Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Two days had passed since Tatsuya had his meeting with Ayame and for the most part, his daily life didn't change much. Although the tournament continued, it was quite easy for Tatsuya to keep winning with his combination of offensive magic alongside Gram Demolition. With half the total number of fights in the group already completed, Tatsuya was the undisputed top contestant in his group with six wins and no losses. Although Igarashi Kaede had been the second seed for their group, the second position of their group was tied between Igarashi and Tatsuya's next opponent- Anna Rosen Katori.
Since he had to fight her eventually, Tatsuya had done his homework on Erika's future mom. Although the Katori family was a pure Kenjutsu Family, Anna was extremely talented at using conventional magic alongside Kenjutsu, a perk of her Rosen blood. Although she didn't pose any threat to him if he was to be serious, she was at a level where he needed to take her somewhat seriously.
"The seventh-round match between Shiba Tatsuya of Class 1-A and Anna Rosen Katori of Class 1-C will now begin. Contestants, please enter the battlefield." Proctor Tsuzura was in charge of the matches that happened in the morning before switching out for a different proctor for the afternoon matches.
"Let us have a good fight, Prez." His opponent could be seen readying her sword. Her CAD was a bracelet that was firmly attached to her wrist.
This was the first time that Tatsuya had seen Anna from up close and upon further inspection, he could see where Erika's exotic looks had come from. The woman had red hair that was a shade lighter than Erika's had been and her facial features were a mix between Scandinavian and Japanese with Green eyes that were rare in Japan. As for her looks, like every magician Tatsuya knew of, she was an extremely beautiful girl. Although, unlike Erika, who had a somewhat petite figure, Anna was much more voluptuous. Tatsuya idly wondered if Honoka and Mizuki had been the only ones in his generation with a figure that matched their mother's figure at the same age before remembering that he had never met Honoka's mom or Mizuki's mom to make that judgment.
"Likewise, Katori-san." Tatsuya gave a slight bow of acknowledgment.
"No need for honorifics, Prez. Just Anna would be fine." The girl said.
"Alright, Anna." Tatsuya did not mind.
"If both contestants are ready, then begin." The proctor gave his call and both the fighters sprang into action.
Unlike what he usually did during these fights, Tatsuya did not bother using Gram Demolition this time. Instead, he activated a few strengthening spells on himself that allowed him to move quicker than usual. While Anna wasn't faster than Tatsuya, what he was about to do was something he had never tried before in a real fight and as such, he decided to take all possible precautions against any unexpected failures.
Anna, for her part, had managed to close the distance between them in a matter of seconds, having activated a Self-Accelerating spell within 500 ms of the fight's start. Her sword, which was more of a club than an actual sword due to it being blunt, was glowing a pale blue which indicated that it was currently being strengthened by magic. Once she had gotten in range, she swung the sword, aiming for his mid-section which Tatsuya easily dodged. Her swing had been calculated to perfection and she managed to attack again without leaving any openings in her form. For the next few seconds, they had a game of whack-a-mole between them as Anna tried, and failed, to hit him with her sword, and Tatsuya dodged all of her attacks. To her credit, Anna had a lot of dedication as she didn't show any signs of frustration and her form remained immaculate.
Deciding that he had enough fun already, Tatsuya activated a Self-Accelerating spell of his own, one that was far more polished than Anna's spell, and moved behind her, into her blind spot. To the untrained eye, it looked like he had teleported behind her. However, before Anna could react, Tatsuya laid his palm on her back and activated his new spell.
'Expel' was a spell that Tatsuya had created partially out of curiosity and partially out of necessity. It was a simple spell that could be used by anyone if it wasn't for the fact that the spell required his Elemental Sight to work. All he did was to compute the amount of Psion that the target had and transfer an equivalent amount of Psions onto the target's body, expelling all the Psion from the target, rendering them unable to use magic for a while. After all, regardless of how efficient CADs made magic casting, they did require Psions to work properly.
The spell had three limitations. One, he had to touch the target to use it. Two, the target's subconscious Data Fortification should not be stronger than his own Area Interference Strength. Three, it wouldn't work if the target had more Psions than the user. In Tatsuya's case, the third drawback didn't matter since he had yet to see a magician that had anywhere close to even a tenth of his own Psion count.
The effect of the spell was spontaneous as Anna's spells were forcefully deactivated and the girl slumped forward, unconscious. Although the loss of psions did not have any impact on her body, as a magician who could perceive psions, her loss of consciousness was merely a psychological issue. Tatsuya caught the girl's body before it could hit the ground and soon, the proctor announced his victory.
Tatsuya carefully carried the limp Anna in a princess carry to the medical team who gave her some checks before concluding that there wasn't anything wrong with her body. From what he calculated, based on her Psion reserves and Psion regeneration speed, Anna should be back to about eighty percent capacity by the time her next fight happened, which meant that he hadn't compromised her next fight with his technique.
With nothing else for him to do until the afternoon, Tatsuya found himself walking through the school grounds, once again. Compared to the opening day of the competition, the atmosphere of the school was much more heated as the group stage competition was entering its final half. With only five more fights to go, (Four in his case but he was all but guaranteed to qualify) the students were taking each battle seriously. From the information that was relayed on the school website, only He, Miya, and Maya had won every single match in their respective groups. In some of the other groups, first place was a tie between three or even four people. However, Tatsuya was surprised to see that Ichihana Yuuzou was currently at the top of his group, albeit with two losses. The fact that the timid boy had managed to win four of his six matches, showed that the Ichihana clan might not have become the Ichihara clan in this timeline.
"Tatsuya!" Like always, his peaceful walk was interrupted by one of the Twins, this time the twin being Miya.
"Are you done already?" Tatsuya asked Miya as he snaked his arms around her waist, bringing her close to him. While it might have only been a few days since the entire fiasco between them had happened, Tatsuya had quickly learned that the best way to keep the Yotsuba twins in check was to be extremely proactive with them. For some reason, neither Miya nor Maya could take what they dished out and any intimate physical contact that he initiated would cause them to be more subdued. While Tatsuya was aware that this was not giving him the best reputation in school, it was a godsend in dealing with the twins.
Miya, on her part, blushed lightly before settling into the hug. "Yeah, it was quite easy." She replied.
"Doesn't that mean that you have qualified for the next round?" Unlike his group where there were two clear frontrunners other than him, Miya's group was far more balanced with almost everyone having an equal number of wins and losses. Unless someone managed to go on a winning streak for the remaining matches and Miya lost every single one of her fights, she was guaranteed to make it to the next round.
"We can't say that for sure but it looks like that. By the way, Tatsuya, what is this I am hearing about you promising to tune Maya's CAD for her?" Miya asked.
"She made me promise that when she heard that I tuned your CAD. You told her, didn't you?" Tatsuya said.
"That said, I would like to be there as you tune her CAD. I would like to learn a few things from your techniques." Miya said.
"I do not have a problem with that. However, it would be good for you to ask Maya whether she is fine with this." While he couldn't teach Miya anything about his hardware skills due to it using Decomposition, he could teach her a few things about software maintenance.
"That's fine. I'll ask." Miya said. For the most part, the next few hours were relatively peaceful with him discussing a few magic-related topics with Miya before Maya joined in their conversation midway through. Surprisingly, Maya wasn't resistant to the idea of Miya joining in on their CAD tuning session.
The rest of the group stage matches went by quite smoothly for Tatsuya as he did not have to deal with anyone notable. By the end of it, Tatsuya had gotten first place with eleven wins out of eleven while Anna narrowly edged past Igarashi with a difference of just one point between them. Miya and Maya had gone unbeaten as well with Ichihana Yuuzou managing to qualify for the knockout by clinching second place in his group. The other notable names that qualified included all the members of the student council as well as Chiba Jouichiro.
The Round of 32 matches will be conducted on Monday. Given the fact that it was only the afternoon of Saturday at the moment, they had a day and a half to prepare. However, the entirety of the student body, including him was standing in the Auditorium, awaiting instructions from the principal.
"My dear students." Principal Koutarou opened his speech. "For the past six days, you have poured your blood, sweat, and tears into this Combat Tournament that we have been conducting but like everything else in life, it must come to an end. Some of you have qualified for the next round of battles, most of you haven't. Yet, the efforts that you have put into these fights will remain with you. Do not lose heart because you did not make it. Instead, use this failure as motivation to push your limits and become better than what you were before." The principal was met with thunderous applause as he said this.
"For those of you who did qualify, I wish you all the best for the remaining fights. We have received information from the National Magic University that the knockout tournament will be broadcast live to the nation on the website of the National Magic University as well as a selected sports channel on the Television. I ask you to be prepared accordingly since there is a chance that the rest of the nation will be watching you." The principal dropped a bomb on the participants, which caused some of them to murmur amongst themselves before it died down.
Eventually, they were allowed to leave the school and Tatsuya made his way to his house, with the twins in tow.
"Sorry for the intrusion." Miya and Maya declared as they entered his house, out of courtesy more than anything.
"Miya-chan? Maya-chan? What a surprise!" His mother, who had been at home, was surprised to see that he had brought company.
"Hello, Mayuri-obaa-san. We came to play." Miya was the first to make a move. He could see from her behavior that she was close to his mom.
"Hello, Obaa-san. Hope we aren't causing any trouble." Maya was not one to be left behind and she made her move as well.
"Of course not! It's a pleasure to have Tatsuya's friends over." His mom was genuinely happy as she said this. "Make yourself at home and I will prepare something to drink."
"Let me help you, Obaa-san." Tatsuya swore that he saw Miya launch a smirk towards Maya after she said this and his mom didn't object. Maybe, the sparks that he saw flying between them were nothing more than a figment of his imagination.
After the little tea session was finished, Tatsuya invited the twins to his basement (that sounded a little wrong but he ignored it) and Maya was genuinely surprised to see the equipment inside.
"That wasn't there the last time I came here." Maya said, pointing towards the CAD maintenance equipment in the corner.
"You have been here before, Maya?" Tatsuya knew that the Yotsuba had visited his house before but Maya didn't know that he was aware of it.
"Uh…" Maya was a bit speechless as she tried to explain herself.
"Don't worry, Maya. I was already aware of your little expeditions." Tatsuya reassured the girl who looked a little shocked.
"A bed-type tuner? Tatsuya, where did you get this? These things are really expensive." Maya was curious.
"I made it myself. To be completely honest, I rebuilt an old tuner that I found in a junkyard."
"That doesn't make any sense." Maya said.
"That's what I said but you just have to accept it, Maya." Miya said to her sister.
"Hand me your CAD." Tatsuya asked Maya who promptly handed him the mobile-shaped device which was exactly the same as Miya's albeit with different spells. He could sense that the CAD was the main one Maya used since the Activation Sequence for Meteor Stream was in it, which showed that she trusted him enough. With the device in hand, Tatsuya got to work modifying the hardware of the device. This time, he wasn't allowed to work in peace since Miya had her doubts regarding some topics which he cleared as he worked. Elemental Sight meant that he couldn't make a mistake due to carelessness and not notice it.
It took him two hours to rework Maya's CAD to the point that he felt was acceptable. Without any modifications to the software, this newly modified CAD was capable of activating most of her spells under 200ms, the same as Miya's. However, since Maya was the stronger magician of the two, she would be able to reach such speeds quicker.
"This should do it." Tatsuya said as he handed over the CAD to Maya for checking. Since he didn't have any testing facilities available, she would have to test the device after she went home. However, he was confident in his work enough to know that there wouldn't be any issues.
"Aren't you going to take a look at the software?" Maya asked, curious.
"Like I said to Miya, there is no need for that for now." Tatsuya said. "That device is more than good enough without any software tweaks."
"But it can be better, right?" Maya questioned.
"I won't deny it but modifying the software would mean that I would have to touch the spells in the CAD. That means I have to take your Psion measurements which is a hassle since no one else can operate this particular tuner for now." Tatsuya explained patiently.
"What's the problem here? You can just take the measurements yourself, right?" Maya asked which left both him and Miya speechless.
"Maya, do you know what you are speaking about?!" Miya asked.
"Of course, I know, Onee-chan. Didn't I tell you? I don't plan on holding back at all."
"If you are that prepared, I will not stop you. Tatsuya?"
"Yes?"
"Please adjust my CAD software as well after you are done with Maya's. If you are tired, we can do it tomorrow."
"If both of you don't have any problems with it, I do not mind." Since he had experience tuning CADs for girls, Tatsuya didn't mind.
"Great!" As Maya said this, she started stripping off her uniform. Out of courtesy more than anything else, Tatsuya immediately turned away.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Miya was livid, to say the least. She did not think that her sister would be so shameless.
"What, Onee-chan? It's a bed-type tuner, right? These clothes would get in the way." Maya sounded innocent as she said this.
"That doesn't mean that you can just start stripping out of nowhere." Miya scolded Maya.
"You know, wearing clothes doesn't affect the tuner's readings. You don't need to remove your clothing at all." Tatsuya was still facing away from the twins as he said this.
"But it doesn't feel as comfortable to do it in clothes." Maya whined.
Eventually, Miya relented and allowed Maya to take the readings in her underwear but not before informing him that she would be doing the same later. Tatsuya, for his part, tried his best to not make it sexual but his raging hormones were going out of control. He always knew that Maya was beautiful, but the girl was a downright bombshell at the moment. If it wasn't for the fact that he had cast Regrowth on himself twice to reverse the blood flow in his body from going to the wrong places, he wouldn't have come out of the entire fiasco unscathed. As someone who had no prior experiences when it came to being lustful, Tatsuya was truly up the creek without a paddle when it came to situations like these.
After Maya had finished and gotten dressed, it was Miya's turn, and unluckily (or luckily, depending on who you ask) for Tatsuya, dealing with a half-naked Yotsuba twin wasn't any easier the second time around. While he knew that they were twins, his first life experiences coupled with their behavior up until a week or so ago meant that Tatsuya didn't see many similarities among the twins often. However, seeing them like this reminded him that they were, indeed, twins. While Maya was a bit bustier, Miya wasn't too far off and they looked the exact same with their hair down.
After an agonizing hour or two of tuning CAD software and optimizing the OS. Tatsuya was done tuning the CADs. If he was being honest, the past hour exhausted him more than when he had cast Material Burst on Dahan all those years ago. The twins stuck around for a while longer before leaving and suffice to say, Tatsuya decided to take an early nap for once.
"Did you finish what you were doing in Tatsuya-kun's house?" Yasuyou greeted her daughters as they entered the Yotsuba Mansion. From her view, both Miya and Maya were blushing, which she found interesting.
"Yes, Okaa-san." Maya said as she handed over her CAD to Yasuyou before she ran away to her bedroom. Miya did the same.
Although Yasuyou mainly worked as an interrogator for the Yotsuba in her free time, she was also a decent CAD Engineer, having passed on her interest in Engineering to Miya. Therefore, Yasuyou could understand properly what the devices in her hands were capable of after a few minutes of analysis. Needless to say, this shocked her to her core.
"Honey, may I have a moment?" Yasuyou made her way to her husband who was working on some of the Clan's paperwork. Since Eisaku had been forcibly removed from working until his wife's pregnancy was over, Genzou had taken up the job himself. The expecting parents were currently residing in the Yotsuba's old house inside their territory.
"Yes, dear?" Genzou paused his work as he looked at his wife.
"Take a look at this." Yasuyou handed over the CAD to Genzou.
"Isn't this Miya and Maya's? What's wrong with it?" Genzou asked before he quieted down after realizing what had changed.
"Tatsuya did this." Yasuyou said.
"Well, Miya did say that the boy is quite good with a CAD." Genzou tried to explain.
"But dear! This level of skill isn't normal. There should be some limits to being a genius." Yasuyou was genuinely worried.
"Well, everyone has their secrets, right? I'm sure Tatsuya has his own as well. Plus, didn't you say that he didn't mean any harm to us, right?"
"I suppose."
"To be fair, Mother has been snooping around Tatsuya for a while now. If there is something, we will know." Genzou reassured his wife. "However, with how much that kid is starting to stand out, I fear we might have to take him in before too long." Genzou sighed. Although the Yotsuba had been the only family in the Ten Master Clans that had been actively pursuing Tatsuya, mainly due to his genetic material, recent revelations during the Combat Tournament had made it so that the other clans were also starting to show real interest in him.
"Gram Demolition huh? I suppose a magician who is good at dealing with other magicians will be a valuable asset for just about any clan. Moreover, Gram Demolition is extremely difficult to pull off in a real fight due to its Psion requirements." Even Genzou, who currently had the highest psion count in the Yotsuba, could only pull off the move three times before running out of Psions. This was a fact that Yasuyou was well aware of.
"I believe that we will have to discuss with Tatsuya and announce the engagement soon. With whom, is the problem here." As much as he disliked saying it, Genzou had realized that both his daughters liked Tatsuya, and engaging one of them with him would be met with protests from the other. He decided to consult this with his mother at a later date for more clarity as she was very close to her granddaughters and could give him an unbiased opinion.
All in all, life was getting busier for Genzou and he couldn't say that he liked it.
Hello there. Before I wrote this, I was rereading all the old reviews for this fic for no reason and I must say that it was a ride and a half. Anyway, the plot is slowly moving forward and I hope all of you liked it.
P.S. Remember that embezzlement I mentioned a while ago? The first hearing for it was today (13 January) and I can say without a doubt that the legal system is a pain in the ass. The way that lawyer was trying to grill me, one would think that I was the one who embezzled the money lol.
P.P.S. Fun fact: Remember how I said in the second chapter that I was using OCs from Fuujin's fic? It took me writing this to realize that Yotsuba Ayame, Genzou, Motosuke, etc... are Canon characters lol. I was always under the assumption that Fuujin made them.