A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 19

by Kazuma Kamachi

  There wasn’t a trace of sympathy in his voice.

  He was, after all, a villain. The strongest Level Five, whose heart was fundamentally black as tar.

  “…What an eyesore,” he grumbled in a tone that suggested other people, and life itself, meant nothing to him. “Always better to get the bullshit out of the way quickly.”

  4

  Shiage Hamazura and Saiai Kinuhata were in the nighttime shopping district.

  …Not that there were any particularly amorous developments waiting for them—it was simply to prepare for Rikou Takitsubo’s welcome-home party. Still, it had been an incredibly sudden thing.

  “Wait, a welcome-home party? What exactly are we going to do?”

  “I reserved a private salon in District 3, so we’re going to, like, get a whole bunch of party goods together, then go back to the hospital and totally grab Takitsubo. After that, we’ll head straight there.”

  “A private salon, huh…,” muttered Hamazura offhandedly.

  The service Kinuhata had booked was basically like renting a glorified high-end karaoke booth. Since it meant anyone could easily buy a secret hideout this way, private salons were particularly popular with upper-class children…Some might wonder what value a service like this had, but with the majority of student residences being confined to dormitories in Academy City, places completely shielded from surveillance were prized.

  However, a single misstep brought the danger of these sorts of facilities turning into a hotbed for sex crimes, so its existence wasn’t purely a good thing, giving teachers and guardians more than enough reason to be pretty tense…

  As he was contemplating this, Kinuhata, walking next to him, volunteered, “Hamazura, what are you gonna do after this?”

  “Eh? Well, I think we can order good food and stuff on the private room’s intercom, and maybe we could check out some silly party favors that lots of people can—”

  “Not that,” Kinuhata interrupted. “Item, the organization we belonged to, is basically done for. Which means you totally don’t have to work for us anymore. That’s why I’m asking…Like, what are you going to do after this?”

  “Sorry for answering your question with one, but what about you?”

  “Well, I’ll probably keep trucking along as usual. Item’s, like, super-gone now, but when we were active, they pushed a lot of Stargate-related assassinations on us. We’re actually trying to put a new team together…If the higher-ups—the phone people—have anything to say about it, we’re probably in for more super-bloody jobs. But there’s totally zero merit to bringing Takitsubo in again, now that she’s out of commission, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

  Kinuhata’s answer came smoothly. She didn’t seem to have many objections to her situation.

  “…Huh.”

  “So, Hamazura, what are you going to do?”

  He glanced up into the air. He could see numerous stars in the night sky, even in the city, now that the sun had fully gone below the horizon.

  “I feel bad for Hanzou, but I don’t feel like going back to Skill-Out at the moment. I don’t know what I can do right now, but I have to do something to put Takitsubo back in the normal world. She can’t use the Crystals anymore, and I kind of get the feeling our world isn’t going to let her hold out in that state forever. Which means I’ve gotta think of what to do next.”

  It wasn’t a very sensible answer—it was exactly the kind some stupid thug would give. But in this case, it was clear his thoughts weren’t just something he was carelessly making up.

  Shiage Hamazura had once defeated a woman who was a Level Five esper.

  But the battle had been far from simple. Driven to the brink of death, forced to the very, very end of his rope, he’d willed himself to move his trembling legs and stand up to her. And this was what had kept him going. There was no reason his answer didn’t carry any weight.

  He may have been a dumb street thug in every other sense of the word, but in this aspect alone, he was different…

  For a few moments, Kinuhata watched Hamazura as he gazed up at the night sky.

  “…In other words, you’re going to pour all your passion into forcing your hobbies onto Takitsubo, ripping off that overly practical tracksuit of hers, and making her wear a bunny suit.”

  “Hey, is that the character I am now? Set in stone? Since we have the chance, let me clear the air. I admit I like bunny girls, but you’ve got the wrong idea. The most important thing—like with swimsuits, it’s the beauty of unbalance, of being seen in a place you shouldn’t be wearing a swimsuit, so if it was some kind of motor show companion, I would be totally fine with—”

  “Ugh, would you please, like, stop it, Hamazura? I totally get it. You want the world to form a pact that will force every girl on earth to wear a bunny suit. I wish you’d just, like, stop looking at me like some kind of pervert when you think stuff like that.”

  “Come on,” said Hamazura, shaking his head. “I’ve got good eyes for this stuff, so let me be totally honest with you. A bunny suit would never work on you.”

  “…Well let me be totally honest with you, too. Takitsubo may be in high school, but I, a middle schooler, am totally sexier than her.”

  “No, you’re dead wrong!! You just can’t tell it because she always wears that tracksuit—but I know if she takes it off, it would be incredible!! And I know that if you stripped, we wouldn’t discover anything that’s the least bit surprising!!”

  “I totally want to murder you right now; I assume you’re okay with that. It’s okay, right? All right, time for murder.”

  Roar!! Something like wind began to gather in Kinuhata’s hands.

  Her ability was Nitrogen Armor. She was a Level Four who could freely control the nitrogen in the air. Its effective area was extremely narrow and, at most, could reach out a few centimeters from her palms…But its power was immense. She could block sniper rifle bullets barehanded or flip ten-pound tables with a single hand.

  Hamazura wanted nothing more than to avoid letting her use something so terrifying to hit him, but…

  “Hrm?!”

  …before he could take any sort of action, Kinuhata was herself surprised. The moment she’d gathered enough nitrogen in her palms, the pseudo-winds flipped her dress skirt all the way up.

  An instant before he could see what was underneath—in other words, her panties—Kinuhata slammed one hand down on her skirt front.

  “That was a super-close one…Almost gave Hamazura something to fap to tonight.”

  “…You just said one of the top-five worst things I’ve ever heard anyone say in my life. Anyway, to be honest, I’ve got no interest in a little brat’s tasteless underwear, so don’t worry. When I imagine sexy, I think older ladies—you know, the type who would look good in bunny suits, and…”

  “…”

  Then, Saiai Kinuhata, a girl who hated to lose at anything, grabbed the front of her miniskirt with both hands and, without any warning, motioned them upward.

  “Hamazura, Hamazura. Look, watch, totally flashing ya!”

  “Uwooohhhhhhhaaaaaa?! I can…I…I can, can…I can’t see anything!! What was that, a feint? You let go of your skirt an instant too early, and your arms were the only thing that lifted up; don’t scare me like that—”

  After making such a straightforward reaction, he noticed Kinuhata was smirking at him.

  “Oh, really? Still wanna say you’ve got no interest…hmm?”

  “You tested me…!! But that reaction was merely shock from the surprise attack; I w-wasn’t hoping for anything weird—”

  “Flashing ya again!”

  “Fnnghhhhhhhhh!! D-damn! I know it’s just a spiteful fake-out, but damn it!! Why the hell am I—?”

  “What’s this? I’ve got you in the palm of my hand. Once a Hamazura, always a Hamazura. Get it? It’s ten thousand years too soon for some less-than-primitive sex-obsessed animal to debate whether the great Kinuhata is sexy or not, for real. To be honest with
you, you’re way full of yourself. Try evolving into a regular animal first.”

  “…No.”

  Hamazura, beaten and sinking into the darkness, then lifted his face up once again.

  In his eyes was the intent to fight.

  “I’ve changed!! I’m no longer an ordinary man fated to die in despair!! I will rise again!! Come at me, Kinuhata! This time, this time for sure I’ll overcome the temptation of your thighs!!”

  “Hee-hee. You’ve, like, never had any role to play other than Generic Villager A. And you think you can stand up to me? You say some super-funny things, Hamazura. It’s time for you to, like, suffer for your sexual instincts!!”

  Here we go, flashy, flashy!! came the evil demon lord Kinuhata’s ultimate attack.

  With a shout of “Ohhh, Takitsubo! Give me strength!!” the hero Hamazura awaited the support of the brave heart that lay deep within him.

  But then Kinuhata’s little finger must have caught on her miniskirt.

  Because on the third try, this time, her dress skirt actually did shoot upward.

  Her woolen, sweater-like skirt flapped up, revealing the small white cloth inside that should have been tightly guarded. Her way of standing, with her two thighs pressed together, was surprisingly girlish, and her underwear, which rested on the top of her thighs, squeezed slightly inward. And he could see it all perfectly.

  And thus, the hero Hamazura was defeated.

  As red liquid spouted from his nose for the second time that day, the hero uttered his final words.

  “Cowaaaaaaaaaard!! What was that supposed to be? Duck, duck, goose?! A triple play?! I was fully ready for an attack from the front, but you brought me down from a different angle. Your strategy’s like the elaborate twist of a genius short story or the textbook on how to design a haunted house!!”

  Of course, this wasn’t actually a strategy. It had been a complete and total accident. Kinuhata, whose arms were high in the air even after gravity returned her skirt to normal, trembled for a moment in silence.

  “Hamazura, you’re totally dead!!”

  “You’ve broken my spirit, and now you’ve come to finish off the flesh?! Can the demon lord have no mercy?!”

  Hamazura ran, and Kinuhata chased.

  Soon after, the delightful sounds of destruction rang out through Academy City’s shopping district.

  5

  The camper that Accelerator, Motoharu Tsuchimikado, Awaki Musujime, and Mitsuki Unabara were riding was headed for District 23.

  The world’s largest particle accelerator, the Hula Hoop, was constructed over two hundred meters underground, forming a ring along the outer wall surrounding Academy City’s border. Similarly, its control center was in one of the school districts bordering the wall—at the farthest end of District 23. It was, of course, more than two hundred meters belowground as well. The terrorists had captured the facility, and now they were using human shields while making their demands through the internet.

  “Come to think of it, what happened to that voice on the phone that always calls?” noted Accelerator. “Don’t they always drop everything to ring us up whenever shit like this happens?”

  “Hell if I know,” said Tsuchimikado. “If they don’t want to make contact, there’s nothing we can do to raise them. They’re probably on another job—or vacation.”

  “Aw,” piped in Musujime. “Does it worry you that we can’t contact them?”

  “I will smash your teeth, jaw, and tongue in.”

  Accelerator and Awaki Musujime glared at each other, but Group wasn’t the type of unit that cared.

  As Unabara sharpened his obsidian knife to a sharp edge, he asked Tsuchimikado, “What is Anti-Skill doing?”

  “They were planning to insert a counterterror team, but it looks like they’ve been forbidden from actually mobilizing,” answered Tsuchimikado, who was disassembling the bigger parts of his gun and doing a simple operation check. “To be fair, though, normal Anti-Skill officers acting in this situation could very likely just make things worse. The Hula Hoop is over two hundred meters underground, and it’s got defenses like a nuclear attack shelter so that the gamma rays don’t flood out if a rupture occurs. The walls go without saying, but you can’t even punch through the doors with regular cutters or explosives.”

  “Could we not just use an elevator shaft or something of the sort?” asked Unabara.

  “There’s a ton of partitioning walls for them, too. They’re like automatic doors—they have little cutout pieces, so they can precisely close up while avoiding the elevator wires. The ducts are basically the same.”

  “If we dawdle, it’ll clue them in,” thought Musujime aloud, efficiently positioning the corkscrews that she used as weapons in her pockets. “Try to damage the doors or walls without thinking, and the former Spark Signal terrorists are liable to react by blowing a hostage’s head off.”

  Unabara wiped off the dirt stuck to his knife’s blade, asking, “What’s it like on the inside?”

  “Didn’t you hear me? The walls are thick enough to stop gamma radiation. Regular EM waves won’t get through, either. We also can’t drill a hole to slide in a snake camera. We’ve got the layout of the building, but we don’t know how many people are positioned where.”

  “…What about those nanodevices?” asked Musujime.

  An unpleasant air settled over the camper.

  Nanodevices called the Underline were scattered throughout the whole city, keeping a ceaselessly watchful eye on everything. Naturally, the Hula Hoop should have been under surveillance as well, but…

  “We should assume that when the emergency doors are completely shut, they block the electron beams used in the network system…Not that I’d be surprised if there was an even more secret trick they’re using to get around this issue.”

  After finishing that line of thought, Tsuchimikado paused, then continued. “Also, we don’t officially know about those nanodevices existing. Even if the higher-ups had information, it wouldn’t make it around to us.”

  “…It’s difficult not knowing how many we need to kill to make this operation a success. We very well may be shot in the back after thinking we’re in the clear.”

  “Then we should have someone who doesn’t mind getting shot make the assault.” Tsuchimikado waved his handgun, dismantled and now put back together, gesturing toward the simple bed.

  Accelerator was sitting on it. He could reflect any and all attacks.

  “I’m not about to let this beach-bro jagoff order me around, but doing this alone might be easier than letting you people watch my back,” noted Accelerator, eyeballs flitting around to return the glare. “But how do I get in there? You want me to bust through two hundred meters of bedrock and those defensive walls?”

  …When he put it that way, it really made the proposal seem impossible, but of all the people who could potentially make it happen, Accelerator was candidate number one.

  However, Tsuchimikado shook his head. “Better not. Spark Signal is one thing, but it’ll be a pain if you mess up and harm the hostages or the operating accelerator. Let’s play it by the book. We’ll have Musujime use her power to ignore three-dimensional limitations.”

  Musujime’s Move Point ability was classified as a relative of teleportation. It could bring a target object or person to a location of the user’s choosing, while ignoring obstacles such as walls and ceilings.

  But then Musujime frowned. “You want me to accurately warp something as heavy as a person to a spot I can’t see, in a building I’ve only ever seen a rough layout of, over two hundred meters underground? I think the chances of him ending up buried in a wall or the ground are about fifty percent. But if you’re still game, I won’t stop you.”

  “I’m not asking you to do something as difficult as that.” Tsuchimikado grinned. “District 23 is chock-full of aviation and space-related facilities, so most of the ground is covered by flat runways. But that would be a waste of real estate. They wouldn’t have any space to se
t up the actual airplane development facilities and whatnot.”

  “What are you getting at?” asked Musujime.

  “…What I mean is: Basements and underground facilities run pretty deep here. Nothing’s directly linked to the Hula Hoop, but we can close the distance between us and the other side of those walls and the dirt in the ground. You use your Move Point from that location and launch our strategic weapon right into their midst.”

  The camper had entered District 23 while they were discussing this.

  Normally, entry of civilian vehicles was prohibited without a specific pass or belonging to certain businesses, but their RV rolled on through like it was natural.

  District 23, with its many scattered runways, had comparatively few tall buildings. The camper stopped next to a building that was only as tall as a school gymnasium, but its sides stretched out quite a bit.

  The four got out.

  When Accelerator placed his crutch’s four leg pieces onto the ground, Musujime’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Did you build a brand-new crutch? What a good worker ant.”

  “Shut up and get walking,” he grumbled half-heartedly. “What are you, some annoying hag who assumes people are having an affair just because they changed clothes?”

  Accelerator entered the low building. It was a proving ground for air force–related weapons, but naturally, the four had come here for what lay underground.

  Using a pass that he had gotten from who knows where, Tsuchimikado disengaged the lock on the employee elevator. The lift carried them straight down about 150 meters.

  It was there that Accelerator felt a tingling sensation around his temples.

  … Am I getting a bad signal now because we went so far underground…?

  Unconsciously, he put a hand to his choker, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Outside the reopened elevator doors was a large floor shined to a sparkle, like a department store or office building. There were no windows, but there was so much illumination it felt like it was possible to forget this was underground. Quite a few people would believe it if someone had told him this was the twelfth floor of a famous department store.