5_Chapter 4_ A Certain Freeloading Index

CHAPTER 4 A Certain Freeloading IndexArrow_Made_of_AZUSA. 1 (Aug.31_PM03:15) Academy City. A city for the fostering of espers, created by reclaiming a large swath of land in west Tokyo. It occupied one-third of Tokyo itself and had a total population of just under 2.3 million. Eighty percent of those were students who had awakened some sort of ability, rated on a six-step scale, ranging from Level Zero “Impotents” to Level Five “Superpowers.” In this city, these abilities were not occult concepts—it was no more than a scientific idea, which anyone could awaken within themselves by completing a standard Curriculum. And in one corner of the slightly dubious city, an entirely average male student named Touma Kamijou was up to his eyeballs in homework. He buried his face in his hands. “Come on, damn it! What is this factorization thing supposed to be?! Screw you, math! You’re supposed to only ever have one answer, not two” Kamijou cried out and fell onto his back, as if to flee from the math problems spread out on his glass table. He was an amusing person—the type who would deliver a monologue whenever something bad happened. Even when he finished with math, there was a modern history book report and an English homework packet patiently waiting in the wings for him. He felt his nerves about to reach their limit. Urgh… He gave a look to his right hand as he lay on the floor. The Imagine Breaker—the power in his right hand. Whether it was a million-volt spear of lightning or a ball of flame more than three thousand degrees, if it was some kind of preternatural power, he could nullify it just by touching it. It was a wonderful ability…but not terribly effective against his summer homework. The current date and time was August 31, 3:15:00 PM. What am I gonna do? he wondered, half seriously about to break down and cry on the spot. And of course today, they were sold out of the coffee at the convenience store, he was accosted by Aogami and Tsuchimikado, Mikoto demanded that they pretend they were dating, and he was chased around by an Aztec sorcerer who had transformed into Mitsuki Unabara. It was terrible. He still had a substantial amount of homework left to finish. To add insult to injury, his upside-down view of his room revealed a girl watching TV and a stupid cat with its face shoved into the bag of potato chips next to her, currently fulfilling all its wildest dreams. The girl’s name was Index. Apparently it was a shortened version of some ridiculous name like “Index Librorum Prohibitorum.” She had the body of a foreigner, with white skin, silvery hair, and green eyes. Furthermore, she wore this ostentatious, teacup-like habit made of pure white silk with golden embroidery, and that was enough to give her a somewhat nineteenth-century Victorian feel. Actually, Touma didn’t really know what Victorian things looked like. It was just a bluff. Her appearance told the story—she wasn’t a resident of the happy, fun science land that was Academy City. In fact, she came from the exact opposite kind of world—the “viva magic” one. She wasn’t a witch, per se, but her own wickedness perhaps put her on a level above that. After all, through the use of a certain means, she was the only person in the world who knew everything about all types of the world’s sorcery. And this real-life magical girl was nodding along, her eyes glued to the TV. Incidentally, the current program was an anime—meaning fictional—account of a magical girl’s adventures, being rebroadcast for summer break. “I see! This ‘Magical Powered Kanamin’ girl is fooling the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church’s famed Albigensian crusaders by blending right in as a normal student. But what on earth is that rainbow-shining staff—oh! They reproduced the elemental Ether Part, the Lotus Staff, didn’t they?! I should have expected no less from the mythical land of Japan. Its oriental style is simply beautiful!” No, that’s just Japanimation—military provisions for Japan’s famed legions of otaku. Kamijou considered shooting back the retort at the real magical girl, so seriously absorbed in what was on TV, but he decided against it. He needed to focus on his homework. “Hey, I’m not gonna tell you to not watch TV or shut up, but could you please turn down the volume and lower your voice! Any minor lapse in focus could spell doom over here!” “Huh?” Index turned around unhappily. “I’m only watching TV because you won’t play with me. Besides, where did you go this afternoon? What was that call about? Were you secretly fighting a sorcerer? Have you not learned your lesson yet?” “Uh…I’m telling you, it was nothing. I’m fine, see? I wasn’t fighting or anything this time. We talked everything out peacefully. You know, Aztecs sure are gentlemen.” “So which ill-fated girl were you standing up for this time?” “Listen to me! Did they already make it official that whenever I fight, that’s what happens?!” shouted Kamijou, but Index sighed in resignation, tired. “I guess there’s no use in going on about something after it’s over. By the way, Touma, I’ve been doing that whole escapism thing into the world of TV since this morning when you left me here.” “Then let’s play pretend homework. I’ll do the math, and you can do the English.” “…I don’t wanna do something that boring,” she sighed again. “Oh, Touma, thank you for the manga. I put the books I borrowed over there, okay?” “Over there—hey” Kamijou had no words. All the manga volumes he had put away in his bookshelf were now in a huge jumbled pile on the floor, like an earthquake had come through. “Why…why?! Why do you do so much more when I don’t have the time?! Wait, you made the mess, so you put them back on the shelves properly!” “Okay, I know where everything went, so it’s no problemo!” she declared calmly, still watching TV. Kamijou’s shoulders drooped, and he breathed a sigh of his own. The whole point of keeping things tidy was to put things where they would be easy to remember. A person who could remember exactly where things went wouldn’t even have to do the work of putting the manga into the bookcase in order. Index was essentially a library of grimoires. She’d memorized every last letter of 103,000 grimoires from around the world, like The Golden Bough, the Book M, the Hermetica, The Secret Doctrine, and the Tetrabiblos. She probably memorized the positions of every one of the books in this mess as soon as she took them out. “Man, is that how you treat somebody who lets you borrow his stuff?” “But that way is easier to remember,” she said, seeming wholly unhappy. “Besides, if you clean your room without thinking about it, you end up losing pens and stuff. See, Touma, where did your Classical Japanese homework go?” Huh? Kamijou picked himself up and looked on the glass table. It wasn’t there. He’d finally finished the whole thing and stapled the entire mountain of papers together, but it was nowhere. “What? Hey, wait! Where did it go? It was just here!” “Whenever this sort of thing happens, it always ends up being in some silly, unexpected place, huh?” “Don’t give me that peaceful smile! Please, just help me look for it Gyaah!” His shout echoed through the midsummer dormitory. Common sense told him there was no way it could have gotten out of the room…but for some reason, Kamijou got the distinct feeling he wouldn’t be seeing his Classical Japanese homework ever again. 2 (Aug.31_PM04:00) The city streets on August 31 were almost empty. Eighty percent of its residents were students. Just for today, most of them were spending their last hours of summer vacation struggling to complete their homework. The lonely, clattering sounds of the many wind-generating propellers that replaced electrical poles were the only noise around. A man walked through the deserted streets, heat mirages swaying to and fro. The man in the empty city was a sight to behold. The scorching sun was glaring down. The lingering heat of summer at the end of August was relentless. And yet he was covered neck to toe in a black suit, topped off with a black necktie. It was easy to imagine the large man having these big, boorish muscles underneath his clothing. His eyes were closed, and despite the heat, he did not have a single bead of sweat on him. He looked like either a mafia member or someone going to a mafia funeral. That was all he possibly could have been. However, he wore one thing on his right arm that didn’t follow along the lines of mafia funeral attire—a Japanese bracer. And attached to this bracer was a Japanese bow painted in black that looked like an arbalest. It was a complex mechanism, set up so that he could draw back the string and loose an arrow with a mere flick of his hand. The strange man’s name was Ouma Yamisaka. He was one unbound by scientific ideas—he was a sorcerer. “Index Librorum Prohibitorum…the archive of forbidden books.” The unrefined man’s lips, however, spoke the foreign Latin language smoothly. Everyone knew that name. She was the girl who possessed 103,000 grimoires in her brain. And with that much knowledge, one could grant any wish they had, bending the world and its laws to their will. Therefore, there were, of course, many sorcerers who had their sights set on her. “Hmm. Still far away,” Yamisaka said to himself, his stride unfaltering. He had fought a battle to get inside the city. Academy City was surrounded by a great wall, and there was a police force dedicated to preventing entrance by invaders. Yamisaka hadn’t killed them, but some of them might need to worry about aftereffects later. He thought about it but didn’t stop. Giving up now would be the same as spitting in the faces of those whom he had sacrificed for this. If he was to do this, he needed to go all the way. Ouma Yamisaka walked through the mirage-filled streets. He had but one destination—a room in a certain student dormitory. 3 (Aug.31_PM05:05) It soon became time to prepare dinner, and the lost Classical Japanese homework was finally found. Index, who had found it, had a big grin plastered on her face. “Wow, I never thought it would be under those big piles of manga! So, Touma, did I do good? Huh? Come on, don’t you have something to say?” “You were the one who made the mess in the first place! It’s abuse, that’s what it is! Go put all the manga back into the bookcase this instant, got it?! And apologize to me” “The manga has nothing to do with it. Sphinx was the one who had your homework in his mouth.” Sphinx was the name of the calico Kamijou was raising—not, of course, the legendary creature that would kill people if they couldn’t answer riddles. The perpetrator seemed quite enthralled by the three-minute cooking show on TV. He kept batting at the screen with a paw. Kamijou heaved a serious sigh. The current time was just after five PM. A little less than seven hours remained until the date tomorrow. If he risked everything on a complete all-nighter, there were still only fifteen hours until school started. Would he be able to finish his math questions, his English packet, and his book report in that time? And I lost so much time just searching for my Classical Japanese homework, too…thought Kamijou, dejected. On the other hand, Index seemed annoyed that he wasn’t showering her in praise. “Touma, Touma! I did my job, so I want a suitable reward…I want to eat something. That thing they’re doing on the TV looks good, I think.” “…” Kamijou’s head silently turned with a crick-crick-crick to look at the television. The three-minute cooking program seemed to be catering to children during summer vacation, so it was showing how to make a tofu hamburger. Kamijou’s head creaked back around to look at Index. The corners of his lips turned up suddenly in an unearthly smile. “…I’m going to kill you.” “Why are you so irritated? Touma, you’re angry because you’re so hungry. You want to eat that, too, right?” “Well, I mean, if given the choice, then yes. But like I’ve been saying this entire time, I don’t have the time to make—…!” “If you keep going at this, your head’s gonna explode. You should rest a bit.” “Argh! That’s the nicest thing I didn’t want you to say right now” “Come on, Touma, don’t grab your head like that. Huh? Where did the math homework you were just doing go?” “Eh?” Kamijou looked at the glass table. It wasn’t there. 4 (Aug.31_PM05:30) Before said student dormitory, Ouma Yamisaka looked overhead to the seventh floor. Though, as both of his eyes were normally shut, there wasn’t really a meaning behind his gesture. “Here it is,” he said to himself, manipulating the bracer on his right hand. The attached bowstring pulled back automatically due to the mechanisms inside. However, there was no arrow in the black bow. “Tempest Bowstring.” Yamisaka fired it anyway. Bsshhh! came the sharp sound of the bowstring piercing the air. It echoed through the silent city streets, resounding surprisingly clear. Roar! howled a gust of wind from near his feet. He couldn’t see it because it was transparent, but there was a clump of air about the size of a beach ball right there. He aligned his feet and jumped slightly, landing on the top of the invisible ball of air. Gsshh came the noise as his feet easily squashed it down. Then there was the pop of the air springing back, and Yamisaka’s body hurtled straight up into the air. He flew straight along up the wall of the dormitory for several meters. When he reached his destination—Touma Kamijou’s room on the seventh floor—he grabbed the balcony railing to stop his ascent, then brought his feet down onto the railing. At the same time, he drew the bowstring back. “Impact Bowstring.” Slam The bow let loose an invisible shock wave at the same time the bowstring made a noise. It completely destroyed the thin windowpane like an invisible wrecking ball. The shrill cry of glass breaking echoed throughout the entire area. A rain of thousands of pieces of glass flew into the room. He didn’t particularly care what would happen to somebody standing in front of it. He stepped into the room to secure Index. However… “…They’re gone?” Yamisaka looked confused. There was no one in the room. He checked the bathroom just to be sure, but no one was in there, either. They seemed to be out. Still perplexed, he returned to the balcony, now crestfallen. The window glass was still smashed to smithereens, but he was not the type of sorcerer to mind it. Hmm. He scratched at his head stupidly. “Sweeper Bowstring.” He made the bowstring resound like a sonar. Its small sound reverberated incredibly vividly. It ran its tongue over the city in less than an instant, telling him of Index’s current location. 5 (Aug.31_PM06:00) “…I’ve got this bad feeling…,” said Touma Kamijou to himself. He was now sitting in an air-conditioned family restaurant. Why am I getting this chill? he wondered, confused. He had locked all the doors behind him, so he shouldn’t have to worry about burglars, but… Despite it being August 31, there were people out and about at meal times. The warriors were calling a temporary truce and restoring their energy at various convenience stores, restaurants, and beef bowl places. Then it was off again to the battlefield, where their confrontation with the homework on their desks awaited them. After all, there were only six hours left until the end of summer break. “Touma, Touma, what should I choose? Can I pick anything on here I want?” There in the seat across from him was Index, peering at the stupidly large menu, eyes glittering like a kid waiting for Santa Claus. Also, this restaurant was completely fine with pets—a revolutionary policy if there ever was one—so the stupid cat was curled up on Index’s lap. He sighed. He had moved to the restaurant for a change of atmosphere (and because he had no time to cook dinner). His plan was to get serious and immerse himself in the merciless hunt for the survivors of his summer assignments…but it seemed she hadn’t quite understood that. Kamijou shook his head without tearing his eyes from the composition paper he bought at the convenience store. He wanted to get his book report done in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, he had a gut feeling that his current situation had some other ideas in store for him. “Hey, Touma. Hey, Touma. Can I get whatever I want?” “What do you want already? Just order something!” “Okay, then here I go. The most expensive thing on the menu!” “…” He smiled sweetly. “Okay, then two thousand yen’s worth of raw eggs.” He could hear the roar of her very soul howling his name in anger. Kamijou ended up getting coffee, Index the set lunch meal A, and the stupid cat got something called “cat lunch C.” As a restaurant that allowed pets, it had this amazing—yet also somehow terrifying—menu prepared specifically for them. There were others on there, too, like lunches for dogs and lunches for turtles. It would take some time before their orders arrived. Kamijou took out his composition paper and a mechanical pencil, deciding to get started on the report immediately. …Unfortunately… “Touma, Touma, what are you gonna write a report about anyway?” “This year’s theme is Momotaro.” “…Wow.” “Hey, wait, you foreigner, do you even really understand the true meaning of Momotaro, I mean, it’s a famous Japanese children’s story known throughout the world, and see, it makes perfect sense for a summer book report!” “Boy, Touma, you sure do hate reading books.” “Well, I don’t think memorizing every letter of a hundred thousand books is anything like normal, either.” Index’s temples twitched. Her smile could melt cheese. “Touma, Touma!” “What is it now?” “…Did you know it’s actually a really scary Japanese fable?” “Stop! I’m going to write a totally normal report on Momotaro! If you add any information now, it will derail my entire essay! And besides, why the heck can someone from England even do the whole dark side of the Momotaro spiel, anyway?!” “Mgh. What are you saying anyway? Momotaro is a magnificent example of an occult book. In fact, I have its original copy stored neatly within my 103,000 grimoires.” “Huh?” “It happens especially often in Japanese culture—a story will seem like a lullaby or a fable, but it’s actually a cleverly camouflaged occult manual. Momotaro was born from the peaches, right? Well, that person didn’t even exist in the original version.” Uhhh…Kamijou’s thoughts stopped there. This is bad. Index is really starting to love explaining things to me. And I can’t waste another second! I need to get this massive amount of homework done! “Since ancient times, the river has been depicted as a border separating shigan, or this world, to higan, or the netherworld. When they mention people on the river and crossing the river, they’re talking about just that—transcendents who can control life and death, Touma. It might be easier to imagine dead people being ferried across the Sanzu River.” “I’m sorry, stop, stop!” “The correct way to think about the peach that floated down from the river is as a forbidden fruit that has transcended life and death. And if we’re talking about fruits that grant immortality in eastern cultures, you have to think of the sentou, or hermit peach, which protects the holy queen mother. The original version of the story didn’t have a Momotaro born from peaches, but instead featured an old man and woman who ate a peach and regained their youth. As you can tell from that, the story is actually describing secrets of Taoist alchemical arts, and—” “Stop it, stop it, stop it! Enough with the off-topic occult discussion! Viewers, please look forward to Miss Index’s next work! I mean, jeez, just let me do my homework already” Index gave a dissatisfied whine. He ignored her and wrote on the composition paper with his mechanical pencil. He wasn’t going as fast as he thought he was. Great, now I’m basically just having to write a letter of apology, he thought, eventually somehow filling up three pages. Kamijou sighed in relief as he finished his work. And then the waitress came over, as if she had timed it that way. “Sorry for the long wait! You ordered the coffee, the set meal lunch A, and the cat lunch C, right?” Oh, finally here! He began to put away the composition paper all over the table… …when suddenly, without any reason or prior warning, the waitress fell over magnificently. “What?!” He watched dumbstruck as everything on the tray fell onto the table with a clatter and a crash. When the dust settled, a veritable mountain made of dinner towered before his eyes. The small, sizzling-hot iron pan used as a steak plate for what appeared to be today’s specialty landed directly on Kamijou’s lap. He leaped up, brushed the plate off, and looked at the perpetrator with at least half-serious tears in his eyes. There was the waitress, flat on her face, making a pitiful “Owie…” noise. Would you forgive a bust, klutzy waitress for this? “No way in hell! You freaking cow! I’ll overhead throw you straight to hell” “Now, now, Touma…Huh? Touma, where’s your essay?” “…” It wasn’t there. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to find it underneath this piping-hot dinner mountain. 6 (Aug.31_PM06:32) “Sweeper Bowstring.” He drew back the bowstring, again and again. Its air-splitting noises informed Ouma Yamisaka that he was drawing near to his target. “…In there?” Before his closed eyes was a single-family-restaurant building. On the other side of a street-facing window sat a boy and a girl. “I now go to the battlefield.” Yamisaka manipulated the complex contraption and pulled back the bowstring with one hand. “I will light the beacon marking the outbreak of war. Executioner Bowstring.” He thrust the bow toward the boy on the other side of the glass. The glass hadn’t done anything wrong, but it was in the way. 7 (Aug.31_PM06:35) Touma Kamijou was exhausted. The essay he dug out from the mountain of dinner was soiled and soggy, and he could barely read the words written on it. He couldn’t hand in something like this. Kamijou felt like a marathon runner who had run out of energy in the beginning of the race. Index, of course, was giving him a sympathetic smile, though her lips were drawn. “B-but Touma, you can still read the words, so you can just copy it onto a new piece of paper. At least you don’t have to do all the thinking over again! ” “I guess so,” he answered lifelessly. The problem was that filling up three pages again was already a strain on his body. “Damn it…If only I could have just used a computer…” Kamijou’s gaze fell to the table, which was (for now) nice and clean. He was bad at writing words, too, but actually physically writing them with a pencil was the worst. He had no problem taking normal notes, but filling up page after page of essay papers really made his hands hurt. He sighed in defeat and looked out the window. He figured the window would reflect back an exhausted image of himself, but he was wrong. Instead, there was some big man in a black suit right at the window, looking at them. Well, actually, his eyes were closed. At first, Kamijou thought he was trying to fix his hair by using the window as a mirror. But there was no way he could be using a mirror with his eyes closed. What on earth is he doing? He stared absently at the man, and then, at that moment, the man said something from across the glass. His movements were gentle, much like those of somebody who had just been reunited with an old friend he hadn’t seen in decades. However… He pointed a bow-and-arrow-like thing mounted on his right hand straight at Kamijou. “?!” A moment after Kamijou rose from his seat, the bowstring snapped back. There was no arrow nocked to it. But another moment later, something invisible shattered the giant window separating them. Whatever it was, there wasn’t only one—the glass pane ripped apart like wires had torn through it. Blades of air, ripping through even sound itself. They sliced through the table, dancing madly right past Index’s nose. The fragments of the shattered window didn’t fly inward, instead just sliding down to the floor. The storm of blades came straight for Kamijou before the stupid cat could even stand its hair on end. Nearby patrons panicked, rose from their own seats, and tried to scream. Only the fact that this was a city of espers was responsible for the immediate reaction everyone had to something as ridiculous as invisible swords coming through the air. But not one person was able to cry out. Wham! His right hand had already blown away all of the incoming blades. The Imagine Breaker—the power in his right hand. If it touched any kind of strange power, whether it was a supernatural ability or sorcery, it could entirely erase it. Such an unknown power before the eyes of those nearby was enough to take their breath away—they forgot to scream. Numerous blades had come right for him, but he didn’t even get scratched. The wind blew. It seemed to have been what destroyed the blades of air. Apparently they weren’t made of vacuum, but rather compressed air. He also wasn’t firing them one at a time—he was actually creating a small tornado of them. His right hand making contact with it had nullified the entire tornado at once. He bared his teeth and glared out the broken window, when… “Spectral Bowstring.I’m over here.” Suddenly, the man who should have been outside was standing right behind him. Kamijou froze. The man, still with his eyes closed, exhaled slightly, as if satisfied with his response. “I had not entirely predicted this, but I would much rather avoid needlessly taking lives. Surrender to me now, and I will not lay a hand on you. Once I acquire what I am after, I promise you that I will retreat with has—” “Aaaggh Look what you’ve done, you bastard! My book report is nothing but confetti now” Kamijou’s shout had cut off the man’s words. A slightly confused expression crossed his face. He certainly didn’t seem to have expected this. From the man’s point of view, he probably wanted Kamijou to accept the situation as more serious. Kamijou, however, couldn’t care less. He looked at his composition paper, now sliced into pieces—or, more accurately, transformed into small paper trash—with tears in his eyes, and continued. “You! Yeah, you, the one standing there like an idiot! This is all your fault, so you’re taking responsibility! Rewrite my book report this instant The theme is Momotaro, it needs to be at least three pages long, and you’re aiming for the Ministry of Education Award for Fine Arts!” “I do not care.” “…Okay, then. I hope you don’t mind me getting a little bit violent, eh?” The moment Kamijou gave a half smile and tried to grab the man, he suddenly vanished into thin air. Wha…? He looked around. The man was now, unbelievably, standing behind Index. “I’m finishing this quickly. I haven’t the time to fool around with children.” The man held Index’s body to him. It looked like a light touch, but Index’s body suddenly lurched, as if his hand was lightning, and then stopped moving. The stupid cat rushed onto the floor and got away from the man. Who is this guy? thought Kamijou. He seemed to have something to do with Index. She was, of course, rather unique, what with the whole being a living treasure chest, her mind packed with 103,000 grimoires. However, that should mean nothing to an esper living in the totally scientific Academy City. So if this man was trying to get his hands on Index, then… “…You’re a sorcerer.” The other abnormal power standing at the opposite end of the spectrum from supernatural abilities. A sorcerer. “Indeed,” the nameless man confirmed with one word. “You seem pretty mild, though. All of a sudden you try to slice people open with invisible swords, and then right after that you start sexually harassing a girl from behind, eh? What the hell are you thinking? You know there’s such a thing as protection for the lives of children, right, you lolicon?” “What am I thinking?” The man smiled coolly in contrast to Kamijou’s heated attitude. “You should understand, if you have acquired the knowledge, that this is the archive of 103,000 secret, forbidden books.” Then, without warning, the man disappeared into thin air again, holding Index. Only the words “Spectral Bowstring” were left hanging in the space he’d once been. Is this like…teleportation? “Agh, damn it, you didn’t even deny being a lolicon So this is your taste, isn’t it?!” Kamijou, as if grasping at straws, grabbed at where the man had just been standing. His right hand hit dead air, but his left grasped something soft, something that shouldn’t have been there. “Uhyah?!” From the empty space came a cry from Index. “T-T-T-T-T-Touma! Where do you think you’re touching me?!” “Eh?” Kamijou tried squeezing the air with his left hand, where nothing should have been. He got the feeling that there was, in fact, something in this empty space. The man was using some kind of trick to conceal them. Maybe he was manipulating light refraction or something. He heard the man give an irritated tsk. That was all he needed to know. Index and that man hadn’t disappeared from any kind of teleportation. They were here; he just couldn’t see them. And that meant… That both the man and Index would have been standing in this empty space, so… So… What was the soft thing Touma Kamijou was grabbing right now? “What?” As if aiming precisely for the moment Kamijou’s thoughts blanked out… …the man’s hand appeared by itself all of a sudden from the space right next to him. It was as if he were reaching through an invisible curtain. The man’s right hand had a bow mounted on it. “Executioner Bowstring.” Kamijou reflexively brought his arm back from the empty space as soon as he heard the man’s low murmur. A blade of air stabbed straight past where his arm had been, then cut into the floor with the weight of a guillotine. “Damn! He got me” He swung his arms around urgently, but he couldn’t feel anything else there. He was already gone. “Gah!” Kamijou grabbed the stupid cat by its neck. He was worried about Index. She was a walking library of grimoires, with 103,000 of them recorded in her brain. He was pretty sure that if a person used all of them, they could bend the entire world to their will. If that’s what the man was after, then he might cause her harm by getting the information out. Bullshit… He gritted his teeth. …So what if she’s got 103,000 books up there? That’s a stupid freakin’ reason to kidnap someone and get violent! It isn’t worth it He clicked his tongue, whipped himself around to face the exit… …and there was the waitress, standing with a smile (except her eyes weren’t smiling at all). And she appeared to have class-changed from a klutzy, big-breasted waitress to a high-mobility-type combat girl. “Could you please wait a moment, sir?” “…Uh…” Kamijou cast his gaze around the restaurant one more time. The large window had been cleaved like butter, and the table was in big, circular pieces. He wasn’t exactly sure what the value of business furniture was, but he got the feeling it was quite a bit higher than the regular kind you’d put in your own house. “Uhhh…” Kamijou’s lips drew back. The manager was coming out from the back, also smiling, his bulging muscles looking about to burst. 8 (Aug.31_PM07:30) “Shit! Damn it! I’m gonna kick your ass, you lolicon kidnapping demon!” shouted Kamijou, roaring through dark alleys holding the stupid cat. He had run from the restaurant, of course. He’d been running from the brawny manager, the smiling waitress, and a few courageous, well-meaning patrons who happened to be there for a little less than an hour now. He weaved in and out through back roads and alleys, but he had no evidence he’d completely shaken them off yet. Homework was the least of his problems at this point. If he made a wrong move, he could end up getting suspended. “Uhu…uhuhu. Uhu-uhu-uhuhuhuhuhu” Kamijou laughed a very dangerous laugh as he dashed through the unlit alleyways. His rage had peaked. On top of not having any time, just when he’d finally been working so hard on his homework, an actual freaking lolicon threw cold water on that plan, then framed him for a weird crime that forced him to consider being suspended. Who wouldn’t be angry? Man, I wonder if she’s all right…Kamijou sighed. Index was a member of Necessarius, or the Church of Necessary Evils, an English Puritan combat group specializing in witch-hunting…but he doubted the shrimp had any actual ability to fight. He wanted to go and take Index back from that pervert first, but he had no clues. Okay, so seriously, what am I doing now? As he racked his brains over the problem, the stupid cat slipped right out of his hands and onto the road. It didn’t pay another glance to him and ran straight ahead. “H-hey! Wait a minute!” Kamijou was about to go into full-on panic mode, but suddenly he had a thought. Don’t cats have pretty sharp noses? Or was that dogs? Well, even cats probably have a better sense of smell than people do. But then I’ve never heard of a police cat. Which is it? He ran after the cat, not very deep in thought. Maybe it’s searching for Index by using its sense of hearing, or smell, or whatever. The stupid cat ran fast. He chased it at full speed lest he lose it. He ran, ran, ran, and ran some more. And they finally arrived at… “…What is this? Is this the back door to a hotel?” It didn’t look so much like a hotel as it did a multipurpose building that had everything one could think of packed inside, like department stores, restaurants, sleeping facilities, game rooms, and super resorts. Except a normal hotel corporation was the one managing it all. He stared up the back wall of this “hotel” and felt a terribly bad feeling wash over him. Did that lolicon seriously drag Index into a place like this? He paled. He’s seriously stuck on this. Can I even do anything anymore? Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the stupid cat scavenging around at something. “?” He casually looked over and saw that it had skillfully opened up a bucket lid with its front legs and was poking its face inside. Kamijou looked up again at the building. It was a fairly large hotel. It was easy to think that in general, the cordoned-off Academy City had little need for sleeping facilities, but there were a handful of them for conferences and other academic events. And the building itself looked so extravagant that it seemed out of place—perhaps it was also trying to appeal to people who came from outside (of course, unless there was a conference, there would be zero guests. In a pathetic solution to this problem, they always had department stores, game rooms, etc. within the same building). Which meant that the restaurants inside the building would also have good ratings, and the trash scraps of food would basically be a gourmet meal compared to normal animal food… “Graahh! Don’t you have any obligation toward your master?! Even if it was Index who picked you up” Kamijou yelled at the dumb cat, but it just opened its mouth and made a meow noise. What had he learned? That the stupid cat was, indeed, a stupid cat. 9 (Aug.31_PM08:15) In actuality, Ouma Yamisaka was standing against the wall of the water tower on the roof of the hotel the stupid cat had stopped at. Index was laying a little ways off, tied up with rope. He looked high and far up into the sky and clicked his tongue. From the information he had, Academy City kept a faithful eye on the entire city with a man-made satellite, but word was not spreading, nor had he been obstructed. However, he did not think those of Academy City were powerless. Perhaps they were letting him squirm for now. …It matters not. I will simply get what I came here for, and furthermore, worm through their traps. He had the will to do that from the start, so he did not fear the situation he was in. He took a slow, deep breath and quietly opened both of his eyes. If someone were to have seen him, they would have forgotten to breathe. It wasn’t that his eyes were terribly sharp or anything. Nor were they false, artificial ones. He had a completely average pair of eyes. He had pure eyes, utterly unfitting of one dressed in a jet-black suit, of a combat professional calling himself a sorcerer. They were the eyes of a young man who hadn’t yet seen the world’s darker side. He took a photograph out of his suit pocket. The woman in the picture was a complete stranger. She was two, maybe three years older than Ouma—not a girl, but a woman. She had slight curves, a fair complexion, and looked like she would collapse if left out in the summer sun for even thirty minutes. That impression was not mistaken. Her body had always been weak, ever since he saw her for the first time. And it was because of a curse—not something normal medicine could ever fix. From an eastern viewpoint, it was Jugondo voodoo magic using mirrors and swords. From a western perspective, it was a type of sympathetic magic, an imitative curse. It didn’t matter what one called it. The only important thing was that she was on the verge of dying, beyond any help. It wasn’t as if the near-dead woman had asked him to save her. All she could do anymore was give that exhausted smile. Yamisaka had no connection to this woman. She was not family, nor was she a friend. They’d only exchanged words on occasion in the hospital courtyard, and she was unaware that he was a sorcerer in the first place. There was no need for him to take action for her sake. It wasn’t a good enough reason for him to fight with his life on the line. However, Yamisaka had always thought that if he became a sorcerer, he’d be able to do anything. He never wanted to be discouraged again, so he vowed to become one. Yamisaka didn’t care about this woman. But he was supposed to be able to do anything. He was never supposed to be discouraged again. He couldn’t let himself stumble over something so simple. He wouldn’t give up on his dream over something so trivial. That was all. At least, it should have been. “…Hmph.” He returned the picture to his pocket and closed his eyes once more, as if closing off his human heart, then looked up. Yamisaka’s sense organs were all strengthened, so cutting off one or two posed no problem. His gaze fell to Index. She was bound with rope all over her body, immobile and lying on the hard concrete surface…or at least, she should have been. At some point, she had gotten up, and now she was sitting cross-legged. “This is surprising. You’ve managed to undo two of the knots in such a short time. Rope-binding techniques are not my specialty, but I did have confidence that I could at least bind low-class monsters.” The ropes tying Index’s whole body up were as slender as electrical cables, but it made a fine shimenawa—the rope used in Shinto rituals. In simpler terms, she was currently imprisoned by an extremely small barrier. Despite being cornered in an absolutely desperate situation, her expression held no fear. “Ropes may be a method of torture unique to Japanese culture, but the sloppy job you’ve done won’t make me talk.” Her words came out smoothly and easily. Bindings. Despite their simple appearance, they were a gruesome form of torture that could potentially kill someone. For example, if a person tied somebody’s wrists up and left them for three days, the stoppage of blood flow would allow them to be shown the sight of their own hands rotting away. The physical pain involved went without saying, but the mental anguish was immeasurable. Index glared at Yamisaka. In reality, this sort of danger was always present for the girl who protected the 103,000 grimoires. Therefore, she had developed a certain amount of endurance. She was purposely creating an anemic condition by regulating her breathing, thereby dulling the pain she felt. But she had only a certain amount of it. She wasn’t confident that she would be able to maintain her own sanity even when her wrists, no longer receiving blood, began to rot away in front of her. She actually had another layer of security that even she hadn’t noticed, but it was currently disabled thanks to a certain boy’s right hand. Yamisaka exhaled slightly. “I see. My rotten luck—you’re still a member of the English Puritan Church, so you would have extensive knowledge of witch-hunting and trials.” “…Rotten? If that was a joke, then it was the worst one I’ve ever heard, I think.” “No, no. Such was not my intention. And by the way, I have no intention of torturing you, either.” “Then these ropes are far too tight. You can’t just clench the arteries to my arms and feet or constrict my lungs like this! If you’re still trying to let me live, then you could have just lightly tied my thumbs together and I wouldn’t be able to move.” “I see. Your expertise is most welcome,” responded Yamisaka in turn, undoing several of the knots as Index had suggested. This instead seemed to confuse her. He was acting far too honestly for an enemy. He replied to the unspoken thought with a composed look. “As I have already said, torturing you is not my goal.” He continued. “Of course, it is true that I want to get a certain grimoire out of you.” Index glared at him. One hundred and three thousand grimoires all sealed away within her memories. Protecting them was her duty. “Now, then…” He coolly caught her stare. “It will take a bit of time to prepare. First, I must draw an amplification barrier.” 10 (Aug.31_PM09:21) The stupid cat’s odd diversion tactic wasted a lot of time. Kamijou ran through the night streets, the cat’s neck firmly in his grasp. It was way past dinnertime, and the students who had been out and about temporarily had all disappeared like a wave pulling back from the shore. The only noises floating through the near-empty streets now were the voices coming from televisions in shops and electronic stores. In one customer-less convenience store, he saw a lone man who looked like a part-timer (and who seemed quite bored), tending the register all alone. I messed up. There may not be any time left. Anxiety welled up inside him; he sighed to try and lessen it. The man probably hadn’t kidnapped Index to kill her…at least, he didn’t think so. He also didn’t think she’d come to harm very easily, either, but that obviously was not enough to bring him any peace of mind. The most troubling part of all this was probably that he had no idea where to even start looking. He always got the feeling he was running directly away from where he needed to go. Everything he did caused him to get a little bit more impatient. But I can’t just stop at this point. Damn it! I’m at a huge disadvantage here. I need to get where I’m going and fast! Kamijou swore under his breath, cursing that sister in white for causing him this much trouble, and was about to whip around a corner… …when he nearly collided with a girl who had just come around it herself. “Ack?! Wh-what do you think you’re doing?!” The one who screamed in such an extremely unfeminine manner had shoulder-length brown hair, a face that belied an unyielding spirit, and was wearing a gray pleated skirt, a short-sleeved blouse, and a summer sweater. “I finally found you! You just left me there after that and ran away with the fake Unabara. Did something happen at lunchtime? I thought a whole building had collapsed on you, so I guess you’re not hurt. Jeez, if you’re safe, you should at least call me and say so!…Hm? Wait, you don’t have my number, do you?” Mikoto Misaka. She was the ace of Tokiwadai Middle School, an elite institution for Ability Development, and an electric user, one of only seven Level Five espers in Academy City. The lightning spears she fired from her bangs reached more than one billion volts. Their relationship was more akin to that of sparring partners than friends, but Kamijou couldn’t be bothered to care about any of this at the moment, so he ignored her and dashed around the bend. Then, Mikoto, having been left behind, said, “Hey, wait! What? Wait a second! You’re just gonna ignore me completely, huh?!” She seems to be shouting at me, but it’s not important. Forward, forward! “Hey! Don’t you think you’re being a little bit rude? Like, at all?!” I said it before, and I’ll say it again. It’s not important. You don’t get to appear in the events of this episode. “Don’t…give me that… You do this every single time! Every single time, damn it” He heard what he thought was the sound of sparks fizzling behind him. Surprised, he turned around. Bluish-white sparks were flying off of Mikoto’s bangs. As mentioned previously, Misaka’s lightning spears were more than one billion volts. If the moniker lightning spear didn’t spell it out for a person, then just try to think of a natural disaster flying straight at their face. Kamijou put his right hand up. It could nullify any abnormal powers just by touching them, whether they were supernatural abilities or magic. He understood that it could cancel out Mikoto’s lightning spears, of course, but it didn’t change the fact that this was terrifying. After all, he was thrusting his right hand straight toward a bolt of electricity. Zap! The sparks leaped from her bangs. Slam! The lightning attack shot through the air, a thunderclap trailing behind. “?!” But it hadn’t been aimed at Kamijou. It struck a nearby cleaning robot that was currently busy trying to get a piece of gum off the pavement. The robot’s internal speaker exploded instantly. Whump The sound and force of the resulting shock wave ripped through the air and caused the glass doors of the department store next to them to shudder. Of course, this caused intense damage to him, since the ear-splitting noise had gone off right next to him. The shock wave splashed into his ears and threw off his entire body’s sense of balance and caused his feet to stagger. He stood there in place, head spinning. As for the stupid cat in his arms, its cute “Minyaa” cries had evolved into actual ones that sounded more like “Bgyaah!” and “Shaaaa” On the other hand, Mikoto looked fairly pleased with herself that she’d stopped him. “Hah, you finally stopped. I swear, you nearly smashed into me, and you didn’t even say a word—um, hello? Why on earth do you look like you’re about to cry?” “I’m in a really, really big hurry here! Homework, kidnappings, there was a mess at the restaurant, I ran out without paying… Please, just try and figure the rest out by yourself” Kamijou’s more-than-half-desperate cries seemed to catch her off guard. He didn’t notice. “Come on, what do you want?! What is it that you need?! If you have something to say, then please wait for the beep and explain in less than forty seconds! Okay, beep” “Eh? Uh, huh? Well, I was just sort of mad that you weren’t responding to me, but I didn’t really have anything I needed from you…I didn’t, but…” “Sorry!” He swiveled, turning his back to Mikoto, and dashed off again. If he had calmly understood what she had just said, he would have heard what she had said as oddly friendly. Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough time to analyze it. “Wha…hey! Are you actually just gonna leave like that?! Hey” She’s shouting something behind me, but it’s not important. Forward, forward! 11 (Aug.31_PM09:52) Index couldn’t quite get a grip on the situation she was in at the moment. All that her presumed enemy, the sorcerer, had done was tie her up. He hadn’t caused her any more harm. He appeared to be trying to draw a barrier around the area by using thin shimenawa ropes (it seemed his comment that he was not a specialist in rope-binding techniques had been a modest one). Evidently he’d pushed Index to the back of his mind for now. The idea of him thinking, Yeah, she’s over there, tied up with rope was certainly not proper manners to show a girl. Even so, she supposed she should be grateful for what was, in essence, a first-class treatment as a prisoner. The torture employed in witch hunts could be thought of in terms of orange juice. One would just squeeze the orange—their body—until the juice—the information they had—came out. No one cared what happened to the squashed orange. If they had any thought as to the pain of a discarded orange, then they wouldn’t be doing any capturing in the first place. Even within the English Puritan Church, only a very few people could actually do that. Index didn’t specialize in combat, so she couldn’t hurt people anyway. And in reality, most of the Inquisitors sitting in on the trials would use suggestion and magic drugs on themselves in order to temporarily erase their sense of guilt toward what they were doing. One didn’t come across the kind of person who could squeeze a person like an orange with a totally straight face. Index watched the sorcerer as he created the barrier in front of her. This person didn’t seem to be able to make orange juice. Was that because he was weak? Or was it…? 12 (Aug.31_PM10:07) “Hah! Hah” Kamijou had been running around the city aimlessly, steadily throwing Mikoto Misaka off his trail, but he just couldn’t find Index anywhere. “Ah, forget this! There’s less than two hours left in the day! What am I supposed to do about my homework?! If that lolicon makes it so that I can’t finish it, I’m seriously gonna kill him” He continued his maniac sprint through the night streets, spouting what would make him sound to a bystander like an extremely dangerous person. But his voice also sounded like he was trying to force down some great anxiety. It had already been a few hours since Index had been taken away. I can’t do this myself. Should I just be honest and report this? Academy City’s peacekeeping system was not made up of a normal police department, but rather by Anti-Skills and Judgment. Anti-Skills was a corps of teachers armed with high-tech weaponry, while Judgment was a force made up of espers chosen from the student population. Even if he had run and fled in order to evade pursuit, psychometers could read his destination from things left behind at the scene of the crime. It was probably safer to crush him with sheer numbers in this case, too. But… Kamijou bit back. Index was from the world of the occult, not Academy City. She had essentially smuggled herself in. If he carelessly asked for help from the police, he ran the very real risk of causing a wholly different problem. What do I do? He stopped. There was a police box right nearby. What do I do?! As he debated the decision, a man standing in front of the police box came over to him. Did I look so panicked? He still wasn’t sure he wanted to consult anyone, but the male Anti-Skills officer was rapidly approaching. Before he could say anything, the Anti-Skill said this: “Would you happen to be the one who broke the glass and caused an uproar at a restaurant in the Seventh School District?” “Eh?” “We had a psychometer read the mind of the manager who put in the damage report and draw a likeness…Wait, I feel like I’ve seen you before. Ah, right, we’ve had witnesses saying that they spotted you this afternoon, too, when the building in District Seven collapsed. That was what caused them to issue code orange…I don’t think they could have gone to code red just from the one incident, but…” “Huh?” Kamijou smiled without emotion and made an about-face… …and began to sprint away incredibly fast. I left that sorcerer with Tsuchimikado, since he had nowhere else to go, but…is he actually looking after him like he’s supposed to be? he thought, running away at a terrifying speed. “H-hey! Just you wait a minute! Stop, I say” He didn’t stop, and he certainly didn’t wait. He continued to speed down the road—if anyone from the track team had seen him, they’d be drooling at the prospect of recruiting him. Can I shake him? Did I shake him? Aha-ha, you slow-ass tortoise! he thought, bathing in victory, when suddenly he heard the bang of a gunshot ring out behind him. He looked back to see white smoke billowing from the .22 the Anti-Skill had taken out. It had been a beautiful horizontal shot. And the first one, too. “Wait, the hell?! You tryin’ to kill me or something, you punk officer?! You can’t treat people like that” “There is no need to fear. We know children’s rights. These are rubber bullets.” “You mean that thing’s loaded?! Wait, you can still break a few bones even with rubber bullets!” screamed Kamijou, fleeing into a back alley. This wasn’t the time to be thinking about his homework or about what time it was. The only thing he thought was this: Was Index safe? 13 (Aug.31_PM10:52) Innumerable ropes hung on the top of the building. From afar, it might have looked like the flag display at an athletic meet. Ropes extended in every direction from the top of the water tank and were tied to the fences on the edge of the building. Dozens of talismans with symbols drawn in ink on Japanese paper hung from them at regular intervals. Index looked quizzically at it, still sitting tied up. “This is…a kagura stage?” Kagura—a dance dedicated to the gods. “It is nothing so outrageous. At present, it is more like a Bon Odori stage. The syncretizing of Shinto and Buddhism, if you will,” responded Yamisaka. Now that he mentioned it, the water tank did look like the yagura, or the raised platform on which people stood, and the ropes stretching from the yagura looked like the lines of lanterns that traditionally hung from them (though Index’s information source on this was only made up of pictures from books—and it was only in recent history that yagura and lanterns began to be used in Bon Odori). The normal Bon dance and the more religious kagura dances were two separate things, of course. However, when a person traced them back from an occult point of view, Bon Odori was a dance offered to the dead for the repose of their souls—so it was similar to kagura in that one would come into contact with spiritual entities. Just like Bon Odori, one would create a ritual site and align it with specific rules, and then multiple people would spin around in a circle. That in itself implied some sort of spiritual contact. The Rochtein Circuit, a devil-worshipping ritual in the western world; the Cottage Square, a modern urban legend—those and others all expressed similar things in different forms across different cultures and time periods. But why is he preparing something like this?…Is he going to try and make me tell him someth— Ow! Her rear end came down on something. She squirmed to get out of the way and saw that it was a cell phone. It was an extremely slipshod, zero-yen phone that Kamijou had given her, but Index didn’t know how to use it. The screen was brightening up for some reason, but Index, still with her hands tied and knowing she mustn’t incite Yamisaka, wormed her way in front of the cell phone to hide it. She pressed a few buttons on the way, but she didn’t think about it. Thankfully, Yamisaka didn’t seem to notice. As if boasting about the bow strapped to his right arm, he said, “What? My hidden intention for drawing this barrier was to strengthen this, even by a bit. This bow was originally meant for the one dancing, after all.” Index gave the barrier a brief glance and let the knowledge in her brain do the rest. “An azusa bow?” she surmised, invoking the Japanese name for the catalpa tree. “Excellent. I see that grimoire library of yours covers Japanese culture as well.” An azusa bow was a Shinto ritual tool. It was said to be not for firing arrows but for destroying demons using a shock wave made from the sound of pulling and releasing the bowstring. It was originally a musical instrument used in kagura, by a shrine maiden during her dance; the sound would lead her into a trance and assist her in summoning a god. “It normally only has the power to deliver a slight impact to the mind to correct imperfections.” Yamisaka looked at the ropes above. “However, with all the proper conditions fulfilled…I can read a person’s mind in detail. Yes—I could even expose the 103,000 grimoires you’re desperately concealing in your heart.” Index looked at him incredulously, and a moment later, the space around them began to glow faintly, the light seeming to come from the ropes hung every which way. Using the mechanisms in his right hand’s azusa bow, Yamisaka pulled the bowstring. “Y-you can’t!” shouted Index like a young child. “What I have isn’t what you’re thinking it is! If a normal person even glances at one of them, they’ll go insane. Even if you’re a specialized sorcerer, you couldn’t endure even thirty of them! You know what would happen if anyone but me reads the 103,000 grimoires, don’t you?!” Ouma Yamisaka smiled quietly, as if truly caring about what his enemy had said. Then, he responded, “Of course. I am fully aware.” 14 (Aug.31_PM11:10) As Kamijou ran through the dark streets trying to throw off Anti-Skills, he listened. He could hear the voices of Index and the pervert over the cell phone. All of a sudden, he’d gotten an incoming call from Index’s zero-yen cell phone, which should have been turned off. Their voices were muffled somewhat, as if there was a piece of cloth over the microphone. And she wasn’t trying to converse with Kamijou, either. It was like he was overhearing someone else’s conversation. Tiing. With an odd noise, the roof of a far-off building began to glow faintly. It looked like a huge pillar of light going straight up into the clouds. That’s…Damn it, that’s the hotel I was at before What the hell did I do all this work for?! Of course, he didn’t have any proof that Index was actually there. But he didn’t have any other places to check. He decided, for now, to visit every likely location and plotted a course toward the building. 15 (Aug.31_PM11:20) Something strange happened right after it began. Wrapped in the light of the giant barrier, Yamisaka, having pulled the string, began to shake and shiver like he was sick with the flu. A disgusting sweat broke out all over him, and his eyes began to lose focus and waver. What Yamisaka was doing was simply reading Index’s mind. There was no spell or technique involved, so nothing could go wrong. This magic didn’t have any dangerous side effects in the first place. Nevertheless, he clearly felt his life draining away. That was how utterly poisonous the 103,000 grimoires stowed away inside the girl’s mind were. “, ” Merciless pain was trying to pound out of his skull. He found himself unable to speak. Not even Yamisaka was considering getting all 103,000 of the grimoires. Copying that many of them into one’s own head was impossible anyway. He just needed one. It was called Baopuzi. It was a grimoire from Chinese culture meant for becoming an immortal, ageless hermit. Within it would be written the Chinese alchemy that could create an elixir, which would heal any illness or curse. That one was all he needed to get. Replicas with added nonsense information and copies with mistaken interpretations would not do—if he had the one grimoire that was the absolute closest to the original work, it should have been enough. “, ” And yet just the one grimoire had this much force. At this point, Yamisaka understood why those replicas and copies had been made impure and had tactless, thoughtless additions in them. It was because their poison was just too strong. So strong that unless they were messed up in some way, normal people couldn’t even stand reading a few paragraphs. Yamisaka looked at the girl. She was shouting at him to stop. Just reading one page felt like the grimoire was gouging out his brain. This girl had gotten 103,000 whole volumes into her head. That wasn’t something a human could do. And yet she had done so. There was no doubt at all that she was something profoundly abnormal. “” Page after page of the venomous grimoire was dragged into his brain at each sounding of his bowstring. Each toxic page mixed into his mind like milk into coffee, soiling it. But Yamisaka kept on. He gritted his teeth and drew the bow again. So far he had lived thinking that if he became a sorcerer he could do anything. He had vowed to become one, never wanting to be set back or frustrated again. He couldn’t allow himself to stumble here. There was a woman on the verge of death. She no longer even had the willpower to cry out for help. She was powerless, able only to smile in the face of approaching death. If he couldn’t save one insignificant woman, then he would be set back and he would be frustrated. He would never even think of harming the dream he held because of some insignificant woman like her. And so he drew the bowstring back. Even if blood were to pour from his eyes and ears, he would acquire the grimoire he was after with his own hands. He wounded his body and drowned himself in sin for the sake of his ambitions. It was not for the sake of such an insignificant woman. And it was certainly not her fault! 16 (Aug.31_PM11:37) Kamijou kicked in the back door of the building, rushed inside, and sprinted up the emergency stairwell. “…You’re wrong!” As he ran, he heard Index’s voice coming from the cell phone. “I can tell. That azusa bow—you’ve strengthened it too much. It’s flowing upstream, back into your mind. I can tell!” Her voice was pained, as if she might break into tears. As if steadily understanding a breaking heart. “You loved her. That’s all! That’s why you wanted to save her life, even at the risk of your own. But to save her, you needed to hurt others and commit crimes. You didn’t want her to have to bear that responsibility. You never wanted to tell her that it was her fault you committed them, or that you wouldn’t have needed to if it wasn’t for her!” Index’s shouts were trying to stop someone. “No, that was all it was! So…so please, don’t ruin yourself, even if it would undo the curse on that woman! If you’re destroyed, then she’ll have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life!” Kamijou, still running, clenched his teeth. “You want to save that woman, don’t you? You wanted to reach out to her, even if you were the only one! You just couldn’t ignore the fact that someone was cursed to death, that’s all! So you mustn’t…you mustn’t resort to such unworthy methods” So that’s how it is, thought Kamijou, getting the picture. He accelerated his mad dash to the top floor. He went straight for the door leading out onto the roof and, too impatient to turn the doorknob to open it, simply kicked it down. 17 (Aug.31_PM11:47) As soon as he got onto the roof, Kamijou’s right hand touched something. It was the end of one of the ropes creating the barrier. As soon as his fingers came into contact with it, it crumbled and vanished, as if instantly fading with time. Like that, its speed was as fierce as the light on a fuse. In no time at all, the destruction spread from that rope to the others, and finally, the dim glow surrounding them disappeared as well. The next thing he knew, it was just a normal hotel roof again. The stupid cat slipped out of his arms and down to the floor. It probably didn’t understand what was going on at all. It left Kamijou’s side and defenselessly walked over toward Index, who was sitting on the ground, tied up. And Index was…Well, he didn’t really understand, but she was tied up in a fairly complex manner with ropes. From where he stood, she didn’t look injured or anything. Her clothes weren’t even messed up. Kamijou diverted his gaze. He looked at the man standing one step to the side of her. It was the pervert—er, rather, the sorcerer. All of the large man’s veins were standing out on his skin. He was drenched in so much sweat it looked like he’d been rained on, and a band of blood came out of the side of one of his closed eyes like a teardrop, coming down over his cheek. The sorcerer, whose name Kamijou didn’t know, quietly faced him. “…Is it wrong?” Click. Using the mechanism in his bow, he pulled the string and repeated, “Is it so wrong to want to protect someone, even at the cost of your own life?” A silence descended upon the darkness. The night breeze blowing between the two of them was a cold one, not at all gentle. And Kamijou answered, “Of…course it is! “You know the pain of losing someone important, don’t you? You know the suffering of not being able to do a single thing for somebody who is suffering and hurting right in front of you, don’t you?” Kamijou knew it. He was able to answer the man because it had been forced upon him in that white hospital room on that day. “You were panicked. You were in pain. You were suffering. You were hurting. You were scared. You were trembling. You were shouting. You were crying…So don’t do it. You can’t go pushing that kind of massive shock onto somebody else!” Instead of an answer, the sorcerer silently readied his bow. He probably already knew what was right and what was wrong at this point. But even still, he couldn’t give up. Because he was scared. He was scared more than anything else in the world of losing the one person important to him. “Executioner Bowstring.” That was the name of the magic that created the compressed blades of air. Kamijou began to run at the same time he announced it. He balled his right hand into a fist to stop this single magician, who was just too kind and too weak. But his fist never reached. Before the bowstring snapped, the sorcerer’s body wavered and he fell to the ground. He wasn’t getting back up. Red fluid oozed from his fallen body, staining the floor below. Kamijou paled and he sprinted over to the sorcerer at full speed. The sorcerer’s mouth opened slowly, as if he had felt him coming near. With a wet sigh filled with blood, his bloodstained lips formed words. “What nonsense. I read just one book…and now I’m like this.” His voice somehow sounded extremely sleepy. “My tiny vessel was far too small to obtain even one of the original copies in the first place. Ha-ha…what is this? My life is full of failures. I’ve already given up three times so far.” “…” “There was something I could never give up on, though.” The sorcerer looked toward the moon hovering in the sky and managed a smile. Tears began to fall from his closed eyelids, just too kind and too weak. “Just one thing…that was all…but…” His lips’ movements slowed, then finally stopped. Kamijou heard Index gasping. He bit down onto his lip and then said one thing. “Get him.” At his command, the stupid cat ran up to them and executed a full-strength combo attack on the sorcerer’s face with its claws. “Bgh?! Gbah?!” “I didn’t give you permission to wrap up the conversation like that, you asshole,” murmured Kamijou with a sigh, relatively serious, looking down at the sorcerer. “That was for my summer homework. Jeez! There’s no hope left to finish it now, and it’s all your fault. What I’m saying is, I’m prepared to help you out, even if it means I have to stand out in the hallway later, so you could at least let me get in a cat attack.” The sorcerer moved his mouth up and down, trying to say something, but Kamijou didn’t think about it. He continued, asking, “So where is this important person of yours, anyway?” “Gha, gheh…what?” “What I mean is, we can do something without having to use the archive of forbidden books, got it?” Kamijou scratched his head lightly. “Like this right hand I have. It’s called Imagine Breaker. It’s a weird power that can cancel out any other weird powers, like magic and supernatural abilities. Of course, a curse, or whatever the hell the problem is, is no exception.” Kamijou waved his right hand toward him as if expecting a handshake. The sorcerer’s expression froze. “Eh…?” “I’m no sorcerer, so I don’t have a clue what a curse is, but if I use this, the curse will just disappear completely, won’t it?” “Wh…a…impossible.” “Far from it. You just saw me do it! I wiped out all your wind swords. Do you understand? I’ll say it once. I don’t need your stinking logic. That’s just how my right hand works.” The sorcerer, whose name he did not know, listened to Kamijou, dumbstruck. He didn’t know how to react to such a sudden and unexpected development. He had never dared to hope he’d even get a second chance. Kamijou, for his part, scratched his head casually again. “Anyway. It may be tough, but you’re gonna take me there. Also, sorry, but I need to get back by tomorrow at seven to make it to my entrance ceremony…Wait, do trains run at this time? Oh, also, a curse, right? Isn’t it the kind of evil magician sort of thing you read about in books? Does that mean I have to crush that guy, too? What a pain.” The sorcerer listened silently to Kamijou essentially talking to himself. At last, he asked… …slowly and fearfully, seeming uneasy that he wasn’t letting go of his hand, “Uh…are…are you actually serious?” “Of course I am. You totally wasted all my summer homework. It’s all your fault! I’m not going home empty-handed at this point!” said Kamijou angrily. “So you’re gonna take responsibility for this, got it? You’re going to show me where this person is even if I have to drag you there. I don’t give a damn whether we’re on code red or what. We’re gonna save that important person of yours. It’s your job to come up with an excuse for me forgetting my homework, at least, got it?” Time had stopped for the sorcerer. Kamijou smiled at him quite savagely. “For that, I need your help. Not anyone else’s—I need your help to do it. So you’re gonna help out whether you like it or not. You want to save her with your own hands, right?” The sorcerer groaned in confusion. At Kamijou’s words, his facial expression twisted and distorted. Then, tears began to streak down his face, as though from melting ice. Kamijou sighed. Then, he had a sudden thought. “I guess that means I’m giving up on my homework…or, hmm, yeah, I’ll…wait. Hey, can I go get my homework before we leave?” Sep.01_AM00:00 End