun. I will cherish this forever." She knew that 'T.S.' stood for 'Taurus Silver', but in Azusa's mind it would forever mean 'Tatsuya Shiba'.
A little later, Azusa's mother came looking for her to see if she had cleaned up for dinner. She found her daughter fast asleep on her bed with an angelic smile on her face. In her arms she was cradling a pretty black box as if it was the most precious thing in the world. "Oh, maybe she did find herself a boyfriend!" With a smile, she left the room, closing the door softly behind her.