Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter2 (section)

===Part 4===

Kamijou followed Index’s lead and they found themselves in business district of District 7. However, this was not a line of giant buildings in which financial activities from around the world were collected. Instead, it was a fairly grimy looking place filled with small multi-tenant buildings.

“The Beehive, hm? It is the perfect place for a hideout.”

“?”

“Officially, this area is supposed to be rented out as business facilities, but the tenant review process is incredibly lax. Girls who have run away from home use these places as cheap apartments, people use them as cages for large and dangerous pets, people use them as workshops for creating eavesdropping devices and the like, and cults not recognized as proper religious organizations use them as their home base.”

People came and went from the place constantly, and a lease could be obtained just by visiting a website. Supposedly, the people running it often did not really know who was using the rooms or how.

Plus, people would also break into empty rooms to use them without a lease.

“So, Index, do you know more specifically where the center of Agni’s Festival Fire is?”

“Y-yes. It is in that yellow building over there.”

As soon as Index pointed at the building, orange flames burst from a window.

Kamijou was standing a good ways away, but he still felt an impact on his face like he had been slapped. The sound of breaking glass could be heard repeatedly from all around him.

He would have been in a much worse state had he been at the center of the blast, though.

But what exactly had happened?

“Flames…? Did Stiyl do this!?”

As soon as he said that, Kamijou recalled that Agni’s Festival Fire could produce effects similar to a microwave oven.

Which side had done this?

He could not be certain even of that.

“Not good. We need to hurry, Index!!”

“Y-yeah!!”

In the time it took Kamijou to run the several dozen meters to the building, several further explosions occurred within the same building. He was very nearly knocked to the ground, but he somehow managed to reach the base of the building.

The sound of someone running across metal could be heard from the emergency staircase.

Kamijou frantically looked in that direction, but whoever had been there was already gone.

But just for an instant, he had seen some long black cloth disappear around the corner.

(…Stiyl?)

It had looked like his outfit, but he could not be sure.

Kamijou turned his gaze away from the corner the figure had disappeared around and back towards the emergency staircase.

“He escaped from there?”

Who had it been? And where had the person gone?

Kamijou looked back towards the main road, but then he heard a creaking sound from overhead. He looked up and frantically leaped out of the way.

A sign wrapped in flames had fallen down.

With a heavy crash, sparks flew in every direction.

And then Kamijou started thinking once more.

Should he head towards the main road in pursuit and give up on finding any kind of hint here?

Or should he head into the building in search of a small hint that might not even be there?

(I have no idea if anyone is inside the building.)

At first glance, it appeared he had two options.

(But to look at it another way, that means there could still be someone in there!)

Kamijou made up his mind immediately.

He spoke to Index who had only just now caught up.

“I’m heading inside! I don’t know how far the flames have spread. You wait out here, Index!!”

“What are you saying!? You have no magical knowledge, so you would have no idea what is important if you went in on your own, Touma!!”

In the end, both of them charged into the building.

From outside, it had only looked like orange flames were coming from the windows. But inside, the scene completely changed. The air seemed to burn the skin like in a sauna and over half of their vision was covered by black smoke. The flames had eaten through the thin interior walls and ceiling, so the layout no longer matched the diagram on the wall.

“Cough, cough!!”

“Index! You need to head back!!”

“But it’s meaningless for you to go on your own!!”

“Then crouch down and cover your mouth with a handkerchief. Try to avoid getting caught in the smoke!!”

The two of them were supposedly inside a fairly small building, but their sense of direction and distance were thrown off so badly that it felt like they were walking through a pitch black forest. It soon became unclear if they were heading further inside or towards the exit.

The one piece of good luck was that it seemed no one had been left behind in the flames.

Had no one but the magic cabal been in the building from the beginning? Or had they or Stiyl used a people-clearing field?

“There’s a rune card,” said Index suddenly.

Something was melted to the wall where she pointed. The other side of the wall had become a sea of flames and the wall might have been as hot as a frying pan. While making sure not to touch it, Kamijou spoke what was on his mind.

“So does that mean it was Stiyl that did this?”

It appeared he had an answer, but that did not change the situation.

Kamijou and Index headed up the stairs.

Smoke travelled upwards, so the black smoke grew thicker and thicker as they approached their destination floor. The heat also seemed to increase. This was clearly not an environment in which humans could stay for long.

“Touma, it’s that room!!” shouted Index as she pointed at a half-opened door.

This would be where the explosion had occurred.

Kamijou kicked the door open while preparing himself for the sea of flames that awaited him on the other side, but he found something completely unexpected when he looked inside.

“The fire…hasn’t gotten here yet?”

The walls, floor, and ceiling of that room and that room alone were pristine. Not only was there no sign of the flames, no smoke could be seen either. Even things like plastic bags that would melt easily had maintained their original form.

(At least no one failed to escape and got caught in the flames. But what is this?)

Kamijou frowned and entered the room, but his right hand destroyed something as soon as he did.

A large amount of smoke suddenly entered the room.

“Wah!?”

“Touma, I think the explosion itself occurred in this room. But since Agni is the god of fire and lightning, they used those properties to send the flames away from the room! The flames were sent to the other rooms on the same floor and out the window!! They might have used some kind of curse evasion or something!!”

And he had destroyed that.

Which was why the flames and smoke were now entering.

“Dammit. This place isn’t going to last long.”

It did not seem anyone was hiding within the small room. 

The place did not even have the bare minimum of furniture. It had a table and a few folding chairs. And in one corner was a square safe about the size of a washing machine.

Instead of further furniture, the walls were absolutely covered with paper. Some were just small memos and some were the size of A2 posters. One was a map of Academy City with red dots all over it, one had some kind of string of numbers on it, and one was a picture of what looked like hieroglyphs with no sense of distance or three-dimensionality.

The memos were not written in kanji or the alphabet. Instead, they were scribbled out in some kind of limply curving script. Kamijou could not read it, but he assumed it was the kind of writing used in India.

He turned to Index for help.

“Is this map of Academy City related to the wind turbines?”

“Some of these are drawings of Hindu gods. But this is…”

Just as Index stretched her hand out toward a scrap of paper on the wall, it grew black.

No strange occult power had activated.

Heat had passed through from the other side of the wall and scorched the wallpaper and the scraps of paper attached to it.

Before Kamijou had time to think, the wall burst into flames.

“Not good! The flames are going to consume this room!!”

“Touma, what should we do? I can use my perfect memory to reproduce that scrap of paper later. If there is nothing else you want here, we should escape as soon as possible!!”

“Wait.” Kamijou thought for a moment. “This is the center of Agni’s Festival Fire, right? If we destroy it, the magic cabal won’t be able to activate the spell. I want to make sure I negate it! Can you tell what is likely the center!?”

“The other wall! There’s a small version of those ‘turbines’ there. It has the same symbol they have used for Agni’s Festival Fire!!”

“I see. The ventilation fan!”

The ventilation fan was barely functioning due to all the black smoke. Kamijou reached up and stuck his right hand inside.

He felt something break to pieces within.

“I destroyed it!”

“Touma, we need to get out of here!”

Kamijou began to head for the exit at Index’s insistence, but then he stopped.

“Touma!”

“Wait.”

Kamijou looked back through the room.

His gaze landed on the safe the size of a washing machine in the corner.

Since they could not look inside, they could not use Index’s perfect memory to “bring its contents out with them” in the form of a memory.

They would be left with no clue where the Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens had fled to.

Kamijou wanted any information they could get that might help them pursue the cabal.

“No, Touma! You can’t carry something that big with you! If you get greedy, you won’t be able to escape the flames and smoke!!”

“I just have to get it out without carrying it with me.”

Kamijou grabbed the edge of the safe with both hands and tried to push it.

It was incredibly heavy, but it was not held in place with any kind of earthquake-resistant latch. Ignoring the damage he did to the floor, Kamijou moved the safe bit by bit as if dragging it.

He was not moving it toward the door.

He was headed for the window.

“Good. No one’s down below.”

“Touma, what are you doing!?”

“Dropping it from the window, of course!!”

The distance from the floor to the windowsill was only about 70 cm, but that 70 cm seemed like hell. The safe was so heavy he thought his fingers would be ripped off. The bones of his waist and lower back felt like they were going to explode. And all the while, smoke was continuing to fill the room.

He somehow managed to get the safe up onto the windowsill and then pushed it off. Once it had escaped the bonds of its own weight, the safe fell straight down.

A tremendous sound of destruction rang out.

Kamijou and Index ran for the door.

“Let’s go, Index!”

They of course could not use the elevator. They headed down the stairwell that seemed to have become a giant smokestack. However, they could not move very quickly because they could not see very well. If they misstepped and sprained or broken an ankle, they would be unable to escape the flames.

It was a horrible time.

It could not have lasted even 10 minutes, but it felt like it had taken years off their lives.

But they had managed to escape alive.

The two practically fell out of the main entrance to the building.

It felt like ages since they had last breathed in a proper amount of oxygen.

“Cough, cough… Dammit. How much misfortune can I run across!?”

Finally, they started to hear the siren of a fire truck in the distance.

“Touma, what do we do now?”

“We check that safe.”

“Do you know the combination? Do I need to write down all of the strings of numbers I saw in that room?”

“No.”

Kamijou approached the spot where the safe had landed.

It was the old style of safe that had a dial and lever on the door. He tried to spin the dial and it spun easily. Too easily. It seemed the inner parts had broken.

“This thing is really tough, but not tough enough to withstand that impact.”

He pulled the lever.

The door easily opened.

“The contents are still inside, Touma!”

“The attack must have been too sudden for them to retrieve them.”

After grabbing the notebooks and documents inside, Kamijou and Index finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“If these specify another hideout or method of escape, we might be able to lie in wait for them.”

Even if Agni’s Festival Fire was no longer usable, dangerous magicians were still inside the city. They needed to deal with that problem even if it took some time.

But then Index said the last thing Kamijou wanted to hear.

“…Touma, look at that ‘wind turbine’.”

“What about it?”

“It’s moving based on a certain set of rules. Agni’s Festival Fire is still active!!”

“But I just destroyed the center in that ventilation fan, didn’t I!?”

“They may be able to switch to a backup center or they may have a spiritual item that rewrites a terminal as a new center. At any rate, destroying that was not enough to stop Agni’s Festival Fire!!”

“Not good…” muttered Kamijou. His voice soon rose to a shout. “Stiyl physically tracked down and cornered the magic cabal. And the enemy magicians most likely detected that I destroyed the center of Agni’s Festival Fire. They aren’t going to have any leeway left. They might decide to activate Agni’s Festival Fire even in its current incomplete state!!”

And even that incomplete state might be able to roast a district or two depending on how much progress they had made.

Kamijou and Index did not have time to slowly think things over.

In the time it took to explain the situation to the firefighters as witnesses of the fire, some district of the city could be annihilated.

“Let’s go, Index,” said Kamijou as he forcibly moved his weary body. “We don’t have time! If we don’t defeat the Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens here, the situation will pass the point of no return!!”

“Go where, Touma!?”

“Ugh.”

Kamijou spread the documents and notebooks he was holding across the road surface. They had come from that safe. They likely contained information related to the magic cabal, but they did not use kanji or the alphabet. Kamijou could find no clue how to decipher them.

“Index, can you tell what these say?”

“Instructions in case of emergency, choices for escape routes, and means of spotting pursuers… A few different symbols are given here. It seems they can casually draw them out while on the run to inform the others where to go if normal communications are unusable.”

“So if we follow those symbols, we’ll be led straight to the magicians!?”

“No, wait! There are also symbols to say whether something is a trap or not, so it is too dangerous to simply follow them!” Index quickly read through the writing in one of the notebooks. “They have three stages for losing any pursuers.  If a pursuer gets too close, they will charge into a crowd and cause a disturbance to send a wall of people in the direction they want.”

An explosive noise roared in the distance

Kamijou and Index exchanged a glance and began running towards it.