Mahouka LN - Prologue of Disturbance (Volumes 21 & 22) Discussion / Poll

[pampz21]

Originally Posted by azarhal

Erika's assessment was totally correct there. She said if he had to decided between the 5 of them or Miyuki, he will save Miyuki. She wasn't talking about a situation were all can be saved, but a situation where Tatsuya has to make a choices.

and there was no Tatsuya vs Juumonji battle.

Oh if there are no choices I guess she's right.

what is it a cliff?

[Aika Natsume]

I guess the other houses are in dilema whether:

(Enemies)1. Isolate Yotsuba to remove power from them but then again they realize theyre too afraid that if that happens, Yotsuba is already a faction that might be stronger than all of them combined.
Thus destroying the Japanese Magic Community and the Ten Master Clan's power balance.

(Neutral)2. Keep Yotsuba despite what Tatsuya did. Even though their pride was hurt, they are afraid Yotsuba might retaliate if ever they oppose.

(Allies for now)3. Support Yotsuba whatever happens because again, the fear surrounding the Yotsuba has much greater effect.

With the next book "Isolation" i Hope Satroll goes deeper on how Yotsuba manage things especially in case they RETALIATE to Tooyama Clan.

Is there anyway Tooyama tsukasa? (I forgot the name of the enemy girl) ever battle Miyuki and somewhat bruise her or anything, or defeat her for a second so Yotsuba can retaliate?????

[Jirachier]

I'm really frustrated with Tatsuya's reaction to people disrupting his life, it's become a recurring theme where people make plans that are antagonistic toward Tatsuya and they receive no consequences unless they're complete randoms that don't matter in which case Tatsuya turns them into dust.

First in the visitor arc Lina and her companions were trying to either kill or capture Tatsuya and bring him back to the USNA to experiment on him, what was their punishment ? absolutely nothing and Tatsuya tells us how he doesn't want to kill another strategic-class magician since it would cause the world's power balance to shift again but somehow that doesn't go both ways and USNA had no problem attempting to murder Tatsuya, keep in mind they even went as far as to infiltrate another country to do so and initiate the attack while Tatsuya would just be defending himself in his own country.

In the Steeplechase arc we had Kudou Retsu conducting experiments in what could be considered "Tatsuya's territory", he was even happy it provoked Tatsuya into fighting the parasites to showcase their abilities, Kazama was also manipulating Tatsuya and keeping information from him and even Fujiyabashi wanted to use Tatsuya for her own clan's benefit and the only consequence for all their actions was Kudou family losing their status temporarily, something they'll be able to regain soon and it wasn't even because of Tatsuya that it happened, it was just something Maya wanted.

In the Yotsuba Succession arc we had several members from the Yotsuba sending people to fight Tatsuya to prevent him and Miyuki from reaching the Main House and they expressed their desire to seal his MB forever, again no repercussions Tatsuya just moves on.

And Now Tsukasa has the nerves to test Tatsuya's loyalty followed by an attempt on his life but a simple interference from Katsuto makes him step down ?
Also the USNA sends people to spy on Tatsuya and not only does he not kill them, he's the one who saves them..

The author wants to portray Tatsuya as someone who's not affected by emotions and that's why he makes these supposedly calculated decisions to end conflicts in the best ways possible but the reality is different, if you never show your enemies what happens to those that provoke you how do you expect them to stop their seemingly endless efforts to drag you into situations you would rather avoid. We even had an entire arc about how the Yotsuba destroyed a country for revenge and now everyone is afraid of them and calls them "The Untouchable".
It's like there are two set of standards for powerful characters in mahouka, one for Tatsuya and one for everyone else, when Maya was on a phone call with the colonel Virginia Balance the latter was terrified by the idea of Maya potentially having a similar ability to her father which allowed him to kill people just from seeing them on camera when it's probably well known Maya's magical talents don't lie in Mental Interference Magic but when it comes to Tatsuya who can kill anyone on the face of the earth from his living room without even requiring any medium thanks to Elemental Sight not to mention his ability to potentially destroy planet earth whenever he wishes with MB but somehow that doesn't seem to matter at all.

[mashingan]

Originally Posted by Aika Natsume

Is there anyway Tooyama tsukasa? (I forgot the name of the enemy girl) ever battle Miyuki and somewhat bruise her or anything, or defeat her for a second so Yotsuba can retaliate?????

There's no way. Tsukasa's power solely to defend no attack power. Her position, or rather Tooyama clan position, was sought in govt because of absolute barrier (by their current standard attack method) against any attack.
And because of their affiliation to govt/army, they're clan that would never be able to be 10 MC.

Originally Posted by Jirachier

First in the visitor arc Lina ...

In the Steeplechase arc we had Kudou Retsu conducting experiments...

First, Lina's position was the same as Tatsuya so Tatsuya saw her as someone who share the same fate with him. The only different was, Tatsuya had Miyuki while Lina had no one to support her. It's logical to have Lina as comrade instead of enemy.

Second, Tatsuya understood entirely Retsu's intention. If Miyuki didn't participate that steeplechase event, Tatsuya wouldn't bother to stop the experiment.
Tatsuya stopped it because it would hinder Miyuki's school life so any chance to disturb Miyuki's life should be removed swiftly.

[Jirachier]

First, Lina's position was the same as Tatsuya so Tatsuya saw her as someone who share the same fate with him. The only different was, Tatsuya had Miyuki while Lina had no one to support her. It's logical to have Lina as comrade instead of enemy.

I don't agree with that assessment because the resolution of that conflict was entirely in Tatsuya's hand, Lina was ready to carry out her mission if not for Tatsuya beating her, but when she's entirely in his mercy he chooses to let her go, if it was a mutual decision where both sides chose to take a step back before the fight then sure. And even if I were to agree with this it doesn't change that somebody on the USNA's side is responsible, if it's not Lina then her superiors so it goes back to my point that no one got punished.

Second, Tatsuya understood entirely Retsu's intention. If Miyuki didn't participate that steeplechase event, Tatsuya wouldn't bother to stop the experiment.
Tatsuya stopped it because it would hinder Miyuki's school life so any chance to disturb Miyuki's life should be removed swiftly.

Sympathizing with Kudou Retsu is one thing, it's another have him completely disregard the fact that you're extremely likely to have your sister participate in one of the events where the experiment is conducted, even if it's not his sister it could've involved one of Tatsuya's close friends. Carry out your experiments in a military base or something.

You didn't mention the other part of my post, does that mean you agreed with the rest ?

[mashingan]

Originally Posted by TrueAlchemist

@mashingan in this volume, isn't there anyone behind Tsukasa? Did the volume indicate any motivation behind her action?

Originally Posted by Plumme

Thanks Mashigan! Oh wow. Someone shoot this Tsukasa gal. Have you read all chapters so far? How about her motivation then? What is her actual solid reasoning behind testing Tatsuya and then sudden decision to eliminate him?

And Katsuto vs Tatsuya didnt actually happen? Eeeh
Rather disappointing.

From what I read so far, no indication about Tsukasa's backer in army (just read about half of the book).

Spoiler for In the chapter 5:

Since Tatsuya already warned by Yakumo, Tatsuya had been spying his surrounding and found the exact same situation as one year ago when Vampire incident happened.
The attackers were Stardust but under puppetry spell. It's about same as Gu Jie's spell with different the puppet is still living but had psion imbued within their body.
The different with last scenario, this time Tatsuya walked to where people still there,
so Tsukasa deduced Tatsuya isn't an idealist.
Tatsuya fight without any magic, or so because no recorded psion in sensor but Tsukasa thought Tatsuya has skill to invoke discernible magic against psion sensor.

Tsukasa target not only Tatsuya, but Miyuki as well (still reading this part)

In Miyuki's etiquette school, the attackers used cast jamming but Miyuki finally had chance to test her new magic, taught by Tatsuya, Freeze Gram, an anti-arts magic. (or you can say anti-magic magic ) Yo, I heard you don't like magic so I made a magic so you can deny magic with magic
Even the jamming psion noise itself was freezed by Miyuki's new magic.

[mashingan]

Originally Posted by Jirachier

I don't agree with that assessment because the resolution of that conflict was entirely in Tatsuya's hand, Lina was ready to carry out her mission if not for Tatsuya beating her, but when she's entirely in his mercy he chooses to let her go, if it was a mutual decision where both sides chose to take a step back before the fight then sure. And even if I were to agree with this it doesn't change that somebody on the USNA's side is responsible, if it's not Lina then her superiors so it goes back to my point that no one got punished.

Tatsuya thought he was helped because Lina's naivety.
During fight against Miyuki, she honestly thought of preparing and invoking spell only after sign of starting duel, while Miyuki prepared before hand and readily invoking it after the sign.
During her fight against Tatsuya, she honestly aiming Tatsuya's hand in order not to kill him and just listening to Tatsuya's rambling about FAE and surprised when Tatsuya's hand back even after burned to dust.
All in all, Lina's just honest girl to the core. Honestly fulfills her mission, honestly interacts with someone who can close to her, honestly interested in Tatsuya both in good and bad ways.
You never able to put the fault to the soldier, because a soldier only did what he/she was ordered. And all Lina did was following the order.

Originally Posted by Jirachier

Sympathizing with Kudou Retsu is one thing, it's another have him completely disregard the fact that you're extremely likely to have your sister participate in one of the events where the experiment is conducted, even if it's not his sister it could've involved one of Tatsuya's close friends. Carry out your experiments in a military base or something.

You didn't mention the other part of my post, does that mean you agreed with the rest ?

Of course, normally using students as guinea pig is wrong in many ways. But if the result can justify it, then more or less it permissible (in Mahouka's universe I mean).
Also Kudou clan already got their punishment, by forced expulsion from 10MC member. Retsu didn't regret his decision but since the experiment didn't yield acceptable result, nothing can justify what he done (although the main reason of expulsion is because Makoto was cooperating with Zhou Gongjin before).

For the rest, I haven't read it carefully so I still cannot answer it.

[Jirachier]

Tatsuya thought he was helped because Lina's naivety.
During fight against Miyuki, she honestly thought of preparing and invoking spell only after sign of starting duel, while Miyuki prepared before hand and readily invoking it after the sign.
During her fight against Tatsuya, she honestly aiming Tatsuya's hand in order not to kill him and just listening to Tatsuya's rambling about FAE and surprised when Tatsuya's hand back even after burned to dust.
All in all, Lina's just honest girl to the core. Honestly fulfills her mission, honestly interacts with someone who can close to her, honestly interested in Tatsuya both in good and bad ways.
You never able to put the fault to the soldier, because a soldier only did what he/she was ordered. And all Lina did was following the order.

Even if she was truly just trying to knock him out and not kill him, again that's only so she can take him back to her country to be experimented on, how is that detail not relevant lol.
Being a soldier that follows orders doesn't mean you're never at fault, you made the choice to be a soldier and chose not to quit, I know it would be very difficult to do so considering her powers USNA wouldn't want to that to happen but that's still a choice, the choice to commit horrible acts instead of trying to leave the army if what they're asking you doesn't conform with your morality.

Of course, normally using students as guinea pig is wrong in many ways. But if the result can justify it, then more or less it permissible (in Mahouka's universe I mean).
Also Kudou clan already got their punishment, by forced expulsion from 10MC member. Retsu didn't regret his decision but since the experiment didn't yield acceptable result, nothing can justify what he done (although the main reason of expulsion is because Makoto was cooperating with Zhou Gongjin before).

I'm not arguing against Kudou Restu's main objective with his experiment and whether it was right or wrong, it's more about his choice to ignore the fact that Tatsuya is heavily involved in the Nine School Competitions and still chose that as his location to test out his parasite dolls, not afraid to incur the wrath of Tatsuya.

My overall point is that characters that somewhat matter are never afraid to drag Tatsuya into problems and he constantly decides to let their provocations go unpunished makes it so they will continue to do so. What's the point of being so powerful if everyone knows you're never going to unleash that power upon them if they threaten your peaceful life.

[zerosum]

Originally Posted by Jirachier

Even if she was truly just trying to knock him out and not kill him, again that's only so she can take him back to her country to be experimented on, how is that detail not relevant lol.
Being a soldier that follows orders doesn't mean you're never at fault, you made the choice to be a soldier and chose not to quit, I know it would be very difficult to do so considering her powers USNA wouldn't want to that to happen but that's still a choice, the choice to commit horrible acts instead of trying to leave the army if what they're asking you doesn't conform with your morality.



I'm not arguing against Kudou Restu's main objective with his experiment and whether it was right or wrong, it's more about his choice to ignore the fact that Tatsuya is heavily involved in the Nine School Competitions and still chose that as his location to test out his parasite dolls, not afraid to incur the wrath of Tatsuya.

My overall point is that characters that somewhat matter are never afraid to drag Tatsuya into problems and he constantly decides to let their provocations go unpunished makes it so they will continue to do so. What's the point of being so powerful if everyone knows you're never going to unleash that power upon them if they threaten your peaceful life.

OMG Jirachier, are you still in the surface well good for you

[Jirachier]

Originally Posted by zerosum

OMG Jirachier, are you still in the surface well good for you

I'm not sure what you mean but thanks ?

[mashingan]

Originally Posted by Jirachier

Even if she was truly just trying to knock him out and not kill him, again that's only so she can take him back to her country to be experimented on, how is that detail not relevant lol.
Being a soldier that follows orders doesn't mean you're never at fault, you made the choice to be a soldier and chose not to quit, I know it would be very difficult to do so considering her powers USNA wouldn't want to that to happen but that's still a choice, the choice to commit horrible acts instead of trying to leave the army if what they're asking you doesn't conform with your morality.

I can't deny nor agree with your point.
But I guess there's thing that we can agree for, that whole operation was faulty at the very first, hahaha.
Lina wasn't trained in infiltration, during espionage mission then shifted to hunting the deserters, hesitated decision to neutralize Tatsuya, the USNA embassy ship embarrassingly malfunction when they were going to run away, it's whole messed up operations

Originally Posted by Jirachier

I'm not arguing against Kudou Restu's main objective with his experiment and whether it was right or wrong, it's more about his choice to ignore the fact that Tatsuya is heavily involved in the Nine School Competitions and still chose that as his location to test out his parasite dolls, not afraid to incur the wrath of Tatsuya.

My overall point is that characters that somewhat matter are never afraid to drag Tatsuya into problems and he constantly decides to let their provocations go unpunished makes it so they will continue to do so. What's the point of being so powerful if everyone knows you're never going to unleash that power upon them if they threaten your peaceful life.

Ah, now I got your point.

Let me iterate, Tatsuya isn't strong at all. In term of personal combat, he's sure strong, but in term of organizational strength, he's practically very weak. Just recently he had "official" back up from Yotsuba after his status elevation from mere guardian to Maya's "son".

Also let me quote interesting conversation from Toaru Majutsu no Index between Accelerator and Misaka Serial Number 10032

Misaka 10032: There are still 3 minutes 20 seconds before experiment starts. Have you finished you preparation?
Accelerator : It's still 3 minutes, so let's chat a bit. It's good for killing time.
Misaka 10032: Misaka doesn't understand what your intention with it, but to be sure let Misaka confirm whether you're involved in this experiment. Please mention your encoded password.
Accelerator : Sigh, the purpose of this experiment is to make me stronger so don't bother ask me that.
Misaka 10032: Misaka doesn't understand why you need to be stronger, you're already the strongest esper in Academic City.
Accelerator : You know, my strength is only at level, "hey let's pick a fight with him", within those thugs. That's not good at all. What I want is absolute power. Even the thought of picking a fight with me already meaningless because of my power. I want that kind of strength.
....

See, even Accelerator didn't see himself the strongest at all. And it proved by Kamijou Touma with a punch in the face (Strongest vs Weakest)

[Jirachier]

Originally Posted by mashingan

I can't deny nor agree with your point.
But I guess there's thing that we can agree for, that whole operation was faulty at the very first, hahaha.
Lina wasn't trained in infiltration, during espionage mission then shifted to hunting the deserters, hesitated decision to neutralize Tatsuya, the USNA embassy ship embarrassingly malfunction when they were going to run away, it's whole messed up operations

Yeah it was pretty messed up

Originally Posted by mashingan

Ah, now I got your point.

Let me iterate, Tatsuya isn't strong at all. In term of personal combat, he's sure strong, but in term of organizational strength, he's practically very weak. Just recently he had "official" back up from Yotsuba after his status elevation from mere guardian to Maya's "son".

Also let me quote interesting conversation from Toaru Majutsu no Index between Accelerator and Misaka Serial Number 10032

See, even Accelerator didn't see himself the strongest at all. And it proved by Kamijou Touma with a punch in the face (Strongest vs Weakest)

Is that really the case though ? I feel as if Tatsuya is in an unusual position compared to other powerful magicians, first of all he's not just a very strong magician, he's well positioned within the absolute top of combat magicians in the entire world if not the actual number one.
Can Tatsuya walk into one of the super strong organizations/clans by himself and beat all of their magicians combined at the same time ? of course not but he is still an extremely fearsome opponent because his abilities aren't just limited to fighting people head on and either winning or losing. He can assassinate anybody he wants from extreme long range and there is virtually nothing you can do about it.
He can also create a small scale MB explosion to kill the members of an entire organization in one go from afar, that might sound excessive but it's still an option available to him so when you're facing Tatsuya you're not just going up against a magician that if you just gather a few powerful magicians he can do nothing to you on the contrary Tatsuya holds the lives of every single human alive in his hand at all times, one wrong move by any of these entities that provoked him and it could've very well ended in their complete eradication had Miyuki faced a serious injury, just ask the people who got turned into dust or nuked in the reminiscence arc lol. Imagine if Tatsuya was alive at the time when Maya got kidnapped then rescued, nobody would have been sent into that country to get revenge it would've just been Tatsuya single handedly using MB to erase it off the face of the earth, so he really can't be compared to the likes of Masaki or Juumonji.

[Gohanish]

@jirachier

i do agree with you but i think the main reason all of that happened was because tatsuya knew if he started killing he won't see the end of it . Unless he gets the world ended ,but where will miyuki's happy life go to . The yotsuba are indeed powerful and feared but not to the extent that they can't be taken care of. He inspires unimaginable fear among men but those who know of his fear know of his sister too . He is walking on a fine line and the author managed to not let him slip . Well i do agree the kudou arc was pretty stupid but i only think of it as the doings of a drunk man . In this arc too him leaving her without any repercussion was a bad move , at least should have been crippled .Well he can sure conquer the world , just have to get a few warning shots in the sky and it's done , but will miyuki get the life he has envisioned only he knows the answer .

[bakato]

Originally Posted by Jirachier

I'm really frustrated with Tatsuya's reaction to people disrupting his life, it's become a recurring theme where people make plans that are antagonistic toward Tatsuya and they receive no consequences unless they're complete randoms that don't matter in which case Tatsuya turns them into dust.

First in the visitor arc Lina and her companions were trying to either kill or capture Tatsuya and bring him back to the USNA to experiment on him, what was their punishment ? absolutely nothing and Tatsuya tells us how he doesn't want to kill another strategic-class magician since it would cause the world's power balance to shift again but somehow that doesn't go both ways and USNA had no problem attempting to murder Tatsuya, keep in mind they even went as far as to infiltrate another country to do so and initiate the attack while Tatsuya would just be defending himself in his own country.

In the Steeplechase arc we had Kudou Retsu conducting experiments in what could be considered "Tatsuya's territory", he was even happy it provoked Tatsuya into fighting the parasites to showcase their abilities, Kazama was also manipulating Tatsuya and keeping information from him and even Fujiyabashi wanted to use Tatsuya for her own clan's benefit and the only consequence for all their actions was Kudou family losing their status temporarily, something they'll be able to regain soon and it wasn't even because of Tatsuya that it happened, it was just something Maya wanted.

In the Yotsuba Succession arc we had several members from the Yotsuba sending people to fight Tatsuya to prevent him and Miyuki from reaching the Main House and they expressed their desire to seal his MB forever, again no repercussions Tatsuya just moves on.

And Now Tsukasa has the nerves to test Tatsuya's loyalty followed by an attempt on his life but a simple interference from Katsuto makes him step down ?
Also the USNA sends people to spy on Tatsuya and not only does he not kill them, he's the one who saves them..

The author wants to portray Tatsuya as someone who's not affected by emotions and that's why he makes these supposedly calculated decisions to end conflicts in the best ways possible but the reality is different, if you never show your enemies what happens to those that provoke you how do you expect them to stop their seemingly endless efforts to drag you into situations you would rather avoid. We even had an entire arc about how the Yotsuba destroyed a country for revenge and now everyone is afraid of them and calls them "The Untouchable".
It's like there are two set of standards for powerful characters in mahouka, one for Tatsuya and one for everyone else, when Maya was on a phone call with the colonel Virginia Balance the latter was terrified by the idea of Maya potentially having a similar ability to her father which allowed him to kill people just from seeing them on camera when it's probably well known Maya's magical talents don't lie in Mental Interference Magic but when it comes to Tatsuya who can kill anyone on the face of the earth from his living room without even requiring any medium thanks to Elemental Sight not to mention his ability to potentially destroy planet earth whenever he wishes with MB but somehow that doesn't seem to matter at all.

You're taking this too personally. With Lina, their positions were different. Lina is a registered Apostle, while Tatsuya is unknown. Killing her would cause a political storm in an already unstable political climate, but Tatsuya's death probably wouldn't rock the boat too much. After confiscating Lina's belongings and leaving her out to dry with no money or phone in the middle of the night, which was pretty amusing, he contacted Maya and had the Yotsuba clean up and get the USNA off his back.

The Steeplechase arc was a little convoluted. Kudo wanted Tatsuya to get involved from the start and he used Fujibayashi to tip him off. Kazuma was keeping an eye on Fujibayashi and Yakumo told him that the doll project was riskier than was initially believed which was overheard by Tatsuya deliberately so he'd intervene. Simply put, everyone wanted him to stop the experiment. Maya and Yotsuba used the information to reduce Kudo's influence with the added bonus that the military won't treat magicians as weapons.

The succession arc ended with Tatsuya's publicly revealed to be a Yotsuba and fiance to Miyuki. No one in the family can challenge him now and harming the heads would only weaken the Yotsuba which he is now a part of.

Tsukasa can't do anything now that her cover's blown and her life isn't worth coming into conflict with the Juumonji family. Those USNA flunks never even got close to Tatsuya. Instead of killing a few grunts, it's better to have the USNA owe the family a favor.

In every single case, Tatsuya dealt with the immediate enemies and his family tied up the loose ends so they came out on top. USNA backed off, Kudo was neutered, the heads had to swallow their objections as Tatsuya was formally made a Yotsuba. These were the ideal endings.

No one knows about Tatsuya's abilities so he can't exactly shock and awe like Maya can and he went public recently. Although, rumors of his prowess have spread. By the way, that wasn't Balance, that was Saeki.

[Plumme]

Originally Posted by mashingan

From what I read so far, no indication about Tsukasa's backer in army (just read about half of the book).

Spoiler for In the chapter 5:

Since Tatsuya already warned by Yakumo, Tatsuya had been spying his surrounding and found the exact same situation as one year ago when Vampire incident happened.
The attackers were Stardust but under puppetry spell. It's about same as Gu Jie's spell with different the puppet is still living but had psion imbued within their body.
The different with last scenario, this time Tatsuya walked to where people still there,
so Tsukasa deduced Tatsuya isn't an idealist.
Tatsuya fight without any magic, or so because no recorded psion in sensor but Tsukasa thought Tatsuya has skill to invoke discernible magic against psion sensor.

Tsukasa target not only Tatsuya, but Miyuki as well (still reading this part)

In Miyuki's etiquette school, the attackers used cast jamming but Miyuki finally had chance to test her new magic, taught by Tatsuya, Freeze Gram, an anti-arts magic. (or you can say anti-magic magic ) Yo, I heard you don't like magic so I made a magic so you can deny magic with magic
Even the jamming psion noise itself was freezed by Miyuki's new magic.

Thanks!
Finally! I knew Tatsuya would create that. Anti anti-magic? Anti-magic counter. Anti-magic magic yes. Cast-jamming counter. Miyuki has reach another level of invincibility. And finally! Miyuki solo fighting stage! I hope she could show her magic prowess again in the future volumes.

Wait a second. So she attacked Miyuki too. So that's how Tatsuya's rage incurred. Good job Tsukasa

[bakato]

Also, for those who need reminding, Tsukasa was ordered by the Anti-Saeki faction to investigate Tatsuya.

[Jirachier]

You're taking this too personally. With Lina, their positions were different. Lina is a registered Apostle, while Tatsuya is unknown. Killing her would cause a political storm in an already unstable political climate, but Tatsuya's death probably wouldn't rock the boat too much. After confiscating Lina's belongings and leaving her out to dry with no money or phone in the middle of the night, which was pretty amusing, he contacted Maya and had the Yotsuba clean up and get the USNA off his back.

What do you mean by taking it too personally ? It's not like I'm Tatsuya lol nor am I in a position even close to his, If I existed in that world I'd just be one of those normal human plebs

Tatsuya is unknown because he's that valuable, not because he is irrelevant, the military won't even let him use mist dispersion or any of his other magics in public to hide his identity, so while his death wouldn't be something the public knows about the Japanese military and government will certainty be absolutely furious, this is a foreign government invading your own country and removing one of your most powerful trump cards that's not something you just brush off. And come on, how can you say that leaving Lina knocked out is a punishment, she's a high level military officer that was trying to KILL him. All Maya and the Yotsuba did afterwards was tell the USNA to go back home and the USNA Colonel Virginia Blanche even got a favor from the Yotsuba.

The Steeplechase arc was a little convoluted. Kudo wanted Tatsuya to get involved from the start and he used Fujibayashi to tip him off. Kazuma was keeping an eye on Fujibayashi and Yakumo told him that the doll project was riskier than was initially believed which was overheard by Tatsuya deliberately so he'd intervene. Simply put, everyone wanted him to stop the experiment. Maya and Yotsuba used the information to reduce Kudo's influence with the added bonus that the military won't treat magicians as weapons.

Retsu, Fujiyabashi and Kazama all tried to use Tatsuya for their own goals in that arc and the only one who suffered any setback was the Kudou clan which didn't even happen as punishment for messing with Tatsuya/Miyuki but just that it was favorable for the Yotsuba to weaken the Kudou clan, at the same time Retsu succeeded in showing the strength of his parasite dolls, Fujiyabashi got what she wanted and so did Kazama. So it's the same conclusion as before, drag Tatsuya out of his peaceful life and and there will be no consequences for that specific act.

The succession arc ended with Tatsuya's publicly revealed to be a Yotsuba and fiance to Miyuki. No one in the family can challenge him now and harming the heads would only weaken the Yotsuba which he is now a part of.

Same thing as I said before. If he harms the head that might result in a weaker Yotsuba, but not only is that something Tatsuya doesn't really care about, but if that's really the argument for not punishing them then what's stopping them from doing something else in the future because he will be put in the same position of deciding whether to harm them or not.

Tsukasa can't do anything now that her cover's blown and her life isn't worth coming into conflict with the Juumonji family. Those USNA flunks never even got close to Tatsuya. Instead of killing a few grunts, it's better to have the USNA owe the family a favor.

This is what I'm trying to argue with my posts, Tatsuya himself keeps taking other people/organizations into consideration but they never do the same, you just said Tsukasa's life isn't worth it for Tatsuya to come into conflict with the Juumonji family but as with previous situations it's always a one way street, the Juumonji family itself doesn't care about causing conflict with Tatsuya over Tsukasa's life which proves my point of them not feeling any threat from him.
And the part about the USNA yes they didn't accomplish anything this time around, but the important thing to keep in mind is that they still came into the country AGAIN to do this which clearly proves how the resolution of the previous conflict between the USNA and Tatsuya didn't threaten them enough to never ever try to even think about incurring his wrath.

No one knows about Tatsuya's abilities so he can't exactly shock and awe like Maya can and he went public recently. Although, rumors of his prowess have spread. By the way, that wasn't Balance, that was Saeki.

It's true Tatsuya can't go public with his abilities but he doesn't need to, all he has to do is use some of it against people who already know and some conflicts don't even need him to even use them, I'm not saying he should've killed every single person who has ever crossed him, Here are a few examples of what I would've liked to see:
- In the initial conflict with Lina he should've found a way to contact Colonel Blanche and warn her that this is the last time he will be so merciful, next time if she decides to send a team to japan for something related to him he will send all of them back in jars as dust(Mist Dispersion= Dust).
- In the Steeplechase arc he should've done something similar and warned Kudou Retsu not to drag him into his plots or there will be repercussions, Kazama's excuse for not giving Tatsuya any information in this conflict was that he was a solider under him and so he doesn't have any obligation to tell him anything which is total nonsense, Tatsuya isn't just some random soldier that happened to join the unit for love of his country, it's supposed to be a give and take situation. Tatsuya probably killed hundreds of soldiers/magicians in military conflicts for the 101 battalion and saved many of its members through his restoration powers and let's not forget how many lives he saved when he ended the conflict in Yokohama Disturbance arc by using Material Burst and the 101 battalion got credit for all of his accomplishments as well as promotions for many of its members, Tatsuya isn't doing all of this for free and so when there is information he's interested you should give it to him and since Kazama chose not to do so Tatsuya should've punished him by taking a temporary leave from the unit and giving hints to Kazama that it could become a permanent situation if this ever happens again. As for Fujiyabashi, I'm not sure what to do but a simple conversation where he tells her not to think too highly of their friendship and that he might have to kill her if she ever tried to manipulate him again should suffice.
- In the succession arc he doesn't have to kill the Yotsuba leaders but he should make it clear that he's had enough of their schemes against him and this is their final warning.
- When Juumonji tried to interfere with Tatsuya and his killing of Tsukasa he should've told him to mind his own business and that such threats go both ways and he shouldn't try to stop him, even if it came down to a fight with Katsuto he should be confident in his ability to take him down especially with Baryon Lance, he doesn't have to kill him but just defeating would be a clear message to the Juumonji family that he's no pushover, imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and Tatsuya tried to stop Katsuto from killing a magician who had tried to end Katsuto's life do you think the latter would just say "Ok" and back down ?

[Diocar]

Originally Posted by Jirachier

I'm really frustrated with Tatsuya's reaction to people disrupting his life, it's become a recurring theme where people make plans that are antagonistic toward Tatsuya and they receive no consequences unless they're complete randoms that don't matter in which case Tatsuya turns them into dust.

First in the visitor arc Lina and her companions were trying to either kill or capture Tatsuya and bring him back to the USNA to experiment on him, what was their punishment ? absolutely nothing and Tatsuya tells us how he doesn't want to kill another strategic-class magician since it would cause the world's power balance to shift again but somehow that doesn't go both ways and USNA had no problem attempting to murder Tatsuya, keep in mind they even went as far as to infiltrate another country to do so and initiate the attack while Tatsuya would just be defending himself in his own country.

In the Steeplechase arc we had Kudou Retsu conducting experiments in what could be considered "Tatsuya's territory", he was even happy it provoked Tatsuya into fighting the parasites to showcase their abilities, Kazama was also manipulating Tatsuya and keeping information from him and even Fujiyabashi wanted to use Tatsuya for her own clan's benefit and the only consequence for all their actions was Kudou family losing their status temporarily, something they'll be able to regain soon and it wasn't even because of Tatsuya that it happened, it was just something Maya wanted.

In the Yotsuba Succession arc we had several members from the Yotsuba sending people to fight Tatsuya to prevent him and Miyuki from reaching the Main House and they expressed their desire to seal his MB forever, again no repercussions Tatsuya just moves on.

And Now Tsukasa has the nerves to test Tatsuya's loyalty followed by an attempt on his life but a simple interference from Katsuto makes him step down ?
Also the USNA sends people to spy on Tatsuya and not only does he not kill them, he's the one who saves them..

The author wants to portray Tatsuya as someone who's not affected by emotions and that's why he makes these supposedly calculated decisions to end conflicts in the best ways possible but the reality is different, if you never show your enemies what happens to those that provoke you how do you expect them to stop their seemingly endless efforts to drag you into situations you would rather avoid. We even had an entire arc about how the Yotsuba destroyed a country for revenge and now everyone is afraid of them and calls them "The Untouchable".
It's like there are two set of standards for powerful characters in mahouka, one for Tatsuya and one for everyone else, when Maya was on a phone call with the colonel Virginia Balance the latter was terrified by the idea of Maya potentially having a similar ability to her father which allowed him to kill people just from seeing them on camera when it's probably well known Maya's magical talents don't lie in Mental Interference Magic but when it comes to Tatsuya who can kill anyone on the face of the earth from his living room without even requiring any medium thanks to Elemental Sight not to mention his ability to potentially destroy planet earth whenever he wishes with MB but somehow that doesn't seem to matter at all.

Since it started to be published as a LN this started turning into shit. In the beguining it was a much better story that seemed to be written for adults.
Then around the parasite arc it got published and tats stops killing people that want to kill him or want to make his life hell, he starts to have rivals everywhere, gods know why he has to use hand to hand combat EVERYTIME!!!!
Basically it became a shounen with a shitty mc because he isn t cold nor driven.

[Diocar]

Originally Posted by mashingan

From what I read so far, no indication about Tsukasa's backer in army (just read about half of the book).

Spoiler for In the chapter 5:

Since Tatsuya already warned by Yakumo, Tatsuya had been spying his surrounding and found the exact same situation as one year ago when Vampire incident happened.
The attackers were Stardust but under puppetry spell. It's about same as Gu Jie's spell with different the puppet is still living but had psion imbued within their body.
The different with last scenario, this time Tatsuya walked to where people still there,
so Tsukasa deduced Tatsuya isn't an idealist.
Tatsuya fight without any magic, or so because no recorded psion in sensor but Tsukasa thought Tatsuya has skill to invoke discernible magic against psion sensor.

Tsukasa target not only Tatsuya, but Miyuki as well (still reading this part)

In Miyuki's etiquette school, the attackers used cast jamming but Miyuki finally had chance to test her new magic, taught by Tatsuya, Freeze Gram, an anti-arts magic. (or you can say anti-magic magic ) Yo, I heard you don't like magic so I made a magic so you can deny magic with magic
Even the jamming psion noise itself was freezed by Miyuki's new magic.

Honestly he is creating new magic everytime... it looses the impact.
And i am sorry but that is a stupid thing to be created. Like gatekeeper it shoudn t be possible.

[AB079]

Originally Posted by mashingan

From what I read so far, no indication about Tsukasa's backer in army (just read about half of the book).

Spoiler for In the chapter 5:

Since Tatsuya already warned by Yakumo, Tatsuya had been spying his surrounding and found the exact same situation as one year ago when Vampire incident happened.
The attackers were Stardust but under puppetry spell. It's about same as Gu Jie's spell with different the puppet is still living but had psion imbued within their body.
The different with last scenario, this time Tatsuya walked to where people still there,
so Tsukasa deduced Tatsuya isn't an idealist.
Tatsuya fight without any magic, or so because no recorded psion in sensor but Tsukasa thought Tatsuya has skill to invoke discernible magic against psion sensor.

Tsukasa target not only Tatsuya, but Miyuki as well (still reading this part)

In Miyuki's etiquette school, the attackers used cast jamming but Miyuki finally had chance to test her new magic, taught by Tatsuya, Freeze Gram, an anti-arts magic. (or you can say anti-magic magic ) Yo, I heard you don't like magic so I made a magic so you can deny magic with magic
Even the jamming psion noise itself was freezed by Miyuki's new magic.

So basically Miyuki now can do the same as Tatsuya but even better? because Gram Demolition has limited range and not everyone can use it, so I have to ask, does this Freeze Gram has some limitations for her too?

Also Mashingan, have you seen anything regarding Maya in this volume so far?