As I jogged into the three-level shopping center, I couldn’t help but shudder. The Nagoya Tower often felt half-abandoned, but the shopping center was usually an exception. It seemed utterly wrong to hear my footsteps echo. Unless it was exceptionally early in the morning, there were always at least a few students milling around. It was the most reliable source of entertainment in the Tower, especially after they had put us on security lockdown after the attack on Mr. Maki.

There was some irony that they had locked us Holy Brothers in with them, but I wasn’t in the mood to analyze that. I didn’t see any sign of Rose or the others. I had to consider my approach carefully. I wouldn’t get another chance if I made a false move; all three girls were dangerous in their own ways, especially since I was out to bring them in peacefully. Wizard duels tend to be messy and short, which is why a smart wizard puts so much thought into his defenses.

I came to a stop in front of a water fountain near the creperie on the first floor. First, I fired a Magic Bolt through the glass storefront of the neighboring ice creamery, completely ripping the locked door from its hinges and showering the inside with a rain of razor-sharp shards.

Next, I created two Svalinn’s Mercy shields and willed them into position. One I slipped under the water line of the fountain and the last I plastered to the roof above me. Magical energy trickled out of me to support the shields. Most wizards considered Svalinn’s Mercy an expensive spell to cast, but I had the reserves to throw around. I made these structures thick and rounded. I knew how terribly sharp they normally were, and I wasn’t going to take any chances.

Speaking of which, it was time to load my trap. I swapped memory cards in the disguise wand. With an act of will, I became the Indonesian accountant. I’d managed to stitch together enough clothed pictures of him to preserve his dignity. I removed the fabricata mask while I was at it; I wasn’t eager to field test how the two magics would interact.

As I predicted, Rose arrived first. Thank the Dark Lord Yukiko had killed her elevator, or I’d have never beaten her. The baser parts of me thought she looked fetching in her white and green cadet uniform, though I noted that she had lost her beret somewhere along the line.

The diehard runner didn’t even pause to catch her breath before she was on high alert. I couldn’t help but be jealous of her endurance. Her green eyes locked on me. “Hold it right there! Who are you?”

I pasted a smile on my borrowed face. I had never gotten the voice files to load properly, but I had heard him talk about barely legal tax evasion in his SatoTube videos often enough to do a decent impression. “I’m Fadhlan. I work in the ice cream shop. You’re Rose, right?”

Nodding slowly, the blonde wizard came closer, her hands still ready for the casting. Smart girl. “You do seem familiar. Are you alright?”

“I am, but that boy isn’t,” I said, pointing through the ruined glass. “I think he’s a student. He stumbled in and passed out.”

The color drained from Rose’s freckled cheeks. “Soren?” She edged over to the door, more cautiously than I would have liked. She was understandably on edge, but that would make her harder to ambush. “I don’t see anything in there.”

“He’s in the back,” I said, stepping closer. “Come along, my dear, I’ll lead you right to him.”

A concentrated burst of wind sent me sprawling before I could say another word.

“There’s no Fadhlan who works at the ice cream shop,” she said. “And I know what you sound like when you’re putting on an accent, Soren. What are you doing?”

Our habit of imitating the Headmaster and other non-native English speakers with each other had come back to bite me. There was something to be said for tolerance or some such rubbish, but I didn’t have the mental energy to consider it too closely.

I didn’t let the disguise slip right away, since I was still dressed in my brotherhood uniform. “I couldn’t be sure it was you, Rose. Not after what happened at the Serving Wizards House.”

“So, what were you going to do, try and knock me out to check?”

“No, that would be absurd,” I said with a nervous chuckle. “What do you take me for? I was going to make sure you smelled like lavender.”

She lowered her hands. “Well, that just confirmed who you are. You’ve always been obsessed with that.”

“A simple observation is not an obsession!”

“If you said so,” she said with a fleeting grin. She was back to business soon enough. “What’s going on here, and why do you look like that?”

“There’s no time for that! We need to get moving!”

“Of course there’s bloody well time for it! Soren, your apartment was a disaster. There was broken glass everywhere, and everything that wasn’t nailed down was gone!”

“I suppose I was overdue for a good spring cleaning,” I said. “The Brotherhood apparently saw me as a threat after my performance before, and they wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be around to oppose them. I got away in the struggle, which is where I got the wand, but then the damn Peace Bond caught me! I only just got free. Now, what are you three doing up here? I thought I was by myself.”

There were some obvious holes in the story, but I knew I could count on Rose to give me the benefit of the doubt. As she rushed in and seized my hands with a relieved giggle, I almost wished I had been wrong. I certainly didn’t deserve it.

“You and Hiro went missing, you dummy! Of course we came looking! We got stuck in your room, but Yukiko was able to rip our uniforms with her Gravity Shift.” She took a step back without letting go of my hands. “Hiro! I almost forgot! Have you seen him?”

I shook my head. “The Holy Brotherhood must have gotten him, too. They’re sneaky like that. Do you know where the others are?”

She glanced back towards the stairwell. “They must have fallen behind. Kiyo’s not much of a runner, even without Lucile, and Yukiko’s been running herself ragged with her gravity magic, especially after that…” Her eyes flew wide open. “Soren, they have Mariko too! One of those slimy Holy Brothers knocked her out, and Lord knows what he was planning!”

“There’s nothing they won’t stoop to,” I murmured. The still-dripping Svalinn’s Mercy floated behind her head. With a thought, I could club her in the back of the head and take the most unpredictable opponent off the field.

Lucile objected again. A bullet smashed the magical structure into a sparkling powder. Bloody Hell, was that what one of her rubber bullets could do at close range? At least she wasn’t so damned loud in the shopping center’s open air.

“L-look out, Rose! He’s gotta be one of them!”

It was cold comfort, though. Kiyo’s chest visibly heaved from where she stood, even as she desperately worked Lucile’s bolt to clear the spent cartridge. The effort would have floored her when we first met. I might have been proud of my little Angel’s progress with her fitness if she hadn’t just spoiled my ambush.

Rose stood frozen in place, trying to piece together what she had just seen.

I wasn’t going to get a better chance. I could deal with Kiyo and her rifle much more easily if Rose wasn’t up and about. That’s why I had the spare Svalinn’s Mercy, after all. Not that I was eager to zap my first human friend into unconsciousness, but I had my duty. Still, I felt a leadenness in my limbs, as though my body revolved against the cowardly attack.

Wait, there was that scent of sandalwood again…

Blast it all, it wasn’t my imagination! Yukiko had finally caught up, an imperious scowl on her face as she grabbed me with her Gravity Shift. I always counted her as the loveliest human I knew, on a purely technical level, though her intense scowl ruined the effect.

Seeing that Rose was still startled, and Kiyo was still loading, I sent the blunted shield straight at Yukiko. Her eyes widened in shock, and the feeling returned to my limbs.

Shouting something that wouldn’t do the Sato family proud, she rolled out of the way. I had long since learned that her affinity wouldn’t affect energy constructs, and my magical bludgeon hammered her right shoulder. Her white cadet’s uniform flashed red at the point of impact, the magically powered armor likely saving her from a broken collarbone. I still bowled her over, which was enough for my purposes. Gravity weakens with distance, so I dashed towards a nearby set of stairs.

“Stop right there!” I had a moment of hope when I didn’t feel an impact. Unfortunately, Kiyo was a crack shot. She wasn’t about to miss her mark. My world was thrown into chaos as a Flashbang went off over my head. It wasn’t the first time I had been the victim of the spell; it was a popular way to soften us up in England. That didn’t make the blast any easier to cope with, though.

Annoyingly, I’d charged the stupid thing for her. I hadn’t expected her fabricata rubber bullets to see any action, but it had been an excuse to hang out with her a few nights before.

I stumbled blindly. “Focus, focus!” My Mimic Sight snapped into place. Even though the chaff of the disintegrated bullet, I could clearly make out their shapes. Rose lay prone near where I’d left her. Good; she had been caught in the crossfire, and she didn’t have my experience.

Yukiko was back on her feet, and the outlines around her arms flashed a moment before something solid struck me in the back. My hidden uniform’s chest plate creaked in protest, and I felt the fabricate-enhanced armor draw a fraction of my magical reserves away. “Probably a Magic Bolt,” I muttered as I clambered up the stairs. “It’s the textbook response, and that girl is the textbook.” That would be a nasty bruise in the morning, assuming I saw the morning.

I cast a Trivial Heal on my face, which undid enough damage that I could make out my pursuers. They weren’t far behind me, reaching the bottom of the stairs as I cleared the top.

“Who is he?” demanded Yukiko.

“Heck if I know, man,” said Kiyo. “He’s a wizard, and he was about to brain Rose. Figured it was safe to start blasting.”

“We want him alive,” replied Yukiko. “We need answers.”

“If he’s a Holy Brother, he’s lucky these are all rubber,” growled Kiyo, punctuating her words with the familiar clunk of Lucile accepting a new bullet.

The world had stopped spinning, which meant I had to stop stalling and come up with a plan. I was outnumbered, but at least we were all pulling our punches. In the worst case, I just had to wait for Ratte’s reinforcements to enter the fray.

Not that I wanted to give them the chance. They weren’t likely to be as gentle as I was.

I realized that was an ironic sentiment as I slipped on the fabricata brass knuckles I had procured earlier, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. Besides, I still owed Yukiko for my first War Game.

The second level had the same row of shops, park benches, and decorative plants as the first, though it was narrower. The three levels of the shopping center would have a triangular shape from the side, tapering towards the top to give more open air to the lower levels. Another waste of space, but I didn’t mind; I would rather deal with Lucile at melee range.

I managed to lose them for a moment, ducking into the open door of the uniform shop. A row of girls’ vests made fine cover, though the long-sleeved winter uniforms would have been better.

I couldn’t make out what they said, but it sounded argumentative. Probably bickering about which way I had gone. Their footsteps passed me by at a methodical pace. I hadn’t realized I had been holding my breath. It had seemed like a small eternity. After all, if they had spotted me, another Flashbang bullet in those close quarters would have been game over for me.

I wished I had mastered Tachibana’s knack for silent spellcasting. I wasn’t about to announce myself, and I didn’t much care to light either of them on fire with my newly mimicked spell. Oh, well; I always liked to boast about my improvisational skills, though I was drawing a blank. Still, I didn’t like my odds in a close-range fight, especially when I knew my heart wouldn’t be in it.

I stood up, noticing a rack of hanging men’s uniforms, and the one at the end looked about my size.

In a moment, I was doffing my Holy Brother uniform, though I kept the mask and my other backup fabricata. “You might have gone soft, Malthus, but at least you’re still quick on your feet.”