Chapter 4_ Shall the Battle End In Victory_0

CHAPTER 4 Shall the Battle End In VictoryBeing_Unsettled. 1 Stiyl Magnus sat on the ground in the automatic bus service facility. Periodically and for a while now, technicians checking on the maintenance machines had been coming and going, but Stiyl seemed to be right in a blind spot for them. No one had noticed him there. Normally he wouldn’t have to worry about this if he’d been able to use an Opila rune, but at the moment, he couldn’t. My trump card gone, and this is how I end up? I just never learn… He exhaled bitterly. Thinking back, the same thing had happened when he used Innocentius to attack Touma Kamijou at the end of July. Immediately after losing his trump card, he would get weaker. He’d put in a lot of effort to reflect on that, but basically all he’d come up with were methods to prevent his trump card from being lost—like using illusion-based evasion magic tactics or laminating his rune cards. He felt now like he’d neglected to consider the more fundamental issues. Can you protect her after making such a sorry display of yourself…? If they’d been after her this time, what would you have done, you third-rate sorcerer…? Then his cell phone rang, cutting off his thoughts. He took it out of his breast pocket and pushed the call button. It was Tsuchimikado. “Kammy busted Oriana’s Shorthand grimoire. Feeling any different, nya?” “You say that, but I don’t feel much…” Slowly and carefully, Stiyl brought out a single rune card. He inhaled deeply, held it, then exhaled again before muttering something to himself. There was a little pop, and with it an orange flame ignited at the tip of his index finger. No sign of the interception spell and the full-body rejection response. “…It works. There doesn’t seem to be a problem.” “Great. Then I’ll leave the Four Ways to Truth spell to you. I set up the origami and magic circle in the right places beforehand. Do you know how to use it?” “Don’t underestimate me,” answered Stiyl. At his feet were the circle Tsuchimikado had drawn and one piece of origami at each ninety-degree interval on it. In the center was the thick piece of paper Oriana had left behind. He didn’t understand the placement method for this Onmyou technique, but triggering a rental spell wouldn’t be difficult. “Are you all set on your end, though? You said Oriana placed the interception spell in the middle of a stadium. If you snuck in, you won’t be able to get back out until the event ends, right?” It would be hard for them to infiltrate the event but just as hard to escape it. If a couple of people tried to sneak outside, people would see them whether they liked it or not. Tsuchimikado’s reply, however, was light. “No problem there, nya! We’re already outside the stadium.” “…How?” “One of the students got hit right in front of us. They’re taking her to the hospital, saying it’s severe sunstroke. She was unconscious, and we pretended to bring her off the field, then made our escape.” His voice didn’t have the same sportive glee it usually did. Stiyl knew that was the voice of a sorcerer. “I see,” he said. “Is Touma Kamijou going mad?” “If you know what you’re doing, I’ll leave it to you. We want to counterattack soon, too. If we don’t, we won’t be able to face that student who went down.” Tsuchimikado hung up. “Right,” said Stiyl, returning the phone to his pocket. Nobody’s perfect. He beat me once, but even he’ll fail sometimes. But he continued. “And that’s exactly why he’ll regret his inexperience.” Touma Kamijou knew this best of all—he was unable to save someone right in front of him. So Stiyl wouldn’t say anything more on the matter. He stayed silent and did what he needed to do. He didn’t realize it, but it was like he was trying not to put any more of a burden on the boy. The four origami began to revolve, and the Four Ways to Truth magic circle activated…in order to find Oriana Thomson’s location. 2 In the center of a large road swarming with people stood Oriana Thomson, looking up at an electronic scoreboard. Most of the people weren’t paying any mind to the happenings being displayed on the screen. Even if a few were, they would only be slightly interested in an event being temporarily suspended due to an emergency case. It was to be expected. It was news only of a single person in an emergency, so they must not have found much to talk about. On the surface, at least. “…What’s this?” she whispered, with the signboard-like object wrapped in white cloth under her arm. Her whole body, clad in the work uniform with only the second button buttoned and her navel exposed, expressed a feeling of tension. “An unexpected development…?” Then she took her eyes off the scoreboard, though, and began to walk. There was something she needed to do. Her fingers dug into the object under her arm. Touma Kamijou and Motoharu Tsuchimikado ran down the road, mostly pushing people out of the way. The pedestrians gave them bothered glances, but the two of them had no time to apologize. As they ran, they were listening to Stiyl’s voice from over Tsuchimikado’s cell phone on speaker. “I’ve located Oriana Thomson. She’s close to the Futsuka subway station in District 7. With a little more time, I can give you a more accurate reading.” “Futsuka Station?! We already passed that!” Kamijou skidded to a halt and turned back the way he came. A few moments later he made a turn and dove onto a smaller road. Tsuchimikado had been taking the initiative in their pursuit before, but now it was all in Kamijou’s hands. It was the professional’s turn to get pulled every which way. “Northward…Yes, it seems she’s moving north. The road…splits into three, but I can’t tell which one it is. Let me figure it out…” Before they finished listening, Kamijou and Tsuchimikado made it out of the small road. Then they saw the stairs down to the subway station, snug up against the edge of the sidewalk. They continued to run north on the road. “Of the three paths…Come on…come on…There we go. Listen—” “The leftmost path! Found her” shouted Kamijou as the blond woman walking twenty meters ahead of them spun around. After spotting the two of them shoving their way through the crowds, she hastily fled down a side road. Kamijou and Tsuchimikado followed suit. The side road was short, and they soon came onto another. Unlike the main roads, however, it wasn’t a glittering scene of festivity. Small tenements were packed onto it, so it didn’t even feel welcoming to visitors, either. There was an arch erected over the road like it was a shopping arcade, but it only seemed to make it harder to see. The shops all had their shutters down even though it was barely afternoon; the people managing the places probably knew that visitors wouldn’t come down this street in the first place. They’d probably set up temporary shops closer to the stadiums, where people were more likely to see them. The street ended in a T intersection, with a road going to the left and the right. Oriana Thomson, in her work uniform, was running down the left street. As Kamijou and Tsuchimikado chased, an automatic bus drove by them from behind. Kamijou watched it pass without much thought, but a moment later he gave a start. There was a bus stop where Oriana was headed. “Crap…” Oriana was holding down some sort of signal button at the bus stop to get the automatic bus to stop there. Sure enough, the bus slowed to a halt without any doubts in its mechanical mind. Its doors opened automatically, and she stepped inside the vehicle. They wouldn’t be able to catch up with a bus on foot. Getting another one would make actually pursuing her difficult, too. General vehicles were forbidden from entering the streets for the duration of the Daihasei Festival, so they couldn’t get a different car. Kamijou didn’t have the skill to drive one anyway. The automatic bus would respond only to predefined commands. If there were a driver and they ran after the bus from behind, waving their hands, he or she might stop the bus, thinking they had just missed it. Unfortunately, that was asking too much of a self-driving bus. Kamijou frantically began to run, but he was twenty meters away. Before he could get there, the bus had already set off again, almost silently. “Shit” Kamijou finally got to the bus stop and pressed the button, but he was too late. The running vehicle didn’t respond; it just slowly accelerated. Tsuchimikado got there a moment later. Looking at the shrinking bus, he said, “Hey, Kammy. I couldn’t see. Were there other people in that bus she got on, nya?” “Huh? Who cares about that?!” retorted Kamijou, irritated at the extremely easygoing tone of his voice. Then Tsuchimikado said, “No, it’s actually pretty important.” “…I don’t think there were.” “Think?” “There weren’t! Yes, now that I think about it, there weren’t any other passengers! Everyone probably got off the bus to watch the relay-race qualifiers for group A that they’re doing this morning nearby. They’re calling it the highlight of day one, since it’s got all the potential festival winners in it or something. I think that’s what it said in the pamphlet. Why’s that important?!” “Oh, that’s good, then…Stiyl?” Tsuchimikado spoke not to Kamijou but to Stiyl over the phone. “You put rune cards on the sides of the buses at the repair yard, didn’t you? If they’re still working, I’d like to place an order. Blow up the card on the vehicle numbered 5154457.” The response was immediate. Bang Flames erupted from the side of the slowly accelerating bus. A moment later there was an explosion inside the vehicle, and its back went sliding across the road. When it became perpendicular to the street, the momentum rolled it over onto its side. Now a giant hunk of flaming metal, it bounded and rolled across the ground. The flames, erupting up out of it, touched the shopping arcade roof and began to spread. Tsuchimikado clicked his flip phone closed with one hand. “Effective…Maybe too effective, nya?” he said, grinning in a worried way. Kamijou was at a loss for words as he stared at the blazing bus. Obviously their goal was to stop Oriana, but wasn’t this a little outside the realm of just “stopping” her? Tsuchimikado looked at him and seemed to realize what he wanted to say. “No, no, see? All I was thinking was that there would be a little fire, and the bus’s safety features would kick in and stop it! Damn it. I mistook it for an electric car, nya. That looks like a hybrid—it probably uses gasoline, too,” he finished, not seeming too nervous. “Well, look at it this way. All the shop people seem to be working away from home today, and the shopping arcade roof prevents satellites and those unmanned helicopters from seeing. It won’t be a big deal.” “H-how can you be so calm?! Is there a fire extinguisher around here?! If we don’t save her, she might actually die” “Hmm. I wonder about that.” Suddenly, as Tsuchimikado finished, there was a windy roar as the pillar of burning fire began to whirl around. The huge flames dispersed as though blown away by a tornado originating inside it and vanished without a trace. What blew away the fire was a wind dense with moisture—a mist. Kamijou looked back to see a thin layer of water covering the wreckage of the bus that had been burning just a moment ago. It probably worked the same as leaves getting wet in the evening dew. The misty winds had coated everything in the vicinity in a light blanket of moisture. This water, though, apparently wouldn’t evaporate in normal flames. By taking away everything that could feed the fire and blocking its path, it had extinguished it. And standing at the middle of the mist and wind was one woman. Her hair, face, work outfit, and belly button were all wet with a thin layer of water—it was Oriana Thomson. She had her signboard-like object under her right arm, a ring of flash cards in her left hand, and a single page of it in her mouth. The blue letters on it spelled out the words Wind Symbol in English. She spat out the card. A slender thread of saliva followed it as she smiled comfortably. “Hee-hee. Flames infused with mana and will are one thing, but it takes more than a simple physical fire to get me hot and bothered. It looks like I jumped the gun and got a little wet anyway, though. Want to see? I’m soaked all the way through to my underwear.” Even now, the only things coming out of her mouth were jokes. Touma Kamijou narrowed his eyes in suspicion at that fact. Only a little, but he still did it. “…You hurt a completely innocent person with that spell you set up. You remember? It was that girl I was with when I first ran into you. Did she look like she had anything to do with sorcery?” “Nobody in the world is unrelated. If the mood is right, anyone can create relationships with anybody else.” “You…you do understand me. And you still don’t feel sorry, do you?” Kamijou’s voice was flat. Oriana scowled a little upon hearing it. “I don’t want to be complaining at this point, but it’s true that I didn’t intend to hurt that girl. Even I hesitate to hurt regular people. Unlike this one here,” she said, tearing off a flash card with her teeth. A clear clang rang out, like two glass edges bumping into each other. And at that moment… “Gah…” groaned Motoharu Tsuchimikado as he doubled over. Holding his side with one hand and trembling fiercely, he stared at Oriana. “Tsuchimikado” Kamijou hurried over to him. His wound still looked closed, but his face was white. Maybe the damage from before was getting to him; he was moving around with an injury. Oriana watched and giggled. “Oh my. And here I thought you were the one who was hurt. I wonder if I used this the wrong way.” Between her lips was a flash card with the words Fire Symbol written in blue. Tsuchimikado faltered. He faltered and began slowly falling to the ground. Oriana smiled thinly. “You seem to be somewhat resistant…but you’ll need more than that to resist my wiles.” As soon as she spoke, Tsuchimikado collapsed, his body unable to endure further strain. All the energy had left his limbs. “What? What did you do to him?!” “I simply used blue lettering to cancel the fire aspect, symbol of regeneration and recovery. It uses sound as a medium to enter the body through the ear canal. The spell causes anyone with a certain level of injury to pass out. The bell sound from before was the key to turning it on…but I see your wounds weren’t as great.” Kamijou touched Tsuchimikado with his right hand, but it didn’t do anything. Actually, it was more like the effects kept coming back every time he erased them. Unlike the interception spell from before, with this one, the effects probably wouldn’t go away unless he destroyed the original card. A spell to make a person faint if they’re hurt enough…That meant the fainting effects might continue to trigger as long as the spell’s condition of wounds being on Tsuchimikado’s body wasn’t taken away. Kamijou’s Imagine Breaker couldn’t heal the wound itself, so touching him like this wouldn’t free him. He glared at Oriana. She responded with an amused look, grabbing the fainting amulet with her left hand. Then she tossed it into the air, letting it flutter in the wind. Immediately, the thin flash-card ring caught the wind and she began to fly backward. Kamijou’s face reddened with anger. “Get back here” However, Oriana’s whole body shivered as though even his anger felt good. She wet her lips with her tongue. “If you want to save him, then you’ll need to beat me as soon as you can. If not, he’ll be waiting until I say otherwise. Though I wonder if he’ll last that long. Maybe he’ll actually succumb quickly, you know?” Kamijou’s teeth clattered. In anger. “Why?” he managed, squeezing out the words. Motoharu Tsuchimikado… If nothing bad had happened, he would have left aside his spy job and gone to the Daihasei Festival. If there wasn’t a job he needed to do, he’d be enjoying himself and making a ruckus with everyone else. Stiyl Magnus, too… If Oriana hadn’t caused this incident, he wouldn’t have had to prepare for battle. He probably wouldn’t have come to Academy City, and even if he had, it might have been to see his old friend Index for the first time in a while. And Seiri Fukiyose, too… Kamijou didn’t know what she wanted out of being an administrative committee member for the festival. But if it wasn’t something she’d been forced to do—if she wanted to do it—then she would have had a goal. Maybe none of that was very important for a professional sorcerer. Compared to the Stab Sword, which could throw the world into chaos, maybe it wasn’t important at all. “I don’t know how valuable this Stab Sword thing is. I don’t know how much it could change the course of history or in what way it could change the world. I probably don’t have the right idea.” He paused. “But I know this much. It’s not right to hurt someone over a piece of shit like that. If the Stab Sword can make only shitty things happen, then I’ll destroy the damn thing myself” Oriana Thomson smiled thinly at his words. There was no point in listening—and just listening made it seem so funny she had to laugh. It was like she was saying the people who had gotten wrapped up in this weren’t worth much to her. She spoke. “It would sound cool if I said I was just doing my job, but that would be insincere toward my client.” As a matter of fact, there wasn’t a hint of seriousness in her voice. “Leaving the end goal aside, she left it up to me to figure out how to get there.” A twisted heat ran rampant inside Kamijou. His clenched teeth felt about to shatter. “Don’t…you dare…” He gripped his right fist and looked upon his enemy. “…play around with people’s lives like that” He leaped straight ahead. Oriana watched him and continued to smile—ever amused. 3 Kamijou was less than ten meters away from Oriana. His fist would never reach her, though. With a flick of her left hand, she simply put a flash card in her mouth and bit down on it. On it were the words Wind Symbol, written in green. A moment later, in between the two of them, a fifty-centimeter-thick wall of ice spread across the street. Their eyes locked from across the clear ice. The wall was huge—three meters tall. Kamijou ignored it and punched it with his right hand. Crash There was the sound of glass breaking. The wall shattered at once like gunpowder had been planted inside it. Oriana wasn’t on the other side. She, too, began to shatter along with the ice. Like a portrait depicted in stained glass breaking apart. Kamijou gasped, then considered what had just happened. What was the ice for…? Then, with a chill, he realized it. To refract the light?! A sonic blast ripped toward him from the side. He swung his right hand in that direction without turning. The incoming wind blade burst like a balloon released from compression. Then he squinted against the gusts hitting him from the front. Just then, there was a scrape. It felt like his cheek skin was being pulled and cut off. Blood began to flow in big drops from the gash before the pain hit him. “Hmm-hmm. The sharpness is quite stimulating, isn’t it?” He looked to see that Oriana had bitten off another flash card and activated a spell. The super-thin stone blade had flown toward him and ripped into his cheek. “Hee-hee-hee. I remember when we first shook hands. Academy City has some pretty unique kids, doesn’t it?” She seemed to be referring to his right hand. He wasn’t able to respond, though. The wound—it was so big he could check with his finger how big it was. And Oriana was keeping a spell that would make him faint for sure when he heard it, as long as he was injured enough! Oh…shit… Kamijou subconsciously covered his ears as the chill came over him. Meanwhile, Oriana took yet another card in her mouth. “Next is a sword of shadow. Don’t let me get bored, now!” The moment she tore it off, she waved her right hand and a dark sword appeared in it. Apparently it could extend and retract freely, since it quickly grew to seven meters long. It stabbed Kamijou’s shadow, stretched out behind him on the ground. Boom The shadow at his feet exploded. It was like he’d stepped on a land mine. The blast flung his body into the air. He spun around like a bamboo-copter, then fell to the ground, barely managing a clumsy landing. The asphalt had scraped his arm, and that hurt, but there was something more important. Why? Why isn’t she coming at me with the same attack she used on Tsuchimikado?! It wasn’t a relief—he was confused now, unable to read his opponent. If she had something up her sleeve that could finish him off, no questions asked, then what was the point in passing it over? Then, Oriana, who should have been in absolute control, jumped backward again to lengthen the distance between them. After looking at Kamijou’s bewildered expression, she smiled a little. “Mm. I’m not into using the same spell over and over again.” The look on her face indicated that confession was proof of how relaxed she was. “The five elements are the most basic of the basics when it comes to modern Western sorcery. Like alchemy, it’s nothing but foreplay—anyone can learn it if they study nature. It’s easy to control and easy to apply, but it makes your attacks obvious and your defensive spells easier to figure out. I’d be anxious going straight for the climax—it could turn out to be boring! That’s why I make sure I have all kinds of cards in my hand, so I don’t get bored. And also why I have to toss away these disposable grimoires after using them, like a daily calendar. ” Kamijou ignored what she was saying and tried to swiftly close the distance. She simply stood there with a flash card in her mouth. A moment later, there was a sudden gust at his back. It applied too much extra forward momentum to his body; his legs got tangled and he started to fall over. Then Oriana, who had actually come toward him, delivered a brutal uppercut to his chin by lifting the giant signboard under her right arm straight into him. There was a loud thud Kamijou, who had been about to fall forward, ended up bent over backward instead from the impact. Then, adjusting the position of the signboard, Oriana drove its corner into the center of his gut like a horn. With a dull noise, his bent-over body crashed back into the ground. “Guh…Agh…” His brain and lungs now both prevented from working, he lost track of which way was up and which was down. As it felt like the cardinal directions were dancing around him, he still managed to get one hand on the ground to try and push himself up. “Mm.” Then Oriana bit off another flash-card page. “How…lewd. This was only foreplay. Have I already brought you to your knees?” She activated some kind of force, and then some kind of hot steam exploded underneath him, between the road and his back. He found himself flung into the air again, but this time he couldn’t take the fall and ended up tumbling down the street. He summoned every last bit of his consciousness, which was about to cease, then tried desperately to get a handle on what was going on. “Ugh…” But even that attempt was nearly torn to shreds by the pain. The intense pain was bursting through his body. He clenched his teeth and spoke desperately. “God…damn it…How?” That was the question he thought of. “…You said you wouldn’t use the same spell twice, but how do you have so many combinations…?” He didn’t know what the four elements—or was it five?—were, but the important part was the combination of the color and the name. Firing off one spell after another like this should have made her run out of combinations already. “Hee-hee. Those aren’t the only things I’m combining. If you take a nice, long look at me, you’ll figure it out!” Oriana brought up her left hand and put her flash-card ring in her mouth. “!” Kamijou flinched, trying to prepare himself, but his body wasn’t getting enough energy. Despite his defenseless state, Oriana didn’t attack him—instead she ran her tongue along the flash card. She licked the rectangular paper down the short vertical side first, then across the long horizontal edge. Kamijou stared at her, dumbfounded, but eventually found words. “…The angle? You mean the angle when you…lick it is important?” “Mm-hmm. That’s one of the factors. It’s a fundamental of Western astrology. Coniunctio, oppositio, quartus, trinus, sextus, parallel—among other aspects. The theory goes that the positional relationship between constellations and planets has a different role based on their angles. I suppose you’d need to take a course to learn how stars, colors, and elements are related, too, wouldn’t you?” She smirked. “Of course, my spells incorporate mystic number dismantling based on the page number, too, so strictly speaking, I can’t use the same spell twice. The past is gone and cannot be repeated—in the same way, a page I’ve already flipped will never come back.” She ran the slightly wet corner of the flash card—the page—along her upper lip. “That’s my limit. Even when I tried my hardest to write grimoires, the original copies wouldn’t stabilize. They kept going berserk, self-destructing, over and over. And the sentences in them were too messy, too dirty for anyone to read. My skills, both from a sorcerer’s viewpoint and a wizard’s, are halfhearted at best.” She narrowed her eyes slightly. “But I never gave up constantly writing them, constantly creating new spells. I knew it, too: The halfhearted grimoires I wrote would last only an hour at best, and they could self-destruct in a matter of seconds at worst. I know that if I stop and compromise, I’ll lose—which is why I’ll aim higher and higher forever…I’ll never lose my initial enthusiasm.” Finished, she bit the side of the moist card. She didn’t tear it out, though. With it sitting on her tongue, she continued to speak, her voice muffled and her mouth not moving much. “Next up is Blade Crater—a grimoire with the wind symbol written in red, its angle a coniunctio at exactly zero degrees, and its total page number being five hundred and seventy-seven. I figured I’d tell you beforehand.” Then she paused for a moment. “If you move from there, you’ll die,” she said succinctly. “And if you don’t move, my next play will end with your submission. You’re not a child—you can at least decide for yourself which it will be.” Oriana held the card in her mouth, drawing it to the side. It tore off the metal ring with the rest of the flash cards on it, an invisible pen writing the words Wind Symbol in red ink. …Kamijou tried to put a hand on the ground and push himself up. His balance was shaken, so his body didn’t listen for a moment. Getting to one knee was the extent of his ability. He was thankful nobody was around here. If someone saw them, it would be a huge mess no matter what. Don’t move…? As he remembered Oriana’s words, something came running through the ground. A circle about two meters across appeared around her, followed by countless tree branch–like designs growing out of the circle’s edge. It looked like the capillaries in a bloodshot eyeball. They spread past Kamijou’s position and slipped under the bikes, signs, and cars on the street, stopping a few inches away from the unconscious Tsuchimikado. If I move, I’ll die. Vrrr. The patterns on the ground began to emit a queer noise as though they were vibrating. Kamijou’s weak heart pleaded with him to surrender. He couldn’t hope to guess what Oriana’s next attack would actually be. Which meant he couldn’t find a way past it. She had said something else, too. Her next hit was strong enough to stop his heart if he took it defenselessly. If I don’t move, her next play will be checkmate. The thing distinguishing the two options was that the latter meant she would end things without killing him. He’d probably be made to faint like Tsuchimikado had, but that was all. Oriana would just run away again, and then Stiyl would probably pursue her. Kamijou going down now wouldn’t immediately end everything. Nobody would blame an amateur for going to sleep. Even Tsuchimikado, a professional, had succumbed to it. It would be wrong to tell him to do any more work. So…so what…What does that matter…? Nevertheless, Kamijou clenched his right hand into a fist. He clenched it tightly, dug in his nails, put strength into it, filled it with enough willpower to make everything from his wrist down a single object. He reissued the commands to his weak legs and put his feet under him again. Emotions swirled and mixed within him—terror, and the desire to fight that terror—as he thought, She asked me…Fukiyose asked me if I didn’t want to make the Daihasei Festival a success. Are you going to ignore everything she said, you coward?! He ground his teeth and reaffirmed his feelings. I don’t care if I’m up against a pro sorcerer. I don’t care how important this deal is! She decided to join the festival committee, put in sweat and tears to prepare for it, and now all that effort’s about to go to waste! And you want to just let that happen?! You know you won’t be happy with that, Touma Kamijou “Whoaa…Ooohh” He shouted and sprang into a dash. His balance was still unsteady, and he ran like an airline passenger with motion sickness from turbulence. But he still went forward. At the same time, Oriana Thomson spat the card in her mouth to her side… …and a moment later, she fully activated the spell. 4 Blade Crater. The giant pattern spread out on the ground around her in all directions, like a brick wall, like the capillaries in a bloodshot eye, powered on. A moment later, a vacuum blade began its devastation. The countless lines drawn on the road shot straight up like a reverse guillotine, the shutter of the blade rising swiftly. Two hundred and eight slashing attacks. This world of blades, expanded into a spiderweb design, would indiscriminately cleave every object placed within it. …! This…fool Oriana Thomson’s teeth ground a little. They may have looked random, but she’d actually set up the jets of the vacuum blades specifically so they would avoid Kamijou’s position. He’d ignored that and advanced on her. Her original plan had been to surround him in a curtain of vacuum blades coming out of the ground to ensure she could knock him out after he couldn’t move. It was for the same reason she hadn’t killed Tsuchimikado—she’d decided reckless slaughter would obstruct her from doing her “job.” As Kamijou stepped forward, the spell activated. The vacuum blade guillotines that burst out of the ground instead isolated the now-empty safe zone. There were 208 of them, and they carved everything directly over the pattern into shreds—signs and bicycles alike. Kamijou, having excluded himself from that safe zone, dove into the vortex of blades. There was no future waiting for him other than amputation, fresh blood, and death. However… “” Kamijou’s body didn’t get cut. The vacuum blades burst straight out of the numerous slashing attack “jets” drawn on the ground, 208 guillotines ripping apart all the air around them—but not one of those hits landed on him. He had plunged right into a spot where they were less dense. The place he stepped into was, essentially, a second safe spot besides the one Oriana had set up. She couldn’t see whether it had been a coincidence or if he had somehow found the spot, but… Then how about this Oriana used the spell she had waiting. Whether or not she had consciously done it, anywhere that wasn’t covered by the vacuum guillotines was an isolation zone already surrounded by the blade shutters. He had jumped out of the beehive and back in through a different hole. He couldn’t escape. But even as Oriana thought that, she was proven wrong again. “Orrahhh” Kamijou howled, shoving his right fist into the vacuum blade in front of him. The act was reckless—was he asking for his arm to be cut up like a cucumber? But instead, the blade was the one to shatter. And not just the one in front of him—it was every single one surrounding Oriana. A loud crunch came out a moment later. By that time, Kamijou had already stepped closer to Oriana. Only about three steps left. He’d be on top of her after that. What did he…?! How is his right hand doing this…?! She couldn’t process the situation presented to her. For now, she concentrated on defeating the enemy. She ripped off another flash card with her teeth, the act recording a command written in yellow lettering. The one-time-use spell’s name was Drop Rest. It had the appearance of a compressed-air spear, but it would effectively turn by force the consciousness of whomever it hit from the external world to the internal world. The attack didn’t cause pain—it made them only pass out. Oriana had wanted to surround Kamijou with the vacuum blades and then send this spear straight through both the blades in the way and him, but things had taken an unexpected turn. But even with the betrayal of her expectations, Oriana fired it without a second thought. “Take thi—” Before she even finished shouting, Kamijou punched away the tip of the Drop Rest spear. The wind lance shattered and scattered meaninglessly around them until disappearing into the air. But…why…?! Oriana’s surprise caused him to take another step. Two steps left. She was confused. The situation was inexplicable. Her enemy was right there, and she had forgotten to deal with him. How is he countering this?! His right hand may be special…but this nobody is reading my every move! There…There must be something he’s using to make these decisions! It’s… Another step. One left. Then, like a bolt of lightning, the answer hit Oriana. I see. I’m not using the same spell more than once! Once I’ve attacked a place, I can’t use the same attack from the same direction again! He’s using that to predict it… Oriana Thomson never used the same spell twice. If a location was attacked once, it would not be attacked again. Of course, she could use a flame sword to attack a point, then fire an ice bullet at it. But that was because swords and bullets had different attack ranges—and that difference was a hole to be exploited. Kamijou was moving at her along the points where he’d been attacked in the past. If the same attack wouldn’t come at him twice, he would need to worry about only the rest—whatever she attacked him with after that. And dealing with it at that point was easy. It was like she’d told him her next attack would be a feint or that there was sure to be a loophole somewhere. Hah. I put my hand together to remove any blind spots—to think that would hint at how to fight against it! Ha-ha, boy, you’re wonderful! I do love men with original ideas A moment later, each was in range of the other. Oriana had no time to use her flash cards. Instead, she brought the “signboard” under her right arm down on Kamijou, aiming for the crown of his head. However… Touma Kamijou twisted around. He pivoted on one foot without letting his axis of rotation bend; his body pretty much turned to the side. A soft ksshhh sound scraped right by the tip of his nose, but that was all. The corner of the “signboard” went right past the sideways boy and slammed into the asphalt. … Oriana Thomson was speechless as she looked back in front of her. At the same time, from point-blank range, he fired off a right straight. “Whoaa…” Kamijou expelled all the air from his lungs and roared. “…Oooaa” Putting all his body weight and speed into his fist, he punched her right in the middle of her face. The recoil from the impact shot traveled back up his wrist, up to his elbow, and to his shoulder. Brrrrkkkk With a magnificently explosive sound, Oriana’s body went flying away. Taking every bit of kinetic energy from Kamijou’s initial dash, she fell to the ground and tumbled head over feet down the road. With a whistling of wind, the signboard she’d let go of landed right next to him. He felt a slight numbness in his right fingers. Did I get her…? Does this mean the deal for the Stab Sword magic item is done for? For now, the thing Oriana had been carrying was next to him. He was still worried about Tsuchimikado, still unconscious, and the other party involved in the deal, who had also infiltrated Academy City. Had he escaped the worst of it for the time being? “Heh.” Then, as he stood there thinking, the wind carried a laugh to his ears. His eyes shot back to where they’d been looking before. “Hee-hee. You’re so rough with me. Look, my button came undone.” Oriana was lying faceup on the road, and as though she’d just woken from an afternoon nap, she slowly sat up. With her now-empty right hand, she was holding the fabric of her work uniform down at the chest—it was almost open. It…didn’t work?! Kamijou was dumbfounded, but Oriana didn’t seem to mind it very much. “Weeell, I’m not the muscular, buff type of lady, you know. You didn’t come at me straight; there was a slight angle. Your body’s been getting damaged, and you were about to lose your balance. I suppose that’s why the impact wasn’t perfect. Yes, to put it quite frankly…” She paused. “Your fist did a very good job. I, however, am used to others seeing through my attacks and countering them. I’m finding that I still don’t feel completely satisfied.” She brought the ring of flash cards in her left hand to her mouth. Kamijou assumed a defensive posture, but that was when his scrapes all started to hurt at once. The simultaneity caused him to pause momentarily. “” Oriana watched his face pucker up at the pain and bit off a page of the flash cards, looking entertained. Contrary to Kamijou’s expectations, however, it wasn’t an attack. He felt a wind blowing from near her, and in the next moment, a miniature tornado cast her body into the air. Within less than a second, she slipped between the slight crevice between the shopping arcade roof and the tightly packed buildings, then landed on top of one of them. Despite the signboard she dropped, lying at Kamijou’s feet. Despite how important the Stab Sword was supposed to be for the deal. As she stood on the edge of the rooftop with her back turned, she bit off another page of her flash-card ring and said, “I’ll let you have that for now. Don’t think we’re finished with our little game, though. Now’s where things start to get really hot.” Oriana’s voice was soft—was she manipulating the sonic conductivity of the air? It rang clearly in Kamijou’s ears. He looked between the Stab Sword on the ground and her on the roof. “…Why?” he asked. His voice was soft as well, but it seemed to get to her. “Why what?” “The Stab Sword’s right here. It’s not like I’m in control here. Why would you just withdraw now…?” Oriana giggled a little. “Why indeed? Give it some thought—it could be fun.” She bounded toward the middle of the rooftop, putting herself out of sight of Kamijou, who was looking up at it. She disappeared entirely from the tiny slit between the arcade roof and the building walls. “Wait! What about the spell you put on Tsuchimikado?!” he immediately shouted despite being unable to see her anymore. The arcade roof blocked out the sky completely. She might have gone inside a building, or she might be jumping across buildings. Still, a voice without form reached him. “The spell lasts twenty minutes. It’ll turn off on its own, my little worrywart esper. ” Kamijou looked around, but neither Oriana nor her voice was anywhere to be found. 5 Motoharu Tsuchimikado apparently wouldn’t wake up for a little while. Kamijou wavered, wondering whether he should keep following Oriana, but ended up staying put. He couldn’t leave Tsuchimikado here, and the Stab Sword was here, too, disguised as a giant signboard. Carrying it would slow him down, and if Oriana counterattacked and stole it, they’d be right back where they started. So he decided to give Stiyl a call. Unfortunately, Kamijou didn’t know Stiyl’s phone number. Guiltily, he decided to borrow Tsuchimikado’s phone and took it out of his pocket. He went through his history and pressed the call button. Stiyl’s opinion was crystal clear. “All right. Destroy the Stab Sword. Your right hand should have no problem. That will completely ruin Lidvia Lorenzetti’s plan for the deal. I don’t know much about the police force in Academy City, but if the whole bus is on fire, it might have been reported. You should destroy the thing and get out of there before anyone rushes to the scene.” “Is it really okay to just break it? They won’t get angry and start attacking the city, right?” “If they did that, they’d be the ones to get surrounded. This is Academy City—dead center of enemy territory, from the sorcery faction’s point of view. If Lidvia planned out the deal calmly, then she would certainly leave calmly, too. They know that quarreling with the other party in this deal would best be done once they were all safe. This village is far too dangerous for sorcerers.” That interpretation—that Academy City was a dangerous place—didn’t quite make sense to Kamijou, who actually lived there. Still, an expert in the field said so. He decided to follow what Stiyl was saying. “All right. I’ll deal with the Stab Sword with my right hand.” “Hurry. I’ll ask the higher-ups what to do from here,” said Stiyl, hanging up. “No ‘please’ or anything, huh?” Kamijou ended the call and returned the phone to his friend’s pocket. He could tell Tsuchimikado was still exhausted. Kamijou felt a chill at how Tsuchimikado didn’t react at all, but he could hear rhythmic breathing, like his friend was sleeping, if he listened closely. Tsuchimikado’s life didn’t seem to be in danger at the moment. “All right. Anyway,” Kamijou said to himself, turning back to the signboard on the ground. It was large and rectangular and wrapped in a white cloth. Word Count: (7725)