III

Chapter 14: The Magician That Cheats Death

Unkillable

Part 1

"Whew… we did it somehow…"

It took 10 long minutes, but Touma and Hinata finally managed to reach the opposite riverbank using the bottom side of the bridge. After stretching his aching muscles, Touma picked his phone and started calling someone.

"What are you doing?" Asked Hinata with clear suspicion on her voice.

"Calling an ambulance for that boy you hurt."

"There is no need for that. He's already de-" For her own surprise, she hesitated and was unable to say what she intended at first "... probably in a hospital."

"Huh? How?"

"I knew it could end up like this… so I called an ambulance in advance."

"Really?" Touma tilted his head while Hinata continued expressionless as ever. "I thought they were the ones attacking you, but if you knew in advance-"

"It's a long story." She cut his line of thought and started walking away. "For now, you need to leave the district. If they regroup and surround all escape routes as they were planning, it'll be only a matter of time until they find you."

"Wait, what about you?"

Hinata stopped on her tracks for a moment. "I… still have a few things to take care off."

Touma frowned and protested. "No, I'm not leaving you behind. They were really trying to kill us! What if they catch you?"

"If I ran away now, your chances of escape would drop below 40%. I am the one they are after, so if they still believe I'm within their grasp, they'll leave you alone." She answered without looking at him. "Don't worry about me. Once I'm done, they'll have too much on their hands to come after me."

"Are you sure you will be fine?"

"They won't get me. Definitively." After saying that, she resumed walking intending to part ways.

Yet Touma didn't took her advice and run for his safety. Instead… "Why are you still following me?!"

"Hm? Didn't I told you that I wasn't going to leave without you?"

Hinata lost her temper and shouted at the boy. "I already said I'm going to be fine! So just go away! Or do you want to get hurt this badly?!"

"If you're confident that what you're doing is safe, that means I'm going to be safe if I'm with you, right?"

His argument was so ridiculous that she was left without words. And only now that she had nothing to say, she noticed how angry she was. Embarrassed, she turned away and tried to control her altered breath. "Good grief..."

"Anyway, shifting their attention away from us sounds like a better plan than trying to run and hide. If you know how to do it then count me in."

"... you're weird." Back to being completely expressionless, the girl started walking again without trying to stop Touma anymore. "Just do whatever you want."

Part 2

That day was supposed to be just be calm day of shopping for them. They had no missions to take care of and a lot of cash to spend that their earned from their last job. Everything was going well, especially because the public transport system seemed to be having problems, meaning that there were almost no one to form lines in front of the counter. But all their expectations went down the drain when HE appeared while they were checking some showcases.

Wearing that old school magician outfit, he baited the members of ITEM for a simple demonstration of a show that was supposedly going to happen that evening. No, the one that he baited was just Frenda, which for some unknown reason was deeply interested in trying to learn a trick or two from him. All the other three were a bit annoyed (except for Takitsubo, who was zoning out as usual) but since they had a lot time to spare, none voiced against it.

And then, with a simple flip of a card, Mugino and Takitsubo vanished in a turwill of red and black mist. Kinuhata was almost caught as well, but managed to react fast enough when the twister started swallowing her body and jumped backwards.

And thus a bizarre battle began.

Frenda only had a limited amount of explosives with her. Since ITEM usually was the one on offence instead the one being attacked, they weren't well prepared for surprise attacks like this one. She only carried a few for precaution and self deffence, just enough to let her escape and properly get more equipped for a real battle if it came to that. Sum that to the fact that this man that introduced himself as Rüdiger Nowell used some really illogical ways to attack, and the direction this battle was going should be obvious: the two girls were being pushed back.

Kinuhata attempted to charge in for the third time, but the result was the same as her last tries. One of the fire snakes got in front of her and exploded, sending her flying several meters back. "Kinuhata!" Frenda ran for her friend that stood up again. Even though her nitrogen armor protected her from the shockwave and the impact, the sheer heat of the blast was enough to damage her and she couldn't completely defend herself from that.

Rüdiger widened his eyes at the sight of the persistent girl coming at him again. "I must say, you are really sturdy for a young lady. Are all girls your age in Academy City that resilient?"

"You should super go see that for yourself." She answered while glaring sharply at him. "I'll just super use that chance to break your body the moment you turn your back to me."

"Uh, scary. I am glad that that I brought my cute little friends to watch my back for me then." After saying that, he waved his wand and the four remaining snakes started to move at once. Kinuhata clicked her tongue. She couldn't handle all of them together, so she ripped a light pole from the ground and swung it like a baseball bat at the incoming snakes. They exploded in unison, shattering the pole before the attack made contact.

The shockwave made Kinuhata take a step back, but that was it. Ther fragments of her improvised weapon flew at her direction but didn't even leave a scratch on her skin.

Now is my chance. Rüdiger used all his snakes in the last attack so he was defenceless now. Kinuhata took the opportunity and charged at him again, aiming a punch to his face that would end the fight.

She didn't notice though there was a something different about him right now.

Actually, even if she had noticed, she wouldn't be able to understand the meaning behind it.

Rüdiger didn't even bother to try to dodge and simply crushed the object on his hand: a glass cup with a Jack of Hearts inside. Following the shattering noise, nearby hydrants blasted and a the high pressure water traveled in "S" shapes as they hit Kinuhata from various directions, sending her to the ground on the spot. It was really a lethal attack that would crush a normal person, though the magician figured that even that wouldn't be enough to get her killed.

While he was focused on restraining the girl's movements while wondering what could he do to defeat her, Frenda snuck behind him and spin kicked his back, breaking his concentration and freeing Kinuhata. "Gotcha!~*" The latter didn't even stopped to catch her breath and punched his face while he was out of balance, sending him flying back until he hit a parked car several meters away, crushing it completely. If it wasn't for the fact that the cars inside Academy City used electricity instead of regular fuel, the impact would've caused a large explosion and the man's dead body would became unrecognisable.

"*Pant*… damn. I forgot to super hold back. Now we can't even interrogate him..." Regretted Kinuhata as she looked down at her own fist.

"Yeah. In the end, that must have at least broken his neck… no, all of his bones actually." Frenda looked amazed as she looked back and forth between where their enemy had been a few moments ago and where he had landed, before turning to the other girl again. "Anyway, are you okay? That last attack was brutal."

"I'm drenched and a bit tired, but I'm super fine." She twisted the lower part of her hoodie while she speaked, trying to take out as much water as possible.

"But what was that? I thought his ability was pyrokinesis."

"Who knows? He did made Mugino and Takitsubo-san super disappear as well. His ability might have been some kind of teleportation."

"Something like I had all my weapons hidden somewhere and just bought them to me when I needed them, making you misjudge my true power… is that right?"

Both girls shook in surprise at the sound of the man's voice. He should have died… and still, there he was. On foot and casually walking towards them as if nothing had happened. "That's quite smart. Unfortunately you're wrong."

"Tsk… you're super stubborn, aren't you?"

"Hehe, I can't exactly leave the stage when I just have made a girl all wet and excited."

"UUGH, this guy is getting on my nerves!" While shouting angrily, Frenda picked two of her bombs and was ready to throw them at any time. "Let's go Kinuhata! I'll blast him away for good this time!"

Rüdiger smirked and prepared to launch a counterattack for Frenda's bombs, but before she could do anything, something else struck his back.

"Whoops! Sorry, I thought you were dead. You know, usually corpses don't get hurt when we drop kick them. Trust me, I tried it befo- WHOA!"

The boy that had just attacked Rüdiger got hit exactly the same way by Kinuhata. "I'm super sorry. Corpses don't get hurt when we kick them right? I thought you were super dead."

"*COUGH, COUGH*! Wh- what the heck! What was that for?!"

"It was for nothing, zombie."

"I have a name and it's not zombie, dammit!" Said the boy angrily while he stood back up. "Seriously, that's what I get for trying to help?"

"Hishiro! Are you alright?!" A girl wearing a white robe that just turned the corner came running to him. Frenda and Kinuhata looked at her suspiciously.

"And who is she?"

"Oh… well… it's complicated." The boy scratched his head while trying to explain. "She's Index, the intruder we were going after the other day, but that's not the time to talk about this. He's on his feet again."

"Oh my, oh my… that was unexpected." Rüdiger wiped the dirt of his pants and took out several cards from his pocket. "I was going to let you rest for a while, Yamazaki-chan. Did you like the show that much? Do you want an encore?"

"Call me that again and I swear I'll open a hole on your chest three times bigger than the last one."

"Uh, that sounds painful. But not as much as this!" And then, the magician sent his cards flying in the air. "Wisps! Flares! Servants of the Sun! Strike the souls of the sinners and burn the them in the name of the great bird!"

The cards ignited and changed their course, spinning their way towards Hishiro, Frenda and Kinuhata. Index took a step forward fearlessly and intervened. "B-O-T-F-A-F-S-T-T-G! (blow off the flames and fall straight to the ground)"

One after another, the cards lost their fire and fell down. Hishiro, the only one that expected such result, pointed his revolver and fired all the bullets he had loaded. Only two of them were going to hit, but with the queen of hearts, Rüdiger made bubbles spawn around him and capture the bullets.

The two girls of ITEM were having a hard time trying to catch up with the battle, but weren't willing to stay behind. Frenda fired two missiles that forced the red haired man to fall back. Kinuhata walked up to Hishiro, who had just finished reloading his gun, and took the weapon from his hand. "You're super bad at shooting. Let me handle this."

Rüdiger was about to retaliate when Kinuhata mashed the trigger, forcing him to use his queen of hearts again. But this time, all of the bullets went straight to his head. Not all bubbles managed to defend him and he had to dodge some on his own. Still, one of them hit ripped a piece of his ear apart.

While hissing in pain, the older male waved his wand and created more snakes to buy some time. Index once again got in the way and made most of them self-destruct, but some crawled their way out of her sight and got dangerously close to their group.

Kinuhata jumped and landed on top of one, creating a small blast. It wasn't that strong, but she felt some burns of her legs. Frenda ran for the broken hydrants and forcefully changed the direction of the high pressure water that was still spraying out with wreckage caused by fighting. The jet wiped out the remaining snakes, clearing the path to Rüdiger once again.

Hishiro took the chance and used his cannon pistol on the deffenceles magician. Without mercy, he shot at his right leg, right eye and his chest. Rüdiger spat a large amount of blood before falling dead to the ground for the third time.

Breathing heavily, he wondered. "Was that enough?"

"Who knows? Kinuhata had trashed him earlier and he stood up right after."

"We probably should super destroy his body. I'm tired of seeing dead people walking around."

"Why are you looking at me like this?" Protested Hishiro.

Frenda walked close to the boy and whispered. "Don't mind her. We all thought you got killed by LIZARD the other day. In the end, she's just glad you're fine. She tried all she could to rescue you and everything"

"I can super hear you, you know. And I didn't do that at all."

Frenda stuck out her tongue playfully and prepared some bombs to blow up the remainings of their enemy. However, the man got up once again faster than she could get any closer to him. "Ouch… that was a close one. How cruel of you! I could have really died this time!"

"Tsk! And she was calling ME a zombie! Just what the fuck are you?!"

"Ufufufufufu… I could answer that, but why don't we let our little walking library have the spotlight and try to explain it for you all?" Rüdiger pointed at Index and everyone turned towards her at the same time.

The girl had a complex expression on her face. She not only didn't want to reveal about magic to even more people, but also… "I… I don't know. I can't… it makes no sense at all!"

"Oh, but that's a shame. I guess that's the limit of the Anglican Church's trump, huh?"

"Anglican… Church?" Frenda frowned. She probably was starting to piece things together, and seeing that, Rüdiger smiled even wider.

"That's right. Just like me, she is not a piece of the scientific side of this world. In other words-"

"Stop! Please just stop!" Begged the nun. "Stop bringing unrelated people into this!"

"But they are related, you know? Both the blonde and that boy over there. I just confirmed it earlier. Here, let me show you." And before anyone could react, the magician threw a burning card at Hishiro. On reflex, he activated his ability and…

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEENCH!

The deafening noise echoed the moment the card touched the distorted field, forcing everyone to cover their ears. The colors around the field became messed, just like a negative photograph, and the whole thing exploded like a firework.

"See? He is an Exception, but not an accidental one. Both of them were made on purpose so Academy City could meddle on our affairs without taking the blame. There are several others on the City, and that's just the peel of the rotten fruit. See where I'm getting at?"

"T- That's... That's just impossible!" Index denied his words, not wanting to believe what he had said.

"Heh! Feel free delude yourself all you want! Your role here is just to show them the other side of the world, and it's already done!"

The girl widened her eyes and fell to her knees. Rüdiger ignored her and turned his attention to the other three. "You are the ones that need to see… what is being hidden from you, Seeds of Doubt."

Hishiro stomped and pointed the AMCP at him again, clearly annoyed. "That shit again?! What this even mean to begin with?"

"It means you were chosen. Among all the experiments with the Exceptions happening in this city, you were the ones chosen by Rázval. He believed that you were clever enough to understand the truth behind this circus called Academy City."

"Rázval…!" Frenda took a step back and held her head with both hands. That name triggered some memories that invaded her head at once without mercy. "Impossible… that means… that really happened? That wasn't just an hallucination caused by the weird gas?"

"Exception? Rázval? I don't understand nothing about what you said!" Hishiro shouted back at him, getting even more angry by the second.

Rüdiger seemed to be enjoying himself as he explained. "Don't worry about that. You see, I was-"

*ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

And it was gone. The man that should be standing just ten steps away from them was nowhere to be seen anymore. A massive beam wiped out everything on its way, and all that was left was smoke. Everyone had their jaws hanging, trying to understand what had just happened in front of their eyes.

"Ahh, that felt good. That's what you get for messing with a level 5! AHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Mu-Mugino!?" Frenda and Kinuhata said in unison, looking at their leader that still had her hand stretched out, followed by the silent Takitsubo.

"Unbelievable. Without trace… after all we tried and failed.. that dragon woman is no joke…" Hishiro said without thinking.

"What is it? Oh no, not that time stopping brat again..."

"I already told you that I don't stop the time!"

Frenda interrupted the useless discussion, half scared and half complaining. "Y-you know, Mugino… that guy you blew off just now… don't you think you… overdone a little bit?"

"Of course not! Do you have any idea of where he sent us? He HAD to die! And I didn't need to look for more than five seconds to know that you were fighting him. Just look at what happened to the stores! Geez…"

"Y-yeah, but… we were kinda in the middle of interrogating him and all…"

"I see, I see. My bad." She answered without even glancing at her teammate. She was too busy looking around to see if there were still any unharmed stores to resume their shopping trip, but unfortunately, all clerks and workers ran away during the the confusion. Frenda just sighed and hung her head, emitting an aura of "I give up".

Meanwhile, Index approached Hishiro from behind and whispered to his ear. "I'm sorry, but can you keep them distracted or a few minutes and then go after Touma for me? I need to look for that man."

"You don't think… he had survived that do you?"

"I'm not sure, but I can still feel a small concentration of telesma. I need to confirm if it's really over."

"In that case, wouldn't it be better if I-"

"Sorry, Shiro, but you don't have time to go on a date with her right now." Asuka interrupted from the communication device. "Okay, leave the boy to us. We are counting on you to clear this one up, Index-chan~*"

"Hm. Thank you!" And so, she dashed away, following the trace that only she could see.

"Aaaand we lost her again." complained Hishiro, unsatisfied with this development.

"We don't have much choice." Answered Asuka. "LIZARD made their move, and it seems that this Touma got dragged into it."

"Tsk. At the worst time possible." Stomping, Hishiro kept complaining. "Dammit, it's just one thing after the other."

Kinuhata noticed the boy's behaviour as the nun went away and approached, followed by the other members of ITEM. "Is it okay to let her go like this?"

"Yeah… for now, at least."

"So… don't you super own us a bunch of explanations?"

"Yes, you do!" Frenda demanded even more forcefully than Kinuhata. "How come you show up out of nowhere bringing our enemy with you?"

This isn't good. I can't simply tell them everything. I don't even have the time to do so. Scratching his head, the boy tried to think a way out of this situation. "It's a long story. I would love to talk about it over some tea and snacks, but I'm in the middle of an important mission right now." And like that, he tried to step away from them, but Mugino and Takitsubo had already surrounded him. "If you don't leave me alone, I'm ready to fight my way out of this. Is that what you all want?"

"Shiro! Don't!" Asuka shouted, trying to hammer some sense into him, but he seemed serious about it. Both him and Mugino stared daggers into each other for almost half a minute before she clicked her tongue and stepped aside.

"I'm not in the mood for that. Disappear from my sight before I change my mind." All members of ITEM looked surprised while Hishiro ran away and got into a black car that had parked nearby at some point.

"Mugino... Why?" Takitsubo was the one to ask what everyone wanted to know.

"Being around that brat pisses me off. And as much I would love to burn som holes into him, I can't risk having those two getting even more hurt than they already are." Answered her while pointing to Frenda and Kinuhata. "He's a sneaky one, I bet he would aim for them first."

Kinuhata seemed a bit happy and troubled at the same time. "I appreciate the feeling, but I super had to give this back to him." She said while looking at the revolver she had took from him a while back, but no one besides her seemed to actually care. Specially Frenda, who was lost in thought while she blankly stared in the direction the nun had ran to.

"Seed of Doubt… Rázval… Why does it fells like I..."

…

"Wheew. I don't know what I would have done if she really started attacking me back there."

"Stupid Shiro. You have to think about your position before intimidating someone."

"What else could I have done?" The two of them kept arguing for a while as the car rode to the center of district 7.

"Ayway, Shiro… You did what I told you to do?"

"Yeah, as if I wouldn't. I just hope that Index won't notice the tracking device on her clothes."

Part 3

The streets of the central area of District 7 were not full of people, but none of them were civilians. Wearing the familiar dark blue uniforms, they were the disguised LIZARD agents.

"That was fast."

"True. I was expecting them to take at least thrice the time to cover all this area."

Touma and Hinata were hidden on the top of a truck as they observed the situation. Using normal methods, it would be impossible to move or hide from so many enemies, but thanks to Hinata's wire, they were able to pass flying over their heads without much problem. The girl spotted a back alley that should be safe and warned. "We're going there next. Prepare yourself."

Touma nodded and got closer to her, allowing she to embrace him using one arm while the other stretched forward and shot the barely visible thread. Once she confirmed that it had it was firm enough and there was anyone facing that way, she jumped forward and let the wire take her where she wanted.

Touma couldn't help but wonder the material that the wire was made of, what she used to shot it, and more importantly, where she was hiding all of it while wearing those light clothes. Though his thoughts always went into a weird direction once it came to that and he had to force himself to stop without reaching any conclusion. All he managed to grasp is that there were something thin and transparent over her fingernails.

Once they landed, they found a single agent looking around inside the alley. It was a boy that seemed to be as young as Hinata, which made the whole uniform business ridiculous.

"Halt!" Said the boy not even as a warning, as he attacked immediately. He took several marbles and threw them in the air. They started to stick together one after the other like magnets, forming a ball about twice the size of a soccer ball. Touma took action right away and slapped the flying threat before it could complete, making all marbles fall on the floor. Without spearing a second, he slammed his fist on the boy's stomach, knocking him out right away.

"It's a weird feeling to notice that I'm getting good at doing this." Commented Touma as he carefully rest the boy's body on the ground while Hinata proceeded to tie him up.

"It's important to learn different things in life. You never know when you will need them."

"To be honest, I hope I never need to do this kind of thing again."

Things were going pretty well, but it's not like they didn't had any unwanted encounters. This was the fifth time they were forced to fight, but Touma managed to handle all confrontations so far with his mysterious ability. Even so, it was only a matter of time before one of them would be found, and they had to wrap everything up before that.

Also, Touma couldn't take his mind away from the fact that his body was reacting naturally to all of this, which would put any regular high school student to the edge. Am I used to this kind of situation? He couldn't answer this question, as he had no memories from a month ago and beyond. Come to think of it, I never got to know what had caused this. All I know is that I had helped Index in some way. Maybe I did got involved in some dangerous incidents in the past...

As Hinata finished tying the boy, Touma shook those thoughts out of his head and asked. "I wonder how long it'll take to get there…"

She quickly checked the led screen of her wristwatch before answering. "We are almost there. Still we can't waste any time. If they really have a precognition esper with them, then they might already know what we are planning to do. In that case, we need to get there before they have a chance to prepare a countermeasure."

They were indeed close to the place they were heading to, but since they had to sneak, it was taking a frustrating amount of time to cover that short distance. After bumping into another 2 LIZARD soldiers, they finally managed to get to their goal.

"A radio tower?"

"Yes. A very particular one as well." Even though the girl affirmed that, it didn't looked like it had anything special. Except maybe for not being all that high as one would expect from a radio tower. However, this was an experimental facility meant to emit emergency signals to as many frequencies as possible. In cases of emergency, it would overlap any other signals and give the civilians the due instructions for each case. There were also one of these on Districts 1, 3, 15 and 22.

Even without knowing all these details, Touma felt that there was something wrong here. "Wasn't there supposed to be some kind of security around here?"

"Yes, I was expecting that." She answered while tilting her head. "This is unusual..."

"Do you think it's because of the transportation problem? Or maybe..."

"These people that are after us probably have something to do with it."

He swallowed dry in anticipation of what could happen inside that building. "So we better be ca-"

"To the ground. Now!" Hinata grabbed his arm and threw them both to the floor. Right after that, a torrent of fire flew past them and blasted on the wall of the tower. She then let go his arm and rolled to the side in order to see where the attack came from.

A girl with a long light brown hair was dashing towards them, firing 2 more torrents of fire. Touma caught on the situation quickly and protected himself with his right arm. Hinata used the same move to stand up and dodge the attack, getting momentum to meet the other girl's charge head on.

When they both were about to clash, Hinata lowered herself and increased her speed, vanishing from her enemy sight and prepared to slash her.

However…

"Heya!" The other girl stopped on her tracks and made the motion of a spinning kick, causing a spiral of fire around herself. Hinata was able to dodge on the last moment, but the sudden movement made her leg twist in the wrong way. Still, she kept herself on her feet with a blank expression on her face.

"So you're the sneaky rat I heard so much about. I gotta say I'm impressed by your agility."

"Thank you very much."

"You shouldn't be thanking me. Your life ended the moment you crossed my path."

At that moment, both Touma and Hinata felt something. A peculiar smell. It was… "*sniff* *sniff* Gasoline?"

The girl smirked upon hearing this and lighted a small ember on the top of her finger. Hinata tried to run away, but there was nothing she could do. In less than five seconds, a sea of flames enveloped everything and trapped her inside that inferno.

For Touma's luck (or the lack of it), the shockwave sent him flying safely away from the fire… and head first into a light pole. The impact made him dizzy for a moment, and when the pain started to fade, what he saw was Hinata struggling to break free from the other girl's grasp while she held some kind of small device with her other hand.

"Ah, I see, I see. Capacity Down, huh. This is getting quite popular among the Skill-Out lately. A tool worthy of a level 0." Said the girl while studying the device. "You were planning to use the radio tower to transmit this to all of our walkie talkies and send us all in disarray and- then what? What was your goal? What was it?!" Hinata was having a hard time breathing and couldn't answer that.

Touma stood up and stumbled towards the two girls, but unfortunately, several soldiers arrived before he could do anything.

"Commander Yuna, are you alright? We saw the blast from the distance-"

"Don't worry, that was my doing. But you arrived at a great time. I just captured the little doll that the Overseer was after, and it came with a bonus!" And the girl named Yuna pointed towards Touma. All the soldiers turned to him and, unlike the Espers they have been fighting so far, they were all holding guns.

"Oh no..." was everything he could say before running for his life as they mashed the trigger and pursued him.

Between the Lines

The dark red haired boy in messy clothes looked at several trump cards scattered on the table. Choosing carefully, he picked one, examined it and added it to the deck on his hand. The Grim Reaper must have all of it figure out by now. Stealing a password and giving it to someone else without using it yourself was pretty obvious after all. He repeated the process over and over until a window splashed on the right monitor.

"Sir, we have something to report."

"Right, go on..." he answered without even glancing at it, paying full attention to his cards.

"We had already taken the entirety of 6 Districts, including the District 7 where those people you wanted were last seen. We might hear good results from the soon."

"Oh, that was sooner than I expected."

"Also, we found the abandoned STUDY's laboratory containing that specimen. However, it seems to be incomplete. According to the documents they hadn't disposed off yet, there are two other that are almost perfect, but they use someone else genetic code as a base. Wouldn't it be better if we had those in our possession?"

"No, that won't do… it's pointless if it isn't her." He frowned for once and stopped toying with the cards, thinking in what to do. "Besides, they are probably watching those two very closely. It wouldn't be easy to get our hands on one. Order them to bring her to our lab in District 10, and make sure to keep her stable at least."

"Sure, but you are aware that she's useless as is, right?"

"Yes… if we only had Kihara Gensei on our side right now, we would be able to patch her up in an instant. What are the odds of we getting custody over Kyama Harumi?"

"Zero, I'm afraid. She's currently working with Heaven Canceller to heal the test subjects of Gensei's research."

"What a waste of talent..." He said with a bitter smile on his face as he sun his chair and looked at some documents. "Seems like we have no other choice but to use our last resource. Once Yuna is done, tell her we found her dear professor and that I want to meet him in person."

"I'm sure she'll be pleased to hear that."

"And what about the chairman? Any moves yet?"

"No. Not even the Board of Directors nor his agents in the dark side are aware of the situation."

This is perfect for us, but it feels kinda sad to be ignored like that. The boy kept those thoughts to himself and went back to his cards while the man kept talking.

"But it seems like ITEM had a confront with the intruder. No order was sent, so we assume it was their own initiative. There were two other people with them at the time, but we couldn't confirm what group they belong to. They are probably civilians."

"Hmm… this cannot keep happening."

"Should we deal with him?"

"No, he is too much for our troops right now. I'll find another way to solve this problem. You're dismissed for now."

"Yes, Overseer."

Once the call was over, the boy stood up and headed out of the room. "In the end, I'll have to leave my castle to get rid of him, huh? This gotta be the work of fate."

Well, damn. It's been several months since the last update. I got pretty busy and once everything was over I got pretty lazy… XP. In the end I didn't even stopped to read the latest Index volume released yet! This is tragic!

Yeah, I hate when things gets busy. But this ends now, and as Rüdiger would say, the show must go on! Thanks to this hiatus, this arc has been going for longer than I expected, but 2 or 3 chapters should be enough to finish it. I hope I can keep you entertained all the way.

This was a pretty straightforward and battle oriented chapter, so there are no smart remarks to be done this time… besides Mugino is back, and she's overpowered as always! Anyway, leave your reviews if you have the time to spare and see you again next time! (That is, once I finish reading the next volume)