A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 16

by Kazuma Kamachi

  “Nothing…Was just thinking that it’s a popular place, so I might run into someone I know.”

  8

  Mikoto Misaka stopped and glanced up at the giant, towering building.

  The words PEACEFUL SPRINGS SPA RESORT sat emblazoned on its entrance. The structure stretched all the way from District 22’s ground to its ceiling. Broadly speaking, big baths filled the place. There was an extensive lineup of varieties, including several with various medicinal properties, or electric ones, or ones utilizing ultrasonic waves. Nonetheless, it had space left over, which was crammed full of shopping malls, arcades, bowling alleys, and the like.

  It wasn’t a traditional bathhouse as much as a leisure facility with baths in it. It was designed for a target audience of boys and girls in their teens, too, which made sense because of Academy City’s student population.

  Thanks to its status as a mainly amusement-based facility, it included VIP baths as well, but Mikoto was after something else.

  “…The post-bath Croaker cell phone strap…”

  It was a limited-time character item you could get by having ten points on a stamp card. If not for the strap, there wouldn’t have been a reason to break her dorm’s curfew, sneak out, and shake off her roommate Kuroko Shirai’s pursuit.

  I mean, bringing her would have been fine, but…Whenever we’re at a bath or something, she always pesters me like a coiling snake…Imagining it for a moment gave her a chill down her spine. She shook her head to dispel the unwanted imagery and stormed the bath building. A large hall awaited her on the other side of the entrance, but it had nothing like a reception desk. It was set up so that you paid at the bath entries on each floor.

  She slipped by a group flapping fans for cooling off and a group of kids bored of the water and running to the arcade, then headed for the elevator.

  “All right,” she said, looking at the map on the wall. “Where should I get my stamp today…?”

  She’d already been in the ultrasonic wave bath, and electromasters like her couldn’t use the electric ones. By process of elimination, she was left with only the ones with heightened basic medicinal properties. It sounded ominous when put like that, but they were simply baths adjusted to have the same effects as outdoor hot springs, analyzed scientifically.

  “They should just come out and say they use bath additives…,” she muttered bluntly, taking the elevator up. Once there, she paid the fee at the bath’s entrance, borrowed a towel, went into the changing room, and quickly undressed. After wrapping herself in the lightly colored towel, she closed her locker and was all ready to head in.

  …Unfortunately, this towel is pretty small. A little conscious of her thighs poking out the edge of the bath towel, Mikoto opened the door to the large bath.

  She couldn’t feel the building’s unique height whatsoever here. There were no windows. It wasn’t a scenic place in the mountains—they were in the middle of the city. Putting windows in the women’s bath so they could see the scenery would have been suicidal—though of course, this was District 22, so even if it had windows, all anyone inside would see was the regular underground view.

  The interior was similar to a typical public bath with separate communal shower and tub areas, but here, the bathing area was split into three sections, each at a different temperature. No paintings of Mount Fuji covered the walls—instead, one wall was taken up by a huge monitor that used colorized magnetic particles. The revolutionary screen’s selling point was that you didn’t need to use light to display color; you could directly alter the particles for that. Unfortunately, it was absurdly expensive, and normal people had no problems with the screens they’d always used. Tragically, only a few artists and movie theaters had bought any of them.

  The monitor appeared to double as a touch screen, and a few younger girls were playing with it. “It’s true! I really saw a white angel.” “There’s no such thing!” “I’m telling the truth. It beat the evil!” they said, putting their hands all over it, drawing pictures. Another woman who looked like she’d come back from the office was watching a nighttime drama on a small window isolated from the rest of the screen.

  Mikoto sat down in a corner of the room where the shower faucets were and gently grabbed one of the sensor-equipped heads. After a few seconds, a small monitor at the base of the faucet displayed “38°.” The sensor measured her body temperature from her palm, and then—in addition to actually cleaning her—adjusted the water to its most effective temperature for her.

  You know, I could have just gone into the tub for a few seconds and left, if all I wanted was a stamp. No, that wouldn’t have felt right…Maybe I should have brought Kuroko, dangerous though it might be, and gotten twice the stamps—wait, no, no…?!

  As she thought about nothing, she gave herself a light wash with some body soap, then used the hot water to rinse the bubbles off.

  But I still only have half the stamps I need. That post-bath Croaker strap is a long way away…

  Mikoto didn’t actually like baths that hot, so she chose the one section of tub out of the three that was intended for little kids and walked that way.

  And then she stopped.

  In front of her…

  …was a silver-haired, green-eyed sister she knew, soaking in the tub.

  “Wh-what?! What the heck are you doing here?!” Mikoto exclaimed.

  Index, in the muddy white bathwater, put her pointer finger to her mouth. “…You have to be quiet in the bath!”

  She was right, after all, so Mikoto closed her mouth and dejectedly put her foot in.

  And then Index piped up again. “…You can’t bring the towel into the water!”

  Mikoto found herself yielding, a little depressed, to the foreigner lecturing her on Japan’s public bath rules. She took off the lightly colored towel and went into the water up to her shoulders, then noticed a unique, unfamiliar girl right next to Index with epicanthic folds in her eyes.

  Actually, she wasn’t unfamiliar. “Wait, you’re the woman that idiot had his face on after that weird soccer ball incident!!”

  The sudden cry made the plain girl sputter and her face turn red. She waved her hands around, saying, “N-no, I—I, no, well, I—I!!” trying to make some kind of excuse and failing. Meanwhile, the foreign nun was opening her mouth just a little, her teeth glinting from within.

  But Mikoto wasn’t listening to the plain-looking girl’s words. She glanced at her chest, now less guarded because of her flailing, making an educated guess based on what little she could see from the whitened bath water.

  Bigger than I thought…She tsked, realizing she’d have to accept her loss honestly. The girl was hidden in the colored water now, but the moment she left the tub it would doubtlessly drive the dagger of despair into Mikoto.

  As she watched the plain girl babble on incoherently, probably trying to defend herself, she had a sudden thought.

  Did these two know about that idiot’s “circumstances”?

  His circumstances.

  His memory loss.

  Mikoto had learned of it very recently. She didn’t know anything about it, like how long it had been going on or how it had happened. Based solely on the fragmentary clues she’d gotten, though, it seemed like that idiot wanted to keep the fact to himself…but that was all she could surmise.

  Do they…well…Could they know about his amnesia?

  She watched them casually, searching for any signs of it, but she wasn’t a psychometer; she couldn’t read other people’s thoughts that easily.

  Still soaking in the tub, she thought further. Wait, this is all that idiot’s problem. I don’t have a thing to do with it. There’s no reason for me to solve anything…and I know that, but ugh, why do I have to worry this much over that idiot in the first place—it’s a huge pain, and I can’t blub blub blub blub blub blub blub…

  “Wh-what?! Short Hair, you’re sinking in the tub!”

  “She’s gotten dizzy!! We have to help her—quick!!”

&n
bsp; “?”

  Kamijou, who had gotten out of the bath before the others, was standing in front of a vending machine trying to decide whether to take the milk coffee or ice cream when he suddenly heard footsteps. He turned around.

  He saw a female nurse burst out of a room with FIRST-AID OFFICE written on the door and charge into the women’s bath, but of course, he didn’t know what was happening inside.

  9

  With this thing and that, the fun-filled bath time was over. Kamijou exited the leisure bath building and stood around at the entrance. Not to smoke, of course—he wanted to feel the night breeze.

  “…But I totally forgot we’re underground,” he said after a while, noticing the state of perfect windlessness, his shoulders dropping.

  Disappointed though he was, he had another thought. Acqua of the Back, one of God’s Right Seat, the most secret group in the Roman Orthodox Church, had declared war…It was an emergency—and enough of one that it should have been all he was worried about. But now that it had happened, nothing was really happening.

  Was it just a bluff…? No, I think it’s a little early to decide that, he thought with a groan as Itsuwa, smelling kind of good after getting out of the bath, approached him.

  “You’ll get the chills if you stand out here,” she said.

  “Actually, I was feeling a little dizzy, so this is nice.”

  “Um, we’ll be using the motorcycle to get home, too, so considering all that time, you might really get chilly.”

  Kamijou immediately deflated at the reserved remark.

  Itsuwa giggled at him. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

  “You’re the one who just said I’d get the chills!!”

  “If we’re going to anyway, we may as well. And after all, can’t you get back in the bath again afterward? Several of the baths here seem like pools that you can play in.”

  That would be a paradise all its own, thought Kamijou, agreeing with her inwardly. To be frank, being in the men’s bath by himself had been lonely.

  “Oh, right. What should we do about Index?”

  “The last I saw her, she was running around the free sample corner in the ‘food space’ inside.”

  If he stopped her and invited her for a walk, she was sure to bite him on the spot. He figured she wouldn’t be leaving the free sample corner, so she wouldn’t get lost.

  …Besides, this seems like a good chance to talk about Acqua, too. Acqua of the Back might come to Academy City—and they’d kept it secret from Index. Kamijou was his lone target this time. He didn’t want to say too much to her and drag her into a dangerous spot.

  With that, he decided to go for a walk in the nighttime underground city with Itsuwa.

  The nightscape was almost entirely blue, looking both like the scales of some strange southern butterfly and like an ocean covered with coral. Perhaps because his body was hot after having just gotten out of the bath, it strangely didn’t make him feel cold.

  “Hey, Amakusa moved from Japan to England, right?” he asked.

  “Well, yes.”

  “What’s it like living in England?”

  “Hmm…” Itsuwa thought for just a moment. “We did move to London, but they assigned us to a Japanese city block, so it’s not all that different. All three meals are the same as in Japan.”

  “Wait, really?”

  “Hmm…” Itsuwa smiled more ambiguously, pausing for just a second. “Well, Amakusa has always been able to learn about any environment and blend in with it. I think, when we’re headed somewhere we’ve never been, we treat it differently than most people would.”

  That would mean Itsuwa and the others hadn’t dragged their Japanese customs there—maybe they’d chosen to stay in a place it wouldn’t be strange for a group of Japanese people to hang around. They probably wouldn’t care where they went, really, whether it was Japan or the West or China.

  “The English Puritan Church is treating us well, too. Our lives are good in London—in an Amakusa way, of course,” she added with a smile.

  But it couldn’t have been that simple. Kamijou had seen their situation several times now. If a political issue arose while they acted on behalf of the Church, the higher-ups would definitely mobilize only Amakusa members so they could “cut off the lizard’s tail,” if the need occurred. Becoming affiliated with a huge organization also meant having odd jobs forced upon you.

  But Kamijou swallowed all that and just said, “Oh.” Itsuwa had more than a smile on her face, but she nevertheless looked satisfied with her current situation. “By the way, Amakusa blends into cities and stuff, right?”

  “Yes. That’s what we aim for, at least.”

  “Does that mean…?” he started to say, looking at her outfit again. She was wearing a pink tank top over a brightly colored, sheeplike sweater. Her dark, slim pants had cuts in them that spiraled around the legs, with clear vinyl holding it together to prevent it from flipping up. “Does everyone in London wear clothes like that?”

  “Oh, um…I tried to pick an outfit that would let me blend in with Academy City…,” she said uneasily. “Do I stand out…?”

  Kamijou shook his head.

  She seemed relieved. “It’s hard to explain this sort of thing verbally, but in London, the standard choice of clothing feels a little more mature.”

  “Huh, I see. I don’t know any brands and stuff other than Academy City’s. So I guess if you build a wardrobe with a bunch of clothes from over there, then it generally all looks like this?”

  “Um, it’s not that, exactly. After all, most people in London don’t only wear domestic brands. In fact, there are actually cases where it could turn out terribly if I chose my outfit based on that assumption alone…But beyond that, even when wearing the same outfit, it’s possible to give off a completely different impression depending on the gestures you use and how you behave.”

  Itsuwa was muttering at this point. She dealt with all her fashion choices by instinct, so it was hard for her to explain it logically. It was the same as if you asked someone to tell you how to drive a car—most wouldn’t be able to give you an answer aside from “you just drive it.”

  Whatever the case, Kamijou was sort of interested in what Itsuwa wore in London. What immediately came to mind was one other acquaintance he had in Amakusa besides her—Kaori Kanzaki.

  “…But aren’t Kanzaki’s clothes kind of weird?”

  “I…?! Wh—? I, you, weird…?”

  “I mean, she’s mature and everything, but she seems like she’s definitely more on the sexy side than mature.”

  “What a suddenly dreadful evaluation of our Priestess! It’s not for the sex appeal; it’s so she can build spells, since the lack of symmetry and balance is effective for what she’s using, and it’s not like she’s doing it to show off her curves or anything…!!”

  Itsuwa had snapped out of the charm and was now balling her hands into fists in front of her as she launched into her explanation.

  Kamijou flinched a little at the late bloomer. “Th-then what? Are you all just gung-ho about being in London? Like it was the right choice?”

  Itsuwa seemed dumbfounded by Kamijou’s sudden change in topic. “??? Well, we’re happy we could go to where our Priestess is,” she said. “Um, we’ve traveled far away, so it is a shame we can’t see people in Japan whenever we like…” She walked next to him, looking down a little, muttering the next part to herself. “But lately I’ve started to think maybe that’s okay. Kind of like Orihime and Hikoboshi…”

  “? What’s wrong, Itsuwa?” asked Kamijou blankly.

  “N-nothing!! Nothing’s wrong, nothing at all!!” she answered, starting to blush all of a sudden and flap her hands in front of her.

  10

  The current Amakusa team, centered around Saiji Tatemiya, was a short distance away from Kamijou and Itsuwa. They were spread out in a circle around them, securing the main access routes to the pair while continuously matching their pace. Plus, they were completely bl
ending in with the background, without showing any signs of protecting someone. Had an expert bodyguard seen the situation, they would have marveled. And the Amakusa wouldn’t even let themselves be known to experts.

  Tatemiya, a central figure to Amakusa, which received its orders from the English Puritan Church, was walking down the street in a group made up of a few youngsters (or pretending to be). They proceeded on a route past several karaoke bars and other indoor leisure facilities, pretending to window shop and discuss which place to visit, all the while following Kamijou and Itsuwa at a constant distance.

  “What do you think?” asked Ushibuka from next to him.

  “About the Itsuwa-pushes-Index-out-of-the-way-for-a-nighttime-date operation?”

  “About Acqua of the Back,” he responded shortly.

  Tatemiya’s expression shifted slightly. He gave a casual look around. “No signs of infiltration yet. That’s the report we got from Academy City, too.”

  “…I still don’t trust it.”

  “When you say you don’t trust it, you could mean two different things.” Tatemiya smirked. “The first is that you simply can’t trust Academy City’s security when it comes to sorcery. The second would imply the city leaders are scheming, withholding their intelligence from us. Which is it you can’t believe in, Ushibuka?”

  “Well…”

  “The fact that we have three powers—Academy City, the English Puritan Church, and the Roman Orthodox Church’s God’s Right Seat—plotting against one another over a single high school kid is already strange.”

  “The Vicar Pope?”

  “Yeah, I get it. The name Touma Kamijou means something for Amakusa, too. He’s saved us before, and also fought by our side.

  “But,” said Tatemiya, interrupting himself, “what is Touma Kamijou to Academy City? What is he to the English Church? What is he to God’s Right Seat? …Is he alone valuable enough for giant groups like those to mobilize?”

  The few around him in the group fell silent for a moment. They knew the answer, and they thought it then but refrained from saying it aloud.