Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Nothing unexpected happened during the past two days and Tatsuya was safely able to reach the semi-finals of the tournament. Both his round-of-16 match and quarter-final match had been uneventful with Tatsuya being able to blitz past the opposition with a combination of Gram Demolition and Expel. In fact, out of all the matches in the tournaments conducted across all nine Magic High schools, all three of Tatsuya's matches were in the top 5 shortest matches. Maya had two in the top 5 as well, which meant that they had swept the podium in the category.
Speaking of sweeps, the short duration of his fights as well as the dominant displays that he had shown in them had skyrocketed Tatsuya's popularity among the viewers to an astonishing degree. As the tournament progressed and the number of matches in a day decreased, the average viewership of each match increased. Tatsuya's record-breaking ten million views on the first day were now nowhere to be seen in the top 25 most-viewed matches. Tatsuya's quarter-final match was the number one most-viewed match with over fifty million views which was astonishing, to say the least.
Ayame had informed him that there were a few unsavory elements in the country that tried to use his dominance as a tool against the undisputed position of the Numbered Families, which he found to be utterly stupid. After all, aside from him, almost the entirety of the country's top young talents in magic came from one of the numbered families with a few exceptions here and there. Not to mention the fact that he was a special case. Therefore, their position at the top was justified. Then again, Tatsuya understood that those who are unable to use magic and those who are not the best at using magic, often tend to ignore the truth if it isn't convenient to fit their narrative.
All that was secondary for Tatsuya as he had a bigger problem in hand. The fact that everything had gone smoothly meant that his semi-final match was against Miya, who was leagues better than any other opponent he had faced up until the point. Since he had to keep Decomposition a secret, facing Miya in a fight was a daunting task, to say the least.
"The semi-final match between Shiba Tatsuya of Class 1-A and Yotsuba Miya of Class 1-A will now begin. Contestants, please take your position." The proctor announced and Tatsuya walked out onto the field. Due to the popularity of the competition online and the identity of the two battlers, the stands were full of people. It wasn't just the students who were present, people from outside the school were also present. He took notice of the fact that the Yotsuba Family was present in the stands and he made eye contact with Ayame, who gave him a slight nod which he returned.
Soon, Miya entered the battlefield as she stood opposite him. No words were spoken between them as they gave each other a slight nod of acknowledgment.
Miya was one of the biggest beneficiaries of this tournament being made a public spectacle. Although she had always been a popular figure among the magician families due to her position as the Yotsuba heiress, Maya had always been more popular among the general public due to her outspoken nature and public appearances alongside the proposed engagement to the Saegusa. However, with the tournament almost finished, Miya's popularity was now more or less the same as her sister's. Maya might have been more dominant in her fights but Miya had shown a lot of versatility in her fights which was a better visual spectacle. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that he had gained a lot of fans purely for his civilian background, Tatsuya had no doubt that Miya would have been the most popular among the contestants.
"If both contestants are ready, begin." The proctor announced and both of them sprung into action. Unlike most of the fights that Tatsuya had up until this point, Miya was a completely different beast. He was used to stopping any attacking spells using Gram Demolition and countering the opponent once they made a mistake, but it looked impossible in this case.
Miya's subconscious Data Fortification was far stronger than Tatsuya's Interference Strength with his Secondary MCA which meant that it was impossible for him to use Expel. Moreover, Miya's attacks were so quick and powerful that Tatsuya had to focus almost entirely on defense if he wanted to get out of the fight without risking Regrowth activating. While all of her spells were toned down to only knock him out, it would still cause Regrowth to activate as it would hamper his combat efficiency too much. Tatsuya almost cursed his decision to rewire Miya's CAD as she had already gotten used to activating spells in less than 200ms, which showed just how good she was.
If he was being completely fair, Tatsuya could say that their battle had grown stale rather quickly. He couldn't launch a proper attack on her without risks and she couldn't get past his defenses. The number of spells that they had thrown at each other was too much to count. Tatsuya made sure to ensure that Miya kept churning out spells at a breakneck pace without any rest as he had launched a few attacks of his own when she had shown signs of slowing down.
After more than thirty minutes of a Psionic slugfest between the two, Miya's spells started to slow down considerably, which was a sign that her MCA was reaching its limits. After all, casting magic for a prolonged period of time was exhausting mentally. He could also judge that her psion reserves were about to run out soon and Miya realized this as well. To her credit, there weren't many magicians on the planet that could churn out as many spells as consistently and as efficiently as Miya had done but she was just unlucky that her opponent was him. By the way, they had most definitely taken the title for the longest fight in the knockout stages by a long margin.
"I quit." After she had run out of Psions to use, Miya announced, which showed how well she understood her own capabilities. The proctor announced his victory soon afterward and as they exited the battlefield, they were greeted with thunderous applause from the audience.
"You are a bad guy, Tatsuya." As they were making their way to the medical area, Miya said to him as she took his arms. She did not appear to be bothered by the crowd or the result, at all.
"I will not deny that." Tatsuya shrugged. "You did good, Miya. Not many magicians are able to fight for as long as you did." He praised her.
"Yet you look unfazed. Just how high is your Psion count, Tatsuya?"
"Let's just say that I have quite a lot of Psions."
"Just how high is that boy's Psion count?" In the stands, Genzou asked his mother. When he had heard that Miya was to fight Tatsuya, Genzou's heart nearly skipped a beat. After all, his daughter's opponent, no matter how much he held back, was a being capable of erasing people from existence at a whim. There was no guarantee that there wouldn't be any accidents. However, as the fight progressed, his worries changed to a different problem. There was no reasonable explanation for how Tatsuya had managed to outlast Miya in their fight. Genzou had read the file on Tatsuya's parameters. Although his mastery of Decomposition was missed due to the fact that he never used it, it was nearly impossible to hide a magician's Psion count and other parameters. The data that they had on Tatsuya did not match what they were witnessing.
Tiring a magician out through a prolonged fight was not an uncommon tactic anywhere in the world. After all, it was commonly used by non-magicians against magicians on a regular basis. There was a limit to how many spells one could cast before they ran out of Psions. Almost all high-level magicians knew to avoid any prolonged fights due to this reason. The fact that Miya managed to last so long was a testament to her own skills.
That said, Tatsuya was a completely different story. The data they had on him showed that his Psion count was almost five times that of Miya's and in a slugfest between the two using similarly efficient spells, it was a guarantee that Tatsuya would walk out as the winner. However, the spells that they used weren't similar, not by a long shot. Gram Demolition was a spell that used up a ridiculous amount of Psions to work. With Tatsuya's Psion count, he should have been able to use it a maximum of twenty times before running out.
"I guess that is another one of his secrets that we are unaware of." Ayame shrugged. She had long given up on trying to dig up Tatsuya's secrets at this point. "Look at it on the bright side, you get another reason to explain the engagement when you make it public."
"If his exploits up until this point haven't caught the other clan's eyes, this surely will. More work for me. Great!" Genzou sighed. Until the engagement was made public, Tatsuya was going to be a hotly contested commodity and he had to ensure that the boy wasn't inconvenienced by the competition.
"Are you going to go home again, Tatsuya?" Miya had been released from the medical camp and Maya's match was scheduled to be conducted in the afternoon. There was about an hour left before her fight started and Tatsuya wanted to leave.
"Since the chance of me facing Maya in the finals is very high, I wish to face her without any prejudice. Seeing her hands before the competition would be detrimental to that end." If he was being completely honest, there wasn't much that he could do to alter his chances of winning against Maya. Therefore, Tatsuya decided to go in blind. If he wanted to, he could always see her match on the website anyway.
"I see. Good luck, Tatsuya." Miya gave him a quick peck on the lips before skipping out of the room. He had already gotten used to her displays of affection at this point and it didn't bother him very much.
In the end, Maya's fight ended in under a minute and Tatsuya vs Maya was finalized. His fight with Miya managed to beat his own record when it came to total views with over a hundred and fifty million views but that wasn't important.
Although the final had initially been scheduled to be conducted in the school, the unexpected popularity of the fights had made the University reconsider the decision. As a result, the fight which was scheduled to be conducted on Friday, was postponed to Saturday and would be held in the International Stadium of Yokohama. The tickets for the match had gone online on Thursday night and were sold out within three hours with all 72000 seats being booked. Since it was such a big event, all nine schools had their final match scheduled to be conducted in the stadium.
Therefore, Tatsuya had to make a trip to Yokohama which didn't take very long using the bullet train. His parents had been given two free tickets for the match and they made the trip with him. He arrived at Yokohama on Friday afternoon and they were provided a room in the hotel adjacent to the stadium. Tatsuya made a quick tour of the area before returning to his room to tune his CAD. The fight against Maya was not going to be easy and he needed to take it seriously to have any shot at winning.
The final match had a completely different atmosphere compared to the rest of the tournament, mainly due to the 72000+ people in the gallery making noise. Tatsuya's match was scheduled to be the last one, partly due to it being considered the main event and partly due to the fact that the fights were done in school order starting from Ninth High. For better or for worse, this made Saegusa Koichi's fight the second to last one, which would sit well with the Seagusa heir.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" Tatsuya heard the stadium announcer speak. "It is time for the final match to decide who is going to be First High's number one ranked is going to be. We know that this is one highly anticipated by many. So, without any further delay, let us welcome our two contestants."
"Introducing first, he was a largely unknown figure before this tournament had begun but he has taken the Japanese magical world by storm. Please welcome, the Student Council President of First High, Shiba Tatsuya." Tatsuya made his entrance at this and he was welcomed with a thunderous applause. Tatsuya was not used to being in the public eye so much but tried to be as calm as possible and gave a few waves to the crowd as he made his way to the battlefield. He spotted a few familiar faces in the crowd. His parents were seated alongside the Yotsuba family, which included the entire main family including Eisaku and Yuuma.
"And now, for his opponent, she was already considered to be one of the strongest magicians in the younger generation and this tournament had only cemented this fact. Please, welcome, the Yotsuba Princess, Yotsuba Maya." Maya was smiling ear to ear as she made her entrance. She gave him a wink as soon as she entered the stage which he acknowledged with a nod.
"If both contestants are ready, begin." The proctor announced and the fight began.
"This is impossible." Tatsuya thought to himself as the fight progressed. Maya was much more combat adept than Miya and that was an undisputed fact. The only reason that Tatsuya was able to win against Miya was because he was able to match her level with his countermagic and outlast her with his Psion reserve. However, Tatsuya quickly realized that this was not an option against Maya. She was quicker than Miya in her activation speeds and her Interference strength was far stronger. Therefore, his usual strategy of stopping his opponent with Gram Demolition was barely working. The frequency and the strength of the attacks left almost no gap for Tatsuya to try to go on the offensive. Even on the defensive end, he quickly realized that he was fighting a useless battle. His second MCA was good, but it was nowhere near good enough to go up against Maya. He had been forced to dodge a few spells that managed to escape the Gram Demolition using nothing but his physical abilities.
As the fight entered the one-minute mark, Maya's attacks were getting more and more relentless to the point that Tatsuya knew that he was about to take a hit. Although it wouldn't hurt him, it would raise a lot of unnecessary questions which he wanted to avoid.
'Maybe I should just give up.' Given his circumstances, giving up was the most optimal solution for Tatsuya's predicament. Unlike in his last life, where he had to try not to disappoint Miyuki, there was no logical reason for him to continue this fight. Yet, for some unknown reason, he was unable to make the motion which would signal that he was quitting. Something was preventing him from throwing in the towel and he couldn't understand what.
'Is something wrong with me?' This is the question that Tatsuya asked himself before he blacked out, for the second time in his two lives.
'Where exactly is this place?' When he came to, Tatsuya was standing in a white room with nothing else to be seen. While it was a massive upgrade from the first time he had blacked out, he still couldn't use any of his abilities including the Elemental Sight. Since his motor nerves weren't hindered, he decided to take a walk around the place.
No matter how much he walked, there was no end in sight for Tatsuya. He idly noted that moving didn't seem to affect his body at all, for some reason but he decided to focus on other things.
After a while, he realized that he was getting nowhere and as he decided to take a seat on the floor, something peculiar happened. As he thought about sitting down, a seat appeared near him, out of nowhere. There were no signs of any magic being activated and no one was around to explain the situation. However, Tatsuya was quick-witted and he soon was able to arrive at a conclusion. Whenever he thought about something appearing, it appeared near him.
"Have you figured out what is going on here, Tatsuya?" A voice that he was familiar with, yet couldn't fully identify, spoke to him.
"Who is there?" Tatsuya asked and a figure soon appeared in front of him. One that he was very familiar with.
"Hello, Tatsuya."The guy opposite him, for the lack of a better term, was literally himself. It was almost like looking into a mirror.
"This place is my mind." Tatsuya came to the conclusion.
"Correct. I suppose that makes my job easier."
"Who are you? And what are you doing inside my mind?" Tatsuya asked the other Tatsuya.
"I am you. The Shiba Tatsuya of this world, to be exact." The alternate Tatsuya said.
"And what am I doing here? Unlike the last time, I haven't taken any damage for me to lose consciousness." Tatsuya asked his alternate self.
"I am here to clear up some of the misunderstandings that you seem to be under. Well, I wouldn't call them misunderstandings since you already are aware of the fact on a subconscious level, which is why I exist."
"What is this fact that you want to tell me?" Tatsuya was curious.
"Tatsuya, you seem to be under the impression that you have two Magic Calculation Areas in your head, right?"
"Isn't that the truth?" As far as he knew, Tatsuya was able to use his old abilities as well as regular magic which wouldn't be possible with a single MCA.
"Tatsuya, the mind doesn't work like that. A genius like you should be aware of the fact that it is impossible for a person to have two MCAs without the Artificial Magician Experiment of the Yotsuba. It would be better to say that you are aware of the fact but chose to ignore it for some reason."
"Then how would you explain the fact that I am able to use regular magic?" Something in his head was telling Tatsuya that he already knew the answer but he couldn't figure it out.
"It's quite simple, actually. When you merged with me, the Pushion bodies that make up our respective minds merged as well, giving birth to a single mind. For some inexplicable reason, my own MCA was upgraded to match yours before it merged with yours."
"That doesn't make any sense." Tatsuya was not the type to brag but his original MCA was hands down the best in his world when it came to almost every parameter of magic when using his innate abilities. An MCA as good as that would immediately be discovered by him.
"Well, there is a good reason for that. Apparently, we misjudged just how effective the Pledge was. It affects not just a magician's physical body, but also the Pushion body that makes up our mind. Without a key binding us, we should have immediately broken out of the effects of the Pledge but up until now, you subconsciously ignored it. The only reason why we discovered it was because you did not want to lose to Maya."
"I did not want to lose to Maya? Is that why I failed to forfeit the match?" Tatsuya asked himself.
"Regardless of how you feel about it, we are a very arrogant man, Tatsuya. Losing a fight is something that we dislike, no matter how much we deny it."
"So, what happens now?"
"Since this is your mind, time doesn't flow in here unless you want it to. You will soon wake up and the fight will continue. However, you will no longer be under the effects of Pledge as we have already removed its traces from our system."
"And what about you? Will you disappear as well?"
"Why would I disappear? We are a single person, Tatsuya. It was never me and you, it has always been us. You would not have been flustered by that kiss by Miya or Maya if only you were in control. You would not have felt love for Shiba Mayuri and Shiba Tatsumi if it was only you. I will disappear from your mind but I will always be a part of you."
"I see." Tatsuya did not know how to react. Soon, he could feel his consciousness clearing as the white world began to fade into blackness.
Soon, he regained full control of his body as Elemental Sight came back, and judging by the situation, no time had lapsed between his fight and the little event in his mind. Before he could react, Tatsuya could feel the effect of Pledge being lifted as his Psions, which usually had full control over, went wild. The ensuing psion storm was strong enough that it could cause anyone with strong senses, some discomfort. This was more than enough to distract Maya for a moment, which was more than what he needed. Tatsuya activated Resonance, far faster than he had ever activated it, clocking under less than 150ms which created a violent wave of Psions around Maya, who realized that she had made a mistake quickly.
Although the Resonance was quite strong, Maya was still able to stand. This was impressive, considering that Tatsuya had used a decent amount of power in the spell albeit nowhere near full strength. The ensuing slugfest between the two of them saw the roles being reversed as Tatsuya was able to easily counter Maya's offensive spells while causing enough problems for her in return. Soon, the intense pressure of the fight and the effects of the Resonance, made Maya lose focus for a second and that was all he needed.
Tatsuya activated a Self-Accelerating Spell on himself, moved behind Maya, and cast Expel on her within a span of 400ms, which was almost as quick as blinking. Maya slowly lost consciousness and fell forward, but he managed to catch her.
"The winner, Shiba Tatsuya." The proctor announced and the stadium was stunned into silence. His parents were the first to give him applause and soon, the others joined in.
Tatsuya knew that there was no going back for him anymore but he did not care. After all, whatever the problem might be, he could handle it easily.
Hello there. It's been like three days since the last update and I must say that this chapter was a little hard to write. I initially wanted to write something about Tatsuya's other two matches but decided to abandon it since I didn't get any good ideas. So I decided to get to the endgame for the tournament and I hope that it was a good read.
Special mention to ObeRun who seemed to be worried that I might get offended by his comments. Don't worry bro, I can understand very well what you meant by that comment.
The idea used in the climax of this chapter was taken from a review by Me Myself and I and I thank you for that. Hope you liked it.
If anyone has any doubt about what happened in the last bit, what I went for was that Tatsuya has one MCA which is double the size of his original MCA from Canon. Half of that is reserved for his two signature spells while the other half is used for normal magic. Pledge, affected half of his normal magic MCA which was released in this chapter. I don't think Pledge works that way but we will roll with it.
Anyways, the next chapter will deal with the consequences of this chapter. See you soon.