Magi

Magi Chapter 7

The next day, they went to Shirou's Academy and found Shirou sleeping on the floor again. Hayako skipped trying to wake him up calmly and threw him across the room. Then, she presented him with the collar.

"Do you know anything about this?" Hayako asked, "I think it was controlling some magi."

"Doesn't look familiar, but let's take it apart and see what we find."

Shirou created some tools out of frozen mana and used them to take the collar apart. It was filled with electronics and computer chips. One seemed to catch Shirou's eye.

"This looks familiar," he said.

"What is it?" asked Hayako.

"There were headlines all about this shortly after the Magus Event. Something about noninvasive brain interfacing. It was going to be used for VR, the disabled, mind control, plenty of stuff. Except the Magus Event made it instantly obsolete. Magi have different brain chemistries to control and sense mana. This didn't work on them. Looks like someone's modified it so it does."

"Oh," said Hayako, "could it be connected to the magi trafficking ring? Maybe Sawano's behind both of them."

"That doesn't make sense. Sawano does some nasty stuff, but he never seemed to have a problem with magi specifically. Why would he go out of his way to antagonize them now?"

"Still, he's our best lead."

"I'll ask around, I have some contacts in the criminal world. I'll let you know if I find anything interesting."

"Okay."

Later that day, Hayako and Suzuku went to the beach. They bought swimsuits and sunscreen, then changed and went swimming. Julia was there too.

"Hey," she said, "looks like we're on similar schedules."

"Yeah," said Hayako.

"Unfortunately," said Suzuku.

"I said I was sorry, Asakawa."

"You killed three people, then tried to kill Hayako! Sorry doesn't cut it."

"Well, I'll just have to show you that I'm not usually like that."

The three swam and ate ice cream together, Julia's treat, again.

Once, a child accidentally kicked over a sand castle Julia was building. Julia lifted the boy into the air with mana and prepared to execute him the way she had done at the airport.

"Julia, don't," said Hayako and prepared to fight the girl.

"...Okay," said Julia, then she gently put the boy down.

Later, at Suzuku's request, she and Hayako left the beach and went back to the hotel.

The day after that, they went sightseeing.

Eventually, the day that the tournament began came. Hayako put on the cloak Shirou had given her and headed to the location of her first match. Hayako's first fight was fairly easy. Shirou came to watch and was pleased with the results.

The fight opened with Hayako's opponent, a Japanese looking boy, launching several spikes of mana close together. Hayako created a block of frozen mana, off of which the spikes bounced. She then launched the block at the boy. It slammed into him and slammed him into the wall behind him. He wasn't seriously hurt, but he was knocked unconscious and Hayako won the match. As she left the ring, Hayako noticed a group of TVs displaying other matches. She noticed Julia on one of the screens. She easily defeated her opponent and executed him. Contestants weren't supposed to kill their opponents, but Hayako doubted anyone would tell Julia that.

"Good job," said Shirou, "you'll win and I'll have business again in no time"

"Great job," said Suzuku, "I know we can get Ayame back."

The preliminaries continued in that manner. Hayako easily won all her matches. Julia also easily won all of her matches and executed all of her opponents the same way. Still, as the tournament went on it became clear that Shirou had been right. Several "monsters" had joined the tournament. Aside from Julia, there were several magi close to Shirou's age who had joined. They were experienced fighters and showed it. They had superb mana control and some of them could even use transmutation.

One day, as Hayako was preparing for a quarterfinals match against one of the older magi. This match took place in a big arena with a cube of frozen mana surrounding it to keep the audience safe. Suddenly, a bullet flew toward Hayako's head, and another toward the older magus. The bullets were easily stopped by the frozen mana, but it was still cause for worry.

"Okay," said the announcer, "The match is being suspended to investigate the shooting. We'll let you know as soon as it's safe to have the match again."

"We have to investigate ourselves," said Suzuku, "We need to finish this tournament as soon as possible."

"Agreed," said Shirou.

"Then let's go," said Hayako.

They went to where a forensics team was investigating the sight the bullet had come from, according to a simulation. The shooter had left his weapon behind and the team was attempting to determine who owned the gun. Eventually they determined that it belonged to an American man named Ken Stone. The team then tracked Stone to a hotel. They welcomed Hayako and Shirou's help in capturing the man.

When they got to the hotel, Shirou used mana to break down the door. He and Hayako entered, along with some police officers. Stone rushed out of a closet with a gun and tried to shoot Hayako again.

Hayako stopped the bullet with mana, then knocked the man unconscious by slamming him against the wall. He appeared to be an ordinary human, not a magus. He was arrested and the match was ready to start again. As Hayako walked into the ring the announcer announced her.

"And here's one of our front runners, the child prodigy, Suzuhara Hayako!"

He then announced her opponent.

"And her opponent, the alchemist, Ken Storm!"

Hayako prepared for the fight. Storm was an expert in transmutation and had defeated all of his opponents with little effort. Still, he had struggled more than Hayako and Julia. Hayako was confident she could win this match.