Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Some of the character names that will eventually appear in this story were taken directly from 'Fujin of Shadow's Second Chances'.
Darkness was not something Shiba Tatsuya was a stranger to. He had operated in the cover of darkness for his 'family' more times than one would think. However, what he wasn't familiar with was the darkness resulting from being conscious yet unconscious at the same time. As someone who had lost the ability to lose consciousness since birth (his innate magic refused to allow him to lose consciousness since it diminished his combat strength) the fact that he could tell that he was currently unconscious was an unwelcome surprise to the young man. Since he couldn't form any sort of connection with his magic calculation area or his physical body, the part of his mind that regained its sense thought about the last thing he could remember before entering this state.
He could faintly recall that he was in the middle of a fight with the young scion of the Ichijou Clan as a part of the Monolith Code Newcomers Division Final. The young Ichijou had lost his composure and fired a series of magic sequences that were not watered down to meet competition requirements. Tatsuya had stubbornly refused to bring out his Decomposition in public eyes and as a result, he could only use Gram Demolition to dismantle fourteen out of the sixteen Sequences Ichijou had fired. He had resigned himself to taking the remaining two hits head-on. While both the Compressed Air Bullet held considerable strength, enough to permanently incapacitate an ordinary magician, the damage output it produced was nowhere near close enough to actually provide a challenge for his Regrowth ability. Under normal circumstances, he would have shrugged off the hit and finished the fight before acting like it took a lot out of him to avoid a greater degree of suspicion from the onlookers. But given the fact that he remembered nothing from the moment he took the hit and that he was currently unconscious, Tatsuya came to the conclusion that something had gone wrong.
Panic was not something that Tatsuya was capable of experiencing unless it was about Miyuki so he could calmly analyze his current situation without any emotion interfering. But with most of his own mind beyond his reach, he eventually gave up and resigned himself to his fate, whatever it was.
With no way to indicate the passage of time, Tatsuya didn't know how long he spent in the confines of his own mind. However, after what felt like an eternity to him, he could faintly recognize that he was regaining consciousness. Within seconds, he regained access to both his innate magic as well as the Elemental Sight. With it, he could finally check the Eidos log for more information on what happened. But he decided against it in favor of securing the perimeters. If he was incapacitated by Ichijou's attack, it would have resulted in Third High's disqualification and First High's win in Monolith Code. He braced himself to face what must have been an agitated Miyuki and his friends.
When he finally opened his eyes, what he came across was an unfamiliar room. Although the hotel they were staying in as part of the NSC was a military establishment, it was still a hotel and as such, the rooms were still somewhat similar to the ones a person would find in a normal hotel. However, the room he was currently in was a much more personal one. He could see a study desk, a Desktop Computer that looked like it was from the 2060s, and a small bookshelf aside from the king-sized bed he was currently lying on.
However, all of this was acceptable as far as Tatsuya was concerned but what was unacceptable was the fact that he could not 'see' Miyuki at all. One of the main reasons why Tatsuya served as Miyuki's guardian aside from the familial relationship with her was that he could always keep an eye on her at all times by using a portion of his Elemental Sight for the purpose. However, Tatsuya was currently unable to discern Miyuki's location, much less monitor her. Normally, he would have panicked right then and there but to Tatsuya's surprise, the expected emotional burst never came. If anything, all he could feel was a mild surprise which was followed by indifference. This was something that was unacceptable to Tatsuya since his love for his sister was the last thing that was keeping him human. He ran a thorough check on himself and the results shocked him.
The Artificial Magic Calculation Area implanted in his brain was gone.
However, this was not the only thing that was amiss. Tatsuya could feel that he currently had two Magic Calculation Areas. Aside from his original Magic Calculation Area which contained his innate abilities, there was a second one that although not as powerful as his original one (when it came to it, no magician had a better MCA than him, as far as utilizing his innate ability was concerned), was still a top one which held the potential to use A-Rank spells even.
As Tatsuya was struggling to come up with some sort of plausible explanation for his current predicament, he was suddenly assaulted by a flood of memories that did not belong to him. Since he was trained against Mental Interference Magic from a young age, Tatsuya shrugged off the discomfort he was currently experiencing and analyzed the available information for answers and the conclusion he drew was a surprising one.
He was currently in the body of Shiba Tatsurou, his biological father.
To be precise, he was not in the body of his exact father, but a boy named Shiba Tatsuya who had essentially replaced Shiba Tatsurou from history while taking his place. His age, birth circumstances, parents, etc… were all the exact same as Tatsurou's but his looks and name were the same as Tatsuya's. This piece of information only provided further confusion for his already stumped mind and as such, for the first time in his life, Tatsuya decided to take a break.
"It's almost as if someone went out of their way to drop me into the past without causing any huge ripple effects". Tatsuya thought to himself.
With nothing else to do, Tatsuya walked out of his room after dressing himself appropriately. His new body had none of the scars that his original body had but was just as well built. This was a surprise since, from the memories of this world's Shiba Tatsuya, he was a magic nerd who did not do much in the way of exercise much like his father had been. After all, his current body was barely thirteen at this point and had yet to be victimized by the fact that he was incapable of living up to his own potential.
Tatsuya had been incapable of feeling strong emotions about anyone except for Miyuki but when it came to his father, even he felt a little pity. The man had been a promising magician in his youth but was unable to actually make something of it and had eventually given up and resigned himself to a fate that saw him become nothing more than a breeding sow. Tatsuya could feel that his current body had been going on that exact same path of no return before he took over. While musing about such tiny details, he reached the living room where he was greeted by a woman who was both familiar and unfamiliar to him at the same time.
"You are up already? Well, breakfast is ready." Tatsuya admittedly had no idea how to deal with Shiba Mayuri. Unlike Miya with whom relationship was nothing more than that of one between a servant and his mistress, the original body and his mother were as close as any normal parent and child would be. His 'mother' was a retired government employee who had resigned from her position to take care of him. His father, Shiba Tatsumi was a mid-level Government Official which meant that his salary was more than comfortable enough for the small family of three.
"It is getting late for school." The original body was currently enrolled in a local Junior High school. Although the National Magic Association was already an established institution, the Magic High School system of his time had yet to be established and wouldn't be until the next decade.
"Did something happen? You are looking a little off today?" Apparently, he couldn't fool the eyes of his mother even though there shouldn't be any outward differences between him and the original body now that he was fully clothed.
"It's nothing, mom. I'm just tired from staying up too late yesterday." Tatsuya internally winced as he tried to emulate the original body as much as possible. Although his current brain had no issues with emotions, he was still very much inexperienced when it came to emotions.
"Hmm". Tatsuya was thankful that Mayuri didn't press the issue. He soon finished his breakfast and escaped from the living room in the pretense of getting ready for school.
Although the Shiba Tatsuya of this world was long gone, his memories that had stayed with Tatsuya had allowed him to reach his destination with relative ease. While the original body wasn't exactly an academic genius, he still studied enough to pass comfortably in the top half of the class so Tatsuya had no difficulties on that end. However, academics was the least of his worries.
The current date was March 23, 2062, meaning that there was exactly 1 day before The Nightmare of 2062 occurred. In fact, it didn't take him much searching to find the younger version of his 'former' aunt as she was flying across the ocean in a private jet to Taipei, he presumed.
"This has got to be some sort of sick joke." Tatsuya mused internally. While he had the power necessary to stop the tragedy from happening, he was currently questioning whether he should do it or not. Tatsuya did not have the best impression of the Yotsuba. That much was given with the degree of mistreatment he had suffered under them. But he wasn't callous enough to punish a 12-year-old for the sins that she or her kin had yet to commit. No, his problem was with the fact that the end result of the event was beneficial to the nation of Japan and even the Yotsuba as a whole.
The Yotsuba Maya of his time was everything that embodied what a Yotsuba was supposed to be. The Queen of The Night was not just strong, but also ruthless to the point where even the strongest of opponents thought twice about going against her. This was a desirable result as far as Tatsuya was concerned. He wasn't the type of person of person who cared about the means as long as the result was achieved. The problem here was that the conditioning of the original body, who was just a normal young boy with a tight moral compass was interfering with his thought process. He eventually came to the conclusion that it was better to save Maya since he couldn't care less about benefitting the Yotsuba and would much rather live as he wanted to.
The day passed rather quickly and it was time for Tatsuya to act. He had been carefully following Maya with his Elemental Sight for the majority of the previous day.
It was a well-known fact that modern magic could be utilized even if a magician could not physically see his target. After all, magic was nothing more than an alteration of the information of the world that the magician could grasp by any means necessary. However, it was mostly theoretical since most magicians were unable to analyze information without visual confirmation of it first. However, Tatsuya was immune to this rule. After all, Elemental Sight gave him better information about his target than whatever his five senses could provide.
There was a distance of roughly 2000 kilometers or 1250 miles between the City of Tokyo and the City of Taipei. However, for Tatsuya, this was nothing more than an irrelevant number. It would have been easy for Tatsuya to Decompose the attackers from Dahan as soon as they made a move but he waited for a while until the two young magicians were unable to resist. He was mildly surprised when the Saegusa scion ran out but he nonetheless Decomposed every living being within a hundred meter radius of Maya except for the Saegusa.
Since he knew that the entire building was compromised and that Maya's security personnel was dead, he decided to do something more drastic. He decomposed the space near Maya and connected it to one of the houses of the Yotsuba. Although Tatsuya disliked using techniques that he hadn't perfected, it was a desperate situation. He then tossed the Yotsuba princess into the distortion and closed it. The entire operation left a lot of residual information in the Idea Dimension but it wasn't like anyone could use it to track him.
With his work done, Tatsuya turned his Elemental Sight off and went to freshen himself up, knowing full well that history had changed but severely underestimating the degree of that change.
This is basically just a rough draft of a plot bunny that was stuck in my head for a long time now. Might as well write it for fun. I'm pretty sure that this fandom is currently dead and won't rise until Fuujin of Shadows drops another masterpiece so I don't expect much response. Mahouka was my introduction to fanfiction and I just wanted to write something about it. I'll see you peeps soon.