[159] Clay Marsha (3)
"Anything's fine. Tell me everything you know, and I'll let you return to prison in peace."
Lucas kept silent. His little brain was racing.
He'd joined back when the Parrot group had been a thieves' gang, not the Parrot Mercenaries—so he had no real loyalty to Marsha. Confessing what he knew should have been easy.
But if he confessed now, he'd be locked away deep underground and never see daylight again.
"How about a deal?"
"A deal? What kind of deal?"
"I'll tell you everything I know about Marsha. In return, reduce my sentence. Just let me get out before I die, and I'll hand over whatever you want."
"Huh…."
Sakiri stared at Lucas in disbelief, then suddenly burst into laughter and stomped her feet.
"Ha ha ha ha!"
A desk crashed to the side. Sakiri sprang up and stalked over, shouting.
"You crazy bastard! Do you even know where you are right now?"
She kicked; Lucas and his chair toppled. Still not satisfied, she began stomping him where he lay.
But this time Lucas was desperate.
It made no difference whether he died here or elsewhere. If he didn't get what he needed now, his life was over.
"Hit me all you want! I'll never talk! That's why I'm offering a deal!"
Sakiri's foot froze mid-air.
Why were bad people always so brazen? If you didn't want to go to prison, don't commit crimes in the first place.
"Ugh, this is infuriating."
Sakiri calmed herself and turned away.
Even terrified, Lucas watched her closely. Stopping her kicking meant she was conflicted. If he could hold out a little longer, a window for negotiation might open.
But contrary to his hopes, Sakiri opened the interrogation-room door and issued a chilling order.
"Hey, disable the magic limiter in here."
A magic limiter was not the same as anti-magic. It was a mechanism meant to prevent magic from being triggered at all.
Of course it was itself a kind of magic, but very few thieves could break the runes laid down by first-class grand mages.
Lucas swallowed hard. He mustn't show fear. Sakiri was clearly making one last move. If he could survive this, maybe someday he could walk free again.
Sakiri waited calmly. After a moment, a low hum settled through the air.
Lucas couldn't tell what had changed, but Sakiri looked lighter as she tilted her head and came closer.
"Tell me everything you know about Marsha. If you withhold or lie, an unbearable terror will seize you."
"I—I won't say. I'll never say."
Sakiri ignored him. She reached out, closed her eyes, and spoke words like a spell.
"As judge, I command: a word answers a word. The Scales of Truth are yours alone."
Lucas went deathly pale.
He'd been wrong to think she was just a routine investigator. Sakiri was one of those people you never touched.
"Damn it!"
Ten minutes passed.
"Waaaaahhh!"
A ripping scream echoed through the interrogation room.
Lucas was near madness. Not even when his legs had been amputated had he felt pain like this.
"All right! I'll talk! I'll tell you everything, just stop this!"
The instant he cried out, the pain vanished as if it had never been.
Huddled in the corner, Lucas curled up like a frightened animal and looked up at Sakiri.
"The choice is yours. If you want relief, spill it willingly."
Lucas gave in. Silence and lies were no longer options.
Before Sakiri's magic—the Scales of Truth—no criminal could help but confess.
"Marsha is clever. She never slips up. She plays weak to make her opponents expose their entire strategy, and she always rigs things so you can never hate her."
"A typical con artist's trick, then."
"Heh, a con artist? No. Do you know why she's terrifying? It's not that she lies to deceive someone. Her whole life is a lie. You can't catch her by ordinary means."
"Hm. I see her tendencies. But that alone wouldn't make intelligence reports so inconsistent."
Sakiri propped her chin and thought. Then a possibility struck.
Even if others were unsure, he could be certain why the reports conflicted.
"Could it be? Perhaps she is—"
"Yeah. She's the same sort as you."
Relieved that the torture was over, Lucas forced strength into his voice.
"Marsha is… an Unregistered-Doctrine practitioner."
* * *
Shirone tried every means to analyze her. He couldn't figure it out. She was of a completely different temperament from anyone he had ever met.
"Want me… to kill you?"
"Heh. Sure. You hate me, don't you? Kill me if you like."
Shirone stopped thinking. If he couldn't find answers, he would hold to his conviction.
"If Yuna is safe, I have no reason to fight you."
A faint smile like a crack appeared at Marsha's lips.
As an offensive Spirit Zone stabbed in, Shirone instantly began to teleport.
'Huh?'
Shirone was startled. The Spirit Zone vanished and his teleportation unraveled.
At that moment a deafening roar from an acoustic cannon swept past, making his eardrums feel as if they were burning.
Unable to withstand the shock, Shirone rolled on the floor. Rian, wide-eyed, asked,
"What the—why is Shirone suddenly like that?"
Because the acoustic cannon compresses sound waves, the blast doesn't spread outward broadly. Their distant friends had only heard a piercing scream.
"That's an acoustic cannon. A kind of sound magic. But that's not the problem."
Tess chimed in at Amy's remark.
"Right. Shirone was affected."
A dark shadow crossed Amy's face. Shirone had clearly tried to evade by teleporting, but just before the spell activated, his photonic field collapsed.
"That's not 'affected'—it was stolen."
"Stolen? What could have been stolen?"
Amy verified through synesthesia. She saw the moment Marsha inhaled Shirone's Spirit Zone like dew.
"Probably… his mental power."
"No way. How can someone steal another person's mental power?"
Amy hurried over to Shirone.
A-class criminal Clay Marsha.
If their suspicions were right, this woman was extraordinarily dangerous.
"Shirone! Be careful! That woman's an Unregistered-Doctrine practitioner!"
Shirone jerked his head up. His ears felt damp with blood from the acoustic cannon, but his adamantine will remained intact.
"This is… Unregistered Doctrine?"
"Oh my, you know about Unregistered Doctrine? You guys are impressive. Long schooling shows."
Mages develop countless spells every day, and the Association registers them as regulated magic.
But there are magics that can never be registered—those are Unregistered Doctrine.
The tenets of Unregistered Doctrine are peculiar.
They aren't built on universally accepted facts, but on an individual's blind personal beliefs.
In short, these mages create their own rules and force them onto others.
Shirone remembered Shiina's lecture about Unregistered Doctrine.
"Omnipotence is faith. The photon's speed being classified into four categories, the flame's temperature changing, and plasma forming even at moderate heat—all happen because a mage's Omnipotence underpins the tenets."
Shiina had written the term Unregistered Doctrine on the board.
The unfamiliar word made the class buzz, but she continued without concern.
"However, there are those who privately use Omnipotence. Instead of supporting tenets, they twist the tenets themselves. The magic such people use is called Unregistered Doctrine."
"Teacher, I don't get it."
"All right, I'll explain. What's my job?"
"Obviously, you're a teacher."
"Right. I'm a teacher. Now—anyone here who doesn't think I'm a teacher, raise your hand."
No one raised a hand. That would be impossible. Knowing she was a teacher, denying it would be a contradiction.
"This is a feature of the mind. Unlike the body, once an idea enters the mind it isn't expelled. It's absorbed and reshaped into something new."
Shiina raised a finger for emphasis.
"In other words, other people's thoughts can apply to us, and the thoughts that make us up are gathered from others. Now I'll demonstrate Unregistered Doctrine."
Shiina stepped down from the lectern and looked the class over.
"Everyone who thinks I'm a teacher will die."
The students murmured. Some tried to deny it because her tone was serious, but in the end it was impossible.
The mind cannot be negated. It only changes.
"Teacher, is this… real?"
"Don't be alarmed. I'm explaining the mechanism. I'm not an Unregistered-Doctrine practitioner."
A few deflated voices sounded around the room.
Shiina adjusted her glasses and climbed back onto the lectern.
"Of course, reality isn't that simple. No matter how skilled, an Unregistered-Doctrine practitioner cannot kill someone by implanting an abstract concept alone. Unregistered Doctrine is still magic—the principle of equivalent exchange always applies."
A boy raised his hand.
"But couldn't someone like that exist? Some madman whose rule still fits equivalent exchange?"
"Possibly. But magic is born of reason. Someone that insane couldn't handle magic in the first place. And even if they could, it wouldn't work on you."
"Because the mind wouldn't even let them in?"
"Exactly. So Unregistered Doctrine carries heavy constraints and costs. For example, you could make a rule like this: anyone who thinks I'm a teacher must use honorifics toward me."
"Hey, that's obvious."
"Right. And that's what makes Unregistered Doctrine terrifying. Just as you take that for granted, the practitioner implants their rule in others and makes it seem natural. Then how about this: anyone who thinks I'm a teacher hates me."
"Ha! That's natural too!"
The students laughed. Shiina continued unfazed.
"Those who hate me must obey my words."
The laughter died down.
"Those who obey my words must die in front of me."
Silence fell over the classroom.
"This is one of the techniques of Unregistered Doctrine called 'constraints.' You impose certain constraints to expand a rule. Where logic leaps, you bind it to Omnipotence. Because they truly believe it, it happens. Once it sticks, there's no escape."
You could hear people swallowing. Was there really such a magic in the world? If it existed, you would never want to meet it.
"But the real difficulty with Unregistered Doctrine isn't the constraints—it's the cost. I said an abstract concept alone couldn't kill someone, but if a price is paid, things change. Watch now: anyone who does not think I'm a teacher will die."