Twist of Fate
Disclaimer: I do not own a certain magical index, it's characters or it's elements.
Chapter 10: Philosopher's Stones
The magician named Stiyl was standing before a certain unfortunate boy's dorm. Index was bleeding on the floor and all Touma wanted do was protect the girl. In reality Stiyl wanted to save the girl but he found himself playing the villain. Is that why he unleashed the spell? The boy knew nothing of magic but he unleashed a spell that made flames wash over the boy. As he took out a cigarette the magician couldn't help but think that was a little much. Did he just not want anyone else to save her? It was not like he thought anyone could actually save her from the terrible burden she carried. Still burning the boy to death was too much. As he looked back at the flames he saw something. He couldn't make out the shape but the flames started to part for it. It looked like the boy but his eyes were shrouded by darkness as his hair fell over his eyes. An eerie outstretched smile spread across his face, his sharp incisors flashed as if it belonged to a hunter about to pounce on its prey. That was when Stiyl saw it, the boy's right hand was in fact not a hand but a large growling dragon's head. The dragon opened its mouth and the flames swirled around and moved towards the magician. He couldn't react in time and the flames jumped over his body. The flames spread over him and he screamed in searing pain.
Stiyl jolted up in bed. His eyes fell upon the spiky haired boy next to him. Then he realized he was in a hospital room and Index and Itsuwa were there. The red haired 14 year old found his hands and arms wrapped in bandages along with some on his face and other parts of his body.
"Stiyl." Touma was the first speak. "Are you all right? The doctors here treated you and gave you some pain killers."
The magician sighed, he didn't like the idea of being treated by science but he welcomed the relief from the pain. "What happened?"
"The alchemist did something."
"He held out a stone and said to transmute the oxygen into hydrogen."
Index chirped up, "I was afraid of something like that. He had accesses to two grimoires that belonged to an alchemist."
"Yes, but we found them in London." Stiyl pointed out as snarled at the pale blue hospital gown he wore.
"That's what Tsuchimikado called us about. He couldn't reach you." Touma added.
"My phone was broken when I was tracking the alchemist through Hong Kong."
"Tsuchimikado" Touma began. "He said that the alchemist is more powerful than he expected. From what the notes he found said, De Leon found a way to get the knowledge from the grimoires, that and he's found a way to create a series of stones to empower himself. An incomplete philosopher stone set."
"But that is not all." Itsuwa told them. "Charles De Leon has come to Academy City with a target in mind." Itsuwa paused as she hesitated with the words. "He has come for Komoe."
"What about me?" The small teacher entered the room in time to hear her name. She had left to get drinks for everyone and as she returned she almost dropped the drinks hearing her name mentioned.
No one intended for her to hear that and they were all a little at a loss for words.
"Kamijou," The small teacher looked at her students. "What is going on?"
"It's nothing." Touma tried to wave her off.
"Touma!" She looked angrily at the boy. "When you and that priest came to my apartment the first time the roof was blown off. Then you both showed up just in time to save Himegami's life. Then today I saw him produce flames and then they were used to create an explosion. Pyrokinesis is my field of study and I have never seen anything like that. It looked like the air had gotten much more flammable all of a sudden. I don't claim to understand everything that is happening but I do know I heard my name. I know that I'm somehow involved in all this. So don't you dare stand there and just lie to me."
Itsuwa was the first to break, "We don't understand it either. The man that attacked Stiyl has come for you, to use you for some sort of ritual or spell."
She blinked her pink eyes, "Spell?"
Komoe knew for certain magic was real, with Index's help they had conjured something like angel in her room and later she herself had used that same ritual to save one of her students. Still it was a world she didn't fully understand.
"What kind of spell?" Komoe couldn't help but ask.
"We don't know yet." Itsuwa explained. "The informant is working on that."
"It doesn't really matter." Stiyl spoke up. "De Leon will come after her and we have to make sure he doesn't get her. When he makes his move we will have to be ready to capture him." Stiyl spoke as if she wasn't there. The magician started to get up but groaned in pain.
"No, you can't go anywhere, you're not in any condition to move." Komoe told him.
Itsuwa started to go through her bag, "I can perform a spell that should heal your wounds but I can't replenish the energy you lost. You will still have to rest."
"Fine! Do it." Stiyl told her.
"Touma, you have to leave." Index told him. "Your right hand might interfere with the spell."
Touma nodded and left the room. Komoe watched in silence as Itsuwa gathered ordinary items for the spell.
Charles De Leon was now wearing a common black suit. He didn't care for style he just didn't want to stand out. He found himself next to a fountain in a park as he splashed water on his face. His skin still hurt, it felt like he was still burning, he knew that the heat that he felt was just in his mind but he still had the urge to put out the flames that he thought were touching his skin. He saw his reflection in the water and he looked healed but the phantom pains would persist for hours. He had learned to cheat injuries and had been doing so for a while so he was used to the pain to some extent, but it still hurt. He splashed some more water onto himself trying to cool down. He would have to move soon to finish his plan. He looked up at the afternoon sun and knew his time was running out.
Touma had retreated to the hospital lobby when his phone rang, "Hello."
"Kami~" The spy rang out from the other side. "Did you find Komoe?"
"Yes, she's fine."
Tsuchimikado sighed on the other end, he was truly glad to hear his favorite teacher was safe. "Did you manage to beat that alchemist?"
"No," Touma admitted. "He managed to escape after he set Stiyl on fire."
"What?"
"From what I can tell he changed the air into something that caught on fire much easier." He assumed that Komoe would scold him for his poor understanding of chemistry.
"Yeah, that's bad."
"Tsuchimikado, what's going on? Why does he want Komoe?"
"We're still trying to find out ourselves. De Leon broke into the library here and we went after him but he's been a step ahead of us. I'm in his room right now. A room he rented here in London. We have his notes but Alchemists are an annoying lot and they always encrypt their notes." Tsuchimikado looked over to a table were Orsola and Sherry Cromwell were looking through the notes. "We did manage to find out something though."
"What?"
"All bad news I'm sorry to say. Stiyl didn't know how strong he really was. He took the knowledge of two grimoires. One probably should have killed him but he took notes from our library to get a ritual from a Chinese Alchemist. This ritual manages to cleanse his chi so the corruption that grimoires did was purified."
Touma didn't like the idea that someone with the power of two grimoires was running around the city. "Is that all?" He hoped that was as bad as it got.
"Nope. It turns out he stole the tools because he had gotten some notes written by Albert Magnus himself. From we can figure out it allowed him to create something like a philosopher's stone."
"Wait, I heard of that."
"I bet you did. A certain book and movie made them famous in the modern science world. I'm sure that writer is actually a witch, her spells are a bit basic but they work."
"What about the stone?" Touma tried to get back on topic.
"Right. Albert Magnus could never actually make a working philosopher's stone but according to the notes we found he had an idea. The only reason he never did it was because he lacked the tools to actually do it."
"But now those tools are around."
"Bingo, Kami~" The spy said with song in his voice. "That was why he took a trip to Zurich. From what I can tell he actually managed to make the faulty stones when he got the grimoires. Every stone in his set allows him to do something different, and I did figure out one of the stones abilities…."
"I'm not going to like this."
"No, you're not. Two things the stone was supposed to do were to turn lead into gold and make the elixir of life. These faulty stones can manage something like that, he used them to make an elixir that keeps him from dying."
"He's immortal?"
"Not really, more like he'll just heal from any injury. He still will age, so no eternal youth to go along with it."
"Why does he want Komoe?"
"I'm not sure, that part we still haven't decoded. He has photos of her, her address, a picture of her car, the school, her daily routine and a lot of other stuff. This level of stalker would creep Aogami out. Whatever he's planning, it's not good."
"How can you be sure?"
"Kamijou, to take in the knowledge of a grimoire, a single book, could kill him before he had a chance to use the purification ritual. It was a battle of will and even after coming out of it he went again. The only thing that allows someone to push through that kind of thing is sheer desperation. If you're desperate you're dangerous and I don't want to think what someone like that would do to our cute teacher. Kami, protect her. I'll do everything I can on my end and look out for you but you have to do something too."
"I'll make sure she's safe."
"That's the hero I know. If you keep talking like that you're going to win the heart of our loli teacher."
"Shut up." Touma snarled at his phone.
Touma sighed as the line went dead. Before he could even say his trade mark catch phrase Stiyl, Itsuwa, Index and Komoe raced out of there grabbing Touma along the way. After Stiyl changed clothes and was healed they left before anyone could ask questions.
Back at the now well scourged mall Anti-Skill was examining the area while Judgement asked for eye witness reports.
Uiharu was back working as her suspension was up and Kuroko was called into duty, leaving her appointment with Carina until later. Saten and Mikoto tagged along to check on the destruction and Konori was there to help with the witness interviews.
"So can you tell us what you saw?" Uiharu questioned a tall high school student.
"A lot of weirdoes. A hobo got into a fight with this red haired guy wearing priest robes."
"Priest robes?" Kuroko was more than a little skeptical.
"Yeah, that guy got blown up but then this guy pulled him out of the fire. The fire didn't even touch him, weird spiky hair kid."
"Spiky hair?" Konori and Mikoto both jumped on that description.
"Yeah, there was a big breasted girl who was carrying a spear there too."
"A spear?" Saten spoke up confused as to why anyone would have a spear.
"Oh, and there was a small girl in a white nun outfit."
"Nun outfit?" Uiharu couldn't help but think of someone she met recently.
"Yeah, they showed up right before the explosion went off. The spiky haired boy ran into the explosion and saved a small pink haired girl before he saved the priest."
"Wait, a pink haired girl?" Yomikawa spoke up as she walked away from the crime scene toward the witness.
She might not suspect anything from a vague description of a pink haired girl but there was also the spiky hair description. She couldn't help but assume that her friend who looked like a pink haired girl got involved with a certain unfortunate boy. She reached for her cell phone.
In a small restaurant Stiyl took the batteries out of the phones. "We can't let him trace us. We don't know what he's capable of." After Touma explained the situation he knew he had to be careful.
"I don't think he can hack computers." Touma pointed out.
"No, but in this city he could bribe someone. He got into the city by bribing the crew of an airplane to let him travel without reporting him. He bribed them with a dumpster full of gold. I think he came up with a means to turn objects into gold like Limen Magna." Stiyl explained. "We'll turn your phone on every half an hour to check if anyone in London has anything."
"And what do we do in the mean time?" Komoe couldn't help but ask.
"We try and keep moving." Stiyl told her. "If he knows your apartment we can't go to anyone you know since it's likely he'll be aware of them too. And we can't go to any officers because they won't understand anything that is happening. We are on our own." He turned to Itsuwa. "Hiding in plain sight is your area of experience."
Itsuwa was the only one there that could hide in a crowd but if she pulled out the spear she had in her bag she'd stand out as much as they did. "We go somewhere with a lot of people, where we can hide. The shop district, there are a lot of people to help blend into and shops to hide in if we get spotted."
"Let's do that then." Stiyl wished silently that he had a cigarette.
It was easy to believe that Yomikawa along with the girls were all a little panicked when none of their calls went through. After their work was done they started to search the city but they wouldn't have to search long.
As the strange group walked by the shops they were forced to the walls when crowds of people started to run past them.
"What now?!" Touma yelled.
"Trouble." Index said, pointing towards the end of the road.
Before them were stone shapes, the size and basic shape of the alchemist, stumbling towards them. There were dozens of the figures each with one massive eye where the face should be.
"What are those?" Komoe asked.
"Homunculi." Index said drawing from the countless magical text in her head. "They are like golems, creatures made to look like humans but these are incomplete. These are only shaped out of stone and they don't have much of a mind. They must be sent out to track us down. These are quickly made out of stone without any real features."
"So like magical robots?" Komoe tried to wrap her head around the concept.
As Itsuwa started to assemble her spear Stiyl spoke, "We have to get out of here. It's likely they are connected to De Leon and he already knows we are here."
"You guys get out of here." Touma told them. "I'll keep them from chasing after you."
Itsuwa quickly leapt forwards and pulled out the parts of her spear and started to put it together. "I will not leave you. I will stay and fight with you."
"You don't have to." Touma tried to explain. "I think I-"
"No, I'm supposed to protect you against this sort of thing. I will remain by your side and fight." She was determined, almost frighteningly determined.
"…..Okay." Yeah he was a little scared, you would be too.
"I'm staying too." Index quickly joined in.
"No," Touma told her. "Stiyl is still weak and you can't do much but you can sense magic. You can use that ability to stay ahead of them. You can help Komoe more than you can help us."
Index hated to admit it but Touma had a point, she slunk her shoulders as she got ready to leave.
"We can't just leave you." Tears started to form in the corners of the teacher's eyes at the very thought of leaving her students.
"We'll be fine." Touma insisted as he leapt forwards and punched one of stone made men, making it fall into little more than grabble when it contacted his right fist.
One of the homunculus reached towards Touma when he had his back turned but Itsuwa acted quickly and plunged the spear into its eye. The stone structure fell apart with a simple twist of the spear. Komoe looked at her students and realized that her students were young but they could certainly handle what the world could throw at them. Komoe was a bit proud to know her students were that capable but like a mother hen she still worried for them. She had reason to be scared for them, those two were about to face an entire army made of stone, an army straight out of some legend. Komoe truly believed they could do anything but asking them to take on an army seemed a little much.
The small teacher was about to say something when lightning crackled down the road hitting the stone made men and shattering them.
"What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into now?" Mikoto said from the other end of the street with sparks coming off her bangs.
"I didn't do anything!" Touma yelled back trying to wipe of some of the dust from his face. When the homunculi exploded it had covered his confused face.
"Right." Mikoto glared. "What is she doing here?" She pointed at Itsuwa. "And why does she have a spear? Who in this day and age has a spear?"
"Yomikawa!" Komoe gleefully cheered as she saw her friend along with the other girls coming their way.
The gym teacher in her full Anti-Skill armor said, "What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into now?" Yomikawa didn't think that Touma was the cause of it but she knew that Touma often got himself into trouble and she had even witnessed a few situations herself.
"You even dragged a little girl into your mess this time!?" Mikoto yelled as she pointed to Komoe.
"I'm not a little girl." Komoe tried to reason with the girl.
"Don't worry." The Level Five Esper patted her head. "Misaka will help you."
"I'm not a little girl!" Komoe yelled flailing her arms. "You! You are that girl from Ichihanaransai! The unofficial visitor who snuck into the school!"
"Quiet little girl!" Mikoto blushed brightly as she tried to quiet her down.
"That's my teacher!" Touma shouted not willing to let anyone disrespect his cute teacher.
"What?! You have a preschooler as a teacher!?" Mikoto shouted.
"She's actually older than I am." Yomikawa told the girl in a dry manner.
Saten spoke up in an excited fashion, "She really is a teacher." Saten explained. "I had to take extra courses and she was the instructor. I looked into it later and found out she's one of the Seven Wonders of Academy City because she looks so young."
"Wow, is this the result of some sort of experiment to stop aging?" Uiharu questioned the teacher.
"What's going on?" Konori tried to get to the point. "What's going on here?"
"How did you even find us?" Touma shot back.
"We were looking for you after a witnessed described you at the attack in the mall and we couldn't get our calls through." Konori explained. "We were nearby when we got a call about stone men walking around here."
"It's happening all over the city." Uiharu said, pulling up the reports on her smart phone.
"And why have they stopped moving?" Yomikawa leveled her rifle at the unmoving homunculi.
"I didn't need them to attack any of you." Charles De Leon turned a corner and looked at them. "You with all your questions distracted them long enough for me to arrive here."
"Surrender now and stop your attack." Yomikawa turned her attention to the man.
"I can't do that but don't worry the attack on the rest of the city has already been stopped, I don't need them now that I found her." He pointed at the timid Komoe.
"Why do you want her?" Kuroko questioned.
"You're an esper, you can't possible understand anything to do with magic."
"Magic?" Kuroko scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous, there is no such thing as magic."
Charles bent down to the ground and pulled out a small stone from his pocket. The small stone was yellowish orange. He pressed it to the ground. "Earth and stone take the shape of man, rise up and follow my command."
The ground around them started to glow orange and crack. All of a sudden stone hands reached up from the ground and dozens of homunculi pulled themselves up from it, and then gathered around Komoe and the others.
"I'd rather avoid hurting anyone I don't have to." Charles stared them down.
"What are you?" Kuroko questioned him. "What kind of esper power is this?"
"It's not an esper power of any sort." Charles spat out. "Now surrender before I have to hurt anyone."
"Stop!" Komoe yelled. "I'll go with you but don't hurt anyone." She simply saw it as the right thing to do, if she could prevent anyone else getting hurt she was fine with sacrificing herself.
"No." A definite and loud no came from Touma."You are not giving yourself up."
"But-" She tried to talk some sense into him.
"No buts. You think giving yourself up to protect us from pain is what we want, it isn't. Komoe, you have done so much for me and so much for every one of your students. Each and every one of us loves you. If you get hurt or don't come back to class each and every one of your students would be hurt far worse. I wouldn't be able to walk back to class and look everyone in the eyes if I didn't try everything I could to protect you. So please let me do this. Don't give up, keep fighting so that you can go and see your students all smiling again. I promise you that if you don't give up I'll make it happen."
Komoe smiled with tears in her eyes, she was proud of Touma, she was proud of the man he was becoming. She was certain when he graduated, if he managed to, she'd be proud of whatever he would do. This touching moment was shattered when a blast of gold light struck his side knocking him to the ground. Normally Touma could have reacted quick enough to negate such an attack but with his focus on Komoe and his left side facing the attack he barely moved. His entire left side below his head had turned into gold and Touma slapped it with his right hand. With a sound like glass shattering his body returned to normal. Still Touma groaned out in pain.
Charles just said in an emotionless tone as he held a small gold stone. "I suppose having half your body stop working for even a second must hurt."
"Let's find out." Mikoto, outraged, flung a lightning spear at De Leon. The attack wasn't enough to kill him but enough to scourge his shoulder. He stumbled backwards but quickly got back on his feet, "Ow! I just got this suit." He ran his fingers through the newly created hole in his suit.
Before their eyes the wound sealed itself and flacks of burnt skin just fell off to reveal new skin. "Can we stop this? You can zap me, shoot me, hang me, stab me, beat my skull in and it won't stop me."
"That's impossible." Kuroko spoke what most of her group was thinking.
They believed that the man before them was an esper but he seemed to have more than one power and that was impossible on its own.
"I really don't want to get more people hurt." He pulled out a pouch from his pocket. The pouch had a small protective spell on it and inside it held his stones and a few charms he carried. He pulled out a small charm attached to rosary beads. "I pray that you hear my request. I ask you for the gift of a restful and deep sleep." The charm was nestled between his hands as in a prayer. Touma's right hand kept him from being affected and Itsuwa, Stiyl and Index knew enough tricks to keep the weak charm from working on them. The others dropped to the ground fast asleep. The homunculi started to move towards them and Touma got up and punched the nearest one into dust without wasting another moment.
"Don't waste your time." Stiyl told him. "Get the others, we're outnumbered and need the help." The magician really didn't want to admit he needed help but he found himself weakened and fighting a stone man with his hands.
Index was at a loss for what to do, homunculus aren't hard to fight but they were formed in a new way so it was a little tricky. While she went over the books in her head Index jumped on one of them and tried to bite its head. Touma rushed over to the others and started touching them with his right hand one after another, waking them by breaking the magic that put them asleep.
"What happened?" Yomikawa asked trying to get up to speed.
"I broke the magic spell on you and now we're under attack."
She didn't know what to make of the magic part but certainly got that they were under attack. Yomikawa picked up her rifle and used the bullets to rip the homunculi apart. The others quickly fell in line as Itsuwa continued to attack the homunculi, Mikoto let loose several lightning spears to shatter them and Kuroko quickly grabbed one of the homunculus and teleported it above another and let them crash into one another. Then she noticed how Touma was fighting and got distracted and one of the homunculus managed to knock her out. Uiharu and Saten struggled to fight the homunculi, they didn't have much luck but the homunculi weren't that intelligent so they mostly just drew them into the line of fire that Yomikawa provided.
During the fight Konori had gotten cornered and Index noticed her, Index realized something then, "The eye. Attack the eye. It's mostly animated stone but the eye is the part that has been most altered and thus most unstable."
Konori really didn't understand what she said but landed a punch on one of the homunculus right on the eye and to her surprise it cracked. Cracks formed around the eye and started to spread before it fell to bits.
Touma continued to fight off the homunculi as best he could only armed with his right hand. Touma was determined to protect everyone so despite getting a little roughed up in the process he never wavered.
"Stop!" A voice yelled out.
That was when they noticed that Komoe had gotten away from them and went over to the alchemist. "Please stop." The homunculi all stopped by a silent command from the alchemist. "I'll go with you but just promise you won't hurt them."
"No!" Touma tried to say but found himself grabbed by the homunculi as did everyone else. "I can stop him." He pleaded with her.
"I do believe in you, Kamijou." Komoe explained. "I just can't let any of you get hurt for my sake."
Touma refused to accept that answer and frantically used his right hand to shatter the homunculus that grabbed him but more sacrificed themselves to hold him back.
The alchemist walked over to a building and held a small green stone. "I can't let you stop me. I don't want to hurt anyone but I refuse to die. Transmute carbon, iron and cooper into sulfur." The surface of the building started to ripple and the smell of rotten eggs started to spread in the air and that was when the building started to creak. "Free chemistry lesson: elements like sulfur are called non-metals and are rather brittle. If you take random components from a building and replace them with sulfur what do you think will happen?" He didn't wait for Touma to answer. "Here is your choice: follow me or use your right hand to undo that and stop a building from collapsing on everyone here." The alchemist ran off with the small teacher.
Touma, infuriated, escaped from the homunculi and quickly raced to the building. He wanted to go after Komoe but he didn't know if there were people in the building and he wasn't sure the others could escape the fall. So with all his strength he punched the building and a loud unnatural sound rang out as the building settled. As he looked around he hoped to catch sight of his pink haired teacher but there wasn't any.
In London the magic side worked hard to decipher the codes on Charles De Leon's notes.
"Ah!" Orsola let out. "I found it. The ritual!"
"What is it?" Tsuchimikado asked.
"It's a recipe for soup. It looks good. Maybe it needs a little salt though."
Tsuchimikado sighed as he face palmed. There wasn't much hope.
Authors Notes: First off special thanks to my beta reader icefriend. I'm struggling with a cold so I don't know when I'll update. This cold is kicking my rear. Anyway I hope you like this chapter and are enjoying the story so far. The next arc will be focused on a certain mental out so there is that to look forwards too. I'm going to try and rest so leave a review in the mean while.