Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter3
Status: Incomplete
Chapter 3
Part 1
After being taken the hospital, the magician girl was given first aid.
Naturally, they hid the fact that she was a magician. The doctors would not have understood if they had tried to explain and it would have caused problems if they did understand, so there was no point in mentioning it.
Kamijou and Index rode along in the ambulance while Stiyl pursued the main force of the magic cabal. That girl had merely been a decoy meant to buy time, so they did not have any time to spare if the main force was working to gain control of the center of Agni’s Festival Fire.
Kamijou spoke to Index in the waiting room.
“They say her condition is not as bad as it looked at first glance. She suffered light blood loss and a concussion. If she rests, she should be back to normal in a few hours.”
“Touma, what do we do now?”
“We don’t have time,” he said quickly. “When a patient with injuries that appear to be from some sort of incident comes in, the hospital will contact Anti-Skill. They should be here before long. We need to speak with her before that happens.”
They headed for the girl’s hospital room.
The magician girl had been provided with a private room. She lay on the single bed in the room and she was not wearing a hospital gown. It may have been that her treatment had not required her clothes to be cut away or it may have been that Stiyl’s restraining runes had prevented the clothes from being removed.
When Kamijou and Index entered, the girl glanced over and spoke with an emotionless voice.
“What do you want?”
“We’re going to get you out of here.” Kamijou cut to the chase. “The hospital will have called Anti-Skill, so they should be here soon. But Stiyl does not want you to be captured by them. He said the odds are good your magic cabal would notice. I don’t want to think about the possibility, but is there a chance you will be attacked again if we hand you over to them?”
“What if there is?” The girl tried to sit up but then sank back into the bed. “That is what I hope happens. They failed to kill me before, but they will succeed next time. That is all there is to it. At the very least, it is 100 times better than handing more information than necessary over to Academy City or the Anglican Church.”
“I see.”
Suddenly, they heard multiple sets of footsteps in the hallway.
“Touma!”
“Tch, so Anti-Skill’s already here. We can talk later. We can’t use the hallway, so we’ll use the window.”
“Hey, wait a second. What are you doing!?”
“We’re getting you out of here!”
The magician girl frowned.
“I never said I would go.”
“Sorry, but you have no say in the matter. I’ll carry you if need be.”
Kamijou approached the window and opened it. He looked down to find a height of about three stories. The eaves stuck out and the drain pipes for gutters continued vertically down, so there were plenty of points for handholds and footholds.
“Let’s go. They said you had no broken bones, so you can use your arms and legs, right?”
“You can shelter me if you like, but don’t your city’s rules put you at a disadvantage here?”
“Even if they do, it’s no reason to abandon you.”
“Even if I am refusing your help? You gain nothing from this.”
“That’s no reason either,” replied Kamijou as he checked to make sure there was no one on the ground directly below. “It was the same when you tried to save your sister, right? No one forced it onto you.”
The girl clicked her tongue.
With her head hanging down, she said, “You said the cabal might attack me if you leave me with this city’s Anti-Skill.”
“Y-yeah. What about it?”
“In that case, you could have threatened to hand me over to them if I did not cooperate. You could have said I had to tell you everything I knew about the cabal or you would not let me escape. Why didn’t you?”
Kamijou’s response was simple.
“The thought never occurred to me.”
“…You idiot.” As soon as she muttered that, the girl brought her feet out of the bed and to the ground. “It’s Sozty.”
“What?”
“My name is Sozty Exica. What’s yours?”
Kamijou smiled slightly.
“Kamijou Touma. And she’s Index.”
By the time Anti-Skill entered the room, no one was left inside.
They immediately began a search, but never found anyone.
Part 2
Cities had plenty of blind spots.
But people unfamiliar with the science side and Academy City were often unable to make full use of such spots. Such people tended to gather at the types of facilities that also existed outside of Academy City.
In this case, it was a car scrapyard.
That modern blind spot was completely surrounded by thick metal walls. It was the kind of place that could be found anywhere yet the people who walked by it had no idea what went on within. Even if humans were being chopped to pieces within, no one would know.
A large number of rusted vehicle chassis were piled up. A pile had been created out of nothing but tires. Bumpers and batteries were sectioned off in their own areas. The area gave a strong cluttered impression, but the people that used it kept it fairly organized.
The Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens.
A Hindu magic cabal.
About 20 members of that cabal were gathered in the scrapyard. The only member missing was Sozty Exica.
“Sozty did it. The time she bought us was very valuable. If we take control of the center to Agni’s Festival Fire that we transferred here, we can turn this city into a sea of flames with our Anglican pursuer inside.”
“But Sozty interfered with Agni’s Festival Fire to buy this time. It is possible the network has been damaged.”
“If we take a passive stance here, this valuable time will go to waste.”
“But making any major moves without any guarantee of success could lead to a fatal failure.”
They were aware this unproductive discussion was accomplishing nothing more than strangling their own throats. And yet they could not help but do it. No matter how much one knew prayer would not change the result, no one would be able to easily pull the trigger in a game of Russian roulette.
A woman within the group sighed.
She had long silver hair and brown skin. The fact that everyone turned their focus to her showed that she had the composure left to intentionally gather their attention.
Someone in the group spoke to her.
“Should we continue on or fall back? What do you say?”
“Good question.” A thin smile appeared on her lips before she continued. “How about this?”
Part 3
“Hey…um, Kamijou did you say your name was? How far are you planning to have us walk?”
“As far as it takes to ensure your safety. Sozty, tell me if this is too much after your injuries.”
After escaping the hospital, Kamijou and the others headed to a nearby shopping district. Academy City had security cameras everywhere and security robots patrolled several routes, so it had few blind spots. Trying to sneak along a route no one would see them on would get them caught faster than mixing in with a crowd.
As Kamijou continued on in the lead, he felt like groaning when he looked back and saw Sozty’s outfit.
“Why do magicians always wear clothes that stand out as much as a Christmas tree?”
“Is this that odd? Well, I guess this is a special city surrounded by walls in an island nation surrounded by ocean. I suppose you would be harsh on outsiders.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Sozty was wearing a white short-sleeve sailor uniform with a blue pleated skirt. That alone would not have been too strange an outfit, but both the top and bottom were very short. Her healthy brown belly was visible even when she was not stretching out her back and Kamijou felt like her ass would be visible below the skirt if he circled around behind her.
“What is that? A cheerleader outfit? What is it supposed to be???”
“This is a strange city where 80% of the residents are students, right? And I had heard that Japanese schoolgirls dressed like sailors. I thought this would make good camouflage.”
“…And why are your panties more or less visible at all times?”
“That’s just how it is with Japanese schoolgirls, right?”
That answer left Kamijou very curious as to what she had used as a reference for Japanese culture. He decided he should probably be thankful she had not showed up dressed as some kind of strange Fujiyama Geisha lady.
Meanwhile, another member of their group also stood out quite a bit.
The pure white nun named Index said, “Touma, what are we going to do now?”
“If we could, I would like to head to my dorm, but I’m not sure we can. It might be safer to hide out in a manga café.”
“What’s a manga café?”
“To sum it up as much as possible, it’s something like a for-pay library.”
“What!? That’s crazy! Those are supposed to be public!!”
“But you can order things like coffee and curry. Some of them even have a salad bar and buffet. In other words, it’s all you can eat.”
“Yahoo!! This is a new golden age of business, isn’t it, Touma!?”
Index’s opinions changed a lot as her primary information source was talk shows. Sozty brought a hand to her head when she saw the nun celebrating.
“Have you forgotten we’re supposed to be on the run? Why are you needlessly gathering attention?”
“It’s probably fine. A group with gloomy expressions remaining silent the entire time will stand out a lot more in the crowds of a shopping district.”
“…Is that so?” muttered Sozty.
Kamijou looked around at he signs, searching for a restaurant that would let them pay up front. That way they would not be treated as dine-and-ditchers if Anti-Skill or someone showed up and they had to run out the back entrance.
“Hmm… A main road near the station is probably the best spot. That way, taxis, a bus stop, and the subway are all nearby. Hey, Inde-…hm?”
Kamijou trailed off because Sozty’s small hand had tugged on his clothes.
“What is it, Sozty? Did you see a magician you know or something?” he asked, but the brown girl did not let go of his clothes.
“No…There is no deep meaning to this.”
“?”
“You said we could not look gloomy and remain silent the entire time, right? Then this will work as camouflage.”
“Hey, wait a second. This isn’t to blend into the area, is it? You’re just getting drawn in by the glittering atmosphere of the shopping district, aren’t-…gwep!?”
As Kamijou the gentleman tried to calmly point out what was happening, he felt a sharp pain in his back. It was similar to the damage done when a carnivorous jaguar used its claws to climb a tree. He could not turn around to see what was doing this because it was clinging to his back, but Kamijou could make a good guess based on what he heard.
Despite being shorter than him, he heard Index’s voice coming from overhead.
She was clearly climbing up his back.
“Touma, what is this you’re taking advantage of this situation to do?”
“Wait a second, Index! Let’s start by working out what the focus of this conversation is!! And I think someone getting bitten on the back of the head would stand out anywhere on the planet!!”
Just before Kamijou underwent severe damage, a simple electronic tone sounded from his pants pocket. It was the prepaid cell phone Stiyl had given him. Index was terrible with machines, so she faltered slightly at the noise. Kamijou did not overlook that opening. He shook her from his back and answered the phone.
“Stiyl!? Honestly, you only call when it benefits you. Don’t leave your number unlisted! I can’t save it to call you back!!”
“I would say you are the one acting out of line.”
The voice coming from the phone sounded angry.
For him, relying on Kamijou’s opinions and information was likely a last resort.
“You took the girl from the cabal out of the hospital, didn’t you? I need some information from her. It relates to the opinions and motives of the Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens.”
“What? I thought you were chasing them down.” Kamijou looked confused. “And do you not need to know about their escape routes or hideouts?”
“I am not an idiot. I have already found and entered the car scrapyard the cabal was using.”
Kamijou heard some static.
Stiyl may have been sighing or blowing out some cigarette smoke.
“But…”
“?”
“They were already destroyed when I got there. From the number of footprints, it appears a few of them disappeared, but the ones still here are unrecoverable. All of the information within their bodies has been magically destroyed, so I cannot extract any from their brains or spirits. Any analysis work would likely be a waste.”
“Un…recoverable…?” muttered Kamijou.
Sozty gave a start next to him.
Stiyl’s merciless words continued.
“From the traces of the destruction, I doubt this was an attack from outside. In other words, this was infighting within the organization. That is why I want information from another magician in the cabal. I need to know what exactly is happening in their cabal.”
Part 4
Kipsila Endinia gasped for breath as he ran through an area lined with student dorms. A slight bit of blood oozed from his temple and his right arm was hanging unnaturally limply from the shoulder. Night had already fallen, but an area with restaurants targeted at students must have been nearby because quite a few people were out on the road. He naturally drew a lot of attention. But he was in no situation to worry about that.
“D-damn her…!!”
His feet stumbled as if he was on a ship in a storm. Time after time, he ran into a concrete wall or wind turbine. Even so, he continued to run. He continued to flee. He had no idea how far we would need to run to be safe.
It had happened in an instant.
Even taking into account it had been a surprise attack by an ally, the amount of damage had been too great. Control of the Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens was completely held by Kipsila and a few others. Even if someone on the “outer edges” had gone on a rampage, the damage would never have reached Kipsila. The others would have acted as shields to lessen the damage. And during that time, Kipsila and the others would have carried out a certain counterattack. That was the power of an organization. That was what should have happened.
But…
In actuality…
“What…? What kind of output was that!?”
It had pierced straight through those acting as shields. The attack had directly reached Kipsila and the other. That had stopped any preparations for a counterattack and then subsequent strikes had wiped them out. Once it started to crumble, an organization was nothing but a hindrance. The members of the magic cabal unit had started to fall one after another, yet the enemy continued to attack without mercy.
The level of power was unthinkable for an individual.
The output completely ignored the intentionally limited values that had been put in place to prevent both rebellion and friendly fire.
Plus, the woman who had become their enemy had supposedly been a failure. The project behind the power that had made her special had long since been frozen.
And yet…
“Gah…!?”
He ran into another wind turbine pillar. He had lost track of how many times that had happened now. But this time it stopped him. He could not continue his flight. As he leaned up against the pillar that was sticky with his blood, Kipsila breathed a sigh.
It was not due to strength leaving his legs that he could not continue on.
Someone stood ahead on the road dimly lit by the sparsely placed streetlights.
It was a woman.
She had long silver hair and brown skin.
She wore a tube top and a long skirt that were primarily yellow and orange but had black accents here and there. The combination was reminiscent of the silhouette of a strapless dress.
She was dragging something with both hands.
They looked like stuffed toys at first, but they were not.
She had two in her right hand and three in her left. Kipsila recognized the faces of the people she was dragging along the road by the collar. They were the ones who had controlled the cabal along with him.
How had this horrible situation happened?
They had been faced with a bit of trouble, but the Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens had maintained control of the situation. They should have been able to use the time Sozty Exica had bought as a decoy to make a recovery.
“What…?” groaned Kipsila.
Whether she intended to answer or not, the silver-haired, brown-skinned woman relaxed her right and left hands. With a thudding sound similar to a sandbag being dropped, she dropped her hunter’s prize to the road surface.
Something other than his injuries caused Kipsila to feel dizzy.
“You lost everything in that failure! The project was frozen!! So how can you wield such great power!?”
“…Oh? All I did was answer your question.”
“What?”
“Question 1: what is the most effective means of damaging Academy City with the strength we currently have?” said the brown woman with a thin smile. “The answer is simple: we give up on Agni’s Festival Fire.”
“Wha-…?”
“After all, we’ve given away way too many hints about this ill-prepared plan. Both the Anglican Church and Academy City are already pursuing us. It is like a boat made of mud. If we try to force it along any further, we will all sink.” The brown woman continued while grinning. She announced that she would destroy the dying Kipsila. “But that boat of mud is the only thing our pursuers have managed to grasp. If I cast aside both Agni’s Festival Fire and the Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens and start with a new plan, I can polish my plan while the pursuers chew on the half-eaten leftovers. And it will be too late by the time they learn the truth.”
“You…fool. What could you possibly use…to produce more destruction than…Agni’s Festival-…!?”
Kipsila trailed off.
This was because the brown woman was slowly opening and closing her bloody fingers.
“Don’t tell me you…”
“If I had said I was going to use this from the beginning, you would not have given me permission. In fact, you would probably have tried to gang up and attack me all at once.”
“You should know better than anyone why that project was frozen. It was not because the needed output could not be achieved! It was the exact opposite!! That pure Astra is-…!!”
“I can tell it scares you.” The woman tilted her head slightly. “But surely you don’t think the Astra I hold is still the same as it was back then.”
“…!!”
That meant Agni’s Festival Fire had been a decoy meant to draw the attention of the Anglicans and Academy City.
That meant Kipsila and the others who had ridiculed Sozty Exica for being a decoy had been decoys themselves.
That meant the plan Kipsila had been aware of was merely a decoy to get the Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens to take action.
That meant the Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens had been nothing more than a decoy to ensure her freedom.
That meant, that meant, that meant!!
“Well, anyway…”
The brown woman took a step closer.
Kipsila instinctually tried to take a step back, but then he realized something. He had been drawing so much attention not long before, but he could no longer feel anyone’s eyes on him. In fact, there was not a single person around.
Magic ensuring that had been set up without him even noticing.
And that meant the woman was going to do something she did not want to be witnessed.
The magic circle for Agni’s Festival Fire was set up on the bloody wind turbine pillar. But Kipsila did not even think about using it.
Those bloody fingers.
Her smile.
Overwhelming fear slowly closed in on him.
“Could you be a good decoy and leave now that your role is complete?”
Part 5
Kamijou and the others ended up entering a manga café. They paid for three private rooms (using Kamijou’s pocket money), but they all met up in one of them.
Stiyl had sent a large amount of image data to the prepaid phone.
They were all photographs of the faces of the magic cabal members who had been defeated and left behind by the mystery attacker.
As Sozty Exica checked through them all, she asked, “Is this all of them?”
“Looks like it. Have you figured anything out?”
“…There aren’t enough people,” she said after looking through the photos multiple times to be sure. “Aurodasa Ginzhana, Kereelty Tanabrook, Sumtalak Shandeva, Kipsila Endinia, Pancavani Uddasala, and Slasoma Anruda. …Well, I can understand why those six are missing. They were the decision-makers of the cabal. If someone attacked, the rest of the cabal would position themselves to let them escape first.”
“Is that it?”
“Seven people are missing in total,” muttered Sozty Exica. She spoke a new name through gritted teeth. “Ureapaddy Exica. My older sister. There is no real reason she would be protected above anyone else. If the other magicians were wiped out to let those six escape, my sister should have been wiped out as well.”
Kamijou looked at Sozty’s face from the side.
She stared at the small screen rather than looking at him as she continued to speak.
“And…these wounds. They are very similar to those caused by the Astras our cabal uses.”
“Astras?” repeated Kamijou in confusion.
Index replied, “Those are the weapons of the gods in Hindu mythology.”
“It differs a bit from the original meaning, but our cabal uses the term Astra to refer to all powers and weapons that use symbols of the gods’ characteristics,” said Sozty in a low voice “We refer to what I used against you as the Agni Astra. However, they have to be downsized quite a bit for humans to wield them. The Astras we use are nothing but the effects. Take a spear Astra for example. We can create stab wounds with it, but we cannot produce the form of the spear itself.”
That meant the term Astra could refer to many different things. It would not be mistaken to assume there were different Astras for each element that had been prepared by the gods: fire, water, wind, and earth
In that case…
What was the element of the Astra that Ureapaddy had secretly brought in and used to drive the Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens to destruction?
“My sister is supposed to be using a Shiva Astra, but she originally specialized in a different line of Astra.”
“?”
“The project was supposedly frozen. It was not a downsized version that a magician could safely use with no recoil. This was a pure Astra that was built up into the proper form of a weapon rather than simply creating the stab wound. The project was meant to draw out the full power of an Astra despite the great burden that would produce.” Sozty clenched her teeth and seemed to be forcing out the words. “In the end, the Astra itself was a success, but it still failed because the reinforcement of the magicians using it did not go well. Most of the participants were blown to pieces by the recoil and my sister was badly wounded. It had supposedly messed with her physical body too much to have any proper defenses left!!”
“What…? What kind of Astra does your sister have?”
“The Astra held by my sister Ureapaddy Exica is…”
Part 6
The silver-haired and brown-skinned woman named Ureapaddy smiled.
She wiped dark red blood off on the road surface as her former superior, Kipsila Endinia, lay collapsed face down not far away.
Kispila’s eyes were no longer turned toward her.
His head was tilted at an odd angle and unmoving.
And yet his lips twitched.
“Is this revenge for reorganizing your Astra…? Is this for the 14 who were destroyed…?”
“Of course not, of course not. Their deaths were officially said to be an accident, but we all agreed to it. We gathered the people with the greatest affinity to the Astra, those 15 had their spirits unified, and then that ‘average’ was redistributed back into the bodies of the 15. Right?”
A calm smile appeared on Ureapaddy’s face.
Her expression changed peacefully, gently, politely, and accurately.
“But the reinjection of the unified spirit had little success. Just like with the heart and the liver, the physical structure of the brain differs from person to person. The spirit attaches to not just the brain but the entire body. If a spirit injected from without does not meet the requirements, it will fall apart. And there is no way one can control that Astra in that unstable state. But those failures were our failures. It would be wrong to hate the cabal for that.”
“Then…”
“It is quite simple.”
Ureapaddy’s smile did not disappear.
The smile was too perfect, so anyone who saw it would likely find it artificial and unnatural.
“Even if only incompletely, I can use that Astra. But only if I ignore any damage done to myself and others. If I have a tool I can use, why not use it? I have a weapon with greater effects than Agni’s Festival Fire, so it only makes sense to attack Academy City with it. Even if that means I must use Agni’s Festival Fire as a stepping stone.”
“…Are you really going to use that?”
“I already have. That is why you have been defeated. Just like all the others. Isn’t it a bit late to be surprised?”
“I am not talking about on a level where you can carry it around with you! I am asking if you are going to use that Astra at the output levels from when the project was frozen!! If…if you do that…!!”
“The effects will spread beyond Academy City?”
Ureapaddy guessed what he was going to say and denied it.
But not by saying his ultimate conclusion was wrong.
It was an earlier assumption that had been wrong.
“It is because you say that kind of thing that your cabal remains so insignificant. You think I would simply continue with a plan that was crushed 5 years ago? Have you forgotten that my skills have advanced along with time? At the moment…” She uttered a concrete numerical value without showing any real sign of making any calculations. “I can probably draw out an output 509,000 times that of the attack you were desperate to accomplish back then.”
Kipsila’s breathing completely stopped for a moment.
In all seriousness, he underwent such a great shock that he seemed to lack even the level of thought required to continue breathing.
“You will destroy us all.”
“Perhaps.”
“If that value is accurate, there will be no safe area left on this planet! Whether one flees to highest heights of the atmosphere or the deepest depths of the ocean, that will evaporate it all!! Who knows if the planet itself would be able to continue properly in its orbit!!”
“But isn’t that just the kind of Astra I have? After all…”
Ureapaddy paused for a beat.
And then…
Part 7
Somewhere, the younger sister spoke.
“It is the ultimate weapon within the Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens.”
Somewhere, the older sister spoke.
“A weapon that symbolizes the god who rules the universe needs to at least be able to destroy the universe.”
Miraculously, their mouths seemed to move as one as they spoke its name.
“The Brahma Astra.”
