CHAPTER 4

The Last Sorcerer in the Single World

1

As Kanzaki and the POWER OF GOD continued their upper-dimensional warfare with wild attacks occurring on the scale of a hundredth of a second, Kamijou and Touya were finally able to burst into the beach house.

However, they hadn’t fled, per se.

The POWER OF GOD and the purge both could, if desired, kill the two of them no matter where on the planet they ran to. That’s how far removed from their world they were.

Touya, unable to take in the situation well, his shoulders heaving up and down with ragged breath, demanded:

“T-Touma! Wait just a minute; can’t we take a rest? What is that thing? What is going on here right now? I feel like I’ve seen that man who was with us before on TV—Is this the filming for a movie or something?”

They were inevitable questions from Touya, to whom nothing had been explained. But even now, Kamijou couldn’t let himself be convinced by the face of the incident’s perpetrator who didn’t understand anything.

But as he was about to automatically yell at him, he suddenly noticed something odd out of the corner of his eye. Someone was balled up, collapsed, in the shadow of a round table placed on the floor, as if hiding.

It was Mikoto Misaka.

“Wha…? Hey, wait, are you all right?! What happened?!” cried out Kamijou without thinking, drawing closer, but there was no response. There should be about thirty minutes of time left before the limit, but were the effects of this strange purge already starting to show?

Kamijou noticed something at that point.

The strange, subtle smell wafting to his nose—and when he realized what it was, he panicked and stopped breathing.

CHC1₃. It was chloroform.

“Kh…ah…”

It seemed the chemical compound that he had breathed in only a little of entered into his brain, because his consciousness blurred for a moment. But it seemed it was an extremely minute amount, because he managed to barely avoid passing out.

“Hey, Touma, what’s wrong?! Hey!”

Hearing Touya’s voice of worry, Kamijou waved one hand to answer that he was fine. But who would have done this? he thought. Chloroform is the most harmful of all the trihalomethanes, with even carcinogens detectable from it. There’s no way Mikoto would have inhaled something like this on her own.

Who did…?

CHC1₃ is extremely volatile, so if left alone, it should evaporate within a matter of seconds. In other words, the person who put Mikoto to sleep might still be around here somewhere.

Kamijou suddenly started to worry for Index, who wasn’t here. Even though he knew this wasn’t the time nor the place, his feet nonetheless carried him up the stairs to the second floor.

He dashed up the stairs, ran down the hallway, and flung open the door to Touya’s room.

When he did, Index was likewise collapsed. This time, he didn’t try to sniff out the scent. After he observed her sleeping breath was regular, extremely regular, he reached a conclusion. Somebody had put Index to sleep with medicine. This kind of deep sleep would not be lifted by simply shaking her.

Then who?

He didn’t know who it had been, and he didn’t know their goal. Touya finally caught up with Kamijou, who was on his guard for no apparent reason. He looked at the fallen Index—no, rather, it appeared to him to be his wife, Shiina—and he blanched.

“T-Touma, what is this? What the hell is going on here?!”

“That’s what I should be asking!” Kamijou remembered the thing he had to do right now. “Listen up, Dad. People are going to die at this rate. People will all die, every one of them. To stop this from happening, we need to cancel Angel Fall. You did it, so you stop it!”

“Touma, this is no time for games—”

“I know! This is no time for games! If you don’t know how to stop this, then fine! Just tell me where you did Angel Fall in that case! I’ll handle the rest!”

However, Touya looked at Kamijou incredulously.

It was as if he were trying to say that he had absolutely no idea what he was being told.

“Touma. I’m asking you, what is this Angel Fall? Some kind of metaphor?”

When he heard that, Kamijou lost all sense of what was going on.

It didn’t look to him like Touya was lying. He honestly seemed like he had nothing at all to do with sorcery. Could we have…made some kind of terrible mistake? he wondered.

“Give it a rest, Kammy. He wouldn’t know anything.”

All of a sudden, a voice came from the room’s entrance.

Kamijou turned around. Touya did as well, and they were stunned at who they saw there.

Motoharu Tsuchimikado.

He probably looked like an idol from TV to Touya. He looked nonplussed at the man who had suddenly appeared.

“Ah, I was the one who put them out. I can’t get civilians involved in this carelessly, y’see.”

Tsuchimikado’s voice was different from usual.

His form, which should have been within normal life, seemed to have cracks running through it.

“Hmph. From the look on your face, I suppose you haven’t caught on yet. Well, guess it’s only natural, y’know? Kammy, you’re an amateur when it comes to sorcery, after all.”

The cracks expanded and shattered like a sheet of glass.

The one who stood there was not the Motoharu Tsuchimikado who Touma Kamijou knew.

He was something stranger, someone he couldn’t ascertain the true identity of.

He was but one sorcerer.

“Hey…wait, Tsuchimikado. You realized there was something weird about Dad? Hey, could it be that the one behind Angel Fall is a different person—”

“No, the criminal is Touya. There’s no way we can be mistaken. It’s just that the man himself activated Angel Fall unconsciously and doesn’t realize it,” he said. Touya looked enraged.

“Wh-who are you calling a criminal?! How dare you, saying something like that the first time we meet! Do all performers act like this?!”

Kamijou looked at the way Touya was acting, mystified. If he was the criminal behind Angel Fall, it would be strange if he was under its effects, but…

“Yeah, that’s right, Tsuchimikado. My dad is a normal person. He’s not a sorcerer like you guys. There’s no way he could pull off some complex technique on this planet-wide scale. Besides, you were the one who said there needs to be a magic circle or a ritual site or whatever for grand sorcery, and I don’t see anything like that any—”

“It’s in the house. It’s in your house, Kammy. Did you not realize it?”

Kamijou fell mum at Tsuchimikado’s statement.

He didn’t understand what those words meant.

“I told you, didn’t I? I specialize in feng shui. And feng shui is a sorcery that involves building circuits via the placement of room arrangement and furniture.”

“What…?”

“To put this as quickly as possible, basically it’s a technique to create a magic circle by placing furniture and rooms in certain positions.”

Kamijou didn’t understand the meaning of those words.

He had absolutely no idea what he was saying.

“You…What are you talking about? Are you an idiot? There’s no way that normal house could be some crazy ritual site! With one movement of a piece of furniture, you can create a magic circle? That’s…That’s absurd!”

“I’m telling you, that’s not a normal house. There were occult goods all over the place—all kinds of charms and folk pieces. Each one of them by itself is just a meaningless, mass-produced souvenir on its own. They might as well not contain any power at all. But you can’t treat simple replicas so recklessly, either. If they’re arranged properly according to feng shui or Onmyou, they start to feed off one another.” For some reason, he sounded like he was having fun. “For example, there was a short Japanese cypress tree planted near the entrance, wasn’t there?”

“How would I know?”

“There was. It was a small tree with a birdhouse in it. For little birds to come and rest. And in Shinto shrines, there is a deep meaning in placing a resting tree at the entrance to the grounds. Do you get it, Kammy?”

“G-get what?”

“It’s a torii. The very word we use for that red arch means ‘the place where birds are.’ The things were originally for giving rest to the sacred birds who served the gods. When I think about a cypress torii, the Ise Grand Shrine comes to mind, but man, this is some crazy coincidence.” Tsuchimikado laughed pleasantly. “There’s still more. There was an ornament on a red mailbox at the south-facing entrance. The color attributed to the south is red. In the bath, there was a toy turtle, the guardian beast of water. Atop the refrigerator and microwave in the kitchen, there were tiger toys or something. The white tiger—the guardian beast of metal. Each one of them is cheap nonsense on its own, but there were more than three thousand charms in that house altogether. With that much, the synergistic effects turn into a huge force. The house itself is transformed into a temple.”

Kamijou couldn’t believe what he was being told.

In fact, he heard what Tsuchimikado had to say as nothing but false accusations.

“Hmm. It’s more than likely that the ritual site was completed at the moment the Kamijou couple left the house to come here to the ocean,” said Tsuchimikado, seeming highly interested. He turned a cruel smile on Touya. “Sheesh. Kammy’s right hand is one thing, but Touya is something else altogether. This is the most beautiful coincidence I’ve ever seen. It made me feel like I was looking at a naturally formed diamond, it did. Though I can’t say whether such a wonderful coincidence was good or bad luck, I suppose.”

“Quit it…with your bullshit! That’s stretching the truth no matter how you think about it!!”

“Yeah, it’s stretching the truth—which is why I couldn’t lay a hand on it carelessly, either.”

Finally, Tsuchimikado’s sense of relaxation vanished.

Kamijou thought it suspicious, and then Tsuchimikado said:

“You know, Kammy. Everything I just said is a stretch of the truth. Just false accusations. But Angel Fall did actually activate. This is exactly what a miracle is. Oh, by the way, Kammy, do you believe in miracles? Can you trust in a one-in-a-million coincidence?”

“What are you talking about? Of course not! I don’t know shit about sorcery, but electrical circuits and precise instruments won’t work if they’re all over the place!”

“But, as a matter of fact, Angel Fall is active. So can you not think this way, Kammy? That there is some method to draw out a one-in-a-million miracle with one hundred percent certainty?”

Wh…at…? Kamijou’s thought processes slammed to a halt.

Tsuchimikado grinned at him.

“There were all kinds of souvenirs in the Kamijou residence. They weren’t placed in order to create Angel Fall in particular. From the amateur Touya’s point of view, it was just by chance, placed as decoration just wherever. Angel Fall’s magic circle is nothing more than something created by accident from those countless replicas that were placed there. However—” He continued, “Even if Angel Fall hadn’t happened, some other grand sorcery would have. If the placement of the souvenirs were just a little bit different, the circuit, the magic circle, would have changed”—he turned over the palm of his hand—“and therefore, there is no such thing as ‘failure’ for that magic circle. Whatever way those souvenirs were arranged, some sort of grand sorcery would have absolutely occurred.”

And this time, it just so happened that Angel Fall was the one that activated.

If it hadn’t been Angel Fall, a completely different incident would have happened—that’s what he was saying.

“Kammy, why do you think I didn’t tell you any of this while we were at your house? It was because we couldn’t break that magic circle now that it had somehow stabilized for the moment. It’s far worse than Angel Fall itself—there are Tactical Circles in there for all sorts of things, like Earth Shaker, Phantom Hound, and Cocytus Replica, and if any of them had been activated, one or two entire countries would have their region wiped off the map…And on top of that, there were even Original Circles present, of which I don’t even know the essence of. Understand? You’re one thing, being an amateur, but those are magic circles that a sorcerer—and even the feng shui expert, Tsuchimikado, at that—understands. We mustn’t let them activate. They’re of the sort that must absolutely never be brought to fruition.”

If Kamijou had touched one of the souvenirs and stopped Angel Fall…

…then at that exact moment, a different grand sorcery would have activated, as if he had flipped a switch.

“Thinking on it now, that was a pretty damn dangerous situation. Touma Kamijou, Kaori Kanzaki, Misha Kreutzev, Jinsaku Hino, and Motoharu Tsuchimikado—if any one of us had moved even one of those souvenirs in your house, Kammy, it would have shifted to a different circle right then and there.”

Kamijou finally recalled it. So that was the reason Tsuchimikado seemed to be urging them to get away from the house as soon as possible. This was that reason.

But still, Kamijou tried to grope for some factor he could deny.

“But, but…That’s right, my father is a normal person. He’s just an ordinary office worker. Don’t you need mana to use sorcery? My father wouldn’t have any idea how to use mana!”

“He doesn’t need to, Kammy. I told you before—feng shui is something that moves shikigami, the ‘formulaic gods,’ by converting the earth’s ‘spirit’ into energy. A person’s mana has nothing to do with it.” Tsuchimikado waggled his index finger. “Well, it basically took a route like a cycle: electrical generator to transformer to circuits—the earth’s spirit to Touya Kamijou to the souvenir technique. Though that doesn’t change the fact that Touya is an important ‘accomplice’ here.”

Was he saying that was likely why Touya Kamijou was only partially under the effect of Angel Fall?

Touya was one of the criminals who perpetrated Angel Fall, but he wasn’t the master but rather the slave.

Angel Fall wasn’t something that occurred by human hands.

The master, the main criminal, was the world’s own mechanisms, set up in a devilish way thanks to feng shui.

Damn it all. Kamijou was speechless.

Tsuchimikado didn’t stop to take any note of him.

“That house is like a railroad with more switch levers than stars in the sky. By destroying one of those souvenirs, it would change over to a different rail—a different magic circle.” He spoke smoothly. “So that’s why I couldn’t just say something like I’d destroy the souvenirs one by one. I would have needed to destroy the entire magic circle in one blast. So I would have gotten you away from the magic circle for now, Kammy, then secured that old dude, compromised with Kreutzev as well, asked for Kanzaki’s assistance, and returned back to the house to destroy the magic circle…but that was the very best-case scenario, though. The schedule got a wee bit compressed, and now we’re in this situation.”

Damn it. Kamijou swore.

“What…the hell? How did this happen? Dad really doesn’t know anything about sorcery at all. So why, how did everything turn out so—”

“Don’t think there is a reason,” Tsuchimikado interrupted calmly to the despairing Kamijou. “No reason, no origin, no logic, no theory, no cause, no objective, no meaning, no value—it was just totally nothing. Kammy, you would understand that.”

So he said, but Kamijou couldn’t understand any of this.

Kamijou’s face like that of a lost child, Tsuchimikado smiled at him cruelly.

“In the end…it was just a case of damn bad luck.”

Kamijou didn’t understand the meaning of those words.

His frozen brain, however, slowly, with time, restarted his thoughts, like melting ice.

Because his luck was bad.

Because he had rotten luck.

So what did that mean? Was that a conclusion? He just happened to be attacked by Jinsaku Hino, the POWER OF GOD started to rage, half the planet would be burned to a crisp after not even thirty more minutes, Touya Kamijou was treated like the incident’s perpetrator, and the reason for all that—could be summed up in just those few words?

“…That’s…total bullshit.”

Kamijou shook his head. He didn’t know what sort of emotions to feel, nor what kind of expression to wear.

He still felt like he’d needed to stop Angel Fall despite that.

Because his luck was bad…Because of his rotten luck…

This problem couldn’t be resolved with a few cheap, shitty words like that.

Angel Fall’s magic circle was Kamijou’s house itself. He couldn’t ask for much. He didn’t know what magic circle would be activated next time, but for now, if they went to his house and destroyed the Angel Fall circle…then at least they would be able to stop the POWER OF GOD from cleansing the planet!

“Give it a rest—it’s too late,” declared Tsuchimikado coldly. “Do you remember how far we are from your house, Kammy? You couldn’t make it if you started running now.”

“Then what the hell do you want me to do?! It doesn’t matter if I can or not—there’s no other choice!! Or what, you got some other method or something?!”

“Well, of course I do.”

Tsuchimikado grinned. He grinned and answered immediately.

He took a step into the room with a face that asked, Why don’t you even understand that?

“It’ll be fine if a certain somebody here is sacrificed.”

Kamijou was dumbfounded.

Though he was unable to understand the meaning of what he had just been told, his body moved to protect Touya. Despite Touya not understanding the situation, he seemed to be catching on to the fact that he was in ever-increasing danger.

Tsuchimikado watched Kamijou and grinned.

He grinned, then said:

“Well, man, thank goodness. Kanzaki’s holding off that stupid angel and all. She’s not someone who would let a murder happen in front of her eyes. If I told her about this, she’d definitely come running in to stop me without asking the specifics.”

As he spoke, he took another step into the room.

Enduring the bowling ball that had just dropped into his stomach, Kamijou backed up a step, pushing his father with his back.

“You get it, right, Kammy? Now that it’s come to this, we can’t solve it without sacrifice anymore. What? The sacrifice is only gonna be one person. I guarantee it. So there’s no need to worry…for you.”

As Tsuchimikado grinned, both of his hands swayed. Those long arms with an abnormal reach, fitting for the man’s height.

“But I’m in kind of a bind here, too. After all, I can’t use sorcery right now. Man, the Church must think they’re funny or something, making me do this job while I’m in this state. Don’t you think so, too, Kammy?” went on Tsuchimikado, amused—truly amused.

That made Kamijou finally remember what Tsuchimikado had been calling himself.

A spy.

“Damn…it. Don’t give me that shit,” Kamijou growled, gritting his teeth. “I’m no fool. I won’t let you kill him for some stupid reason like that. I won’t let you!”

“Hmm. I don’t really think it’s anything you oughta get your panties caught in a bunch for, Kammy. To hell with other people. To hell with them, am I right?”

Tsuchimikado’s words sounded like they were seriously making fun of him.

Who would sit back and not care about their own father going to be killed in front of them?

“You bastard…Get out of the way, Tsuchimikado. Don’t get in my way! I might be able to break the magic circle with my right hand if I go back to my house right now!!”

“You don’t get it, do you? That won’t work. As long as you don’t destroy the entire magic circle’s ‘circuit’ or kill its power source, the user. Besides, even if you try your best, you won’t get to your house before the limit is up.”

“We don’t know that until we try!”

“You telling me to trust in something so uncertain? You’re telling me, a traitor?”

Kamijou bit down on his teeth so hard he thought he might break them.

Tsuchimikado rejected something they wouldn’t know until he tried right off the bat and was aiming to resolve everything using the easiest and worst method. Kamijou doubted that saying any more was going to help. He doubted that anything he said would get through to him.

Kamijou balled his right hand into a fist and took a step forward.

Tsuchimikado watched him, then smiled sadly and quietly said, “Give it up, Kammy. You’re only gonna get hurt.”

“Shut up. I can’t waste another second! I’ll bury you with one shot!”

Kamijou was certainly not making light of this “sorcerer” species. Kamijou, when presented with the powers of Stiyl and Aureolus Isard, had the fear of them sunken into his bones.

But right now, Tsuchimikado couldn’t use magic.

He, who had undergone Academy City’s Supernatural Ability Development, should no longer be able to use magic.

“Hmm. Are you thinking that will close the gap between a professional and an amateur?” mused Tsuchimikado instead. “I’m gonna ask you one more time, Kammy. Even if this were the only possible way, would you still try and stop me?”

“…”

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Touya making an anxious face.

Most likely, Touya wasn’t grasping the meaning of what Kamijou and Tsuchimikado were talking about. He had probably only guessed that it was an emergency situation and that he was involved in it somehow.

Then, after he looked at the color of Touya’s face, Tsuchimikado gave another cruel smile.

“Ah, it must be tough on you, too, being left behind without any idea as to your own position. Even if I told you all about how this worked, I don’t think you’d understand, so let me just give you the conclusion.”

Kamijou stood, dumbstruck.

“Sto—” He hurriedly tried to check Tsuchimikado’s voice, but he was too late.

“Simply, in less than thirty minutes from now, a lot of people are going to die. Touya Kamijou, it is all your fault.”

“Stop it!!” screamed Kamijou at that moment.

But that urgent shout itself hit Touya Kamijou with a heavy shock.

Tsuchimikado stared at the two of them, amused.

Seriously amused.

“Now what will you do? Stop me or not?”

If they didn’t put an end to Angel Fall as soon as possible, the POWER OF GOD’s cleansing would scorch the world.

Kanzaki, too, who was trying to hold the POWER OF GOD back, would be in ever more danger the longer their fight lasted.

If there was no other way, then…

If there was really no other way, even if he searched every corner of the world, then…

“…That should be obvious.”

And so, Kamijou made his decision.

“Obviously I’ll stop you!” he howled like a beast. “I won’t accept it. If there’s some cruel rule that says that someone needs to be sacrificed, then first, I’ll kill that stupid fucking illusion!!”

“I see.” Tsuchimikado smiled.

His expression looked, just for a moment, like a child’s smile.

“Then let’s do it this way, Kammy.”

His smile disappeared instantly.

There were a little more than three meters between them. Each of them completely within the other’s zone, Tsuchimikado said, extremely lightly…

“Ten seconds. If you can withstand it for that long, I’ll give you a compliment.”

Slam!! came Tsuchimikado’s fierce footstep.

Tsuchimikado closed the three meters in the blink of an eye. Those footfalls, however, were not the sound of him stepping on the floor.

His feet.

It was a grand, slamming noise of him breaking the rules and stomping on Kamijou’s big toe.

“Gah…ah?!”

The intense pain felt like a nail had been hammered into him, and he tried to retreat, but his feet were tied. His body jerked to a halt, and Kamijou instinctively cast his gaze down upon his feet.

That, however, was a fatal mistake.

His downward gaze having created a blind spot in his view, Tsuchimikado brought down a head-butt from above. His hard forehead rocked the crown of Kamijou’s defenseless skull.

Crack-thud!! went the impact as Kamijou’s legs gave out. The shock was like a concrete block or glass ashtray had been brought down onto his head at full force.

However, Tsuchimikado didn’t stop.

His right hand finally moved. His fist swung wide out to the side, looking like it was trying to aim for the side of Kamijou’s head. In boxing terms, it would be a hook. It was a one-hit, one-kill pugilist skill targeting his temples, with a curving path parallel to the ground.

With his foot pinned down, he couldn’t back away. His hazy awareness wasn’t able to ascertain the attack or consider avoiding it. Kamijou instantly brought up his own hand to protect his temples—

—and with a whoosh, the fist caught the air.

…?

The pause didn’t even last a second, but Kamijou was puzzled. They were at such close range their noses could touch—there was no way his fist could miss. Then why had he made it miss?

Yes—he didn’t miss, he made it miss?

The answer came to him not a second later. Tsuchimikado’s fist, having passed by his temple, went around and was going straight for the back of his head. As if wrapping his hand around his neck to hug him.

The back of his head.

The vital spot judged by even karate and boxing to be against the rules, since it had a chance of leaving lasting aftereffects.

Clomp!! came a magnificent impact.

“Gah—ba…ah?!”

The strength in Kamijou’s body all flew out of him at once from that one hit. His body sank straight down. Tsuchimikado’s next blow passed overhead the fallen Kamijou, by coincidence or otherwise.

However, Kamijou couldn’t turn that into a chance to attack.

Because of the so extremely savage, rule-breaking blow, he fell to the floor, unable even to pick himself back up. His two arms trembled irregularly. His sense of balance was shot, and he didn’t even know which direction he would stand up in. The strength left his gut, and the contents of his stomach nearly came back up.

If Aureolus’s and Accelerator’s attacks had them punching him uniformly with a giant metal plate over his whole body, then Tsuchimikado’s one strike was like he had rammed an iron nail straight into a weak spot inevitably created in a person’s skeleton.

Forward, backward, left, right, up, down, far, near. Tsuchimikado certainly should have been standing in front of him, but Kamijou was under such an illusion that he was being punched by a whole bunch of people all at once.

“So you can’t even last three seconds,” said Tsuchimikado playfully, as if looking down his nose at Kamijou.

This was the gap between Kamijou and Tsuchimikado.

It wasn’t about a professional going easy or not being careful enough because they were up against an amateur.

That unbreakable wall of skill, even when he did show an opening, was the difference between an amateur and a professional.

Even an ace elementary school baseball player couldn’t stand against a real major-league player.

Even the captain of the judo club in middle school couldn’t put up a fight against an Olympic gold medalist.

“…Ugh…ah…!!”

Kamijou, despite all that, desperately tried to make it back to his feet.

He was in a state where moving one fingertip was a feat—and yet he still tried to stand.

“It’s no use. Kammy, there is certainly a place one can’t force his body to reach, no matter how much training you pile up, because of the construction of the human body. If you want the details, then check the Tar Heel Anatomia or something.”

In other words, that was his weak spot.

“Y’know, Kammy, you can’t get through AIDS with fighting spirit, and you can’t cure Ebola with guts—everyone knows that. This is the same thing. Right now it has nothing to do with your idealism or whatever. You can’t currently stand from an anatomical sense.”

A move against the rules.

All those techniques that would make a good human heart hesitate to use because of its oh-so-cruel destructive power, despite their many predecessors admitting to their effectiveness—Tsuchimikado had dared to choose them as his own weapon.

He wouldn’t bat an eyelid if he were told they were cowardly or dirty.

He put his life on the line on the battlefield—

Because for Tsuchimikado losing meant that he would lose everything important to him that he was trying to protect.

“…ugh.”

Kamijou gazed up at his grand “enemy” looking down at him.

In response, Tsuchimikado bore an inappropriately gentle smile as he looked down at him.

“Hey, Kammy. I don’t have anything right now. I really don’t. Any talent for sorcery I once had has long since rotted away, and the supernatural abilities I wanted as a stopgap were stopped at the impotent Level Zero. I may be in Academy City to infiltrate it, but Tsuchimikado was no longer a sorcerer. I was no longer in any condition to fight.”

“But,” he continued, “even so, my enemies didn’t wait up.”

“So,” he declared, “I needed to win, no matter what the cost.”

Kamijou could feel a rather cold chill in those quietly spoken words, and he unwittingly shrank away from them.

The genius from birth was no longer anywhere to be found. Nothing he put in the effort to do would be rewarded. But his hellish conviction that he still needed to win was itself Tsuchimikado’s strength. He tempered his fists on battlefields like purgatory, trained them in death matches like hell, and what he received in return for countless wounds were rule-breaking special moves, decisive and deadly.

The fact that they were against the rules was the entire point.

Because Motoharu Tsuchimikado wanted to grasp victory even if it meant breaking them.

“kuh…”

What was the reason he went so far to achieve victory?

Kamijou knew why, even without going through the motions and asking the man himself.

Tsuchimikado probably had something he wanted to protect.

Even if he had to crawl through the mud or stain his hands with blood. Whoever he was tricked by, whatever he was betrayed by, he still must have had something he wanted to defend. So Tsuchimikado didn’t flinch away from a job, no matter how dirty. Never.

“…hah”

Tsuchimikado watched the dazed Kamijou and slowly said, “Can you beat me, Kammy?” as if admonishing an unreasonable child. “Do you still think you can win? Not even on the petty level of ‘professionals’ or ‘amateurs,’ either. Do you fucking think the high school student Touma Kamijou, constantly soaking in lukewarm water, can beat me, Motoharu Tsuchimikado?”

Kamijou couldn’t answer him.

He just couldn’t answer.

“Go to sleep, amateur,” Tsuchimikado spat. He straddled Kamijou, who had already lost, and took a step toward Touya.

Damn…it…!!

Kamijou, glaring at Tsuchimikado’s back, tried with all his might to stand up. But simply quivering his own arms was all he could do. He was nowhere near able to support his entire body weight. In fact, he fell, under the impression that blood would leak out of his head if he stressed his body carelessly.

But he still needed to stand up.

He needed to stand up, and yet…!!

“That’s enough,” came a sudden voice to Kamijou.

It wasn’t Tsuchimikado’s.

It was kinder but somehow reassuring. It was the voice of his own father.

“That’s enough. You don’t need to get up. Touma, this isn’t the place for you to get hurt.”

“I see. You are a very understanding person, Mr. Kamijou.”

He couldn’t see Tsuchimikado’s face. But he was doubtlessly grinning.

And yet, even though he saw that…

…Touya Kamijou didn’t back off even a step.

“I don’t understand the situation, but if you’ve got something to do with me, then I’m yours. But do not lay another hand on Touma. He’s got nothing to do with this. No—even if he did, I wouldn’t let you. Absolutely not.”

“…Huh,” went Tsuchimikado pleasantly.

Of course, Touya had to be scared. He was just an office worker. He was an amateur who would shake in his boots even at a back-alley brawl, to say nothing of professional combat.

“I’ll say this again. Do not lay another hand on Touma. I will not accept it. Mark my words, I will not accept it. If you do, I won’t forgive you for the rest of my life. Got it? The rest of my life.”

Nonetheless, Touya spoke. He stood up directly against a professional sorcerer.

There was no need to explain his reasoning. It was because he was the form of the father in Touya’s mind.

“You make me laugh. You don’t seriously think you can beat me just by getting angry, do you?”

“No, I don’t.” Touya chuckled deprecatingly. “I’m just a middle-aged man. My lungs and liver are a mess because of cigarettes and alcohol, I’ve got a terrible case of lack of exercise, and my body’s starting to get pretty banged up after all. However—” Touya stared straight at the sorcerer. “I will still never forgive you. Even if I’m no match for you, no matter how many times I lose, I won’t forgive you. I’m an amateur, and that means I don’t have the room to give up or negotiate. If you don’t seem to understand, then let me tell you something,” he said, bringing himself one step forward, as if to challenge him.

In order to stand at an equal position with the sorcerer, Motoharu Tsuchimikado.

“I am Touma Kamijou’s father. I live with pride in that fact every day.”

Kamijou heard those words.

And he thought.

Touya Kamijou bought nothing but weird souvenirs, was all over his wife even at this age (though she was Index at the moment), had a somehow unreliable impression, and probably wouldn’t be a single bit of help as to either Kamijou’s own amnesia or the world of magic. This middle-aged man was, to put it bluntly, probably physically weaker than an average middle school student. As for combat—that was out of the question.

But Touya Kamijou was his father.

There was no other father stronger and more dependable than he was.

“…!!”

Could he watch and listen despite that?

Could he watch him silently be killed by this goddamn sorcerer?

…I won’t…forgive you…

His fingers twitched.

…for this bullshit…

He clenched his teeth. He forced his muscles, which weren’t listening to him, like they had snapped, to move.

He fueled his fingers with strength so that they could grab the floor.

I will not forgive you for this bullshit!

Scritch came a noise from within Kamijou’s body that sounded like it cracking apart.

But Kamijou didn’t care. It’s not like his body was in a condition to let him feel pain anyway.

Critch. He barely managed to lift just his upper body like he was doing a push-up.

“Stop, Touma!” pressed Touya. For someone who wasn’t letting his eyes off of the professional sorcerer for a minute and had just declared war against him, he appeared to be on the verge of tears when he looked at the wrecked Kamijou.

“Don’t worry about me. From your conversation, I understand that I’ve wrought something terrible. So, Touma, it’s all right—you don’t have to stand up anymore,” he pleaded with a pained expression. There was no way he would stop Kamijou at this point, though.

Kamijou wormed and writhed with creaking and cracking like a puppet whose cogs were misaligned. Touya, seeming unable to stand it, continued. “It’s all right already. There’s no one you can save by protecting me so desperately. So, Touma, don’t stand up. Please, just stay like that—”

“Don’t…give me that shit,” interjected Kamijou.

Touya’s face looked surprised; Kamijou bit down on his teeth and said:

“Someone I can save? He’s right here. I’d be happier if you lived!!”

The movement vanished from his father’s face, as if time had stopped inside his body.

That’s really all it came down to in the end.

Touma Kamijou simply wanted Touya Kamijou to live, even if there was every reason not to.

Because Touya hadn’t done anything wrong, right?

Of course, he knew that this wasn’t the dimension of problem that could be forgiven just by saying he didn’t have any ill intent. He was also well aware that there wasn’t the time to ask him each and every thing about that.

But Touya hadn’t done anything wrong.

It was just because his own child had rotten luck. Because he had been unlucky for no reason, for no wrongdoing, ever since he was born. He just wanted to do something about it, so he bought up tons of charms, and yet…

Touya Kamijou wanted to protect his child.

That’s all it was.

That’s all it was…and yet…!

And yet Touya’s feelings, by some accidental coincidence, gave way to Angel Fall, and now he was being called a criminal for no reason and people were unfortunately trying to kill him.

Unfortunately.

Unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately!!

“Kh”

For such a moronic, stupid word, Touya was going to be killed? He couldn’t stand it. No, no matter what the reason was, he couldn’t allow it. Kamijou funneled power into his own legs. Into those legs that shouldn’t medically be able to move anymore. As if to say that he would stand back up even if he were to become a corpse.

He glared at the sorcerer who looked down on him with those eyes, with that glint in them.

If you don’t seem to understand, then let me tell you something.

I am Touma Kamijou’s father. The fact is I take pride in that fact every day!

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Howling toward the heavens, Touma Kamijou stood up.

Just doing that sent creaks and screams from every muscle, bone, organ, and vein in his body.

But so what?

Were you thinking something like that would be enough of a reason to stop Touma Kamijou?

The enemy before him…

He wasn’t an object of terror, and he wasn’t a wall of hopelessness.

He was an enemy who he needed to defeat with his own hands.

“Did it misfire…? Or wait, was the result of his guts for having taken a step forward in the face of Brain Shaker?” Tsuchimikado muttered to himself, looking a bit surprised, but Kamijou could no longer answer.

Tsuchimikado watched the spark in Kamijou’s eyes, then turned up the corners of his mouth and smiled.

“Huh, looks like you’ve gotten serious, eh? That’s what it means to be equals. All right, I’ll accept ya. From this point forward, Touma Kamijou is Motoharu Tsuchimikado’s enemy,” he remarked with a relaxed expression, turning to face Kamijou.

As if to say that Touya, between them, was a nuisance, he thrust him to the side. Touya still tried to stop Tsuchimikado, but…

“Don’t you fucking touch my father with those dirty hands! You want your head stomped in, punk?!”

Touya’s movements came to a halt, not from the actions of the “enemy” Tsuchimikado, but from the words of the “ally” Kamijou.

Kamijou and Tsuchimikado sized each other up in the cramped space of the room. Considering Kamijou’s condition, Tsuchimikado only needed to buy some time and he’d self-destruct on his own, but it didn’t look like Tsuchimikado was considering that.

He would definitely kill his enemy. He would kill him given so much as a blink of the eye.

As if to tell him that this was the courtesy given to those he stood against, the smile had vanished from Tsuchimikado’s face. He loosely readied his long arms into a boxing pose, but Kamijou grinned a little bit at him instead. He would come at him with full force. That’s why he grinned—because he could tell that it was Tsuchimikado’s way of respecting him.

Kamijou made a fist without too much power and quietly readied himself.

There was a blank of one second.

Kamijou and Tsuchimikado lightly touched their fists to each other only once and—

In that moment, they commenced.

With a loud stomp, Tsuchimikado dove right in at Kamijou in one step.

This time, Kamijou had pulled one leg behind him so his foot didn’t get crushed.

However, it didn’t change the fact that he had closed in on him.

At super-close range, so close their noses could touch, Tsuchimikado let loose a fist. It was a wide right hook, tracing a sideways half-moon—camouflaging a Brain Shaker!

“…!!”

Kamijou immediately moved his left hand to the back of his head to protect it. That strike had directly shaken his cerebellum, which controlled his sense of balance. It was a true killing blow, and if it hit him, death from the single attack was inevitable.

However, contrary to his expectations, no impact came to strike his guarding left arm.

When he looked, he saw that Tsuchimikado had returned his swung right hand to himself midway through and was transitioning into a different attack.

A feint?!

Killing moves—he was naive to think that they were skills that would always defeat an enemy when used. It was a perfectly absolute technique that just by giving the name of, the enemy would tremble and yield the path without him even having used it. That’s why it was crowned with the term certain death.

But by the time Kamijou realized it, it was too late. He had purposely brought one hand behind him at super-close range. He was defenseless, just asking for Tsuchimikado to hit his unprotected body.

On the other hand, none of Tsuchimikado’s motions had any waste.

His other hand, his left, didn’t create a fist. His flat hand, left open, arced through the air at terrifying speed and slammed into Kamijou’s ear. Bang! A direct impact ran straight through his ear to his eardrums and ear canals, and the strength evaporated from his legs. His sense of balance had been destroyed.

“Geh…gh, ah?!”

His strength faded with that one attack. A cold sweat broke out all over him.

Tsuchimikado’s right arm came flying toward Kamijou, whose knees were about to give out with a jerk, without wasting a second. It wasn’t a fist; it was a hammer-like elbow strike. Even though Kamijou could see it, he couldn’t send orders to his exhausted limbs. Tsuchimikado’s intense right elbow didn’t hit his face or his chest—it was stampeding toward his throat.

Thud!! came the impact.

Kamijou’s breath stopped. The fact that his windpipe hadn’t been crushed was nothing short of a miracle.

His knees collapsed.

However much he persevered, however much he tried to endure through it, he couldn’t muster up any more strength.

“…Gah-aahh!!”

Despite that, Kamijou clenched tight a fist.

Crumpling toward the floor, he nonetheless bit his lip and flung a right fist toward Tsuchimikado’s face.

The desperate fist, with all his power behind it, collided directly with it.

However, it didn’t make any more noise than a pop sound.

He simply didn’t have any more strength than that.

If he stopped and watched, Kamijou would fall down onto the floor. However, Tsuchimikado rammed his knee into him, showering him with blows from below to the pit of his stomach, directly upward.

Kamijou’s body, the knee kicks hitting it like a raging bull, floated up into the air.

He couldn’t maintain the balance of his hovering form, and he slammed back down onto the floor.

Tsuchimikado spoke.

“That’s ten seconds. I’ll compliment you for that, Kammy.”

Kamijou couldn’t answer.

He couldn’t make a single fingertip move this time. He couldn’t even make it twitch. No, it was strange that he had been able to stand until now in the first place. Tsuchimikado’s attack just now was like he was delivering a knee kick to a patient under anesthesia in the operating room with his chest open for surgery.

In this situation, where his being alive was miraculous…

Kamijou still didn’t give up, and he glared at Tsuchimikado, looking down on him.

“     .          !!”

Touya shouted something and drew closer. He crouched down next to Kamijou’s face and was yelling something, but it didn’t reach his ears. All he knew was that his face looked ready to burst into tears. Idiot, thought Kamijou. The thing he should be most worried about right now is his own life, so why?

He didn’t want to lose him.

Kamijou thought. He dug deep into his mind and thought. He didn’t want to lose this father. While his own life was about to be taken even now, his moronic father couldn’t think of anything but his own child. He was someone Kamijou never, ever wanted to lose.

And yet not a single fingertip on his body would move for him.

As Touya shouted something, Tsuchimikado dove in, fist at the ready. Kamijou could watch, but without the ability to operate his limbs, he could only grit his teeth in anger. Tsuchimikado, as if swatting away an insect that had flitted in front of him, gave the approaching Touya a sideways smack. With just that, Touya’s body swayed to the side, then collapsed down to the floor.

It looked like a merciful strike—but that would be incorrect. Tsuchimikado had precisely hit Touya’s ear, sending direct damage to his eardrums and ear canals and knocking him out.

Touya, now with the added impact within his body, didn’t move.

He no longer moved.

“…!”

Still broken on the floor, Kamijou glared at Tsuchimikado, who instead looked down at Kamijou and declared, “Hey, Kammy. That’s it. This is the deadline. It’s now impossible to reach your house within the time limit even if you drove a Ferrari there. The only remaining way to stop Angel Fall is to sacrifice someone. You get it, right? You really get it? And despite that, you can’t accept this method, can you?”

He shouldn’t have been able to hear anything, but for some reason, his voice reached Kamijou’s ears loud and clear.

So he responded.

“…Of course I can’t…accept it.” He didn’t know whether he could be heard or not, but he continued. “Why do I have to accept some bullshit like that? I don’t want to accept any ending other than everyone smiling and going home together!”

“I see,” replied Tsuchimikado.

That was it.

“—Ladies and gentlemen, tonight you will enjoy magic brought to you by tricks and devices. (Now demarcating locale. Utilizing paper blizzard to purify the present world of corruption and establishing locale via ceremony.)”

Tsuchimikado took a film case out from his pocket, opened its lid, and scattered its contents.

A huge cloud of paper scraps about one centimeter long blew all over the place, into four corners.

“—This will be today’s stage. First I need to do some tiresome preparations. (Binding barrier. Stabilizing the four directions, arranging the four seals, and acquiring most valuable assets.)”

Keen!! The air around them froze.

The air changed. It changed from a seething-hot tropical night to the center of a spring in a deep forest.

“—Now, then, I will introduce my assistants. (Folding origami, converting to descended kami, and forming an environ for the visitation of shiki.)”

Without regard for it, Tsuchimikado muttered even more and opened four film cases.

Turtle, tiger, bird, and dragon. He threw the film cases containing those small origami about the room.

“—Get to work, idiots. Genbu, Byakko, Suzaku, Seiryuu. (I command thee, four beasts. Northern black shiki, western white shiki, southern red shiki, and eastern blue shiki.)”

In response to Tsuchimikado’s words, the four walls around them began to shine faintly.

Black, white, red, blue. The four walls began to radiate the color of the origami from the film cases.

“—Pistol complete. Now loading with bullets. (Offering locale for firing the shiki. Enshrining locale to call forth sectional shiki.)”

It’s sorcery, thought Kamijou somehow or other.

He could easily kill a man with only a fist, but it was like he was showing it to the powerless Kamijou.

“—The bullets will be totally brutal bullets bordering on ridiculousness. (The variety of shiki used for the wicked, nail-pounding priestess at the hour of the curse.)”

But wait a moment.

Kamijou sensed something odd and reflexively looked at Tsuchimikado’s face.

“—Now applying barrier to pistol. (This barrier as the puppet.)”

Tsuchimikado was smiling.

Motoharu Tsuchimikado was smiling like he was truly enjoying himself.

“—Now applying shikigami to the bullets. (Firing shikigami as the nail.)”

From the corners of Tsuchimikado’s gleefully smiling lips trickled down blood.

Despite that, he didn’t stop talking.

“—Your hand on the trigger, now. (Using my fist as the hammer.)”

Espers cannot use magic.

Tsuchimikado had told him that from the beginning. With his body that mustn’t be using magic in the first place, he was already overstraining himself to combat Angel Fall. He had said that if he used magic one more time, his broken body would meet its death.

So then why was he trying to use sorcery of all things?

An amateur like Touya should be easy enough to kill with one of those fists.

“I told you, Kammy.” Tsuchimikado was smiling. “There are two ways to stop Angel Fall. One is to kill its caster, and the other is to completely destroy the magic circle.”

Could he be…? thought Kamijou.

There was no need for him to go all the way and use magic to kill Touya, the caster.

So then, the “resolution” Tsuchimikado spoke of…

“Kanzaki’s too nice,” he said in fragments. “If I told her I’d be using something like this, she’d definitely stop me. That’s just…who she is, y’know?”

As if being cut by an invisible knife, blood flowed from various spots on his body.

That’s right—Tsuchimikado was saying that. In order to stop this situation, someone had to be sacrificed.

But Tsuchimikado never once…

He never once said that he was going to kill Touya Kamijou.

Tsuchimikado was being ripped apart in a matter of moments, but he was still grinning.

Even though he was the one who should understand best what happens to espers who use magic.

Even though he had betrayed so many times and learned so many rule-breaking moves precisely because he understood it so well.

“Stop…it…,” whispered Kamijou in spite of himself.

However, Tsuchimikado said, “Kh-he-heh. Well, I thought you’d say that. I thought you’d say that, and that’s why you can’t move anymore, eh? Kammy, you and Kanzaki are a lot alike, you know? If you knew I was going to use this kind of method, you’d have stopped me with all your might, no doubt. Right? If that wasn’t right, there’d be no reason to protect you.”

He grinned like a child.

What…an insane story.

He thought Tsuchimikado had gotten strong for something important to him, but it was nothing that exaggerated. All he wanted to protect was the school life he was leading, even though he knew it was a fake and he was even faker.

“Ha-ha, what? It’ll be okay. Something Angel Fall’s level—I can blow away the entire ritual site from super-long range. My specialty is the Black Style. Unfortunately, the POWER OF GOD has stolen that away from me. But I’m cool with using the Red Style every once in a while, too,” he stated simply. However…

“Sorry for beating you to a pulp, Kammy. I probably should have used chloroform right from the start, but you wouldn’t pass out right when I pressed the soaked handkerchief onto your mouth; it takes a few minutes. With you around, Kammy, I could never look optimistically at those few minutes, after all. I don’t have many pachinko balls left, either, so I took the liberty of using some hardline measures. I can’t have this spell failing. That right hand—if the Imagine Breaker gets in the way…which is not probable anyway, but it’s definitely not zero, am I right?” Tsuchimikado slowly narrowed his eyes.

“Hey, Kammy. People die pretty easily. They can really end up dying easily. I know that. So in the worst case—if there’s a hundredth of a percent chance of failure—then I most certainly need to crush that possibility. That’s what human life is worth, right?”

Therefore, so that this magic wouldn’t have even that slim chance of failure, so that it would succeed no matter what…

“Kammy, you don’t need to worry ’bout nothin’,” he declared.

But that was…

If Motoharu Tsuchimikado, who was all shot up inside right now, used magic one more time…

“Ah-ha-ha. ‘If there’s some cruel rule that says that someone needs to be sacrificed, then first, I’ll kill that stupid fucking illusion,’ huh? That one was good. It wasn’t being directed at me, but it still got me thinkin’,” Tsuchimikado said, recalling something.

He put on a quiet smile, like that of a sick person about to pass away.

“Idi…ot. Stop…”

Kamijou desperately tried to reach out his hand. But it didn’t reach. As a matter of fact, he couldn’t even move a finger. Despite Tsuchimikado being right in front of him. Despite needing to stop him right now.

Tsuchimikado watched Kamijou and said…

“Sorry, I can’t listen to your request and stop.”

He said, as if really giving his final words to a friend,

“Did ya forget, Kammy? I’m actually a huge liar, nyan~.”

Just like that.

Before Touma Kamijou’s eyes.

Motoharu Tsuchimikado chanted with his voice, the same way as always, the final incantation.

A blinding white light washed over them, and only the roar of something being unleashed into the night sky exploded into his ears. The boom, sounding like a beast’s cry, cut through the night sky and flew away toward a single point.

Was that the direction of Kamijou’s house?

Would he end everything with this one last attack?

The damage he took from the numerous blows seemed to finally begin to resound within him late, and Kamijou’s consciousness began to fade.

He heard the sound of something slowly falling. Thump. Like a doll discarded out of boredom, Tsuchimikado’s limbs sprawled and he collapsed onto the floor.

The night sky, a giant full moon floating in it, began to return to the burning twilight.

The night, which was transformed by the POWER OF GOD’s spell, changed back into the glow of evening.

Next to a certain young man lay a single girl.

It was the form of Index, having been drugged to sleep—CHC1₃.

Her figure grew blurry and vague. Then, in the blink of an eye, the form of Index, who was lying on the floor, transformed into that of a different girl. Shiina Kamijou. The certain boy’s mother.

The substitution began to clear.

Angel Fall began to clear.

“Tsu…chi…mikado?”

The young man, the pulp beaten clean out of him, said right before losing consciousness at the end of his intense pain.

There was no answer.

In the gap between Tsuchimikado’s face and the floor, red liquid was gradually flowing out.

His body silently sank into the sea of blood.

And despite that, Tsuchimikado did not move.

He did not move an inch.