Chapter 2: The Illusionist Bestows Demise. Part 2

After dawn came, her symptoms were like those of a cold.

Index was bedridden with a high fever and a headache, though, she lacked a runny nose or a sore throat because it was not a genuine virus. It was simply a matter of regaining her missing stamina, so no matter how many immunity-strengthening cold medicines she took, the efforts would be futile.

"…So why are you wearing only panties down below?"

Index, lying down, had a wet towel on her forehead; she apparently was unable to stand the hot dampness inside the futon and had one leg sticking out in Kamijou's direction. She wore a pale green pajama top but her bright skin-colored thigh was sticking out up to its base. Due to her fever, the skin was a bit pink.

The towel had grown lukewarm so Komoe-sensei stuck it into a basin of water and splashed it around while she glared at Kamijou.

"…Kamijou-chan. I think those clothes were a bit too much."

"Those clothes" likely referred to the safety-pin-covered white nun's habit.

Kamijou agreed with her completely about it but Index looked like a displeased cat over having her familiar habit taken from her.

"The real question is how the pajamas of a beer-loving, heavy-smoking adult like you fit Index so perfectly. Just what is the age difference between you two anyway?"

"Wha-?"

Komoe-sensei (age unknown) was at a loss for words, but Index went in to kick her while she was down.

"Please don't look down on me like that. These pajamas are actually a bit tight around the chest."

"What… impossible! That can't be right. Now you're just making fun of me!" protested Komoe-sensei.

"Actually, do you even have anything in the chest area for it to be tight around!?" asked Kamijou.

"…"

"…"

As the two ladies glared at him and Kamijou's soul reflexively entered prostration mode.

"Right, right. By the way, Kamijou-chan, who exactly is this girl?"

"My little sister."

"That is a blatant lie. With that silver hair and those green eyes, she is clearly a foreigner!"

"She's my stepsister."

"…And you're a pervert?"

"I'm just kidding! I'm well aware that a stepsister is bad manners but a real sister is against the rules!"

"Kamijou-chan," she said, suddenly switching over to her instructor voice.

Kamijou fell silent. It was not at all surprising that Komoe-sensei wanted to know what was going on. Not only had he brought a strange foreigner to her, but the girl had had a blade wound on her back that clearly smelled of bad news. Komoe-sensei was even forced to take part in some strange bit of magic.

It would have been difficult to ask her to turn a blind eye.

"Sensei, can I ask one thing?"

"What?"

"Are you asking so you can tell the police or Academy City's board of directors?"

"Yes," Komoe-sensei immediately said with a nod. With no hesitation, she had told her student that she would sell them out. "I do not know what kind of situation you two are in." Komoe-sensei smiled. "But if it happened here in Academy City, it is our duty as teachers to resolve it. Taking responsibility for the children is the duty of the adults. Now that I know you are in some kind of trouble, I cannot sit idly by."

That was what Tsukuyomi Komoe said, yet she had no power, no strength, and no duty to do so.

She merely said it with the straightforwardness of a famous katana slicing straight through the proper place at the proper time.

"I just…" Kamijou said before he finished under his breath. …Can't stand up to her.

Kamijou had lived a long 15 or so years and yet had never seen someone else like that teacher: the type seen in dramas, not even seen in movies anymore.

And so…

"If you were a complete stranger, I wouldn't have hesitated to get you involved, but I owe you for that magic, so I can't let you get involved."

Kamijou's response was just as straightforward.

He had already had enough of seeing people who were willing to protect others for nothing in return be hurt before his eyes.

Komoe-sensei fell silent for a moment.

"Mhh. I am not going to let you get away with trying to trick me with some cool line."

"…? Sensei, why'd you get up and head for the door?"

"I am giving this a stay of execution. I need to go to the supermarket for groceries. Kamijou-chan, you figure out exactly what it is you need to tell me in the mean time. And…"

"And?"

"I might get so caught up in shopping that I forget. No cheating when I get back. Make sure you tell me, okay?"

Kamijou thought Komoe-sensei smiled as she spoke.

With the sound of the apartment door opening and then closing, Kamijou and Index were left alone in the room.

She's trying to be kind, he realized.

From the smile of a child plotting something on her face, Kamijou had a feeling Komoe-sensei would "forgot" everything once she returned from the supermarket.

If he later decided to consult her about it, she would surely act furious and say "Why didn't you tell me sooner!? I completely forgot!" and happily agree to help.

With a sigh, Kamijou turned toward Index who lay in the futon.

"…Sorry. I know this is no time to be worried about appearances."

"Don't worry about it. This is for the best." Index shook her head. "It would be wrong to get her any more involved. …And she can't use any more magic."

"?" Kamijou frowned.

"Grimoires are dangerous. Written in them are aberrant and uncommon knowledge as well as twisted laws that break the common laws of this world. Whether they're for good or evil, those things are toxic in this world. Merely learning the knowledge of a 'different world' will destroy the brain of the one who learns it," explained Index.

Kamijou tried to translate that in a way he understood. So is it like forcefully running a program that isn't compatible with a computer's OS?

"My brain and spirit are protected by religious barriers and magicians who attempt to exceed being human must exceed the boundaries of their own common knowledge to arrive at the desired state of mind that can almost be likened to a type of insanity. However, for a normal person from a barely religious country like Japan, it could all be over after just casting one more spell."

"I-I see…" Kamijou somehow managed to stop the shock he had received from showing. "Well, that's a shame. I was hoping she would be able to perform alchemy for me. You know alchemy, right? It can turn lead into gold."

He of course omitted the fact that he knew this from an item mixing RPG with a young female alchemist as its protagonist.

"Well, there is a technique for that called Ars Magna, but preparing the tools with modern materials would cost… um… 7 trillion yen in this country's currency."

"… … … …Well, that definitely isn't worth it," muttered Kamijou soullessly.

Index smiled weakly and said, "…Yeah. Turning lead into gold accomplishes nothing more than make nobles happy."

"But… wait. Now that I think about it, what does that do? How does it work? If you're turning lead into gold, are you rearranging the Pb atoms into Au?"

"I don't really know, but it's only a 14th century technique."

"Wait, do you mean what I think you mean? It might actually be changing the atomic arrangement!? You mean you could cause proton decay without a particle accelerator and nuclear fusion without a nuclear reactor!? Wait just a second. I'm not even sure the seven Level 5s of Academy City could do that!"

"???"

"Wait, don't look so confused! Um… um… Ah. If you're wondering just how amazing that would be, that kind of thing would let us easily create atomic robots or mobile suits!"

"What are those?"

With those three words she cast aside all of the dreams of men.

As Kamijou's head hung down limply, Index seemed to feel she had done something wrong.

"A-Anyway, the holy swords and magic wands used in ceremonies can be made with modern materials as substitutes, but there is a limit. …This especially goes for sacred items related to God such as the Lance of Longinus, Joseph's Holy Grail, or The_ROOD. Even after 1000 years, it seems no substitutes can be made… ow…" As she talked on and on excitedly, she began to hold her temple like she had a hangover.

Kamijou Touma looked at Index's face as she lay in the futon.

She had 103,000 grimoires in her head. Just reading one of them could drive you insane and yet she had put each and every letter of all those books in her head. How much pain had that process caused her?

Yet she never once complained about her pain.

"Do you want to know?" she asked while ignoring her own pain as if apologizing to Kamijou.

Index's usual cheerful tone had set a context that made that quiet voice stand out and seem to hold even more determination.

Sensei, you idiot. He reprimanded her.

Index's situation was irrelevant to Kamijou. Whatever situation she had possibly been in, there was no way he could abandon her. As long as he could defeat her enemies and keep her safe, he saw no reason to dig into her old wounds.

"Do you want to know what my circumstances are?" repeated the girl naming herself Index.

Kamijou made up his mind and replied, "That kinda makes me feel like a priest, y'know?"

In a way, it really did. He felt like a priest listening to the confessions of a sinner.

"Do you know why?" Index asked. "The Christian church was originally a single organization, but now there are the Catholics, the Protestants, the Roman Catholics, the Russian Orthodox, the Anglicans, the Nestorians, the Athanasians, the Gnostics, and more. Do you know why these splits occurred?"

"Well…"

Kamijou had at least skimmed through his history textbook, so he had an idea what the answer was. However, he hesitated to mention it in front of the "genuine" Index.

"That's good enough." Index actually smiled. "It was because politics were mixed in with the church. Sects split, opposed each other, and fought. In the end, even people who believed in the same God were each other's enemies. Even as we believe in the same God, we each walk a different road of many scattered paths."

Of course, people's ideas on things naturally differed. Some wanted to make money with the word of God while others refused to allow that. Some felt they were loved by God more than anyone else in the world while others refused to accept that.

"After the sects stopped interacting with each other, we each underwent our own isolated development which gave us our individual characteristics. We changed in accordance to the situations or cultures of our countries." Index let out a small breath. "The Roman Catholic Church manages and controls the world, the Russian Orthodox Church searches out and eliminates the occult and the Anglican Church I belong to…"

Index's words caught in her throat for a second.

"England is a country of magic," she said as if that was a bitter memory. "So the Anglican Church is especially advanced in anti-magician culture and techniques as seen by witch hunts and the inquisition."

In London alone were a number of public companies calling themselves magic cabals and there were 10 times that many shell corporations that really only existed on paper. Their trials and errors that had begun as a means of protecting the citizens from the "evil magicians lurking in the city" had developed too far in one direction and at some point became a culture of slaughter and execution.

"The Anglican Church has a special division," said Index as if she were confessing her own sins. "It investigates magic and develops countermeasures with which to defeat magicians. It is known as Necessarius." She sounded exactly like a nun.

"If you do not know your enemy, you cannot defend against their attacks. However, understanding an impure enemy will make your own heart impure and touching an impure enemy will make your body impure. That is why Necessarius, the church of necessary evils, was created to draw all of those impurities into one place. And the most extreme case of this is…"

"The 103,000 grimoires."

"Yes." Index gave a small nod. "Magic is something like an equation. If you skillfully reverse the calculations, you can counteract your opponent's attack. That is why I had these 103,000 grimoires put into me. …If you know magic from all around the world, you can neutralize magic from all around the world."

Kamijou looked down at his right hand.

He had thought his right hand was of no use. The power of his right hand would not let him defeat even a single delinquent, would not raise his scores on tests, and would not make him popular with girls, and so he had mainly just ignored it.

But, this girl had gone through hell to achieve the same thing.

"But if these grimoires are so dangerous and you know where they are, why don't you just burn them without reading them? As long as there are people to read and learn from these grimoires, magicians will continue to appear without end, right?"

"The actual books are less important than the contents. Even if you got rid of an Original, the magicians who knew the contents would pass that on to their followers, so it would be pointless. Although someone who does that is known as a sorcerer rather than a magician," explained Index.

Is it something like data posted on the internet? Even if you delete the original data, copy after copy of the data will continue to exist. Kamijou analogized.

"Also, a grimoire is nothing more than a textbook." Index sounded as if she were in pain. "Just reading one does not make you a magician. Magicians change it up to suit themselves and create a new type of magic."

It was less like data and more like a constantly changing computer virus. To completely eliminate the virus, you had to be constantly analyzing the virus and creating new antivirus software.

"As I said before, grimoires are dangerous." Index narrowed her eyes. "When disposing just a copy, an expert Inquisitioner must sew his eyes shut to prevent pollution of his brain, and even then it takes 5 years of baptisms to fully rid him of the poison. The human mind cannot handle an Original. The only option for the 103,000 Originals scattered about the world is to seal them."

It was as if she were discussing what to do with a vast collection of leftover nuclear weapons.

Actually, that was more or less what it was. Most likely, the very people who had written them had not expected this.

"Tch. But can't magic be used by any normal person excluding us espers? Then wouldn't this spread throughout the world in no time at all?"

Kamijou recalled Stiyl's flames. What if everyone in the world could use that kind of power? The common knowledge of the world that built its foundation on science would crumble.

"You… don't have to worry about that. The magic cabals do not recklessly let the grimoires get out to the general public."

"? Why not? Wouldn't it be better for them to have more comrades to fight for them?"

"That is exactly why. If every single person who had a gun were friends, there would be no war."

"…"

Just because two people knew magic did not mean they were on the same side. It was because they knew the power of their trump cards that they did not want to recklessly create enemy magicians.

The grimoires were treated like the plans of a new weapon.

"Hmm. I think I get it." Kamijou seemed deep in thought. "So basically, they want to get their hands on the bomb in your head."

She was a library with perfect copies of the world's 103,000 Original grimoires in her head. To obtain her was to obtain all the magic in the world.

"…Right." From her voice, it sounded like she was about to die. "With the 103,000 grimoires, you would be able to twist everything in the world to your will without exception. That is what we call a Magic God."

Not the god of the demon world, but someone who had thoroughly mastered magic to the point of entering the domain of god.

A Magic God.

…Fuck that, Kamijou thought angrily.

Without realizing, Kamijou had begun to grit his back teeth. He could tell from how Index acted that she did not choose to have those 103,000 grimoires put into her head. Kamijou recalled Stiyl's flames. She lived like that for no reason other than to prevent as many victims as she could.

Kamijou could not stand how the magicians were using those feelings to their advantage and could not stand how the church referred to her as "impure". All of them were treating a human being like a thing and Index must have seen nothing but people who did that. The fact that she still put everyone above herself despite that was what Kamijou could stand the least.

"…Sorry."

Kamijou had no clue what it was that made him so angry. But, that one word made him truly snap.

He lightly tapped Index on the forehead.

"…Oh, come on. Why didn't you tell me about something this important?"

Index froze in place as Kamijou stared at that bedridden girl with his canines bared. Her eyes opened wide like she had done something horribly wrong and her lips frantically moved like she was trying to say something.

"But, I didn't think you would believe me and I didn't want to scare you. And… um…"

Index seemed about to burst into tears and her voice grew quieter and quieter as she spoke. Kamijou could barely hear her toward the end.

Still, Kamijou heard her say "I didn't want you to hate me."

"No, fuck that!!" He literally heard a snapping noise. "Don't look down on people and come up with your own estimation of them! Church secrets? 103,000 grimoires? Yeah, that stuff is amazing and incredible. And yes, it all seems so absurd that I still don't really believe it. But…" Kamijou paused for a beat. "Is that it?" Index's eyes opened wide. Her small lips frantically moved as if to say something, but no words came out.

"Don't look down on me like that. Did you really think I would call you creepy or disgusting or something just because you memorized 103,000 grimoires!? Did you think I would abandon you and run off the instant magicians showed up? Fuck that. If that were all I was capable of, I wouldn't have taken you in the first place!"

As Kamijou spoke, he finally realized what it was he was so upset about.

Kamijou had simply wanted to be of some help to Index. He did not want to see Index get hurt anymore. That was it. And yet, she refused to let Kamijou protect her while she put herself in harm's way to protect him. Kamijou had wanted to hear her ask for help just once.

It was frustrating for him. So very, very frustrating.

"…Just trust me a little. Don't come up with your own estimations of people."

That was all there was to it. Even if he did not have his right hand and were a normal person, it would have been no reason for Kamijou to back down.

No such reason could exist.

Index merely stared at Kamijou's face in astonishment for a time. But then, tears welled up in her eyes.

It was as if her eyes were made of ice and had begun to melt.

Index clenched and sealed her lips to choke down the sobs, but her lips trembled as if she could no longer stand it. She drew the futon up to her mouth and bit onto it. If not for the blanket, the enlarged and growing tears in her eyes would have made her seem like she had bawled like a kindergartener.

In all likelihood, the tears were not merely in response to the words Kamijou had spoken.

Kamijou lacked enough conceit to think it was. He doubted his words had made that much of an impression on her. Most likely, something that had been building up within her had come flowing out with his words as the trigger.

Just as he felt his heart break at the thought of no one ever having said those words to her before, Kamijou also felt that he had finally seen Index's "weakness" which made him a bit happy.

However, Kamijou was not the kind of pervert who enjoyed watching girls cry. In fact, it was incredibly awkward.

If Komoe-sensei unknowingly entered at that moment, he was sure she would unhesitatingly tell him to die.

"U-Um… Y'see. I have my right hand, so no magician is any match for me!"

"…But… sob… you said you have supplementary lessons during summer break."

"…Did I say that?"

"You definitely did."

Apparently, the girl who had perfectly memorized 103,000 books had an excellent memory.

"Don't feel bad about throwing someone's everyday life into disorder with something like this. My supplementary lessons aren't that big a deal. School doesn't want to hold me back if they can help it, so if I ditch the supplementary lessons, I can just go to supplementary lessons for the supplementary lessons. I can put them off as long as I need to."

If Komoe-sensei had heard that, that room would likely have turned into a battlefield, but he paid that no heed.

"…"

With tears still in her eyes, Index looked up at Kamijou.

"…Then why were you in such a rush to get to your supplementary lessons?"

"… … … …Oh."

Kamijou thought back. Sure enough, after he had stripped her nude by destroying her Walking Church with Imagine Breaker and that closed elevator-like silence had taken over, he had…

"Because you had plans and because you had a normal life to live, I felt it was wrong to disturb all that…"

"O-Oh. Yeah…"

"I was in the way there."

"…"

"I was in the way…"

Once she repeated herself with tears in her eyes, it was downright impossible to try to get out of it.

"I'm fwowwy!" Kamijou Touma apologized as he quickly entered prostration mode.

Index slowly sat up in the futon like a sick person, grabbed Kamijou's ears, and bit down on the top of his head like it was a giant onigiri.

About 600 meters away on top of a multi-tenant building, Stiyl took his binoculars away from his eyes.

"The boy Index is with… I've looked into him. …How is she?"

Without turning around, Stiyl replied to the girl who had spoken to him.

"She's alive. But that must mean they have a magic user."

The girl gave no response, but it seemed she was more relieved that no one had died than worried about a new enemy.

The girl was 18, but she was about a head shorter than Stiyl who was only 14.

But then, Stiyl was over 2 meters tall, so the girl was still tall when compared to the average Japanese height.

Her waist-long black hair was tied in a ponytail and at her waist was a sheathed Japanese sword over two meters long. It was a type known as a "command sword" that was used in Shinto rain calling ceremonies.

However, it was difficult to call her a Japanese beauty.

She wore used jeans and a white shirt. For someone reason, the left leg of her jeans were completely cut off up to the base of her thigh, the extra cloth at the bottom of her T-shirt was tied off so her midriff was visible, she wore knee high boots, and her Japanese sword was hanging down in a leather holster like a pistol.

She looked something like a sheriff from a Western who had traded their pistol for a Japanese sword.

Just like Stiyl, the perfume-smelling priest, her outfit was hardly normal.

"So who exactly is this guy, Kanzaki?"

"Thing about that… I was unable to get much information on the boy. At the very least, it seems he's not a magician or supernaturally powered in some other way."

"What, are you trying to say he's just a normal high school student?" Stiyl lit the cigarette he pulled out by staring at the tip. "Just stop. I may not look it, but I'm a magician that has fully analyzed the existing 24 runes and developed 6 new and powerful runes. This world isn't kind enough to let a powerless amateur drive back Innocentius's flames of judgment."

With Index's assistance, he had put together a plan using that help almost immediately. Plus there was that strange right hand of his. If he were a normal person in Japan, than it truly was a country of mysteries.

"True." Kanzaki Kaori narrowed her eyes. "The real issue is that someone with that much battle ability is categorized as nothing more than a hopeless student who is prone to getting into fights."

Academy City had a hidden side where it was an institution that mass produced espers.

Even if the organization under which Stiyl and Kanzaki operated was hiding Index's presence, Stiyl and Kanzaki had contacted the organization known as the Five Elements Institution beforehand to get permission to enter the city. Even the magic group that was known as the greatest in the world could not remain hidden within the enemy's field.

"Perhaps the information is being intentionally blocked. Also, Index's wounds were magically healed. Kanzaki, do any other magical organizations exist in the Far East?"

They had decided that the boy must have had an organization other than the Five Elements Institution on his side. They mistakenly believed that this other organization was thoroughly eliminating all information on Kamijou.

"If they're doing something in this city, the Five Elements Institution's informants must have picked up on them." Kanzaki closed her eyes. "We have an unknown number of enemies and no chance of backup. This is a difficult development."

It was all a misunderstanding. Kamijou's Imagine Breaker had zero effect unless it was being used on supernatural powers. In other words, Academy City's System Scan was unable to measure his power because it used machines to measure it. And so, Kamijou had the misfortune to be treated like a Level 0 despite possessing a top class right hand.

"In the worst case scenario, this could develop into a magical battle against an organization. Stiyl, I heard your runes have a fatal flaw when it comes to waterproofing."

"I've already compensated for that. I laminated the runes. The same trick won't work on me again." Like a stage magician, he pulled out the runes that now looked almost like trading cards. "This time, I will place the barrier 2 kilometers around the area rather than just on the building. It will take 164,000 cards and the preparations will take 60 hours to complete."

Unlike in video games, real magic took a bit more than just the chanting of a spell.

It may seem like it was all it took at first glance, on the contrary, quite a bit of preparation was necessary behind the scenes. Stiyl's flames were the type of thing that had instructions along the lines of "Take a silver wolf's fang that has soaked up 10 years of moonlight and…" For this reason, Stiyl's speed was actually that of an expert.

In short, magical battles were a matter of reading what was to come. When the battle started, you were essentially caught in the trap that was the enemy's barrier. When defending, you had to determine what the enemy's spell was, and find a way to turn it back at the enemy. When attacking, you had to predict what kinds of counterattacks would come and rearrange your spell accordingly. Unlike simple martial arts, you had to think 100-200 steps ahead amidst constantly changing surroundings. While savage terms like "fighting" were used, it was actually more of an intellectual battle.

For that reason, an enemy force of unknown numbers put a magician at a serious disadvantage.

"…She looks so happy," the rune magician suddenly said as he stared 600 meters ahead without using his binoculars. "She looks so very, very happy. She always lives such a happy life." He sounded like he was spitting out some kind of thick liquid. "How long do we have to keep ripping that to pieces?"

Kanzaki stared 600 meters ahead from behind Stiyl.

Even without using binoculars or magic, she could see clearly with her 8.0 vision. Through the window, she could see the girl angrily biting down on the boy's head while he flailed his arms around and struggled.

"It must be a complicated feeling," said Kanzaki like a machine. "…For someone like you who was once in that same position."

"…I'm used to it," replied the flame magician.

He truly had experienced that feeling many times before.