A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 15 Read online

  But Tsuchimikado grinned and said, “In terms of pure force, sure. But this one doesn’t use gunpowder, so it has no recoil. It doesn’t have the ‘sway’ sniper rifles tend to have, so you can attach a delicate, super-precise sighting device to it—if you used gunpowder, you’d need the whole thing to be sturdy enough to handle the recoil from firing. And…”

  “And what?”

  “If it doesn’t use gunpowder, it doesn’t make noise. Perfect for doing things in secret.”

  Tsuchimikado continued, holding a fourth bill up to the sensor.

  But this one only put up an error on the screen.

  They couldn’t read the all-important data.

  “Damn. The chip must have gotten hit by the heat or the impact…Just based on the fragments of the header, this one has concrete details on the other end of the deal, the guys who employed him.”

  Tsuchimikado passed it over the sensor a few more times, but he never got the data inside to show up. He gave up on that one for the time being and held the fifth and final bill to the sensor.

  A rough map of somewhere came up on the screen.

  It was a simplified map that cut out everything except what was important. A red dot was displayed in the center, with numbers written next to the buildings nearby. But as to what story, or how many meters in length—all of that was unreadable from a top-down map.

  Tsuchimikado laughed. “It’s a sniper plan. Management was even dealing in these things?”

  “Hah,” snorted Accelerator. “What, did he run a general store or something?”

  “It’s showing the plaza in front of District 7’s concert hall…,” said Musujime, looking up at the ceiling. “Right above us.”

  “The plaza’s been rented out by someone on the General Board for a speech. They must be after the VIP. Name is Monaka Oyafune. Don’t know why they’re trying to put a hole in her head, but they must have a grand plan in mind if they’re trying to assassinate Oyafune. If we stop him, our job’s done…As for Unabara, well, you know. He got the lowest score on this job, so we’ll rescue him and make him play a penalty game.”

  “Hah! We going to run over and play tag with a sniper now?” grumbled Accelerator in annoyance. “Sounds like a pain. I’m sure the speech will be boring anyway— Can’t we just stop the event?”

  Tsuchimikado shook his head. “Probably not.”

  “Why?”

  “Simple—the speech has already started.”

  8

  Accelerator and Motoharu Tsuchimikado had left the underground mall and neared the plaza in front of the concert hall, which was directly below them.

  They hadn’t taken a sane means of travel, like the stairs or elevator; instead, they’d used Musujime’s ability, Move Point. The ability was certainly convenient, but it had a flaw: It was hard for her to warp herself. So she’d remained at the hideout alone, continuing their microchip analysis.

  Many students were in the plaza, probably because it was a holiday. They wouldn’t have thought an outdoor speech would be interesting, but just at a glance, there were two or three hundred people there.

  Around a hundred meters separated Accelerator and the VIP, Monaka Oyafune.

  A simple stage was set up in the middle of the plaza, the kind that might be used for a cultural festival, and a middle-aged woman was standing on it. Four escorts dressed in black were waiting around her, but…

  “No motivation,” said Accelerator, cutting it down to two words. “It’s like they’re screaming for someone to come put a bullet through whatever organ of hers they want. It’s completely obvious that VIP bigshot isn’t wearing anything bulletproof when you look at how thin her clothes are, either.”

  “Stop it. That’s why we’re doing this.”

  “That Shiokishi guy is on the General Board, too, and he wears a powered suit around the clock. Apparently, he’s not scared of being attacked—it just makes him feel uncomfortable when he’s not in it.”

  “He’s an extreme case,” muttered Tsuchimikado, standing next to him.

  Accelerator glared at him. He jabbed his chin at Monaka Oyafune onstage. “You seriously wanna protect that woman?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I don’t. The General Board is a bunch of shitheads. You think they deserve us risking our lives to protect them?”

  Accelerator was referring to a man named Thomas Platinaburg. Like Oyafune, he was one of the General Board members. He’d never even talked to him before, but just looking at his furniture had told him right away that the man naturally looked down on everyone else and didn’t think anything of it.

  “There are two kinds of people at the top of Academy City,” said Tsuchimikado quietly, slipping into the crowd in the plaza. “The assholes who deserve to die this instant, and the good people seen as assholes—the diligent ones. In most cases, those types don’t fit into the world well and always draw the short stick.”

  Accelerator stared at Tsuchimikado and let out a quiet hum. Applause and cheering filled the area.

  “I hear Monaka Oyafune is trying to give the children in Academy City the right to vote. Most of the city’s residents are minors who don’t have that. They can’t complain about policies adults decide for them. She says she wants to give them that right.” He laughed, his tone light. “If she’s not a thorn in their side, I don’t know what is. If the kids got voting rights, they could even stop this war.”

  “Are you dumb? There’s no way it’ll be that easy. It’s a peaceful idea, but not a practical one. It’s like they don’t understand the meaning of the word violence.”

  “The divides between races and the sexes were the same, too, at first. Special influential people weren’t the only ones fixing everything. Sure, they had a lot to do with it, since they were leading the masses. But the big reason was the people who had been thinking they were powerless—they changed their minds. Then they all got together, and history changed.”

  Accelerator looked back at the plaza—the one with so many students in it, even though it was a holiday.

  Tsuchimikado chuckled and said, “I don’t know how you feel about it, but I think Monaka Oyafune is at least worth protecting. I would risk my life for her. I won’t tell you to do the same, but don’t think you can stop me.”

  Accelerator clicked his tongue in frustration, then used his cane to take a step forward.

  “What a pain in the ass. Let’s just crush that dumbass sniper already.”

  9

  Accelerator and Tsuchimikado were standing about a hundred meters from the stage Monaka Oyafune was on. They should have been closer—it certainly wasn’t what you’d call a good plan—but considering the crowd, this was what they had at the moment: checking the location with their cell phone GPS maps.

  “Looks like there’s about thirty-two possible sniping positions,” said Tsuchimikado. “But with the stainless-steel board behind the stage, any point one hundred and eighty degrees behind it is actually a dead angle. Which means…”

  “…It’s one of the fifteen spots one hundred and eighty degrees in front. We could probably get the sniper if we went to every single spot…”

  “…But there’s nothing saying Chimitsu Sunazara is gonna wait around for us once he’s in firing position,” said Tsuchimikado, surveying the area.

  He wasn’t looking at Oyafune, as she smiled softly on stage, or the youth, listening to her and applauding. He saw a vehicle—a specially permitted commercial one—parked a short distance from the plaza. Its body resembled a crane truck, but a giant fan-like machine was attached to the top.

  “Looks like they do have a Wind Defense set up against sniping, at least.”

  “Eh?”

  “You know how much the wind affects sniping,” explained Tsuchimikado. “That machine purposely creates blasts of wind around a VIP to throw off their aim. They’re probably using four of them, making a whirlwind all around the plaza. They’re third generation, so they should be using a random number gen
erator to make the air currents more chaotic.”

  But something else seemed to have caught Accelerator’s eye, because, as he peered through the edge of the throng, he suddenly darted into the crowd to hide.

  Tsuchimikado looked that way and saw, a few meters away, a middle school girl with a lot of flowers decorating her hair holding hands and walking with a girl who seemed around ten or so.

  “‘I told you, Misaka is looking for a lost child,’ says Misaka says Misaka, announcing her intentions.”

  “Yes, well, um, a lost child?”

  “‘I don’t really know, but I think he’s somewhere around here,’ says Misaka says Misaka, offering a prediction. ‘My head feels like it’s getting nervous about something,’ says Misaka says Misaka, adding extra sense-based information.”

  “Right…I knew that silly piece of hair was incredible!”

  “It’s not silly!!” came the shout, and Accelerator’s hand went to his forehead.

  “…Why would that brat show up here?! Is God fucking around with me or what?!” he hissed.

  “…Ha-ha. That’s just how life is,” muttered Tsuchimikado offhandedly, but after noticing a girl in maid clothes in the crowd, he buried his own face in his hands.

  For once, their opinions matched—they had to ensure no “stray bullets” flew in their direction.

  “Anyway, things get complicated with the Wind Defense throwing off the hitman’s aim…”

  “That truck. Says on the side it’s an air-cleaning truck.”

  “Well, it’s not wrong. It uses the same principle as the air purifiers that smokers use in schools’ faculty rooms. Just on a totally different scale,” said Tsuchimikado with pride.

  Accelerator’s eyes were cold, though. “That’s great and all, but it’s not on.”

  “What?!”

  Tsuchimikado, startled, checked it himself. Accelerator was right—the giant fan on the big cart truck wasn’t doing anything.

  “I swear it was just on…” It was protecting a VIP. Could it have possibly had a malfunction?

  Then Tsuchimikado heard an odd bkk sound ringing through the noisy crowd around him.

  It sounded like a metal pot crumpling.

  “…”

  Accelerator and Tsuchimikado looked in the direction of the ringing at the same time.

  There was another Wind Defense–equipped special vehicle parked elsewhere. Its giant fan wasn’t on, either. And there was a thumb-sized hole in the cylindrical outer wall around the fan.

  “It was him—Chimitsu Sunazara.”

  “Bastard…,” hissed Accelerator. “He’s trying to take out the Wind Defenses to give himself a clear shot at Oyafune!!”

  “Shit!!” cursed Tsuchimikado, trying to plunge into the crowd to get closer to Oyafune. But there were too many people, and he couldn’t get as far as he wanted. Meanwhile, two more metal-pounding bkk sounds repeated in succession. Accelerator couldn’t see them from where he was, but the sniper was probably taking out the other Wind Defense machines, too, one at a time.

  Damn it, thought Accelerator. Magnetic sniper rifles don’t use gunpowder, so nobody would even notice if their equipment was getting shot at!

  The man-made gale barrier was gone now.

  Tsuchimikado seemed to be trying to warn Monaka Oyafune of the danger, but it didn’t look like he’d make it.

  “Great.”

  Monaka Oyafune’s speech from atop the platform continued. The bodyguards in the vicinity were standing still, unaware of the threat.

  If this went on much longer, it would be checkmate.

  “What a goddamn pain!!”

  10

  The sniper, Chimitsu Sunazara, brought his magnetic sniper rifle up.

  He was in a hotel room. He’d gone up to it without checking in, got its electronic lock open, and went inside. As for the window, in addition to disabling the security, he’d cut a square piece of it away to create a hole, out of which his rifle barrel extended.

  A magnetic sniper rifle—although its form differed greatly from other existing guns, it was a metal cylinder as thick as an ankle with a steel box stuck onto it, almost haphazardly. Propped up on a tripod, the barrel was a strong solenoid coil.

  A pair of suitcases sat next to him. One was for storing the magnetic sniper rifle after disassembling, while the other was for the rifle’s giant battery.

  “…”

  The range was about seven hundred meters.

  He’d destroyed all the Wind Defense machines that were blocking him.

  Monaka Oyafune, on the distant stage, seemed close enough to hug through the scope.

  He would hit.

  He thought so naturally, then relaxed and pulled the trigger.

  That’s when it happened.

  Ga-bam!!

  All of a sudden, part of the plaza in front of the concert hall exploded, flinging flames and black smoke into the air.

  His target, exposed to the blast, flinched, crouching down. Because she had moved, Sunazara’s bullet missed her.

  “What was that…?”

  Sunazara frowned. The timing was too good. Meanwhile, the big men stationed as guards around Oyafune came down to the platform to surround her.

  He had a job to do.

  He pulled the trigger again, but the steel bullet struck one of the bodyguards pressed against Oyafune. It flung his body down in spectacular fashion, but there was no blood, so he was probably wearing a bulletproof vest as a shield.

  The guards changed positions. Oyafune ended up completely hidden behind the stocky men.

  “Looks like that’s it for now.”

  Long-range sniping was delicate. Even if you used a bullet that traveled at the speed of sound, sniping a target from seven hundred meters away would mean the bullet had to travel for almost two seconds before hitting the target. It was one thing if the person was standing still, unguarded, but with her running away—present tense—with multiple bodyguards, it would be very difficult to shoot her in a vital spot.

  After thinking for a moment, Chimitsu Sunazara decided not to be stubborn and to withdraw.

  “Still, what exploded?”

  He looked through his scope, then saw the black smoke rising from one of the special Wind Defense vehicles. He’d shot them in order to stop them, but he was sure he hadn’t hit anywhere that would have made them explode.

  “…”

  A moment later, Sunazara’s breath caught in his throat.

  Right next to the special vehicle in flames. A person with white hair, at the scene and yet blending in casually with the background, was looking straight at him—with a cane in one hand and flames and smoke at his back.

  “I see.”

  Sunazara looked away from the scope and immediately began taking apart the magnetic sniper rifle. As he put each part into the suitcase, he said to himself:

  “I’ll remember that face.”

  11

  When Motoharu Tsuchimikado set foot in the hotel room, it had already been vacated.

  But there was a square section of glass unnaturally missing from the window.

  “Shit.” Tsuchimikado took out his cell phone and called Accelerator. “Retrieval is a failure. But if Sunazara fled, he probably won’t be doing any more sniping today. Get Oyafune to stop her speech for now, get security to regroup, and get them out of there.”

  “I’ve got a message from Musujime,” said Accelerator on the other end. “She managed to read the chip on the fourth bill we couldn’t get anything from. Like we thought, it’s got the name of the guys who hired Chimitsu Sunazara on it.”

  “Who was it?” asked Tsuchimikado.

  Accelerator answered with an annoyed voice. “…School.”

  “What?”

  “Same as our ‘Group’…An organization hiding in the shadows of Academy City.”

  INTERLUDE ONE

  A man was standing around in an open-air café at lunchtime.

  Tables crammed with customers were covered with
all sorts of food, but his table alone stood empty. Only a big hodgepodge of printer paper was stacked there, not a single coffee mug in sight.

  The man was staring at the papers spread out on the table, his hands stuck in the pockets of his white coat. Printed on the dozens of sheets in this bundle was involuntary-diffusion field data on espers from the data banks.

  A girl in a red sailor-style school uniform, sitting across from the man’s seat, looked at him dubiously. “What do you think you’re going to find by looking at them?”

  “All sorts of things,” he answered without looking up. “You may not know this, given that you’re a sorcerer, but this has all kinds of information in it. It’s not just a weak power that vents from espers—it’s them unconsciously interfering with reality…By examining the infinite variety of types and strengths of powers, one can explore the minds of espers, too.”

  “Unconscious interference…?” repeated the girl, not understanding.

  “If we advance our understanding of involuntary diffusion fields, or IDFs, we can highlight the outline of espers’ personal realities and use them for data by investigating their personalities and behavioral patterns. Though, I think the resulting parameters would be much more utilitarian and easy to understand than psychological profiles.”

  A silvery beast was next to the chair the man sat in.

  It was a quadrupedal animal made of titanium alloy and synthetic resin. It had the basic form of a carnivore in the Felidae family, but its nose was unnaturally long, like an elephant’s. The metallic creature had a seeing-eye dog walking program installed, so it blended into human society with a surprising litheness.

  The beast opened its mouth. “Professor.” The voice didn’t sound synthesized—it was the voice of a young man with rich enunciation. “It appears there has been activity within Group and School.”

  The man called Professor looked over at the mechanical creature. Its speech functions weren’t produced with a robotic AI; someone in another place was simply speaking through it via a wireless network. One could think of it as a slightly more complicated telephone.