This girl named Index apparently had a habit of biting people when she got angry.
“Ow…you bit me all over the place. What are you, the mosquito at summer camp?”
“…”
No answer.
Index, naked as the day she was born with only a blanket to hide her shame, sat on the floor on her knees. She was busily sticking safety pins into the fabric of her habit in a (futile) effort to somehow return her clothes to a wearable state.
An aura of doom dominated the room.
It’s not like somebody from the JoJo manga had shown up and used his Stand.
“…Uh, princess?”
Kamijou tried again to rouse her, wondering as to the nature of her actual personality.
“…What?”
“I was one hundred percent at fault here, right?”
His alarm clock flew at him in reply, eliciting a yelp. His pillow followed directly after, and then a steady stream of his game systems and cassettes. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“You’re just going to casually chat with me after that?!”
“Ah no, I’m not! I was bewildered, too, and, uhh, how youthful of us!”
“Stop making fun of me…Grrrrrr!!”
“I underst— Okay, okay, I apologize! That video is a rental, so stop biting it like it’s some kind of handkerchief, stupid!”
He comedically put his head down on the ground.
Deep down, though, seeing a naked girl for the first time made his heart feel like it would be squeezed to death.
Touma Kamijou, however, didn’t let it show on his face because he was an adult.
…That’s what he thought, anyway, but if Touma Kamijou had looked in a mirror, he’d have been pretty surprised at what he saw.
“I’m done,” Index muttered with a sniffle. She spread out her pure white habit. She had returned it to some semblance of normalcy through her sweatshop effort.
Dozens of safety pins gleamed brightly on the salvaged habit.
“………………………………………………………………………………………*sweat*”
“Umm, are you going to wear it?”
“………………………………………………………………………………………*silent*”
“Are you going to wear that iron maiden?”
“………………………………………………………………………………………*sob*”
“In Japanese, we call that a ‘bed of needles.’”
“…Urgh, grrr!!”
“I get it!” He buried his head in the floor and apologized unreservedly. Index’s expression was that of a bullied child, and she was currently gnawing through his television’s power cable like a naughty cat.
“I’ll wear it! I’m a nun, after all!” With a cry that he didn’t really understand, she curled herself up underneath the blanket and started squirming around like a caterpillar to put it on. The only thing visible outside the blanket was her face, which was so red it looked as if it might explode.
“…Huh. Somehow, this reminds me of my swimming lessons.”
“…Why are you watching? I think you should at least turn away.”
“Oh, whatever. It’s no big deal. Unlike before, you changing isn’t sexy at all.”
“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”
Index’s motions ground to a halt, but when Kamijou didn’t appear to notice, she gave up and squirmed around some more, dressing herself. Her hood toppled to the floor, but she didn’t notice; maybe she was concentrating too hard.
It was kind of like being in an elevator, what with the awkward silence.
Kamijou’s mind had been steadily drifting away from reality, but the words summer makeup classes finally came crashing back to the forefront of his brain.
“Ack! That’s right, I have makeup classes!” He looked at the time on his cell phone. “Let’s see, umm…Hey, I have to go to school now. What are you going to do? If you’re staying here, I can give you the key.”
The “kick her out” option had already been abandoned.
Since her habit, the Walking Church, had reacted to his Imagine Breaker, there was no doubt that she was somehow involved with abnormal forces. That would mean that not everything she said was a lie.
For example—that she had been pursued by sorcerers and had fallen from the roof of a building.
For example—that she was going to continue her life-or-death game of tag after this.
And, for example—that sorcerers straight out of fantasy novels were running around a city where they’d formulated even ESP and PSY.
…Despite all that, though, he still felt like he should give the depressed Index some space.
“…That’s okay. I’m leaving.”
She leaped to her feet, still ensconced in the doom aura. She passed by Kamijou’s side like a ghost. She didn’t seem to notice that her hood was still on the floor. If he picked it up carelessly, he’d probably break that, too.
“Ah, uhh…”
“Hm? Oh no, you don’t get it.” Index turned back to look at him. “If I’m here too long, they’ll probably come this way. You don’t want to be blown up with the rest of your room, do you?”
She posed the question unflinchingly, leaving Kamijou at a loss for words.
She sluggishly drifted out through the door that was the entrance to his studio. Kamijou chased after her in a panic. He checked his wallet, thinking maybe he could do something. He only had 320 yen left. In spite of that, he energetically burst through the door in an effort to keep Index there. Unfortunately, as he walked out, his pinkie finger slammed at Mach speed into the doorframe.
“Gah, mah! Yaaahh!”
He squealed unintelligibly, bracing his finger against his leg. Index turned back, startled. As he writhed at the intense pain, his cell phone slid out of his pocket. Ah. Before he could stop it, it hit the floor, its liquid-crystal display made a criiiick noise, and he knew it had suffered a mortal wound.
“Ugh, no…! What rotten luck!”
“It’s not rotten luck. I think you’re just clumsy.” Index giggled. “But if you really do have this Imagine Breaker, then I guess you can’t do much about it.”
“…What do you mean?”
“Right. Well, you might not believe any stories of the magical world I come from, but…” She smiled at him. “You know things like divine protection or the red thread of fate? If things like that do really exist, then I think your right hand is canceling them out, too.”
Index swayed her safety pin–covered habit from side to side and said, “The power in this Walking Church is that of providence—divine favor—after all.”
“Hang on. Fortune and misfortune just refer to probabilities and statistics. That can’t be righ—”
At that exact moment, his finger touched the doorknob and was beset by a brilliant static shock. What?! His reflexes kicked in, his body flinched, and his right calf cramped in a sudden muscle spasm.
He cried out in silent agony for approximately six hundred seconds.
“……………………………………………………………………………………………Excuse me, Miss Nun?”
“What is it?”
“……………………………………………………………………………………………I’d like an explanation.”
“Well, it’s not much of an explanation,” declared Index in a matter-of-fact tone, “but if the story about your right hand is true, then I think just by having it, you’re erasing the power of luck altogether?”
“……………………………………………………………………………………………I see…so you mean…”
“So the very fact that your right hand is touching the air is making you totally unlucky. ”
“Gyaaahhh!! What rotten luck!!”
Kamijou didn’t actually believe in the occult, but he had a separate stomach when it came to the concept of bad luck. In any case, nothing ever went right for him, fostering a deep impression that the universe bore him a particular ill will.
A lone nun clad in pure white gazed upon him with the benign smile of the Holy Mother herself.
People would say that those were inviting.
“Rotten luck, huh. The fact that you were born with that power in the first place was pretty rotten luck in and of itself, wouldn’t you agree? ”