Difference between revisions of "Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Chapter3"
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That 2-3m metal orb that could produce the world’s oldest whatever was enough of a threat, but Mikoto and Shokuhou had been attacked in another way afterwards. They had not given any thought to what that light had been. And in a clash between supernatural powers, leaving any gaps in your understanding was tantamount to suicide. |
That 2-3m metal orb that could produce the world’s oldest whatever was enough of a threat, but Mikoto and Shokuhou had been attacked in another way afterwards. They had not given any thought to what that light had been. And in a clash between supernatural powers, leaving any gaps in your understanding was tantamount to suicide. |
||
| − | They were not given enough time to analyze what had happened. Just like the audience drawn in by the stage magician’s act, they could not make out the truth of what |
+ | They were not given enough time to analyze what had happened. Just like the audience drawn in by the stage magician’s act, they could not make out the truth of what they were seeing despite seeing it directly. |
Even seeing clearly grew difficult. |
Even seeing clearly grew difficult. |
||
Revision as of 06:28, 14 July 2020
Status: Incomplete
5/10 parts completed
Chapter 3: In the Void of Zero — Contact_6.
Part 1
“Emergency arrival at Entrance 3!!”
“Another one? Our treatment rooms are full!”
The emergency entrance primarily used by ambulances was so tense it was easy to forget today was Christmas. These were not operating rooms. They were treatment rooms used for simple tests and first aid.
Everyone there had to wonder if the rusty stench was escaping the rooms.
They knew everyone who moved in and out of the room and the hallway were disinfected in a variety of ways, but the scent still seemed to linger in their minds. That was how bad the situation was.
An (intentionally) anxiety-inducing siren could be heard approaching. EMTs and doctors rushed this way and that. The people moving in and out were shuffled around like a deck of cards thrown all over the floor. The nurses and a private guard had to throw out a self-styled reporter who was trying to use the confusion to sneak some photos with a pen camera.
If a patient’s breathing or blood pressure fell too far in the treatment rooms, they were finally moved to an operating room. The long row of treatment rooms was meant to provide more minor care to avoid overburdening the limited number of operating rooms, but there was barely any difference between them anymore. If no operating room was available, a doctor would come to the treatment room and provide as much treatment as possible without violating regulations.
The term “field hospital” was on all their minds even though none of them had ever seen a real one.
“Really, what is going on today?” said the frog-faced doctor with a large mask covering half his face.
He could seem detached from the things going on around him, but no one knew how he really felt on the inside. His ability to maintain a stable condition at all times seemed to prove his talent.
They had no obvious external wounds.
At the very least, they had not been stabbed with a knife or hit by a car.
Yet they had undeniable internal damage.
Their blood vessels and nerves had ruptured.
The cause was unknown, but the number of victims continued to grow and it was nothing short of a miracle that none of them had died yet. The frog-faced doctor had initially suspected a toxin, bacteria, or radiation, but since he was here among them without any special protective equipment, they had obviously found no evidence of that sort of risk.
(But only specialists with the proper knowledge will be able to accept that conclusion. People will have seen all these patients taken to the hospital after they collapsed on the streets. I hope this doesn’t start any harmful rumors.)
A new nurse nervously held out a silver tray.
“Um, these are the patient’s possessions.”
Everyone here was merely medical staff and not Anti-Skill or Judgment, but when an injury suggested a crime or they found evidence of illegal drug usage, they were required to swiftly record and report it. That required them to know what their patients had on them. Especially when that patient was unconscious and they needed to identify them.
“Hm.”
He noticed something curious along with the ordinary wallet and phone.
It was a coaster-like disk made of smooth plastic. It was divided into different colors with a few different symbols carved into it, so it probably had some kind of meaning.
“Was this made with a 3D printer?”
“We keep finding stuff like this,” said the nurse with an almost fearful tremor in her voice. “They all have these weird items like a small skull or cards with strange symbols on them! What is happening!?”
“…”
Mythology, the occult, the spiritual world.
If this had to do with those things, the frog-faced doctor wondered if something external to the students was causing their powers to go berserk, but that did not seem quite right to him. In that case, they should have been harmed differently depending on their powers: burns from a fire power, telekinetic wounds from a telekinesis power, and so on. It was hard to imagine that would lead to such uniform symptoms.
(When the cause is unknown, it is important to look back from the onset of symptoms and reassess each and every thing they did. Did they start something new recently, or did they finally do something they had been avoiding before? If they stop whatever that is and the symptoms go away, then you can be fairly certain that was the cause.)
But that method would only convince a special sort of person who could view other people as something to be observed.
A cheerful female voice was speaking from the flat-screen TV in the guard office located next to the ambulance entrance.
“Are you worried people are keeping secrets from you? Do you feel left out?”
Everyone was afraid.
And fear led people to try things they normally would not.
They might call those very things ridiculous in public, but once no one was looking, things changed.
“Well, worry no more! Normal methods might be powerless to help you, but real magic can fix it all in a jiffy. If there is anything you want to know, investigate, or divulge, then log onto R&C Occultics. Our large collection of fortunetelling methods will free you from those needless worries!!”
And none of them had any idea that eliminating their worries in that way would only make them the next victim.
The negative cycle would never end until the cause of the damage was known, but R&C Occultics were the ones in control of the knowledge and data needed to learn that.
Without that knowledge, it would never end.
Just like how IT companies and car manufacturers would show off their graphs explaining how self-driving cars dramatically reduced traditional traffic accidents, but they would fail to mention the increase in accidents caused by cyber attacks.
Or like how online stores would advertise how much more convenient they made everyone’s lives, but they would fail to mention how inconvenient it was once the local stores all went out of business and your city or town grew fully dependent on the online store.
Or like how global food companies would highlight how they did not use additives or agrochemicals, but they preferred not to explain how they ended up with fruits and vegetables that stayed fresh despite being almost disturbingly pure and free of additives.
Information sources would hold back any information detrimental to them.
All publicly available information was biased in some way.
That was one of the most basic facts of giant corporations.
Part 2
“Ugh,” groaned Kamijou Touma.
It took him a second to remember where he was.
(Oh, right. I was thirsty, so I stepped out into the hall to get some water.)
He could not tell if he was in pain or not. He had lost all ability to judge his own pain.
He only had a general feeling of his entire body being swollen. He did not know what exactly that meant, but he knew there was something wrong with him.
He looked down at himself again. He was doubled over and leaning against the cold wall of the deserted hallway. He slowly tried to move away from the wall, but he could not manage it. He could not move, like the wall was sucking him in.
“You must be about at your limit.”
“Othi…nus?”
“I told you this before, but you might not remember due to the constant pain.”
A small form poked her head out of his pocket. It was the fifteen-centimetre god named Othinus. The girl with long, wavy blonde hair and an eyepatch climbed up to his shoulder.
“If this acute St. Germain really has been modified by the Rosicrucians as the legends say, then the technology here will have a very hard time fully healing you. After all, it is growing faster than Imagine Breaker can negate it. Human, if this continues, the microbes will infest your right hand as well. If you hope to escape death, you will need to speak with Anna Sprengel since she did this to you.”
“…”
Was that true?
Maybe it was.
But he had to ask about something else before continuing based on that assumption.
“You knew?”
“Knew what?”
“That I need Anna Sprengel to fix this. Did you tell anyone other than me that?”
Othinus let out a short sigh, but she did not hesitate to answer.
“Based on the commotion I’ve seen outside, Anna appears to be approaching this hospital. Now, I never told them myself, but Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki learned of Anna’s necessity on their own. I saw no reason to stop them, though.”
A dull sound followed.
Kamijou Touma’s hand squeezed around Othinus, but she did not bat an eye.
“Will you be satisfied once you have crushed me?”
“Othinus.”
“Only one thing matters here. Anna Sprengel is powerful and you have zero chance of victory if you thoughtlessly confront her head on.” The coldhearted voice of the god of magic, war, and deception continued. “So it is necessary to send someone else against her first so she will reveal her trump cards before you face her. Would you want ordinary Anti-Skill or Judgment playing that role? They would be slaughtered gruesomely. To be honest, I don’t really expect those two to win. I don’t, but those two Level 5s are the only candidates I could think of who had any possibility of staying in the fight long enough before losing and still making it back alive. Of course, it’s all over if they screw it up, but they at least have a chance. Anyone else would have been killed for sure no matter how hard they tried. Again, for sure.”
“Othinus!!!!!!” he roared in anger.
Her logical series of words came to a halt there.
And after a bit…
“There was never any way to avoid damage altogether. This was the only option that left any possibility at all of everyone surviving.”
“This is my problem.”
“If you had simply gone to face her on your own, you would have been killed first and foremost. And then it would all have fallen apart. Even for those girls who are fighting now.”
“Please, Othinus.”
The god glared up at Kamijou like a sulking child even as her entire torso was squeezed within his hand. It was the boy who had the wavering eyes of a lost child.
“I want you to save me, but not like this. I know I’ve fallen several steps behind. You said Imagine Breaker alone isn’t enough to keep up here, right? Well, it’s always been like that. I’ve always had to use every trick in the book to get by. So please. If someone has to die, then please build the plan around that person being me. Then I’d be on board one-hundred percent.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I don’t want to hate you.”
This time, the god fell silent.
She hung her head a little, hiding her face behind the brim of her witch’s hat.
And she spoke in a vanishingly quiet voice.
“(It was necessary, but even after all this, you still ‘don’t want to’, huh? It’s that soft side of yours that forces someone else to make the hard decisions, you know?)”
Before Kamijou could ask what she had said, she sank her teeth into his thumb and his grip on her relaxed.
“Ow!?”
“Hmph, insolent human. You can’t just touch a god’s body like that. Without asking permission first, I mean.”
She used that opening to slip from his hand and sat on his wrist with her thin legs crossed.
“I get your policy now, but that is no reason to abandon the information we have now. I will tell you what I have learned about Anna Sprengel. Let’s start with what you can do. However this plays out, it can’t end until you defeat her.”
He had already decided he was going to the battlefield himself.
This was his fight, so he was always the one who should have been in harm’s way.
But…
“Wait. If Misaka and…who was the other one? Anyway, if those two are on the front line, then how have you been watching them fight? Did you exchange addresses so you can watch a live video sent from their phones or something???”
“A certain idiot I could mention is so poor I do not have a phone of my own. And it wouldn’t be very mobile for me anyway.”
He felt bad about that, but it did not answer his question. Othinus was a legitimate god, but she could not use magic on her own in her current state.
For some reason, she could not look him in the eye.
Just like a child afraid of being scolded. Or like a child being asked who had broken the window when they were hiding the fact that they had broken the bonsai too.
She whispered rapidly while dripping with sweat.
“(R&C Occultics already has everyone using all sorts of meaningless magic, so a professional god can easily alter their half-assed spells to secretly place a Huginn and Muninn effect on top. But I really probably shouldn’t tell him that. I definitely can’t let him know I spread around those surveillance spiritual items made from the raven’s feathers. I mean, the side effect for using magic is hitting them whether I alter their spell or not, so this isn’t doing any more damage, but I just know he’d still be mad.)”
This time, he moved his hand higher.
Kamijou Touma, the God Catcher, squeezed Othinus' head between his thumb and forefinger.
It was punishment time.
The fifteen-centimetre understander flailed wildly for a while from the pressure to her temples.
Part 3
“Gh, agh.”
A hoarse sound reached Misaka Mikoto’s ears.
Even she was surprised a sound like that could come from her 14-year-old throat.
(I’m not dead?)
She could not seem to access her memories of what happened. It was a rare but irritating experience. It was like her body was sending out a powerful warning signal telling her that opening the lid of her memories would destroy her own ego.
What had happened?
(What did Anna do? And what happened afterwards?)
Her vision was unstable. Not knowing what had happened was causing a mild panic within her. There was something flashing in front of her eyes and she felt a dull pain throbbing in her temples, but nothing was actually flashing – her mind just could not process the scene before her. It was like having a piece of trick art shoved in front of her face without being told how to look at it.
She slowly tried to get up and finally realized something soft was surrounding her head.
It was Shokuhou Misaki.
The other girl was apparently seated on the ground and holding her to her chest.
Almost like she was comforting a small child.
“Are you alive there?”
“…”
Mikoto forced herself to shake her head to focus herself on reality.
“I can’t believe you came to before me.”
“And I never imagined I would have to look after you like this. But it’s not like I had a choice. I can’t save him without sending you after Anna, so I’m willing to do anything, even try out my nursing ability.”
They were in District 15.
Anna Sprengel was not here. She must have already gone on ahead.
A scorched smell reached Mikoto’s nose.
She also saw a metallic shine.
A crushed and bent mass of steel lay on the ground nearby, but it was not a 4-wheel vehicle or an airplane with a distinctive silhouette formed from the main wings and tail. She saw what looked like squid or octopus tentacles and a special paint oozing out onto the street. The technology was sticky and liquid, reminding her somewhat of a rotting corpse.
She gulped.
(What is that? Some kind of machine?)
“That is the Five Over OS, Model Case: Mental Out.”
The two girls were hiding behind what looked like a ruptured plastic ball with a diameter of several meters.
Mikoto was limp and sweating despite the cold and Shokuhou gently raised one hand for some reason.
Her fingertips moved as if she were controlling a marionette.
The gloves she wore must have been made to read her finger movements.
“Have you seen the mantis-like #3 version, Misaka-san? Well, this isn’t just the #5 version. It’s another version derived from it. To be clear, I picked this up from the dark side and it’s said to have enough academic value to rival me. I never imagined I would have to sacrifice it to save my life like this.”
They had to catch up to Anna who had gone on ahead.
Mikoto calmed her breathing and tried to pull her head away from that warmth that felt as inviting as a down blanket during the wintertime. But her actual body refused to leave that comfort. Her body more than her mind had been infected with a fear that she really would die if she kept doing this.
She exhaled and asked a question.
“What do we do?”
“What else can we do? We save him. Which means stealing some kind of method from the villain. And I’m willing to immaturely play as many trump cards as it takes to do that. So how about a second one!?”
With a dull thud, a metallic flash flew in from the side.
This one was a bizarre parasitic wasp the size of a car. Its two front legs wrapped around Shokuhou Misaki while she hid behind the scraps. Mikoto just watched it happen, but once she realized she was about to be left behind, she quickly clung to its reinforced glass abdomen. The strange machine slid across the ground while it rapidly vibrated its four thin wings to take flight while otherwise motionless.
This was not the further derivation.
It was the original Five Over, Model Case: Mental Out.
(Honestly, I thought this thing was destroyed back then, but then I look into it again and find there was a full set of spare parts out there. You can’t let your guard down for a second with this city!!)
The military weapon modeled after an ichneumon wasp flew up into the sky while making a rapid V-shape like a red pen marking a test.
The relative speed caused the snow to feel a lot more like a blizzard blowing right at them.
“Do you know where Anna went!?” frantically shouted Mikoto. “She’s following her phone’s navigation, so if we don’t stop her now, she’ll head straight to the hospital. And it takes less than half an hour to get there from here!!”
“You can handle that sort of mechanical search of the city, Misaka-san. Start hacking security cameras and phones to find her!!”
Then had Shokuhou taken flight just to feel like she was doing something? She could look cold and calculating, but this side of her reminded Mikoto of someone else. Mikoto pulled out her phone, but then she clicked her tongue. Finding Anna was not as easy as Shokuhou had made it sound, but…
“Some of the cameras have unnaturally repeating frames as if to hide someone?”
“Where?”
“Keep going east. She isn’t even trying to lose anyone tailing her, so she’s taking the direct route to the hospital!!”
Their flight sped up.
If they had not already known how far to go, they might have passed her right by.
Mikoto pulled out an arcade coin.
They were already in District 7.
If Anna really was headed where the girls thought she was, they did not have a moment to lose.
“Keep our attitude and speed steady! Let’s see how she likes an aerial bombing!!”
Then the giant wasp suddenly began to stall. The blowing blizzard created by relative speed changed direction. They dropped straight down like a marionette after its strings were cut. Mikoto’s eyes widened as she clung to the thing.
“What, did it malfunction!?”
“No, this was something else!”
The mechanical bug wings continued to vibrate so quickly they produced afterimages. There was no damage to the machine and its output remained optimal. Nevertheless, the cutting-edge military weapon lost its balance and dropped toward the ground.
Mikoto could see Anna Sprengel’s thin smile down below.
She was also holding her small palm straight up toward them.
That was all, but…
“Did she grab at the air and the atmospheric pressure itself!?”
Airplanes and helicopters could not fly just anywhere. They had a maximum altitude. Devices that flew by interacting with the air would lose their power to fly if the air was too thin.
A dull roar reached Mikoto’s ears shortly thereafter.
A localized whirlwind attacked the Academy City sky and the Christmas lights and trees were torn away and flung upwards as if on a space elevator. The Five Over was caught by it and could only fall now that it had lost its flyable environment.
“Gahh!!”
They crash landed and the accumulating white snow burst into the air around them.
They had used two Five Over superweapons without doing any real damage to Anna at all. They were less than 200m from Anna, although they were separated by a few temporary warehouses (probably delivery drone bases) that looked like circus tents.
“Well, we’ll just have to make do,” muttered Mikoto while getting up from the ground.
In a dragged-out robot anime battle, the main characters would withdraw and try again the instant they ran across the slightest problem, but in reality, only the side with greater quality and quantity could escape enemy pursuit to leave the battlefield. If the weaker side carelessly turned their back, they would simply get shot down like this.
Would Anna Sprengel come to them?
Or would she ignore her surviving enemies and continue walking toward the hospital?
Misaka Mikoto exhaled and spoke.
“Shokuhou, hey, you with the excess fat.”
“What is it, you cut of bland lean meat?”
“I’m going to attack Anna again, so you use that opening to get away from here and return to the hospital.”
“Don’t you have that backwards? Placing me in front of the goal won’t accomplish anything. We already know Mental Out doesn’t work on Anna.”
“Yes, which is why you need to get that idiot out of there. If we called him up and told him, I just know he’d come here instead. We’re already in District 7 and this is only 20 minutes away from that hospital on foot, after all.” The rapid clip at which Mikoto spoke suggested even she was not fully convinced about her idea. “You might be hopeless in a direct physical fight, but you specialize in the more confusing worlds of influence and conspiracies, right? I don’t care how you do it, just spirit him away to somewhere Anna can’t reach him. I’ll do whatever it takes to get the vaccine or antidote from her. I swear it. So you get that idiot to evacuate. Take him outside Academy City if you have to.”
“Are you sure about this, Misaka-san?”
“Of course I’m not,” she spat back. Then she clarified. “But I know he would hate to see what happens if we don’t. If the peaceful hospital is attacked and all the doctors and patients are hurt while he watches on, he’ll blame himself for it. So you need to get him out of there before that happens.”
This was not a fight to win.
It was to avoid a bad aftertaste after they lost. Their best case scenario had already fallen that far.
They had to accept that Anna Sprengel was enough of a monster to change the modern era.
“Misaka-saaan.” Shokuhou Misaki sighed. “I won’t forget you for at least a week.”
“Oh? That’s longer than I expected. The world might be destroyed by then.”
They bumped fists and then got to work.
Misaka Mikoto moved toward a building wall while crouched low and Shokuhou Misaki instructed the ichneumon wasp combat machine to pick her up.
However, something had slipped both their minds.
Or maybe they had never had a chance to accurately assess their location after making an emergency landing due to the irregular stall. They deserved praise enough for making sure they did not crush any of the boys and girls who were visiting supermarkets and discount stores on Christmas to buy soba or a mochi maker for the New Year.
In other words, what would happen if they had happened to land on the direct line between Anna’s current position and the hospital?
A dazzling flash of light blasted right through the temporary warehouses in between.
They had been careless.
That 2-3m metal orb that could produce the world’s oldest whatever was enough of a threat, but Mikoto and Shokuhou had been attacked in another way afterwards. They had not given any thought to what that light had been. And in a clash between supernatural powers, leaving any gaps in your understanding was tantamount to suicide.
They were not given enough time to analyze what had happened. Just like the audience drawn in by the stage magician’s act, they could not make out the truth of what they were seeing despite seeing it directly.
Even seeing clearly grew difficult.
Shokuhou Misaki would have died if the ichneumon wasp Five Over had not left her control and automatically protected its user. It was bent, crushed, and pushed backwards while it counteracted the force. The thick shield very nearly flattened the human it was meant to protect. A torn-off shard of metal grazed the Queen’s cheek as she scooted back on her butt. A cut ran across her cheek like someone had slashed her with a blade.
The ichneumon wasp silhouette fell apart.
It could no longer fly and probably could not even walk.
But Shokuhou did not have time to worry about that. Things were even worse. If they were crushed here, their plan to “make the most of their loss” would fall apart too. She could see that solid pillar snapping before her eyes.
Since they were so near the hospital, an ambulance with siren blaring had to swerve out of the way of the “obstacle” collapsed on the side of the road.
In other words…
“Misaka…-saaan?” called Shokuhou from behind the crushed metal.
There was no response.
The other girl looked like a cat that was hit by a car. She was lying on her side and she did not even turn her head toward Shokuhou. The only movement was her short chestnut hair weakly fluttering in the chilly December wind. The white snow was falling on her and starting to accumulate so evenly and cruelly.
And Shokuhou also heard some quiet footsteps.
She was coming.
“Misaka-saaan!!”
Still no response.
The girl who had sworn she would retrieve the vaccine or antidote now lay collapsed on the side of the road.
The disconcerting sirens clutched at Shokuhou’s heart.
Part 4
“Hm, hm, hm hm.”
Someone was quietly humming in the hospital hallway.
Even though an ominous tremor had just reached the hospital itself.
A short girl had one arm in a cast and a square medical eyepatch over her right eye while she dragged along a metal stand carrying a clear IV bottle. That bob cut girl in pajamas must have been an inpatient because she was walking around in hospital slippers. But she bumped into a boy when she walked around the corner.
And with her forehead still pressed against Kamijou Touma’s chest, the girl known as Maidono Hoshimi spoke quietly to him.
“(Looks like you could use some help. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but if you simply open the emergency exit, an alarm will go off at the nurse station. If you want to escape safely, you would do best to get some help from a professional.)”
“…”
They had injured each other during their intense Christmas Eve battle, but Maidono was clearly exaggerating her own injuries. He should probably be judged guilty for punching a girl at all, but he certainly did not remember breaking her arm or gouging out one of her eyes.
This was her form of flashy camouflage where she chose the most conspicuous costume for the circumstances to keep anyone from remembering what she herself actually looked like. That dark side pro had eliminated all notable details other than “hospital patient”.
For that matter, Maidono Hoshimi was a fake name and her real name was still unknown, but a criminal suspect like her should have been locked in a hospital room with bars on the windows. It was enough of an emergency that she was even walking around free like this.
“(I owe you one,)” whispered the bob cut girl. “(And I thought it would be best to repay you before my trial begins. I’m sure to be charged with tons of additional offenses anyway, so what’s one or two more crimes now, right? You have something you need to do, don’t you? I’ll help you escape.)”
Kamijou appreciated the offer.
The hospital was overrun with confusion due to the near constant influx of emergency patients. But even so, the doctors or nurses were sure to stop a patient in as bad shape as him if he tried to leave through the main entrance. They would physically restrain him and drag him back to his room. That was why he had decided to use the emergency exit, but Maidono said that route held risk too.
However.
Kamijou Touma gently placed his hands on the pajama girl’s small shoulders.
And he slowly pushed her away from him.
“You don’t have to.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You were going to quit the dark side, weren’t you?” He crouched to her eye level. “This is like going on a diet. If you decide to stop doing something, you have to get in the habit of not doing it. If you switch back and forth all the time because ‘I have to this time’ or ‘this is an exception’, no one will believe you actually want to quit. That’s like a serial killer who keeps insisting they’ll stop tomorrow or next week while continuing to kill people.”
“…”
“Listen, this is your life.”
His mysterious bleeding was still happening.
He felt like he could cough up some blood at any moment if he let his guard down.
But he still refused to grab that outstretched hand.
“Use your power for yourself. You were sick of dirtying your hands for someone else, right? You can’t use chopsticks, but you decided to believe you can still live a normal life and start making progress again, right? Then you can’t do this. You can’t run to the dark side again, Maidono. Living an honest life isn’t easy. Life often isn’t fair and it’s full of disappointments, so if you know some secret tricks, it’s definitely easier to just use them. But you decided you weren’t doing that anymore, right? That was your decision. So live that life. It’s your life, so you need to put yourself first and do your best with the rules you’ve chosen for yourself.”
Her face twisted up.
Just like a child who had gotten separated from her mother at a large amusement park.
“For the first time.” Some time passed and she seemed to be holding her breath throughout. “For the first time, I found someone I actually wanted to serve. I thought I could go nuts just one more time before being thrown behind bars.”
“Like I said, life often isn’t fair and it’s full of disappointments. But that doesn’t mean anything is permissible. This is a good chance to learn how to show self-restraint.”
He smiled and wiped her tears away with his thumb.
He felt certain she would be fine now.
If Anna Sprengel was after him, he could not allow the hospital to be caught in the crossfire.
Just like Maidono had her life to live, Kamijou had his own way of living his life.
He squeezed the whistle he was wearing around his neck even though he could not remember where it came from.
“I’m on my way,” he said while pushing open the emergency exit with his shoulder.
Part 5
An explosion sounded in the distance.
The fire alarm linked with the emergency exit began to ring and Kamijou Touma ran down the stairs while barely staying on his feet. He was still technically indoors, but the heating was less effective here. The ominous chill felt like the invisible presence of death sneaking in toward his heart.
If he was spotted from here on, he would be restrained.
They might be acting out of good will, but his presence at the hospital would draw Anna Sprengel to it. If that happened, all the emergency patients driven to the verge of death by R&C Occultics would really and truly be killed by Anna.
He had to avoid that at all costs.
But even his sense of pain was failing him, the deafening alarm messed with his senses, and the stairs never seemed to change no matter how many flights he descended. Before long, he was enveloped by a sensation like he was walking on fluffy clouds. The light seemed to blur and the sound grew distorted. He lost track of what floor he was on.
And amid it all, he heard a voice.
“Looks like you’re having some trouble.”
No one had been there a moment before.
He at least felt confident of that.
The soprano voice carried well. As a high-pitched child’s voice, it was hard to judge whether this was a boy or a girl. Or maybe it had been intentionally modified to that end. Kamijou of course did not recognize it. He looked up again, but he could not actually see someone leaning against the wall of the landing. He only saw a vague outline there.
The next thing he knew, all the deafening noise was gone.
The fire alarm and the ominous rumbling from outside had vanished.
Had those things stopped, or had his senses gone out? He had no idea. Here, he was surrounded by a silence so great it actually hurt his ears.
At the very least, this person did not seem intent on capturing him.
When he slipped past them and descended the next flight of stairs, he found the same figure waiting there.
This may not have been real.
He looked over at the floor number sign. He had it square in his field of vision, but the meaning of the number never actually reached his mind.
“Not wanting to involve Maidono Hoshimi makes sense, but that does not change the fact that there is no hope left for you if you continue on like this.”
Kamijou Touma placed his right hand on the side of his head.
The figure seemed to be laughing.
“Oh, I am not St. Germain.”
He descended another flight of stairs.
The figure was again waiting for him. He began to wonder if the stairway would continue forever and he could never escape the spiraling prison without the permission of this boy(?).
Kamijou finally came to a stop and asked a question.
“Who are you?”
“Sorry, I guess my appearance wouldn’t be much of an explanation, would it? You may have at least heard my name, but I shouldn’t just assume. I should probably introduce myself from the beginning.”
The light blurred even when he looked straight at the figure.
Even their outlines were unclear, like it was a scene filmed through an out-of-focus video camera.
But accepting this other person’s presence seemed to allow a more colorful alternate world to spread out around him. The walls and floor had been given calming colors for the benefit of the patients, but now they flashed with bright colors and the orderly stairs bent and undulated like smiling lips. There were no gaps below his feet. There could not be. This distorted view was only an illusion. But he still felt like he would forever vanish from the real world if he were to misstep and fall into those pitch-black gaps.
The dream refused to end.
Was it his thoughts rather than his senses that were going haywire?
“I am Aihana Etsu, the Level 5 known as Academy City’s #6.”
“…”
He felt a squeezing at his heart.
Was this really them, or was it someone else?
“Why are you here?”
“To do the usual. The usual for me, anyway.”
That answer seemed to prove their legitimacy.
The #1 Accelerator, the #3 Misaka Mikoto, and all the others known as Level 5s created a unique world all their own. It may have been in his imagination, but it felt that way to Kamijou. Clashing with them carried the same pressure as being taken inside an action movie or suspense movie.
“Now, what power would you like? I can give it to you. But I’m not too proud of that since I can’t say I actually ‘create’ the power.”
If he did not stay strong, he would be taken in by it.
He would stop to question his presence in the world of a war movie or suspense movie where people’s lives were used up as readily as tissues.
Aihana Etsu seemed to be smiling bitterly.
Kamijou could not actually see their face, but he could just tell from their aura.
“I cannot actually do all that much. The nature of my power means I cannot bring about justice on my own. So I am always thinking about who I can side with to ensure the good guys win. I lend out the name of Aihana Etsu as a part of that.”
“What…are you talking about?”
“You are not a good person,” they bluntly stated. “Which is why I avoided contacting before now, but it seems supporting you is the best choice available here. R&C Occultics, this mutation that has occurred within science, is rapidly tearing through the world centered around Academy City. It seems supporting you with my power is the only way of fighting it.”
This was Academy City’s #6.
Kamijou was being offered the power of one of the Level 5s officially recognized by the city.
“Now, picture the you that you wish to be. Picture your ideal self.”
A distortion ran through that blotted-out person’s voice.
In a way, this may have been the power most wanted in this era. The modern age prioritized time-saving and cost-effectiveness over all else, so no one had to go on a test of courage or go exploring through an old abandoned building for themselves. With a video site’s streaming service, everyone could safely experience the adventure someone else had posted. As long as the one person charged toward certain death with a camera in hand, millions more could safely share in the same thrill and catharsis. That was what the modern age demanded.
No effort was needed on your part.
You could ignore all the risks.
You just needed a service that immediately provided the end result.
“You can be that version of yourself. Now, I will lend you Aihana Etsu.”
“…”
“For example.” The person with the unseeable face pointed at the center of Kamijou Touma’s chest with their index finger. “Would you like to know what meaning that whistle holds? Are you at all interested in restoring your lost memories? You can do it, as long as you arrange the necessary conditions in this city.”
The #6 was smiling.
That much Kamijou could tell.
“I generally do not give this sort of hint because my suggestions will only narrow people’s imaginations. But, well, I do promise you this power is more convenient than that Rensa’s was. And you must feel lacking in more areas than that. You must have realized by now that your right hand alone is not enough to keep up here. You must know that rushing in as you are will only get you killed.”
Anyone could be instantly transformed into a protagonist, no annoying training or leveling up required.
Kamijou Touma held his breath and shook his head.
“I don’t want it.”
“Why not?”
“This is none of your business.”
“This is my decision. What makes you think you have the right to refuse it?”
Kamijou just about smiled bitterly at that one.
This really was one of the chosen Level 5s. They were always so arrogant when they were doing the right thing. Just like the #3 had destroyed so many labs to protect her clones and just like the #1 had decided on his own to get rid of the dark side.
“Hey,” said Kamijou.
“Yes?”
“You aren’t Maidono Hoshimi who was driven to the edge by someone else. You seem to be enjoying your life well enough, so maybe it’s wrong of me to worry about you getting caught up in my business,” spat out Kamijou with a look he had not shown to that uncertain girl. “But you’re starting to piss me off. I don’t like how you reject all my own possibilities by just saying from the start I can’t solve this on my own. It’s like you’re looking down on us all as no more than dolls you can play with. …You’re the perfect example of what a Level 5 shouldn’t be. And the fact that you honestly think you’re acting in our best interest makes it all the worse.”
“…”
“This is our issue. We’re not fighting for your amusement.”
This was the opposite.
It was the same thing he had said to Maidono Hoshimi, but viewed from the opposite direction.
He was providing an example of the anger you were supposed to feel when you learned your life was being used for someone else’s purposes. It was because Kamijou Touma felt this way that he had refused Maidono’s help. It was because he felt this way that he had decided to cut all ties with her despite knowing her help would be more and more convenient each time he used it.
“Stop setting up a camera, stepping in to help, and posting a nice edited version of the story to some video site to make you look like a success, you peeping tom. You’ll lend me Aihana Etsu? Don’t make me laugh. If you want to change the world, then put in the work yourself. What your power is doesn’t matter. Whether you’re a Level 0 or a Level-less teacher, everyone still does what they can to fight the cruelties they see in their life. Changing the world requires someone who isn’t afraid to get hurt, but that ain’t you.”
He was unsteady on his feet.
He would have fallen if someone pushed at him with their finger. In fact, he could barely stay standing without anything to prop him up. And even if he was in top form, clashing head-on with one of Academy City’s Level 5s would seem like suicide.
But he still said it.
Kamijou Touma made his point while holding out his right fist.
“And if you still don’t get it, then you’re just an obstacle to overcome. I will keep moving, Aihana Etsu, even if it means breaking through you.”
“You will die.”
“I know that,” mouthed Kamijou Touma.
For some reason, the #6’s voice had changed slightly here.
Almost like they were recalling a history of repeated failure.
“If you keep going like this, you will surely die. Whether you rush to the battlefield or you curl up here, you will not last long. No matter what you choose, the villain will have the last laugh. Your destruction has been predetermined here.”
“So what?”
He was afraid of dying. So terribly afraid.
He kept smiling so the others would not notice and he had avoided confiding in any of them, but those words he had revealed to the doctor were not a lie. It was him who had said he was scared.
But.
This was a separate issue.
“I made a choice here I never should have made,” said the #6. “To be blunt, I should never have anything to do with a hypocrite like you who refuses to take a side, but I am here anyway because I have reason to believe I must act here even it means violating my principles. Yet you are insisting on remaining your usual self. You insist on walking your extremely contradictory path where you talk endlessly about the goodness of human nature yet cannot abandon the violence of your fist. You are like someone who refuses to evacuate as the lava of a volcanic eruption approaches their city at the foot of the mountain and instead stares at the clock, waiting to walk to school according to their usual schedule. And that is why you will die. You are simply repeating the same pattern over and over.”
“If you want to take control of my life, then clench your fist, Aihana Etsu. Your words won’t reach anyone if you refuse to take even a single step out of your safe zone.”
He heard a quiet tongue click.
The #6 must have realized neither side was budging here.
The genderless soprano voice suddenly dropped to something terrifyingly deep.
And he(?) clenched his(?) fist.
“How stubborn can you be? If you want misfortunate that badly, then go ahead and die.”
After a dull thud, one of the two crumpled down and the other one slowly descended the stairs. The endlessly spiraling stairs were gone now. They arrived on the ground floor surprisingly quickly as they counted the flights they walked down.
The victor let out a breath and spoke all alone.
“See, Aihana Etsu? Was that so hard?”
The #6 had known no one would remain to stop Kamijou Touma if they lost here.
Yet they had still clenched their fist in order to “convince” him.
It had been a sort of ritual.
Fighting a battle they knew they would lose had been a ritual to allow Kamijou to continue onward. That elite ensconced in their safe zone had actually taken a single step outside of their usual way. It was Aihana who had said their #6 Level 5 power was not suited for direct combat.
Kamijou Touma could only smile as he stepped outside after rejecting someone else’s methods and trampling on their concern for him.
He felt the biting chill and the white curtain of snow blocked his view. The professional doctors with specialized knowledge had shaken their heads and said they could not support him in this outside field, but this was the freedom he had chosen for himself.
This was his life.
So now he had only one option left: to win.
