recruitment

A couple of weeks after blache's terrorist attack the student council is preparing themselves for the tournament where all 9 magic high schools are competing against each other. The student council is responsible for choosing the competitors for the many different challenges as well as their support team.

The people competing in the 9 schools competition are gathered in a room, with the student council sitting up front behind a wide desk.

"First of all, thank you for coming everyone. Now, let's get down to business. As you all know there was still one spot open for the 3-man team for monolith code of the first years and I'd like to suggest Sosuke Sagara for that spot. Additionally, I also suggest Tatsuya Shiba for additional support of our magical engineer team." Mayumi announces.

"Course 2 students? You must be joking Mrs. President." One of the upper classmen complains.

"Can he even set up a cad?" Another questions.

"And what makes this Sosuke more qualified than any of the course 1 students?" Is heard with general murmurs going through the room, save for a few people, Sosuke and Tatsuya simply sitting in the back row, Tatsuya up tight as always while Sosuke appears to be bored.

"It seems that most of you don't agree with Mayumi's decision. I think it would be beneficial for them to show their capabilities to everyone." Jumonji suggests.

"Sosuke OK, but how's Tatsuya going to show his engineering abilities?" Mari asks.

"We can just let him set up one of the tournament cads we have. I will volunteer myself." Jumonji suggests.

"No, let me do this please." Kirihara, who's thankful for Sosuke and Tatsuya's help in freeing Mibu from blanche says.

Everyone in the room is OK with this and they relocate to one of the magical engineer stations in the school.

Once there Tatsuya does as Mayumi asks of him and copies Kirihara's cad setup onto that of the empty tournament cad.

Once he's done, causing doubt in most supervisors due to his unique method Kirihara tries out the cad and it feels the same as his own one.

Most of the doubtful students say that the results are to be expected and it's nothing special, Jumonji however steps in for Tatsuya and explains that it was excellent work, considering the lower hardware used in the tournament cads, making the group agree to take Tatsuya as support albeit reluctantly.

For Sosuke's test the group goes to the arena he and Tatsuya used when they became members of the disciplinary committee.

"So, how do you want to do this Sosuke?" Jumonji asks him when everyone is inside the training room.

"Your choice. I can just beat up everyone here. I can blow this place up, I can..." he says, counting possibilities with his fingers, angering many of the upper classmen at the bold claims.

"How about you fight me, Hattori and Mari?" Jumonji suggests, curious himself about Sosuke, since he only saw unusual magic usage from him.

"Alrighty, what are the rules?" He asks, taking off his white school jacket and rolls up his sleeves.

"Same as the competitions. No physical attacks and only low damage magical attacks, nothing that will cause a serious injury." Jumonji explains, taking out his cad while moving to the middle of the room with Mari and Hattori joining him, both having their cads ready, unsure how to face Sosuke, since they have seen only glimpses of his abilities and at least physically he can easily take them out in a second.

"Are you ready?" Jumonji asks, with most of the students watching smiling evilly, expecting the school's most famous powerhouses to wipe the floor with them.

"Yeah, sure." He shruggs his shoulder, sticking his hands in his pockets.

"Alright, begin." Jumonji says and Sosuke's opponents all get their spells ready, Jumonji erecting a dome of shields around himself and his allies, while Mari enhances her baton and Hattori tries to use an air magic spell to throw Sosuke over. Almost everyone is stunned however when they see the condensed ball of wind simply disintegrate before hitting the former mercenary.

"What's the rule on surrounding damage?" Sosuke asks, taking one hand out of his pocket and stabs it in the floor, ripping out a chunk the size of a small car, holding it over his head.

"Only magical attacks are allowed." Jumonji replies calmly.

"Why did you suggest me then Mayumi? I'll have to really hold back then." Sosuke sighs, looking at the president, simply swatting away another one of Hattori's air balls.

"Uhh, guess I could use that though." He mumbles to himself, raising both hands in front of him in a fighting stance, the hands and wrists being covered by a faint outline of blue.

"One down." Sosuke says, appearing in front of Hattori, his palm raised towards the teen, still being about 2 meters away.

Hattori gets knocked over however, only few of the people watching having a clue what Sosuke did.

"Try breaking through this." Jumonji says, raising both arms in front of him in a cross, while making his magic shields move in front of him in a stack, ending up with 6 shields in a row.

Sosuke punches the first shield with his hand covered by magic, using his denser than normal magic as gauntlets. He punches a hole into the first two but Jumoji repairs them in seconds.

"You know I could just go around right?" Sosuke asks chuckling.

"Humor me." Jumonji tells him intrigued.

"Fine." Sosuke says, lowering his stance and raises both hands at his right side, the cad rings extruding a light blue construct of a gatling gun.

Sosuke then fires at the shield, each bullet easily piercing through at least 3 shields.

Sosuke keeps on firing, aiming on the outside of the shields so he doesn't hit Jumonji and after maybe 10 seconds of constant fire with Jumonji doing his best to repair his shields the muscular man is left with one shield and raises his hands in surrender.

"I give up." Jumonji says, stepping over to Hattori, helping the bruised teen up and over to the rest of the group, only Sosuke and Mari remaining.

"You could have attacked you know." Sosuke says, blocking the first hit from the girl's baton with his combat knife, her strengthening having not much impact.

"In a spar I prefer to act honorable." She informs him, assaulting him with a flurry of swings, using magic to increase her strength and speed, with Sosuke dodging or blocking the hits.

"You only know kill techniques, don't you?" He asks, seeing her continue her current approach even though she's outmatched.

"That doesn't matter. This is a fight with specific rules." Mari tells him.

"That's true." He says, grabbing her baton and throwing it away into a wall behind him.

"Now what'll you do?" He asks cockily.

"Hah." She yells, attempting to use the move he used, covering her outer limbs with magic to throw a punch which would only connect with its magic part.

"Sorry, but that won't work against me." Sosuke says, flicking her at her shoulder his hand still being 30 cm away, sending a small blast of magic, which throws her over, making her slide over the floor a meter and a half.

"I surrender." She says, holding the arm he hit her in.

"You could've used the killing techniques. I'd have liked to see those." He says relaxed, retrieving her baton cad and hands her the object.

"Well, I think no one has a problem with him competing in monolith code for us, right?" Mayumi asks, seeing many shocked faces, one stoic Tatsuya and one blushing Honoka and no one argues with Mayumi's judgement.