Once Upon the Ashen Impetus
Nonsense.
Most likely, the previous section needs an iteration.
One which sacrificed depth for inexpensive continuity, and left with a cliffhanger which has a tendency to be frowned upon.
Thus, it comes with a second take into the events pertaining to the second Strongest Mage in the metropolis.
What initiated was a cumbersome and petty battle between me and him, but without the glorification of versus features.
The roots mainly came from temper.
I bowed down to Motoharu Akahoshi, showing an unsolicited desperation.
"I'll pay the consultation fee… that way, I won't owe you anything."
I only had one goal ever since coming to Higanbana House.
It wasn't to recruit him and fight alongside us, but for the information.
Motoharu Akahoshi─the returner from a different world─has legitimately processed the information I needed. He's only acting unaware but he's already done: from each and every Level 5 Mages in the city and their locations as of the moment.
I can't exactly tell you─because I'm not risking the part where you'd prepare the same amount.
Take it from someone who's been drained more than anyone else.
He's worth as much as a hundred times the wage of an average salaryman.
I don't know how much a salaryman makes but I know they're insignificant compared to an aristocrat. If you'd ask where I would get the money I'd pay him, let's say it's family fortune. Not exactly the assets I could pay anyone, anytime, and anywhere… but it's more logical to spend than fragments of memories.
That moment with Ayase Kyoukaisenjou has to be a hellish corruption at its finest.
Also, the moments before it.
However, I can no longer reverse the action and retrieve what was forgotten.
Playing at the risk of the information spreading for both Kafka and Tsukuyomi, I also settled an exchange for their silence.
He may be a hermit, but he's a skewed informant.
House arrest has done nothing to stop him. In fact, it drove him into a deeper level of transgression that Motoharu Akahoshi has infiltrated the evil information trade. Keeping in his front, a heartwarming demeanor, but deep within─a heinous tyrant spearheading a network of people who hide in the dark.
In any case, the search for the truth can only commence.
"It's nice to keep all the Level 5s in mind, but I don't remember anyone being so talented with Space Magic," confirmed Tsukuyomi, "in fact, there are no students to blame."
Provision of the names: Nichiyoubi North High School has four.
The second year Ayase Kyoukaisenjou, and the third year classmates Kuroko Yamamoto, Amaterasu Origami, and Shirayuki Otogibanashi.
In a sequence─Black, Light, Mind, and Black.
Nichiyoubi West High School has seven: names undisclosed for their lack of importance─an orchestra of White Mages keeping a healthy backline.
Nichiyoubi East High School has one: a phantom singularity that has been their pedestal for three years, Akane Akanegakubo, also a Black Mage.
Nichiyoubi South High School has nine: unsurprisingly six of which are Black Mages, while the others respectively being Sound, Mind, and Power.
Nichiyoubi University has thirty-one… nobody should express interest in petty high school drama─and should there exist one, it's only a Mind Mage.
They hold a grudge with a certain spider teacher, but it's personal and competitive.
Also, no such thing as a Space Mage reaching Level 5.
None at all to show motivations for pruning Nayami Ayanami out of Nichiyoubi North High School… except for Ayase Kyoukaisenjou.
In order to keep track of it, we moved out of the kitchen and utilized the ambient living space. It went as much into bugging Aldebaran to lend us a "magical" table, papers, and writing implements.
We laid such objects in one undisturbed corner and onto the floor… our little makeshift detective club commenced─and demised from it, the villain in house arrest.
"That much information isn't the end of it," Aldebaran prodded for his next words.
"Huh?" Both Tsukuyomi and Kafka stopped with their processes─and looked up at the hanged man. "I mean, if we can't get anything from what was provided, then we're likely missing more…" Kafka belligerently commented from the side, excruciatingly punished by the amount of work pushed into him.
From the first time, he disagreed─and until now, his continued disgust at the job remains consistent.
He scurried through the papers, managing to make it work though. It was his proposal that led us into locating the enemy. In his words, they were too strong for the class combined.
"What was asked shall be given─the list of each and every Level 5 Mages currently in the city," Aldebaran said as he lowered his Gokuu pole. Sight leveled for Kafka to show more consciousness for the matter. "If I couldn't supplement my work, then I'd be a disgrace as a professional."
"So we're crawling in the darkness, huh?"
Everyone agreed upon the sigh─which we knew from the beginning, of course.
We've had the wrong call all this time, not thinking the best we could.
"Throughout the whole excursion, for me, since yesterday… but there's no turning back, I've already promised you the payment. What about the banished seeking revenge?"
Aldebaran and I exchanged blank looks.
Not spilling the beans, he instead imposed, "If the collaborators of this Ayase Kyoukaisenjou were in fact from the banished, then it'd be harder to locate them since they're the ones with the most heavily guarded personal information."
Of course, they would.
It has always been part of their condemnation─if they return and terrorize the city, they'll be pursued by the government nonstop until capture.
There's a chance though, but it meant the first stage of the research was scrapped and I wasted money looking at the decent bubble.
Of course, failure is expected.
I admit I thought of getting it the first time but reality is often disappointing. The riptide was strong.
"From this point on, we could only mix and match whoever but that should take a couple of days… man, I quit!"
Kafka threw himself to his chair, whence the floor could only screech. Aldebaran didn't mind, I also didn't─and most damned out to not express disapproval, Tsukuyomi Origami.
He smiled, sharing the same sentiment.
Kafka continued to complain, "Why the heck are we trying to locate the person when we could have backed down?"
"Is it because Miss Narukami told us to investigate?" Tsukuyomi answered with uncertainty, leaving Kafka to retrace his words.
Kafka straightened his back. "Well, we could still get the sweet revenge Miss Narukami wants… but if it's today, then it's impossible."
"At least, if seen from a very limited overview," Tsukuyomi offered, somewhat of a bright idea in tow… here I thought he wasn't interested anymore.
"What are you talking about?" For once, I eagerly awaited his solution.
"Out of all people, Yukihime, you're uncertain of what I mean?" He protested, a rarity in itself─baffling for myself to be seen uncertain.
If anything, I'd like to see myself inconsistent and not otherwise someone who lacks depth and the third dimension.
No, I currently don't carry weight as much as I want to think of myself as important.
I let Tsukuyomi say his solution.
"Deduction is your forte. You're the detective aspirant, along with my sister."
Shame that it's a sham, though.
"It has always been your sister, it's not me." I hit back.
For such a calamitous time, he showed smugness at the mention of his sister. Truly─among us in the Higanbana House, he'd be who I'm most envious of… alright, deduction.
"If we sacrifice the proper steps for the flair, we'd only be accusing someone rather than being certain."
I vocalized out for them to know I'd not risk it.
If anything, what we're already doing is deduction─keeping each and every information we can in check, and are slowly walking to the answer.
Someone has judged it unbecoming, though.
"Uh-huh, that hypocrisy is not something I'd live for. Who wouldn't have guessed…You've always been the kind of person who arrives late in a problem and takes all the glory by being the god in a machine."
Kafka Ikari cast his hateful gaze upon my hands, and up to my eyes─straight through, and not the nose bridge.
"If it's a problem in the making, you do nothing but present theories and methods that never work."
It was at the moment his menace persona came out.
The cynical, inauspicious Time Mage─unknown to him that he struck to my mind the killing blow.
I ignored him and instead, turned my attention to the caretaker of Higanbana House. I asked, "Who do you think is a person stronger than all of Class 3A combined, Master Akahoshi?"
Kindly enough, he replied, "Hmm…I've been regarded as the informant, not the consultant."
"You're a professor," I insisted, "I need input from a better person, and right now, it's not within any of us."
"Consulting a professor doesn't mean you'd get the answer right, though."
"I treasure my policy as a person, since I'm not omnipotent. If stuck in a rout, seek for help… at least, it's what my parents taught me."
"You might think you sound smart with that, but only people who try to do things themselves keep that in mind."
"Yeah…I've always had the tendency to think I can do everything alone. I've changed in recent years, hence now."
"Magnificent thought, I like it but for someone who doesn't know everything that has been going on, unfortunately, I can't blame anyone at all."
"Right, I know you wouldn't… what runs in my mind, I'm scared."
"I see… you have an idea in mind."
"A few have touched my mind, and you were there notwithstanding the blame."
I looked upwards, unflinching to meet his downward look.
It's a thrilling sensation: leaching from the stimulation, Shirayuki Otogibanashi decided to throw his dice for the flair without adhering to the steps… like how I ended up clashing heads with the shy Psychic, Nayami Ayanami.
"When was the last time you powered the Orion Project?"