Pre-Chapter Notes: Well, here's the second chapter of this AU story. Now to respond to the few, but appreciated reviews I got.
Review Answering Segment:
Shinnypichu88: First, thanks for being my first review on this story, it means a lot. Now to answer your question, I edited chapter 1 for a spelling error and to add some italics, so I also added some Author Notes on how Touma could be OP. My explanation may be horrid, but try to bear with me.
Darkdeath12: Well, Touma before his memory loss did have a lot of confidence when he could boast about nullifying the blessings of God in canon. One of the things I'm changing is giving him the power to back up his words. I have always had a question of my own concerning Touma's strength: When Touma found out about the Imagine Breaker and its limit while growing up in Academy City, why didn't he try to train his body and/or learn some martial arts? Well, I gave Touma the strength, but the martial arts part is kind of iffy when he has Precognition and enough power coupled with speed to defeat anybody he faces with a single hit.
Warning: AU, possible OOC behavior, OP!Touma, and now adding a bit of genderbending. (You'll know one of the people who will be genderbent in this chapter. There might be more in the future, but I'm not sure.)
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Kamijou Touma opened his bleary eyes slowly, while raising his torso up off his bed to stretch his arms. He blinked a bit at the brightness of the sun, before moving off his bed to begin the morning.
The spiky-haired boy cast a bleary eye outside his transparent sliding door which led to the balcony, setting his sights at the space elevator which was in the middle of construction in the distance before resuming his preparation for the school day. Kamijou had been a bit irritated that morning due to not getting enough sleep after that run in with the Railgun last night.
'At least she didn't throw a lightning bolt at me this time' Kamijou thought with relief.
It was true that the Level 5 Electromaster had thrown lightning bolts straight out of the clouds at him. She also used magnetism from time to time to throw iron sand shaped into weaponry at him. His right eye twitched when remembering the iron sand blade that had a fine-enough edge to slice a leaf in half.
Touma made sure that his apartment was in order before grabbing his book bag and leaving to get to his supplementary classes at A Certain High School.
He had completely missed the white-clad European nun with silver hair that fell past his apartment window.
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Stiyl Magnus was currently observing the person who the General Superintendent had asked him to watch. Truth be told, the boy –Kamijou, Stiyl remembered- didn't seem like anything special at a first glance. Alyssa Crowley had told Stiyl when the boy would get off from school, so there was no problem with interrupting his classes. But the presence he held was chilling. He walked with the gait of someone who held all the power in the world and didn't care for a single bit of it.
'Not even Kanzaki feels like that,' Stiyl thought pensively, feeling slightly disturbed by the way Kamijou held himself. His slowly-growing wariness of the boy with the Imagine Breaker (he still had trouble coming to terms with the fact that an ability like that existed) increased even further when he felt Kamijou send glances in his direction.
He remembered what Crowley had said about the boy being paranoid after that incident with the Kihara family. Stiyl had read the file on what happened, and was both horrified and impressed by what Kamijou had gone through. Any normal person with Kamijou's power would have snapped and destroyed everything in their sight after a four-month-long, global, wild goose chase/survival game with those mad scientists. He'd even unknowingly commented on it aloud while reading the file.
Crowley had given the fire magician one blunt statement in response to the comment,
"Kamijou is not normal."
Stiyl shook his head to clear his thoughts, before setting his sights back on Kamijou, who had started a small bout of banter with a girl who was… conducting electricity?
He blinked at the odd sight. Stiyl had studied a bit about espers and their abilities in London before getting sent to Japan for his assignment, but it was still surreal to see a seemingly normal middle-school girl conduct electricity like a tesla coil without using some kind of magic. After she threw some lightning at the spiky-haired boy (Which Kamijou was fast enough to dodge, giving Stiyl a bit of a surprise), all of the nearby electronics started malfunctioning.
The red-haired boy thought for a moment, pulling out his own cell phone. His tongue clicked when he saw that it was malfunctioning like all of the other electronics. Stiyl closed his eyes for a long moment, pocketing the phone.
'Crowley had better pay me well for this,' the fire magician thought irritably. As Kamijou had increased his pace to get home, Stiyl observed as some of the delinquents in the nearby alleys cringed in fear, staring with horror-filled eyes pinned on Kamijou while staring at him like he was an unstable nuclear bomb.
Stiyl had seen in the file about Kamijou Touma that he had single-handedly beaten up and thrown every Skill-Out (As the gang members of Academy City were called) out of District 7 at the age of thirteen. At first, he had little to no problem with them around.
That is, until they started those raves at night and interrupted his sleep.
Security footage had shown that Kamijou had walked into the rave, trashed the stereo and DJ, before starting a loud lecture about how important sleep was. In response to the spontaneous and rude action, the Skill-Outs had started bringing out knives, pipes, baseball bats, even some guns here and there, before attacking the spiky-haired thirteen-year-old. It was quite a sight seeing a sum of at-least-seventy, roughly age-nineteen Skill-Outs cowardly ambush a younger boy who just wanted to get some sleep.
The mob of Skill-Outs never stood a chance.
Stiyl was still slightly unnerved of what Kamijou had done on the footage. The boy had simply stayed in place before all of the attackers had started flying backward, as if hit by an invisible force. The fire magician had thought that the Imagine Breaker had been the ability that pushed them all back and had questioned Alyssa on whether or not nullification of supernatural effects was its only ability.
In response, the General Superintendent of Academy City had frozen the video, slowed down the footage to a thousandth of a second, and politely asked Stiyl to look at Kamijou again.
What he saw was something that he thought only Kanzaki Kaori or another Saint could pull off. Kamijou's form was still the same, except his limbs were now blurs to the camera. Stiyl also saw that the Skill-Outs closest to the boy had parts of their bodies caving in, as if someone had struck them with an invisible attack. He came to the conclusion that Kamijou was beating them all away so fast that even the coveted technology of Academy City could barely keep up.
After the first batch of incapacitated delinquents, Kamijou had taken advantage of the confusion to start moving and continue his speedy assault. The one-sided massacre (Stiyl refused to call it a battle when the disoriented delinquents did not even get a single strike on the thirteen-year-old) had been over in minutes, dozens of incapacitated Skill-Outs lying on the ground. The incident had made Kamijou infamous and started a whole new pack of rumors revolving around him. It had also gained him a new nickname as well.
The Sleeping Dragon of District 7.
Alyssa had stated that phrase with a small bit of amusement, and Stiyl could see why. The 'Dragon' in question barely looked like he could even harm a fly. However, both Stiyl Magnus and Alyssa Crowley knew very well that appearances could be deceiving. He was dubbed that name due to being a vicious attacker when provoked, like the sleeping dragons from old stories.
Kamijou had then gone on a warpath, clearing out the entire district of 'danger to sleeping students' and coming into contact with Academy City's darker elements. Due to the initial incident, and many more involving Skill-Out groups and even running into underground teams like SCHOOL or ITEM after unintentionally busting some of Academy City's more obscure projects, District 7 eventually became a haven free of Skill-Outs and activity from the Dark Side of Academy City. The only thing that could be called a problem was the grouping of delinquents who stopped going to school, but they just stayed in the shadows, fearful of Kamijou's legendary wrath.
Stiyl looked around District 7, trying to find where Kamijou had gone. About halfway to the district, the spiky-haired boy had started taking obscure twists and turns down alleyways, making it all the more difficult for the magician to keep track of him. Stiyl groaned while massaging his temples to keep the on-coming headache from taking hold.
'I think it's about time for a break.' Stiyl thought before sitting down on a nearby bench and pulling out a packet of cigarettes. He took one out before muttering a Latin word to make a small fire flicker on the end of his finger. The fire magician used it to light the cigarette before taking a long drag from it. He blew out the smoke in a long, tired sigh, vaguely noting that someone sat down next to him.
"Having a bad day?" The person asked.
Stiyl took another drag out of cigarette before exhaling the smoke again. He mumbled, "You don't know the half of it." before turning his head to get a good look at the person who was sitting next to him. He froze, seeing just who it was.
"Try me." Kamijou Touma offered, with a sharp glint in his eyes.
"But before that, do you mind telling me why I'm being followed around by a magician? I thought that after the last time, I made it clear to Tsuchimikado that he should try to keep magic away from me, what with the Imagine Breaker and all." He continued, holding up said right hand.
Stiyl's eyes narrowed, trying to figure out when the onmyoji had broken his cover and how Kamijou know of magic. Alyssa had not given him a single piece of information that gave the hint that Kamijou had known about magic. Either he didn't know that Kamijou knew about magic (and that was borderline impossible, considering Alyssa Crowley knew just about everything going on in her city.) or…
'Damnit, you bitch,' Stiyl thought furiously. The woman had purposely withheld the information, if only to draw amusement from the reaction on the magicians face when he found out.
"Do you mind telling me how you know I'm a magician, then?" the fire magician asked in a blunt tone. Kamijou put a contemplative look on his face, opening his mouth and answering,
"Nope."
"….It was worth a try," Stiyl muttered to himself after a brief pause, flicking away his used-up cigarette in a nearby trash can. He sighed (Stiyl seemed to be doing that a lot lately), deciding that honesty was possibly the only chance he had of not getting his face punched in.
"Did Tsuchimikado tell you about mana, the Idol Theory, and all that other stuff?" Stiyl inquired. Kamijou gave a nod at the question.
'Good, that's less explaining I have to do.' The red head thought with relief.
"Alright then, my turn," Kamijou stated, while clasping his hands together. "Did the Board of Directors send you?" The magician shook his head, confused about what the 'Board of Directors' had to do with this.
"Did the Kiharas send you?" Another shake of the head, while Stiyl made a mental note to ask Crowley about exactly how paranoid Kamijou was.
The Level 0 high school student sighed in relief, before lying back on the bench and brought his eyes up to the sun, which was finally starting to set after the long day. Both he and Stiyl stayed like that for a couple of minutes, thinking about what topic they should converse about.
Kamijou broke the silence and asked, "So, how's Academy City going for you?"
Stiyl wondered whether or not to answer, before deciding to bite the bait, "Well… It's kind of crazy knowing that a place like this exists outside of a science fiction novel."
Touma had to give a crooked smile and a good-natured chuckle at those words.
"Yeah, just about everybody who visits at one point or another says something like that. Truthfully, once you get past the robots, futuristic technology, and super-powered hormonal school kids, it's just like any other regular town." Kamijou put forward, before blinking at the deadpan stare he received from the magician.
"Too much?" Stiyl nodded, still staring at him. The dark-haired boy shrugged, getting up and stretching.
The fire magician blinked and asked, "You're not going to make me answer why I'm in the city?"
Kamijou gave him a quick glance, before shrugging again. "I don't really care why you're here as long as you don't hurt anyone."
He narrowed his eyes when Stiyl's hands twitched at those words.
"Have a nice time in Academy City." Touma said, walking away in a leisurely manner to his dorm.
The fire magician watched Kamijou Touma walk away, giving a long sigh and walking in the direction of the Windowless Building.
'We're going to have a long talk, Alyssa Crowley,' Stiyl Magnus thought, determined to get all the information he could from the General Superintendent of Academy City.
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Post-Chapter Notes: Well, there you go. I have now put out some changes that this AU will have.
In no particular order, we have:
Index didn't land on Kamijou's balcony.
Touma has met the Kihara family in the past and gotten into some crazy worldwide adventures because of it. (In the Light Novel, it explained that Touma had skipped four months' worth of classes, so I decided to slot in my own little rendition of what happened during that time.)
Kamijou gaining a bit of a reputation when he was younger after beating the crap out of some Skill-Outs because he wanted some sleep, while garnering the attention of SCHOOL and ITEM in some way.
Stiyl observes Touma, wondering briefly about his abilities. Kamijou and Stiyl have a little talk, revealing that Touma knew about magic from Tsuchimikado.
This is an AU, as I've stated several times before, so I am going to take ruthless advantage of that to alter details here and there. Like Aleister Crowley being genderbent to Alyssa Crowley (Bet you weren't expecting that, were you? The anime concept art of the male character I turned into a female had a freaking bust line, so I decided to try it.) and Tsuchimikado telling Touma about magic.
If you have any questions that don't involve me giving spoilers, leave them in a review. With that said, please leave some reviews and spread the word of this story.
That's all for now. - Loopsey