Chapter 90

SERIOUS DAMAGE ru9ni1bkakersa991ma Thie instant his right hand was destroyed, intense pain, beyond anything he could tolerate, stripped away Kamijou’s consciousness. He fell surprisingly easily to the floor. So much fresh blood splattered from the crooked wound—nothing like his wrist having been slit with a knife. He didn’t move after that. He didn’t even writhe in agony or fear or scream. He just fell. And his right hand, its purpose served, fell to the floor as well. “Ah, ah…” Kumokawa couldn’t move. The sheer amount of red was making her lightheaded. But even more than that, the one-eyed witch terrified her. It wasn’t like the fear she had felt from Dáinsleif, either. That was an understandable, surface-level fear. This was something altogether different. The terror wormed its way into the deepest part of a person, unbeknownst to them, and when they finally noticed it, their arms and legs were already limp. It was like a constant lifestyle of domestic violence behind a locked door—violence that even the victim accepted. It was like a heated debate in a mountain cabin during a blizzard where being rescued was a hopeless prospect for days, as the victims decided who would eat whom in order to survive. While the fear was immense, it wasn’t like when you put your hand into a flame and reflexively pulled it back out—it wasn’t something Kumokawa could reject on a surface level. It permeated every fiber of her being, creating a cycle where she’d immediately know it was abnormal if things seemed normal. Just by standing there, the one-eyed witch could crush the minds of every person nearby and destroy their morals. Frankly speaking, if the one-eyed witch needed to be fought, the discussion could definitely devolve from “who will confront her—who needs to confront her” in an effort to push responsibility onto others, to the soldiers just killing one another instead. “Hmm.” Meanwhile, the one-eyed witch didn’t spare a glance at Kamijou, instead picking up Dáinsleif, which Marianne had used. Then she crushed the entire magical sword, sheath and all, in her grip. She dismantled it. Like a weapon made of chocolate, the pieces of Dáinsleif fell to the floor and lost their golden luster. And then they rusted—which shouldn’t have happened to pure gold. Even Kumokawa knew that, and she didn’t know much about the world outside Academy City. She grasped that the sword’s power was completely gone. “You really created something dangerous, you know that? I know it’s a dvergr thing, but still, I wonder why Gremlin insists on neglecting organization… And now everything was for nothing. I wish you’d put yourself in my shoes for a second—figure out why I’ve been enduring so patiently.” Her idea: It was dangerous, so she would destroy it. That was the same thought pattern as Kamijou. Why didn’t she just leave it to him, then? She’d so casually destroyed him instead. Why? Kumokawa doubted there was any reason. The witch had destroyed the first thing she’d seen. And there was still a problem, so she’d destroyed that, too. That was the casual way she wielded her incredible strength. Maria didn’t sense any stable directionality from her actions—it was almost as if she was saying there didn’t need to be any. As an individual, the power she wielded was the extreme limit. And she didn’t give a single thought as to how using it might affect the future. “Who…who are you…?” Kumokawa stammered. “Othinus,” said the one-eyed witch, offering a god’s name. “Unlike a certain failure, I suppose you can call me a pure magic god. If that’s not enough to make you understand, then no explanation will suffice. You’re better off abandoning any hope of comprehension.” Was there any point to her saying all that? She seemed bored, like she had done so on a whim, offhandedly. And with the same attitude, she killed, let live, and saved. Easier to understand than a simple king of the hill—so easy to understand that it instead obscured her true character. But then something strange happened. From the severed portion of Kamijou’s right arm, something invisible began to whip around. Bwooooom! It swirled and whirled, not taking on any specific shape, rushing straight for Othinus. However. “…Is this it?” Othinus grabbed hold of something with her bloody hand. The one-eyed witch even cocked her head slightly. “You did quite a bit at the end of World War III. But now that I see it in person… Is this really all it is?” Then, casually, she crushed it. The unseen force seemed to writhe, trying to escape from Othinus’s grip. But it was too late. She put more force into her bloodied fingers, and this time, the force shattered and vanished into the void. She was overwhelming. She had the raw power to bend something unidentifiable to her will without ever identifying it. And she didn’t think for a second about how it might affect those around her. Othinus slowly stretched out her bloody fingers. Then she grabbed Marianne, who was still lying limp on the floor, by the back of her overalls and began dragging her away. “I’m doing you a favor here. Be a little more useful,” she said, turning her back to Kumokawa. But then she stopped abruptly. Had the magic god, after deciding to overlook Kumokawa on a whim, changed her mind and decided to kill her on a whim instead? That was what Kumokawa thought, but the answer was different. “…Your failure.” Right after Othinus said those words, it happened. Someone else, someone she didn’t know. A blond-haired man was now standing in the circular arena. There was nowhere around to hide. No sign of any Academy City esper power having been used, either. And yet the man was there in the middle of the arena. Not appeared—Kumokawa couldn’t express it in the past tense like that. She didn’t know when it had happened—didn’t have a handle on the time. And the strangest thing of all was that blond man was confronting Othinus, who wielded such incredible might, practically spitting his words at her. At a magic god. As if to put himself on the opposite end of such a being. “I have no use for you this time,” he declared, pointing to the exit, which didn’t mean much now that most of the fencing had been destroyed anyway. “Take the dvergr and leave at once. I only have a use for Imagine Breaker.” “……” Othinus fell silent for a moment. And then. Boooooooooooom!!!!!! A massive explosion rocked the space between her and the blond man. Actually, it was thousands, even in the tens of thousands, of explosions Maria heard within a very short time frame, so they’d all blended together. Despite the blast, though, she had no way of knowing what was going on. There was no phenomenon for her to see. But she knew one thing for sure: This blond-haired man was a rival to the magic god Othinus. “Just stop. It’ll never end,” said the man. Othinus had probably only meant it as a gentle prod anyway. The bursting noises, which lasted only a few seconds, ceased abruptly. “And why,” she spat, “is a failure like you standing before a pure magic god like me?” “Well, I can’t beat you. If I could beat you, I would have killed you a long time ago. If I haven’t killed you, then it means I have no way of killing you.” “…Then you’re here to let me kill you?” “No, that’s not it, either. Don’t act like you don’t understand. You say you’re a magic god, but you’re not perfect. Or should I say, you’re so perfect that you have some problematic traits, too. You understand that, which is why you’re setting up this overblown step-by-step process—to release yourself from that dilemma.” “……” “The phrase infinite possibilities sounds nice, sure, but that just means you possess both every possibility of success and every possibility of failure—you have both sides of the coin. It’s a little like matter and antimatter. When it comes to a problem, you possess the possibility to successfully handle it and to fail. No matter how much power you accumulate, it’ll only ever be a fifty-fifty chance. In Russian roulette terms, it’s like loading three bullets and firing one… And to be frank, Othinus, it means that you have both the power to destroy the world and a fifty percent chance to lose to a child at rock-paper-scissors. It’s almost a miracle that Kamijou lost not once but twice. He must have godawful luck. Still, though, as you are, you can’t wield your power blindly at full strength. You’d want to search for a way to control the possibility space. Naturally, you’d want to increase your ability to win, but even if you wanted to increase your ability to lose, you could create a foundation for that, too. That fifty-fifty chance is your worst enemy.” Then the man pointed to his chest with his thumb and continued. “I should have been a magic god, but I stopped—I’m an impurity. That means while I lag behind you in total power, I don’t have your fifty-fifty dilemma. After all, I’m incomplete. You maintain a perfect balance, but I have a higher chance of winning.” “Do you think that will let you win?” “No, I think it’s impossible. If I could, I would have killed you a long time ago,” repeated the man. But then he smiled and added to that. “But if it’s just a little, tiny bit, I do have an idea on how to drive you back at the moment. And it’s because you so casually destroyed Touma Kamijou’s right hand.” “…Yeah, I’m sure.” “World War III was started by a man who had the power to save the world inside him. But although he had it, without the right hand to output that power onto the external world, he couldn’t save the world. So he used every means at his disposal to try to acquire that right hand. Yes—the very right hand you just cut off is the only one of its kind in the world.” Bang! A metallic noise rang out from above. It was one of the pillars holding up the fencing surrounding the circular arena. At some point, a man dressed in red had climbed atop it. His right arm was missing from the shoulder down. From it came an unnatural distortion in space—it looked like a saline solution. “Fiamma of the Right, with the power to save the world. And me, who wields a magic god’s power, albeit an impure version… Now then, Othinus, how will you and your fifty-fifty nature react to the change in possibilities? Each of us has an even chance of steamrolling the other now.” “Hmph,” sniffed Othinus. Still holding Marianne in one hand, she turned her back to the man—essentially taking up his opponent on his offer. But after walking a few steps, she suddenly stopped. Then she casually tossed Marianne to the side and said something. “…Actually, I think I’ll kill you.” Boooooom!!!!!! Something beyond Maria’s perception began to whip through the air. Natural Selector—its contestants, the Kiharas, Gremlin, Touma Kamijou, Marianne Sringeneier… On the stage where they had all fought, another battle, one for the same exact reason as all the rest—this one in a completely different dimension—unfolded. There was a certain small hospital in Northern Europe. Lights-out time had long since passed, and normally, visitors weren’t allowed here this late. Nevertheless, a non-patient still stood in one of the rooms. Brunhild Eichtbel. She was a rare woman, possessing both the nature of a Valkyrie from Norse mythology and a saint from Crossism at the same time. Of course, they didn’t necessarily seem to synergize with each other. Instead, Brunhild’s power was like the phases of the moon—her characteristics and strengths changed on a regular cycle. As stated before, she was not a patient here. The room’s original occupant was a boy, about ten years old, who was currently lying on the bed. “I want hot chocolate.” “No, you already brushed your teeth.” “But I can’t go to sleep without it!” “Then I recommend counting sheep in English.” Anyone who heard this exchange would have thought it peaceful, but Brunhild had once enacted worldwide magical terrorism in order to get revenge on the ones who had harmed this boy. In the final battle, she lost to the English Puritan Church and was imprisoned. In exchange for her cooperation with war efforts during World War III, her crimes had been wiped from her record as an exception. She was finally able to reunite with the boy again. And now her senses were telling her that this peaceful moment was at an end. Casually, she put her right wrist alongside her left hand, then tugged on a loop of rope hidden in her sleeve to take out a single wood chip mailing stamp. Runic symbols had been burned into the front of it, and as she squeezed it in her hand, she murmured something under her breath. A sleeping rune. Odin, the chief god of Norse mythology, had once used this string of letters to quite literally force a berserk Valkyrie to go to sleep. It took effect immediately. The boy passed out, swiftly beckoned into a dream world. Brunhild put the wood chip stamp on his forehead. “You don’t need to see the rest. Sweet dreams,” she whispered slowly, rearranging the disheveled blanket before getting out of the pipe chair next to the bed. She turned. At some point, the door to the room had opened. Someone was there—a tall woman. She wore a well-fitted riding suit, and while her jacket sleeves were tied at her waist, hanging there, she had a Western sword on her back and feather-like hair decorations above her ears. She seemed to match the impression Brunhild gave. Brunhild frowned a little. “…Come to think of it,” she said, “there was a magical experiment to see if important parts of the human body could be twisted and instilled with the traits of a Valkyrie post-birth—like how marrow transplants can change your blood type. I heard they canceled it, but I guess the times have changed without me knowing it.” “……” The acquired Valkyrie took in a breath to reply. But no words came out. Wha-bam!!!!!! Because right at that moment, Brunhild’s kick connected with the acquired Valkyrie’s stomach. She wasn’t blown backward by it—no, this was a different dimension altogether. She was been blown up or smeared all over. Right then and there, the acquired Valkyrie’s body burst like a ketchup-filled water balloon, and something dark red slammed into all the walls in the hallway outside the room. Brunhild abandoned all compassion whenever there was a chance the boy might be hurt. She wouldn’t hesitate to make six or seven billion people—the whole world—her enemy, and that was no joke. And her judgment was correct. The surface of the bright red stains on the walls began to squirm. Some of it protruded, creating a giant face. The brilliantly colored viscous fluid began to create little vibrations, producing a voice that spoke along with the face’s mouth movements. “The intel was correct.” The intruder wasn’t dead yet. If she reformed herself, she’d probably be the acquired Valkyrie again. But even Brunhild was unfamiliar with this level of heresy. “That boy is the bottleneck. If he can be taken away, then Brunhild Eichtbel’s secrets will be easy to draw out.” “……” As if in blatant disregard to all strategy, Brunhild silently walked out of the hospital room to respond to the words. And then she realized something. There were another ten of them to either side of her in the hallway. All of them were acquired Valkyries, and they were all waiting for her. “Thanks for the warm welcome,” said Brunhild, kicking up the sword on the floor and grabbing it in one hand. She didn’t need to draw it from its sheath. A few murmured words later and the blade cut through the sheath from the inside. This one-handed sword had belonged to the entity she’d already destroyed. While Brunhild was more into superheavy swords like claymores—the kind that could crush an opponent, armor, helmet, and all—she wasn’t about to be greedy here. There was no guarantee she’d even live through this. In a straightforward deathmatch, maybe she could have won. But these acquired Valkyries knew her weakness. If she needed to deal with attacks coming from more than ten directions at once while protecting the boy, the difficulty level would skyrocket. And if given the choice between her own life and the boy’s, she’d choose the latter without a second thought. Hence this situation, where she couldn’t win against opponents she was stronger than. As Brunhild drew her sword, the acquired Valkyries all drew theirs as well, readying themselves. And then something happened. With the force of a dump truck, something crashed into the hospital hallway. It was an acquired Valkyrie from another unit who had been standing by out front, and she tumbled onto the floor. Somebody had thrown her using extraordinary strength. Naturally, everyone turned to where she’d come from. At the end of the dark hallway—just the fact that there was such silence despite all the commotion meant that the other patients and doctors were probably under a magical effect of some sort—there stood a person, illuminated by the light from the emergency exit sign. It was an odd woman, wearing a rough shirt and jeans plus a worker’s apron, looking on the whole like a maid of some sort. And Brunhild sensed that she was like her—not on the Norse side but on the Crossist side. “…A saint?” she said in spite of herself. “What rank?” The blond-haired maid smiled and scratched her head. “I’ve forgotten,” she said. “I think I’m higher than you, though.” “For what reason have you come?” “I like it when things are easy to understand. You aside, the boy you’re trying to protect is blameless. All the people who keep coming after him, trying to glean some benefit for themselves—I hate people like them with a passion.” The acquired Valkyries changed their formation. To swiftly deal with the two enemies, some of them changed repositioned their swords. But the blond-haired maid just grinned in response. “And I’m not the only one who thinks so, either.” A moment later, this time on the opposite end of the hallway, Brunhild heard a devastating rumble. Other acquired Valkyries were being mowed down through the darkness, tossed her way. Then a small girl appeared, walking toward them—the boss of a modern Western sorcerer’s society, her staff in hand. Leivinia Birdway. “…I invested too much in this,” she said. “I need to see results. I’m glad we fished off an official Norse-type member. Unlike Cendrillon and Salonya, we should actually get some beneficial information from her.” She twirled her staff. “Not that I have any right to say this stuff. But the way Gremlin is just gallivanting around is really pissing me off. So anyway, yeah. Stick with me for a bit. You’ll be able to blow off some of that stress you’re feeling.” “……” The acquired Valkyries paused. It looked like they were hesitating because of the change in the situation, but that wasn’t it. And Brunhild was the first one to figure it out. “Ah,” she said. “I see how it is.” She looked up to the ceiling, ignoring the building materials in the way, and gazed up at the skies above. At the flying assassin. “There’s something else, isn’t there? I know now. They wanted to distract me with the battle, then rip the information on Gungnir out of my mind while my defenses were weakened.” The spear used by Odin, chief god of Norse mythology. A symbol of the god’s might. The most powerful Norse Soul Arm, which Brunhild had once used for revenge against a certain boy. “Eh, who cares?” said the blond maid offhandedly. “In exchange, I’m taking a hint about Gremlin. If I chase them down after that and destroy their headquarters, then anything they stole will be mine again.” The battle’s result was crystal clear. After leisurely exiting Baggage City, the magic god Othinus wore a cool expression, even in the negative-twenty-degree blizzard. “Calmed down now?” she asked the person walking next to her. “……” Marianne was silent. She wasn’t walking per se. It was more like she was being held over the shoulder like a bag of rice. Marianne was so close that she couldn’t actually see all of who was carrying her. But she could still tell who it was by their familiar skin texture and scent. Something was different, though. Something that separated a sleeping person from a dead person. Eventually, Marianne opened her mouth and murmured one word: “Bersi.” There was no answer. The man who had once been her friend walked on in silence through the blizzard, not shaking, not getting goose bumps, not saying a word. Then Marianne realized what had happened. The magic god spoke to her in a brusque tone. “Dead, alive—the difference is minor.” “Then he’s an Einherjar now.” It was a skill on about the same level as the human modifications Marianne performed. This was specifically for corpses, though. By incorporating gold into the important spots in a human’s body, the body wouldn’t rot, and it could be controlled by the user. That was all it was for. The magic god sounded bored. “Not that I expect you to, but I hope you won’t raise hell like the others in Baggage City. You know, saying something like, How dare you trample on my teacher’s resolve to accomplish his goals, even if it killed him.” “…I’m not going to.” Marianne no longer had the drive to shout like that. The world had lost something important. “What about the one who did raise hell like that? Did you add her to the Einherjar, too?” “No, not at all. As always, I experienced interference.” Interference. Only so many people could possibly do such a thing to Othinus. “Did the failure… Did Ollerus appear?” “Currently, any fight I have against him ends with a draw. That’s how we’re made. I’ll need to do something about that soon.” Her one weakness. A threat greater than Imagine Breaker. But Othinus’s expression remained steady as she spoke. For her, it must have been like looking at a puzzle she already knew how to solve. This wasn’t the time to think about it. This was simply the time to act, to work her body—like cleaning up a messy room. Feeling an unnatural warmth from the corpse that didn’t stink like one, Marianne asked, “What happened to the holistic one?” “If Imagine Breaker destroyed something, then there was something we needed to seek. But… If you try to execute that phenomenon with a single brain, you’d hit several walls. Frankly, I doubt a mere human could pull it off.” “You need someone more than human? Why not do it yourself, then?” “Even magic gods are a facet of sorcery. I don’t want to add supernatural powers to the mix.” If holistic supernatural abilities were different from Academy City ones, then maybe the side effects wouldn’t happen. But Othinus seemed to be cautious—a magic god, one who stood above all others, was cautious. Marianne paused for a moment, then said, “Then it’s on to our next objective?” “We got the furnace in Hawaii. Information on the spear is coming along smoothly, and we’ll probably end up retrieving a model who can use holism—one with traits surpassing normal humans. Nevertheless, it can’t be someone who is supported by magic, like a saint or a Valkyrie. It should be someone who has undergone Academy City’s version of supernatural ability development… And there are only so many who fit the bill.” “Any leads?” “Academy City,” said Othinus again, then added, “A windowless building. In one of the main structures supporting the giant building, one such model sleeps.” Kamijou faded in and out of consciousness. His fitful sleep due to the intense pain of having his hand cut off without any numbing agents and the shock of losing so much blood at once. Or at least, that was how it should have been. But something was up. His heart was still beating irregularly despite there being no reason for it to do so. It was gone. Through weak eyes, he looked at his right arm and understood. His right hand. It was attached. He tried to give voice to a question, but only a hoarse moan came out. The damage itself had been done—that was for sure. In fact, it was still wreaking havoc inside him. And yet his hand was attached, as if nothing had happened. Someone spoke. “It’s really somethin’ else. Getting your hand sliced off with a sharp blade is one thing, but that wound was totally crushed. In that state, you shouldn’t have been able to reattach the bone, much less the nerves.” Another person spoke. “It was the same for me. This must be proof that it has become established as the present world’s Imagine Breaker. This right hand attains meaning by being this owner’s right hand. More roughly, that which grows from this owner’s right shoulder is the right hand.” “Does that mean they’ve figured it out, too?” “Who knows? Maybe they actually just wanted to change generations already. Touma Kamijou’s nature is difficult for Gremlin to control. Simply moving it into something else would be faster. That is, of course, if their objective is the Imagine Breaker.” “That’s a hypothetical. But yes, if her nature of being too powerful as a magic god gets in the way, then using Imagine Breaker would be faster.” As he lay there, Kamijou looked up at the ceiling. People were peering at him. He tried to ask, but before that, one of them continued. “Again, it was the same for me.” “Come to think of it, you lost your right arm, too, didn’t you? Seems you’ve reconnected it, though,” answered the other. Then, as though he’d understood what Kamijou wanted to ask from the beginning, he said: “I am Ollerus. The man who should have become a magic god.” A point of contact had been created. A distinct connection had been made. An enormous uncertainty factor—one who it was unclear if Touma Kamijou, owner of the Imagine Breaker, should have even been allowed to meet—had appeared. Ollerus continued to speak to Kamijou as he lay on the floor. “Your right hand repaired itself. It’ll take a while for it to fully work again. But because of its nature, there isn’t much I—or Fiamma here—can do for you. You’d even cancel anything we used on you to alleviate the pain.” “…Ah…,” moaned Kamijou hoarsely. Would he ask to be healed or numbed, even though he knew they couldn’t do that? His right hand had been severed and repaired within the span of ten or twenty minutes, so Ollerus wouldn’t be able to blame him. But that wasn’t what he did. In a shaking voice, the boy said this. “Baggage…City… There should still be…people who need saving here. The Kiharas and Gremlin retreated, but the scars of their battle remain. I have to save them; I have to save the people I couldn’t get to in time…” Hearing that, Ollerus grinned a little. “In that case, I’ll use you for some hard physical labor,” he said. “First, we have to dismantle and retune the people Marianne Sringeneier left all over the place. With your right hand and our knowledge, we should be able to get some of the soldiers she used—and Cendrillon, who got turned into a table—back together safe and sound.” Meanwhile, someone who didn’t matter at all muttered to himself. “…I…survived.” Standing there in the negative-twenty-degree blizzard was Schall Berylan. He had no idea how many of the troops protecting Baggage City had survived—the very fact that their network was down was strange enough—but he’d apparently been chosen as one of them. Not even he knew why he was still alive. Maybe it was because he’d stayed away from the eye of the storm, or maybe he was more capable than he gave himself credit for. Or perhaps it was even simpler. Perhaps he was just lucky. “Suspend combat. Repeat, suspend combat! The higher-ups will sort out the rest. Be warned that any further combat actions are inadvisable!” The very reasonable statement was coming from his sub-radio, which wasn’t on the network, and it seemed pretty late to him. But if it was an official order from his superior, then it really meant something—that things were finally over. Of course, everyone who had fought so earnestly now lay underneath the snow, and nobody was in a state to open a channel. Well, I survived, he thought. Now what? No matter what mental gymnastics he tried to do, his employers—Baggage City and the Anti–Academy City Science Guardians—had collapsed. Actually, even if the executives tried to reorganize themselves, Schall vowed that he wouldn’t respond to their summons. Academy City was a monster. He thought the rumors had just ballooned to ridiculous sizes. But no, the reality was five or ten times worse. Then Schall heard something fall a short distance away. Even in the whiteout blizzard, it didn’t get covered up with snow; it lingered there unnaturally. “Is that…wreckage from an Academy City bomber?” Obviously, that meant it was a little bundle of technology. Schall didn’t know if he could cook anything up with it, but the people who wanted it would really want it. Not a bad replacement for severance pay. He was in luck. His good fortune had pulled him through that insane conflict, and it was still working. Schall reached for the bomber, meaning to take about an armful’s worth of the black shards with him. “Hurry! If that marker goes down, we’ll have to dig through all the snow. Retrieve them before that!” “?!” Panicking, Schall hid himself behind a scrap heap that used to be a car. Then several powered suits came stomping in… Or were they? They looked kind of like twisted dragonflies or scorpion kigurumi. Whatever they were, they walked through the blizzard like it was a joke. Why were they using physical voices instead of radios? Maybe if the things didn’t have a little bit of humanity mixed into their utterly inhuman appearances, the pilots’ perceptions would completely collapse. “Academy City, the Science Guardians, doesn’t matter which. Gather up everything that looks usable, even if it’s busted. The bombers damaged beyond repair are set to have their data pheromone capillaries explode. Follow the scent before the marker disappears and retrieve them.” “What if someone gets in the way?” “Get rid of ’em. Doesn’t matter if they look connected to any of this or not. Whether they believe they’re UFO parts or OOParts, smash them to bits. These markers are weak to high temps anyway. The flames from the explosions might be making the scents weaker. Be careful!” “……” Schall pulled back his hand and decided to leave the hiding spot behind the scrap metal and get the hell out of there. Perhaps his ability to change his mind so quickly was the secret to his survival after all. A little while after the chaos in Baggage City ended, a person came knocking. A young woman in a cheap off-the-rack suit who looked like she was in the middle of job hunting. But inside the big document envelope she carried was a load of confidential information that was off-limits to even the leaders of nations. She was someone who managed things on a global level. An individual completely ill-suited for the old man trembling in this dark corner of Baggage City. To begin with, the heads leading Baggage City—of the Anti–Academy City Science Guardians—had all been demolished by the Kiharas. This old man never had the power to decide policy for the huge organization. Victory had already been a foregone conclusion the moment the young woman visited. Their executives had been so thoroughly smashed that now this old man had the authority to make decisions. “Now then,” she said. “I think you understand now how dangerous the things in Academy City’s possession really are. For that, we ended up losing three—no, four—Kiharas, but as a demonstration, I believe this was a reasonable cost. After all, Teitoku Kakine seems to have learned how to use Dark Matter to construct human cells. We’ve already made up for the damages.” The number of victims wasn’t even one one-thousandth of what she had predicted. Thanks to the irregular Kiharas working in the shadows, none of the noncombatant spectators had been killed. The woman couldn’t express that in easy-to-understand numbers, so she was concerned about whether the fear she established would get across, but the old man seemed properly surprised by something else. “‘A reasonable…cost’?” “Yes. Not only does the idea of being Anti–Academy City pure nonsense have no value whatsoever, it actually works to our disadvantage. This cost was to make you understand that—if not through words, then through experience.” Speaking plainly, the woman pointed to the documents spread out on the extravagant table. A short tapping sound continued. “You don’t actually believe those were the only Kiharas in existence, do you?” “…In that case, while I’m scared, it would only have the opposite effect,” managed the old man, rallying what little courage he had. “If Academy City has more than that, it would be beyond our predictions. It would be a threat to the world itself! If we’re to remain in good conscience, we must stand up to you. Especially after you showed us something like that!” “My, my.” The woman in the suit sighed and put a hand to her forehead, shaking her head. “You have it backward.” “What…?” “What do you think the Kiharas are anyway? I hope you don’t have some cliché idea of them being an Academy City elite force.” The woman used her index finger to push several pieces of paper out of the way, exposing one sheet in particular. She explained part of what was written on it. “They’re a type of by-product. They are executors who appear in a pure field of science when one wishes to use that field for evil. And at present, Academy City has almost all the world’s cutting-edge technology. Kiharas gather there. We gather them—and we supervise them. However…” “No… That can’t…” “However, if Academy City’s overconcentration is broken and that science disseminates, then Kiharas will spring up all over the world, too. For now, they’re bound by a common bloodline, but there’s nothing saying they need to be. Simply put, if your Anti–Academy City Science Guardians grow and prosper, then the world will be filled with both science and technology and the Kiharas. Plus, Academy City wouldn’t be able to control them.” One such example was easy to understand. One of the Kiharas, those nonconformists who had appeared here in Baggage City, was working for Gremlin and went by the name Bersi—Kagun Kihara. Perhaps the fact that he had joined Gremlin meant the organization had created an environment in which they could utilize science and technology. But that might not have been all it was. Maybe it was precisely because Gremlin wanted to reinforce their sorcery using science and technology that Kagun Kihara had been fated to join them at all. “Now then, sir. Regarding the Anti–Academy Science Guardians and their pretense of zero tolerance for Academy City’s tyranny. Are you are prepared to follow through with your ideals, even if it means flooding the world with Kiharas?” The woman held out a piece of paper. A contract with simple contents. With a simple signature, the old man’s fight would come to an end. In defeat, of course. Or rather, this was just a ritual to let them know that they had lost long ago. “…You’re…,” managed the old man, holding his ballpoint pen in a trembling hand. “You speak of the Kiharas so lightly. Who are you?” In response, the woman gave a thin smile. She grabbed the white coat hanging, folded up, on the back of her chair, spread it out, and put it on. It wasn’t a regular coat. It was a scientist’s lab coat. “I’m a Kihara myself. Yuiitsu Kihara. Someone fated to appear for as long as humanity uses science.” The woman, who had written off losing four Kiharas as a reasonable sacrifice, took the piece of paper and left Baggage City. It all happened so easily—almost like she was making a little fence on a Sunday to keep her dog from getting out of the yard. That marked the end of the disturbance.