A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 14 Page 2

  Maybe Academy City wouldn’t be the one to pull the trigger on a war, but it was clearly trying to profit from the idea.

  The engineer, owner of the laptop, used her sleeve to wipe the sweat from her brow and reluctantly looked over at the news screen. “Every channel’s the same thing. Times like these make me wish I had a contract for variety show channels or something.”

  “…What do you think?”

  “Hmm.” The weapons research scientist paused briefly. “I don’t like having more work. Unpaid overtime is even worse.”

  “This expo is totally different from usual, isn’t it?”

  “Well, the head of planning was really into it. Saying things about overturning the foul stereotypes of the defense industry and thus opening up new markets. Crazy stuff, if you ask me. This whole place is specifically for developing weapons. He looked delirious from the heat, so I hit him with an ice cube.”

  “The technology they’re showing off clearly isn’t to sell to outside companies. Which basically makes this a military exercise…Showing our ‘enemies’ only the destructive power of a swarm of unknown weaponry, using intimidation to play the diplomacy card—that’s all we’re doing.”

  “I suppose. They are quite destructive. The head of planning lost a few screws because of it, though, and he started blurting out even more nonsense.”

  “They might be making deals on these products, but it’s not like we’re shipping the ones on display,” said Yomikawa. “It’s like taking the full-auto function out of rifles and lining them up in your storefront. We’re just selling them stuff three or four generations worse…And even those are just barely reproducible by the technology outside Academy City.” Yomikawa looked at a group of men in business suits talking to one another right next to a nearby platform. “Plus, we’re talking about buying and selling licenses, but the only facilities in any country that can manufacture the core components of these weapons are already aligned with this city. Meaning we can tell exactly how many are produced and where they’re deployed to. Jeez, why does Academy City go so far to get money?”

  “With enough capital, it can mass-produce silly weapons,” said the engineer. “The head of planning is apparently trying to send a giant humanoid robot into space next. And I bet the pilot candidate will be a teenage boy, too.”

  “…You really have no enthusiasm for this, huh?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  2

  Though Aiho Yomikawa had no way of knowing, a certain boy was at the middle of this great conflict.

  Touma Kamijou.

  Other than his power, Imagine Breaker, he was supposed to be a totally normal high school student. But if what God’s Right Seat had said was right, he was now an enemy of two billion people. Thinking back on the incidents he’d been wrapped up in these last few months and how gradually they’d all been resolved, though, it seemed reasonable.

  And so, this boy Touma Kamijou, relatively central to the conflict…

  “—Now, I want you to tell me why you did something like this.”

  …was being lectured harshly by a tall female teacher in the faculty room.

  To be more precise, he wasn’t the only one being lectured. Blue Hair and Motoharu Tsuchimikado were right there with him, hanging their heads. Seiri Fukiyose was behind them, too, looking frustrated, wondering why she’d been called here.

  The faculty room was filled with haphazardly placed office desks made of steel. Many teachers were around, probably because it was lunchtime. They were doing all sorts of things, like eating meals, grading tests, and riding electric wooden horses to lower their body weight.

  Their teacher, Suama Oyafune, wasn’t eating a meal, nor grading tests, nor riding an electric wooden horse to control her body weight. Instead, she was sitting on a cheap-looking swivel chair, her legs crossed and clad in beige stockings, combing her hard, needlelike hair up with a hand, and glaring at the students out of brand-name inverted triangular glasses that must have been expensive.

  “I’ll ask again. Explain to me why you thought it would be all right to get into a huge brawl in the school building and have a lively clash of burning souls with your fists as weapons.”

  Silence.

  A TV on the room’s wall was broadcasting the news. “Because of repeated demonstration marches and protests, Italian soccer leagues have determined their stadiums unsafe and suspended their morning games.”

  “You can’t explain it?” she demanded. This irritable teacher who always wore brand-name clothing and accessories was famous at Kamijou’s school for being particularly strict with “disciplining.” She was in charge of a different class, so they really hadn’t talked to her much, but today she’d been the one to catch them.

  Their class’s homeroom teacher was Komoe Tsukuyomi, but even she couldn’t keep an eye on the classroom during lunch break. Suama Oyafune had happened to walk by during their fight, then captured them and dragged them off to the faculty room by the proverbial ear.

  “I mean…,” said Kamijou, steeling himself and looking straight at the teacher, eyes glinting. “Come on! Blue Hair and I were arguing about whether red or black bunny girls were better, and then suddenly Tsuchimikado comes in and calls us idiots and says, White ones are obviously best, and that doesn’t even make any sense!”

  Clatter-clatter! Suama and her chair flipped over.

  The volume of Kamijou’s voice was one thing, but the opinion must have been a little too stimulating for a teacher wearing inverted equilaterals.

  The math teacher looked away from the three idiots to Seiri Fukiyose, who was standing behind them.

  “…D-don’t tell me you were part of this ridiculous argument, too…”

  “I was just trying to shut these morons up!!” shouted Fukiyose in reply, blood vessels appearing near her temples. “Why did I get dragged here, too?!”

  Still, when Oyafune had stepped into their classroom, Fukiyose had Tsuchimikado in a headlock, had already kicked Blue Hair to the floor, and was in the process of giving Touma Kamijou a forehead slam. She was doubtlessly number one, the boss of the kids.

  Meanwhile, Tsuchimikado, wearing his blue sunglasses, shook his head from side to side. “Flat-chested white bunnies for the win, meowsa.”

  Blue Hair couldn’t stay silent about that. “S-stop making everything flat, you asshole!! Besides, you’re not even into bunny girls! You’d take anything as long as it was a loli!!”

  “But it’s the truth, nya, Blue Hair. When faced with such a powerful loli, any tiny, insignificant clothing attributes like bunny suits or gymnastic leotards or school swimsuits mean nothing. In conclusion, lolis look good in anything, so obviously, a bunny girl loli would still be the best, meeeow!!”

  “Say that again!!” cried Kamijou. “I knew it! This isn’t even about bunny girls to you!!”

  As the three idiots rolled up their sleeves and got ready for round two, the triangle glasses–wearing, suit-clad lady professor Suama Oyafune, who was still overturned with her chair, took out a whistle and blew.

  Pfweeeee!! came the whistle’s shrill command as the gorilla-like civic guidance teacher, Mr. Saigo, stood up at the back of the faculty room and lumbered over.

  3

  In the end, they were all ordered to do some weeding behind the gymnasium after school.

  With little exposure to the sun, the area was damp, with weeds energetically overtaking the place. Just looking at how big the green surface was made Kamijou lose the will to work, and the thought Why bother cleaning if nobody comes back here? permeated the air from every mind.

  However, something else was really responsible for draining his enthusiasm.

  “Tsu-Tsuchimikado, Blue Hair, I’ll get you back for this vanishing act…”

  Right now, out of the four ordered to weed, only Kamijou and Fukiyose were here.

  Abandoned and alone, Kamijou’s shoulders drooped as he stared at the vast area behind the gym. On the other side of that thin wall, he could he
ar high-spirited voices he just knew were from the volleyball or basketball club as they enjoyed their after-school time to the fullest. It made the heavy mental chains of this unproductive weeding all the heavier.

  Still, muttering under his breath about his nemeses disappearing wouldn’t make the weeds go away. Kamijou picked up a pair of work gloves from a wheelbarrow he’d brought over to carry the weeds to the garbage area, stating, “We’re not gonna be done weeding by the time they kick us out for the night anyway. Let’s just take it easy until then.”

  He continued under his breath, “It’d be over a lot faster if we could get a pyrokinetic over here, too.”

  Fukiyose wasn’t happy about being sucked into this, either, but she was pulling out the weeds more efficiently than her grumbling partner.

  Five minutes later, having grown bored, Kamijou once more spoke to the girl squatting down a short distance away. “By the way, Fukiyose…”

  “What is it?” She must have been bored, too, because it didn’t take any coaxing to get her to respond.

  Kamijou started moving his hands again. “Weren’t they talking about suspending midterms in October? But you’re still using all your free time to study for them by yourself. How come?”

  “What, that?” she asked curtly. “If we don’t have midterms, that means our second semester grades are gonna be based only on our finals. And the finals will probably be at least twice as big. That’s even more reason not to let up, isn’t it?”

  “…”

  “And I’m not letting you see my notes.”

  Kamijou had been on cloud nine, thinking No more midterms, whoopee! but Fukiyose delivered the finishing blow with no concern.

  The unexpected hit put Kamijou into coward mode. “H-hmph. School studies aren’t everything, you know!”

  “You make it sound like studying is all I can do.”

  “…You can do something else?”

  “Yes!!” shouted Fukiyose from her stomach. “I may not look like it, but I can throw a forkball. Not that I have any real interest in baseball!!”

  “Really,” said Kamijou slowly. “Not from online classes or some kind of forkball health exercise, I bet.”

  “It…It doesn’t matter how I learned it. All that matters is if I can pitch one or not! Don’t give me that suspicious look—I’ll prove it to you!!”

  “Yeah, yeah. But we don’t have a ball.” Kamijou sighed.

  Fukiyose took a ball the size of her fist out of her skirt pocket. “You can never be too prepared!!”

  “…Um, that ball has something written on it. ‘Squeeze this ball one hundred times a day to facilitate alpha waves…’”

  Kamijou gaped, but the girl didn’t care. She actually seemed pretty motivated and started digging at the ground a little with one foot.

  Kamijou had no catcher’s mitt for the ball, so instead, he put on several pairs of work gloves. He walked away with no small degree of reluctance, then squatted and did his best impression of a catcher’s pose.

  When he spoke, his words were monotone, like one big, long sigh. “Go ahead, Fukiyose.”

  “All right, Kamijou. Don’t be too impressed by my amazing one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour pitch!!”

  “A one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour forkball?!” he cried in a fluster. “I’m already impressed by that amazing bluff!!”

  Fukiyose, really getting into it now, gripped the white ball, slowly turned, and held it overhead.

  It was just a windup, but Kamijou suddenly shouted, “S-stop, stop, Fukiyose!!”

  “What do you want?!” she shouted back unsteadily, stopped midway through her pitching form.

  But Kamijou had hesitated to give it to her straight, so he skipped the important parts and said, “Skirt!!”

  “…?”

  Fukiyose frowned, searching for the meaning in his gaze. She looked around her waist area, discovering there that holding up her knee had flipped up her skirt and revealed her cutely patterned underwear…

  …before launching an overpowering fastball.

  Kamijou missed the timing, and the soft rubber ball slammed into his belly with a hard, violent splat!!

  As Kamijou writhed in agony, he spoke, voice trembling. “…Th-that wasn’t a forkball. You just threw it as hard as you freaking could…”

  “That one didn’t count!!” shouted Fukiyose, giving a quite masculine excuse, as she caught the ball from Kamijou. “Jeez. This time I’ll throw a forkball. It’ll drop pretty quick, so put your mitt lower.”

  Saying something or other, Fukiyose began to go through the pitching motion, but since Kamijou had pointed out her skirt a moment ago, her leg movements ended up rather stiff.

  Her balance was a bit wobbly because of that, but the pitch she threw had an astounding amount of force behind it. With a splat!! the ball struck the layers of work gloves he wore. It wasn’t even a hardball, just a toy, but it still stung his palm. Plus, she hadn’t thrown it underhanded like a softball player but overhanded like a pro baseball pitcher, and that sealed the deal.

  Kamijou squeezed the ball a little. “Did that…drop?”

  “Yes, it did!! Weren’t you watching? Couldn’t you tell it dropped right before it got to the batter?!”

  “Huh? It just looked like you threw it normally.”

  “K-Kamijou!! You weren’t standing where the batter should be, so you wouldn’t know!! If you actually swung a bat, you would have realized how sharp my forkball is!!”

  “Oh. Well, now you’ve said it, Fukiyose.” Kamijou smirked and took a small plastic-handled broom about fifty centimeters long from a few dustpan sets he’d brought just in case. “That sounded a lot like a challenge to me.”

  Gripping the handle vaguely like a baseball bat, he rolled his hands on his wrists to gauge the timing of his swing.

  Meanwhile, Fukiyose, for her part, having caught the ball Kamijou tossed back, gave a fearless grin. “Trying to beat Major League Fukiyose’s pitch, are you? You’re pretty funny—for a monkey.”

  “I’ll knock this one out.”

  “I’ll show you—the drop of a true forkball and the humiliation of defeeeat!!”

  “Right out of the paaaaaaaaaaaark!!”

  A baseball thrown.

  The sound of air parting.

  If he waited to see if it really dropped, he’d be far too late on the swing.

  Unable to assess Fukiyose’s true intent and ability, he moved to answer her challenge.

  Power and tension coursed through his body.

  He judged the timing, exhaled slightly, set his feet, turned his hips with his arms, swung the broom in both hands as hard as he could…

  And…

  4

  Suama Oyafune, clad in a suit, inverted triangle glasses, and even stockings—all brand-name—understood that beautiful women had an advantage.

  Of course, she only knew that because she’d been relegated to constantly having disadvantages in the past.

  Anybody, no matter what they looked like, could become beautiful to some extent. Suama’s theory went like this: Even if “high level” or “mid-high level” was aiming too high, “high middle” was perfectly doable. And if she got up to that “high middle” level, she’d begin to see the benefits here and there.

  Beautiful people had an advantage.

  Her students would listen to what she was saying in class, her fellow teachers wouldn’t look down on her, and some would even give her their seats in the cafeteria. All of these advantages came from spending an hour in the bath every day, putting on face lotion before bed, eating a proper breakfast every morning, managing her weight so it wouldn’t affect her skin, dedicating over an hour to putting on makeup before leaving, and freely using magazines and the Internet to shop around for Western-style clothes—a boon gained from keeping herself polished, both on the outside and the inside.

  For Suama Oyafune, her makeup starting to fall off after school let out—especially if sweat was making her drawn-on eyeb
rows run—was a major source of anxiety. Still, beauty was defined by one’s attitude and aura, too. If she was too obviously worried about her makeup, she would gain less of the benefits of being beautiful, so checking mirrors over and over and going back and forth to the powder room wouldn’t be good.

  …

  Suama slowly looked around.

  She was in the faculty room. At this hour, most teachers had gone to advise their clubs, so it was thinned out. If nobody was around, maybe she’d secretly check her eyebrows…

  “Phew~! Making handouts sure is hard work!”

  In a seat relatively close to her was a teacher who looked like an elementary school student, hectically working.

  Komoe Tsukuyomi.

  The stack of papers clearly exceeded what any one person could be expected to handle. This tiny teacher was known for creating the most effective teaching materials based off precise data on each individual student, but she must have been undertaking other teachers’ work, too.

  Right now, with the city’s peacekeeping Anti-Skill being rounded up in great numbers, they didn’t have time to make every single thing for their classes. Other non-Anti-Skill teachers would have to help them out.

  Even Suama had handouts and such to make for other teachers, but the woman couldn’t help but be more interested in Komoe Tsukuyomi’s “minimalism.”

  “…What kind of health routines do you need to keep such young and lustrous skin? Actually, mathematically speaking, those values are impossible.”

  “??? What is? I’m pretty good at math, so I can help you.”

  One hundred and thirty-five centimeters quickly came pattering up to her after hearing her greatly perplexed voice. Suama admitted there were several things she could learn from the tiny woman as a teacher, but was anyone sure she wasn’t actually in elementary school?

  Komoe Tsukuyomi came over and took the papers on Suama’s desk without asking, then went over them one by one, nodding to herself. “By the way, Ms. Oyafune, did my students cause you trouble? I apologize for that.”