Tokyo Ravens - Volume 7 - Chapter 1.1

Chapter 1 - Encounter 
Listen, don't you dare forget this, it's a promise. 
Of course, the boy had probably forgotten. 
The vast courtyard of an old residence. The lost ribbon. The time spent by those two searching for it. The exchanged silly conversation. That memory from childhood was no more than a few hours, so it would be natural to have forgotten about it. That small, fleeting memory. 
But the girl didn't forget. Even many years after that, she couldn't forget. 
It was resentful and sad that the boy had. 
However right now, that would do. Once more, with a fresh beginning. It was fine to start over from scratch. 
It was a wonderful thing to be able to fall in love with him twice. 
That's right, she thought. 

Part 1 
Two ravens spread their wings under the thick, dense gray clouds. 
An elderly black raven danced in a competition of magic with a young white one. 
Magic flew like splashing waterfalls, scattering to the surroundings, mixing with the wind, integrating with the air, and stirring the aura. The two ravens danced within thick aura. 
They bathed in aura. 
Absorbing it. 
Feeling it. 
Harutora focused all of his attention. 
It was the first time since he had been born that he sincerely and seriously wanted to 'learn'. His eyes didn't blink. He couldn't miss even a moment. He wanted to perceive time and space together and grasp onto the high-level battle in front of him, absorbing it into his body. He wanted to open all of his senses. 
The movements of the fingers' seals. The paths of the charms thrown into the air. The intonation of incantations. The flow of magical energy. The swirl of aura. The techniques of practitioners. 
It held a deep complexity, but he could believe that there was a certain simple 'core' that the sophisticated system combined with the 'strength' inherited from ancient times. 
What were the Kuji-in [1] ? 
And what meaning did mantras have? 
Conflict and rebirth. The pentagram and the circle. 
What was the five elements? 
And what did yin and yang mean? 
The truth and the answer to these questions moved vividly in front of him. The systems that had been hidden in the world - no, the systems that had been forgotten by many were resuscitated by these excellent practitioners and were currently operating. The tremendous scale was sometimes surprising, and sometimes it was delicate and precise. Moreover, it was daring, ingenious, swift, and powerful. 
The black raven had mentioned a 'competition of magic'. This was actually a contest of some sort, a game that obeyed set rules. When they fought with their common system as a stage, the side that understood the rules more deeply, trained techniques more attentively, faced things more calmly, and was more unyielding would triumph. 
The victor of this 'magic' world. 
Now, the aura that the two parties of the battle released reflected the contours of 'magic'. When it was infused with a stronger magical energy, the existence of 'magic' would become even clearer. The scene before them deeply fascinated Harutora. 
Yes...... 
He was fascinated deeply indeed. 
He watched whole-heartedly, wanting to engrave it in his heart...... At least at first. 
But. 
...Damn. 
After the battle ended. 
The more he thought, the more agitated he got. 
He couldn't touch the nature of his anxiety. 
At the time, he had just been overwhelmed by the pressure. But even recalling afterwards, the important parts still felt strange, like a photograph that had been taken while he had been moving. The more he looked at it in detail, the more obvious it was that it was slightly out of focus. He made every effort to reproduce it, but when he approached the depths step by step, it became vague and unclear. Being in reach of it but being unable to touch it made him incredibly anxious. 
The thing he had vaguely learned at the time could very well be a mistake. His extreme fatigue and tension had produced wishful thinking that couldn't possibly exist. His condition back then had been too abnormal - that was something he couldn't change. 
But even so, what he felt back then had been real. 
It wasn't like his memory had become poor. 
It hadn't become poor, it was just insufficient. 
The more he calmly recalled afterwards, the more insufficiencies there were in him. He wanted to stop the battle from back then. There were things he hadn't seen - he hadn't completely sensed the decisive portions. He had that sort of understanding. 
In closing, he was just not matured enough. At best, he was just an uninitiated novice. Anyway, he was only at this kind of level - his mood started becoming bad. 
But...... 
Before he realized, Harutora was compensating for his insufficient areas with imagination and constantly challenging them one by one. He was struggling to approach the nature of the magic that he had felt from that battle. 
He lamented his immaturity and smiled bitterly at his arrogance, but he still couldn't give up. 
Honestly, this weighty trial and error was even more exhausting than he had imagined. 

What was magic? 
Harutora was thinking. 
And as the person himself was unaware - he went deeper and deeper. 
"H, Harutora? Harutora!" 
His childhood friend's familiar voice made Tsuchimikado Harutora come to his senses in a snap. 
"Uwah!" 
Two giant crows flapped their wings and flew in front of him. The simple shikigami Harutora controlled had become huge compared to when they had been created, and they were currently losing control. Harutora frantically tightened his grip on them, putting his consciousness in the simple shikigami. In the next moment, the two simple shikigami suddenly stopped moving in midair. 
The two crows swelled to the point where their wingspan was about one meter. Since they had suddenly gained weight after they stopped moving in midair, they fell while flapping their wings. After they fell to the ground, they turned back into two shikigami charms. 
Hah. Tsuchimikado Natsume let out the breath she had been holding. The practical skills teacher, who had been prepared, smiled wryly. 
"......Dangerous, dangerous. What's wrong, Tsuchimikado-kun? You were doing quite well." 
"Ah, well." 
"Something drew your attention? That won't do. Being distracted while using magic is extremely dangerous. It's the same as driving a car, you could injure others. Please always realize that." 
"Yes. Sorry......" 
Harutora lowered his head shamefully. The teacher smiled slightly, but didn't show any forgiveness for such a naive attitude. He nodded with a solemn expression. 
This was something that happened during practical skills coursework. 
His classmates all breathed again and the tension eased, with waves of laughter going through the room. The red-faced Harutora hastily picked up the shikigami charms. 
"Give me a break, Harutora~" 
"You really scared me to death." 
"S, sorry......" 
"Ah, but it was very powerful, that thing just now." 
"Yeah, it was incredible up to halfway through." 
His classmates chatted openly to the shamed Harutora. The reason most of them wore smiles was probably because Harutora was a good person. 
"If you think about it, it's actually pretty good progress. At the first, even using a simple shikigami charm was tough." 
"Well, though it was still off, just like before." 
"......Tch, I guess I'm just easily distracted." 
Harutora's self-deprecation made the classroom suddenly break out in laughter. After the red-faced Natsume heard the evaluation that Harutora had grown, she also showed a happy expression. 
Actually, even without Natsume's biased view, the simple shikigami just now had been completed quite well. Harutora's magical energy output had originally been overly strong, but recently he had learned appropriate manipulation techniques. 
However, he kept making small errors, he wasn't completely familiar with the magic, and the problems were overall very conspicuous. 
But compared to the situation when he entered the academy, it was as if he had been reborn. Especially his grades related to practical skills. He had already become ranked in the top of the class. This was also relying on the several real battles he had inadvertently experienced. 
The teacher's face was bitter. He didn't know how to evaluate it. 
"Anyway, if you rashly allow your shikigami to go out of control, you might instantly be surrounded by exorcists and then become a responsibility for me to oversee. Please use your magic carefully." 
"U, Understood! I'll focus carefully next time!' 
The teacher jabbed at him slightly, and Harutora replied with a pained face. 
Actually, Harutora and the others weren't at their familiar academy building right now. That academy building - the academy building that had been newly constructed after forty-seven classes of students - was being repaired now. 
The reason was obviously the incident that had happened last month. The mysterious Onmyouji 'D' - the man who called himself Ashiya Doman - had attacked the academy building. 
That incident had created huge news over the country, and fortunately no one had died or been severely injured. But the academy building itself had been ravaged by 'D's shikigami, which had caused severe destruction to the interior. Because it was a newly-constructed building, the damage to the foundations was small, but needless to say, they couldn't go about business as usual, nor could they repair while holding classes. 
Hence, in the week after the incident, the Onmyou Academy decided to temporarily close off the academy building for repairs. In this period of time, they would borrow a different building for coursework. 
The place that had been chosen to be 'borrowed' was relatively close to Shibuya. It was a relatively large, magic-related facility - the Onmyou Agency Exorcist Bureau branch in Meguro. 
Right now, Harutora's class was using the Meguro branch's training room. Professional exorcists would carry out their normal magic training here. Though it was a bit cramped when compared to the magic practice field underneath the academy building, it was enough for one class to hold a practical skills class. Needless to say, it seemed a bit wasteful to have students using this place. 
Also, there were several meeting rooms being used as classrooms, which was very convenient. Though the Onmyou Academy was a training institution formally recognized by the Onmyou Agency, it probably had to do with Principal Kurahashi's personal connections that the Exorcist Bureau had accommodated them to this degree. 
"Well, though I don't really want everyone to know, my father is the Exorcist Bureau's boss." 
Principal Kurahashi's granddaughter, their classmate Kurahashi Kyouko, had quietly explained this to Harutora and the others after the borrowing had been decided. Her father - also the principal's son - Kurahashi Genji was currently the chief of the Onmyou Agency, and simultaneously held a position as the head of the Exorcist Bureau. Of course, it was very easy to communicate the wishes of the Onmyou Academy. 
Moreover, the Onmyou Agency couldn't stay out since the Onmyou Academy had been attacked. Astonishingly, 'D' had attacked the main branch of the Onmyou Agency at the same time as he had attacked the Onmyou Academy. Though the damage to the Onmyou Agency ended up being light, the Onmyou Academy - an educational facility where many minors were gathered - had suffered heavy damage in its place, thoroughly shaming the Onmyou Agency. In that kind of situation, it was very hard to refuse the Onmyou Academy's proposal. 
Even so, the Meguro branch wasn't enough to accommodate all of the students. Hence, the theory curriculum was scattered across other public facilities and various colleges, leading to severe changes in the instructional plans. But chaos hadn't happened, probably because of the teachers' determination to do their part. 
But there were changes. 
After the attack, there were quite a few students who had left the Onmyou Academy. In particular, there had been about ten students in each class of the newly-entered first-years who had withdrawn from the academy. Even among the people who stayed in the Onmyou Academy, most of them still hadn't left their shock from the incident. 
It hadn't been his own fault...... Harutora and the others, who couldn't assert that, felt extremely bitter. The only thing they could take consolation in was that no one had left Harutora's class, at least. 
Harutora returned to his seat. The teacher clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention. 
"The place has changed, our environment has changed, but the magic we are studying has not changed. You still need to learn many things, so continue studying."