Author's Note

Hey everybody, this is ChristmasForJuan.

I've been enchanted by the scientific approach on magic, as well as the establish rules and variations of it's existence that Mahouka splendidly executed in the Light Novel for a while now, and as such, I have finally decided to make my mark in the Mahouka section as well. This story's premise is largely inspired by a prompt that was previously posted online by a user named "ferduran", but I have made my own twists and turns and naturally also come up with the events following the story of Tatsuya's creation, so I would advise you against preemptively dismissing this story for being unoriginal from the get go ... shameless self advertisement for the win...

In any case, just as the description says, this story will feature a version of Tatsuya before his major emotional processes were overridden to create his Artificial Magic Calculation Area. While he will still mostly act similarly due to his extensive military upbringing and training, he should also appear to be a bit more human and receptive to emotional stimulus. Naturally, he will not hold unconditional affection towards Miyuki either.
I will keep the details of his past under wraps for now, but the circumstances behind his escape will be revealed soon enough.

Well then, hopefully this story will be to your liking.

The island of Tsushima could be said to be more of a military fortress than an island.

During the third world war, almost thirty-five years ago, the island was attacked by the Great Asian Alliance's autonomous regional forces from Korea and seventy percent of the residents were massacred. It was a flawless victory for the Great Asian Alliance, having dealt a major blow to the Japanese forces and taking hold of an important strategic location.

However, their victorious achievement didn't last for long.

Japan reclaimed the island soon after, and in the process of rebuilding it's shambled remains, transformed it into a state of the art military fortress on the frontline of Japanese territory, equipped with large scale military harbors and solid walls, complete with cutting edge anti-aircraft and anti-ship weaponry.

As such, it had effectively become a major military stronghold for the Japanese army and was also a base favored by 101 Independent Magic Equipped Battalion for multiple reasons. Currently, four core members of the 101 Battalion were gathered in the outside training field. Two were engaged in a fierce battle.

Tatsuya crossed the distance between him and Captain Yanagi in an instant and shot out an upper palm thrust with his right arm. The blow that was aimed straight at his temple hit nothing but air as Yanagi skillfully evaded the attack by ducking below it and ramming his elbow into Tatsuya's ribcage.

Tatsuya momentarily gasped for air, but regained his composure before his body had the chance to buckle over. Aiming to take advantage of Yanagi's close proximity, Tatsuya spun around, brushing off the elbow embedded in his ribs, and gathering momentum for a horizontal kick targeted straight at Yanagi's face.

Due to spinning around, Tatsuya only momentarily lost sight of Yanagi's body.

He could still feel the elbow dislodge itself, but before his movement covered the distance between himself and his sparring partner's face, Yanagi had already jumped back several meters with the assistance of Self-Acceleration Magic.

Tatsuya didn't "see" it with his eyes, but rather "observed" it with his senses.

He allowed himself to lose visual confirmation on his target only because he could monitor his actions regardless of his eyesight. As such, he was aware that his kick would only hit air if he didn't do something.

Despite having retreated quite a large distance with the assistance of magic already, it wasn't like Tatsuya couldn't use magic either.

Using the entirety of his body as a reference point, Tatsuya Flash Casted simple Movement-Type Magic. At once Tatsuya's body darted towards Yanagi's body, despite the fact that he was still in the middle of performing his roundhouse kick.

Yanagi regarded Tatsuya's approaching figure without twitching a brow and fell into a low stance.

Just when Tatsuya completed his circular movement and was about to ram his foot into Yanagi's body, the world was suddenly turned on it's head. No, perhaps it would be more correct to say that it was Tatsuya who was turned on his head.

Yanagi had used his trademark technique "Revolution", using Tatsuya's own force to redirect and reverse his internal ki. While this was originally a purely physical technique, Yanagi enhanced the technique through the application of magic.

Anyway, regardless of the workings of the technique, Tatsuya was currently flung backwards the direction he came from.

Yanagi's calm expression remained unchanged.

Tatsuya's cold expression displayed a frown.

He once again Flash Casted Movement-Type Magic, but this time not to move his body into a certain direction, but to redirect it. Adjusting the movement vector of his body to point downwards, Tatsuya used the flexibility of his body to flip around midair, and ram his foot straight into the hard ground.

Due to prioritizing hitting the ground as hard as he possibly could as opposed to cushioning his landing, his shin fractured in multiple places. However, pain failed to register in his mind as his injury was repaired before the electronic signals had the chance to travel to his brain. It was as if his injury never existed in the first place.

Tatsuya realized that depending on "Regrowth" this early on in the fight was a little bit overkill, but it wasn't like Yanagi was an opponent he could face without resorting to extreme tactics in the first place.

After the restoration of his leg was completed in an instant, Tatsuya repeatedly Flash Casted Single-Systematic Oscillation-Type Magic with his foot as the origin.

The effects of phenomena alteration overlapped and multiplied. The application of magic happened so fast that one may be led to believe that Tatsuya had casted a single powerful magic spell.

As the Oscillation-Type Magic on his foot took effect, the vibrations of his earlier stomp were massively amplified to the point of resembling a small quake, a quake directed directly under Captain Yanagi's feet.

Tatsuya was rendered temporary immobile due to his awkward landing and could thus not immediately counterattack, however, Yanagi who stood upon the churning earth should be immobilized longer than Tatsuya … if he were an ordinary soldier at least.

Yanagi counterbalanced the quake's violent vibrations with pure physical finesse and skillful distribution of his own bodily weight, and thus remained unfazed by Tatsuya's attack.

Jumping forward, Yanagi threw out his left leg like a sharp whip and aimed it directly at Tatsuya's chest.

Tatsuya immediately infused his muscles with psions, protectively positioned his arms in front of his upper body, and kicked off the ground in one smooth movement. While Yanagi still managed to land his kick, the damage was largely reduced, but Tatsuya was still violently flung backwards regardless.

Infusing your muscles purely with psions instead of acting on them with a Magic Sequence was a basic Ninjutsu technique taught to Tatsuya by Yakumo. While it wasn't a powerful technique able to inflict damage, it was undeniably valuable as it facilitated high-speed rapid movement. Additionally, since it didn't require the construction of any sort of Activation or Magic Sequence, this technique was faster even than Flash Cast.

While having taken a heavy hit from Yanagi, this actually coincided with Tatsuya's objective to put some distance between them. Thinking that, Tatsuya pulled out the Silver Silver Trident that was sheathed in a holster on his right hip.

Yanagi's reaction was instant.

He fell into a low crouch, using his body's movement and position of his limbs to construct Activation Sequences for Self-Acceleration-Type and Movement-Type Magic, bypassing the need for a CAD or hand seals, and immediately exploded into Tatsuya's direction.

In response to Yanagi's charge, Tatsuya repeatedly pulled the trigger of his favored CAD multiple times, aiming Decomposition Magic at the ground and dissolving blocks one meter in length, and width, and ten meters in height, one centimeter underneath the earths surface. The intention was to create numerous pitfall traps between himself and Yanagi to slow his opponent's advance.

Yet, despite his efforts, Yanagi continued running straight ahead, seemingly unaffected by the chasms beneath him as he simply stomped over the one centimeter thin layers of earth without collapsing them.

Tatsuya, who had been observing Yanagi's actions through the Information Dimension, realized why his efforts were in vain.

With each step that Yanagi took, he repeatedly cast Fortification-Type and a specific Movement-Type Magic that reversed the vector of the force directed into the ground by his feet, which prevented the thin layers of earth from collapsing while also salvaging twice the speed and jumping power with each of his strides.

In essence, this magic worked by altering Newton's third law of motion, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction".

Each time Yanagi stepped onto the ground, two equal and opposite motion vectors would appear on the point of contact with the ground, one would extend into the ground and the other into his leg. The more force he applied towards the ground the more powerful his step would be, or in other words, the larger the motion vector directed towards the ground, the larger the motion vector directed towards his body.

Naturally, any force directed downwards into a pitfall would immediately trigger it, but Yanagi completely reversed the motion vector directed towards the ground and skillfully directed it upwards. Along with the motion vector that was originally directed upwards, he was able to run twice as fast while exerting not a single ounce of force onto the ground. Taking this to the logical extreme, Yanagi would also be able to jump on soap bubbles and use them as footholds.

Under normal circumstances, the human body wouldn't be able to handle the massive amount of force that it was now subjected to, it simply wasn't built to handle that much force, so Yanagi also applied Fortification-Magic each time he casted the Movement-Type Vector Reversal Magic.

This was a magic of the utmost difficulty that as developed from the Ancient Magic Shinobi would use to walk on water, but was perfected to an unbelievable degree, effectively transforming into a completely new magic.

Neither Kazama nor Yakumo were unable to use this magic, meaning that Yanagi, who was it's creator, was currently the only practitioner in the world able to use it.

Of course Tatsuya wasn't just watching.

Ever since a while ago, Tatsuya had started rapidly switching between matter disintegration magic, and magic aimed at information bodies in an attempt to take apart Yanagi's Magic Sequences.

Additionally, instead of creating pitfall traps which had the original purpose of preventing Yanagi from knowing where the traps would be in the first place, Tatsuya gave up on concealing the holes and started disintegrating large chunks of earth right beneath Yanagi's feet before they could make contact with the ground.

However, Yanagi's insanely fast activation speed that even eclipsed that of the USNA Stars Commander Angie Sirius, enabled him to simply recast his magic every time Tatsuya dissolved it. Furthermore, instead of helplessly plummeting into the fissures created by Tatsuya, Yanagi would use the solid dust particles left behind by the disintegration process as footholds to continue his advance.

It was an eye popping accomplishment possible only due to his unique approach on magic.

To the eye of an untrained magician, Yanagi seemingly walked on air.

However, this didn't mean that Yanagi wasn't slowed down at all. Due to having to recast his magic and adjust it each time with the random location of the dust particles, Yanagi lost precious time.

Tatsuya took advantage of the time window and pressed the switch on his Silver Trident to switch back to Material Decomposition after just having taken apart another of Yanagi's Magic Sequences.

Pointing it to the ground, Tatsuya dissolved the top layer (one centimeter) of the ground in a one meter radius around him to create a thick layer of dust, which he forcibly flung into the air by stomping hard with his right foot that he had endowed with Flash Casted Contact-Type Oscillation Magic, creating a thick smoke screen that took out two of Yanagi's senses, his sense of sight and smell.

Tatsuya himself was not overly dependent on his five senses due to his ability to enhance his perception with Elemental Sight, and thus created an environment in which he held the advantage.

Yanagi's first reaction before charging straight into the dust cloud was to invoke Traditional Lightning Magic targeted at the individual dust particles in the air to electrocute the area inside of it, but his Magic Sequence was blown away by a cannonball of psions before it could take shape.

Just as he suspected, magic that was not his forte (long-ranged magic) took too long to construct and was thus an easy target for Tatsuya.

With a calm expression devoid of any type of emotional response, Yanagi charged straight into the fog of dust to challenge his sparring partner in his own domain.

Countless deep impact sounds and even the unpleasant noise of cracking bone could be heard from within the cloud, with the occasional outburst of psion light illuminating the two figures within.

When the dust finally settled, Tatsuya was breathlessly lying on the ground, restrained by Yanagi's knee. Yanagi's own cheek appeared to be slightly bruised.

A loud clapping noise dissolved the tense atmosphere.

Approaching the two combatants from the side, Major Kazama Harunobu and Captain Sanada Shigeru congratulated Special Lieutenant Shiba Tatsuya and Captain Yanagi Muraji on a well fought battle.

Yanagi had long since freed Tatsuya from his predicament so that the both of them could properly face their audience.

"Now now Yanagi, don't you think you were a bit too rough for a sparring exercise? If it weren't for the fact that you refrained from targeting Tatsuya-kun's vitals, I would reckon you went all out.", Kazama scolded in an amiable tone.

Yanagi nodded appreciatively and changed his tense expression into a slight smile.

"I do not believe I have the ability to face an opponent like Tatsuya and go easy. In that regard, you may overestimate my abilities. Still, I wasn't holding back in the slightest, since even though I went for Tatsuya's vitals, he expertly dodged my attacks."

"What are you implying Yanagi-san? I have still much to learn and can only hope to challenge you with my Trident, and even then, it doesn't seem like I am able to serve as an effective sparring partner for you", Tatsuya humbly replied in response to Yanagi's praise.

Yanagi was a man who perfectly embodied the meaning of the word "nonchalant", and as such receiving any sort of praise or compliment from him was a huge milestone for someone like Tatsuya, who had been training under him for several years now. After all, he was a force that remained unbeaten by Tatsuya and Kazama alike. While Yakumo hadn't faced him in battle yet, the result would likely be the same.

Picking up where Tatsuya left off, Sanada chimed in with his own opinion.

"Well, that is only to be expected. Captain Yanagi's main specialty is close-quarters anti-personal combat, while Tatsuya's is the complete opposite. Your OTH (Over the Horizon) sniping abilities are unparalleled even by the other known Strategic-Class Magicians. On the contrary, to go against Captain Yanagi and survive for this long, I believe Tatsuya deserves all kind of praise considering your young age."

"Please Captain Sanada, this level of praise is only going to make Tatsuya uncomfortable."

A comfortable laughter resounded on the battle grounds as the small group of soldiers/friends continued their relaxing conversation.

Tatsuya was unable to use Systematic-Magic.

This inability was not caused by the lack of talent, but by the absence of talent, or more specifically, the absence of a conventional Magic Calculation Area. The entirety of his Magic Calculation Area was occupied by his two innate magics "Decomposition" and "Regrowth". As a consequence of being able to wield these unfathomably powerful magics, Tatsuya was unable to process any other type of Systematic Magic.

On the other hand, this did not mean that Tatsuya was unable to execute Systematic Magic.

Thanks to his third ability, "Elemental Sight", Tatsuya was able to comprehend any magic after seeing it just once by not only analyzing the Activation Sequence, but also the Magic Sequence. While structurally similar, the Activation Sequence and Magic Sequence were fundamentally different in function. If the Activation Sequence was the blueprint for magic, then the Magic Sequence was the magic itself. In other words, the Activation Sequence was an incomplete formula which held the basic information of the magic, but was useless until processed by a magician and turned into a Magic Sequence. Tatsuya was unable to process Activation Sequences … but was able to comprehend Magic Sequences.

Due to his unique ability, he was able to memorize Magic Sequences and construct them out of memory, bypassing the need to process them in his Magic Calculation Area and allowing him to cast the magic instantaneously. While this loophole allowed Tatsuya to use Systematic Magic to an extent, it came with strict limitations.

As a result of being unable to process Activation Sequences and Magic Sequences of Systematic Magic, Tatsuya was unable to change the variables of the Magic Sequences he copied. For example, if he copied an Acceleration-Type Magic that allowed the user to dash forward for five seconds, Tatsuya would be unable to alter the duration of the dash or the velocity of the dash by himself, and had to use the magic just as he had copied it. No matter how hard he tried, he would be unable to adjust it.

While his training under the 101 Magic Equipped Battalion and Yakumo allowed him to copy a wide arrange of Magic Sequences with varying conditions, it was an undisputed fact that Tatsuya's use of Systematic Magic was severely limited. Additionally, long-term sustained magic and magic with more than five processes were difficult for Tatsuya to handle as well.

Magic with a lot of processes contained a wide array of different variables that were specifically tailored to certain situations. For Tatsuya, specific magics held little meaning due to his need for generally effective magic that he could utilize in many different combat scenarios. Additionally, magic with a lot processes, as well as long-term sustained magic, required an ample amount of interference strength to overcome the self correcting properties of the world. For long-term sustained magic, Tatsuya would have to continuously process it in his Magic Calculation Area while projecting it on targeted Eidos, which was something he was unable to do.

Taking "Niflheim" as an example, Tatsuya would, theoretically, be able to construct it's Magic Sequence from memory and cast it. However, due to him only instantaneously casting it instead of properly sustaining the magic, the effects of the magic would fail to materialize as the self correcting properties of the world would erase the anomaly before it could manifest. It would be akin to trying to freeze water by lowering the temperature to -100° for 0.001 seconds. While the temperature would surely start to drop for a single instant, it would have no lasting effect on the actual phenomena. As such, Tatsuya was limited to Flash Casting magic under five processes.

Still, five processes were more than enough for combat related scenarios. The Movement-Type and Convergence-Type Magics Tatsuya used in the spar with Yanagi were proof of that.

As if reading Tatsuya's thoughts, Major Kazama redirected the conversation back to Tatsuya.

"Now that I think about it, your entrance ceremony will be next week, won't it? I apologize in advance for not making it."

"What are you talking about? It would be ridiculous for a Major to attend the entrance ceremony of a high school he has no ties with in the first place", Tatsuya remarked in an understanding manner.

Kazama likely wasn't serious about his comment anyway.

Still, this prompted Sanada to raise a question of his own.

"I don't mean this to be insulting, but I am surprised you managed the pass the exam with your … unique condition."

"No I understand. After all, I am completely unable to execute Systematic-Magic under conventional means. I myself am surprised that I managed to get into First High by Flash Casting the required magic."

"Rather than saying they let you pass, I believe you simply shocked the examiners beyond comprehension.", Yanagi sarcastically jabbed.

While his comment seemed rude, everyone present knew that was simply the way he was. Also, it wasn't like he said anything outrageous either.

During the entrance exam, the speed of activation for Simple Systematic-Magic that Tatsuya displayed was unheard of, however, he failed to display any sort of interference strength or even to show any sort of ability for constructing complex magic systems. Tatsuya's results were simply this … absurd.

While it was written off as him having an extremely low proficiency in those two areas, it was as if he did not posses them at all … which was impossible of course.

In any case, despite that, due to his near perfect score in the theoretical portion as well as his beyond excellent activation speed, the examiners came to the agreement of admitting him, albeit as a Course 2 Student.

His peculiar case was just that intriguing.

Thankfully, examinations at the high-school level were unable to discern his ability to Flash Cast, and it was thus written off that he simply possessed a talent in activation speed due to abandoning interference strength and scale of design.

Written off as a rare case of an underdeveloped Magic Calculation Area, First High accepted him for potential advertisement purposes. They believed that once he graduated and achieved any sort of achievements despite his "disability", they would be cited as a reason to his success.

Of course, this trick would not work at university level where examinations were more thorough, but it was planned for Tatsuya to officially join the military after high-school in the first place. As sad as it was, it had become quite common for graduates to be hired by the military straight out of high-school, and thus Tatsuya's recruitment would not raise any suspicions either.

It was decided that upon graduation Tatsuya would become a proper lieutenant; a full-time soldier.

"Still…"

Tatsuya pondered loudly.

"Is it really necessary for me to enroll in High-School in the first place?"

This was a question he commonly asked ever since he was ordered to go to Middle-School. The reply had always been the same.

"Your status as a Strategic-Class magician needs to be kept confidential, so it is only natural to keep up the appearance of an ordinary High-School student to prevent any third party from becoming overly suspicious. More importantly, Fujibayashi has somehow garnered the support of Major General Saeki for her claim that you should experience an ordinary life until you join us officially, so there is nothing we can do about it no matter how much we want to employ you as a full-time soldier.", Kazama said without a hint of hesitation.

He didn't hide the fact that he valued Tatsuya's abilities more than anything else, but Tatsuya wasn't the least bit offended by it. Rather, a certain sense of pride filled them both for different reasons. Kazama's originated from the fact that he had mentored Tatsuya's growth ever since he was a child, and Tatsuya's stemmed from being able to fulfill his expectations … and exceeding them.

"That Fujibayashi… just what is she thinking … To even convince Major General Saeki, just how did she pull that off?"

"Is it really that surprising considering the circumstances?"

What exactly these circumstances were remained unspoken since everyone present was already aware of them, Tatsuya more than everyone.

Realizing that they had somehow switched from talking about Yanagi's and Tatsuya's spar to badmouthing Fujibayashi's lovable attitude, the group once again erupted in warm laughter.

Author's Note

By the way, before I forget, if you have any questions. Any questions at all. Just post them either in the reviews section or write me personally. I have just re-read the entirety of available english translated novels, and have more or less researched it enough to kinda know what is going on ^^

In any case, on an even larger scale than Yanagi's vector reversal magic, I will be introducing an entire character with unique crafted magic in chapter three, so naturally there will be confusion about the inner workings of magic in general. As such, I encourage you to ask me about anything you might not be clear about. Sometimes I take it for granted that everyone knows what I am talking about, which is why I also didn't go too much into detail when talking about Tatsuya's Ninjutsu (first used against Hattori, and next seen when he fights the Parasite Dolls) or Yanagi's Return, since the knowledge of these magics should already be out.

Still, if I skip over things too fast just let me know. If you ask me in the comment section, I will answer your questions in the next chapter's release, but if you write me personally, I will naturally keep it private. Feel free to bother me ^^