A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 14

by Kazuma Kamachi

  2

  Suddenly, Mikoto Misaka stopped.

  Hmm…

  She’d forgotten about it when she ran into that idiot, but now she remembered she had something to talk to him about.

  …The Ichihanaran Festival.

  Mikoto had a citywide cultural festival on her mind. This year’s festival was still over a month away, but due to how terribly the Daihasei Festival, the aggregated athletic festival held in September, ended up (in reality, it was a succession of good, bad, and bittersweet, but she only felt it had been terrible), she’d been thinking about taking measures early for the Ichihanaran Festival.

  Actually, half of that seven-day-long Daihasei Festival was one big string of problems related to that idiot. If I’d known it would end up like that, I would have taken the reins earlier…

  When she said “taking measures,” she meant, of course, securing from him a promise to go around the festival with her.

  Why did it turn out like this? …Well, I guess I can just call him, she thought noncommittally, taking out her cell phone.

  She’d formed a pair contract with Kamijou on September 30, so his number was naturally registered in her phone. The whole setup was painful, but she had it, so she might as well use it. As she lined her cursor up on the number in her address book, her eyes went to the antenna symbol in the corner of her screen.

  She was out of range.

  “…!!”

  She looked around, and though the road she was on wasn’t small by any means, she ran all the way to a real main street, watching the antenna display at the edge of the screen. Then, after confirming she was having no reception issues, she brought the cursor to the entered number once again and pushed the Call button.

  But all she got was an emotionless voice telling her the person she was trying to call was unreachable or his phone was off. This time, he was the one out of range.

  “Urgh, this is hard to use…What’s a cell phone good for if you can’t talk to someone when you want to?!”

  With anger on her face, she put her phone away, looked around, then ran off to search for him personally.

  Not much time had passed since they’d parted.

  The idiot was probably wandering around nearby anyway.

  3

  Kamijou and the elderly woman walked side by side down the street.

  Many people were out and about, but nobody gave them a second thought. Anyone would see a high school student with grocery bags in his hands and an old woman with a coat draped over her arm and think they were completely harmless.

  As Kamijou stared at her out of the corner of his eye, not bending his neck, she was the one to give a dry grin instead. “You don’t need to be so nervous.”

  Having said that, though, she had already ordered him to turn his phone off and given him precise instructions on how quickly he should walk. Whatever was hidden under that coat, it was the real deal. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but he clearly couldn’t make a mistake here.

  He considered waiting for a chance to jump at her and turn the situation around. The problem is, I don’t know what’s really under there…If I do something careless and make things even worse, it wouldn’t be funny.

  As Kamijou worried about this and that, the old woman quietly said, “Please act naturally. It isn’t like I’m demanding you not move a finger.”

  “…Well, still…Why don’t you bring out what’s under your coat—?”

  “Ahchoo!”

  “Whoa!!”

  The woman had suddenly sneezed, and Kamijou reflexively cried out. A group of students walking nearby glanced at them curiously, then continued on their way.

  “I told you, it’ll be all right. You’ve been so scared for a while. What is it?”

  “Mainly the thing you’re hiding in your coat!! What exactly are you sticking into me right now?!”

  “Oh my. It’s all right, everything’s fine. It won’t fire just because I sneezed.”

  “F-fire? It fires—you mean it really is one of those?!”

  “It also makes a loud noise. Although I do have a little thing on it to make it quiet.”

  “That was a pretty huge hint!!” squealed Kamijou, trembling in fear. The older woman didn’t worry about his shriek.

  Escorted by her, they walked through a large shopping district and onto a side road. He realized they were heading for a part of town with a lot of student dormitories—though not the area his was in. Students made up 80 percent of Academy City, so admittedly “parts of town with a lot of student dormitories” were all over the place.

  Where on earth are we going…?

  If it had been a strange, abandoned factory or something, it would have maxed out his danger gauge. But that wasn’t what it seemed like. Not with the scent of white stew for dinner coming from a nearby dorm and a group of elementary school girls secretly giving food to stray cats, as though making up for the fact that their dorm didn’t allow pets.

  As he was busy observing, the old woman stopped abruptly.

  “Here it is. Right here.”

  “?” That wasn’t enough for Kamijou to get it.

  They’d come to a children’s park.

  It felt more like this place had been made because there was a little extra space left over from the buildings around it, not as an actual zoned park. It seemed somehow squeezed together, with the proper amount of playground equipment for a narrow area bundled into a set and shoved in.

  But why, though??? Kamijou’s mind reeled as he looked at the entrance to the empty space. It wasn’t a special place. At least, not the kind where you’d hold an object against someone on the street and bring them there, prepared for them to see your face.

  “I’m sorry. Please go in,” said the old woman, ever so casually poking him with the thing in her coat.

  He had no choice but to obey, but he still had no clue what all this was getting her.

  At her instruction, they sat next to each other on a bench at the park’s edge.

  He initially suspected somebody else was waiting for them, or perhaps would be coming later, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

  Kamijou hunched over a bit and placed his two shopping bags on the ground. The woman didn’t especially try to stop him. If he’d had a weapon in his shoe or something, maybe he’d be able to counterattack, but he wasn’t armed to the teeth like some kind of ninja.

  He also considered picking up a rock, but he had no clear opportunity to. If he messed up and made her more cautious, it would come to nothing anyway.

  For now, he decided to give up and stand.

  He asked the woman, “So what on earth are you trying to start here?”

  “Oh, no. Nothing as important as you’re thinking,” she said with a sweet smile, poking him with the very much important object in her folded coat.

  “Let’s talk,” she said.

  “Talk?”

  “Yes. About the chaos happening throughout the world right now.”

  4

  She couldn’t find that idiot anywhere.

  “This is so strange…” Mikoto swerved onto a small road she’d already been down, looking to and fro, wondering where he was.

  She didn’t think it had been that long since they’d parted, but he wasn’t at the place they’d last met. She’d searched several roads around that point, and still, he was nowhere to be found.

  Maybe he’d gone into a store or something. Or maybe he’d gotten on public transit and gone somewhere?

  …Where is that idiot’s dormitory anyway? It’s not like I’m a stalker. How am I supposed to know where to find him? They tended to run into each other without particularly wanting to, so he couldn’t be very far away now. Thinking on it more, though, she had no idea where he even lived.

  She folded her arms. Well, the Ichihanaran Festival thing isn’t urgent or anything, so I’ll give up and go home for today.

  At least, she tried to brush off her irritation, but as soon as she spotted a side road
out of the corner of her eye, she fidgeted.

  …N-no, maybe one more road, she decided. Wondering if there were any roads around that she hadn’t checked, she called up her GPS map on her cell phone—and just then, she spotted Kuroko Shirai among the crowds of homeward bound.

  With a terrific whoosh!! she hid herself behind a building.

  Wh-what? …What am I hiding for?

  It was a mystery even to Mikoto, but she vaguely felt like she couldn’t let her twin-tailed underclassman find her just now. The other girl was a teleport esper, so if Mikoto was discovered, it would be really hard to shake her off on foot.

  The Level Four Shirai was saying something to a girl next to her as they walked down the wide road. The girl had a voluminous crown of fake flowers on her head, so she was probably Kazari Uiharu from Judgment.

  …Mikoto had the feeling that they were coming this way, so she entered the narrow road her hiding place had put her near. For now, she went farther and farther down.

  And then she realized it:

  Huh? …Was this road always here???

  She looked around closely again, realizing she didn’t recognize the place. She’d thought she knew most of School District 7 by heart, but this was her first time coming here.

  It was a typical Academy City residential area—not of apartment complexes and single-family houses, of course, but of crowded student dormitory blocks. It was filled with nothing but rectangular buildings five to ten stories tall, not big enough to be called high-rises. A garbage dumpster was set up directly under a wind turbine propeller. Maybe the propeller’s movements were also used to keep pigeons and crows away.

  All the meals at Tokiwadai Middle School were prepared by the school itself, so for Mikoto, the smells of dinner floating to her from nearby felt kind of fresh or something.

  “…Well, this works. If I don’t see him here, I’ll call it quits for the day,” she said vaguely, continuing her walk through the residential district.

  5

  Kamijou gazed at the old woman dubiously.

  The chaos happening throughout the world…She could only have wanted to talk about one thing: the large-scale demonstrations and protests split between those on Academy City’s side and those on the Vatican’s.

  However…

  “…Talk about it?” he said. “There’s nothing I can actually talk about to begin with.”

  “That isn’t true. We need your opinion in order to solve this problem.”

  “My opinion? Not the opinion of some UN people or the president of another country?”

  “Groups centered on the state have a tendency to be weak to religious and ideological strife,” replied the woman easily and unexpectedly. “We commonly call these groups ‘modern nations,’ and it is quite rare that one solves problems like that. Many don’t hesitate to claim they solved one, but most of the time, they are squashed with military force. Nations, in many cases, actually make the problems worse.”

  The old woman continued to speak, the park empty around them. Intellect came in many shapes and sizes, but hers was close to the teacherly kind.

  “The chaos happening throughout the world right now is serious. Nobody will be able to solve it easily, and it could also be the flame to spark a second conflict. If they fail to put the flame out correctly, they could cause internal strife severe enough to paralyze national functions. That’s part of why no nation has carried out a military intervention against the demonstrations and protests. This is a difficult problem for them, and to be honest, nations would love to have a solution manual for it. Everybody is watching, waiting, until another country acts, so they can see what effects and results they achieve.”

  “…Who in the world are you?” asked Kamijou carefully.

  The woman sitting beside him seemed a little different than other agents like Motoharu Tsuchimikado and Stiyl Magnus, who were armed for combat and assassination. And from her manner of talking, she almost sounded like an educator. But a mere teacher probably wouldn’t make contact with him using a weapon hidden inside her coat.

  …She seems somehow different than the people I’ve met before, he’d thought, so he’d cautiously put the question to her.

  “Monaka Oyafune.”

  Her full name promptly came out.

  “Maybe you’d understand if I said I was on the Academy City General Board.”

  It was one bombshell after another with this woman. “…What?” asked Kamijou in spite of himself.

  The General Board was, so to speak, the highest agency in the sprawling Academy City—twelve people who focused on running the place. There was apparently someone even higher than them, a leader called the General Board chairperson, but nevertheless, the General Board’s privileges were nothing to shake a stick at.

  But at the same time…

  …Is she really one of those big shots?

  As one of only twelve members of Academy City’s General Board, she could freely control Anti-Skill officers and private security police with a single command. It would be weird for her to come personally to talk to him, armed, and calling him to a tiny little children’s park.

  As Kamijou wondered in doubt, the woman who said her name was Monaka Oyafune smiled. “Is that not believable?”

  “Yeah, um, it’s just weird. Like that scarf around your neck, it’s weird and shriveled—or, like, I get the sense that if you were on the General Board you could get a better one.”

  Kamijou was too confused to say anything sensible, but it startled Oyafune more than he expected. She suddenly brought a hand up to touch her scarf. “M-my daughter made this scarf for me. I will not let you insult it.”

  “O-oh,” answered Kamijou with an awkward nod before thinking of another question. “Wait…I’m sure your daughter is a full-fledged adult at this point. But she doesn’t seem very good at— Okay, I get it, I get it!! I won’t mention it again!! I won’t, so stop shaking whatever’s inside your coat already!!”

  Now he was being contained when he didn’t need to be, so he decided to stop pointlessly exciting her.

  Monaka Oyafune. The General Board…Those two pieces of information might not be correct, he concluded. But maybe she’s using a fake name so she can give me some kind of correct information. I don’t like dancing in the palms of other people’s hands, but I’ll be the one to decide whether to dance and how.

  “…Anyway, you said you wanted to talk. About what?” he began.

  Oyafune nodded, seeming happy. “A major problem is occurring throughout the world right now. A chain of disruptions with demonstrations and protests first and foremost.”

  “Well, I know that…”

  “I want to ask you to solve it.”

  “How?” asked Kamijou, frowning at those sudden words. “If I could do it myself, I would. Wouldn’t everyone in the world feel the same? But in reality, nothing’s changed. Nothing is solved. Everyone knows we have to solve the problem, but nobody is trying. Do you know why?”

  Kamijou continued, not waiting for an answer: “Because there’s no simple reason or cause behind it. Nobody can solve a problem that doesn’t have an answer. That’s why nobody can do anything, even though the problem is being paraded right in front of them. It’s just not solvable, is it? I hope you’re not about to ask me to go around the world and talk down every single protester individually.”

  “What if,” answered Monaka Oyafune, not backing down, as though she’d predicted that problem from the start, “there was a simple reason or cause? What would you do?”

  “What?”

  “This brings me to why I’m talking to you. I’m hoping for something that no United Nations or nation representative has—something that only you have.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Your right hand.”

  “…”

  Something only Touma Kamijou had. Without thinking, he glanced at it.

  The Imagine Breaker.

  It would be appropriate to consider for this. Whether
sorcery or supernatural ability, the special power could erase anything related to any strange abilities. But for things that weren’t, normal things like demonstrations or protests, it wouldn’t have any effect. Which meant…

  “Wait…Is that how it is?”

  “It is.”

  “You’re saying that a strange power is behind this chaos and that person is the cause of everything? And that if I destroy that one cause, everything will go back to normal? That if I act now, while it’s still a continuing problem rather than a result of September 30, I can solve it?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” Oyafune nodded simply. “By the way, Academy City isn’t the one creating this discord. According to the chairperson, the Roman Orthodox Church, a religious organization, apparently possesses a scientific, supernatural Ability Development agency.”

  “…?” Kamijou almost frowned at that but then realized to the general public…or rather, by Academy City’s announcements, sorcery didn’t exist.

  That was the story.

  The idea of “sorcery” was what “scientific supernatural abilities” were called in ages past. It wouldn’t do him any good to mention that here and now. If he interrupted without thinking, he’d just make the situation worse.

  Oyafune, never letting go of her “scientific viewpoint,” continued on. “Well—and this goes without saying—Academy City has no reason to sow discord. Naturally, if a problem has happened, it was the Roman Orthodox Church, not us.”

  “I see…” Kamijou almost agreed, but thinking calmly, something bothered him. “Wait, hold on. You’re kidding, right? They don’t gain anything from this, either. The demonstrations and protests are all happening in Roman Orthodox areas. The ones in the middle suffering because of it are people of that religion, aren’t they? They can’t benefit from making their own suffer.”

  “What if I said they did gain something?”

  “…What?”

  “It’s simple,” said Oyafune smoothly. “For example, official records state that there are over two billion Roman Orthodox followers. It’s an incredible number, isn’t it? Even all the children and elderly in Academy City combined only come to 2.3 million. If it came to a straight-up war, it would be a pure contest of numbers, and we would have no way to win. Even considering the geographical problems a war would pose for them, I’m pretty sure it won’t make up for the numbers advantage.”