Izzy fidgeted. He'd started small, tapping one finger against his knee, which had gradually spread to the rest of the fingers of his left hand. From there the fidgeting had spread like a virus up his arm, until finally his whole body was twitching. Izzy was well aware he was doing it, and yet he couldn't seem to find the will within himself to stop.
Yoshie laid a hand over her son's fidgeting fingers. "Don't worry Izzy. He'll be here soon."
Izzy made an effort to calm down. "Sorry Mom. It's just that this is a little weird."
"I know Izzy. It seems weird to me too." His mother smiled at him. "With any luck this Professor Higuchi will be able to answer our questions."
Izzy wrestled with what he was about to ask his parents. While the truth was known, it made them all uncomfortable talking about it. Izzy was uncomfortable even thinking about it, which proved how serious it was. "Mom? Dad?"
"What is it son?" asked Masami.
Izzy took a deep breath. "Could this have something to do with my biological parents?" Izzy could not bring himself to use the term 'real parents'. To him, Yoshie and Masami were the only parents he'd ever known. "Did they do magic?"
Masami shook his head. "If they did, they never told me." He lent forwards, towards Izzy. "We didn't talk a lot, your father and I. If he and your mother were magical folk, I didn't know."
The door chime sounding broke the tension in the room.
"That'll be him." Izzy stood, automatically smoothing down his clothes. "I'll go let him in."
On his way to the door Izzy ran through several opening gambits for what was certain to be a difficult first impression. Somehow by the time his hand rested on the door handle his brain had still not come up with a suitable first comment. Izzy took a deep breath and opened the door.
The man on the other side smiled politely and inclined his head slightly. "Mr. Izumi?"
"Yes," replied Izzy, trying not to sound too panicked. "I'm Izzy Izumi."
The man's eyes narrowed and regarded Izzy critically. Izzy took the opportunity to gain a better impression of the man in front of him.
The man Izzy assumed was Professor Higuchi was the embodiment of the word avuncular. His grey hair, peppered with white strands, was neatly combed and lay flat to his head. His eyes were likewise grey, and they gazed with keen intelligence from behind small glasses. A black, neatly trimmed moustache graced his upper lip, and around his lips and eyes Izzy could see the telltale wrinkles caused by laugher.
Like most members of the academic community Izzy had seen, the professor dressed for function rather than style, wearing a plain shirt and tie, with a herringbone patterned jumper. Most surprisingly to Izzy though was instead of a coat or jacket the professor seemed to wear a tweed cloak.
The man came to a decision and extended his hand. "I'm Professor Higuchi."
Izzy shook his hand, and then moved to one side. "Won't you come in?"
Professor Higuchi's face split into a wide smile. "Thank you very much young man." He moved inside the apartment, then turned back towards Izzy as the boy shut the door.
"May I take your… cloak?" Izzy stumbled slightly over the unfamiliar request.
The professor smiled and nodded, handing over his cloak to the nervous boy. "I must say it's a pleasure to meet you at last young man. We'd thought you'd been lost for ever."
"I'm afraid I don't understand sir." Izzy extended an arm towards the main room. "Won't you go in and sit down?"
Higuchi nodded and Izzy led the way into the main room where his parents still sat. "I understand this must all be very confusing to you," began Higuchi. "We wizards tend to remain quiet and innocuous, so as not to attract the attention non-magical folk." In response he received three nods. "I'll try to be brief, but thorough then." Higuchi cleared his throat, preparing to begin what Izzy assumed to be a well-rehearsed history of magic. "We don't know exactly when magic first started, or even what is the cause. Many of our geneticists have been running private studies into it, but we can find no cause.
"The first recognised wizards in Japan appeared in the ninth century. They naturally started to search for others like them, eventually forming a kind of ghetto in the hills near Kyoto. For various reasons, they started to believe that muggles… I'm sorry, non-magical folk, were beneath them, so they migrated to the far east of Japan, living in seclusion. We believe that a school of sorts was founded to train their young, but records are sketchy due to their age.
"By the end of the nineteenth century the wizard community realised that with their seclusion they had isolated their gene-pool and that inbreeding had set in. They were forced back into mainstream society and had to take Muggles as spouses, in order to restore the health of their people. Many of the descendents of the first wizards considered this action beneath them, and refused to see the Muggles as anything other than breeding stock. Many Wizards still preferred to intermarry among themselves, but eventually resistance wore down. More and more of each succeeding generation intermingled and intermarried with the Muggles, eventually totally assimilating into society." Higuchi paused for a moment. "Have you any questions so far?"
"I have one," said Masami. "If Wizards are in our society, how come no one ever noticed?"
Higuchi smiled. "Unlike many other countries, we Wizards have almost totally abandoned our own culture. We do a few things differently, but mostly we act the same as you. We are not nearly so flashy as the Europeans." Higuchi paused a moment before continuing his talk. "So the Wizards joined the rest of Japanese society, living peacefully with the Muggles until about twenty years ago.
"Back then, a kind of civil war broke out in the Wizarding world, caused by one person, the evil Lord Voldemort. His reach was vast, spreading across the globe to infect us with his evil. He, however powerful he was, could not be everywhere at once. He had a lieutenant, Reijiro Yasui, who back then was the most feared man in Asia, after Voldemort. Yasui destroyed much of the Wizard population when they refused to join with him and his master.
"Eventually Voldemort realised that Yasui had grown too powerful and was about to challenge him. He destroyed Yasui, then was bested himself by the young Harry Potter in his home country of England."
"There was a war?" asked Izzy. "How could a war happen without anyone noticing? The injured alone…"
"There were no injured," said Higuchi. "Nor were there bodies of the dead. It was the worse kind of dark magic that Yasui wielded. The kind that has no mercy, and no justice. Just death." He coughed slightly. "I'm sorry, my throat is very dry. Could I trouble you for some water?"
"Oh!" Yoshie's hand flew to her mouth. "I'm so sorry. What sort of hostess am I? I'll make some tea." She rose from her chair.
Masami did the same. "I'll help. I've no doubt that there are things Izzy wants to ask without us present." He together with his wife left the room.
Izzy smiled to himself. Thanks Dad.
"Intelligent people," observed Higuchi. "I can see you're related."
"Huh? But that's what I was about to ask you about!" exclaimed Izzy.
Higuchi smiled. "Maybe if I explain some things you'll understand more. You see, the fight against Yasui was roughly split with people's stance on Muggles. Those old families I told you about, the ones who saw Muggles as beneath them, sided with Yasui. Those who liked the Muggles, worked with them, even married them, formed a resistance against him.
"I myself was in one of the Tokyo-based cells, along with a young witch called Maemi Hashimoto. Maemi believed passionately that there was no difference between Wizards and Muggles. She even married a Muggle, Konoye Izumi, who was studying Mathematics at Kyoto University when they met."
Izzy's eyes widened. "Were those my biological parents? You knew them?"
Higuchi nodded. "I knew Maemi very well, I'd taught her at Kyoto for several years. You take after her with your looks. She was always pale." He smiled sadly. "Madame Nakao, the school nurse, was always on her case." He laughed. "Maemi always blamed it on the fact that her hair bleached the colour from her face." He stopped laughing. "She led our cell of the resistance for many years, until it was decided to unify the cells into one source and take out Yasui."
"What happened then?" asked Izzy.
"We were sold out," said Higuchi. "One of our members was a double agent. He told Yasui where we were hiding. We tried to evacuate, and thanks to the tireless work of your mother most of us got out. She only agreed to leave when someone told her that she was endangering the child she was pregnant with by staying. She and Konoye fled into seclusion, leaving the resistance."
"What happened then?" asked Izzy.
"We don't know," replied the professor. "One of our agents spotted Konoye's car, a burnt out wreck on the side of the road a few weeks after that. It was assumed because the forensics teams that worked on the car could find no cause for the fire to start that Yasui finally caught up with them. We thought that you'd all died." He pulled an overly large handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. "We'd been so happy when she sent word that she'd given birth to a baby boy, and that she'd named him Koushirou."
Izzy found himself blinking back tears. "Yasui killed my parents?"
Higuchi shook his head. "We don't know. It seemed so sure when you were all missing. We found enough… remains… to indicate two adults, but we never could be sure whether you too had died."
"So how is it that I was invited to join the school?" asked Izzy.
"Magic." Higuchi's expression softened, and passed Izzy the handkerchief. "Here, dry your eyes." He allowed Izzy to make a cursory wipe at his eyes before continuing. "The lists for intake are done by magical divination. It wasn't until we saw your name on the lists that we knew you were still alive." He leaned forwards. "You were almost too late, you know."
Izzy stopped wiping at his eyes. "Too late for what?"
Higuchi smiled. "The lists look for magical residue from untrained skills. Yours didn't show up until yesterday, just before the end of submissions." He lent forwards. "You see, in untrained Wizards, the capacity to do magic is there, but it usually takes a shock, like fear, rage or a near-death experience to trigger it." He smiled conspiritally. "We had one of our top specialists on the team that examined the nuclear missile that the US fired. Do you know what he discovered?"
Izzy shook his head.
"A residue from 'Wild Magic', the kind that is totally unfocused by the user. Since no one knew about the missile in the Wizarding world, we couldn't make heads or tails of it." Higuchi lent back. "Then we checked field strengths and the like. Only a few Wizards had that kind of power that we knew of. None of them had been any the wiser. That only left the untrained population. Very soon after the event your name appears on our lists. The question remains, did you know about the missile?"
"Er…"
"Er?" asked Higuchi patently.
"Er… Aha… ahahahahaha…" laughed Izzy unconvincingly. His shoulders then sagged. "Yes."
Higuchi raised an eyebrow. "Really? How?"
"Do you remember much about the events about a year ago? The monster attacks?"
Higuchi nodded. "One of the hardest memory charms we ever did, covering that up. Of course any mention of it and the memory block breaks down, so how did you find out about it?"
"Did you see the battle in the sky?" asked Izzy. "With lots of the monsters fighting with some kids with them?"
Higuchi nodded. "Including a red-haired child. You?"
Izzy nodded. "But please keep it quiet. My parents don't remember much, and I don't want to put them through any more worry."
Higuchi nodded. "And the missile?"
"It was caused by another monster. We fought it. It died. The missile didn't explode."
"Because of you." Higuchi smiled. "So thank you very much, you probably saved the World from going to war again."
Izzy's widened in shock. "Then… then…" He stood up quickly. "Excuse me, I think I'm about to hurl." He rushed out of the room.
"I'm so sorry Professor," said Izzy returning to the room and finding his parents had returned with the tea. "This is all coming as a not inconsiderable shock."
Higuchi smiled again. "Do not worry. You are in fact taking it rather well compared to some of the others I have seen."
"How many others?" asked Yoshie. "How many other children are finding out that they can do magic, like our Izzy?"
"This year? About twenty." Higuchi sipped at his tea. "Our intake has dropped recently because of the generation wiped out by the war. Interestingly it coincides with a spike in Muggle-born students, causing further interest in the Mag-Sci community."
"So what about the school?" asked Izzy. "What do they teach, and how do they teach us?"
Higuchi settled back in his chair and started counting off on his fingers. "First years study Charms and Curses, Potions, Magical Languages, Defence against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Herbology, and Magical Creature Studies. It follows a similar structure to Muggle schools, with lessons all day, with one afternoon a month set aside to go to the market in Kyoto."
"What market?" asked Izzy. "Isn't rather odd to allow shopping trips?"
Higuchi shook his head. "The market is a Wizard only event. Not all our students have access to the Wizard world apart from the school. It is a chance to buy things like Boomslang skin, or Troll spit, which aren't available from Muggle shops. First years have to buy equipment such as robes and wands on their first week."
"So what about the magic?" asked Masami. "Does this all mean that Izzy can do any magic he wishes without supervision?"
"Not at all," replied Higuchi. "He will be forbidden to perform any magic outside of the school until he passes his first grading." Seeing their puzzled looks he explained. "To allow our students to use magic outside of the school, all spells are graded with the numbers one through ten. A student must pass a grade before being allowed to use spells of that standard unsupervised. It is a fair process so that wizards may practice their skills outside of the school."
It was quite late when Professor Higuchi left their house, but all three Izumi's agreed that it had been an enlightening experience, and were quite prepared to have Izzy start at the Academy that year. The only question remain as to how they were going to explain this to both the Muggle school Izzy attended, and how Izzy was going to explain it to Tai, Matt, and the rest of the Digidestined.