A Headache (3)

W-what?

Startled, Amon caught a breath of empty air before he could stop himself.

He had used illusion magic, the Vincent house’s own specialty, to smother his presence and close off every route by which the boy might slip away, and it had worked right up until he cut Leonard off completely. Yet in the very instant he moved in, Leonard turned around out of nowhere, picked him out of the crowd exactly where he stood, and stared holes through him.

A coincidence… is it?

For the briefest moment Amon weighed whether he would be better off waiting for another chance. But backing out of a situation this hopelessly awkward without a proper explanation would only feed the boy’s suspicion.

Hooo…

— Step.

He ventured a single step, and Leonard only kept looking, not moving. Oddly relieved, Amon went on a few paces more until he stood right in front of the boy, and he spoke first.

“You… are you a student at Kestral Academy?”

“…”

Leonard kept his silence. Amon waved a hand and eased back a little.

“Sorry for speaking to you out of nowhere. It just struck me as so strange, a kid who looks far too young to be a student wearing our academy’s uniform.”

The excuse was plausible enough; plenty of students really still didn’t know Leonard’s face. Pleased with his own quick wits, Amon let a faint smile slip.

“No need to look so frightened. I’m a Kestral Academy student too. Amon Vincent, fifth year.”

Even the lead-in to asking the boy’s name had come off naturally, Amon thought. Not for a moment did he dream that his act had already been seen straight through.

What the hell did this bastard just say?

Amon Vincent.

Back when Leonard was still on active service, locked in desperate battle with monsters at the front, this man had held a teaching post at Kestral Academy as a professor.

In those days a grim, untimely rash of suicides had cast a pall over the whole academy. Honor students died, a good many of them, over a long stretch of time, until the imperial house, feeling the gravity of the matter, dispatched an investigator.

What came to light was a campaign of group bullying run under Amon Vincent’s lead. He had singled out anyone reckoned more able than himself, whipped the other students up against them, and used the family’s connections to keep the truth from leaking out.

Public opinion soured with tremendous speed, and his crimes had long since swollen past anything the family’s power could cover. In the end Amon was put to death in the middle of Everton Square, in front of everyone. The affair was so notorious that even Leonard, who took little interest in gossip, remembered it clearly.

“Well, this is good timing.”

Amon snapped his fingers and, without the least notion that his whole scheme lay bare, rattled on as he pleased.

“I just got swept up in the crowd and separated from my own group, see. I was wondering what to do with myself on my own — going around with you would be perfect.”

Leonard forced his face flat, though it wanted to twist with disgust and rage, and answered.

“That’s a good… idea.”

There was no reason to get tangled up with a creature like this; left alone, the man was bound to destroy himself sooner or later anyway. But Leonard had lived that future through to the end, and he had no intention of leaving Amon be. Whenever he thought of Kestral Academy’s capable young people dying off one after another because of this man, he felt not the slightest urge to forgive.

“…Come to think of it, I forgot. Your name?”

“Leonard Felix.”

“Ah, so you’re that famous new student? First time in Everton, I take it?”

Hearing the name from the boy’s own mouth must have convinced Amon that things were going well, because he seized on it and drove his plan onward without a hitch (?).

“As it happens there’s plenty worth seeing around here. Shall I show you around? I’ll pay.”

“Ah. Even so, letting you pay for me on top of it — that’s a bit…”

“Come on, where’s the harm in that? We’re students at the same academy.”

By now the intent was so blatant it turned the stomach. Leonard put up just enough of a show of reluctance, steering things so that Amon could not so much as think of backing out.

“Good. Let’s go, then.”

Wearing the most triumphant look imaginable, Amon took the lead and set off through the streets of Everton.

His promise to show off the sights was evidently no empty boast, because the lane he chose was lined with one fascinating diversion after another, among them the staff-maker’s workshop and the magic-tool shops the young students had wanted so badly to visit. Leonard, though, felt not a flicker of interest, nor did he care to.

“Even this is nothing next to the capital. In the capital there are carriages made out of magic circling the whole city, twenty-four hours a day. And there’s an institute of magical engineering researching every kind of new technology. If you ever get the chance, going for a look wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

Amon’s tone was pure showing off.

“Where does the rest of your family live?”

“They live in a backwater Sunbae won’t so much as have heard the name of¹. They farm there.”

“Oh dear. That must be terribly hard on them.”

That was the last thing Leonard wanted to hear from the likes of him. He barely managed to bite back the retort on the tip of his tongue.

“What do you want to do after you graduate?”

“…I’m not sure. Nothing concrete settled on yet, but I’d like to be a teacher of something, or a diplomat, where there’d be a chance to go abroad.”

Words and turns of phrase that hardly come easily from a nine-year-old’s mouth slipped out here and there, but the conversation flowed and he spoke so thoroughly naturally that Amon noticed nothing out of place.

“Look at this street.”

Amon swept a fingertip around at their surroundings.

“Compared with any ordinary village there are far more people, and the academy’s close by. If your parents were here, both you and they would rest a great deal easier.”

Generally speaking, he was right. The troops stationed in Keld Village had eased the worry somewhat, but to escape the monster threat altogether, settling in a large city like Everton would be the better course. And whatever else he was, Leonard was nine; studying alone, far from his parents, was bound to weigh heavily on him.

“I’m not sure.”

Yet Leonard himself showed every sign of caring about none of it. As far as he knew, no other dimensional rift had formed anywhere nearby after Keld Village’s first attack; he had no memory of ever hearing of one. That put the odds of the village being attacked again close to zero, at the very least. Above all, he had no wish to lean on garbage like this to keep his parents safe.

“…You know, the Vincent house has a few people working the diplomatic side of things. And my uncle holds a professorship at Kestral Academy, besides. We might just be able to help you out.”

Leonard’s eyes glinted sharply at that. Amon snickered, taking it for interest in his offer, but the truth was the exact opposite.

What an imbecile. Nobody even asked, and he spills the lot of his own accord.

The plan was plain as day. He meant to bring a trump card by the name of Leonard Felix into the fold and make a puppet of him for the family. Still, it was hard to believe the idea had come out of Amon’s own head in the first place.

So who had egged him on and set him to this?

Someone with information on Leonard, a member of the Vincent house, in a position to order Amon about. Of everyone on the list of suspects, only one man met every condition: his uncle.

“—ey. Hey!”

Leonard had gone quiet again, so Amon called to him once more. His voice strained for ease, yet it carried the faintest trace of impatience.

“Since fate’s thrown us together, why not come and visit our family estate over the break? There’s a great deal more to see around there than this.”

At that, Leonard broke into a bright smile.

“No, I’m all right.”

“There’s no need to feel burdened by it. It’s pure goodwill, nothing more—”

“My parents told me never to live owing anyone a debt.”

With every knife-edged refusal, Amon’s face twisted a shade more savagely.

He can’t take in a word I’m telling him.

He belonged to the Vincent house, a family that boasted a long history. Leonard might have lucked into semi-noble standing, but by rights the gap in rank between Amon and Leonard was not one that could be closed overnight.

The reality was very different indeed.

Here he was, bowing his head and promising wealth and glory to Leonard, an outsider and a commoner on top of that, all so that the Vincent house, which treated him as a millstone, would acknowledge him. Where in the world was there a situation more absurd than this? Amon pictured how he must look doing it, and ground his teeth.

Insolent little brat…!

A chance that would never be handed twice to a man branded incompetent, and a mere child like this was kicking it aside. Amon could not understand it, and he raged.

“Listen. You don’t seem to be grasping this, so — what I’m talking about here isn’t an offer you’ll get to hear easily anywhere else.”

“Right. I suppose it might be like that.”

“Think it over again. The Vincent house’s power is formidable. Your family’s future and your own, the whole of it, we can guarantee. And yet if you turn down the goodwill I went out of my way to offer…”

Amon, about to press on with his explanation, shut his mouth abruptly. Plainly Leonard’s reaction had gone beyond falling short of expectations; the boy was not taking in a single word.

“…Hah.”

Enough of this, Amon muttered inwardly. Bowing and scraping to humor a brat like this had gone against his nature from the start, and he had kept it up long enough. He slowed his pace a little to let Leonard draw ahead, and slid a hand inside his coat. What he drew out was a bracelet.

“The Bracelet of Subjugation.”

True to its name, it granted the wearer semi-permanent control over the mind of a single living creature. Because it worked on beast and human alike, and because it wrecked the mind past any hope of recovery, it was a forbidden magic item. It had no effect on a human with strong mental resistance, but against a mere nine-year-old, it was well worth a try.

Graham, of course, would never want a means like this used; for the Vincent house, which wanted Leonard’s genius whole and intact, the risk was far too great. But Amon’s heart was by now too warped for rational judgment of that kind.

Plan, my ass.

This had nothing to do with family or honor. All he wanted, here and now, was to break Leonard by any means whatsoever and prove his own superiority.

— Wooooom.

With the bracelet on, Amon carefully aimed his palm at the back of Leonard’s head. A dark, dismal green energy gathered itself into the shape of a small bead, and he smiled quietly, savoring a base pleasure.

Just then, it happened.

“So it’s true what they say — you can’t fix a person.”

The instant Leonard, walking out ahead, muttered it, the air changed.

He turned his head slowly. No childish innocence remained in his face; at some point a boiling anger had filled it, and the presence pouring off his whole body was in no way a nine-year-old’s.

How.

How could a mere child wear a look like that?

Only then did Amon realize they had come into an empty back lane without a trace of anyone else nearby. When had they wandered somewhere this bleak? Why hadn’t he noticed until a moment ago?

“I was wondering how to deal with you… and here you are, kindly taking that out for me yourself, Amon Vincent.”

— Crackle!

Deep behind the pupils Leonard had fixed on Amon, mana sparked and flashed.

“Thanks to you, I’ve made up my mind.”