Volume 13, 4: End of an Unwinnable Battle — A.A.A.(1/3)
Part 1
Academy City’s District 23 specialized in the field of aerospace development and it was covered by flat expanses of gray asphalt. Needless to say, that was to secure as much space as possible for launch sites and runways. The entirely clear blue sky overhead looked like an infinitely open space, but it was scheduled out down to the minute and even second so that countless aircraft of every size could constantly move through it like threads being knit into cloth. Without the digital control guidance, collisions would have occurred constantly.
Also, security drones patrolled the area to eliminate the risk of naturally-occurring bird strikes, plastic bags blown into the air by the wind, or even intentional trouble.
Normally, the boy stepping down from the acrobike would have been detected before the seconds hand made a full circuit of the clock.
That did not happen because of the electrical support of Academy City’s #3.
But in that case...
“Ho.”
Why was that old man there?
His arms and legs looked like dried branches that had long since forgotten the concept of moisture. His splendidly decorated purple and gold robe stood in stark contrast to his thoroughly worn away body. He also used a pure gold sword instead of a staff.
“So you were waiting for me? Perhaps you were thinking you could turn everything around by fighting in an open space with no risk of damaging your surroundings. ...But surely that wasn’t all you were thinking.”
He did not rush things or act impatiently.
That Magic God walked toward Kamijou Touma at a leisurely pace.
He did not seem to mind that Kamijou was the only one here. He said nothing about Misaka Mikoto’s absence.
He showed no concern over a possible cheap trick or trap.
A Magic God was not so small an existence.
“I will ask you however many times it takes, Kamijou Touma.”
After reaching a certain distance, the High Priest stopped and faced the pointy-haired boy.
“Those of us from the true Gremlin wish to have you grade our power which inadvertently distorts destiny. You would create the seventh path that does not fit in the other six, you would become the sheath to contain the secret sword of our great power, you would remove the hangnail on our hearts, and you would give us formless peace of mind. And in exchange, you would take the position of the scorer who rules the world’s destiny. How about it?”
Kamijou had only a single word to say.
This had not changed from beginning to end.
“No.”
“I see.”
The High Priest leaned on his sword with one hand and used the other to scratch at the dried side of his tilted head.
Like a child, he seemed truly puzzled how Kamijou had reached that conclusion.
“It is only a matter of sooner or later. You will eventually accept, so the question is how far the damage will spread before you do. I believe I have already told you this many times.”
“What...?”
Something was coming.
He would make his case with violence.
“What are you planning now, High Priest!?”
Sensing that, Kamijou put up his defenses, but to someone as powerful as the High Priest, he only looked like a small creature tensing up to weather a storm.
“Is this maybe what you were thinking?” asked the old man. “Your choices always lie in front of you and the infinite possibilities of the future are determined by the choices you will make. Those possibilities include tragedy and comedy, fortune and misfortune, peace and war, and everything else, so you can walk down a path where everyone survives as long as you make the right choices.”
The thick asphalt of the runway split apart.
A giant arm rose on either side of the High Priest like towers. As the mud arms wriggled like living creatures, the mummy gave his disinterested conclusion.
“If so, you were too na?ve.”
It arrived so suddenly.
“Have you forgotten? I have a deep connection with dirt and I have controlled mud to produce a variety of phenomena. But the finite is still finite and I have not altered the conservation of mass. ...What do you think happens underground when this much of the dirt is pulled out?”
It happened immediately afterwards.
A massive cumulonimbus cloud rose from far beyond the horizon. No, it was gray dust. A mountain of dust like that was created when a building was demolished. Since the earth was round, the cityscape may have normally been hidden by the horizon, but this great cloud of dust was large enough and high enough to overturn that.
This had to go beyond a single building.
The dust was coming from more than one point. Buildings were probably crumbling and collapsing one after another. The amount of dust was growing like the movements of a living creature, like a slithering snake, or like the surface representation of a mole moving through the dirt.
“Uuh...”
Yes.
It followed the course the High Priest had taken in pursuit of Kamijou and Mikoto.
Something had triggered a collapse in the areas from which the mummy had chaotically pulled the dirt.
“Ah...ahhh...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”
The city was being destroyed.
“Didn’t I tell you? It is only an issue of sooner or later.”
The High Priest really did sound exasperated.
“You simply did not notice, so you needlessly spread the damage. Now, how many people do you think will be buried in the rubble?”
The destruction swallowing up the earth was approaching.
It was like a bizarre fuse.
“You were seriously mistaken if you thought you had any say in how much damage was done.”
The mummy mocked the boy’s ignorance.
“Just to be clear, I was the one that destroyed all of this.”
Then the fuse of destruction reached the High Priest’s feet.
The result was clear as day.
“And you were far too shallow if you assumed I would not allow myself to be caught in it all. Well, perhaps that is just the carefree way the Japanese think.”
The sturdy asphalt crumbled all at once.
A square area twenty meters across collapsed and the sense of gravity vanished. The puny boy could only clench his right fist as he was easily swallowed up.
Part 2
Widespread destruction filled Academy City from District 7, through District 5 and 18, and finally to District 23.
Kamijou Touma stood at the final point and he too fell deep underground as the ground collapsed underneath him.
But the space did not look like it had been created just from the ground splitting open.
An underground facility had existed there in the first place. It was twenty meters across and more than three hundred meters deep. At that size, its height alone made it a deadly weapon.
In fact, when the High Priest fell to the bottom of the cylindrical space, dry sounds came from across his body. It sounded more like the breaking of dry branches than of a human body. His purple robe spread out like a beached jellyfish, but it wrapped around his human form once more as if nothing had happened.
As for Kamijou Touma...
“Ho ho.”
The High Priest laughed.
Countless thick power cables were wrapped around the pointy-haired boy’s arms, legs, and torso. They had distributed his weight and prevented him from dying in the fall.
Of course, the mummy did not think for a second that was a coincidence.
He knew Kamijou Touma.
He doubted someone fundamentally abandoned by luck would experience such great fortune now of all times. Also, the boy himself would never work from a plan that relied on coincidences or miracles. He would have been acting based on the assumption that nothing like that would happen.
So...
“That did not happen naturally. I don’t see that girl who was with you... Did you get her help? In that case, were you planning to fall down here from the beginning?”
What did that matter?
What would it accomplish?
With a dull sound, dirt overflowed from the bottom of the manmade space and it swallowed up the wreckage around the High Priest like a living creature. It was primarily made of dirt, but countless manmade materials jutted out, twisted around, and formed a giant arm.
It was as menacing as being stared down by a plesiosaur.
“If you have a trick up your sleeve, then reveal it. If you have a trap, then use it. ...But I will crush it all underfoot and continue forward. It is only an issue of sooner or later. Hurry up and feel despair, okay?”
“...”
In response, Kamijou removed the countless cables from himself and set his feet down on the metal floor.
“There wasn’t any damage.”
“...What?”
With the liquid diamond’s storage tube in her sports bag, Akikawa Mie finally reached the headquarters of the precious metals maker at which her mother worked.
But that was not the end of it all.
“Mie-chan!!”
“Mom?”
Mie was confused. Had her mother been so worried she came out to meet her? But that did not make sense. She had not called ahead, so her mother would not have known exactly when she would arrive.
Then why else would she have come out?
Mie looked around and saw lots of other workers rushing from the other buildings in the area.
“Conservation of mass? I knew that. You left a big empty spot underground when you made the giant arms? I knew that. You were setting up a cruel bomb to make me suffer? I knew that. So! I was worried about it from the beginning!!”
As he spoke, Kamijou pulled out a cellphone.
It was a far too common and powerless modern weapon when compared to an abnormal Magic God.
“There’s a danger of the buildings collapsing!! Please move as far toward the park as possible to escape the collapse and the shower of broken glass!! ...Uiharu! Double check the population distribution. Arrange the routes so there won’t be any bottlenecks at bridges and intersections!”
“I already am! Let’s see, let’s see. Manually reselecting the traffic control centers and traffic light routines. This should optimize the flow of people!”
A twintailed girl was shouting something. She seemed to be from Judgment rather than Anti-Skill.
Akikawa Mie’s mother wrapped her arms around her.
“It’s okay, Mie-chan. It’s going to be okay.”
“What is...?”
She trailed off as an intense tremor ran through the ground.
“Who did you contact? Who would believe you if you mentioned a Magic God? And what acquaintance of yours could get so many people to move?”
“It may be true no one in my class would be able to do that.”
Kamijou readily admitted it.
The asphalt ground swelled up in a straight line. It looked like a giant snake or worm measuring dozens or even hundreds of meters long was crawling underneath. It may have been best to leave the realm of real animals and call it a dragon.
Buildings creaked and swayed ominously.
They were as unreliable as willow branches in the wind and it seemed they would break and collapse at any moment.
Misaka Worst in her ao dai and Kuroyoru Umidori spoke to each other inside the underground disaster prevention structure.
“This isn’t good. Are these dampers really working properly? Misaka gets the feeling they can’t absorb all this shaking. Now, let’s see. Can Misaka slip in some assistance here?”
“Oh? I never thought I’d see a collection of malice helping people.”
“Misaka recently realized that there’s nothing more expensive than what’s given for free! There are luxury boutiques and jewelry shops around here, right? If Misaka gets them indebted to her, she can make all sorts of useful connections! How strange! This is the first time Misaka has gone shopping in a long time and a chance to make a whole bunch of money lands right in her lap!!”
“You really are rotten to the core! And in a completely different way from those of us implanted with the Dark May Project!!”
“But that high-class #3 is a different story. She apparently has connections in Judgment, so she can get the city moving pretty easily. Connections sure are amazing. Getting the word out quickly can be a weapon. I’d never be able to do that so easily.”
“...”
But it did not happen.
The city did not collapse.
“...?”
Akikawa Mie hesitantly looked straight up, but the building still did not fall. Not even a single window broke. Something awful was happening underground, but the damage had not reached the surface.
“See? I told you.”
She realized her mother was winking.
“I told you everything would be okay. That man is protecting the city, so it’s sure to be okay.”
Kamijou explained a tiny flow. He explained a certain rule.
“You thought Academy City’s law enforcement wouldn’t understand the threat of an occult Magic God, didn’t you? But that’s easy to get around. Academy City is still on edge after the incident with Othinus that spread from Tokyo Bay to Denmark.”
Only a few meters below, a middle-aged man with glasses and a comb-over removed his suit jacket, threw it aside, and gave instructions over his cellphone.
“Pour in all of the liquid material sitting in the warehouse!! The damage has spread farther than we could have imagined! It looks like someone built a network of tunnels while ignoring every last safety regulation! If the foundation is pulled out, the city above will collapse!!”
The person on the other end of the phone was confused by these instructions that ignored the proper procedures, but the man placed his middle finger on the bridge of his glasses. The person on the phone could not see it, but it may have been a sort of ritual.
“Shut up and just do as you’re told, you utter buffoon!! Once this is all over and everyone’s safe and sound, you can banish me over by the window or onto a remote island if you want!!”
An Anti-Skill woman came over to check on things.
“Sorry about asking a civilian for help. So does it look like you can pull this off?”
That father’s answer was simple.
“I think I can. No, I will. That is my job, after all.”
His daughter had once wondered why he had bowed when there was no reason to apologize. She had seen the shine leaving his face and she had even wondered why her mother had married him. She had wanted to know how her father had ended up like that.
There was of course only one answer.
He had found something more important than his own interests or allowing himself to shine.
And he would bet everything he could to protect it.
“They may not have been consciously aware of it, but there was still a scab there. The issues had been resolved and everyone was being swept into the Christmas spirit, but then St. Germain showed up. He tore off that scab when everyone was the most sensitive. That’s bound to leave everyone in a frenzy.”
Nothing happened.
They were saved.
Akikawa Mie’s goal had not collapsed. The large building had not fallen over. If she could take the liquid diamond inside, no robbers could get their hands on it so easily.
But just as she was thinking that, someone else began to move.
“Found you.”
“The anti-crime orientation is normally meant to help people feel more safe by buying up disaster goods they don’t know if they’ll ever use, but it was probably also a way for us to let off some steam. And then you caused this giant commotion. For better or for worse, people are going to react. That’s going to cause a mess that the ‘main players’ like us can never predict.”
In the large crowd, Akikawa Mie was not immediately able to tell who had spoken.
But once she did, her mind focused in on him like a piece of trick art.
A battered college boy was mixed in with the office workers in suits. She had only ever seen one in movies or dramas, but he aimed a handgun at her.
Her mother had not noticed yet.
She frantically pushed her mother out of the way, but that was the most she could manage.
“I don’t need to explain the details. I just have to know that everyone is on the move right now! The people here aren’t good or bad, they’re just people who have desperately thought this through!! And that will create a path!!”
The High Priest had mocked both Othinus the defector and St. Germain the liar as being below him, but their actions had helped scoop the High Priest’s feet out from under him. That was how Kamijou and Mikoto had set this up.
“Hand it over! Hand over that liquid diamoooooooonnnnddddd!!”
He shouted and placed his finger on the trigger without warning.
He seemed to think it made no difference whether he killed her and then took it or took it and then killed her.
Akikawa Mie squeezed her eyes shut, but the gunshot never came.
historical
Instead, she heard a heavy metallic sound.
At some point, another college boy had circled behind him and swung down a metal pipe.
“So Judgment will be on the move right about now. Once word reaches the adults, Anti-Skill will join them. Everyone will have been evacuated from the buildings in the danger zones. No, all of those people are fighting to reach tomorrow. They really are! No matter how many buildings you bring down, you won’t take any lives! People’s lives aren’t that fragile!! They may look twisted and they may be divided between good and evil, but everyone’s working to be what they consider the best!! Even if some of them come into conflict, they’ll still decide on the general direction of the era even if they have to do it without us!!”
At first, the attack from behind did not stop the college student with the gun.
He tried to turn around with rage coloring his face.
It was another hand reaching in from the side that truly settled things.
“Whose gun...”
This new figure wore an Anti-Skill combat uniform.
And there was one more.
“Whose daughter...”
The two adults both grabbed the thug’s collar.
“...do you think that is!?”
“...do you think that is!?”
Their fists flew at once and two dull sounds exploded out.
As Shiosai handcuffed the one, the other college student threw aside his metal pipe. He did not run or hide; he raised his hands and faced the Anti-Skill man who did not know the details yet.
The father with glasses and a comb-over raised his middle finger toward the collapsed thug. Finally able to relax, Akikawa Mie hugged him and let him support her, but she still had a question in one corner of her mind.
“Why?” she asked the final individual.
She knew it was a silly question.
That final remaining college student, Higata, gave a smiling expression of some hard-to-grasp emotion.
“This is for the best,” he said. “If he would have become a murderer otherwise, then this is for the best. We’re friends after all.”
No one noticed, but two people sighed from surprisingly close by.
They were Hanzou and Kuruwa. They had happened to be nearby and they returned their hidden weapons to their sleeves while slipping back into the crowd.
“We had our job taken from us.”
“It’s best if we don’t have anything to do.”
The one boy did not know every piece of the tragedy.
Nor was it all resolved by the strength of a single individual.
People wishing to take on that role could be found anywhere.
“That speeds things up.”
The mummy High Priest’s murderous aura grew.
The old man smiled while overflowing with a sticky joy.
“Let us continue our one-sided game. This is only an issue of sooner or later, so-...”
“Sorry, but that’s over, too.”
Kamijou readily cut him off.
How many people had ever been able to speak so confidently to one known as a Magic God?
“You’ve done too much, so I’m going to tell you something no one’s been able to before. It’s time you got what’s coming to you, High Priest!!”
The giant arm seemed to block out the sun from high in the sky and it clenched into a far-too powerful fist.
But...
“...?”
The High Priest looked up in confusion and observed the fist he himself had made.
Kamijou knew why.
A deafening sound had come from it, but that far exceeded what the High Priest had been expecting.
“You make your arms from dirt and mud, but that excludes anything processed, be it by heat treatment or a chemical reaction. After all, you grabbed the buildings to swing them around. If you could directly control what had been transformed into glass and concrete, the high-rise buildings could have bent and attacked us like something from a cartoon.”
Kamijou paused for a second.
“But you can’t tell if something else has been mixed into your arms. Misaka proved that by mixing the iron sand in to take control.”
“But this is different. This isn’t like the iron sand.”
“Yes, because trying the exact same thing again would have been too risky. We went for something a little trickier here. Then again, all we did was leave a bunch of compressed gas cylinders lying around where you were likely to create your arm. And thanks to District 23’s focus on aerospace, you can find plenty of liquid oxygen and hydrogen.”
And of course, Kamijou was not trying to detonate the gas cylinders to trap the High Priest in the explosion.
He did not think a gas explosion was enough to defeat this opponent.
The explosion was only the trigger leading to a different phenomenon.
So what was the gas explosion used for?
“Did you know this? The earth’s mantle ranges from 500 to 4000 degrees and the core can reach 6000 degrees. No one ever set them on fire. They just reached those amazing temperatures when the matter was squeezed down by the immense pressure.”
“You don’t mean...”
“Of course, this is all based on what a smart girl told me. ...So what if highly-pressurized cylinders are arranged according to a certain pattern to create that core of explosive pressure? What if that great pressure is even partially recreated by artificial means? What do you think would happen to that giant dirt arm you love so much!?”
“Kah kah!! You can’t possibly mean what I think you do!!”
It happened as the High Priest looked up at it.
Just as it seemed the giant fist was collapsing from within, a glowing orange waterfall rushed down toward the mummy.
Part 3
In truth, even if their calculations had reproduced the intense pressure, only a single point would have reached a high enough temperature to become magma, but that magma melted the dirt and mud around it, creating even more magma. That massive deadly weapon could be seen forming and then dripping down.
The High Priest could control dirt and mud, but not if it had undergone heat treatment or a chemical reaction like glass or concrete.
And that meant there was nothing he could do once the giant arm turned to magma.
In the instant it hit, Kamijou Touma leaped backwards with all his strength, got down on the ground, and placed a hand over his mouth.
The tower-sized arm crumbled from the intense heat and rushed toward the High Priest who stood directly below. The glow of the molten rock quickly enveloped the mummy’s dried branch-like body and erased all sign of him. That syrupy mineral of death spread out from its landing point.
It had worked.
Everything had gone according to plan.
They had made no mistakes and the result they had imagined was right in front of him.
“Did...we do it?” he muttered without thinking.
The pile of melted magma looked like ice cream dropped on the scorching asphalt on a midsummer day, so it could not exactly answer him.
The boy looked around and then looked straight up.
“Misa-...”
“Did you do it? Do what exactly?”
His hope, relief, optimism, pride, and everything else froze over.
Kamijou’s head turned stiffly like an automaton someone had forgotten to oil. He looked back toward the pile of molten rock where everything should have been over. He even asked himself what there was left to check there.
Then he saw what awaited him there.
“Kamijou Touma, I believe I already told you this is only an issue of sooner or later.”
It was despair.
Pure despair.
The glowing orange pile of magma split apart and the mummy slowly appeared. His purple robe and golden sword had burned or melted away and his entire body glowed ominously after being covered by magma that easily exceeded one thousand degrees. It looked less like a human body and more like an alien that had stepped out of a strange UFO.
Kamijou found it very difficult to accept this had once been a human like him.
Given the temperature of the High Priest’s body, he could kill someone just by hugging them.
No, anyone who breathed in near him would fry their lungs.
Kamijou was dumbfounded, but the glowing pile of branches tilted his head in confusion.
Why was his opponent always so surprised?
He truly did not seem to understand.
“Now, what did you imagine a Magic God was? I am a mummy and all of my body’s muscles, fat, and organs have withered away! Did you really think any kind of external wound or asphyxiation could take my life!?”
“...!?”
“I was prepared to throw away even my own life and soul to accomplish my goal. How could I be a Magic God without that level of resolve? You would probably be in for quite a shock if you looked into the origins of Othinus who you keep by your side.”
The orange High Priest laughed.
His mouth split open and he spewed toxic-looking black smoke.
(This is what Nephthys was talking about.)
Kamijou gulped and felt unpleasant sweat covering his body.
(The High Priest’s power doesn’t stop at destruction. She said he has free control of ‘the intersection of the Six Paths’.)
Humans, animals, and devas. It sounded like something from an old story. When people died, they were reborn and might live the next life as some other life form. Kamijou did not know how exactly that explained the current situation. In fact, while the mental strength of mankind was one thing, could anyone – even the occult specialists known as magicians – explain what the soul was? A lot of the magicians he had seen were angrily swearing revenge for someone who had died. Didn’t that meant the magicians had not conquered death and could not sufficiently define or handle the soul?
But what if the High Priest truly was wielding the Six Paths?
The soul was something no one had seen before, but what if he could change its value and rank by switching between the -->>