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Chapter 15

After picking up “Wingless” the electric motorcycle that had been left on the highway (fortunately, it wasn't picked up by the police), Tatsuya got on it and drove home. He arrived at the multi-story building in Tofu a little after 9 o'clock in the evening.

“Welcome back, Onii-sama.”

“I've returned.”

Tatsuya felt embarrassed that Miyuki had come out to meet him directly at the front door. Today, he didn’t warn Miyuki in advance that he was going to break into Minoru's hideout. While he was riding home on his motorcycle, he was constantly thinking about how to explain to her that saving Minami was now getting harder and harder.

However, he couldn’t think of anything.

In the end, he didn’t know what to say.

“Onii-sama, I heard from Hayama-san about today's events.”

It was none other than Miyuki herself who came to Tatsuya's aid.

When Kuroba Mitsugu appeared in front of Tatsuya it became clear that the main house was following Tatsuya's actions. And there was no reason to hide it from Miyuki. So it was reasonable to expect that she would be told.

“I see... Yes, the situation has become more complicated.”

“Even Sensei stood on the other side and prevented you, so there's nothing you can do about it. Miyuki only needs to know that Onii-sama has returned safely.”

“I see... I'm sorry I made you worry.”

“I don’t...”

Miyuki faltered and didn't know what to say.

Just looking at such a Miyuki was enough for Tatsuya to know that she was really worried.

Gently putting his arm around Miyuki's shoulders, he led her into the living room.

They sat next to each other, and Miyuki sat for a while with her head on Tatsuya's shoulder. Then, apparently finally calmed down, she carefully pulled away from Tatsuya and stood up.

Miyuki blushed slightly around her eyes, but Tatsuya didn't tell her that he had noticed.

“I'll make coffee. Or is it better to have tea?”

“Let me think... Now, probably, I would like tea.”

“As you wish. Tea to make hot?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Miyuki left the living room and went to the kitchen.

As if to replace her, at that moment Lina appeared in the living room.

“You're finally back, Tatsuya.”

“Lina. Have you been with Miyuki?”

“Yeah. It looks like you've had some trouble, but we've had quite the trouble here, too.”

“...Did something happen?”

Frowning, Tatsuya asked Lina.

“Something happened. Serious incident. I'll tell you when Miyuki returns. Although, she might want to tell you about it herself.”

“I see.”

Tatsuya didn’t ask any further.

Lina also fell silent. It seemed like she felt uncomfortable with the silence that followed, but it was she who suggested that they wait for “when Miyuki returned."

However, it seems that she didn’t plan on canceling her last statement.

Miyuki returned to the living room.

“Lina. You should have said you were up. I didn't cook for you.”

Hearing Miyuki say “you were up," Tatsuya looked at Lina.

Lina abruptly looked away.

By the way, her hair was loose and slightly disheveled, like after sleeping.

Looks like Lina decided to take a nap. Thinking that Lina wouldn't like it if he asked her if she had been asleep, Tatsuya decided not to touch the subject.

“I have enough juice.”

Still turning away from Tatsuya, Lina answered frantically in a mock-cold voice.

After that, she pressed a button on the console and ordered orange juice for herself on the home automation system.

In an elegant manner, Miyuki placed a saucer and a cup of tea in front of Tatsuya.

She put her kit on the table on the opposite side of Tatsuya. By the time she sat down next to Lina, the non-humanoid robot of the home automation system had already brought Lina's glass of orange juice that she ordered.

Now they all had drinks now, and everyone exchanged glances again.

“Miyuki. Will you tell Tatsuya about the incident with Honoka and Mizuki?”

“Has something happened to Honoka and Mizuki?”

Tatsuya looked at Miyuki with a serious expression.

Miyuki didn’t look away. She planned to tell Tatsuya about today's events from the very beginning.

“Yes, the truth is...”

Miyuki told Tatsuya about the abduction of Honoka and the attempted abduction of Mizuki.

“Erika is with Honoka now. It seems that the effect of the drug still persists, but according to the doctor organized by Hyougo-san, there will be no irreversible consequences.”

“I see... That is a relief. As they say, every cloud has a silver lining.”

“Yeah, that's for sure. And also, if it weren’t for Erika's intuition, Mizuki would've also been in great danger.”

“You're right. Later, I will thank Erika.”

“And, also Pixie. If it weren’t for her, we wouldn't have been able to find out where Honoka was taken.”

“Yes. I'll thank Pixie, too.”

Tatsuya agreed with Miyuki, and Lina who followed her.

After which he fixed his gaze on nothing.

“...Onii-sama?”

“Hmm? Oh, sorry.”

“What are you thinking about?”

Miyuki and Lina stared at Tatsuya, urging him to answer.

“No... What I was thinking is perhaps an exaggeration.”

Neither Miyuki nor Lina took their eyes off from Tatsuya.

Resigned, Tatsuya continued.

“Honoka and Mizuki were targeted by hostile armed forces just because they are my friends. But I don’t intend to torture myself with the thought that it is my fault that they met danger face to face. This may sound insensitive, but the villains here are the illegal saboteurs and the USNA government that sent them.”

“It isn’t unfeeling! What Onii-sama said is an indisputable fact.”

“That's right! As Miyuki said, the villains here are the Illegal MAP and the Pentagon!”

Tatsuya was taken aback by the menacing faces of the two girls. The fact that Miyuki would protect him was to be expected for Tatsuya, but he didn’t think that Lina would join her.

“I'm not going to take responsibility for the actions of the USNA... but I also can’t pretend that I had nothing to do with it, either.”

“Does that mean you feel responsible for the safety of Honoka and Mizuki?”

“Similar things can happen in the future.”

“Do you... have any specific plan?”

After Miyuki's question, Tatsuya showed an uncharacteristic hesitation.

However, he couldn’t hesitate forever with the answer, so he finally decided.

Tatsuya met Miyuki's eyes, which had been watching him from the very beginning, and gave his answer.

“... I thought, why not take care of the protection of Honoka and Mizuki with the forces of the Yotsuba family... no, by my own strength. Of course, if they themselves want to.”

At that moment, he realized that such an answer wasn’t enough.

“I wasn’t only thinking about Honoka and Mizuki. But you don't have to worry about Shizuku, because she has all the power of the Kitayama family behind her... And whether or not we should also consider Erika, Leo, and Mikihiko as those who need protection...? We need to think about it.”

“I don't think it would be superfluous.”

Miyuki didn’t object to Tatsuya's words. However, if only Honoka, Mizuki, and Erika were the targets of protection, then she might have objected. Because it could be interpreted as a declaration of the so-called “harem." But that suspicion disappeared with the addition of Leo and Mikihiko's names to the list.

“And you've got an impressive company." Are you going to start a Kingdom”

Lina expressed her impressions in such a tone that made it hard to tell if she was joking or not.

Tatsuya only smiled wryly, but Miyuki didn’t react at all.

Japanese time: July 16, dawn. Local time: July 15, early morning.

The fully submersible transport ship, “Coral,” with Minoru and Minami on board, arrived at the USNA Pearl and Hermes naval base on the Northwest Islands of the Hawaiian archipelago.

(Continued in the next arc “Rescue") Afterword

Vol.29 and released the first in the new era of “Rave*” issue of the series “Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei." How did you like Volume 29, “The Chase (Part 2)"? Did you like it?

[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/rave]

I've been thinking about the collision between Tatsuya and Yakumo since the early days of the series. More specifically, I began to think about this teacher-versus-student confrontation from about Vol.13 “Steeplechase”. Vol.13 was released in April 2014, so we can say that it took a full five years to complete.

In the drafts of the plot, I even had an absolutely serious battle, where Tatsuya killed Yakumo, but the final version was exactly the same as you read. As an author, I couldn’t come to an agreement that such strong emotions could arise between them or, like oh, any other excuse for them to fight to the death. Although, in the final version some dissatisfaction was felt, but in the end it seems to me that such a contest of martial and magical arts, from which they both came out without injury, fits best into the plot.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the afterword, last month His Majesty the new Emperor was crowned, and the era changed to “Rave." This is a good name in order to increase the productivity of your creativity... I think that I'm not the only one who was concerned with the question of how to deal with the name of the era in fictional works about modern Japan, and Japan in the near future.

Therefore, I think that many were grateful when it was reported that all candidates were eliminated and only one remained. Although for many non-popular writers, this message won’t be a particular problem in terms of the privacy policy.

Many authors have fictional period names in fictional works, for example, “Showa”

[照和] instead of “Showa" [昭和], “Taisho" [太正] instead of “Taisho" [大正], “Meiji" [明冶] instead of “Meiji" [明治]. There was also a book where “Showa" was simply replaced by “Sink". Therefore, I don’t even know how to choose the correct pronunciation for the fictional name of the era.

In the novels that I'm going to write in the future, I intend to use “Genka" instead of

“Showa", and “Syubun" instead of “Heisei". This won’t violate the privacy policy, even if the last candidate isn’t approved.

And what should I use instead of “Rave"...? I think “Eiko" will do. Or will it be easier to use the European calendar, as in the Mahouka series? Incidentally, this doesn’t mean that in the world of “Mahouka" the system of names for the periods of government was abolished. I just couldn’t think of how the era could be called 80

years later.

This time, Tatsuya had a statement that could be misinterpreted as a harem announcement, but Tatsuya doesn’t intend to change from Miyuki. He doesn't plan polygamy either. ...Actually, I have plans to write a story with a similar plot, but at least in this series, and with this character, nothing like this will happen. And you can be absolutely sure that this opinion of mine will never change.

As I said last time, the next Vol.30 will be called “Rescue*". It’s not yet decided whether this arch will be a two-volume or not. In the “Rescue", we will leave Japan, and we expect some outrages against the US army. I'm concerned about whether I can dock the plot's coherence, but I'll give my best to make sure you find this plot terribly interesting, so please wait.

[From the translator: I decided to use “Rescue" instead of “Salvation" after all. For the literary translation of the word used sounds something like "return, recapture, win back their (selected, stolen, etc.) with the use of force."]

Hope to see you again in the next 30th volume.

(Satou Tsutomu)