A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 15 Page 13

  He grasped at his pounding temples and staggered, but he continued to think.

  Ugh…A derivation of the calendar stone?

  The calendar stone was an Aztecan calendar arranged in a circle. However, the Aztec empire used two different calendars at the same time. They also believed in the sun’s death and rebirth, among other things, so the calendars became incredibly complex. On the underside of Xóchitl’s skin, there was only an extraction of the time portions relating to life and death, themselves developed into a religious discourse.

  Unabara couldn’t handle something like this. The very idea of fighting against it was a mistake. Even the index of forbidden books was said to be incapable of destroying these evil writings—a mere sorcerer was helpless against one.

  However,

  even so,

  I won’t…let you die…

  Xóchitl was a noncombat personnel. How did she sneak all the way in? What was happening with the organization? He had a pile of questions to ask. He couldn’t let her die there.

  Original grimoire copies were indestructible.

  Even if they could be destroyed, Xóchitl’s life depended on this one, so she wouldn’t last.

  With Mitsuki Unabara’s power alone, it was impossible to solve this problem.

  Which meant…

  If human power can’t realize it, then I just need to borrow this grimoire’s!!

  Original copies defended all attacks, and nobody could damage them. But there was one exception: showing the knowledge contained within one to someone who wanted it. If they truly prevented any interference whatsoever, nobody would be able to flip through their pages, and the very reason for a grimoire’s existence would be lost. He didn’t know how, but original copies could differentiate between readers and everyone else, and tended to cooperate with those broadening their knowledge.

  Which was why Unabara thought this: I’ll inherit this grimoire.

  If he could obtain ownership of the grimoire, its automatic interception spells would cease to function. And by inheriting it, he could naturally tear the grimoire from Xóchitl’s body, too. It wasn’t cooperating with Xóchitl because it liked her personality or anything. It was just seeking those who would disseminate the knowledge within it.

  On top of that…

  I’ll fool the grimoire’s judgment. I can make it think that I can’t inherit it if Xóchitl dies! Then it should save her life on its own!!

  Mitsuki Unabara wasn’t able to save Xóchitl. Because of that, he just had to make a stronger force act on her instead. There was no precedent, of course. If he couldn’t completely deceive a phenomenal original copy, his reward would rebound in the form of death.

  But Mitsuki Unabara didn’t hesitate.

  To save this brown-skinned girl, he would accept everything.

  13

  Dragging her bloodied foot, Awaki Musujime slowly exited the cell.

  The other cells were locked. Her allies wouldn’t be coming out. Even if they took more forceful measures, the higher powers in Academy City might still set to work erasing them.

  She may have gotten Block out of the way, but she hadn’t resolved the fundamental problem. She hadn’t overturned the situation—how their lives were in someone else’s hands.

  But Musujime heard somebody say “I always believed in you.”

  She heard her allies’ voices through a small window installed in the cells’ iron doors where food was passed through, like a mail slot. They said they believed in her. They said they knew they were right to believe in her. She could sense the relief in their voices. Relief that she’d saved their lives, of course—but also that Musujime had come running here for them.

  For a short while, Awaki Musujime couldn’t move a muscle.

  Finally, she slowly opened her mouth. But no words would come out. Her lips were trembling harder than she thought. Even so, she began, little by little, to speak.

  Over a long period of time, just two or three words eventually made it out.

  But that was all they needed.

  “Good now?” said Tsuchimikado.

  Musujime pushed him out of the way with a hand and headed for the exit.

  Accelerator and Mitsuki Unabara, too, were outside. They’d each been fighting their own battles—nobody was unharmed. But the four members of Group had still come together again.

  Musujime didn’t say anything.

  Tsuchimikado looked at her and sighed.

  “Then back to the dark we go.”

  INTERLUDE THREE

  She walked slowly down the street.

  Considering the position she was in, being there was unthinkable. Anyone had free passage through the streets—and she, without any bodyguards, simply blended in with the crowd. In her hand were five balloons filled with helium, which drew yearning stares from passing children.

  She held a cell phone in her other hand.

  “Hey, like, Item’s the one I’m in charge of, you know. Seriously…I’m not getting any overtime pay for this call.”

  “What are you saying? I’ll admit they got the better of me with Block. But I can recover anything I need to with my strength. Take down the quarantine on Block’s position and info! If I can find them again, I can prevent damage to Academy City—”

  “The damage thing is fine. It looks like the Group kids just disabled Block at the juvenile reformatory. They won’t be causing you trouble anymore.”

  “O-oh.” The person on the phone sounded relieved. “In that case, I’ll…”

  “Yes,” she continued, also relieved.

  “The Block threat is gone, so we don’t need you controlling them anymore.”

  She heard the person on the other end gasp.

  He panicked and began to argue vehemently about something, but she wasn’t listening anymore. This was something they’d all decided on. She hung up, then walked back into the crowds.

  She let go of one of the balloons in her hand. It flew high into the sky.

  “Anyway,” she said, not watching it go, fingering the strings of the others. “I wonder what the person controlling School is named.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The Paper-Thin Line Between Self-Loathing and Pride Enemy

  Level5.

  1

  In the end, he washed the ashes down a river.

  Shiage Hamazura just couldn’t bring himself to throw them into an automatic raw garbage disposer. He knew it had only satisfied himself—and contaminated the environment—but he still resisted discarding into the garbage what had once been human.

  …This sucks, he thought idly. He’d split up with Takitsubo, and he was now walking along the river alone. It’s not like I sympathized with whoever was in the bag. I was just scared to think it could be me next. I wouldn’t like it if someone threw me out like trash when I die.

  “Damn it…” Resisting the urge to mutter and now I have to go back to them, Hamazura started back on his way to where Item was waiting.

  Then he heard a voice call out to him, saying, “Hey!”

  He tried to ignore it and keep going, but someone grabbed his shoulder from behind.

  The impact hit him before he turned.

  Thud!! A blow to his head, and Hamazura fell to the dirt below.

  He heard laughing. When he looked that way, he saw a few young men he’d never met. One was holding a golf club. That was probably what he’d hit Hamazura with.

  …?! Are they burglars?

  Eighty percent of Academy City’s population was students. Depending on the time of day, there would be almost nobody in the student dorms. Some delinquents had formed armed groups, which would plunder the rooms while their owners were away.

  “See, I told you. I’ve seen this guy before. Skill-Out, from District 7, yeah?”

  “Didn’t they go down?”

  “Doesn’t matter. We just have to beat him here.”

  They all laughed. Before Hamazura could speak, they began kicking him from all directions. And all they did
was laugh.

  “Get this, Skill-Out. We’ve had it real rough until just recently.”

  “That leader of yours—Komaba or something? That guy was fucking annoying. We couldn’t do our jobs with him around.”

  “Anyway, we’re gonna beat your face in so hard you’ll look like an extra on a movie set. You hearin’ us?”

  Hamazura tried to say that wasn’t his fault, but another kick dug into his side before he could. Now that he was having trouble breathing, he couldn’t talk to begin with.

  Damn…it…

  The unknown person resting in the sleeping bag flashed across his mind. Burned by the electric furnace, turned into ash, and washed down the river—he couldn’t get the sights out of his mind. Now he’d be erased like that soon. How cheap Level Zero lives went for. It was all making him angry.

  And next to him on the dirt-covered road was a metal pipe for propane gas about the width of his thumb.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  “!!” He grabbed the L-shaped pipe and fiercely swung.

  It struck the golf club–wielding shit in the ankle, and he could feel the cracking of bones breaking in his hand. As the screaming idiot fell, the bloody Hamazura rose, bringing down the pipe again and landing another blow.

  The other two delinquents shouted something, but he ignored them.

  Once again, he brought the pipe down on the guy, and was rewarded with a comforting scream.

  When one of the other kids heard that, he took a hammer out of his bag.

  That might kill me, thought Hamazura. An iron pipe was plenty destructive, but he couldn’t knock someone out in one hit with it. If this came down to a straight brawl, they could easily both end up dead, too.

  But at that point, he didn’t feel like stopping. The sensation of the sleeping bag’s synthetic fabric weighed on his palms with amazing vividness.

  And then…

  “Over here, Hamazura!!”

  Right as he heard the shout, the hammer-gripping boy’s neck bounced to the side with a grrk! Before Hamazura realized it, someone had thrown a brick-like object at him, and someone else grabbed his arm.

  “Come on, idiot! We’re getting out of here!!”

  In a strange display of lethargy, Hamazura let the person pull him into a run.

  After a few moments like that, he finally put a name to the voice. “You’re…Hanzou, right?”

  Hanzou used to be another member of Skill-Out, one he’d been on a few jobs with. If he was hanging around a place like this, maybe he was considering robbing an ATM again, thought Hamazura, remembering part of his old habits.

  Exasperated, Hanzou answered, “Did you forget the back-alley rules or what, stupid? If you’re too obsessed with winning, you’ll end up dead. If you want to concentrate on life or death, then give up on winning!”

  He glanced behind him to make sure nobody was following, and then they stopped.

  Hamazura gave Hanzou a mystified look. “Why did you help me? I’m the one who ruined Skill-Out and ran from punishment.”

  “That’s not something you gotta say,” replied Hanzou in irritation. “I mean, don’t you get it by now? We don’t hate you, and we don’t think it’s your fault. With what happened, it didn’t matter who ended up as Skill-Out’s leader. We were ruined anyway.”

  “…”

  “Clinging to the past might look good on TV, but we’re not walking down that road. Although, I’ll admit those were some fun times…me making plans, you getting assistants, Komaba leading the attacks.”

  “Yeah,” said Hamazura impassively. “I’ll admit it. It was a shitty life, but it was still fun.”

  “…What are you gonna do now?”

  “Hell if I know. It doesn’t matter where I roll into. It wouldn’t be the same if I went back to Skill-Out, though. I don’t think there’s much value in that,” he spat, about to turn his back to Hanzou.

  But just then, Hanzou reached for something in his pocket and tossed it at him. “Take this. Doesn’t look like you have a good weapon.”

  It was a small handgun, its grip only half the size of his palm.

  “…This is a ladies’ gun.”

  “Who cares? The harder a weapon is to use, the better. Get too used to one and you’ll spill more blood than you need to.”

  Hamazura spun it lightly in his hand, then stowed it in his sleeve.

  This time, without looking at Hanzou, he left the alley alone.

  Item probably had his next job waiting.

  2

  Shiage Hamazura returned to one of Item’s hideouts.

  “Hey, Hamazura, you’re late,” Shizuri Mugino lobbed at him lazily.

  They were in part of a high-rise building in School District 3. The facility consisted of sports gyms and pools; all the indoor leisure activities it could fit—and those who used them—were of fairly high grade. You needed to show your member card just to enter the building, and whenever you wanted to use one of its facilities, they’d look at your member rank. Apparently, a membership here was one of the first things people of the so-called upper crust would acquire for their status.

  Hamazura and the others were in a VIP lounge, made to look like a European-style “salon”—a fancy suite of private rooms rented out on a yearly contract. You couldn’t even use it temporarily without at least a two-star membership rank—truly a top-notch room. Even though it was considered private, it was easily bigger than a four-room apartment, and Mugino had made herself at home on a sofa.

  Hamazura looked at the people gathered there, then asked dubiously, “What happened to Frenda?”

  “Vanished,” answered Mugino curtly. “Either she died or got caught. We don’t have time to replace her, so in any case, Item will have to settle for three for now. ’Course, School’s missing one of theirs, too, so our numbers match. It won’t be hard to recover. Item’s got Takitsubo, after all.”

  Mugino had said three. Hamazura frowned at not being counted, but pointing it out wouldn’t get him anywhere.

  “Hamazura. You’re hurt,” said Takitsubo, looking at his face.

  “It’s nothing,” he replied, blowing it off. “What do we do now? School stole the Tweezers, right?”

  “Yup,” admitted Mugino easily. “So now it’s our turn to counterattack. Takitsubo’s Ability Stalker can search for a specific esper’s location with any involuntary diffusion field she remembers. And we fought them at the Particle Physics Institute already. That means we can chase them down. Item’s purpose is to protect against the higher-ups and top-secret organizations running amok. Let’s do our duty, shall we?”

  Hamazura looked at Takitsubo. As always, she had her arms and legs sprawled out lazily. Maybe she was always acting unstable because of the never-ending IDF effects.

  “Should I search for Dark Matter?”

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “The number-two Level Five,” said Mugino. “And the asshole leading School.”

  Meanwhile, Takitsubo brought out a small case from her pocket with white powder in it.

  Kinuhata looked at the see-through case, mystified. “You’ve, like, got it super-rough. You can’t use your ability without Crystals, can you?”

  “It’s no big deal. This was always normal for me,” said Takitsubo, licking just a little bit of the powder.

  The glow returned to her eyes. She straightened up and paused, as though this was her regular state.

  “Beginning involuntary diffusion field-based search. Stopping pickup of approximate and resemblant IDFs. Limiting search results to a single matching IDF. Time to completion: five seconds.”

  Her voice came out like a machine.

  And then came the right answer.

  “Result: Dark Matter is in this building.”

  Before everyone could give a start and shout “What?!” it happened:

  The door to the private lounge was decisively kicked in.

  A man came walking in from behind it.

  Shizuri Mugino saw him and g
rowled. “Dark Matter…!!”

  “I’d rather you call me by name. It’s Teitoku Kakine, in case you didn’t know.”

  The man’s hands had peculiar “nails” made of machines. “The Tweezers…,” said Mugino.

  “Sweet, right? Came to declare victory.”

  “Hah. What’s some secondary candidate Aleister didn’t choose getting all excited for? You ran away before. Now it looks like you had an attitude change.”

  “Nah, look. That was some good shit at the Particle Physics Institute. Thanks to you, we lost one of our only four official School members.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting someone? We killed your sniper a few days ago. You get a new one?”

  The conversation between Level Fives was suddenly interrupted.

  The cause was Saiai Kinuhata. Without rising from the sofa, she had lifted up a nearby table with one hand. The table was covered excessively in decorations and looked like it weighed at least two dozen pounds—and now this girl, who looked no older than twelve, hurled it at Teitoku Kakine.

  Ga-slam!!

  The table shattered, but Teitoku kept a straight face.

  “That hurt,” he said, so naturally nobody could tell if he meant it. “And it made me mad. I’ll smash you to pieces first.”

  Kinuhata still didn’t respond. She ran to the side of the room, and with her tiny fist, mercilessly broke through the lounge wall. Then she grabbed Hamazura’s and Takitsubo’s hands, shot a quick glance at Mugino, and dove into the broken wall.

  A luxurious lounge of similar construction was on the other side. People were inside, but Kinuhata punched them unconscious. When they got into the hallway, there was a man there who was probably one of School’s subordinates, but she knocked him out, too.

  Saiai Kinuhata wasn’t monstrously strong; she was an esper who could freely control the nitrogen in the air. The skill was incredibly powerful, and by manipulating chunks of compressed nitrogen, she could lift cars and even stop bullets—but its scope was very small and only reached a few centimeters out from her palms. That was why it had looked like she’d been lifting up the table.