PART 1
"Fukou-da!"
A sound erupted from a dormitory in Academy city. Surprisingly, no one came to see what was the cause of the sound. Probably they knew that it came from a certain spiky-haired boy having his"ordinary" day.
"I'm going to be late! Arghhhhhhhh!"
The level 0, Kamijou Touma, was having his morning dose of misfortune. It seems he overslept and is in a hurry brushing his teeth but ended up slipping the bar of soap on the floor. With the brush still in his mouth, Kamijou opened the fridge and picked some leftovers he got from the mini-mart. After getting the supplies for the days, the teenager dashed out of his room( he forgot to check whether he locked the room or not) to get down the stairs as fast as legs can.
'Ah!This job can really pay! It'll be bad to be late on my first day! Fokou-da!"
Yes, the reason a 16-year-old high school student within the city of espers is worried about is losing his job.
A few days earlier, Kamijou Touma received a suspicious mail in his mail box. The boy opened it and saw a job offering. First he thought of throwing the letter away. But he saw the money he was going to receive if he took the job.
-5000 per hour-
The number seemed impossible for someone to pay an employee, nevertheless a teenager with no working experience or degree.
But it seems the impossible was now in a certain boys hand.
Kamijou was in a situation where he requires that much amount of money. Because his misfortune just kept making his financial issues worse and worse. And it's because of his misfortune that he is now going to be late.
The letter he received had a reception number on it in case the receiver of the letter would be interested in taking the job. Kamijou called them and was told to wait for someone to pick him up a few days later.
Right now,Kamijou is 40 minutes late.
Kamijou was panting and exhaustion can be seen all over his face. It seems running from his floor to the last was just too big of a feet.
"It must be her..."Kamijou said in a tiresome tone while looking at the figure in front of him.
She seemed to be a teenager who was a bit older than Kamijou. Her hair was tide back with a band to expose her extremely large forehead. She was a person who most people(male) would consider a "beauty-sempai" due to her great looks and incredible bust size. But there was something that was hindering him. Her uniform seemed like the girls uniform at his high-school. Kamijou wanted to confir mwho she was and walked towards her.
"Kumokawa-sempai?" Kamijou uttered the named the person who he finally recognized.
"You're late" said the beauty in front of him." And could you at least show up in something more decent."
"?"
Kamijou scanned his body to find why is he not "decent".
'I already threw the brush on the way. I just washed this shirt. My face doesn't have any sign of sleepiness. My hair couldn't be an issue." Kamijou crossed his arms as he wondered by himself
"Wait! Don't tell me!"the spiky-haired boy quickly looked down below his waist, just to see that his misfortune has just reached new heights.
"Fukou-da!"
PART 2
In the passenger seat of a convertible,a high school teenager was there sulking and emitting a dark aura so depressing a person standing by him would feel cold chills run through their spines.
"Would you cheer up? The atmosphere is really depressing" said the girl in the passenger seat without changing the expression of her face.
"You try walking in your underwear in public!"the now furious Kamijou roared at his sempai. The event was very traumatizing for the level 0. And as for Kumokawa, instead of shouting"That's sexual harassment!" or "You've lost it", responded with laughing and saying "It would interesting."
Touma just sighed as he knew his senpai would say something like that. But at least it's safe to say it's better to have Kumokawa come instead of some guy who looked like he worked for the Mafia(even though Kumokawa does have connections with an entity far more dangerous).
"Aleister must be very desperate to get help from a high school student like me" Kamijou muttered the name of his employer.
"It's not that there's no one to take the job" The girl on the steering wheel used her left hand to set her hair ,when some of her bangs that got loose from her hairband were blocking her view "Only a person like you can do this job."
"..." Kamijou was not surprised. He just looked down at his right hand and clenched it into a fist. The hand that is able to negate any supernatural power.
Imagine breaker.
Kumokawa knew pretty much about the imagine breaker due to her interest in things such as these. Maybe that was one of the reasons she was chosen to pick him up. "That fish tank guy is desperate because he just lost one of his best operatives in doing this job" Kumokawa explained " The previous individuals who accepted the job offer were Aurelous Izzard, Frenda Seivulun, Komaba Ritoku, and Silver cross alpha"
"Wait!wait!Those names sound familiar" Kamijou remembers the names of the people mentioned by remembering the names of the victims of miraculous incidents. Aurelous was reported to have amnesia and was severely injured when they found him. He was the luckiest. Frenda was found torn to pieces by objects that were assumed as a heated material. None of her organs were destroyed so she lived. Komaba's skull was crushed until the shape of a human head can't be kept. Don't know how he survived that. Silver cross seems to be the worse case. His entire body was so badly damaged that they could only ID the corpse is by using dental records. "Don't tell me all those guys are included to this job!" Kamijou turned pale at knowing this fact. Even though only Alpha died(there's a reason only he dies), the rest of the victims aren't any better
"It's too late to turn back now" Kumokawa took away Kamijou's last shining hope "You'd better work hard at this daycare".
PART 3
The two teenagers finally arrived at their destination. It took them 30 minutes from Kamijou's dorm. The place seems large to be a simple daycare. The area covered 30 square kilometers. There were three buildings which seemed like schools.
The first building in front was a one story facility which had wind mills on top of them. The structure seemed modern and newly built. It's walls seem as though it was manufactured with titanium metal or material that is used to cover space shuttles. It would look like a research facility if there were no animal paintings on them like a normal kindergarten. The name of it was written on an electronic sign which projected words in 3-D saying "Science building".
Kamijou averted his gaze to his left just to see an even stranger building. This building gave a feel of a medieval structure which shouldn't be present in a place such as Academy city. But for some reason he felt like he saw a fire shaped human chasing a person in white. He ignored that for some reason and saw a sign on top of a large metal door "Church of necessary evil".
"What type of name is that?"
"Well actually..." before the beauty-sempai could answer Touma ,she received a phone call from who seemed to beher superior "Aha...So Stiyl was bullying Index with Innocentius again? That brat sure is a true tsundere. Why can't he just show his true feelings...Huh! Orsola aquinas is lost...No, Lessar shouldn't have been lost too. She probably just skipped class.." Kumokawa just continued speaking some stuff Kamijou couldn't understand. But one particular word did show up.
"Magic?"
"Got it old man." she hung up and kept her phone and looked at Kamijou " I've got some business to attend. So just walk behind the Science building and look for the infirmary. Tell the frog faced doctor where to find the principals office." Before Kamijou could say anything else, his sempai already jumped into her car and drove off.
Cough! Cough !Cough!
The dust particles from the cars drift entered Kamijou's lungs as he was trying to call her. After some time, he decided to walk toward the direction he was told to. The area behind the science building seemed like a stretched path which resembles a shopping district. But instead of brand name stores and karaoke boxes, the place was filled with infirmaries,cafeterias, and little shops.
"Looks like that's the infirmary"
It wasn't because the place had a sign informing passerby's about it's existence. Kurokawa said 'For faced doctor' the entrance had a semi-circle roof with a giant mascot frog (what kids call "Gekota")statue with a bandage on it's forehead. An idiot could tell that it was an infirmary.
Kamijou started walking towards the building with the frog statue with something in mind.
'What is magic?Sempai didn't seem to be teasing at that time. She seemed quite serious when she talked about the does that mean people could conjure up fire by saying a few words?'
Kamijou tilted his head as he thought of the difficult matter. Not knowing that he suddenly bumped into a branch.
"Fukou-da" the branch of the tree was quite low due to having some weight on top of it. Kamijou looked at the cause of the branvh being lowered and saw something unbelievable. It was a girl about the age of four or five with silver colored hair. She was dressed in something what looks like a white nun habit.
"mmm...mmm" the nun opened her emerald colored eyes and muttered something.
"Wa, this is the first time I've met a real Sister… no, I'm not referring to a younger sister."
This girl looks rather cute. Green eyes match her white skin, which makes Kamijou feel that this is rather new to him. She looks just like a doll.
However, what made Kamijou panic wasn't her cuteness.
The reason is that she's a "foreigner". Kamijou's English ability is such that his English teacher criticized him, saying, "You should stay in this country forever!" If this girl from whichever country were a saleslady selling feathers or whatever other contraption, it's likely that Kamijou would willingly spend some money.
"I..."
The girl's cute and somewhat dry lips slowly utter a few words.
"I'm hungwy."
"…"
For a moment, Kamijou thinks that he's really stupid to hear the foreign language of that girl as Japanese. It's like a silly student randomly singing when they don't know the lyrics.
"I'm hungwy."
"…"
"I'm hungwy."
"…"
"I said… I'm hungwy…"
Seeing Kamijou maintain his frozen state, the silver-haired girl seems to be expressing her own dissatisfaction.
This is hopeless, completely hopeless. Why does he feel that she's speaking in Japanese?
"Ah… Mmm…" Kamijou stares at the girl on the railing and says, "What now? Are you trying to say that under these circumstances, you're a dying person lying on the streets?" Kamijou was cursing as he tried to find something to eat for the little emptied his pockets and only found his breakfast.
His yakisoba bread that has gone bad.
But it seems Kamijou wanted no relation with theperson infony of him and tried to let her get away with the stench of rotten food.
"Thank you, I'm tucking in."
The bread, its plastic wrapper, and Kamijou's hand.
Just like that, with a cry of misfortune, Kamijou Touma starts a new day of his life.
PART 4
Kamijou wastold by his sempai to meet the frog faced doctor. Who would expect him to be meeting the doctor for medical reasons as well.
"I already took care of the bite marks. So you should be fine" The middle aged man infront of him said while examining Kamijou's wound inflicted hand.
"Sowy,Sowy!" The sound of a little girl apologizing could be heard beside the boy. Kamijou later found out that the girl's name was Index Liborum Prohibitum, or Index for short.
"He'll be fine Index" The doctor comforted her "You better go back better Stiyl gets mad" for some reason Index turned pale as though she remembers something terrifying and ran off. The doctor sighed like a man full of grief when Index left. His smile seemed mix with angst and pain "That kid would be a whole lot better if that didn't happen"
Kamijou was puzzled by the doctor's words. Seeing the boy in front of him wanting to ask him a question, the doctor started speaking once more.
"It is not known if 'Index' is her true name or if it is a name given to her because she holds within her the 103,000 grimoires. It is confirmed that Index was specifically chosen as the vessel for the 103,000 grimoires because she has the ability to perfectly memorize things and also because she is unaffected by the books' debilitating effects. She possesses no mana and therefore cannot use the grimoires. It is shown that the ritual of transfer was performed in the Vatican by Necessarius." the doctor paused for awhile and looked at Kamijou as though whether he should continue or not. Kamijou nodded in response.
"The church implanted a Collar and a multi-layered program that would disable her from using the magic of grimoires, as such she has no mana to use. To complete this defense, the Collar made Index extremely ill, and required an annual erasure of her memories" Kamijou gasped at what he has just heard. Even though he still questions whether magic exists or not, erasing ones memory was no laughing matter.
"Her brain holds grimoires which cannot be contained by a simple human-being. Memory erasure is inevitable.
Even I, who was so called 'Heaven canceler' could not stop the process." His voice was trembling " Every month she has to go through it. Her friends Kanzaki and Stiyl were traumatized by it. But actually The church told lies to Kaori and Stiyl regarding the true nature of Index's memory being erased, as they planned to make the grimoires harder to access as well as because of their fear of Index betraying them or her apparently becoming a Majin."
"Bull shit!" Kamijou stood up in rage and roared at the doctor "If you know all this, then why won't you tell anyone! I don't know much of what yourtalking about, but your talking about a five-year-old's life here!"
"I couldn't" the doctor just gavea calm reply "I was forbidden to tell any thing to anyone"
"Then why did you tell me!"
"Cause I see something in you" the doctor looked into Kamijou's eyes "I know htat you couldsave her"
"..." Kamijou was lost at words when the doctor said that. Does that mean only Imagine breaker could save Index? Does that mean no one has any other solution.
Kamijou stood up and headed slowly towards the exit. The doctor Stopped Kamijou by holding by his shoulder.
"It was just a suggestion" the doctor said "You can choose to leave it be. The road you're taking may lead to the depths of hell . Do you wish to still take it?"
"If staying in this world, while knowing someone is suffering and you know you can save that person, but chose not to, is something I can let by. I'll just shatter that illusion." Kamijou strongly believed that what he said was right. He knew that even if he had to go to the depths of hell, he would help that person in need. Nomatter what it takes.