Slowly opening his eyes to see his surroundings had changed was a familiar feeling for Tahiko. His head hurt and his body felt weak. This time it seemed he wasn’t out as long as the last time and different from before was he wasn’t alone.
The boy found himself sitting up onto the couch, seeing the other two girls nearby waiting for him to wake up.
“Finally.” Amasa spoke up first. Her word wasn’t for relief that he was fine, but rather she was getting a bit bored since the pair hadn’t uttered many words to each other while sitting around. “You really do pass out a lot.”
“Sorry.” He shook his head a bit to try and regain some bearings. “That doesn’t normally happen.” The boy looked at his hands, clenching into into a fist then releasing the pressure. As suspected from before, it seemed there was something about off about this world that reduced his magical ability. Were people living here also having their own magic being suppressed, which was why they seemed unaware of magic’s existence?
However, he couldn’t focus on that right now for there was something a bit more important sitting right across from him. “And what is up with you now?” Fukuna had been hanging around, and it seemed from how laid back Amasa was about it that she was no threat in exposing their secret.
“Well, first I wanted to thank you properly.” She responded. “You know, for saving my life.” It would’ve been one way to get rid of her as a threat to their secret, albeit a bit dark. After all, no one would’ve suspected those two seeing as she would’ve just got hit by a truck and there would be not much more in the line of questioning outside of her carelessness.
“I live only to protect others.” He downplayed his extraordinary risk to her. After all of his prior close calls in his profession, this was minor in his mind. “Even though you were going to tell everyone about who I truly am.”
“Maybe now’s a good time to tell him what you’re going to do.” Said Amasa, who sat back with arms crossed.
“Right.” Fukuna showed him the screen of her phone where the video showing him using magic was being played. Then, the girl went and deleted it. “There, I’m not going tell anyone about this.” With what he did for her, there was no way she’d ever considering causing harm to them.
I give you my thanks.” He replied by getting onto one knee in honor of her decision.
“Can you stop doing that?” Amasa got annoyed with how well he treated someone as mean as that girl. “And can you seriously stop using your magic whenever you feel like it?” She made a good point. There was no real need to use his water skills on that bucket when the boy could’ve easily just blocked it or pushed her out of the way.
The second time when he flashed in front of that truck could’ve also caused issues if the driver understood that was what he did. Thankfully, the stress of nearly hitting someone made him not realize what had occurred before him. “We keep saying don’t people find out, then you go and keep doing stupid stuff like that.” The girl scolded him.
“I truly have to apologize for my behavior.” He responded, disappointed in himself. “Combating my instincts have been difficult.” Being someone used to having to make split second decisions between life or death, hesitation was not something afforded to the young boy. “Though I suppose that’s not the only issue with my magic.”
“Speaking of, are you all right?” Asked Fukuna. “I mean, you really just passed out on top of me.” She was unable to move with his large body on top of her, but it was fortunate that Amasa had finally caught up to help her get up.
“Probably due to using my signature move twice in a row.” That was the second time since coming here that he pulled it off in succession like that. The first was upon meeting Amasa’s family, where he used it to dodge the car, then followed up by taking out the bear.
But it was clear that it wasn’t just that spell that he had issues with. Considering the suspicions that Fukuna had on them, he realized that the weird feeling he sense near the bathroom must’ve been her. Normally, the boy should be able to detect spies and potential foes. However, it seemed that unless they had some kind of threatening aura to them, like those boys, then he couldn’t get a proper sense of it.
“How does this magic even work?” Asked Amasa. He had only been here a few days, and already it seemed they were just running into new issues by the hour.
“I suppose it’s only fair I tell those aware of my abilities who I am.” So he explained to them what he was back on Enatis. There, he had the class known as a mage knight. A person who had the physical capabilities of a knight, and the magical talent of a mage. This was a very rare class to obtained which usually took a person many years to truly attain, and that would still only be at a beginner level.
So someone as young as him typically wouldn’t be that, but as an orphan taken in and trained at the young age of six helped a lot. “On my world, humans are born with natural magical abilities that allow control of an element.” He was born with water, which the boy demonstrated by picking up the tea from the cup Amasa had been sipping on.
Though, given his weakened state, he lacked the precision and control to properly return it back into the cup. So letting go just caused it to splash and make a mess on her hands.
“Geez, thanks.” She sarcastically quipped as she wiped it up with her napkin. “New rule, you can’t use any magic on me either.”
“Right, as you command.” He took the condition her mom set on him seriously. Any time he would enter his knightly personality towards one of them, the other girl would look at him like he was crazy. If he was someone’s boyfriend, then that girl would certainly find themselves being taken care of a bit too well.
After that short bit, he returned to explaining the other side of his magic. The part that was specific to his class. What made mage knights special beyond regular knights was they could enhance their body, armor, and weapons through the usage of certain spells. Which was what his instant flash ability was, which allowed him to enter high speeds to cover ground and either dodge or close the gap for an attack.
“Sounds really overpowered.” Fukuna commented. She saw first hand just how quick that move could be. So it seemed that it would be impossible for foes to counter or dodge him.
“It’s very strong, but straining too.” Normally, he would say that perhaps 10 in a short time was his limits. However, on Earth it was a different story. After just two, he found himself passing out, despite that before his arrival on Earth hitting 10 tries would only cause fatigue and prevent him from performing the spell again. “And it seems I’ve been relying on magic too much lately.”
His failure to properly escape a high school girl showed perhaps he had been slacking a bit on the physical side of his class. “I need to get stronger!”
“Wow, you really just became a shonen protagonist.” Said Amasa in the face of his newfound determination.
“Sho~nen?” He was confused with her usage of the term. “Well, I am a boy of that age group.” Tahiko misunderstood the context of the word she used. As it turned out, translation magic couldn’t solve the issue of understanding when a word had different meanings. The girl was too annoyed with him to bother clarify this time around, so she didn’t.
“Anyway.” Instead, there was something else, or rather someone else, that had a bit more importance to her. “Now that you said what you got to say, why don’t you go home now?” Fukuna had been hanging out with them as if she was their friend. Beyond the possibly need to understand who he was, due to being aware of who he truly was, there wasn’t anything she needed to do here.
“And leave this cool story behind?” She scoffed at the thought. “I mean, come on, how often does this fall into your life?”
“Last time I checked, you don’t have to live with him.” Amasa didn’t care for the supposed cool factor to this. If anything, all this had done was bring about trouble to her in the form of having to see this girl more. “And I don’t even like you, so get out of my life too.”
“Puh~lease, with the fine job you two have done trying to hide this secret.” She sarcastically responded. “You’re going to need my help.”
“More allies to our cause would be nice.” Tahiko understood the value of teamwork, even with people he didn’t know well. Though he also understood that adding too many with conflicting values was also a recipe for disaster. So with these two girls who were on opposite ends of the spectrum, there could also be trouble.
“Ugh, fine.” Amasa relented. “But don’t forget we’re still trying to figure out a way for him to get home.” There was a lot neither of them knew about when it came to the spell that brought him here. In fact, given the lack of magic on Earth, it was entirely possible there was no way home for him.
“It’s a done deal.” He responded with a fiery passion, then the boy dropped down onto the ground and began doing push-ups. “And in the meantime, I need to start training my body to get back into top physical condition.”
