The First Arc, the Index Arc, begins with a sudden blast.

Now to be fair I must inform people that around 90% of this text is merely lifted straight from the Baka-Tsuki Light Novel Translation of Volume 1 (I got the PDFs for Volumes 1 to 22 before they were taken down) with minor changes here and there… until the battle with Innocentius, at which point the story becomes my own, Tsubaki is a lot different to Touma and fights differently.

Another point of interest I must mention, the story is at war with itself. That is to say, It will constantly try to return to what it normally would be (That is to say Canon) so some characters will be in denial, especially in the first few volumes, by the end of the Sisters Arc, that should end with only the main antagonists underestimating Tsubaki from that point onwards.

Finally, there is no full description of Tsubaki anywhere in the text (as Touma's general description was provided by images instead) so, she is a girl of around 155 centimeters (Somewhere around 5'7" I believe, but I didn't bother to check) for simplicities sake she is around the same height as Kanzaki Kaori, maybe an inch or two taller. (Although I think I gave Kanzaki a height boost by saying that)

She wears the same shirt/undershirt combination as Touma, but has a knee length skirt instead of pants and like Misaka Mikoto she wears shorts under her skirt (but something very risque under those shorts) she also has simple golden hoop earrings and a hair-clip with a dragon design on it.

She wears ordinary shoes and knee-length socks and has an ordinary leather belt around her waist with signs of wear on it where the sheath of a sword would rest.

But now, let the story begin


Act I

A Certain Magical Index

INDEX_LIBRORUM_PROHIBITORUM


Prologue

A Shocking Encounter

LEVEL_5_ELECTROMASTER-RAILGUN


Academy City, June 19th 2063.

"Fukou Da" Tsubaki screamed as she fled from a group of angry thugs.

Even as she realized her cries sounded rather strange, Kamijou Tsubaki showed no sign of stopping her tremendous flight, her long black hair streamed behind her as she fled.

As she ran through back alleys late at night, she glanced over her shoulder.

There were eight of them.

She ran frantically all over for almost two kilometers, but there were still eight of them.

Of course, Kamijou Tsubaki had no way to win in a fight against that many unless she happened to be a former foreign unit's cook or a cyber-ninja from the Midnight War that had survived to the present day.

In a fight between high school students, anything beyond 1-on-3 was out of the question. That could be called "impossible" even before taking any skill she might have had into account.

Kamijou kicked over a filthy plastic bucket and frightened off a black cat as she continued running.

It was July 19th.

The fault lay in that date. Because summer break would start the next day, she was in such high spirits that she grabbed a manga at the bookstore despite a glance at the cover telling her it was no good, entered a family restaurant to treat herself, for once, to a nice between-meals snack, found a middle school-aged girl surrounded by clearly drunk delinquents, and decided that some rescuing was in order.

But, she had not expected more of their comrades to come swarming out of the bathroom.

She had always thought that going to the bathroom in groups was something only girls did.

"I had to run out before the hellish goya and escargot lasagna I ordered even arrived. I didn't even get to eat anything, but I'm being treated like a dine-and-dasher. What kind of misfortune is this!? Gyahh!"

Kamijou scratched her head as she ran out from the back alley and into the moonlit street.

Even if Academy City were as large as a third of Tokyo, she could see nothing but couples no matter where she looked. That was also surely because it was July 19th. It's all July 19th's fault!, Kamijou, who was single, shouted in her heart. The three blades of the wind turbines located here and there throughout the area glittered in the pale moonlight and the lights of the city nightscape, making them look like the tears of rich bachelors.

Kamijou tore through the couples as she ran through the city.

She ran and glanced down at her right hand. The power that resided there would be of no help in the current situation. It would not let her defeat even a single delinquent, it would not raise her scores on tests, and it would not make her popular with girls, yes Kamijou Tsubaki was a lesbian (Actually Bisexual but with a clear inclination towards homosexual).

"Uuh…Such misfortune!"

If she escaped the group of delinquents, they possibly would have used their phones to call in reinforcements and bikes. In order to simply run down their stamina, Kamijou Tsubaki had been letting them catch occasional glimpses of her as bait so that they would continue to run and wear themselves out.

It was akin to letting boxers hit you to weaken them.

Kamijou's goal was only to save any possible victims.

If she could lose them and have them give up without getting into a fistfight, she would win.

Incidentally, Kamijou had confidence in her long distance running, her body was that of a Saint, capable of physical feats no ordinary human body could match. On the other hand, her opponents damaged their bodies with alcohol, cigarettes and were wearing boot with almost no real functionality. On top of that, running full speed for long distances without pacing one's self was impossible by its very nature.

As Kamijou alternated and weaved in and out through roads and back alleys while seemingly simply clumsily running about in a panic, she saw one and then another of the delinquents drop out of the chase, leaning forward with their hands on their knees. She felt her plan was the perfect way of resolving the situation without any injuries.

"D-damn it. Why do I have to waste my youth on this stuff!?"

Everywhere she looked, she saw nothing but couples full of dreams and happiness. Unable to stand it, Kamijou Tsubaki felt as if she had somehow ended up on the short end of life.

The date need only change and it would be summer break and yet she had neither love nor comedy to speak of.

It made her feel like quite the loser.

She then heard one of the delinquents shouting from behind him.

"Hey! You fucking bitch! Stop, you master runner!"

It only angered Kamijou more to receive such a violent love call.

"Shut up! You should be thanking me for not turning around and knocking you and your monkey-level IQ out cold!" Kamijou shouted back despite knowing it was just a waste of stamina.

'He really should thank me for going this far out of my way to keep him from getting injured'

After another two kilometers of heavy running, she exited the urban area and came to a large river. A large metal bridge spanned the river, about 150 meters across and no cars could be seen on it. Not lit up, the plain metal bridge was wrapped in an eerie darkness much like a midnight sea.

Kamijou glanced back as she darted across the bridge.

She then stopped: at some point, she had escaped all of his pursuers.

"Sh-shit. Did I finally shake them?"

Kamijou desperately suppressed the urge to sit down right then and there and sighed as she stared up into the night sky.

She had actually managed to resolve everything without having to punch anyone. She wanted to praise herself for that.

"Really now, what are you doing? Do you think protecting those delinquents makes you a good person? Are you some overzealous teacher?"

In an instant, Kamijou's body froze over.

Because the bridge had no lights, Kamijou had not noticed the girl standing about 5 meters ahead in the direction she had been running, a completely normal middle school girl wearing a gray pleated skirt, a short-sleeved blouse, and a summer sweater. Kamijou stared up into the sky and seriously considered collapsing onto her back. The girl before him was the same one from the family restaurant.

"Wait, so that's why they stopped chasing me?"

"Yeah. They annoyed me, so I roasted them."

The zapping sound of bluish-white sparks echoed. Rather than a stun gun, as her shoulder-length brown hair swayed, sparks flew from it like an electrode.

The moment a convenience store bag in the wind passed by her head, it was blown away by bluish-white sparks reminiscent of an interception device.

"Ugh," sighed Kamijou wearily. 'I wondered why they disappeared so suddenly'

July 19th. That was why she had grabbed a manga at the bookstore despite a glance at the cover telling her it was no good, entered a family restaurant to treat herself, for once, to a nice between-meals snack, found a middle school-aged girl surrounded by clearly drunk delinquents, and decided that some rescuing was in order.

However, Kamijou had not a single thought about rescuing the girl. Instead, had tried to rescue the boys who had carelessly approached her.

Once again she sighed. The girl was always like that. She had seen her here and there sporadically for almost a month, but they had yet to learn each other's names. In other words, they were by no means friends.

This time, the girl would arrogantly arrogantly attack in an attempt to beat her opponent into a pulp and Kamijou would be the one to put up with it. Without a single exception, it went that way and she won every time.

If she actually lost, the girl would likely be satisfied, but Kamijou was a terrible actor. She once tried to fake her defeat and she chased her like a demon for the rest of the night.

"…What did I even do?"

"I cannot allow anyone to be more powerful than me. That is enough of a reason."

That was how it was with her. She felt that even a character in a fighting game would have a more detailed incentive.

"But you're treating me like an idiot, too. I'm a Level 5. Do you really think I would go all out against a powerless Level 0? I do know how to handle the weak."

In that city, the usual standard of a back alley delinquent being the strongest in a fight did not hold up. Those delinquents who could not keep up with the psychic powers development Curriculum were the Level 0s, the powerless.

The truly strong in that city, the top-tier students, were Espers.

"Yeah, about that, I do understand that you possess a talent that only 1 in 328,571 have. I really do. But if you want to live a long life, you should stop speaking to people so condescendingly."

"Shut up. If you couldn't bend a single spoon after having various crazy things done to you like have drugs injected directly into your blood vessels or have electrodes stabbed in through your ears and into the brain, what could it be but lack of talent?"

"…"

That was indeed the kind of place Academy City was.

The other side of Academy City could be seen in how means of developing the brain had been calmly added into the Curriculum under the name of "documentation methods" or "memorization methods".

However, not all of the 2.3 million students living in Academy City had ceased to be human and became something like a manga protagonist.

Just under 60% of the whole population were utterly useless Level 0s who could only bend a spoon after focusing their brain to the point of blood vessel bursts.

"If I need to bend a spoon, I can just use pliers, and if I need fire, I can just buy a cheap lighter. Also, what do I need telepathy for when I have a cell phone? Are psychic powers really that great?"

'Also my magic is rather more impressive and it can do multiple things unlike an Esper who only has ONE ability'

Those were the words of Kamijou who had been branded as useless by Academy City's physical examination sensors (On purpose by Alistair to hide her magic)

"And everyone's priorities are all messed up. They're all rejoicing over the byproduct we call psychic powers, but isn't our real objective something beyond that?"

In response, the girl who was one of Academy City's seven Level 5s twisted the edges of her lips.

"Hahh? …Oh, that. What was it again? Something like, 'Humans cannot calculate god, so we need to acquire a body that exceeds humanity before we can arrive at god's answer', right?" The girl gave a haughty laugh. "Hah. Don't make me laugh. What is all this about the 'brain of god'? Have you heard how my DNA map was supposedly analyzed and military Sisters were created based on it? It seems to me these lucrative side effects are more important than that objective."

'I wonder, does she actually know of the Radio Noise Sisters? And the Level 6 Shift Project?'

After saying that, the girl suddenly stopped.

In the silence, it felt as if the quality of the air was changing.

'She's getting ready'

"…For God's sake, those are the words of the strong."

"Hah?"

"The strong, the strong, the strong. Those are the fearless and cruel words of a manga protagonist who was born with his abilities and does not understand the pain of arriving there on his own."

The river below the bridge began to make an unsettling amount of noise.

A dark flame could be felt on the grit of her words that hinted at just how much of her humanity she had abandoned to arrive at the position of one of Academy City's seven Level 5s.

'You poor thing, you gave up so much, and received so little in return'

Kamijou denied all of it with just a few words. Not even once did she turn around.

She did this by never losing, but she still had a role to play, that of a powerless Level 0, she couldn't reveal herself, yet. That damned Geas still bound her.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait! Take a look at the results of the annual physical examination. I'm a Level 0 and you're a Level 5. Ask anyone you find out on the streets, and they'll tell you who's stronger!"

Academy City's powers development heavily used things such as pharmaceutics, neuroscience, and cerebral physiology. It was a purely scientific endeavor. After undergoing the Curriculum to a certain extent, one could bend a spoon even without talent.

And yet Kamijou Tsubaki could do nothing (As far as Academy City's machines were aware)

According to Academy City's instruments, she was truly powerless.

'Ironically I'm one of the strongest beings in this city'

"Zero, you say," repeated the girl as if she was turning it over in her mouth. She stuck a hand in her skirt pocket and pulled out an arcade coin. "Have you ever heard the term Railgun?"

'She wouldn't-'

"Ahn?"

"The idea behind it is the same as a linear motor train. It is a ship-borne weapon that uses powerful electromagnets to fire a metal projectile."

The girl flicked the coin up into the air with her thumb. The coin rotated a few times before landing back onto her thumb.

'She would'

"It refers to something like this."

Just as she spoke, an orange spear of light suddenly and silently shot past Kamijou's head. It was more like a laser than a spear. She could only tell it had originated from the girl's thumb because the afterimage of light stretched back to it.

Almost like thunder, the noise rumbled in with a slight delay. As a shockwave tore through the air around her ears, Kamijou's sense of balance was partially destroyed. She staggered and glanced over her shoulder.

'Bitch, I felt that'

The instant the orange light struck the road surface on the bridge, the asphalt was blown away like an airplane making an emergency landing on the ocean. Even after traveling a 30 meter path of utter destruction and stopping, the orange afterglow was still burning the air like an afterimage.

"Even a coin like this can be quite powerful when it's fired at three times the speed of sound. Of course, the coin melts after 50 meters because of air friction."

That bridge made of steel and concrete swayed like an unreliable suspension bridge.

'Nanobots 240,509 through 380,284 reroute to repair bridge 28-R'

Failing metal bolts could be heard occasionally.

"…!"

Kamijou felt chilled like dry ice was stuffed into her blood vessels.

She felt like all the moisture in her body had been turned to sweat and evaporated.

"Damn you. Don't tell me you used that to drive them away!"

"Don't be stupid. I match my methods to my opponent. I don't want to accidentally become a murderer." As she spoke, sparks flew from the girl's brown hair like an electrode. "This was enough for those Level 0s!"

'Thankfully she has that much sense, what would Meltdowner or worse Accelerator do in this situation… they wouldn't get into this situation in the first place'

Bluish-white sparks flew from the girl's bangs like a horn and a spear-like line of lightning flew towards Kamijou.

There was no way to evade. After all, she was against a bluish-white lightning spear shot from a Level 5's hair. It was an experience like watching a thundercloud fire a bolt at light speed and then try to dodge it.

An explosive noise followed after a slight delay.

Kamijou immediately held up her right hand to protect her face and the lightning spear struck it. It rampaged through Kamijou's body and sparks scattered in every direction and into the bridge's steel framework.

…Or so it had seemed.

"So, why are you completely unhurt?"

Her words seemed lighthearted enough, but the girl baring her canines was glaring at Kamijou.

The high voltage current that had scattered into the surroundings had been powerful enough to burn the steel framework of the bridge, yet, Kamijou's right hand had not been blown off by the direct hit. …In fact, it lacked even a single burn.

Kamijou's right hand had erased the girl's electrical strike that numbered a few hundred million volts.

"Honestly, what's with you? That power of yours isn't listed in Academy City's Bank. If I'm a one in 328,571 genius, then you're a one in 2,300,000 disaster," the girl muttered in annoyance but Kamijou neglected to give even a single word in response. "If I pick a fight with an exception like that, I might be able to raise my level, don't you think?"

'…Actually, she has the right idea, if she managed to beat me at full power the strain and non-linear thinking required to beat me would mostly likely raise her level'

"…But you always lose."

She received a response in the form of more lightning that shot from her forehead, well over mach one at that.

However, it scattered in every direction the instant it met Kamijou's right hand.

It was very much like a water balloon bursting.

Imagine Breaker.

Psychic powers ranged from the ones mocked on TV to the ones established with numerical formulas in Academy City. Anything using that kind of supernatural power, even if it were part of god's system, would be negated without question by that supernatural power of hers.

As it was supernatural in origin, even that girl's Railgun ability was no exception.

However, Kamijou's Imagine Breaker only worked on the supernatural power itself (Except her own magic for some strange reason)

Simply, she could negate an Esper's fireball, but she was still vulnerable to the concrete shards broken by the fireball. Also, the effective range was only her right hand and wrist. (However her magic and nature as a Saint protected her… mostly, she'd had to run home partially naked a few times due to her clothes not being anywhere as near resilient as her body)

If the fireball hit her anywhere else, she would be burned (If she was unshielded or the spell/power was strong enough)

And yet…

'I really, really thought I was going to die there… NOT!'

Kamijou Tsubaki's calm and composed expression remained unperturbed. Even with a right hand that could completely negate those light-speed lightning spears, it was sheer coincidence that they struck her right hand.

'Actually since I usually keep it in front of me the lightning would automatically be drawn to it, so it's not really a coincidence after all.

Her heart was calm in her chest as she made a mature smile appear onto her face.

"I guess you could say that was either some misfortune or you're just unlucky."

That was how Kamijou brought that day, July 19th, to an end.

With just one comment, she seemed to be lamenting to everything in the world.

"You just really aren't lucky at all."


Act I

Part I

The Hungry Nun

FORBIDDEN_KNOWLEDGE


-SOM-

Verse I

-SOM-

"You Aquarius's born between January 20th and February 18th have the greatest luck in love, work, and money! No matter how incredibly improbable things may get, only good things will happen, so how about you go play the lottery!? But no matter how popular you may be, don't try dating three or four girls at the same time "

"…Y'know, I knew it would be something like this, but still."

It was July 20th, the first day of summer break.

Kamijou Tsubaki was at a loss for words in his Academy City dorm room that was ruled by a boiling heat due to a broken air conditioner. Apparently, lightning had struck during the night and taken out 80% of the electrical appliances. 'That Bitch' That also meant the contents of her fridge had been wiped out. When she had tried to eat the cup yakisoba she kept as emergency rations, she spilled the noodles all over the sink. With no other option, she decided to eat out, buts he stepped on and broke her ATM card while searching for her wallet. When she spitefully crawled back into bed to cry herself to sleep, she had been woken by a love call on the phone from her homeroom teacher saying, "Kamijou-chan, you're an idiot, so you need supplementary lessons "

She had always felt that horoscopes given on TV like weather forecasts tended to be just that, forecasts, but she was unable to laugh it off when it was that far off.

"…I really do get it. But I can't fully grasp it without speaking to myself."

The horoscope was always wrong and Kamijou had never encountered a true good luck charm. That was simply everyday life for Kamijou Tsubaki. She had thought the fantastic extent to which luck deserted her ran in the family, but her father had won fourth prize (about 100,000 yen) in a lottery and her mother had won a vending machine roulette again and again without end.

Sometimes she wondered if she wasn't blood related to them, but she could not enter the "heir to the throne" route without activating the little sister/brother flag, so that kind of pointless foreshadowing would actually be a problem.

To sum it up, Kamijou Tsubaki experienced nothing but misfortune.

It was to the extent that it could pretty much be called a running gag at that point.

But she had no intention of just lazing around because of that.

Kamijou did not rely on luck. In other words, she had a lot of drive.

"…Now then. The immediate problems are my card and the fridge."

Kamijou scratched her head and looked around her room. As long as she had her bankbook, she could get a new card easily enough. The real problem was the fridge… or rather, breakfast. They called it supplementary lessons, but she was sure to be forced to take (fake) Methuselin pills and (fake) Elbrase powder for the sake of (faked) powers development. Doing that on an empty stomach would not be a good idea.

As she changed out of the T-shirt she wore instead of pajamas and into her summer uniform, Kamijou considered stopping by a convenience store on the way to school.

Living up to her position as an idiot student, Kamijou had been pointlessly staying up all night as summer break approached, so a grating pain was running through her sleep-deprived head. However, she forced himself to think positively.

'Well, I guess I'm getting off easy if a single week will wrap up everything I missed in the full four months' worth of class I skipped during this term.'

Her mood rebounded to the extent that she suddenly muttered, "The weather sure is nice. Maybe I should air out my futon."

Kamijou then opened the screen door to the balcony. She expected the futon to be nice and fluffy once she got back from her supplementary lessons.

But on that seventh floor balcony, the wall of the neighboring building was less than two meters away.

"The sky is so blue, but the future is pitch black "

Her spirits dropped sharply. Forcing herself to say it cheerfully only had the opposite effect. Having no one around to act as the straight man only tormented her with a feeling of loneliness as she used both hands to grab the futon on her bed.

'Failing all else, I have to at least get this nice and fluffy.'

Just as she had that thought, she felt something soft squish under her foot. She looked down to find a yakisoba bread still in its plastic wrapping. It had been in the aforementioned ruined refrigerator, so it had surely gone bad.

"…I just hope it doesn't suddenly start raining this evening."

Voicing a sudden bad premonition she had, Kamijou headed out the opened screen door and to the balcony…

…and spotted a white futon already hanging there.

"?"

It may have been a school dorm room, but the layout was exactly like a one-room apartment, so Kamijou lived alone. As such, there was no one besides Kamijou Tsubaki who would be hanging a futon over the railing of her room's balcony.

When she looked closer, it was not a futon hanging there at all.

It was a girl wearing white clothes.

"Hahh!?"

The real futon fell from her hands.

It was a mystery. In fact, it was nonsensical. As if she had exhaustedly collapsed across a metal rod, a girl had her waist pressed up against the balcony railing and her body bent such that her arms and legs were dangling straight down.

Her age was… about 14 or 15. She looked a year or two younger than Kamijou. She must have been a foreigner because her skin was pure white and her hair was white…no, silver.

'She's a Magician, but her mana feels strange, abnormal'

Her hair was rather long, so it completely covered her upside down head, hiding her face from view. Kamijou guessed it must have gone down to her waist normally.

And her clothes were…

"Wah, it's a real sister… The nun kind, not the sibling kind."

'Shit, a Church Nun, what order is she?'

Was habit the term for what she wore? It was that outfit you expected to see on a nun in a church. Her clothes looked a bit like a long dress that reached her ankles, and she wore a one-piece hood over her head that was a bit different from a hat. However, while normal nun habits were jet black, hers was pure white. Was it made of silk? Also, at all the important points of the outfit, embroideries made of golden thread had been sewn in.

Kamijou could not believe how much the impression given by the exact same design of clothes could change just by altering the coloring. What she saw reminded her of a nouveau riche teacup.

'Why does this design seem so familiar? Think Tsubaki! Think!'

The girl's lovely fingertips twitched.

Her head slowly rose from its hanging down position. Her silk-like silver hair smoothly split to either side like a curtain and the girl's face appeared from between the long, long hair.

'Wah, wah… so Kawaii!'

The girl's face was relatively cute. Her white skin and green eyes were a new experience for someone with overseas skill level of exactly zero like Kamijou, and she somehow seemed like a doll to her.

However, that was not what had left Kamijou so flustered.

She was a foreigner and Kamijou Tsubaki's English teacher had suggested she take up a lifelong policy of avoiding foreigners. If someone from some strange country suddenly started talking on and on to her, she would likely end up being sold as an overseas wife without even realizing it.

'Although the fact I am fluent in nearly forty different languages due to my… job, has been kept a secret from my teacher. I just hope that this doesn't mean what I think it means'

"I…"

The girl's cute but slightly dried lips slowly moved.

Kamijou took a step or two back without even thinking. With a squish, she stepped on the yakisoba bread once more.

'Ugh, disgusting'

"I'm hungry."

"…"

For an instant, Kamijou thought she was so stupid that her mind had automatically substituted the foreign language she had heard with Japanese. Something like how stupid elementary school kids would give ridiculous lyrics to songs they didn't know the real lyrics to.

'Wait, wait, she's automatically using translation magic? And one of such high caliber? How the hell does that happen?'

"I'm hungry."

"…"

"I'm hungry."

"…"

"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm hungry?"

The silver-haired girl seemed to get a little mad at how Kamijou just stood there frozen.

'No. That settles it. This can't be anything other than Japanese, I just thought she was using Translation Magic'

"Ah, umm…" she said as she stared at the girl draped over the balcony railing. "What? Are you trying to say you collapsed from exhaustion or something?"

"You could also say I have collapsed and am about to die."

"…"

The girl could speak Japanese really well.

"It would be great if you could feed me enough food to fill me up."

Kamijou looked down at the squished and likely spoiled yakisoba-pan still in its wrapper at her feet.

She had no idea what was going on, but she knew she would be better off not getting involved. In the hopes of getting the girl happily off to some distant place, she stuck the squished yakisoba-pan up to her mouth. She was sure she would run off once she caught a whiff of the sour smell, so she meant is as something similar to chazuke being given to a guest one wanted to leave in Kyoto.

"Thank you. And it's time to eat."

Her mouth engulfed it, wrapping and all. And Kamijou's arm for that matter.

Once again, Kamijou's day began with misfortune and a scream.

-SOM-

Verse II

-SOM-

"I suppose I need to start with an introduction."

'Yes you should you little bitch, but first…'

"Actually, I would rather you started with explaining why you were hanging there."

"My name is Index."

'Shit, I need to act like I don't know anything about magic, pronto'

"That's clearly a fake name! What do you mean Index!? Are you a table of contents or something!?"

'I feel so stupid saying this'

"As you can see, I am from the church. That is important. Oh, but I'm not from the Vatican. I'm from the Anglican Church."

'So it is THAT Index'

"I don't know what that means and are you just going to ignore my questions!?"

"Hmm, is Index not enough? Well, my magic name is Dedicatus545."

'Is she an idiot? You don't just go saying that to random strangers, especially not ones that might know what it meant and take it as an insult. But I have to keep acting, if she finds out I'm a Magician, I don't even want to think of the consequences'

"Hello? Hello? Just what kind of alien am I talking to?"

Kamijou pretended to not understand so she dug her finger inside her ear, and Index chewed on her thumbnail. Was that a habit of hers?

Kamijou wondered why they were seated politely and facing each other from across a glass table like they were in a marriage interview.

If she did not leave soon, she would be late for his supplementary lessons, but she could hardly leave this Magician in her room. To make matters worse, the mysterious silver-haired girl calling herself Index seemed to have taken a liking to the room to the extent that she seemed willing to laze about on the floor.

Had Kamijou's misfortune called her here? She seriously hoped not.

"Anyways, it would be great if you could feed me enough food to fill me up."

"Why would I do that!? I don't want to raise your parameter. I'd rather die than activate some strange flag and end up stuck on the Index route!"

'God I feel so stupid saying this'

"Um… is that slang? I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you are saying."

As expected of a foreigner, she did not understand Japan's otaku culture.

"But if I leave now, I will collapse three steps from the door."

"…Don't give me that collapsing nonsense."

"And I will draw up my last remaining strength to leave a dying message. It will be a picture of you."

'Little Bitch, but the Anti-Skill and Judgement forces would just ignore it the moment they entered my name into the system'

"Wha—?"

"And if someone happens to save me, I will tell them I was imprisoned in this room and tormented to the point that I collapsed. …I'll tell them you forced your cosplaying tastes on me."

'The scariest thing about that threat is I think that Yomikawa-sensei already knows of my tastes and might just believe it'

"Don't you dare say that! And you do know a thing or two about otaku culture, don't you!?"

"?"

She tilted her head to the side like a kitten seeing itself in a mirror for the first time.

She regretted letting Index get a rise out of her. She felt like she alone had been somehow horribly sullied.

'Okay, let's do this! Time for some vengeance you little brat'

Kamijou noisily headed toward the kitchen. Only spoiled trash was left inside the fridge, so it would not hurt her wallet to feed it to her. She figured it would be fine if it was heated. He dumped everything left into a frying pan and made something similar to stir-fried vegetables.

Of course, there were foreigners in Academy City. However, she did not have the characteristic "scent" of a resident. But it was also strange for someone to come in from outside.

'Come to think of it, how did this Magician get in?'

Academy City was treated like a city made up of hundreds of schools, but it was more accurate to think of it as a city-sized boarding school. It was large enough to cover 1/3 of Tokyo, but it was surrounded by a wall like the Great Wall of China. It was not as strict as a prison, but it was still not a place you could just wander into.

…Or so it was made to look.

In reality, three satellites launched for experiments by a technical college were constantly monitoring the city. Everyone going in or out of the city was completely scanned and if any suspicious person who did not match the records at the gate was found, either Anti-Skill or Judgement from different schools would immediately head there.

'But Railgun called in that thundercloud yesterday. That may have hidden her from the satellites, also I will have to re-run the calculations… I might just have to send some misfortune her way as payback.'

"So why were you hanging out to dry on my balcony?" Kamijou asked the girl as she put soy sauce on the stir-fried vegetables-like dish she was making with purely ill intentions, it took all she had for Tsubaki to not cackle like an evil witch, aloud.

'Heh, heh I'll get you, you brat'

"I wasn't hanging out to dry."

"Then what were you doing? Were you blown by the wind and just landed there?"

"…Something like that."

Kamijou had meant it as a joke and stopped moving the frying pan as she turned around to face the girl.

'Shit, she is being chased'

"I fell. I was trying to jump from rooftop to rooftop."

'Rooftop? But what about my Wards?'

Kamijou looked up at the ceiling as if in idle thought.

'Hmm, my wards are perfectly fine, but they appear to be non-functional, did Index shut them down on pure instinct?'

Cheap student dorms lined the area. More of the same type of eight-story building were lined up and one glance out to the balcony showed there was a gap of two meters between buildings. It was true that a running jump could get you from one rooftop to the other, but…

"But that's eight stories high? One wrong step and you'd be headed straight to hell."

'Literally and figuratively'

"Yeah, you don't even get a grave if you commit suicide," said Index cryptically. "But I had no choice. I had no other way to escape."

"Escape?"

Kamijou frowned at that ominous word.

'Dammit, she IS being chased'

"Yeah," said Index like a child. "I was being chased."

"…"

Kamijou's hand shaking the hot frying pan stopped moving once more.

'Don't tell me-'

"I made my jump just fine, but I was shot in the back in midair." The girl called Index seemed to be smiling. "Sorry. It seems I got caught on your balcony as I fell."

She gave a pure smile in Kamijou Tsubaki's direction without even a hint of self-deprecation or sarcasm.

"You were shot…?"

'I wonder-'

"Yeah? Oh, you don't need to worry about a wound. These clothes also function as a defensive barrier."

'So it is the Walking Church'

The girl spun around as if to show off new clothes and she certainly did not look injured.

Kamijou had to wonder if she had really been shot. The idea that she was delusional or making it all up seemed more realistic.

But… 'When is Magic ever realistic?'

The fact remained that she had indeed been hanging from her seventh story balcony.

If, hypothetically, everything she was saying were true…

'Who had she been shot by?'

Kamijou thought.

She thought about just how determined one would have to be to between the rooftops of an eight-story building. She also considered how lucky Index was to be caught on her seventh-story balcony. And she thought about the hidden meaning to the fact that Index had collapsed.

Index had said she was being chased.

She thought about the meaning of the smile on Index's face when she said that.

Kamijou did not know what circumstances Index was in and she had pretended to not understood what the few things she had told him meant. Most likely had she been an actual Esper, she would only understand half of it if Index explained everything from start to finish and she would likely have no idea how to even start to understand the other half.

Nonetheless, one truth remained.

With a tightening in her chest, she understood the fact that Index had gotten caught on her seventh story balcony when one wrong step could have sent her straight to the asphalt below.

"Food."

Index poked her head in from behind Kamijou. Despite speaking Japanese, she must not have been used to chopsticks because she was holding them in her fist like a spoon while staring excitedly into the frying pan.

Her eyes were like those of a kitten taken from a cardboard box in the rain.

"…Ah."

Kamijou had put the food that was nothing more than trash into the frying pan to make something like (poisonous) stir-fried vegetables.

For some reason, the Angel Kamijou inside her (that usually came along with the Devil Kamijou) was writhing horribly at the sight of the starving girl.

"Ahh! I-I know! If you're really that hungry, how about we go to a proper family restaurant rather than give you this horrible meal made by a guy with the leftovers!? We can even get it delivered!"

"I can't wait that long."

"….AH…kh!"

"And it isn't horrible. You made this food for me without charging anything. It has to be good."

For the first time, she gave a shining nun-like smile.

'What a Naive fool'

As pain assaulted Kamijou like her stomach was being wrung out like a wet cloth, Index scooped the contents of the frying pan out with her fist-held chopsticks and into her mouth.

Munch munch.

"See? It's good."

"…Oh, is it?"

Chomp chomp.

"It's nice how you added that sour flavor to help get my strength back."

"Geh! It's sour!?"

'How out of date was some of that stuff?'

"Munch munch.

"Yeah, but that's fine. Thanks. You're like a big sister or something."

She gave a large grin. She was eating with such a pure heart that she had a bean sprout on her cheek.

"…Gh…Uuwhaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!"

At the speed of sound, Kamijou grabbed the frying pan. Index looked incredibly displeased, but Kamijou swore in her heart that she would be the only one to fall down to hell.

"Are you hungry too?"

"…Hah?"

"If not, I'd rather you let me eat the rest."

When Kamijou saw Index looking at her with slightly upturned eyes while chewing on the end of the chopsticks, Kamijou received a divine revelation.

God was telling her to take responsibility and eat it herself.

This had nothing to do with misfortune. She had completely brought it on herself.

Kamijou Tsubaki stuffed her mouth full of the heated garbage and grinned.

'Damn it all, I feel like I'm going to puke'

-SOM-

Verse III

-SOM-

"Mhh," said the girl naming herself Index with a look of complaint on her face as she gnawed on a biscuit. The way she held the small biscuit in both hands made her look a bit like a squirrel.

"Okay, you said you were being chased. Chased by whom?"

Having returned from Nirvana, Kamijou once again asked about the biggest issue in her story.

She was not about to follow a Magician she had met less than 30 minutes ago down to the depths of hell. However, it was likely already too late for nothing at all to happen. 'So in the end, I have to go with fox words,' thought Kamijou using her personal term for pretending to be nice.

She knew it would not resolve anything, but she still wanted to comfort herself by feeling like she had done something.

"Hmm…" she said with a slightly dry throat. "Now who was it? Maybe it was the Rosicrucians or S∴M∴ aka Stella Matutina. I think it was some group like that, but I don't know their name yet. …They aren't the type to find meaning in names."

'She speaks so casually of such powerful groups'

"They?" Kamijou asked meekly.

'I hope I'm wrong…'

"Yes," said Index surprisingly calmly. "A sorcerer's society."

'FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! Still, I have to pretend I don't know a thing about Magic'

….

"Hah? Sorcerer? Hah? What!? That's crazy!"

'I feel so dumb right now'

"Eh? Huh? W-was my Japanese weird there? I mean magic. A magic cabal."

'Little pretentious brat'

"…" Hearing it in English did not exactly help. "What, what? Are you talking about some dangerous cult that says anyone who doesn't believe in the cult's leader will receive divine punishment and then gives you LSD to brainwash you? That's bad in more ways than one."

"…Are you making fun of me?"

"…Sorry, I just can't. I can't accept magic. I may know all sorts of supernatural powers like Pyrokinesis and Clairvoyance, but I just can't accept magic."

'Forgive me Sensei'

"…?"

Index looked confused.

She had likely expected a believer in only science to deny that any kind of strange thing could exist in the world.

However, Kamijou's right hand held a supernatural power.

It was named Imagine Breaker and it could negate even the systems of god seen in myths in a single strike so long as it was a supernatural power that exceeded the ordinary.

"Psychic powers are pretty common here. Anyone's brain can be 'developed' so the pathways open up by having esperin injected in their veins, electrodes attached to their neck, and certain rhythms played through headphones. It can all be explained with science, so it's only natural to accept it, right?"

"…I don't really get it."

"It's normal! It's completely normal and utterly normal. Is three times enough!?"

"…Then what about magic? Magic is normal."

'No it really isn't'

Index sulked as if someone had insulted her pet cat.

"Umm… Well, take rock, paper, scissors for example. Wait, is rock paper scissors known worldwide?"

"…I think it's from Japanese culture, but I do know it."

"Okay, if you played rock, paper, scissors ten times in a row and lost each time, would there be a reason behind that?"

'I'm breaking down the belief behind my entire arsenal of super-powered abilities to pretend that I am not a Magician. Why does my Magic work for me again?'

"…Mh."

"There wouldn't, right? But it's human nature to think there is," said Kamijou with little interest. "You would think there is no way you would keep losing like that. You would assume there was some rule behind it that you couldn't see. And once you start thinking like that, what happens when you start adding in things like horoscopes?"

'Which are bullshit for me anyway'

"…You mean like, 'you cancers are unlucky, so you should not attempt any kind of competition'?"

"Right. That is the true identity of the occult. Luck is just us dreaming of these invisible rules. While reality is just something pathetic like a coincidence, our hearts mistake it for some great inevitability. That is the occult."

For a bit, Index frowned like a displeased cat, but then she said, "So you didn't just deny it without giving it any thought."

'Actually, I don't deny it…'

"Right. And it is because I gave this serious thought that I can see why those musty old stories are no good. I can't believe in some magician from a picture book. If we could raise the dead with the only cost being a bit of MP, no one would be developing these other powers. I just can't believe in the occult that has no connection to the reality of science."

'I feel so horrible saying all this'

She felt that people only saw psychic powers as strange and mysterious because they were idiots.

The fact that those powers could be explained scientifically was common knowledge in that city.

"…But magic exists," said Index as she pouted.

'So Kawaii!'

Most likely, that was something like a pillar supporting her heart. Similar to Kamijou's Imagine Breaker.

'I feel so horrible for doing this to her'

"Well, whatever. So why are they chasing you?"

"Magic exists."

"…"

"Magic exists!"

It seemed Index obstinately wanted her to accept it.

'I already do little one'

"Th-then what is magic? Can you shoot fire from your hands without undergoing our PSY curriculum? If so, I'd like to see it. I might believe you then."

"I have no magic power, so I can't use it."

"…"

Kamijou felt like she had just seen one of those failed Espers that said they could not bend a spoon when a camera was present because it distracted them.

All the same, a rather complex feeling filled her chest.

She was insisting that the occult did not exist and that magic was ridiculous, but she really knew that it did and knew nothing about the Imagine Breaker power that resided in her right hand. How did it work and what was going on that she could not see or comprehend? Academy City was at the peak of the world's powers development, but even its System Scan could not see through her power in her right hand, so she was labeled as a Level 0.

'Also that is because of Alistair's little machinations behind the scene'

Also, that power had not appeared later due to a scientific timetable. It had been in her right hand ever since she was born.

She was insisting the occult did not exist while knowing it did and yet she herself was part of the occult that ignored the rules, as both a Saint and the wielder of Imagine Breaker

But even so, she was not about to (openly) accept the ridiculous reasoning that magic could easily exist just because there were strange things in the world.

"…Magic exists."

Kamijou sighed.

"Okay. For argument's sake, let's say magic exists." 'Yes, for Argument's sake'

"For argument's sake?"

"If it does," continued Kamijou, ignoring her. "Why are they after you? Does it have something to do with how you're dressed?"

'Although I already know what that is…'

Kamijou was referring to the extremely extravagant habit Index wore made of pure white silk and embroideries of golden thread. Another way of saying it would be, "Does this have to do with the church?"

"…It is because I am the Index."

"Hah?"

"They are likely after the 103,000 Grimoires I have." '…'

"…Once again, I don't understand at all."

'I hate having to act like this to protect myself'

"Why do you seem to lose all motivation every time I explain something? Are you a fickle person?"

"Um, let's go back over this. I'm not sure what these Grimoires you mentioned are, but the image I have is of a book. Something like a dictionary."

'Dear God, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, is sitting right in front of me, this is a good opportunity'

"Yeah. The Book of Eibon, the Lemegeton, Unaussprechlichen Kulten, Cultes des Goules, and the Book of the Dead are good examples. The Necronomicon is so famous there are all sorts of imitations and fakes, so it isn't very reliable."

'I have the real one, but telling her that might not end well for me'

"No, I don't really care about the contents." She wanted to add, "because it's all a bunch of nonsense anyways", but she held her tongue.

'If I go too far she might respond badly'

She instead asked, "So where are these 103,000 books?"

She refused to back down on that. One hundred and three thousand books was enough to fill an entire library.

'Although if I remember correctly (no pun intended) she has memorized them'

"Do you mean you have a key to where they're stored?"

"No." Index shook her head. "I have every single one of the 103,000 Grimoires with me."

"Hah?" Kamijou frowned. "You aren't going to say these are books idiots can't see, are you?" 'Good God, the stupidity, it hurts'

"You couldn't see them even if you weren't an idiot. There'd be no point if anyone could see them."

Index's words were so removed from reality that Kamijou felt like she was being mocked. 'I probably am being mocked'

She pretended to glance around, but he could not see a single musty old book that might be a Grimoire. All he saw scattered on the floor were game magazines, manga, and the summer homework he had tossed into a corner.

'As well as the hidden trapdoor to the empty apartment below where I am storing my Grimoires and Magical Items'

"…Wahh."

She had pretended to force herself to pretend to listen up until then, but she could not pretend to stand it anymore.

She started to worry that Index was merely imagining that she was being chased by someone.

'Although more then likely it is her guardians after her'

If she had jumped from the eighth story rooftop, messed up all on her own, and gotten caught on his balcony all due to a delusion, she was not someone he wanted anything more to do with.

"Believing in psychic powers but not in magic makes no sense," said Index, pouting.

"Are those psychic powers really all that great? It isn't right to make fun of people just because you have some kind of special power."

"Well, yeah." Kamijou gave a small sigh. "I agree. That's exactly right. It's wrong to think of yourself as above others just because you can pull off some little trick."

Kamijou's gaze dropped to her right hand.

'Also I hate that being a Saint makes me so powerful'

No fire or lightning should be able to come from there. It should not cause any beams of light or explosions, and no strange markings should have the ability to appear on her wrist. 'Yet they can and did'

However, her right hand could still negate all kinds of supernatural powers. It did not matter if that power was good or evil or even the systems of god seen in the myths.

"Well, for the people who live in this city, the power they have is like a part of their personality, so you should probably be a bit forgiving as far as that goes. In fact, I'm one of those Espers, too."

'Actually a Saint and Magician'

"Is that so, idiot. Hmph. You can always just bend a spoon with your hand instead of messing around inside your head."

"…"

"Hmph, hmph. What's so great about a woman who has cast aside her natural side to artificially color herself? Hmph."

"…You don't mind if I shut that mouth of yours along with that ridiculous pride, do you?"

"I-I won't give in to terrorism. Hmph," said Index like a displeased cat. "A-anyway, you say you're an Esper, but what can you do?"

"Umm, well, if you put it that way…"

Kamijou was a bit unsure of what to say.

She did not often have to explain her Imagine Breaker to people. Also, since it only reacted to supernatural powers, it could not be explained without knowledge of the supernatural or psychic.

"Y'see, it's this right hand of mine. Oh, and in my case, it isn't doping; I've had it from birth."

"I see."

"If I touch it with my right hand, any kind of supernatural power will be negated. That goes for A-bomb level fireballs, tactical Railguns, or even the systems of God."

'I think, I haven't exactly tangled with God lately… and I don't plan to'

"Eh?"

"Why do you have a look on your face like you just saw a miracle stone that brings good fortune in a magazine?"

"But you don't even know the name of God and yet you just said you could negate His miracles."

'I do know the name of God, it's *** you little witch'

In surprise, Index dug into her ear with pinky and gave a scornful laugh.

"…Kh. Th-this is really annoying. I hate being made fun of by some kind of fake magical girl who claims magic exists but can't show you it."

'Take that you little witch'

That muttering of Kamijou Tsubaki's fake soul seemed to upset Index.

"I-I'm not a fake! Magic really exists!"

"Then show me something, Halloween girl! You aren't going to believe me about my Imagine Breaker until I destroy it with my right hand anyway. C'mon, fantasy head!"

"Fine, I will!" Index threw both her hands above her head in annoyance. "Here! These clothes! They're the highest quality of defensive barrier called the Walking Church!"

'Bingo, I was right'

Index spread her arms to show off the teacup-like nun's habit.

"The Walking Church? What? You're not making any sense! It's not very nice to keep using these incomprehensible technical terms like Index and defensive barrier, y'know!?

'I feel like my IQ is dropping just from saying that'

Explaining things means to tell things to someone who doesn't understand in a form simple enough for them to understand. Do you not get that!?"

"Wha-? How dare you say that when you aren't even making an attempt to understand!?"

Index swung her arms around in anger. "Fine, seeing is believing, right? Take a knife from the kitchen and stab me in the gut!"

'Is she insane!'

"Stab you!? Is this going to end up as a news story where it says 'it all started with a trivial argument' or something?"

'It just might if she keeps insulting me'

"Ah, you don't believe me." Index's shoulders rose and fell as she breathed heavily.

"These have the bare minimum of components required to make up a church so that they are a church in the form of clothes. The way the cloth is woven, the way the threads are sewn, the way the embroideries decorate it…It's all calculated. A knife won't even put a scratch on it."

"Yeah right. What kind of idiot would just agree to stab you? She'd have to be some unprecedented kind of juvenile criminal."

"Will you ever stop mocking me? This is an accurate copy of the Shroud of Turin, the cloth worn by the Saint that was stabbed by the Lance of Longinus, so its strength is Pope-class. I guess you would say it's something like a nuclear shelter. It turns aside or absorbs any attack, be it physical or magical. I told you I got caught on your balcony after getting shot, right? Well, I would have a giant hole in me if it wasn't for the Walking Church. Do you understand now?

'Shut up, idiot.'

Kamijou's appreciation gauge toward Index rapidly dropped and she stared at her clothes with scorn.

'Don't be too proud girl, everything can be broken'

"…Hmm. So if that really is a supernatural power, then would it be torn to pieces if I touched it with my right hand?"

"Yes, but only if your power is real. Heh heh heh."

"Perfect!" Shouted Kamijou as she grabbed Index's shoulder.

'Payback!'

As if she had grabbed a cloud, he felt a strange feeling like the impact was being absorbed by a soft sponge.

"Wait…huh?"

Kamijou cooled his head and thought.

What if everything Index was saying was true (as unlikely as that was) and this Walking Church really was sewn together with supernatural power?

Would negating that supernatural power send her clothes to pieces?

"Huuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?"

Kamijou reflexively yelled out at the sudden premonition she had that she was about to suddenly go up a few steps on the stairway to adulthood. But…

…?

"Ehhhhhhh? …Huh?"

Nothing happened. Nothing happened at all.

'Oh, c'mon. Don't make me worry like that.'

Kamijou just could not stand it.

"See? What was all this about your Imagine Breaker? Nothing at all happened. Heh hehhn."

Index put her hands on her hips and puffed her small chest in pride.

But in the next instant, her clothes fell straight down like the ribbon on a present.

All the threads sewing her nun's habit together had cleanly come apart, turning it all into mere pieces of cloth.

The hat-like one-piece hood must have been an isolated item because it alone remained.

Having only her head covered made it seem all the more painful.

The girl froze still with her hands on her hips and her small chest puffed out in pride.

To sum it up, she was completely nude, Tsubaki barely stopped herself from laughing aloud.

'Ahahahaha, payback's a bitch you little witch'

-SOM-

Verse IV

-SOM-

Apparently, the girl naming herself Index had a habit of biting people when she was mad.

"Oww… You bit me all over. What are you, a mosquito at a camp?"

'Or a vampire in disguise'

"…"

Tsubaki received no response.

Index was naked and wrapped in a blanket. She was sitting with her legs bent back to the sides while (futilely) attempting to return her clothes to their original form by sticking safety pins into the pieces of the nun's habit.

The sound effect dohhn seemed to dominate the room.

It was not that a new Stand user had attacked.

"…Um, princess? This may be presumptuous of me, but I have a button-down shirt and a skirt you could wear."

"…"

She stared at her with snake-like eyes.

"…Um, princess?"

'What kind of character is this she's playing?'

"…What?" She replied when Tsubaki called out to her again.

"I was completely the one at fault there."

The only response she received was an alarm clock flying at her.

"Ee!" Kamijou shrieked just as a giant pillow flew at her as well.

To make matters even more ridiculous, a video game system and small radio came flying her way as well.

"How can you talk to me like normal after something like that happened!?"

"Ahh, no! It was quite the concerning event for this old man as well. But that's youth for you!"

"You're making fun of me…Uuuuuuuuhhhhhh!"

"Okay… I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Don't bite that rental video like it's a handkerchief, you idiot!"

Kamijou Tsubaki bowed down to the ground with both her hands straight forward like it was part of some kind of joke.

Deep down, Kamijou felt like her heart was being crushed in someone's grip over having seen a girl (other then herself) naked for the first time.

However, Kamijou Tsubaki was the type to not show it on her face.

…Or so she thought, but she would have been quite surprised at what she saw if she looked in a mirror.

"Done."

While triumphantly blowing air from her nose, Index spread out the pure white nun's habit that had somehow regained its original form from that hellish do-it-yourself job.

Dozens of safety pins glittered across the nun's habit.

"…(sweat)"

"Um, are you going to wear that?"

"…(silence)"

"You're going to wear that iron maiden?"

"…(tears)"

"In Japanese, we call it a bed of needles."

"…Uuuuuuhhhhhh!"

"I get it!" Apologized Kamijou as she head-butted the floor with all her might.

Meanwhile, Index stared at her like a bullied child and was about to bite through the power cord to the television. Was she a naughty cat?

"I'll wear it! I'm a nun!"

Kamijou was not quite sure what sense that made, but Index started changing by squirming around inside the blanket wrapped around her such that she looked like a caterpillar. Her head was the only thing sticking out of the blanket and it was as red as a bomb.

"Ahh, this reminds me of when we had to change for the pool at school."

"…Why are you looking at me? At least look the other way."

"What does it matter? Compared to what happened before, just changing isn't all that arousing, not to mention, we're both girls."

"…"

Index suddenly stopped moving, but when Kamijou did not seem to notice, she gave up and started changing inside the blanket again. She was so focused on what was going on inside the blanket that she did not notice at all when her hood fell off her head.

The awkward atmosphere of a silent elevator took over the room.

Kamijou's mind had started to flee from reality, but then the term "supplementary lessons" floated up into her mind.

"Wah! That's right! I have supplementary lessons!" Kamijou glanced at the clock on her cell phone. "Um…I have to get to school, so what are you going to do? If you're going to stay here, I can give you a key."

The option of simply kicking her out had disappeared from her mind.

'I can't let this opportunity get away from me, I might be able to learn more Grimoires from Index

Since Index's Walking Church nun's habit had reacted to Imagine Breaker, she clearly had some connection to the supernatural. That meant that not everything she had been telling her was a lie.

It was possible she really had fallen from the roof because she was being chased by magicians.

It was possible she really would have to continue playing a deadly game of tag.

It was possible wizards from a picture book or something crazy like that really were running amok in that city of science where established theories existed about even ESP/PSY.

And even if those things were not true, she did not want to just abandon Index.

"…That's okay. I'll leave."

However, Index stood straight up and made that dramatic announcement. She then slipped past Kamijou's side like a ghost. She showed no sign of noticing that her hood had fallen from her head. But if Kamijou tried to pick it up, she would likely cause it to fall to pieces.

'That would probably be a good idea, but, it would feel like adding insult to injury'

"U-umm…"

"Hm? No, not that." Index turned around. "If I stay here, they will likely come after me. You don't want your room blown up, do you?"

'It wouldn't be the first time, I still owe Mugino some payback for that'

That smoothly delivered response left Kamijou speechless.

As Index slowly exited the front door, Kamijou frantically ran after her. She wanted to do something, so she checked his wallet and found he had only 320 yen left. She ran after Index to give her what little she had, but her little toe struck the door frame at the speed of sound as she tried to exit the front door.

"Bh…myah! Myaahhh!"

As Kamijou held her foot and let out that strange cry, Index turned around in shock. As Kamijou writhed around in great pain, her cell phone fell from his pocket. At the exact moment she realized that, the LCD screen struck the hard floor and she heard the crack of a fatal blow.

"Uuuuhhhh! S-such misfortune."

"I'd say that was clumsiness, not misfortune," said Index with a slight smile. "But if this Imagine Breaker is real, it may be inevitable."

"…What do you mean?"

'Has she already figured it out?'

"This is related to the world of magic, so I doubt you will believe me," said Index with a giggle. "But if the divine protection of God and the red string of fate actually exist, then wouldn't your right hand negate all of those things?" Index shook her safety pin-covered nun's habit and added, "The power of this Walking Church was a blessing of God after all."

'Damn, she's smarter then she looks'

"Wait. What we call fortune and misfortune are just matters of probability and statistics. What you're talking about is completely-…!"

The second she said that, Kamijou's finger touched the doorknob and was shocked by static electricity.

"Wha-!?" She cried out as her body twitched reflexively.

The odd way her muscles moved caused a cramp in her right calf.

"~ ~!"

The agony left her incapacitated for about 600 seconds.

"…Um, sister?"

"Yes?"

"…Please explain."

"There's not that much to explain," said Index as if it was obvious. "If what you said about your right hand is true, then merely having it is enough to be continually negating the power of fortune."

"….Do you mean what I think you mean?"

'Please don't say it'

"Just by touching the air, your right hand is giving you more and more misfortune "

"Gyaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! S-such misfortuuuuuuuunnnneeeee!"

Kamijou did not (publicly) believe in the occult, but things were different when it was related to misfortune. At any rate Kamijou was the type of person to whom nothing she did ever turned out well (unless it involved magic of course). It was to the point that she felt like the entire universe was out to get her.

Meanwhile, a pure white nun gazed upon her with the smile of the Virgin Mary.

In her eyes was what people called an inviting look.

'That little bitch, she knows exactly what she is saying will do to me'

"Wouldn't the real misfortune be having been born with that power? "

The smiling nun brought tears to Kamijou's eyes and she finally realized the conversation had gotten off track.

"W-wait, that's not it! Do you have somewhere to go once you leave here? I don't know what situation you're in, but you can just hide here if these magicians or whatever are nearby."

"If I stay here, the enemies will come here."

'Following her Walking Church, no doubt'

"How can you be sure? If you just stay in my room and don't draw any attention to yourself, there shouldn't be a problem."

"That's not true." Index pinched at the chest of her clothes. "This Walking Church functions using magic power. The church seems to call it 'divine power', but it's the same mana. Simply put, the enemy seems to be searching for the magic power of the Walking Church."

"Why are you wearing clothes that act as a tracking device!?"

"I told you its defensive power is Pope-class, remember? You're right hand tore it to pieces, though."

'Oops, I forgot about that, damn that was embarrassing, at least no one saw it'

"…"

"You tore it to pieces, though."

'Ha ha, deal with it'

"I said I was sorry, so don't look at me with those tearful eyes. …But Imagine Breaker destroyed that Walking Church, right? So shouldn't the tracking device-like functionality be gone too?"

"Even if it was, they will know the Walking Church was destroyed. As I said before, its defensive power is Pope-class. Simply put, it is like a fortress. If I was the enemy, I would make an appearance when that fortress was destroyed whatever the reason might be."

"Wait a second. That's all the more reason I can't just let you go. I still don't believe in the occult, but if someone is after you, I can't just let you leave."

'I really hate having to act as if I don't know about magic'

Index stared blankly at Tsubaki.

From just that look, she truly, truly seemed like nothing more than a normal girl.

'Although, this is no girl'

"…Then will you follow me to the depths of hell?" 'Yes'

She smiled.

It was such a heartbreaking smile that Kamijou was left speechless for an instant.

Index had used kind words to implicitly say, "Do not come with me."

"Don't worry. I am not alone. If I can escape to the church, they will shelter me."

"…Hmm. So where is this church?"

"In London."

"That's a long way away! How far are you planning to run!?"

"Hm? Oh, don't worry. I think there are a few branches in Japan," replied Index as her nun's habit that looked the result of a bullied wife fluttered.

"A church, hm? There might be one in the city."

The term "church" brought to mind a giant wedding hall, but the examples in Japan were pretty shabby. First of all, the culture had little to do with Christianity. Also, a country with so many earthquakes had few historical buildings. The churches Kamijou had seen out of train windows had all been small prefab buildings with a cross on the top. She had a feeling she was mistaken in thinking those were nouveau riche churches, though.

"Oh, but it can't just be any church. It has to be the British style I belong to."

'Oh, right, she's Anglican'

"?"

"Um, there are lots of different kinds of Christianity," said Index with a bitter smile.

"First, there is the distinction between the old style Catholics and the new style Protestants. Also, while I belong to the Catholics, there are various types of them as well. For example there is the Roman Catholic Church centered on the Vatican, the Russian Orthodox Church with its headquarters in Russia, and the Anglican Church with its core at St. George's Cathedral."

"…What happens if you accidentally go to the wrong church?"

"They would turn me away," said Index with the same bitter smile. "The Russian Orthodox Church and the Anglican Church primarily exist within their respective countries, so Anglican churches are rare in Japan."

'Assholes, the Science Side wouldn't do that… we would just charge the other sect a fortune'

"…"

Things were not looking good.

Was it possible Index had tried going to church after church before she collapsed from hunger? What had she been feeling as she fled and fled while being turned away at each church she went to?

'Probably like she was less then human, I know that feeling very well. That stab wound still aches sometimes'

"Don't worry. I just have to keep at it until I find a British-style church."

"…"

For just an instant, Kamijou thought about the power in her right hand.

"Hey! …If you're ever in any trouble, you can stop by here again."

That was all she could say.

Tsubaki had the power to kill even God and yet that was all she could say.

"Sure. I'll stop by if I'm hungry."

Her sunflower-like smile was so perfect that Kamijou could not say anything in response.

And then a cleaning robot passed by, having to go out of its way to avoid Index.

"Hyah!?"

That perfect smile was blown away in an instant. Index jumped as if she had a cramp in her leg and then tripped backwards. With a horrible sounding thud, her head struck the wall behind her.

"~ ~ ~ ~! S-some weird thing just showed up like it was nothing!"

Index had tears in her eyes, but she completely forgot to even hold the back of her head as she shouted out.

"Don't point at it and call it weird. It's just a cleaning robot."

Kamijou sighed.

Its size and shape were similar to a drum container. It had small tires on the bottom and a circular rotating mop similar to those on a street cleaner. It had cameras in order to avoid people and other obstacles, so they were quite hated by girls in miniskirts.

'Luckily I managed to delete that one photo, that time when Misaki… blackmailed me into wearing one'

"…I see. I had heard Japan was a leading nation in technology, but I didn't know you had made mechanized Agathions."

"Hello?" Kamijou was a bit frightened by how impressed Index seemed. "This is Academy City. You can find those things all over the city."

"Academy City?"

"Yes. It's a city made by buying up the entire western area of Tokyo where development had slowed. The name comes from the fact that it has dozens of universities and hundreds of elementary, middle, and high schools in it." Kamijou sighed. "Eighty percent of the residents are students, so all the apartment buildings you see are dorms."

He omitted the fact that it had a hidden face where powers and bodies were developed alongside the studying.

"That's why the city is a bit odd. The city is overflowing with university experiments like the automated disposal of kitchen waste, the wind turbines that function well enough to be practical, and the cleaning robots like this one. Thanks to all that, our level of culture is about twenty years ahead of anywhere else."

"Hmm." Index carefully examined the cleaning robot. "So are all the buildings here part of Academy City?"

"Yup. I guess it might be best to leave the city if you're looking for an Anglican church. All the churches here are probably teaching institutions for theology or Jungian psychology."

"Hm."

Index nodded and then finally brought a hand up to the back of her head where she had hit the wall.

"Hyah!? H-huh? My hood is gone!?"

"Oh, you finally noticed? It fell off earlier."

"Hyah?"

By "earlier", Kamijou had meant when she was changing in the blanket, but Index seemed to mistake it for when she had tripped backwards in shock over the cleaning robot. She started looking around on the floor and a question mark appeared over her head.

"Oh, I know! That electric Agathion!"

While still mistaken, she made a dash after the cleaning robot and disappeared around a corner of the passageway.

"…Ahh, what is going on?"

Kamijou look at the door to her room where Index's hood was and then down the passageway. Index was nowhere to be seen. There had been no farewell, tearful or otherwise.

'From the looks of her, I get the feeling she'll live on even if the world is destroyed.'

Tsubaki had no proof of that, but nevertheless that was the thought she had.

-SOM-

Verse V

-SOM-

"Okay, I have a handout for you. Follow along while we go through this supplementary lesson."

Even after spending an entire term in that class, Kamijou still could not believe it.

The homeroom teacher of Year 1 Class 7, Tsukuyomi Komoe, was a ridiculous teacher who was so short that only her head could be seen when she stood behind her desk. That little girl teacher was one of the school's seven mysteries, she was 135 cm tall, there was a legend saying she was refused riding a roller coaster due to safety concerns, and she looked all the world like a twelve year old who should be carrying a soprano recorder and wearing a yellow hard hat and a red randoseru.

"I won't stop you from talking amongst yourselves, but you need to listen to what I say. I put a lot of effort into making a quiz, so if you do poorly on it, you will be punished with the See Through lesson."

"Sensei, isn't that where you play poker with a blindfold on!? That's part of the Curriculum for Clairvoyance! I've heard you can't leave until you win 10 times in a row despite not being able to see your cards, so wouldn't we just be stuck here until morning!?" Protested Kamijou Tsubaki.

"Oh, but Kamijou-chan, you don't have enough development credits, so you'll be doing the See Through lesson regardless."

'I may have to speak to Aleister, I don't mind being the class clown, but all it is going to do is get me held back and forced to do stupid experiments and pointless tasks. I may have to drop my idiot facade'

"Ugh," Kamijou was at a loss of words when faced with the salesman smile of a salaryman teacher.

"…Mhh. I see. Komoe-chan finds you so cute she just can't help herself, Kami-yan," said the blue-haired pierced-eared (male) class representative who was sitting next to Kamijou.

"…Do you sense malice coming from that teacher's back as she enjoyably stretches up to reach the blackboard?"

"What? What's wrong with having such a cute teacher scold you for failing a quiz? Getting physically abused by a little kid like that gets you a ton of experience points, Kami-yan."

"I knew you were a lolicon, but you're a masochist, too!? You really are hopeless!"

"Ah hah! It's not that I like lolis! It's that I also like lolis!"

Kamijou almost shouted out "You're omnivorous!?", But she was interrupted.

"You two over there! If you say a single word more, you'll be stuck with Columbus's Egg."

Just as one would expect, Columbus's Egg involved standing a raw egg upside down on a desk without anything supporting it. Those specializing in Psychokinesis could keep the egg from falling when they worked to the point of the blood vessels in their brain almost bursting. (It was actually an extremely difficult challenge because the egg would break if the Psychokinesis was too powerful.) As with the previous example, you would be stuck there until morning if you could not do it.

Kamijou and Aogami Pierce stared at Tsukuyomi Komoe while forgetting to breathe.

"Okay?"

Her smile was quite frightening.

While Komoe-sensei loved being called "cute" she got incredibly angry when called "small".

However, she did not seem to mind being looked down on by the students. Part of that was just something that could not be helped within Academy City. The city was a veritable Neverland where over 80% of the population was students. The opposition to salaryman teachers was harsh even compared to a normal school, and more importantly, the "strength" of a student was based on both their academic ability and their power.

The teachers were the ones that developed the students, but the teachers themselves had no powers. Some, like the PE teachers and guidance counselors, seemed like they were from some foreign unit because they had to train Level 3 monsters with their own fists, but it would be cruel to expect that of a chemistry teacher like Komoe.

"…Hey, Kami-yan."

"What?"

"Would it turn you on to get lectured by Komoe-sensei?"

"I'm not you! Just shut up already, idiot! If we have to play with a raw egg even though we don't have Psychokinesis, we'll be spending our entire summer break here! If you get it, shut that fake Kansai dialect mouth of yours!"

"Fake… D-d-d-d-d-don't call it fake! I'm really from Osaka!"

"Shut up. I know you're from a rice region. I'm in a bad mood, so don't make me play the straight man right now."

"I-I-I'm not from a rice region! Ah. A-ahhh! I sure do love takoyaki."

"Stop trying to force yourself into the Kansai role! Are you going to bring takoyaki for lunch just for this role?"

'If he does I'll steal some, I haven't had takoyaki for a while'

"What are you talking about? Not even someone from Osaka eats only takoyaki, right?"

"…"

"Right? I think that's right…no, wait. But…but yeah….but huh? Which is it?"

"You're falling out of character, Mr. Fake Kansai," said Kamijou before sighing and looking out the window.

'What an idiot, I can keep up the act even when shocked'

Tsubaki felt like she should be by Index's side rather than dealing with that pointless supplementary lesson.

The Walking Church nun's habit she wore had indeed reacted to Kamijou's right hand 'although "reacted" may be an understatement'. Leaving her to wander the city without her protection is dangerous, I should have skipped and gone to help her.

Even so…

'I guess the fish that escapes always seems huge.'

Kamijou sighed again. If the alternative was being stuck in that desk in that sauna-like classroom that had no air conditioning, charging into a world of darkness and magic may have been better. And she even had a cute (she was somehow hesitant to say beautiful) heroine to go with it.

"…"

Kamijou recalled the hood Index had forgotten in her room.

In the end, she had not returned it. Tsubaki did not view it as having been unable to return it.

Even if Index had disappeared, she would likely have found her if he seriously started looking for her. And even if she had not, Tsubaki could still be out there running around the city looking for her with the hood in one hand.

When she thought about it, she realized she had wanted some kind of connection. She had felt that she might come back to get it someday.

Because that white girl had shown her such a perfect smile…

'One I've rarely seen in my life'

Tsubaki had felt that she would disappear like an illusion if she did not leave some kind of connection.

She had been afraid.

'…Oh, so that's it.'

After going through those slightly poetic thoughts, Kamijou finally realized something. When it came down to it, she had not hated that girl who had gotten caught on her balcony. Tsubaki had liked her enough that the thought of never seeing her again left her with a slight twinge of regret.

"…Ah, dammit."

Tsubaki clicked her tongue. With how much she was weighing on her mind, she wished she had stopped her from leaving.

'Come to think of it, why had I gotten so close to her, we are from separate Magical Cabals after all'

Index had said that the group called a magic cabal that was after her seemed to be pursuing her because they wanted those 103,000 Grimoires. And Index had been fleeing with those 103,000 Grimoires in her possession.

It was not a key or a map to the place where all those books were stored.

When Kamijou had asked where all those books were, she had simply said, "Right here."

However, as far as Kamijou could see, she did not have a single book, but she had memorized them after all. At any rate, Kamijou's room was not large enough to hold 100,000 books.

"…What was that all about?"

Kamijou tilted her head to the side in puzzlement. Since Index's Walking Church nun's habit had reacted to Imagine Breaker, what she was saying was not purely a delusion.

But…

"Sensei? Kamijou-chan is staring out the window at the fluttering skirts of the girl's tennis team."

'I'll kill him, they won't find his body I swear'

Aogami Pierce's forced Kansai dialect sent Kamijou's focus in a U-turn back into the classroom.

"…"

Komoe-sensei fell silent.

She seemed to have undergone quite a shock by the fact that Kamijou Tsubaki-Chan had not been focused on the lesson. She had the look of a twelve year old who had just found out the truth about Santa Claus.

'I'll kill him for real, making her look like that, I was listening to the lesson'

Just as that thought reached her mind, Kamijou Tsubaki was pierced by the hostile gazes of her classmates who wished to protect the human rights of that "child".

'This will hurt, I know it will, Such misfortune'

-SOM-

While it was called a supplementary lesson, they had been stuck there until the time when all students were supposed to have left school.

"…Such misfortune," muttered Kamijou as she gazed at the three propellers of a wind turbine glittering in the sunset. Any kind of nightlife was forbidden, so the last bus and train in Academy City were set to go out when the students were all supposed to have left school. 'That propeller is slightly damaged, I'll have to have it fixed'

Kamijou missed the last bus, so she was trudging along through the scorching shopping district that seemed to go on forever. A security robot passed by him as he did. It was also a drum on wheels and it functioned as something like a walking security camera.

'I could have summoned a bus, but that would look strange to anyone watching'

They had originally been improved versions of robot dogs, but children would gather around them and block their path. For that simple reason, all the work robots had been made into drum container shapes.

'That was annoying, but so Kawaii… note to self, create some robot dogs just for the purpose of entertaining children'

"Ah, there you are, you bastard! Wait up…wait! You! I'm talking to you! Stop!"

The summer heat had done Kamijou in, so she just stared at the slowly moving security robot and thought about how Index had run off after a cleaning robot. Finally, she realized that voice was calling out to him.

Tsubaki turned around to figure out what was going on.

It was a middle school-aged girl. Her shoulder-length brown hair glowed a flame-red in the sunset and her face was dyed even redder. She wore a gray pleated skirt, a short sleeve blouse, and a summer sweater… At that point, she suddenly realized who she was.

'Railgun, this'll be fun'

"…Oh, it's you again, Biri Biri Middle Schooler."

"Don't call me Biri Biri! I have a name! It's Misaka Mikoto! Why don't you learn it already!? You've been calling me Biri Biri since we first met!"

'Never, it's far too funny to watch you complain about it for me to change'

'Since we first met…?' Kamijou thought back. 'Oh, right.'

When they had first met, she had been surrounded by delinquents just like the other day. As the children approached her, Tsubaki had thought they were after her wallet and stepped forward in an Urashima Tarou-esque move. However, for some reason, the girl was the one that got mad, saying, "Shut up! Don't get in the way of other people's fights! Biri Biri!" Kamijou had of course blocked her Biri Biri with her right hand and she had responded with, "Huh? Why didn't that work? Then what about this? Huh?" One thing had led to another, and things had ended up in their current state.

'That fight by the river was fun though, I'm a bad girl if I think watching a Middle Schooler scream in frustration is hilarious'

"…Huh? What? I'm not sad, so why am I crying, mother?"

"Why do you have a distant look in your eyes?"

Kamijou was exhausted from the supplementary lesson, so she decided to not give much thought in how to deal with the Biri Biri girl.

"The girl staring at Kamijou's face with a stunned expression is the Railgun girl from yesterday. She is so frustrated over losing a single fight that she has come back to Kamijou again and again to challenge him to a rematch."

"…Who is that explanation for?"

"She is strong-willed and hates to lose, but is actually quite a lonely person and is in charge taking care of the class pet."

'Man this is too much fun'

"Don't tack strange additions onto the setting!"

The girl, Misaka Mikoto, flailed her arms around and all focus on the street was drawn to her. That was not too surprising. The completely normal summer uniform she wore was the uniform of Tokiwadai Middle School, one of the 5 most prestigious and elite schools in Academy City. For some reason, the explosively refined girls from Tokiwadai seemed to stand apart even in a station at rush hour, so it would surprise anyone to see one sitting on the floor of a train messing around with their cell phone just like anyone else. 'If I wanted to I could easily enroll in Tokiwadai, but I would get annoyed at having to deal with Misaki all the time, come to think of it I haven't seen her for at least a week, somethings up'

"So what do you want, Biri Biri? Actually, why are you wearing your uniform during summer break? Do you have supplementary lessons?"

'Nope, the Tokiwadai girls are forced to wear their uniforms at all times'

"Gh…Sh-shut up."

"Were you worried about the class bunny?"

'Actually isn't it a hamster?'

"I told you to stop adding in that animal stuff! Also, today I'm going to make you twitch like frog legs with electrodes attached, so get your will and inheritance in order!"

'Very descriptive, I might have myself a little apprentice, now to corrupt her some more, but I need to inform her of her place in the world'

"I don't think so."

"Why not!?"

"Because I'm not in charge of my class's pet."

"Why you… Quit making fun of me!"

The middle school girl stomped down on the tiles of the footpath.

At that exact moment, a tremendous noise came from the cell phones of the people walking along the area. Also, the cable broadcast in the shopping district cut out and a horrible noise came from the security robot.

'Electronic Terrorism detected by Security Unit 923-A'

The crackling sound of static electricity came from the middle school girl's hair.

That Level 5 girl who could use a Railgun with nothing but her own body smiled such that her canines were bared like a beast.

"Hmph. How about that? Has that changed your cowardly mind? …Mgh!"

In a frantic attempt to cover her mouth, Kamijou's hand covered Misaka Mikoto's entire composed face.

'Is she an idiot, she just admitted to around 1.3 million yen worth of destructive terrorism'

(Sh-shut up. Please just shut your mouth! Everyone's cell phones were fried and they're looking none too pleased! If they find out it was us, they'll make us pay, and I have no idea how much that cable broadcast costs!)

Due to her recent encounter with that silver-haired nun girl, Kamijou openly prayed with all her might to the God who she secretly worshiped at a nearby church.

His prayers must have made their way to heaven because no one approached Kamijou and Mikoto.

'Thank goodness.'

Kamijou gave a sigh of relief (as he continued to suffocate Mikoto).

"Message, message. Error No. 100231-YF. Offensive electromagnetic waves in violation of radio laws detected. System malfunction detected. As this is possible cyber-terrorism, avoid using electronics."

'Report logged, sending reinforcements and a retrieval unit'

Imagine Breaker and Railgun hesitantly turned around.

A drum container was on its side on the footpath spewing smoke as it spoke to itself nonsensically.

In the next instant, the security robot began sounding a high-pitched alarm.

Naturally, they ran away.

They entered a back alley, kicked over a dirty plastic bucket, and scared off a black cat as they continued running.

'Mwahaha, I've corrupted her this much already… I'm so proud!'

Even with that thought, she kept running. After all, she had heard on a talk show that those security robots cost 1.2 million yen each.

'Actually 1,240,350 Yen each'

"Uuhh…S-such misfortune. Why do I always get caught up in things having to do with her?"

'It really is misfortune, but so much fun!'

"What do you mean by that!? And my name is Misaka Mikoto!"

'I know, I just keep calling you by nicknames to annoy you'

The two had finally come to a stop in a back, back, back alley. One of the lined-up buildings must have been demolished because a rectangular area opened up there. It looked like a good place for street basketball.

"Shut up, Biri Biri! You're the one that destroyed all of my electronics with that lightning yesterday! What could you possibly need after that!?"

'Note to self, replace electronics in substation I-48'

"It's your fault for pissing me off!" '…Fair enough'

"I don't even understand what has you so mad! I've never even laid a finger on you!"

'You're too young for me, but in a couple of years…'

Afterwards, Mikoto had attacked Kamijou with everything she had, but Kamijou had stopped it all with his right hand. Her attacks did not end at that Railgun. She could twist together collected iron sand to create a whip-like sword of steel, send powerful electromagnetic waves to mess with internal organs, and she could finish it all off by sending real lightning down from the sky.

But none of it was a match for Kamijou Tsubaki.

As long as it was a supernatural power, Kamijou Tsubaki could negate it (except her own for some reason).

"You just kept coming in at me and wore yourself out! Don't use your powers too much and then blame me when you don't have enough stamina to keep it up, Biri Biri!"

"~ ~!" Mikoto ground her back teeth together. "Th-that didn't count. It can't count! You never attacked me! That makes it a draw!"

"Sigh…Fine, fine. It was your win. Punching you isn't going to fix my air conditioner."

'It really won't, maybe I should move to one of the apartments Aleister keeps recommending'

"Gah…! W-wait a second! Take this seriously!" Shouted Mikoto as she flailed her arms around.

'Man, that'll never get old, I just hope she doesn't go off the deep end like Accelerator'

Kamijou sighed and subtly released some of her power.

"Are you sure you want me taking this seriously?"

'I love using the serious voice'

"Ah…" Mikoto trailed off.

'Wimp, but fair enough, I can be terrifying to those who have never fought in a life or death battle'

Kamijou lightly clenched her right fist and then opened it again. A cold sweat started pouring from Misaka Mikoto's entire body at that simple action (plus the latent magical energy in the air). She froze in place, unable to even take a step backwards.

Mikoto did not know what Kamijou's power really was, so Kamijou was truly an unknown horror to her for having sealed all of her trump cards without breaking a sweat.

It was not all that surprising. Kamijou Touma had received Misaka Mikoto's attacks for over two hours straight without receiving a single scratch. It was only natural for her to wonder what would happen if she got serious.

Kamijou sighed and averted her gaze.

'Now it's gotten awkward'

As if the strings holding her in place had snapped, Mikoto finally staggered a few steps back.

"…What can I call this other than misfortune?" Kamijou was shocked at how frightened she was. 'Poor thing, I think I went overboard' "First my room's electronics were done in, then I meet that self-proclaimed magician in the morning, and now I meet this Biri Biri Esper in the evening."

"Magician? What?"

"…" Kamijou thought for a bit. "Yeah… That's what I want to know."

'I really do'

Normally, Mikoto would have likely shouted, "Are you making fun of me!? Is your head as messed up as your power!?" and then Biri Biri'd. However, she only jumped in fright whenever she looked at her that day.

It had only been a bluff to fool her, but Tsubaki felt bad about how effective it had been.

Kamijou was reminded of what had happened that morning. That white nun had used that word readily enough, but now that he thought back, the term was definitely removed from reality.

'I wonder why it didn't seem so strange while Index was around.'

Had there been some mysterious something there that made it seem more believable?

'Now that I think about it, it was probably her latent energy affecting me slightly'

"… Wait, what am I thinking?" Muttered Kamijou while completely ignoring the Biri Biri girl named Misaka Mikoto who was trembling in fear like a puppy.

Tsubaki had cut her ties with Index and whatever world she lived in. The world was a large place, so it was unlikely she would run into her again in a meaningless coincidence.

Thinking about magicians was entirely pointless.

'She'll find me again, I know she will'

Despite that, she could not get it out of her head.

Tsubaki still had that pure white hood she had forgotten in her room.

'I wonder if it would look good on me?'

That one remaining connection continued to irritatingly prick at the edges of her mind.

Not even Kamijou Touma knew why she was thinking about it so much.

After all, she had the power to kill even God.

'At least I think I do'

-SOM-

Verse VI

-SOM-

Those days, one could not buy even a large gyuudon with only 320 yen.

"…Regular, hm?"

The girls who happily ate a bento the size of a light novel would likely not understand, but a sweating growing girl like Tsubaki saw the regular size as nothing more than a snack.

After driving off the Biri Biri girl, Kamijou had headed to a gyudon restaurant to eat her "snack". With only 30 yen remaining (tax included), she approached her dorm building with the sun having already set.

The place seemed deserted.

It was the first day of summer break, so everyone was probably out having fun.

The building looked like a stereotypical one-room apartment building. Pathways along one wall of the rectangular building had doors lined up on them. The metal railing had no plastic sheets to prevent peering up girls' skirts because it was a guy's dorm.

'Why do I live here again?'

The front doors and balconies on the opposite side were built on the sides of the building going back as seen from the road. In other words, they were in the gaps between buildings.

The entrance to the building was self-locking, but the distance between buildings was only two meters. You could easily sneak into it by jumping from roof to roof as Index had been doing that morning.

Kamijou went through the self-locking entrance, passed by the storage room known as the dorm manager's room and got on the elevator. It was just for fun that the elevator was more cramped and dirty than the elevator for bringing items into a factory, but the "R" button, indicating the roof, was sealed with a small metal plate in order to prevent Romeo and Juliets from heading up to the roof night after night.

'I know how to pop the plate however'

With a microwave oven-like ding, the elevator stopped on the seventh floor.

Kamijou pushed aside the door that clanked as it opened and exited to the passageway.

She was on the seventh floor, but there was no wind and it seemed even hotter and stuffier than before due to the neighboring building being so close.

"Hm?"

Kamijou finally realized something. Down the straight passageway and right in front of her door, three cleaning robots were gathered. Seeing three of them was rare. For one thing, she was pretty sure only five were ever deployed to that dorm.

'Systems check, Dorm 24-A, Cleaning Unit Assignment'

From the way they were trembling and moving back and forth, they seemed to be cleaning up quite a horrible mess.

'Error 34-D, Biological Contaminate 3 detected'

For some reason, Kamijou had an intense feeling of impending misfortune.

Those drum robots had enough power to cleanly rip up gum that was stuck to the floor, so what was giving three of them such trouble? Kamijou shuddered at the thought that her neighbor Tsuchimikado Motoharu might have gotten drunk while acting like a delinquent in order to lose his virginity and had ended up vomiting in tremendous quantity while using Kamijou's door in place of a telephone pole.

'If he did, I'll neuter him. The last time he got drunk he tried to peep on me, I wonder if the scar on his right leg has faded yet?'

"What happened…?"

People had an unfortunate tendency to want to see horrible things.

After taking a few more subconscious steps forward, he finally saw it.

The mysterious girl named Index had collapsed from hunger.

"….Ahh."

Tsubaki could not see all of her due to the robots being in the way, but someone wearing a white nun's habit covered in glittering safety pins was clearly collapsed face down there.

'Wait, Biological Contaminate 3… isn't that…'

Even though the three drums were doing nothing but ramming her, Index was not moving at all. It made her seem all the more pitiful, just like if she was being pecked at by city crows. For one, the cleaning robots were made to avoid people and other obstacles, so why was she being treated as not human even by those machines?

"…I guess this is misfortune, too."

Kamijou Tsubaki would have been surprised to see her face in the mirror at that moment.

She had a clear smile on his face.

She had been worried deep down. Tsubaki may not have (Openly) believed her about the magicians, but it was possible some cult was chasing the girl around.

Tsubaki was glad to see her in her usual(?) state.

And even ignoring those worries, she was simply happy to see her again.

Kamijou then remembered the one thing she had forgotten: the pure white hood she had not given back to her. She found it strange that she saw that hood like some kind of charm.

"Hey! What are you doing here?"

Tsubaki called out to her and ran over.

'Why does just running over put me in the mood of an elementary school kid who can't sleep on the night before a trip? Why does each step I take forward make me feel like I'm headed to the store on the release date of a major RPG?'

Index had not yet noticed her.

Kamijou Tsubaki forced down a smile at how "Index-like" that was.

And then she finally noticed Index was lying in a pool of blood.

"…Ah…?"

The first thing she felt was confusion, not shock.

'How was she injured? And without me noticing!'

Tsubakihad been unable to see it before because the group of cleaning robots had been in the way. As she lay face down, she could see a single horizontal strike near the bottom of her back. The wound was from a blade, but it was so straight it looked like someone had used a ruler and a box cutter. The end of her waist-length silver hair had been cleanly cut off and that silver hair was dyed red by the red substance flowing from the wound.

For an instant, Kamijou was unable to comprehend that it was human blood.

'Error 34-D, Biological Contaminate 3 detected'

The difference in reality between the instant before and the instant after sent her thoughts into chaos. Red…red…ketchup? Had Index been using her last strength to suck up ketchup just before she collapsed from hunger? With that pleasant image in her mind, Kamijou almost smiled.

Tsubaki almost smiled, but she did not.

There was no way she could.

The three cleaning robots continued to move back and forth while making a clanking noise. They were cleaning the stain on the floor. They were cleaning the red substance spreading across the floor. They were cleaning the red substance flowing from Index's body. Like digging at a wound with a dirty rag, they were sucking out everything inside Index's body.

"St…op. Stop! Shit!"

'Unit Override 29-A'

Kamijou's eyes finally came into focus with reality. Tsubaki frantically grabbed at the cleaning robots gathered around the seriously injured Index. The robots were made unnecessarily heavy to prevent theft and they had a good bit of horsepower, but as a Saint she could easily tear them away from her.

Of course, the cleaning robots were only cleaning the continually spreading stain on the floor, so they never actually touched Index's wound. Even so, Kamijou saw them as bugs swarming over a festering wound.

And yet she was having trouble moving aside all of those heavy and powerful robots. While her focus was on one of them, the other two would head for the stain.

'Unit Override 29-A… Why isn't this working?'

Tsubaki was supposed to have the power to kill even God.

And yet she was unable to move those toys out of the way.

Index said nothing.

Her pale purple lips were so still Tsubaki was not even sure if she was breathing.

"Shit, shit!" Kamijou shouted out in confusion. "What happened? What the hell happened!? God dammit! Who the hell did this to you!?"

"Hm? That would be us magicians."

And that was exactly why the voice coming from behind her was not Index's.

'Threat detected, Magician, Necessarius, Activating defenses'

Kamijou spun her entire body around as if to rush in to punch the person. A man was standing there who had come from…no, not the elevator. It seemed he had come from the emergency staircase next to the elevator.

The white man was over two meters tall, but his face looked younger than Kamijou's.

His age was…probably fourteen or fifteen just like Index. His great height was characteristic of foreigners. His clothes were…a pure black version of the habits worn by priests in the church. However, it was unlikely you would find anyone who would call that man a priest even if you searched all across the world.

It may have been because he was standing upwind, but Kamijou would smell the horribly sweet perfume on him even though he was over fifteen meters away. His shoulder-length blond hair had been dyed red like the sunset, silver rings glittered on all twenty of his fingers like brass knuckle, he had poisonous earrings on his ears, a cell phone strap could be seen sticking out of his pocket, a lit cigarette moved at the edge of his mouth, and as if to finish it all off, he had a barcode like tattoo underneath his right eye.

You could not quite call him a priest and you could not quite call him a delinquent.

The air around where the man stood in the passageway was clearly odd.

'Magical residue detected, fire and rune magical specialization possibility above 90%'

It was like the area was being ruled by completely different rules from the ones that Kamijou had used up until that point. That strange feeling spread out throughout the area like icy tentacles.

What Kamijou felt first was neither fear nor anger.

It was complete and absolute rage, a foreign Magician had entered HER city and injured one under HER protection, this could not, would not go unanswered, not by a long shot.

"Hm? Hm, hm, hm. She got her pretty good." The magician looked around and the cigarette in the corner of his mouth waggled as he spoke. "I heard Kanzaki sliced her, but this is… I thought there wasn't anything to worry about because there was no blood trail…"

The magician looked at the cleaning robots gathered behind Kamijou Tsubaki.

Most likely, Index had been "sliced" elsewhere and had barely escaped here with her life before collapsing. She must have left fresh blood as she went, but the cleaning robots had cleaned it all away.

"But…why?"

'Why you bastard, why did you hurt her?'

"Hm? You mean why she came back here? Who knows. Maybe she forgot something. Come to think of it, she had her hood when I shot her yesterday. Did she lose it somewhere?"

The magician standing in front of Kamijou had said "came back".

In other words, he had been following Index's actions all day. And he knew that she had lost the hood to her Walking Church nun's habits.

Index had said something about the magicians searching for the magic power of her Walking Church.

'Dammit, they traced her right to my apartment, and Index's actions had left my wards disabled and I didn't re-enable them. Stupid, so stupid!'

That meant the magicians had been following Index by detecting the supernatural power in her Walking Church. They would have known the Walking Church was destroyed when the "signal" cut out…Index had mentioned that too.

But then Index had to have known.

She had known, but she still seemed to have relied on the defensive powers of the Walking Church.

But then why had she returned? Why did she need to recover a portion of the destroyed and therefore useless Walking Church? Kamijou's right hand had rendered the entire Walking Church useless, so there was no point in recovering the hood to it.

"…Then will you follow me to the depths of hell?"

Suddenly, it all clicked.

Kamijou remembered something. Tsubaki had never touched the hood of the Walking Church that had been left in his room. In other words, the hood still had magic power.

She must have thought the magicians might detect it and head there.

And so Index had braved the danger to "come back".

"…You idiot."

'You complete and utter idiot'

There had been no need to do that. It had been Kamijou's clumsiness that had destroyed her Walking Church, and she had realized she had left her hood in her room yet had left it there. And more importantly, Index did not have any obligation, duty, or right to protect Kamijou.

Even so, she had not been able to help but head back.

Kamijou Tsubaki was a complete stranger she had met less than half an hour before.

And yet she had not been able to help but risk her life and head back to keep her from getting involved in that fight with magicians.

"You idiot!"

'I was already involved, since the day I was born'

Index's unmoving back got on her nerves for some strange reason.

Index had told Kamijou before that her misfortune was due to her right hand.

'That's not the whole reason'

Apparently, her right hand was subconsciously negating even the faint supernatural powers that were things like the divine protection of God and the red string of fate.

And if Kamijou had not carelessly touched her and destroyed her Walking Church nun's habit, she would have at least not returned.

'No. Those kinds of excuses don't matter.'

Tsubaki's right hand and the destruction of her Walking Church were not the reason she had felt the need to return.

If Kamijou had only not wished for that connection…

If she had only returned her fallen hood to her in that instant…

"Hm? Hm, hm, hm? C'mon, I can't have you looking at me like that." The cigarette in the corner of the magician's mouth waggled as he spoke. "It wasn't me that sliced her and I doubt Kanzaki meant to turn this into something bloody. The Walking Church is supposed to be an absolute defense, after all. Really, she shouldn't have been injured at all by that. …Honestly, what twist of fate led that being destroyed? Unless St. George's Dragon has come again, I don't see how a Pope-class barrier could have been destroyed."

'Easily you idiot, there are at least seven different ways to defeat a Pope-class barrier'

That last bit had been spoken to himself and his smile disappeared as he said it.

However, that was also only for an instant. The cigarette in the corner of his mouth twitched back up as if he had suddenly remembered to smile.

"Why?" Kamijou said despite not expecting an answer. "Why? I don't believe in the magic from fairy tales and I don't really understand Magicians or whatever you are. But aren't there good and evil types of you? Aren't there Magicians that protect things and people?"

Tsubaki knew very well that she had no right to use fox words there, her foolish actions had hurt one under her protection.

When Index had left, Kamijou Touma had let her go and gotten back to her normal life.

And yet she could not help but say it.

"You ganged up on this little girl, chased her all over the place, and then injured her this badly. Can you really say you're just with this reality staring you in the face!?"

'I will hurt you… Badly'

"Like I said, it was Kanzaki that did this, not me." The magician paused for a second.

'That is no excuse'

Kamijou's words had not hit home with him in the slightest. "And whether she's injured or not, we have to retrieve her."

'You… Monster'

"Retrieve her?"

Kamijou easily understand what the Magician meant.

"Hm? Oh, I see. You knew the word Magician, so I assumed you had been fully filled-in. I guess she was afraid of getting you involved." The magician exhaled cigarette smoke.

"Yeah, we need to retrieve her. Technically, it isn't her we need to retrieve though; it's the 103,000 Grimoires she has."

…There was those 103,000 Grimoires again.

"I see, I see. This country isn't very religious, so I guess you don't understand," said the magician in a bored sounding voice despite the fact that he was smiling. "The Index Librorum Prohibitorum is a list created by the church of all the evil books that will sully your soul just by reading them. Even if you announce that these dangerous books are out there, people can still unknowingly acquire one if they don't know their titles. Thus, she has become something of a crucible of poisonous books with 103,000 such books. Oh, but be careful. Reading just one of the books she has would make a vegetable out of someone from an irreligious nation like this."

Despite what he said, Index did not have a single book. The lines of her body were clearly visible in that nun's habit, so it would be obvious if she was hiding any under her clothes. Not to mention that no person could walk around carrying 100,000 books. That was an entire library's worth of books.

"D-don't be ridiculous! And where exactly are these books!?" 'I will give him just enough rope to hang himself'

"Oh, they're there. They're in her memory," said the magician as if it was obvious. "Do you know what a perfect memory is? It seems to be the ability to memorize anything you see in an instant and never forget even a single sentence or letter. Simply put, it makes you a human scanner." The magician smiled disinterestedly. "It has nothing to do with our occult or your SF. It's a natural condition. She has been to the British Museum, the Louvre, the Vatican Library, the Pataliputra ruins, Château de Compiègne, Mont Saint-Michel Monastery, and everywhere else that has Grimoires that cannot be taken from where they are sealed. She stole them with her eyes and stores them as a Grimoire library."

Kamijou easily believed it, she knew what the Magical Side was like.

Tsubaki did not have to believe that these Grimoires existed or that index had a perfect memory, she knew these things were fact.

But what mattered was not if that was correct. What mattered was that someone believed it was true and had sliced open a girls' back.

"Well, she has no ability to refine magic power herself, so she's harmless." The cigarette in the corner of the magician's mouth moved up happily. "But since that stopper was prepared, the church must have some concerns. Well, that has nothing to do with a magician like me. At any rate, those 103,000 Grimoires are quite dangerous, so I came to shelter her before anyone who would use them comes to take her away."

"Shelter…her?"

Kamijou Touma was utterly astonished. What had that man just said in the face of such a blood-red scene?

"Yeah, that's right. Shelter her. No matter how sensible and good hearted she may be, she cannot stand up to torture and drugs. The mere thought of handing a girl over to the likes of them hurts my heart, y'know?"

"…"

Kamijou's body was trembling in places.

It was not pure anger. Goosebumps covered her arm. The man before her viewed himself alone as right. He lived not seeing his own mistakes. All of that put together sent a chill across Kamijou's entire body like she had just plunged into a bathtub filled to the brim with tens of thousands of slugs.

The term "mad cult" oozed into her brain.

The thought of Magicians that hunted people based on foolish beliefs made her feel like the nerves of her brain were going to burst.

"Who the hell do you think you are!?"

Her right hand felt wrapped in heat as if in response to her anger.

Her two feet that had been planted to the ground moved before she even thought about moving them. Her lithe but strong body filled with flesh and blood charged toward the magician like a bullet. Tsubaki clenched her right fist so hard, she felt like she was smashing her fingers to pieces.

Her right hand was of no use. It would not let her defeat even a single delinquent, it would not raise her scores on tests, and it would not make her popular with girls.

But her right hand could also be quite useful. After all, she could use it to punch out the bastard standing before her.

"I would prefer to name myself as Stiyl Magnus, but I guess I'll have to go with Fortis931."

However, the magician was completely motionless expect for the wagging of the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

After muttering something under his breath, he spoke to Kamijou as if introducing the pet black cat he was proud of.

"That's my magic name. Not familiar with those? It seems we magicians cannot give our true name when we use magic. It's an old tradition, so I don't really understand why myself."

To Stiyl's surprise, Tsubaki answered "It is to protect yourself, from a Magician who can use soul magic, you fool. But since you are being traditional I will as well, my name is Kamijou Tsubaki, but you can call me Calamitas000, The One who Bears the Misfortune of Mankind'

They were 15 meters apart.

Kamijou Touma filled half of that gap in just three steps.

"A Magician… here, how, why, what are you doing here?"

Kamijou Tsubaki took two more steps down the passageway.

The Magician's smile crumbled in seconds. He rapidly was shifting from the mindset of 'This person is no threat' to the mindset of 'This person is a major threat'.

The Magician named Stiyl Magnus grabbed the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it away to the side, he was now all business, having met a Magician unexpectedly.

The lit cigarette flew horizontally, over the metal railing, and hit the wall of the neighboring building.

An orange line traced the cigarette's path as an afterimage and sparks flew when it hit the wall.

"Kenaz (Flames)."

The instant Stiyl muttered that, the orange line exploded.

A sword of flames appeared in a straight line as if someone had turned on a fire hose loaded with gasoline.

The paint gradually changed color like a picture being scorched by a lighter.

Tsubaki was not touching the flames, but it still felt like her eyes were being burned just by looking at it, so Kamijou instinctually stopped running and brought her right hand up to cover her face.

Kamijou stopped so suddenly that it looked like her feet had been staked to the ground.

A sudden question entered her mind.

Imagine Breaker could negate any kind of supernatural power in one blow. Not even the Level 5 Biri Biri girl's Railgun that could destroy a nuclear shelter in one blow was an exception to that.

But the truth was…

Kamijou had yet to see any supernatural power that was not psychic or her own in nature.

In other words, she had never tested it.

Tsubaki had never tested it on another's magic.

Would her right hand really work on the strange power known as magic?

"Purisaz Naupiz Gebo (A gift of pain for the giant.)"

Past the hand covering her face, Kamijou could see the Magician smiling. 'The bastard must think I am a novice'

While smiling, Stiyl Magnus swung the blazing flame sword horizontally at Kamijou Tsubaki.

The instant it touched him, it lost shape and exploded in all directions like an erupting volcano.

Heat waves, flashes of light, explosive noise, and black smoke burst in every direction.

"Maybe I overdid it."

Stiyl scratched at his head in front of what looked like the aftermath of a bombing. Just to be sure, he looked around to see if anyone was coming out to see what was going on.

It was the first day of summer break, so most of the residents of that boy's dorm would be out. However, it would be bad if some friendless shut in was in one of the rooms.

'Come to think of it, why is that girl here anyways?'

He could not see directly ahead due to a screen of flames and smoke.

However, he did not need to check. That strike had created hellish flames of 3000 degrees Celsius. At temperatures higher than two thousand degrees, the human body would melt before it burned, so the girl likely looked something like the metal railing that had melted like a sugar sculpture. She was likely splattered across the dorm wall like a used piece of gum.

Stiyl gave a sigh as he reflected on how right he had been to get the girl away from Index.

Things would have been a bit more difficult if the girl had used Index's injured form as a shield.

But he could not retrieve Index as things were.

Stiyl sighed again. The wall of flames blocked him from heading to the other end of the passageway where Index was. If there was another emergency staircase on the other side of the passageway, he could manage, but it would hardly be funny if Index got caught up in the flames while he took that detour.

Stiyl shook his head in annoyance and spoke as he peered into the smoke one last time as if he could see through it.

"Thank you, excellent work, and too bad. Well, at that level, you couldn't win even if you had 1000 tries."

"Are you really so sure I can't win no matter how many times I try?"

For an instant, the magician froze in place at that cold, emotionless voice coming from those hellish flames.

With a roar, the wall of flames and smoke swirled and was blown away.

It was as if a tornado had appeared in the center of the flames and smoke and blew them all away.

Kamijou Tsubaki stood there.

The metal railing had been melted like a sugar sculpture, the paint on the floor and walls had peeled, and the fluorescent lights had melted and dripped down in the intense heat, but that girl had remained unharmed in the middle of those hellish flames and scorching heat.

"Honestly, what was I so afraid of?" said Kamijou with the sides of her mouth twisted in disinterest. "This is the same right hand that destroyed Index's Walking Church."

Kamijou truly did not fully understand everything about what was known as magic.

She did not know how it some of it worked or what was going on where she could not see. Most likely, she would only understand some of it if it was explained to her from start to finish.

But there was one thing even a Saint like her knew.

In the end, it was just a supernatural power.

The crimson flames she had blown away had not been completely extinguished.

In a perfect circle around Kamijou, the scorching flames continued to burn. But…

"Out of the way."

With that one statement, Kamijou touched the 3000 degree magical flames with her right hand and the rest of the flames vanished.

It was like the candles in a birthday cake had all been blown out at once.

Kamijou Tsubaki looked at the magician standing before him.

The magician was as flustered as any normal human being at the unexpected turn of events.

In fact, he was a normal human being.

If you punched him, he would feel pain, and if you cut him with a cheap knife, he would bleed red blood.

He was a mere human being.

Kamijou's legs were no longer cramped with fear and her body was no longer frozen with nerves.

Her arms and legs moved like normal.

Tsubaki moved like few others could!

"…Wha-?"

Meanwhile, Stiyl very nearly took a step backwards in shock over the incomprehensible phenomenon before him.

From what had become of the surroundings, that attack could not have been a dud. But did that mean that boy was powerful enough to withstand 3000 degrees? No, then he would no longer be human.

Kamijou Tsubaki paid no heed to Stiyl's confusion.

She clenched her heated right fist as hard as a rock and took a step toward Stiyl who was swaying on his feet.

"Tch!"

Stiyl swung his right hand horizontally. The flame sword that appeared followed suit and flew forcefully toward Kamijou.

It exploded. Flames and smoke flew about.

But after the flames and smoke were blown away, Kamijou Tsubaki stood there just as before.

"WHAT MAGIC IS THIS?" Stiyl shouted at Tsubaki, his mind did not want to accept this new turn of events, there couldn't be a Magician here, despite having accepted her as a Magician earlier, he thought she was a Novice or Acolyte, he did not want to accept the possibility of a fully trained Magician standing against him.

There could not be any Magicians in that country that knew more about Christmas than magic and only knew Christmas as a day of dating and sex.

Also…Also, if Index who had no magic power had joined forces with a Magician, she would not have needed to run away. That was how dangerous Index's memories were.

Those 103,000 Grimoires were on a completely different level from merely having a nuclear missile. Stiyl could not accept the fact that there might be a Magician who was not interested in the power of the Grimoires.

All living creatures would eventually die, an apple dropped from above would fall down, and 1+1=2. You would be able to take those kinds of natural and unchangeable rules of the world, destroy them, rewrite them, and create new ones. You could make 1+1=3, make an apple dropped from below fall up, and make all dead creatures eventually be revived.

Magicians called such a being a Magic God.

Not the god of the demon world, but a magician who had thoroughly mastered magic to the point of entering the domain of god.

A Magic God.

But Stiyl could not accept the feel of the magic power in the girl in front of him.

He would be able to tell at a glance if she was a Magician. The girl did not just have the "scent" of someone from the same world as him, she was bathed in it, it was radiating from every inch of her body, but once again his mind could not accept this.

But then why?

"!"

To hide the shuddering spreading across his body, Stiyl created another flame sword and attacked Kamijou.

This time, it did not even explode.

Kamijou swatted at the flame sword with her right hand as if at a fly and the flame sword shattered like glass and disappeared into thin air.

Tsubaki shattered that 3000 degree flame sword with a right hand that had no magical reinforcements of any kind, at least that was what Stiyl's mind was telling him.

"…Ah."

Abruptly, truly abruptly, something floated up in the back of Stiyl Magnus's mind.

Index's Walking Church nun's habit was Pope-class and its barrier rivaled a London cathedral in its power. It was absolutely impossible to destroy it unless the legendary dragon of St. George appeared.

But Index's Walking Church had clearly been utterly destroyed since Kanzaki had sliced her.

Who had done it? And how?

"…"

By that point, Kamijou Tsubaki had walked right up to Stiyl.

With one more step, she would be close enough to punch the magician.

" O. (One of the five great elements from which the world is constructed.) F. (The great flame of the beginning.)"

An unpleasant sweat started flowing from Stiyl's entire body. This was because the creature in a summer uniform before him had taken the form of a human. Stiyl's spine trembled as he got the feeling that inside that girl's skin was not flesh and blood but a pure wellspring of Mana and Telesma.

" E. (It is a light of blessing that raises life and a light of judgment that punishes evil.) D. (It is overflowing with calm blessings and with freezing misfortune that destroys cold darkness.) S. (Its name is fire and its role is the sword.) P! (Be manifested and become the power that eats into my body!)"

The chest of Stiyl's priest's habit swelled out and the power from within popped off the buttons.

With the roar of flames sucking in oxygen, a giant mass of flames shot out from within his clothes.

It was not merely a mass of flames.

The crimson burning flames had something black and dripping like fuel oil at its core. It was in the form of a human. The thing was reminiscent of the seabirds dripping with black fuel oil after a tanker accident and it was eternally burning.

Its name was Innocentius. Its meaning was "I will surely kill you."

That giant flame god who bore the meaning of certain death spread its arms and charged toward Kamijou Tsubaki like a bullet.

"Verschwinden (disappear)."

Kamijou used a backhanded blow with the annoyed attitude of someone brushing aside a spider web.

Kamijou Tsubaki blew away Stiyl Magnus's final trump card. As if she had stabbed a water balloon with a pin, the human-shaped fuel oil symbolizing the giant flame god burst into blazing spray and scattered about the area.

"…?"

Kamijou Tsubaki had no real reason for not taking her last step at that moment.

It was simply that Stiyl was still smiling despite having his final trump card destroyed.

That expression was enough to make her hesitate before carelessly taking that last step.

The sound of a viscous liquid moving could be heard from all around.

"Wha-…!?"

As Kamijou took a step back in surprise, the black spray returned from all directions, gathered in midair, and reformed into a human shape.

If Kamijou had taken that last step, she would certainly have been enveloped by flames from all directions.

Kamijou's mind was thrown into disarray at the scene before her eyes. If her magic could do what she was always told it could, it could negate something as simple as this in a single strike. If that had been the supernatural power known as magic, she should have been able to negate it with that spell. And yet…

The fuel oil within the flames writhed, changed form, and now seemed to be holding a sword in both hands.

No, it was not a sword. It was a giant cross over two meters long, the type used to crucify people.

It lifted the cross up with both hands and swung it down towards Kamijou's head like a pickaxe.

"Rune Magic…!"

Kamijou immediately held up her right hand to receive the blow. Not counting her right hand, Kamijou was a Saint. She had the battle skill needed to see through the attack and evade it.

'But doing so would cause massive damage to the building and might end up killing Index'

The cross and her right hand clashed.

This time, it did not even disappear. As if she was grasping a mass of rubber, Kamijou felt she was not going to be the one to lose that struggle. His opponent was using both hands while she could only use his right hand. The flaming cross remained stationary, held aloft by the girl with no apparent effort.

Despite her confusion, Kamijou just barely managed to realize one thing. That mass of flames known as Innocentius was definitely reacting to her Imagine Breaker. However, it was being revived just after being annihilated. Most likely, the lag between annihilation and revival was less than a tenth of a second.

'Rune Magic, it has to be'

Her right hand had been sealed.

If she let go for even an instant, she would likely be turned to ash by Innocentius in that instant.

"Runes."

Kamijou Tsubaki heard something.

Due to the danger in front of her, she could not turn around, but she certainly heard someone's voice.

"Those twenty four characters used to indicate mysteries and secrets have been used as a magic language by Germanic tribes since the 2nd century and are found in the roots of Old English."

However, Kamijou could not believe it was Index's voice despite knowing it was.

"Wha-…?"

'With how beat up and bloody she was, how could she be speaking so calmly?'

"Attacking Innocentius will have no effect. Unless the rune engravings carved into the walls, floor, and ceiling are eliminated, it will revive as many times as necessary."

Kamijou Tsubaki merely braced her right wrist with her left hand and easily managed to push the cross backwards towards Innocentius.

Kamijou simply turned around.

The girl was indeed collapsed there. But Kamijou was unable to give the name Index to "that". Like a machine, her eyes were utterly lacking in emotion.

With each word she spoke, more blood flowed from the wound on her back.

She paid no heed to that and seemed to truly be nothing more than a system meant to explain magic.

"You're… Index, right?"

"Yes. I am the Grimoire library belonging to Necessarius, the 0th Parish of the Anglican Church. My proper name is Index Librorum Prohibitorum, but that can be abbreviated to Index."

The way that Grimoire library named Index was acting, Kamijou almost forgot about the giant flame god trying to kill her. She felt such a chill coming from Index.

"With my introduction complete, I will return to my explanation of rune magic. Simply-"

Tsubaki interrupted Index before she could continue "I need to destroy the runic array being used to summon this supernatural being into the realm of reality, otherwise it can continue to reincarnate no matter what, correct?"

Index paused in shock, even in this mode "You know of Magic?"

Tsubaki rolled her eyes in annoyance "Yes, of course. Did you think Academy City didn't have a Magician on staff to deal with incidents like this?"

But with Innocentius sealing her right hand and keeping her from moving, she couldn't test anything regardless. And it would be difficult to ask Index to help her given her bloody state.

"Ash to ash…"

Kamijou looked up in shock. From beyond the giant flame god, a flame sword had appeared in Stiyl's right hand.

'Prick, smug little son of a bi-'

"… Dust to dust…"

And another one. A bluish-white burning flame sword extended silently from his left hand.

"…Squeamish Bloody Rood!"

With those power-filled words, he swung the two flame swords horizontally so they would slice straight through the giant flame god from left and right like a giant pair of scissors. With her right hand sealed by Innocentius, Kamijou could not block anything else.

At least, that was what Stiyl thought "Heiligtum (Sanctuary)" a powerful shield of golden energy immediately covered Tsubaki's body.

-SOM-

Verse VII

-SOM-

When the smoke and flames cleared, the entire area looked like hell.

The metal railings had warped like sugar sculptures and even the floor tiles had melted into something like glue. The paint on the walls had peeled so the concrete was visible.

Tsubaki stood defiant in front of Innocentius, still armored in the strange golden energy.

Stiyl stared at her in disbelief

"…How," he whispered.

Tsubaki smiled viciously "It's simple, your Magic isn't enough to overwhelm mine, at least not inside the borders of this city. For this city is my temple, a city-sized temple in which I know everything and anything that happens. However you and Index managed to enter thanks to last nights unexpected thunderstorm, so I am having to adjust my strategy without forethought like I normally would, now I will defeat you and your monster"

Inside, Stiyl was astonished. Something amazing had just happened. Just before the explosion, in the instant Stiyl had sliced through the giant flame god with the two flame swords, Kamijou had raised a powerful shield, without any preparations at all.

"But…"

Stiyl gave a gentle smile. Kamijou now knew the weakness of the runes thanks to the knowledge of Index's 103,000 Grimoires. As she had said, the rune magic Stiyl used was activated by carved engravings. That also meant that getting rid of the engravings would negate even the most powerful magic.

"So what?" Stiyl's expression showed no sign of concern. "You can't do it. It is utterly impossible for you to completely get rid of the runes carved into this building."

Tsubaki's vicious smile turned into a vicious smirk "Oh really, well then Magician, I think I should warn you… your Runes are not as foolproof as you think they are"

'Emergency override 02-F Activate Fire-suppression systems in Dorm 24-A, activate the loud and silent alarms. Administrator code: Calamitas000, Password Alpha-Omega-000'

Before Stiyl could respond, the Fire alarms and sprinklers of the Dorm suddenly activated. Covering the three Magicians and Eldritch Creature in copious amounts of water.

Stiyl was shocked and then he started to laugh "…You can't mean! Those 3000 degree flames couldn't be put out with that!"

"Don't be stupid. Not the flames. How can you put those things all over people's homes?"

Stiyl then recalled the tens of thousands of rune papers he had set up on the dorm.

Paper was weak to water. Even kindergartners knew that.

By spraying water all over the building with the sprinklers, it did not matter if there were tens of thousands of the runes. Tsubaki did not need to run around the building. Instead, she could activate a simple system and destroy all of the scraps of paper.

The muscles of the magician's face spasmed.

"Innocentius!"

The fiery giant redoubled it's efforts, but it's regeneration began to slow and parts of it began to break off of it.

Tsubaki then surged forwards and slammed her Imagine Breaker into Innocentius and it exploded

in all direction with a laughably pathetic noise.

"Wha-!?"

Stiyl Magnus's heart truly did stop for an instant out of shock.

After being blown away, Innocentius did not revive. Black fuel oil-like chunks of flesh were splattered about the area and all they could do was just barely squirm a bit.

"Im…possible… How…How! My runes haven't been destroyed yet!"

"What about the ink?" It seemed to take 5 years for Kamijou Tsubaki's voice to reach Stiyl's ears. "Even if the copy paper hasn't been destroyed, the water will make the ink come off." Kamijou spoke in a leisurely manner. "Although that doesn't seem to have taken care of every single one of them."

The squirming pieces of Innocentius disappeared into thin air one at a time as the man-made rain continued to flow from the sprinklers.

It was as if the ink on the copy paper taped all over the building was coming off in the rain one by one, causing Innocentius to lose power bit by bit.

The chunks of flesh disappeared one by one until finally the last one dissolved and disappeared.

"Innocentius…Innocentius!"

The magician's words were like those of a man shouting into a phone receiver after being hung up on.

"Now then."

That one statement was enough to make the magician's entire body flinch.

Kamijou Tsubaki took a step toward Stiyl Magnus.

"Inno…centius…" the magician said…but nothing in the world responded.

Kamijou Tsubaki took another step toward Stiyl Magnus.

"Innocentius…Innocentius, Innocentius!" the magician shouted…but nothing in the world changed.

Kamijou Tsubaki finally started charging toward Stiyl Magnus like a bullet.

"A-Ash to ash, dust to dust, Squeamish Bloody Rood!" the magician finally roared, but not even a sword of flames appeared, much less the giant flame god.

Kamijou Tsubaki drew near Stiyl Magnus and then continued even closer.

She clenched her fist.

She clenched her utterly normal right hand. She clenched her right hand that would be of no use unless she was using it on some kind of supernatural power. She clenched her right hand that would not let her defeat even a single delinquent, that would not raise her scores on tests, and that would not make her popular with girls.

But her right hand could also be quite useful.

After all, she could use it to punch out the bastard standing before her.

Kamijou Tsubaki's fist slammed into the magician's face.

The magician's body rotated like a bamboo copter and the back of his head struck the metal railing


End of Chapter 1.

Hope you enjoyed it

But before you go, there is a challenge associated with this story.

Kamijou Tsubaki has THREE secrets that will be slowly hinted at and revealed over the course of the story. Two will be revealed quite quickly and will be almost completely explained by the end of the Sisters Arc. But the third might not be revealed until the end of the story.

So each secret is precise, guessing that secret will gain the reader a reward, naturally the reward depends on:

A. The difficulty of the secretive

and

B. When the answer is provided, the earlier the answer, the bigger the reward.

Only the first secret is hinted at in this chapter however, but anyone willing to take a guess on any of the three secrets can.

dragonsong2795