Plans Gone Awry – Part V

"Why now, Mistress?" Tadanori Hayama, head butler of the House Yotsuba, served his mistress her morning tea, as he had done every morning since she was old enough to drink it.

There was no compelling reason for Maya to answer her subordinate. Except that, having served the family as butler since her father's time, he had earned the right to ask questions that other servants would not have the nerve to even consider. On occasion, he had offered useful insights into issues important to the House. He served as a useful sounding board for her thoughts. He was the closest thing to a confidant that she had had since her sister's passing.

"Something must be done, Hayama. He's become too powerful, and more quickly than I had anticipated." She sipped her tea as she became lost in her thoughts.

Unwittingly or not, Tatsuya had made some very useful connections in his short time in high school. Saegusa, Chiba, perhaps even Jyumanji, as well as some of the minor clans. She berated herself for not having anticipated something like this. But how could she have? Tatsuya's personality was dour and he lacked the ability to convey any emotions Maya would think were required to form anything but casual friendships.

How had this happened? Not that Maya pretended to know much about friendships, except on an intellectual level. Relationships were about influencing people to get what one wanted or needed. Nothing more.

Until recently she had believed that to control Tatsuya, all that was necessary was to allow Miyuki some of the freedoms she desired. Attending high school. Living away from the estate. Maya had granted these freedoms reluctantly, but they had been insufficient. The circumstances of his creation and the building of his powers was making him an imminent threat to the family. With allies, the situation became even more urgent. It was time to either separate Tatsuya from his sister or separate Tatsuya from his new friends. Of the two, severing the friendships would be more likely to be successful.

Shiba Tatsuya. Genetically, a failure of the House Yotsuba. Born weak in magical talent, he could never be a successor to the Head of the House. The Head must be intelligent, have a strong desire to lead the House, and above all possess a strong talent in magic.

Of those three, Tatsuya had exhibited only one. Intelligence. That, he had most likely inherited from his mother Miya, Maya's late twin sister. Not only intelligence, but also cunning, a knowledge of how to manipulate people and situations. Though he hid it well, Tatsuya had an abundance of this talent. If that one talent was sufficient to lead then he would have been name as a successor. In another of the families this would have been enough, but more was needed to lead Yotsuba.

His personality as a child had been weak. He was affable and enjoyed pleasing others, especially his mother. He was a follower, not a leader. That must have come from the Shiba side of his lineage. Perhaps it was not fair to judge him on this when he was so young, but it was thought within the family that these weaknesses were inherited and would not change as he grew up.

Even if he did grow up to be a leader, there was no overlooking his glaring deficiencies as a magician. While his abilities with psions showed promise, he was unable to wield conventional magic even at a basic level. With such a poor level of magical ability, Tatsuya could not even be considered Yotsuba. It was because of this realization that Tatsuya would henceforth be known as Shiba Tatsuya. Along with other options as to what to do with this deficient child was banishment: he would be sent to live with an outlaying branch family to live out his life as a servant. In effect, he was disowned.

Before that happened, Maya approached Miya with an idea.

"Instead of wasting your son as a servant, why do we not make a magician out of him? We can create an artificial magician. If we succeed, he can become a successor candidate. If at least partially successful, he can become a Guardian to his sister."

"And if it fails?"

"If it fails, we have lost nothing. Remember, sister, it was your weakness that created this situation in the first place."

And it was true. It was acknowledged within the family that had Miya not fallen in love with, and married, Shiba Tatsurou, she would not have birthed such an inferior magician. Tatsurou was a business man and investor with almost non-existent magical talent. He also had a weak personality that Maya had openly despised.

Miya had met him at a party and had fallen in love instantly. Despite the adamant objections from her father, she had married him. The result of that union had been Tatsuya.

To be fair, the birth of Miyuki had also been a result of that union. Miyuki was the exact opposite of her brother in terms of talent. Even for a member of the Yotsuba family, her potential was almost unmeasurable.

She had intelligence and a subtle cunning too, which, like her brother, she tended to hide. That was not necessarily a bad thing. It was often an advantage to let your adversaries underestimate you.

As for leadership, she exhibited it naturally. Always a formal child, her manners and poise led others to see her as mature, even though she was still a small child. People tended to follow her lead naturally, even people who were older than she. In short, she was the perfect successor candidate.

The months of work on Tatsuya had been torturous on his body and his mind. However, despite some non-magical enhancements, the goal of making him a first class magician had failed. His abilities with psions had increased and he had developed various 'minor' talents, but his use of conventional magic could only charitably be referred to as average. He would not become the next head of the family.

However, those 'minor' talents, along with his innate abilities regarding martial arts, at least guaranteed that Tatsuya would prove useful as Miyuki's guardian, so the work of the twins was not totally wasted. Instead of being banished, he would become a servant. Not Yotsuba, but merely a tool of the family.

Countries around the world originally created magicians as weapons. They were still used as such today. Recent public efforts to 'humanize' magicians were more to assure the population that magic users were not just some frightening Frankenstein that could turn on them, but rather were patriotic soldiers dedicated to serving the country with their powers. In other words, they were humans, just like the rest of the people.

At the dawn of the age of magicians, genetic experimentation had been widespread throughout the world, as were breeding techniques to make sure that strong magicians were born. Some of those genetic experiments were now considered barbaric and were banned in most countries, the exceptions being the Great Asian Alliance, and the Yotsuba. It was widely known that the GAA was doing unsanctioned experiments on magicians in order to create weapons, usually at the cost of lives. The patrons of the GAA, most prominently China, mouthed all the correct words to the world, always publicly condemning such experimentation while behind the scenes not only approving but also funding such experiments.

Japan, on the other hand, firmly believed that such things were morally wrong and would not condone such things either publicly or privately. However, even countries with the best intentions will overlook such moral failings if it could be the difference between survival and extinction. And so, despite all the rumors about the illegal activites of the Yotsuba, the government turned a blind eye as long as the family was discrete.

To develop better weapons, one must experiment. This was almost a family motto for the Yotsuba. However, widespread experimentation was not allowed. Uncontrolled work was prohibited. Branch families could not simply work on their own projects as they wished. If any branch of the family did as they pleased with frivolous experimentation, it would result in a pointless loss of family members. It would become impossible to keep them secretive and free from government interference. For those reasons, all undertakings were proposed to the family Head, who either blessed or forbade the endeavor. Most requests were turned away, either because the benefit was negligible or it could result in a threat to the family itself.

The work done with Tatsuya, had the proposal come from members of the family other than Miya and Maya, would have been denied for that latter reason. When one goes about trying to create a monster, one needs to be very sure they have the means to control that monster. The sibling love for Miyuki, with the constraining of his full powers were supposed to be the locks that kept the monster in his cage.

The real problem that wasn't accounted for was Miyuki's feelings toward her brother. From an early age the siblings were kept apart, and when they were together Miyuki was schooled to consider Tatsuya as simply her Guardian-in-training, not a real member of the family.

As a result, Miyuki considered Tatsuya as more of a distant relative that she didn't know, instead of a brother who was only a year apart from her in age. He was a stranger who she had no desire to learn about, much less get close to. A servant, and nothing more. She referred to him as 'that person', or 'ani', which meant older brother, but without the endearment of 'onii-san' or the respect of 'onii-sama'. Things were progressing exactly how Maya and Miya had envisioned it.

Maya was quite aware of when exactly that relationship had started to change. Okinawa. His training completed, that vacation was used as an excuse to formally introduce Tatsuya as Miyuki's Guardian. Tatsuya had saved Miyuki's life during an incursion of the GAA.

Just as a Guardian was trained to do, he had saved her. But Miyuki refused to see it that way. From then on, in her mind, Tatsuya was 'onii-sama', with all the love and respect that accompanied that term. It was Maya's first clue that her plans were not going quite as she expected. The fatal flaw seemed to be Maya's misunderstanding of human emotions. Even now, she couldn't fully comprehend how it all happened.

A simple vacation that led to this meeting today. A simple vacation that would change the course of everything.

At the sound of a car in the driveway, Hayama excused himself from his mistress with a deep bow, and went to greet her guests.