Toaru Majutsu no Kinsho Mokuroku SS - Volume 1 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1 

The Grand Tactic of Pots, Meat, and Appetites

A_Required_Thing. 

1 

One thing after another happened, and soon it was lunchtime. 

“Guhhh. My stomach’s rumbling…” 

Due to various circumstances, Kamijou hadn’t eaten breakfast, but he’d still managed to last through morning classes somehow. 

The students heading for school lunch in the cafeteria or school store had dashed out of the classroom the moment break started, vanishing in an instant. He could hear voices overlapping, with Ms. Komoe shouting, “Hey, you! No running in the halls!!” while his more athletic classmates shouted back, “We’re not running! We’re sock skating!!” and “Sock drifting deployed!!” They were going so fast their protests actually had a Doppler effect going on. 

Kamijou, already devoid of energy, had totally missed the bus to excitement city. 

Normally, his lunch-break tardiness would have been a fatal mistake, but today, it wasn’t a problem. 

With a thud, he set his thin, flimsy schoolbag on his desk. And then he took out his ultimate weapon: a bento box. 

Just as Kamijou was thinking Okay, it’s time to eat and was about to open the lid to his packed lunch, his phone suddenly started vibrating in his pocket. 

He checked it and saw he had a text message from Mikoto Misaka, with whom he’d just recently exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses. 

Unfortunately, the contents of the display caused him to flounder. 

“Huh?” he muttered to himself. “DATA CORRUPTED. CANNOT OPEN MESSAGE?” 

That’s weird. I guess I’ll text her instead. He pushed the buttons with his thumb, sending a reply that read I DON’T GET IT, SEND IT AGAIN, I DARE YOU to her. 

He returned his phone to his pocket. Right now it was time for lunch. 

“Hrmm. I feel like this is rare for you.” 

But before he could start, someone approached him—Aisa Himegami, holding a small pouch. The girl had very traditional long black hair, and she packed her own lunch every day like it was only natural. 

“Ah, and here’s another one with something probably delicious.” 

“I don’t have any sides to give you for free. If you must have some, it will have to be a trade,” said Himegami, dragging over a chair from nearby, its legs scraping across the floor. 

As Kamijou popped the lid off his own bento box, he murmured, “…I had leftovers from yesterday, so I just randomly threw it in before making breakfast this morning… This must be the only thing that escaped her stomach…” 

“?” Himegami tilted her head, not understanding. 

The usual clamor that accompanied the beginning of lunch break had died down, with most of the kids who ate in the cafeteria having disappeared from the classroom and out into the halls. The remainder, those who always brought a bagged lunch, would rearrange the desks as they pleased, regardless of whose they were. 

Kamijou fished around in his bag for the cold barley tea he’d gotten on his way to school (which meant it was now lukewarm). “It’s cool that you have the motivation to make your own lunch every day, Himegami. It was a pain for me just to pack leftovers.” 

“Once you get into the habit, it won’t feel like as much work.” 

The difference in their culinary craftsmanship was clear as day. After all, Himegami’s bento had vegetable tempura in it, the main dish not being white rice but rice mixed with other ingredients—somehow, it looked extremely tasty. Where Kamijou had only packed leftovers, Himegami had planned for this spread to be her lunch while she was cooking it. Plus, since Kamijou had packed already-finished food, the gloppy broth was intruding upon the domain of rice in his lunch box now. 

With Himegami looking on in mild pity, Kamijou picked up his plastic chopsticks. “Presentation isn’t everything. It’s actually pretty good when the broth soaks into things.” 

“…Are you being a sore loser?” 

“Wrong, that’s not it at all!! My cooked food today is perfect, from the softness of the potatoes to the quality of the broth! And the rice is only more delicious, after the broth soaked into it! Taste it, and you’ll know Touma Kamijou’s skills firsthand now that he’s leveled up his mirin expertise yet again!!” 

“Then I will trade for this squash tempura,” she said, and their chopsticks crossed like passing planes, each pair air-dropping something to the other person’s plate. 

Not that it matters, but how long does this even take her? First thing in the morning, and she’s already making something as labor-intensive as fried foods? Maybe she’s a harder worker than I thought. 

Kamijou considered that as he put the tempura in his mouth. 

He hated to say it, but it was amazing. It must have been in that bento box for hours, but it was still nice and crispy. What a mystery. He’d have to beg for her secrets. 

Meanwhile, Himegami looked at the deformed taro that looked like something out of the meager repertoire of a single-dad businessman who had grudgingly learned to cook. She eventually brought it to her mouth and started to chew. 

“Yeah. This might not be so bad—” 

But before she could finish, she suddenly made a muffled grunting noise. She keeled over, hands to her throat. 

It must have gotten stuck in there. 

“Are…are you all right?!” Kamijou cried out without thinking, but of course she didn’t answer. 

Himegami was vaguely teary-eyed as she reached for her plastic bottle of mineral water. Kamijou wasn’t sure if he should do anything but then saw her free hand moving around to her back. 

“Wait, what? You want me to rub your back?!” he shouted. 

Himegami nodded, taking a drink of her water. 

He placed his hand at the center of her back, covered in her long black hair, but wasn’t sure how much force to use. He decided to gently go up and down, but Himegami’s painful-looking shaking wasn’t stopping. 

“Crap! I think we’d better get you to the nurse’s office—!” 

“Mgh. Mgh, mgh.” 

“What’s that? Harder?!” 

Having brought her arm around to point at the middle of her back, she nodded weakly. To provide her some relief as soon as possible, Kamijou wasted no time as he redoubled his efforts to rub her back, like she had requested. 

But then there was a snap. 

And then Kamijou’s fingers felt the strange sensation of a bra hook being undone. 

That very moment, Himegami wordlessly clenched a fist, then brutally drove it into his stomach (an act that drastically increased the amount certain parts of her bounced). With a brilliant wha-bam, Kamijou buckled forward, collapsing to the floor. Himegami ran off to the washroom, holding her chest. 

“Urgh. I… I just did what you asked… Why do I have such rotten luck…?” 

As he lay there trembling on the floor, his incredibly stacked classmate with long black hair and a prominent forehead came over, holding a plastic bag with stuffed bread in it. Seiri Fukiyose seemed to have just gotten back from retrieving food from her locker. 

With a sigh, she asked, “…What happened?” 

“F-Fukiyose?” 

Kamijou got up, still wobbly, and reseated himself in his chair before looking at her lunch and saying, “Hey, why do you always eat that tasteless-looking bread?” 

“My bread looks fine!! And it tastes fine, too!!” she shouted, angry, but the wrapping on the bread did say it was ABILITY-INCREASING BREAD WITH TWELVE VITAMINS AND MINERALS TO ENERGIZE THE BRAIN. Her lunch was practically medicine. 

Miffed, Fukiyose noisily took a seat on Kamijou’s desk and began biting into her bread with gusto. But it still didn’t look like it tasted any good. 

“If you don’t have anything else, would you like some of my taro?” 

“…Just so you know, I’m wearing a front-hook today.” 

“?” Kamijou tilted his head, confused at what that sudden revelation was supposed to mean. 

Fukiyose noted this and then cleared her throat. “Anyway, it’s certainly not every day you make your own lunch.” 

“Himegami just said that, too. And I guess that’s true, now that I take a second to think about it.” 

Kamijou began poking his food with his chopsticks just as the crowd who had run to the school store came back to the classroom, their own various buns and sandwiches in hand. The cafeteria group would probably be a little bit longer. And the ones who enjoyed the latest celebrity gossip would purposely leave school and buy oden soup and peruse the magazine rack at the convenience store that the school had just recently forbidden students from visiting. 

The students had many ways of spending their lunch break. Some would be playing catch with rolled-up printouts they no longer needed after eating, where others would watch the latest variety shows on their phones while eating. 

But recently, the same topic had been on everyone’s lips. 

Fukiyose, who had been listening to the chatter aimlessly, offhandedly spoke the word aloud, just like the others: 

“War, huh…?” 

Kamijou unconsciously stopped eating when the menacing word dropped from her lips. 

She frowned at him. “What? You haven’t heard? You should really follow the news a little more.” 

“No, I know about it. Hard not to.” 

In fact, Kamijou might have understood it better than anyone else present. Not that sharing that would do any good, though. 

“Yeah, I guess even you’re paying attention by now. This whole thing about us butting heads with some huge religious group. All those demonstrations and riots or whatever have been happening all over the world, right?” Perhaps because she was just echoing what she’d heard on the news, Fukiyose’s words were somewhat uncertain and vague. “I honestly don’t know what to make of it,” she said, letting a distinct color of unease and concern into her tone. 

Kamijou’s face clouded. 

Fukiyose continued with a sigh, not noticing that his chopsticks were still paused. “I mean, if a war starts, the price of meat and vegetables is going to go up, won’t it? And oil, too, of course, like always!” 

The sudden out-of-place comment took Kamijou aback a little. 

But that was in line with the rumors he could hear being discussed nearby. 

The kids in his class who belonged to athletic clubs, watching TV on their phones, were saying things like: 

“They’re talking about how we might not get to go on field trips since travel in and out of the city is going to be more restricted.” 

“Are you serious?! That better not affect the Ichihanaran Festival!!” 

And the girls next to them were laughing, saying things like: 

“I heard in front of the teacher’s lounge earlier that the Anti-Skill teachers won’t have time for administering midterms since they have to figure out countermeasures.” 

“Aw, yes, lucky me!! I had zero confidence that I’d do well in the next System Scan. I’m saved!!” 

“Hello? I’m the one who was trying to blow past you all by cramming superhard, spoon in hand. What am I supposed to do now?” 

These were the “huge problems caused by war” that were currently on people’s minds at school—in fact, that applied to the rest of the city, too. Everyone understood it was becoming more and more likely that there would be a big war between Academy City and the Roman Orthodox Church, but they hadn’t yet imagined how much that might affect them personally. 

And Kamijou was fine with that. If their current environment devolved into one where they could imagine the bloody consequences in detail, it would all be over. It was up to him to make sure that didn’t happen. 

“??? And why have you been so quiet anyway?” 

“Uh? Er, nothing.” 

“…I wish you wouldn’t clam up while looking at someone’s chest like that. What could you be imagining right now?” 

“I’m not imagining anything!! Damn it. I try to be serious for once in my life, and this is what I get!!” Kamijou irritably stabbed his chopsticks into a piece of taro. “Are meat and veggies really going to get that expensive? Doesn’t Academy City have cloned meats and artificially cultivated vegetables and stuff? You know, at those agricultural buildings sprinkled all over. I thought School District 17’s industrial area was famous for it.” 

“But that can only go so far, right? If we were completely self-sufficient, we wouldn’t be cooperating with outside agencies!” 

“Hmm.” Kamijou glanced at Himegami, just returning to the classroom, out of the corner of his eye. “Then maybe it’d be most cost-effective to eat hot pot and stuff now, while we still can. That way, if the price shoots up, we won’t regret missing out.” 

“Well, you do have a point. In fact, it looks like the prices at supermarkets and other stores are already starting to creep upward. It might not be winter yet, but maybe we should eat things like that now.” 

Then, possibly overhearing their conversation, Blue Hair and Motoharu Tsuchimikado, who had been deep in conversation near the blackboard, stopped their argument of “I told you, thigh-pillow ear-cleaning doesn’t actually exist. The only place where it happens is fiction!” and “…Actually, it does exist, nya…” as they looked over at Kamijou and Fukiyose. 

Blue Hair asked, “Wait, Kammy, are you going for hot pot tonight?” 

Tsuchimikado followed that with “Nya. If you want sukiyaki, I know a great, cheap place.” 

The conversation continued to spread, pulling in more of their nearby classmates. 

“It’s still October. Isn’t it a little early for hot pot?” 

Then the ring of conversation expanded exponentially. Their classmates closed in on them, one after another. 

“What’s up? You guys goin’ out somewhere today?” 

“I cannot permit you to keep the good restaurants to yourselves.” 

“If anything, I actually like barbecue more than hot pot.” 

“Wait up, wait up. Since everyone’s gonna be paying their share, let’s decide democratically.” 

Huh? Kamijou’s pupils shrank to pinpoints. 

The topic of conversation had, at some point, veered off, turning from “we should eat hot pot or something before meat gets too expensive” to “how about everyone in the class go out for dinner together.” 

“Wait, why are we suddenly getting hot pot again?” 

“To properly close out the Daihasei Festival—no, wait, we did that already.” 

“Maybe it’s more like pregaming the Ichihanaran Festival?” 

A myriad of guesses flew about practically on their own throughout the group surrounding Kamijou, but ultimately, they reached a point where people started saying “As if we need an excuse to eat out!” and “I’ll be satisfied as long as I can eat hot pot!!” all while pushing aside Kamijou and Fukiyose, who had originally been at the center of the conversation. 

“We live in a democracy, people!!” 

“Sukiyaki!” 

“Barbecue!” 

“Oden.” “Oden for me, too!” 

“Who just used ventriloquism?!” 

“Shaaabuuu-shaaabuuu!” shouted six people in tandem. 

“5.1 channel surround sound?! Someone’s using their ability to fabricate votes!!” 

Gwaaahhh!! The entire classroom transformed into a stadium, erupting with raucous shouting. 

Eventually, Motoharu Tsuchimikado yelled, “With my Tsuchimikado-style, hidden, hole-in-the-wall memo, we can respond to any kind of customer needs!!” and Blue Hair yelled back, “Then I want a place that has drop-dead sexy waitresses! Single ones, with huge racks and angelic smiles!!” thus turning the commotion into a nonsensical argument: “No, I’m telling you, there are waitresses who wear cheerleader uniforms!!” “No, there aren’t! Though I have seen outfits that look like tennis wear!!” 

Gyah! Kamijou wavered, dazed. “F-Fukiyose? What should we do? It’s turning into a disaster!” 

“Unbelievable…” 

Fukiyose sighed a little. Then she hid her expression with both hands, as though washing her face, before immediately raising them around to the back of her head. After pulling back her hair, which had been hanging over her ears before, she clipped it in place with several hairpins. 

She was getting serious. 

In spite of himself, Kamijou shouted, “…It’s the Fukiyose Forehead Deluxe?!” 

Fukiyose went up to the teacher’s podium, struck the blackboard, which wasn’t very well cleaned, and called out loudly, “All right, everyone!! I’ll be presiding over this! All of you are going to put in one vote each!!” 

2 

Komoe Tsukuyomi, a female teacher who looked twelve, and Aiho Yomikawa, an explosively large-busted gym teacher who wore a tracksuit every day of the year, walked down the hallway together. It was almost the end of lunchtime. 

“…And that’s why a cat’s brain is about one and a half years old in human years. Academy City’s Curriculum starts at five years old at minimum, so the conclusion is that kitties can’t use abilities… At least, that’s what the thesis put forth by Isoshio from Kirigaoka Girls’ Academy hypothesizes.” 

“Sounds pretty fishy to me. We’ve never seen any examples of abilities manifesting in other animals, have we? Of course, given Kirigaoka’s propensity for irregular ability development, maybe it’s crazy people like that who are the best at coming up with fresh ideas.” Yomikawa’s black hair, tied into a ponytail, waggled behind her. “Speaking of that school, didn’t you take in another runaway girl? How is she doing?” 

“Ee-hee-hee. I was a little lonely after Hime moved into the student dorms, but I’ll be okay now that Musu is here. It seems like something happened at Kiriga, but for now I’m waiting for her to tell me on her own. Unlike Hime, she doesn’t know how to do chores, so I’m teaching her all about that, too.” 

“Wow,” Yomikawa said in sincere admiration. “…The freeloader at my place just up and left, like the coldhearted kid he is. Without even leaving a note, to boot. Got a scrap of paper all of a sudden this morning that said he’d been transferred to Nagatenjouki Academy. Apparently, he’s staying in their dorms now.” 

“Huh?! Nagatenjouki is the number one school in the ability-development field! Remember? They even beat Tokiwadai Middle School at this year’s Daihasei Festival and won the school division games.” 

“Yeah, I guess. It just doesn’t quite make sense to me. Just seems unnatural that he’d leave the other freeloader behind… Well, I guess things are complicated for all of us.” 

As their conversation continued, they reached the classrooms they were each in charge of as homeroom teachers. Ms. Tsukuyomi’s and Ms. Yomikawa’s classes were next-door neighbors. 

Though they were in the same year, the air, the coloring, was plainly different. Despite it being five minutes before lunch ended, Yomikawa’s class had already gotten their textbooks for next period—history—ready, and they were using the spare time to compare homework assignments. Yomikawa was the physical education teacher, so she didn’t have anything to do with it, but the history teacher would probably be crying tears of joy. 

As for Ms. Tsukuyomi’s class, however… 

“It’s decided!! We’ll all be going to sukiyaki tonight!!” 

Roooar!! A huge cheer shook the whole room, from front to back, like a soccer stadium that just saw the winning overtime goal scored. Ms. Tsukuyomi nearly jumped out of her skin at the thunderous clamor. It was even making the hallway windows shake and vibrate. 

Ms. Tsukuyomi collected herself unsteadily and cried, “Ah, oh no!! Ms. Yomikawa, I’m so sorry, but I need to go calm things down in there!!” 

Flustered, she barged into her classroom. 

Watching her go, Yomikawa murmured, “Must be nice to have kids who do dumb stuff all the time.” 

3 

With all that said and done, the main feature that night was sukiyaki. 

Their group included the entire class, plus Ms. Tsukuyomi, plus Index, plus the calico. Index had already wormed her way into the class during the Daihasei Festival closing party and made herself at home in about five seconds, so nobody even needed an explanation for why she was here this time. 

It was past the time every school was closed, so there were no trains or buses running. Because of that, they had to limit their choices to School District 7. In the end, Motoharu Tsuchimikado led them to a hot pot place he knew of. 

They eventually found themselves sitting in a corner of the intricately tangled underground mall, in an area where it seemed that various cooking- and health-related schools had set up a wide array of eateries as an experiment. One of them even belonged to the home-ec school Tsuchimikado’s stepsister Maika attended. Kamijou covertly sighed at that. 

As for the sukiyaki place in question… 

“…Whoa.” He breathed out in spite of himself. 

In contrast to the modern design principles pervading most of the underground mall, the sukiyaki place stood out as historied and full of character—or in a more colloquial phrasing, falling apart. It didn’t seem believable that anyone ever came here. It wasn’t a place you could assume was unexpectedly good because of some stubborn old man or whatever. No, this was more like a restaurant that couldn’t possibly have even survived with this storefront if the food turned out to be bad. 

Kamijou sucked in a breath. Whoever ran it must have been very confident. Kamijou happened to be in the front row, so he slid the door open with a clatter. 

Behind the register was an unenergetic-looking student employee, but when he heard Kamijou was with a party of forty, he fled into the back room. Not long after, voices, thick with a lust for money, shouted back and forth to one another: “Aw, hell yes!! We hit it big time!!” and “Yo, this is gonna put a huge spike in our sales graph today!!” 

Kamijou’s shoulders drooped. “Well, we are a big group.” 

“I mean,” said Tsuchimikado, “all forty of us suddenly showed up on their doorstep without calling in advance, and yet they’re clearly welcoming us with smiles. That should tell you how empty the place normally is—go ahead, take it in, nya.” 

“By the way,” interrupted Ms. Komoe. She was staring at a list of items on the wall, which was quite yellow, probably from absorbing copious amounts of oil. “Tsuchi, how do you know this place? It seems to be all about the alcohol here. There’s thirty different kinds of local beer alone.” 

“Guh?! I-it’s not that, I promise, nya! A high school student imbibing alcohol? Unthinkable, nya!!” 

“Tsuchi? Tsuuuchiii?” 

Ms. Komoe’s eyes had narrowed in extreme suspicion, but if they made a scene here, it was obvious the meal would be called off. Kamijou and his classmates restrained Ms. Komoe with their arms, trying to placate her while forcing her toward the party room for large groups. 

She seemed to want to say something, but nobody would let her. 

They obviously couldn’t have forty or so people pecking at a single pot, so they ended up naturally splitting into groups to sit at different tables. Some were already busy, shouting “It’s starting!” “Let the hot pot begin!!” and getting excited over nothing, twisting the handles for the gas burners on the table and having contests to see who could break their chopsticks apart the cleanest. 

The calico moved its tiny nose around, sniffing and mewing happily, but once again, as cats aren’t allowed to have onions, they’d have to put his sukiyaki on hold. 

It seemed too cruel to Kamijou, so when he got a palm-sized rice ball he’d ordered as an appetizer, he placed it in front of the cat. His tail puffed up, and he seemed displeased, as if trying to say, “Bastards!! You all get beef, and I only get salmon?!” But still, he grabbed both sides of the fish-filled rice ball with his front legs and started digging in. 

While they were waiting for their hot pot orders, the topic at hand was still the chaos happening outside of Academy City. 

In a subdued voice, Himegami was talking to Fukiyose, who sat back-to-back with her. 

“Come to think of it, I heard they were saying they want Level Fours and above to submit identification papers.” 

“Level Fours and Level Fives are the real experts, right? Hmph. I wonder if they’ll put us in the firing line, too, if things get bad!” 

No, it might be the opposite, thought Kamijou, sitting next to Fukiyose. Nearby, Index looked on with a gesture of confusion. 

As one could tell from the relationship between Mikoto Misaka and the Sisters, abilities didn’t seem to be determined by simple DNA alone. That meant it would be all the more damaging were they to lose precious ones. Especially Level Fives—they were worth enough for specialized research institutions to be built just for them. 

And in related news… 

“Hey, is it true Tokiwadai Middle School’s buses are bulletproof and blast-proof? I heard a rumor that they’d be safe even under sudden artillery fire.” 

“Nya. Any info the Garden of Learning people are whispering about is fishy. There’s no way those secrets would ever leak to the public.” 

This conversation was between Blue Hair, who was sitting diagonally across from Kamijou, and Tsuchimikado, who had just come back after taking a call, and while what he’d said did sound absurd, Kamijou felt like it was oddly trustworthy. 

If a slew of the refined young ladies at Tokiwadai Middle School were to become victims, it would without a doubt cause tremors, starting with the financial world. Kamijou sighed. Human lives just weren’t equal, were they? 

Other conversations were popping up, too… 

“Haaahhh… Academy City will be in danger if war breaks out, so a lot more requests from guardians are coming in to pull their children out of school.” 

“Huh? I didn’t know that was happening.” Kamijou directed a blank stare at Ms. Komoe, who sounded a little worn-out. 

Worried about their hot pot, which was taking a while to come out, Ms. Komoe, seated across the table from Kamijou, took a sip from her glass of cold water. “Their children are their world, after all. I partly understand how they feel, but… Where would be safer than Academy City? I doubt there are many places, whether inside or outside the country, with such substantial security that keeps residents safe.” 

I wonder about that, thought Kamijou with a wry grin. He’d been sent to the hospital many times in the last few months. In fact, he’d lost count. 

And then, sitting next to him, Index said, “Touma, I’m hungry.” 

“The hot pot will get here soon… As a side note, you really take things at your own pace, huh?” 

“I want some rice ball, too.” 

“No! That’s for the cat!!” he spat. 

All the cat’s fur stood up, and he started to hiss threateningly, as if to say “Screw off! I can’t eat meat, and now you even want to take my salmon?!” 

Then… 

“The hot pot is here!!” Tsuchimikado cried out, like a little boy gleefully pulling a trick on everyone present. 

Kamijou directed his attention that way just as several employees brought over black-iron pots. A bubbling sound was already coming from the pots—and it certainly seemed Tsuchimikado was right in recommending the place, because aromas the likes of which could rarely be enjoyed at home wafted from the kettles. 

Excited, Kamijou tried to get a look in one of the pots being carried. 

And it was here that the classmates around him held him back. Index, nearby, let out a little yelp, and Fukiyose gave an annoyed-sounding sigh. 

“Gwah??! What the heck are you guys doing?!” 

“You idiot! If you get involved, the pot’ll probably flip over or something!!” 

“It’ll totally happen without warning, too! Look—that waitress with the cute face and the huge rack, she’s in a ton of danger right now!!” 

“It’s just not right for us to go hungry so you can be happy!” 

He wanted to make several counterarguments, but he was outnumbered. The Imagine Breaker in his right hand wouldn’t have any effect against his classmates, who had given themselves entirely over to their appetites. 

Perhaps because of all this, all unforeseen bouts of rotten luck stayed away. 

The cute-faced, busty waitress in question, though, looked at Kamijou, who by this point was basically treated like a convicted criminal, and asked, “Are…are you all right?” which seemed to make his classmates think he’d managed to get on over the rest of them. 

“(…Makes me even angrier that there wasn’t at least some bad luck involved.)” 

“Don’t grumble like that! You’re scaring me!!” shouted Kamijou, having finally untangled himself from several arms, but the class’s attention was already back on the hot pot. 

Collecting himself, Kamijou tapped a raw egg on the corner of the table, then cracked its shell and dropped the contents into a small side bowl. Then he stirred it up with his chopsticks. 

“…Kamijou. Why are you beating that egg so slowly?” said Fukiyose, who was sitting next to him. Her voice suddenly sounded extremely unhappy. 

“Huh?” 

“Gah, it’s driving me nuts just watching you!! Let me have that. You have to whisk the eggs faster, like this, see?!” 

“Wha—?! You control freak!” 

His bowl stolen, he casually moved his long chopsticks away from her. At this rate, the sukiyaki might end up just being a big pile of vegetables. 

Meanwhile, Blue Hair, as though he’d predicted this development, spoke easily to Kamijou while maintaining a safe distance from Fukiyose. “As far as I can tell from the menu, the prices still haven’t changed.” 

“R-right. Stocking ingredients might already be more expensive, though. Businesses can’t tell if it’s going to be temporary, so maybe they’re waiting to see what happens for now even if they would prefer to raise prices right away.” 

“Which means we’ve gotta eat our hearts out while the eating’s still good! Hi-yah!!” 

“Don’t hi-yah me! Stop taking all the meat! And, Fukiyose, do something about this carnivore trying to destroy the fragile ecosystem of our pot like some kind of black bass!!” 

Kamijou thrust forward with his long chopsticks, too, not wanting to be defeated, but it was only at times like this that what he thought was meat just turned out to be shirataki noodles that had absorbed the broth. When he actually did manage to grab something he wanted, it invariably ended up being just a little piece. It was terrible. And then Fukiyose came in and told him to stop stirring up the pot so much because the tofu would break apart, which earned him a fist. 

Even so, despite his trials and tribulations, it was fun to eat hot pot with everyone. In fact, he started wondering why they’d never done this before. 

“Ah?! Oh, right… The issue of Index’s capacity…!!” 

A moment before he realized the imminent problem, a glint entered the eyes of the girl in the white habit. 

He had a very bad feeling about this. 

4 

The growing high schoolers were dissatisfied with just the set hot pot meal, so they ended up with some free time while waiting for their supplementary orders to arrive. Most of their group was still in the restaurant chatting away, but Kamijou had gone outside to get some air. Of course, they were in an underground mall, so it didn’t feel much like outside. 

War, huh…? 

The word appeared in Kamijou’s mind without warning—a word that didn’t feel real to him. Just as he’d hoped, frankly. He didn’t want it to feel real. 

The people milling about the underground mall were somewhat older than him, mostly college students. Every one of them was smiling, enjoying themselves—it was just like a regular old street corner you could find anywhere, the very picture of peace. Ordinary enough that it called into question the very idea of the word war. 

But there were scars. 

Several buildings in one part of the city had been destroyed during the disturbance on September 30, and the nearby city outskirts had been bombed into oblivion. It would take more than a couple days to heal those kinds of wounds. 

And now, those things might start happening all around the world. There wasn’t even any guarantee that someone wouldn’t try to shatter the globe itself to pieces. 

The Roman Orthodox Church. 

God’s Right Seat. 

…I have to do something. 

He didn’t know what he could do, though, not concretely. He still felt like this was beyond what any mere high school student could meaningfully affect. 

But Vento of the Front, who had visited this city just a few days ago, had said something. 

Specifically, that she’d come to Academy City to kill Touma Kamijou. 

He could no longer assume finding himself in the middle of everything was simply coincidence. Touma Kamijou undeniably stood at the very heart of this momentous course of events. 

I have no idea what to make of any of this, but maybe that means I can still do something. I’m not being kept in the dark. I don’t know who made the decision, but if I’m essential for some unknown reason, doesn’t that mean there’s still enough time for me to change the state of affairs? 

He’d been so excited for the meal with everyone, but the more he thought about this, the more his spirits sank. To shake it off, he took out his phone and saw that a text message had arrived at some point. 

The sender was Mikoto Misaka. 

He tried to open it, thinking she wanted to talk about what happened during lunchtime, but when he went into his received messages folder, it said there were zero messages. It must have been moved to the spam folder? But his swiping thumb didn’t uncover a single thing there, either. It wasn’t a feature he used very much, so at this point, he couldn’t even begin to guess what had happened. 

“What the heck…? That’s so weird.” In the end, he put the phone back in his pocket, deciding to leave the details for later. 

It was then that a voice from behind suddenly said, “Kammy.” 

He turned around and saw Motoharu Tsuchimikado standing there. 

In his hand, he gripped a small metal bottle about fifteen centimeters long. It probably had whiskey or something in it. Maybe he’d come here to drink while keeping it a secret from Ms. Komoe. 

At a glance, Tsuchimikado seemed the same as he always was. Not a single bandage on him. But he had, apparently, been fighting with his life on the line during the events of September 30, and when Kamijou looked closer, he could see that his gait was a tiny bit awkward. 

Plus, this was the person always calling himself a spy, too. If an amateur like Kamijou thought he looked awkward, then his injuries must have been worse than a few scrapes and bruises. 

He seemed to understand why Kamijou had stealthily slipped away from the rest of the class. Grinning, he said, “If you’re thinking the war about to happen is all your fault, you’re wrong. The rest of our class isn’t going to get wrapped up in this because of anything you did. You’ve done nothing but protect those around you. It doesn’t make sense to feel alienated from them.” 

“You…think so?” 

“Yeah. This war is happening because certain people are pulling the strings behind the scenes. All an amateur like you has to do is get mad that someone somewhere is to blame for all this.” 

Kamijou smiled in spite of himself at that. In the end, it seemed both he and Tsuchimikado had each been trying to shoulder their own burdens in exactly the same way. 

“It’s starting,” Tsuchimikado said. 

“Yeah.” 

“The scope of the war will change. It’ll go beyond kids brawling in the streets. Make sure you understand that. You won’t be able to just squeak by like you have up till now.” 

“…Yeah.” Kamijou lowered his gaze slightly. He stared at his own right hand, loosely balled into a fist. “I doubt I’ll be enough as I am now. I’m missing something—actually, I’m missing a lot of things. In fact, it’s a miracle everything’s kind of worked out so far. I don’t think I’ll be able to make any progress unless I can understand that properly.” 

“The bad guys aren’t gonna wait around for us to prepare.” 

“Probably not. But I know what I need to do. I’ll just have to learn one thing at a time, no matter how small it seems,” Kamijou resolved, looking back up. “There’s no point in complaining that I don’t have what it takes. I’m gonna keep moving forward, even if it’s just by a centimeter or a millimeter. The problem was difficult enough to begin with. If I don’t do at least that much, I’ll never be able to reach the people I need to.” 

“Kammy…” 

Tsuchimikado was about to say something, but then he decided against it. 

Unlike Kamijou, he was a professional spy. He was far more familar with just how brutal the world could be. But even he found himself unsure of what to say in the face of Kamijou’s unwavering resolve. 

“I’ve been too soft until now. Whenever anything that had to do with the world came up and I didn’t understand, I left it to others. I think you’ve let me lean on you a lot, too, Tsuchimikado. But from here on out, that won’t cut it. I need to step into this new world and see what I’ve never seen before.” 

While Tsuchimikado was still faltering, Kamijou steeled himself. Quietly, he clenched his right hand, where the Imagine Breaker slept. 

“Tsuchimikado, I’ve made my decision,” he said sharply, voice full of firm determination. 

He directed his tenacity at the spy who was, in a way, his mentor in this shadowy world of theirs. 

“Yeah. Starting right now… I’m gonna study English!!” 

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………” 

“Wha—?” 

Ignoring Tsuchimikado, who couldn’t help but be flabbergasted, Kamijou took his phone out of his pants pocket. 

“Check it out, Tsuchimikado! I downloaded this app called Super-Easy English Training! Right now, I’m on level three of the everyday-conversation chapter. Man, English sure is hard. But I’ve gotta knuckle down and learn a language other than Japanese already. The Roman Orthodox Church and God’s Right Seat and whoever else might not always speak Japanese for me, after all!!” 

“I, um.” 

Having immediately backed away, Tsuchimikado’s tone unconsciously shifted to one he might use when meeting someone for the first time. 

“Why English and why now?” 

“What? Oh, well, I guess Rome is in Italy, so maybe Italian would be better. But they’ve got like two billion followers across the world, right? Isn’t English the right choice?” asked Kamijou blankly. 

It seemed practical survival methods and such weren’t even on his mind. 

He was seriously planning on challenging a two-billion-strong organization with words. 

“Well, even if they don’t understand my words, I think they’ll understand the soul behind them. But having them understand can only be a positive. Not everyone can speak Japanese like Lidvia and Biagio. Actually, everyone’s been using Japanese for me until now. But I can’t keep assuming everyone will keep doing me favors. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is—” 

“…” 

Ka-wham!! A dull sound echoed through the underground mall. 

It was all so ridiculous that Tsuchimikado had, practically out of reflex, thrown a punch. 

Shaking his head in resignation, he ignored the young man sprawled on the ground nearby. Shoulders drooping, he went back into the sukiyaki restaurant. 

Needless to say, none of the extra meat was left for Kamijou after that.