Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item7 Afterword (section)

==Afterword==

If you picked them up one at a time, welcome back. If you bought them all at once, welcome.

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

This time the book was largely split into two halves. I wanted to use the Academy City Bomber duel as a way of drawing out Frenda Seivelun’s skill to the very limit. And I also used that first half to introduce a few things about the Mugino Family I didn’t get to put in Volume 4.

I gave that girl a guest appearance with a connection to Frenda. This was Rakko-chan’s first time in the novels, so I was kind of nervous! I couldn’t have her actually meet Frenda at this point, but I gave that its own significance.

When you saw the first half’s enemy boss was a naked girl in a raincoat, I expect some of you had an “oh?” reaction. She shouldn’t have any connection to Academy City at this point, but perhaps there is some link to Salome. I hope it got you thinking anyway.

In a previous afterword I asked which member of Item you feared the most and if your ranking had changed, but I wonder how many people chose that fifth member.



For the second half, the person who has been saying and doing some ominous things in the past volumes is finally back on center stage. It’s been a long time since the end of Volume 1!! Using a disguise specialist in a prequel seems like cheating because, when you really think about it, there is a chance they could have taken the place of any of the characters in the present, but did any of you predict all of this? I think it was her ability to fool all of Item in the first volume that makes the strategy feel so plausible.

Thinking about who is a “confirmed survivor” in a prequel is a double-edged sword that can act as a weapon and a weakness, but I wrote this manuscript while working hard to go on the attack with it! I hope that creates a sense of tension not usually seen in prequels, but that is for all of you to judge.



I give my thanks to my illustrator Nilitsu-san and to my editors Miki-san, Nakajima-san, and Hamamura-san. With the social media deception and the timeline collapse, there must have been aspects that were difficult to illustrate. Thank you again.

And I give my thanks to the readers. I did a Shokuhou prequel in NT11, so maybe you were ready for it back when this series began. …Ready for this to be more than just a prequel. And so now the person who appeared all the way back in the first volume is ready to gather up all the foreshadowing and tear everything down. Time to hijack the past!! Thank you so much for reading this far!



And I will end this here.



My heart is just drawn to cargo containers for some reason. Why?

-Kamachi Kazuma

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