III

Chapter 11: Final Push Towards the Forbidden

Magic_Trick

Part 1

July 31th, 4:20 AM - Somewhere between the South and West gates of Academy City.

For the people on the ground level at this time, the sun was starting to rise, giving birth to a new day. But for the on higher altitudes, the sunlight was already as bright as one would expect for the morning. Usually, no one would be placed in such high altitude in the middle of Tokyo, but today was different. Two silhouettes were crawling they way up the walls of Academy City, almost reaching the top, far from the eyes of the guards or any kind of security system. Not that any of those would bother to stop them, on the contrary, they would want to keep distance.

Those silhouettes did not belong to human beings. Long, thin and swaying around in S shaped movements, they belonged to snakes, as strange as it may sound. The weirdest thing though wasn't their presence in this place, nor the fact they were unnaturally going up without any problem, but what they were carrying in their mouth: faced down playing cards.

After a long trip, they finally reached the top of the wall and quickly placed their cards down. With a swift movement of their tails, they flipped the cards revealing a 4 of hearts and a 4 of clovers. Then, both the snakes and the cards were surrounded by a vortex of black and red mist that lasted for a few seconds. Once it was over, the snakes were nowhere to be seen, just as if they were replaced by the two new figures standing next to each other, holding King cards from the same suits as the snakes.

"For the sake of God, your methods are way too abrupt. Using cards for a spell based on a chess move is just plain stupid and risky. I can't believe you made me wait for... how many hours was it?"

"Let's see... three hours, seventeen minutes and one second."

"That long? And to think we were supposed to take advantage of the darkness to get inside... Couldn't you have used something faster? Like your white pidgeots?"

"Both of our styles are directly linked to serpents. I wanted to increase the chances of success so I had no other choice."

They were males about the age of 19. The one complaining had dark brown skin, very short black hair under a white turban and black eyes. It was possible to see some silver marks growing from his marble robe on his neck and arms. He also wore moon shaped earrings and a sun shaped pendant hanging from his long necklace at the height of his abdomen. The other had shoulder length red hair, blue eyes and wore an outfit commonly used by stage magicians, topper hat and everything.

The former sighed and decided to drop the complaints for now. "Just try to be more focused from now on. We're in enemy territory."

"Yeah yeah, I know."

"You remember what you have to do, right?"

"Of course! I'm free to rampage to my heart's content as long as I don't pick the attention of the Imagine Breaker, right?"

Dumbfounded, the brown skinned male couldn't help but face palm. "... please try to do the least damage possible."

"I'm just kidding! C'mon, you're too serious! I promise I'll be discreet!"

It's hard to believe that when you're being so loud… heavens, this won't end well. Myrin should not have chose him out of all people. Not standing the situation any longer, the robbed man turned around and started to walk on the wall towards west. "Well then, we split up here. Just try to not mess everything up. If they capture you, my mission will be compromised as well."

"Heh, leave it to me." After answering, the redhead jumped down the wall towards the city without a second thought "Ladies and gentleman of Academy City! You better be prepared for the show, because the glorious and illustrious Rüdiger Nowell has arrived! YAHOOOOOO!"

Part 2

1:52 pm - Borderline between District 7 and District 1

Hishiro discretely eyed the skyscraper on the other side of the street. Today he was actually wearing the hood of his jacket and had sunglasses on his face. Was it a pointless attempt to hide his identity and calm himself or was he just trying to look cool and intimidating? Not even he knew anymore. The only thing in his mind now was the taste of the sandwich he just had and the amount of time he had wasted there.

No, it wasn't just waste of time. It was true that he didn't learn anything new about his current investigation, but the wait wasn't in vain. Something unusual was happening there. "Asuka, are you seeing this?"

"Yes… that's suspicious. I already lost count on how many times this had happened."

The building was supposed to belong to a corporation that dealt with business with outside the city, such as importations or materials and exportation of regularized merchandise. But in truth, this was the headquarters of an unofficial organization from the darkness of the city: LIZARD. Hishiro was held captive for a dozen of hours in a near death state inside there before Hinata saved him, so he didn't like the idea of being close to it, but that hardly mattered right now.

After Hishiro left the hospital, both him and Asuka received no more missions and were told to be on stand by. However, neither wanted to stay still after what had happened. They wanted to know about the nun from England, her pursuers, and more importantly - why the higher ups were trying so hard to hide this information from them, to the point of putting their previous operation in risk. That being said, they had no leads to investigate. Asuka wasn't able to search through the city using the surveillance satellite. Orihime 1 was shot down from the surface of the planet a few days ago, so for security reasons all connections to Hitoboshi 2 were restricted. She could hack and access it illegally, but doing so right now would disturb the investigation and even she knew that this was no joking matter. The only option they had left was to see what the other party involved in the case had that they didn't. Since LIZARD was involved with the USB drive incident, the two assumed it was worth a shot to investigate them and see what they could find. They weren't expecting this situation though...

Since about two hours ago, big vehicles such as trucks and buses filled with people - mostly children and teenagers, according to Asuka - have been arriving in intervals of 15 to 20 minutes. Men in black suits escorted them inside the building and so far, none of them has left. This couldn't pass as just a visit to the "company" anymore. Hishiro kept watching at a loss of words as a girl that looked like 4 or 5 years old followed the suspicious men into the shady facility. "What is the meaning of this? Are those kids their hostages or something? Is this a case of mass kidnapping?"

"No… that's probably not it." From the sounds coming from the communicator, Asuka was typing on her keyboard like crazy while she talked. "I found a few of them in the database using a face recognition software. They are mostly Child Errors at level 1 or 2 with some sort of involvement in the darkness or marked by Anti-Skill, aside from a few exceptions such as Gemstones and two level 4."

"So most of them aren't worthy hostages - is that what you're saying?"

"Roughly, yes."

Hishiro sighed and kept watching. More ten minutes passed and another bus arrived, just as full as the last one. "Would be great if I could sneak and see what's happening inside, but with so many people guarding the surroundings it's just impossible."

"Why don't you climb until the last floor and get inside using the female toilet's window, like you did in the Private Saloon back then?"

"Are you crazy? I'm not gonna do this ever again in my life! Do you have any idea of how many times I almost fell?"

"So… you wouldn't have any problem to sneak in like this if it was on ground level?"

"Stop messing around! Did you already forg- huh?" Something picked his attention before he could finish. More specifically, it was a girl leaving the bus that just arrived. "Isn't that… no way!"

"What is it? Did you find something?"

"Someone, not something." Still doubting his eyes, he removed his sunglasses. It was her, no doubt. "Do you believe in ghosts, Asuka?"

"Ghosts? What are you talking about, Shiro?"

"It's just that that girl over there was supposed to be dead. I personally killed her that day at the end of the Breakdown. Her name was… Yuko or Yuna, if I'm not mistaken. They were identical twins, so I don't know which one of them she is. The point is that I shot them both at gunpoint, there was a fire on that floor AND the building imploded. None of them could possibly survive all that."

Asuka stopped typing, probably looking at the monitor displaying the girl in question. "That's an amazing amount of details you have on a single person among all the others you you killed at that day. Are you sure it's her? Did you fall for her or something?"

Instead of falling for the provocation, Hishiro answered in a self loathing tone. "Let's just say they managed burn all that into my memory. Literally."

"Is that so?" Asuka sounded a bit disheartened that his reaction wasn't what she had expected. "But she looks pretty fine to me, and her twin is nowhere to be seen. I think I'll start from her then."

"Start? What do you mean?"

"If we want to understand what's happening, we need to get more info on the ones they are bringing in. Since you can't get inside, let me handle things for now. Once my research get some results I'll tell you."

"Are you asking me to step aside?"

"Yup, yup! Or do you actually like our conversations that much, even though you complain the whole time?"

"..."

"Oh my, oh my! This goes beyond the territory of Tsunderes, Shiro! Are you really the kind of masochist that-"

"I'm turning off." He mashed the red button so fast that he wasn't sure if his last words actually made trough. Asuka probably wanted to focus on her work, so it was for the best if he left and let her do her thing for now. Glancing one last time into the crowd, his eyes accidentally met the supposedly dead girl for a fraction of a second before he turned away, hoping that he was far enough for her to notice who he was.

Part 3

"Such misfortune..."

"Touma, Touma, don't be sad. Long walks are good for your health."

"Since when you're knowledgeable on the subject, Index?"

"It was written on the panel in the waiting room of the hospital."

Side by side, the unfortunate spiky haired boy named Kamijou Touma and the white nun known as Index walked towards the south part of District 7. Usually they wouldn't be outside under the scorching sunlight in the middle of summer at this time of the day. Unfortunately, today Touma woke up later than usual just to find an starving Index in the living room ready to eat him alive. To avoid the tragedy, he decided it would be faster if they went to eat on a fast food restaurant since there were no ingredients left on the refrigerator. The problem is that a large accident had happened while they were having their meal and several bus and train lines stopped running, so they were forced to go back to the dorm by foot.

"This has to be a message from the heavens. The lord is telling us to exercise more."

"It's amazing how optimistic you can be when your stomach is full."

"Touma, Did you said something rude just now?"

"N-no. It's just your imagination."

Touma knew she wouldn't let that one slide and was bracing himself for the bites that were coming for him, but her attention was drawn by something else. "Hey, Touma… what's happening there?"

…

Hishiro just wanted to go home and slack off for the rest of the day (or until Asuka called him again) but the bus never came, no matter how long he waited. He managed to kill some time with his portable console, but quickly got tired of it. "For the sake of… *sigh* I guess I'll go walking. If the bus shows up along the way I can just stop it… even if I have to do it by force. But I have the feeling that it won't at all."

After a few hundreds of meters, a crowd in a park picked his interest. They were surrounding a single red haired person wearing a topper hat and a black cape. From the way he talked and exaggerated his movements, he was clearly doing a public show of some sort.

A magic show in an open area like this? Now that's something you don't see every day. In Academy City, a place filled with espers with all kinds of abilities, it was hard to impress someone using this old fashioned kind of illusionism, even the younger children. That doesn't mean these didn't existed here at all, but they were really rare. Hishiro actually met two people who were fascinated with this kind of thing in the past: one was a former member of his team, while the other was a dear friend of a long time ago...

"... heh, this brings me back some memories." Filled with nostalgia, he decided to watch from a distance for a little while.

...

Loud applauds and cheers roared when the cards were revealed displaying an apparent impossible outcome. The red haired male bowed in appreciation and took advantage of the motion to search through the crowd once again. If his plan were to work as intended, the people he was looking for should arrive at any time. And they were there just as he expected… well, two of the three, at least. He grinned widely, barely being able to contain the excitement of what was about to happen.

...

"That wasn't half bad. This guy got some skills." Hishiro did not noticed, but he was actually smiling like a kid as he applauded. He thought he was good at finding out the tricks used behind the act, but he wasn't able to grasp what had happened at all this time. And not only him, everyone, even the older people around were surprised.

"Waaaa! That was amazing! Touma, Touma, did you see that? I can't believe he did it without using any real magic!"

"Yeah, he is pretty good. I wonder if it's all skill or if he's using some sort of esper ability."

"..."

*Freeze*. The brown haired boy heard the voice of a girl and his heart almost stopped. He had heard that voice before, and it belonged to… Could it be? This familiar voice. This familiar gut feeling. He gulped, slowly turned around and… there she was, wearing the same white clothes as before. There was no mistake. He walked towards her and couldn't stop thinking that this was too much of a coincidence to be just a chance meeting. "You're... Index?"

The nun was surprised for a moment when her name got called up all of a sudden. That is, until she found out that the voice came from a familiar face. "Oh, it's Hishiro!"

"Hishiro?" Touma was at a loss. Because of some special (and unfortunate) circumstances, the boy had lost his memories. It was clear to him that Index knew this person, but he wasn't sure if he was supposed to know him as well or not, and he didn't want to let anyone to notice about his memory loss.

Actually, not even Hishiro himself knew how to deal with the situation. Stupid me. I walked to her on raw impulse, but what am I supposed to do? Until now I could swear she was dead. Should I ask her if she really got attacked by that woman? And if so, how did she survive? But in the end, he lost his will to ask while she was smiling happily. Not to mention that he didn't know how to treat that boy beside her. Unlike her, he seemed to be just a normal inhabitant of the city.

"Touma, This is Hishiro Yamazaki. He helped me out a lot on the day we met each other. No, he basically saved my life. I'm really thankful to him."

So I never met him before… that makes things easier. Touma sighed in relief. "Hi, I'm Kamijou Touma. Nice to meet you, and thank you for taking care of Index."

"H-hi. By the way, she's exaggerating. All I did was offer her lunch. She looked like she was starving though."

"I see… That explains it..."

"Touma. Did you just said something rude again?"

"N-no, of course not!"

"Humpf!" Pouting, she turned back to Hishiro. "But still, we're lucky to meet again. I must repay you for that day."

"Lucky huh…" Just like before, this is way too convenient. Is she stalking me? No, that's impossible, at least for today. I'm here just because the goddamn bus has yet to come. She couldn't have foreseen it or set it up, could she? Let's see how she reacts… "Actually, I'm here just because no buses appeared, so I'm walking to stop from stop. But at this rate, I might get home before it comes."

Touma smiled wryly at him after hearing that. "Then you're actually just as unlucky as we are. There was an accident and the transport on the districts around had stopped for today. So we are walking home too… a very long walk…"

Index patted his back and said with a holy aura around her. "But just as I thought, this has to be a message from the lord. It all happened so we could run into each other and give me a chance to repay him."

This divine repayment is going to come from my wallet, isn't it? Kamijou thought but didn't had the courage to say it out loud. Third time's the charm… she may bite my head off if I let something else slip.

"An accident..." This sounded suspicious, but he was not thinking that she or this boy had anything to do with it. Lizard was using a lot of buses to gather all that people. Could they be behind this?

…

Bingo! Initial contact confirmed! It's too bad that the other girl isn't here, but I can't waste this opportunity. I'm gonna start the real show now! First… I need to get rid of the Imagine Breaker.

The magician made a gesture signalling he was about to start his next trick and the crowd quickly got silent. "For my next magic, I'll need someone from the audience once again." On hearing that, everyone raised their hands hoping to be picked, but the red haired male already had someone in mind. "Let's see… You over there!"

"Oh- Touma, I think he is pointing to you."

"Eh? Me?!"

Grinning widely, the magician confirmed. "Yes, you there boy! Don't be shy, come over here!"

Why… do I have a bad feeling about this? Since the attention of everyone around had fallen on him, Touma couldn't refuse. He walked forward and climbed the improvised stage.

"Well… that confirms that his show isn't a setup." Hishiro wasn't happy with the way things had gone. He wanted to ask the boy about Index as soon as possible. I hope this one doesn't take too long. He watched as the man drew a circle on the floor around the boy and handed him a card - a king of clovers.

Then, he took out a cheap looking magic wand and tapped Touma's head a few times. "Now, please use your left hand to place it inside the circle on the floor, then close your eyes and count to three."

Hishiro kept watching curiously. "What is he going to do? I never seen someone using such steps for a trick. He is probably trying to draw our attention to that circle so we don't notice what he is actually doing… hey, is there something wrong."

Index was looking intently towards the stage, but her face had a serious expression. Even more serious than the one she wore back when Hishiro tried to get more information on her. "The card's suit… the wand on his hand…their positioning... left hand... Is this just a coincidence?"

Touma had already his eyes closed and was counting. The magician glanced one last time to the crowd. No, it felt as if he looked directly at Index and Hishiro. Even the brown haired boy felt something was wrong. What was that just now?

And then…

"This is… Telesma? Touma!"

It was already too late. Numberless white pidgeots flew from inside the magician's toplet and surrounded Kamijou, making it impossible to see what was happening inside. But for a tenth of second, Hishiro and Index had seen a vortex of black mist swallowing the boy. Before they could react though, the pidgeots dispersed and no one was there anymore. Actually, even the floor underneath Touma's feet had disappeared, along with the hand drawn circle. The only thing left was the card, flying about a meter and half above the ground. The red haired male quickly grabbed it and revealed that it was a four of clovers.

The crowd applauded once again, louder than before. "Thank you, thank you everyone! That's all for today!" And with that said, everyone suddenly became silent. They all turned around and walked away unnaturally, leaving only Index, Hishiro and the magician behind.

"W-what the heck?" All at once, a huge sense of danger filled Hishiro's body. This pressure… it feels just like that other day with that woman… wait! Didn't Asuka said something about people leaving the surroundings of the dorm in a weird way?! Could this be…?! He looked at Index for a moment before staring at the red haired man. She seemed to be as nervous as him (but not as scared). "Who are you? Just what have you done?"

The man jumped down the improvised stage and slowly approached the two. "The Forbidden Library and The Seed of Doubt. It's a pleasure to meet you both in person. I am the great Rüdiger Nowell! Or should I introduce myself as Genius472 to you, little girl?"

Part 4

Inside a certain windowless building, the human floating upside down inside the liquid filled cylinder narrowed his brows for a very short moment. He had the whole city under his constant control and vigilance the whole time. Naturally, the anomaly that just had happened not to far away from there wouldn't escape his senses. Inf fact, it was as if they weren't trying to hide it at all. On the contrary, it felt as if they were begging to be found out. As if saying "I'm right here. So what?"

"Just who in the world dares to challenge me openly like this?"

Part 5

When Kamijou came to himself, he was filled with utter despair. "This… can't be happening to me…"

He was standing on a circular plate of wood (which happened to be part of the stage he was just a moment ago) in front of a certain fast food restaurant that he and Index had eaten about an hour ago.

"I'm back here… so that means..." Of course, that meant he had to walk even more to get back to the dorm. "SUCH MISFORTUNE!"

Between the Lines

The gears of this city really move on their own. Thought Tsuchimikado. He was inside a clean white room located inside the infamous Reformatory - a jail built specially to safely confine Espers. Aside from him, there was only a single other person there, sitting on a chair in the middle of the room: a tall man with brown beard that answered by the name of Hideaki Kihara, though the name was probably fake.

The man raised his head to look at the younger male just once before lowering it again, making it clear that he had no intention to cooperate. "Please tell me you are here for my punishment. I had enough of interrogatories."

"Hmmm… have you thought that people would stop interrogating you if you answered their questions, nyah~?"

"..."

"Well, you don't have to worry. I have a few questions for you, but it's regarding another issue."

"..."

"First of all, let me be clear: I don't waste time on small fries. If the city summons me to deal with them, it's for either get rid of them without leaving a trace or they have something valuable for me to get the big ones. Can you see where I'm getting at, nyah~?"

Hideaki finally reacted with a slight wry smile. "Are you saying that we were looked at as small fries all along?"

"Yup, that's exactly it. But you don't have to get depressed over it nyah~. This city has many enemies. If you knew the true scale of things, you wouldn't be able to sleep in peace at night." Tsuchimikado picked a few pictures from his pocket and placed them on the table in front of Hideaki. "You do recognize this, right? Of course you do. Your pawns worked really had to get their hands on it and so did I to get it back. Or that was what I thought at first."

"?"

"We already asked a few of your underlings we captured that night and none of them knew about it. But a bird told me you're smarter than them so maybe you have something on the matter that they didn't." The blond boy adjusted his sunglasses and stared deep into the eyes of them older male before asking. "Did you know that the suitcases got switched while they were with your group?"

"... What?"

"When I took the case back, we found out that it wasn't the same one you guys had stolen. And yet, the contents were all still inside it. Can you explain what happened?"

Hideaki was unwilling to answer at first, but the topic picked his interest. "We didn't switched it, as far as I can tell. At that time, this action would be pointless."

"Are you sure you weren't trying to fool us by having two suitcases in the facility?"

"That would be risky and stupid. We could end up with the wrong one. And you would've noticed if we had let you take a fake. Just like you did." He scratched his beard and thought for a second. "If it got switched, it wasn't because of us. So… I can only think of one possibility. We got tricked in our own game. Someone else had got their hands on it."

"We figured the same." Said Tsuchimikado while shrugging. "What we can't figure out is why someone would go through all the trouble of reaching the treasure just to leave it behind, nyah~."

Both males got silent for a whole minute. Tsuchimikado assumed that it was pointless to keep it going since Hideaki really knew nothing and was about to leave when the other party spoke. "Perhaps… their goal was exactly this."

"What do you mean?"

"The only possibility I can think of is that they didn't want anything with the contents, but they wanted to be known that they could have taken it away if they wished to do so."

"In other words, they were provoking us? Sorry, but I don't think that someone is dumb enough to go through all the risks for just that."

"Indeed. But wouldn't it be a serious problem if there was someone with the power to accomplish it so easily that those risks meant nothing to them?"

The possibility sounded too far fetched. Under normal circumstances, the hawaiian shirt boy would have laughed it off, but he couldn't this time, even if he wanted to do so. This situation was unusual and that was the very first possibility that made some sense. If… just if someone like this really exists...

"Also... I just remembered something. You said you were the one that recovered the suitcase, correct? My men reported that a blond girl wearing a beret and a miniskirt was spotted carrying it away."

"What?"

"I do not think they mistook you for a girl, so I can only assume that she was the one that took the original suitcase away."

And a new arc starts once again. This time I made a huge set up in the very first chapter. Yup, things are going to get messy from here on.

Touma finally made his appearance! Cheers! Of course, he can't meet a true magician at this point in time, or else it would end up in a time paradox that not even Aleister could deal with. (or could he?) But don't worry, he has a very important role in this arc, so expect to see more of him in the future. For now, Index will be on the spotlight together with Hishiro. I guess you can already see where I'm going with this...

As for the two magicians, Nowell is based on an idea i had in my mind for a while. Why not disguise a magician... as a magician? (lol) The result is, as you can see, a loud, showy, reckless and yet brilliant trickster that pokes fun at the chairman when trying to be discreet. I'm saving what his style is based on for the next few chapters... but I wonder if anyone can find out how his card spell works? The second one is going to be a secret for now, but I did left a few hints about him for you to speculate. ;)

Again, please leave your reviews (or else Index will bite you while you sleep (would that be a bad thing though? XD)) . Special thanks for the people helping me with typos and ideas in the backstage of this story (pun intended) and see you guys on the next chapter!