First Blood

Magic is not universal. Most people are incapable of using it, and some are incapable of perceiving it, depending on the type of magic. Some skills remain universal to all mages, such as the ability to summon a familiar and perform minor magic tricks like lighting a candle or chilling a drink, but such activities are meant to help a mage understand how mana flows from their veins to manifest.

It is in intermediary to advanced magics that every magician will diverge, manifesting as unique talents that are influenced both by bloodline, natural talent, and the interests of the user. Even among the same family, the power may hold the same root but manifest in different ways. More than that, the world overseen by MAGI is a brutal one. If you do not contribute, if you do not succeed, you are viewed with disdain, and the low few that are deemed failures may be removed from magical society and reduced to a civilian—a threat once levied against Ren before he finally made the ryukan.

The first few days of the contest are quiet. First blood has not yet been drawn, and most of the contestants are either out hunting subtly, or playing things slow and carefully. Nobody is making any drastic moves to lure out the others. It is the calm before the storm as they use familiars to try and win the war of information.

Familiars, the art of binding an entity to the mage, are a universal tool that every magician present is using to find their targets. Familiars almost always take the form of an animal that was captured and used as the subject of a simple ritual. Once a familiar is bound, the magician is able to act through the familiar, sensing what they sense and maneuvering through great distances without ever setting foot outside; the perfect scouts. Most magicians only have one, but it is possible to bind multiple familiars to a single host mage.

Ren’s familiar was a common sight throughout Japan, which for him was the perfect guise. A simple crow, flying around and acting as his eyes and ears. Many at the college of mystics scoffed at his simple choice, but it was perfect for this competition. It took a truly skilled magician to spot a familiar when it was with its own flock, and as long as the crow continued to act naturally as it scouted, it was unlikely to be picked off.

Yuina, however, was walking the streets. Another unique advantage afforded to her from her spirits was the senses of the natural and conceptual spirits that were bound to her. Her spirit summoning is an advanced, more complicated evolution of the same magic used to produce familiars. She would need to find a nature or conceptual spirit, and convince it to join her. She would be incapable of forcing the spirit to comply; it had to be a mutually beneficial contract. The first spirit she ever contracted, Suika, is one such nature spirit. As long as there was water nearby, this spirit would be able to sense any nearby magicians like a radar, forcing Yuina to act more openly, but as long as she, too, acted naturally, it would be difficult for anyone to spot her out.

On the second day, Ren made his way out of his apartment, a separate one from the one he and Yuina were in, but in the same building. He believed this to be a clever trick, thinking that if Yuina would try to find him here, she’d not think to check the other rooms, only the one they were at. She’d then move on to the other countless apartment buildings, and she’d have lost him for certain.

Despite how confident he was in his acting skills, Ren couldn’t hide how tense he felt. He didn’t have the incredible senses of Yuina’s spirits, and in fact he could hardly tell whether or not he was talking to a mage through any form of magical sensing. He needed to listen keenly and watch their behaviour, something that he wasn’t professionally trained with, but something he tried to practice where he could. It was risky, but necessary beyond just trying to win the competition. The hotel he was currently staying in was a cheap one, and didn’t provide any form of food on its own. Carrying cooking utensils around would have slowed him down, so he was forced to eat out often. Thankfully for him, there have been some lovely cafés and diners that he has enjoyed over the last few days.

After a light drizzle of rain had blanketed Yokohama that morning, a mist had begun to settle, leaving a slight chill in the air as Ren sat at his new favourite café. A simple sandwich and a mocha were his only companions as he kept his eyes peeled, though there were fewer people walking the streets at this time. His familiar hadn’t been able to spot anybody suspicious, and with how quickly the mist thickened, it would be clear that even the eyes of his crow were mostly useless at this time.

He saw another man at a table near him, sitting outside and enjoying a coffee while smoking a cigarette. The smell irritated Ren, but he did nothing about it. Cigarettes, or smoking in general, were something Ren considered bad for his business, especially with regards to building the masterpiece hidden within his sleeve. Though whether it mattered for his equipment or not, he detested cigarette smoke all the same.

After finishing his meal, Ren got up to get home, but the smoke was so thick now that he could hardly see in front of him. It was then when warning signals started to scream in his mind. Looking at the only other person he had recently seen, he only saw an empty seat with an empty coffee cup. He couldn’t believe he let his guard down like that.

A quiet “thwip” sound caught his ears to the left of him, and he raised his right arm defensively to his chest. A solid click, like a coin falling upon metal, can be heard. Looking down to his arm, he recognized immediately what was embedded in his gauntlet; a dart, most certainly poisoned. The first strike had been made, and Ren wasn’t ready.

Grabbing his table and flipping it over, he used it as cover as Ren ran to a nearby alley. More darts landed on the table, concerningly close to where his fingers poked out as he held it, one dart barely avoiding his finger. With a panicked gasp, he dropped the table as he turned the corner, feeling greater fear now than he ever has throughout his life. He couldn’t see his assailant, while his attacker could clearly see him, and unless he could find a way to at least see who was attacking him, he would be the first victim of this contest.

He realized his mistake as soon as he entered the alleyway. If his opponent was using any kind of projectile weapon, hadn’t Ren done the one thing that helped his attacker—putting himself in a narrow, enclosed space where he couldn’t dodge? His body felt ice-cold as he understood his mistake. He had to assume that every individual dart was lethal, after all, why would his assailant only fire one if one weren’t enough to permanently remove him from this competition? For the first time, Ren was thankful that his weak magic forced him to adapt by making the ryukan. If it hadn’t been there, this competition would have already ended for him.

He could sense the eyes on him. He had moments to figure out something, but while Ren wasn’t the best planner, he had at least one thing he could stake a claim to; his ability to improvise. Reaching his right hand out to the nearest dumpster, Ren groaned with great effort as he pulled the dumpster between him and where his assailant came from. The heavier the object was, the harder it was for him to catch and move, even with the ryukan’s help.

Grabbing the closest objects he could, garbage bags, abandoned chunks of plywood, and a smaller garbage can, he lifted each, one by one, with the ryukan blindly down the alley where he came from. Ducking back down, he narrowly avoided another dart that he felt breeze by his hair. His attacker was still there. Picking up a particularly full-looking garbage bag from the dumpster he was hiding behind, he had to push harder to fling it. While he couldn’t see what was in it, a sickening squelch could be heard as the bag surely burst open, likely filled with some kind of sauce or other liquid trash that was discarded by the café next to where he hid.

Ren could not stay here. The ammunition he had was limited, and it was only a matter of time before his attacker would get a good angle on him, especially since Ren still couldn’t see his attacker. Noticing that a dart was still embedded in the ryukan, he got an idea. Taking the dart out of his gauntlet, he ran down the rest of the alley, staying small and getting to a wider opening with lots of clutter. Garbage day was tomorrow, and many of the stores dumped their garbage here for pickup. Given many of these stores were closing, or already closed for the day, it was an ideal place to hide in and use to defend himself, though the smell alone was enough to nearly dissuade him. It was here he’d make his stand, one way or another.

Elsewhere, the assassin walked with a casual flair. He looked to the disgusting garbage that landed where he had been moments before and scowled. Such an offensive smell should have killed on its own, but he couldn’t be too upset. After all, his target had every right to be afraid. Each dart he fired contained aconite, also known as monkshood or wolfsbane, and would prove lethal with just one clean injection. He had expected a much more threatening fight from his target.

Kuretake Jin wondered about whether or not he’d pursue the mage. He was an assassin, and often he’d prefer to avoid getting into a brawl. If his initial attack didn’t work, he’d often leave and try again another day, but he felt like he had nothing to fear from this boy. Now that he was aware of his magic, too, he wouldn’t be able to fool him the same way twice. Ideally, he’d strike him down now. Adjusting the thermal goggles that rested on his face, he finished loading his dart pistol and walked down the alley.

Taking his cigarette out of his mouth, he puffed more of the thick smoke into the alley, and the opening that he expected his target to be hiding in. Perhaps he found a pipe and was waiting for him around the corner. Jin smirked to himself before shaking his head, not letting himself get too complacent. A boy as young as that, even with a pipe, wouldn’t be a match for any magician, let alone a trained assassin like him.

With cautious confidence, he walked past the dumpster that Ren had used to hide behind earlier. These thermal goggles allowed him to see people despite his own smoke, making him feel practically invisible even as he turned the corner.