Chapter 3: Chapter 1: The Magician Lands on the Tower. Part 2
"I suppose I need to start with an introduction."
"Actually, I would rather you started explaining why you were hanging there."
"My name is Index."
"That's clearly a fake name! What do you mean Index!? What are you, a table of contents!?"
"As you can see, I am from the church. This is important. Oh, but I'm not from the Vatican. I'm from the Anglican Church."
"I don't know what that means and you're just going to ignore my questions!?"
"Hmm, is Index lacking? Well then, my magic name is Dedicatus545."
"Hello? Hello? Just what kind of alien am I talking to?"
Kamijou did not understand so he dug his finger inside his ear, and Index chewed on her thumbnail. Was that a habit of hers?
Kamijou wondered why they were politely sat there facing each other from across a glass table like it was a marriage interview.
If he did not leave soon, he would be late for his supplementary lessons, but he could hardly leave this strange person in his room. To make matters worse, the mysterious silver-haired girl calling herself Index seemed to have taken a liking to the room to the point that she seemed willing to laze about on the floor.
Had Kamijou's misfortune called her here? He whole-heartedly hoped not.
"Anyways, it would be great if you could feed me enough food to fill me up."
"Why would I do that!? I don't want to raise your love meter. I'd rather die than activate some weird flag and end up stuck on the Index route!!"
"Um… is that slang? I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're saying."
Typical of a foreigner, she had no knowledge of the Japanese otaku culture.
"But if I leave now, I'll collapse three steps out the door."
"...Don't give me that collapsing nonsense."
"I'll gather my last remaining strength to leave a dying message: a picture of you."
"Wha-?"
"And, if someone happens to save me, I'll tell them I was imprisoned in this room and tormented to the point of collapse. I'll let them know you forced your cosplaying preferences onto me."
"Don't you dare say that! So, you do know a thing or two about otaku culture, don't you!?"
"?"
She tilted her head to the side like a kitten seeing itself in the mirror for the first time.
He regretted letting her get him agitated, feeling like he alone was somehow horribly cheated.
Okay, let's do it! Kamijou thought.
He noisily headed toward the kitchen. Only spoiled goods were left in the fridge so it would cost nothing to feed her. The boy figured it would be fine if the food were heated. He dumped everything into a frying pan and made something similar to stir-fried vegetables.
Come to think of it, where did this girl come from? He wondered.
Naturally, there were people out of country in Academy City. However, she did not have the characteristic "scent" of a resident. Nonetheless, it was also strange for someone to come in from outside.
Academy City was treated like a city made up of hundreds of schools, but it was more accurate to consider it like a city-sized boarding school. It was large enough to cover a third of Tokyo, but was surrounded by something akin to the Great Wall of China; though not as strict as a prison, but was still not a place one could simply wander into.
...Or so it had seemed. In reality, three satellites launched for experiments by a technical college were constantly monitoring the city. Every individual going in or out of the city was completely scanned and if any suspicious person for whom the gate records did not match, either Anti-Skill or Judgment from different schools would immediately intervene.
But... that zapper of a girl reigned in that thundercloud yesterday. That might have hidden Index from the satellites, he considered.
"So why were you hanging out to dry on my balcony?" Kamijou asked the girl as he put soy sauce on the stir-fried vegetables-like dish he was making with purely ill intentions.
"I wasn't hanging out to dry."
"Then what were you doing? Were you blown over and landed there?"
"...Something like that."
Kamijou meant it as a joke and stopped moving the frying pan as he turned around to face the girl.
"I fell. I was trying to jump from rooftop to rooftop."
Rooftop?
Kamijou looked up at the ceiling. Cheap student dorms lined the building level and even more of the same types of eight-story buildings were lined up. One glance out the balcony showed a gap of two meters between buildings. It was true that a running jump could get you from one rooftop to another. However...
"But that's eight stories high? One wrong step and you'd be heading straight to hell."
"Yes, you don't even get a grave if you commit suicide," said Index cryptically. "But I had no choice. I had no other means of escape."
"Escape?"
Kamijou frowned at that ominous word.
"Yes," said Index like a child. "I was being chased."
"..."
Kamijou's hand shaking the hot frying pan stopped moving once more.
"I made my jump fine, but I was shot in the back in midair." The girl calling herself Index seemed to smile. "I apologize. It seems I was caught on your balcony as I fell."
She tossed an innocent smile in Kamijou Touma's direction without even a hint of self-deprecation or sarcasm.
"You were shot...?"
"Yes? Oh, you don't need to worry about a wound. These clothes also function as a defensive barrier."
What did she mean by a defensive barrier? Was it a bulletproof vest?
The girl spun around as if to show off new clothes and certainly did not seem injured. Kamijou had to wonder whether she really had been shot. The concept that she was delusional or making it up seemed more realistic.
But...
The fact remained that she had indeed been hanging from his seventh story balcony.
If, hypothetically, everything she was saying were true…
Who shot her?
Kamijou deliberated.
He thought about how determined one would have to be to jump between the rooftops of an eight-story building. He also considered how lucky she was to be caught on his seventh-story balcony and the hidden meaning behind the fact that she collapsed.
She said she was being chased.
His final thoughts wondered the meaning of the smile on Index's face as she said those words.
He knew not what circumstances Index was in and understood not what the few things she told him had meant. Most likely, he could only understand half of it if Index explained everything from start to finish and would still have no idea how to even begin to understand the latter half.
Nonetheless, one truth remained.
With a tightening in his chest, he finally accepted the fact that she had gotten caught on his seventh-story balcony when one wrong step could have sent her straight to the asphalt below.
"Food."
Index poked her head from behind Kamijou. Despite her Japanese fluency, she must not have had much experience with chopsticks because she held them in a fist like a spoon while she excitedly stared into the frying pan.
Her eyes were like a kitten's taken from a cardboard box on a rainy day.
"...Ah..."
Kamijou put the (former) food into the frying pan to make something like (poisonous) stir-fried vegetables. For some reason, the angel in Kamijou, whom usually came along with the devil Kamijou, was writhing horribly at the sight of the starving girl.
"Ahh! I-I know! If you're really that hungry, how about we go to a proper family restaurant rather than give you this horrible meal made by a man with leftovers!? We can even get it delivered!"
"I can't wait that long."
"...Ah ...kh!"
"And it isn't horrible. You made this food for me without charging anything. It has to be good." For the first time, she gave a shining nun-like smile.
As pain assaulted Kamijou like his stomach was being wrung like a wet cloth, Index scooped the contents of the frying pan out with her fist-held chopsticks and into her mouth.
Munching.
"See? It's good."
"...Oh, is it?"
Chomping.
"It's nice that you added that sour flavor to me help get my strength back."
"Geh! It's sour!?"
Chewing.
"Yeah, but that's fine. Thanks. You're like a big brother or something."
She gave a large grin as she ate with such a pure heart that she had a bean sprout stuck to her cheek.
"...Gh ...Uuwhaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!"
With the speed of sound, Kamijou grabbed the frying pan while Index looked incredibly displeased. However, Kamijou swore in his heart that he would be the only one to fall down into hell.
"Are you hungry too?"
"...Hah?"
"If not, I'd rather you let me eat the rest."
As Kamijou watched Index look at him with slightly upturned eyes while she chewed on the end of her chopsticks,
Kamijou received a divine revelation.
God told him to take responsibility and eat it himself.
This had nothing to do with misfortune; he had completely brought it upon himself.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone