Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament

Volume 15, Prologue: The Reverse Reverse Side of the Coin — Rock_on_Right_Arm.

Volume 15, Prologue: The Reverse Reverse Side of the Coin — Rock_on_Right_Arm.

The meaning of each individual event may not be immediately evident.

But when viewed together, something else entirely comes into view.

——December 3. The High Priest, one of the Magic Gods visiting Academy City, brought extreme disaster.

What they wanted was incredibly simple.

“We want a way of knowing if we are doing the right thing.”

In exchange for taking on that one role, he would be lent the power of all the Magic Gods and be tossed into a framework that made him ruler of the world.

“Become our scorer and obtain the altar of the Magic Gods, Kamijou Touma.”

——After Kamijou Touma rejected the High Priest’s wish and fled on a new kind of bicycle known as an acrobike, Misaka Mikoto joined him and was faced with a concept that overturned the very core of her being.

“It isn’t working...”

She was one of Academy City’s seven Level 5s. She was the #3 Railgun.

But after utilizing all of that, a certain thought came to her mind.

“I’m only a burden to him!!”

——The High Priest was launched outside the atmosphere using a giant mass driver, but he fused with the Arrowhead Comet and attempted to return to earth. Then, that Magic God was intercepted and killed in an unexpected way.

“Sensei, are you ready?”

It was the Anti-Art Attachment.

The golden retriever attached to that large mountain of weaponry spoke with an artificial voice.

“Yes, you need to stand back a little.”

——Aleister and Kihara Noukan observed Academy City from a different viewpoint and thus they noticed something.

“One down. No, with Zombie, I suppose it’s two.”

“Well done. That takes care of the Magic Gods.”

“What are you talking about? I only took out the High Priest.”

“Then you didn’t do that?”

——Another shadow had entered Academy City.

Kamisato Kakeru. The supernatural power in his right hand was World Rejecter.

“Ah ha ha! Nephthys, this is amazing! This...this is what I’ve been waiting for! It’ll finally finally be over!!”

It easily slaughtered the true Magic God named Niang-Niang and tore into brown Nephthys.

“Gh...bh. What...are...?”

“I am the kind of normal high school boy you can find anywhere.”

——When Kamijou returned to his student dorm disheartened but alive, the next disaster arrived in the form of a package.

“Wha-!? N-Nephthys!?”

“Kamisato Kakeru has shown up. If he is planning to slaughter all of the Magic Gods, then wouldn’t Othinus be in trouble too?”

——That same day, two boys ran across each other on the streets at night.

“That’s your business. It has nothing to do with me.”

“True. And that is exactly why I don’t need to worry about you in the slightest.”

——Just before their clash, the colors red and black attacked them simultaneously.

“What is this? ...Birdway?”

Kamijou Touma grabbed the one sister from a rotten red carpet.

“Pa...Patri...Patricia Birdway? Is that it?”

Kamisato Kakeru lifted the other sister from a black substance.

——Just as people gathered around Kamijou Touma, plenty of people gathered around Kamisato Kakeru.

“The setup is complete.”

“Did she really think a hot-blooded boy was going to back off when he heard that?”

“She only draws Kamisato-san in because she isn’t aware what she’s doing.”

——One sister was throwing away her life to save the other, while the other was giving up on her life to stop the first.

The two boys with supernatural powers in their right hands became involved in that confrontation.

“Didn’t you find it odd that they’re being so unnaturally nice to us? We’re supposed to be normal high school boys.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

——It all came to an end.

The two simply could not agree, so they confronted each other again late at night.

“Before that, I was simply curious,” said Kamisato Kakeru. “If my World Rejecter and your Imagine Breaker clash, which one will win?”

——Kamijou Touma with Imagine Breaker and Kamisato Kakeru with World Rejecter.

Once the two right fists clashed, a conclusion was certain. One of them would be declared the winner.

“Imagine Breaker didn’t amount to much.”

In this case, it ended with Kamisato’s victory.

Or it should have.

“Who would have thought there was something else inside Imagine Breaker?”

And...

And...

And...

“Pant, pant...!!”

In the middle of the Academy City night, a boy covered in sweat sat with his back against a building’s concrete building.

It was Kamijou Touma.

He gasped for breath and held his dangling right arm with his left hand.

Blood was splattered all over the road.

It had only been his own blood at first and it should have remained that way.

He had clashed with Kamisato.

His arm had been torn away by World Rejecter and sent “somewhere else”.

The explosion of intense pain and the almost comical geyser of red blood were still burnt into the back of his mind.

But...

Even so...

“What...was that?”

Unable to even stand up, he gulped.

Even now, his right arm was attached like normal. He had no noticeable injuries. He remained so perfectly healthy that one would assume the red stains covering his clothes came from someone else.

Also, Kamisato Kakeru, the boy he had confronted here, was gone.

“What in the world was that?”

His heart pounded in his ears.

He could not think properly.

Two types of blood were splattered everywhere. One was from the severed arm and the other was from Kamisato Kakeru who should have had an absolute advantage.

Kamijou could not believe what he had seen with his own eyes.

The confusion inside him would not settle down as he continued staring fearfully toward his right arm that pulsated from within like a pump.

He had run across unexplainable phenomena a few times in the past.

There was something about his right arm.

He knew that.

But...

(It doesn’t add up.)

At the end of the chaos in the Eastern European Baggage City, his right arm had done something mysterious. A strange power had erupted from the severed wrist.

But incomplete Magic God Othinus had easily crushed it in her grasp.

If Othinus could defeat it on her own, then it made no sense for it to overwhelm Kamisato Kakeru who could instantly slaughter the full power Magic Gods. That was like saying you could not defeat a single gun but that you could defeat an army armed with thousands or tens of thousands of guns. Of course, there may have been an issue of compatibility where a simple pyramid structure did not apply, but it still felt wrong.

Regardless, the fact remained that Kamijou Touma had driven off Kamisato Kakeru.

He should not have been able to, but he had done it.

“...”

That bloody back appeared in the back of Kamijou’s mind.

Something higher on the food chain. An unbeatable predator. A supernatural power with those parameters set in stone.

Kamijou remembered the look in Kamisato’s eyes as the boy glanced back over his shoulder just before leaving.

The boy had been holding his unnaturally limp right arm and leaving on unsteady feet without a stable center of gravity.

Confusion.

Hatred.

Fear.

Before, his eyes had contained a lukewarm look directed at the boy he thought was the same as him, but that had been decisively excised. And Kamijou could understand why. He could now anyway.

After all...

“What is...this?”

He returned to the very first question.

He had asked this of himself over and over again, but he could not find the answer.

In other words...

“Is this really the same as...that one from before?”