Chapter 0.3

The prospective recruits had been corralled into a training facility ten levels below Section Eight’s office. The facility possessed the dimensions of a volleyball court, but in appearance it was nothing more than an empty white room with a row of folding chairs stationed by the elevator.

Reiko attended the interview by herself.

“I’d join you,” Kazuo had excused himself, "but I have a call with a businesswoman in a few minutes. She’s been tapped by the prefecture to finance all the necessities for the tea party. We have… arrangements to discuss.”

Sure. Whatever. Fuck.

After giving her predicament some more thought, however, Reiko realized Kazuo’s absence worked in her favor. It meant she had been given license to govern the interview in any fashion she wished, and it also meant she had the opportunity to personally evaluate the three hopefuls Kazuo had referenced.

Reiko rolled their names around her head. It had been some time since Section Chief Shinomiya had expressed interest in anyone, let alone three distinct individuals.

Young, nervous faces greeted her when she stepped onto the training facility. It reminded Reiko of herself many years ago, when she too, as a pearl eyed graduate from one of the country’s numerous magical academies, clutched her credentials close to her chest behind dozens of other shivering prospects.

The goal? A coveted position as a government mage or maybe a vaunted license to research Mysteries at a prestigious university. And for some, maybe, just the tiniest of maybes, it was a stepping stone on a journey to one day ascend to the most beloved and feared title in all the world.

Egregore.

Reiko’s reality proved far less exciting.

Nauseating lights flooded her senses when she approached the center of the facility. Reiko remembered all of a sudden that she had consumed one too many highballs last night. She swallowed an embarrassing mouthful and scanned the young faces again.

“Welcome everyone,” she announced. “My name is Sakura Hasegawa. I’ll be proctoring your interview today. I know I’m a little late, so let’s not waste any time and get started.”

In one swift motion, Reiko cut through the air with two fingers, then brought those fingers to her lips. The space that she cut unveiled an unnatural gash. The air peeled back like paper, and an unknown universe gazed back at her.

“Elio,” she whispered.

A jade green tide spilled into the room and draped over it like a blanket. Most of the recruits recoiled as the water-like substance flowed beneath their feet, then relaxed when they realized the tide seemed to only affect the contours of the facility itself.

“That’s right. Don’t be alarmed,” Reiko said. “This is Elio, an imaginarium construction created by Professor Kazuo Shinomiya. It’s a self-enclosed dimensional space drawn over what we perceive as The Now. Elio will serve us two purposes.”

“Firstly,” Reiko gestured with a finger, “Elio records with perfect accuracy everything that happens inside. Anything you do henceforth shall be used in evaluating your performance.”

“Secondly,” Reiko continued. “Elio is capable of tampering with your active memory. Anyone who fails this exam will have their memories of this interview erased. This will allow me to share why you are really here today. Anyone who stays consents to this process. This act of memory erasure is, I assure you, harmless.”

With her announcement, some of the recruits began to harbor second thoughts. At least three of them reached for the elevator door, then clenched their fists and withdrew their hands. As much as she applauded that courage, Reiko made a mental note to fail them later. There was no room for doubt.

“My real name is Reiko Nakamura,” she said. “I serve a clandestine agency below the National Public Safety Commission known as Section Eight, where we deal with magical crimes.

“I’m sure most of you have already heard, but as of this morning, the Egregore have chosen Sapporo for this year’s festivities, and Section Eight has been tasked with the security of–”

A delighted squeal escaped the lips of one of the recruits. Unlike almost everyone else, who wore generic Oxford suits or casual university fits, the girl responsible for the outburst looked like she had come sprinting from ballerina class.

She was dressed in a short pink and white dress with a puffy skirt formed in the shape of a tulip. Her light golden hair was split into two pigtails tied by large red ribbons that matched her shoes. As everyone turned around to look at her, her soft expressive eyes widened and she clasped her two gloved hands together.

“Sorry!” she bowed. “I’m sorry!”

Reiko recognized her.

Miyuki Kobayashi, the first of Kazuo’s hopefuls.

“...As I was saying,” Reiko continued, “today’s exam is fairly straightforward. In lieu of today’s events, the only test today will be a practical one. Pass it, and you’re in. Fail, and you’re out.”

One of the recruits who had thought of leaving early raised his hand.

“We’re not in school anymore. You can just say what’s on your mind,” Reiko said.

“I didn’t come here to join Section Eight or whatever” the recruit frowned. “I’m here to join a research lab.”

Several others murmured in agreement.

“Unfortunately for you,” Reiko placed a hand on her hips, “that future of yours is now in my hands. Pass my exam, and you’ll be recommended to any lab of your choice.”

Technically that promise was not under Reiko’s jurisdiction, but if the Safety Commission was going to pass on the responsibility of interviewing candidates to her, why shouldn’t she get to wield some of that power for herself?

Besides, her little white lie had convinced everyone in the room to prepare themselves for her test.

Reiko twirled the same two fingers she had used to summon Elio in a spiral. A translucent ocean blue field enveloped her body, brimming with a lattice of polygons sailing across its surface.

“I’m sure you all recognize what this is,” she gestured to the barrier. “It’s your everyday ward, the foundation of all defensive magic. Everyone, even the most studious theoreticians, knows how to incant these to protect themselves.”

Some of the recruits looked surprised, intimidated even. Reiko frowned. Had they not seen someone cast a ward without an incantation before?

“As I said,” she continued, “today’s exam is simple. Damage my ward and you pass. If you don’t, you fail.”

“How does this test our ability to perform in a research lab?” the same recruit from earlier complained. “This is ridiculous!”

“If you don’t like the exam, you’re free to leave,” Reiko shrugged. “You’ll be escorted to the front desk and informed that you’ve failed. But a reminder, the fact that you’re here means you’ve already passed the preliminary written civic exams. Walking away means you’ll have to wait to retry again, a year from now.”

That shut the naysayers up.

“Now,” Reiko said. “Who wants to go first?”

“Let’s just get this over with,” growled the same recruit as he stepped forward. “I just need to damage your ward? That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Reiko said.

“Then, in that case,” the young man spread his right hand in front of his face.

In three cadenced breaths, he recited.

“Incantation. Elemental. Fire.”

With those words, an orange flame sprouted at his fingertips. To a normal person, this feat of magic was a spectacle of the abnormal. In some ways, that made it indistinguishable from card tricks or parlor games performed at a local carnival, for those phenomena, at least superficially, were also unexplainable by natural means.

But unlike sleight of hand or swallowing flaming swords, what the young man had accomplished in language and one hand was nothing short of an intervention into the world’s natural principles.

This was magic, the means by which its practitioners, mages, wizards, witches, scholars, maestros, whatever you wanted to call them, cleaved through the order of the natural world, The Now, and rewrote for a moment its rules in humanity’s imagination.

The fires at the young man’s fingertips blossomed into five gleaming orbs, each the size of his fist. With a committed grunt, the man hurled the flames towards Reiko, where they exploded in size, coalescing until a blood orange firestorm consumed Reiko and her ward into its body.

The flames howled against the ward like rainfall battering against a window, but much like a squall, its ferocity proved a tepid, short-lived affair. When the flames subsided, everyone could see that not a single scratch was made on Reiko’s ward.

“Nice try,” Reiko smiled. “However…”

She snapped her fingers.

“You fail.”