Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12

Novel Illustrations

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  Contents Page

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  Pages 003-005

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  Pages 006-008

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Prologue: The Process Leading to Death – Silent_Road.

All people are alone when they die.

Especially when they are directly killed by a being like Alice Anotherbible who is unique even among the Transcendents.

Let’s review the basic question.

Did he really think he would go to heaven?

Whatever his reasons, he always judged the enemy by his own rules and attacked them.

Did he even need enemies? He never even considered that question.

Of course someone like that would go to hell.

The dead could not come back.

They could never return to life.

That goodbye was permanent. The idea of a truly dead person returning to life as if nothing happened is so absurd even a child knows it could never happen.

There are no exceptions.

A certain boy does not get a loophole.

Even Anna Kingsford, known as an expert and the direct teacher of Mathers and Westcott who founded the Golden cabal, hadn’t tried to accomplish that with her own power. She had worked out a plan because she knew her own power wasn’t enough.

Then there was the other expert.

Despite his great power, he was motivated entirely by whims and playfulness.

The artificial hell created by Christian Rosencreutz – or the man using the name – had been hijacked because this secret art was unattainable any other way. And because it was such a close call, the odds could easily change.

Of course.

It wasn’t going to be easy.

Some might even wonder if it should succeed.

Christian Rosencreutz had gone to so much effort to prepare it and Anna Kingsford had hijacked it, but even then letting the boy use it was the most she could manage. She herself could not survive.

Even she didn’t have room for that.

This was such a risky gambit that even an expert had to be prepared for failure.

So perhaps it was only natural for it to turn out this way.

“Kee hee hee.”

Death was absolute.

Even Kamijou Touma had no future left once he died.

“Ee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee☆”

Chapter 1: A Scene of White and Black – the_DEATH.

Part 1

This was a perfectly ordinary high school in District 7.

Or it should have been.

Every other school had already had their opening ceremony, but not this one.

A lot of people were coming and going.

The adults stood out most since this was a school.

“The florist just arrived.”

“I know, but what about the salt!? What idiot forgot to order it!?”

“The discount store that sells just about anything doesn’t open until 10.”

“Ordering it online won’t arrive in time for the ceremony. Run to the convenience store!”

Employees of various businesses were running here and there: clothes rentals, large stage lighting and sound equipment, and a caterer providing snacks and drinks for nutrition and to help people rest. The place had the feel of backstage during some kind of event. Instead of an announcer, the host was a fairly unsuccessful comedian holding a mic. He could have just worn a short-range mic on his ear, but he had insisted on a large one in a microphone stand. That was likely his personal preference rather than having anything to do with the ceremony.

Aogami Pierce sighed softly in a brand new classroom.

“Why do those people look like they put on shows in the shopping district?”

“Probably because they do. They’re primarily entertainers, but they study Buddhist temple stuff in college. So maybe this counts as practice for them?”

Fukiyose Seiri had all the information.

Come to think of it, didn’t she usually volunteer for the committees that ran school events?

Aogami Pierce took a look around the gloomy classroom.

“Did you see those weird people hanging around the front gate? They all had smartphones, so do reporters these days not lug around heavy cameras?”

“That’s why the school opened up the back entrance for teachers. The hearse, which is kept chilly inside with dry ice, should be here soon.”

Was that why the curtains were shut first thing in the morning? Carelessly approaching a window would probably end up with a toy-like drone approaching to get some footage.

The TV stations had reporters on the scene too.

They couldn’t just ignore it. As members of the class in question, it made them nervous.

They didn’t know what exactly had happened, but they could tell it was a big deal.

Something big had happened over winter break.

“If only they would send in that sexy female reporter in a miniskirt suit.”

“Honestly. This really isn’t a job for her. We’re not talking about a culinary report discussing the soul food of regions you’ve never even heard of. I did see something like the ghost of parents day wandering around, though.”

“You mean the Old Bavarian Cream Lady of the Educational World? Wow, Kami-yan’s getting the early morning human-interest story treatment.”

“Better than having a self-styled spiritualist show up and chant Buddhist incantations at him, right? Next thing you know, they’d be saying the student who died at our school was a fallen warrior and there was a grave here in ancient times or something. Thank goodness this is Academy City.”

No matter how depressed the mood, people couldn’t help but talk when enough of them had gathered. Maybe that was just human nature.

No.

Maybe the pressure of silence scared them more.

So they were subconsciously avoiding it.

Someone was dead, but the teachers hadn’t explained anything.

And a ton of reporters were here.

It was all too concerning to let it pass in silence. This naturally led to the spread of rumors. Based on absolutely nothing, of course.

“Signs of foul play and mysterious circumstances, huh?”

“Sounds like Academy City to me,” was all Fukiyose said.

As plausible as it sounded, they had no actual evidence.

It was an empty conversation. If they knew the truth, they probably couldn’t have said anything at all.

Aogami Pierce sighed again.

“I heard we’d be released by midday.”

“The other classes will be. We’re riding a bus to the crematorium, so it’s a full day for us.”

“What about lunch? I’m a little worried about that. I was so busy this morning I missed breakfast.”

“Were you too busy to see the message sent to the entire class? It said to bring your own lunch today.”

The day’s schedule had been changed last second for this, but today was only meant to be the opening ceremony. The teachers apparently didn’t think this would affect their classes. Which made the students wonder what the point of that opening ceremony even was. Didn’t that just mean they would have been wasting a day of their winter break?

A look of belated realization came over Aogami Pierce.

“Hm? Hold on. You mean I can’t use the cafeteria or school store?”

“I imagine you would only find an empty and lonely room. The opening ceremony was meant to end at midday and there were no club activities scheduled. They wouldn’t have any ingredients for lunch ready.”

“I-I-I-I- wait just a bit, I’ve gotta run to the convenience store!!”

“You can try if you want, but the closest one will probably be full of the less motivated reporters chatting in the eat-in section. Are you sure you want to go there? Your face will be on the cover of the tabloids as the sorrow-stricken classmate.”

“Hey, wait, ah!! Sensei’s here. The event’s already starting!”

Their free time had ended.

While the classmates chatted, the sliding door by the blackboard opened and Tsukuyomi Komoe, their homeroom teacher, walked in. At 135cm, she was a very compact teacher and she had chosen thick felt clothing to keep warm in the cold. If not for the veil over her head, it could have looked like a private elementary school uniform.

She spoke with just her head poking up above the lectern.

Even for that, she was probably on her tiptoes.

“Himegami-chan, Fukiyose-chan, and the rest of you. Before the classes head to the auditorium one at a time, I want to take roll, so to your seats. The first years go first, so we don’t have much time.”

“Why send us there class by class?”

“Someone messed up designing the auditorium, so its entrance is too narrow. If everyone tried to enter at once, I think we would get stuck,” explained Fukiyose, sounding exasperated.

A gym teacher called to them from outside. The busty one who always wore a track suit.

The students filed out into the hallway.

This was the first day of their third term, but there was no opening ceremony.

Today was a special day.

It was Kamijou Touma’s funeral.

Part 2

Inside a student dorm in District 7.

Specifically, inside a room on the seventh floor.

Palm-sized Othinus, the 15cm god, stood tall on the glass table. The kotatsu had been put away since it used power.

They had to pack their things.

“Leave the key next to the phone.”

“I know. I do have a perfect memory.”

That was true of Index, a girl wearing a white nun’s habit with gold embroidery making it look like a fancy teacup, but Othinus couldn’t trust the girl’s accuracy for a very different reason. Remembering everything she saw and heard was all well and good, but then how did she explain being told very clearly that the industrial-sized bag of rice crackers was for everyone to eat through little by little over the course of January and then leaving nothing but the empty bag the very first chance she got?

A cat mewed.

“Oh, right. Him.”

“We can’t leave Sphinx here, can we?”

Index picked up the calico cat.

Just like she always did.

The cat didn’t seem to understand the human circumstances.

Othinus didn’t want to be stuck with him, so she looked away from the ferocious beast only to meet the eye of a dove sheltering from the rain on the narrow balcony railing.

The symbol of peace looked her in the eye and tilted its head. The feathery thing didn’t seem to mind the January chill.

“Is that everything?”

“It should be.”

Index was carrying the cat in her hands. She hadn’t said anything, but Othinus was already up on her shoulder.

Othinus arrogantly crossed her legs and whispered with her voice low.

“Then are you ready?”

“…Yes.”

“The cat is really the only thing you’re taking from the room?”

“Because this is Touma’s room.”

“That it is.”

Their circumstances differed, but they were both freeloaders here.

The room belonged to someone else.

And looking at it now, they could see just how much that boy had shared with them. Even though he hadn’t been in any way obligated to do so. He hadn’t been particularly well off and had constantly lamented being a poor student. But when accepting them, he had done it without a second thought.

Index put on her shoes at the front door.

Would she never complete that simple action again?

She didn’t say anything for a while.

After tapping her toes against the floor to adjust the fit of the shoes, the white nun opened the front door. Index looked back into the room just once, but she saw only an empty space.

“…”

The thin door to the student dorm room shut and the click of its lock rang loud.

Part 3

The excitement of beginning the third term was nowhere to be found.

“Does this look right?” asked Misaka Mikoto.

It was 8 in the morning.

Only convenience stores and casual restaurants would be open at this time, but Mikoto was inside a kimono store at a giant shopping mall. She stood quietly in front of a large mirror. She wore her short hair up and she wasn’t wearing her usual Tokiwadai Middle School blazer. She was wearing a black kimono, which seemed out of place on a 14-year-old girl. The half moon comb designs were the Misaka family crest.

These were mourning clothes.

She of course wasn’t going to attend her school’s opening ceremony dressed like this.

(This is nothing like a New Year’s furisode. It’s heavier.)

“Misaka-saaan, are you ready?”

A familiar face poked in.

Shokuhou Misaki appeared to have chosen Western mourning clothes.

Except why were they so see-through and revealing?

That looked more like a black party dress.

Specifically, it was a gorgeous black dress and veil, but it had slits all over the place with pearl accessories glittering here and there. Did that girl ever stop showing off?

For some reason, the weird girl gave Mikoto a weird look.

“Japanese clothing is a terrible choice for someone who doesn’t know how to put it on themselves. My choice is definitely going to be easier.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. That isn’t a character costume – more goes into it than just zipping up the back, I’m betting.”

“Come to think of it, you never wear long socks, do you?”

“Anything that would turn into something like melted cheese when exposed to a high-voltage current gets a no from me.”

And so she had chosen Japanese clothing.

Misaka Mikoto wanted nothing to do with garter belts or stockings.

…Still, she was glad she had gotten the scheming queen’s help since she knew how to rent out a kimono store before it opened for the day. This store’s quality was superb even with a rush job like this. But maybe that was always the demand for mourning clothes. On her own, Mikoto wasn’t sure she would have even considered getting mourning clothes. That said, Tokiwadai’s uniform was too bright for a sorrowful ceremony like this, so she had wanted something else to wear.

She wasn’t used to carrying around a small purse. For all the annoying insurance-related paperwork, she had agreed to all of the employee’s recommendations and then paid by card.

The two of them left the store together.

Shokuhou Misaki immediately began clutching her shoulders and shivering. Was she trying to accentuate her boobs?

“Brr!! It really is January, isn’t it? I thought all the slits and sheer lace would be sexy, but the winter chill is piercing right through it.”

“Huh, imagine that.”

“Wait, why don’t you understand me? Misaka-san, is your mourning clothes ability stuffed with fluffy cotton or something!?”

“Hey, quit it, don’t grab onto me, you made your choice, you exhibitionist idiot, so now deal with the consequences on your own.”

Really, those were supposed to be winter mourning clothes, so why was her skin showing through?

And wouldn’t you normally at least drape a shawl or stole over your shoulders to stay warm when outside?

Mikoto stared into the distance and muttered to herself.

“They do say children don’t feel the cold. Or is the saying that idiot’s can’t catch cold the one I want here?”

“I don’t want to hear that from the girl who wears shorts no matter how rainy or windy it is.”

Shokuhou was lucky she wasn’t wearing a shawl. Because Mikoto might have strangled her with it.

Just as Tokiwadai’s Ace and Queen were about to start grappling on a 2nd story outdoor passageway, something flashed in the corner of Mikoto’s vision.

It came from the open terminal at the interior of the large C-shaped shopping mall.

It was a taxi’s headlights.

The tall-roofed light station wagon taxi was modeled after the London ones. It was very round and cute.

Shokuhou Misaki was using her phone as she walked.

She appeared to have used a taxi hailing app.

“We can’t exactly walk through the entire city dressed like this, can we?”

“No, we can’t,” honestly admitted Mikoto.

Yes…

“You’re dressed as provocatively as a video producer desperate to get her subscriber count up. If you were walking out in the open, Anti-Skill would be on the scene in no time even this early in the morning.”

“Sigh. I really don’t want to hear that from the girl strutting around in the much freakier combination of a 14-year-old in mourning clo- gbhbhbhbhbhbbh!?”

Oh, it turned out the chain of her purse could also be used to strangle.

The mall hadn’t officially opened yet, so the escalator wasn’t running. After using it like stairs to reach the ground floor, Mikoto and Shokuhou climbed into the taxi’s back seat.

The driver was a woman. Maybe that was something the app let you request.

“Where to?”

“To the District 7 high school that was recently rebuilt. The one requiring black clothes like this to get in today.”

“Right.”

That was all the driver said.

The taxi smoothly pulled out onto the public road.

The driver thoughtfully switched off the overly bright LCD advertisement.

Mikoto’s warm Japanese clothing was fluffy enough to make fastening her seat belt a challenge. After making sure she heard it click, she sighed.

“So are we splitting the fare 50/50?”

“Sorry, but this is a hired vehicle with a contract updated every six months, so the distance of a single trip like this doesn’t really have a price. Or were you offering to pay for the full half year?”

“Go to hell.”

Their wealthy surroundings had its pros and its cons. Showing off with vehicles like this tended to escalate in any surroundings, but at Tokiwadai some girls went as far as hiring a helicopter. And unlike in the movies, they couldn’t just land on any building roof, which made them extremely inconvenient for getting around in a city.

The taxi…or was it technically a hired vehicle? Whatever it was, the car traveled smoothly.

The city had a unique feel this early in the morning.

Some of the restaurants were serving their morning menu, but most other service industry locations had their metal shutters down. The city still hadn’t woken from its slumber. In some places, both sides of the major street were rejecting customers.

No.

Was it more than just that?

“…”

Since she had nothing to discuss with the scheming queen, Mikoto looked out the window.

Academy City was torn up.

Buildings here and there were covered by soundproofing sheets and construction equipment like bulldozers and concrete mixer trucks were traveling every which way on the morning streets. At some intersections, the streetlights were dark and adults were directing traffic. They must have been using noise canceling technology, but a closer inspection showed the flashing light of welding being done this early in the morning.

Anna Sprengel, Christian Rosencreutz, and Alice Anotherbible. The repairs to the city had been delayed by one major incident after another.

(I wasn’t involved in it all, though.)

Would the outcome have differed had she been?

Mikoto wasn’t confident she could have survived an incident not even that idiot had managed to overcome.

She didn’t feel like she had survived.

She had been left behind.

That more accurately summed up her feelings.

Those who had lost their lives may have been furious to hear her say so, though.

She saw a city of white, black, and gray.

The pretty exterior had been stripped away.

Just viewing it brought a gloom drifting down onto her like volcanic ash.

She muttered a few words with her eyes still directed outside the window.

“…How much longer?”

“We’re almost there.”

Part 4

At the international airport in Haneda.

Kanzaki Kaori was Japanese, so she could blend into the crowds easily enough (including her 2m katana she had slipped through hidden among her luggage). She knew she had been chosen for this role for that purpose.

The Amakusas were currently being protected by the Anglican Church.

This naturally had an effect on their actions.

(But…)

She was gathering a lot of attention.

And not because she was wearing a midriff-baring top and jeans with one leg cut off at the base of the thigh.

“How long are you going to keep crying?”

“But…but…”

She was with Itsuwa.

They had received word of that boy’s death some time ago. Nevertheless, Itsuwa had been like this the entire flight here. The flight attendant kept giving her worried looks and the child in a nearby seat had snickered, probably because he thought she was overreacting to a movie.

Yet she was supposed to be a member of the Amakusa Church who stuck to their faith even if it meant going into hiding.

As Itsuwa finally replied, her eyes were red from rubbing them so much.

Tatemiya, Tsushima, and the rest had managed to restrain themselves, but Itsuwa hadn’t.

“It doesn’t bother you, Priestess? I mean…we can never…never see him again.”

“…”

Kanzaki had failed to save someone.

She was always insisting she would save everyone, yet this was a familiar feeling for Saint Kanzaki Kaori. She was always the only one to survive and the world never did change.

He was dead, but time marched on.

Mercilessly.

No, she couldn’t just let death happen and move on. There was much that had to be done because someone had died.

Kanzaki sighed softly.

The smell of morning curry wafted in, presumably from the lounge. Just like any other day.

Academy City’s District 23 had an international airport. There were direct flights there from England. So why had the Amakusas entered Japan through Haneda, which was outside the city?

Kanzaki Kaori quietly asked for confirmation.

“You know what we must do, don’t you?”

“Yesh…”

Part 5

Gray Academy City was falling apart after so many consecutive battles.

A long narrow polished car drove slowly through the city, looking out of place among all the damage that had happened too quickly for repairs to be made.

It was colored black and gold.

It was a hearse.

There must have been a tacit understanding because the workers directing traffic rotated their red poles to keep the hearse moving.

Academy City had the unusual feature of a population 80% made up of students. The housing was overwhelmingly made up of student dorms. This greatly changed the methods for wakes and funerals compared to ordinary cities. For example, the majority of people had no blood relatives in the city, so the body was generally not returned home for a wake after the death was confirmed at a hospital. A wake was either held at a ceremony hall or the body was stored in the morgue a while longer.

Also, funerals were usually held at the student’s school.

This served several purposes: it helped reduce the impact of the death on the teachers and students, any specialized facilities for that purpose would be too few in number to cover all the city’s dead, and most importantly of all, it made a clear statement of who had jurisdiction over the body that had gone through the esper development program.

Altogether, this meant there was no hiding the date of a funeral.

Because of this, if you knew the start and end locations – the frog-faced doctor’s hospital and an ordinary high school in this case – you could predict what route the hearse would take. It helped that the unusual length of a hearse restricted what streets it could use.

A building was leaning at an angle after its rebuilding had been delayed.

On its roof, Human Aleister clutched the twisted railing and stared intently down at the ground.

The hearse couldn’t have been more vulnerable.

He could only imagine they were unaware of the value of what they carried.

The golden retriever by his side spoke bitterly.

“Don’t.”

“But this is the last chance.”

“See him off. Like a true friend should.”

“I know that!! But this is the only chance to steal the body intact!” he roared.

Anyone could choose to do the right thing. But there were paths that could not be reached in that way. Throughout this human’s history, he had been despised for taking those paths.

He didn’t ask for others’ understanding.

He had learned all too well over the course of his life that someone who feigned intellectualism by lobbing criticisms from a position of safety could never direct history in a positive direction.

If he was going to change things, it had to be now.

Chances were slippery. They were reduced in real time.

And they never grew.

“He will be at the crematorium in a few hours’ time!! Once even his bones have been burned and not even a hair remains to retrieve his DNA map from, it’s all over. Then I truly will be powerless. …Doing the right thing? Nonsense. What good is that other than a salve to dull the pain of failure??? This is how it always works in my life! It’s too late to regret your actions once it’s all over!!”

The boy’s death had already been confirmed.

He was past the point of being revived by electric shocks or a cardiac massage.

Why?

Why obsess over the presence of the body at this stage?

Why must he steal it intact?

Aleister’s opinion was simple.

He simply couldn’t accept it.

He had seen the moment of death more times than he could count.

But that didn’t mean he was used to it.

“Academy City has clone technology.”

Anyone would feel this way.

If there was a means of overturning death, what was wrong with relying on it?

This really could be the last chance. So struggle. He had no obligation to nobly give up and protect the natural order.

He shouted.

With all his strength.

“What about powered suits filled with life-support devices, cyborg tech, artificial ghosts, or even giving his preserved corpse autonomous movement! Yes, he’s dead, but so what? Death is no reason to give up!! If I make all the mistakes myself, then he can again smile in this world!!!”

The golden retriever said nothing.

Aleister had to know he was wrong.

But Kihara Noukan understood how foolish it was to reject someone’s emotions based on what was logically right. Besides, the Kihara family placed no importance on what the general public considered to be “right”.

Aleister was human through and through.

For better and for worse.

Kihara Noukan actually liked that messier side of him. That was a fact.

“But.”

The golden retriever used a skinny mechanical arm to place a cigar in his mouth.

And he prepared a special lighter to light it.

“Not everyone is going to understand your idea of romance.”

Without warning and as cheaply as in a TV drama, a cold rain began to fall.

Kihara Noukan stared at his top-quality Cuban in disappointment.

The rooftops were private property, so Academy City’s no smoking ordinance shouldn’t have applied there.

“…”

There had been no advance sign.

This rain was blatantly unnatural.

Then again, maybe it was wrong to look for anything natural inside Academy City to begin with.

A voice spoke within the pouring rain.

“Cool it.”

He wasn’t actually here of course.

The familiar voice was not playing from a speaker. Even a researcher with the Kihara name was a smidge impressed.

“That’s the sound of the falling rain. So are you superimposing your voice onto the vibrations of the raindrops themselves?”

Meanwhile, the human spoke with his voice low.

As if he were uttering a powerful curse.

“The new Board Chairman, huh?”

“And get a clue. You don’t have a choice here. That third-rate bastard used up all his options that day. That’s all there is to this. Neither of us can waltz in after the fact and start messing with things.”

This rain didn’t just seem artificial.

It truly was artificial rain created by Academy City technology.

He could freely control the entire world’s weather and environment, but a single person’s life was beyond his reach. Controlling so much great knowledge wasn’t enough to make someone happy.

But this wasn’t enough to extinguish Aleister’s obsession which burned as hot as scorching lava.

Like steam, incredible emotion rose from his shoulders.

“You can’t just let this happen, can you? You must understand. He didn’t need to die. Anna Sprengel, Christian Rosencreutz, and Alice Anotherbible – those were all issues we should have solved! But he carried it all on his shoulders when there was no need to!! And now you’re going to give up? Surely you understand! If we follow the ordinary morality that everyone understands, we will lose him forever!!”

“Yes,” admitted Accelerator.

He accepted the possibility that something that should have ended could be made to continue using a cruel and grotesque method.

If all you wanted to do was make the flesh and bones called Kamijou Touma continue operating, that could be done.

You could mend the stopped brain and send electrical signals through it again. But only that.

However.

Even then…

“But this isn’t your city anymore.”

“Kh.”

“I didn’t unfairly usurp it from you. You handed the keys to me yourself because you were satisfied. Coming back now and trying to take it back is just sad.”

He wasn’t level-headed.

He knew what this meant.

He had his own thoughts on the matter. But Accelerator appeared to be fighting his own emotions. And the #1 knew what happened when his emotions and his reason fought and the emotions won. After crawling through the city’s darkness, he knew all too well.

And he knew that bloody path led nowhere.

So he would show that his desire to not turn back and to keep his path a one-way road was more than just wordplay.

“I know,” said the new Board Chairman. His voice firm. “After choosing to participate in that experiment to kill 20 thousand clones, I know what it means for someone to die. The living are free to struggle against death. And I think they should. But someone else messing with someone who’s already dead is something else entirely. It’s similar, but so very different, Aleister.”

The 20 thousand clones’ numbers had been reduced to less than 10 thousand.

Could he atone for his sins by using the same cells to produce another 10 thousand girls with the same face?

Like hell he could.

…Those unspoken words left Aleister stunned.

Even an idiot could understand this.

Accelerator was undeniably in the right here.

Kihara Noukan’s wet and unlit cigar wiggled uselessly in his mouth.

(The military clones, hm? That experiment was meant to evolve the #1. Or that was the official story anyway. It pushed him to grow in an unexpected direction, but you’re still the one that gave him that push, Aleister.)

“People mustn’t defile the deaths of others. The question isn’t if it’s possible. The fact that it is technologically possible is why we must show restraint.”

Part 6

“…”

Aleister listened to it all.

He listened to the raindrop voice.

It didn’t reach him.

Not that he didn’t understand it.

That wasn’t what he wanted right now.

How could you find ordinary peace by following that sort of path?

Human Aleister clenched his teeth and whispered in a terrifyingly low voice.

“Now that I’ve heard you out.”

“Huh?”

“What if I still refuse?”

“Then I’ll stop you of course, outsider. I won’t let you turn Academy City back into what it was. Like I already told you: this isn’t your city.”

The voice carried by the raindrops pounding against the rooftop conveyed icy killer intent.

Academy City began to move.

Rotors loudly sliced at the air.

“…”

These were unmanned Six Wings attack helicopters.

Those had been used in combat for a while now, but they had only become known to the media at large during World War Three, which was arranged in secret by Fiamma of the Right. The world had been shocked by the sight of the helicopters accurately locating an enemy tank battalion in the middle of a raging blizzard and then destroying only the enemy weapons while avoiding all the anti-air fire.

It was an older weapon at this point.

Daily progress was a thing everywhere, but the value of each and every minute and second was so much greater in Academy City.

Weapons several generations ahead of the current standard had to be lurking deep within labs across the city.

This was an attack with overwhelming numbers by a known technology. It was effective, but it brought no risk to the one giving the orders. It was a boring “no risk, high return” strategy. The leader safely surrounded by thick walls only had to view the distant future and spit out logical arguments.

It was the method of Academy City’s Board Chairman.

Aleister felt like he was seeing his old self.

(He’s dealing with me, who, for better or for worse, knows Academy City inside and out. I thought he would at least silently distribute nanodevices modeled after a deadly virus, but does he not even have that much left to use?)

“Is that all?”

Aleister felt no fear.

He only felt rage.

Take this seriously.

This is literally the final line to determine his fate.

“Did you really think this was enough for someone as stubborn as me to quietly back off!?”

A giant blackness appeared with so much force it seemed ready to engulf the world before concentrating powerfully down into a single point above Aleister’s palm.

Black.

That was a pitch black flame not found in the natural world.

It was the ultimate destruction controlled by “the wickedest man in the world” who prophesied the outbreak of World War One and, since he couldn’t stop the death it would bring, considered putting together a massive spell using all the bloodshed.

“Protector of the abyss – that is, the barrier none can cross – and the monster that severs the bonds between people to prevent their evolution. Your value is 333, your meaning is dispersion. Demon who I have named, gather in my hand, Coronzon!!!”

He felt his own heart crawl disconcertingly.

Something unseen had been carved away.

He could tell.

But this was what it meant to stick to your guns.

Had he thought he could do this without any risk to himself?

As long as it would not force misfortune and tragedy onto an unknown third party, Aleister would use any forbidden magic.

This would scatter “sparks” from the collision between phases, but he would direct that side effect onto himself.

A cold sweat very different from the chilly rain formed on his face, but he bared his teeth and spoke.

“You’re no monster. You’re as much a human as I am.”

“…”

“And as you have gathered all the ugliest parts of that humanity, allow me to gift you the ultimate foolishness. …This is death. If you would dismiss human death as something that ‘can’t be helped’, then raise your head from your paperwork and look me in the eye. I will test the rawness of death for you!!!”

The voice didn’t even respond.

It was a thorough rejection. The ultimate lack of understanding. Which may have been why the new Board Chairman was so disappointed.

It didn’t end with bringing down the Six Wings.

Far below, on the surface, a monster emerged looking like a tank gun attached to the roof of an 8-wheel armored truck. That was a Predator Octopus. By breaking the pillars in accordance with careful calculations, even a building like this could be brought down.

A mere 120mm gun?

Laughable.

Who did they think they could destroy with that?

It all felt like a desperate attempt to cover up a lack of forces. After the consecutive attacks of Anna Sprengel, Christian Rosencreutz, and Alice Anotherbible, Academy City was run down. It didn’t have many remaining forces.

If an individual wanted to have their way within the city, now was the only chance.

The 8-wheeled vehicle turned its gun to aim at Aleister.

It didn’t bother thinking about cover or an escape route.

That suggested it was unmanned.

An explosive sound erupted out.

It was a roar.

Produced by a human body. The wall of compressed air blew away the airborne shell, crushed the unmanned weapon, and caused a circle of asphalt to sink down. Deep down.

(I will not let him be taken to the crematorium.)

Thus, Aleister was leaning forward in that moment.

(As long as I can secure Kamijou Touma’s whole body, there are still options. Plenty of options!! I don’t even need any help from Academy Ci-)

Crash!!!

Without warning, a powerful lightning bolt fell from the sky, piercing Aleister’s body on its way down.

Part 7

Accelerator had not left the District 10 prison.

Not a single step.

That was the restriction he had placed on himself.

And he didn’t even need to.

“Hmph.”

Gas pipes, water pipes, and fiber optic cables.

All sorts of plumbing and wiring was laid out like a spider web below Academy City. The total length could wrap around the earth two and a half times with more to spare.

So.

With the ultimate vector control power, there was no need to leave the strictly guarded prison. As long as he knew an effective path, he could easily use the artificial objects underground to manipulate the atmosphere, create pressure differences, and send down an electric attack like a spear piercing the human who was located several train stations away.

He had never said he was helpless just because he wouldn’t leave.

No matter the reason, he would not use a crisis as an excuse to cut his punishment short. But with so much power at his disposal, he couldn’t just let people die when he was capable of saving them. Both of those were absolutes in his mind.

He would make them both work together.

So the new Board Chairman had honed his #1 Level 5 power to this point.

Could he win against that bastard now?

(A meaningless question.)

Accelerator shook his head.

What good was winning?

For that matter, did he even need enemies?

Creating a world with no need for a division between friend and foe would be the much greater challenge. But there was a boy who had accomplished something close to that. He hadn’t cared too much about the level system, he had understood adults and children alike, and he hadn’t cared if someone was from inside or outside Academy City. It was a small thing, but someone had created a world like that.

He hadn’t feared failure.

Even if it meant embarrassment, injury, or acting in vain, he hadn’t hesitated to reach out his hand.

It was the same for Accelerator. In his fairly short life, the moments he sensed obvious growth in himself were generally when he was crawling through the mud. The #1 could count his experiences like that on one hand, but that boy had done it every single day like it was normal.

He had grown so much more.

Which explained why Accelerator had never been able to catch up.

Board Chairman of Academy City?

Maybe all forms of information gathered here.

But that boy’s field of view had to have been much wider.

(Focus on the immediate issue.)

Accelerator looked to one wall of his cell.

The LCD monitor there displayed all sorts of information at once and it was currently producing a voice.

This was not a voice of fiery rage.

The emotion was more like a resentment with the sticky consistency of mud.

It was the voice of a cornered beast.

“That was roughly a billion volts. Did that wake you up, human?”

“Hm, so the artificial rain was only the rehearsal. To test how far your vector control could influence atmospheric and meteorological conditions!!”

He hadn’t used dry ice or silver iodide.

This weather control had used an entirely different principle to alter the atmospheric pressure.

Should he create some scorching plasma next?

“That level of deception is standard on the dark side. People have a bad habit of readily accepting lies they find convenient. Ridiculous. Like I would change the weather just to help you cool your head. Civilian companies have weather forecast apps these days. And there are tons of people who would rate them poorly after just one prank like this.”

Part 8

Burning wasn’t quite the right word.

All the oxygen molecules in the air were split into individual atoms before rebonding and giving off the distinctive odor of ozone.

Aleister clenched his teeth while doubled over on the rooftop as a second punishing blow dropped toward him. A blinding flash and deafening boom followed.

“Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

“I don’t need a big, one-shot attack.”

These words rejected everything Accelerator used to be.

And he spoke them without a hint of hesitation.

Were the logics of an offensive battle and a defensive battle entirely different?

“If I have a way to whittle down your stamina bit by bit, I just have to keep doing that as long as it takes. I can slowly but surely wear down your defenses. I will continue to fight with the resources I have. Can you kill me right away? If not, you’re screwed. It doesn’t matter how boring and silly a win this will be.”

“Gh, khh!!”

A third bolt. A fourth.

But he didn’t break.

Aleister Crowley did not fall.

Everyone else was accepting that boy’s death.

He had to consider what would be lost if he broke now.

Just once more!!

“Not…yet!! I will have my way this time… I will use every piece of knowledge at my disposal!! But not for myself. So that he can stand back up and once more reach out that right hand to save many more people! I will break any taboo that stands in my way. If it will keep them from giving up on a human life, I will stand up to even the most powerful enemy!”

“What does it matter if you defeat that enemy? Why do you even need to make enemies?”

He had no answer.

He couldn’t find anything to say.

He was the human who had belonged to the world’s largest magic cabal and had made full use of his notoriety in that world but had also made countless enemies and ultimately vanished into the shadows of history. Aleister himself knew what would happen if he bragged about being the most infamous magician in the world.

A life of making and defeating enemies did not lead to happiness.

The effort spent on gathering the power to kill and end problems that way could instead be spent on working to explain yourself. To avoid opposition and misunderstandings in the first place. Effort toward that was much healthier and correct.

The Golden cabal had been the world’s largest.

Aleister Crowley was the magician who had won and survived the Battle of Blythe Road.

But.

In the end.

Had he found happiness by only pursuing the power to master magic and to fight?

What did it matter if you were the strongest?

Someone else had once walked that path.

The old Board Chairman had stayed there, but the new Board Chairman had begun searching through the darkness for a different exit.

His voice spoke.

The collection of raindrop sounds carried human emotion.

No matter how many detours he had taken along the way, his continuing effort to atone for his sins had allowed this monster to begin down a different path from Aleister.

“You could have risked your life to reach out a helping hand. You were in the city, so you weren’t just an observer. You had what it took to take part in the conclusion. But now isn’t the time for that.”

“!!”

“It’s already over.”

One by one, the new Board Chairman’s low words stabbed deep into his own chest.

“You were in the city, weren’t you? Then location wasn’t the issue. Like I said, it was an issue of timing. You chose the wrong time to play your trump card.”

Aleister’s mouth opened and closed, but no words left it.

And not because of the lightning.

They were both unusual geniuses, so he understood what the #1 was trying to say.

Simply put…

“Accept the truth. Stop blaming it on everyone else. …This is all the result of your own choices. Trying to cover up your own failures will only distort the world around you.”

“Oh, oh.”

He crumbled.

He couldn’t even breathe.

His voice eventually rose to a cry – the cry of human lamentation.

…It wasn’t like he had especially cared about the boy to begin with.

No matter how unusual they were, his plan had him observing all residents of Academy City equally.

“Let’s do this.”

”No words are necessary. We know each other better than that.”

But in truth, that boy had delved deep inside the Windowless Building and, with Mina Mathers’s help, smashed Aleister’s plan with his right fist.

“Then prove that we can defeat Coronzon without using Lilith!! What other way is there to protect your precious baby!!!???”

He had saved Baby Lilith and battled Great Demon Coronzon.

During a large-scale battle covering the entire United Kingdom, if not the entire world, Aleister had somehow ended up fighting alongside that boy.

How much had that saved him on the inside even as he maintained a cynical attitude toward the world?

Without seeing that boy’s way of life up close, Aleister could never have faced his own inferiority complex and would have been killed by Mathers then.

“Ahhhh!! Ahhhhhhh!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

When Alice Anotherbible appeared and delivered a devastating blow to the dark side, Aleister had once more entered Academy City.

The monster himself had forgotten how that boy had wept upon learning of Human Aleister Crowley’s survival.

“Run away with me, Anna Sprengel!!!”

He and the boy had stood on opposite sides on the question of what to do about Anna Sprengel.

From an efficiency and safety standpoint, Aleister hadn’t been wrong.

He was sure of that.

But Kamijou Touma had been right.

That boy had clearly been correct.

Aleister knew that wicked woman had smiled happily by Kamijou Touma’s side after her poison had been removed and the threat negated. That had been a win for the boy’s belief in human possibility.

Aleister couldn’t abandon him.

Even if they had parted ways after failing to reach an agreement.

But.

This was that human’s selfish desire.

Was it not what that boy wanted and would it not make him happy?

This desire wouldn’t lead anywhere.

The memories of him that Aleister had worked so hard to gather up were spilling away.

It was time.

Give up.

If you truly want to focus on a life more precious than your own.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Yes.

The final person accepted it.

Accepted his death.

Part 9

Inside a District 7 hospital, it was still early morning.

No one else was inside the hallway waiting area where a few vending machines were lined up. The frog-faced doctor sat alone on the artificial leather sofa there staring out of the window as raindrops pounded on it.

The paper cup in his hand hadn’t moved in a while. The coffee had long since gone cold.

“…Phew.”

His let out a heavy breath.

He had seen the hearse off.

It was necessary, but this was his hardest job as a doctor.

Would the funeral be starting about now?

He drew the line here.

As the doctor who had failed to save him, he felt wrong heading to the funeral. He wished the boy’s surviving family could at least direct all their anger at him, but his parents wouldn’t even be in the city.

There were lives he could not save.

No matter what strange alternate name he was known by, there was nothing he could do when the patient’s heart and brain activity had stopped by the time they arrived at the hospital. The frog-faced doctor could only save the living.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but wonder.

What if?

If he had broken more of the rules, could something have changed here?

(Does it make me coldhearted that I can calmly say I shouldn’t do that specifically because it is technically possible?)

“…”

Hurried footsteps snapped the frog-faced doctor out of his reverie.

Someone poked their head out from around the hallway corner.

It was a familiar face.

It belonged to a young medical intern.

“Doctor, we have an emergency! A District 7 ambulance is headed our way. There was an accident at a construction site and a worker had their hand caught in the machinery.”

“Understood. Prepare to receive them immediately.”

He swallowed the rest of the liquid in the paper cup, crushed it in his grip, and tossed it in the nearby trash can.

He stood from the sofa.

The frog-faced doctor turned around.

His white coat swishing around him.

He turned his back.

He cut off all feelings related to Kamijou Touma who was already gone.

It was a conscious choice.

Nothing he could do would bring back the dead.

But there was another emergency patient he could still save.

Part 10

In a brand new high school in District 7, Komoe-sensei spoke to the students in her classroom.

“Fukiyose-chan, Aogami-chan…and the rest of you too. The ceremony is about to begin, so please move to the auditorium.”

They filed out.

It was all in motion now.

The final obstacle – Aleister Crowley – had been removed.

The world had accepted it.

Kamijou Touma’s funeral was finally beginning.

Chapter 2: Funeral – Good_Bye_Bad.

Part 1

Cold rain that couldn’t quite become snow fell from thick gray clouds.

It was weaker than before.

But that made it seem more stable, suggesting it would last longer.

A funeral was underway.

It had begun in the school auditorium.

The entire student body was gathered there, so they had to line up based on a system to fit. …Except Aogami Pierce and Fukiyose Seiri had frozen up nearby. Apparently Komoe-sensei had panicked, so their class’s guidance was a mess. But that boy may have appreciated a human response like that.

The space was large enough to hold hundreds of people.

That meant the heating was only so effective. Even with the air conditioning and halogen heaters, the chill could not be fully banished.

It was the presence of death.

Something you normally didn’t sense but crept up on everyone the same.

Aogami Pierce felt like the world itself were telling him an attempt to act cheerful would not fundamentally change what they were here for.

This was a funeral.

A member of their class was dead.

“Thank you all for attending despite the poor weather. Perhaps the heavens themselves are weeping for the deceased. It pains me just as much to lose someone so young.”

A young Buddhist monk got started with a microphone in hand. Fukiyose Seiri was only familiar with the term “abbot” as a title for a Buddhist monk, but she wasn’t sure if there was a proper hierarchy there.

“The abbot is the head of a single temple,” explained Aogami Pierce. “They’re the one who leads the rest of the temple’s monks. But there are a fair number of temples where the abbot is the only monk due to the aging population or just being shorthanded, so a lot of people get the terms monk and abbot confused. It’s unusual for someone that young to be one.”

“Why do you know so much about this?”

“What, are you really not reading that social media gag manga that went viral on New Year’s? It’s called ‘I Was Reincarnated and Got a Hypnotizing 5 yen Coin That Makes People Do Anything I Say, but I Ended Up in a Buddhist Temple Full of Macho Monks’. The unexpected mismatch!! What fate awaits our gloomy heroine after the ascetic life and vegetarian food cleanses her in body and soul!?”

“Why can’t someone ban this guy’s very existence?” asked an exasperated Fukiyose.

But had her senses dulled over winter break? She appeared to have forgotten insults of that level were nothing more than a reward. She could be two or even three times as harsh and he would still welcome it.

The screen on the wall behind the auditorium stage came to life.

“I am truly grateful you have all gathered today for our son.”

Remote comments by Kamijou Touma’s parents played on the screen. They apparently used more than just telegrams in this day and age.

A loud slam came from the back of the auditorium.

Someone had been unable to contain themselves and rushed out while covering their mouth. For a brief moment, the outside light shined into the dark auditorium. Surprisingly, this person was not from their class. From where they came from, they must have been a student from another year.

“Kami-yan sure was loved.”

“He had the weirdest connections. I sometimes saw him speaking with an upperclassman girl.”

There was some kind of accident that led to shouting, but the funeral itself continued without a hitch.

Aogami Pierce got some words out while staring out ahead.

“Why…?”

“Hm?”

“Why do people die so easily?”

This was somehow different from before.

Death.

The word carried so much more weight. Instead of the light and empty feeling of losing a life in a video game, this carried the heavy weight of reality.

Maybe that was what a funeral was.

It was about saying goodbye.

But in a different way from a classmate moving away.

Instead of not being able to see him again after this, they already couldn’t see him again. People could not accept that so quickly, so they needed a way to smooth over the rough edges of reality or else the small society that was a school could collapse.

It was like bringing things into focus.

Uh, oh.

It wasn’t so bad when the image before Aogami’s eyes was blurry. He could stand that. But once the outlines came into focus, the corners of his eyes could be in trouble.

Trouble?

Who said it was wrong to cry? It wasn’t a competition and who did he even think he was competing with? Apparently adolescent rebelliousness could needlessly screw with people’s lives even here.

“…”

He realized he hadn’t heard Fukiyose’s voice in a while.

When he focused, he could hear some breaths seemingly covered by an unseen hand.

Or maybe she had a handkerchief out.

He wasn’t about to peek over at the next seat, though.

He envied the people who could let themselves cry here. He was always shouting in the classroom, but he felt some kind of barrier forcing himself to hold back here.

Aogami Pierce was not a diligent student.

Even during ordinary classes, he would stare out the window and daydream about battling terrorists.

He had always thought Kamijou Touma would survive to the very end.

He could do anything in his fantasies, but for some reason that boy always survived longer than Aogami himself. Aogami would sometimes save everyone and end up with a harem and he would sometimes get dramatically shot and die, but no matter what happened, Kamijou Touma would always survive to the end, no matter how beat up he was.

But.

Reality was something else entirely.

He could think of any number of things to say if he were the one to die, but he couldn’t think of a single one when it was Kamijou Touma who had died.

“I’m such an idiot,” he muttered to himself.

He hadn’t expected this.

Something had happened somewhere he wasn’t aware of.

He guessed people all over thought these things as they lived with regret.

“Now, if you will please come forward to burn incense. Yes, it will help if you climb the stairs on the right and descend the stairs on the left. You may begin.”

Part 2

Meanwhile, two girls experienced this from a different viewpoint.

District 7.

An ordinary high school.

The entire student body was gathered in the auditorium. But even with the warmth of hundreds of bodies, the chilly air could not be entirely banished by the air conditioning too weak for the size of the space and the halogen heaters set up in a hurry.

That acted as the breath of death in contrast to the human warmth.

A large portrait photo sat atop the stage.

The face belonged to Kamijou Touma.

They must not have expected this. He looked almost villainous on the portrait forcibly blown up from his student ID. But maybe anyone would in an expressionless ID photo taken from head on.

A part-time monk, who was apparently an unsuccessful entertainer who did this as a side job, held a microphone.

His weirdly cheerful voice may have come from mixing together his two jobs.

“Thank you all for attending despite the poor weather. Perhaps the heavens themselves are weeping for the deceased. It pains me just as much to lose someone so young.”

In addition to the student body, a guest space had been prepared at one side.

Mikoto and Shokuhou were seated there.

One of them was shaking.

“Brrrrrr. Misa-Misaka-sa-Misaka-san, it’s so c-c-cold, you need to w-w-w-warm me up.”

“Are you even wearing clothes?”

Mikoto sighed while using a hand to the face to shove away the idiot queen – who Mikoto was beginning to suspect she might actually be “wearing” body paint – as she shivered and tried to cling to Mikoto from the side.

This was a high school.

For a middle schooler, it was like another world entirely.

But the usual tension she would feel was nowhere to be found.

She had actually been here before, but…

(I never imagined I would visit that idiot’s high school for this.)

Her heavy sighing wouldn’t stop.

However, she saw no one who could be his parents in the guest section.

Unsurprisingly.

Given all the paperwork and approvals required, there just hadn’t been time to invite someone in to Academy City.

“?”

“What is it, scheming queen?”

“Oh, I was just wondering who the chief mourner is. Ahn, halogen heater☆”

Shokuhou Misaki’s eyes melted at a machine that was like a “warm fan” that an official had placed in the nearby aisle. She looked about ready to spread her arms and hug the heater with hearts displayed in her pupils. Why had she even come to the funeral?

That aside…

(Chief mourner.)

Come to think of it, this was odd.

As fancy as all this looked, the crucial pillars were missing.

It all felt hollow and artificial.

“That said, we must not keep the deceased here forever. As painful as it will be, we must continue with the ceremony to put him at ease as he takes his journey into the great beyond.”

A gentle sound enveloped the auditorium.

Classical music of unknown composer and title began to play.

“…?”

Mikoto knew how to play the piano and the violin, but she frowned. She didn’t recognize this. It may have been healing music recently composed entirely on a computer. That would be fitting for Academy City.

A slideshow of photos played along with the music.

It was obvious what these were from.

“The Daihaseisai, the Ichihanaransai – Kamijou Touma-san really did smile so brightly during these events.”

Uh, uh…

Damp sobs spilled from here and there.

But wait.

Hold on.

What was this? Even in his school, how many people even knew Kamijou Touma? He hadn’t been part of any clubs and he had no connections outside his class. He wasn’t a master shogi player and he didn’t get the top score in the national practice exam. So why were all of those students who looked like second or third years shedding tears?

Mikoto was astonished.

Maybe it was a Pavlovian response, like people who would always cry when hearing a music box playing when in a sad mood.

“They’re like the delinquents who only cry at the graduation ceremony.”

Now that she had recovered using the heat of the halogen heater, Shokuhou’s whisper pierced sharply into Mikoto.

You smile at New Year’s and you cry at funerals.

That was all it was.

Like flipping a switch or turning a dial.

Was that really enough?

Could someone’s life end with this?

Of course, it would also piss her off if someone was chatting or using their phone in the middle of the ceremony, but this felt different somehow. The tears felt cheap. She wanted to stand up and shout that this wasn’t right.

Mikoto was sad.

She didn’t know what to do now that the time had come to say goodbye.

But.

She felt her heart distancing itself at the scene she found here. The distance kept growing. Her heart had lost the ability to sense her feelings.

Why?

It was already over. She knew that. Yet she felt some kind of powerful impatience growing inside her.

Was this really enough?

Would this mark the end of someone’s life?

“To represent you all, his homeroom teacher Tsukuyomi Komoe-sensei will now present some flowers.”

“Uhh.”

It might all look emotional, but it was nothing but checking off everything on the list.

It was a routine.

It was a ceremony to cut someone away from society, forget them, and erase them.

And.

Mikoto saw a red dot out of the corner of her eye.

“?”

Curious, she looked over to see a video being recorded.

Since she wasn’t familiar with funerals, she thought maybe that was a way to leave some memory behind, but…

“(That’s the funeral company. I bet they’ll chop it up and use it in their ads.)”

Shokuhou was more coldhearted.

Perhaps she was more accustomed to death than Mikoto.

But from where?

There was no answer to that question. As Shokuhou faced forward, her profile looked somehow lonely.

The entertainer hosting the event continued on.

“We will now receive a message from Kamijou Touma-san’s parents.”

The slide show of school events switched to something else.

“I am truly grateful you have all gathered today for our son.”

Were they using an online conference app?

The white wall behind the auditorium stage acted as a large screen to project someone who was presumably his father.

He was likely at home. The room behind him looked lived in.

Maybe this had been too sudden for anything else.

His user name was displayed below him in small text.

Kamijou Touya.

His flowing words were anything but coldhearted.

Even through the screen, Mikoto could sense just how hard that grown adult was clenching his teeth to get through it.

That distant place carried a much more appropriate mood than the site of the funeral.

Or so it seemed to Mikoto.

She sensed something authentic there.

“I’m sure Touma’s life in Academy City was full of smiles and memories with all of you. He never was great in school and he didn’t develop any kind of esper power, but we have all of you to thank for allowing him to enjoy himself enough to forget about those things. Our son seemed so happy in all the emails and messages he sent us. He also sent plenty of photos and videos. Those limited glimpses into his life were enough to know his time there was a bright and happy one. And I imagine he enjoyed himself even more than he let us know. I would like to thank you all deeply on behalf of our son. Even if his life there was cut short, he was truly fortunate to be surrounded by so many wonderful frie- kh...no, I can’t do it!!”

His trembling voice grew strained partway through.

The middle-aged man’s face filled the screen. With tears welling in his eyes.

“He was our family!! Our son is dead!!! But they won’t let us in the city!! They won’t even tell us the exact cause of death!! Is it not as safe inside those walls as we were led to believe!? This is crazy! What the hell is going on in that ci- (voice muted)”

His mouth flapped silently for a few more seconds before the video also cut out.

The host put on a fake smile and worked at smoothing that over.

“Oh, dear. The signal appears to be unstable and since it still hasn’t come back, we will move on.”

How could they just move past that!?

Mikoto just about stood up from her folding chair, but Shokuhou grabbed her hand.

Firmly, to hold her in place.

Even his parent’s wholehearted rebellion had accomplished nothing.

That was just one branch on the flowchart.

By following that branch through, they could bring the ceremony back on track.

“Now, if you will please come forward to burn incense. Yes, it will help if you climb the stairs on the right and descend the stairs on the left. You may begin.”

If the entire student body burned incense, it would take all day. Instead, each class sent a representative up to the altar. The staff held stopwatches and kept everything on the schedule determined during the dry run. Someone had died, but they didn’t allow anything to break down.

It was like the sand in an hourglass.

Once the stock had been used up, it was over. The coffin would be shut and placed in the hearse to be taken to the crematorium. Then nothing would remain. Kamijou Touma would be burned to ashes, leaving nothing even on the genetic level.

The entertainer monk continued with a smile.

“Finally, I would like to read the telegrams that have arrived from those close to the deceased. To start with, um, we have a Miss Leivinia Birdway from England.”

It was ending.

The funeral really was going to end.

“You’re looking at it wrong.”

Still facing forward, Shokuhou spoke quietly but clearly in her mourning clothes.

Even though Mental Out wasn’t supposed to work on Mikoto.

Her voice was somewhat stiff, but she still managed to say it.

“We have to bring his life to an end ourselves. So, Misaka-san, you need to prepare yourself to actually say goodbye.”

Part 3

Outside in the frigid January city, Index and Othinus stood in the rain.

Without an umbrella.

Breakfast time had passed, but for once Index had no appetite.

On her shoulder, Othinus held down the brim of her hat and looked up.

“Good grief. Even the weather forecast felt need to betray us… This unnatural rain is more what I would expect of that human’s misfortune.”

“That would be just like Touma.”

“Along with the fake-looking condition of the sky.”

“?”

A long vehicle passed them. The strange automobile was decorated with black and gold.

It was a hearse.

Two buses followed after it.

Once they had fully passed by, Othinus whispered a question.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

“What about you?”

“I am the god of war, magic, and deception. This isn’t Baldr’s trial and I’m not the type to cry at funerals. But you’re a nun, aren’t you? This really is your last chance. You might be fine now, but the regret over not seeing him off will weigh heavy on you later.”

“I’m still in training.”

Index hung her head.

She had to be feeling something.

Othinus didn’t address it.

The one-eyed god with a lance was rarely depicted as kind.

“Now, what will we do? We are a living sample of a Magic God and a grimoire library. If we head out into the world with Academy City’s protection gone, magic cabals the world over will be after us both. If you aren’t interested in following him into death, then you need to continue working at survival.”

The city was surrounded by a thick wall and invisible EM and IR were used to cut off all wireless communications between the outside and inside. Even so, the air on both sides was the same and bugs and birds could fly across the wall with ease.

So.

Index raised her head and gave her answer.

“We’ll do what the carrier pigeon said to.”

“Good grief. Is that method just so old-fashioned they overlooked it? But as soon as Academy City learns about it, they’ll probably fill that hole with pheromones or light or something.”

If they headed to his school now, they might make it in time.

But they didn’t.

They couldn’t.

Index gave her reasoning.

“If I was there to say goodbye, I know I’d ruin the whole ceremony by crying too loud.”

The cat said nothing in the girl’s arms.

He wasn’t supposed to understand what was going on, but for some reason he seemed to.

Part 4

“It’s over,” muttered Aogami Pierce.

All the strength left his body.

He made it sound like his team had just lost a big tournament.

“That’s the end of Kami-yan’s funeral.”

“Pull yourself together. Komoe-sensei is calling us over to get to the crematorium.”

Perhaps Fukiyose found it easier if she focused her mind on a task. She seemed to be constantly searching for a new one.

Aogami rubbed his belly.

“I’m starving… I want to devour my lunch while watching an isekai cooking anime to give a psychological boost to the convenience store bento.”

“How about you chew on a handkerchief?”

Only his classmates were going to the crematorium. As much as they had sobbed during the funeral, the students from other years didn’t wait around before leaving the auditorium. Almost like a movie ad with people making insincere-sounding comments at an advance screening. The kind of ad that made it sound like the record for most moving film of the century was broken every other second.

Aogami saw a busty black-haired upperclassman girl look back toward the stage just once at the exit before leaving.

“Would they even show up if it was us who died?”

“This is better than it could be. Do you ordinarily get teary-eyed seeing the news on TV or online?” dryly asked Fukiyose.

That she sounded more irritable than normal may have been the greatest compliment to Kamijou Touma who had disappeared from their school.

Part 5

A woman in a beige habit stood in a city of white and black.

That was Human Aleister Crowley.

The ridiculous artificial rain continued to fall.

The golden retriever stayed by his side in the frigid chill without a word of complaint, but he did ask a question here.

“You aren’t going to see it through to the end?”

“You know all too well I don’t have the courage. Why would I have struggled so much if I did?”

“The regret always comes later.”

“I know that. Better than anyone in the world,” spat Aleister.

He didn’t want to believe it.

She had promised she would break whatever rules were necessary to save the boy.

Had she broken her promise in the end?

That meant there was something even Anna Kingsford couldn’t do.

He knew this was as absurd as wanting your parents to continue to be infallible beings, but still.

“If I could only save that one,” muttered Aleister.

“?”

“That one act would have meant so much. It would have triggered a chain reaction to fix everything. But it failed at the very first domino. …That boy remains dead.”

Kihara Noukan was an unusual genius even for a Kihara, but even he had trouble grasping what Aleister was getting at.

And he knew the human wasn’t going to explain.

Whatever it was, it was a dream that had ended unrealized.

“What now?” asked the dog.

“I wouldn’t be wandering like this if I could answer that.”

Was there any meaning in life now?

His questions had reached that level.

What in this wide world should he tie his existence to?

Part 6

The rain was falling.

The funeral in the auditorium had ended, so most of the students were using the walkway to return to the main school building.

They were pinching something and sprinkling it on their heads. It turned out to be salt.

Mikoto sighed softly as she walked out.

“So even the students at his school treat his death as something unclean.”

“I doubt many people in Academy City understand the symbolism. Just like very few people bother looking up the etymology of words like ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. Most people see it as no more than the done thing, like bowing your head when entering a room. And does it have to be so cold!?”

Shokuhou’s shouted breath was already visible.

And a frigid rain was falling outside.

Shokuhou had started off holding her own shoulders, but once she set her sights on Mikoto, she grabbed onto her.

“Get off, Shokuhou. Kimonos are hard to fix once they start to come undone, so don’t grab onto me.”

“Oh, c’mon. Being a hot-water bottle is about all you’re good for, Misaka-san.”

“Oh, really? Even though I happen to have some hand warmers?”

Shokuhou Misaki petrified.

The corners of her lips twitched.

Her pride appeared to be conflicted over whether or not she should put on a polite smile.

“If you don’t want any, then fine. I’ll seal them away at the bottom of my purse. In the zone where I can’t dig them out again.”

“Wait, Misaka-saaan! You win, I admit it! So please show some love to this Little Match Girl freezing in the winter collllllllld!!”

“You have everyone call you a queen and now you have the nerve to act like the unfortunate Little Match Girl?

Mikoto toyed with the unathletic girl by tossing her hand warmer packs one after another as if to have her juggle them.

…This entire exchange may have been a way of preserving their mental balance. To Mikoto, the forced cheerfulness only made her entire life seem like an act.

“Ahh…☆”

“Hey, where the hell are you shoving that hand warmer, Shokuhou!? What happened to us having a shame culture!?”

The girl was shutting her eyes, trembling, and sighing like she was sinking into a hot spring, but the details were best left unstated.

She was capable of prioritizing what really mattered, meaning she was the type who would decide to nestle together in the nude to stay warm if they were stranded on a snowy mountain in the winter. Mikoto was certain of that now.

The official next to the hearse formed a megaphone with his hands and guided them.

“The buses are over here! Um, if you’re from the school, use bus 1. If you’re a visitor, use bus 2.”

Yes, it wasn’t over yet.

Many umbrellas blossomed like flowers and gathered together.

Carried by the adults.

The coffin was loaded onto the hearse.

The black and gold vehicle was headed to District 10.

Specifically, to the crematorium.

The entire student body wouldn’t fit there, so only what appeared to be Kamjou’s class would be going.

A bus was enough to carry that many.

And a second bus was enough for the visitors.

Another time limit had appeared.

Mikoto saw the distance to the crematorium like the timer ticking down on a time bomb.

But what did that time limit matter at this point?

Death could not be overturned.

It was already over.

“…”

“Ohh, blessed heat ability. Modern conveniences are truly wonderful…”

Next to her, the queen was saying something that suggested a kotatsu was all you needed to win her heart.

The two buses left the rear of the school to follow the hearse. The reporters out front seemed to be making a minor fuss, but the buses had no obligation to wait for them.

No one on the fairly large bus uttered a word.

The GPS navigation system provided a few instructions in a female voice, but the driver appeared to be ignoring them. Maybe there was some kind of etiquette to it, but the hearse seemed to avoid the shortest route and took a longer way to their destination.

In the adjacent seat, Shokuhou whispered briefly while staring out the window being pummeled by raindrops.

“Misaka-saaan.”

“Ugh, what idiot is sending a drone after us?”

With a sparking sound, the multicopter lost control out in the rain.

But who did those persistent reporters want to attack with their articles? Surely it wasn’t Alice Anotherbible or the Transcendents from the hidden side of the world.

“Maybe you could say we sent him to his death too. We didn’t stand in his way and attack him, but we did give him a push from behind.”

“Misaka-san. Malign his resolve and determination again and I will slap you.”

But Shokuhou didn’t actually deny it.

It probably bothered her too.

It was the same when they had fought Christian Rosencreutz. It had required a lot of power to repel him and Kamijou would have been killed if it had been even slightly insufficient.

Even so.

If their power hadn’t been up to the task, would he have considered running away?

“Not likely.”

“Not a chance. I can’t see him giving up on a fight once he started it.”

He hadn’t actually started that fight himself, but no matter how unfairly he was dragged into it, he had always fought to end it. So he could gently untangle the mess of threads.

“…”

It didn’t take very long.

They arrived at the crematorium.

A large roof covered the area in front of the entrance.

Had it been designed with bad weather like this in mind?

It looked like they had to wait for the workers to deal with the coffin.

“Go on, Misaka-san.”

At Shokuhou’s prompting, Mikoto got off the bus.

She wasn’t used to descending a bus’s stairs in Japanese mourning clothes. The clothing was like a single tube, so had it even been designed with climbing and descending stairs in mind?

“Of course it was. Did you forget the stone steps leading up to Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples?”

“Oh, no. Now that idiot is correcting me.”

“Oh? Misaka-san, did you forget I am the intellectual type? Care to see who does better with our next exam ability?”

Come to think of it, didn’t they have five-story pagodas in the Edo period? And those buildings wouldn’t have had elevators or escalators.

Shokuhou Misaki continued to rub the hand warmer against her cheek. It would have run out of heat by now, so was she making use of the placebo effect? Or maybe the cold was making her hallucinate.

An official guided them into the building.

There were numbered tatami mat waiting rooms with cremation chambers lined up.

Maybe there was a rule, but the cremation chambers not in use had their doors wide open. A square metal door led into a closed space seemingly made of brick or blocks. The shape was something like a modified baker’s furnace.

Mikoto peered inside and fell silent.

“…”

It wasn’t even the size of a laundromat.

Yet it felt far too ordered and optimized.

She sighed softly.

(I’m just not used to this.)

It was actually a bit of a relief when she spotted a few old vending machines jumbled together in a corner of the long hallway. She had wanted to see something that threw off the excessive organization of the place.

“It’s nice and warm in the building at least. Ugh, but now I kind of have to use the restroom.”

“I was a fool looking for salvation in a messy idiot like her…”

They could hear the conversation of officials in some room or another.

The voices crept up from the floor like the chill.

“A healthy high school boy? He should have thick bones.”

“We’ll have to burn him for a full four hours. That way there’s no chance any trace of his DNA map or the chemicals used for esper development will remain.”

A heavy scraping sound followed.

It came from something like a piece of pottery the size of a volleyball. Something had caused it to scrape against its lid.

“What does the height chart say? Is this size good?”

That was the funerary urn.

Would a whole person really fit in something so small?

Mourning clothes Mikoto frowned.

“Hold on. I get cremating him, but who gets his ashes?”

“The funerary urn can be transferred to someone else after being placed in the grave.”

Shokuhou’s finger hovered indecisively in front of the vending machine, but she only fidgeted without actually buying any warm coffee. Her fear of artificial additives appeared to be rearing its ugly head again.

“For now, he’ll probably be temporarily buried in a public grave.”

Could they really just do that?

Even as ashes, he would officially count as “remains”.

Besides. His parents apparently weren’t in the city, so who had submitted the notification of death to the government office? Mikoto had thought you couldn’t cremate someone until that had been received.

(Then again, this is the city that buried over ten thousand clones in secret, so they may have some tricks to get around that.)

They entered the waiting room.

The space was about 45 square meters.

Perhaps everyone wanted their own space.

His high school classmates were here, but Mikoto didn’t know any of them very well. She naturally kept her distance.

It was a weird feeling.

Why was she staying by Shokuhou’s side?

And while Mikoto mostly associated funerals with flowers and incense, the scent of burning candles was stronger. Maybe because that scent was a lot more oily.

A large LCD TV sat in the tatami mat room. In addition to over-the-air, and cable, it included an online streaming app. There were also a tablet with a public SIM. That may have been so hot food could be ordered in with a bike delivery service. Mikoto recognized a few of the apps lined up on the screen.

Shokuhou pointed at a sliding screen by the wall that seemed to lead to storage space.

“It looks like they have napping blankets in there.”

“I can’t imagine sleeping here could lead to sweet dreams.”

Four hours.

That explained why they had so many entertainment options for killing time.

“Shokuhou.”

“Yes?”

“Can you last four hours?”

“Sorry, excuse me a moment while I go freshen up.”

Western mourning clothes Shokuhou vanished somewhere with a severe look on her face. She had apparently gone out to visit the ladies room. Unable to relax without anything to focus on, Mikoto grabbed the TV remote and faced the giant screen. The time for New Year’s specials was over. A middle schooler like her had no idea what usually aired on weekday mornings.

(But maybe it would look more authentic if I don’t get all worked up over it?)

You were supposed to smile at New Year’s and cry at funerals.

She was fed up seeing people switch modes as if with a switch or dial.

She flipped through the channels for a bit.

The talk shows were more than she could handle today, so she kept changing the channel to escape them, but that mostly left shopping shows and old dramas.

After settling on a satellite broadcast animal show, she saw an enormous polar bear mercilessly attacking a family of seals. She was taken aback. She had been expecting footage of frolicking kittens or puppies. She wasn’t looking for the bloody and gory reality of nature right now!!

“What are you doing, Misaka-saaan? Why wouldn’t you go for a safe worldwide cruise show?”

That girl returned, looking exasperated.

But why was Shokuhou Misaki so familiar with TV on weekday mornings?

“Are you really a middle schooler?”

“If you’re trying to imply I’m an old lady, I will hit you.”

Something was sitting next to the TV.

At first, Mikoto thought it was a piece of Japanese-style artwork meant to help set the mood.

“Wait…” she said without thinking.

They already had a memorial tablet ready.

At first, Mikoto was confused who it was for. Because the name on it was a dharma name.

“I always thought the name was meant to be symbolic in some way.”

“In Academy City, they apparently have a website that automatically assigns one. Y’know, by tweaking a program ability meant to come up with a pet name if you can’t come up with one yourself.”

Did this city not have the rule where it only counted if it came from an important abbot?

Of course, it seemed like Academy City’s monks were part-timers who also worked as entertainers.

Part 7

Inside the District 10 prison, a monitor displayed Anti-Skill officer and high school teacher Yomikawa Aiho as she gave a report.

“The funeral ended without issue.”

“I see.”

“The hearse has left for the crematorium. Here, we’re holding an abbreviated version of the opening ceremony. You’re closer to the crematorium actually.”

The crematorium was in the same district, but that simple fact was far from the new Board Chairman’s mind.

It didn’t feel real.

(Accept his death? Why am I the one saying that shit?)

He had thought he would feel rage when standing on the verge of the death. But now that that line had been crossed, he was supposed to shake off all that emotion? Accelerator couldn’t say anything. Was he facing this like he should, or had his senses simply numbed over?

He couldn’t afford to forget what human warmth felt like.

No matter how many he saved with lifeless methods, he would only be retreading the path of Academy City’s former mistakes.

So what should he do?

Was it more human to let his emotions explode and destroy everything in sight?

“…”

Academy City’s #1 monster looked up.

He couldn’t see heaven there. Only a ceiling made of a special thick armor.

The prison had taken considerable damage from the attack by one of those Transcendents. This room was actually a secondary cell he had been moved to. Still, the white monster hadn’t died. Even though there were plenty of reasons for him to be killed. Was this just how life was?

“What was that bastard thinking dying before the villain,” he muttered.

Death was impartial.

It could visit anyone at any time, no matter how good a person they were, and they would lose their life.

“Aneri.”

An electronic beep.

Of rejection.

Apparently someone else had administrator privileges there. The new Board Chairman didn’t particularly care.

“Qliphah Puzzle 545.”

“Yes, yes. Kee hee hee.”

In that sense, the artificial demon was a lot less trouble.

And she also knew a lot about the world beyond science.

The #1 had just one question.

“Where is the person who did it?”

Part 8

A cold rain was falling.

The ugly rain could not become snow, but it rejected all human warmth while it naturally permeated the city of cutting-edge scientific technology.

The rain stealing heat from the entire city was impartial.

Even in the back alleys.

The countless raindrops falling from the heavens mercilessly located everyone, even a silent and unsteady girl, and soaked them.

She was tall. She wore black leather belts wrapped complexly around her naked body, making her stand out even in Academy City, which was isolated from the outside world.

Her long wavy blonde hair was plastered to her white skin.

She didn’t seem to have even the willpower to brush it away.

“…”

Alice Anotherbible.

She looked up at the sliver of rainy sky visible between the buildings.

And she didn’t move.

She had known that boy would die before they even met.

She had announced it herself.

But he had left the track of survival so that he could save the lives of others.

“You will die.”

“That doesn’t change my answer.”

She had seen the boy rushing toward death.

She had thought he might seek help at some point.

But he hadn’t.

“So fight me!! Alice Anotherbible!!!”

Kamijou Touma had rejected her once.

She had lost sight of herself and resurrected Christian Rosencreutz as she was told.

“Hold on. You don’t mean…?”

Yes, he had been shaken when he first learned he was doomed to die.

But he had still ultimately chosen the lives of others.

The doomed boy had stuck to his way of life and finally brought Alice Anotherbible back to her senses.

“…I…”

“I don’t…”

“I don’t want to see anyone suffering from even more misfortune than me!! You got a problem with that!?”

He wasn’t coming back.

Alice Anotherbible could easily twist the world to her liking, but that was exactly why the person she had killed could not return. No matter what.

This was the result.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the rest of the Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal were no longer here.

That meant Alice Anotherbible was no longer a fearsome leader.

She could trick people into seeing a form of beauty by taking death and violence to their extremes, but that was meaningless without those extremes. Being second best or lower simply made you a troublemaker.

A scratchy voice spoke.

The girl who had lost everything whispered into the emptiness.

“Tea…cher.”

Part 9

The final moment had arrived.

They would never see Kamijou Touma’s face again.

The coffin was already closed.

Although it was a Japanese-style coffin, so there was a small double door open over the face. That small square space seemed to be gradually cut away from the world at large.

“…”

Mikoto reached out her hand a bit and touched his cheek. Softly.

“?”

“Wait. You’d feel bad if you messed up his mortuary makeup at the very end, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, right. It’s just…”

“What?”

Mikoto had no answer for Shokuhou’s quizzical gaze.

Meanwhile, the #5 Queen made her move. She raised a hand to the side of her head and lifted her veil before lowering her head toward the little window.

The instant before she kissed his cheek, Mikoto elbowed her in the side.

Sharply.

“No touching.”

“Ubwogh!? I-I really don’t see what’s so wrong with wishing him good fortune in the next life!!”

“You wouldn’t want to mess up his mortuary makeup, would you? Besides, you’re wearing lipstick.”

Misaka Mikoto had grown up in Academy City where science was everything, but she still knew it would be inappropriate to have him cremated with a lipstick mark on his face.

Each of them wasn’t given much time to say their goodbyes.

Mikoto and Shokuhou moved away.

Aogami Pierce placed a small rectangular object on his close-eyed friend’s pillow.

It was a smartphone.

Fukiyose frowned.

“Are you really allowed to put that in there?”

“Kami-yan was so happy when he got his first smartphone…”

An employee might get mad at him if they found out, but after burning any gold teeth and artificial bones along with the body, they apparently retrieved the rare earths. …And they wouldn’t know what materials had been included in some rich person’s expensive pure gold accessory.

The unsuccessful entertainer who worked part-time as a monk began speaking into the microphone he held.

“Now, everyone, let us once more pray for the deceased’s fortune in the next life. It is now time to say our final goodbye.”

Part 10

And.

And.

And then.

Part 11

…

…

…

Kamijou Touma silently opened his eyes in a small, dark space.

Yes.

The pointy-haired boy opened his eyes.

“?”

(Where am I? I can’t tell, but this definitely isn’t that artificial hell. Then am I alive again? Did Kingsford actually keep her prom-)

“Bweh, cough! Cough, hack!!”

Now wasn’t the time to be getting emotional.

Something was caught deep in his throat. He desperately coughed until he got a clump of something out. It was too dark to see what it was. He groped around the cramped space until he found something. For whatever reason, a phone was with him in the small box.

That gave him a light.

He tried to open his eyes to see, but something was wrong with his vision.

“Ow!! My eyes hurt!? What the hell!? You’re kidding, right!? Is there something in them!?”

He hesitantly pinched his eyelid and used the other hand’s index finger to feel around. It was big. He pulled something larger than a 100 yen coin from under his eyelids. He checked with with the LED light and found it was absorbent cotton heavy with his tears. He shuddered.

And the thing that had been in hist throat appeared to be some kind of cloth.

Maybe to keep his tongue from falling back into his throat or maybe to keep insects from getting inside his body? He hadn’t known they did all that at funerals.

And something else gradually dawned on him.

This was not a hospital morgue. He had thought it was one of those locker-like storage spaces seen in TV dramas, but it wasn’t. He didn’t feel chilly at all.

That only left one possibility.

“Wait…”

He was lying face up in a space too small to move much. He smelled wood and flowers all around him. The ceiling? He sensed the wood less than 30cm away. Relying on the phone light, he tried pressing on it with his palm and the resistance vanished sooner than expected. Oh? It wasn’t heavy at all?

No.

He had only opened a small double door that had already been there. About 20cm across.

“Wait, wait, wait…”

The space beyond the little window was dark too. And it smelled of metal. After all the cheap meals he had cooked in his dorm, he recognized what he was seeing.

That was a fish grill.

Except this one was large enough to cook an entire human being.

“Ubwahhhhhh!! Does that mean I’m in the crematorium!!?”

Understanding your circumstances was important.

Because now the squeezing at his heart was so much stronger.

Did that mean the wooden box he was inside was a coffin!? He pushed on the actual cover with his palms to try and get out this time, but…oh, no. It wasn’t opening. It didn’t appear to be nailed shut. It would open upwards a few centimeters before something stopped it. Apparently the cremation chamber itself was short, so the coffin door was hitting the top.

Wait, did that mean he couldn’t get out?

If he stayed here like this, he had a strong feeling they really would ignite the chamber!

“Help!! I know it’s way too late for this, but Kamijou Touma is alive, so you all need to waiiiiiiiit!!”

He screamed with all his might…but did it do any good?

There was no reaction.

He wasn’t even certain his voice could be heard outside the chamber. He had never been to a crematorium before, but didn’t the cremation chambers have thick metal walls? And he was Academy City’s Mr. Misfortune. It was looking more likely he was going to go unnoticed and be roasted due to this careless mistake. A lot more likely.

“Th-th-th-the ph-ph-phone! I need to call someone outside and- mgwah!? Why doesn’t it have a signal!? Because the walls are so thick!? Is this stone and metal cremation chamber blocking the signal!?”

It didn’t look like he could count on any help from outside.

He would have to crawl out on his own.

However, the space was so small. It didn’t seem like the coffin lid would be able to open inside the cremation chamber, but that just meant he needed to get creative.

“Hnh!!”

Specifically, he moved to one side of the rectangular coffin to shift the center of gravity. Then he rolled up onto the side. Like rolling around in a giant ball, he tilted the entire coffin over 90 degrees.

There would be more horizontal than vertical space.

He could finally push on the large lid and escape the coffin…or so he thought before a powerful blow hit his back. He choked hard and then realized he had fallen off of something. The ceiling had seemed so low because the coffin had been sitting on something like a stretcher. The metal scent was a lot stronger now. Still, the place was dark and he knew he was inside a giant fish grill that would burn his flesh and bones using city gas. Even now, he assumed the emotional goodbyes were solemnly approaching their climax. If he waited around, he would meet the same fate as a saury prepared by a childhood friend who was a terrible cook.

(How long until they ignite it? Damn, I can’t hear any voices from outside!!)

It might happen an hour from now, but it also might happen a minute from now.

Either way, he was done for once it happened.

Kamijou aimed the phone around and discovered steel pipes as thick as his thumb running near the low ceiling. He chose not to imagine what the black soot he saw was primarily composed of. In fact, he worked very hard to not think about it. The shape of the place was indeed similar to a fish grill. That meant it had a few gas sprayers and spark plugs.

(I’m screwed if those work properly.)

“!! Oh, hell!!”

Or to put it another way, he had to destroy them if he wanted to live! He grabbed at whatever he could and yanked until a pipe came away with a dull snap.

He couldn’t celebrate yet.

A horrible stench stabbed into his nose.

A threat familiar to anyone who used a kitchen clutched at his heart. Even more strongly than before.

(Wait a second. Is that city gas?)

“Gwohhhhh!! Doesn’t that mean this chamber is filling with gas, even if it isn’t burning!? Then I’m going to suffocate and die anyway!!”

He had no idea if he had increased or decreased his time limit.

Flailing about wasn’t going to help.

He knew what he had to do. He had to get out of here. No matter what.

There was nothing like a chimney. He assumed it did have an exhaust vent somewhere, but he couldn’t find it with his phone’s light. Was there a small hole hidden in some gap somewhere? At the very least, it didn’t seem likely he could sneak out through a duct like an action movie star.

That left only one option.

The only exit was the door he had been shoved in through.

“Kh.”

(But will it open? I don’t know much about funerals, but aren’t cremation chamber doors made of really thick metal!?)

He desperately shined his phone’s LED lights that way…and didn’t see a knob. In fact, he was surprised to find the back of the metal door was covered in stuff. A few metal panels and joints fit together complexly.

That was probably the mechanism that allowed the door to be opened by a large lever on the outside.

Did it look like one big panel on the outside, but this opening and closing gimmick was hidden on the back?

Which meant…

“Can I break it open by kicking at this stuff?”

…The problem was the flammable city gas beginning to fill the interior of the chamber.

If he waited, he would definitely suffocate and die, but what if two metal pieces collided and produced a spark?

Accept it.

Trust in hope.

Giving into fear will only mean suffocating.

“Open.”

He had to do it.

Even if he was terrified and even if his heart was raising a scream so soon after beginning to beat once more.

Kamijou Touma repeatedly slammed his heel against the complex stopper on the back of the cremation chamber door.

“Opeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!”

Part 12

It came from within.

The metal door was kicked down with a loud roar.

Everyone gasped.

There was a voice.

Today is my January birthday.

Today is the day I was born.

I am the star of this wonderful birthday.

Today is my January birthday.

He was dressed in burial clothes.

A triangle of cloth was tied to the forehead below his pointy hair.

It was definitely him who crawled on out.

And he spoke.

“Hi there, everyone! Sorry if I surpri-”

“Eeeek, a zombie! It’s going to infect us all with who knows what!!!”

They didn’t even let him finish his sentence.

Tears welled up in the eyes of the corner-of-the-classroom boy who didn’t get to be the star even after coming back from the dead.

Panic and pandemonium were already setting in.

Of course they were.

Based on his phone’s screen, it hadn’t just been a few minutes since he died. Anyone would be terrified if someone who’s heart had long since stopped beating suddenly got back up.

(I’m grateful you brought me back to life, but couldn’t you have worked a little faster, Kingsford!?)

“Abababawawa, no, no, it’s true I, Kamijou Touma, died, but I’m alive again, and I mean, technically today isn’t my birthday, but can’t you please give me a more peaceful reaction along the lines of what you would do if a cardiac massage work-”

“Quiet, everyone! Quiet!! Take deep breaths to calm yourselves and stay where you are. Now, what were you doing in there? Who are you!?”

The extremely part-time monk was shouting into his microphone.

Then Kamijou heard a strange mechanical sound.

Someone was coming.

These people were wearing shiny silver armor that covered them from head to toe.

No, were those powered suits?

“Is that the exceptional remains!?”

“Commence incineration.”

They were holding something at their hips.

They looked like a fire fighter’s hose, but not quite.

A small lighter-sized flame flickered in front of the nozzle.

“Flamethrowers!!?”

How well prepared were they!?

Why did they have a unit like this already on standby? Did corpses have a habit of getting back up in this city!?

Anyway, he couldn’t let himself be roasted after just narrowly escaping that fate.

He had no choice but to run barefoot out of the crematorium.

“Damn!!”

Kamijou Touma threw open the frosted glass window and climbed out.

Frigid rain was falling outside.

And the girl who pointed at me and called me a zombie right after I came back to life – that was Fukiyose, wasn’t it? Kamijou-san isn’t about to forget that!!

Part 13

Kamijou Touma wasn’t the only one in trouble.

Aogami Pierce, Fukiyose Seiri, and the others left in the crematorium were in no position to just stare.

The situation was on the move.

“Whoa!?”

They heard a “fwoosh!!” sound.

It came from right outside the window. More people in powered suits were spraying something out of large canisters. It was reminiscent of spraying agrochemicals on a field, but these weren’t pesticides. The outside of the window soon grew thick and translucent.

Aogami Pierce couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Is that a plastic glue? That’s like a more impressive version of the security sheets you put on windows.”

“With that, they can quarantine a location in less than 5 minutes. Now I doubt any person or any bacteria or viruses can get in or out.”

At field hospitals, thick plastic sheets were used to demarcate a space while air curtains controlled the air currents, but was this a more advanced version of that?

Then Fukiyose commented on the a phrase she had used that had caught her attention.

“Any person…?”

“A corpse just woke up and ran off. That qualifies as an emergency in my book. Did it not occur to you that we’re trapped inside here now?”

But the reaction had been too quick.

Kamijou Touma’s remains getting up and fleeing the crematorium was certainly a shock, but not even a few minutes had passed since then.

That speed was only possible if those people had been on standby to begin with.

It meant they must always monitor the cremations of anyone who had died under “suspicious circumstances”.

“(If they were this well prepared, does this kind of thing happen from time to time in Academy City?)”

“(Anything can happen here. I mean, this city creates superhuman Level 5s.)”

None of it sounded real.

Kamijou Touma had gotten up. That much was true.

But what exactly had happened? Saying a mystery virus was responsible sounded plausible enough, but it lacked the weight of reality. That was the same as saying ghosts were actually plasma. Smugly explaining that in a dark abandoned building did nothing to put your mind at ease.

And that aside…

“What happens to us now?” asked Aogami.

“Trying to move from here could be dangerous.”

That she didn’t scoff at his question meant Fukiyose was aware they were trapped in here.

This wasn’t like daydreaming about fighting terrorists during a boring class.

The entire building was sealed off from the outside by thick plastic walls. A mop or a metal bat weren’t going to break through the windows. Even a gun probably wouldn’t be enough. A specialized gas proof door had been set up as the only way in or out, but the powered suits were gathered around it.

And someone was loudly approaching from there.

At some point the number of powered suits had grown past 10.

“Quiet, everyone! We are Bio Secure!”

This person also wore a powered suit.

Maybe anything seemed suspicious when viewed in that light, but it felt like they were intentionally making themselves indistinguishable from each other. Like robbers in masks.

“Your movement will be temporarily restricted, but please do not worry. Once we ensure you are safe, you will be released, so I ask that you cooperate and avoid causing a disturbance.”

He “asked that” they cooperate, but he showed no sign of waiting for a yes or no response from them.

He was actually telling them to resist at their peril.

He made it clear who was in charge here.

How were they supposed to “not worry” when he was wearing a fully-sealed powered suit and equipped with a flamethrower? It was written on his hidden face that there was likely something invisible in the air and that his team would be fine.

“W-wait…” protested a pale-faced crematorium worker.

Even the adults didn’t know what this was.

That only worried Aogami Pierce and Fukiyose Seiri more. And they doubted Komoe-sensei was going to be much help here.

“Wait a second! What is happening? The paperwork said nothing about infectious disease, but are we safe? And do we have permission to continue running this facility!?”

“We are not authorized to answer that. Chief Kihara Goukei has yet to arrive, but she will explain everything once she does. Hold your questions until then.”

A sound a lot like steam followed.

The powered suits were tossing things into a large rectangular glass vat full of powerful acid. They were quite casual about it, probably because the splashing liquid and smoke wouldn’t harm them anymore.

Those were the bouquets and Kamijou Touma’s possessions prepared for the funeral.

They of course didn’t ask anyone’s permission first.

It had been through a screen, but during the funeral Aogami Pierce had seen the tearful face of that father enraged over his son’s death. The items he and his wife were meant to receive were all being heartlessly dissolved.

Even if this had been a performance put together by professionals, the sight seemed to fully reject the gentle atmosphere of the day.

His breathing was shallow and a cold sweat wouldn’t stop pouring down his brow, but Aogami may still not have accurately grasped the threat. If he had, he could easily have collapsed from hyperventilation.

If he couldn’t take advantage of his own ignorance here, he was in trouble.

His instincts told him so.

What was going to happen to them?

Would they be infected?

If they were, would that be done to them too?

But the situation was advancing whether he liked it or not.

A short distance away, one powered suit was speaking to another.

“What is it?”

“Chief Kihara Goukei has arrived.”

Part 14

The dead had come back to life.

Did that qualify as a good thing or a bad thing?

And this was Academy City.

If he was captured, he would either be sent to a lab to be soaked in formalin or he would be directly roasted by flamethrower.

Either way…

“I’m screwed!! My life is over if I’m caught!!”

Kamijou Touma ran outside in the frigid rain.

His burial clothes, which were one step removed from being a Halloween costume, did nothing to keep out the cold. And he was barefoot. Keep in mind it was January. Being stuck out in the rain dressed like this would kill him within an hour of coming back to life!!

“Ahh, brrr. There aren’t even any soaked girls caught in the sudden summer downpour. Winter sucks. There’s nothing at all good about being wet in this season.”

The city had been badly damaged.

The cumulative effect of the battles against Anna Sprengel, Christian Rosencreutz, and Alice Anotherbible really had left it close to collapse. The repairs could not keep up, so construction scaffolding and soundproofing sheets could be seen all over the place.

Kamijou Touma had received that same deadly force with his flesh-and-blood body.

That explained why it was so unusual for him to be alive.

He heard a groaning “gashunk!!” sound.

That was the sound of a powered suit’s artificial muscles operating.

“Dammit, they’re so fast!!”

Powered suit legs could run at 40-50km/h without the help of wheels or a car motor.

An ordinary human couldn’t hope to escape them while running along a wide street on foot.

“Kh.”

They had nearly caught up.

The powered suit’s thick fingers were approaching the back of his neck.

“Damn!!”

He clicked his tongue and changed direction.

He slid across the wet pavement, slipped below a soundproofing sheet, and tumbled into the construction site for repairs on a nearby building.

Sites like this could be found just about anywhere thanks to the battles against powerful foes like Anna Sprengel, Christian Rosencreutz, and Alice Anotherbible.

He heard the snapping of breaking metal.

After the powered suit’s thick fingers had found only air, it had easily torn through the exterior barricade made of soundproofing sheets and metal panels.

It worked like the building demolition beaks attached to the end of a mechanical arm.

A hit from that would smash his body apart even if it only caught on his clothes a little.

“Why aren’t we authorized to use our flamethrowers!?”

“Ask Chief Kihara Goukei. She’s the boss of Bio Secure, not us.”

He heard some terrifying voices from behind, but he couldn’t just stop.

The sounds of thick metal tearing apart continued.

The pursuing powered suits didn’t bother going around or climbing over obstacles. They would shove a stack of pipes aside with a single arm or tackle through a forest of erected steel beams, causing an entire half-repaired building to tilt.

Getting caught in any of that would be the end of Kamijou.

He couldn’t stay here in the construction site.

“Eek!!”

The loud and heavy sounds of bending metal filled the air.

Two of the rapidly-moving powered suits appeared to have collided.

“Y-your suit’s lost integrity!”

“Don’t worry about me and go on ahead! Hurry!!”

“Stop acting all heroic while brandishing flamethrowers! It’s terrifying!” shouted Kamijou, bristling as he fled.

In their minds, they weren’t ganging up on a victim to bully him – they seemed to truly see themselves as fighting to protect Academy City. Which meant they would not compromise or let their guard down. But so what? Someone who could emotionally kill a stranger without second thought was a terrible person in Kamijou’s book.

Kamijou spotted a slope leading underground, so he raced down it. He was expecting an underground mall, but was instead hit by a mass of malodorous air. He had apparently wandered into a culvert where a river ran below the city.

On the floor, he found large wireless communication equipment, professional-looking tools, and a long power cable leading somewhere.

Apparently repairs were underway here as well.

He was afraid of giving away his position, but it was dark in here. Missing a step and falling into the winter river would be no laughing matter, so he suppressed the fear and switched on the LED light.

“The all-purpose smartphone really is one of humanity’s greatest inventions.”

He wished he could just call Anti-Skill and have them come to the rescue, but he got the impression he couldn’t trust in the grownups’ systems.

Where was the exit?

Was heading outside even his best option?

Or should he hide out in this labyrinthine underground structure until his pursuers had moved on?

And how many minutes would he have to wait until he considered that plan a success?

He had too many unanswered questions.

Behind him, he heard the “gashunk, gashunk” of machines operating. Were they still after him!?

(But they’re not moving as fast as before. Did they not have night vision gear because it’s still daytime, or are they afraid of falling in the water and sinking like a rock?)

He thought he would pass out from the fear if he didn’t force his thoughts in a positive direction.

He had to keep running and escape.

It was all so unfair.

He was moments away from death, but for some reason he found laughter spilling from his lips as he ran away soaking wet.

He couldn’t stop.

“Ha ha ha…”

He was afraid of dying.

Of course he was.

Because no matter what anyone might say, Kamijou Touma was alive!!

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

He was alive.

He had never felt so aware of the life within him.

He wasn’t a ghost or a zombie or anything like that.

Being human was such a wonderful feeling!!

Although if Anna Kingsford saw this, she might hold a hand to her head in exasperation or she might bring her fist down on his head.

(Still…)

Chief Kihara Goukei.

They had used the name Kihara.

Was it the same Kihara?

In addition to the business with Kihara Kagun, he was pretty sure he had heard that name associated with the incident where he first met Alice Anotherbible. That operation had been meant to clean up the dark side lurking in Academy City’s shadows, but outside influence had twisted it into a great tragedy. Many people had died. But…they were still there.

“Does that mean that dark side thing is still alive and kicking after all that? Dammit!”

He heard an ominous roar.

That was the sound of flames sucking in oxygen.

He looked back while running and his eyes widened. A fireball of a flame flickered in the air.

That was the tip of a flamethrower.

“A-are you kidding me!?”

Even though it branched off every which way, this was still an enclosed space. Bio Secure might survive thanks to their thick powered suits and oxygen supplies, but Kamijou would either be instantly fried or would suffocate with his lungs roasted.

(I thought that Kihara person wasn’t letting them use those!)

It was too late to complain now.

And maybe it had been wrong to count on the enemy’s situation remaining unchanged.

Without hesitation, the flamethrower nozzle aimed his way spewed an oxidant and a jelly-like liquid combustible material.

And a moment later…

It exploded.

“Wahgyahhh!!!”

Kamijou was soaked with sweat as he leaped down a different branching path.

What?

He was still alive, but what was that!?

There had been flames, but that wasn’t right. If the flamethrower had been functioning normally, he knew he should have been wrapped in flames himself. The powered suit had done something wrong. Because it was the pursuer who had ended up on fire.

White fire.

What kind of explosion was that?

It had seemed like something at the powered suit’s feet had exploded immediately after the flamethrower was activated.

(Was that acetylene gas used for welding!?)

That special flammable gas was used to create the ultra-high temperature flames needed to melt and combine reinforcing steel. The powered suit appeared to be designed to withstand the heat of a flamethrower, but an explosion of that stuff at such close range had to have damaged it at least some.

Kihara Goukei was it?

This may have been part of the reason why the powered suits’ boss had banned them from using their flamethrowers. With propane, city gas, and more, the densely populated city contained a surprising amount of flammables and explosives. The recovery had finally begun after the many battles. There was even the possibility of unexploded shells or missiles lying around.

“Pant, gasp!!”

Anyway, Kamijou Touma was alive.

If he continued playing tag with these powered suits, he would be killed. If he was going to escape, it had to be now while they were panicked over their own screw up.

Bio Secure(?), or whatever they were called, didn’t seem worried inside the steel-melting flames.

He felt their gaze on him.

And heard a straining sound.

They were having trouble, but they only had to wait until their suits managed to reboot inside the flames. Kamijou know he couldn’t destroy them by going on the offensive. Once their self-scans and error recovery was complete, he would be out of options. He wouldn’t be able to escape.

So move your legs.

The culvert was one step removed from a sewer. He was worn out from all the strenuous exercise, but he wasn’t at all inclined to lean against the wall. He used his phone’s LED light to walk down a small side path in the dark culvert that stank of sludge and he eventually found a small door.

Maybe it was for work access and maybe it was an emergency exit, but on the other side, narrow stairs led up toward the surface.

“Wheeze, wheeze…”

He was right back out in the rainy world.

He honestly didn’t feel at all like he had escaped.

He was certain the flamethrower-wielding powered suits would find him again soon enough.

Was coming back from the dead really so difficult?

This was nothing like the emotional reactions to a miraculous experience he had been expecting.

(But what do I do now? If I’m supposed to be dead, my dorm room might be gone. And it doesn’t look like anyone I know will be any help.)

“?”

He spotted a camera-equipped security robot and instinctively moved from the main road to an alley to hide.

He felt like he was moving further and further from the sun.

At this rate, was he going to find himself crawling underneath a flower pot in the schoolyard?

“Also.”

Being dead had scared him.

Finding some way of returning to life had been the only thing on his mind.

But.

Could it be?

“Does no one want a world with me in it?”

He hung his head.

It really hurt.

Then again, he was only a high school boy. He wasn’t some important Buddhist priest whose remains would be preserved after death. So maybe there just wasn’t anyone who wanted to see him again badly enough to deal with something as bizarre as this…

He had died and come back.

Being killed by Alice Anotherbible had complicated matters this time, but he had actually already experienced something similar a few times with full-power Othinus and Good, Old Mary…but was it just different once the pieces on the board had made it as far as the funeral? Instead of just physically dying, his death had been socially accepted this time. It took dying for him to realize death happened in stages.

A whirring motor sound passed by overhead.

“Eek!?”

Now wasn’t the time to be waxing philosophical.

Kamijou released a quick shriek and then hid below an air conditioner attached to the wall in the narrow alley. The flying drone passed by. The dark side was supposed to have declined and they could still do all this? He really didn’t want to be found by the adults right now. They did have flamethrowers after all!

And that hadn’t just been a scout.

It wasn’t harmless.

It was very different from one of these drum-shaped security robots.

Specifically, an object the size of a rugby ball was hanging down from it. He couldn’t be certain, but he was pretty sure that was an anti-tank rocket.

If it had noticed him and fired that, he would have been blown to pieces along with this corner of the alley. That 8000yen-a-pop explosive was enough to fully change the meaning of the electronic device.

It was over once he was caught.

Kamijou Touma desperately held his breath.

Maybe he was doing something incredibly stupid. After all, it wasn’t a living creature. Staying still behind cover like this might not matter depending on what kinds of sensors it was using to scan the surface.

The next 30 seconds seemed to scorch his heart.

And that was assuming his sense of time was accurate.

The drone indifferently flew off. Like nothing had happened.

In that final moment, its motion seemed somehow human, so it was possible it had shifted from programmed flight to remote manual control.

Regardless, that meant the threat had passed…right?

“Phew…”

Thanks to that assumption, it caught him completely by surprise.

While all his focus was overhead, he heard a noise from straight ahead.

A quiet footstep.

Someone was there.

The person was frozen in place, staring wide-eyed at him.

She was tall and beautiful. Her long wavy blonde hair was wet with rain and her skinny body was tightly bound by black leather belts, making for a strange manner of dress even for Academy City.

She was a Transcendent.

Alice Anotherbible.

She was frozen in apparent surprise, widened eyes directed his way.

“Y-you can…see me???”

The idiot had so lost his faith in humanity he had to ask that in a trembling voice.

Tears welled up in the corners of the girl’s eyes.

Large ones.

The cold rain was still falling, but these drops were noticeably different and carried body heat.

“T-””

She was stiff and trembling.

And…

“Teacher!!”

She spread her arms and leaped at him.

Her momentum was too much for him, so Kamijou Touma toppled back onto his rear.

Yes, he could feel her.

Her hair wet with the cold rain, her skin, her sweet scent, and her high-pitched voice piercing into his ears. Sensations the dead could never experience bewildered his senses and stabbed directly into his brain. Kamijou Touma was alive, including those brains.

…I thought I would never see you again.

His heart had stopped, his brain’s neural network had been shredded, and he had fully died.

Saying he would return to life had been an absurd fantasy.

Yet he had done it.

He had returned alive from hell.

However, he didn’t deserve the credit there.

That hell had been an artificial one that Christian Rosencreutz had created to resurrect himself and Anna Kingsford had hijacked control of it. And she hadn’t hesitated to hand the resurrection ticket to Kamijou Touma.

He had been saved every step of the way.

The pointy-haired boy hadn’t accomplished anything on his own. Those true experts had done it for him.

They had taught him what it means to save people.

But.

He hadn’t done the wrong thing.

He had finally found something in this half-destroyed world that convinced him of that.

“You’re alive, you’re here, ohh, the girl can touch you, teacher is really here. Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

No matter how cold the rain was, he could feel this girl’s warmth beyond it.

Returning to life was meaningless?

Don’t be ridiculous.

There was a girl here letting him experience something he never would have if he hadn’t returned to the world of the living.

“Thank goodness… Teacher, you’re breathing, you’re alive. The girl, uh, the girlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!”

She couldn’t even get her words out.

Still slumped down, Kamijou Touma placed a hand on sobbing Alice’s head.

He could touch her.

He could influence things.

He could save a single crying girl.

The pointy-haired boy was undoubtedly alive here.

“Heh…”

What an awful day.

He had taken so long to return to life that now he was seen as the living dead. They seemed to think he was infected with some kind of Academy City something, so a group of adults with flamethrowers was after him.

But.

Nevertheless…

“Coming back to life…was definitely the right move.”

He could finally say that.

For today at least, he could smile.

Chapter 3: A World Worse Than Death – Soul_Hazard.

Part 1

He was finally alive again.

Alice Anotherbible had convinced him.

“Teacher.”

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl refused to let him go. She was clinging to him with a beaming smile. She leaned against him like a large and poorly trained dog.

Feeling human warmth and talking with someone was so wonderful.

(And now that I’ve calmed down some, that is quite the outfit, Alice.)

She was, after all, in her grown up mode.

She was much taller than when he had first met her. And her chest and butt were very much in adult mode too.

This bigger Alice bothered him.

Each individual part was definitely Alice Anotherbible. But she had a grown up face. She looked like a neighborhood college girl. And on the spectrum of young women, she was more on the sexy Oriana end than the gentle Orsola end. That sweet but unapproachable leader was walking by his side while “dressed” in nothing but black belts tied complexly around her naked body. Outside. It was not normal.

When he had seen her last, he was beaten up, had lost a lot of blood, and was waiting for the countdown toward death to end, so he hadn’t been able to focus on this particular detail. Now he could.

Umm.

Should an adolescent boy really be seeing this from so close up?

Kamijou Touma stared into the middle distance.

“Well, this is really starting to feel sinful…”

“In what way?”

His heart was going wild over seeing the very person who had killed him, so maybe it really was over for him. He couldn’t make fun of Aogami Pierce anymore.

But he decided to put off thinking about that.

For now, they couldn’t just stay in the back alley.

Bio Secure was it? That group was still after him. And even without that, it wasn’t a great idea to stay out in the cold January rain for long.

Also…

“Um, Alice? Could you stop that?”

“?”

She looked confused.

With her arms around his neck and her cheek nestled against him.

Because, as she had made him very much aware over the past few minutes, she looked like a curvy blonde white woman right now. And she was standing outside with only black leather belts to cover her nudity. To be blunt, she wasn’t dressed appropriately for public.

Having her all over him like this was a problem.

Don’t ask why! That he was a boy was explanation enough!!

“Teacher, do you think there is something wrong with the girl’s clothing?”

“Um, yes.”

“Then the girl will just take it off.”

“No naked! Not while outside!!”

Only after saying it did he realize that meant it would be okay if they were inside. Oh, no. And her eyes were sparkling now. He may have taught her the wrong lesson.

“Do you mean the girl needs new clothing?”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Tah dah!! You’re in luck, teacher, because the girl found this!”

“Wh-what the-!?”

The unnaturally curvy girl was smiling.

While displaying something spread out between her hands.

“Umm, does that say Erotic Fallen Angel Maid? Japanese is so hard to read with its combination of katakana, kanji, the alphabet, and kaomoji stamps.”

“The girl named Alice must never wear that!! …But wait. This is weird. Would the Erotic Fallen Angel Maid actually be less revealing?”

“???”

She was pure as could be.

Even though her height and boobs size were in the upperclassman category.

Are you unaware what a horrible person Kamijou-san is, Alice?

“I appreciate it, but it’s embarrassing, um, having you hugging me while you’re so big.”

“Hm? Then the girl can shrink down.”

“Wait, no, that’s terrifying! Don’t hug me with the empty shell still partially attached!!”

The sexy young woman split down the center and little storybook Alice emerged. With a smile. The end result looked something like a centaur!! And what was all that sticky goop!?

Part 2

They had seen it.

Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki had clearly witnessed that moment.

That figure had crawled out from the cremation chamber’s thick metal door and then run toward the crematorium’s exit.

What was that!?

“W-wait.”

Mourning clothes Shokuhou smiled stiffly while pinching and stretching her cheek.

“Th-this isn’t all some bad dream, is it?”

“What kind of old-fashioned reaction is that, Shokuhou? Your real age is showing- wah!”

The queen, who was an expert in controlling minds yet had no luck at all psychoanalyzing Misaka Mikoto, reached out and poked Mikoto’s right cheek.

“You check too, Misaka-san. With that squishy cheek.”

“…”

“Ow, ow, ow, owwwwww, that’s my boob! You’re not supposed to iron claw that! My boob is going to tear right offffffffffffffffffff!!!”

Misaka Mikoto was busy wordlessly grabbing the hunk of fat with a hand and pulling back to perform a durability test, but this did nothing to wake her from the dream and obliterate this world.

“You’re overreacting. It’s not going to tear off from a little thing like this.”

“But, um, Misaka-san, then what is that snapping sound I’m hearing?”

“Idiot. That’s just a pearl necklace breaking, so it’s no big deal.”

“Noooo, this outfit is a rentallllllllll!!!”

Shokuhou had an aura of “not hurting for money”, but Mikoto was aware that damaging rental clothing would mean losing the “trust” that couldn’t be bought.

Also, Queen Shokuhou apparently put on a stiff and tearful smile when she was truly pushed to the edge. There’s your lesson for the day, everyone!!

“But anyway…” said Mikoto (who had bought her mourning clothes and couldn’t return them since her family crest was on them).

Shokuhou had a point.

She had noticed something off.

Back when she touched Kamijou Touma’s face through the coffin’s window.

She had expected it to be dry. After all, it had been a full day since he died.

But instead…his skin had felt weirdly damp???

(But his death was confirmed. And it had been quite some time since then. That was way past the point of reviving him with CPR.)

“If we aren’t dreaming, what just happened?”

“M-maybe it’s so cold we’re hallucinating?”

“That would only apply to you, stupid exhibitionist queen,” groaned Mikoto with a hand on her brow.

This didn’t seem to be an artificial dream. …Unfortunately, Academy City technology could pull off a scientific version of “it was all a dream”, but that wasn’t the case this time.

A crematorium official sighed softly while wiping the sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

He radiated anxiety and frustration.

“Wh-what is with those Bio Secure people?”

“(Misaka-san, ever heard of them?)”

“(Nope.)”

Bio Secure.

They probably functioned as a defense against nuclear, biological, and chemical threats. The group in their overly thick powered suits certainly stood out. The part-time monk who had refined his classical music and speaking skills had the mood of his ceremony completely destroyed.

Most of the powered suit group had gone outside.

They appeared primarily interested in Kamijou Touma.

That said, they weren’t just ignoring the crematorium either.

The crematorium workers and high schoolers seemed desperate to try and keep up with the rapidly changing situation, but they couldn’t have behaved like that if they had a proper understanding. The threat of death was close at hand.

“Kihara.”

“I’ve never heard of one named Goukei either.”

They had said their chief had arrived. If Bio Secure was operating with a member of the Kihara Family at the top, Mikoto severely doubted they were an honest organization.

“E-e-excuse me. Wh-when are we going to be let out of here?”

“Can we at least call someone here? I could really go for a pizza.”

Kamijou Touma’s classmates had done nothing wrong. But they likely didn’t understand the weight of that Kihara name. They wouldn’t be recklessly complaining to the powered suits if they did. Of course, if they could remain ignorant, that would be the best for them, but that wasn’t an option for the #3 and #5.

“How is that idiot still getting us involved in this stuff after he’s dead?”

“Let’s not assume that important-sounding Kihara actually knows what’s going on.”

Whatever the case, they couldn’t just stay here.

The question was if those powered suits would let them go.

A woman standing at the front of the powered suit group was the only one without a suit.

She wore a white coat over a plain white blouse and a tight skirt. And she wore white pantyhose. However, her overall image was unbalanced by the cap covering all of her hair and the large mask she wore. If anything, she may have looked something like a dentist…

“Chief Kihara Goukei,” whispered a powered suit.

While looking toward Mikoto and the others.

“We have two irregulars. If the Bank check is accurate, they are the #3 and the #5. I don’t know what they’re doing here, though.”

Mikoto and Shokuhou twitched in silent reaction.

The woman really was the Kihara.

Why would a monster like that make an appearance now?

Mikoto wasn’t even willing to signal Shokuhou with her eyes. Looking away for even that long scared her. If it came to it, she might have to launch a preemptive strike on her own.

That was her thinking.

Then the woman looked their way.

A gentle voice approached them from behind the large dentist-like mask.

“I am Kihara Goukei, mademoiselles. But feel free to call me Madame Gou.”

Mikoto thought she was going to black out for a moment.

The crematorium official must have learned about this earlier because he only averted his eyes. Silently.

(French?)

What the hell?

She could have simply been busty and attractive, but she just had to make it weird, didn’t she!?

Meanwhile, a powered suit approached.

“Chief Kihara Goukei.

“Oui, oui. I assume that is the facility patron? Then let us grownups talk together.”

With an exasperated sigh, the woman called Kihara Goukei turned to face the official while flanked by powered suits.

Her eyes were grinning.

“First, I must ask. You do claim to be in charge here, oui?”

“You must be kidding!! I don’t know how to handle a body infected by who-knows-what. The crematorium isn’t at risk, is it? If we need to do anything to decontaminate, just tell me. I can’t afford to lose my workplace!!”

“Then you are transferring authority to me. You can leave everything to Madame Kihara Goukei☆”

Mikoto felt silly for preparing for a fight after hearing this was a Kihara.

However…

“B-but, Kihara-san. Why, um, were you so quick to believe that a body had gotten back up?”

“Now, now, monsieur. No need to be nervous about speaking to me. Let’s just say it isn’t out of the question here in Academy City. In the past, I have seen a swarm of ants capable of turning a human into an anthill with their human form intact, and a transparent movable liquid coating that can cover a corpse and then stretch and contract in response to specific frequencies.”

What in the world?

Mikoto had never heard of either of those things.

She couldn’t imagine where that technology came from or what kind of wickedness it had been used for.

“We must retrieve the spécimen so that I can inspect it and determine just what caused the body to get back up. Controlling the dead is not that unusual a technologie. I should be able to explain after opening up the body and taking a peek inside. And once I determine where that technologie came from, I will find the villain responsible.”

(I-I don’t like how she’s saying it, but it scares me that what she’s saying makes a lot of sense!!)

Mikoto bristled and very nearly shouted out loud.

She couldn’t let the weakling look fool her.

A Kihara was still a Kihara.

Meanwhile, mourning clothes Shokuhou’s attention had shifted to her small purse. Specifically, to a TV remote inside.

“Killing moi would accomplish nothing.”

Kihara Goukei whispered behind her mask before Shokuhou even pulled it out.

She may have encountered family members who freaked out over her treatment of the deceased.

Pure villains were bad, but panicked good people could be terrifying as well.

“Bio Secure’s violence is based on a flow chart so that it can continue to function no matter who is infected. Thus, my own mort will not stop the team from acting.”

For one thing, a dead body had stood up and left on its own two feet.

Had that really happened?

Mikoto had seen it herself and even she found it hard to believe.

So…

“Shokuhou, have you been doing some weird training when I wasn’t looking? Really, I’m shocked you of all people learned the importance of daily hard work. I never imagined the day would come your Mental Out could reach my brain.”

“Could you not use me to fuel your nonscientific escapism!? I saw him get back up too! What in the world is happening!?”

Shokuhou must really have been panicked because she tearfully grabbed at Mikoto. The queen had really lost if if she was relying on the same person who had just grabbed her boob without permission.

(Hm.)

Still in the black kimono that looked terribly out of place on a 14-year-old, Misaka Mikoto crossed her arms and looked up at the ceiling. When she got annoyed like this, she looked more like a yakuza boss’s wife than a funeral attendee.

A few options came to mind.

And the most likely were…

“The body was in a state of suspended animation, the body was switched for a living lookalike, or the reports of his death were fake news. Those are probably the only ones that are physically and realistically possible.”

“You know those are all a stretch, don’t you!? You saw how dead he looked before the funeral. That rules out suspended animation or a lookalike. But whatever the case, the adults are going to do something awful to him if we don’t catch him first!!”

After they yelled at each other (like good friends?), Mikoto suddenly fell silent.

If they found him…what happened next?

Would they shove him back in the coffin, shut the lid, shove that in the cremation chamber, burn him, and live happily ever afterwards?

That felt like fundamentally missing the point somehow.

If he had gotten back up, why not leave him like that? Why not just let him escape?

Just then, Kihara Goukei clapped her hands as if signaling a change.

“Now, everyone. It is time to begin our search for the cadavre. No need to over complicate matters. No complicated mystère solving is needed in the real world. If we catch him and autopsy him, the vérité will be revealed.”

“Kh.”

Mikoto’s body moved seemingly on its own.

She had a single target.

It didn’t matter that she was wearing a kimono. She cut behind Kihara Goukei as sharply as a knife and then placed an arm around her neck.

For some reason, the shocked response came not from Kihara Goukei herself but from Shokuhou Misaki.

“Misaka-san, what are you doing!?”

“I don’t know. I just know I can’t let them autopsy him without question like that!!”

And why aren’t you using Mental Out, #5!? Don’t hold back out of fear!!

Meanwhile, Kihara Goukei was entirely carefree.

She was being strangled from behind, but she was smiling.

“Oh, an étranglement? I give, I give.”

“You are aware I’m Academy City’s #3, aren’t you? If I produced a billion volts like this, it’d fry your precious Kihara Family brains. Want to see what having average smarts is like?”

“Now that is a fate worse than mort.”

Kihara Goukei had been addressed as “chief”. The powered suits had all sought instruction from her. No matter what she claimed, taking her hostage should keep Bio Secure as a whole from acting.

The French-speaking woman smiled.

“Now, just follow the flowchart☆”

Mikoto heard a dull ripping sound.

As out-of-place as it was, it reminded her of when she would bite into a thick beef tongue meal.

And that wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

The large mask was dyed red. Kihara Goukei appeared to have thick, dark red blood spilling from her mouth. A lot of it.

“Damn!! Why would you bite your own tongue!?”

“Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.”

The woman tried to say something with a smile, but it was incomprehensible.

No hesitation at all?

This was the extreme form of a weakling.

The real battle began once she lost. Her leaving the battlefield was no more than a trigger.

Kihara Goukei. Mikoto had run into a few members of the Kihara Family before, but this woman appeared to be annoying in a different way from the others.

Mikoto immediately pulled off the mask and shoved a towel in her mouth, but she wasn’t sure how you were supposed to treat someone who had bit their tongue. One of the funeral attendees appeared to be a school doctor, so she had no choice but to leave the woman in her care.

(Oh, god!! She smashed the organization’s brakes right on front of me! I should’ve zapped her before she had a chance to say anything!!)

At that moment, Shokuhou, whose black dress made her look like a wicked witch, whispered something. With her head lowered.

“It’s raining outside.”

“What does that have to do with any-”

“I don’t know exactly how long since he died, but what if he gets wet? Won’t he rot?”

“…”

“…”

They both fell silent.

And then they both ran for the exit.

They had no idea what condition Kamijou Touma was in right now. But if they didn’t capture him soon and throw him into a full-body dryer or something, he would definitely end up as a horrific gory mess!!

Part 3

The Doppler effect distorted a passing siren.

An Anti-Skill special vehicle must have passed by on the nearby main street.

“Kh.”

Kamijou jumped because he was dressed from head to toe in white burial clothes. They were more like a Japanese bathrobe than a kimono.

Apparently he was a fugitive. He really had returned to life, so why did he have to avoid the main streets and stick to the back alleys? He had no idea what might happen to him if he was caught.

(D-d-d-dammit, Kingsford!! I’ll grant that you kept your promise to send me back from hell, but couldn’t you have done more than the bare minimum there!? Of course it’s going to be a big deal and cause a panic if a corpse suddenly gets back up more than a day after dying!!!)

The January rain was another problem.

He could feel it soaking through his clothes, penetrating his skin, and stealing away his body heat. And yet his feelings didn’t just numb over. It wasn’t often that being “chilled to the bone” felt more literal than figurative.

Setting aside the scientific values, he was pretty sure snow would have been preferable to this.

“Alice, are you alright?”

“Hm, hm♪ The girl is A-OK as long as she’s with you, teacher☆”

His breath was white and his body shivering, but little Alice was smiling in the very same rain. Even though her storybook dress had short sleeves. She held onto Kamijou’s arm from the side and refused to let go.

She was being very huggy and squeezy.

But come to think of it, the Bologna Succubus was also a Transcendent, but when she had been injured in Shibuya at the end of the year, hadn’t she suffered and shivered from the cold?

Maybe this was another area where Alice Anotherbible was abnormal.

“?”

Alice tilted her head with a full smile and an “eh heh heh” of laughter.

The little girl might be fine, but she was so soaked it worried Kamijou to see her like that.

…He did find himself more comfortable with this little version of her, maybe because he was more accustomed to her this way. He still wouldn’t want her walking around the streets in that black leather outfit like this though.

Kamijou was in burial clothes and Alice wore an apron and dress ensemble that looked straight out of a storybook. Plus, they were both soaking wet and without an umbrella. Kamijou was barefoot. This country’s constitution guaranteed many types of freedom. He knew that, but he was still pretty sure being dressed like this anywhere but Shibuya on any day other than Halloween would end with the authorities taking him into custody. And not the gentle “how about you come talk with us” kind – the forcibly restraining him kind.

“A-a-a-anyway, I’d like to get somewhere warm.”

“Are you cold, teacher? Then the girl will warm you up!”

“Alice, we’re not at the ‘stranded on a snowy mountain’ stage yet!!”

He wanted time to think.

He wanted to relax and rest somewhere warm, but he knew he would be kicked out for violation of the dress code if he tried to go to a convenience store or a chain cafe while dressed so strangely and soaking wet.

The shared offices the size of phone booths would be empty, but he didn’t think those had their own heating systems. He could get in easily enough, but he would freeze to death going there in January while soaked.

Kamijou Touma sighed softly.

The sigh came out white.

Little Alice innocently ate up his breath.

It might all seem like a joke, but he was in a fairly serious situation.

He had to make a decision.

“I guess the only place left would be my dorm room.”

Part 4

As the frigid rain fell, electricity crackled in the gap between two buildings.

Just adding cold rain was enough to greatly change the nature of this attack. Instead of striking a single point, it became an area of effect attack.

“District 7?” Mourning clothes Mikoto looked around skeptically. “There’s more of those Bio Secure people around here. Does that mean that idiot is hiding in this district?”

If his corpse(?) really was running around, what did she want to do?

She still hadn’t found an answer to that.

But she at least knew she couldn’t let Kihara-brand special forces retrieve him, slice him up, and then incinerate him.

This was a city of science, but there were still standards for saying goodbye to someone.

Meanwhile…

“Brrrr, it’s so cold, brrrrr.”

“Why are you so sensitive to the cold when you have so much subcutaneous fat?”

“Because all my fat has gloriously gathered in my boobs.”

“(That vending machine over there sells dashi under the brand name of a restaurant famous for only using natural ingredients, but I can wait until later to tell her that.)”

“☆☆☆Misaaaaka-saaan☆☆☆”

“Bfh!? Don’t grab onto me while drooling with hearts in your eyes!! Were you possessed by a succubus!?”

“Ahh…”

Shokuhou recovered after holding her phone up to the vending machine and pressing the warm can against her cheek. Then she wrapped her hands around the can and took small sips.

And for how much the idiot queen worried about ingredients, she sure didn’t seem to mind drinking from industrial-made cans and plastic bottles. That obsession of hers may have simply been a placebo. She was an idiot, after all.

Mikoto’s head jerked up.

There was no warning.

She could sense even slight electric and magnetic disturbances. And a powered suit was a piece of electronic equipment weighing more than 300kg. There was no preventing it from leaking invisible electromagnetism.

“Here they come. Time for wave two.”

“We are going the right way, I hope?”

Sounds of destruction rang loud.

A Bio Secure powered suit broke right through the metal wall erected around a construction site and Mikoto launched a lightning spear to pierce it.

Then they were forced to run through the rainy city.

There was no need to have Shokuhou read any residual thoughts with Mental Out.

The damage to some of the construction sites was obvious. That would be due to the powered suits going nuts, not Kamijou. Just follow the destruction and they could catch up to him.

But there was another problem.

They heard dull mechanical “gashunk!!” sounds.

“Tch!! Looks like the Bio Secure powered suits are taking this seriously too!”

“My, they must see us as infection candidates.”

Candidates.

That meant it was only a possibility.

And that assumed some strange infectious agent even existed in the first place.

Seeing a corpse get up wasn’t enough to immediately accept the existence of a zombie virus. And even if it did exist, none of that implied it was highly infectious.

Mikoto wasn’t about to be killed over maybes and assumptions.

She could probably blast through those Bio Secure powered suits with a Railgun fired at three times the speed of sound.

But if she did that for each and every one, she would quickly wear herself out.

She wanted to avoid running out of gas and fainting before she managed to find Kamijou Touma.

So she wanted to lose as many of them on foot as possible, but…

“Hurry, Shokuhou!! As low as the heels are, those pumps are only slowing you down!! Take them off already!!”

“Pant, gasp. M-my dress is wet with rain and has soaked up so much water and the veil makes it hard to breathe… Gbh, why did I choose these sexy mourning clothes again?”

Still, how was that outfit structured if she was losing to Mikoto whose kimono was like a single tube?

As the #5 gasped for breath, a powered suit’s thick fingers approached her from behind. It was probably after her long blonde hair.

Were they going after the slower one first?

(I could abandon her here, but she’ll still be useful.)

Mikoto magnetically grabbed a thick steel beam from a nearby construction site and swung it straight to the side to knock away the heavy powered suit. A lot like those things that rang the huge bells at Buddhist temples.

“Heh…heh heh. So you finally admit it, Misaka-san? You finally admit you need me? Hwa ha ha. You finally admit my human controlling ability is so much more useful than your machine controlling ability!!”

“I really should’ve abandoned this idiot and attached myself to a building wall or something.”

Shokuhou tearfully clinging to her in the rain was really annoying. She must have taken Mikoto’s joke seriously.

Furious, another powered suit readied something at its hip.

A flamethrower.

Had they received authorization to use it on secondary targets like Mikoto and Shokuhou? Or had they removed the safety at their own discretion?

If this was happening here, how much of a crisis was that idiot in?

“…”

Bluish-white sparks scattered from Mikoto’s bangs.

She didn’t even need to wield a lightning spear or an iron sand sword.

No matter how powerful they were, the powered suits were still electronic devices. With Misaka Mikoto’s #3 power, she could easily shut them down externally.

But…

“Shokuhou, what is taking you!? Hurry up and stop the human inside!!”

“I’m trying, but there’s something weird about them!!”

Shokuhou Misaki’s tearful shouting was business as usual, but it was very unusual when it came to psychological things.

Mental Out wasn’t working.

That meant something else was interfering.

(Is an entire human body being precisely controlled without using the brain?)

A parasite, moisture control, a virus, a drug, electrical stimuli, or a microscopic shape-memory alloy that reacted to certain frequencies. Mikoto came up with a few possibilities, but she wasn’t convinced any of them really could control someone’s body like this.

Still, the #5’s Mental Out really was being repelled.

These were abnormal people who had received the blessings provided by a Kihara.

“Damn, now it feels like there are zombies on both sides!!”

If she had to deal with an entire group of people like that, Mikoto would be worn down first.

Had they been intentionally designed that way?

A collection of endlessly replaceable ordinary people were used to defeat an irregular individual. By eliminating individuality, that group had made itself immortal. Kihara Goukei had bit her tongue and taken herself out of the fight right away, but maybe she wasn’t interested in making herself special.

On the other hand, this was apparently a group the grownups had put together in order to battle “reanimated corpses”.

While sporadically releasing 1 billion volt currents, Mikoto turned around just as they descended a slope leading down into a culvert.

She magnetically attached her purse to her belly to free up her hand and then flicked an arcade coin with her thumb.

She fired a Railgun.

The roar of compressed air. The orange streak. A moment later, a shockwave swept across the scene, and the tunnel-like entrance collapsed.

She turned on her phone’s light so she could see.

“This is only going to buy us some time. A culvert this big is going to have other entrances and those powered suits might have the horsepower to dig through the concrete rubble.”

“Pant. Why do you…seem to come alive…when it’s time to fight?”

The #5 looked ready to slump to the ground, so Mikoto grabbed her arm and continued further in.

There were fewer hints compared to all the signs of destruction in the construction sites, but Mikoto’s microwave radar could scan the detailed dust on the ground and any traces of water while Shokuhou could read residual thoughts.

So they could search for signs along a single path.

Or they should have been able to…

“Wait,” said Shokuhou on reflex. “What is this?”

“Looks like something happened here.”

It wasn’t that there were no signs.

There were too many.

In a word, something had exploded. Whatever had happened here, nothing had escaped unharmed.

With nothing at all, the small hints could show the way, but this was the opposite. Like the red cellophane placed over a problem set, there were too many signs everywhere to tell which one was the right one.

Mikoto, their physical fighter, spoke cautiously.

“The rebar is melted. This explosion was even hotter than city gas. Could it have been an oxyacetylene flame?”

The explosion itself had been powerful, but that meant the trail ended here.

Where had Kamijou Touma gone in this cold and rainy world?

Eventually…

“Hmm,” groaned Shokuhou, twirling her TV remote like a handgun.

She may have been lonely.

She was focused on a bucket-like powered suit helmet.

She appeared to be reading something slowly and deeply.

“Bio Secure. Experts at solving Academy City’s problems without the Board Chairman knowing. But then they send the responsible corporation or lab a bill for some percentage of the estimated damage the problem would have caused if left unchecked.”

Mikoto wasn’t even surprised.

She had given up on excepting anything remotely resembling decency from the adults of Academy City.

“Well, if a corporation let a bacteria or alloy that reanimates dead bodies escape their secure area, they could easily go out of business. So it’s not surprising there would be experts at cleaning that up before anyone finds out.”

At that point, Mikoto frowned.

“But they send the bill after solving the problem? Without any sense of threat, I would expect those immoral grownups to try to get out of paying.”

“And can the big boss of Academy City really be so easily fooled? I would expect their stealth ability to be nowhere near as effective as they think. Then again, the surveillance system seems to have gotten a lot more lax of late.”

Bio Secure likely had more than just this.

Unlike the esper children, the adults who fortified themselves with next-gen weapons would use overwhelming numbers.

“…”

Several Six Wings unmanned attack helicopters flew by overhead.

Mikoto might be able to forcibly take control of them…but she was afraid of doing so in the city. If she screwed up controlling them, she could make them crash.

And more than that direct threat, the 14-year-old in mourning clothes spoke up.

“I feel like I’m forgetting something.”

“Oh, you ‘feel like’ it, do you? You’re actually looking at your memories in their chronological context, I hope? If not, you can prophesy the end of the world all you like.”

“Or is it something that happened behind the scenes where I didn’t know about it? There’s a chance there’s something in this city I’ve only managed to catch glimpses of out of the corner of my eye.”

It felt like grasping at clouds.

Or was it?

These things had happened in the same city, no matter how big the city was.

For one, she still didn’t know how that boy had died. Maybe there was something there that explained how he came back to life.

“I don’t think we have much time.” Mourning clothes Shokuhou sighed in mild exasperation. “Let’s find some water and food. Ingredients are important. I would rather not consume any gelatins, blocks, or other chemical stuff.”

“We don’t even know if that idiot is alive or dead.”

Mourning clothes Mikoto bit her lip while hanging her head.

“There’s no way I could get any food down.”

Part 5

“Okay, teacher. Say ‘ah’.”

“…”

Should he really be doing this?

In a back alley, a beaming Alice fed Kamijou Touma the snack she held between her fingers. Because if he didn’t let her, he got the feeling she would never move a step from this spot.

The crunchy textured snack was not a potato chip. It was…

“Fried squid!! Japan has so many weird snacks there’s always something new to try.”

“Hm? Alice, I thought your culture didn’t like eating wriggly things.”

“It’s squid but it’s crunchy☆”

Alice Anotherbible may have been the type to enjoy the texture of her food. Whether it was plastic or metal, the water-repellent snack bag meant the cold rain couldn’t ruin the flavor.

And Kamijou felt the salt and oil soaking into his body.

No matter what anyone might claim, he was hungry back here in reality. And come to think of it, he hadn’t eaten anything after dying, had he?

(I guess this is better than being unable to produce stomach acid and puking it back up.)

Kamijou nearly dozed off in the forced comfort.

But then he realized something.

“Actually, hold on, Alice. Where did you get that fried squid?”

“The girl made sure to pay for it with money she found on the ground!”

“You can’t do that.”

“?”

Alice Anotherbible tilted her head in confusion, suggesting she still needed a bit more social studies. Still, it was adorable how she was taking steps toward living in human society.

(Academy City has been through a lot recently. There probably were a lot of people who dropped their wallets.)

He was with Alice.

They walked through the January streets as the chilly rain fell.

Not being alone was a wonderful thing.

He realized how much those around him had supported him throughout his life. Even when he wound up in hell, Kingsford had been there for him.

He could not forget that appreciation.

He never could.

“Pant, brr, it’s cold. I feel like I’ve been swimming through cold water. Maybe I should have dug through a dumpster for an umbrella or something.”

“Hm? You can do that, but the girl isn’t allowed to use money she found?”

They had arrived at some District 7 student dorms.

They entered one of many identical buildings and rode the elevator up to the seventh floor. It was quiet in the area, and, luckily, none of the residents from his school were around. They were probably all at school still.

(No, wait. They would have been at my funeral. I feel kind of bad having them do that when I’m alive.)

Alice tilted her head as they walked down the long hallway.

She seemed puzzled rather than surprised.

Come to think of it, this wasn’t her first time at his dorm. When they first met, she had snuck into his bathroom, hadn’t she?

“But, teacher, do you have a key to your room?”

“…”

Oh, right. He was wearing burial clothes.

Thinking back, it had been weird for his phone to be in the coffin with him. More than just his wallet, he didn’t even have any underwear right now. Come to think of it, this was a really lewd outfit! And now the adolescent boy was slightly curious who had put it on him!!

“Eh heh heh. Maybe it was a young woman with a gentle dorm manager vibe.”

“?”

Anyway, Kamijou Touma opened the door on the water heater attached to the outside wall and snagged the spare key hidden there.

For some reason, Alice was amused.

“Teacher, that’s so unsafe.”

“Listen, Alice. There was a time when I had less than 100 yen to my name. Not having anything worth stealing is the world’s greatest security.”

That aside, the cheap locks on the doors at a boys dorm weren’t too trustworthy to begin with. Someone could probably snap a photo of the key from a distance and duplicate it with a 3D printer.

He unlocked and opened the door.

Unpleasantly chilly air blew out into his face. It was colder inside than out.

“Huh?”

No one was there.

The air was horribly cold.

“Index and Othinus are out too. Where are they in this rain?”

He questioned it, but he would die if he didn’t warm up his soaked and shivering body.

He didn’t have time to spend on each and every action.

Once inside the room, he switched on the electric water boiler to heat some water. In the time it took to boil, he reached for the door to the closet in the small room. A poor student didn’t own many clothes. That his warmest outfit was the school-designated winter uniform showed just how extreme his poverty was.

(I can’t just change clothes. Ugh, I need to warm up more directly.)

It wasn’t even nighttime yet, but he went to the bathroom and began filling the tub with hot water. That was the greatest luxury for a poor student.

He thought he would freeze to death in the 15 minutes it would take for the hot bath to be ready, so he grabbed a towel that was sitting out. He tossed another to Alice and began drying himself off.

(Wait, what do I do about a change of clothes for Alice?)

His dorm was not equipped with clothing for a 130cm girl. Having her wear a one-size-fits-all track suit or something until her wet clothes dried would probably be best. …Oh, the dryer function. Kamijou Touma stared into the distance. That cost more in power than using an iron or hair drier, so he ordinarily never used it.

The poverty he had very nearly escaped was creeping up behind Mr. Misfortune once more.

At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before it was tapping on his shoulder.

Part 6

At a home in Kanagawa, Kamijou Touya hung his head. The large LCD TV linked to his computer still coldly displayed the word “offline”.

They had cut his connection.

They hadn’t let him reconnect.

None of it made sense.

With Academy City’s wall in the way, the Kamijou couple felt literally shut out.

His parents should have been at the center of it all, but they weren’t allowed in. With all the complicated paperwork, the remains would be burned before they could get inside the city.

“Gh…”

He had failed to protect his child.

Worse, he hadn’t even managed to learn how that life had been lost.

The ashes would apparently be returned to them, but what did that matter?

That powder would have been burned until nothing of the DNA map remained, so how could they even prove that was their son? How could they accept that!?

Someone placed her arms around his shoulders from behind.

But he had no response to his wife’s comfort.

“To hell with…Academy City,” groaned Kamijou Touya, his voice catching in his throat.

The black screen refused to provide any kind of response.

“Why would they cut the connection like that!? Our son is dead! And they just- we’re not a chatbot on a corporate website!! You can’t expect us to accept a death so easily!! Owwwwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Part 7

“Teacher. Huggy squeezey☆”

“…”

Should he really be doing this right now?

Kamijou Touma was given a full-power hug from needy Alice. Had his shitty life finally entered a bonus mode? The sweet and warm girl content had been through the roof for the last bit.

Maybe it was weird to think of it this way in a city of science like Academy City, but he feared he was accumulating bad karma from all this. Enough to get him punished later on!!

They were in his dorm room.

This was a strange situation where little Alice would cling to him any chance she got, but he was still pale and chilled to the bone.

(Damn, he’s not answering his phone. What is dad doing?)

Then again, this was causing enough of a commotion in a city of science. If his father did answer the phone, he would probably assume it was a ghost scare or a cruel prank.

The weird part was the disturbing lack of anyone talking about this on the school’s social media. Kamijou-san was (according to himself) a brilliant person who could actually use a smartphone and he knew how to take a look at his class’s social media group, but no one was talking about it. In fact, no one was there at all.

…Or were they cut off from it for some reason?

That bothered him, but he wasn’t going to find the answer worrying over it here. He couldn’t exactly head back to the crematorium.

Anyway, he wanted to make sure he was safe and then fortify his position.

He was preparing a bath, but it would be a while before the hot water filled the tub.

He was cold.

He felt like he was going to die.

Had his sense of cold been numbed over before? Once he got in his room, he finally recalled that it was January.

After extracting himself from Alice, he moved to the bathroom. While he was at it, he would change into his school uniform in the changing room. He checked on the tub and confirmed it would indeed take a while longer.

“Sigh… I don’t think I can wait that long. It’s not my way, but maybe I should change before taking the bath.”

“Yay, a bath with teacher!”

“Wait! Did I just hear something ultra ominous from out there!? No, reacting is the wrong move here! I need to pretend to be a dense romcom boy and have selective hearing loss over this!”

He had been careless, so now he had to press his shoulder against the changing room door to defend it at all costs.

The bathroom lock could be opened with a single flat head screwdriver. Nothing could be less trustworthy.

“Ohh, teacher wants to play the door pushing game!”

“Gwahh, how is she so strong!? Is there an elephant going nuts on the other side of the door!?”

And as he shouted that, something felt off.

“…?”

Kamijou used the indoor clothes drying rod to jam the door shut and then hesitantly reached his hand into the tub before yanking it back.

Was that ice water?

And why wasn’t there any steam coming from the bath!?

“Th-this isn’t hot water!! Why is the tub full of freezing January water!? D-did someone mess with the machine’s recommended settings and switch it to learning mode? I don’t want that! I just want it to work normally, not some weird new service!!”

“Teacher, is it a problem with the water heater outside?”

He petrified.

Being corrected by Alice was about the last thing he had expected.

Regardless, he walked out the front door while shivering.

What if it was broken? Would a repairman accept the work when he was currently being pursued by Anti-Skill?

(But is there a way to have them do the work without actually meeting them? Like when you get something delivered and they just leave it at your door? No, no. I couldn’t explain how someone other than the guy living in the room wanted the water heater repaired. Oh, but then again…)

“Teacher? When a machine is broken, you can fix it by blowing on the metal part and reinserting it.”

“Now there’s some advice that takes me back. Oh, right. You’re actually older than me, aren’t you?”

“Hm? Why are you lost in thought, teacher?”

Wait, but weren’t even discs considered old fashioned at this point? Kamijou sensed some kind of twist in space-time.

And while they discussed it, he heard a noise.

He slowly turned toward the tone he recognized as the elevator arriving.

And the lonely little girl turned with him.

(What?)

The cheap elevator door opened and a priest in black with long red hair stepped out. Maybe it was the direction of the wind or the humidity…and maybe the amount of tar or nicotine was exceptionally high, but even at this distance, Kamijou thought the stench of cigarette smoke was seeping into him.

For a brief moment, the sound of the January rain grew louder.

Almost like he was hearing the sprinklers linked to the fire alarm.

(What…the hell?)

He had no memory of this.

But there was something about the combination of this place, this sound, and this person.

The scene before his eyes caused a stirring in his heart?

“S-” said the pointy-haired boy on reflex.

Yes…

“Stiyl Magnus?”

It was him.

But Kamijou had no idea why he would be here.

For one, how had an Anglican magician gotten into Academy City?

Then it hit him.

“My funeral…”

“I have zero intention of grieving over you. It just made a convenient excuse for an outsider like me to pass through the front gate and enter the city. The other team appears to be having trouble, but I’m sure they’re right there outside the wall.”

That explained the how.

But there was a more fundamental question.

Why had Stiyl come to Academy City when he was suppose to be in England?

“…”

Kamijou remained cautious.

He glanced over at Alice.

Had the Anglicans been working hard to resolve the Bridge Builders Cabal issue in their own way? If so, Necessarius’s timing had been uncharacteristically poor. No matter who might have what complaints now, the issue with Alice had been solved. She would no longer destroy others or the world.

Stiyl Magnus said nothing.

The scene around him changed.

Kamijou felt like he was being pulled toward him.

The smoker priest’s black habit flapped hard at the air and then a ton of cards burst out in a great spiral. They attached themselves to the walls and floor and stayed there. Just like cherry blossom petals covering a lake or road after the merciless rain brought them down. There were too many to even see the original colors of the surfaces.

They were all laminated…

“Rune…cards?”

“Teacher,” snapped Alice Anotherbible before Kamijou’s past experiences could tell him of the threat.

And just after her warning…

Fwoosh!!!

Stiyl pulled a flame sword out of thin air like a magic trick, the sword’s form collapsed, and flames erupted out like a flash flood.

Kamijou’s right hand sprang up to hold the palm out front.

He wouldn’t have made it in time without Alice’s warning.

Imagine Breaker.

He negated the scorching flames of more than 3000 degrees Celsius, but Kamijou still couldn’t believe it.

“Stiyl!?”

“This isn’t about Alice Anotherbible.”

The words muttered by the flame magician were colder than ice.

“To be honest, I don’t care about her.”

It was obvious now.

One look in Stiyl Magnus’s piercing eyes was enough to know who his true target was.

“You’re here to kill me!?”

“Sorry, but this isn’t even a job for the Anglicans.”

The soles of Kamijou’s shoes scraped audibly against the floor as he backed up.

He rejudged the distance between them.

The straight and narrow hallway left no room for lateral movement.

He hadn’t expected anything like this, but he was still glad he had changed into his school uniform.

An outsider like Kamijou had no way of knowing how the Anglican Church would view someone who had died and come back. Was he a troublemaker who had disturbed the natural order, or was he a living sample of the work of an expert magician? Either way, he knew they weren’t going to just let him go. Especially when he was inside Academy City, the headquarters of the science side that stood opposed to the magic side.

Kamijou had come up with all these guesses, so the words spilling from Stiyl’s mouth caught him by surprise.

“With you gone, the rights to your possessions go to others.”

“?”

At first, Kamijou didn’t know what he meant.

But Stiyl was serious.

The rights to his possessions? Stiyl was willing to kill over that?

The smoker priest clarified.

“Grimoire Library Index Librorum Prohibitorum was temporarily placed in Kamijou Touma’s care.”

“…”

Kamijou felt like he was using the coin-operated binoculars found at scenic locations. The distant and out-of-reach answer was gradually coming into focus.

And the image he found left him speechless.

No.

Wait, it couldn’t be!

“It was only ever temporary. If you were dead, so be it. With her temporary owner gone, that girl would naturally be returned to England where she belongs. Many magicians hoped for exactly that. Especially those connected to the Anglicans. Myself included.”

Yes.

That was right.

Index was a freeloader in Kamijou Touma’s dorm room. He didn’t know what specific agreement the Anglican Church and Academy City had made, but the situation had been stable.

But what happened to Index if he died?

And what if the pointy-haired boy unreasonably got back up again???

“But you had the gall to come back to life. Yes, yes. I have no intention of figuring out the details of the spell. All that matters is that Kamijou Touma once more cheated the system to get through it all! …Stop messing with us like this. Do you have any idea how much it shakes the world as a whole each time you go off and die or come back from the dead!?”

Could it be that no one wanted him alive again?

He had wondered that when he first escaped from the cremation chamber. But he had assumed that was an emotional issue of like or dislike – necessary or unnecessary.

“That said, the situation plays right into my hand. You were already set to be cremated. And even after you escaped, Academy City has been working to incinerate you with flamethrowers. No one will question it if you end up burned to death now. It will require massaging the timeline a little, but I’m the best man for the job, don’t you think?”

“…”

“I can’t imagine Kanzaki Kaori or Orsola Aquinas doing this job.”

It was pure interest.

A powder keg.

He hadn’t predicted this would shake things up so badly that it could even affect the power balance between the three major Christian factions on the magic side.

“The dead should remain dead, Kamijou Touma,” spat Stiyl Magnus.

Were some battles already being fought in the shadows over who would next take in Index?

Those eyes carrying a mixture of rage and contempt were the eyes of the kind of person who amused themselves by spreading false information on social media whenever there was a disaster or war.

“That is your duty.”

Kamijou couldn’t get any words out.

A single quiet footstep sounded.

It came from Alice Anotherbible standing next to Kamijou.

“It doesn’t matter what your reasons are.”

Her voice was cold.

But you must not forget.

Alice was not angry for herself.

The coming battle had nothing at all to do with her.

But angry she was.

“If any mouth in this world says teacher should be dead, then the girl will sew it shut. As the first and the model for all Transcendents, the girl can mop the floor with an ordinary magician or two. Mop the floor easily.”

She wasn’t boasting.

After the trouble she caused Academy City, Alice might really be able to do that.

However…

“Khah…!?”

“Teacher!!”

Wham!!!

A sudden impact pierced through the center of his gut. Something invisible had done it. He doubled over, but he wasn’t even allowed to fall. Unable to breathe, Kamijou Touma spat out all the air in his lungs. Some blood may have come up with it.

Alice was by his side, yet her cries sounded distant.

His sense of pain was instantly blown away.

What had happened to his body was so absurd none of his ordinary senses could make sense of it.

But the most frightening part wasn’t the impact itself.

Unlike 15cm Othinus, Alice Anotherbible still had her unique power, yet she hadn’t noticed it while right by his side.

What in the world had attacked him?

Neither Aradia nor the Bologna Succubus could do this.

Then who could?

Most likely, it wasn’t even Stiyl Magnus who stood before him! After all, Alice had provided Kamijou Touma with an accurate warning when Stiyl first swung his flame sword!!

“My, my. You have taken on the stench of death since we last saw you, Kamijou Touma.”

“See, it’s just as I feared. You’ve become more like us, haven’t you?”

Kamijou’s shoulders jumped.

He recognized those voices.

One was a beautiful woman’s alluring voice, which resembled a sweet fruit so overripe it was starting to rot. The other was a girl’s young but still unripe voice.

Didn’t that combination of voices belong to…?

“Nephthys…and Niang-Niang?”

They were Magic Gods on par with Othinus.

What were those monsters doing with Stiyl?

Part 8

The sexy silver-haired young woman with her brown skin wrapped in bandages was Nephthys.

She was the Magic God that existed as a collection of the people used as grave goods in the pharaoh’s tombs in Egyptian mythology.

The small girl with black hair, corpse-pale skin, and a modified mini-China dress was Niang-Niang.

She was the Magic God of a Shijie-Xian, one who had faked their death to cut all ties to the living world.

…It would probably be crass to ask what they had been doing all this time.

They were gods, after all.

They gave no concern for human matters and simply popped in whenever it suited their fancy. They had apparently hung out with Hamazura Shiage a while in London, but even that had been on a whim. It was never clear how long they would remain in a single field – which could mean a world or a phase or whatever.

“Hee hee.”

“Ha ha.”

The two extraordinary beings nestled up against Stiyl Magnus from either side, but something wasn’t right.

It was true Stiyl used Norse runes.

But he was fundamentally a part of the Anglican Church. He was a priest who believed in Christianity’s monotheism. How could he work with a pyramid mummy and a disguised corpse Shijie-Xian?

Kamijou’s inability to speak must have been enough for them to know where the confusion lay because Nephthys and Niang-Niang’s laughter grew louder.

“Is it really so odd?”

And after that.

The bandage woman spoke.

“Unusual people working with Necessarius should hardly be a surprise at this point. I mean, the Archbishop at the top of the Anglican Church is Dion Fortune right now. But not the actual woman – a tarot deck that is in fact an original grimoire designed to look like her.”

She sounded cheerful.

Like she was catching up with an old friend.

“And Magic Gods are, you know, the kind of people who are willing to die in our pursuit of knowledge. Christian Rosencreutz, Anna Kingsford, and hell, albeit an artificial one. It would be a problem if the process of resurrecting you left any odd trace of those legendary experts with you, wouldn’t it?”

“Powerless is about right for normal humans. I mean, those Transcendents? When an individual like you can gather them together and influence the world as a whole, things get really restrictive and just a pain. We want to live free, remember.”

It didn’t sound like those two had a change of heart that led them to side with Necessarius.

Did their interests simply align here?

For one thing, properly using all 103,001 of Index’s grimoires could possibly turn you into a Magic God. Nephthys and Niang-Niang may not have wanted to leave that thread hanging and possibly lead to more and more Magic Gods being created.

Kamijou heard a heavy metallic clunk.

Something rolled over to him.

It was the bucket-like helmet of a powered suit.

Magic God Niang-Niang had tossed it in front of him while grinning.

“We didn’t want any interruptions, so we hunted them down first.”

“…”

They were a greater threat than Bio Secure.

Of course they were. They were Magic Gods. Just remember Othinus’s former power. She had altered the world itself on a whim.

There wasn’t even any point in counting how many times she had destroyed Academy City.

With Magic Gods involved, the previous diagram was obsolete.

“Alice…”

“No problem.”

Alice’s voice partially drowned out his own.

As if to keep him from saying the rest.

“The girl will defeat anyone who threatens your resurrected life.”

That only worried him more.

That was only a statement of intent. It did nothing to prove her ability.

This would be Transcendent versus Magic God.

…How would that play out?

Othinus didn’t count since she had lost her power, so wasn’t this the first full-power clash between the two groups? Alice Anotherbible certainly reigned at the top of the Transcendents, but it wasn’t clear how much power she had outside that category.

“Silly boy.”

In response, Nephthys boredly toyed with a lock of her silver hair.

“Just let us fight and all those questions will be answered.”

The brown goddess brought the tip of the hair to her lips and gently blew on it.

Something larger than his entire head flew right past his face at extreme speed.

The blast of wind only came after the fact. And the sound of destruction far after that.

“…”

He couldn’t react.

Had he been slow to act because it was invisible, or had the fear glued his feet to the floor? Even he wasn’t certain.

Nephthys spoke while once more brushing back her long silver hair.

“Oh, sorry about that. Were you trapped by the delusions of a little boy, thinking we might go easy on you because we know each other? We really will kill you this time, Kamijou Touma.”

He thought he would freeze.

The Egyptian goddess looked down on him with piercing eyes.

Her voice was far chillier than the winter rain.

The worst part was she was correct.

This wasn’t their first meeting. They did know each other.

These weren’t just any Magic Gods – they were Nephthys and Niang-Niang.

And with Othinus, he had reached an understanding with a Magic God before.

…Could he really say for sure he hadn’t been expecting, even a little bit, for that to mean something? Even though their presence here in Academy City meant their preparations were already complete?

These were true Magic Gods.

Othinus had been rendered harmless, but these two were still deadliness itself.

And they were truly here to kill.

Probably?

Maybe?

His battle against Alice Anotherbible should have taught him those words didn’t guarantee anything!

His body felt heavy just from imagining it.

Like he had molten lead in place of blood.

…I might not be able to win this one.

That was Kamijou Touma’s honest thought. He wasn’t even sure what would happen against Stiyl and his 3000 degree flames, but he also had to deal with two true Magic Gods. His past battles against Othinus and High Priest were enough for him to understand the despair he was facing. These were not opponents he could face without any kind of preparation.

He gulped.

And then he realized something specifically because he couldn’t get his voice out.

“Alice…?”

Alice could not suppress the shaking of her body, but she was still biting her lip to keep from screaming.

On her own, she could survive anything.

Then what was she so afraid of?

The answer was obvious.

Alice Anotherbible was terrified of the possibility of losing Kamijou Touma again.

…Now it was pissing him off. Why was he so incapable of considering the value of his own life?

And there was that empty room.

Index and Othinus… How many other people had he troubled with all this? Stiyl had said coming back to life was wrong and that it had caused all sorts of confusion. Maybe so. Looking at the world as a whole or at public interests, maybe Stiyl had a point.

But.

Was Kamijou really just going to accept that and die again?

He didn’t even know how many tears had been shed for him. He had been shown images of Index and Alice in that artificial hell, but that was all. It could be many others had wept and he just didn’t know it. Was he really going to give up because he couldn’t defeat two Magic Gods and a magician and accept death as the natural order of things without ever learning about all those people!?

Something happened at the center of his body.

His heart was beating.

That proved he was alive.

“…No…”

He didn’t have any kind of magical trick.

It didn’t matter that he had seen proof that a soul could be collected from death if an expert created an artificial hell to catch it.

Kamijou Touma.

Did you truly feel remorse in that hell? Did you feel anything at all while walking the path of regret the man going by Christian Rosencreutz had taken and when the expert named Anna Kingsford had stayed true to her way of life by giving him the impossible ticket to salvation?

“Don’t worry, Alice.”

He made a vow.

To the girl who had wept for him.

To the girl who had seen someone returned from the dead, wept in relief rather than fear, and spread her arms to embrace him.

“I’m not going to die here!!!”

It was time he thoroughly destroyed the ridiculous illusion that it was better he be dead.

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 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

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

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

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.

Epilogue: An Unwanted Trick – Open_Your_Lock.

Stiyl had been defeated.

Magic Gods Nephthys and Niang-Niang were still unconscious.

But…

“We caused too much of a scene. We can’t stay here at the dorm.”

“?”

Little Alice tilted her head, so Kamijou continued.

“No word from Accelerator. What happened to Bio Secure? They’re an organization and apparently their boss Kihara Goukei intentionally self-destructed, so no one knows how to stop them. I’d really prefer it if their organization didn’t continue running endlessly at full capacity.”

Kamijou Touma was alive.

At the very least, he wasn’t a zombie or the undead.

But now that he thought about it, how was he supposed to prove that? Being alive was such an underlying assumption he had never considered it before. What could he do if they suspected him of being an infected corpse even when he had a pulse and brainwaves?

Anything that required opening him up and dissecting him was out of the question.

After some thought, he spoke again.

“Should I go to the frog-faced doctor?”

“Hm?”

Kamijou couldn’t imagine how it could be done, but he had a feeling that doctor would be able to save him from any threat. As long as he was alive anyway.

(But if I go to that hospital with Bio Secure after me, I could draw the enemy there. I want to avoid causing the hospital any trouble.)

What if he called the frog-faced doctor somewhere instead of visiting the hospital himself?

Then the hospital wouldn’t become a battlefield.

In that case, he would need to construct a safe zone where the frog-faced doctor could safely examine and test him. He couldn’t have a ton of powered suits armed with flamethrowers storming the place partway through.

He was also worried about Index and Othinus.

They hadn’t been at his dorm room. Then where were they right now? Were they in England like Stiyl had suggested? No, they didn’t even have official IDs. He doubted they could get permission to leave the city and catch a flight from the District 23 airport.

Wouldn’t they be kind of stuck?

If they had nothing to prove their identity, then they might be as reluctant to gather any attention from Anti-Skill as Kamijou was.

Stiyl had mentioned another team outside the wall, but if Index and Othinus had secretly contacted that foreign group, it would lead to even more misunderstandings with Academy City. They could even be arrested on suspicion of being spies.

Where had they gone?

Had they really understood their position when they left the dorm room?

After all, Kamijou Touma was still alive.

It sounded like he needed to prove he was alive as soon as possible. He needed to show he was an ordinary living human and not some strange undead creature. That would show Index and Othinus they were taking on an unnecessary risk.

“Alice.”

“Yes?”

“I want the frog-faced doctor’s help to save Index and Othinus. There’s a lot I need to do. But none of this benefits you in any way. So you don’t have to stick with me if you-”

A small fist hit him before he could finish. Hit him right in the gut.

“You should live a more selfish life.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve been told that.”

But right now he still had to push himself.

He had come back to life, so he had to bow his head in apology to each and every person who had been saddened or troubled by his death. This was the ultimate luxury the dead were never afforded. And to do that, he first had to reclaim Index and Othinus’s home.

That half-destroyed dorm wasn’t enough for this.

The school teachers and Anti-Skill probably weren’t going to help him here.

Wasn’t there something?

Kamijou thought for a bit and then his eyes were drawn to someone.

To Alice Anotherbible as she looked innocently up at him.

Yes…

“The consulate.”

“?”

“The Bridge Builders Cabal had a consulate in Academy City! It was in District 12 and the science side couldn’t touch it because of the extraterritoriality. As long as I can prove I’m alive, I can protect Index and Othinus’s home. And if I’m going to get help from the frog-doctor, calling him to that consulate would be best, wouldn’t it!?”

“But, teacher, wasn’t that consulate completely destroyed in our fight?”

Was it?

Maybe so.

He wasn’t sure if Good, Old Mary or H. T. Trismegistus was more responsible there.

But the level of damage didn’t really matter.

“Maybe it’s a pile of rubble now, but on paper it should still function as the grounds of a consulate. Look at the city, Alice. The recovery process has barely even gotten started, right? After all those battles, it must be chaos at the top levels too. They won’t have had time to do the paperwork to strip that location of its consulate status and they’ll be hard pressed to find the document they want within all the mountains upon mountains of paperwork they have to do.”

It might be shut down eventually, but it wouldn’t have happened yet.

This finally gave him a safe zone, even if it wouldn’t last long.

(That was the enemy headquarters around New Year’s. Funny how it looks so different now that my position has changed.)

But would it really give him what he wanted?

Kamijou was astonished by how calculating he could be.

But it was what it was.

No longer would he use his time being chased and running away. He was still facing ton of problems of course, but he knew he could solve a lot of them if he just had time to settle down and think.

He knew he would find plenty of ways to prove that he was a living human and not some strange zombie boy.

Christian Rosencreutz and Anna Kingsford.

Those experts had pushed up from the depths of that hell, where no bluffs or white lies worked and where your sins, past, and desires were all brought out into the open. They had sent him back to the world of the living.

He had come back from the dead.

He wasn’t going to let himself be killed again because of a mistake or because his resurrection could cause unnecessary confusion.

Little Alice hopped up and down next to him.

“Then, teacher, let’s go to District 12!”

“Yeah… I’m not going to find Index and Othinus by running around at random anyway. I need to get ahead of them. We’ll need a strategy meeting to discuss how to narrow down the search.”

With that, Kamijou left the half-destroyed dorm and started toward the train station.

But had he forgotten?

Kamijou Touma was thoroughly plagued by misfortune. When had a plan ever panned out the way he had imagined it?

“?”

He heard something solid breaking.

Lying on the wet asphalt was a supermodel-looking woman with beautiful long black hair and brown skin. But the ball-joint doll positioned back to back with her was shattered with its parts scattered around her.

“Vidhatri,” whispered Alice.

Kamijou had no direct knowledge of her.

But Alice knew her. If she was a Transcendent like Aradia and the Bologna Succubus, then her power had to be tremendous. She would be a monster capable of single-handedly waging war with the entire magic side. It would take Alice’s power to one-shot a Transcendent, but the little girl’s eyes were currently widened in surprise.

Yet.

The woman had been defeated so easily?

“Run…Alice…”

When Vidhatri noticed their eyes on her, she groaned, unable to get up in the pouring rain.

“She’s coming. We managed to hold her back this far, but we’ve hit our limit. There’s something weird about her!!”

Kamijou didn’t notice at first due to the sound of the rain.

Someone was there.

But this wasn’t the adults of Anti-Skill.

Nor was it Bio Secure with their powered suits and flamethrowers.

Kamijou looked puzzled.

“Aleister?”

He didn’t respond.

He wasn’t even holding an umbrella.

Only the sound of the rain stretched on and on as white noise.

It must have taken at least 10 full seconds.

That was plenty of time for the atmosphere to solidify like gelatin.

“…Why?” asked Aleister, his head lowered.

The deep, deep resentment in his voice seemed to rumble up from the depths of the earth.

“Why was it only you, Kamijou Touma?”

It was Kamijou’s turn to fall silent.

At first, he didn’t understand what Aleister meant.

But after some thought, he made a guess and drew on the knowledge he had.

“The two experts sent me-”

“What happened to Anna Kingsford?”

Aleister silently raised his head.

There was unmistakable rage and hatred there.

Kamijou had never before seen Aleister Crowley like this.

A white flash burst out.

The #1’s artificial lightning had struck.

But that wasn’t the source of the light. Without even swinging an arm, Aleister had sent white light scattering to deflect the strike from the heavens.

And it didn’t end there.

The danger of this world had just gone up a notch.

“I thought maybe you could do it. I had given up, but I thought maybe you could produce a miracle.

“But,” he continued.

That human was not celebrating.

He spoke only rejection.

“Oh, yes. I know. I know all too well. Even if I am correct and your formless soul was forcibly recovered with an artificial hell, that could only have saved one at most. Obviously CRC couldn’t be allowed to return and I doubt Kingsford of all people would shove an amateur like you aside to reclaim her own life. Yes, that was the natural course for events to take.”

His unstable voice displayed the polar opposite of acceptance.

That’s just how the world works.

It can’t be helped.

Over and over, that human had seen lives mercilessly lost for those reasons. So many more than Kamijou Touma had.

“But it was you.”

Kamijou had betrayed something.

Even if it hadn’t been intentional.

He could tell he was standing here because he had taken away someone precious to someone else.

Even if Anna Kingsford herself had accepted it with a smile.

Even if.

“I thought maybe Kamijou Touma would find a way to save more than one in a situation where only one could be saved. I believed in you…”

Anna Kingsford.

Dead Kamijou Touma wasn’t the only person who had been reliant on that benevolent expert.

He didn’t know what exact connection there was between Aleister and Kingsford.

But she had been enough of a person to make that misanthrope Aleister hesitantly open up once more.

No matter the reason, that wasn’t something someone else should intrude upon and tear apart.

“Why was it only you?”

Aleister shed tears of blood.

He may have opened his eyes with such force he had physically torn the corners of his eyes.

“Why did you follow her instructions and board the lifeboat? You might as well have splashed cold water on the one who gave you her seat. Why didn’t you question her words even as you could see the look of death in her face?”

The red blood trickled down his face.

And Human Aleister roared with a voice even more sinister than that.

“Why did you abandon her and come back to life like she told you toooooooooooooooooooo!!?”

“Hee hee.”

It came from deep within his chest.

No, that wasn’t accurate.

Hadn’t Aleister explained that he was only borrowing that body?

Aleister Crowley himself had long since died. The human managed to continue functioning regardless because he had hijacked the physical body of Great Demon Coronzon.

Thus, it was more accurate to say it was all the cells of his body that were whispering.

“Hee hee…hee.”

Regardless, something sealed in the deepest depths was returning to life.

The lock had been smashed.

Why was obvious.

Her value was 333 and her meaning was dispersion.

She ruled the invisible higher Sephirah of the Sephiroth and sat nonchalantly upon the path of evolution to intentionally obstruct people’s growth.

Mathers had deemed her an absolute evil and Crowley had hypothesized she was one aspect of relative evil.

And now she whispered.

“Feeling the despair, Aleister?”

A wet “pop!!!” sounded.

Similar to a water balloon bursting.

The back of the beige habit split apart and something burst out. They were sinister clawed wings that resembled bat wings except much, much bigger.

Also, the blonde hair that had been roughly cut to shoulder length grew rapidly. And it tangled together complexly like a spiderweb attached to the odious wings.

The glow of the golden hair formed a giant face.

With an unmistakable sneer.

“Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

The woman spread her arms wide and roared into the sky.

This clearly wasn’t Aleister any longer.

This was something else.

Or perhaps this was the moment life returned to the monster meant to reside within that body.

“I was waiting. Waiting for the moment your will weakened!! Kee hee ee hee hee! There was nothing I could do on the inside, but I knew the wide world out there is made to torment you! Hee hee ee hee hee hee hee gee hee!!!”

Great Demon Coronzon.

The enemy of humanity who had been there all the while had regained her freedom.

Afterword

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

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

Anna Kingsford cast resurrection magic! Kamijou Touma was revived!!

…But how will everyone else view this event? That’s the gist of GT12. It had been over a day since a doctor confirmed his death…

They accepted the idea of a technological infection in a city of science like Academy City, but I think how you process it would depend a lot on the person. When faced with an incomprehensible situation, how would you mentally categorize it to put yourself at ease? Would you go with physical magic tricks, would you think you must have mistaken what you saw, or would you go as far as a supernatural curse or miracle? I think that question digs dip into who people are.

Death isn’t just a change for the deceased – it also changes the people around them. This is true to some extent for anyone, not just cases of royal succession or inheritance of a fortune. And yet Kamijou shook that all up by dying and coming back without any kind of cooling off period, but what does he have left now that he is alive again and what opportunities arose with his death? With so many books in this series, I’m sure you can all think of some possibilities. And for that matter, it probably makes you think about that power in his right hand.

Also, the highlights of this one were probably the ultimate Transcendent vs. Magic God showdown and the struggles of Stiyl who isn’t special in any way. The magicians of this world are the untalented ones who still struggle and struggle to reach the top, so he demonstrates the proper form of a magician. When they lack something in themselves, they find something external to them to replace it. The greater their desire, the more tricks they develop to overturn it all. Recently, we’ve been seeing battles fought by the elite Transcendents and experts, but I think this messier kind of magician is cool too. What did you think?

He doesn’t care what happens in the larger world.

He just wants to see a friend’s smile and will risk his life to protect that little world.

Meanwhile, that human has always done the wrong thing. But it would please me if some of you could accept him with some sympathy for his cries.

He isn’t used to kindness, so what happens when he keeps losing the few people who showed it to him? Losing his cool and making the wrong decision also makes him a cool human in my opinion.

I give my thanks to my illustrators Haimura-san and Itou Tateki-san and my editors Miki-san, Anan-san, Nakajima-san, and Hamamura-san. A gray city scarred by destruction, a funeral, and the struggling battles of the unfulfilled. It must have been tough to capture those things in an illustration. Thank you yet again.

And I give thanks to the readers. I think the person most adopting a “trial and error” strategy this time was the rookie Board Chairman. I hope you will watch over his growth as he chooses the path of atonement in prison but also sends his power outside those walls whenever that idiot gets into trouble. Thank you so much!!

It is time to close the pages for now while praying that the pages of the next book will be opened.

And I lay my pen down for now.

What kind of combination is 14 years old and mourning clothes?

-Kamachi Kazuma

Ending

One apartment was far, far removed from all the conflict out there in the world.

A completely unwanted room sharing situation meant Hamazura Shiage barely ever got to be alone with his girlfriend, but Mugino Shizuri and Kinuhata Saiai both happened to be out today.

Which meant it was time to flirt his heart out.

Oh, how glad he was he didn’t stand out! He was sick and tired of global mysteries and fighting to save people’s lives. He had an amazing girlfriend and he didn’t need anything else. As far as he was concerned, he was winning at life!!

“This is the best part of the shopping show, so be quiet, Hamazura.”

“…”

Track suit girl Takitsubo Rikou’s expressionless rebuke silenced Hamazura Shiage. The black bob cut girl’s eyes were glued to the TV without so much as a glance for her boyfriend.

Did she not like him anymore?

“What are you so focused on? …A high frequency diet machine? Ha ha ha. It’s supposed to destroy your body’s fat cells with an electric current? If the current was powerful enough to do that, I bet you’d need a medical license to operate it, so this is nothing but a fak- gweh!”

His comments earned him a square couch cushion to the face.

Repeatedly. With the cushion clutched in her hands.

“Mh.”

“It’s not like you were going to buy it, so why are you so mad at me!?”

“I don’t like spoilers, Hamazura.”

“About a health product!?”

“If I did buy and use it, my dreams probably would be shattered. It’s best to admire health products from afar, enjoying fantasies of yourself after they work.”

“…The people who say that are the first ones to pick up the phone.”

He blamed the warm air from the air conditioning for making his usually kind girlfriend like this.

It was raining outside, but the balcony had a roof and he doubted it would blow into the room.

So Hamazura tried opening the curtains.

“Hi, excuse me.”

Someone suddenly entered from the balcony.

Just slipped on in.

On this high floor.

Hamazura’s eyes widened and shouted, but time still felt frozen for him.

“Ahhhh!!”

The intruder had short red hair and white skin.

She wore a fluffy white dress that made her look like a ballerina or figure skater. And a black box the size of a soccer ball floated next to her.

This was Dion Fortune.

“H-h-h-how did you get here?”

“I am technically Archbishop of the Anglican Church, you know? Only an interim to prevent chaos until a proper successor can be chosen, but even if it’s only for show, my authority is very real. Which means I can pull some strings with the Academy City diplomats. And Kamijou Touma’s funeral was today, after all.”

He didn’t want to hear this.

Could she please stop talking?

Each secret that entered his ears made him feel like he was sinking deeper into quicksand. But the question was what kind of trouble he was being dragged into!

“I never did think Aleister, the quintessential terrible human, could actually suppress Great Demon Coronzon for long.”

“Coronzon?”

His eyebrows twitched.

Most anything related to the magic side was none of Hamazura Shiage’s concern, but there were a few individuals there he had a link to.

This was one of those.

He had worked with her in the UK but ultimately failed to save her. He had no idea what would have happened to Takitsubo Rikou, Dion Fortune, or himself if not for her.

Maybe she was evil.

But he still couldn’t just give up on her.

“A major Anglican unit is approaching the outside of the wall with help from the Amakusas who know a lot about this Eastern island nation, but who knows how much help they’ll be. If Coronzon, the 333 of dispersion, is serious about this, I imagine they’ll only give her more victims without accomplishing much of anything. If they use any ordinary methods, anyway.”

Wait.

Please wait a minute.

“That’s why I want your help, Hamazura. This is your business as much as it is mine. I doubt Kamijou Touma’s voice will reach Coronzon. So. Our help is needed to pull off a man-made miracle.”

The puzzle pieces fit together.

Hamazura Shiage.

He was the other possibility who could find success where Kamijou Touma and Accelerator could not.

He had an intensely bad feeling about this.

“Um.”

“Yes?”

Takitsubo silently elbowed him in the side, but it did no good.

He knew this question was as good as admitting defeat, but he was ultra terrified of not asking.

The idiot succumbed to the fear welling up within him.

Hamazura Shiage opened his mouth while dripping with sweat.

“Wh-what were you thinking we should do?”

“Have something of a reunion☆”

Prev	[v d e]Toaru Majutsu no Index: Genesis Testament GT Volume 1 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword GT Volume 2 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 3 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 4 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 5 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 6 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword GT Volume 7 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 8 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 9 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 10 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 11 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 12 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending [v d e]Side Stories Volume SP Illustrations - Stiyl Magnus - Mark Space - Kamijou Touma - Uiharu Kazari - Afterword Railgun SS1 Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Kanzaki SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Railgun SS2 Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Road to Endymion Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 Necessarius SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Virtual-On Illustrations - Preface - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword Railgun SS3 Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Biohacker SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 Agnese SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Railgun LN Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword Item LN Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Item LN 2 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Item LN 3 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Toaru Kagaku no Railgun: Cold Game Toaru Jihanki no Fanfare Toaru Majutsu No Index: Love Letter SS Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS: A Superfluous Story, or A Certain Incident’s End Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament SS Toaru Majutsu no Index: Shokuhou Misaki Figurine SS Toaru Majutsu no Index: A Certain Midsummer Return to the Starting Point Toaru Majutsu no Index: Using Final Bosses to Determine a Sociological Threat Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament Bonus Short Story Toaru Majutsu no Index: Thus Spoke the Kumokawa Sisters Toaru Majutsu no Virtual-On: Vooster's Cup, The Day Before Toaru Majutsu no Virtual-On: Misaka Mikoto's Dangerous Tea Party Toaru Majutsu no Index: Birthday Through the Glass Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament 20 Bonus Short Story Toaru Majutsu no Index: Misaka Mikoto’s Teamwork A Certain Magical Index: Genesis Testament SS [v d e]Official Parody Stories A Certain Prophecy Index A Certain Academy Index A Certain Gift Exchange A Certain March 201st Novel I Don't Want This First Story of A Certain Magical Index!! or I Don't Want This Final Story An All-In "World" Tour of Academy City, the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion, and Ground's Nir Kamijou-san, Two Idiots, Jinnai Shinobu, Gray Pig, and Freedom Award 903, Listen Up! …Fall Asleep and You Die, But Not From the Cold☆ We Tried Having a Group Blind Date, but It was an All Stars Affair and a World Crisis Will the Spiky-Haired Idiot See a Piping Hot Dream of His Wife? Dengeki Island: A Girl’s Battle (Still Growing) Kamijou Touma Visits Another World Toaru Majutsu no Index X Apocalypse Witch Crossover SS Toaru Majutsu no Index X Apocalypse Witch X Heavy Object Crossover SS I Still Want to Do a Summer Fair A Certain Collaboration Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 Kamachi Crossover Illustrations - Preface - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - A.E. 02 - Afterword Durarara Crossover Preface - Academy City Chapter - Ikebukuro Chapter	Next NA