italics - thoughts
Bold - Emphasis
Italics Bold - Magic names or titles
"normal" - speech
" underlined bold " - Mental transmissions
Underlined - Flashback
{Bold}- Magic spells or abilities
Disclaimer:I do not own Toaru Majutsu no Index nor its characters. All rights belong to Kazuma Kamachi. Except for my own characters that I create
Chapter 28: Clash of the Hands Pt. 2
The situation was very easy to comprehend. The moment he burst back into his apartment, all Touma said was this, and everyone there understood what had to be done.
"Kamisato Kakeru is going to be here very soon." He said. "He already knows that Nephthys and Othinus are here. The two Magic Gods(though, one of them can't even use magic in her current state)" are his main targets, while it seems that Birdway-san is his secondary one. Since Index and I are in the way, he would not hesiatate to come after us as well. To sum it up, no one is safe"
"Is that so…" Othinus clambered up Touma's hoodie, before she nestled herself in her usual place under his hood. "Anything else to add?"
"…Yeah." Touma paused for a moment, before he looked at Levinia straight in the eye. "Birdway, are you hiding anything?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Kamisato said you are."
"Oh, come on!" Levinia sighed. "You're going to believe what the enemy tells you?"
"…" Touma did not say anything. Instead of glaring or yelling at her, he crouched down to her level and silently stared her right in the eye. After a while, she looked away awkwardly.
"The cannibalization fruit will grow to completion in my body and it will entirely resolve the Sample Shoggoth parasite issue if my sister eats it. That isn't a problem. There won't be any strange side effects and I have no ulterior motive here." Levinia still did not look at Touma when she spoke, causing him to stare at her even more.
Then what aren't you telling us? Out with it. That was what Touma was thinking, and he was projecting it towards the small cabal boss. Common sense dictated that no one would be able to tell what the other party was thinking that easily, yet Levinia could tell anyway.
She sighed. "The fruit is-"
*Bang bang*
Suddenly, Touma's door was knocked on heavily, interrupting the cabal boss. Before Touma could react, the door was smashed off its hinges by a kick.
"Oi!" Barging into the small apartment was surprisingly, Informant. Beads of sweat was running down his face, indicating he had ran there. "You ther…" He paused when he saw the scene of Touma's face being close to Levinia's somewhat flushed one. "…I saw nothing…I heard nothing…yosh, I saw nothing!"
"Annnnnd what the hell do you mean by that?!" Touma reacted first, quickly grabbing onto Informant's shoulder before he left. "Also, pay for my door!"
"Nothing." He said a little too quickly. "And I will pay for your door, but first, let's get away from here, yeah?"
"…That was the plan, anyway." Reluctantly, Touma took his hand off from Informant's shoulder, but quickened his pace in getting what they needed: The ramen that Percival had gotten for them, his valuables which consisted of his phone and wallet, and slipped his backpack onto his body. "Alright," Shouldering the pack, Touma turned to Informant. "Where to?"
"My place." Informant gestured for them to follow him. "Also, I know you are going to do it, so don't bother locking your door or checking on Tsuchimikado Motoharu. Since i kicked down your door pretty hard, and cause Kamisato-san is not going to bother hurting your friend. Not when it does not help him in reaching his goal as fast as possible in this instance, anyway. After all, what good is there is holding a hostage when you can get nearly 100 girls to look for someone? Especially if among those girls, a few of them are tracking experts?"
Timeskip
It took quite a bit of time for the small group to reach their destination. What should have been a simple 20 minute walk turned into an hour and a half of dodging into shadows and evading the watchful eyes of the CCTV cameras and the eyes in the sky from the Kamisato Faction.
Though, it was thanks to that they managed to even get to Informant's apartment with little trouble. But if one asked if the journey was smooth sailing…the answer was no.
After all, behind every corner, they met some out-out-of-place looking female. She also did not bother blending in, which made it easier for them to evade them. But at the same time, it was tough on the small group, as it meant that they were at a high risk of being discovered by the Kamisato Faction and having all of them killed(especially the targeted Magic Gods). In fact, they had a close call the moment they left the small apartment that was Touma's home! But at the end of it, they managed to get to Informant's home, which apparently doubled as Percival's and Thor's who greeted them when they arrived.
"Heya Kamijou-kun!" Thor grinned as he waved his hand at them like he was greeting an old friend. "Still alive and kicking after dealing with Misaka-san, I see?"
"No thanks to you…" Touma bitterly replied. "I nearly died from my classmates trying to hang me for gathering the attention of a level 5 and dating her."
"Nonsense!" Thor slung an arm over Touma's shoulder. "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger! Speaking of, I can't wait to fight against those three Magic Gods that you have been harbouring! Especially Othi-chan! I mean, I have a high chance of dying, but like I said, if it does not kill me, I will grow stronger instead!"
"You might have to hold that thought indefinitely, Thor." Informant gave a small smile. "For one, one of the Magic Gods Kamijou-san was 'harbouring', as you said, is gone, having been banished by Kamisato a short time ago. As for the other two…well, I suppose let's see if you still want to fight them once everything is settled."
"….You should have just said he would only be able to fight against one Magic god after all of this is over, Informant." A female voice spoke from Touma's hoodie, confusing Thor for a few moments until the war goddess that had spoken popped her head out, causing his jaw to drop in shock. "I can't fight him properly in my current state after all."
"…"
"Well, you can't blame me for trying to give Thor some hope, right?" Informant walked past the dumbfounded magician that was formerly part of the terrorist group GREMLIN, rummaging through a fairly new drawer amidst the burn marks they could see here and there. "He needs thing to look forward to, otherwise everything would fall to pieces. As it is, everything is hanging delicately right now…" informant winced as he pressed a hand to his temple. "…hang on, what happened after this?" He muttered, much to the slight confusion of everyone watching. "…Lilith? No, that was further back…was it? …No, that's too far back…."
Informant winced heavily again, and this time, Touma rushed forward in a panic as blood started to trickle from Informant's ears for some inexplicable reason.
"Hey, you okay?" Touma caught Informant's surprisingly slightly muscular and scrawny frame before the boy could collapse.
"…yeah…" Informant shook his head, before he took a handkerchief out of his pocket to clean away at the blood that had flowed out of his ears. "Sorry, that happens from time to time. It's nothing."
"Nothing?" Touma echoed.
"Nothing." Informant reaffirmed. "It's like having your nose bleed when you receive too great a stimulation at once. In my case, it is more because I travelled here. After some time passes, this small illness of mine would disappear naturally."
"…ah." Touma recalled what he had wanted to speak with Levina about. "Speaking of illness…" Touma looked back at the cabal boss again. "Birdway. You still haven't told us what you are hiding from us."
Said cabal boss huffed. "I was hoping you would have forgotten." She muttered, before she sighed, and spoke in a tone of complete resignation. "…well, I may or may not have neglected to mention that once the fruit is fully grown, it might cause my body to burst from within."
"Huh?"
"Hmm, actually, I take it back. The fruit would definitely cause my body to suddenly break. I knew that since its designing phase."
"…So, the fruit is so big, it would essentially kill you?!" Touma practically shouted as his eyes bugged out of his head in shock and anger.
"That's why I didn't want to tell you and why I couldn't get my cabal's help." Leivinia shook her head. "If they knew their boss's plan would result in her death no matter what, they would have done everything they could to preserve the organisation instead of helping out my sister Patricia! For better or worse, my death would be too influential."
"Of course they would try to save you!" Touma retorted. "No one want to see their most influential leaders die ! In fact, how on earth were you planning on getting the fully grown fruit out of yourself?"
"I have a type of spiritual medicine for that, so don't worry." Leivinia patted her chest. "With it, I can pull out the fruit without having to surgically open up my body. I'm sure that the grimoire library could give you an explanation on medicine men, but just like with rainmakers, this simply uses the a lot of what Westerns think…of….as…African…magic." Leivinia trailed off.
"….What's wrong?" Touma felt a sense of dread crawling up his spine.
"…I…lost the spiritual item…"
"…how?"
"…I think…when we were nearly caught by those plants…my clothes got caught by the vines…"
S-such Misfortune… Touma just KNEW that somehow, this was all his fault. And then, there was also the fact that even if they had the item in question to remove the fruit, there was the other, glaring problem of Leivinia's body bursting from the fruit growing to its peak condition. Did Birdway's sister know about Birdway's condition? If so, was the reason why she rejected it because she knew what would happen one the fruit reached its conclusion? Did she at least understand her sister's condition even if she did not know about magic?
"You know, getting that fruit out of ou is not that big of a problem."
"Huh?" Touma turned towards Informant, confused. "What do you mean?"
"Did you forget that Percival and I came from the future?" Informant took out a medical case from his storage band. "We managed to create a medical box that allows one to do precise surgery on a patient for a short time, without said patient dying. I think this is one of the best magic and science combinations that was created to date."
"What do you mean?" Touma asked. When he heard that the fruit being removed was going to be easy, he felt most of his worries disappear. He trusted Percival's and Informant's skills, even if one of them was a little less…trustworthy due to his personality of being a joker half the time and a tease. And he was a little curious as to how magic and science could help create an impromptu surgery operation.
"Well," Informant explained. "There is only a limited number of things in the medical box," He lifted up the large pill-box like medical case for emphasis. "But thanks to magic, everything is kept sterile, and with just one word, you can change the tool in your hand to its desired shape. What's more, by using a combination of magic and drugs, the patient can be operated on safely without fear of bleeding out. Only problem is that you have to be skilled with your hands, otherwise you would do more harm than good, since it slows down the time around the patient and speeds up the reaction speed and internal thinking of the person administering the first aid. So with this, we can safely remove the fruit before it is fully grown in Leivinia-san's chest."
Then, Informant frowned. "But you know that this is only a stop-gap measure, right? Even if you manage to cultivate the fruit and get your sister to eat it, the parasite in her would only be satisfied for so long before it starts again."
"…" Leivinia kept quiet at that. "…I know…but this would buy her time, at the very least."
"That is true." Informant agreed, before he rolled up his sleeves and donned on a white scrub, placing rubber surgical gloves over each hand as he did so. "So let's get started on the operation then, shall we? I won't damage it, nor your body. In fact, once Percival comes back, he can restore you back to peak health if needed."
Timeskip
The operation, it it could be called that, took less than 20 minutes. Leivinia was resting peacefully on the large bed that was placed at the corner of the room, her chest rising and falling rhythmically. Good. Looks like Birdway is fine…
Touma turned his attention to the cause of the operation. There, in a glass cylinder with tubes feeding into it, was a shrivelled-up looking ball of…something, that looked more like a prune than anything. "So, that was the fruit that Birdway was growing in her body?"
"Yeah." Informant took off his scrubs and gloves, which had little blood on them. "In all honesty, I am rather surprised that she did not die. This thing was pressing against her heart, lungs and ribs. How she did not get winded, or even suffocate herself for that matter, is a miracle. Though, I can guess the main reason why she survived is her using magic to help alleviate the pressure, like temporarily increasing the cavity of her chest or something of the like."
"…I see…" Touma sighed.
Informant frowned. "What is it?"
"You come from the future, right?" Upon seeing Informant's head nod, Touma continued. "Well, then, what happened to me? What did I do?"
"…you wish to know the future." it was a statement, not a question.
"Yeah." Touma agreed. The two of them were watching the evening view from the window they were facing. It was…calming, in a way for the duo. "I want to know what I did in my life. Call it plain curiosity or whatever, but I…want to know."
"…" At first, Informant kept quiet, then he sighed. "…knowing the future is a big no-no usual. At least, from what I heard. After all, there is the danger of creating paradoxes and what not. But at this point, there is no use if you know what happened in the future or not, I guess."
"…" Touma kept quiet, listening to Informant speak.
Informant sighed. "Well, first of, not much is known about you after a certain incident. Before that, everyone knew that you were the leader, of the Kamijou Faction, and had a harem."
"There is no Kamijou Faction, and there is no harem." Touma said in a long suffering voice. "please don't tell me that joke the other guys said spread that much in the future."
"Unfortunately, this is the truth for both parts." Informant patted Touma's shoulder comfortingly. "After a few years from now, you would official form the Kamjou Faction. This was done to protect the Sisters, really, who were in danger of being exposed and culled due to the places they had been sent to lacking the materials needed to continue tuning them to live full lives. With the creation of the Kamijou Faction, you could gather all the Sisters in one place for them to live out their own lives, while also keeping their status as clones a secret. And, as the Kamijou Faction, you would intervene in skirmishes between the Magic and Science side to protect the innocent. And if need be, you yourself and the executive members of the Faction would step in to resolve the situation. More often than not, you were called up because of your unique skillset. And your main base of operations was a hotel(*1*). You worked as the hotel owner and bar chef since you like to cook."
"…huh." Touma admit, he could kind of see himself forming the Kamijou Faction now if if it was to protect others. Granted, he still believed not forming them was the best, but after hearing that it was believed the Faction had been formed during WW3 straight from the person who was from the future…well, he could not exactly say that the Faction did not exist if literally everyone else did.
Peer pressure is a scary thing.
"And as for your harem(*2*), well this was more because of your bleeding heart of trying to protect everyone." Informant stated. "From what I managed to gather from those involved at the time, you married them because through that union they would gain an immunity from being targeted at specifically. And more often than not, these targets had feelings for you, in one way or the other. And so, after the tenth wedding, when everyone got drunk…" Informant refused to look at Touma's face when he spoke.
Touma had a bad feeling. "…what happened?" He gulped.
"…you had an orgy. With all of your wives. And they all got pregnant."
"…please tell me you are joking." Touma felt the colour drain from his face.
"Why would I joke about ten kids of yours getting their old man's sheer stubbornness and their mother's quirks?" Informant raised an eyebrow at that. "Your kids grew up to be like you, people who would help those in need. Though, they were a bit more selective, since they had no need to feel like they had to repent for something out of their control."
"…my hand?"
"Your hand." Informant confirmed, sighing heavily. "Honestly, I still don't see why you think that your hand is the reason why you keep downplaying yourself."
"But it's the truth!" Touma protested. "I may not see it to the same level of Kamisato Kakeru, but without Imagine Breaker, then I would not have been able to solve all those incidents!"
"Please." Informant rolled his eyes at Touma. "Your hand does not make you special. It is the other way around."
"…huh?" Touma blinked. "I don't follow."
"It is because you are special that Imagine Breaker chose you." Informant stressed. "Like Kamisato Kakeru, you had something that made you stand out from the rest that caused it to choose you. Sure, your right hand may have helped play a major part in getting you to the place you are now, and will reach in the future, but at the end of the day, it was just a part of what made you 'Kamijou Touma'. This would remain true, memories of your past 15 odd years or no. Your body, your soul, remains the same at the end of the day."
"…my…soul?" Touma asked.
"Yeah." Informant stretched. "Well, I guess that is enough talking for now. You should get some rest. I'll make sure Thor is occupied enough that he won't start a fight with a Magic God unnecessarily."
"…what about you?" Touma did not question who Informant had managed to get the battle maniac to stay in his room without destroying everything.
"I have some sorting to do." Informant scratched the back of his head. "Well, go on. Take a nap for now. I'll alert if things hit the fan."
Touma took the offer. Washing his face a bit, Touma sagged into one of those beanbags he had seen laying about the apartment, and closed his eyes.
When Touma next awoke, the sun had fully set, leaving a dark night that loomed over Academy City.
"Good. You're awake." Touma looked to his side to see Informant looming over him. "We have to go. Now."
"Are they here?" Touma felt his drowsiness from his nap disappear almost instantly.
"Close." Informant's face had a grim expression set on it. "Percival just sent me a message. He stalled them as best he could, but in the end he had to retreat. Kamisato's girls are nearing this location."
"Isn't that too fast?!" Touma blinked in surprise.
"Not really." Informant shrugged. "I don't know how long you were expecting us to be able to hold out, but the reality of the situation is that the combination of magic and science is too strong for any of us to escape from. Especially because they have a forensic specialist on their side who is able to track us easily. If anything, I was expecting us to be found sooner. And now," Informant dropped a bag onto Touma's lap. "we should make our way out of here. I would rather not have even more information be destroyed because of your Faction members, Kamijou-san."
"I don't even have a faction set up officially yet." Touma complained, yet he there was no heat behind his words.
"Blame it on your misfortune." Informant opened the door, allowing Touma to see the other girls. Index was busy stuffing her face with some of the cup noodles he had brought from his dorm. Leivinia was drinking some sort of colourful concoction in a glass, and as for the two Magic gods…
Touma was a little put off by the sight of Nephthys having streams of tears roll down her face as she watched a show that as airing on the television. Touma remembered seeing it once. It was about two lovers who had been separated due to death, but were trying to make their way to each other as they reincarnated again and again. It was cliche to hell and back, and corny too, but it was a good show. So…
"Why is Nephthys crying?!" Touma could not help but ask in a bewildered tone.
"Yes, yes. Sorry about that. I'm just so susceptible to this kind of thing. …Crying with someone is part of my very essence, so I just can't stand it. Oh, no. Here it comes again! Fwehhh!"
"The tears are pouring like a waterfall again! How can you possibly get this invested only thirty seconds after changing the channel!?"
"Well, she's the crying woman who is paid to weep at a funeral. That's probably why she's so quick to tears." Othinus supplied in an uncaring tone as she too watched the show. "But even if she'll cry at cheap melodrama or feel her heart warmed by a picture book that adults can enjoy too, that very aspect of her is what makes her a true Magic God that can easily destroy the world. The easier she's swept away by emotion, the more frightening and violent her systematic divinity is."
"Sob, sob. Othinus…you're mean."
"…I see…" Touma blinked. "Well, I'll wake Birdway up, so let's go already, shall we?" Or rather, how she has not woken up yet from all this sobbing is a mystery!
Timeskip
Just before they left, Touma pulled Leivinia aside to ask her something. "Birdway," He started. "if I use my right hand…do you think your sister would be saved? When we first encountered the two of you, my right hand sounded when it came into contact with the parasite."
When she heard that, Leivinia raised an eyebrow. "…I see. I expected Imagine Breaker to work to an extent…but it doesn't matter. If you try to erase that parasite's existence, it would rampage and kill Patricia."
"Then, what if we get Kamisato's help?" Touma asked, a small bitter taste in his mouth. Not from having to ask his enemy for help, but rather, from his feelings about the boy himself. "He may be able to find a way to get that parasite out of her. If most of it is out, wouldn't it be fine if I use my right hand to erase it and for Percival to heal your sister? After all, he managed to heal the damaged neural pathways in my head using magic."
"…allow me to think about it." Leivinia narrowed her eyes as she frowned and sighed. "There is no guarantee that Kamisato would be bae to fully help my sister. And without the fruit I had been cultivating threatening to kill me anymore, Patricia may be more willing to use my method if I explain that I was using growth hormones and such to grow a fruit made of corn starch in my body using some research papers I came across."
It did not take long.
They had been slowly making their way away from the apartment that Percival and Informant called home when they encountered their first road block
An amorphous blob reflected the faint light coming in from outside. It emitted a sticky light like glow-in-the- dark paint and it was covered in what could have been eyeballs or suckers. Trying to stare at it to perceive its silhouette only made it look like a deep-sea octopus, chopped up pieces of fat, or a film of rubber being melted from within. It was like viewing a flag for so long that each individual colour stood out more than the overall meaning.
Different points wriggled, sharpened, and fired what looked like spears in every direction.
Shit! Touma moved, but it was not he who defended against it in the end.
Leivinia moved first. With the sound of a large cloth beating the air, her entire body was quickly covered by that rotting red carpet Touma had found her in in the beginning.
"Birdway!"
"This is not time to be picky!" Leivinia spared a glance back at the spiky haired boy. "Your Imagine Breaker works against Sample Shoggoth, but it is the only thing that is stopping my sister from dying. If you remove too much of it, it might rampage and kill Patricia! "Your mind isn't up to enduring a death, is it!? Either way, this is perfect for me. My foolish sister ran away from home, got lost, and ended up in some guy's home, so I need to have a talk with her!"
That black mass, Sample Shoggoth, had some form of intelligence. It was a parasite that had hooked onto Patricia during a trip to Antarctica and Kamisato Kakeru had supposedly taken her in.
So why was she out here, fighting her own sister with this black mass? And was she even controlling the mass at all? Best case scenario was that Patricia only got away with minor injuries. The worst case…would be the death of the two sisters.
That bastard! Touma grit his teeth in anger, but did not waste time trying to help. As it was, there was surely going to be more girls that were going to surround them. And no two of them were the same. All of them, in order to help and support Kamisato, had some kind of tricky, specialized supernatural power or technology. If they all dogpiled Touma at once and attacked him, he would be unable to properly analyse them all and dish out the suitable counters in time.
"Urgh!" Suddenly, Nephthys grunted.
"Nephthys?!" Touma shouted at the Magic god in worry. He could not turn his head to look at her, since he could see three to four separate flashlights from three to four different phones being used to further illuminate the rather dark location they were in.
"Human, it looks like Nephthys got hit by something similar to that Turn-To-A-Fairy Spell that Ollerus came up with." Othinus told her Understander from her position in Touma's hoodie.
"That's bad isn't it?!" Touma hurriedly moved to touch the chocolate-skinned goddess, but blinked in surprise when the small glow he spied on Nephthys's back, where she had been hit, did not disappear. It was obviously the origin of her discomfort, as she tried to claw it out of he skin, yet even when he touched it with his hand, it did not disperse. "Wait...why isn't this working?"
"Heh…" One of the girls from the Kamisato faction smirked. "That spell was something we improvised from the one that was used against Othinus. Since it did not kill her, we decided to help Kamisato-kun out by remodelling the spell such that it would attempt to turn any Magic god into a fairy through a slow and painful process. Your hand won't work since we are exploiting an obvious weakness of it!"
"…In other words, an unrefined version of the spell that turned me into this form, plus another spell that either regenerates the spell's magic circle so quickly it outpaces your negation, or it is a seal that protects the spell's origin from being destroyed." Othinus clicked her tongue. "The Kamisato Faction sure has been busy these past few months."
…Well, if it is not killing Nephthys, we can just leave it for later. Touma reluctantly concluded in his mind. "Index! Target that fox girl and this one here!" Touma quickly delegated a task for the walking grimoire library. "They are magicians at the very least! You will also have to support Nephthys as we get away from here."
"Understood, Touma." Index did not question the boy in his words, instead moving to act on them as quickly as possible. "B-A-A-H-Y-C! (Back away and hit your caster!)"
This technique of Index's was called {Spell Intercept}. In the past, she believed she could not refine any mana into magic power, so she could not use magic. But because of this, combined with her immense knowledge of magic thanks to the 103,000 grimoires in her head, she could chant empty and meaningless incantations to interfere with another's magic, take control of it, and make it act out an intentional mistake.
And with her using that just now, she took out the magicians in their midst.
"Waaaah!? Wh-what the hell!?" The busty delinquent girl shouted in a panic. The plastic bottle she had been cradling like a baby suddenly exploded, causing the ten yen coins that had filled it to scatter outwards like a shotgun. But unlike a shotgun, it stopped midair before it altered their trajectories and smashed themselves into the limbs of the people surrounding them, causing them to either buckle from the sudden impact and/or drop their weapons in hand.
As for the other girl…a single coin hit her head with an audible sound. And judging by the sounds, Touma belived she had been knocked out.
They may not have been as fast as his girlfriend's signature move, her Railgun, but that was fine. It may not have defeated them, but that was fine. All he needed was for them to flinch for a brief moment.
Touma used that time to stare into the darkness and look for the true enemy he had to face. These girls were nothing more than the distraction.
That boy was their greatest fighter and their Achilles' heel.
Kamisato Kakeru was the only one who could deal the final blow towards the Magic gods. The girls around him may have been powerful in their own right, but like that second magician had said,
He was both the protector and the pillar of the Kamisato Faction. Should he be in danger, everything would stop. After all, they were not a magic organisation, nor a trained army. They were merely a group that were tied by good will. If the target of that good will was attacked…they would instinctually move to help him.
No matter what the person said.
"Kamisatooooooooo!"
With Othinus on his shoulder, Touma raced full speed ahead. He had no idea on how many fighters there were lurking in the shadows, nor did he care about them at the moment. There were far too many for him to analyse, and even if he did know the exact number that he had to face, what good would it do for him?
No, he had to face the big boss for this to all end.
Said big boss had World Rejector. A weapon with unknown effects, conditions for use, and range. Other than the fact it was a weapon that had the same obscurity and usage as Imagine Breaker, and that it had the ability to insta-kill Magic gods, they had no other information.
This gave the enemy the impression of a shadowy foe. But here was still hope for them.
I don't need to defeat them all or continually protect Index and the others. I just have to target their king. If their entire force turns my way, Index and the others will be safe!
"Do you wish for a new world?"
Out of the darkness, an arm that was not out of the ordinary in anyway was causally swung. That arm held World Rejector, a mysterious power that could kill a full-power Magic god if it hit.
Yet, Touma did not so much as flinch as he dashed towards the owner of that power, just barely dodging the deadly strike as he moved forwards.
"Kh."
Kamisato Kakeru gave off a hint of unease when he saw that. Something that Touma took advantage of.
As if making a low tackle, he threw his full body weight into Kamisato's hips. A dull sound rang out as the two crashed into some trash cans that were in the alleyway, before they rolled out into the street.
How does he aim it? Touma thought to himself as he went through the list of predictions he had. He doesn't actually touch whatever it is like I do. That wouldn't allow him to attack long range. Then is it anything he sees? Anything he points at? No, it isn't those either. If so, he wouldn't have attacked us here, nor keep everyone in the dark. He would have wanted to increase his field of vision. Which leaves...
"The shadow." Touma quickly got up from his previous position as he said that out loud. "You use your shadows to attack! That's why you chose to ambush us in such a dark area! This way, you can control how large you want your shadow to be, and freely determine what you want to be attacked and not!"
"Not bad given the situation." Kamisato groaned as he slowly rolled into a crouching position. "I didn't expect the arrangement of one hundred pieces on the board to nearly collapse after you came into contact with only Elza and me."
With a smile on his face, Kamisato swung his right arm in a wide arc.
Acting quickly, Touma dropped behind one of the trash cans that they had knocked over, using it as cover as he dug his hand into his pocket.
Almost effortlessly, the shadow swallowed up the trash can and its contents, leaving Touma out in the open. With another swing, the shadow made another pass, intent on hitting Touma this time.
But the appearance of a single phone changed everything.
Flipping it open and turning it on, the beam of light in the dark night acted as a physical shield, illuminating the area next to him and before him.
Allowing Touma to stay safe behind the impromptu source of light he created.
"Damn you!" As Kamisato tried to use his shadow to attack once more, Touma threw the bags of trash that had been laying around them, obscuring Kamisato's view.
With a snarl, the boy swiped his hand like a feral animal, making the trash vanish-
-and allow Touma to run in to smash his right fist into Kamisato's face.
"Urgh!" Dropping down and clutching his face in pain, Kamisato could not react in time as Touma tripped the boy up, causing him to fall to the ground and allowing him to get onto Kamisato's back. He swung his right hand randomly a few times, but each time, Touma avoided the cruel and powerful attack with the flashlight function of his phone.
Using his right hand to grasp onto the boy's flailing wrist, Touma flipped the boy over and smashed his forehead into the unsuspecting boy's face. "Pipe…dowwwwwn!"
"…Kh…khah…!?"
More so from having his brain knocked on then being knock out, Kamisato's eyes rolled in the back of his head.
Taking that chance, Touma released the boy's right hand and stomped on it, eliciting a cry of pain from him. Freeing both of his hands. Using his phone, he also shined it over the boy's hand for good measure, preventing the shadows from going any further than his own arm. This sealed the boy's ability, and allowed Touma the chance he wanted.
"Why did you bring Patricia here?" he spat out. "You made the worst possible decision! You went out of your way to set up a fight to the death between sisters! Did you think that was the most logical option? Were you stomping on their feelings to wear down our forces!?"
"…Shut up." Kamisato groaned. "This is what she wanted!"
With a dull sound, a pen appeared in his free hand, stabbing it into Touma's shoe that was holding his right down.
Due to the sudden pain, Touma lost his balance, freeing Kamisato's right hand. Rolling to the side, he kicked the pain that was still lodged in the shoe.
"Gah!" This time, Touma collapsed.
Once more, the two boys startled to grapple with each other, but none of them made any headway.
Kamisato's right hand, the hand that held World Rejector, utilised the shadow to execute its attacks.
Touma's right hand, the hand that held Imagine Breaker, required physical contact to work.
Both of them could have their attacks altered, or even stopped, just by grabbing the wrist of their respective opponent's right arm. Just like dealing with a person holding a knife, all one had to do was grab the enemy's wrist to alter it's trajectory or keep it from moving.
"I'm sure you understand the situation!" Kamisato snarled as he wrestled with Touma on the ground. "If one of those sisters is saved, the other will die. There's no time left. We can't put off making a decision."
"Whose side are you on?" Touma asked, anger present on his face. "It looks like you are on Patricia's side, but helping her defeat Birdway would be counterproductive towards your goal of helping her!"
"If you ware talking about that…thing in her chest," Kamisato's eyes did not waver as he spoke. "Then the plan was to crush it out of existence. That is the salvation we are heading for."
"What the hell are you talking about?!" Touma spat out.
"Patricia's explanation isn't enough to know what exactly her sister Leivinia is trying to do, but I do know that a definite limit is approaching. Meanwhile, the Sample Shoggoth living in Patricia's body may be harmful, but it has no set limit."
"What are you-…" Touma caught on, his eyes widening. "Wait, you can't mean…!"
"If Sample Shoggoth is not removed, Patricia will immediately die. …Who ever said that? I think you have the initial conditions wrong." Kamisato thrust forward the words that served as the basis for his plan. "And as long as Patricia's death is off the table, her sister Leivinia loses her reason for being here. The one sister does not have to risk her life if the other tries to coexist with the parasite. At the very least, it frees them from these insane scales that require one of them to lose their life. So we are trying to destroy the thing living inside Leivinia's chest. That will save both sisters."
"Do you even understand what you are saying?" Touma asked incredulously. " That parasite dissolved all of her body's fat and lives in the empty space that created! Do you know what it would mean to live with that for the rest of her life!?"
"So what?" Kamisato asked. "Parasites have a variety of reasons to kill their host, but more often then not, it is so that they can reach another host easier. And with Sample Shoggoth is being researched by Ellen and Fran – who was supposedly made into a Gemstone by an implant from a UFO, although I don't know how much of that is true. We will know more details before long. From there, we only need to learn how to control its actions. Forcibly restraining it might cause it to go on a rampage inside her, but not if we spoil it by giving it something it wants. It's just like raising a cat. Training it might be impossible, but you can cover the power cables you don't want it playing with and you can scatter food to distract it if it does something you don't want. That gives us a starting point to controlling it."
Touma thought over what Kamisato had said for a moment, their grappling weakening in its intensity as they spoke. True...Kamisato sounded callous at first, but if you put it that way…it does not seem too bad…but, there is another problem…
"That won't work." Touma shook his head. "Patricia would lose all control. And if Sample Shoggoth really is the type to kill its old host in search of a new host, it would only be using her! Even if we isolated her deep in the mountains, it could easily control her body to bring her to civilization! And then she would die as it switched hosts!"
"Yes, it isn't rare for parasites to control their host's body or thoughts, so that would only be stage one." Kamisat agreed. "The current problem is eliminating the possibility of Patricia's immediate death, but once that is dealt with, we could find a way to remove it from her body. For example, the parasite would kill her because it robbed her of all the fat that stores nutrients. That puts her in a situation where she would die without Sample Shoggoth, but we only have to remove that initial condition."
"What?" Touma narrowed his eyes.
"Even without those stored nutrients, she can be given a constant IV of nutrients. Her blood can be circulated through an external dialysis machine where nutrients are added into her blood. There are ways. Patricia herself suggested a few and Ellen has begun drawing up actual plans."
Touma shook his head. He understood how this was a way to keep the parasite from killing Patricia, but that posed even more problems. "And then what? So she lives. But the, she would never be able to get up in her own again! She would truly be nothing but skin and bones, living on artificial means to survive! Her hair and skin would be so dry they would be peeling away! He joints would dry out and solidify as well, making her bedridden! She would only be alive in medical terms! Spending the rest of your life hooked up to a machine just s that you can 'live' is nothing more then being in a prison in your own body! Is there really no other way?!"
"I can see where you are coming from. Yes, a normal human would give up" Kamisato did not change his expression as he looked at Touma. "An unavoidable destiny is one thing, but no one would choose to abandon their working body. They might say they would, but they would have a change of heart somewhere. But Patricia didn't. She doesn't want her sister to die and she doesn't want to leave her sister with the stigma of letting a family member die. So instead of choosing one or the other, she tried to create a third option that would save both their lives! Even if all it saves is her life! She drew a line there and gave up on everything else!"
"…"
"I respect that courage. I respect that small sense of righteousness that allowed her to face the pain without running away and to accept the fear without giving up. So I'm sick of meaningless talk of good or evil. I don't care who looks down on me or criticizes me. I won't leave Patricia all alone. Her heart was powerful enough to deflect my World Rejecter, so I'll support her to the end."
So, because you approve of it, and accepted how she felt, you are telling the formal textbook to shove it?!
"But you have to be wrong about something!" Touma pointed out a possibility. "The rails must have shifted at some point, right? I don't know what happened between you and Patricia, but I'm sure something did. Is this really what she wanted in the very, very beginning, when she tearfully asked you for help and clung to your hand? Did you compromise somewhere!? Did you only later decide that this was the one and only best answer!?"
"You know, I had been wondering for the longest time about my right hand." For some reason, Kamisato started to talk about his right hand again. But the way he said it made Touma paused in his struggles, allowing the by to continue to speak.
Despite his voice being emotionless, something was oozing out of its depths. "I've always wondered why World Rejector did not banish me the first time I used it. After all, I hesitated so much and I can't get my desires sorted out. But I think the reason I'm still here is because my hatred for the Magic Gods overpowered any desire to return to my lost days or to abandon this power I was given. I save people and get along with Ellen and the others in order to get back at the insane Magic Gods. In other words, it's part of my revenge. I opposed those conflicting negative thoughts with a single negative thought of my own. So I respect Patricia for facing such unreasonable circumstances and yet taking the first step toward what little hope she could find instead of wishing for a new world or hating the current world. She chose to climb to the stage above me, so I won't let anyone get in her way. She is my hero."
"Bullshit." Touma growled, each word practically filled with venom, something that surprised the speaker himself. He had never thought he would be speaking so venomously to someone. "You're satisfied with heroically driving a tearful girl into a corner? You drive her to the edge of the cliff and then praise her for having the courage to jump? That is just plain and utter wrong of someone to do!"
With a burst of strength, Touma smashed Kamisato against the wall of the alley, disorienting him for a moment and allowing Touma to get the upper hand once more. "Simply becoming a hero isn't some wonderful thing! Not when you're throwing your life away like that! Fighting against the urge to lower the value of a life is an amazing strength! It's far, far, far more admirable than useless people like us who can only wave our right hands around to fight! It has to be! And what you are doing...allowing and cornering a girl to do something she would never do unless as a last resort with no other way out, that is just wrong!"
Whenever an intense battle ended, he would be scolded by the people around him that cared for him. Index, Misaka Mikoto, or someone else. The latter part was especially becoming more frequent, what with more and more girls coming into his life. Especially Shokuhou Misaki, a girl who he had once been unable to recall, but is now able to thanks to the actions of Percival.
He may have a special right arm, but so what? Even if the world did not press him to continue fighting, he would continue to press on and forge ahead until everything was alright. THAT was true kindness. Not the misguided version that Kamisato was selling to Patricia.
If someone took away that kindness, the world would be truly would be over. A cruel and cold-hearted digital system would take over where the fate of people's lives was decided simply by comparing the parameters.
A realisation of Kamisato's ideal that surpassed simple good or evil.
For example, if he came across a girl troubled by this world, where she had to fight because of her powers, should he tell her to come to terms with it and just accept it? To charge towards that fate like a clockwork doll?
Yes, that ideal would be a form of righteousness. But at what cost?
Kamisato, despite being dazed, easily sent mocking words his way. "Then what are you going to do? Save both sisters or refuse to give up on either one? You're the kind of fool that never manages to make a decision and loses both of them. You're a nothing with a different obsession than mine. You're just a hypocrite who protects your own humanity by sobbing that there was no other option after you lose everything. Don't make me laugh, Kamijou Touma. You choose nothing, abandon nothing, and take on none of the burden. I don't want to hear someone like that lecture me on salvation. As long as you continue to support Leivina's plan, you stand on the side of taking a life to give this a nice clean ending.""
"Even if…" Touma clenched his teeth as he stared at Kamisato. "Even if that's true, I still have to say it! If a girl is standing before me asking for help, I have to give her that ideal answer or it's all over! I have to tell her that I won't let anyone be lost, that I won't leave anyone in a world of fear and suffering, and that I'll make sure everyone can smile together in the end!"
For just a split second, Kamisato almost seemed to choke, but anger and hatred quickly covered that up.
"Are you trying to put off making a decision or do you just not want to make it yourself? You don't have any way of doing that." Kamisato rejected. "If you say that, you'll end up losing both of them."
"That's right! I'm not a genius with an IQ of 200! I'm not the Index Librorum Prohibitorum that's memorized 103,000 grimoires or a Magic God that can remake the entire world!" Touma readily admitted his weakness and flaws. But despite that, he did not falter. Not even once. "But that doesn't mean I can give up just because someone tells me to. Like the idiot I am, I'll keep struggling to find a hint until I actually find one. I'll ask Index or Othinus for help, I'll ask Birdway or Nephthys if they know anything, and I'll use everything available to me! I don't care about pride and there's no rule saying I have to do everything on my own!"
"Hah. So you're just leaving it to someone else?" Kamisato scoffed. "Is that another line of defence? If something goes wrong and you lose everything, you can just say you were only doing what your mommy told you?"
"Didn't I tell you?" Touma scoffed. "I'll use everything available to me. Someone's life is on the line! There's no time to keep up appearances! So I'll use it! Your method forces us to watch Patricia living a bedridden life as a chrysalis while we try to convince ourselves this was the best option even as a shadow hangs over our smiles! You can call it pathetic, unsightly, or backwards if you want! But I'm not going to become some self-absorbed asshole who acts cool by calmly giving up too easily and then tries to show off how he made the painful decision no one else could! You don't get to decide what salvation is, Kamisato!"
Touma knew something that Kamisato did not.
Where did evil come from? Good was not good because someone decided it was and evil was not evil because it said so in some book. When someone gave up on someone else and cut them off, that was when that second person became evil. It happened when the possibility of salvation was taken from them, they were left with no connection to anyone else, and everyone assumed they were a lost cause.
Touma did it once with High Priest.
He had believed that High Priest had been something to be defeated. But instead, they could have talked it over, like he had with Nephthys, or maybe reconciled their differences like he had with Othinus.
But he had been so influenced by the High Priest's appearance, history, and violence that he had entirely forgotten about that option. He had unilaterally defined him as something to be defeated. He did not think the High Priest had been a good person. He also thought that conclusion had been the best one possible. But those things were a different issue entirely. He did not want to receive or give that kind of pain again. He never again wanted to witness someone being made evil.
I won't let that happen again. Not until I have exhausted every possible option available to me.
"I will save them, Kamisato."
"?" Kamisato had a face that seemed to say, 'This nonsense again?', but Touma continued.
"I will save both Leivinia and Patricia. They may both want to sacrifice themselves for the other! They may be willing to accept the pain and fear of being skin and bones hooked up to a machine! But I'll destroy all of that and ruin all of that to save everyone and everything! No matter what happens, I will not cut off the Birdway sisters as a lost cause!"
"What…are you talking about?" Kamisato grit his teeth at what he presumed to be a naive thinking.
"This is what it means to be a hero. This is what it means to be a normal high school boy! This is what we say at times like this. An actual method or real odds of success don't matter. Even if we have no idea what we can do and we've reached a dead-end, we still have to make sure everything works out in the end! Isn't that perfectly normal? Why should I have to explain why I would want to save everyone, keep everyone from dying, and not leave anyone behind in a world of fear and suffering!?"
"Again, how will you do it?" Kamisato gave his mocking reply catching his breath. "The growth of Leivinia's fruit will cause her to burst from within and forcibly removing Sample Shoggoth from Patricia will kill her. You can only save one or the other. You can't save both. The only way to save both is to find an external way to supply Patricia with nutrients instead of relying on her body's fat, no matter what changes the process will make to her body. Or are you saying you know someone with an even more useful supernatural power?"
"Didn't I tell you? I don't care if you call it pathetic, unsightly, or backwards." Touma answered with a relaxed smile.
By now, the two had stopped struggling, fully absorbed in their battle of words. "According to Birdway, the parasite dissolved Patricia's fat and slipped into that empty space. Since it's handling the storage and distribution of nutrients, she'll die from lack of nutrients if it's forcibly removed. And that fruit is needed to safely drive it out without killing her."
"So what? Why would you repeat the hopeless situation?"
"It's important. Checking back over the initial conditions is important, rookie." Touma smirked. "And if those are our conditions, then this is simple. We just have to fill Patricia's body with fat to take the place of that thing. And I'm not talking about an IV or dialysis. I'm simply talking about returning her to normal by giving her the fat she's lost. If we use the fat to drive out the parasite like a game of musical chairs, Patricia won't be left as skin and bones after the monster's gone! If the new fat supplies her with the nutrients she needs, she won't die! We might be able to save her without the fruit! And without her turning into a bedridden chrysalis!"
"Thanks for the speech, but do you see a convenient tool like that lying around?" Kamisato mocked Touma. "Don't tell me actually think you can suck out your fat like a liposuction diet and pump it into Patricia to solve this."
"You already know the solution."
This time, Kamisato Kakeru came to a complete stop. For a brief moment, he felt like the world had stopped. "…what?"
"Don't you already know someone who is more plant than animal? Someone who can use bonds and whatever else to absorb the traits of any kind of matter, right?" Touma asked rhetorically.
At first, Kamisato did not understand what Touma was talking about. But his eyes slowly widened as his mind connected the dots.
"Did you forget that fat doesn't necessarily come from animals!? There are plenty of plant fats like canola oil or margarine!"
With that single sentence, Kamisato's assumptions, perceptions, and thoughts vanished. His problems and hardships vanished. In fact, Kamisato felt the air leave his lungs, and he even forgot to breathe for a second.
"Of course, just stuffing margarine inside someone's body won't supply them with nutrients. Things aren't that convenient." Touma continued, as if he did not take joy in seeing the stunned expression Kamisato was making. "But your comrade is different, isn't she? You said that gardening club member named Claire is a Gemstone and her body is almost entirely like a plant. That means we only need her help. She can use her own body as an example to make some plant fat that the human body will accept. Then she only has to pump it into Patricia! That will solve everything without having to sacrifice anyone!"
Of course, in reality things would not be that simple. For one, they had to make sure that the parasite inside Patricia would not kill her from the sudden invasion of this new form of fat. What the human body accepts, the parasite would not.
That was why the fruit that Leivinia had been growing in her body had been made of corn starch. In the past, tis substance had been used in threads or sheets to sew up or cover wounds. Once affixed to the patient, they would naturally break down and fuse with the surrounding tissue to smoothly close the wound without needing to be removed later. In other words, the body would not reject it under the right circumstances. And in this case, it would have the highest possibility of the parasite consuming this fruit and buying Patricia time to survive. And with the fruit already taken out of her without any trouble. she was also not in any danger from bursting from the inside.
"…"
"So I'll say it. I'll shamelessly take what belonged to someone else and show it off like it's mine. If you had just spoken to her yourself, you could have saved both the Birdway sisters! And without the fear and suffering of becoming a bedridden chrysalis! But you tried to act cool, acted like tragedy was a virtue, and readily gave up on them without bothering to worry over it to a pathetic extent! How are you a hero? What salvation is there in anything you've done here!? You idiot!"
Those last words acted as the final nail in the proverbial coffin that Kamisato had dug for himself. The righteousness he had believed in…it had been rejected and seemed to mock his existence…
"Of course, I have no proof that this would work."
…if not for Touma's next words.
"Neither of us has any proof that our plan will save them. We're both awful people for resting the lives of those sisters on our amateur opinions!" Touma said. "But if I have a choice, I'll go with my plan. Even if yours worked, there would be no smiles. If the odds are even, of course I'll choose the one that lets us smile afterwards!"
Touma finally released Kamisato, allowing the boy to slump against the wall of his own violation.
..
Kamisato was in shock.
Ever since he had received his power, he had believed that there was only two options for every situation he had to do. Three, if one included the extreme option of death.
These two options were based on the current situation, without taking into account the other possible ways of overcoming the situation.
And, in these past few months since receiving his power, not once had he thought of a possible solution using an alternative way.
When he had to save a girl, he chose the option which would result in her surviving.
If he had three ways to save that girl, he would chose he best one that would ensure her survivability, no matter the cost.
And yet…
Yet…Kamijou Touma, someone who had not met Kamisato nor his faction for longer than a day, managed to find a solution that did not involve having to choose between two people?
That was something that shocked Kamisato.
Not only that, but he is also not naive enough to look past the flaws in his own plan… Numbly, Kamisato realised he could not even muster up any strength to move his right hand. Nor could he even try to refute what Touma had just said.
"…ah…"
The person he believed to be nothing more than a naive bastard who took pleasure in having a harem, the person he saw as despite having his special power longer than him being incompetent in areas he was sure he triumphed over, had managed to so perfectly refute Kamisato's words and counter them, Kamisato could not even object.
In this situation, Kamisato realised that he could not provide an answer better than the one Kamijou Touma had.
…Is this what those guys were talking about? Kamisato thought to himself. About me being naive and idealistic?
(*1*) – A reference to the spin-off of the fanfic, A Certain Unknown Level 0
(*2*) – A Certain Influx of time travelling mishaps reference.
AN
Apologies for the late, late chapter. Procrastination is a shitty excuse, but I'm using it anyway.
Yay! With this, the interaction between Touma and Kamisato over Patricia's recovery has been settled.
To be honest, this was really boring, since this was a clash of ideals between the two. One, who always looked for the third option. The other, the one who chose the lesser of two evils.
I admit, this reminds me of 'Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works' a little. Touma reminds me of Shirou Emiya, while Kamisato reminds me of Counter Guardian EMIYA. The parallels are there. Touma, like Shirou, knows his path is thorny, and Touma would try every option to save everyone, like Shirou, until there is no other option left but to take the last resort. Kamisato, like EMIYA, chose one of two options. Unlike EMIYA however, Kamisato knew his limits and the flaws of his 'ideal', so he is much colder and rational than EMIYA to the extent that he is a hero who choses between the given options he has and takes them to the near extreme.
I rather like this aspect of Kamisato to be honest. The two special right hand holders have opposite personalities to their right hands. Touma is someone who looks for the illusion of saving everyone and making it a reality with his illusion killer, while Kamisato looks for pragmatic ways of saving someone with his hand that rejects reality. In a sense, this could be called a reason as to why their right hands chose their current wielders.
Well, next chapter would be focusing on the Birdway sisters a bit more, so as always, Anime is Life, and Please Review!