[25] A Cold Boy and a Hot Girl (4)
Black smoke curled up from Amy's face. Looking closer, it rose with a finger's width of space between the skin and the smoke. It was the Air Shield — a magic that compresses air into a localized barrier.
"An ambush the moment I suggest changing the meeting spot. Still playing dirty, huh."
Amy pushed herself up from the crouch she'd landed in and turned. The man who'd handed her the note stood there with a sour grin.
"Hoho, I've got plenty of reasons to hold a grudge against you. If you'd just gone along quietly, I might've had the honor of being Amy's first kiss."
"Cut the filthy talk. Where's Shirone?"
Five shadows dropped from the sky around Amy. Jake, leader of the Black Magishers, was among them. He glanced around as if surprised.
"You actually came alone. Was that guy really that important to you?"
"What nonsense? I don't need trash like you. Where's Shirone?"
"Hahaha! That limp-wristed fool's probably holed up in the library. Doesn't even know what his girlfriend's about to go through."
Only then did Amy realize she'd been baited. That suited her fine — without a hostage, scum like them couldn't so much as touch a hair on her head.
"So you called me out — ready to die for this, huh?"
"Big talk. But think it'll be easy? Check the list of idiots who underestimated the Black Magishers and you won't be so cocky."
"You've got no sense of learning. Shut up with your yakking."
Amy entered her Spirit Zone. She reshaped it into a four-directional target form. Jake, recalling the day before, immediately deployed his own four-directional field.
Missing the opening strike had a price. Amy ignored Jake and went after the backline members first.
She unleashed her specialty, Fire Strike, in rapid succession. The men flung themselves aside. Strike-type spells add physical force to magic, so even Air Shield couldn't fully stop them.
Amy spun the Spirit Zone to lock on. But human movement has too many variables; she couldn't achieve the perfect accuracy of practice. Each rotation and reversal of the Zone made her head throb.
Jake raised wind and shot into the air. If Amy's main element was fire, Jake's was wind. In fights between people, a single signature move often decides the outcome. He cast his Wind Cutter — a razor of air that sliced through the space.
Amy didn't sense the Wind Cutter approaching in time. The cross-shaped target form can extend range dramatically, but compared to a sphere that senses all around it, its defense is inherently weaker. An aerial attack exploited that blind spot.
She detected the Wind Cutter penetrating the Spirit Zone and twisted her body. There was less than a meter left.
Just as the Black Magishers were about to gloat, Amy's motion contorted so fast it was barely visible. The Wind Cutter grazed past, slicing through her red hair. Jake froze.
"What? How did you—"
"It's called a schema, you bastard."
Amy angled the cross of her target-form upward into an anti-air posture. Jake churned the wind and hastily pulled away. But her targeting speed was the best in the advanced class.
"Fire Strike."
A cannonball-sized fireball fired off. Jake, thinking he couldn't dodge, wrapped himself in Air Suit, a high-level air magic.
The Fire Strike slammed into him. With a thunderous blast he plummeted to the ground.
"Aah! Damn brat!"
He sprang up and glared at Amy. The flames sucked the oxygen from the Air Suit and flared. Jake detonated the suit; burning fragments fell like petals. But the Strike's physical impact had already twisted his insides.
"I'll kill you."
"Hohoho! You think you can beat me with that? You're barely passing — more like failing. No wonder you're such a mess, all distracted and sloppy."
Amy, the genius of the Karmis family, lived up to her reputation — the gap in skill was overwhelming.
Jake's grin turned vicious.
"Is that so? Don't be so sure."
Proving he wasn't bluffing, the Black Magishers reached forward at once. Amy's face went pale. A strange sensation she'd never felt crept in. Something had entered her head and started to scramble her mind.
Amy glared at Jake, fury in her eyes.
"What is this… anti-magic?"
"Hahaha! Surprised? This is the Black Magishers' specialty. The magic that's sent countless talents packing back home."
"What a dirty trick."
A truly despicable act. Anti-magic was banned by school rules. Cross that forbidden line and, at a student level, it's like having your Achilles' tendon chewed away.
Five resonance waves shredded Amy's Spirit Zone. It felt like someone grabbing her head and shaking it madly.
Amy couldn't hold on and sank to her knees. If she tried to keep the Zone any longer she might lose her mind.
Jake smiled the victor's smile and cast Air Chain. Chains of compressed air coiled around Amy's limbs and lifted her.
Bound in midair, Amy thrashed with everything she had. But even with her schema, she couldn't break that restraint.
"Hoho, finally caught the prickly she-cat."
Jake drew a hand knife.
"So, what shall I do to you now? Just so you know, I haven't forgotten what happened a few days ago. I'd love to do something to you for old time's sake."
"Try hurting me and you won't walk away unscathed."
"Pffahaha! So the great Amy resorts to family pride when she's cornered? I told you — we're the same. Once you leave your family, you're nothing but a useless girl."
"I said not to treat me like trash. I'll finish you with my own hands."
Murder gleamed in Jake's eyes. Her refusal to bow her pride in this situation grated on him. His hand holding the knife trembled, ready to stab.
"You're no position to talk big. Want me to scar your face? If you become ugly, those clingy suitors will finally stop pestering you."
Amy felt a sliver of fear at Jake's abnormal pupils. He carried a bottomless inferiority that made him dangerous. He really was planning to do it.
Jake pinched the blade with his other fingers. He wasn't a master of flame, but heating metal was easy enough. A red glow rose from the inner side of the blade.
"Like this. Proud Amy, who stayed up late studying magic, loses her sight. She drops out of the academy and lives the rest of her life a loser. How's that for a story?"
Jake thrust the blade forward as if molten metal might drip from it. Amy turned her head; a strand of hair sizzled and charred.
"Oho! So Amy can be scared. I'll give you one last chance. Beg me — just once. Tears make it better. Promise to leave the school, and I'll spare your eyes."
Amy realized why Taira had dropped out. They'd exploited a loophole in the rules with forbidden, cheating-style magic to subdue her and inflict irreparable humiliation.
They did it simply because they felt inferior, or because they were in a bad mood. Anger flared and the red of Karmis' famed eyes burned.
"Try it if you can. But don't think you'll walk away unhurt."
Jake snorted. He'd heard that line before. The proud noble families of those driven away didn't easily back down. But when the blade is at one's eyes, everyone begs for mercy.
Pride is hardest to mend once broken. Watching classmates forced to leave had soothed Jake's inner inferiority.
"All right… shall I start?"
The blade inched toward Amy's left eye. She meant to resist. But the heat made her eyelid snap shut.
"Wait, you bastards!"
A sudden shout made the Black Magishers flinch. Amy opened her eyes wide when she saw Shirone charging in with fists clenched. Jake turned, stunned.
"Oho! The prince on a white horse arrives? Too bad — you came a little late. Your girl could've looked prettier."
"What are you doing to my senior?"
"Who knows? Why don't you ask her yourself, lover-boy?"
"You idiot! What were you thinking coming here alone?"
Amy shouted, but Shirone was frozen by the scene. A girl bound and helpless sat surrounded by older students ready to do harm. Jake, worse than the rest, brandished his knife and snickered.
"Because of me…"
For the first time in his life, Shirone felt rage boil over. He grabbed a log from the ground and shouted.
"Let her go, senior! Or I won't forgive you."
"Hahaha! Did you hear that? What can you do with that scrap of wood?"
Unfazed, Shirone charged. He'd even beaten Rian in swordplay before. If he could use his synesthesia to buy time, the teachers might arrive.
"Going in!"
"Guys, he's coming. Open the door for him."
Even as Shirone ran, no one moved. If anything, their sneers became hopeful smiles, as if egging him on.
Before he could think, Shirone felt his head rocked as if struck by a hammer.
"Ugh!"
"Idiot! Destroy the Spirit Zone! It's anti-magic!"
Anti-magic? Hearing Amy's cry, Shirone understood why the top-ranked student of Class Four — who should've handled a gang of brutes — was pinned down.
The impact and vibration were massive. The resonance waves raised by five people struck his mind.
Shirone lifted his head. The world smeared like watercolor; colors ran together. But he couldn't give up. Clinging to his fading consciousness, he put one foot in front of the other.
"Senior, I'll get you out."
"Don't—don't come! You'll lose your magic that way! You'll be stupid!"
"It's because of me… that this happened."
"Get out of your Spirit Zone! Now!"
He knew she couldn't hear him, but all he could do was shout. Each step toward her felt like his heart breaking.
Shirone gritted his teeth and held his Spirit Zone.
"No! I have to hold on. I need more frames."
Driven by sheer will, the Spirit Zone gradually shifted into a four-directional defensive form. The Black Magishers faltered. Channeling anti-magic became a burden; it felt like a heavy rock pressing down.
"What—what's this? Why's this happening?"
Shirone expanded the Spirit Zone to its maximum. It trembled precariously like dew on a blade of grass, but he poured everything into maintaining it.
"Stronger. Don't let it collapse. Don't let it break."
At last the frames linked and the Spirit Zone regained stability. One by one, the Black Magishers began to writhe.
"Ugh! What's wrong? My head—!"
Shirone's eyes snapped open. As the four-directional defensive form completed, the great sphere tightened into a polyhedral cube. The pain of the anti-magic vanished and a taut, powerful pressure surged in — a pressure that felt like it could shatter diamonds.
"Aaaaaah!"
The five who'd cast anti-magic screamed and collapsed. As if crushed by something, they couldn't even move a finger; all of them bled from the nose.
That was why the Academy banned anti-magic. Without training the mind to near inhuman levels, anti-magic becomes a poison that destroys the caster.
Amy watched the Black Magishers flail and felt stunned. Five anti-magic casters had been crushed by one person — someone from Class Seven who'd been enrolled less than a month.
To Shirone it felt like there was a small lizard under his foot — he could sense it writhing, but that was all the resistance it had. As time passed even that diminished. The casters had deactivated their anti-magic just before their minds would have snapped.
Amy burned through the Air Chain with flame magic and landed. Through her Spirit Zone she could sense the nature of Shirone's: so cold, so solid, so heavy.
"How… can someone be like that…?"
Shirone still wore that piercing gaze. When he took a step, Jake unconsciously backed away instinctively, not wanting to collide with Shirone's Zone.
But you can't avoid a fifteen-meter Spirit Zone by stepping back. When the two Zones overlapped, Jake asked in dazed disbelief,
"You… what on earth are you?"
He couldn't believe it. But the synesthesia of a Spirit Zone doesn't lie. A four-directional defensive form — a massive polyhedral cube of eighty-eight faces closed around Shirone.
(End of Volume 1)