Web of light. Part 1.2

As the teacher told me ironically, "combat meditation" was also necessary, it was a favorite way to spend money for 95% of boys and half of adults. The irony was that combat meditation was not an independent technique, but was simply a superposition of derived techniques of a peaceful orientation, such as how "contemplation of the whole" can be used to find weaknesses in an opponent's defense, and the "road" allows not only to escape in time, but can also be used to strike, bypassing protection. By the end of the second week of training, the teacher had abandoned his initial formality when addressing, and we communicated quite amicably, despite the age difference. As sensei explained to me, "seeing" a person for who they are by "breaking through" social markers is another opportunity to "contemplate the whole."

I studied, of course, for money. I didn't have to cut the ration, because my current account, it turns out, provided for tuition fees, and they were not part of the boarding school. Convenient!

The funny thing is that even mastering primary self-control has increased my work efficiency by fifty percent. Strong vivid emotions and feelings now didn't throw me away so much while working on something. For example, one evening, I suddenly managed to "finish" the mobile version of the map for observing high-energy objects, that is, magicians and ayakashi, if they get within the boundaries of the perimeter. My first successful "working" meditation was when, having once again run into a code implementation that I did not understand, I worked out the "road" situation at full speed, with a retreat into contemplation. Hurray!

To completely close the topic of meditation, I will say that a couple of times I came to classes where the teacher was chasing a crowd of assorted men and boys, teaching "combat meditation" from scratch. Well, I turned out to be completely right: a clear victory of anime cliches over reason. Interestingly, all sides were pleased: the teacher — with good money, for which it was worth walking around the hall in a kimono with a yin-yang symbol on his back, looking sternly from under his furrowed brows and making comments mixed with mysterious "like philosophical" meaninglessness, and the students who, looking at this theater, They felt like they were being turned around and covered in glory right in front of their eyes. In advance.

Some, however, actually learned what they came for. For me, the only disadvantage of attending classes was the need to cut off my mobile phone every time. Gradually, I was able to identify and close the most pressing problems in the planned actions. Following the remote control of the card readings, the mobile client that Rinko and I are currently beta-testing on mobile phones, I made the first protective amulet in my life. It was a simple version of the barrier, the same as in the walls of my house and the house in Noihara, or rather, even just a single seal embedded with a magic storage device in Kuzaki's hairpin. Theoretically, this thing was supposed to more or less effectively block not very skillful attempts to take control of the girl's mind with the help of magic. To be honest, I haven't been eager to find out what this will look like in practice yet. The next logical step was the "combined" processing of clothing, when mano-absorbing elements along with accumulators were applied to the intuitively applied base by ferry using "eye technique", that is, seeing what you were doing, right on top of the disorderly reinforcing lines. Why is it intuitive? Because in this form, for some reason, the fabric not only did not pass through the blade of the knife (and, as I believed, the bullet), but also in some way incomprehensible to me began to distribute the force of the blow more or less effectively over the entire surface. So, as soon as I was convinced of the advantages of the new process of applying protection, despite the tedium of the process, I insisted that the girl pull out her entire wardrobe for me to process, for which, for the first time in my life, I received an incredulous, appraising look from Rinko. However, trust in me won out, and Kuzaki dumped out in front of me not only the outerwear I had in mind, but also underwear. That was strong! Both of us walked for two hours in a slightly awkward mood, blushing every time we looked at each other, but my neighbor got two dozen pairs of inseparable armored personnel carriers with the function of absorbing magic, and I repeated the process of creating legendary attributes of any Amazon in practice. Meanwhile, the school academic year was coming to its logical end, the month of May was replaced by June, and the usual lessons were exams, midterms, and other chores. Hiroe and Midori's project was also successfully filmed, there was a mountain of layout and linking, and voice acting in some places, but the journalism club had to handle this on its own.

Having gathered, with the help of the president, the staff of the physics club, I suggested that next year, since we were so good at working with electric motors and studied avionics, we study the transition state of polymers during layering in an automated way. That is, to assemble your own 3D printer, the benefit for this is that the experience of assembling enclosures and drives with small tolerances has been found. Unanimously, as I expected. I'm kind of a wrong hitman, all the heroes of fanfiction anticipate the plot with afterglow and correct the characters' jambs, but I've redrawn the drawings of the Chinese RepRap from memory, which haven't even been posted here (not to the millimeter drawings, just the basic structural diagram of the device) to the public. As always, the people happily sorted out the printouts, promising to get acquainted and have time before the holidays to outline a list of necessary purchases for the school to work on the device, which the president of the club, while he had not yet transferred to secondary school, had to submit to the director and push through. I feel like I won't be able to get away from my command position next year. Hemorrhoids!

Anyway, on my eleventh birthday, I woke up without any misgivings, went to class, passed the social studies test, and went to meditation techniques classes with a calm heart. Which proves once again that I have some kind of dubious luck, because if I had known in advance what would happen during my absence from home, I would never have gone to class. And then it wouldn't have happened.

Part 16. Shizuka and Hiroe came to visit Yuto and met Rinko alone.

Interlude 9. Part 1. Shizuka by the sea

[Shizuka by the sea]

Shizuka watched as the increasing wind and the increasingly strong seasonal current hit the "road of spirits" harder and harder. There was such force in the impact of the waves, the gaps between which almost reached the flooded roadbed, and the pressure of many thousands of tons of water that the stone bulls, the huge boulders that make up the body of the dam, could not resist. With each blow, the water carried away its prey: small stones, large stones, very large stones! The sand has been gone for a long time. And so the first bull swayed, the second... The sea rolled out multi-ton boulders with a low, almost infrasonic roar, like a child rolling forgotten backgammon dice. It rolled all over the rather large bay, drove into pits, rolled into shallow shoals, in order to once again create a lot of headaches for fishermen with the identification of new shoals and dangerous places. How many curses have been poured on the heads of the dead builders over the centuries... and how many years before the island of Spirits went under water from another earthquake, it was swallowed and never said. But the fishermen were lucky. The natural source of natural mana gushing from the center of the island has not gone away, and the yokai that once fell under the distribution of the elements periodically appeared as if from oblivion. Crippled shells, a gradient of seemingly affordable, but not very suitable for constant supply of "clean" energy — and all this is under multi-ton rubble of stones, and from above — flooded with seawater: this kind of soup was cooked at a depth of a couple of meters, and not a single fisherman dared to go there. The bottom of the bay was still somewhat seismically unstable, and some spirits, still alive, wounded, and held by rocks for centuries, spirit were getting a chance to be free. The combination of "clean energy" and the impossibility of organic nutrition created an indescribable combination of hunger and promiscuity, and heavy years of pressure created severe mental disorders. They are often clinically severe.

The dam created the problem. The old road along the embankment, piled on top of the cursed stone bulls, as soon as the seasonal current changed direction, they were driven by the waves to the place where they had once been laid by the spirits of the earth. And the "Way of the Spirits", a cursed road, allowed the lost Yokai to get ashore. Most of the weak and with wounds that had not healed soon found their demise in the teeth of other unintelligent spirits, however, another part... the part that was once very strong, and now remained just strong, was a serious danger. Mostly for ordinary people, but some... instances... Even the three leaders of a small group of spirits who settled on the wooded slopes of low hills near the nearest large city were forced to "sweat".

Meanwhile, more and more of the stones at the base of the road shifted too far apart, and the "Path", which looked like a ribbon of deep blue in yokai"s perception of the water, trembled more and more, losing its thickness and scattering the energy lost by the spell around it with sparks. Finally, after another blow from the elements, it burst with a loud pop. That"s it. No one else managed to leave the island. Shizuka, standing silently above the edge of the steep shore, among the fir trees bending in the wind, turned her back to the sea — only a thick braid slapped her back. First, there is a report that the next seasonal escalation of the situation has successfully ended and there will be relative silence in the surrounding forests and fields for another six months. The last two months had been extremely tiring, and now the Goddess of Rivers was going to unwind in the city. And at the same time fulfill the promise made to one interesting guy.

[Hiroe is at home]

Hiroe looked at her watch and decided that it was already quite possible to go out. She knew for a fact that Yuto-kun had another meditation practice class today and, therefore, she would definitely not find him at home. But she is very likely to find Kuzaki Rinko there, who returns from kendo classes on Saturday much earlier than Yuto. On any other day, Rinko might have turned away a friend who wasn"t very close to her at school, or even a classmate, but not today. And what about the fact that she arrived ahead of time? Since Yuto"s phone is not answering, she has already found out the few principles of sensei in relation to students from her mother in advance. And there, once she gets to Amakawa"s house, she will be able to gather a lot of information on the subject of her interest. And if you can look into his room! The girl squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation, licking her lips. Of course, she was well aware that she could have easily asked to visit Yuuto anyway, especially if she had honestly given the reason. She could just see the guy grinning and showing her his house, making snide comments about some mess... but! It won"t be according to the rules! Mom taught Hiroe Kaname well enough that she understood that with allies, including this skinny, short-haired girl Amakawa Yuto, the rules should not be broken without very serious reasons. Even if you know that he knows that you know... That"s how, at about four o"clock on Saturday afternoon, Hiroe Kaname, a junior high school student, found herself on the street in front of the entrance to the courtyard of Yuto"s house with a small bag in her hands. Well-mannered people don"t go to a birthday party without a gift, right? And the fact that near this very door she ran into another girl about her own age, whose long black hair, shining green, was pulled into a tight thick braid, is, really, one of those coincidences that would seem to have a one in a million chance of happening... and they happen all the time.

[Two girls under the window... Ugh, under the door of Amakawa"s house]

Of course, if a neighbor had looked out the window right now, he wouldn"t have seen anything strange in the picture that opened up: just two very ordinary girls about ten years old, standing opposite each other, equidistant from the gate to the courtyard of Amakawa Yuto-kun"s house. Are they standing for a long time? But let them be.

Shizuka regarded the little stranger somewhat suspiciously. On the one hand, an ordinary person who is on the borderline between a child and a teenager is too subtle, almost to the point of pain, a girl, and everything would be fine... If it wasn"t for the look in his eyes. That cold, appraising squint, the sharp fluctuations of the pupils focusing on different parts of Mizuchi"s body, the uncharacteristic "frozen" plastic for a child... and yet the Water Snake couldn"t figure out what had aroused such interest! After all, she"s been specializing in intelligence for years... rather, it should be said that the number of these years is closer to a hundred. Ordinary clothes, ordinary (okay, maybe not ordinary, but definitely human) hairstyle, sandals on his feet, white socks... Ordinary clothes, ordinary (okay, maybe not ordinary, but definitely human) hairstyle, sandals on his feet, white socks... The opponent was definitely not an exorcist — there were no emanations of power, none at all. And why is she looking like that?

Hiroe, in turn, looked at the unknown girl and quietly fell apart from the feeling of mystery... No, SECRETS! Firstly, the exposed areas of the opponent"s skin shone a little more strongly than human skin should shine in the sun... or at this distance, she would have smelled sweat somehow! Some creams could have such an effect (and her mother refused to teach her this categorically and flatly!), but they definitely could not leave her clothes dry and clean. In addition, this set of clothes, if I may say so, is a set, and in no way a set in which socks were the most common item... pure white, as if dust did not exist in nature at all. The peach-colored sandals matched the dress closely (too short, in Hiroe"s opinion, to go with her... hmm... to the boy"s birthday... or was it on purpose?!), but the trouble is, this style of shoe was last produced about twenty-five years ago, and it didn"t look like a new model or a special order. She didn"t find them in the trash, did she? There are no shoes in such good condition in the trash. There were no special complaints about the dress (except for the length!!!) it was quite possible to buy it in the shopping malls near Hiroe"s own house... just not from natural flax without synthetic admixtures.