Difference between revisions of "Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12 Chapter4"
(Created page with "==Chapter 4: Those who Resist the Result – Ultra_VS_Wisdom.== ===Part 1=== An uninteresting student dorm for an ordinary school stood in District 7. Five people faced eac...") |
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Her slender chin was right there in front of him. |
Her slender chin was right there in front of him. |
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| − | And he had his right |
+ | And he had his right fist. |
He could reach her!! |
He could reach her!! |
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The power was sufficient. |
The power was sufficient. |
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| − | The question was if he could hit what he was aiming at. He could create a |
+ | The question was if he could hit what he was aiming at. He could create a sight like on a gun, but he had no guarantee the hexagonal nuts would fly straight. The barrel wasn’t rifled and the nuts had no fletching. |
Also, he didn’t have time to worry about it. |
Also, he didn’t have time to worry about it. |
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“''So what?''” “''So what?''” |
“''So what?''” “''So what?''” |
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| + | [[File:GT Index v12 BW7.png|thumb]] |
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Something produced an explosive roar. |
Something produced an explosive roar. |
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| − | Red and blue. A scorching flame sword burst from each of Stiyl’s hands. At more than |
+ | Red and blue. A scorching flame sword burst from each of Stiyl’s hands. At more than 3000 degrees Celsius, those blades could melt steel. |
“!!” |
“!!” |
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In the same way, could you directly draw power from Goddess Nephthys by using a pyramid symbol? |
In the same way, could you directly draw power from Goddess Nephthys by using a pyramid symbol? |
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| − | “No matter how far you take it, magic is ultimately a technology. No one can |
+ | “No matter how far you take it, magic is ultimately a technology. No one can ever keep it to themselves forever. Once you know how it works, you might not be able to use it yourself, but you can at least develop a trick to take advantage of it.” |
“Wait, Stiyl!! What are you doing!?” |
“Wait, Stiyl!! What are you doing!?” |
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Latest revision as of 07:25, 27 April 2025
Chapter 4: Those who Resist the Result – Ultra_VS_Wisdom.[edit]
Part 1[edit]
An uninteresting student dorm for an ordinary school stood in District 7.
Five people faced each other on its 7th floor hallway.
Kamijou Touma and Transcendent Alice Anotherbible.
Stiyl Magnus and Magic Gods Nephthys and Niang-Niang.
An unthinkable clash was beginning in that completely ordinary setting.
Magic Gods and a Transcendent.
Both had stepped beyond the bounds of humanity. The higher ups of the Anglican Church and Roman Catholic Church couldn’t have predicted they would clash here.
The first to speak was Nephthys.
“Transcendent. We had left your divine school play alone, but you seem to have learned to talk big since we last saw you.”
“Magic Gods? Why should the girl listen to people who were born with nothing?”
It only occurred to Kamijou after he heard that.
Alice really was different. Stiyl had chosen the path of magic to resist an uncooperative reality. Even Niang-Niang and Nephthys had to be the same even if the scale was different. But Alice Anotherbible was something else. She was on the magic side, but she was one with talent.
“You don’t get to take things from other people just because you don’t have them. This is a problem you magicians fundamentally do not understand. Even the girl searched for money when she wanted a snack, but you magicians can’t do that.”
“You’re the one that stole from us,” said a voice. Magic God Nephthys’s somehow dry voice. “Transcendents are those who name themselves gods…or who want to be called gods. Meanwhile, we Magic Gods are those who others call gods. We’re similar to you, but fundamentally different. You aspire to be an existing god and work hard to try and reach that position, but we improve ourselves until we are referred to as new gods. There’s no need to actually fight – the result is already plain to see, don’t you think?”
Transcendent vs. Magic God.
Since both sides were extraordinary, Kamijou didn’t have a good sense of their relative powers or the threats they posed, but maybe that was one way of looking at it.
Except Alice Anotherbible also spoke.
Calmly.
“Are you sure about that?”
One of the brown beauty’s eyebrows twitched.
“Maybe you’re the originals and maybe you’re gods, but did you really have the resolve and responsibility to be known as gods?”
Nephthys in particular was a collection of the slaves and servants buried alive as pyramid grave goods. She was a Magic God who had been accidentally created by the mixture of a great magical device and many lives.
Alice had messed with the world without any kind of plan.
Kamijou highly doubted she had researched the details in advance.
But he knew that if anyone could draw the lucky card right when she needed it, it was her.
“You’re nothing more than the best humans. You wanted power surpassing that of a god, but you weren’t prepared to actually become a god and look after everyone. So the creation of all those new gods didn’t actually improve the world any. Just like you’re hunting down teacher for your own reasons now.”
“You talk big for a lab rat who was simply abducted and had her body altered.”
“Maybe so, but the girl and the other Transcendents did want to save people. Shoving all of that onto CRC was about the worst way of going about it, but that was our goal.”
It was looking like they were going to start fighting on their own at this rate.
And the boy who was neither a Transcendent nor a Magic God turned to look at another human.
“…”
Yes, Stiyl Magnus.
Kamijou Touma had the strength to do so now. When Alice Anotherbible had found the boy curled up in the back alley, she had wept and hugged him instead of being afraid or creeped out by him. She taught him that his new life here was a good thing.
He wouldn’t let that lesson be denied.
This wasn’t about the power balance between the three major Christian factions.
He didn’t care about any confrontation between the science side and magic side.
The rules of the world the Magic Gods were so concerned about weren’t the current issue.
He wanted to live.
That was all.
What was wrong with the living wanting to go on living? Why should he need anyone’s permission for that!?
“You have it backwards,” spat Stiyl, reading Kamijou’s thoughts from the look in his eye. “You are supposed to be dead. So why should I need anyone’s permission to re-kill you?”
“Teacher,” said Alice.
The small girl entirely ignored Stiyl and addressed Kamijou.
Her eyes were wide and she spoke in a terribly cold way.
That was a sign she was in a bad mood.
“Alice Anotherbible is on your side. So don’t worry. The girl will blow away all of these people.”
“Oh, you will?”
Nephthys laughed and snapped her right hand’s fingers next to her face.
A scratchy sound followed.
Her shoulder on down scattered into some kind of powder and attacked like a whip.
It devoured the air, tore through the metal railing and anything else in its way, and eliminated the 10m distance between them.
Kamijou shuddered.
The vanishing of the cold rain indirectly informed him where this great power was.
“!?”
He froze with his fist still clenched.
This was like stepping out onto the road and finding a large truck bearing down on you. He could see it coming, but the shock caused him to freeze up.
He had completely misread her range.
“Don’t worry.”
Alice took a step forward.
She held her arms out front and spread them to the sides, causing a wall to tower up out of thin air. The shield was made of a sticky liquid even redder than blood.
“Attention, card soldiers!! 2, 5, and 7 of Spades, repaint the space before the girl immediately. Anything colored by that paint, even wrong-colored roses, is made a part of the queen’s forces!!”
It didn’t repel the attack exactly.
The sticky crimson wall twisted itself around, surrounded Nephthys’s attack, and painted it in its own color. “Swallowing” may have been the best description.
“My, how impressive,” whispered the bandage woman, her tone showing she was not at all impressed.
That strange goddess had no notable myths beyond the tears spilled at the funeral of a great god.
For a woman who used her clear drops as a weapon, perhaps that was all the value emotional responses carried.
“But you have now limited yourself by the condition of using paint. Admittedly, focusing on an image like that to restrict yourself is a common tactic.”
“Kh.”
“But doesn’t Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland say the white roses were being painted red, but the work was never completed? That means the more you try to cover and swallow, the longer it takes. You can only process so much at once.”
“Card soldiers!! 2, 5, and 7 of the symbol based on a sword, quickly set up a correspondence to the Sephirah related to your symbol!!!”
Alice shouted once more.
An odd straining sound started.
It wasn’t coming from the sticky paint. And Alice was clearly gritting her teeth in pain as she kept her little arms held forward.
This was out of character for the untouchable Alice Anotherbible who could break all the rules to do anything.
Did special rules take effect in a conflict between Magic God and Transcendent!?
“Alice…”
“Don’t…worry!! This is nothing!!!”
Alice shouted to silence Kamijou and leaned forward.
She was holding it back.
For him.
Perhaps she could have done this differently if she were alone and only trying to achieve victory. By distorting the scene and the world around her. But the girl was instead holding out her little hands and keeping the paint wall active so she could keep Academy City from being obliterated by the blast produced by the Magic Gods.
Come to think of it, Alice was part of the magic side, but Kamijou realized this was his first time hearing her recite an incantation.
This wasn’t about her mood or a whim.
Was she aware mistakes were not allowed here?
Maybe this was insignificant compared to the destruction she had caused in the past.
But something was clearly different.
“Tea…cher,” she groaned.
But she endured the pain she wouldn’t have had to experience if she were only interested in killing.
She had the look of someone who had moved to the back. That is, who was prepared to let someone else finish this. To reiterate, if all she wanted to do was kill, Alice could have ended this much faster on her own. It was a complete mystery whether the Magic Gods or the Transcendent would survive, so she couldn’t afford any games or detours here.
But she still left it with him.
She let him take over.
Because she didn’t want a repeat of what had happened, she had chosen to step off the stable path she could have taken. It had taken a while for her to reach this point, but she was still hesitant.
This was undeniable growth.
What could you call it but strength?
And after she demonstrated this kind of resolve, Kamijou Touma knew what he had to say.
Since he was indeed alive, he opened his mouth.
Watch this, Christian Rosencreutz and Anna Kingsford.
Little by little, I’ll live up to your expectations in this world.
I will repay you!!
So.
He couldn’t just rely on Transcendent Alice Anotherbible here.
So what?
“Thanks, Alice.”
They were up against a pair of extraordinarily powerful Magic Gods and an Anglican witch-hunting magician who used coldhearted cunning to pursue his quarry.
Kamijou knew he was no match for them, but he couldn’t let that stop him.
He had to make up the difference somehow and snag a victory here.
He couldn’t get the conditions wrong.
The question wasn’t whether or not he could win. He wasn’t looking for a safe, no-risk battle against someone on the list of opponents he could defeat easily.
The ordinary boy glanced over at Alice.
…To start with, there was a reason he had to win this.
So he couldn’t fall back. No giving up.
Say it.
People died. He now knew he could be killed at any moment if he failed to work toward survival. But that was why he wasn’t allowed to compromise or give up and treat his one-and-only life like it was worthless.
He had to say it out loud.
It all began there.
He had to state the reason it was worth risking his life to fight here!!
“I really am glad I saved you.”
He heard the little girl gasp.
He didn’t wait.
Kamijou Touma once more planted his feet solidly on the narrow hallway floor.
He crouched low, kicked off his footing, and shot like an arrow toward Magic God Nephthys.
So that he could shorten Alice’s suffering by even a second.
But had he forgotten?
His opponent was a true Magic God. And she wasn’t alone.
“Nee hee hee.”
Something raced out even closer to the floor.
It almost looked like a shadow on the ground was moving rapidly around.
It was in fact Niang-Niang in her modified mini-China dress.
Several weapons shot out of her baggy sleeves all at once. No, those were the Pao-Pei made by transforming her fingers.
They spread out to the sides like wings as the Magic God sneered while seeming to soar just off the floor.
In the straight and narrow hallway, he couldn’t escape to the sides.
“Did you really think you could beat me in a direct fight!? I’m a Xian! Even without my Pao-Pei, I can run across water and kill a tiger with my bare ha- ah?”
Niang-Niang’s voice distorted unnaturally.
Without slowing at all, Kamijou Touma dove straight toward the floor. He got down on his belly, stretched his arms out front, and slid head-first with all his might.
He ended up lower.
Sliding directly on the floor, he slipped below Niang-Niang’s chin and right past her flat chest.
Kamijou grabbed her slender ankles with his outthrust hands and flipped her modified mini-China dress upside down.
Using her superhuman speed appeared to have worked against her here.
The pointy-haired boy heard rolling sounds followed by a loud crashing impact. Alice must have gotten an attack in. A lot like a kickball player kicking the ball with all their might as it rolled toward them.
Kamijou didn’t have time to look back as he used his leg strength to spring up and approach Nephthys. She had turned her own right arm into a whip, which meant she couldn’t use that arm to block. This was the best chance he was going to get.
Her slender chin was right there in front of him.
And he had his right fist.
He could reach her!!
“Owahhhh!!!”
Just as he roared, he heard an unpleasant tearing sound.
Nephthys’s face split down the center.
No, she had turned her own head into dry powder and parted it down the center to dodge Kamijou Touma’s fist. She didn’t appear to be in any pain whatsoever. Her V-split face even appeared to be laughing.
“!?”
No human could do that.
But he didn’t have time to freeze in astonishment.
It may have been a sign of Kamijou’s growth that in that moment he managed to focus on the metal door to his side rather than Magic God Nephthys’s free left hand.
It was glowing orange with heat.
And the smoker priest was nowhere to be seen!
“Tch!!”
His punch had missed, but that didn’t mean its momentum had vanished. Aiming for the location of Nephthys’s nonexistent right arm, Kamijou sent himself tumbling forward.
The front door of a dorm room melted from the inside and an unnatural mixture of red and blue flames flooded out. They melted the hallway’s metal railing like a sugar sculpture in a fire.
Stiyl had apparently used another room’s balcony to circle around.
A bewitching female silhouette twisted around within the roaring flames. Almost like she was viewing herself in a fitting room mirror.
“Hey. That hit me too.”
“As if this’ll hurt you.”
The pillar of flame was torn through from within and vanished. Nephthys languidly brushed her silver hair off her shoulder. It didn’t seem Stiyl had actually done anything. She had extinguished the flames, but not with water. It was more like putting out a fire by covering it with sand.
“Now to finish this.”
“Are you sure you want to kill him first? I get the feeling Alice will go berserk if you do.”
“That’s far better than letting Kamijou Touma go berserk.”
“Good point.”
The two of them once more turned around to quietly face Kamijou Touma.
That meant they were turning their back on the Alice Anotherbible, but they didn’t seem bothered by it.
Niang-Niang could hold her back on her own.
Was this a form of trust on Stiyl and Nephthys’s part?
“…”
(What now?)
The straight seventh floor hallway was open to the air on one side.
The one thing in Kamijou and Alice’s favor was that they had the enemy group surrounded, but this didn’t feel much like a pincer attack. Stiyl’s side had the greater numbers. With the enemy group standing back to back, it would simply mean a 1-on-1 fight and a 1-on-2 fight. Since one of them had to battle multiple opponents, Kamijou’s side had the disadvantage.
Which meant…
“Alice!! Let’s regroup!!”
“Okay!”
This was a dirt cheap student dorm. As many similar buildings had been crammed into this area as possible, so there were less than 2m between this and the next building over.
So…
“We can jump to the other side!!”
Kamijou exchanged a nod with Alice on the other side of the pincer attack and immediately placed a foot up on the railing.
He didn’t hesitate to jump.
At an angle of -30 degrees.
In other words, down.
The sole of his shoe had slipped on the rainy railing.
“Oof!”
He felt like an idiot.
He really did, but this was the seventh floor.
A truly unfortunate person would slip through the narrow 2m gap and fall to his death.
Just then, he heard a whistling.
Magic God Niang-Niang seemed to have sucked air in through the corners of her mouth.
And a moment later…
She broke through.
With a tackle.
After the briefest of delays, the entire area shook hard. What had happened? Kamijou forgot all about having been thrown out into the empty air and stiffened. He saw a hole more than a meter tall and he could see all the way through to the scenery on the other side.
That was supposed to be more than 10 thousand tons of reinforced concrete.
If he had actually jumped to the other side, he would have been killed instantly.
There was only one reason it didn’t happen anyway.
“Hnh.”
Alice.
Transcendent Alice Anotherbible.
She alone lived in the same world. If she hadn’t broken straight down through the seventh floor hallway, run through the sixth floor hallway, caught falling Kamijou in her little hands, and pulled him toward her, it would all have been over before he could even feel any pain.
She appeared to have pulled him onto the sixth floor hallway of the same building instead of going to the next building over, but he couldn’t relax yet.
Those were Magic Gods.
A mere reinforced concrete building might as well have been paper for them.
(Damn!! If the Magic Gods stay in control, I’m just delaying the inevitable here!!!)
He and Alice were now a floor below.
If they stayed on the long, straight hallway with nowhere to hide, the same thing would just happen again.
So would it be better to withdraw to the emergency stairs?
“This way, Alice!”
“No!”
He gasped.
Her little hand tugged him hard in the opposite direction. But he couldn’t exactly complain.
A moment later, something caused the entire building to tilt at an angle. There was now a meter-wide hole running through all the ceilings and floors. Kamijou had failed to visually identify the projectile.
But Alice Anotherbible had seen it.
“The Chinese steamed bun girl is going nuts, so you’ll die if you don’t consider where she’ll attack next.”
“I heard that, ‘little’ girl. Don’t just make stuff up based on nothing. Just because I’m a Xian in a modified mini-China dress doesn’t mean I walk around kneading steamed buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuns!”
Had she really, truly never done that?
Not even once???
The influence of Alice’s lazy stereotype was keeping Kamijou from recalling the details of his memories.
And it scared him that Niang-Niang’s voice had come from the ground. Was that Magic God completely unharmed after dropping six floors at faster than free fall?
“…”
He hadn’t even seen her.
That was how fast she had moved.
She was tough and strong and she kept throwing out attacks that would kill him instantly if he tried to copy them.
He had avoided death so far by cleverly beating her expectations, but he doubted he would stand a chance in a direct clash against those Magic Gods. If their fists collided, his would be crushed and torn from his arm.
He knew that for sure.
Just remember Othinus. Or High Priest.
On his own, his spirit may have broken from the moment he knew he was up against two Magic Gods. Kneeling down and offering his head to them would be better than attempting to fight back. By any reasonable standard.
But he wasn’t alone.
He had Alice Anotherbible.
That trembling girl stood right behind him.
He had given up on life, gone to a false hell, and been returned to life by two experts. And now this girl was trembling at the thought of losing that pitiful boy again.
She was the opposite of Niang-Niang.
Something poured down from the seventh floor above.
Like a dry and rough waterfall.
Like a sandstorm or thick fog, this presence seemed to have no mass yet brought to mind the fear of certain death.
The waterfall from a quicksand cave formed a bandage woman with silver hair and brown skin.
Magic God Nephthys.
Kamijou glared at her and moved to protect little Alice by his side while speaking quietly.
“I won’t die.”
“Did you think this god would grant you that wish?”
“No, but I still won’t die here!!!”
Kamijou Touma tightly clenched his right fist.
Were they 5m apart? It couldn’t be more than 7. He couldn’t reach her in a single breath, but it wouldn’t take even three steps.
That short distance away, the bandaged beauty slowly shut her eyes before opening them once more.
A clear drop spilled from her right eye.
A tear.
She could cry whenever she wanted any day of the year. She could forcibly determine her emotions like an actor.
This was bad.
Really bad.
What if Nephthys had incorporated that technique into her mental concentration for mag-
“!!!???”
(Too late!!)
He immediately swung his head to the side to negate it with his right hand.
Instead of falling to her feet, the drop floated and then tore through the air like a light speed laser bream. But it took him a few seconds after the fact to work out that was what had happened.
That woman could cry at will.
That Magic God used tears as a weapon.
Nephthys’s eyes were damp, yet she had an unnaturally gentle smile on her lips.
“Now that you’ve died, you know it’s no big deal, right?”
That wasn’t just a surface expression.
She had shifted gears.
Nephthys could instantly switch her inner emotions as if throwing a lever and now she gently whispered.
It was possible not even she knew what her true feelings were.
To Kamijou, that seemed like the price she had paid for her great power.
“We aren’t saying either life or death are superior to the other. In fact, people exist in many different states. The state of wakefulness, the state of sleep, the state of anxiety, and the state of relaxation. Living people can only learn about the state of living, but not so for us. We can even make use of the other half of existence – the state of death – which allows us to think on a level people refer to as wisdom.”
“…”
“Othinus hanged herself and High Priest was buried alive. Because those acts were necessary. What psychedelic world did you see before your eyes? Hee hee. It may have been a light show very different from the wisdom I know.”
Something seemed off.
At last, Kamijou Touma noticed something slightly wrong about what Nephthys and Niang-Niang were saying.
“But…I…”
He pondered it.
And this time, the puny boy raised his head.
To glare straight at Magic God Nephthys.
“I didn’t take my life as part of a plan to efficiently earn more experience points.”
That differed from the Magic Gods.
Death wasn’t a means of leveling up.
He really had thought it was all over there. But he still hadn’t given up.
He was willing to die for that girl. He wanted to save her no matter what happened to him. He had met a girl that made him certain of that. It wasn’t about how long he had known her. He had just decided turning his back on that lonely girl who couldn’t control herself would lead to a life worse than death.
These magicians would use even their own deaths to achieve their goals?
These beings had honed their minds and life forces to the point they could carry that out without hesitation?
So what?
Was that anything to brag about?
How did that make them any way superior to someone who hadn’t given up on life and was desperately trying to live in the future!?
“Hmph.”
The sweetness vanished from the bandage woman’s voice.
“Looks like you understand. You didn’t just die and vaguely experience hell. Can you absorb it faster when you have an excellent tour guide, Kamijou Touma?”
Kamijou felt something odd between his brows.
Like someone was poking their finger there.
Or like a sharp weapon.
She wasn’t actually doing anything – just glaring at him – but he felt like something sharp but invisible were piercing into his head.
This was bad.
One second from now, some kind of horrific attack was coming!!!
“Teacher!!”
His right hand felt weird.
His vision suddenly blurred.
And he was…
“On the roof?”
Was that Alice’s doing?
She appeared to have leaned over the hallway railing and then swung him straight up. He had to have flown up the height of several floors, but he found himself seated on the flat rooftop without a single bone broken. He had even been given a gentle landing. He felt like a giant kendama ball.
Blasts and tremors burst up from below. Little Alice must have been battling both Magic Gods at once.
He couldn’t just leave her there.
But he would only get in her way if he returned without a plan. What did he lack? Kamijou made full use of the brains he so rarely put to work.
(My right fist can act as a trump card, but a known trump card is useless on its own. Both Stiyl and the Magic Gods already know about Imagine Breaker. I need to set things in motion first. So I need another card that leads into using the finisher.)
Kamijou looked across the rooftop as the chilly rain fell.
For some reason, a few bikes were parked together. And instead of the ladies bikes so common on the sidewalk in front of a train station, these were clearly expensive road bikes. Who in his school rode one of those?
Could they not leave them in the ground level bicycle parking?
A quick search on his phone found an online store selling those bikes for 490 thousand yen and that was on sale for the start of the new school term.
How many dried sardines could he buy with 490 thousand yen?
“…Argh.”
Kamijou didn’t hesitate to break one with his feet. He bent it right down the middle.
The poor student showed no mercy. Go to hell, bourgeoisie.
A few metal bars, the chain, the gears, the rubber tires – the bike was a treasure trove, but the pointy-haired boy first grabbed a tube a little larger than a relay baton.
“A portable air pump.”
It was small, but it worked the same as the air pumps operated by raising and lowering a T-shaped handle. Which meant he could use it. He pulled out the rubber tube at the end of the air pump and collected a few thumb-sized nuts from the floor. They weren’t the right size for the small opening, but that just meant he had to use a cup to keep the air from leaking. By removing the brake lever and messing with the wires a bit, he now had a trigger.
Kamijou grabbed the junk he had constructed and aimed his arm sideways.
He held it with one hand. He pulled the lever like it was a fire extinguisher and heard a dull “bazoom!!” The satellite TV antenna attached to the metal railing broke.
The power was sufficient.
The question was if he could hit what he was aiming at. He could create a sight like on a gun, but he had no guarantee the hexagonal nuts would fly straight. The barrel wasn’t rifled and the nuts had no fletching.
Also, he didn’t have time to worry about it.
(I doubt even Alice can handle taking on two Magic Gods at the same time!)
Kamijou took a look around the cold rainy rooftop and located the stairs.
And he heard a sound.
Footsteps.
Alice was downstairs. So were Nephthys and Niang-Niang, presumably.
So.
“Hi.”
Stiyl Magnus.
The excuse of his opponent being an extraordinary Magic God didn’t work here.
For him, Kamijou had to win on his own.
“Are you ready to die so that the dead remain dead and order is preserved?”
“Shut up already,” growled Kamijou.
He had nearly frozen in the chilly rain, he had been pursued by some weird Academy City team, he had been attacked by extraordinary Magic Gods, and now he was directly facing Stiyl and his flame swords.
How many rune cards covered this building? Thousands? Tens of thousands?
If he didn’t do something, he would die here.
But that was why he felt heat pumping from his heart as if to combat the heartless rain. That was why he had legs capable of running from that weird team. And if he clenched his fist and glared, he could build the resolve to take on even the most powerful foe.
Yes.
Kamijou Touma was more alive than ever before!!
“Call me unsightly, call me selfish, call me whatever you want.”
So he threw out his hesitation.
To live was a messy thing. It wasn’t like a food sample made of shaped wax or plastic.
If it was pathetic, then so be it.
Accept it.
Accept your desire with your own will!!
“I don’t care if it’s cramped and I’m perfectly fine with a life that’s restricted by poverty and high food bills. I still want to return to that warm room with Index and everyone else!!!”
“Yeah?” said Stiyl Magnus.
He didn’t laugh.
“Well, so do I.”
In the end, it came down to that.
Kamijou Touma and Stiyl Magnus were risking their lives to try and obtain the exact same thing.
They strayed from their conscience.
They couldn’t always do what was right.
They weren’t special.
They weren’t chosen.
They weren’t the strongest.
They weren’t at the center of it all.
They couldn’t become Magic Gods like Nephthys and Niang-Niang. Nor could they be an irregular among the Transcendents like Alice Anotherbible. They never could.
But.
They both came to the same conclusion at the same time.
“So what?” “So what?”
Yeah, this was the guy.
Kamijou Touma had to admit it. Titles, levels, ranks, and all those things were irrelevant. His greatest and fiercest enemy was Stiyl Magnus.
Part 2[edit]
They stood on the spacious rooftop of one of many student dormitories.
The clash between the Transcendent and two Magic Gods below must have been heating up because the building would sometimes tremble unsteadily and it had probably started to tilt. Quite a few thumb-thick nuts lay unnaturally on the rooftop. They had likely broken away from TV antennas or the ladder up to the water tank after failing to bear the bending of the structures.
The fight had already begun.
Something produced an explosive roar.
Red and blue. A scorching flame sword burst from each of Stiyl’s hands. At more than 3000 degrees Celsius, those blades could melt steel.
“!!”
In response, the object in Kamijou’s right hand sprang up.
It was a compression gun made from a portable air pump.
“What ended the age of the sword? Guns!!”
Their head-on clash had started well before this.
Kamijou focused his mind on the trigger that resembled a fire extinguisher lever. The thumb-thick nuts tore through the air and raindrops on their way toward Stiyl’s nose.
Their course was accurate.
Yet they failed to hit.
Flames blew in from either side.
Like wings.
Stiyl moved rapidly to the left and right like he had boosters equipped. Those weren’t to attack. He had given himself extraordinary speed so that he could acquire the best attack position.
In other words…
“You can fly!?”
“Magic flight is easily accomplished, but just as easily brought down. That is a standard rule of our world, but that rule changes when your opponent can’t use an interception spell.”
Kamijou gritted his teeth and prepared to fight.
Stiyl didn’t even need to get close and strike with his flame swords.
By breaking apart the flames himself and sending them out like a flash flood, he could instantly roast Kamijou on this flat rooftop.
He could soar freely through the sky and send down powerful flames to burn anything on the surface on a whim.
He might as well have been a storybook dragon.
That thought caused an unnatural pulsing of Kamijou’s right hand.
(What do I do? Should I head back downstairs!?)
“It’s the same either way. If you escape into a hallway or room, you will have nowhere to escape when I launch a fireball inside to fill the space with flames. Or I could envelop the entire building in fla-”
Crash!!!
A blinding white light dropped straight down from heaven to earth.
“Kh.”
Stiyl actually gasped.
What was more frightening here: the destructive power capable of causing the water tank to explode from within, or airborne Stiyl managing to twist around and dodge it at the last second?
The black-clad priest gulped and looked up at the rain clouds.
“Was it the rain? No, something isn’t right. That lightning was timed too well!!”
Kamijou agreed.
Misfortune was his default setting, so he doubted a natural disaster would save him by pure coincidence.
And…
“Hi.”
It came from the raindrops.
A familiar voice was mixed in with the noise of so many falling raindrops.
It was clear enough for Kamijou to guess who this was.
“This is a battle. And you didn’t come alone yourself, so you’re not going to claim this isn’t fair, are you?”
“Of course not!!”
Stiyl actually sneered as he made subtle left and right adjustments with his boosters to maintain his balance in midair.
And he placed a fresh cigarette in his mouth.
“That guy’s so straightforward I was getting bored anyway. A real fight to the death needs some tension. …But is that artificial rain and induced lightning tech? Looks like you’re using your scientific viewpoint to simulate the complex meteorological conditions to turn it into your plaything, but can your simulation account for this?”
Kamijou felt a chill.
He had an intensely bad feeling about this.
“I summon thee, Innocentius!!!”
Roar!!
For an instant, the sensation of the ground vanished from below Kamijou’s feet. He thought it was only an optical illusion. A colossal flame giant had appeared, seeming to fill his entire vision and stretch up from the ground to the rooftop.
Its humanoid form vanished as it transformed into a great vortex. The orange glowing firestorm formed a blazing tower rising up toward the heavens.
“Tch!!”
The lightning shifted.
It pierced the road away from the building instead of the rooftop.
“Ha ha!! This thing has no set form. It’s all based on the number and arrangement of the runes. I prefer not to do this since it burns through so much magic power, but I won’t hesitate to use my trump card when necessary. Now, insolent science worshiper, can you accurately predict the numerical change to the air currents caused by magical flames!?”
Maybe he could eventually.
But it only mattered if he could do it now.
Stiyl rapidly zigzagged in the sky.
This was bad.
If Kamijou was overwhelmed, a single attack would take him out.
(But choosing a projectile weapon was still the right choice!!)
Kamijou suppressed his panic and focused on his compression gun.
He took aim straight up to try and pursue Stiyl’s complicated course, but then a chill ran down his spine.
He had already pulled the fire extinguisher style trigger with his full palm. The thick bullets had already been released.
Yet he trusted his senses and twisted his body with all his might.
Something exploded. A flame sword had burst. And Kamijou was nearly killed by the bullets he had released himself. It was like burying a bomb in the rocky riverside to blast the stones into the air. Stiyl had used his own explosion to knock back the flying nuts and had very nearly split open Kamijou’s skull.
The usual advantage of a projectile weapon didn’t apply against a fearsome supernatural opponent.
“Damn!!”
He had just barely avoided sudden death, but twisting around so quickly had left him in a poor position.
Stiyl had already set his feet on the rooftop and was swiftly turning toward Kamijou.
With his next sword.
Its explosion would blast Kamijou to pieces.
This was his final chance.
“Stiyl!!!”
“Don’t look for favors, my enemy!!”
He pulled the trigger.
And released the bullets.
In the poor position caused by twisting around.
He heard them slicing through the air, but that was all.
Something exploded.
Stiyl tore through the explosion to charge this way.
He accelerated further.
Had he expected that his wide-range magic flame would be negated by Imagine Breaker?
He had detonated both his flame swords directly behind him for a burst of acceleration. There was a grin on Stiyl’s face as he approached.
But.
Kamijou Touma hadn’t been aiming at Stiyl who was too quick for such a slow attack to hit.
He had aimed at a giant outdoor air conditioning unit.
And the rooftop had already been soaked with the blowing rain.
The puny boy was leaning against a concrete wall. It perfectly protected him from the diagonally-blowing rain. Except for around the rectangular box for the elevator.
Yes.
That priest hadn’t repelled Accelerator’s lightning attack – he had dodged it.
Stiyl wasn’t invincible.
There was a reason he had to dodge it.
“Wha-?”
Stiyl Magnus didn’t even have time to say anything.
Kamijou heard the result as he curled up on the one piece of dry concrete.
Kazap!!!
After a deafening electrical blast, the black-clad priest crumpled to the rooftop.
Part 3[edit]
Stiyl Magnus lay motionless on the rooftop.
“…”
The pointy-haired boy glanced down at his weapon and then tossed it to the rain-wet concrete. His overuse had left the cup at the end broken and unusable.
Kamijou breathed a heavy sigh before something intruded on his thoughts.
The raindrops.
Rules formed in the supposedly random noise and the complex collision of sound waves produced a clear human voice.
He recognized it. That voice belonged to Academy City’s #1.
“How the hell are you alive?”
“It’s a long story.”
Accelerator would have come in contact with bits and pieces of magic, but Kamijou doubted he could keep up with an info dump about going to hell and back and that the hell he visited was in fact an artificial field created by Rosencreutz.
Kamijou had actually experienced it himself, but even he didn’t understand it all.
“More importantly, aren’t you the Board Chairman at the very top? I know I got back up after being dead for more than 24 hours, but I assure you I’m not a zombie infected by some strange new pathogen. This works differently. The Magic Gods are still a concern, but can’t you at least do something about those Bio Secure people?”
“I’ve got no info on them. I’m using the master key to gather information now, but I can’t order them to withdraw right away. Because their chief, Kihara Goukei, intentionally took herself out of commission. She’s using the fact that I can’t contact the person in charge to give her people freedom to act.”
“Out of commission?”
“She bit her tongue. Leading to massive blood loss and cardiac arrest. What a pain in the ass.”
He wished he hadn’t asked. There really was something wrong with those Kiharas.
Academy City was worn down. Not that it could have stood against two legit Magic Gods at the best of times. When Othinus was at her full power, she had destroyed and restored this world thousands or millions of times.
The standard methods didn’t apply.
The only way to possibly beat them was to trigger some kind of extraordinary chemical reaction.
So he would defeat them with Imagine Breaker and Alice Anotherbible.
“We just have to do whatever we can.”
“It’s the people who talk like that who end up dead in mere seconds, leaving it to everyone else to clean up their mess.”
Kamijou couldn’t argue when he had indeed died against Alice. How sad.
The link to Accelerator ended.
He apparently wanted to focus on Bio Secure.
“…”
Kamijou wobbled.
But he couldn’t afford to collapse here.
His heavy breathing was white as it left his mouth. He might die if he stayed out in the rain too long.
But he wasn’t there yet.
Not if his presence could save someone just by continuing to live.
The boy slowly turned around.
“Next…”
An especially loud rumble shook the entire building.
He picked up a broken bike chain and a metal pipe and stuck them in his belt.
He took the emergency stairs down.
To the third floor.
Alice was battling someone in the long hallway there.
Magic Gods Nephthys and Niang-Niang.
He was already this battered and near death after fighting Stiyl. Immediately joining a battle against extraordinary Magic Gods was obviously suicide. Even with the rule-breaking trump card that was Alice Anotherbible.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t give up.
He wouldn’t let anyone say he shouldn’t have come back to life.
Alice Anotherbible had cried.
She had wailed loudly for him.
For Kamijou Touma to live.
He had accepted it.
That cry was one thing he could not deny.
He didn’t know how intelligent the Magic Gods were with their bizarre wisdom and he didn’t know why they saw him as such a threat for crawling back out of hell. It didn’t matter. If their misunderstanding would lead them to destroy this little world where Index, Othinus, the calico cat, and everyone else lived, then he would fight and protect this place in the world. Because being alive meant you could physically act.
He didn’t have any concrete odds of winning.
Mr. Misfortune could never play the card of relying on a selfless miracle.
Nevertheless, Kamijou Touma faced forward.
And walked on his own two feet.
He wouldn’t die.
Something was different from when he fought Magic God Othinus.
And from when he fought Alice Anotherbible.
Anna Kingsford and Christian Rosencreutz had taught him something before giving him the ticket of resurrection.
Death could not be whitewashed.
It was a simple fact, which was why no one in the world could overturn it, but that didn’t mean you had to make light of or despair in the limited life you had left.
He had reclaimed his own life.
So he had to make the most of it.
He had longed for this in that hell. What was it he had wanted to do in this silly world? What had Kingsford shown him when he came to a stop, saying he had no reason to return to life?
He wanted to apologize to everyone who had worried over him, return to that room with Index and Othinus, go to school like always, have no reason left to fight against Aradia, Anna Sprengel, and the rest, and to have Alice as a part of it all.
He only felt the word “preposterous” creeping up on him because he still didn’t have a concrete plan.
He had to find out how far he had to go.
Instead of speaking of vague hopes, he had to count the steps on the stairway to making that dream come true.
That wouldn’t be easy.
He didn’t have time to rest.
He couldn’t stop walking until he had accomplished everything he had envisioned while wandering through hell and looking up at the world of the living so far overhead.
The two Magic Gods – Nephthys and Niang-Niang – who would harm Alice were his first hurdle.
So he wasn’t going to die just because they were so powerful.
He hadn’t come back to life so he could run away, curl up behind cover, and force a stiff smile while avoiding all risk.
He was through suppressing what he wanted to do.
Nephthys and Niang-Niang seemed to have noticed the boy’s appearance from behind Alice.
“Oh?”
“Huh, does that mean you took Stiyl out?”
They didn’t seem to care at all.
The battle wasn’t over yet.
Kamijou pulled a metal pipe of a handy length from his belt at the side of his hip.
(How many times did I die against Othinus?)
He hadn’t been counting.
And even after all that, he never had truly defeated her.
And now he was up against two at once.
“So what?”
At the same time, Nephthys and Niang-Niang stopped where they were. They slowly raised their hands. Like a joke.
Kamijou roared while tightly gripping the pipe.
“Huh!? What the hell are you doing now!?”
“We have no reason left to fight,” answered a grinning Niang-Niang.
This was weird.
The Magic Gods might just destroy the world for fun, but they were always true to their actions.
He couldn’t think of any reason for them to hesitate when they had a path to victory.
And there was no sign of any kind of unexpected accident on their part.
Then was this the ending Nephthys and Niang-Niang had expected?
What had they gained from this?
(Wait.)
Kamijou thought back on what Nephthys had said.
He reviewed the basic information.
(A Magic God is someone who doesn’t hesitate to improve themselves by all means available, up to and including their own death. That won’t necessarily make you a Magic God, but they wouldn’t want it to happen.)
“This wasn’t about me at all. You were worried about Stiyl?” asked Kamijou, astonished.
The bandages woman lowered her raised hands and shrugged.
“That priest is so dead set on protecting the grimoire library no matter what, it was obvious he was going to try something extremely reckless in the near future. Now, in all likelihood, attempting a deadly trial would only end in his meaningless death, but there would be some really annoying consequences in the unlikely event he succeeded.”
“What happens when a pure, straitlaced guy like him becomes a Magic God and begins seriously thinking about world peace? The world becomes a lot more restrictive. And there’s no way I’m dealing with that.”
Niang-Niang cackled and waved her baggy sleeves around.
Kamijou had thought this was weird. Nephthys and Niang-Niang were Magic Gods on Othinus’s level. Alice Anotherbible was one thing, but they should have killed Kamijou in the blink of an eye. It would have been truly instantaneous. Yet they hadn’t done that.
Kamijou let out a rough breath.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Leave. Academy City isn’t our home.”
And that was that.
Perhaps the conflicts among the puny humans meant nothing to the gods up in heaven.
Regardless, Kamijou was glad he wouldn’t be forced into a hellish situation where he had to begin a fistfight with two Magic Gods until one side or the other couldn’t keep going. He really hoped those capricious Magic Gods would leave Academy City before they changed their minds and decided to start fighting again.
“Then get going. You can see what state the city’s in, can’t you? We can’t even fix the broken buildings, so we’re not exactly in a place to entertain tourists.”
“Yes, yes.”
“But we can drop by to play whenever we want, you know? We are true Magic Gods, after all.”
And during that conversation…
“Gah!?”
Someone’s voice caught in their throat.
Nephthys and Niang-Niang both reached a hand to the center of their chest.
They doubled over but still couldn’t stand it and wobbled before collapsing to the floor.
Despite supposedly reigning as one the greatest threats imaginable.
Kamijou glanced over at Alice, but the small girl shook her head.
This wasn’t Alice’s rule-breaking magic.
But in that case…
(Wait.)
Who else could it be?
(It can’t be.)
Slowly – no, hesitantly – Kamijou Touma turned to look behind him.
Stiyl Magnus.
He couldn’t stand straight.
He looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Still, the tall priest was indeed on his feet. Once more. The outline of his shoulders wavered unsteadily. Almost like some kind of mirage effect.
It didn’t seem to be a gas.
A voice like wetter and stickier blood foam spilled from the priest’s mouth.
“Magic Gods started out as human but improved themselves until they became something known as gods, right?”
An unstable cracking sound came from him.
The priest was quite tall. Unusually so for the age of 14. But his frame was straining even further.
Like he was forcibly taking in something inhuman which was causing him to slowly rupture from within.
“Stiyl…?”
“It’s no different from Telesma. People can draw power from an object of greater purity and precision. From the outside.”
With a talisman bearing the name or symbol of a constellation, you could borrow the power of the stars.
In the same way, could you directly draw power from Goddess Nephthys by using a pyramid symbol?
“No matter how far you take it, magic is ultimately a technology. No one can ever keep it to themselves forever. Once you know how it works, you might not be able to use it yourself, but you can at least develop a trick to take advantage of it.”
“Wait, Stiyl!! What are you doing!?”
“Stealing the magic power specially refined from the Magic Gods’ life force.”
Stiyl tossed a single card into the air.
A different symbol was drawn over the rune with blood. A circle was drawn inside a triangle reminiscent of a pyramid. If Niang-Niang saw it, she would probably stiffen too.
“Maybe you could compare it to shoving rocket fuel inside a commercial car. Ordinarily, you’d only end up blowing up the engine, but if you managed to fit it in right, it would give you shocking acceleration. I’d prefer not to think about what this is costing me, though.”
The cost.
Kamijou had seen hints here and there that magic was a dangerous thing. For example, if an esper attempted to use magic, they risked destroying all of their blood vessels and nerves. Then there was Aleister’s talk of the sparks produced from the collisions of phases…which caused the unearned deadly fate that had taken his family from him and triggered the Battle of Blythe Road.
But what about this?
Did this carry a brand new form of risk!?
“I call it Crossroad,” said Stiyl. “I created the spell from the ground up, but the idea itself isn’t that unusual, is it? I heard a report saying the idea of making multiple religions and gods your own once caused some trouble for Orsola Aquinas.”
“…”
“That is my spell’s name. I will incorporate other cultures if it will help me achieve my wicked and shameful goal!!”
Kamijou immediately threw aside the metal pipe he held.
It wasn’t going to help.
The priest grabbed his cigarette between two fingers and crushed it.
An explosive roar followed.
Flames rushed out.
The metal pipe melted away to nothing before it even hit the floor.
The railing glowed red hot and the paint audibly peeled from the wall.
But Stiyl was not wielding a pair of red and blue flame swords.
Only a single fist.
What meaning had he placed within that form?
If Stiyl had only wanted to trap and kill Kamijou Touma, he hadn’t even needed to make his presence known. He could have sent a report to Anti-Skill and let those grownups crush the boy. Or he could have watched on while the two Magic Gods attacked.
But he hadn’t done those things.
No matter how ugly and selfish an action it was and even if it meant ignoring his Anglican orders in an act of betrayal, that magician had still come to the front line to do this himself.
“Fortis931…”
Something spilled from Stiyl Magnus’s lips.
A magic name.
The words engraved in his heart and the reason he challenged this great world.
This priest would use up every last bit of his life for the sake of a single girl.
For someone who had walked that different path, choosing to burn away part of his lifespan in a single act of magic may have been the obvious choice.
(Yeah…)
Kamijou Touma accepted that.
Which was why he clenched his fist even harder than before.
Trickery wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
(He really is a towering wall in my path. He’s my greatest enemy!!!)
Part 4[edit]
There were no tricks this time.
In that terribly long and straight hallway, Kamijou and Stiyl clenched their right fists and raced toward each other.
The first blow would end it.
Everyone could tell.
It was endlessly barbaric and primitive.
But it had the refreshing feel of two knights on horseback engaged in single combat.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
In real time, it couldn’t have lasted even a few seconds.
The moment of intersection arrived almost instantly.
Stiyl was the first to act.
He was around 2m tall, so even in supposedly equal single combat, he had the greater reach.
So what?
Kamijou didn’t even consider defense.
He was prepared to slip past the attack made first and deliver a surefire blow of his own.
Just before impact, Stiyl’s right knee unnaturally dropped down.
That was the cost.
Attempting to hijack a Magic God’s power without mastering that path yourself was like asking for pain. And since he had mentioned a cost, Stiyl had to understand that better than anyone.
So what had Kamijou Touma paid?
That question lingered in his mind, but the puny boy still clenched his right fist tight.
This guy so cared for Index he had possibly made an enemy of the Anglican Church and Academy City to reclaim the small world that was taken from him.
So.
He would win no matter the cost.
“God…”
Stiyl’s eyes widened in surprise.
After that, Kamijou distinctly saw his face crumple like a child on the verge of tears.
“If this world, this story, is moving ahead according to the system you created…”
He didn’t recognize this.
Kamijou Touma had no memory of these words.
But.
When he looked in that guy’s eyes, they naturally came from his mouth.
“Then I first need to destroy that illusion!!!”
Wham!!!
Kamijou Touma’s right fist caught Stiyl Magnus in the cheekbone.
