Chapter 106

The voice of a girl who Mugino had once cleaved in half with her own hand. The voice of someone who couldn’t possibly have been here. “Also, um…” Long blond wavy hair. Skin as pale as a doll’s. A small snug physique. Mugino remembered the beret the girl always wore, her favorite miniskirt, and how she tended to hide her legs in stockings. Those facial features, which had already been lost. As the wet footsteps approached, she leaped into Mugino’s view. “…Fren…da…?!” “I don’t care if you’ve gotten past it, or moved on, or whatever. But I’ve never had a reason to stop being angry!!!” Cendrillon, now somewhat smaller thanks to Mugino’s measurement mistakes, leaned back against a vending machine in District 7 of Academy City. Due to all the prep work going into the Ichihanaran Festival, the streets were still littered with the sounds of DIY. And with so many students needing to create costumes for haunted houses, cafés, and the like, many schools were opting to keep their textile-related rooms open overnight. Cendrillon snuck into one such school and created a dress for herself. The representation of her power. The essence of her transformation. The foremost symbol of an average girl overpowering people with help from the power of sorcery. …I’m sure Touma Kamijou has a whole rainbow of people buzzing around him. But I bet every single of them is spreading edited information to use his right arm for their own ends. Cendrillon wasn’t personally an ally to Kamijou. She had just one objective. To deal critical damage to Gremlin, who had betrayed them in Hawaii and taken the victory for themselves. She would use whatever means necessary. She would ally herself with whomever she had to. Gremlin is spread thin all over the globe. I can try my best to root them out, but I probably won’t find them that way. However, they’re attached at the hip with Touma Kamijou. If I chase him, I should find Gremlin members lurking nearby. She’d snuck into Academy City and secured a weapon. Now came the real part of her plan. “I suppose I should call it miraculous, hmm? Or maybe Anti-Skill’s proficiency comes through even in emergencies.” Finished with his emergency surgery in the hospital that night, a frog-faced doctor spoke to a nurse he worked with. “They missed his vitals, and the bullets went through him cleanly. It’ll just take some bed rest for him to stabilize. I can’t guarantee anything if he forces himself to move, though.” Inside the ICU, separated by a full pane of glass both to prevent germs coming in and allow people on the outside to notice subtle changes in a patient, was Touma Kamijou. He was covered in electrodes. There was an oxygen mask over his face, and a blood transfusion tube was connected to his right arm near the elbow. The vital signs on the screen held steady, but readings that were too stable were not a welcome sight in the medical profession. They could allow a doctor’s mind to wander, their guard to drop. “Once he’s stable, he’ll be under Anti-Skill jurisdiction. You might as well prepare for that now. Though in this case, I’m not fully certain if he’ll be considered a victim or a suspect.” The hallway was dark as their footsteps faded down it; all nonessential illumination had been extinguished according to lights-out regulations. Once he was sure nobody was around, Touma Kamijou slowly opened his eyes. “……” He wanted to tear off the mask, to yank off the electrodes, to pull out the blood transfusion tube right this moment if he could. But if his vitals changed at all, doctors would rush straight back into the ICU. First, he needed to see how much he could physically move around. Urgh…!! He tried to sit up in bed, but just a tiny bit of strain on his abdominal muscles sent a dull pain shooting through him. He felt as though his fluids were being held inside with a thin film—like if he forced the issue, something would rupture, and he’d lose a ton of blood. But he was still on that tightrope when it came to Fräulein Kreutune. Gremlin, Ollerus’s group, and Fräulein Kreutune were all on the move. They’d solved none of the problem yet. He didn’t have time to rest here. I’ll have to accept my wound opening back up… This time, I don’t see myself lasting very long, though. He took shallow breaths inside his oxygen mask. This time, if he burst out of the ICU, he ran a high risk of just collapsing on the street somewhere. And there was no guarantee he’d survive to be brought to the hospital again. Not only that, but also the odds of him clashing with sorcerers toying with the entire world and having a literal deathmatch with them were sky high. The threat of death. It wouldn’t really set in for any normal high school student. But it spread from Kamijou’s spine until it filled his entire body. His breath caught. He got an honest picture of the fear in his mind. And then he began to act. By the time the frog-faced doctor had run back in response to the change in Kamijou’s vital signs, the ICU bed was an empty husk. The transfusion tube and all the electrodes had been left on the bed. Am alarm went off in the hospital security room, notifying them that an emergency door had been opened. Upon an analysis of security camera footage, they found what looked like a young man in a surgical gown. And they would probably find blood stuck to the doorknob. A whirlwind of motives. A maelstrom of circumstances. But time was impartial. Today always ended and tomorrow would always come. The preparations for the massive citywide cultural festival that every school in Academy City participated in were finally complete. And now the real thing would begin. At last, the curtains would rise on the Ichihanaran Festival. Biometric authentication complete. Welcome home, Aleister. I, Reading Thoth 78, interactive thought-support artificial intelligence, will now begin work according to the task I’ve been given. Let us discuss the problems surrounding Fräulein Kreutune. At present, we know little of Fräulein Kreutune’s true identity. Based on genetic sequencing, however, we can only call her a human. When one considers that humans and gorillas are only separated by a 2 percent difference in genome, the fact she is included in the “human” category brings us to a state of affairs that must be expressed as abnormal indeed. In fact, it would not be surprising if her physical body’s DNA was not in double-helical form but triple helix. In terms of which side she belongs to, Fräulein Kreutune likely falls under the category of science, but one can say she is of a different system than the supernatural Ability Development progressing in Academy City. I mean this in the sense she is different from espers, who can bring about a variety of phenomena using quantum theory based on their personal reality. This being does not possess a personal reality, the central pillar of that which we call the mind and the ego. Perhaps her thought patterns are closer to an insect’s but further simplified. As a somewhat accurate analogy, imagine constantly scanning each environmental condition: hot or cold, sweet or bitter, wet or dry. Each time you scan, choose a path optimal for bodily function. Repeating this would make you appear to be thinking deeply. But Academy City’s esper abilities are not controlled only via the brain. They are also controlled by the entire physical body. Fräulein Kreutune’s extremely simplified thought processes are incongruous with her highly optimized physical body. We speculate this imbalance is what gives her the normally unthinkable special trait. (Linked to another topic. For more on the experimental results of seeing if destroying the mind of a human with normal thought processes can create the same effect, see here.) However, there is no particular reason to continue assuming she simply has that form or property. Instead, I surmise it is more natural to be in a constant state of change, adapting to the situation. To adapt to a situation. In other words, I hypothesize the most crucial concept behind Fräulein Kreutune’s aberrance is the learning that arises from her constant scanning of the surrounding environment. The morality of the surrounding environment is not an issue for her. If Fräulein Kreutune absorbs enough information, then her current course of action becomes immaterial, and she will likely metamorphose into something of a different form. This combination of cohesive, simple thoughts that are even simpler than an insect’s gives her the ability to acquire complex and flexible thought patterns. That process should trigger a major change. And it is likely this change will go beyond the being we call Fräulein Kreutune. Perhaps that change should be called an emergence. Just as the properties of a larva and an adult have major differences, this fundamental change in Fräulein Kreutune is capable of reversing the relationship between prey and predator. Should the relationship between the hunter and the hunted flip, the structure of the food chain will immediately collapse, and modern civilization as it is predicated on science will likely sustain incredible damage. Aleister has prevented Fräulein Kreutune from learning by isolating her from information. Of this much, there is no doubt. (Linked to another topic. For information regarding the destruction of a section of the Windowless Building’s outer wall and the airtightness that has been secured using only a beehive-shaped inner wall, see here.) However, considering the amount of information Fräulein Kreutune can see and hear, I hypothesize she cannot acquire the vast amount of information needed to trigger a change in her nature. It would take around 2,300 years. This value is not impossible given Fräulein Kreutune’s traits, but at present, my judgment is that this is not an imminent problem. The problem is that modern society offers many ways of efficiently obtaining more information than you see and hear. I surmise caution is required for Academy City’s data banks, among other things. Moreover, another extremely concerning issue has risen to the surface. Fräulein Kreutune has made contact with Last Order, the command tower serving as the structure of the Misaka network. If Fräulein Kreutune detects the existence of the Misaka network and attempts to use Last Order’s brain to read from it, my calculation shows she will burn through the necessary 2,300 years in just three seconds. In addition, as Fräulein Kreutune learns from her situation to change her properties, she will, if she feels it is necessary, prey on a human being and acquire a property that allows her to replicate that person’s brain structure inside herself. Should this change occur, I hypothesize her own personal circumstances will not be a powerful enough check against that instinctual predation. In other words, she will voluntarily continue acquiring new properties without end. I will be honest. I suspect Fräulein Kreutune will acquire the functions necessary for predation and absorption within twenty-four hours and begin preying on the brains of her targets.