Toaru Majutsu no Index

Volume 14, 1: A Too-Quick Rate of Change. In_a_Long_Distance_Country.

Volume 14, Chapter 1: A Too-Quick Rate of Change. In_a_Long_Distance_Country.

Part 1

District 3 of Academy City contained a number of international exhibition halls.

There was a direct railroad line leading there from the city’s entrance from other countries, District 23. There were plenty of facilities for foreigners in the district and the grade of the hotels there was the highest in all of Academy City. The guest facilities were placed so far from the airport-centric District 23 so the guests would not have to worry about the noise of the planes.

There were always multiple events being held in District 3.

There was a motor show containing the best of automobile tech, a robot show showing off pieces of pure mechanical engineering, and many others. These exhibitions were not just for fun; their main purpose was to promote the latest tech from Academy City, technology that the Board of Directors had deemed of an acceptable level to be used outside the city. These were placed on display and the outside company that gave the best deal was chosen (Academy City did not “look for” them, they merely “chose”), and that company would pay them vast quantities for the tech.

And on that day, there was one specific show being held.

The various technologies on display were unmanned attack helicopters, the latest powered suits, an ultra-violet ray sniping device that was a high-output optical weapon that used a certain type of light wave to injure, kill and even be used for aerial bombings. The event was being called the “Interceptor Show”, so nothing too dangerous could be on display.

“Phhaa.”

A deep breath was heard.

It belonged to Yomikawa Aiho, who was removing the helmet of the powered suit that she was in, around the corner of the dome-shaped international exhibition hall. She usually wore an unfashionable jersey over her body that made her stand out and bother young men, but she looked oddly humorous wearing the bulky powered suit.

“It’s so hot... Why is demonstrating a powered suit so exhausting?”

Yomikawa looked fed up with what she was doing as she held the helmet in her arms and glanced at the woman in work clothes next to her. That woman was part of the powered suit development team, so she normally wore a white lab coat. Because of this, the work clothes looked as out of place on her as the clothes on children at the Shichi-Go-San festival.

“Don’t worry. It isn’t just you. The entire exhibition hall is oddly hot.”

On her lap, the woman engineer had a laptop with a card that looked like a thin cell phone stuck in the side. The screen of the laptop showed the details of the powered suit.

“That doesn’t really make me feel any better.”

“I didn’t say it to make you feel better.”

“By the way, why are there so many damn people at a show like this on a weekday? Isn’t this exhibition hall over capacity?”

“Today’s a business day, so there really aren’t that many people here. Tomorrow, it’s open to the public, so it’ll be complete hell.”

“That really doesn’t make me feel any better!”

“I didn’t say it to make you feel better.”

Yomikawa was disheartened by the engineer’s words and placed the helmet on the ground.

The helmet was almost 50cm (20in) wide. It looked like you could put it over the top of the drum-shaped robots that wandered around Academy City. The rest of the powered suit looked more like a slightly thicker version of a Western suit of armor, which led to the head looking huge.

“Ahh. I think I’m just going to take the whole thing off.”

As she said this, Yomikawa began to slide out through the now-helmetless neck of the suit. Inside the powered suit, she was wearing a black outfit similar to what special forces wear.

She sat down leaning against the motionless powered suit and fanned her face with her hand.

“Really, why do we have to wear an armored outfit inside of these things? Can’t you people make a special outfit for operating a powered suit that’s a bit more breathable?”

“Well, you should have gone along with the project head’s suggestion that you come out of the powered suit in a sexy bikini. You would have gotten quite a round of applause from the press then.”

The monotonous voice the engineer said this in made it sound like she really didn’t care.

Yomikawa wiped the sweat off of her face with a towel.

“By the way, why did that project head seem so excited while talking about having a woman present the suit?”

“He has a thing for women doing things like that. The poor thing.”

“And why did he think someone like me would do that? I’m about the most unrefined woman in Japan. Someone made a huge mistake choosing me.”

“It must be tough being in Anti-Skill. You get stuck with more odd jobs than a member of the JSDF.”

“We only get stuck with doing things like this when there’s nothing else to do. So doing something like this really shows how peaceful things are.”

Yomikawa stopped speaking and looked around.

All of the booths around her were displaying various tools used to kill people.

Previously, all of the weapons displayed at these shows had a hint of having been created to stop a rampaging esper while doing as little damage as possible. But this time there was a tank and, next to it, a powerful weapon that could shoot straight through said tank and kill someone behind it.

(I can only think of one thing that could explain this sudden change in focus...)

Yomikawa glanced over at the laptop the engineer was using. Not only did it show the powered suit data from when Yomikawa had been doing the demonstration, but there was a small window showing a television broadcast.

It was a news program and the announcer was reading the current news.

“It is currently just before dawn in southern France, where a large-scale religious protest has broken out in the industrial city of Toulouse. People have filled up several kilometers of a road running alongside the River Garonne, which runs through the center of the city. The currently blocked traffic is having a major effect on the infrastructure of the city.”

The recorded footage showed the dark city lit by the fires of torches as a great number of people were marching around. Men and women could be seen holding banners with angry statements written in French and youths were setting fire to Academy City posters.

They were taking part in a protest; they weren’t an out-of-control mob. Even so, the sight of tens of thousands of angry people marching was an intimidating one.

“Their actions are centered on an area where many Japanese car companies are located. This is presumably a demonstration against Academy City. About 80% of the French are said to be Roman Catholic, so the same thing is being seen in cities across the country.”

Even so, it could easily be worse.

As Yomikawa watched the screen, the news from that morning played again.

“In the central German city of Dortmund, a bulldozer thought to have been stolen was plowed into a Roman Catholic Church and 9 priests inside were wounded. It is thought to have been in response to the series of protests being held, but so far no one has come forward claiming to be behind the crime. Fears that the conflicts between the Roman Catholic Church and Academy City will worsen are spreading.”

She had already seen this news, but it still bothered her.

It was like a small spark spreading to a pile of straw. The movement of the world had greatly changed in the last few days. The demonstrations being carried out by the Roman Catholic Church around the world and the various overreactions to them were picking up pace.

And, almost as if it were in response to all this, Academy City was now holding this show full of weaponry.

At first glance, it could be taken as the Board of Directors officially saying that they wouldn’t be giving in to the demonstrations.

(But it’s all being carried out a bit too efficiently.)

Developing weapons was not the same thing as making plastic models. You had to apply for the job, calculate an estimated budget again and again, have it examined, create a test model, build each part, and go through simulations tens of thousands of times. It was only after you found good results, that you could finally release a “product”.

The demonstrations had only begun to worsen a few days ago.

That wasn’t enough time to go through a development process that was usually counted in years.

Which meant...

(Academy City was already prepared. They had predicted this would happen and decided to prepare to take control of the aftermath instead of stopping it from happening in the first place.)

“Damn it,” Yomikawa muttered.

It may not have been Academy City that pulled the trigger that led to war. But they were clearly making the absolute best of the situation.

The woman engineer whom the laptop belonged to wiped the sweat from her brow using her shirt sleeve and looked uninterestedly towards the news on the screen.

“It’s the same thing on every channel. It’s times like this that I wish I’d subscribed to some channels that only aired variety shows.”

“...What do you think about this situation?”

“Well...”

The weapons development researcher engineer took a deep breath.

“I don’t like having more work. And having to put in unpaid overtime is even worse.”

“Is this exhibition really that different than usual?”

“Yeah, the project head is really enthusiastic about this one. He said something about needing to overthrow the idea that being a military contractor is horrible so that we can have a whole new market to work in. He also went on about how it's a great time to be a weapons developer. The project head was getting so worked up that I chucked some ice at him to try and cool him down.”

“The tech on display here is clearly not here to sell to outside companies. So this must really be a kind of military exercise. We’re really just showing off our destructive weapons to the ‘enemy’ as a diplomatic tool.”

“The companies we’re trying to work out a deal with aren’t going to get the things here as is. Just like how rifles are sold in stores with the full-auto function taken out, these will be sold after reduced by 3 or 4 tiers. The weapons end up just barely creatable by the technology outside Academy City.”

Yomikawa glanced at some men in business suits chatting a bit ways away next to a stage.

“Also, licenses to create the core parts of the weapons are being sold to organizations that work with Academy City in various countries. They just have to inform us of how many they’re making and where they’re being deployed. Honestly, why is Academy City going this far to gather money?”

“With enough funds, we could mass produce some pretty ridiculous weapons. The project head was saying something about a giant robot that could fly through space. He'll probably choose a teenage boy to pilot it.”

“...You don’t sound all that motivated.”

“Not at all.”

Part 2

Yomikawa Aiho had no way of knowing, but at the centre of this large conflict was a single boy.

Kamijou Touma.

Other than his special power, Imagine Breaker, he was a normal high school student. But if what “God’s Right Seat” said was correct, he had made an enemy of 2 billion people. When he thought of the things he had gotten involved in in the past few months and how he had resolved them little by little, it wasn’t really all that surprising.

But where was Kamijou Touma, the boy at the centre of that conflict, now?

“Can you explain to me why you did what you did?”

He was being scolded by a tall female teacher in the staff room.

Actually, Kamijou was not the only person being scolded. Aogami Pierce and Tsuchimikado Motoharu were lined up next to him.

And behind those three stood Fukiyose Seiri whose angry face seemed to be asking why she was there too.

The staff room was full of steel office desks cluttered with various objects. It was the lunch break, so there were plenty of teachers there. Some were eating their bentos, some were grading tests, and some were sitting on electronic moving rocking horses that were supposed to help lower ones weight.

Among them, one teacher was doing none of these things. Oyafune Suama was instead sitting on a cheap swivel chair crossing her legs covered in beige stockings, combing her black hair that looked as hard as metal, and glared at Kamijou and the others with sharp eyes through her inverted triangle glasses that were probably some expensive brand.

“I’ll ask you again to explain to me why you were having a fight full of fists and burning souls in this place of learning.”

She was met with silence.

The news announcer could be heard from the TV on the wall.

“As a result of the repeated demonstrations and protests, the Italian soccer league has announced that this morning’s game has been cancelled for safety’s sake.”

“You can’t explain it?”

That upset math teacher who was wearing nothing but brand-name clothing was well-known in the school for being strict when it came to discipline. Kamijou’s class didn’t take any classes from her, so they hadn’t really crossed paths before, but she had caught them today.

The head teacher of Kamijou’s class was Tsukuyomi Komoe, but not even she could keep track of what was going on in the classroom during the lunch break. Oyafune Suama had been walking by when they were in the middle of a fight and dragged them to the staff room.

After a bit, Kamijou, one of the three idiots, started speaking.

“But...”

His gaze was set with resolve.

“But Aogami Pierce and I were arguing over whether red bunny girls or black bunny girls were better. And then Tsuchimikado comes in and starts saying some ridiculous crap about white bunnies being the best ones!!”

Suama fell right out of her chair with a loud crash.

The loud noise shocked Kamijou, but it seemed his comment had shocked the teacher with the educator’s glasses even more.

The math teacher moved her gaze from the three idiots to Fukiyose Seiri standing behind them.

“D-don’t tell me you were taking part in that silly argument as well.”

“I was just trying to get these idiots to shut up!! Why did I have to be dragged down here along with them!?”

The blood vessels on Fukiyose’s temple bulged out as she yelled.

When Oyafune had stepped into Kamijou’s class, Fukiyose had been holding Tsuchimikado in a headlock, kicking Aogami Pierce to the ground, and hitting Kamijou Touma with her hard forehead all at the same time. She had clearly been the biggest bully at the scene.

Meanwhile, Tsuchimikado who was wearing blue sunglasses turned to both sides and cried out.

“Nyah! Hooray for DFC white bunnies!”

Aogami Pierce couldn’t keep silent after hearing that.

“Why is it always flat chests with you!? And you don’t really like bunnies at all! You’re just fine with anything loli!!”

“That’s true, Aogami Pierce. Be it a bunny girl outfit, a gymnastics leotard, or a school swimsuit, when put on the wonder that is a loli, the small distinctions between outfits are moot. So my argument is that lolis look good in whatever they wear, so a loli bunny girl is the best bunny girl!!”

“You bastard!! So you really weren’t talking about bunny girls at all!!”

The three idiots started rolling up their sleeves for a second round when Oyafune Suama who was still lying on the ground wearing her glasses and a formal suit pulled a whistle from her pocket.

Tweeet!! A high-pitched noise rang out and Saigo-sensei, a gorilla-like educational guidance teacher, came lumbering towards them from the back of the staff room.

Part 3

In the end, Kamijou and the others were forced to do some weeding behind the gym.

It was a damp area that the sun never really reached, but the weeds seemed to grow there quite well. One glance at the huge amount of green weeds and he lost all motivation for the job. It felt like there was no need to make the area look nice because no one ever went there.

But there was something else that kept his motivation down even more.

“Damn it. Tsuchimikado and Aogami Pierce have disappeared.”

Only two of the four ordered to do the weeding were standing out there: Kamijou and Fukiyose.

As he looked at the area stretching out behind the gym, Kamijou’s shoulders drooped. Beyond the thin gym wall, he could hear the energetic and happy voices of the volleyball team and basketball team enjoying their afterschool activities. That only made the mental shackles of the harsh job seem even heavier.

And yet complaining about Tsuchimikado and Aogami Pierce disappearing wasn’t going to get rid of those weeds.

Kamijou got a wheelbarrow to transport the weeds to the dumping area and put on some work gloves.

“Y’know, it’ll be past the time we’re allowed in the school before we’re done with this. We might as well weed at a leisurely pace until they kick us out.”

“If only we could get a Pyrokineticist to help out. We’d be done in no time,” Kamijou further complained.

Fukiyose complained about being punished along with the others as she pulled weeds up more efficiently than Kamijou.

When Kamijou got tired of weeding after about 5 minutes, he tried striking up a conversation with Fukiyose who was bent over working a bit away.

“Hey, Fukiyose.”

“What?”

Fukiyose must have been bored too, because she quickly joined the conversation.

Kamijou spoke as he continued working.

“The October midterms have been called off, but you’re still spending all of your free time studying on your own. Why?”

“What kind of question is that?” Fukiyose responded. “With no midterms, our second term grades are going to be riding on the final exam. And the material on the exam is going to be twice what it would have been otherwise. That means we need to be working even harder.”

“...”

“And before you ask: I won’t let you see my notes.”

Kamijou had been ecstatic that they weren’t going to be having midterms, so Fukiyose’s indifferent attitude was like salt to the wound.

Upon receiving this unexpected damage, Kamijou went into contrary mode.

“H-hmph. Academics aren’t everything, you know?”

“You make it sound like I can’t do anything except academics.”

“...Oh, you can do other things?”

“Of course I can!!” Fukiyose yelled from deep in her gut. “I may not look athletic, but I can throw a forkball. I don’t really care about baseball, though!!”

“Eh?”

Kamijou let out a stupid noise.

“You probably just learned it through a correspondence course or know some way forkballs keep you healthy or something.”

“I-it doesn’t matter how I learned it; it only matters whether I can throw one or not! So quit looking at me like you don’t believe me and I’ll show you!!”

“Yeah, but we don’t have a ball.”

Kamijou had said that out of surprise, but then Fukiyose Seiri pulled a large ball out of her skirt pocket.

“You need to be more prepared!!”

“...Um, that ball says “squeeze this ball 100 times a day to provide yourself with healthy ?-waves” on it.”

Kamijou was just in complete shock, but Fukiyose didn’t seem to mind. She seemed pretty fired up over this and was scraping her feet on the ground to smooth it out.

They now had a ball, but they had no catcher’s mitt. However, Kamijou didn’t seem to have much of a choice, so he put on several layers of work gloves and squatted down a distance from Fukiyose like he’d seen catchers do.

Kamijou spoke in monotone almost like he was sighing as he spoke.

“Okay, go ahead, Fukiyose.”

“Okay, Kamijou. Watch this 150 kph strong fast one and don’t fall down!!”

“A 150 kph forkball!? I’m about to fall over from shock at that bluff!!”

Kamijou was flustered.

Fukiyose seemed to be really into it as she gripped the white ball and moved her body into position.

She was building up her power when Kamijou yelled out.

“S-st-stop, Fukiyose!!”

“What!?”

Fukiyose yelled while wobbling in her interrupted pitching form.

Kamijou was hesitant to explain the situation, so he gave only the core of the information.

“Your skirt!!”

“...?”

Fukiyose looked confused at this comment and then she noticed where Kamijou was looking. When she looked down at her hips, she saw that the leg she was holding up was flipping up her short skirt making her panties with a cute design visible.

Fukiyose Seiri threw her strong fast pitch.

Kamijou screwed up his timing and the soft rubber ball hit him straight in the gut. It made a very loud noise.

As he writhed in pain, he spoke in a shaky voice.

“...Th-that was no forkball. It flew in a completely straight line...”

“That one didn’t count!!”

Fukiyose declared that with a little too much force in an attempt to fool him and took the ball back.

“It’ll be a forkball this time. It’ll jerk down, so hold the mitt down low.”

She went back into pitching form, but she must have taken heed of Kamijou’s warning about her skirt because she kept the movement of her legs to a minimum.

That may have been why her body was wobbling a little off balance. Even so, she managed to give the ball incredible power. It slammed into Kamijou’s glove-covered hand with a loud noise. His hand stung afterwards even though they were using a toy ball instead of a proper hardball. Also, Fukiyose wasn’t throwing underhand like a softball player; she was throwing overhand like a professional baseball player. And quite well, too.

Kamijou softly squeezed the ball he had caught.

“...Did that fall?”

“Yes!! What were you looking at it? Couldn’t you see it jerk down right in front of where the batter would be!?”

“Ehh? It looked like a normal pitch to me.”

“K-Kamijou!! You can’t tell because you’re not looking from the batter’s perspective!! If you were holding a bat, you’d be able to see the effect of the forkball clear as day!!”

“Oh? Now you’ve said it, Fukiyose.”

Kamijou smiled and grabbed the 50 cm long plastic handle of a small broom that they had prepared just in case.

“You’re on.”

He gripped the broom kind of like a baseball bat and swung the end with flicks of his wrist as if he was measuring its timing.

Meanwhile, Fukiyose caught the ball Kamijou lightly threw to her and a daring grin appeared on her lips.

“You think you can hit a ball thrown by a major-leaguer like me? Ridiculous.”

“I’ll hit a homerun.”

“Then I’ll have to let you feel the disgrace of losing to a true forkbaaaaall!!”

“It’s goin’ outta the paaaarrrkkk!!”

She threw the white ball.

It flew through the air.

If he waited to see whether the ball would fall or not, it would be too late to hit it.

As he was measuring her true intentions and her true skill, he began to move.

Power and tension ran throughout his body.

He calculated his timing, gave a short breath, gathered strength in his legs, swung his hips in unison with the movements of his legs, and swung the broom in his hands as hard as he could.

And...

Part 4

From her suit and glasses to her stockings, Oyafune Suama was covered in brand-name clothing. She was a woman that knew the advantages that being beautiful gave.

She primarily knew this because she used to be the person who was at the disadvantage for not being beautiful.

But anyone could reach a certain level of beauty if they tried. Suama’s theory was that you may not be able to be “the best of the best” or even “among the best” through hard work alone, but you could at least be “better than most”. And as “better than most”, you could get a taste of the blessings of beauty.

It was advantageous to be beautiful.

The students listened to her during class, the other teachers didn’t look down on her, and people gave up their seat for her in the cafeteria. And all of that was the result of refining her body inside and out by taking multiple baths a day, putting lotion on her face before going to bed, eating breakfast every day, keeping her weight down so it didn’t affect her skin, spending over an hour in the morning putting makeup on, and spending large amounts of money buying Western clothes from magazines and the internet.

When school came to an end, Oyafune Suama was always very worried that her makeup might have started to come off and especially that her drawn on eyebrows might have started to run from sweat. But one’s attitude and mood were an important part of being “beautiful”. If she showed outward signs of being worried about her makeup, the “blessings of beauty” would diminish, so she couldn’t be constantly checking her hand-mirror or going to the bathroom.

(...)

Suama slowly looked around.

She was in the staff room. By this time, most of the teachers had left to advise club activities, so there usually weren’t many people around. She thought about checking on her eyebrows if no one else was there, but...

“Yawn. Making lesson plans is hard work.”

Suama’s eyes moved to the female teacher sitting almost right next to her who looked like an elementary school student.

It was Tsukuyomi Komoe.

Looking at the mountains of papers around her, it was clear she was working on more than a single teacher’s worth of material. This small teacher would always go over the data on each and every student and come up with the best lesson plan for each student, but now she was working on another teacher’s class as well.

Quite a bit of Anti-Skill was currently out making war preparations, so they didn’t have time to make lesson plans. This meant that the non-Anti-Skill teachers had to help them out.

Suama had been forced to make another teacher’s lesson plan as well, but the teacher wearing the inverted triangle glasses couldn’t help but be more interested in Komoe-sensei’s small size.

“What kind of health system do you use to keep your skin so young? In fact, these numbers don’t add up.”

“??? What seems to be the problem? I’m quite good at math, if you need any help there.”

The 135 cm teacher quickly came walking over after hearing Suama’s perplexed voice. Suama knew she should learn from her senior teachers, but this one really looked like she was in elementary school.

Tsukuyomi Komoe took the documents on Suama’s desk and nodded as she checked over each of them.

“By the way, Oyafune-sensei. I heard my students caused you some trouble today, so I wanted to apologize.”

“No, it was nothing.”

“Oh, that reminds me. I wanted to have a word with Kamijou-chan and the others. Do you know where they are? It seems they went off somewhere right after homeroom. Do you think they went home?”

“Uh, oh.”

Suama looked over at the clock on the wall.

It was almost 6 PM.

It had been a few hours since she had told them to go weed.

“Crap... I’m sorry, Tsukuyomi-sensei. I’ll go get them right away!!”

“Sigh. But where are they?”

Oyafune Suama turned her back on her senior teacher and ran out of the staff room. The club activities would be ending soon and the students not part of a club were long gone, so the dim hallway was almost empty. As she headed for the staff entrance, the emptiness made it feel even later than it was.

(No, delinquents who start fights in school won’t have stuck around this long. They’re probably not out there weeding; they probably skipped out and left long ago.)

She had been intending to check on them after half an hour and then let them go after scolding them, so she was feeling guilty. However, they were being punished, so she couldn’t exactly apologize.

At that point, she reached the staff entrance, put on her fairly high class pumps, and headed quickly behind the gym.

And what that math teacher saw there was...

Part 5

“Hey hey heeey!! It’s 13-9!! Your forkball is pretty pathetic there!!”

Kamijou held a short broom in his hands and swung it back and forth as he egged Fukiyose on.

“Shut up!! Don’t just ignore those 9 times you lost... And if I had a proper hardball, things would be different!!”

Since they had introduced a new rule where the loser of each round had to spend 5 minutes weeding as hard as they could, Kamijou and Fukiyose had gotten so fired up they had forgotten that the work would be a lot easier if they just both worked on it together.

While Kamijou was swinging the bat in a good mood, Fukiyose was gripping the white ball and her shoulders moved up and down as she panted for breath. She then checked the time on her phone.

“There’s only 30 minutes until we have to leave... But that’s more than enough time to turn this around!!”

“Hey, are your pitches actually dropping like they’re supposed to?”

“I already told you they were! They’re forking like crazy!! Why can’t you see the ball jerk down suddenly right in front of you!?”

“Ehh? It just looks like a parabolic arc to me...”

“Pay more attentiooooooonnnnn!!”

Fukiyose yelled as loudly as she could and threw the ball.

In response to the white ball roaring towards him, Kamijou began the motions for a full swing.

(A forkball...)

He finally reacted to Fukiyose’s words and corrected the trajectory of the broom down slightly.

But the path of the ball didn’t change.

It continued on straight.

“Damn it...See? You’re not doing it right!!”

He tried to bring the trajectory of the bat back, but it was too late.

The bat moved slightly upwards, but didn’t quite make it to the path the white ball took.

Even so, he could tell the handle of the broom made contact with the edge of the ball.

“Gwohhhhhh!!”

Kamijou yelled, but he could feel in his wrist that he hadn’t hit the ball solidly.

The white ball grazed the broom handle, its trajectory changed slightly diagonally upwards, and it flew behind Kamijou.

(Damn, I missed!)

There were no fouls in this game. If the ball hit the bat and went in front of him, Kamijou won. Anything else counted as Fukiyose’s win. They decided between strikes and balls by sight.

One annoying point was that the loser had to go retrieve the ball. And since the loser also had to weed for five minutes, going to retrieve a distant ball was a real pain in the ass.

While still holding up the broom being used for a bat, Kamijou began thinking up a plan.

(Dah. It was 13 – 9, right? I guess I have 10 losses now. Maybe I should purposefully take forever retrieving the ball so we run out of time while I’m still ahead.)

But then he heard an odd noise from behind him.

“...?”

Kamijou had no idea what just happened, but just from seeing Fukiyose’s shocked expression, he started going pale.

(??? What’s behind me?)

Kamijou turned around.

He saw inverted triangle glasses with grass and dirt stuck to them.

Oyafune Suama was standing there and she had clearly been hit straight in the face by the white ball.

The ball would have hit Suama in the stomach, but Kamijou’s bat had altered its trajectory enough for it to head straight for her face.

“...”

Oyafune Suama took a long, deep breath, but her body was clearly trembling.

By the time Kamijou started freaking out, it was too late.

Suama came rushing towards Kamijou and her fist swung down at him. Kamijou bowed down in apology without noticing what she was doing and miraculously managed to avoid her fist. Filled with the anger from both the ball and from having attacked the air, the math teacher stomped down on Kamijou’s back with the pointed heel of her pumps.

Part 6

Oyafune Suama rushed back to the staff room.

Komoe-sensei must have gone somewhere because she was gone.

Suama had tried using her handkerchief to wipe off the grass and dirt.

(Wah!! Dirt, dirt, DIRT!! It’s on face, IT’S ON MY FACE! Oh, no! I may have wiped off my eyebrows with the handkerchief!! What do I do!? WHAT DO I DO!?)

She was obviously panicked, and, after she had confirmed that no one else was in the staff room, she pulled out her hand-mirror to check forgetting to head to the bathroom first.

At least her eyebrows were fine.

But that wasn’t enough to calm her down.

It was advantageous to be beautiful.

Which also meant that it was disadvantageous to not be beautiful.

(Let’s see. It’s on my clothes. It’s here, too. And here!! My hair is all messed up, I’m covered in sweat, and there’s a run in my stockings from walking so quickly. Where do I start in fixing this!?)

She started by taking off the coat of her suit and wiped off the dirt that had made it onto her white blouse. Then she started unbuttoning her blouse in order to shake out the dirt she couldn’t get off just by brushing it. Then she took off the beige stockings with a run in them and put on the spare one she had in her bag. In order to do this, she had to push her tight skirt up, but she didn’t have time to care. She had to turn herself back into her usual perfect beautiful self as quickly as possible.

But...

All of a sudden the door to the staff room started to slide open.

Suama was raising one of her legs in order to put the stockings on and she jumped out of shock.

“Ah. Wait. Stop!!”

She tried to stop it.

“Eh? What’s wrong?”

Her words had clearly reached whoever was on the other side of the door, but the door opened anyways.

Kamijou Touma was standing there.

Oyafune Suama currently had the front of her blouse open so her black bra was visible. Also, her tight skirt was still pushed up in order to put on the stockings.

“Ky-“

She almost screamed, but cut herself off.

Instead of screaming, she reached her hand over to her desk and grabbed the magnetic 50 cm classroom set square and threw it full force at the staff room entrance.

Kamijou slammed the door shut and the edge of the set square stuck into the door like a shuriken.

The rest of the set square twanged back and forth.

She heard Kamijou yelling from the hallway.

“Waaaahhh!! Are you trying to kill me!?”

“Why did you open the door after I told you to stop!?”

After she had gotten the stockings on, closed the front of her blouse, and put on the coat of her suit that was folded over the back of her chair, she headed out to the hallway.

But she heard an odd ripping sound come from her thighs.

“...”

Suama looked down at her thighs to see if the brand new stockings she had only worn for 2 minutes had a run in it.

“U-um...Excuse me...”

Almost as if he had timed it, Kamijou cautiously opened the staff room door again.

He saw Oyafune Suama standing with her legs spread apart, her skirt pulled up, and bent over staring at her crotch area.

This wasn’t just a scene a beauty shouldn’t let anyone see; this was a scene a woman shouldn’t let anyone see.

“!!”

This time the math teacher silently grabbed a giant protractor for the blackboard and threw it towards the door. Another piece of teaching equipment was now stuck in the once-again closed door.

A quavering voice came in from the hallway.

“I was just going to explain why I had come in before!!”

“What possible reason could you have had to make this situation even worse like that!? Explain to me your reason as concisely as you can!!”

“Um, it’s almost past the time we can stay at school. Can we quit weeding now?”

“Is that all!?”

The veins on Oyafune Suama’s temple bulged. She grabbed the giant compass for the blackboard from her desk and ran out of the staff room intending to knock that trouble student down with it.

But Kamijou Touma was gone.

She glimpsed a figure running around the corner heading for the stairs.

“What’s going on here...?”

Suama mumbled that in complete exhaustion, but there was no one around to hear it.

Part 7

“Damn it...I really thought I was dead.”

Kamijou left the school and spoke to himself as he trudged along the dark path home.

It was October now, so it was starting to get cold around this time of day. That may have been why it didn’t feel like there were as many people out as during the summer. Coming from the airship floating in the gloomy sky, he could hear an announcement giving a warning about fires due to the dry air.

Kamijou slowly walked along the sidewalk avoiding the cleaning robots and thinking about what to make for dinner. He decided to head for the department store by the station because he was a bit worried he didn’t have enough food in the fridge. There was a cheaper supermarket a bit farther away, but he wouldn’t make it home in time if he headed there. If that happened, Index would go nuts back in his dorm room due to her empty stomach.

As he headed toward the station, he spotted a girl with brown hair wearing a Tokiwadai Middle School uniform. It was Misaka Mikoto.

And she was delivering a high kick to a drink vending machine and tilting her head in puzzlement when nothing came out.

Seeing this, Kamijou quickly turned 180 degrees and hurried away.

“It’s best to avoid danger. Let sleeping dogs lie, as they say.”

“What do you mean by that?”

When his casual comment to himself received a response from behind him, Kamijou's back straightened in fright.

He ever so cautiously turned another 180 degrees and saw Misaka Mikoto standing there with a puzzled look on her face.

“Uuh...” Kamijou let out a short sigh of anguish. “Please forgive me...”

“I asked you what you meant by that.”

“I’m just so exhausted from the weeding and all the other things that have happened today! So please forgive me and don’t give me any more trouble!!”

“Again. What do you mean by that!?”

Mikoto grabbed the nape of Kamijou’s neck, who tried to run away, at Mach speed, and yelled so close to his ear that he thought she was going to bite his ear off.

“Why must you cut our conversations short at every chance you get!? You haven’t even responded to the email I sent you yet. Let me see your phone for a second!!”

“Email...? You sent me an email?”

“Yes, I did!!”

Kamijou thought about it for a second, took out his phone, opened his inbox to show it to Mikoto, and cocked his head to the side in puzzlement.

“...You did?”

“I’m telling you I did!! What? There’s nothing in your inbox!? Don’t tell me it’s treating my address as spam!!”

Mikoto was shocked at first about her email, but then she stumbled upon a further truth.

She reached and grabbed Kamijou’s hand to keep him from hitting any more buttons and stared at a certain name in his received mail folder.

“...Why do you have my mother’s address in your phone?”

“Hah?”

(Come to think of it, I did run into Misaka Misuzu when she was drunk the other day.)

Mikoto wrinkled her brow and started manipulating Kamijou’s phone with her thumb. She was calling Misuzu.

“H-hey, wait!”

His phone didn’t have speaker phone option, so the phone’s volume was fairly high. Due to this and the fact that he wasn’t very far from Mikoto, he could hear the phone ringing on the other end.

“Yes, mother? I need to ask you about something.”

“Huh? My display must be screwed up. It wasn’t showing your number, Mikoto-chan.”

Misuzu sounded confused.

From what Kamijou could hear of Mikoto and Misuzu’s conversation, Mikoto was asking for a detailed explanation of how Misuzu’s number ended up in Kamijou’s phone.

“Hmm...”

Misuzu’s answer started slowly.

“I think I met that boy in Academy City one night...but I was drunk, so I don’t really remember the details. I have no idea when my number could have ended up in his phone though. Ha ha ha.”

“I see. I see.” Mikoto nodded slightly and hung up.

She smiled and elegantly returned the phone to Kamijou.

“What the hell were you doing with my mother while she was druuuunnnkkk!?”

“Hahhh!? What kind of crazy deduction is that!? And I’m pretty damn sure your mother remembers everything that happened! That laugh at the end really made it sound like she was lying!!”

This was something someone should be able to think through pretty easily, but Mikoto must have thought that this was a crisis that could destroy her family, because her face turned bright red as she lost her cool.

“Let’s change the subject!!” Kamijou decided to steer the conversation elsewhere. “L-look! I have to wash the rice for dinner when I get back to the dorm and surely it’s getting close to curfew at your dorm! The sun is setting already!”

“What? Curfew? That’s so easy to get around.”

Kamijou wanted to bury his head in his hands at how quickly Mikoto gave that response.

She must have been completely unaware of his state of mind, but at least he had managed to change the subject.

“But it’s true they’ve been getting stricter about checking. Maybe it’s because of how busy everything’s been lately. Even the people who never read the newspaper are busy checking the news on their cell phone TVs and checking internet news sites.”

“...”

“But I guess anyone would be worried with what’s happened.”

Mikoto was most likely referring to what happened on September 30th.

That event had been the trigger that started an invisible war.

That event where the gate to Academy City was destroyed, residents all over the city regardless of whether they were teachers or students were “attacked”, the functioning of Anti-Skill and Judgement, the keepers of the public order, was completely halted, and a 100 meter radius crater of destruction was created in the cityscape.

All of that had not happened due to a single person. It had been the result of multiple organizations and their ideas crossing paths. Even Kamijou who had been in the middle of it all didn’t know the whole story. In fact, he doubted there was any one person that understood the entirety of the situation.

And if someone in the middle of it all felt that way, someone who only got wrapped up in it like Mikoto would know very little.

Maybe it was because she was at a distance from the center of it all that she felt like she could investigate it from a safe distance.

And surely Mikoto didn’t completely buy the official story that the attack was carried out by an esper scientifically developed in secret by a foreign religious group.

Mikoto removed her gaze from Kamijou’s face and looked off into the distance.

About 500 meters from where they stood was the area destroyed by the appearance of a certain “archangel”. Kamijou thought she might have been recalling the incident on September 30th, but it actually looked more like she was staring up at an airship floating in the gloomy sky.

The news was playing on the large screen on the side of the airship.

“So far the large scale demonstrations and protests held by members of the Roman Catholic Church were only occurring within Europe, but now they have begun within America as well.”

The announcer’s voice was calm.

“Currently, they are only occurring in west coast cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, but they are expected to spread throughout America before long.”

Some footage started playing.

It was most likely from LA.

It would have been late at night there, but it was midday in the recorded footage.

(Damn it. It’s spreading pretty quickly...)

Kamijou’s face held the expression of someone looking at a horrible wound.

Just like shortly after the start of a marathon, one side of a three-lane highway was completely filled with people. They were burning Academy City posters they had made and were ripping Academy City banners to shreds.

They were filling up major roads for hours at a time in order to get across how mad they were. They weren’t just letting their anger take over and going throughout the city destroying things.

But it still wasn’t safe.

Some fights must have broken out. The footage showed a man who had blood streaming from his head leaning against an ambulance. A nun with dark bruises across her face was supporting a priest who couldn’t stand up on his own and screaming for help.

All of the people there were just normal people.

None of them looked like they had any connection to the world of espers and magicians.

It was true that the people taking part in the demonstrations were technically a part of that world by being believers in the Roman Catholic Church. They wore crosses around their necks and they could probably recite portions of the Bible.

But it was hard to imagine that they could have any connection with the depths of the Roman Catholic Church or know about people like Vento of the Front. They went to school and they went to work. On the weekends, they would laze around the house and have cookouts in their large backyards. They were normal, everyday people.

“...What’s going on?”

Mikoto muttered this as she stared up at the screen on the airship.

“I don’t know what happened on September 30th, but this isn’t what I wanted. Even if they say that incident was what triggered this, Academy City is still completely peaceful. Why are those people fighting each other and injuring each other over this? It’s not right for the person truly behind this to stay hidden while those people suffer.”

“...”

Kamijou listened to Mikoto’s words in silence.

The person behind it.

Mikoto had subconsciously decided there was one. That was probably what she wished was true. If someone was behind this, you could fix that one problem and everything would go back to normal... Since Mikoto had a powerful ability known as “Railgun”, that was the easiest way for her to think about the situation.

But there was no one person behind this.

It was true that the incident on September 30th that triggered it all was caused by specific people: Vento of the Front and Kazakiri Hyouka. And there was “someone” behind their actions. If the events on that day had been properly stopped, things may have been successfully solved by the method Mikoto wanted.

But the current situation was not the spark that is the origin of the damaging fire.

This was the huge conflagration that comes about as the result of the spark.

This was well past the stage where capturing the person behind it all would stop it.

The people carrying out the demonstrations were all normal people. And they weren’t being forced to do it on anyone’s command. They read the newspaper or watched the news and decided to take part out of indignation. They were all merely acting on their personal beliefs.

To “stop the person behind this” you would have to punch out every single person throughout the world who was taking part in the demonstrations.

That wasn’t a real solution.

But how else could it all be solved?

“...What’s going on?”

Mikoto merely repeated what she had said before, but it pierced Kamijou’s heart this time.

This wasn’t a problem a kid could come up with an answer for.

Between the lines 1

The Tower of London was a well-known tourist attraction in England.

It was once known as a facility of blood, torture, and execution that was the last stop for prisoners. It had even been said that once you passed through its gate, you never came out alive. But it was currently open to the public and for just under 14 pounds (less than it costs to enjoy afternoon tea in a restaurant) anyone could just go in and look around. It wasn’t just the historical execution devices that were on display; you could also see treasures of the royal family.

But at the same time, there was a huge “blind spot” where the facility was still used for its original purpose.

Much like the deep shadow brought about by a bright light, one could get close to the Tower of London as a sightseer; but there was still a labyrinthine “blind spot”. Prisoners were still kept there and they were tortured or executed without hesitation as needed. The Tower of London was well known for its executions and that dark purpose was still being carried out to this day.

If one entered through the normal entrance, those shadowy portions were completely unreachable.

If one entered through the secret entrance, one could not escape the shadowy portions.

“...This place is as gloomy as ever.”

Stiyl Magnus mumbled that as he exhaled the smoke from his cigarette.

Unlike the areas open for sightseeing, areas actually used had cramped, dark passageways. The clutter of stones making up the walls were stained black by the soot of the lamps and the flicker of the flames made the stains look like they were moving. There must not have been much to keep the moisture out, because the top of the floor was covered in cold dew.

The girl walking next to Stiyl started speaking.

It was Agnese Sanctis, former nun of the Roman Catholic Church.

“So we will be interrogating Lidvia Lorenzetti and Biagio Busoni?”

“I want to ask them some things about ‘God’s Right Seat’. Since the leader of a unit like you doesn’t know, it’ll probably be faster to ask some VIPs.”

“...Do you think they’ll tell you? They’re practically nobles.”

“You can watch and learn a few things about how we deal with that kind of thing in England. Lecturing each and every member of your Forces would be a pain, so you can just explain it to them later.”

Stiyl stopped in front of a door.

It was a thick wooden door that had been darkened by all the moisture it had absorbed.

He opened the door without knocking and there was a small room on the other side. It was a square room only 3 meters on each side. This room was only for “interrogation”, so it didn’t have the tools of torture one associated with the Inquisition. What was in it was a table directly bolted to the floor and a pair of two-person chairs similarly secured to the floor.

There was limited cushioning on the chair on the right side of the table.

On the other hand, the chair on the left side was nothing but bare wood. And the armrests had belts and metal fixtures to confine a person’s arms.

And the two-person seat on the left had two people restrained in it.

They were Lidvia Lorenzetti and Biagio Busoni, both important people that held special positions within the Roman Catholic Church.

“I’m sure you know what I’m here to talk about.”

Stiyl sat in the chair on the right and spoke in an annoyed voice. Agnese didn’t know whether she should sit down as well and decided to stand next to him.

Biagio, a middle-aged bishop, was bound to the chair by a belt. He glared at Stiyl. His gaze never fell directly on her, but Agnese flinched as she was a former member of the Roman Catholic Church. Stiyl however didn’t seem to mind.

It may have been due to the fact that he had been deprived of sleep to the point that it wore down his mind but didn’t affect his health, but Biagio didn’t look well. His hair and skin had lost their sheen and now just looked cracked and dried.

“...So you want to talk. If you’re going to lecture about the Bible, leave it to Sunday.”

“Tell me everything you know about ‘God’s Right Seat’.”

“Bring out the torture devices the Anglican Church are so proud of. I want to show an amateur like you what true piety looks like.” Biagio’s arrogance was as strong as ever.

Meanwhile, Lidvia did not seem at all interested in the conversation. It wasn’t that she was working to suppress her emotions; she truly wasn’t feeling anything strongly enough to show up on her face. Lidvia may have had more patience than Biagio whose irritation was clearly showing on his face.

This was exactly what Agnese had expected and she knew this could take a while.

“Don’t look down on Necessarius.”

Biagio was not the only arrogant one: Stiyl Magnus slowly exhaled cigarette smoke and smiled a shockingly cruelly.

“We don’t particularly care if you end up dying from the torture. Necessarius has ways of getting information out of a corpse’s brain. Although that’s more a question of the level of defenses and the level of damage.”

Even Agnese felt a chill go down her spine as she heard that. He must have understood that Stiyl was not bluffing, because Biagio gave an annoyed look. Also, Lidvia finally seemed to take an interest as she moved her eyes to look at Stiyl.

Stiyl started speaking in an irritated tone that sounded like a person about to begin a job they weren’t looking forward to.

“What you call ‘torture’ and what we call ‘torture’ are two different things. Propagate ridiculous ideas like that and you’ll find that 'peace in death' won’t cut it here. I don’t care if you resist, but you will just die in vain.”

There were a few seconds of silence. Biagio continued to stare at Stiyl and Lidvia began to speak.

“We don’t care about 'trivial things like that' either.”

She made eye contact with Stiyl as she spoke.

“But there is one thing I would like to know. What is the situation ‘outside’?”

Stiyl looked puzzled at that question, but then he remembered.

(Come to think of it, there was a report about that.)

Lidvia Lorenzetti was an oddity even within the Roman Catholic Church who would reach her hand out to people society had abandoned. To her, being imprisoned in the Tower of London without being able to hear what was going on “outside” made her worry as a protector. All she had heard about was the chaos spreading through the world. After remembering, a smirk grew on Stiyl’s lips.

“I’m sure you can take some guesses about what’s going on.”

“...”

Lidvia’s expression faltered slightly. Of course, the first to fall victim to the riots and chaos were the very kinds of weak people she reached out to.

“...Hmph.” On the other hand, Biagio Busoni was much more of an elitist who believed the clergy were superior to all others. He was more interested in the effects and results of the chaos rather than the damages it had caused.

Lidvia stared at Stiyl’s face and spoke. “In exchange for my cooperation, I request that you release of all my ‘comrades’ who are imprisoned here. I want them released so they can help as much as they can to stop this chaos and provide shelter for the weak people caught up in it all.”

It was Biagio, not Stiyl, who reacted to that. Lidvia was completely composed while Biagio made no attempt to hide his irritation. He clicked his tongue so hard it sounded like he was spitting.

Meanwhile, Stiyl had no real reaction. “Do you really think we’ll go along with that?”

“I’ll make you.”

“How?”

After Stiyl asked his question, Lidvia stopped breathing for a short time. Then, her smooth lips began to move even as she was bound to the chair.

“San Pietro elude le trappole dell’imperatore e del mago. (St. Peter escapes the clutches of the emperor and the magician.)"

Stiyl looked puzzled at her words. They had taken all spiritual items and amulets from her. She shouldn’t be able to perform any real magic by chanting a spell here.

A light shined, not from Lidvia Lorenzetti, but from Stiyl's side. Specifically, it came from the Roman Catholic cross hanging from Agnese’s neck.

“Tch!!”

Before Stiyl could react, a beam of light flew from the cross. The beam of light stretched out towards Lidvia like a stake and destroyed the belt and metal fixtures binding her right arm to the chair.

Lidvia grabbed a sharp piece of broken metal and reached out towards Stiyl. Their arms crossed with a crash that sounded like a gunshot.

“...”

“...”

Stiyl and Lidvia were silent. Stiyl had a sharp piece of metal at his throat; Lidvia had the corner of a rune card at her throat.

“...! Lidvia!!”

After recovering from her shock, Agnese hurriedly grabbed her Lotus Wand that was leaning against the wall, but Stiyl used his other hand to motion Agnese away as he glared at Lidvia.

The magician was clearly enjoying himself. It was like he was saying this was how an interrogation was supposed to be.

“Did you really think you could take my life so easily?”

“If you won’t release the needed number of people, I have no other choice.”

Lidvia spoke with an unconcerned voice.

“I demand that you release Oriana Thomson so that she can guide those who have been swallowed up by the riots.”

“Why don’t you think again about whether you’re in any position to make demands?”

Stiyl’s voice did not waver.

Oriana was the skilled courier that had been teamed up with Lidvia.

“That courier knows about the situation of the world. And she came forward with a deal for ‘her leader Lidvia Lorenzetti to be able to protect the weak.’ The Anglican Church made a deal where she temporarily cooperates with us. If you want to release her from that, I don’t think she would agree to it herself.”

“...”

Lidvia and Oriana had had the same idea; Oriana acted faster. She remained silent as Stiyl continued to speak.

“Don’t waste what she has done. This situation has been brought about by the Roman Catholic Church... no, by 'God’s Right Seat'. So if they’re defeated, the situation might be able to be resolved, right?”

Lidvia did not respond. Biagio clicked his tongue and looked away as if to say that this were ridiculous.

After a deep, long silence, she slowly opened her mouth. “...What do you want?”

“Necessarius’s goal is clear.” Stiyl seemed bored as he spoke. “We want to save the lost lambs that have been swallowed up in the overwhelming power that is magic. Our goal is the same as it has always been.”

Lidvia glared at Stiyl but he did not flinch. Whatever it was that Lidvia had been observing about Stiyl, she finally sighed and relaxed.

“...I have never directly met them, but I have had opportunities to hear bits of information about them.”

Lidvia Lorenzetti’s words resounded throughout the dark interrogation room. Agnese finally sat down next to Stiyl and spread out a piece of parchment to record what was said.

“And from what I’ve heard, it seems 'God’s Right Seat' is...”