Web of light. Part 1.2 chapter 19

Chapter 99.

The morning of a working day, and for me, a school Monday, greeted me with clean, humid air and killer food flavors. Mizuchi had already eaten and was now arranging the papers she had retrieved from the hiding places she had gone on a raid for "into the night." Meeting my gaze, Shizuka pushed the "blue" passport of a Japanese citizen in my direction. I opened it: the photo is really similar. And the name? Hmm, Chidori! The Goddess of Rivers has a surname, so now it's Mikuni. Almost Mizuchi, good harmony. But where did she get it from?

"I found it in their bag," snake shared her memories with me, not too happily, "near the destroyed camp. The Yokai is an ogre. Daughter and parents... We buried what was left."

Shoving food into my mouth with one hand, I logged into the Ministry of Emergency Situations website directly from my mobile phone and punched through my passport data. Hmm, they don't appear in the search, but the database is uniform across the country. And why? Yeah, I picked a folder out of a pile of papers: a certificate of purchase of a farm on the coast. We've already decided to relax in the mountains on our own. And snake is doing well — he knows how to work with documents.

"Do you have many of them?" I returned the documents to Mizuchi.

"Twenty pieces a year," she shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't happen every year that they are suitable for age and appearance."

"It means that a hundred people are regularly eaten in our mountains..."

"About a hundred and fifty."

"...every year. Interesting."

Statistics of population losses. The mountains... wow! More than a thousand. Well, of course, the gang from which Shizuka "holds" not the entire array, but most of it... This means that the losses are mostly accidental — I lost my temper, got drunk and froze, and so on. What about the rating? What about the rating? Car crashes — about 5,000 people a year, and that's just on our island. That's a tough one... but I'm still against pseudo-dirty creatures living in the mountains who love human meat. Because reasonable people won't just starve to eat reasonable people's meat...

"Okay, I'm off. Close the door behind me, please."

"Okay," Shizuka got up and went to the door, suddenly asked: "Will it be possible to see your school?"

"Yes, there aren't many lessons on Saturday, we'll do it." and I left her at home and went to class.

chapter 100.

It's the middle of summer. It's warm, it's good, the last week of classes, and the schools will close. Applicants who have not passed the spring exam will have a chance to try to get a passing grade in a new one or choose another place — an innovation that is only five years old. The "Tokyo incident" — I didn't have anything like that "there"... And that's good. The mass suicide of 198 people from Ronin, who jumped from the roof of the 120-storey tower of the shopping and business center with a beautiful, almost exactly round figure. It's a murky story. It comes out in the search engine with the query "mass sacrifice", it seems that the police have unearthed some kind of trace there. But the government could not help but respond to the "official" reason, and the school (and student) academic year was "moved" so that it became closer to the European one...

Why am I thinking about this? I just decided to "go through" my "post-knowledge" again: over the past two years, a number of inconsistencies have accumulated... Although there is not much value from the "after-knowledge" either. I'm sure that if I hadn't recognized Shizuka by her appearance and characteristic speech, I still wouldn't have rushed at the enemy until she attacked. But would I invite her to my house? Well, let's assume that the manga helped me here. But Rinko, I managed to fix her behavior a lot: instead of showing a "boyish" character, she confidently engages in both school and kendo. And he still walks around without the "cat" ribbons, to which an entire chapter is devoted in the manga. Although they may be "supposed" to be bought this summer?

Shizuka, on the contrary, looks much more sane, about a year after communicating with the "canonical" Yuto. Or have I just not talked to her enough yet? But there are no hacks like "this food is not for you" or "if you slip up, I'll kill you." On the contrary, I was the one who asked snake to try to analyze our joint actions taking into account her broader life experience, and I got a thoughtful look and "I'm trying to change something for the first time, just like you, you know." And Rinko teaches cooking. And I went out with Hiroe a few times. I have only one explanation: something like this happened between this summer and the summer of 2012, when I will be sixteen years old. And this "something", perhaps, should be kept in mind.

Shizuka told me a bit about their "spirit community" and mentioned the problems with regular attacks. This is after I showed the surveillance system in action and explained the principle of operation in general terms. And then I found out one unpleasant thing: Mizuchi knows almost nothing about classical magic. This is despite the fact that she told me the layout of the hunter clans (well, I finally found out something about them! And, by the way, Yakoin is the surname of all detectives, not the name of the girl from Tsuchimikado o_O), about the magic techniques used... imagining the result and the affected area, she doesn't know how it works. More than that! The mana generated by the snake is incompatible with mine. At least in her hands, the mana-electricity converters don't work, no matter how much energy she pours into them. But the wooden roundels were soaked with water and swollen. Damn, a "chakra with an elemental aspect", like in Naruto. And I've already rolled out my lip... But I can make an amulet for Mizuchi. And the overwhelming universal "cuts" any type of chakra, that is, mana. It's a real problem...

However, we will have to enter the "community of spirits" anyway: we need a testing ground for our combat abilities, at least mine, and we need sparring. Yes, and weapons need to be prepared. Now Mizuchi has occupied her computer and spends her days reading popular science literature. The poor snake's brain is really creaking — after demonstrating the laser (sawed through a wooden block in the basement... and again, the poor wall!) and she decided to master at least the theory of the linear accelerator... and she got stuck. But it's harmful, harmful to be a humanitarian, if you don't have to fight with words. Yuto the "canonical" may have also turned his tea mug into a superconductor (and I don't even doubt about the teapot!), but even if he had noticed, would he have drawn a conclusion? It seems to me that the answer is "no".

By the way, about education: with a brush, Shizuka writes just fucking well: smooth, clear lines — and this is without a "cheat" touch-up with his strength of a watery ink solution. Again, some facts from the history of Japan through the eyes of a contemporary, if not an eyewitness, are something. If anyone has watched Samurai Kenshin, that era is through the eyes of a snake... something like Russia in 1905-1920. A complete arctic fox. And gangs of samurai with swords. Mostly, though, with torches, ropes, and outdated firearms. Brr, if you really have something to compare it with, you immediately understand what a good time you live in. However, not much has changed for the Yokai: big cities are tightly closed, medium and small — you can get there if you look with both eyes.

These Yokai are an interesting civilization. There's not a word in the manga about this, although it's possible to guess in principle. This development from the "simplest" forms up to the local deity is impressive. I can imagine what would happen if there were no people on Earth... but they are there, and the species itself (if the concept of a biological species can be squeezed into such a variety of forms, possibilities and parameters) of spirits turned out to be among the "disciples" of human civilization. Just as a child learns to use his brain by looking at adults, so ayakashi, gaining intelligence, learned from people. Languages. Manners. Behavior. Minus the "instincts", of course. And now it's a grotesque medieval education next to the civilization of the 21st century... However, according to Rowling, magicians should have the same problems.

In general, it's not just the snake that has a swollen head. All experiments have been suspended, except for the extension of signal coverage, I'm frantically rebuilding my knowledge of the world. One good thing is that my studies are almost over...

chapter 101.

Saturday. Last school Saturday! People are walking around the school half in "civilian" clothes, handing in textbooks, cleaning club rooms, in the sense of cleaning so that everything is in place, and not as usual. Our "bespectacled" team doesn't stand out much against this background, although Rinko and I have already been asked a dozen times if we have brought a "new girl" who will be studying at school next year. And Shizuka is very thoughtful. Apparently, it did not occur to the snake that regular education could play such an important role. Especially when I showed some "fast" experiments on "demonstration machines" in our club, such as diffraction or elastic deformation. Or the second graders assembled a "water whip" — just a jet of water at a pressure of 6 atmospheres (you don't even need a pump, just a water pipe and an air expansion tank), which in five minutes "gnawed out" a nice cavity in a piece of limestone — so he poisoned Mizuchi in a knockdown. I had to go into the staff room and look at the information on the stand about the rules for transferring students — apparently, Shizuka must be a schoolgirl after all. Moreover, in my opinion, she knows the most difficult subjects like Japanese and Japanese history no better than the teachers. By the way, the speech of the Goddess of Rivers has also changed, archaisms are almost not found, but there are meme words from the Internet, such as "trollolo" or "parallel to me." And that's all in a week. Well, the "rubber" sealed keyboard and mouse are included from the very beginning — this is if anyone has any questions why I didn't buy a used laptop for Mizuchi. At the exit from the school, I came across Taizo with a stack of textbooks (his and his sister's, as I understand it, we don't have that much), and immediately scattered this rack when he saw my "escort". However, to the question "are you multiplying them by division?" I choked and couldn't find what to say, but three girlish fists thrust under my nose explained everything exhaustively. It's lucky that the guy got carried away with avionics, otherwise with Shizuka included in the "canonical" version of Taizo, he would simply not have lived to high school! Yes, Hiroe also walks around the school with glasses and smiles mysteriously at questions. No matter how the new fashion is brought to school... Although maybe that's what he's trying to achieve? The disguise will be excellent.

By the way! Shizuka deposited a portion of her savings, about three hundred thousand yen, into the "general cash register." It was very difficult, at least for us now, and we eventually covered all the expenses for its arrangement. As I understand it, Mizuchi has some gold buried in the "if anything": she's a solid girl, you can't take it away. It seems that the summer vacation month will be marked by "study, study and study," especially since Kaname, feigning embarrassment, asked her to "pull up" in the exact sciences. It seems that the girl has already rethought something about the world and people. And I'm going to have experiments, meditations, and a lot of brain work. In general, routine is like routine.

Chapter 102.

It's time for normal schoolchildren to rest and relax before the new school year, and only here, in the Amakawa house, there is a yoke of smoke! In two weeks, I personally conducted almost a year's worth of research on the Ferry and came close to solving the problem of increasing the speed of muscle reaction with magic-based amplifiers. Either my previous work experience affected me, or I just approached the "critical mass" of accumulating knowledge, but after I carefully examined how Shizuka moves "on acceleration", I managed to catch the necessary elements visually, through glasses. And then, over the course of a week, through trial and error, we managed to choose the configuration of the lines, in response to which, when applied to the material, it is reduced by applying magic — mine or Mizuchi's. I must say right away that the block of wood or plastic did not want to shrink. But everything worked out with the rubber! And with muscles too, even more effectively. Poor hamster, he was in such a hurry to escape from the scary me that he didn't jump in full force... This is the first time I've seen the real personification of someone who fell against a wall. Then it was necessary to somehow intensify the work of the nervous system, at least the cerebral cortex, so that the experimental animal could cope with its own speed. The "eye" ferries only "broke" hamsters for me, and for all my friendly feelings and agreements, I would not want to demonstrate these weapons unless absolutely necessary. For five days I searched for an answer, trying to imagine the logic of nerve cells through the logic of muscle cells, and eventually I bred a ten and a half hallucination hamsters, plunging their not very complex (compared to human) brains into the power of an electrical storm of signals caused by forcing using modified muscle weaving (the power part was cut off, leaving purely electrical effects). The only effect, apart from the hallucinations of the subjects, was the realization that perhaps I had invented a not very pleasant protection against mago scanning of human memory. It is enough to channel a little mana as part of any spell, and instead of direct or indirect access to memory, there is a whirlwind of vague visions and a malfunction of the hemispheres. Fifteen minutes and the subject falls asleep. He also loses his short-term memory. In general, the ferry equipment is rather dubious, from the series "leave as a souvenir to an enemy who has learned a lot, but got caught." Or send them to retirement with such a "draconian" thing. We just need to make sure that the subject does not voluntarily tell everything after two or three wonderful awakenings from such a state... and schizophrenia won't work.

Realizing that I had reached a dead end, I habitually slipped into a state of meditation... And then he came out: he had to take a hamster. My training sessions with sensei continued, and there was no end in sight yet, but I already wanted to test one idea. "Ferry scan". I used this term to describe a theoretical thing that I couldn't test otherwise — the spontaneous "improvement" of a material not for a given property, but for a given quality. I'll have to explain a bit here. I'll start with a simple one — a "ferry" mana catcher. After charging a piece of wood, glass, metal key holder, and a plastic pencil case with amulet properties, I found that metal captures magic most effectively, and wood accumulates it (thanks to the snake for working as a mana source). The hamster turned out to be the worst in terms of the dynamics of taking the amulet. No, seriously, where do you think I got mana into the amuletized muscle structures if the rodent wasn't magical at all? That's it. Looking at the graph of the capacity-saturation rate -regularity relationship of the molecular structure, Shizuka looked puzzled, then thought deeply... meanwhile, I started "meditation with a hamster." The idea of "scanning" lies on the very surface: How did my ancestors, Amakawa, naturally determine that the material at hand could be used as the basis for an amulet? It's simple, they tried to feel their blood power, to use "Steam" as that button in the joke about Photoshop fiftieth version: "do it well." At least that's how I explained to myself Mizuchi's retelling of the "Unique" magical amulets she knows, made by our family, such as the "Impossible Mediator", which instead of dispelling the user's magic, concentrates it. However, a hamster, unlike a simple piece of wood, is a superposition of a large number of elements that make up a smaller number of tissues, and I tried to focus on the nervous one. Putting my hands on the back of the animal sitting in the carrier cage on my lap, I disconnected from the outside world for about twenty minutes. The hamster had long since fallen asleep under my hands, basking in the warmth, and I was still trying to find a response... and I felt something like that. Ferryboat. Get out of meditation. Eyes. Well, yes. No, I definitely got something done — the dense jumble of lines around my head and spinal cord looked much more meaningful than with an ordinary "spontaneous" Ferry. But what does it give? When I woke up the hamster, I was convinced that it wasn't exactly the speed of information perception. So, what if mana is served? Hmm, but the structure does not consume it. Damn, what did I do? After putting the animal back in its cage, I climbed onto a chair with my feet and again began to drive myself into a trance, this time trying to focus on the sensations I experienced in the last "session" and interpret them. And he found himself at a loss. I've highlighted something, but here's how to interpret them... will? An idea? The condition? Something that is not verbalizable. I tried to remember if I had ever felt like this before. I don't think so. Although... At the very edge of sensation... every time I worked with animals... the very shadow, the imperceptible shadow of a feeling... when I interfered with the work... consciousness? No, no hamsters don't have consciousness. Well, there's definitely a second alarm system. It's like I'm breaking something in my fist. Something whole. Previously, without reaching the required degree of detachment, I would not have been able to isolate this feeling, but now... now I realized that I had always felt this "wrongness". Previously, without reaching the required degree of detachment, I would not have been able to isolate this feeling, but now... now I realized that I had always felt this "wrongness". I took the time to pull out of my bag my "magically" powered laser pistol, an artifact I made almost two years ago, I tried to feel it, and I felt it... accuracy. Not completeness, but a step in the right direction. My head started to hurt. I had to get an analgesic from the first-aid kit, which, after twenty months of unsafe experiments, I finally thought of placing in a working basement. I washed down the pills. He swirled the rest of the water in his glass. I got another "clean" hamster. So. Ferry on the muscles. Made by. The introduction of the drive. Made by. Fill in the mana... Five minutes... enough. And now — detachment and Ferry. I feel... wrongness? Incompleteness? Disadvantage... speed? That's it! Fuck, that's IT! I put the hamster on the floor and kicked it lightly in the ass. A jump... Where the hell is it? Blurred movement from the left, straight, right, up... pushed off the wall?! Another loss... And on the bag of food? That's it! More precisely, he is. Wow, damn, how the muscles glow! And the head? It seems there is almost none, except... Oh, that's it!