A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 7 (27 page)

“What of the condition of your body?”

“Well…There’s still some of the anesthetic left in my system, so I can’t really tell where it hurts.”

“I’m sorry. There are…less than scientific healing methods involving eating that Amakusa has, but it seems they don’t work very well on you.”

“…What are you apologizing for? You can heal wounds by eating sushi and hamburgers and stuff? Wow, Amakusa is awesome—it’s just like healing items in RPGs.”

“Huh…?” replied Kanzaki with an uncharacteristically vague and confused expression, not quite understanding his simile.

“By the way, where did Stiyl get to?”

“He has left the city already. He said something about not wanting to stay very long in a place he couldn’t buy cigarettes. He complained about the age verification here being too strict for him to get any, too.”

It’s supposed to be like that everywhere
, retorted Kamijou to himself. “Can’t he just get you to buy some for him?”

“I am only eighteen as well, so I cannot buy cigarettes.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Why do you look like you don’t believe me? Why are you pretending to clean out your ears?”

“You’re lying! You can only fake your age so much with that body! You’ve got to be past marriageable age at this pooiiii-eeeeeeee?!”

Before he could finish, a light-speed punch from Kanzaki shot toward his face and stopped. He trembled—he couldn’t even prepare for that one.

In a calm voice, she said, “I’m eighteen.”

“Eighteen, yes! A high school girl, and yet adulthood is within reach!
Miss
Kanzaki!!”

Kamijou desperately smiled, his teeth clattering loudly. Kanzaki gave a very tired sigh and pulled her fist back.

“…I feel like perhaps I should have let you have the note. Our conversation won’t get to the important part at this rate.”

“Important part?”

“Yes, a debriefing, or what have you…I came to notify you of what became of Orsola Aquinas, but should I not have bothered?”

“Tell me! Please!!” Kamijou replied instantly, leaning forward.

Kanzaki relaxed her shoulders a bit at how willing he was to discuss the topic. “It’s been decided that both Orsola Aquinas and Amakusa’s main force have been incorporated into the English Puritan Church. This is largely to prevent any revenge or assassination attempts by the Roman Orthodox Church.”

Kamijou recalled Agnes and the sisters under her command. “So then Orsola will still be in danger?”

“No. Behind the scenes, they might make it look like they’re after her, but behind
that
it probably wouldn’t have much meaning to go after her. The English Puritans have announced to the world of magic that Orsola’s decryption method was false. They believe Orsola won’t have to worry about being pursued for the
Book of the Law
now that people know it was a mistranslation.”

So if Orsola then really
had
broken the book’s code, everyone in the world would be after her now.
Definitely a lucky break
, thought Kamijou with a cold sweat.

“Hm? Wait, Amakusa’s gonna be under the English Puritan Church’s umbrella now, right?”

“Yes. However well hidden their base is, there’s nothing in it for them to directly oppose the Roman Orthodox Church. I swear—there’s evidence that deep down, they
wanted
this to happen. For example…do you remember the T-shirt Saiji Tatemiya was wearing? It was white, and there was a distorted red cross on it.”

“…Was there? I guess you’re right, come to think of it.”

“There was. The red cross is the symbol of Saint George—the symbol of English Puritanism. He was probably fighting while dressed
in it to show his intention to come to me, the English Puritans, or something. I thought I’d given them strict orders not to follow me.”

“I see…,” said Kamijou, impressed. “You’re part of English Puritanism, too.”

Kanzaki said, “I swear,” again under her breath. He wondered if she realized her face looked like a mother looking at a child who couldn’t be without his parents.

“But are you, like, personally okay with that? Amakusa’s pretty small, but they’re an independent group, right? It seems like they’re being merged into a big corporation.”

“They may be affiliated now, but it’s not as though we told them to abandon their Bible and teachings. It is more akin to a group of samurai being employed to a feudal lord. The framework of Amakusa will still be around. And Amakusa has always been a denomination that changes form to most suitably match the time period and hide from history. They don’t need to worry about remaining in their current form, so as long as they can live in peace, it doesn’t matter what happens.”

In spite of that, Kanzaki had, without any hesitation, let go of the tiny society she had reigned over as leader before, for the sake of those she had to protect. Getting a glimpse of that side of her made Kamijou think how cool grown-ups were. She seemed eighteen, but from his point of view, eighteen was enough to be an adult all your own.

As he turned that over in his mind, Kanzaki lowered her head, her posture formal.

It wasn’t a cute little bob of the head—she kept it down and said, “Umm, well, that is, I’m sorry for all this.”

“Huh? Uh, about what? Why are you bowing? What are you sorry for?”

Kamijou’s head wasn’t working quite right, since he’d just woken up—so the sight of a girl bowing to him like this was extremely scary. The feeling that he’d done something really bad overtook him.

Then Kanzaki spoke. “Well, I mean, that i-is,” she stammered, unusual for her, “I caused you a lot of trouble for, well, personal reasons, and…”

It seemed like she wasn’t used to saying these words at all. Kamijou, in his daze, plucked out of the situation only the core fact that she seemed to be troubled by something. “Wait, sorry, Kanzaki. Did I cause you some kind of trouble? I’ll apologize, so—”

“N-no, that’s not it. If you were to apologize now, that would put me in a truly awkward situation. Umm, it isn’t that—so getting back to the topic, what I mean is…”

Whatever it was, it must have been pretty hard for her to say. Kanzaki twirled a finger through her bangs, preventing her own words from coming out of her mouth.

Then, the moment she seemed to make up her mind and say something, the door to the hospital room flew open with a
bang
—despite it being daybreak—and without a knock.

It was a tall man with blue sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt.

Motoharu Tsuchimikado was swinging around a plastic bag with something that must have been a get-well present. “Hmm, hmm, hmm!! Kaaammyyy, I came to play! I couldn’t afford an entire melon, so you’ll have to make do with a premium pudding dessert from the convenience store with melon slices on top.”

Kamijou looked over, away from Kanzaki and toward Tsuchimikado. “Yo. Isn’t school starting in a couple hours? Shouldn’t you be sleeping—Oh, sorry, Kanzaki. What were you trying to say?”

Urk—
she flinched at that. Then, giving a sidelong glance to Tsuchimikado, she emitted an aura implying she didn’t want to have to say it in front of him—why must he have come at this exact time?

“Ohhh. What’s wrong, Zaky? Did I come right when you were finally gonna beg forgiveness from Kammy? I bet you’re gonna say somethin’ real clichéd, like,
I’ll repay you for all the trouble I’ve caused
or
I’ll do anything you want
, yeah? Pfft—dah-ha-ha-ha!! Hey—it’s the crane paying her debts with erotica!”

“Th-that’s not it! Who would spout such nonsense to this ignorant child?!”

“…This…ignorant…child…”

Kamijou hung his head, almost hearing a gong ringing in the background, and Kanzaki twitched.

“Uh, no, that isn’t what I wanted to…I only said that to make Tsuchimikado take back his rude words, but the part about repaying my debts was, well…”

“But Zaky, you’re gonna end up stripping, right?”

“I-I will not strip! And what do you mean
end up
?!”

“Oh? Then you’re going for the whole wearing-whatever-clothes-he-wants-as-an-apology thing? You sure do know how to treat your patrons right.”

“Would you be quiet for a moment?! You’re making this more and more and more annoying with all your messed-up interpretations!!”

Kamijou absently watched them from afar as they reveled (from his point of view) in their yelling match, but suddenly the gears in his mind all clicked in a weird place.

…Wear whatever clothes…as apology…?

N-no, I can’t—Kanzaki looks like she’s being pretty serious and stuff, so I can’t fool around like that now, come on, you know what’ll happen if you make her dress in a swimsuit like the dumb one Index was wearing at the beach this summer, it only takes five seconds to realize what a crazy delusion that is, go away, go away!!

“…You look like you’re overheating over there.”

“No, it’s nothing, really! I mean really—if a man like me even brought something like that to the register, it would mean the end of my life as Touma Kamijou, so I wasn’t thinking about anything like that at all!!”

“???” Kanzaki struggled to understand the ambiguity and tilted her head. Tsuchimikado, however, grinned. “Heh-heh-heh. Now, what is thy desire?! A full-on ear-cleaning from an older, motherly lady while resting your head on her lap?! Or a surprisingly cute little bento from an older sister–like figure?!”

“Stooop! Our dumb conversations are one thing, but don’t go exposing all my weak spots in front of a girl like this!!”

“Tsuchimikado. I do not understand the situation, but it appears that you are only stimulating an injured person in a negative way, so I’ll have to ask you to leave the room.”

“A-and what are you gonna do when it’s just the two of you? Wait, could it be?!” Tsuchimikado’s eyes flashed. “Is this the scene where you gently feed him little apple slices cut to look like rabbits?! I’m sorry, I had no idea!”

“No, it isn’t! Please don’t arbitrarily get on my nerves with your arbitrary interpretations!”

“Wait, what, then you’re gonna do it mouth-to-mouth? You know, when you do that in real life it’s kinda gross.”

“Please just shut up and get out of here!!”

After she shouted so loudly he couldn’t even imagine what Saiji Tatemiya’s face (or anyone like him) would look like, Tsuchimikado grinned and jumped out of the hospital room.

Suddenly the early morning silence covered the room again.

As Kamijou watched Kanzaki’s shoulders moving up and down in heavy, angry breathing, he trembled and thought,
Tsuchimikado, oh Tsuchimikado. I think you said all that stuff because you were trying to lighten the situation a little, but you left things a bit unfinished here!

“E-excuse me, Kanzaki? A-are you quite all right?”

“…What is it? Why are you speaking so formally?”

“I-I’m sure you know this, but all that stuff about repaying your debts and borrowing and lending, that was all just Tsuchimikado’s dumb jokes, you know?”

Kamijou had braced himself to be yelled at the same way Tsuchimikado had been, but surprisingly, Kanzaki answered in a stammering voice. “B-but I…What else would you have me do…? You’re a civilian, someone I should have been protecting from the beginning—but I caused you to suffer all these wounds. Even I understand that this is far past the realm of just bowing and saying sorry. So…”

Her voice got weaker and weaker as her sentence got longer, as though her own words were sticking into her. Once again, she started playing with her bangs with a fingertip—maybe it was an unexpected nervous habit of hers. After that, she violently rubbed her temples like she was exhausted and breathed a heavy sigh.
Kamijou thought her actions looked kind of like a writer crumpling up a failed work and throwing it in the garbage.

Personally, he would have preferred the post-incident stuff
not
to drag out very long, and for her to just say, “Nice job out there, see ya!
” like Tsuchimikado might, then leave. But it didn’t look like Kanzaki’s morals would allow her to do that.

There was no choice. Kamijou sighed.

He switched mental gears over to something a little more serious.

“Wait, so, was this the important part?”

“Yes. I have this predisposition to cause trouble for others, but I’ve been causing you one issue after another after another, putting so much weight on your shoulders. Every time I’ve shrunk away from it. And this time, it wasn’t just me—I got you mixed up in our problems in Amakusa as a whole…”

“Hmm. But is there really any need to worry about it? We settled our problems just fine—everyone’s safe. I don’t think any of us really got any more hurt than anyone else.”

Kanzaki looked surprised. She blinked a few times, then said, “Our…?”

“Huh? Yeah, mine and Amakusa’s. Oh, uh, I guess English Puritanism’s, too. And Orsola and Index and Stiyl, and you, too. That’s what I meant by
our
.”

“…” Kaori Kanzaki listened to those words, flustered.

It was like a difficult problem she could never have solved had been figured out right in front of her in the blink of an eye.

“What’re you so surprised about? I’m an amateur, so England and Rome might have problems and stuff but I honestly don’t see them as much different. What I want to say is that the opinion of this dumb, ignorant child is that groups of people don’t matter.”