A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 15

by Kazuma Kamachi

  Doesn’t look like I’m having a problem walking, at least…But I should probably stay away from ability usage mode, since it uses proxy calculations.

  Still, Accelerator wasn’t under the impression he couldn’t use his ability here. They seemed to be stimulating abilities to run out of control instead, so he couldn’t use it carelessly. His arms and legs could fly off if he got caught in his own ability.

  They’re using a bunch of other machines, too. Purposely getting them to interfere with one another.

  If he could figure out what sort of devices they were manipulating, he might have been able to find a countermeasure, but there, Accelerator stopped thinking. He’d found the reason the whole reformatory seemed odd.

  Corpses.

  Probably the mercenaries Block had called in from outside. Close to fifty big men were lying in pools of their own blood. Some were shot through the temple, others were missing parts of their heads from close-range shotgun blasts, and yet others had their necks cut with knives…There were many causes for death, but all had one thing in common.

  “They…All of them were ended by their own weapons…,” muttered Tsuchimikado.

  “Suicide…? No, wait, this is—”

  Unabara didn’t get to finish.

  “I’ve found you.”

  They heard a voice behind them.

  Accelerator turned around to see a girl standing in the destroyed gate. A small girl, wearing a red sailor-style suit that looked like a school uniform. But there was a glint in her eyes. She wasn’t just any killer.

  “If you’re here, does that make you one of Block’s shitheads?”

  “No, I’m with Member. I was only using them, though, so I don’t care who I belong to,” she answered coolly. She was probably the one who’d attacked the mercenaries lying around. That would mean she took down fifty without a single wound, but she didn’t brag about it. She really didn’t seem to have any interest in either the mercenaries or Block.

  Another from Member…

  Accelerator had run into someone from Member a short while ago in District 23, too. They didn’t seem to be on friendly terms with Block. He didn’t quite know what their goals were, or which organizations they were hostile toward. Whatever the case, though, if they were hostile, their response wouldn’t change.

  But one person overreacted to seeing her face.

  “…Wait, could you be…”

  Mitsuki Unabara—an agent, whose name and face were known to none.

  “You would ask me my identity at this point, Etzali?”

  The girl looked at Mitsuki Unabara and called him a completely different name.

  Or perhaps that was his true name.

  As Unabara stood frozen in surprise, the girl wiped her face with a hand. Her face was no longer there. Her Asian features disappeared, leaving a girl with a dark complexion and sculpted features.

  “I’ll have to thank Block. Esper powers are reduced here. I don’t have to worry as much about your allies or whatever getting in my way.”

  After seeing her face and hearing her voice, Unabara’s face twisted.

  “Xóchitl? What are you doing out here? You don’t have a spell like this, and even in the organization, nobody would ever give you the dirty jobs!!”

  “I have only one reason,” stated the brown-skinned girl named Xóchitl, face steady. “You turned coats to Academy City, you traitor. I abandoned everything to come here and destroy you.”

  “So that’s it,” muttered Tsuchimikado, looking over at Unabara.

  “…I’ll hold her here. You all go on ahead,” Unabara stated quietly, his voice strained. “She’s Xóchitl. An Aztecan sorcerer who belonged to the same organization as I did before I came here.”

  The girl called Xóchitl didn’t change her expression even after hearing Unabara’s words. “I only have business with Etzali. I don’t care if the rest of you leave, but will they let you go?”

  A gunshot rang out.

  Accelerator and Tsuchimikado ducked behind a patrol wagon parked in the roundabout. Meanwhile, they heard several feet running out of the reformatory building.

  “The Block mercs who were waiting…Don’t you have to deal with them?” said Tsuchimikado to Xóchitl. She ignored him. She really had only eliminated the ones in her way; she wasn’t interested in Block or their mercenaries.

  But as the mercenaries stopped them there, Block was getting deeper and deeper into the reformatory—to use Awaki Musujime’s allies as hostages.

  Accelerator tsked in frustration. “Bullshit. Get going already.”

  “But…,” began Musujime.

  “I can’t walk without a cane. If we can’t use abilities, then I can’t expect anything from your Move Point, either. The slowest guy gets to hold them off,” said Accelerator quickly. “Tsuchimikado, you’re Musujime’s backup. We don’t know how many guys Block has. Go into it ready to fight a lot of them.”

  As for Unabara, he didn’t need to give him any directions at this point.

  Accelerator would intercept the mercenaries coming out of the building, Unabara would settle the score with Member’s Xóchitl, and Tsuchimikado and Musujime would rescue the kids in the special block.

  With each of their own goals in mind, the four members of Group glanced at one another and nodded.

  “Let’s go!!”

  They all got started.

  9

  Tsuchimikado and Musujime went down the hidden staircase the map’s contradictions had shown them and headed to the special insurgent block which, on paper, didn’t exist.

  They came across a few men on the way who appeared to be mercenaries, but Tsuchimikado used his gun to silence them. Xóchitl must have gotten a lot of them. Thanks to Accelerator taking on her job, they seemed to have mostly run out.

  Then Musujime felt a cold, slight pain in her head.

  “…IDF jammers. They’re getting stronger.”

  “They’ve got machines outside, in the building, and in the rooms. Their effects are probably overlapping. This is the only juvenile reformatory in Academy City, and the only anti-esper holding facility in the world. You can’t have normal security in a place like this.”

  Tsuchimikado was probably feeling a similar pain.

  She felt less like it was holding back her ability, restraining it, and more like it was throwing her aim off. If she used her ability without thinking, she could catch herself in it.

  “Musujime. Your ability is extremely strong, but one misfire and you’ll die. You shouldn’t use it here.”

  “You make it sound like my ability is the only thing I’m good for.”

  “Shh!” Tsuchimikado held up his index finger to quiet her.

  The passage stuck out the side of the stairwell, and from around the corner he heard a heavy clattering, like someone forcing open a bolted metal wall by driving a nail into the gaps between plates. Tsuchimikado silently brought his pistol back up. The completely ability-reliant Musujime must not have had her normal throwing weapons with her, because she removed the flashlight-slash-nightstick from her waist.

  They burst out into the passage.

  It was narrow. Metal doors for solitary confinement cells lined the walls on either side, and a big, bearlike man had stuck some kind of clay on one. Next to him, a sinewy woman watched.

  When they saw Tsuchimikado and Musujime, the bearlike man said, “Good timing…You must be Group.”

  Musujime didn’t immediately move, probably due to the IDF jammers. Tsuchimikado, on the other hand, aimed his barrel right between the big man’s eyes. But before he could fire, the man stuck a long, needlelike object into the clay on the door.

  “A plastic bomb, and this is the fuse.”

  The muscly woman’s eyes sharpened. “Saku!!”

  “We have to, Teshio. We have to use hostages here.”

  The large man called Saku slowly removed his hand from the bomb with the fuse stuck in it. His hand held a wireless device—the switch to set off the bomb. />
  “…If you use that now, it’ll blow you two to smithereens first.”

  “I’ve already set the amount of gunpowder and direction. The blast will only go into the door.” Saku pointed to the bomb on the door with his index finger. “But the shockwave will rip through the cell. Along with the blown-apart fragments of this metal door. Breaking the door is easy, but caring about those inside isn’t. We have to be hasty, thanks to the lot of you getting in the way.”

  “…!!” Suddenly, there was a boom of wind.

  Musujime had bared her fangs, and her ability had accidentally discharged. Several fluorescent lights on the ceiling went out, sticking to the walls and floor in a muddle.

  Even then, Saku and Teshio didn’t look disturbed.

  “…Awaki Musujime. The famous Move Point,” said Saku with a grin, reaffirming his grip on the device to blow the bomb. “That’s good. Less work for us. We have the hostages and the other party all right here. Let’s get straight to negotiations, shall we? You be the guide to the Windowless Building.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “You can’t refuse. Would you rather your ability go berserk?”

  That made Musujime clam up. If not for the anti-esper setup, she’d have skewered Saku a long time ago.

  “Still…Group, eh? What did you learn after experiencing the 09/30 incident?”

  “What?”

  “We learned something. We thought Aleister governed every last corner of this insane world, but he doesn’t. There are ways to escape his sway, places to flee his control. Isn’t that a fun little fact? Academy City restricting us almost seems absurd now. And with the disturbance in Avignon after the 09/30 incident, we have the chance of a lifetime. You can’t tell us to stay put.”

  “A new world built on the backs of others? That isn’t something you can speak of so haughtily. All it makes me think of are the massacres during the Age of Discovery.”

  “Really? It’s human nature to desire a heaven or a paradise that isn’t here for them right now.”

  As he listened to their exchange, Tsuchimikado watched the device Saku held.

  He was good enough to shoot it down. But he couldn’t deny the possibility that he’d fail, nor that falling to the floor would coincidentally hit the button and blow the door to bits. If that happened, it didn’t matter where in that small cell Musujime’s ally hid—the hail of metal shards would get to them.

  Musujime’s jaw was clenched so tightly she could have broken all her teeth.

  The burly woman, Teshio, saw that and spoke to Saku next to her. “…Using hostages won’t make this better.”

  “What are you saying, Teshio? This is where it gets real. This hostage’s worth has gone through the roof.”

  “That was only something we needed, before negotiating with Move Point, before we knew where she was. Musujime is in, our hands now. The hostage, has served his purpose. If you use that bomb, she’ll be even more stubborn.” Teshio glared at the bomb on the door. “Come to think of it, I was against this from the start. I only agreed to the hostage plan, because it was absolutely necessary, to achieve our goals. Now that we know, that’s not true, we don’t have to keep them.”

  “No, Teshio. We have thirty-eight hostages right in front of us! Don’t you get it?! They’re our assets. We have so much capital that we can treat a few recklessly and it won’t even itch!! …Did you spend too long on the Anti-Skill job? Did you start having feelings for these brats?!”

  “…Saku.”

  “Don’t get in my way!! I’m gonna fucking kill Aleister!! This is the first step. I can’t let it end here!! Like hell I’ll let you take up my precious time. If you hold me back, Teshio, I’ll kill you first!! If you don’t want that, then—”

  Saku couldn’t finish his sentence.

  Ga-thud!!

  Teshio crashed her fist into Saku’s body with all her might.

  They could discern the incredible force behind the punch just from hearing it. The man from Block probably had no idea what had just happened to his body. Suddenly, he’d slammed into the wall and slid down to the floor in a heap. That was the first time Awaki Musujime saw the spittle actually come out of someone’s mouth. That’s how merciless the strike had been.

  “…Don’t waste time, on nonsense.”

  The woman known as Teshio reached for the metal door. She pulled the fuse out of the plastic bomb stuck to it, removed the bomb itself, and casually tossed them to the floor.

  “Is this, better?” she said slowly.

  Her face grim, Musujime asked quietly, “…What’s your game?”

  “I apologize, for our rudeness. Feel free, to beat me, until you’re satisfied.” Teshio’s eyes held steady, even after Tsuchimikado pointed his gun at her. “But I will not yield to you, until you win. I, too, have a reason, I need to kill Aleister. I won’t, use hostages. I will, however, inflict pain on you, and get the information I need.”

  10

  Mitsuki Unabara and Xóchitl stood in the reformatory gymnasium.

  The brown-skinned girl took a feather out of her pocket and held it to the side of her ear, saying, “Is looking at me with a false face your version of courtesy, Etzali?”

  “…Unfortunately, I happen to rather like this face. You, on the other hand, have no right to use that face after leaving the organization.”

  “You’re wrong,” cut in Xóchitl quietly. “You don’t even have the right to live anymore.”

  “!!” Feeling a peculiar bloodlust, Unabara immediately drew the obsidian knife from his inside pocket. He hadn’t been planning on using the Spear of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli on his former ally.

  “What have you been looking at this whole time?” asked Xóchitl, exasperated.

  A moment later, everything from Unabara’s right wrist to his elbow stopped moving. Before he could grunt in surprise, the obsidian knife he gripped began to move toward his face without his command.

  “Wh…what?!”

  He wasted no time in grabbing his wrist with his other hand.

  Little by little, the knife’s tip inched closer to his eyeball. It was his dominant hand, which might have been why he couldn’t keep it farther away.

  Xóchitl’s face remained steady.

  Not even joy for her advantageous position marked her expression. It felt like she was watching a boring play.

  Argh…! At…this rate…!!

  “Raaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!” shouted Unabara.

  He forced his left hand to move and dislocate his right wrist joint. The pain of scraping bones tore through him before all feeling left his hand. Without any gripping force, the knife finally slid out and fell to the ground.

  Holding his wrist, he took a big jump back.

  Xóchitl pointed at the ground and said impassively, “You dropped something. Gonna pick it up?”

  Her spell probably interfered with the weapons others held. It captured the weapon, then borrowed its force to cause the enemy to kill himself without her needing to get her hands dirty. To avoid that attack, he’d have to abandon all weapons and Soul Arms and fight either barehanded or with spells he could cast with only his body. Meanwhile, Xóchitl could use whatever weapon she wanted for her strikes.

  It rejected human civilization itself, this overwhelming handicap.

  However, thought Unabara.

  The Xóchitl he remembered didn’t use spells like this. Though her nickname was ghastly—the Corpse Artisan—her actual job was to extract information leftover in corpses, determining whether their last words were true or consolidating burial methods. She was just an aftercare provider for the dead.

  She’d studied all the world’s necromancy, but purely for a peaceful purpose. The brown-skinned girl named Xóchitl shouldn’t have been accustomed to hurting others.

  “…What happened? Or, rather, what on Earth is happening in the organization right now?!” demanded Unabara in spite of himself.

  Xóchitl didn’t even answer. She swung her hand and produced a giant
sword that, no matter how he looked at it, couldn’t fit in her hand. Unlike Unabara’s blade, this was a traditional sword made of white chalcedony. It was technically a double-sided blade, but sharp grooves had been carved into the left and right like the back of a survival knife.

  A macuahuitl…?!

  It was a sword used by Aztecan warriors. In Aztecan civilization, which didn’t use metal in weapons, several small stone razors would be lined up on the sides of wooden blades, so instead of cutting by striking like katanas, it would cut by pulling across something, like a saw.

  “I’ll hear what you have to say later. If you’re lucky, and the brain damage is minor.”

  Xóchitl raised her macuahuitl and sprang into motion, dashing toward him.

  Given that he had to fight barehanded, Unabara was at a severe disadvantage.

  “Damn it!!”

  But he couldn’t lose here.

  He stepped back to create distance. When Xóchitl, her timing thrown off, tried to step in more deeply, Unabara dug his shoe into the dirt and flung it in front of him. Blinded, Xóchitl stopped moving. He tried to aim a second kick at her gut.

  But with a vwoosh, Xóchitl’s macuahuitl swept to the side.

  Unabara hastily pulled his foot back, but it left a mark on his leather shoe like a razor had cut it.

  “That’s a traitor for you. Makeshift ploys suit you well.”

  Xóchitl’s voice was calm. Even that struck Unabara as strange. Before, she would have hesitated to even pick up a weapon made for killing. Her job was to read the residual information from corpses, so she knew the terror of weapons like that far more than normal people did.

  And yet…

  “But no matter how much you struggle, you need to fight barehanded. I’ll give you the right to defend yourself, at least, but each time you do, it’ll tear up your body a little bit more.”

  “…Weapons like that don’t suit you.”

  “Then is this the real you? You, who abandoned the organization, went into hiding, and grew fat on the tranquility of Academy City?”

  “Xóchitl…”

  “If the answer is yes, then you are indeed a traitor. If not, then you’re lying to yourself—and a liar has no place to criticize me. Either option means you have to die here!!”