The moment Tatsuya stepped off the sidewalk at the Aoyama elevated station and onto the ground-level walkway, he felt it: a thick, oily gaze clinging to him. It wasn't just one or two people, either. From his earlier conversation with Hayama, he had expected to be followed, but the sheer number of personnel deployed was beyond his predictions.
It was unlikely they had committed such a heavy force because they knew—or even suspected—the siblings' connection to the Yotsuba and were bracing for an intervention. No matter how much the Saegusa family backed them, it was hard to imagine the national intelligence agencies risking a direct collision with the Yotsuba.
If they chose to make an enemy of the Yotsuba, the consequences would be catastrophic. Public Security, the Koan, and the Intelligence Department should have learned that lesson well enough from the "incident" that occurred when the siblings' mother and aunt were still young girls. Since then, the Yotsuba's power had only grown more formidable.
Tatsuya cut the thought short. A new gaze had entered the fray, distinct from the others. It was an alien sensation—not the eyes of a man, but the stare of a monster.
When a professional intelligence officer is tasked with monitoring three high schoolers and a single domestic robot, one might forgive them for letting their guard down. Part of building a career is learning how to cut corners effectively. Of course, there are those overly earnest workaholics who give one hundred percent at all times, but there is a subtle, vital difference between "slackness" and "conservation of effort."
While "cutting corners" carries a negative connotation, it is essentially a matter of pacing. It means not pouring ten points of energy into a job that only requires five. If a man uses only five points of strength for a five-point job, he might be slower than the man who always goes all-out, but he will ultimately be able to handle a far greater volume of work.
For the mid-level agent disguised as a police officer, tailing and surveillance were routine tasks he had performed a thousand times. He relied on that wealth of experience, and his focus slipped into an unconscious "power-saving mode."
This time, it backfired.
His orders were simple: if the targets used magic, he was to move in under the guise of an arrest and apprehend them. The detector in his pocket picked up the activation of a sequence. Before he could even react to the alarm—let alone the reading on the meter—a flood of blinding, kaleidoscopic light surged into his field of vision.
It was an unexpected preemptive strike. An unthinkable act of hostility. Any will he had to fight back was drowned in a sea of brilliance.
"Tatsuya-san, I've put everyone who was watching us to sleep."
"Good work," he replied.
The alien presence was drawing closer. It was almost certainly a Parasite. To deal with it, he needed these human observers out of the way. Using magic in the middle of the city was technically illegal, but there was no way anyone watching them with such a predatory gaze was a "law-abiding citizen" or a "righteous public servant." Because they were anything but righteous, Tatsuya knew it would be inconvenient for them to witness a magical skirmish.
He had informed his companions about the surveillance specifically to warn them not to use magic until they had shaken their tails. Tatsuya had intended to follow up with those instructions, but Honoka had acted far faster than he expected.
She had taken something he said earlier—'Even if someone catches us, Honoka will handle it, right?'—and given it a "wonderful" over-interpretation.
In truth, Honoka was walking on air, her mind racing with the thought: Tatsuya-san relied on me for the first time! She was prone to being a bit headstrong when she set her mind to something, a trait neither Tatsuya nor Miyuki usually minded, but today she had brought a different level of intensity.
Honoka's specialty was Light-Wave Vibration magic; manipulating photons was her forte. After extracting the locations of the watchers from Tatsuya and confirming them herself by bending and amplifying ambient light, she had manifested high-frequency flickering clusters of brilliance directly in front of their eyes.
(She's in a different league than Tsukasa Hajime,) Tatsuya thought.
Recalling the leader of "Blanche" whom he had faced the previous April, Tatsuya found himself impressed by the sheer precision and speed of Honoka's "Evil Eye."
"Let's get out of here before their reinforcements arrive. Honoka, you really did a great job."
"Yes, sir!"
Tatsuya wondered briefly if bringing her along had been a mistake, but he pushed the thought aside, offered her one more word of praise, and led them away.
Inside a monitoring room, Kyoko Fujibayashi stared at the Psion-wave radar. The system was integrated with citywide surveillance, designed to detect toxic gases or illegal high-output radio waves—and, specifically, the unauthorized use of magic. She let out an involuntary sigh.
"What a troublesome young lady..."
"It was a masterful display, wasn't it? Her name was Mitsui Honoka, if I recall?"
"Yes, Grandfather. Honoka Mitsui, a first-year at First High."
Kudou Retsu nodded slowly at Kyoko's answer. "With that specialty and the name 'Mitsui'... would she be of the 'Elements' bloodline? Specifically Light?"
"I'm not sure of the specifics. Should I look into it?"
"No, there's no need to go that far." The elder Kudou shook his head, a grandfatherly smile playing on his lips. "Even so... it seems power calls to power, and the extraordinary calls to the extraordinary. He certainly has an interesting circle of people around him."
"They're interesting not just in terms of ability, but in terms of personality, too—to put it politely," Kyoko remarked, her fingers flying across the touch-panel console in her thin operating gloves.
"Does like call to like... or is he the one being called? Either way, he was born under a star that is far from peaceful."
"I agree," Kyoko said, her eyes fixed on the monitor. "He looks like the one pulling the strings, but in reality, Tatsuya-kun might be the one being pulled along by everyone else."
Because she was so focused on the screen, she missed the deeper implication in her grandfather's words. When he said "like calls to like," he was including the members of the Independent Magical Reconnaissance Battalion—Kazama, and Kyoko herself. Whether it was for better or worse, his true meaning didn't reach his granddaughter.
"He really is a fascinating boy," Retsu murmured, his gaze returning to the monitor. "I can see exactly why Maya is so fond of him."
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