01 / 01
Section 1
# Child of Magic
## Illustrations
             
## Prologue
Taiwan edition. Transcribed from Light Novel Kingdom. Scans: Naztar (LKID: wdr550) Back when everyone was still a child, anyone could use magic as freely as breathing. Go wherever you pleased. Play however you liked. The low world was full of secrets; a broken marble was full of magic. Keep running and you could catch the sun. Shout loud enough and your voice would reach the far side of the earth. The air was hotter than it is now. Time was longer than it is now. The word "impossible" did not exist. And so Toru once believed that no matter how powerful a Designated Disaster appeared, he would be the one to strike it down. He truly thought that by his own strength alone he could protect everything close to him. It was a fool's dream. A T-shirt caked in mud, and sneakers worn to rags. Pockets stuffed with acorns and shattered cicada shells. Loose change warmed in a fist, and a pretty river stone. In those days, Toru and the others were always that unkempt. The moment they found something new they would race off in a scramble, and whenever they had a spare hour they played in the secret base. Looking back now, the way he lived as a child—doing exactly as he pleased—was hardly different from a kitten or a puppy. "All riiight—" "Onii-chan is a pervert." Toru paid it no mind. He immediately started compressing the photos he had taken, then used an external terminal to get online. "…………" His teeth would not stop chattering. Fear he had forced down tore at his heart without mercy. "What is your problem… would you just shut up already?" Toru turned back and… (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Chapter One: The Third Dropout
From that day on, Toru asked everywhere for news of Sayo. Once you reached the third year of junior high, the school ran what it called a "survey of intentions for further study": every student received a form and was told to write down the job they hoped to have, or the high school they hoped to enter. While the classmates around him thought it over and wrote the usual proper answers—"I want to be a chef," "I want to continue my studies"—Toru filled his in without a moment's hesitation, in five big characters: I want to find my little sister. That answer, unsurprisingly, gave the teacher who collected the forms a considerable headache. The few friends Toru had were equally cold about it, telling him one after another, "She's been missing that long. Just forget her. You ought to be planning your own future, not hunting for your sister." Toru did not give up. Until he found Sayo, the life of Soma Toru could not move forward at all. As things stood, nearly every leading institute researching Designated Disaster organisms was clustered along the West Coast of the United States, so Toru chose a high school that worked with the American West and ran a regular exchange-student program. He obtained admission without trouble. When summer came, he would be able to fly. He counted the days almost every morning, wishing the day of departure would hurry and arrive. This was a right you gained once you became an "adult." He was glad of it. The dream that had once been hopelessly far away had drawn one step closer. That was what he told himself. And yet…. In a room fourteen years old, a fifteen-minute walk from the station, fifty-five thousand yen a month, there hung the hollow air of a place just after a move… (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Chapter Two: Water Flows Downhill, Then Returns to the Sky
In one corner of the school building stood a strange trio. All of them women in street clothes, and all of them pale as ash. He could not have said why, but though he had never met them, Toru felt he knew their faces. "Onii-chan." Before he could think any further, he was taken to the principal's office. "That is quite the foul look on your face." Behind the glass of the cabinets in the principal's office sat trophies, certificates of merit, photographs of successive principals with notable figures, and documents beyond counting. Every object spoke of the school's history. As for the master of the room, he too was an old man who formed part of that history. "A face so foul it could not be fouler. The wretched countenance of a man who has smeared his own misfortune across his features and gone about advertising it to the world. Wretched indeed. So you've learned at last to wear an expression this pleasing to the eye, brat." The old man's crown was bald, and he wore a long beard. Vigorous despite his years, dressed in traditional hakama, he had only to stand still for an inexplicable pressure to radiate from him. Principal Tadokoro Bunta. In the empty frame at the very front of the photographs of successive principals, that name was written. The principal of Tokishima was unlike the operators of ordinary schools. Because the post was forever tugged by political struggle and the mood of the age, it changed hands often. This calculating old man had already held it for more than ten years, and even the mayor hardly dared chat with him lightly. "Is that all you wanted to say." The provocation worked. It successfully angered Toru, while Rin pressed a hand to her brow and sighed. "Mocking me the moment we meet. Old fossil—if you're in a hurry to get into a coffin, I can give you a hand." The old man… (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Chapter Three: The Rabbit-Brand Motorcycle
Birdsong came chirping through the window. Morning light leaked into the room through a gap in the curtains. "Onii-chan, Onii-chan, get up. Onii-chan, if you don't get up you'll be late." "……………………Hm?" When he woke, he found Rin shaking his shoulder. "You're finally awake." "…Huh? Rin?" Toru, still thick with sleep, could not for a moment understand why he was sleeping in an unfamiliar room, much less why the little sister he had been parted from for five years was standing before his eyes. "Onii-chan, don't stay half-asleep. This is the dorm." "The dorm…" Memory returned to him in pieces. Magic coming back to life. Coming to Tokishima. And… "Are you completely awake?" Rin suddenly leaned in very close, dark blue eyes fixed hard on him. "I-I'm awake." "Then my job here is done. Don't be late for class. Bye." Rin picked up the school bag at her feet, lifted the hem of her skirt as she turned, and opened the door. "Oh, right. I forgot to ask you just now, Onii-chan." For Rin, this was a question that had to be asked. "Do you remember how the duel ended?" "…I don't." "…Wait. Do you happen to have a spare helmet?" Unwilling to throw his life away, Toru had no choice but to circle an arm lightly around Noah's waist, moving no differently from a villain ordered to drop his gun. "H-how did this happen!" A driver's license that looked like a police identification booklet (note) appeared before his eyes all at once. The ID photo matched its owner: the same smug smile on the face. (Note: the credential Japanese police use to show their identity.) Startled though he was, Toru still crouched down to the bike… (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Final Chapter: Child of Magic
Tokishima was an island of magic, and it was also an island of storms. Whether they were the weak tropical depressions lingering near Honshu or the powerful typhoons still raging close by, once typhoon season arrived they took turns visiting the island every day. The people who lived there had long since grown used to a world where wind and rain could strike at any moment. In house after house, the men who had been sleeping in on Sunday were shaken awake and sent up onto the roofs to patch tiles against leaks. "Please complete your typhoon preparations in advance!" A small truck from the town office drove beneath the fathers mending their roofs, broadcasting the warning in every direction. The supermarket's typhoon aisle was stacked with batteries and compressed biscuits for residents to buy. Shirasagi-so was no exception. Toru spent his first day off—three days after the runaway incident had been dealt with—putting the dormitory in order. In a light rain he searched the roof for places that needed repair. "…Right here." It was a roof tile sitting directly above Toru's room. Weathering had split it cleanly in two. Toru carefully pried the broken tile free, fitted a new one into place as if he were working a puzzle (it had taken a great deal of effort to find it), and fixed it firmly. Two more spots remained. The room assigned to Toru seemed to have stood empty for a long time, and several places leaked. Rain that was growing steadily harder beat against his raincoat. He could have used magic to keep from getting wet, but Toru had no intention of doing so. "—Under the powerful influence of the stalled stray typhoon, even the new typhoons numbered four through six—" From somewhere, a radio's… (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Epilogue
"I really cannot stand you. You go and make a mess of everything on a whim." This was the principal's office of Tokishima High School. In a corner of the office, the old man, half-drowned in a sea of documents, irritably tossed a sheet of paper across. "Look. Not only the U.S. military, the Self-Defense Forces, and the Governance Bureau—even the Sakurada main house has sent a letter of protest. All of it trouble you stirred up." "I do feel a little sorry." Toru knelt on the floor writing a letter of repentance, answering with his lips pushed out. "But the truth is, I'm hardly reflecting at all." "Honestly, neither am I." The two of them, wearing the faces of children up to mischief, gave a pair of humphs and nodded at each other. A week had passed since the stray typhoon struck. Toru, Noah, and Alisa had enjoyed a short stretch of peace, but the others had not been so lucky. Word was that Takei and the principal had been running all over to settle the matter, until their legs were nearly ready to give out. Thinking about it, that was hardly surprising. Tokishima had acquired a strategic-class magician. To put it in a comparison, it was no different from a small local island suddenly being equipped with a nuclear weapon. "See this? They've even sent over a quasi–Designated Disaster labor-penalty notice." "What's that?" The words were barely out before Toru remembered. Quasi–Designated Disaster labor service was a special punitive clause used against people who were "former" Designated Disasters. The fine was the total of the losses caused during the Designated Disaster era. "The losses Alisa caused this time come to three hundred billion yen." "They do!" Toru threw his head back and cried out. "Why are you acting as if this has nothing to do with you?" "It really doesn't have anything to do with me…" "Uh—what are you pass… (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Afterword
Has everyone ever thought about the question, "What if I could use magic?" I have. Anime and manga go without saying. I even longed for all sorts of extraordinary things, including psychic powers, a sixth sense, UFOs, and spirit mediums. On top of that, the many firsthand accounts said to prove they truly exist, and the television specials, only fed those claims. See enough of that sort of thing, and it becomes perfectly natural, as you grow up, to think: "Come on—magic exists somewhere in the world, doesn't it?" Strange to say, though, magic does not exist. Or perhaps we simply cannot see it around us, and it exists somewhere else? But that, like the children in the story, amounts in my eyes to the same thing as not existing. In the end, the arguments against magic piled higher and higher. First, we have never seen magic. Then there are the contradictory settings that even a junior-high student can spot. More important still: something this convenient, we could not possibly fail to find it inside "life," and so on. (That last point does drift toward something like the intelligent-design debate, but if the claim is that failing to find it would leave you unable to persuade anyone, those fellows will do absolutely anything. They will brazenly alter the composition of the atmosphere, and they would not mind causing one or two mass extinctions either. Senpai Stacked Stones is no joke.) Yes. Magic was never there to begin with… If you think that way, it becomes easy (or else you believe in it all the more). But far from disliking magic, I love it. And so, even if I were a theologian who, after fervent research, arrived at the conclusion that God does not exist, I would still clutch my head and groan: … (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)