The nature of souls.


[ACMI: Daily Life]

Joule called and Index answered fairly promptly.

"Want to hang out Index?" Joule asked "I'll pay for snacks if you're willing to field some questions."

Joule could almost hear Index's stomach over the phone as Index replied "I shouldn't, but..."

With a slight smile, Joule continued "Part of it is about my health, so... please?"

"Of course." Index changed her tune quickly. The food was still likely involved but Index's thoughts were about more than just that sort of thing.

They met up in an underground cafe and chatted as Joule bought them both sundays.

"-And then Touma just comes right back." Index noted as she finished off her story "And says 'I guess they didn't need me after all.'"

Joule smiled politely. She also reflected on GV though and his late night adventures. Index had been telling her of some of Touma's stories.

With that out of the way though, Joule moved on to the original reason she wanted to talk to Index.

[ACMI: Alchemy]

"My test results came back." She said, after letting some ice cream cool her throat "Have you ever heard of some sort of... spiritual growth, it's like a tumour that is attached to my power instead of my body."

Index paused, thoughtful.

"I'm not an expert on AIM." Index clarified before she started to answer "But if you're asking me... fill me in on the details."

Joule did, telling her what she'd heard from Heaven Canceller.

As she listened, Index picked at her sunday.

After listening to the story entirely, Index looked to the side.

"Possession, maybe?" Joule pondered aloud "Have you been experiencing any kind of lost time?"

Joule shook her head "I don't think so, Lumen would have told me if I was."

Index nodded, still in thought as she mumbled "Not active possession then, passive? Soul, Demon or Fairy?"

Looking up she asked something different "Has your power changed at all? Other than your companion weakening I mean?"

Joule's mind flashed back to that scene a few days ago, when the world shifted per her will.

"Something like that?" Joule noted "Though even I don't know what happened."

Taking a risk, though she didn't know why it would be a risk, she told Index what she'd experienced.

"It was like I could think something and the world would shift. I created some kind of illusion that everyone was seeing. That's not something normal for me, not by a long shot."

Sure, she could probably use a song to change someones senses and make them see something that wasn't there, but actually projecting a "Real Illusion" should be impossible. And everyone had experienced it, not just Espers and Magicians so it wasn't exactly like Lumen's body either.

Index thought about it for a long moment before nodding.

"Right, we should probably get you an exorcist."

Joule blinked "Why? Have you figured it out?"

With a shrug, the nun stood up "Close enough? I'm not positive as it somehow relates to AIM, but if I look at it from a magical perspective, I'd say you were possessed. By what, I'm not really sure. There was a lot of stuff going on and Academy City constantly defies my expectations but..."

Standing with her, Joule nodded.

"So where are we going to?"

Index paused and tilted her head to the side "Hmm. Good question, I doubt Academy City has the right sort of priests for this, or any at all really. Maybe the Amakusa are still around? I saw some of them at the hospital earlier."

Joule nodded and they set off. As they walked, Joule changed the subject slightly.

"So, someone else asked something related to this. What actually is a soul, from a magical perspective i mean."

Index glanced over "Is it not self-evident?"

Joule shook her head "Someone in Academy City did an experiment which could have involved the soul. So it matters what it actually is."

"It's the immortal part of a human." Index noted "Escaping the body at death, it passes on to paradise or damnation."

The nun shrugged as she finished "I don't really see what Academy City would care, you can't exactly study a soul. No matter how many bodies they could cut up, they'll never find it."

Joule shook her head "It's a bit worse actually, it goes like this:"

She explained the story she'd heard earlier, of a girl who was split up and put back together.

"So what happened to the soul?"

Index hummed for a moment.

"Souls can be duplicated." She began "And there are fields of magic like necromancy that heavily involve souls. In this case though... I could see it argued that the soul split apart and reformed at the end. There wouldn't be anything left in the machine."

Joule nodded slowly, thinking back to the points Shokuhou had mentioned "What would have happened if one of the halves were to die? The other wouldn't just drop dead would it?"

"No, not unless there was magic involved to trace the link between the souls." Index shook her head "In the case that one of the bodies died, that piece of the soul would have been lost. It likely would have been unable to move on. I could imagine the body would have become haunted, but not strongly enough for it to actually matter."

Joule looked up. She was reminded of the Adept Elise. She wondered what had happened to her souls as a result of her powers. Well, it wasn't like that mattered now.

They continued on back to the hospital.


End of Chapter

Welcome to Index and Joule's Excellent Exorcism Adventure.

How souls work is really vague in Toaru canon but I'm sticking with a bit of reasoning I get to if you combine what we know from this arc and what was learned about Necromancy.