Prologue: On the Front Side of the Stage

There was a windowless building in Academy City.

There was no door, window, corridor or even a staircase, it didn't even function like a building. There was no way to get inside except to use a Level 4 'teleport' ability. There was a large glass cylinder in the middle of this sealed chamber.

The cylinder was 4m in diameter and 10m in length. It was made from strengthened glass, and there was red fluid inside it. There were mechanical installations all over the spacious room, as tens of thousands of cables and tubes were scattered all over the floor and attached to the cylinder in the centre.

As there were no windows, this room was always in darkness, but there were many signals and screens on the mechanical installations surrounding the cylinder, glowing like a cluster of stars in the night.

In this cylinder that was filled with red fluid, there was a person in a green surgical gown floating upside-down.

The General Director of Academy City, the 'human' Aleister Crowley.

This person looked like a man, yet also a woman; like an adult, yet also a child; like a saint, yet also a criminal. This 'human' let the machines handle all its life functions, and had lived an estimated 170 years. His entire body, including his own brain, was now in a hibernating state, most of its thinking process was assisted by the machines around it.

(...It's about time.)

The moment Aleister thought this, as if it were rehearsed, two human figures suddenly appeared in front of the cylinder. One was a petite esper with a teleport ability, and the other was a man who had been teleported in by the girl, and these two were holding hands.

The girl with the teleport ability didn't say anything. She just nodded her head and again vanished into thin air.

The tall guy was the only one left in the darkness.

This tall guy had messy blond hair, and was wearing blue sunglasses to block his eyes. He was wearing a flower shirt and shorts; his appearance didn't match the location.

Tsuchimikado Motoharu. The secret agent in charge of spying on the English Anglicans and Academy City.

"The security's too loose, what are you planning now?"

As a spy, Tsuchimikado said this to his employer Aleister in an impatient tone. Though Tsuchimikado was a spy, he was not Aleister's immediate subordinate.

Tsuchimikado's tone was extremely crude and violent, and anyone who knew his normal personality would be shocked and terrified by it. Facing this Tsuchimikado's who was not intending to hide the unhappiness in his heart, Aleister just said casually,

"No problems. I'm completely aware of the intruder's whereabouts. This is a perfect opportunity. Once I change the process slightly, I can do away with the plan's 2082 to 3277—"

"Let me remind you first."

Tsuchimikado interrupted Aleister. He slammed the report hard onto the glass cylinder. There was a photo attached to the report; it was a photo taken secretly, and the woman on it was the intruder.

She was over 25 years old, had blond hair and brown skin that was inherited from foreign blood, her hair was all messy, maybe due to the way it was maintained; it looked like a cheap wig for a play. If it was seen from the back, it would look like a full lion's mane. The pitch black clothing had frills all over the edges; it was completely of a gothic style. However, the fabric of the dress was tattered all over the place, and the lace was slightly yellowish. It seemed like the clothing wasn't deliberately worn for the occasion, but was worn as a usual wear.

"Sherry Cromwell. This person isn't some roaming magician, but one of the English Anglicans' 'Neccessarius'. She's not going to be easy to handle like Aureolus."

Tsuchimikado seemed to be as impatient as an old smoker who was forced to quit smoking as he said,

"The English Anglicans are also an organisation that was set up by humans, so they naturally have all sorts of people down there. No, in terms of the structure, among all of Christianity, there's unlikely to be any national religion with a large divide that's as complicated as the English Anglicans. I believe you should be aware of this."

"People with similar beliefs fighting with each other, now that's a great workplace."

"Yeah."

Tsuchimikado sighed, and said,

"However, because of that, there're all sorts of sects and beliefs within the English Anglicans, and not all of them have a positive view on Academy City. Some of them even intend to make the entire world as England's colony and set every flag in the world as England's. I can't tell how effective that 'deal' you signed with our princess is."

There were still people who disagreed with the 'deal' such as the highest authorities of the English Anglicans and Academy City. They felt that it was extremely risky for the treasure trove of knowledge—Index to be in Academy City, since information could be divulged. However, besides 'Necessarius', the 'Knights of England' shouldn't have noticed that the safety seal on Index had been removed.

Even so, there were several amongst the 'Knights of England' who had inherited the invasive spirit of the crusaders and viewed Academy City as an eyesore. If it wasn't for Tsuchimikado manipulating the information from behind the scenes, these people would have already attacked Academy City.

"Hidden inside the Church, I can definitely manipulate their thoughts to a certain extent, but the effect's limited. I can't do anything about the different sects, and even if I'm to try and affect them, the thoughts and information that I manipulate will end up being distorted somewhere."

Tsuchimikado paused, and then continued,

"I was already extremely busy over what happened to Aureolus. A magician has to be judged by another magician, you know this rule better than I do. Academy City has 'science', and the Church has the 'occult'; as both sides deal with their own specialities, a balance could be achieved. If a magician got defeated by someone from Academy City, the occult skills that they so worried about defending for a long time will be stolen, and a huge crack will appear between both sides."

Kamijou Touma, this boy had fought against several magicians during the past month, but among them, they had a deal regarding Stiyl and Kanzaki, and magicians like Aureolus weren't affiliated to the Church, so there isn't too much commotion.

However, this time, the seriousness was completely different in terms of definition. The one who had invaded Academy City was a magician who had 'spells unique only to the English Anglicans', and she hadn't done it with an agreement. Though it was tough to tell whether this was of a sect's will or a person's own actions, they couldn't just beat her even if she was acting on her own.

Sherry Cromwell had attained the highest honour of emblems restoration and interpretation at the Royal Arts Academy.

The so-called emblems referred to the patterns of grimoire codes hidden inside the paintings. For example, there was a painting of a boat on a sea looking outwards, and the sun's gradually setting. To an ordinary viewer, this was just an ordinary view of the sea. But if one converted the seawater in the picture to 'salt', turned the sun to 'gold' and mixed and matched it up, the message 'this picture's aim was to detail the magic of using gold and salt to allow humans to swim in the sea like fish'.

Things like pigments, thickness, sunset times and location of the boat...any specific details could be converted into something that had a certain meaning to it. Thus, many times, the interpretations of the emblems were discovered to be wrong hundreds of years later. Thus, it could be seen that it was really hard to be a real emblem expert.

If Index was the keeper of knowledge, then Sherry's expertise was in decoding skills, to seal or interpret them. If she landed into other powers' hands, the other party would understand the complicated ways of decoding that the English Anglicans had protected for so long.

If they were to beat Sherry down carelessly, it would create a crack in the relations between the English Anglicans and Academy City. If they sent Sherry for this purpose, they would definitely use this chance to widen the divide.

However, Tsuchimikado did not say what the outcome would be.

Or more likely, he couldn't say. Those words continued to rage inside Tsuchimikado even though he couldn't say it.

—The worst case scenario was that there would be a large scale war between the science side and the magic side.

Tsuchimikado glared at Aleister.

"It's true that the flame won't spread if we don't do anything stupid this time, but some people underneath the water may have to die in order to extinguish this flame. What is your mind thinking? If you exerted full power on security, it's way easy to prevent her from entering."

Tsuchimikado clicked his tongue and continued,

"Anyway, I decided to take down Sherry. At least there'll be less commotion when a magician takes down another magician. However, I won't be able to continue as a spy anymore. I'll definitely attract loads of attention when I do such things. Really, a spy should hide in the blind spots of others. How can I go on being spied on everyday..."

"You don't have to."

Aleister interrupted Tsuchimikado, rendering Tsuchimikado speechless.

Tsuchimikado couldn't even understand what Aleister had meant.

"I'll say this again. You don't have to take action."

"...Are you serious?"

Tsuchimikado was suspecting whether the person in front of him was crazy.

"There's a low possibility, but it's not completely zero. Moving about under the surface like this is like walking on tightropes! If we're not careful, we may end up starting a war!"

If the blueprints of a large number of destructive weapons were to land into other countries hands, that alone would be enough to warrant excuse for a war. If the magicians of the Church were to be imprisoned within Academy City, it would have the same meaning as well.

Truly, unless they did a really stupid thing, this shouldn't be enough to start a war. But on the other hand, if they did something too stupid, it would start a war. This wouldn't just be a war between countries, but rather, a war between two worlds, 'science' and 'magic' that exceeded even countries.

The representative of 'science', Academy City and the representative of 'magic', the Church had nothing to overwhelm each other. In other words, once a war started, it would become a quagmire.

"What are you really planning, Aleister? Do you really like to let Kamijou Touma fight against magicians? That right hand's definitely a fatal ace against magic, but you aren't stupid enough to think that that right hand is enough to destroy the entire Church, right?"

"It'll shorten plans 2082 to 3277, that's all."

On hearing this, Tsuchimikado even forgot to breathe.

The so-called plan, or 'process'. When Aleister mentioned this, there could be only one meaning.

"The way to control the Imaginary Number District - Five Elements Institution?"

Tsuchimikado said viciously. Imaginary Number District - Five Elements Institution. When Academy City was first built, it had been called the 'first research organisation'. However, nobody knew where it was or can even dared to confirm whether it existed, as if it was the city of shimmers. It was said that the organisation had the 'fictional technology' that today's engineering was unable to match, and continued to control all power in Academy City from behind the scenes.

The 'outside' Church and magicians all thought that the Five Element Institution referred to a building, but that wasn't true. Of course, they couldn't reveal the truth.

No matter what, they could never let the outside world know that 'the thing', which had a strong influence on Academy City, was still hidden. Nobody could control it, and nobody even knew the reason why it existed.

As the ruler of Academy City, even if Aleister had to use all sorts of means, he had to find a way to control the Five Elements Institution. No, maybe Aleister knew of the way, but he lacked materials, most importantly, the key for it to work.

Maybe one way of describing the 'process' was Accelerator and the Level 6 Shift. Like that experiment, once they triggered certain events or problems in a particular manner, a 'key' would be created.

And a certain boy was right at the centre of this 'process'

Kamijou Touma.

Tsuchimikado hypothesised that Aleister had intended to implement Kamijou Touma into his 'process' right from the start, and that the Index and the magic battle against the alchemist were just unexpected blips. However, every time an accident occurred, Aleister would again revise his 'plan' and fix the error, using that to shorten that already large 'process'.

This time, it may be the same for Sherry Cromwell.

Actually, even if he didn't intervene, the 'process' would be completed one day.

"It's all for such a trivial thing?"

"Looking at the armed forces and influence, it can't be seen as trivial. Like a wild horse that can rip through the entire world, isn't it better to leash it for safety concerns?"

Aleister chuckled. No feelings could be detected in his smile. He looked like he was happy, and yet mocking, depressed, yet delighted. All sorts of emotions were mixed together.

How could there be such a ridiculous thing? Tsuchimikado clicked his tongue and pondered. If possible, Tsuchimikado wanted to ignore Aleister's orders and beat Sherry himself, but he just couldn't do it.

In fact, Tsuchimikado couldn't leave this building with just his own ability, because there weren't any exits, doors, windows, corridors or stairs. All the air required for living could be produced inside the building, so there was no need for air vents. And even if anyone was to forcefully attack, the building could remain unscathed even from a nuclear strike.

For a comparison, the situation could be said to be worse than being locked in a gold vault or inside a nuclear bomb shelter. In terms of bleakness, it was like a person being trapped in a spaceship outside the atmosphere without a single spacesuit.

"There's no way to contact the outside...oi, Aleister! Use your cable communicator to call that teleporter esper back in, or else I'll pluck out all the cables here!"

"As you wish, if you think that'll de-stress you."

Tsuchimikado let out a bitter look. Truthfully, he had already somewhat guessed that all the pipes, cables and machines were just a feint. If just these machines alone were enough to keep Aleister living, there wouldn't have been a need to build such a large building. It was likely that the huge cylinder was just a bluff as well, the figure inside may just have been a hologram.

Tsuchimikado leaned his back on the wall of the cylinder Aleister was floating in and inadvertently asked,

"Do you really believe that you can avoid a war?"

"The one who should have belief is you. You're the one in charge of the work behind the scenes. Don't worry too much, if you work hard enough, we'll end this underground conflict without anyone losing their lives."

"Damn it."

Tsuchimikado cursed.

In the end, he ended up with the oddjob.