Chapter 8

I had managed to explain everything to Marie after several long minutes. Despite her distant body language, she was rather understanding and patient with me as I fought through my trauma to retell everything.

“The last thing I remember is that woman, that Yukino Kuroswa, with a devil-may-care attitude and eyes of a demon telling me that my family dying meant nothing because I would forget everything anyway.” I clenched my fist hard, my knuckles whitening. “But that, as awful as it is, isn’t the worst part for me.”

Marie tilted her head, silently asking me to explain further. I wiped away the last of my tears and looked up at her, with dagger-like eyes.

“I’m the reason they died there.”

Marie’s eyes narrowed at me. “From what you told me; I don’t come to the same conclusion.”

“If I didn’t have that panic attack, we would have all just stayed where we were, and they wouldn’t have been caught in... whatever that was.”

“I do not agr-”

I slammed my fist on the coffee table between us, cracking it.

“My mother wanted us to stay there! We would have all been safe! I killed them by panicking!”

“And why did you panic? Do you know what caused the panic attack?”

“The explosion, the magic or whatever that happened!”

“But you only heard the explosion, you didn’t see what it was. And then you started to panic. Correct?”

I paused, tilting my head to the side. “That is correct, but-”

“You couldn’t have known it was anything other than a possible accident, and at the very extreme, a terror attack. And in your own words, you said you have never felt panic like that in your life. I’m sure you’ve probably heard weird things outside at some point, but nothing that ever panicked you like that.” Marie said quickly.

“You’re right, but-”

“Then, we have a different hypothesis. We think that in any scenario that involves magic, you would have had the same response.”

“What are you getting at?”

“You are extremely sensitive to magic is my hypothesis. You have been lucky to go your 18 years of life before this moment never being near the secret world of mages, and then once you finally came in extreme close contact with it, your body responded in the only way it knew how; a panic attack. The natural defense mechanism for fight or flight situations.”

“Sensitive to- I still don’t-”

“You are magically talented to an extreme degree. Or at least, we believe so.”

“Magically talented? Wait, so, when that woman, Yukino, said stuff about 'magi officers' and magical- It’s all real? Magic is real?!”

Marie went over the basic explanation of magic there. She explained about The Secular, the mages within, and their mission. The Secular was a secret organization that has existed since essentially the dawn of the modern man. Magic has always been a part of the world, but in ancient times it was deemed too powerful and influential for the basic person to wield by an unnamed king. The same king erased himself from history and started the secret organization, currently known as The Secular. It may have gone by different names in the past, but those names too are lost in history. The organization hides in the shadows, living among the daily world and shapes it. They use their power and reach to move the world on a path that they deem to be the lesser evil. Every major event in history is a decision made by The Secular. Empires thriving or collapsing, wars won and lost or even started; assassinations, elections, disasters, everything notable and substantial that inflicts history on the world is guided in some way by The Secular. All in the name of the lesser evil. And they hide magic, using its power and secrecy to do this. They remove people they deem problematic, empower those who they deem more fitting, change weather, affect economies, change people, change results, everything. All done while holding a true monopoly on magic. Any and all magically talented people are monitored and taken in by The Secular. And those that oppose it or break their rules or try to use magic for personal gain, they track down and eliminate in either execution or reprogramming.

“And so, The Secular has been working from the shadows to shape the world. However, you may have noticed one thing that sticks out.” Marie said, quizzing me.

“Lesser evil.” I responded without hesitation.

“Good, you’re astute. Yes, in everything we have found, even The Secular refers to their decisions as ‘Lesser Evil.’ Meaning, they understand the world, humans, as only evil. And that would mean they see themselves as absolute good.”

“And that leads them to doing whatever it takes, as they believe themselves as righteous in a world of evil.”

“It would seem so. I’m glad you’re rather smart for an 18-year-old.”

I scrunched my face in the backhanded compliment but decided not to say anything about it. Instead, there was something else pressing on my mind.

“You said that The Secular monitors and takes in magically talented people, but you also said I’m particularly talented, or at least you believe I am. So, why wasn’t I taken? Am I monitored?”

Marie paused for a moment before speaking.

“We do not have a definitive answer, we can only speculate. But we believe that you are one of two possible scenarios.” She held up a finger and explained. “The first being that you are simply a ‘late bloomer’ so to speak. You have only recently released your magical talent, which would also explain the panic attack and why they didn’t bother to take you.”

“But then why didn’t they take me when everything happened? Why did they bring me to Poland?”

“They only monitor for the first 16 years of someone’s life. You passed that age, and it is not typical for magic talent to for after that. They put you in Poland after attempting to wipe your memory, but that obviously failed.” She then put up a second finger. “That leads into the other possibility; someone in your family was already a mage and taken.”

I sat there stunned. My eyes were wide and my mouth quivered. I couldn’t understand what Marie meant.

“W-what?!”

“The second scenario is far less likely, but still possible.” She poured another cup of tea and handed it to me, as if to calm me down. “What we understand is that mages are a one in a family possibility. Meaning that if one child in a family is a mage, then they will be the only mage.”

“But no one was ever taken from my family, and we know that mind wiping doesn’t work on me!”

“Memory alteration isn’t a factor here. And you wouldn’t know if they were taken. You said you had a sister, how old was she?”

“She was 16. She would have turned 17 in just a few months...” My eyes drifted downward in sorrow.

“Oh.”

I titled my head at that reaction.

“Then that cannot be the case. It is most certainly the first possibility.”

“What do you mean? How can you be sure?”

“When magically talented individuals are taken, they are taken as young children. Usually around age 5 or 6 but could be as old as 10. When they are taken, to deal with less hassle of needing to edit and change family records like schooling or medical, they replace the child with a magical replica. The replica then dies once it hits 16 years of age from a magically reproduced disease.” She sipped from her tea. “So, your sister could not have been taken.”

I leaned back on the couch, letting out a sigh of slight relief, but also taking in the exposition that Marie had just dumped onto me. I then looked back at Marie and asked one more thing.

“When you were explaining everything, you kept saying ‘we.’ And despite how formal and proper you are, I’m going to guess you’re not royalty. So, who is this ‘We?’”

Marie set down the cup of tea and stared into my eyes. Again, her beauty struck me, but I tried to hide my thoughts and stared at her blankly.

“As The Secular is a secret organization, I, too am part of one.”

I swallowed hard in response.

“We started as regular mercenaries and have since transitioned into hunting down mages. We found out about you when you randomly showed up somehow in Poland, causing a large magical blip on our radar, so to speak.”

“And what do you want with me?”

Marie stood up and walked over to me, her small hand reaching out to me.

“Ryuki Yagami, work with us, with me, to take down The Secular. Put an end to their false righteousness. And get revenge on those that killed your family.”

I stared up at her. Her normally emotionless face was peeling away to one full of vindication and determination. We were inside, and the light was dim. But to me, it looked like her hair was flowing in the wind, and she was illuminated in a heavenly glow. I instinctively reached up to her hand with mine, grabbing it firmly.