Chapter 3_ Tactics of the Hunter and the Hunted

CHAPTER 3 Tactics of the Hunter and the HuntedWorst_Counter. 1 Seiri Fukiyose was a member of the Daihasei Festival administrative committee. She had no special privileges like officers of Anti-Skill or Judgment, but being in charge of event setup and judging was still a position demanding respect. To the world this was just a big sports festival, but it was also an easy way to rate the ability development progression of the schools. The results would even affect school budgets. Of course, the committee members participated in the events themselves. Therefore, they had to attend to their work as committee members as it was convenient for their schedules. Easy to say, but Academy City took up a third of the Tokyo metropolitan area. The next stadium could be pretty far away. You couldn’t be on this committee without the flexibility to improvise for the slight changes in start and end times for events—and a penchant for planning out the puzzle presented by scheduling. Everything was a race against time. To get to the ball-toss stadium, the automatic buses would be faster than the subway…No, that won’t work. That main road is used for long-distance races and would be off-limits right now. Which leaves the subway…but since it’s in the same district, it would be faster to run! Fukiyose thought it over, carrying a box packed with sports drinks. It was common sense for a committee member to have the map and schedules memorized. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to deal with unforeseen situations not in the pamphlet. She was heading for a different stadium to do some judging, but she had gone off the shortest path and was taking the long way around. The reason was simple—avoiding areas with crowds of people would ultimately get her there faster. And now, for various reasons, she was retracing her steps back down the route she’d dragged Touma Kamijou, and she was making rapid progress. There is a bit of distance between the subway station and the stadium, and I need to avoid crowded areas. Which means running through smaller roads without many people will get me there sooner in the end…It’s a little scary running without having warmed up first, though! Fukiyose muttered to herself as she went. Suddenly, though, she frowned and stopped. In front of her. Just a few meters away, a silver-haired girl in a cheerleading outfit was crawling on the ground. The asphalt under the sun must be hot to the touch, she thought. The botanical laboratory was right there. She should have just cooled herself off in the shade. The girl groaned. “…I finally got changed and wanted to show Touma, but he didn’t wait for me…He ran off by himself…” “Umm, Sister? Don’t be so down! I’m sure Kami had a very good reason for this.” Comforting the exhausted cheerleader out of pity was an even smaller girl, but this one was actually Fukiyose’s homeroom teacher, Komoe Tsukuyomi. Like the foreign girl, she was in a brightly colored cheerleading outfit. Fukiyose kept frowning. “What happened to the matter I discussed with you, Miss Komoe? And what are you doing like that out in public? If you’re having minor hallucinations, then you should calm yourself by ingesting warm milk or another hot drink. Or you might use a stimulant such as red pepper to get yourself thinking straight again. I have only red pepper right now. Do you want it? Here!” “N-no, I’m just fine, Fuki— No, really, I’m all right! So please don’t push that red pepper under the sister’s nose! That looks a lot like a weird punishment they used to use on girls during the Edo period” “I see,” said Fukiyose, returning to her pocket the seven-spice pepper mixture in the small gourd. Miss Komoe was pale and acting very flustered, but the crawling cheerleader was so depressed she didn’t even notice what either of them was doing. She had her butt in the air a little, so Fukiyose could almost see under her skirt, but not quite. She spoke. “Wh-where’s Touma? Where did he go…?” “Who knows?” said Fukiyose, tilting her head. Just where had that boy gone? What was he doing? 2 Stiyl Magnus’s body lay unmoving on the ground. A soft autumn breeze blew through the service facility, but his black clothing was all that rustled. He seemed like he was breathing, but he was clearly in a bad state. As for Motoharu Tsuchimikado… “Hmm…Oh, there we go. The Divination Circle found somethin’ out. If I just fiddle with this here…She’s to the northwest?” He wasn’t paying attention to his fallen colleague. Without a care for Stiyl, he lowered his eyes to the two-meter crimson magic circle around the priest. “Distance to the Shorthand response…Given the strong point of this color, I’d say three hundred and two meters. Shit. She actually put it close by. It’s not moving, either, so it must be something stationary like we thought, nya. Maybe it means Oriana hasn’t gotten far, either. Maybe she’s going for the stealthy approach, walking along with the crowds instead of running heedlessly. Hey, Kammy, you got a map on ya? I want to know what buildings are three hundred and two meters to the northwest of here.” “Tsuchi…mikado…” Kamijou stood there, still dazed, trembling. Tsuchimikado wasn’t paying attention to that, either. He noticed Kamijou wasn’t answering and asked again, still not looking at him. “Kammy, a map! Or the Daihasei Festival pamphlet. Wait, didn’t your phone have a GPS map on it? Give it here and I’ll do it.” “Tsuchimikadoo” The next thing Kamijou knew, he was grabbing Tsuchimikado’s T-shirt collar. His teeth ground in anger, his hands strong enough to tear the gold chain from his neck. In his rage he thought about destroying the magic circle with his right hand. But in the end he couldn’t—Stiyl was still there, collapsed and unattended to. Tsuchimikado calmly looked Kamijou in the eye. “Kammy, Kammy. Don’t worry about Stiyl. He’s a professional sorcerer, remember? He has some resistance to magical attacks. Besides, Oriana’s spell was only trying to interfere, not attack,” he said, brushing off Kamijou’s anger. “If you look at it broadly, it was basically just to get Stiyl to fail to temper any mana. Mana’s made from life force. If he keeps failing, it’ll be like burning out an engine—it’ll do bad things to his body. And that’s all it is, Kammy. I gave him a quick look and it’s basically like he just has sunstroke. Nothing to get so excited about.” “Don’t look down on me, you bastard! Don’t you understand who he just got himself hurt for?! How can you be so cold?!” Kamijou gripped Tsuchimikado’s shirt tighter and pulled him closer when… Drip. One of Tsuchimikado’s temples had torn slightly. A moment later, as if triggered by the red bead of blood sliding down Tsuchimikado, the side of his gym uniform began to take on a red hue. Kamijou watched the crimson spread to the point where it was like he’d been stabbed. “Tsu…chimikado…?” He hurriedly took away his hands. Tsuchimikado kept a straight face. “The Divination Circle reacts to incoming spells’ mana, then tells you the distance and direction. It’s convenient—too convenient to activate without using mana, Kammy…” Kamijou gulped. He was right—if they could have used a magic circle to cast a spell without mana, then even Index could do it. In fact, magic circles would be the perfect solution for her, since she couldn’t use mana. But, of course, he had never seen her either using anything like that or explaining this Divination Circle like it was her specialty. Tsuchimikado’s breathing grew the faintest bit ragged. “Compared to the…search spell I made Stiyl use…I barely used any mana…and now I’m a wreck.” He put one hand to his blood-soaked side. “Listen, Kammy. You’re right—Stiyl is down and it’s all my fault. If I could use sorcery better than I can, this wouldn’t have happened. I admit it. You can hate me as much as you want.” Then, desperately holding up his wavering body on wobbling legs, he declared, “But I will make this succeed. I will find Oriana’s interception spell…and destroy it. And then I’ll capture Oriana and stop…the deal for the Stab Sword…myself. And then…we’ll be even. As for the interest…I’ll give it back to Stiyl…once this is over.” Of course it bothered him. That’s exactly why Tsuchimikado decided to maintain his cool attitude—because he knew that it bothered him a lot. It was to repay his fallen colleague’s efforts. More than that, it was to lighten the burden on Stiyl by bringing this as close to an ending as he could. Kamijou didn’t know what to say, and Tsuchimikado smiled thinly—as if to tell him that he didn’t need to mend his ways, since it wouldn’t change the fact that Stiyl had gotten hurt. “Kammy, a map. I want to know what’s three hundred and two meters northwest of here. That’s where the Shorthand interception spell Oriana set up should be.” “Uh, right…” The Daihasei Festival pamphlet was too thick for him to fit in his gym shorts pocket. He took out his phone and booted up the map feature, looking for the place Tsuchimikado had said. And… …then he doubted his own eyes. “Wha…Tsuchimikado, northwest, right? Three hundred and two meters exactly, right?!” “To be precise, with north as zero degrees, it’s at three hundred and eighteen degrees clockwise. Definitely northwest, nya. The distance is a little vague, but shouldn’t be too far off.” “…Fuck.” Kamijou showed Tsuchimikado the cell phone screen with the specified place on it. He paled. Kamijou couldn’t blame him. It was dead center in a yard of a certain middle school. An airship floated slowly through the autumn sky, about to broadcast the next event. And it was going to happen right there within the next ten minutes. 3 Kamijou and Tsuchimikado couldn’t do anything about the fallen Stiyl—partly because they wanted to keep the commotion to a minimum. Tsuchimikado drew the magic circle and folded the origami for Four Ways to Truth by Stiyl again, in order to look for Oriana. He’d told Stiyl that he’d contact him via cell phone as soon as he destroyed the interception spell, and to use that as the signal to activate Four Ways to Truth. Stiyl, still lying on the ground, managed a nod. It was enough to let Kamijou know he was alive, and he felt relieved. Tsuchimikado took bandages out of his gym shorts pocket—maybe he’d calculated that he’d get hurt—and began to stop the bleeding in his side. There was no hiding the bloodstains sticking on his uniform, though. He’d cause issues if he went out like this. After telling Kamijou he’d do something about his clothes, he said to go on ahead. There was no point in both of them standing around doing nothing, so they decided that Kamijou should run over to the middle school in question alone. So, with that, Kamijou was currently dashing full speed down the road this fine autumn day. Children being led by older people and men and women holding pamphlets looked his way, but they couldn’t give him any more than a passing glance. He ducked under a slowly turning wind-power propeller and accelerated, his cell phone in his hand. He was talking to Tsuchimikado. “Oriana had no trouble blocking Stiyl’s sorcery, and given how she’s fleeing from just the three of us, she must have known our issues to some extent, nya. Setting up the interception spell in a sports field in broad daylight? She’s just doing it out of spite now!” “I get that she went in there before the event, but how did she set up the thing in the middle of the campus? Does she have some kinda magic that turns her invisible?” “If she could, I think she would’ve used it to get away from us, nya. Anyway, Kammy, how much longer until the event starts?” Kamijou gave the big screens on the wall of a department store a glance as he ran down the straight road. “Seven minutes. It says so on the electric scoreboards all over the place.” “That means they’re done setting up. The audience and cameras are there. I don’t think we could sneak in there at this point and do something about her Shorthand grimoire.” Depending on the event, one program would take somewhere around thirty minutes to finish up; some were longer and took about an hour. If Four Ways to Truth had a search range of about three kilometers, then if they waited until it was over, Oriana could easily get outside the range even if she walked slowly. “Then what do we do? We can’t just leave the spell in the middle of the schoolyard.” “Of course not. Kammy, what are they playing there?” “Huh? I think…” Kamijou searched for another electronic scoreboard as he shot around a corner. A slowly moving drum-shaped security robot on the road was relaying information through its speakers about the nearby stadium. He listened for a moment. “Looks like ball toss. It’s a big event—whole middle schools going against each other.” “Okay, okay. I just saw the broadcast info on an airship. I don’t know how she set up the Shorthand grimoire, but it’s definitely there. Only one thing to do, then, Kammy…pretend to be athletes and sneak in.” Kamijou’s legs got tangled up, and he almost fell spectacularly. “Are you serious?!” “It’s all we can do, nya. We have to get in there before it starts without causing suspicion. It’ll be fine! If there’re more than one middle school competing, there should be hundreds of people there. They can get by with one or two substitutes.” “We’re in high school! I don’t know if pretending to be in middle school is gonna work! Do you have a plan for that?!” “Kammy…it’s all about youth. As long as we can retake our bubbling sense of youthfulness, they’ll never suspect us.” This is all kinds of messed up! Kamijou nearly lost heart. There would be TV cameras filming the event. If they screwed up, they’d bring shame to their own class. Then Tsuchimikado brought his voice down a level. “No, Kammy. We can’t falter here. Not while searching for Oriana, of course—but there’re other things that could be dangerous.” “What?” Kamijou listened more closely as he ran. “That interception spell might not be aimed only at Stiyl. In the right circumstances, it could lash out against other people, too, nya. Regular people, aside from us.” “…What are you saying?” People surrounded Kamijou now because he was close to the field. Official events closed their reception desks ten minutes before starting, but this was still an athletic meet. Nevertheless, there seemed to be more security officers to make up for the naïveté of the entrance conditions. “Listen calmly, Kammy. Oriana’s interception spell detects the preparatory stages of sorcery, then identifies the user’s life force. Understand that much?” “Y-yeah.” He didn’t actually understand that well. He knew, though, that Oriana’s Shorthand had somehow picked out Stiyl and blocked him from using magic. “What about it?” “Well, nya…This is the problem. Preparatory stages of sorcery. What do you think that applies to?” “…What? Well, I mean…Like if you start chanting a weird magic formula or drawing a strange magic circle?” Kamijou didn’t have an understanding of what sorcery actually was, so he couldn’t give a good answer. Tsuchimikado’s voice grew sour. “But if that’s all, then…Hey, Kammy. There’s a spell called Kotodama—it means the spirit of language. It uses the influential power of the meaning of words. To prepare for it, all you have to do is speak.” Kamijou was stunned. He didn’t stop, though—the middle school in question was before his eyes. “This is only a possibility, but if it reacted to that, it would be a major pain. Just having a conversation near her Shorthand grimoire would give the interception spell an order to add targets. And it would crush them the same way it did Stiyl.” He paused. “Do you think it would care if it was a sorcerer talking or just a normal person? Even the regular students and audience members are in a lot of danger.” “Wait, is that even possible? When Stiyl went down, we were talking normally, weren’t we?” Kamijou overtook the spectators heading to the stadium and shot for the middle school’s entrance. There was an entrance fee to get into Academy City, so you didn’t need a pass to get into the stadium. “Maybe, nya. There are rules to how Kotodama is set up and limitations on what words can be used. Sort of like how haiku has specific syllabic structures. So it might not react just from saying something, but…Do you know what the simplest magic ritual in the world is?” “Huh?” There was a line of people waiting at the stadium entrance—the middle school gate—to get in. He knew he’d have to break through it quickly, but… “Touching. Especially touching with hands—it has strong meaning, nya. The reason a lot of religions place different values on right and left comes from the distribution of roles between the right and left hands. In the New Testament of the Bible, the main character—the Son of God—is said to have saved people from sickness and death by touching them with His right hand. What if Oriana’s Shorthand grimoire reacted to that?” “Wa…Wait.” Kamijou stopped moving in spite of himself. Tsuchimikado continued. “Perhaps a full-blown sorcerer could touch it and it wouldn’t matter. The act of touching isn’t just a Crossist thing—it’s a magical operation used by all kinds of religions and sects. I think using only that as the condition to analyze a person’s life force would make it too vague, too, nya. If a professional sorcerer had set up some defenses, they could probably reject Shorthand’s magical incursion…However!” He paused there. “Against a totally defenseless amateur, even if the conditions are somewhat vague, it could still forcibly analyze the person’s life force and invade them. On top of that, since they wouldn’t have any defensive power at all that a sorcerer would have, they’d suffer the effects a lot worse than Stiyl did. Sunstroke and heatstroke can kill people—you could relate the danger to that.” “B-but the thing that attacked Stiyl was doing it to block his sorcery, wasn’t it? Would it even react to a normal person or an esper?” “Strictly speaking, it reacts to the life force of a person preparing magic, so even normal people would be in danger. It probably doesn’t matter if they can temper mana or not, or if they know anything about sorcery, nya. Even the Four Ways to Truth searching circle Stiyl used was just a secondhand thing I drew, right?” This is the worst, thought Kamijou. The front gate was right before him. He stared at the campus grounds. It was like there was a land mine buried somewhere in there. It was possible nobody would actually step on it, but it was there, and a lot of people were about to start their event without knowing. And it wasn’t on a defined course, like a relay race or hundred-meter sprint, but a ball-toss game using the entirety of the schoolyard. It was highly probable someone would draw the losing ticket. “Anyway, Kammy, we need to deal with the interception spell before we have casualties. We don’t want sorcery popping up on TV cameras—and more importantly, we don’t want normal people getting hurt.” Tsuchimikado hung up. Kamijou shoved the phone back into his pocket and backed away from the main gate. If he got in line now, he’d never make it in time. Instead, he ran along the metal fence demarcating the school grounds. It was about two meters high, but if he tried to climb over, the unmanned recon helicopters overhead would see him. If he caused too much of a fuss, combat helicopters could fly in from somewhere else, too. He ran around to the back of the campus and found a back gate. Of course, there was a security detail assigned there. If he had a gym uniform and ID for this middle school, he’d be golden. With his current clothing, though, he’d be stopped, even if he was a resident of the city. What should I do, then…? Kamijou walked over to a juice vending machine and thought. About five minutes until the event started. There was no time to look for another exit… Then something moved near the back gate. A female student, carrying a cooler with sports drinks in it, went into the grounds from the front gate. She had short sleeves, shorts, and a thin parka over her gym uniform. Her rear end came in and out of view under the parka’s hemline. It was an administrative committee member—Seiri Fukiyose. “No way!” He quickly hid behind the vending machine. “…?” Fukiyose, with the cooler in her hands, stopped abruptly at the back gate, then turned around. But then she gave a confused look and disappeared into the schoolyard. I don’t think she saw me…If she had, she would have gotten really mad and said something like, “Why are you hanging around here doing nothing instead of cheering us on, Touma Kamijou? If your brain hasn’t developed fully, then you need DHA! Tuna eyeballs, three meals a day!” Still…“Th-that’s not good…Tsuchimikado told me to slip into the event, but if she starts her committee member judging or whatever, she’ll find us out instantly…Damn it! I knew we weren’t gonna be able to get in there on the ground!” “…What’s all this, nya?” Kamijou jumped in surprise at the sudden whisper from behind. He caught up already?! he thought, turning around to see Tsuchimikado in a brand-new uniform. His treatment for his wound seemed perfect; a passing glance wouldn’t betray the fact that he was hurt. “D-did you decide to get in from the back, too?” “Well, yeah. Seems way easier to waltz on in this way,” he said lightly. Kamijou looked at the back gate again. Three Anti-Skill officers in full gear, plus an unmanned helicopter overhead. Could they really slip inside with all that? Tsuchimikado looked at his dubious, thoughtful face and grinned happily. “No, seriously, it’s real easy! See, look at that puddle. It’s not raining here, so it’s probably from the management’s sprinklers.” “Right. What do you mean?” “I mean this. ” He suddenly swept Kamijou’s legs out from under him. Kamijou cried out and slammed into the puddle. Tsuchimikado shouted, “Wah-ha-ha-ha! Never thought we’d be playing in puddles at our age, nyaa” Then he greeted Kamijou with a flying body press. Kra-shhh came a sound effect he’d never even heard in comedies as he sank farther in. The Anti-Skill officers at the gate looked at them suspiciously. He gurgled. “Agh…! Wh-what the hell, man…?!” As Kamijou writhed underneath Tsuchimikado, the man with the sunglasses said in a very low voice, “…Kammy, you’ve got mud all over your uniform, right? Now we can’t tell what school the design is from.” Before he could manage a “huh?” the mud-covered Tsuchimikado rose. He offered a hand—well, more like pulled him up by force—then went over to the male Anti-Skill officer who had cautiously approached. “Ack, sorry! We’re supposed to be in this event! What should we do? We can’t go in looking like this, can we?! There’re cameras out there!” The sudden plea seemed to take the officer by surprise. He gave them a once-over, but the subtle characteristics that would have identified what school they were from had been covered by mud. “Wh-what? O-oh, I see. Quite the problem. I don’t suppose you’ve brought a change of clothes?” “Well, actually, we did! But they’re in the clubroom.” “Th-then get a move on. There’re less than four minutes left. Oh, sorry—let me see your IDs. Rules are rules. I promise it’ll only take a moment.” Kamijou couldn’t help but wince. The officer brought out a long, narrow tube the size of a pen. He pressed a button on its tip, causing a see-through piece to unravel and flatten out into a board. It was about fifteen centimeters tall and wide. It was a simple Academy City ID–matching device that would be pressed onto your palm to read your fingerprints, pulse, and bioelectric signal patterns. …H-hey, Tsuchimikado! How are we supposed to get around this…?! Kamijou nearly said it out loud in his nervousness, but Tsuchimikado stuck his mud-covered palm into it. “Right here, right?” he said. “What?! It’s got some kind of error!” “What?! Y-you need to wash your hands before using one of these!” The officer frantically messed with the matching numbers, but there was nothing he could do about the parts that ended up sucking in mud. He thought hard and looked to one of his colleagues nearby, but the other shook her head. He must have been the only one with one of these devices. “Damn, I’ll go get a replacement one from around front…” “There’s no time! We need to go to the clubroom, change, and then get to the starting gate!” Tsuchimikado’s panicked voice caused the officer to look over at his two partners. One of them was gesturing them over, and the other was waving his hands in front of his face, indicating to just let them through. After a moment’s thought, the officer nodded a little and seemed to accept the democratic decision to let them in. “Then get moving! They won’t let you in midway through the event!” “Thank you so much” Tsuchimikado grabbed Kamijou’s hand and pulled him straight through the back gate. Kamijou was fed up with all this, but he hadn’t forgotten what they were here for. “Hey, Tsuchimikado! Where do you think the spare uniforms are?! We can’t just blend in when we’re covered in mud like this, can we?!” “What? They’re always in the nurse’s office, Kammy! And it should be open so that they can take injured people, nya! Let’s get it over with and sneak ourselves in” The two of them ran along the edge of the campus as they talked, heading toward the concrete school building. Less than three minutes until the event started. 4 The next event was the ball toss. Mikoto Misaka stood in the schoolyard, which was made of solid ground. She was used to the latest and greatest conveniences of Tokiwadai Middle School, but the dirt field, with its irregular surface and its wide-ranging impact-softening effects depending on where you stood, felt nice and fresh to her. A breeze came, blowing some dirt into the air, making it look like a Wild West film. She wondered if the place would even allow for precise ability measurement. Perhaps it was a training facility for real combat that took irregular terrain into account. Tokiwadai Middle School numbered a little less than two hundred students, which wasn’t many. On top of that, they were all tried-and-true proper young ladies. An observer would have seen them as more than just slender and delicate—they looked touchingly cute. There were a lot of cameras in the audience, too. Audience members were probably looking less at the students’ true abilities than at the girls themselves. However, that was an opinion held by those outside Academy City. Those on the inside thought the direct opposite. Fighting the young ladies of Tokiwadai Middle School meant they’d be fighting against only Level Three through Level Five espers. You could go for superior numbers and better physiques, but you could never be very optimistic against this army of ladies powerful enough to sink an Aegis ship with a smile. In truth, the middle school they were facing, which was surrounding several basket-topped poles for the other team, numbered more than two thousand students. Even so, she could tell at a glance that there was an odd atmosphere about them, a tragic yet brave resolution. The general consensus among the Tokiwadai School players was that they looked like they were playing to lose. The haughtier of their bunch immediately sniffed that out and began their high-pitched oh-ho-ho-ho laughs. Mikoto Misaka, however, disliked it. Disliked it so much that her hands went to her hips and crackling blue sparks were flying from her bangs—and from the rest of her, too. …What is going on here? The opposing team was just one hundred meters away. Amid the two-thousand-plus middle school students was one she didn’t think was supposed to be there. He even looked the part—where had he gotten that gym uniform? It was a person she had never beaten. It was the one boy in the crowd who looked like he was about to cry. What…are…you…doing…here…?! A few younger girls nearby hesitantly called out to her, but Mikoto didn’t notice the dark smile on her down-turned face and crackling and popping of air. After going in the competitors’ entrance and taking up their position with one of the teams, Touma Kamijou saw the other team and paled. “(…Huh?! We’re up against Tokiwadai Middle School?! Y-you better get ready, Tsuchimikado! The ‘young lady’ right over there could break the Tokyo Tower with her lightning attacks, and she’ll be flinging them at us)” “(…Nyaa. People rumor that if you add up their ability interference levels, they could invade the White House single-handedly. Careful not to get hit by any stray bullets, Kammy.)” As they spoke to each other, aware that if the “young ladies” in question were to overhear them they’d get shot down instantly, they began their sure-to-fail planning session. “Shorthand is only the name of the formula. She wouldn’t have actually set up a thick book anywhere, nya. The Divination Circle indicated this schoolyard, but I don’t see anything immediately suspicious, do you?” As Tsuchimikado said, there was nothing in the schoolyard that seemed sorcery-ish. The earthen grounds hosted ten basket-topped metal poles all in a row—they would be used for the ball-toss game. Scattered around them were red and white balls. Because there were more than two thousand students participating, the baskets were large and there was an immense number of balls. If he were going to lay a trap, where would it be? “Jeez. It would have been nice if she just used some old book.” “That’s why she didn’t. We don’t know exactly what Oriana’s planning, but it’s stationary, and it has to be a magical trap. It could be disguised as doodles, scratches, coloring, or stains. But do you think I can’t figure it out, Kammy? Onmyou is what I trained in. It includes the arts of feng shui, or geomancy, which involves setting up tricks using scenery and buildings. I can read this level of magical symbol no sweat. It’s my field!” Tsuchimikado smiled a bit, his answer having come easily. Kamijou thought for a moment. “Hey, Tsuchimikado, we’re trying to figure out where Oriana’s Shorthand is, right? It’s a grimoire…and an original one on top of that, right? I remember that if people read one their minds break, but that doesn’t mean everyone playing ball toss is going to just fall over, right?” “No, probably not. The Shorthand grimoire—she put zero effort into making other people understand it. A grimoire with unreadable scrawls on it won’t impart any tainted knowledge to the reader. I don’t think you have to worry about that.” “Oh,” said Kamijou, relieved. Still, Tsuchimikado’s expression hardened a bit. “The more important thing is how she actually set up the grimoire, nya. If she carved runes into a huge slab of rock, that slab of rock itself would be treated as a grimoire. I don’t know how far-reaching its effects would be, but I hope she didn’t put the Shorthand on some gigantic object. There’d be more opportunities to touch it.” Kamijou looked over the other athletes’ heads to the schoolyard. The only things here were the ten ball-toss basket-poles on either side and red and white balls scattered all over the ground. “Leaving the baskets aside…So if she put the grimoire on one of those balls, that would be bad, huh? There are about twenty-five hundred people playing. They probably have at least twice that amount in balls of either color. Plus, there are plenty of opportunities to touch them.” Searching all of them would be an uphill battle to say the least, and the players would be grabbing and throwing them constantly. The random reordering would make it impossible for them to know which ones they’d already checked. “I don’t think so. The balls were probably thrown in here just a little while ago. The interception spell hit Stiyl back when they were still in the storage room. If that was the case, the Divination Circle would have traced it back to that storage room.” “Which means…?” Kamijou asked, looking between Tsuchimikado and the schoolyard. “The baskets are suspect, nya. It looks like they were set up here quite a while ago. They had to place the balls around the baskets, so they would have had to decide where the baskets went beforehand, right? That means it’s pretty likely she rigged her sorcery trick on one of them.” “But how…? There must have been spectators coming in while they were setting up, too. Wouldn’t someone definitely notice her if she wandered in?” There was nothing in the schoolyard to obstruct the view, of course. Or had she disguised herself like Kamijou and Tsuchimikado had? “No, she probably never got near the schoolyard. Kammy, you saw the security at the back gate, right? It would be a waste of energy to bust them up while running away…Those baskets might be borrowed from somewhere else, nya. I think Oriana put her Shorthand trick on one of them as they were being transported in, and then they brought it in like that.” “But they’d get hurt if they touched it, right? Wouldn’t it have taken down whoever transported it?” “Oriana can probably estimate when to activate it and when to stop it. There are cameras going for the duration of the event. She could just look at one of the electronic scoreboards, too, and figure out how the preparations are going, nya!” “Stop it…?” asked Kamijou. Tsuchimikado smirked. “Oriana wants to keep the commotion to a minimum, too, so the deal can proceed in safety. She probably wants to turn it off after the event ends and the administrative committee starts packing up. Of course, it would be strange if she didn’t get far away from here by then, nya.” Still, if anyone touched the Shorthand “grimoire” during the game, they’d be out. Taken down by a grimoire they didn’t know the appearance or location of. “Damn…Did she really think all that out at the beginning?” “Who knows, nya? Maybe she actually didn’t think it through at all. Well, the event schedule is in the pamphlet. If she figured out beforehand how the administrative committee did their work based on those times, there’d be nothing she couldn’t do.” As Tsuchimikado answered, the school broadcast speakers turned on. They heard a voice telling them to get to their positions. The flames of their battle against an absent enemy would soon be lit. In an administrative committee tent on the edge of the campus, Seiri Fukiyose took the microphone. “To your positions!” Her physical voice overlapped with her voice over the speaker. The committee members were responsible for a few different things, from recovering injured students to announcing the start and end of the game. The temporary TV channel studios would be doing their own commentary, but the administrative committee was held responsible for those announcements. Another tiring job would be to count the balls in the baskets. With this many people in the game, there was an insane amount of balls. In fact, one-third of the time allotted to the game was specifically for counting them up. “Get ready!” Fukiyose would be announcing only the start of the game. Another committee member would be doing the ending announcements. When this was done, she’d have to start on counting the balls. It would be a pain in the butt, but something else made her wonder. I thought someone was in that group…Maybe I’m just tired. Do I have enough vitamins? I know people say soybeans are good for tired heads. Then again, that shopping program says soybean isoflavone is basically good for everything—obesity, healthy blood, memory, skin, you name it! Her questions unanswered, she made her last announcement. “Go” A whistle marked the beginning of the ball-toss game. The school broadcast speakers began to play a march frequently used for athletic meets. Completely ignoring its quick tempo, the students of both schools all immediately headed from the sides to the middle. Their destinations: the lines of three-meter-tall poles topped with baskets, but… “Whoa! Kammy, I know this is sudden, but get down” shouted Tsuchimikado. Kamijou jumped sideways and went down to the ground, and a moment later, from the Tokiwadai Middle School team around their basket-poles some ten or twenty meters away, came red, blue, and yellow flashes of light shooting toward them. As they hit the ground, they created shock waves. Each shot swept away dozens of male students in clouds of dust and dirt. “Hold on! They just got slammed ten meters back” One portion of the crowd was almost entirely gone. There were ability-based attacks during the pole-toppling game Kamijou had been in not long ago, but this was on another level. There was now a crater in the dirt a few meters in diameter, and even the roiling clouds of dust and dirt were being blown away by the shock waves. He turned around, stunned, but despite the unsteadiness of the students getting back to their feet, none of them was hurt. When the blast hit, another esper from Tokiwadai must have used a defensive ability like air-bagging or shock-absorption. The young ladies were kind and obliging even to their enemies. Unfortunately, Kamijou’s right hand’s Imagine Breaker might destroy such a gracious defensive ability, and the incoming impacts could reopen the wound in Tsuchimikado’s side. “…” “…” They silently glanced at each other. Even more red, blue, and yellow rays of light came at them, with thrown flames, electric lances, and vacuum bullets coming one after another. “Th-they’re messing around…! I’m pretty sure the event program said this was ball toss!” “It’s more like the cannonball toss at this point, nyaa” As one group after another on their team found themselves rocked by the heavy artillery, Kamijou and Tsuchimikado made their way into the crowd. Prepared to die, they moved to the base of the line of basket-poles. Nobody was holding them up; they were stuck in the ground with metal stakes. “(…Okay, Kammy. I’ll check on each of the poles in order.)” “(…Eh? Wait, isn’t there something I can help with?)” “(…I’ve made you do more than enough already. Just wait there, nya. You’ll be up again once I find the Shorthand.)” “(…Okay…I guess.)” What should I do in the meantime? wondered Kamijou. For now he picked up a fallen white-team ball to keep up his disguise, but his actually participating would change the results of the match, so he didn’t really feel like getting into it. Tsuchimikado was standing under the metal poles supporting the baskets, throwing balls up there, purposely not getting any of them in. Then he gave a nice long look at the pole’s surface, from bottom to top. It was more than three meters high. Just craning your neck like that to check one of them seemed like a pain. He was probably checking for the flash cards Oriana used before, as well as whether there were any strange characters carved into the support poles or odd marks on the stakes holding them in the ground. He was leaving no stone unturned. “(…Tsuchimikado!)” “(…Not this one, Kammy.)” He shook his head and picked up a white ball, then headed for the next pole. He checked the second and third basket-poles next to it, but he seemed to be coming up empty. Kamijou, doing nothing but watching, felt like time was going slowly. There were seven left. As Kamijou went to follow Tsuchimikado, a white flash of light suddenly burst out from beside him. “Yikes!” He frantically got his right hand up as the round bullet of light shot toward him. As it made contact with his hand, it exploded with a light-shattering noise. Farther away, he saw a girl from Tokiwadai Middle School with her jaw dropped, but he didn’t bother with her. He couldn’t let them pay him any undue attention. Instead, he lightly elbowed the male student right next to him who had frozen in fear and gave him a word of thanks. He’d let him take the credit. “(…Kammy, it’s not the fourth one, either. Let’s go to the next.)” With a sidelong glance to the provoked Tokiwadai girl firing a focused barrage at the male student, he followed Tsuchimikado to the fifth pole. Then, suddenly, the wall of people wavered. A group of male students who were all looking up at the baskets and throwing balls was run into from behind, and they started falling like dominoes. As a single unit, they crashed into the fifth basket-pole. With a metallic gong, the pole shook. If Oriana had put her interception spell Shorthand on the fifth pole…then the victims would multiply. They’d end up with something like severe sunstroke, like what had happened to Stiyl. Someone with no resistance to magic could even die from this sorcery. “Damn it” Tsuchimikado hurriedly sprinted for the group. Kamijou was about to follow him when his feet stopped moving. The fifth basket-pole tipped. It began to fall, and then it crashed into the sixth pole. That, too, tipped and began to fall. There was a girl from Tokiwadai right where the metal pole was going to fall. She looked up blankly, a red ball in each hand, and stared as the thirty-kilogram blunt object came slowly toward her—like her mind hadn’t yet caught up with the sudden event. Kamijou ran in that direction, but the male students who had caused the domino effect on the fifth pole were infinitely annoying. “Goddamn it! Tsuchimikado” he shouted, stepping on Tsuchimikado’s back as he headed toward the fifth pole and jumping off it into the dominoes area. His high jump made him lose his balance midflight, but he still managed to grab the back of the collar of the girl’s athletic shirt. Unable to break his fall, he crashed to the ground, but he used the momentum to pull the girl to the side, getting her out of the falling basket-pole’s path. Then, a flame bullet from an esper exploded a little ways away from them. The sixth pole swayed in the blast, changing direction and coming back toward them. It would be at least ten times the strength of a metal baseball bat if it hit them. Shit! Don’t come this way after we already dodged With his unstable posture right after slamming into the ground, it was impossible for him to jump a second time. He moved his body that was racked with pain from the impact and shoved the frozen girl, at least, out of the way. She was surprised—she didn’t seem to understand what was really happening until the end. …Urgh Kamijou found himself clenching his teeth. The more-than-thirty-kilogram metal pole fell toward him. A moment later, however… With a deafening, church bell–like gong, the sixth pole bounced to the side. As the orange ray of light hit it, it split right in half, bounded along the ground, landed dozens of meters away, and continued to slide. All the students nearby flinched away at first, but within seconds they had returned to their frantic battle. Even then, the remnants of the basket-pole clanged and clanked, bouncing across the ground. The Railgun. One of the Level Five abilities—to fire a bullet at three times the speed of sound. As Touma Kamijou stumbled to his feet, he saw Tokiwadai’s ace, bouncing a silver coin on her thumb, sparks flying from her body: Mikoto Misaka. Their eyes met. Kamijou managed a weak laugh. “Eheh-heh…” “Are you serious…? Do you want to get me to do whatever you like that badly?!” Unblinking, she began pelting him with electric spears. “Wh-whoa You there, the girl! Get away from here before you end up getting hit by a stray bullet from that! I’ll hold her back, so you run away! Hurry” He frantically blocked the electric spears with his right hand, repelling them. The girl behind him he’d just saved shouted, “Thank you very much and I’m sorry,” bowing politely multiple times before fleeing the battlefield at an extremely fast sprint. She disappeared very quickly into the mass of clashing espers and supernatural powers. Kamijou exhaled, then spoke in a soft voice, without turning around. “If you have that much energy, I’m sure you’ll be fine.” “So tell me: Why is it you snuck into someone else’s event…?” Mikoto put a hand to her forehead amid the uproar, seeming exhausted. Her other small hand went for whatever was close by—in this case, the seventh basket-pole. “Stop! Wait, Misaka” “Wh-what?” Startled, she pulled her hand back a little. It hovered in the air like that. Kamijou wasn’t looking at her. He was examining the seventh pole closely. There was something there, right about the same height as where Mikoto Misaka was about to put her hand. About as big as a stick of gum…a thick, rectangular piece of paper. He couldn’t read it from here, but he thought he could make out tiny letters written on it. A flash card?! Is that what she used for her Shorthand grimoire?! He felt a chill run down his spine. The feeling spread instantly through his body and he froze. So that was it…Tsuchimikado said she used a special Shorthand grimoire for the interception spell, but that wasn’t it. Her little flash-card papers—every one of them is its own Shorthand grimoire, isn’t it?! This was bad. There was about a meter and fifty centimeters from him to Mikoto. She was relatively close, but he couldn’t reach her with his hand. The vertically hanging piece of thick paper was stuck to the pole with a single piece of cellophane tape at the top. Every time the breeze came through, it fluttered. There were about three centimeters between her hand and the support beam. A stiff wind blowing through—that would be all it took for it to touch. Kamijou remembered how Stiyl had collapsed so suddenly and sucked in a breath. Choosing his words carefully and using a slow voice, he began to speak to the girl at the center of the crisis. “Listen, Misaka. I’ll explain later. Get away from there. It’s important.” “What? What the heck are you talking about?” He supposed he should have seen that coming. Mikoto frowned. Her hand…remained unmoving. It didn’t go forward, maintaining its three-centimeter distance exactly. The paper fluttered a little. Mikoto didn’t know what that meant. “Hey, you think you’re in a position to give me orders right now? Why are you even here? Now that those poles fell over, I’m not even sure we can keep playing anyway, so I’m expecting a good explanation—” Just then, he heard a gust of wind. The sound came from behind him. A male student on the team opposing Tokiwadai had fired an earth spear straight at Mikoto. It seemed to be accelerating because of his ability; it stabbed through the air with the speed of a metal arrow. If that hit, it might even break a few ribs. Mikoto was surprised at the abrupt attack and moved to intercept, flashes sparking from her bangs, when… “You stay out of this” Before she could do anything, he stuck his right arm straight in front of him. His fist got in between the earth spear and Mikoto, and when it hit, the entire spear shattered. Dust kicked up, staining Kamijou’s cheeks, but he didn’t wipe them. He just kept staring at Mikoto Misaka as though there was no time for him to do that. “Id…” Mikoto looked between the remains of the earth spear and Kamijou in turn. “Idiot! Why did you block an ally’s attack? I-it’s not like I couldn’t have handled it without your help! Besides, what’s so important, anyway? Was it important enough for you to sneak all the way in here?” “I said I’ll explain later! Misaka, just get away from there” “Argh! Why don’t you ever listen to what anyone’s saying?! You’re the one who should be getting away from here” Mikoto tried to punch the pole to vent her anger. Despite himself, Kamijou shouted. “Wait, Misaka! Don’t say anything! Just come over here, please It’s dangerous there! I don’t want you to get hurt” Mikoto grunted and stopped moving. For some reason, her face began to flush red. Her eyes darted to and fro, leaving her head behind, as though evading him. “You don’t need to worry so much about a little game. With my ability, I could, you know, handle anyone who, uh, tried to attack me…” Kamijou wasn’t listening to whatever it was she was saying. There was no time for that. He watched her each and every movement with total focus. He felt a bead of sweat trickle down his cheek. He wiped it with the back of his right hand, then felt the roughness of sand on it. On the other hand, Mikoto, under his watchful glare at this very moment, groaned a little, straightened her back, then brought her wobbling hand away from the pole and to her chest. A few moments later, all of a sudden, she shook her head violently several times. For now…I guess this is okay? Wait, why’s her face getting red? Despite his questions, Mikoto’s hand was now a good distance away from the piece of paper attached to the pole’s support beam. But the moment he felt relief… “Jeez! Please don’t start running your mouth and scaring me like that!” …her straightened shoulders drooped… …and as part of her tired motion, she reached her right hand for the pole. “Damn it” Kamijou immediately moved forward. The paper whipped around in the wind. Barely a moment before her palm touched it, he collided with her. He kept their momentum going, dropping his weight, wrapping his arms around her slender body, and pushing her right down onto the ground. “Huh? What?” Mikoto looked up at him from the ground as he hovered over her, both her hands at her chest, frozen in place. “I, uh, wh-whaaaat…?” Her face grew so red it looked about to explode. She couldn’t manage any actual words. Kamijou’s expression grew more serious. “Quiet. Don’t move for a sec.” With Mikoto still under him on the ground, he got a closer look at her face. He couldn’t tell one way or the other; he didn’t know much about sorcery. However, his amateur’s observation told him the red in her face made her look a lot like she was in pain. He said the symptoms were like heavy sunstroke…He brought his face even closer to get a better look. “Hee…I…er…” After blinking a few times and seeing Kamijou’s serious face closing in, she took a guess at what was happening and eventually closed her eyes slowly. When he saw that, he clicked his tongue in dismay and hastily put his right hand on her forehead. “Shit…Does it hurt that much, Misaka?! Your body temperature…damn, it’s rising. And your face is all red, too” Surprised by his shout, Mikoto started flailing impatiently. “H-hey! I’m not red! My face is not red! And I don’t have a fever, either” Huh? Kamijou pulled his face back. Normal people would suffer worse symptoms than Stiyl, so she must not have touched the basket-pole. Still, he knew where Oriana’s flash card—the interception spell—was. “Tsuchimikado, over here!” he shouted. “It’s the seventh pole—” Suddenly he broke off. Because he finally saw it. The piece of paper taped to the seventh pole. The only thing written on it was PROPERTY OF NOGI MIDDLE SCHOOL. Tsuchimikado had told him these poles were probably borrowed from elsewhere. This was basically just a name tag so they wouldn’t lose it. I was wrong?! Then where’s the actual Shorthand grimoire?! He quickly looked around. Then he heard a whistle through the area. The march playing over the school broadcast system stopped suddenly. A moment later, a hand grasped the eighth pole. “Good grief. What are you doing here, Touma Kamijou?” A question for him. “I will listen to what you have to say later, so be good and go away for now. We’re probably going to have to restart the event. With so many baskets down, there’s no way to continue the match fairly.” Seiri Fukiyose, administrative committee member, looked at him in confusion. She wore a light parka over her gym uniform. “Can you hear me? Are you trying to make me consume more calcium?” Kamijou wasn’t looking at her clothing, though. Or listening to her voice, for that matter. Her hand. Between her soft palm and the metal pole was a single piece of thick paper. It was taped to the pole. He wanted desperately to believe it was just a property tag like the seventh pole. But then he saw, in blue lettering, some kind of English letters. A loud rrrrip burst through the air. Fukiyose teetered over sideways. “Fu…” Her hand left the pole, limp. The only thing written beneath where it had been was WIND SYMBOL. “Fukiyosee” He didn’t get a reply. She fell away from the pole and crumpled to the ground with a thud. There was no energy whatsoever in her fall. She lay there, limbs sprawled, unmoving, reminding him of a flabby leather bag. Then, from all around her came a crackling sort of noise from the air, like it was a creaking floorboard. “Wh-what?” stammered Mikoto, confused. She, however, was likely the only player present who noticed something strange. A few of the other students looked suspicious, but they couldn’t have thought this to be the work of an unknown magical attack. Besides, the stadium was packed with espers of all kinds. It would take something more than a little strange to make them think something was wrong. And then Tsuchimikado finally made it to him. “(…Kammy, go hit her! She’s no sorcerer. She won’t last)” Kamijou finally snapped out of his thoughts. He ran over to the fallen Fukiyose and, pretending to help lift her up, put his right hand around to her back. A soft fshhh of air being sucked out, but… Even then, strength didn’t return to her body. “Shit…” He knew the logic behind it. She and Stiyl Magnus had different resistances to magic. Even Stiyl, a professional, had taken a lot of damage. Anyone could imagine the result of a completely unprepared amateur getting hit by the attack. However…that didn’t mean he could stop asking himself one question: Why? “Tsuchimikado” “Stay calm, Kammy. This is just her body under too much stress from her life force running idly—it’s no more than severe sunstroke. We should get her to the first aid office…No, not there. If we call an ambulance, we might still make it. It’s way better than having her lie here under this sun,” he said, offering a solution. There was nothing conclusive about those words, though. It was like he was implying he couldn’t offer groundless optimism, being the professional that he was. Kamijou could hear several committee members come running out of the tent raised on the edge of the schoolyard. Faculty members here and there, too—maybe they’d caught wind of the trouble. In their eyes, he and Tsuchimikado would have looked like they didn’t know how to care for the female student who’d suddenly collapsed. The committee and faculty snatched Fukiyose from his hands and immediately made a phone call. Touma Kamijou, left alone, stood slowly. His head was still down. But then, at a terrifying speed, his fist whipped out in front of him. There was a loud metallic gong, and Oriana’s paper vibrated on the pole. Mikoto looked at him, surprised, but he didn’t notice. The characters on the paper, having been stricken by his right hand, began to fade away. “Have it your way, Oriana Thomson…,” he said, his trembling lips moving slowly. “If this is how you want to do things…If getting innocent people involved and watching while feeling nothing is how it’s gonna be…” He lifted up his face and looked straight ahead, making his declaration. “…then my hand will wreck that insane illusion of yours until there’s nothing left.” INTERLUDE TWO It hurts. So thought Seiri Fukiyose amid the murk and haze in her mind. She knew she was lying on a stretcher right now. She managed to figure out she’d been taken out of an ambulance and was being rolled into a hospital emergency room. But it didn’t feel real. She couldn’t tell up from down, front from back, right from left. She didn’t know whether it was because of how the stretcher was swinging around or if it was her. The adults around her shouted something, probably to see how conscious she was, but she couldn’t really make it out. All she could hear was the kind of slurred, meaningless voices of drunkards. For some reason, though, the word sunstroke made it to her. Sunstroke. Not an uncommon condition during gym class or school assemblies, so it tended to be taken lightly. But the root cause was sudden dehydration. If it got worse, it could result in death. This wasn’t the first time she’d gotten sunstroke. Despite her state, she could imagine what had caused her to collapse. She had never experienced a sequence of events like this, though. Her headaches would stop once they got to a certain point, but now she felt like it was getting worse and worse, the pain growing deeper and deeper. …Urgh…As a member of the Daihasei Festival administrative committee, she had taken a lecture on simple first aid. She was more acutely aware than other students that sunstroke was nothing to be trifled with. What did I do wrong? she thought. She had hydration, and that was keeping her body heat to an appropriate level. This wasn’t due to exhaustion, lack of sleep, or sickness, either. She had been perfect in her preparations. Why had this happened so suddenly despite them? Which means…the only thing left… Nervousness? Had she been so tense this whole time? Such a psychogenic issue, surprisingly, was something that hadn’t seemed real to her. She considered it in a curious, reflective way. She had done quite a lot of preparation in the days before, all for today. If she failed now, everything would have been for nothing. All the laughs and hard work during setup with the other committee members, devoting herself to memorizing procedures for judging, going over the event schedules with everyone at the café on their way home—it would all be overwritten by a single word: failure. Maybe she really had been nervous and just hadn’t realized it. …What am I…an idiot…? Trying to make herself look big, making a show out of collapsing, single-handedly ruining the event…She felt like she must have had this coming to her. She even decided she should retire from the Daihasei Festival right away—she’d caused enough of a nuisance and didn’t want to anymore. Because this was all her fault. So then… Why…? Why had that boy, with his face an absolute mess, cried out like that? That didn’t seem like a reaction to simple sunstroke to her. His expression implied something unexpected had just happened. But more particular—like he’d assumed a certain level of trouble beforehand, and this was outside its scope. It was less an attitude toward a sudden situation and more like he’d prepared defenses in advance and someone had broken through them. What did he know? What did he regret? She wanted to know. But more than that… I don’t want that…Her lips moved slightly. He always seemed so lighthearted, like he’d never take anything seriously no matter what anyone said. The fact that he could make a face like that surprised her. And then she frowned. At the same time, it meant the boy could go on looking like that for the entire remainder of the Daihasei Festival schedule…I really…don’t want that… She didn’t particularly like or dislike Touma Kamijou. Frankly, he was a complete stranger. But the whole reason she’d been helping the administrative committee set up for the festival was so everyone could have a good time. It didn’t have anything to do with whether she liked or disliked someone on a personal level. She absolutely didn’t want to create a situation in an event this big where one person had his head down the whole time, alone. Because she had been involved with this event. Because she’d been pouring everything she had into this day. Maybe it was selfish of her, but she still wanted this event to be a huge success—for everyone. The stretcher carrying her in her daze entered through the emergency entrance and went into a building. There was a doctor in white clothing waiting for them. His face looked just like a frog, and she nearly accidentally laughed. The frog-faced doctor began giving out directions with much quicker movements than his looks would imply. Fukiyose, barely conscious, couldn’t make out what he was saying. Her head was throbbing. It was like a bunch of the cogs in her mind had gone offtrack; her awareness was fading large bits at a time, denying any chance of organizing her thoughts. Only the words severe sunstroke rang and rang inside her skull. Brought on by sudden dehydration—harmful to the circulatory system if it gets worse—organs losing function after internal oxygen and nutrient-distribution patterns collapsed—and in the worst case, death. The danger of sunstroke varied widely based on how bad it was. If it worsened, she would fall into a state of shock like a switch was flipped, and her entire body would cry out in pain. Her teeth grated. She didn’t want to die. She herself didn’t properly understand what it was she was so scared of. Was it the waves of headaches and chills coming over her, or was it the uncertainty of not knowing how she was going to turn out? She barely narrowed it down to even those two choices. A muddy mixture of emotions tortured her mind. She couldn’t tell what the people around her were saying. She couldn’t determine how grave a situation her body was in. So she ignored all that and asked one thing. “…Will…you save…me…?” She couldn’t tell if she actually spoke, and she wasn’t confident her lips were even moving. However, the frog-faced doctor stopped giving directions and looked at her. In her hazy consciousness, unable to hear anyone else’s voice, for some reason his words reached her ears. He spoke but one sentence to the girl on the stretcher. Along with a perfect smile to grant absolute trust. “Just who do you think I am?” Word Count: (11128)