Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12 Chapter3
Chapter 3: A World Worse Than Death – Soul_Hazard.[edit]
Part 1[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
“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[edit]
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[edit]
“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[edit]
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.
