Touma Kamijou smiled, his mouth filled with stir-fried garbage.
The girl munched on a biscuit, looking dissatisfied. Holding the biscuit two-handed and gnawing away, she reminded him of a squirrel.
“…So, you said you’re being chased. Who’s after you?”
Having returned to his senses in the wake of his holy visitation, Kamijou put this question forward as the primary matter at hand.
He’d only met her thirty minutes ago and certainly had no intention of diving to the depths of hell with her. But it probably wasn’t possible to forget the whole thing.
So, in the end, I’m just a hypocrite. A fraud. I just want to say I did something to ease my conscience, but there’s no way I can help resolve this.
“Yeah…,” she responded somewhat drily. “I wonder? Maybe Rozenkreuz or Stella Matitina…I think it’s an organization like that, but I don’t know its name, since they’re not the kind of people who place much value in names.”
“‘They’?”
Kamijou treaded carefully. This meant some kind of group was chasing her.
“Yeah,” Index answered calmly, despite her situation.
“A sorcerers’ society.”
………………
“I see. Magic, huh…? Umm. What the hell?! You’re insane!”
“Ah, er, what? Umm, was that not the correct term in Japanese? Sorcery, like, magic. A magic cabal.”
“…” The word cabal confused him even more. “What? Is that some sort of hip new cult that forces you to believe in its founder, or else ‘thou shalt be divinely punished’? And uses LSD to brainwash you? That would be dangerous in more ways than one…”
“…You’re kind of making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“Uhh.”
“…You’re kind of making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“…I’m sorry. I can’t. I can’t do this whole ‘magic’ business. I know about all sorts of abnormal abilities, like pyrokinesis and clairvoyance, but I can’t handle this ‘magic’ thing.”
“…?” Index tilted her little head confusedly.
She probably assumed that someone who believed in the omnipotent power of science would have just rejected what she said outright, claiming that there was nothing unexplainable in this world.
However, a supernatural power resided in Kamijou’s right hand.
It was called the Imagine Breaker, and no matter what nonsensical, preternatural force he was up against, his Imagine Breaker could dispel it. It could even negate miracles.
“Supernatural abilities aren’t uncommon here in Academy City. Anyone can open ‘circuits’ and ‘develop’ by injecting Esperin into your brain, sticking electrodes on your head, and playing some rhythms in headphones. If every facet of something can be explained scientifically, then obviously everyone will accept it as fact, right?”
“…I don’t really get it.”
“It’s obvious! Very obvious, so obvious! Obvious times three!”
“…Well then, what about magic? Magic is obvious, too, right?”
Index grew petulant, as if someone had just told her that her pet cat was stupid.
“Umm…okay, for example, you know janken, right? Wait, was that game played in the rest of the world?”
“…I think it’s called rock-paper-scissors where I come from, but I know it.”
“Okay, then say I played janken and lost ten times in a row. Would you think there’s a reason for it?”
“…Mgh.”
“There isn’t, though, is there? But it’s human nature to start thinking that there is something behind it,” explained Kamijou, bored. “You start thinking that there’s no way you could lose ten times in a row and that there must be some kind of hidden rules working against you. What do you think would happen to those people if you threw some astrology into the mix?”
“…Like, if you’re a Cancer, then you’re unlucky, so you should stay away from competition?”
“Exactly. Around here, that’s what ‘occult’ really means. The moment we start thinking that hidden forces like ‘luck’ or ‘fortune’ really exist, our minds mistake simple coincidences for predetermination. It’s illusory.”
Index displayed a momentary, almost feline annoyance before saying:
“…So you’re not just rejecting what I said without thinking about it first.”
“Nope. I can’t do this whole worn-out fairy-tale thing specifically because I’ve thought about it seriously. I don’t believe in wizards like the ones from picture books. Nobody would develop their brains if you could just use some MP and raise someone from the dead. Even I couldn’t believe in any of that occult stuff. It has nothing to do with reality or science.”
Supernatural abilities only appear to be “mysterious” because human brains are stupid.
It was common sense that they could be explained away by science here.
“…But magic is real.”
Index made her declaration, the corners of her mouth lowering in dismay. This statement was likely the pillar of her convictions, not unlike Kamijou’s Imagine Breaker.
“Well, whatever. But why are those people chasing y—”
“Magic is real.”
“…”
“Magic is real!”
Looks like she wants me to admit it no matter what.
“B-but what the heck is magic? Can you shoot fireballs from your hands? Can you do it without going through an esper’s Curriculum? If you can, then why don’t you show me? Then I might be able to believe you.”
“I don’t have any magic power, so I can’t use it.”
“…”
It’s like she’s one of those useless espers who claim they can’t bend spoons when cameras are rolling because it distracts them.
But it was true that his feelings on the matter were complicated.
Even though he’d said that the occult was implausible and that magic couldn’t exist, the fact was that he knew almost nothing about the Imagine Breaker in his right hand. How did it work? What kind of principles did it operate under? Not even Academy City’s System Scan, the world’s most cutting-edge program of supernatural ability development, could see through his Imagine Breaker. That’s why he carried the stigma of an Impotent, a Level Zero.
It was a power he had possessed since birth, not one he’d obtained through a scientific Curriculum.
He claimed that mysticism was unrealistic, but he himself wielded something of the “occult” that defied the rules of reality.
Still, he couldn’t just tell himself something nonsensical like, “Well, there are plenty of mysterious things in the world, so it wouldn’t be weird if magic did exist!”
“…Magic is real.”
Kamijou sighed.
“Okay. If magic does exist…”
“If?”
“If it exists,” Kamijou continued, ignoring her, “why are people chasing you around? Does it have something to do with those clothes or something?”
He was referring, of course, to her overly extravagant habit, sewn of white silk and gold embroidery. He meant to inquire if it was somehow “religiously motivated.”
“…Because I’m Index, the archive of forbidden books.”
“Huh?”
“I carry 103,000 grimoires. Those people probably want them.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………
“This conversation just stopped making sense again.”
“Hey, how come whenever I explain something, all of your verve just vanishes? Do you have a short attention span?”
“Umm, I’m trying to organize my thoughts, but I don’t really understand what a grimoire is. It’s a book, right? Like a dictionary?”
“Yep. The Book of Eibon, the Lesser Key of Solomon, Nameless, Cultes des Goules, the Book of the Dead…Those are some famous ones. The Necronomicon is really famous too, so there’s a lot of forgeries and imitations of it, I think.”
“Okay, what’s in the book doesn’t matter.”
Swallowing his urge to just call them chicken scratch, he asked:
“So, these 103,000 books…where are they?”