123rd Spell: Broken Barrier

"What happened?" Rui said, noticing Gyoku hadn't walked past the ticket reader yet.

"The reader didn't accept my ticket," Gyoku responded.

He tried to push the ticket into the reader again. But like before, the reader beeped and ejected the ticket.

"I've never seen this happen before," Rui said in a perplexed state. "Maybe it's broken."

Gyoku examined his ticket carefully. "I don't see anything wrong."

"Let's try using Rui's ticket," Haru said. "We're wasting enough time as is."

"Okay." Rui took out her ticket and pushed it into the reader.

For a moment, the ticket reader swallowed the ticket. But before Rui could step forward, it ejected her ticket just like Gyoku's.

"That's weird," Rui looked down at her ticket in confusion. "What could possibly be wrong with my ticket?"

Frustrated, Haru tried using his ticket. Yet to his surprise, it also got ejected.

"Now it's happening to me!" Haru couldn't believe it. "Why can't we get through the barrier?"

"Excuse us," said a pair of businessmen in matching black suits and ties behind Haru, Rui, and Gyoku. "We're kind of in a hurry."

"Sorry," Haru apologized and stepped aside.

Rui and Gyoku did the same while the two businessmen used normal tickets on the reader, which took them as they entered the station with their briefcases in tow.

"It's like we're completely cut off from the wizard side of the station," Rui noted. "You don't think…."

"Think what?" Haru asked Rui.

"Either the barrier is malfunctioning, or someone is preventing us from going through the barrier," Rui speculated.

"But who would do that?" Gyoku wondered.

Haru immediately thought about Warumo, who had recently killed Tamanoya and stolen the real Jinsei Stone from him.

Could Warumo be tracking me down as we speak, or sent one of his followers after me? Haru thought nervously to himself.

Looking around the train station, Haru didn't see anyone that looked too out of the ordinary. Then he remembered Warumo was capable of possessing other people, like what he did to Popuri, and realized Warumo could be in the body of any person at the train station. The only problem is if that were true, his chest would be hurting from the dragonfly mark that was actually a protective seal placed on him by his birthmother before she died that could sense if Warumo was nearby or trying to influence him from afar. But right now he was feeling nothing—meaning Warumo was either nowhere in the station or hiding his presence inside his current host body from Haru.

Before Haru could ponder the issue further, the clock inside the station suddenly rang as the hands read 11 AM. Realizing the M Line bullet train was about to leave, he tried to put his ticket in the reader again. Yet like before, it still wouldn't work.

"We missed the train!" Haru snapped, ready to tear his ticket in half from the frustration of it all.

"Calm down, Haru," Rui said. "We'll figure this out."

"If we didn't have to wait for Gyoku, none of this would've happened," Haru said in the same cold cadence he spoke to the Bakotsu Takitsuke to make him stop mid-gallop.

"Hey, that's not fair!" Rui argued. "Don't blame my brother for our missing the train!"

"No, he's right," Gyoku said guiltily. "This is entirely my fault…."

"Don't blame yourself," Rui said as she hugged Gyoku. "Obviously, this thing Haru found must be important. Because you wouldn't have gone back for it otherwise."

"That's true," Gyoku admitted. "But what can we do? Wait for Mom to come back?"

"Can she do that?" Haru questioned.

"I don't see why she can't," Rui said defensively.

"But how do you know?" Haru waved his hand at the ticket reader. "If we can't get through the barrier over here, then anyone coming through the other side might not be able to come here."

Rui didn't like the sound of that. "You might be right. But I don't think Mom will be entirely trapped, since she can use the Body Evaporation Spell to return to wherever she wants. So let's wait at the ship for her to return."

Gyoku and Haru agreed with this plan, so they went back to the parking lot with their belongings in tow. After climbing onboard the enchanted ship Kō-tei, they sat on the deck and waited. But as the minutes turned to hours, a growing tension filled the air.

"Momma should have been back by now," Rui grumbled. "Why isn't she here?"

"Could the malfunctioning barrier be preventing wizards and witches from returning here using the Body Evaporation Spell?" Gyoku speculated.

"Possibly," Haru muttered. "It wouldn't surprise me at this point…."

"You're not helping the situation with your grumpiness, Haru!" Rui said irritably. "And you haven't even apologized to Gyoku for accusing him of putting us in this mess."

Realizing he was being a complete jerk right now, Haru held his hand out to Gyoku. "I'm sorry for what I said earlier, Gyoku. Can you please forgive me?"

"Sure I can," Gyoku said as he shook Haru's hand. "I'm not as sensitive as people think."

"Now what should we do?" Rui wondered. "I don't suppose anyone knows where the nearest Kōsen Station is to report this situation to them."

"I have an idea!" Datsu interrupted as he suddenly appeared in front of Haru and the Wataka siblings. "Let's fly the Kō-tei to Mahoutokoro."

"Are you crazy?" Rui exclaimed. "None of us knows how to fly this ship."

"But I do," Datsu claimed. "I sometimes follow your mom when she takes the Kō-tei out to sea, or flies it to her business meetings. So I know how this ship works."

"Won't we get in trouble, though?" Gyoku brought up. "I've heard students aren't allowed to use their own form of magical transportation to Mahoutokoro except through approved methods like the M Line and the Ōkumo Storm Petrels."

"It's better than missing school," Haru said. "Besides, we can always use the Rookery at Mahoutokoro to alert the Kōsen of what's happening here so they can fix the problem."

This made Rui pause, and then she nodded. "All right, let's do it."

To be continued…