Parade

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Parade
Systems
Sensory Systematic Type
Sensory Systematic Type
Category:Ancient Magic
Category:Ancient Magic
Target
Area of Effect
Known Users
Angelina Kudou Shields
Kudou Retsu
Kudou Ken
Kudou Family
Kudou Minoru
Related Spells
Matoi Ghost Walker Sekihei Hatidzin

Parade (仮装行列パレード) is a defensive magic, which was originally an illusion magic that writes coordinates into a false body that is a superficial duplicate of the caster, and which cannot be differentiated from the caster.

Background

The Ninth Institute's mission statement is to develop magicians with rationalized and refined Ancient Magic packaged as modern magic. So they gathered a lot of Ancient Magic users together for it and Kokonoe Yakumo's predecessor is one of them and the one who taught them Matoi.

Kudou Retsu improved on Matoi by focusing on creating a body clone - a "phantom" that focuses on changing the image of the user and this new magic became 'Parade'. Retsu was very proud of it as it was the magic he had put his heart into to achieve the point of being called the “most skilled in the world” and Parade eventually became the Kudou Family's secret magic.

Secrecy

“	"If the magician involved with Tatsuya is using it, I need to warn them not to spread it any further. If they don't listen, then unfortunately..."	”
—Kokonoe Yakumo

Since Parade is based from Matoi, it is also considered a closely guarded secret known only by those associated with the Ninth Institute, namely the Kudou and the Family of the "Nine" are sworn to secrecy. This duty to keep Parade a secret was previously held by the predecessor of Yakumo and is inherited by him including his surname Kokonoe. As such, Yakumo prioritizes this duty that he would directly contact Parade users like Lina and Minoru to make them promise that they will keep the magic a secret and ensure that this technique is not stolen despite the result of being in conflict with Tatsuya.

Details

Parade explanation in the Manga

Elemental Sight used on Angie's Parade

Tatsuya's attack missing due to Lina's Parade in the Anime

While Matoi projects color, shape, sound and heat that were exactly the same as those of the real thing but in a different location, Parade creates a phantom in one's position around that area in order to slip through enemy's magic and can also be used to hide from security cameras, radars and stratospheric surveillance systems but once the tracking systems detects the user before using Parade, it becomes impossible to hide again.

It is possible to attract the enemy’s attention to the disguised information body copy with such a structure of Magic Sequence. And further mislead the enemy by distancing the phantom from the original. The phantom and the original would be located in different places, so if you destroy the disguised information body, you won’t find anything under it. In addition, if you make additional changes to the disguised information body already recognized by the enemy, the enemy won’t be able to aim even at it. Despite being a defense against magic, Parade is also effective against physical attacks since the phantom is visible to the naked eye while concealing the main body of the user and causing an opponent to attack the phantom which will cause any physical projectile to pass through the phantom.

Because of Parade's ability to camouflage the coordinates of the caster, it is superior to visual magic like Optical Camouflage. Thus when Elemental Sight is used, Optical Camouflage's light interference is still seen in the Eidos by the Elemental Sight wielder but the phantom created by Parade only has the color and contours recorded in the Eidos while other information about material, mass, heat and composition are missing.

Parade requires its user to focus their mind to maintain its defensive effects which in turn limits the magic its user can use and depending on the level, complexity and range of the spell they are attempting, its user may need to cancel Parade to use an attack spell. The phantom created by Parade also relies on its user's imagination or images they have seen, making it easier to create the appearance of the user for their own use because they can practice and see themselves in a mirror or on someone with a similar physique as theirs. Otherwise, changing the appearance on someone with a different physique requires more practice to perfect the phantom's appearance.

Parade is limited by its range that it requires the user to be near the created phantom to maintain it otherwise the user needs to use a medium to apply Parade on them but this will still require the user to focus on maintaining it otherwise Parade's effect will fail. Parade is also affected by outside factors such as if the subject resists or even outside disturbances that disrupts the user's focus will also cause Parade to fail.

Variants

While both Minoru’s and Lina’s Parade had the same effect, masking information about the body, the specific processes they used to achieve this effect differed widely. Since Kudou Ken was a more advanced user of Parade, Retsu had continued to improve the magic sequence to win against his younger brother in skill. This caused the variations in Parade.

Angelina Kudou Shields

Lina's Variant of Parade in the Anime

In Lina's case, her clone's appearance is changed into an image of a golden eyed woman with pink, wild hair, while wearing a mask known as Angie Sirius of the Thirteen Apostles. This magic is helpful during Lina's fights since all of her opponents' attacks couldn't work on the clone, causing them to have difficulties in fighting her.

“Parade” of the Kudou and Lina's families were the same in terms of editing and processing copied Eidos and overlaying with original Eidos to disguise it. However, there was a process of turning a copy of the edited and processed Eidos into an artificial Spiritual Being (artificially created independent information body), which was added to Kudou family spell. As a result, the caster is able to perform activities such as maintaining, restoring, changing and moving "Parade Spiritual Being" after the magic was activated.

Walking Shadow

Walking Shadow is a new variation of Parade that Lina developed after she started studying at the National Magic University. This variant of Parade creates multiple doppelgangers that can move around in random pattern in accordance with pre-programmed instructions. While it has no other function other than to project the caster's image walking at a destination, the main draw is that Walking Shadow can act independently from the main body, making it the perfect magic to throw someone off the caster's trail.

Kudou Minoru

Kudou Minoru's variant of Parade in the Anime

Kudou Minoru is able to further improve Parade by combining it with Ghost Walker which covers for Parade's weakness of causing the unnatural reflection of light by Ghost Walker's ability of deflecting people's attention and in conjunction with an area protected by Sekihei Hatidzin makes it nearly impossible to detect Minoru.

Counters

Gram Dispersion used on Parade

In order to break through 'Parade', one method is to locate the body between the time when the old illusion breaks down and a new illusion is created. Once that is done, the battle is decided on whoever has the faster activation speed which for the case of Lina, her activation speed for Parade is enough to rival Miyuki's.

Another method is by disregarding the five senses, one can find the coordinates of the body directly in the dimension of information. Only Elemental Sight wielders are capable of doing this method then neutralize Parade with Gram Dispersion. The Parade user can also counter this by immediately rebuilding the spell to conceal their location and by pouring more psions to change its structure on the Eidos. Like the first method, activation speed is once again a huge factor but in addition, the longevity of the user's Magic Calculation Area and physical endurance also affects the outcome since repeated use of Parade will exhaust the user and lose consciousness.

Because of Parade's limited range, it is also vulnerable to area of effect attacks, such as explosives and wide area spells. Though the user of Parade's actual position is hidden and replaced with a copy in a slightly different position, if an attack blankets an area, including where the actual body is hidden, then the user of Parade will still be hit by the attack regardless of being consealed. A good example would be a grenade. Even if the initial blast misses the user of Parade, the shrapnel can still blanket the area and shred Parade's user unless they defend against it, both of which will reveal their true location and cause Parade to fail.

Parade is also affected by the user's magic power that if the source of their magic power is diminished by spells like Cocytus, Parade is temporarily unusable.