5_Chapter 4_ Full Stop

CHAPTER 4 Full StopBeast_Body, Human_Heart. 1 Unlike the dark underground, on the surface, the sunlight was dazzling. Index and Mikoto Misaka had been left in the streets by themselves. Kuroko Shirai was still carrying the trapped students out of the underground. Kamijou and the others hadn’t come back safely yet, so it would be heartless to go home right now. But they didn’t have anything to talk about, either. A singular silence fell over the two of them under the blue skies pelting them with brilliant sunlight. Ah, jeez, Kuroko… She cursed her absent underclassman under her breath. She could just blow up the underground mall partition with her Railgun, but then the terrorist might get out. She couldn’t risk anything so dramatic. The cat in Index’s arms flailed around, not appreciating the heat. Finally, she said, “…It’s so hot.” “Yeah.” Mikoto nodded. “But what are those clothes, anyway? Why are you wearing long sleeves in this crazy heat…? Oh, do you get sunburned easily? I think I heard on TV that if you don’t have much pigment, the sun fries you pretty easily.” “It’s never bothered me. There’s a nice draft in them right now.” “Hah?…Wow, now that I look at it, there’re safety pins all over the fabric! Why is it all messed up like that?” “Ugh…I don’t want to reopen any old scars, so I’d rather not talk about why…” Index cut off the conversation there, so they stopped talking again. But now that they had spoken, Mikoto got impatient with their newfound silence pretty quickly. “They sure are late.” “…Yeah. I wonder what I should do. That sorcerer kinda seemed like she had her eyes on Hyouka. Her spells were just like London’s, too. I hope I’m just thinking about it too hard…” “?” Mikoto was confused. She wasn’t used to hearing the words sorcerer and spells being tossed around. When Index was brought out of the underground by Kuroko Shirai, she didn’t thank her; in fact, she made a fuss, demanding to know why she’d escaped first and insisting she take her back there immediately. Mikoto thought she remembered the girl using the word sorcerer then, too, kind of like a joke. She thought about it for a few moments, but then decided it wasn’t worth the effort. From her clothing, she looked like she was involved with a church. For someone without any scientific knowledge, espers must all look like they’re using magic. “‘Hyouka’—that’s the name of the girl who was with you, right?” “Yep. Oh, Touma didn’t drag her along this time, though! I met her first.” “…‘This time,’ huh? I see.” Mikoto averted her eyes and grinned darkly, but the innocent Index didn’t notice. She started to sway left and right, with the cat still in her arms. “Urk. I’m kinda worried. Leaving a girl behind in a place like that is one thing, but leaving her and Touma alone in the dark is another thing entirely!” “…Hmm. For some reason, it’s only at times like this that I think we could be friends.” Mikoto paused. “Not like I care or anything, but you’re not worried about him at all?” For just a moment, Index stopped moving. “Huh, Touma? I’m not worried about him. He always comes home, no matter what happens,” she answered, though it was already contradictory. If she really weren’t worried, then she wouldn’t feel the need to wait patiently under the blazing hot sun. I guess it wouldn’t do any good to tell her not to worry in this situation, She thought, reflecting on how their conversation had ended once again. On the other hand, Hmm. “Comes home,” huh? Comes home to whom—that didn’t even need to be said. The silver-haired girl probably didn’t mean anything special by it, but that only made the damage worse. That meant for them, it was just life as usual, and not something they paid attention to. It had permeated into their common sense. Mikoto fiddled with her bangs. But, so what? Why am I so shocked by that? She frowned at how she felt about this. Then, with a high-pitched meow, the calico in Index’s arms suddenly escaped. “Ah!” Index cried. Mikoto redirected her attention away from herself just as the cat slipped out of Index’s arms and hit the ground. As if saying, “I’m not sticking around until it gets even hotter,” it ran away. Index immediately began to run after the tiny deserter, but stopped. Unsure of herself, she glanced between the fleeing cat and Mikoto. It seemed like she wanted to go after it, but she also wasn’t sure about leaving this place. “It’s fine. I’ll stay here, so go get that cat and bring it back. I couldn’t chase it anyway. Cats don’t really like me.” “Sorry! I’ll do that, thanks…Hey, get back here, Sphinx” Index bowed her head quickly. She chased the cat into the shade behind a convenience store and disappeared. Its name is Sphinx? Mikoto thought. What absolutely terrible taste in names. I don’t even know what to say. Suddenly, she noticed the manhole cover at her feet rattling. “What?” She wondered, but then the cover on the change return of the vending machine across the street started to flap back and forth. The leaves on the trees lining the street began to sway to and fro, even though there wasn’t any wind. It didn’t quite feel like an earthquake. The odd tremors felt more like a big sea monster was stomping around somewhere far away. Maybe that cat used its animal senses to detect the tremors and ran away because of it, she thought. 2 Hyouka Kazakiri sat flopped down on the ground of the dark underground mall. Neither the blinding flood of lights nor the piercing storm of gunfire remained. The Anti-Skill officers were busy shouting orders over their wireless communicators in an attempt to prevent Sherry from escaping to the surface. Suddenly, she heard people arguing. She looked over and saw Kamijou and the female Anti-Skill deep in conversation—well, actually, Kamijou was so heated that he was almost grabbing her. “I said that thing’s not in the underground mall anymore! Why the hell can’t you open up the mall again?!” “I’ve told you this a dozen times—the ones controlling the mall are under different jurisdiction than us, ’kay? We’re in contact with them, but there’s a distinct chain of command. It’ll take a bit longer to lift the seals!” “Shit!” Kamijou cursed, kicking the wall. Kazakiri twitched in surprise, but she realized that he was acting strangely. The immediate threat, Sherry, was no longer here. What was he so flustered about? The Anti-Skill who Kamijou was discussing something with looked like she was getting a message over her radio. She left him and began to argue over it using a lot of specialized vocabulary, or abbreviations, or something. Kazakiri floated over to Kamijou like a fish floating downstream. He was coming off as a little scary, but he also had this air about him that she couldn’t leave alone, like a child about to start bawling. “…U-umm…Thank you for…for before.” “Hmm? It wasn’t really anything you need to thank me for. Anyway, are you all right?” “Ah, yes…I think…I think I’m fine, but…Umm, well…Is…is something going on…?” Kamijou didn’t say anything for a few moments. He looked like he was wrestling with whether or not to tell her. Finally, he began. He spoke slowly—not like he was carefully choosing his words, but like things that were pent up inside were dribbling out little by little. “Sherry Cromwell…That grimy goth lolita woman didn’t run away. She’s just going after her next target—Index.” “Eh…?” “Apparently she didn’t come here to kill you or me. Under the right conditions, she can go after anyone she wants. And one of those people is Index.” Kazakiri caught her breath. She did remember that blond-haired woman saying something along those lines. Kazakiri and Kamijou were under the protection of a crowd of Anti-Skill officers, but Index was totally defenseless. If she could go after anyone, then obviously she’d go for the easier choice. “I was haggling with the one Anti-Skill, but she says they can’t open up the underground mall yet. We can’t get out if they don’t raise those thick shutters!” “…B-but…Speaking of them…There’s plenty of Anti-Skill officers on the surface, too…You could just get them to go defend her…” “We can’t.” Kazakiri thought her suggestion was sensible, but Kamijou denied it without thinking. “What…Why?” “Index doesn’t live in this city. If Anti-Skill finds her, she could be arrested. It’s not a sure thing…but she could be.” Kamijou lowered his voice. “She’s got a guest ID, but who knows if that’ll help now that we’re in an emergency and under Code Red? It’s possible they’ll ask her to show them other identification, like a license or a credit card.” He gave a tsk. “That would be bad. Bottom line, she has no identity. Bank cards, insurance, proof of residence—she doesn’t even know her age, blood type, or birthday. And ‘Index’ is clearly a fake name. You think people on the lookout for a suspicious outsider would let a blank sheet of paper go?” With that, Kazakiri finally understood why Kamijou was in such a state of panic. Compared to Hyouka Kazakiri, Index had far fewer allies, even though there were so many people in this city. “But…but I…I don’t actually live here, either…” “Your case is a little different. Your ID isn’t registered with the city, but that’s it. You might be a little different from normal, but that doesn’t mean you’re dangerous. But Index is different. She basically belongs to an organization separate from Academy City. And because she does, she could be judged as extremely dangerous.” Finished, Kamijou began to walk away by himself. Kazakiri hurried back up to him. He was headed for the edge of the big hole in the floor the blond-haired woman used to escape. “I guess we gotta go through here. Damn it. The partitions are right over there. I could beat her there no sweat if they opened them up. Why do I have to tail her like this?!” Kazakiri peered into the hole. Without light, it was pitch black. She couldn’t see the bottom. Would he be okay if he jumped down there? Who knew how far down it went? He wouldn’t even be able to judge when he hit the ground so he could soften the impact. And besides… “W-wait…Are you…are you really going alone?” Kazakiri believed that they should notify Anti-Skill, even if it was a risk. She knew how scary that blond-haired woman was. She had destroyed Kazakiri’s body numerous times. She could say for sure that she wasn’t an opponent a high school student could go up against without thinking. Kamijou probably knew that as well. The only reason he survived was because of the sheer number of Anti-Skill members forcing the situation. Not even a tank could beat that thing one-on-one. It was nothing less than a monster, in every sense of the word. But even knowing all that, he didn’t waver. She knew the reason without having to ask. He was harboring an enemy of Academy City. He wanted to protect her no matter what happened. Kazakiri understood the feeling well. Index was an important friend, and the first she’d ever made. To lose that—to even think about her being hurt—made her hair stand on end. But… It wasn’t a good enough reason for him to be hurt. If Kamijou felt that strongly about losing Index, then she firmly wished that they wouldn’t lose their bond with each other. They had to protect Index from that monster. She couldn’t let Touma Kamijou fight that monster. What would fulfill both of those conditions? Kazakiri froze when she thought of it. There was a way. “…It’s…it’s okay. There’s a way to…to save her…without you having to go.” Kamijou frowned and eyed her suspiciously. “To fight…a monster…just…just use another monster.” Kamijou caught his breath, and Kazakiri smiled softly. “I…I don’t know if I can win against that monster…but I can at least be…a decoy…I can let her flee…while I’m getting punched. Because…because I’m a monster. That’s…that’s all I can do, but…” Kamijou didn’t know what to say to that. But then, his expression changed from surprise to fury. “Are you still going on about that?! Listen to me! You don’t seem to understand, so I’ll spell this out for you. You are not a monster! Who the hell do you think we all ran in here to protect?! Why don’t you get that? Why aren’t you even trying to understand?!” Touma Kamijou’s words were straightforward and without lies. When she saw how angry he was at her masochistic words, her chest got tight. “You think I’d be happy if we do that?! Do you think Index would just turn her back on you as that monster beat you to a pulp?! Bullshit! Even if you abandon us, we wouldn’t leave you to die! We would never do that” However, he realized it, too. The thing that Kamijou and the members of Anti-Skill had stood up to in order to protect Hyouka Kazakiri was still a monster, the same as her. That monster had been shot with guns, collapsed to the ground, and its remains were scattered all over the place. And even when they looked at the monster’s remains…nobody thought anything of them. In the end, that’s what it meant to be inhuman. “…But it’s okay. I’m fine…with being a monster…,” Declared Kazakiri, without looking away from Kamijou’s eyes. “I’m…a monster…No matter how many times that statue punched me, I didn’t die. I’m…I’m a monster…which means I can stand up to it…” So she just said one thing, to mark the end of the conversation. “I…I can defend someone important to me…with my power. So I…I’m happy to be a monster.” She smiled, and then jumped over the edge of the hole Sherry had left. Kamijou shouted out and reached out with his hand, but he stopped halfway through. His dominant hand had reacted because he didn’t have time to think…but it was his right hand. That hand with absolute power, that would wipe out any monsters it touched. He, too, must have known it deep down. Gravity took Kazakiri’s body down into the hole. She smiled quietly. Kamijou was blaming himself for stopping his hand like that, but her smile told him he wasn’t at fault. The monster fell into the dark. From this place at the ends of the Earth, where she had finally been accepted, down to even deeper depths. 3 As soon as she landed at the bottom of the dark hole, her ankles made a harsh noise. She was on the grounds of a subway. The hole had been deeper than she’d thought, and because of the uneven ground due to the tracks, it wasn’t easy to break her fall. In fact, if she’d been a regular human, the bones in her ankles would have broken into a hundred pieces, and she’d be writhing in pain right now. Yes, if she were a regular human. She certainly heard her ankles cracking and felt a dull pain. However, it receded in less than five seconds. She tapped her toes to the ground a couple times, as if adjusting her shoes, but there were no further issues. A strange power coursed through her veins, as if isolated gears had finally clicked together. Were they the names of her own identity? She ran through the dark premises. This place wasn’t designed for humans to pass through—it was even darker and dirtier than the underground mall was. A line of concrete pillars separated the passage in two, with tracks on either side going in opposite directions. She made her way deeper and deeper in, relying on the occasional blinking of the barely functional lights. She knew exactly where she was going. There were clear footsteps in the concrete ground like snow. They were likely made by that super-heavy statue running through. She ran through the stagnant air like a knife. Every time she saw the lights blinking on and off in the darkness, another broken fragment of her memories flooded back to her. She was not human. One day, ten years ago… When Hyouka Kazakiri came to, she was standing in the middle of the city. The city was not Academy City. However, it lay in exactly the same location. It was an invisible mirage city, created by the involuntary diffusion fields given off by Academy City’s 2.3 million espers. In this mirage city, there were no shadows, no weight, no movement of the air. It barely even seemed to exist at all. The buildings, the trees, and the people would sway sometimes, like a candle flame being blown by the wind, and there would be a gray noise. They looked like insects that had mistaken protective colors for dangerous ones. If there were someone who could properly see involuntary diffusion fields, they would realize that this mirage city overlapped precisely with Academy City. Hyouka Kazakiri wasn’t the only thing that had been created by these fields—they included buildings, roads, trees, cars, and the crowds of people, as well. She was a person made from those fields, living in a city made from those fields. —Her memories came back little by little like crumbling shards. —She felt the unseen chains binding her coming off one after another. Even now, she didn’t understand how she had come to be in the mirage city. It had been like she’d awoken from a daydream at some point. The next thing she realized, she was in the middle of a road. From her possessions, she learned her name, address, phone number, and other information. She had no other way of knowing what was happening. The people passing by her wouldn’t tell her anything. And they were strange in the first place. They would essentially change forms depending on where they were. She would see one cleaning the windows of a shop, and a moment later, the employee would morph into a janitor wearing overalls. Then, when he was finished wiping down the window, he would change from a janitor into a child. He would take an ice-cream cone up to the register, and then he would transform into the child’s mother and reach for her purse. —She began to think of herself not as a “human,” but once again as a “monster.” —And she felt power flow into every nerve of her body, like internal limiters were being released— No, like she now had full access to the powers she always possessed. All of the denizens of the city were like that. Everything from their physical appearance to their personality and memories would change according to where they were. When she tried to talk to a passing postman, he would immediately transform into a police officer on city guide duty. Office workers and female high school students, too—everyone just changed into the same middle-age police officer when she addressed them. And all the words they spoke were empty, without meaning. They would all change their shapes to fit their role of answering Hyouka Kazakiri’s questions. Eventually, she grew scared of them. She felt like her actions were in control of their bodies and minds. —Thud! The concrete ground rumbled heavily with every step she took. —Humans weren’t heavy enough to create these shakes, nor could human muscles achieve such force. It exceeded human capabilities in both meanings. At first, she didn’t understand why she was the only one not to undergo that kind of change. However, slowly but surely, she formulated a hypothesis. The people in this city changed according to their role—meaning that as long as they were not given a role, they would not move at all, and the city would come to a halt. She was like a coiled spring. If she were to go into a store to buy some juice, the employees there would begin moving, the juice distributors would begin to work, the power plant that supplied electricity to the refrigerators would power up, the factory that made the juice would begin to work, and the recyclables collectors would start to move. The people of this city were cogs. All of them had been affected little by little by Kazakiri, the spring, until at last, it breathed life into the giant machine called society. She was not the master of the system—she was only one part of it. Only the spring. She was scared. They were not lifeless puppets—they were all humans with real lives. She realized that she would greatly affect the lives of others whether she walked forward or backward. She found herself unable to take another step. Her own role felt far too heavy for her. —Slam She crashed into one of the pillars head-on with energy to spare. —But there wasn’t a single scratch on her. In fact, the pillar made of concrete shattered and collapsed around her instead. She was scared of this mirage-like city. She wanted to run away from it. But if she wasn’t careful, she’d get others mixed up in it. So all she could do was stand there like a ghost and watch—the other city, which she couldn’t touch despite it being right there. The outside—Academy City. Nobody in Academy City noticed she was there. She could stand right in front of students, and they wouldn’t see her. When she held out her arm, it would pass through them. She was surrounded by smiles but would never be allowed into their circle. Even though she understood that, she never stopped trying to communicate with them. She thought that she wouldn’t need to interfere with others to escape to the “outside” at the same location—to Academy City. She wanted to try everything she could, even if it was pointless or would never work. Even if she was ignored. Even if she wasn’t noticed. Even though she knew it would hurt somebody one day. Imagine her surprise when she was able to touch the shoulder of that nun wearing white at that school. —Something unable to be seen was overflowing within her supposedly empty body. —She felt like she would be able to overtake a train as she was now. Unseen coincidences had occurred one after the other, and they had resulted in her enjoying being with others at last. Those others were precious treasures to her. What had probably happened was that she’d sealed away her memories of being a monster in order to protect them. But now, Hyouka Kazakiri had decided to let go of those treasures… …so that she could protect something even more important. Something that couldn’t afford to be lost. “…!” She shot like a bullet through the tunnel. She went so fast that an onlooker would spit out their drink in surprise. She was scared of fighting that monster, of course. Not logically, but physically. The pain of her limbs being torn off and the agony of her body being flattened like a cloth…and the humiliation of crawling around on the filthy ground, unable to die even though it would mean less suffering. But above all that… She was much more scared that her friend, Index, would be scared of her when she saw her true identity as a monster. But I still… There was no stopping her. She looked straight ahead. Her first and last outing after school with Kamijou and Index was fun. She was so happy she could have cried. She wanted to stay in that world forever if she could. Just thinking about never being able to walk with them again stole the heat from her fingertips. She had finally gotten out of that mirage city, and now it would be pointless. …I… But… She was scared of losing it—and that’s why she wanted to protect what was important to her. Even if she would never be on the receiving end of their smiles again… …she wanted to protect this world of theirs. I…I will…! She ran through the darkness as a monster, having abandoned her humanity. She could feel something welling up within her empty body. She vowed to see this through to the end. To protect her precious friends. 4 The calico ran away. Index chased it. The cat had darted behind a convenience store; when it saw Index coming after it like a bull, it panicked and ran away. It dove under a parked car, leaped over a wire fence, and sprinted from alley to alley. Finally, as it tried to jump into what looked like an abandoned concrete building… “Get over here” …Index scooped it up by the neck. Now in the grip of an infuriated, heavily breathing girl, its animal instincts caused it to start struggling around in an attempt to get out of her arms. Though, in the first place, if she hadn’t been chasing it around while screaming so loudly, it probably wouldn’t have kept running. As Index held the cat, meowing unhappily as if to say, “Please, no more, it’s just too hot out,” she looked around. It did indeed seem to be an abandoned building. This place was essentially a back alley surrounded by tall, tightly packed buildings, but it seemed like all of those buildings were set to be knocked down soon. Their signs had been taken down, the glass windowpanes had been removed, and the entrances were without doors, hanging wide open. The inside was unfurnished as well, and she could clearly see the concrete support pillars. It seemed like they were going to knock down all of the buildings nearby and build some sort of new establishment here. The cat swung around its tiny legs, incorrigibly trying to dive into the abandoned building, but Index puffed out one cheek in anger. “Mgh! Don’t get testy with me, or you’ll be in a lot of trouble, mister!” She blew in the cat’s ear, and it meowed instinctively and cringed, then began to tremble. For a moment, it extended the claws on its short front legs out of reflex, but then pulled them back in. Perhaps it had decided not to be that mean. “Okay, we’re going back to where the short-haired one is. Understand?” The cat meowed reluctantly. But just then… Its head jerked back up. Then, it began flailing around, once again trying to slip out of Index’s arms. It was struggling with more power than before, and Index started to worry that she was holding the cat too hard. She tried a few things to calm it down, but all were in vain. Something came rattling down onto Index’s head. “?” Index put a hand to the top of her head, and it came back with concrete powder. She looked up to see dust falling from the walls of the towering abandoned building. The manhole cover at her feet began clattering around. “…The ground is shaking?” Index wondered, confused. It didn’t take her long to realize it, though. That sorcerer who seemed like she was using London’s techniques was underground—meaning she was under her. She felt the ground beneath her feet begin to writhe and wriggle like a living creature for a moment. “?!” Index immediately leaped backward, and the ground she’d been standing on exploded. The stony hand of a monster reached out from the center of the impact. It was almost two meters tall. The arm’s fist blocked her passage, like a long-necked dinosaur staring down at her. Pieces of the road flew everywhere. A clump of asphalt bigger than Index’s head flew right by her face. Having lost her cool, she crouched, tucking the cat into her belly. Immediately after, like a swarm of angry bees, a vast number of the fragments flew straight over her head in a line. The rain of asphalt collided with the building behind her, making a strange crick-crack noise. She didn’t turn to look. She kept her gaze fixed ahead of her. Slowly, she saw a giant statue of stone coming out of the ground, like a dead body crawling out of a grave. She couldn’t spot anyone around who would have cast this spell—it was possible they were controlling it from afar. Index silently narrowed her eyes and thought. Knowledge surfaced in her mind from the vast stores of it she possessed as the archive of forbidden books belonging to the 0th parish of English Puritanism—Necessarius, the Church of Necessary Evils. This information assembled and organized itself in less time than it took her to blink, and the identity of this enemy appeared in her mind’s eye like an embossed image. Base theory is from Kabbalah…main use is for defense and the elimination of enemies…witnessed during the sixteenth century…and according to Gershom Scholem, its essence is formless and unstable. Many, when faced with the word golem, would immediately think of a dumb, lumbering monster made of stone and earth, but they were actually different. In the teachings of Kabbalah, God created man from the earth. The imperfect being created by man, however, using the same method, is called a golem. In other words, golems are failed human reproductions. They were essentially more like Pinocchio than anything else. Has applicability. The original has been mixed with English Puritan techniques. The language family has been changed from Hebrew to English. Body parts correspond with crosses. Its construction is closer to an angel than a human copy. This golem was, however, different from a simple humanoid one. It was on a higher level of existence—it seemed the sorcerer was attempting to construct a humanlike angel. The head, right hand, left hand, and legs were each like the end of a cross, and the power of the Four Archangels was distributed throughout its body. The sorcerer must have wanted to create a more combat-oriented angel even out of mud and dirt. If there was one bright side for Index, it was that humans’ ability to control them was limited. Human hands cannot create perfect angels. It wasn’t as if, for example, somebody could assemble the Archangel of Water itself. That didn’t change the fact that even something imperfect could present an enormous threat, though. There was a thud and the earth trembled as the statue took a step. “…!” Still holding on to the cat, Index took a step back. She didn’t have a chance of winning if she made a frontal attack. Normally, this sort of golem had a kind of safety on it called a shem for if it went berserk—if you simply stroked it with one finger, it would completely shut down. However, her enemy was a professional as well. She probably wouldn’t have placed such a thing in a spot where someone else could touch it. The shem, its core, was most likely buried deep within its stone armor. Index could neither use magic nor supernatural abilities. She had no connection whatsoever with such strange and mysterious powers, and she was physically weaker than most. She had only her vast troves of knowledge at her disposal, and the giant statue was swinging its arm down mercilessly at her. Roar The statue’s attack seemed to crush the air—maybe even space itself. Before such a strike, she inhaled a bit and shouted one thing: “TTTL! (Twist to the left!)” The golem’s fist was traveling straight for her, but a moment later, it suddenly veered away to the left, like a snake. Shooting a contemptuous glare at the statue, swatting at empty air, Index took a step forward and stood next to it. The statue, still facing away, swung its fist down and around. “CAU! (Change angle upward!)” However, that attack, too, wiggled out of its path and passed over her head. The golem tried to throw yet another punch, but before it could, Index continued, “PFBTLL! (Pull foot behind the left leg!)” Ignoring its own balance, the golem jerked its foot behind it. Having lost its center of gravity in the middle of its swing, the golem came crashing down on its face. Tap-tap. Index took three steps backward. She was using a method called Notarikon. It was a way to speak quickly. By chanting only the first letter of each word, she could both encode them and speak them more quickly. Index was unable to temper magic despite having an immense knowledge of it, so she couldn’t actually use magic. However, anyone who saw what was happening would have thought she was a bona fide sorcerer. The statue stood up. It backed away from Index as if setting up a running approach, then unleashed another fist like a cannonball. She uttered something to herself. Just from that, the golem’s fist strayed in an unnatural direction and caught only unrelated air. It looked as though Index’s words were interfering with the golem’s movements. As if she were interrupting the spell caster’s commands and hijacking its control. It was called spell interception. It was a simple concept. Magical commands are constructed within the mind of the caster. If one is able to confuse the caster’s mind, they can impede that control. It’s similar to messing up someone trying to count by whispering random numbers in their ear. Index couldn’t use magic. However, she could force the enemy sorcerer to self-destruct. The caster manipulating this statue wasn’t present, but just from how the spell had been put together, Index knew that it wasn’t autonomous; it was being controlled from afar. That meant the caster was observing Index in detail via the golem’s five senses—and that’s where she found her opening. “CR. (Change right.) CBF. (Cross both feet.) TTNATWITOD! (Turn the neck and the waist in the other direction!)” The statue threw its punches one by one, and Index rattled off her shouts in rapid succession. The golem’s fist flew all over the place, like a blindfolded drunkard swinging his arms around in the dark. I can’t just…stay on the defensive! Index pulled out all the safety pins in her habit skirt. The act exposed most of her leg like a cheongsam, but she didn’t have the time to care about it. She readied the safety pins and stared down the golem. They were weak, superbly ineffective weapons against a gigantic stone statue. Reverse calculating self-healing technique. Occurs approximately every three seconds. If I want to use that against it, it has to be…now Without hesitating, she hurled the safety pins at the golem’s foot. They arced through the air slowly, unable to damage human skin, much less rock-hard armor. However, when they bounced off its foot, they got sucked back inside it like they were attracted by a magnet. And then, a moment later. Criiick. They obstructed the golem’s right foot as if she’d driven a wedge into the joint. This had a similar mechanism to spell interception. This stone statue built and regenerated its own body automatically by using objects in the area. This meant that she was able to turn it against the golem by throwing in something it didn’t need—indeed, something that was actually harmful. It was as though a broken bone had been left alone and solidified into a strange shape. 103,000 grimoires slept within her. But simply storing all of that knowledge was pointless. The important thing was how well she could apply it to come to the most suitable solution in the least amount of time. I think I can do this, she thought, shuffling backward. There were exceptions that her spell interception wouldn’t work on, such as the alchemist’s Ars Magna, which was an entirely unknown spell to her, as well as Ouma Yamisaka’s azusa bow, which emphasized the tool rather than the incantation. However, this golem didn’t have any particular problems. She was definitely interrupting the golem’s control, and she had dealt damage by utilizing her safety pins. If I keep on hampering its movements, then I might be able to get the spell to fail and crush the golem, she considered. Thud Suddenly, the golem stomped on the ground. “Kyaah…?!” The massive tremor caught Index’s foot and made her trip up. She clicked her tongue in disappointment. However much she interrupted her opponent’s attacks, she couldn’t avoid the entire ground shaking. The statue approached the prone Index slowly, dragging its right leg behind it. “! CR—” she tried to shout, but before she could, the golem punched its fists together. Slam The shock wave pounded on her ears and cut off the words she had been putting together. The cat cradled in her arms let out a cry at the earsplitting roar. The golem raised its fists into the sky. Index rolled onto the ground, still holding the calico, and tried to distance herself as much as she could, as she called out, “MBFPADCOG! (Move both feet parallel and destroy center of gravity!)” However, the golem shook its head once and seemed to flip a switch and decide not to listen to Index’s command. This…isn’t good! She changed it from long-range control to fully autonomous— If the caster wasn’t here, Index’s spell interception wouldn’t do anything. Her words could only trick humans, not a mindless, inorganic substance. The golem swung its fist around into the air, ready to strike. Index could no longer stop its attacks by herself… There was a splat. It was a dull sound, like flesh slamming into concrete, that echoed through the area. 5 Kamijou at last dropped down the big hole into the subway tunnel. It had taken a while for him to find something to use as a rope, then to find somewhere to tie it. He let go of the thick fire-fighting hose he had utilized and began to run down the dark path. Damn! I’m so sick and tired of everyone just going off and doing whatever the hell they want and causing trouble! This situation is already a mess! Why’d you have to go and add another hurdle?! Ellis’s footprints were sunken into the concrete ground at fixed points. He couldn’t see Hyouka Kazakiri anywhere down the tunnel, nor could he hear any footsteps. He tightened his right hand into a fist as he remembered how she had smiled before disappearing like that. His ultimate hand. A transient, illusory girl who would be destroyed if he touched her. I won’t let it come to such a shitty ending. I’m not letting it happen! Kazakiri had called herself a monster, but she was wrong. She may not have been human, but nobody could call her a monster. So what if she wasn’t human—did that mean she wasn’t allowed to ask for help? Did that mean she needed to hold in her tears and endure it silently? Of…of course not He bit down and proceeded ahead. There were rectangular concrete pillars placed at regular intervals down the center of the subway tunnel, separating the inbound line from the outbound one. It was wearing on him, too. No matter how far he ran, his view didn’t change a bit. But suddenly, a pillar next to him began to fall over. It was clearly unnatural. It was like a huge, invisible hand knocking down a pile of building blocks. “Shit…?!” Kamijou panicked and jumped to sidestep the pillar falling toward him. With a massive thump, it scattered concrete dust into the air. “Yes, I see it won’t be easy to take you down…” A voice addressed him from the darkness. Coughing, he looked over. Sherry Cromwell was standing there, her slightly dirty dress hanging off of her like she was dragging it. She was a little more than ten meters away. He scowled. Ellis, that symbol of cruelty, wasn’t here. “Hu. Uhu-hu. Uhu-hu-uhu. Ellis? I sent her up ahead. She’s probably already reached her target. Or maybe she already pounded her into a lump of meat?” “Y-you…” Kamijou dropped his weight and made a fist. She had a way to control Ellis without using her pastel. Having two experiences relayed to her mind must have been putting a strain on it. Sherry stared at him and smiled, satisfied. “That’s fine. Yes, that’s just fine. I’ll have you keep me company in the meantime. I won’t let you through to Ellis.” It was at this moment when he finally realized what she had up her sleeve. Kamijou could destroy Ellis with one hit, so whatever the cost, she had to stop him right here. Hyouka Kazakiri would have already passed through this area, but he couldn’t find her anywhere. Sherry had probably let her go on purpose. Despite Kazakiri being one of her main targets, she didn’t seem to care—she was already completely focused on Index. And… The sorcerer had discarded Kazakiri, as if to say she had no time for unnecessary opponents—as though she was content with only Kamijou. He thought back to what Sherry had told him before. “I’m starting a war, and I need a trigger for it. I need as many people as possible to know that I’m a pawn of the English Puritan Church…right, Ellis?” Sherry was trying to start something with Academy City, so he didn’t need to ask what part of the English Puritan Church was trying to start the war. But was this really the opinion of the entire English Church? At the very least, he didn’t think that Stiyl, Kanzaki, or Tsuchimikado would ever think this way. “…What the hell are you trying to do? I don’t have a clue about what’s going on behind the scenes here, but science and magic are still in balance right now, aren’t they? So why are you trying to disrupt that?! What the hell would that do?!” Sherry simply grinned at him. She smiled and said, “When an esper uses magic, their body is destroyed. Did you know that?” “What?” That wasn’t the question he’d asked at all. He frowned. “Haven’t you ever thought it odd? How do we know that in the first place?” Her words tried to worm their way into Kamijou’s heart. “They tested it out. Like, twenty years ago. At some point, English Puritanism and Academy City wanted to try and join magic and science, and they created a department with us in it. We brought our respective tech and knowledge into one institution and attempted to create a caster with both abilities and magic. As for the result…” Kamijou could guess what was coming next, even without hearing her out. When espers use magic, their body bursts. He knew that well from the students at Misawa and Motoharu Tsuchimikado. “That institution…what happened to it?” “Well, it went under. Or maybe someone made it go under. When word got out they were in contact with the science side, they were hunted down and killed by members of the very same English Puritan Church. Tech and intel were leaking to the other side—that’s more than a valid reason to attack like that.” Kamijou kept silent. It wasn’t about scientists and sorcerers joining hands. It wasn’t about how it was stopped. It wasn’t about how they tried to hurt others. “Ellis was my friend,” said Sherry simply. “She was one of the espers brought there by a faction in Academy City.” Kamijou frowned. Ellis was the name she’d given to the golem. He thought about the feelings that went into her giving it that name, though he knew that she was the only one who could ever understand them. “Ellis was covered in blood because of the spell I taught her. When the Knights came to crush the institution, she took a mace to the head and died to let me escape.” A church-like silence settled upon the dark subway tunnel. Slowly, she continued. “We’re supposed to be separate. And we shouldn’t just be quarreling—we should be baring our fangs at the very thought of trying to understand each other. Unless sorcerers and scientists keep to themselves and to their own work, we’ll keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.” Hence the war. “Shit. You’re not even making sense. A war in order to protect both its sides? No, I don’t think you actually want a war. Your objective is just to make people think that we could have gone to war, or that it was right before our eyes, even if it didn’t actually happen. That would be enough, wouldn’t it?” “Don’t overestimate me, you stupid brat. I have no need for your pitying stares!” Kamijou, however, was sure that his suggestion was correct. She wanted to avoid a decisive clash between sorcerers and scientists—that contradictory desire meant they should be far apart, but also that the idea of trying to understand each other wouldn’t even come to mind. Parties that have absolutely no connections to each other wouldn’t harbor either hate or goodwill toward each other, after all. She didn’t want them to oppose each other. She wanted to prevent the friction that came with attempting to cooperate. “…” Sherry’s claim that sorcerers and scientists should live far away from each other did have merit. Against that, any arguments Kamijou could make might be construed as selfishness. But there was one big reason he wouldn’t be persuaded by her opinion. He and Index might not be able to see each other anymore. Actually, if she were used as Sherry’s “trigger,” then she might be killed outright. The reason was an absurdly personal one. But he felt that he wouldn’t be able to deny it, no matter what. Not ever. Sherry Cromwell brought a white oil pastel out from her ragged dress sleeve. He kept his eyes on her fingers, though he was taken aback by this. If everything she said was true, then she couldn’t create two golems at once. And given that he’d punched the shit out of her after locking Ellis up one-on-one, she didn’t seem to have anything more powerful to throw at him. Sherry grinned, her unruly hair waving. “Damn. I didn’t expect you to not notice. All this darkness is really doing the job, I suppose.” “What?” Returned Kamijou. Sherry gently waved the oil pastel in her hand. Unable to create a golem, her scribbling symbols on the floor or walls would only be able to bring debris down on them. “Oh, my. You never felt anything wrong with this? Why am I showing myself out in the open when it’s so dark in here? Normally, I’d just wait, hidden in the shadows, until you passed by, and then attack you. It’d be way more effective, yeah?” Kamijou was dubious. All she could do right now was break the walls nearby. She shouldn’t be able to do much at a distance of ten meters. “Yes, and this particular place—why did I choose it? There’s only one way through here, so you would have to come this way. Why did I wait in this one particular place, hmm?” But if that was the case… Why had that nearby pillar fallen on him just before? “Let’s compare answers…It’s like this! Grit your teeth” Sherry swung her oil pastel through the air with a wshh. The next moment, the entire subway tunnel began to glow faintly. What the…?! Kamijou was dumbfounded. There were patterns drawn by her oil pastel all over the walls and ceiling. Even behind him and past Sherry—as far as he could see. It probably didn’t cover the entire underground subway line, but the scrawls were at least one hundred meters from one end to the other. On the floor were magic circles drawn at points, like raindrops falling from the ceiling. Shit…Are these magic circles for Ellis…?! Kamijou trembled. The magic circles, upon closer inspection, were all the same pattern and were laid next to one another like tiles. According to Sherry, she couldn’t make two golems simultaneously. If that was true, then he wouldn’t have to deal with another Ellis here. But what the hell had she done after she fled into this tunnel from the underground mall? When the golem’s magic circle failed, the floor got destroyed. She’d inscribed those magic circles all over the inside of the tunnel, which meant… Damn…She’s gonna drop the whole tunnel?! When buildings are blown up for deconstruction, they apparently use many smaller bombs to cover the entire place rather than use one giant bomb. These magic circles could have been serving the same function. How many of them were there? If one had a diameter of a meter, then one line of them would contain one hundred. And they were covering the walls and ceiling, too. How many times that would it be? If they were each a separate magic, then he couldn’t just touch one or two and erase them all. Sherry had stayed here to set all this up. Just by arranging everything beforehand, she could bring the entire place down at a word, without even needing to get close to him. “The earth is my ally. Thus, dark pits enclosed in earth are my territory,” she announced. There were magic circles drawn near her, too, so she would be caught in the landslide as well—but she probably had a way out, of course. Perhaps she set it up so that she could make a dome around her that would deflect the debris, or maybe she had calculated where it would fall and was standing where she would be able to escape to the surface. “Shit…” Kamijou cursed. He wouldn’t make it to Sherry or get far enough away in time. He was caught in her trap. There was no way out of it. She gave him a relaxed look, as if she’d even calculated his impatience. “Destroy it all, like a mud puppet” In answer to her scream, his surroundings lit up brighter than before. Then, the entire tunnel writhed as though they’d been inside the belly of a giant snake the entire time. Damn it, what do I do…?! He couldn’t just blindly run away from this. He also couldn’t just erase the hundreds of magic circles with just his one hand. Besides, he clearly couldn’t even reach the ceiling in the first place, and those were the most dangerous ones—he could nullify all the floor and wall circles he wanted, but if he couldn’t block the ones on the ceiling, he’d be buried alive. Suddenly, he froze. The magic circles on the floor? “Swallow the fool! Knead him into the dirt! With that I will construct your flesh!” Shouted Sherry, as if flipping the final switch. Massive fissures ran through the walls and ceiling, and the inside of them ballooned inward. No—the ceiling had lost its durability and was buckling under the weight of the soil above. “Khh…?!” Under the ceiling about to burst like a soap bubble, Kamijou bolted off like a bullet. He had one aim—to go forward. The location that the caster, Sherry, was standing in was probably the only safe zone that wouldn’t get buried by the rubble. But his legs would never be able to take him all the way there. It would be impossible. But that’s not where I’m going! He balled his right hand into a fist and lowered his stance as he ran, his head nearly low enough to lick the ground. He had but one target—not Sherry Cromwell, but the magic circle on the floor in front of her. Index’s angry yelling in the cafeteria came back to him. “Okay, then, Touma, you know this, right? About how when you’re casting a spell in a sanctuary to create an idol and fill it with Telesma from an English cross? You know how the time and cardinal directions are related to the caster’s position, right?! You know about defensive magic circles to protect yourself from the main spell’s aftereffects, and how you have to put it in a very precise location! And how if you’re even a little bit off, the main spell will eat up the defense and it won’t work properly! This is a golden rule, but you knew that already, didn’t you? Come on, it’s just common sense!” That one magic circle doesn’t mean anything. The magic circles on the walls and ceiling were probably to destroy the tunnel and bury Kamijou alive. He knew that much. But that would mean circles on the floor weren’t necessary. Destroying the floor wouldn’t help bury him. That means…that one circle means something else! Sherry Cromwell’s face blanched with surprise when she realized where he was headed. She hastily swung her oil pastel and delivered commands to the nearby walls and pillars, but she was too slow. Kamijou evaded the crumbling walls and slipped past the falling pillars, thrust his hand toward the magic circle on the floor… …and brought it down without a moment’s delay. The magic circle shattered like a frozen raindrop. That was the second spell Sherry had needed. If it was to create a safe zone to protect her from the landslide… Now that she had lost her protection, she could no longer be careless with the landslide. “Damn” She whipped the oil pastel around. The ceiling, creaking as if it were about to burst like a dam break, stabilized once again. Bam came the sound of a grand footstep. Surprised, she looked away from the ceiling back in front of her. Kamijou had shot off the floor like a skipping stone and was right up next to her. She instantly tried to swing the pastel again… …but his fist easily went around it and landed straight in her face. Her hair and dress went everywhere as her body was blown through the subway tunnel. She flew for several meters before finally coming to a stop. Intense panic and fear were plastered on her face, as if she couldn’t believe that her carefully laid plan of attack had been evaded. “…Shit, damn it!” she cursed hatefully, wobbling back one or two steps. The oil pastel in her hands quivered as well, appearing as though her fingers were squeezing it so hard it would snap in the middle. “I need to create the trigger for a war. Don’t stop me! Why don’t you understand that the current situation is incredibly dangerous?! Academy City seems to be loosening its guard. Even the English Puritan Church is getting lax—they’re lending that index to someone else. It’s just like the time with Ellis. And when that happened to us, it ended up in such tragedy. If this blows up to all of the city and the Church…! It’s so simple to consider what would happen if we tread on enemy territory without thinking!” Sherry’s voice echoed several times in the dark underground, and Kamijou wiggled to catch it all. Her impetus was the death of a friend. Sherry believed that scientists and sorcerers getting too close to each other would cause tragedy. It wouldn’t just be from fighting with each other—even thinking about getting along would backfire. From her point of view, in order to prevent warring between science and sorcerers, they needed to clearly define where they each lived and controlled, and trade back every single person who didn’t belong in their area. And to do that, she was trying to create the trigger for a war. She didn’t want them to harbor feelings of mutual understanding. She knew those feelings, though positive, would always backfire in the end and cause a tragedy. She didn’t actually want to start a war. As long as the fact was that she created the trigger for it, her goal would be accomplished. Kamijou sighed in irritation after thinking that far. “What a load of crap. That doesn’t justify a damn thing! Tell me, what did Kazakiri do? What did Index ever do to you?! You’re up on your high horse preaching that war is bad, but who do you think you’re trying to kill for it?” he yelled, venting everything from his chest. Because there was something he just couldn’t accept. “Fine! Get angry! Get sad! I don’t care; I won’t stop you. But you’re pointing your sword at the wrong person! You shouldn’t even be pointing it at anyone! I know it’s painful. I know that I could never understand any of this! But if you point your sword at someone, then you’re the one starting a goddamn war” Ellis died because a group of scientists and sorcerers tried to get together, and the English Puritans saw it as dangerous. What had Sherry felt like when she found out about all that? Did she vow revenge for killing her friend? Did she make an oath never to let such a tragedy happen again? “…I don’t get it.” Sherry Cromwell bit down on her back teeth. “Damn it, of course I hate them! Everyone who killed Ellis should go to hell! I want to take all those sorcerers and scientists and tear them limb from limb! But that’s not all! I really don’t ever want sorcerers and espers to fight again! My mind has been a complete wreck ever since the beginning!” Her contradictory return shout reverberated in the dark tunnel. She sounded like she was being torn apart by her own voice, as though she realized it as well. “I don’t have just one opinion! I suffer because a lot of different viewpoints can convince me! I don’t live by one rule! I can’t live as a wind-up puppet! If you want to laugh, then laugh all you want. I’ve got as many beliefs as stars in the sky! It wouldn’t hurt a bit if one or two of them disappeared” Touma Kamijou said one thing in response. “Why haven’t you realized this yet?” “…What was that?” “I mean, yeah, your words make no sense. You’re directly opposed to what you’re trying to say, because you can understand other people’s opinions. That’s why your own beliefs are so hard to hold on to…That’s how you’re thinking about it, isn’t it? You know, that’s wrong. You’ve only ever had one belief this entire time.” Then, he said it… …the one answer that she never even realized. “You just didn’t want to have to lose an important friend, right?” Yes. Sherry Cromwell may have had countless different beliefs, and some of them clashed directly with each other—but the very first root of them all never changed. All of her beliefs started with the incident with her friend and were no more than branches and derivations coming out of it. Even if her beliefs were as numerous as the stars in the sky… …the feelings she had for her friend never changed. “Take that first and think about it. Think about everything, all over again! You were watching us with those mud eyeballs, weren’t you? What did you see when you saw us? Did Index and I look anything like people who had to stay far away from each other so that a war wouldn’t happen?!” he shouted. “You have as many beliefs as there are stars, right? Think about what they all have in common! Did Index or I do anything to you?! Did it look like I was forcing Index to come along with me against her will? No, it didn’t, did it?! We don’t need to stay away from each other! We can be with each other without having to do that” He didn’t suggest that his relationship with Index was what Sherry herself really wanted. He couldn’t tell her not to break apart this ideal situation. Sherry had one wish that would never be granted and that couldn’t be replaced by something else. If someone had told Kamijou to take someone else instead, he’d throw a punch right at that person’s face without a second thought. So he didn’t say that. The only thing he said was this: “I don’t want your help, so please, don’t take someone important away from me!” He saw Sherry Cromwell’s shoulders jolt in surprise. Even if her wish could never be granted, she should remember how important it was to her. She would know well the pain of having that taken away from her. Sherry’s face twisted up like she was trying to endure suffering. Kamijou’s words were so simple. They weren’t hard to understand. However childish they may have been, they had to have gotten through to her—because she would have yelled the same things at one point. “—My entire being for my lost friend—Intimus115!” However, she shouted it down and rejected it. She had given her magic name. She probably understood Kamijou’s feelings so well that it hurt. But on the other hand… Sherry Cromwell didn’t have just one belief. She could probably even understand what it was like not to understand that. No—maybe it was because she was convinced by his feelings. She wanted to drop him, who had something she no longer had, into the pit of hell—that was probably one of those innumerable beliefs she held. Bshwshh Her oil pastel flashed through the air. A moment after a pattern appeared on the wall beside her, it came apart like papier-mâché. The clouds of dust that whipped up immediately obstructed their vision. Kamijou saw the gray curtain of roiling mist coming toward him and, without thinking, tried to jump backward. But just then, Sherry cut through the dust right in front of him. She was diving straight for him like a bullet, oil pastel in hand. His heart jumped into his mouth. Anything that oil pastel drew on, whether it was iron or concrete, would be made into Ellis’s body. Maybe human flesh wasn’t an exception. “Die, esper” Her monstrous roar came from a face that looked about to cry like a baby. Oh, I see. He reflexively balled his right hand into a fist as he came to a realization. This wasn’t her trump card. If doing this could stop Kamijou for sure, she would have used it at the beginning. Anti-Skill may have stopped Ellis from moving, but the golem couldn’t be taken down very easily, and she wouldn’t have needed to set this elaborate trap in the subway tunnel. Sherry Cromwell said she had as many beliefs as the stars in the sky. She yelled that she suffered because she could be convinced by anyone’s ideas. Then… “…Then you can understand feeling like you want somebody to stop you.” Wham Kamijou’s fist shattered the soft oil pastel to pieces. His fist still had power in it; he curved it around and struck Sherry Cromwell straight in the face. Slam With an incredible noise, her body bounced across the ground of the tunnel. She came to a stop up against a pillar. Kamijou slowly approached her. She seemed to be out like a light. And Ellis…Did this stop it? He wasn’t too confident about that. He thought about giving Sherry a wake-up slap and asking her, but she might not answer him truthfully. His unease about it wouldn’t disappear whether she said yes or no. Damn it. Guess I have to go and see for myself! Just to be safe, he picked up the abandoned cord he had dropped and tied up her limbs. After making sure her wrists were tight behind her back, he once again ran deeper into the tunnel. As he did, low, dull rumblings crawled through the floor toward him, growing little by little in intensity. He wouldn’t need to ask where Ellis was. “…” Ten seconds later, Sherry Cromwell opened her eyes slightly. She’d been conscious the whole time. She wondered why he hadn’t just killed her. She wouldn’t be able to take issue with it—that was one of the feelings she understood, so she had launched a reckless, suicidal attack. That was indeed praiseworthy, but she held countless beliefs, and she didn’t know which of them would come to the surface after this. She might just undo her bindings and go after him again to kill him. In the same way, she understood his words. She could feel a desire not to kill him sprouting within her. But on the other hand, she thought exactly the opposite, too. Her hands still tied behind her back, she wiggled around and got an oil pastel out of her clothes. What…about…Ellis…? When she had taken the fallen oil pastel into her hand, she suddenly realized that Ellis was no longer under her command—she was acting autonomously. She wouldn’t listen to a simple “destroy yourself” command. Someone would either have to destroy the shem, her fail-safe, or blow away 90 percent of her body within a span of two seconds. Those were the only ways to stop her. She viciously crushed her last remaining oil pastel in her hand. It was impossible for her to create two Ellises at the same time. As long as the current one wasn’t destroyed, she couldn’t make a new golem. In other words, she couldn’t break out of her current situation—lying on the ground with her hands tied behind her back. Ellis… Sherry Cromwell, movements entirely restricted, sent an order to Ellis that wouldn’t reach. Was it a command to destroy her target? Or was it a directive to stop everything? She could understand having done either of them. 6 The head of the golem snapped up. Index’s spell interception wasn’t working anymore. The behemoth swung its fist up in a wide arc… …and an awful noise of flesh being crushed rose in the gaps between the abandoned buildings. However, it was not the sound of Index’s body being smashed. The cat didn’t have a scratch on it, either. At the same time, it wasn’t the kind of noise a golem could make—it was made out of stone, after all. Hyouka Kazakiri. She had jumped over her head from behind and delivered a flying kick to the statue’s stomach. Both her speed and power were anything but ordinary. It was more like a meteorite striking it. Gdumm came a deafening noise. The golem’s body launched back, much like an iron ball with momentum slamming into an iron ball without it. It spun lengthwise three times in midair and landed on its face. The assault had sent the juggernaut almost seven meters back. In contrast, Kazakiri, having transferred all of her kinetic energy into it, hung in the air for a moment. Then, with the grace of a feather falling, she set foot back on the ground. Boomm There was a low rumble. The moment she touched down with her opposite foot from the one she used to kick, the ground began to crack apart in a two-meter radius like it had been pounded with a gargantuan hammer. It looked almost like the force of gravity applied tenfold to Kazakiri. “Hyou…ka…?” Index tried to call out to her from behind, but she caught her breath. Kazakiri’s right leg, which had performed the kick, had been blown to smithereens from the thigh down. The attack she’d carried out had been strong enough to knock over a mammoth weighing in the tons. No human body could withstand that sort of recoil. Or, so she thought. But inside her severed leg was nothing but emptiness. The wound itself looked completely unnatural, as though the paint had been torn off a see-through pillar. …Wh-what is that? Index, still holding the cat to her breast, thought. Tiaoshi magic. Necromancy. The Hand of Glory. Vetala sorcery. Elixirs. She had mountains of magical knowledge, and some of that magic could affect even the dead. Horrifyingly, there were even techniques where one would rig something inside a corpse to gain total control over it. However… Even she found herself unable to explain the sight before her eyes. Could a human even be changed to such an extent? Should one be? Swishh! She heard a sound like a flag flapping in the wind, and a moment later, Hyouka Kazakiri’s destroyed leg returned to normal without leaving a trace. It happened at such an incredible speed that it seemed to leap out of her severed leg like a powerful spring. “Please, run.” She didn’t turn around. She simply spoke behind her. “Please, get away from here…It’s still…dangerous, so…” Her voice was that of the girl Index knew well, and because of that, she hesitated to say anything in reply. She didn’t know whether she should be on her guard or not—or whether she was the real Hyouka Kazakiri or an identical fake. A creaking noise split through the air. It was from the stone statue that had fallen on its face. It seemed to be trying to get up, but Kazakiri’s hit must have damaged the stone structure itself. It shook its joints and made cracking sounds, like it was a human trapped under something covering its waist… Then there was the snap of a bone breaking, loud and clear. Its attempt to move its body anyway had caused the interior of its constructed body to be destroyed. Gigigigigagagagaga the stone monster cried out. It had no vocal chords to do so—it was the cacophonous sound of all the joints in its body being moved by force. It couldn’t stand back up. As it crawled on the ground, it raised its head toward the sky as if to howl. Roar came a gust of wind. Heavy winds like a tornado blew forth with the screaming golem at its center. It was like a gigantic clump of wind that wanted to swallow the entire abandoned building district whole. It was not the sort of violent winds that would lift up everything in the area and blow it away in every direction. It was more like a whirlpool, pulling in nearby boats, trying to drag them down to the seafloor. The wind wasn’t directed outward—it was slicing inward. Rocks, empty cans, bicycles that had been left here and forgotten, window frames without the glass—everything but the kitchen sink drew in toward the golem. An unseen force crushed them and turned them into part of its body. That’s…not good…The golem’s regeneration functions might be going crazy from that attack! While holding tight to the cat, who was liable to come flying straight out of her hands, Index shuddered with fear. “Hyouka Kazakiri’s” attack had probably dealt fatal damage to the statue. Even down to the shem, its core, its safety device hidden inside its body. And now that it had tried to heal its irreparable wounds anyway, it was repeating its reconstruction command to its body, haphazardly collecting anything it could find. Its wound wouldn’t be healed, no matter what it did. Thus, it would relay its command to continue repairing itself until the wound was healed, forever and ever and ever. The part it was trying to repair would stay as it was, and the golem’s body would continue to absorb unnecessary things one after the other, expanding like a snowman. Its body had been close to four meters tall, but in a span of less than thirty seconds, it had already ballooned to twice that size, both across and high. Since it was in a crawling posture, it looked like a roof covering up Index and Kazakiri. The buildings nearby began to squeal. Index blanched when she heard the gigantic architectural structures emitting an eerie sound like trees being blown around in a tempest. At this rate, the storm would rip down all of the buildings around them. There’d be no saving them if they were caught in the collapse. Unfortunately, if the tornado grew so powerful it could break the building, all of Index’s greatest efforts wouldn’t prevent her feet from leaving the ground and being swallowed up into the golem’s body. We have to get away, she thought. Now that it was active without a caster, under its own power, her spell interception wouldn’t affect it. Now that its regeneration was malfunctioning and it was doing this while knowing it would be destroyed, she couldn’t hamper its movement using a mere safety pin or two. She hated it. She was frustrated. She didn’t have the ability to produce mana, and all of her immense knowledge was for naught. Index couldn’t hold that golem back. As far as she knew, the only one who could get this situation under control was the boy with that one-and-only right hand. “Hyouka, let’s get out of here!” she shouted. She still hadn’t confirmed that the Hyouka Kazakiri before her was the same one she had been with after school that day, though. Right then, the outer wall of one of the abandoned buildings separated. It was caught up in the whirlwind—a clump of stone dancing through the air like the hammer of a giant. Index quickly crouched down, still cradling the cat. A lump of concrete rocketed over her head and crashed into the asphalt. The scattered shards of the ground, too, were caught by the wind and sucked into the golem. She was far from running away. If she even held her head up without thinking, she could be slammed by flying debris. Despite the hopeless situation, Hyouka Kazakiri maintained her stance, unmoving. A huge piece of debris bigger than her body shot right by her face, but she didn’t flinch. She looked like an old man looking out at a storm on the ocean. She didn’t move a muscle. Without turning around, she said quietly, “You should…get out of here.” “What do you mean? What about you?!” asked Index, holding fast to the cat, which seemed about to be taken away by the wind. “I’ll…” After thinking a moment, she continued. “I must…stop that monster.” As if to answer her declaration, the crawling stone statue brought its right arm into the air. It did so slowly due to its increased weight—or perhaps because it was waiting for the right moment to let all its pent-up energy loose, like a dam on the verge of breaking. If it let that punch loose, the vicious attack would crush both the buildings nearby and the girls into fine grains of dust. There was no doubt about it. You couldn’t protect yourself from it—it would be beyond human endurance. “You can’t! Hyouka, we have to run away! Humans can’t face this thing! It may be down on the ground, but you can’t go around behind it with a plan! You don’t need to fight like this, Hyouka!” Kazakiri didn’t turn around at her words. The stone fist stopped abruptly, as if taking precise aim at its target. “Hyouka, that’s not a human! Please, you can’t fight a monster like that! If you do, then there won’t be any way to save you!” she shouted, and at last, Hyouka Kazakiri slowly turned around. Despite a cannon-like fist staring her in the face, she turned around, not looking at it. “…It’s all right,” she said. She smiled, still looking about to cry. “I’m…not human either.” Index caught her breath in spite of herself. Smiling that ragged, painful smile, Hyouka Kazakiri told her one last thing. “I’m sorry…for lying to you this whole time.” Behind her, the stone fist shot toward her. Roar went the air as it was crushed. The attack was nothing short of a meteor crashing down. Index curled her body up out of reflex and called Kazakiri’s name. She would no longer answer. She turned her whole body back to the golem. She spread her frail arms to the left and right and stood as a wall to protect Index. She watched the rocky fist approach. The enormous incoming strike was more like a wall than a bullet or a cannonball. There was absolutely no balance between their respective strengths. It was like a landslide crushing a thin branch. Ger-slam Hyouka Kazakiri’s slender hands caught the golem Ellis’s fist. Her hands, feet, chest, stomach, back, and neck all took the brunt of the immense impact, and she was overcome with a pain that felt like all her joints were coming apart. Her arms’ length shrank five centimeters. Because of her arms’ compression, her girlish, vibrant skin was pushed up in a creepy, bumpy fashion. It came with a raw feel, like ribs being pushed up against one’s skin. “Agh…ah…?” Hyouka Kazakiri heard her flabbergasted voice behind her. She couldn’t turn around to reassure her. She couldn’t even say everything would be all right. Her entire body cracked and creaked as she was racked with agonizing pain from within. It felt like an iron file were shaving down her teeth, except over all of her. She didn’t feel that she was stopping the fist. The immense, hopeless power, like that of a landslide tumbling down a mountain slope, just kept coming. Her fingers holding back the garbage-assembled iron fist of the golem snapped. Her feet on the ground were pushed backward into the asphalt. Her calves couldn’t withstand the pressure and bent and warped out of shape with a smashing sound, like tree branches losing to the weight of snow atop them. Pain exploded inside her body. It felt as though someone had slammed a hammer into her shins at full force. The golem must have decided it would crush the pitiful resistance with brute force, and like tightening a vise, it directed more power into its fist. “Ah, aahhgh” Kazakiri screamed and strained against it. Her limbs expanded vigorously. She wasn’t straining her muscles. Like blowing air into a balloon, her limbs that were being crushed with sheer force expanded and forcibly regained their original form. Her vision blinked in and out at the pain, which felt like a nearly closed wound had been torn back open. The stone monster gave even more pressure to its fist. Her body was caught between the force trying to crush her from without and the force trying to return her to normal from within. It gave awful creaks and groans like old floorboards. Kazakiri bit back against the intense pain, but she still didn’t let go of the golem’s fist. There was no way she was ever letting go. A girl she needed to protect was behind her. The girl in white wasn’t a monster like Kazakiri was. She didn’t have the strength to stop the fist of a behemoth. Monsters… …must be the ones to fight other monsters. But… But however much she struggled, there would be no saving Hyouka Kazakiri. Even if she saved Index, she would be defeated by the golem in return. She’d never tested the limits of her body before. And she couldn’t even imagine what would happen to “Hyouka Kazakiri” if her own flesh were assimilated into the golem like pillars or bicycles. Even if she somehow managed to avoid it and miraculously returned alive…well, Index already knew that she wasn’t human. But still… Times like when she met them in that school cafeteria… Days like the one she’d spent after school in the underground mall… She’d never return to them. But still…I cannot abandon her… Hyouka Kazakiri channeled all her strength and strained her legs. All of her—her hands, feet, waist, back—continued its cycle of being crushed from without and expanding back out from within. The terrible noises shooting through her body resounded through the area like nails on a chalkboard. “Hee…ah…?!” She could hear the girl in white behind her gasping. “Bgyahh! Shaa” She could hear the cat behind her growling threats. She wondered how she looked to the two of them. She had been just walking around with her casually not an hour ago. How did she look to her? But, as if to gouge open her wounds yet again, she channeled strength into her body. Because they were friends. The girl in white, having seen her like this, probably wouldn’t feel the same way, but Hyouka wanted to stay friends with her from start to finish Crack. The golem’s body squealed. Amid the flood of pain tearing her insides apart, she saw it—the golem, having lost its temper, swinging its other fist into the air. Both of her hands were already tied up holding back the golem’s right fist. Guh… She gritted her teeth. If that was how it was going to be, then she made up her mind and made her final choice—she would buy enough time for that girl to escape. The golem’s arm stopped in midair at a point, as if taking aim. Kazakiri reflexively shut her eyes at the destruction that was sure to come a second later, when… “Ka…za…Kazakirii” …she heard the voice of a boy she knew well. It came from behind her. After the shriek, she heard footsteps in an all-out dash. She didn’t have the luxury of turning to look, but she knew. She knew without seeing. She knew what his expression was. What he felt. How quickly he had run here. He… Even after seeing her fully transformed into a monster, he still called her Kazakiri. Not monster—but Kazakiri. As she stood in blank amazement, the black shadow flew by her like a javelin. That was when the golem chose to launch its other fist. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t give it a second thought. And he was not afraid. His right fist was their only trump card, and he tightened it into a fist as strong as a boulder. Glonk The two fists collided. Vivid red blood spurted from the boy’s fist. But it wasn’t because of the golem’s strength. He had just wailed on the surface of a craggy rock with all his might. Its cannon-like attack lost all its strength the moment his fist touched it. More accurately—when it touched some kind of invisible magnetic field, perhaps, that shrouded the golem’s fist. The pressure about to crush Kazakiri like a suspended ceiling vanished. At the same time, the bloated golem began to crack apart and crumble down to the ground. Gray dust soared into the air—much more and much grander than the scene from the underground mall—and obscured the vision of everyone present. It’s over… Hyouka Kazakiri smiled to herself, lonely, within her closed-off area within the gray curtain. That’s…all for this nice, gentle illusion… Her limbs, which had been crushed, expanded and returned to normal once again with a sound like bending plastic back into shape. Feeling truly, truly lonely, but smiling, she decided to leave this place before the dust settled. The crisis had been averted. There was no longer a place for Kazakiri. She was like a weapon left over after a war ended. If she stayed in a peaceful world with such power, she would only be feared. And she couldn’t bear to face the girl in white she had wanted to protect. She was glad that they couldn’t see each other. She didn’t have the courage to see what sort of expression Index, behind her, was wearing. 7 Kamijou stood by himself in a corner of the ruins. When the gray dust cleared, Hyouka Kazakiri was nowhere in sight. Only two or three drops of water fell to the ground, even though it wasn’t raining. Having overheard the commotion, Mikoto and Shirai arrived quickly. Anti-Skill and Judgment aren’t far off, so we should get out of here before we get in big trouble. Those were their words, not his. And the two of them pulled along Index, who was trying to stay with Kamijou, and used teleportation to leave the area. Shirai’s ability had a limit on how far it could go, so they were probably leapfrogging a hundred meters or so at a time. Kamijou, as usual, would nullify her powers, so he was left to run away by himself. As for Sherry, Anti-Skill would deal with her, but considering what had transpired, he didn’t think he’d be seeing her name in the newspaper anytime soon. “Gee…trouble all over, huh?” Kamijou sighed. There was still something he needed to deal with before Anti-Skill or Judgment arrived on the scene. He looked overhead to confirm something, then entered one of the abandoned buildings. The windows and interior of the building had already been stripped away, exposing the gray concrete beneath. There were letters, like directions, scrawled on the floor and walls in red chalk using technical terms. Maybe it was their procedure for knocking the whole place down. The red sunset shone in through the paneless windows and cut through the dust in the air like a laser. The railings had been removed from the staircase; Kamijou ran up it. He went up, and up, and up, and up, and up, and up, all the way to the top floor. The door to the roof had also already been removed. He set foot onto a roof dyed in vermilion. The place looked like it was used for a sky garden. The soil spread over the flower beds had dried out and was cracking apart. The remains of flowerlike plants had rotted into a brown color and were swaying in the wind. In the very far corner of that paradisiacal graveyard… Hyouka Kazakiri was sitting with her back to one of the emergency metal handrails. Her head was down; he couldn’t see her face. Her crushed limbs had already expanded back to their normal size. There were no wounds to be seen on her. But she didn’t have a word of happiness to give, and she hid her face. He let down his eyelids a little. If Hyouka Kazakiri had disappeared to flee from Index—or from people in general—then she would have had to come here. She just wanted to get away from Index, but there was nowhere to run, so she had to hole up inside one of the abandoned buildings. The girl was all alone and didn’t say a word to Kamijou, even though he had come onto the roof. Tip-tap. He heard the sound of water drops falling. Her head was down and she was holding the photo stickers in her hands. Clear droplets were falling onto it. “I…I’m happy…That’s all, okay?” Kazakiri had noticed his gaze. She finally looked up slowly and smiled faintly. “Because…I used all of my strength…and I protected an…an important friend. I did it…No one else did…I protected her. S-so I…I’m happy. I’m so happy…I’m crying…That’s the reason…” “…” “Why…why are you making that face?…Please smile. Praise me a little…And if you say you’re jealous, that would be great…I-I…I stole your place as the knight right…right out from under you…Ha-ha, what am I even saying…?” Hyouka Kazakiri was smiling, but Touma Kamijou wasn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t look at her completely ragged, forced smile and smile himself. “Hic…” Kazakiri bit her lip, and her smile disappeared without a sound. “I…I knew…from the start…,” She said suddenly. “…It was…so obvious. Anyone…anyone could understand…what would happen if…people knew I was a monster…I might have been able to…to do something about it, if I kept hiding it…but I stupidly…I knew what would happen if I revealed it myself. I didn’t want to…Nobody wanted me to show myself like this!” Kazakiri’s words got caught up after that. Her voice let out a sob. “…But…what was I supposed to do?” Her lips trembled and worked desperately. “She was the first person…who said I was her friend, ever since I was born…I wanted to protect her, so…what else was I supposed to do…?” She had probably been prepared for this all along. This ending, where she would lose something important to her in exchange for revealing her identity as a monster. And because those terrible visions were so vivid in her mind, she wished, somewhere in her heart… …that her prediction would be wrong. She never thought about how low the probability was—she was just clinging to the hope of a miracle. And the result… “Why…why do I need to lose things?” Slowly, she pulled her back from the railing and wobbled to her feet. “Why…do I need to be so afraid?!” Crying, she buried her face in Kamijou’s chest. She released all of her pent-up lamentation at zero range. “I-I…I…! I just…I couldn’t bear to watch…an important friend be hurt…That’s the only reason I stood up for her!…I had the power to protect someone important…I just couldn’t let her be like that! That’s all! And yet…” Her slender hands beat on Kamijou’s breast. He heard her muffled voice. “It’s…cruel! It’s…it’s frustrating! It hurts…! Why…why do I have to feel like this?! Did I…did I do something wrong?! Is it so wrong to just want to protect someone…?!” The wailing of her torn heart pounded on his eardrums. Though she knew yelling wouldn’t change anything, she couldn’t help it. “I…I wanted to always be with her! I wanted…to be friends! I thought we would get along! But this…Why is this happening?! I risked my life…You can’t understand what it felt like when I heard her gasp!…I can’t even understand it, even though they’re my own feelings” She continued to shout, unable to organize her thoughts. No—she was backed so far into a corner that she could no longer endure silence. “Is it so bad…for a m-monster to protect someone?! If I were human…none of this would have happened, would it?!…Of course I couldn’t do it! Even if she’s scared of me or hates me, I could never just let her die…” “…” Kamijou silently listened to what she had to say. Despite her shaking and crying right next to him, he couldn’t even stroke her head. This illusion was so fleeting, so transient, that if he touched it, it would break. The Imagine Breaker. The boy called that couldn’t even embrace her. So instead, he asked, “Does it hurt?” “…Mmm…” “Are you sad?” “Mgh…!” She stopped banging on his chest and grabbed his shirt like a child as her sobs she’d failed to fight leaked from her drawn lips. “If you feel that way, then you’re not a monster. It may be a totally stale, clichéd thing to say, but you’re human. I can vouch for that. And also…” He paused for a moment. “This story of yours isn’t over just yet.” “Huh?” Hyouka Kazakiri looked up to him, confused. Clack. They heard footsteps from behind Kamijou. Figured she’d be here soon, he thought, grinning. Mikoto Misaka had said that getting caught by Anti-Skill or Judgment would be a huge pain, so she would take a certain girl and leave the area. And Kamijou knew she didn’t want to leave until the very end—she wanted to stay with Kamijou. Perhaps she’d guessed where Hyouka Kazakiri had gone all along. Maybe she just couldn’t run here quickly enough because Mikoto and Shirai forced her away. And perhaps she had been worrying about Kazakiri this whole time. All that led to one conclusion—she would definitely come here. “Wha…what?” Kazakiri lifted her face from Kamijou’s chest and looked at the person behind him, at a loss. He turned around slowly. Far away, at the entrance to the roof with no door, stood a girl in a pure white habit. The safety pin in her skirt was taken out, and it looked like a cheongsam. Her breathing was ragged, and she was drenched in sweat. She must have run here without stopping to take a break. That girl…Index… After confirming that Kazakiri was there, she ran up without a second thought. Without any fear or hatred—with the face of a mother who had found her lost child at a playground. Hyouka Kazakiri couldn’t even blink as she watched. “But…why? This is…this is strange.” Her body shook. It trembled as though it were cold. “I mean…it’s…weird. I-I’m not…a human! I told her…that I was a monster…so why is her face like that…? Why is she…Why is she looking at me like…a friend?” Kamijou sighed in response. “Well, yeah, you may be put together a little differently than other people, and you can do things that others can’t.” His tone suggested that she was foolish to ask such an obvious question. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re her friend, does it?” At those words, Hyouka Kazakiri fell to her knees in tears. Index dove at her and the two of them fell over onto the roof. Kazakiri carefully brought her hands to Index’s back and embraced her. Touma Kamijou looked at the two of them and gave a little smile. Word Cound: (16175)