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Chapter Four

Miyuki formally received the notification informing her that First High was canceled shortly after 8 o’clock in the morning, but she expected this so her plans didn’t really change. First High starts lessons at 8 AM, so the notification would have been too late to start morning classes, but the school’s management could still have sent a notification about resuming classes in the afternoon.

July 9, 2097, 9:00.

Tatsuya and Miyuki returned to their rooms to put their thoughts together before meeting back with each other and sitting on their knees opposite each other.

They both sat properly in Seiza, but there wasn’t any special grace to their clothing or accessories. Tatsuya was wearing a different short-sleeved T-shirt as well as long trousers that reached to his ankles while Miyuki was wearing a light summer dress. The dress was relatively provocative; it was quite frank and emphasized the lines of her body, so she wouldn’t have dared wear it in front of anyone besides Tatsuya. Despite her appearance, Tatsuya didn’t even lift an eyebrow when he saw her.

They didn’t normally use the room they were currently in, but it was well-maintained enough for it not to contain any dust, so they sat on clean tatami and didn’t use cushions.

Tatsuya’s expression was emotionless, as usual, contrasting Miyuki, who was slightly red in face.

“I dressed like this because you told me to choose something comfortable for everyday wear.. Onii-sama, m-I don’t need to need to take this off, do I?”

Miyuki said this in an embarrassed voice, but she didn’t put her head down or even take her eyes off Tatsuya. She had faced a similar situation in February of the same year when tracking down Gu Jie, so she somewhat knew what to expect, but this only fired up her nerves.

Tatsuya needed to take his “gaze” off of Miyuki in order to fully utilize his Elemental Sight. However, when he did this, he could no longer feel Miyuki’s presence in the same way, and found himself unable to focus. In order to still feel Miyuki when he wasn’t watching her, he needed to close the physical distance. Back in February, he and Miyuki stripped almost completely - leaving just their undergarments – so Tatsuya could feel her skin. This allowed him to dedicate his full attention to searching for Gu Jie.

Miyuki assumed the same would be necessary today to achieve the same results, thinking that the process needed to be repeated.

She denied any desire about wanting to appear in front of Tatsuya in her underwear.

Regardless, Tatsuya understood what Miyuki meant, so there weren’t any misunderstandings.

“Not this time. Unlike last time, we got rid of the Pledge.”

“Ah ..”

Miyuki was greatly embarrassed after hearing Tatsuya’s answer. Her shame grew to the point that she could no longer look into Tatsuya’s eyes, and she shyly folded her arms together, laid them on her hips, and lowered her head. She unreasonably worried that she would be perceived as some kind of exhibitionist, and her ears – visible through the gaps between her hair – turned red.

After seeing Miyuki’s state, the atmosphere became slightly awkward and Tatsuya also began to look slightly embarrassed. He remembered when they searched for Gu Jie, and his own shame built up slightly. He may have been limited in his emotions, but he still had a sense of shame – especially in front of the one girl he consciously cared about.

Realizing that the atmosphere would only get worse if he didn’t do anything, Tatsuya spoke.

“Let’s start searching.”

Tatsuya announced this in a serious military tone and closed his eyes until they were only half open.

He left them slightly ajar to continue observing Miyuki with his sight. He couldn’t do this in Gu Jie’s case, as that time he had to completely enter the information dimension, becoming blind to the real world, but this time he could focus some attention on ordinary sight and didn’t need to physically feel Miyuki.

With ordinary sight, he couldn’t be completely confident that danger wouldn’t approach Miyuki, but this time that was also different – he could maximize detection in both the material and information dimension.

Still watching Miyuki physically, Tatsuya sent his sight to the information dimension.

His search target was Minami’s Eidos.

Tatsuya didn’t need to prepare an item that had a deep connection with Minami because he had ties to her himself. Following the path of the bond between them, Tatsuya overcame the space separating them and found her.

Not even five minutes had past since he started searching when he found Minami’s information.

Elemental Sight was a rare ability, but Tatsuya wasn’t the only user. Magic was fundamentally temporarily recognizing the Eidos of a phenomena. Magicians can perceive this information to varying degrees depending on the users skill, so Elemental Sight – the highest possible ability to perceive information, the ability to completely perceive the information dimension – was available to every magician.

If a magician improves their ability to perceive information, they can gain Elemental Sight. Since Minoru was already able to perceive information at a high level, his transformation into a Parasite increased his level enough to gain Elemental Sight.

“That is? Tatsuya-san?”

Observing a target has a slight impact. Similarly to how radar slightly impacts the surroundings through the radio waves released, observing targets through the information dimension slightly changes the information. However, unlike radar, observation through the information dimension only adds the information that the target is being observed – it doesn’t really use waves.

The change was very minor, but since Minoru was also a user of Elemental Sight, he was able to detect the change.

By the time Minoru detected it, Tatsuya’s gaze was already approaching Minami.

Minoru didn’t know this, but he automatically shifted his sight to Minami out of reflex and realized that Tatsuya was trying to find Minami’s location.

“That’s bad..!”

Tatsuya found Minami at almost the same time that Minoru noticed his search. The time difference between the 2 events was less than half a second, but Tatsuya had already looked deeply into Minami’s Eidos in that amount of time.

“We can’t allow him to reveal this place!”

If he had time, he could follow the path Tatsuya used to find Minami backwards and counterattack him with mental interference magic. However, Minoru was currently occupied with trying to hide the location of the shelter.

The shelter was guarded by multiple defensive barriers built by Zhou Gongjin. It was a large scale barrier created with Continental Ancient Magic “Seikirei Hachijin” - Stone Sentinel Maze - which hindered both approach from the ground as well as interfering with physical and magical searching methods from the air.

Despite its strength, however, it would not fool Tatsuya.

Minoru understood this because it also wouldn’t fool him.

Minoru had expected that Tatsuya’s gaze would quickly pierce Zhou Gongjin’s barrier.

Since the barrier only hid the location, once it was found the barrier was completely useless. It didn’t provide more than an illusion preventing approach. While Minoru could try to distort Tatsuya’s senses by using Ghost Walker, this wouldn’t stop Tatsuya for long.

After considering his options, Minoru used Parade on Minami to disguise information about her. However, since Tatsuya had already found her in the information dimension, rather than completely disguise her information, he only focused on one detail.

The information about her location.

While Tatsuya would still find her approximate location this way, Minoru could shift her location relatively far away.

Minoru changed the information about her location to appear 10 kilometers away at Lake Kawaguchi. At the same time, Minoru felt Tatsuya’s gaze shift away from his location in the Sea of Trees. Parade had at least temporarily prevented Tatsuya from finding Minoru.

However, Minoru didn’t feel any relief at this.

Minoru had only faked Minami’s location. Tatsuya was still looking at Minami’s information body.

“It’s too early to relax,” Minoru muttered, warning himself.

“Minoru used Parade..?”

Tatsuya realized this as his sight was shifted away from Minami’s location.

“Is Minoru-kun trying to stop you?” Miyuki asked.

Hearing Tatsuya’s mumble, Miyuki automatically asked him a question despite her attempts trying not to distract him. Until now she had even tried not to make noise breathing.

“Yes.”

Tatsuya opened his eyes completely for a moment to answer her before closing them to a half-open state once more.

From the beginning, he had accounted for the fact that Minoru would use Parade. If he hadn’t expected him to resist, he wouldn’t have needed to prepare this much.

Tatsuya had problems getting past Parade in the past. Since he usually fought around his ability to read Eidos, Parade was a large counter to him.

“But I’m not going to lose him for long.”

He had expected Minoru to intervene, so he had obviously prepared countermeasures.

“Huh? What’s he looking at?”

Suddenly, Tatsuya’s gaze split in two. Minoru was puzzled after sensing this.

Tatsuya was still looking at Minami’s Eidos, but now he had added one more look.

This look was focused on Minoru.

“No.. that’s not quite it. Is he watching my magic?”

Sequences of magic are recorded on the surface of the phenomenon they are affecting.

The sequence for Parade covered the outermost layer of the Eidos – the layer connecting it to the physical world.

Parade worked by pasting new information on the outer layer of the Eidos, causing the world to incorrectly perceive the phenomenon as something other than what it was.

Parade is able to deceive the world because it comes into direct contact with it. That’s where its name comes from – the object of Parade displays new, false information to the world attracting attention over the real information.

This makes it a difficult spell to counter. The sequence of magic was on display – but it appeared to be in the wrong information. Its actual location was on the Eidos of the object that was hidden.

Since the only way to view things in the information dimension was to know where it was, it was impossible to find the object based on the information presented to the physical dimension.

While in principle, information could be gathered about hidden phenomena through information links, time passes. Everything changed constantly, so unless one knew how to view information from the past, it wasn’t possible to find information about something of which the location was unknown solely through information links.

“Even Tatsuya-san can’t go against the passage of time.”

Minoru based this thought on how he understood Elemental Sight.

“But in any case, I should maintain Parade until Tatsuya-san looks away.”

Minoru concentrated harder to make sure his magic would not be interrupted.

Minoru was currently mistaken about two things.

His first mistake was assuming that his Elemental Sight was the same as Tatsuya’s.

Elemental Sight – the Eyes of the Spirits – was a broad term to describe someone who could look into the information dimension. The nature of people’s sight could differ greatly.

For example, Minoru was very skilled in passive perception. When he was in Ikoma, Minoru detected the clash between Tatsuya and Bezobrazoff occurring in Izu, despite the locations being nearly 400 km apart. On the other hand, Tatsuya must consciously focus to detect magic, but when he focused, he could gain far more detail - even to the point of going against the passage of time and viewing a log of Eidos changes.

Minoru was fairly skilled at sensory magic. Parade worked by substituting information about a target to fool an opponent’s senses. Because of this, Minoru’s Elemental Sight manifested as a passive detection skill.

Similarly, Tatsuya’s restoration worked by reverting Eidos changes to a point, going against the flow of time. As a result, Tatsuya’s Elemental Sight allowed him to read Eidos changes.

In other words, Elemental Sight manifested differently based on the skillset of the magician using it. Elemental Sight was the highest level of a magician’s ability to recognize Eidos, but it varied for each magician.

However, Minoru could hardly be blamed for failing to realize this mistake. Elemental Sight was an extremely rare ability, as only a very small number of magicians developed their perception ability enough. Minoru never had the chance to compare his perception ability to someone else’s, so it only made sense for him to assume his ability was the same as anyone else’s.

Minoru was not quite so innocent about his second, more significant mistake. This mistake was that he had incorrectly assumed Tatsuya’s goal in splitting his sight.

Tatsuya knew how difficult it was to directly detect Parade’s magic sequence. His personal experiences had painfully forced him to learn. So, taking into accounted his past obstacles in order to avoid repeating past failures, he searched for traces of the information masked by the Parade sequence rather than the sequence itself.

Phenomena are accompanied by information recorded by psions, and magic fundamentally worked by using psions to change the recorded information. Since Psions fulfilled both of these roles, using Psions to modify phenomena caused the Psions to record traces of the magic.

Tatsuya had noticed this law during the battle with Arcturus. How ironic that the battle with Arcturus, which gave Minoru the opportunity to escape, also gave Tatsuya the information to find him again.

Tatsuya was searching for a record of the magic rewriting the location information in the information dimension. He was limited to reading changes up to 24 hours in the past, but in this case he only needed to go back a moment.

However, simply detecting traces of the modification of phenomena doesn’t allow Tatsuya to interrupt Parade.

Tatsuya was able to find Minami’s Eidos using his Elemental Sight, but her location information had already been overwritten by Parade. Parade’s sequence had been pasted over the real coordinates, but the substituted coordinates didn’t show any sequence of magic that could be neutralized.

That’s where reading the history of changes becomes useful. The information that something changed isn’t just located on the actual Eidos – it can also be found on the one presented by Parade in the wrong location. By analyzing the history of the changes, Tatsuya is able to get information about Parade’s sequence of magic.

Tatsuya obtained the necessary information indirectly, based on the changes made by a sequence of magic.

“..kuh!”

Minoru gasped after he felt a sudden pressure.

“What was that?”

He realized the pressure he had just felt wasn’t physical. It wasn’t affecting his physical body, but he had felt a strong feeling of oppression in his mind.

“..!”

Then the pressure hit him again. He didn’t cry out this time since he was ready for a second attack, but the tension he felt in his head was still very powerful.

He couldn’t ignore the pressure he now felt, but before searching for it’s nature, Minoru checked whether Parade was still in effect.

He found that his magic had not been interrupted. He was worried that he had accidentally released the magic in his shock. However, he was far more surprised by what he found than he would have been if had only dropped the magic sequence.

“Huh?”

Parade still functioned in the sense that it hadn’t been cancelled. However, Minoru could clearly see that it could break at any moment.

The sequence of magic had become fragile, as if it had been eroded.

Magic sequences disperse if the magician controlling them stops them, but Minoru hadn’t felt like he lost control, and the sequence still existed – it hadn’t completely dispersed as it should have if he had released his control.

“Why didn’t I notice it was in this state ?”

As he fell into confusion, Minoru asked himself this and poured magic power back into Parade. Rather than support the existing spell, he put the same one over it.

Generally, rewriting one magic with another was a bad choice as each rewriting requires more and more intervention force to have an effect – each time, more Psions were added, and though Minoru didn’t know this, more changes were recorded. This had been the problem Tatsuya had to solve when creating flight magic.

However, when magic giving the same result is used to rewrite an existing sequence, the required intervention force doesn’t increase.

Minoru rewrote the old sequence of magic, which was on the verge of destruction, with a new one masking information about the Eidos’ location. Parade regained its strength, and Minoru sighed in relief.

However, suddenly..

“Wow, again?”

The pressure increased for a third time, this time stronger than the second.

Instead of checking the state of Parade’s magic sequence, Minoru immediately rewrote it.

“Is this Tatsuya-san’s attack?”

Minoru could only think of one cause as he made sure the new Parade sequence created the necessary effect.

Minoru knew Tatsuya was able to use Gram Dispersion – the most effective countermagic. Since this spell directly destroyed the sequence of magic, it was impossible to defend against.

However, if one couldn’t target the sequence of magic, Gram Dispersion couldn’t be used. In addition, using Gram Dispersion wouldn’t leave the sequences of magic in a dilapidated state – it would completely disintegrate them, leaving no trace.

“But if it isn’t Gram Dispersion, what is he doing?”

He could feel his sequence of magic weaken, becoming fragile, but he couldn’t understand its cause.

Magic was not built consciously, so even the magician using the magic doesn’t know the details of its construction. They only know what it is and how it works in general

– they didn’t know the specifics. Minoru was not special in this regard because of his Parasite abilities. He didn’t know precisely what changed in his sequences of mag-

“..!”

Unfortunately for Minoru, he didn’t have time to calmly reason.

The pressure causing the sequence of magic to weaken returned periodically, and Minoru had to cope with this each time.

“It still doesn’t compare to direct targeting.”

Tatsuya was detecting and erasing traces of the magic sequence of Parade by going back through the information recorded in the psions about the magic used. However,

the result wasn’t satisfactory for Tatsuya. He could only indirectly analyze the structure of the sequence of magic, so the accuracy of the information he found dropped significantly when compared to directly observing the sequence.

In addition, he was viewing a past version of the magic sequence. Even if it was only a moment’s difference, the sequence wasn’t quite the same, so Tatsuya’s attempts to disperse Parade weren’t working. He could only erase parts of the sequence, hence causing the crippled state Minoru found the sequence in.

Still, he definitely felt a response. He knew he hadn’t missed, so he was definitely doing something. He still couldn’t determine Minami’s location, however.

“The psionic connections are being damaged, but I stil can’t completely disperse the sequence.. isn’t that the whole point, though?”

Tatsuya could recognize and comprehend the details of magic sequences with his power of perception obtained through Decomposition and Regrowth, but that was only an option for him when he could see the target. He was limited to speculating about the contents based on the response after using the magic.

His guesses wouldn’t always be correct, but he could at least make progress. He couldn’t rely on his eyes, so he advanced blindly.

It was with that mindset that Tatsuya began his fifth attack.

“It’s getting harder and harder as this goes on..”

Minoru defended against Tatsuya’s second attack on Parade’s magic sequence. Well, he considered it defending, but it was really just taking the attack and then rewriting the sequence. The feeling of pressure on Minoru’s mind had become more like heavy blows crushing him, and he slumped on one knee. He was exhausting himself both physically and mentally by having to reactivate his magic repeatedly, and the attacks by Tatsuya were taking their toll.

“..Haa, it’s good I went outside.”

He laughed at his pitiful state.

“It’s good Minami-san doesn’t have to see me like this.”

Concluding his moping with that thought, Minoru put a hand on his knee and stood up.

“I haven’t given up yet.

Tatsuya-san can’t keep this up for ever.”

Minoru made a resolution to keep going until Tatsuya exhausted himself.

Minoru didn’t have any direct evidence supporting either part of that statement – he couldn’t be sure that the attack was from Tatsuya, or that Tatsuya would run out of magic power. However, he was sure that was the case – he didn’t think anyone else would be able to find a way to attack through Parade like he had, and he didn’t believe Tatsuya could attack him repeatedly without exhausting himself in the process.

“I can’t afford to lose. I still haven’t received Minami’s answer. If I surrender here, al will be meaningless.”

As he thought this, the image of his grandfather, Kudou Retsu – who he had killed –

popped into his mind.

Struggling against his remorse, Minoru filled his consciousness with his fighting spirit.

“I can’t lose here.”

Minoru muttered this as he strained his legs and stared at the sky.

Minoru’s assumptions were still unfounded, but this time, they weren’t wrong.

Tatsuya’s magic forces were limited and running out.

“Onii-sama, isn’t it time to stop already ..?”

Miyuki suggested stopping to rest with a restless voice and a concerned look on her face. She extended her right hand, which was holding a handkerchief, forward, and wiped off the sweat that had accumulated on Tatsuya’s forehead.

However, Tatsuya’s forehead wasn’t the only place sweating. His T-shirt was wet from sweat soaking into the fabric, and his face was pale, reflecting his exhaustion.

“Just a bit more..”

Miyuki didn’t know if he was responding to her or just saying that to himself, but regardless, he didn’t listen to her suggestion and launched his ninth attack on Parade.

He had already studied the structure of the sequence, and he knew that Parade was only hiding Minami’s location. He could see the content of her body, but not it’s structure – he could only see a false structure with the incorrect location information.

That was the problem he faced with Parade. He was unable to disperse the spell because he didn’t know its structure – he could only guess at the existing connections and attack based on that.

His first step was reading the trace of the magic used to overwrite the location. He hadn’t completely mastered this yet – he had only discovered the technique in yesterday’s battle – but he considered himself proficient enough to use it decently and learn information relatively accurately.

After that, he had to analyze the traces of magic recorded in the information dimension and make assumptions about the processes contained in the magic.

This step was primarily Tatsuya trying to learn the design of the magic – the processes needed to activate it as well as the processes used in activation. It was similar to designing magic, but now, rather than create something himself, he had to figure out what others had created.

Once he had an idea of the processes contained in the magic, he needed to use them to assume the structure of the magic sequence.

This was also similar to developing magic, but rather than put it together himself, he needed to figure out how someone else had designed magic.

These types of steps were especially difficult for Tatsuya since he had no trouble directly analyzing structures in the past. He had never had to try to figure out his opponents magic through assumptions before as he could simply view the sequence himself. As a result, he didn’t have any practice in doing this, increasing the difficulty.

Finally, Tatsuya had to aim at the unknown where the sequence of magic was located and decompose it based on the structure he had thought up.

However, decomposition required a detailed understanding of the information’s structure. He couldn’t get the desired effect with his fuzzy recognition – his mind was now suffering from recoil after using so much magic, but he still tried to continue.

Tatsuya repeated his attack for the ninth time.

“Guh ...!”

Minoru took a violent blow. This hit was incomparable to the ones in the past. He shouted in pain and fell on both knees.

“Parade.. was broken?”

The spell hiding Minami’s location had been cracked.

“I still can.. I still can!”

Minoru mentally shouted at himself and his weakness as he collected the remnants of his magical power.

“Just a little more, and ..!”

Tatsuya realized he had broken through Parade.

“But.. just like last time..”

On the other hand, he knew he had reached his limit and coolly pointed it out.

His body’s current condition was caused by his limited breathing as he focused his mind entirely on searching. If he stopped focusing on the search, his body would quickly recover, and nothing threatened his life, but the overuse of his magic might leave lasting effects on his subconscious. He wasn’t entirely aware of how his body was suffering right now, and if he continued his search, it would only get worse.

Magicians could consciously use their subconscious through the magic calculation area.

Tatsuya’s subconscious was actively engaged in the search for Minoru to an extent that it couldn’t focus on continuing necessary automatic body functions. Now, his magic calculation area showed signs of overheating as he recklessly used Gram Dispersion repeatedly without having enough input conditions.

If he’d had experience fighting like this, he could have avoided the risk of overheating.

However, he had never fought like this before, and he hadn’t prepared well this time due to a lack of experience. He was basically improvising – he aimed at a structure he couldn’t see and decomposed it.

His current skillset wasn’t suited towards doing that. He wasn’t the type to proceed blindy on faith.

Minami’s true location remained just one step ahead, but taking this step could fatally wound him.

Tatsuya was left with a choice.

Stop here and definitely live, or find Minami’s information but risk dying.

“..”

However, Tatsuya didn’t end up making a decision.

“Onii-sama!”

As Miyuki cried out, Tatsuya’s half closed eyes were completely obscured. He hadn’t closed them or lost consciousness – his head had been covered with a soft and elastic object.

Miyuki had pulled his head into her chest.

“Stop! Please, stop! Even for you, it’s dangerous to continue!”

“..”

Tatsuya didn’t respond instantly.

“I worry about Minami-chan, and I believe that you need to save her as soon as possible.”

As she said this, Miyuki held Tatsuya’s face even tighter.

“But Onii-sama is more important to me!”

Tatsuya’s eyes and mouth were pressed into Miyuki’s body, so he had no way to respond with his face. Instead, he took Miyuki’s waist in both of his hands and slowly pushed away.

Miyuki didn’t resist and returned to her kneeling position.

Tatsuya opened his eyes.

Opposite him, he saw Miyuki kneeling, her face full of tears.

He couldn’t ignore them.

“..Okay. Let’s finish for today.”

Tatsuya stopped his preparations to activate Gram Dispersion again.

Miyuki felt it and smiled, her tears accumulating on her eyes and running down her cheeks.

"The pressure is gone ...?"

Minoru felt the pressure crushing his mind disappear.

“I withstood..

I withstood Tatsuya-san’s attacks trying to destroy my magic..”

As he thought that, Minoru’s consciousness fell to black. He passed out after exerting himself too far activating Parade repeatedly.

With Minoru unconscious, Parade was turned off, leaving Zhou Gongjin’s barrier the only defense hiding Minoru and Minami.

Tatsuya was about to cancel his Elemental Sight focused on Minami’s Eidos when her coordinates in the Sea of Trees appeared.

He had found her location with an error of only about 100 meters.

Keeping her location in his mind, Tatsuya clos-->>

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