6_Final Chapter_ The Forbidden Book Girl’s Conclusion

FINAL CHAPTER The Forbidden Book Girl’s ConclusionIndex Librorum Prohibitorum. “Miss, you don’t have any, do you?” The plump doctor posed his question in the examination room of a university hospital. Spinning around on his revolving chair, the doctor wore a small tree-frog sticker on the ID card on his chest, perhaps because he knew he looked like a frog. Index was a philanthropist, but scientists were an exception. She didn’t like them. It was true that sorcerers were a bunch of weirdos, but she considered scientists to be even worse. She wanted to complain about being alone with a person like this, but as she didn’t have anyone with her, she couldn’t. She was alone. “I think it’s a bit strange to speak so formally with someone who isn’t even a patient, so I’ll stop, okay? This is my first and last question to you as a doctor: Why exactly did you come to the hospital?” Index didn’t know herself. No one—not a single person—had told her what really happened. The sorcerers, who she’d thought were her enemies, had told her they had been erasing her memories annually up until now, and that a single young man had risked his life to save her from that accursed cycle, but she didn’t understand it. “But oh my, there were three people running around in Academy City without identification? One of the observation satellites got shot out of the sky by a mysterious flash; I bet Judgment is all over the place now.” That was more than one question, thought Index. Three people without IDs…She was one of them, so the other two were probably the sorcerers. They had just delivered Index to the hospital and left, despite having chased her around for so long. “By the way, they gave you that letter in your hands, right?” The frog-faced doctor looked at the envelope Index carried. It looked like a love letter. Index got irritated, ripped open the envelope, and removed its contents. “Whoa! I think that was meant for the young man, not you…” “It’s fine,” answered Index, annoyed. The letter was suspicious in the first place. The sender was labeled as “Stiyl Magnus,” and it was addressed “Dear Touma Kamijou.” She detected a murderous malice in the heart-shaped sticker on the envelope. There’s no point in formalities, so I’ll make this brief. I’d love to say I’m amazed that you actually did it, you asshole, but if I were going to write to you about that, I could cut down every tree in the world and still need more paper, so I won’t do that, dick. There were eight sheets of stationery in the same vein. Index wordlessly crumpled each one into a neat ball and tossed it over her shoulder. The frog doctor’s face became steadily and increasingly flustered as she cluttered up his work area, but he was unable to say anything to Index, as she exhibited the air of a bullied child on the verge of tears. Finally, on the ninth page, the last, the following was written: In any case, as the bare minimum of gratitude I owe you for helping us out, I’ll explain about the girl and her circumstances, since I don’t want you coming around and asking for favors in the future. We’ll definitely be enemies the next time we meet, I’ve decided. We were still uneasy leaving her with you scientists, so while the doctor was away, we sorcerers checked up on Index, but she seems fine. The order handed down from the English Puritan Church is, on its face, to bring her back as soon as possible, since her ‘collar’ was taken off, but in reality, it’s closer to just telling us to keep an eye on her. Though, personally, I cringe at the thought of leaving her at your side for one more second. She was able to use the 103,000 grimoires for magic even though the Church set up John’s Pen inside her. And now that John’s Pen itself has been destroyed, we don’t know whether she can use magic of her own volition. If, hypothetically, her magical power was replenished when she lost John’s Pen, then we’re going to have to make preparations for that as well. Well, I don’t really think magical power can be recovered just like that. But you can never be too careful, I guess. A demon god that could use all 103,000 grimoires would be just that dangerous. (Incidentally, this doesn’t mean I’m giving up and handing her over to you, got it? After we’ve prepared and acquired enough information, we plan on challenging you and taking her back again. I’m not a fan of killing people in their sleep, so keep an eye peeled for us, or you’ll regret it.) P.S. I booby-trapped this letter to explode when you finish reading it. Although you may have found out the truth, it’s your punishment for that selfish gamble, so I hope it at least blows a finger off of that right hand you’re so proud of. Immediately below that, at the end of the letter, one of Stiyl’s runes had been inscribed. As she panicked and threw the letter from her hands, it burst into little pieces with a crackling sound. “Your friends are pretty violent, aren’t they? I wonder if they painted it with a liquid explosive or something.” He was completely unsurprised. She seriously almost thought he was crazy. But maybe because Index was so emotionally numb, she was incapable of articulating a more complex thought. So she’d just fulfilled the mission she’d come to the hospital to perform. “If you’re wondering about the young man, it’d probably be quicker to go see for yourself.” The frog-faced doctor seemed very amused. “Looking shocked in front of him would be rude, though, so I’ll give you a few quick tips before you go in.” She knocked on the door to the hospital room twice. That alone made Index’s heart feel as if it might burst. While waiting for a reply, she fidgeted, wiped the sweat on her palms onto the hem of her habit to dry them, and then crossed herself. “Yes?” came the voice of a young man. Index grabbed the handle, wondering if she should ask if it was okay to come in. But she was scared of him calling her annoying and to come in already. Very, very scared. She opened the door with all the grace of a stilted robot. It wasn’t a shared six-person ward, but rather a personal room for a single patient. Perhaps because the walls, floor, and ceiling were all completely white, it threw off her sense of distance and made it feel more expansive than it actually was. The young man was sitting up on the antiseptically white bed. The window next to the bed was open, and the bleached curtains were billowing into the room. He was alive. That fact in and of itself almost brought Index to tears. She wondered if she should leap onto him and hug him now or bite his head first for acting so recklessly. “Excuse me…,” he began. His head was wrapped in bandages like headbands. He tilted it in puzzlement. “I think you may have the wrong room.” The young man’s words carried a very polite tone, but they were mingled with a little bit of suspicion as he tried to figure out what was going on. It was a voice normally reserved for a stranger over the phone. “…It’s not really amnesia, but rather ‘memory destruction.’” The words the doctor had imparted in an icy examination room shielded from the summer heat resurfaced in the back of Index’s mind. “…It’s not that he lost his memories, but that those brain cells were destroyed. I don’t think he’ll ever remember anything. Did you guys open him up and zap his spine with a Taser or what?” “…Nh.” Index stopped breathing and let her gaze fall to the floor helplessly. The boy’s brain had been gravely damaged as a side effect of both forcing himself to use his power for too long and the pillar of light that she herself had apparently shot at him. (She didn’t actually remember anything.) If that was just a physical thing…a “wound,” then they might have been able to do something with a healing spell, like when Index had been slashed in the back. However, the transparent youth had a right hand called Imagine Breaker. Regardless of the intentions, good or evil, it would dispel magic of any kind. In other words, even if they tried to mend him, the healing magic itself would be nullified. The simple fact of the matter was that this poor soul had died on the inside rather than the outside. “Excuse me…?” came his uneasy—or rather, concerned—voice. For some reason, Index couldn’t forgive the voice that was coming out of the hollow boy. He had been injured for her sake, but he was worried about her. That just wasn’t fair. Index took a deep breath, as if swallowing whatever it was rising in her chest. She thought she could probably manage a smile. Her friend was completely empty, and he didn’t remember anything at all about Index. “Excuse me, are you all right? You look like you’re in a lot of pain.” Unfortunately, her perfectly constructed smile was shattered with one blow. Thinking back, she remembered he had always tried to see the true feelings that she kept hidden behind her smile. “No, I’m okay,” Index said, exhaling. “Of course I’m okay.” The transparent young man studied Index’s face for a little while. “…Excuse me, could it be that we know each other?” That question, above all the others, hit Index the hardest. Because it was proof that the transparent boy didn’t know anything about her. Not a thing. Not a single thing. “Yeah…,” she answered, standing alone in the middle of the room, looking every bit like an elementary schooler being punished for forgetting her homework. “Touma, don’t you remember? When we met on the balcony in your dormitory?” “…I lived in a dorm, huh?” “…Touma, don’t you remember? When you destroyed my Walking Church with your right hand?” “…What’s a Walking Church? A church of people who walk a lot?” “……Touma, don’t you remember? When you fought the sorcerers to protect me?” “…Whose name is Touma?” Her mouth was about to stop moving. “Touma, you don’t remember?” But she wanted to ask him this one thing. “How much Index loved you?” “I’m sorry,” said the boy, without any feeling behind his words. “Who’s Index? It’s not a person’s name. Did I have a dog or a cat or something?” The shock struck her hard, and a fierce urge to cry swelled in her chest. But Index swallowed it, trying to force all that down. Burying it inside her, she smiled. It was far from a perfect smile—it was probably very ragged at best. “Oh, man, I really got you! Aha-ha-ha!!” “Huh…?” Index froze. The hollow boy’s anxiousness had disappeared. In its place was a widening, ferociously savage, wicked grin. His canines were showing. It was as if he’d been swapped with someone else. “What are you getting so worked up about being called a pet? Are you one of those people who’s into collars? I’ll tell you what, I’ve got no intention of going for the ‘interested in jailbait’ ending here.” Color had returned to the transparent youth’s face while she wasn’t looking. Index didn’t understand what was going on. She rubbed her eyes hard to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating and dug around in her ear with a finger to make sure she wasn’t hearing things. It felt as if one shoulder of her perfectly fitted habit had started sliding down. “What? Huh? Touma? What? But he said you forgot everything ’cause your brain got blown up…” “…Hey, why are you acting like you wanted me to forget?” Kamijou sighed. “You’re such a dullard. Yeah, at the very end, I decided to let all those light feather things come down on me. I have no idea what they were supposed to do, since I’m not a sorcerer or anything, but from what the doctor told me, they injured my brain cells. And that I should have lost my memories because of it, or something?” “Should have?” “Yep. I mean, wasn’t the damage just another magical power?” “Ah.” Index gasped. “That’s how it is. That’s how it went; that’s how it’ll be. No matter how you put it, it’s simple—if I put my hand on my head and use the Imagine Breaker on myself, then problem solved.” “Ah.” Index exhaled, then sunk to the floor. “Basically, before the damage can get from my body to my brain, I can just cancel out the magical injuries. Well, if it had been a physical phenomenon like Stiyl’s flames, it wouldn’t have worked, but those feathers of light were just some weird abnormal power, so there was no problem.” Like cutting the fuse before the flame could ignite the bomb, he’d canceled the shock before the damage afflicted the brain. It was ridiculous. It was ridiculous, but when Index thought about it, the Imagine Breaker could even dispel miracles—God’s own rules. She was dazed. Just dazed. Index, having fallen to her knees, dumbstruck, looked up at Kamijou. She could now honestly declare that the shoulder of her habit had come loose, and the confusion on her face confirmed it. “Pfft! You should have seen your face! You’re always volunteering to sacrifice yourself. Maybe after what happened, you’ll look at your behavior differently?” “…” Index didn’t answer. “…Er, huh?…Um, excuse me…” Even Kamijou was forced to lower his tone awkwardly at her silence. Her face slowly slid down, and her long silver hair obscured her expression. Her shoulders shook as she sat there. She didn’t know why, but she gritted her teeth. In an infinitely unpleasant tone, Kamijou couldn’t help but ask. “Umm, might I venture a question, princess?” “What is it?” Index answered. “Are, uh, you…actually, er, mad?” The patient’s call button rang. The screams of a boy being bitten on the head reverberated throughout the hospital ward. Index stormed out of the patient’s room, uttering pouty noises as she left. “Whoops.” Kamijou heard a voice outside the doorway. It seemed the frog-faced doctor had almost run into Index as they were trading places. “There was a nurse call, but…Ah, this is terrible.” The upper half of the young man’s body was slipping off the bed, and he was cradling the top of his head with both hands and crying. It was, strangely, realistically scary; he kept mumbling to himself, “I’m gonna die; I’m really gonna die.” The doctor looked at the opened door one more time, returning his gaze to the hospital room and Kamijou. “Was that okay with you?” “What?” the young man answered. “You don’t actually remember anything, do you?” The transparent boy was silent. The reality ordained by God was neither as warm nor as fuzzy as the story he’d fed to the girl. The student, who had been incapacitated due to a brush with some magic, had been transported to the hospital with Index by a man and a woman calling themselves sorcerers. They had told the doctor everything that had transpired. The doctor didn’t believe any of it, of course, but respecting his patient’s rights, relayed the information to the young man as it had been explained. Listening to the story had been no different than reading from someone else’s diary. He didn’t know what the girl in the diary—whose face he could not place with the unfamiliar name—had done. After all, the story now was nothing more than a fiction written based on a third person’s journal. Even though he was told that his bandage-covered right hand possessed the power to kill miracles, God’s own rules… …there was no way he could bring himself to believe it. “But I think this is fine,” the transparent young man told the doctor. Even though it was just someone else’s diary, it was still fun and painful. Even though his memories would never come back… He somehow got the impression that it was a very sad situation. “I don’t know why, but I felt like she’s somebody I’d never want to see cry. I could put together at least that much. I don’t know how to describe the emotion, and I probably won’t ever remember it, but that’s definitely how I felt.” The transparent boy smiled, but it was once more devoid of color. “But Doctor, why’d you buy a story like that? Sorcerers and magic—aren’t they the polar opposite of the world you live in?” “Not at all,” the frog-faced doctor answered proudly. “Hospitals and the occult are pretty closely linked, you know?…I don’t mean that ghosts show up in hospitals or anything. But we have to deal with churches saying no transfusions, no surgery, and bringing lawsuits against us even if we save someone’s life, you know. For a doctor, ‘occult’ just means to ‘do as the patient says for now.’” The doctor smiled. He didn’t know why he was smiling, but when he looked at the young patient’s grin, he felt like smiling, too, like a mirror. But which one of them was the mirror? There was nothing behind the boy’s smile. He couldn’t even detect any sadness. The young man was just absolutely blank. “Strangely enough, I might actually still remember.” The frog-faced doctor looked at his transparent patient, a bit surprised. “Your memories died along with your brain cells, though?” That was a lame thing to say, even for me, thought the doctor immediately after saying it. But he went on to ask the following anyway: “It’s like a computer hard drive being burned to a crisp. If there’s no information left in your brain, then where would you say those memories could possibly come from?” He asked it because for some reason… …he thought that the boy would somehow dispel the logic for him. “Where? That’s obvious,” the transparent boy answered. “My soul, right?”