On the final day of the rookie division, Monolith Code's finals were scheduled, but circumstances shifted the remaining preliminaries to the morning and the finals to the afternoon.
As the prelims began, the stands buzzed with curious and puzzled stares.
"We're kinda standing out, huh?" Leo muttered.
"Athletes in a match getting attention is normal," Tatsuya replied.
"No, I mean…" Leo trailed off.
"Tatsuya, you know what he means," Mikihiko said.
They weren't bothered by the usual athlete spotlight. It was Leo's armed integrated CAD, Kotsuren, strapped to his waist. Few high schoolers knew about armed CADs, so a sword in a match banning direct attacks raised eyebrows.
"Even if I'm playing dumb, these stares won't stop," Tatsuya said. "No point sweating it."
"That's…" Mikihiko hesitated.
Mikihiko couldn't brush it off as easily as Tatsuya. His reaction was normal; Tatsuya's cool detachment was the oddity.
"But, Tatsuya," Leo said, "why are Third High's girls so hyped?"
"No idea," Tatsuya replied, suppressing a headache from Airi and her group's overt cheering.
"Don't dwell on what you can't figure out," Tatsuya said. "Match is starting."
"Right," Leo nodded.
"Got it," Mikihiko said.
Mikihiko envied Leo's ability to switch gears so cleanly, aware of his own struggle to let things go.
Elsewhere, Masaki and Shinkuro watched Tatsuya.
"There he is," Masaki said.
"Dual pistols and a wristband CAD… Can he handle three at once?" Shinkuro asked.
"With him, it's no bluff," Masaki replied.
"Let's see what he's got," Shinkuro said.
At the starting signal, Tatsuya vanished from the screen.
"Self-acceleration!?" Masaki exclaimed.
"No, there's no sign of movement magic," Shinkuro said.
Tatsuya's swift navigation through the trees stunned them. If he used magic, psion trails would show on the monitor, but there were none—proof he moved without it. As he hit the ground, positioning a defender behind him and sprinting for the Monolith, the opposing defender tried casting a spell, but…
"What!?" Shinkuro gasped.
"When did he—!?" Masaki followed.
Shinkuro's shock wasn't at Tatsuya's CAD draw speed, as Masaki assumed.
"That was… Gram Demolition!?" Shinkuro said.
"Gram Demolition!?" Masaki echoed.
At the same moment, another voice cried out.
"That was… from back then," Mari whispered, stunned.
"Gram Demolition," Mayumi said calmly beside her. "I had a hunch, but Tatsuya-kun can really use it."
"What was that!?" Mari asked.
"Gram Demolition fires a compressed psion mass directly at a target, bypassing Ide, exploding to obliterate spell activation sequences or magic information bodies," Mayumi explained. "Almost no one can use it. Disrupting psions is one thing, but obliterating them? Even I can't. How many psions does he have?"
"Like a giant swinging a massive hammer with brute force?" Mari ventured.
"Exactly," Mayumi said. "Whatever you saw on the bus, Tatsuya-kun can erase layered spells from five or more casters instantly. Against normal mages, he's unbeatable."
Nearby, Suzune gasped. "What's that!?"
"It's Kotsuren, a new spell Tatsuya-kun developed and refined," Azusa said, having learned of it while assisting him.
Mayumi and Mari, unaware, turned to Azusa, nodding as she explained the armed integrated CAD.
"Impressive," Suzune said, "but for Tatsuya-kun's design, it's a bit sloppy."
"Sloppy?" Azusa asked.
"It works on a wide stage like this, but in a cluttered one, it'd struggle," Suzune said.
"No need to worry," Mari said confidently.
"Why not?" Suzune asked.
"That guy wouldn't overlook something like that," Mari replied.
"True," Mayumi agreed. "Tatsuya-kun's probably accounted for it."
Suzune found their trust in Tatsuya excessive, yet she realized she shared it. "You're right. It's not strange for him to have a plan."
"Should we ask later?" Mayumi suggested.
"Please," Suzune said. "But don't let him know it's my question."
"G-Got it," Azusa said, wilting under Suzune's subtle pressure.
The match-end siren blared.
"Oh, it's over already?" Mayumi said.
"With Tatsuya-kun and his picks, they'd better win," Mari said.
"Watanabe-senpai, aren't you putting too much faith in him?" Suzune said. "We did force him into this."
"We're all guilty of that," Azusa muttered, her words predictably ignored.
Third High's girls erupted in cheers again.
"Amazing! As expected of Tatsuya-sama!" Airi exclaimed.
"I was shocked when you told us, but he's clearly the right choice," Keiko said.
"Shouldn't he have been entered from the start?" Kanon asked.
"Then he'd have been caught in the rubble incident," Koren pointed out.
Keiko stuck out her tongue, having forgotten. "Right…"
"I don't know where Ichijou and Kirihara are watching, but they can't be cocky about Third High's win now," Kanon said.
"First High's looking like the favorite," Keiko said.
"Not just an engineer, but an ace athlete too…" Koren marveled.
"Still, it feels like Tatsuya-san hasn't shown his full strength," Koren added.
"What do you mean?" Airi asked, pouncing on Koren's words.
"His Resonance attack from behind was perfect, but it didn't knock them out," Koren explained.
"Maybe his usual CAD is high-spec, and he's not used to competition ones?" Keiko suggested.
"Could be," Kanon said. "Airi, you heard he was asked to step in last night, right? No time to adjust or adapt."
"We don't know for sure," Koren said, "but that's our school's slim chance, and those two won't miss it."
Airi's gaze drifted to where Masaki and Shinkuro might be, torn between Tatsuya's situation and Third High's fading hope for victory.