Hello, ITalkToSky here.
The midterm is not over, but I am giving out a new chapter anyway. Enjoy! Still, this is an irregular, so don't expect updates like these until after the midterm is over.
Can you believe it? I am through 20 chapters now. Will I manage to make it to hundred chapters? Considering I just only scratched the surface of the original Mahouka story, I would say that it is very likely, but will take a lot of time. I mean, it took 20 to get to the enrollment arc. I wonder how many will I get out of this arc.
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April 3rd, 2095
The childish, idealistic debates revolving around the clear disparity that exists between the capable and the incapable are not tolerated. This country, in the magic education department, does not have the luxury to do so. Thoroughly talent-driven, harshly competence-oriented, that's the world of magic.
The silver-haired magician scoffed as he locked his terminal after reading the lines. His frown gradually faded, replaced by depreciating smile. Sadness slowly clouded his eyes. The heavy sigh reverberated throughout the cramped tram car. Fluttering sceneries outside the car could not cheer him up.
No matter how long the time had passed, magical communities, different in many shapes and form, all glorified talent and achievement. He hated the notion of talent with passion. It was not his talent that made him greater than he could ever be if he had stayed with that wretched Meister family. It did not help when he had witnessed many who abandoned effort to idolize talent or resign themselves with the label of talentless fools.
However, as contradictory as it was, Lunaire could only grudgingly agree that accomplishment was everything from the tantalizing bribe to the delightful reward for hard work. In the end though, it comes down to the result. The world has never been such as sweet place where lousy thinking that "everyone is a winner" works and ironically, Lunaire even started to believe equality in death was false. The means to evade death were not equally open, evident from the fact that he was still alive and kicking after a century had passed.
Different players with different starting line were playing in the same twisted giant board and judged by the same standard. There are winners as there are losers, simple as that. There will always be the beginning and a conclusion. It all boils down to how much sacrifice one was willing to offer to reach that agreement.
He found this thinking to be both true and also unbelievably tasteless. In the face of insurmountable odds, not many returned victorious. He had seen many who were broken. As cruel as it was, underachiever was unmistakably underachiever. However, he believed that they were not stuck with the status and would be more than happy to water their effort to fruition.
Grim train of though was derailed when he felt warm and soft sensation on his cheek. It did not took him long to register Alice's fingertips brushing on his skin. Following her outstretched arm, he ended up staring into the brilliant green eyes and the face, radiated with concern.
"You look down."
"Ah…just thinking about something?"
"Do you need to talk?" Alice asked.
"Haha, hardly. As if I would trouble you with triviality like that." He laughed mirthfully, rustling locks of his eye-catching silver threads.
"You know that we all know each other for so long that the word reserve had already left our dictionary. Come on, tell us!" In seconds, Marisa bounced off her seat and was right in front of his face, a little too close for comfort. She had known Lunaire since she was a child, so not knowing what was bothering who could have been her brotherly figure did not sit well with her.
"Alright, alright, give me a room to breathe. It's just that I'm a bit irritated about this little Course 1 and Course 2 business they had going on." With his firm hands on her shoulders, he gently pushed Marisa off his seat. Taking his momentum, she plopped back down on her seat.
"So?" Impatient, Marisa asked.
"Is it about the fact that Marisa is the only one attending the "second-rate" course?" Alice opened the topic.
"Not really, it is not a question that Marisa is a first-rate magician and overly experience mad pyro technician in our book. I believe that whatever they labeled her as it does not hold any weight. She might not be the cream of the crop on their side, but psionic magic is not her expertise. Beside, with her effort, it is only a matter of time before Marisa becomes a Youkai Magician and blows them all out of the water." One eye closed as he nonchalantly remarked.
"Gee, thank ze! But I feel as if you are insulting me somehow."
"You are just imagining it. I am stating the obvious."
"…in truth, you were quite unhappy with their assessment, right?" Alice eyed him.
"Well…I guess a part of me did think that, but it can't be helped that they are clueless. Was it that obvious that I was upset? It seems that I require more practice with poker face."
"A little bit…" Alice giggled.
"Mah, what I truly am unhappy about this deterministic practice is that they truly are neglecting the chance to find hidden gems. Even with insufficient resources, it did not sit well with me to be so wasteful."
"I echo that!" Marisa chimed.
Their jovial conversation continued for a while until the passenger felt in their stomach as the tram decelerate toward destination.
"Finally our stop, I can't wait da ze!" The blond with longer hair leapt up with vigor. Without her usual witch hat, sunlight gently reflected off her cascading threads of gold. Lunaire thought that it was lovely in its own way.
Wry smile was painted on Alice's face while she shook her head at her friend's antic. Reaching out, her supple hand tug on his sleeve and roused him from his seat.
Lunaire did not know that his days would only be getting longer from that point.
In a certain room, a girl was sitting by her lonesome. The only thing accompanying her in the break room was a laptop. Displayed on the screen was the overall ranking of the coming freshman. However, while Shiba Miyuki who ranked overall top was interesting in her own right, the second place intrigued her the most.
This was not the first time she looked over the list. Since the time the list was made available to her, this person had been the focus of her attention. She knew this person. They ran into each other by coincident. In the spur of the moment, she helped, albeit quite forcefully, with his business. Nothing much was expected, other than fostering friendship with one of the few people who didn't glorify her status as the eldest daughter of a famous clan. However, over the span of few hours, everything about him convinced her that he was nothing short of extraordinary.
A teenager with striking long silver hair and soft facial features that could make people mistake him as a girl. His blue eyes reflected his age and were sparkling with playfulness, but at time thoughtfulness. She thought he was of her age at first, possibly even older. She was dreadfully wrong and greatly embarrassed by the ordeal. In her defense, she had never seen a case of a person growing fast to reach that appearance when they were thirteen.
Other than his unique appearance, he was tremendously and perhaps mysteriously talented with magic. His initial reaction was something noteworthy too. She was curious. It was widely acknowledged that magic is hereditary, but she had never heard of any family with indication of this trait. Eventually, she asked her bodyguard, Nakura, to utilize connections to investigate his history. Everything turned up clean, too clean in fact.
Staring at the screen as if trying to bore a hole through it, her eyes were focused on the picture of a teen, which strangely did not seem to change all that much from the first time they met, years ago.
"Just who are you, Lunaire Vivian Meister?" She swore internally to uncover the secret of this cheeky enigma, dangling in front of her.
"Just you wait!" She balled up her fist and huffed.
"Kaichou, please come and confirm out last preparation."
"Alright, Rin-chan, I am going."
The new girl could only shake her head exasperatingly to being called so informally by the student council president.
"!"
Startled by the sudden breath intake, Alice turned to Lunaire beside her. The three had been enjoying their walk through the walkway, peppered by rain of Sakura petals. It was rather peaceful, even with bustling people around. But due to close proximity, Alice could detect the twitch relatively easily.
"What is wrong?" Marisa craned her neck to him.
"I feel something bad will happen. At this moment, I feel the slight urge to run away."
"Surely you jest! I don't feel anything though."
Alice and Marisa only looked at him and blinked. Both of their eyes were filled with mirth as they saw Lunaire flustered and pressed down on his temple.
"Huh, great. So I am the one on the crosshair."
The magician was quite right in his statement as there was a package of problems and headaches coming with his name on it.
Around the start of the hour when the ceremony would start, the door to the auditorium opened with a thud. Some of the students close to the door turned to look at the last of the arrivals. At the sight of the exotic foreigners and their striking features, the waves of murmur propagated from the back row and gradually reached the front row. Many out of curiosity turned their eyes to the newcomers that were standing still as if searching for something.
Alice expected this reaction. As someone with some European ancestry, Alice and Lunaire looked very different from the rest in the auditorium. Although standard First High uniform did something to mitigate their differences, their light-colored-hair stuck out like a sore thumb. Especially for Lunaire as his silver hair that shone in the morning sunlight seemed to greatly attract attention.
Prior to even setting foot in this auditorium, Lunaire already prepared himself to tune out everything unrelated and went with his business. The sunlight passing through the window made it hard to distinguish features, but a raised waving hand guided him toward the mark.
Marisa who seemed to spot Mizuki even earlier was already barreling her way toward the timid girl. Lunaire and Alice looked at each other and let out a stifled laugh before walking down the same row of chairs, trying to catch up with the energetic girl.
Their actions did not go by unobserved as the whole auditorium was surprised. From what they could see, the blond with longer hair clearly did not have an emblem on her chest, so her sitting on the back row was normal. However, the rest of the group proudly displayed the eight-petal crest, but went ahead to join her anyway. Silent discussions erupted throughout the room.
Some were criticizing them for not knowing social order, while the others thought they were being goody-two-shoes, trying to act nice. These voices intensified after some of the students recognized the two as the second and third in overall examination score and the top two for practical.
If Lunaire were to be honest with himself, he was appalled to see how rudely they were discussing about him as if he wasn't present. He was sure they had some useful things to do and some level of decency. Besides he was sure that he was not attention this school as an entertainer or clown.
"Ya, Mizuki, how are you doing?"
"Good morning, I am doing alright." I hope you along with everyone are fine and well." Mizuki answered warmly as she stood from her seat.
"Thank you. You are as stuffy as always, Mizuki-san." Although he tried to be formal, concerning about the observing curious stare from many, his habit of addressing Mizuki by only first name belied their close relationship and familiarity.
"I hope the seats aren't occupied." Alice asked out of courtesy.
"It is empty. Please sit, Alice-san."
"Oi, oi, Mizuki-san, am I not allowed?" Lunaire dropped in his jest.
"Of course, Lunaire-san and Marisa-san, both of you are invited as well." Returning his jab, Mizuki covered her mouth and giggled amusedly.
"Then, without reserve. I hope you don't mind." Alice smiled at the redhead between her and Mizuki.
"Knock yourself over, I don't mind." She responded with bright smile.
Having received the permission, the three newcomers seated. Sensing that it was a prime time, Lunaire tried to start but was cut off.
"I'm Ciba Erika. Nice to meet you!" Erika saw that they were friendly acquaintances of Mizuki, so she decided to preemptively introduce herself.
"Ah…it's nice to meet you too. I'm Lunaire Vivian Meister. Call me Lunaire."
"I'm Alice Margatroid. Please to meet you."
"I'm Kirisame Marisa. Nice to meet you ze!"
The eyes finally turned to the boy at the end of the row. After a second of hesitation, he straightened his back and reigned in his surprise.
"I'm Shiba Tatsuya, nice to meet you."
"Nene, why are you sitting over here? Aren't Course 1 students supposed to be sitting up front?" Without further ado, Erika quickly addressed the elephant in the room and made the surrounding students gulped.
"Ara, is there a rule that said so?" Alice asked innocently.
"There is…none, but…"
"Then I see no problem sitting close to my friends, right? Still as much as I found this conversation to be pleasant, it seems that the Ceremony is starting." Just as she finished, the girl turned toward the front and straightened into a poise position, like an elegant swan. The conversation naturally died down as ceremony began in earnest.
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And there you go. There is not much action going on, but I want this fiction to be realistic, so I try to flesh out as many scene and interaction as possible.
If you expect a quick train ride of action to crashing Nine School Competition, too bad, because it will be a long while before I reach that point.