novelGolden - A.D.1900_Invisible_War (2)
| ← Ch.184 | Ch.186 → |
Part 9
"This will probably be confusing, so allow me to make a note first: we will now move the timeline beyond the Golden age. Just keep in mind that this is past the time he spent with Mathers and Westcott."
Every man and every woman is a star.
Separate from their surface consciousness, people contain a self that can achieve wisdom. If everyone could awaken to that self, the entire world would turn at maximum efficiency, as if all the gears fit together. In other words, nothing is intrinsically worthless.
"You look upset, young lady. Would it cheer you up if I invited you to the starry sky?"
In that case, there may have been some kind of necessity to the "human" known as Aleister Crowley meeting a certain woman.
His voice was similar to when he was younger, but it was also decisively different. It was calm, it contained an intent to connect with the outer world, and most importantly, it was not filled with hatred and doubt directed at the world.
He was considerate.
He was trying to gently touch the other person's formless heart.
"... That's surprising, " said Kamijou."The magician of the century could fall in love like normal?"
"And I am the wife of eccentric Mathers, " said the Black Cat Witch."Is that a problem?"
Did marriage really make someone look so much more reliable?
"Also, Crowley was surprisingly popular due to his androgynous beauty and his eccentric charisma. In fact, because it came to him so easily, he never had much interest in normal love."
"Normies are the worst."
"Watch what you say. He was generally an unemployed eccentric who loved black jokes and submitted his own erotic novels to a cheap publisher, so you can't really call him a normie."
"Bff!?"
"In his great masterpiece, he got carried away and referred to male genitalia in more than 100 ways. He also visited Egypt and attempted the K2 with no extra oxygen supply. Once he started something, he would stubbornly give it his all."
Kamijou began trembling.
He felt his image of the evil demon king crumbling down around him. This was like looking under your father's bed or searching through your teacher's computer. There was some important information that an adolescent was better off not knowing.
"By the way, Crowley would also nonchalantly bring his own semen to the ceremonial ground where everyone was gathered and use it in experiments, he stole the butterfly decoration used to hide the crotch of a naked bronze statue and wore it over his pants to a party, and he would make the most wonderful rhyming sexual jokes whenever he saw a magician from the same cabal. He was quite the unrestrained magician."
"That just makes him a giant pervert!! His personality was entirely broken!!"
"At the time, it was all dismissed as mere mischief, so the difference between eras can be a frightening thing. I'm truly jealous of modern society with its civilized definition of sexual harassment..."
Whenever he looked more deeply into the older ages seen in samurai dramas or knight stories, Kamijou could not help but notice how difficult women had it, but if everyone around her had been that eccentric, Mina Mathers must have felt completely surrounded. And the sad part was that enduring it all would have been meaningless.
But Crowley the Unrestrained King had toned it down in the current scene.
Had the silver-haired young man seen enough value in the ephemeral woman standing next to him to suppress that egotistic side of himself? With the perverted side of himself closed up like a cuckoo clock, the silver-haired "human" looked just like a gentleman with a strict policy of "ladies first".
"That woman is named Rose. She became Aleister Crowley's first wife."
"First?"
"The details can come later.... Although after this, the things pent-up inside him exploded."
"Now I don't want to see the rest!! I have a bad feeling about what's coming!!"
Time flowed by.
After marriage, they seemed to begin living together and Aleister apparently stopped trying to hide his magic research from his wife Rose. In fact, he actively used her as an assistant. Kamijou did not know exactly how it worked, but he seemed to sometimes use an incantation and a magic circle to summon something formless and send it inside his wife's body.
The woman had initially seemed ephemeral, but Kamijou felt a heart-pounding unease when he saw her convulsing in a chair inside a basement filled with some kind of burning incense.
"Crowley was a man of logic and efficiency, so he did not hold back even with his own wife."
"Huh?"
"That is a method of hypnotizing someone to intentionally guide them into a trance and access a higher being, but the trance here is the same type used by the ancient witches who would rub a special ointment on their brooms, mount them without wearing any underwear, and-..."
"Waaahh! Waaaaaaaahh!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!!!!"
Kamijou shuddered as his danger sense warned that carelessly listening any further would be like a scam where he was made to overhear told personal information and then pressured into paying money in apology.
"Now, as his true self exploded out and he ended up playing doctor – or rather, playing magician – with his newlywed wife, he eventually accessed a higher being said to be a guardian angel during a trip to Egypt. And that guardian angel's name might have been glimpsed here in Academy City."
"?"
"... That name is Aiwass. That being contains the number 93, just like Thelema. And just like Coronzon, that name became a major turning point in Aleister Crowley's life."
Kamijou did not recognize that name.
Although it was possible that it was a name someone other than him had pursued.
Answers did not always appear before the one seeking them.
"The compilation of Aleister's theories was turned into a book based on what Aiwass said through Rose's mouth. And this was something sensational enough to blow away not just the Golden cabal's foundational theories constructed by Westcott and the other leaders, but also the new theories Mathers planned to build by hijacking them."
"What? So he got an answer through something like the Kokkuri-san, decided he had drawn it from his own subconscious, and turned it into a book???"
"Sometimes a powerful grimoire is given more prestige through a legend saying it was provided by a higher being, but there are a relatively large number of records remaining of Crowley and Aiwass's contact. Although it seems the skeptics that wanted to get rid of him searched through and found fault with all of them. Still, I think it has more credibility than the laughable document permitting the cabal's establishment that Westcott forged."
"... Did you just casually slip in something really important there?"
"Legends are unnecessary if you only wish to learn knowledge and technique. But Westcott was from an older age, so he wanted his cabal to have history with an academic or royal scholar. Thus, he claimed to be the only person to have received permission to create a cabal from the ultimate higher being named Anna Sprengel. Whether or not Lady Sprengel actually existed, the document Westcott received was a fake created by an Englishman forging a German's handwriting. Honestly, if he hadn't been so intent on social standing, he wouldn't have fallen prey to those silly newspaper journalists later on."
Instead of a superhuman organization that secretly determined world events from the shadows of history... they felt more like a group of eccentrics that caused trouble wherever they went. If this was the gathering of geniuses that changed the magic side's level of techniques, Kamijou wondered if they had looked like an uncontrollable hurricane to those around them.
"But this would have been a happy time for Crowley."
"... I'm really worried that his wife wouldn't be able to survive that happiness."
"Not what I meant."
Time continued further.
And Kamijou heard a voice that seemed horribly out of place.
It was the crying of a baby.
"That is Aleister Crowley's first daughter."
"Oh... Yeah, I guess that would eventually happen if he got married."
A small life was wrapped in a soft cloth.
The baby calmed down in her mother's arms, but the man seemed to be keeping a slight distance. Was he afraid of infecting her with his impurity as a magician?
A high school boy like Kamijou had no way of knowing how much courage it would take to fill that slight gap.
But after a very, very long time, Crowley finally moved his fingertips toward his child's mouth.
And then the small hand gently grasped the father's fingers.
"To be blunt, her official name was about as overly-long as Jugemu Jugemu, but magic researchers simply call her Lilith. Crowley apparently read the stars to determine her name and it supposedly has an actual meaning. In other words, that was how obsessed with his daughter he was."
"Ohh?"
His passion seemed to go to waste a lot, but it was kind of adorable when it went to waste for something like this. He sought logic and efficiency in everything and he would make harsh jokes and cruel jeers every time he opened his mouth, but perhaps he had worked hard to try his hand at something he was not used to.
As a father, he had wished for the happiness of his newborn daughter.
As he peered down at his daughter held gently in his wife's arms, reached out his fingertips, and saw that tiny hand gently grab them, what had grown in the heart of that "human" who had the skill needed to master magic and hijack the world's greatest cabal?
"This was the happiest time for Aleister Crowley."
"Yeah, maybe so."
"Do you not understand? This was the happiest time."
"... ?"
Kamijou frowned when Mina Mathers insisted on repeating herself. He sensed some hidden meaning to her words.
And the Black Cat Witch explained while surrounded by an ominous atmosphere.
"To put it another way, it is only downhill from here. Aleister Crowley's life only continued to sink without ever resurfacing."
"Wait... Hold on..."
Kamijou looked back to the scene before his eyes.
This was an illusion.
Instead of complete fiction, it was probably an image of the past a certain person had walked. So no amount of struggling could change history. All of it had already happened.
But Kamijou still begged it to stop.
What he saw here was perfect. This was the ultimate accomplishment of everything that Aleister Crowley was. What could be added to or subtracted from this? Any addition or subtraction would clearly be superfluous, but what had the outside world brought to this miniature garden?
"To assist with the birth and to protect the unstable mother and daughter with all his being, Aleister temporarily stopped his magical research. And to make up for that delay, he left on a trip to a great mountain once the mother and child's state had stabilized. He had a certain objective there, but that does not matter here."
There was a single answer.
"Once he was done there, he learned of his young daughter's unnaturally sudden death by illness. That "human" had wished for his daughter's happiness more than anyone else in the world and he had given her a name so long it was a pain to say... but he had not been allowed to come running and be with his beloved daughter as she died."
That had begun the fall.
It had been a trigger great enough for a human to curse the destiny of the entire world.
Part 10
"Uuh..."
This was different from before.
He was not groaning from the shock and confusion of the scenery and vision suddenly changing. The information brought by the foggy city felt like a heavy blow to Kamijou Touma's chest.
Aleister Crowley. The beginning of his fall.
The far too sudden loss of his young daughter, Lilith.
"... Dammit."
Kamijou could not steady his wavering vision. As an average high school boy, Kamijou Touma had of course never had a daughter. He had no way of knowing how realistic the feelings inside him were.
But the boy had no way of resisting the emotion driven inside him like a thick stake.
He curled up, opened his mouth wide, and let out a roar with all his might.
Emotions provided by an external source were never good. In a way, they were more dangerous than a flamethrower. He knew that, but he could not stop the clear liquid that spilled from his tear ducts.
This was what Kamijou felt while viewing it from a distance.
No, even as her actual father, Aleister Crowley had only been a distant observer. He had only learned of that small life's loss through a simple letter. He had not been allowed to rely on some grand magic produced from every technique he had and he had not even been able to hold that tiny hand, despite knowing it was no use. He only had the merciless result forced onto him after it was all over.
How could someone overcome something so unreasonable?
No, had he turned out the way he had because he could not overcome it?
Had the "human" named Aleister Crowley been wandering in a forest of his own creation for over a century?
And while Kamijou Touma's thoughts were in such a serious place, a girl's small foot struck his cheek.
"Get your hand off of my bikini bottom already, you pervert!!!!!!"
"Bghh!?"
It was Fran who was blushing bright red. Kamijou was finally knocked from the balloon in reality instead of an illusion. But there was no sensation of falling and his butt landed on a nearby steel beam.
The hoodie bikini girl had apparently moved the balloon over toward the wall.
"Honestly, this is the problem with boys. Mutter, mutter. Give them the chance and they'll justify everything they do... Why do they only ever use their brains when it comes to making their actions seem legitimate... ?"
A misunderstanding seemed underway at tremendous speed, but she would probably say something about using his brains if he made any kind of excuse, so he left that untouched.
Kamijou decided to change tack a little.
"W-well, I'm not sure you can say that about all boys. Eh heh. Eh heh heh. I mean, what about Kamisato?"
"That bastard was the victim type of pervert that would naturally take all the juicy bits for himself!! If all the boys in the world would end like that just by standing there, I'd sink into despair!!"
"Hmm, " said Mina."It seems to me like a very bad idea to bring up that name so soon after she had her heart broken, but are you the type that enjoys bullying the girl you like?"
When Mina appeared in the air, Kamijou's briefly numbed feelings came surging back. He was reminded of what he had seen. Of the tuning point that sent a human's life tumbling down.
He breathed in and out.
He wiped the sweat from his brow.
He did not care what anyone said about him.
Kamijou spoke to the person only he could see.
"... Mina..."
"What is it?"
The Black Cat Witch stood next to him and looked down at him.
As usual, she did not bat an eye.
"What happens after that? What happens to that 'human'!?"
"Again, that leads to the Board Chairman Aleister Crowley you see in the present."
"That's not what I'm asking about!! Send me there right away!!"
"Every man and every woman is a star." Mina Mathers whispered what sounded like a password."When each individual is aware how they should act and fulfills those actions, there will be no meaningless work in this world. If you seek something, you must walk on your own feet and reach out your own hand."
"..."
Kamijou Touma looked out ahead with utter exhaustion in his eyes.
He saw window cleaning gondolas, crane hooks, and ropeways. As before, he would have to scale a deadly mountain using only unstable footing.
But he no longer hesitated.
It did not matter how unreliable the footing was. It did not matter whether or not they were being pursued by a pair of beasts with rainbow chains and transparent flesh and blood.
He wanted to know the whole history of that human's wandering.
"Hey, human."
"... ? Othinus???"
Then a 15cm god spoke to him by climbing up onto a window cleaning gondola's railing. She had apparently climbed this high under her own power. The world had to have looked very different at Othinus's scale.
"I won't tell you not to go running ahead. That would be like telling a bird not to fly or a fish not to swim. But if you do start running, don't give into despair. Abandoning thought is just being lazy. When you're running recklessly forward is exactly when you need to remain calm. You need to make use of all your power to return alive."
"... Yeah."
After he nodded, Othinus climbed up his clothes to her usual spot on his right shoulder. If he took one wrong step, she would plummet to the bottom with him, but he did not feel a single tremor from her body.
"Hey, Othinus. Have you seen Index or Tsuchimikado? They don't seem to be here either."
"Talking about another girl already? No, maybe I should interpret that as your normal behavior and be relieved."
"Othinus-san?"
"Sniff, sniff.... And you are covered in a mixture of a few odd scents."
"Hm? Is that because of the weird visions Mina's been showing me... ?"
"You held more than one girl in your arms on the way here, didn't you? Really, how could you not notice you were getting these indecent smells on you? Honestly..."
"Why are you so irritated!? Let's get serious before you sink into a bog of your own making!"
Othinus was in a very bad mood, but she seemed intent on sticking with him to the end.
Kamijou looked back toward Maika and Fran.
"If you don't think you can go any further, you don't have to follow me. If you stay on the narrow footing, those handcuff and gear beasts, human karma, mountain devilishness, or whatever they are can't appear around you. I'll head to the top and see if the others are up there."
"I-I want to see for myself that Aniki's okay."
"And I can safely get to the top with my spare balloon as long as you all don't get in the way."
Those did not seem like logical or efficient opinions.
If they simply sought safety, it may have been much better to remain on the window cleaning gondola.
But Kamijou did not force his opinion onto them.
Perhaps that was due to the lamentation of that "human". Perhaps it was because he had indirectly felt that magician's intense emotion after being unable to see his daughter's death for himself.
"Understood. It's your decision. It's not my place to tell you what to do."
Now that they knew what to do, they only had to do it.
They were fortunate to have Fran and her balloon that could continue up no matter what. By passing her belt-like makeshift ropes made from multiple layers of duct tape, she could pass the rope along routes they normally could not have reached. She could tie two crane hooks together to create a V-shaped wire or she could use two horizontal ropes to attach a window cleaning gondola to a midair ropeway and place zigzagging tape between them to create a makeshift bridge.
It felt a lot like athletically moving from one cliff face to another by clinging to the wire strung between them. But their odds of survival were much better than using the midair swings as they jumped from one pendulum-like hook to another.
"And... there."
In her chic maid uniform, Maika held onto a vertical duct tape lifeline as she reached her tense legs from one footing to another.
"Nnnn!"
"The view from below is incredible, " said Mina."Yes, look at her tremble... This is a strange feeling you can never get from a miniskirt café model."
"... The rest of us can't float, so if we tried that, we'd fall to our deaths."
True to her self-proclaimed title of witch, she may have loved tempting people onto wicked paths. Either that or she was one of the unfortunate people who always messed with the camera to see how low an angle they could get in an RPG or shooting game.
"Placing a burden on all of your muscles in a specific order might count as a variation of yoga. Crowley focused on that while mountain climbing."
"You hag, the way you place a hand above your eyes when focusing on something really does make you seem old."
"... Was someone just insulting me?" cut in the hoodie bikini girl's words like a curse.
The trouble was about to spread, so Kamijou decided to stop speaking with Mina who had a way of causing misunderstandings.
As they climbed higher, the scenery changed again.
Footing was still sparse. The mountain climbing route was still devastating and consisted entirely of objects hanging from the heavens by wires. But instead of window cleaning gondolas and crane hooks, Kamijou and the others saw fairy tale 5-pointed stars and cradle-like crescent moons. They were all a few meters across and it felt like jumping between gorgeous chandeliers. If not for the terrible fear of heights, they should have provided enough footing, but...
"How high up are we now... ?" Kamijou wondered aloud.
Unlike true mountain climbing, the air did not seem to grow thinner and colder as they climbed. No matter how strange it seemed, they were still inside the Windowless Building, so the temperature, pressure, and humidity may have been kept at a certain value.
The giant tower ignored three-dimensional space as it rose toward the heavens.
And they had finally reached fake stars and moons.
... This should have been an impossible height. Checking the distance from the surface to the outer atmosphere in an online encyclopedia was enough to know that. That was not a distance that human legs could clear in a day. But at the same time, this was an alternate-dimensional space where Euclidean geometry did not apply. The distance of each step did not necessary match up with the distance they had actually traveled. Plus, they were surrounded by giant walls on every side. With no view outside, there was nothing to judge the distance by.
Would they really make their way to outer space like this?
That absurd thought entered his mind.
"Oh?"
Until now, Fran had flown freely around with her balloon to create spider webs of duct tape for them, but now the hoodie bikini girl sounded surprised.
Fran's butt was pressed against the side of a simplified star like the kind seen at the top of a Christmas tree. It was almost like she had fallen onto a soft cushion.
Confused, Kamijou asked a question.
"Eh? Eh? What just happened? Some kind of adhesive? Or a magnet???"
"I don't know... but it felt like I fell toward the star... ?"
On the boy's shoulder, Othinus crossed both her arms and legs as she sighed.
"Artificial gravity? Curse that 'human'. Is he working to acquire even the forces of the planet?"
Kamijou did not understand how this worked.
Artificial gravity brought to mind a small room spinning around to produce centrifugal force, but he had no idea how people or objects could be pulled toward the surface of a small sphere like this.
Or...
If the actual matter was far denser than the apparent volume, could it be given the same powerful universal gravitation as a normal planet?
"No, that wouldn't work... It wouldn't make sense for it to be dangling from a single wire then. And if it was that dense, it would be a scorching hell like the earth's core."
There were exceptions such as a black hole that created gravity powerful enough to distort the surrounding space and had no material core, but that too could not explain this. Or rather, that would not allow one to adjust the gravity to the desired level. There were only two options: a micro black hole that could only be observed through data or a macro black hole that would swallow up the entire solar system if it formed. Even an esper who could directly manipulate gravitons had only been able to produce explosions.
"Being able to convert the proper methods into any universal power does sound like his kind of theory. I doubt you will find the answer with the knowledge found in a high school textbook, human."
"I'm not interested in being an intellectual. I just want to know if Imagine Breaker will destroy it or if it can support me."
With that, Kamijou reached his hand out toward the closest crescent moon.
And that acted like a trigger.
He had already had a hunch... it was about time.
Reality and illusion crossed over, the crescent moon crumbled away without warning, and Kamijou Touma was overcome by a far too real sensation of falling.
Part 11
"Let us begin with the answers you wanted. We will be returning to the Golden age. This happened before he married Rose and was given Lilith."
It was a toxic foggy city covered in steam and smoke.
There was a whistling that sounded like a draft, but it was actually the breath escaping a man's throat in a study. Even with no knowledge of medicine, one look at his face was enough to know his organs were far from healthy. Enough so that he looked like an old man in the deeply contrasting shadows created by the lamp's flame.
"Allan Bennett. He was one of the few people who Aleister Crowley could call a true friend and teacher who, unlike Mathers, had no ulterior motive, " said Mina next to Kamijou."There is nothing to say about his condition. These are merely the symptoms of addiction to medical opium used as a pain reliever. This was a social pathology found everywhere at the time."
That master was of course not the only one in the study.
This was Aleister Crowley's story.
"... In other words, it is the same as my body, " Allan said to his visitor.
He flipped over several cards sitting atop a heavy desk. Kamijou did not know the details, but when he saw those cards that looked like playing cards with more involved artwork, the word tarot came to mind.
Whether the stories were true or not, what was it those tools were used for?
The man continued through his cracked lips.
"Everyone is a slave to miracles and fortune. Even the way you choose your daily bread interferes without your knowledge. And that interference can involve people's lives. Just as I chose the wrong medicine and it has stuck with me ever since."
Kamijou gulped because he had cheated.
He had already seen how this turned out.
"That was the meaning behind Crowley's journey, " said Mina."He was searching for a way to protect his daughter who was at the mercy of the phases and sparks and who would suddenly lose her life in but a few years.... And just as the cards showed, he did not make it in time."
As she gave her smooth answer, the mourning clothes woman looked down at Kamijou's right hand.
Imagine Breaker.
Hadn't he heard a joking theory about it tearing apart invisible fortune and thus providing him with misfortune?
"Phases? Sparks? What are you talking about? What does any of that have to do with his daughter?"
"Allan will explain."
The Black Cat Witch was correct.
Allan Bennett swept aside the cards and moved his lips.
"Magic is convenient. If our Golden cabal completes its simple work kit, we can break back open our stagnated knowledge without needing to fear the toxins of an original grimoire. After all, that toxin is the result of the reader's mind rejecting such a great discrepancy from their common knowledge and wisdom. If it can all be explained through their own words and fingertips, that gap can be filled and no one must suffer. Once the long lines are gone and people no longer need to determine which of the higher ranks have authentic knowledge, the entire organization will grow much more quickly. With a collective device to answer the questions of master and apprentice alike, our direct combat strength will grow. But normally, all phenomena in this world are bound by the principle of equivalent exchange. Our magic cheats the system to provide an input of 1 for an output of 10.... However, are we truly deceiving the world? Perhaps we are merely shifting the cost beyond what we can imagine. We have long held that concern."
"..."
"This world contains as many phases as there are divine legends and religions. And the distance between each phase is not even. The rise and fall of civilizations and traditions affect the power balance in the real world. When you get down to it, fortune is the sparks that failed to become miracles. The spray produced by the contact and collision between phases has a shockingly thin but widespread influence on people. It affects coin tosses, the order at which dishes are served at a restaurant, meetings and partings, marriages and divorces... and even people's deaths. If you see no direct cause for your daughter's death, you should assume it is a spontaneous event caused by a gathering of the influence that so many people are unwittingly affected by."
"You mean there is no such thing as a spontaneous accident or illness in this world?" asked the silver-haired young man."You mean the small things that people accumulate are an issue of the overlapping phases and, as a result, the entire world will cause slightly unsanitary conditions to force a deadly illness onto my daughter? Is that what you are saying, teacher?"
"That is taking it a bit far. Your daughter is nothing special. Everyone is affected by it equally. But a unified theory like Hermeticism roughly grabs and gathers the overlapping phases, causing them to collide all the more. I imagine that would make the sparks more frequent. And this will influence more than just the present. The future is made from the present, after all."
"And the Golden cabal understood that danger but tolerated it?"
"A phenomenon which cannot be measured may as well not exist. That is what Mathers said, but it would be the weakness of our hearts that allowed us to let that opinion stand."
The gap between phases changed irregularly on a daily basis. There was nothing an individual could do about it. Even as the nations fought for supremacy and glared at each other across their borders, the world's continents were slowly moving. Not even the greatest world powers could stop that movement. In that case, weren't the conflicts on the surface trivial matters?
What if Mathers had continued his magical research with that sort of thinking?
What if the collective anonymous questioning device began to function?
"There was a way of exorcising it, " said Allan Bennett."Although Westcott and Mathers never publicly admitted it, there was an unspoken understanding that it was not a problem as long as they had the treasure at Blythe Road and that they would be fine as long as they possessed it. Edward, you too were protected by that. That is why they saw no problem with what you were doing."
But that would only protect him, the magician.
They said they could not pass their protection onto those who were not there and they did not bother to reveal the protective charm already hidden in their pocket. It was like they knew felling the trees of the forest would eventually turn the planet into a desert, but they continued cheerfully with no concern for those who would starve in the future.
Even now, all sorts of magic was being performed across the world.
No one knew what emotions people would be given by the pressure between phases and the sparks that produced. When lives were thrown out of that shallow and widespread current, there may not have been an overall cause or conspiracy behind it. And that was why it was nearly impossible to nip that disaster in the bud.
Yes.
What if?
Aleister Crowley himself had so often performed magic below an invisible umbrella and thus with no sense of danger, but what if that too had been wrapped in the same wickedness as the magic of those he so despised?
"..."
"Are you going?"
"If the sparks brought by invisible collisions will not end, then I see no reason not to take action."
"Then why did you visit me? The best way to overcome the disadvantage of being outnumbered is to use the element of surprise."
"I wanted to take a necessary item from you."
"You already have everything you need."
Still seated, Allan Bennett gestured as if he were gently grabbing something.
There had been nothing there before.
But something odd flashed in the master's hand. They looked like sparks from a lighter's flint. But they scattered through the air as small numbers.
28, 4, 29.
And then the master's hand held a twisted staff made of silver.
"I am altering the scene here, " whispered the Black Cat Witch."Normally this would be invisible to all but Crowley who it is directed towards, but I will place it here as an objective image. After all, nothing is as empty as an explanation you cannot understand."
"... But that's all you've been giving me."
But time passed as Kamijou made his exasperated comment.
"You should have already learned it all perfectly. Although it may only look like one of the abominable powers which will take your daughter's life and tear your family apart."
Allan opened his hand and the staff disappeared once more.
But this was not the Blasting Rod that Allan Bennett was known for.
It was actually a usage of the technique known as Spiritual Tripping.
The man tapped his bony fingers on the ebony desk in front of him.
"A war is about to begin."
"..."
"Will that power take your target's life or take away the possibility for life?... In other words, even if they survive, they will essentially bear a curse saying that, from that point on, every choice they ever make will end in failure. Everyone who is 'killed' by you will despair and be doomed to a life that continues eternally downhill without ever rising once more. In a way, this will be a living hell that is much crueler than simple death."
His exhalation sounded like a broken flute.
"And prepare yourself. If you announce that you will destroy the entire Golden cabal for the daughter you will one day lose to a spontaneous death, you must also turn those fangs back toward yourself and eliminate Magician Aleister Crowley. You can never truly achieve your original objective without cursing yourself as your own nemesis and swallowing the poison you have concocted."
"I am aware of that."
"You can of course compromise there. You can always meet your desire for vengeance halfway. But then it would lose its purity and become no more than an empty shell. The instant you hold back for fear of losing your own life or assets, your feelings for your daughter will grow dull and rusted. Keep that in mind."
"I am aware of that."
Hearing the exact same response again, the pale master gently smiled as if no more words were necessary.
It was the kind and sad look of the master seeing his student surpassing him.
And then Magician Allan Bennett said more.
"Then hurry up and kill me. One of your nemeses sits right here."
He could compromise with his vengeance.
But the instant he did, the feelings within him would grow dull and rusted.
So it did not matter how much he respected this man or how close they were.
Since this man was a magician of the Golden cabal, Aleister Crowley could not overlook the master before his eyes.
Allan never did stand from his chair.
Even if his body had been worn away by an ignorant and juvenile medical prescription, he too was a magician who represented the Golden cabal. He had produced that silver staff from thin air earlier, so if he had wanted to, he surely could have fought back against the assassin paying him a visit.
But he did not.
Allan had not welcomed the young man as a magician or a teacher. He had welcomed him as a lonely man does a good friend.
His cards had likely already told him his fate.
"..."
Aleister Crowley started to shake his head.
But the unwavering look in Allan Bennett's eyes prevented him from doing so. To those who accurately divined fate, different positions on the timeline were a trivial matter. As his master, the man was celebrating his student's marriage. He felt hatred for that which would tear apart that happiness. And he felt regret toward himself for his inability to change it despite having sensed it in advance.
The silver-haired young man reached out his right hand. He stuck out his thumb and forefinger in a handgun gesture.
32, 30, 10.
Just like the old man, he seemed to guide scattering numbers in his hand.
And then the man held an old-fashioned flintlock gun.
That attack would directly take a life or doom them to a life of ruin that could never recover.
Allan Bennett smiled as that fingertip aimed toward his forehead.
"Take care."
Whether it was real or an illusion, a definite gunshot sounded and the man's head jerked backwards.
Part 12
... Why?
Why had this happened? It took Kamijou Touma a while to realize he had returned from his vision.
Even with Imagine Breaker, he was perfectly able to grab at the stars and moons dangling down from wires.... Did that mean they were not products of magic and the artificial gravity had been created through purely scientific means?
He and the others did not need a lifeline.
They leaped between stars, crossing over the empty space at thousands, if not tens of thousands, of meters up. They could not choose which part the artificial gravity pulled at them or how, so Maika's long maid skirt would sometimes rise up like an umbrella in a typhoon and Hoodie Bikini Fran would sometimes land on all fours with her small butt sticking up. Regardless, they continued the impossible mountain ascent with no major problems.
"It's already ending, " said Kamijou with no real proof.
He could not explain his reasoning to himself, so Maika, Fran, and Othinus had to find it even more baffling. But he repeated himself.
"We're approaching the end. There was no other way from the beginning."
There was an end point in the starry sky.
And a familiar face was clinging to the side of the large star dangling there.
"Index?"
"I didn't see you on the way here, so was the way up split into a few different paths?" she wondered."Or did the rest of you fall farther down in the beginning?"
She had the calico cat with her.
While in Index's arms, it threw cat punches toward Mina who the others could not see.
"Oh? It would seem I am no match for wild instincts."
"... ? Does that mean it isn't that only I can see you? Are you actually preventing the others from seeing you?"
"I am the Black Cat Witch. I seem to bring them under my control whether I intend to or not."
And it was obvious why Index had stopped here.
Kamijou looked straight up.
"A black hole, hm?" Othinus sounded exasperated as she sat on his right shoulder."The scale here is as ridiculous as ever."
Straight above, something like a black galaxy swirled around as if to indicate a presence on an even higher level. No human had directly seen a black hole, so they did not know if this was accurate, but with the artificial gravity produced by the previous stars and moons, it seemed likely this was a tunnel modeled after a black hole.
"I have a bad feeling about this, " said Index."Why is this going so smoothly? If even a single ladder had been removed, we would have been stuck. It's almost like this is a form of training we have to complete in advance."
"..."
If they jumped in there, it would take them somewhere.
But Kamijou Touma felt like there was something he had to do before that.
He leaped from the final star toward the black hole, but his suspicions were confirmed.
The black hole did not suck him in.
He instead plummeted downwards.
Part 13
This was the appropriate form for a magic battle. That was the whole of it.
The foggy city's steam and smoke were sliced apart. Even the darkness of London's night was swept aside by the bright flashes of light. There were two magicians there. Those monsters had attempted to swallow up and take over the Golden cabal which was the world's greatest. Even the Jack who had terrified the public by attacking prostitutes in the dark of the night would have trembled and fled had he seen their clash.
Magician Aleister Crowley.
Magician Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers.
"Ghh!!"
A rusty-smelling liquid dripped to the stone pavement.
It could be a gun, a sword, a shield, or a bow. Aleister changed the shape of his fingertips, numbers scattered from his hand, and the corresponding type of illusionary attack power appeared there.
It could be a fire wand, a water cup, a wind dagger, or an earth disc. Mathers controlled all things on the material level by sending those symbolic weapons floating around him.
Their clash was never-ending.
And if it would not end, it was obvious who had the advantage.
"You fool... If you had stuck with me, you could have received the scraps of my success!!"
"..."
"Your future daughter? Fighting for your not yet certain family? Isn't there a simple way of solving that without harming anyone? Just never have a child. If Aleister Crowley has no daughter, the fangs of death cannot close upon her!"
"Then why did you marry, Mathers? It could not have just been a means of bringing a talented painter into the organization. Even if you never verbalized it in your mind, there must have been a reason why it had to be the woman named Mina."
"Don't give me that look..."
"Even if we know it will lead to definite failure or danger, there are some things we desire to a maddening extent. You cannot expect magicians to be stoics who ignore the workings of their own body, Mathers. Without even looking at the story of Tristan and Isolde, it is clear that love is a poison and family a narcotic. That is how people work. And that is why they have appeared in the lineup of the cards as an inescapable inevitability. This is a result that cannot be changed."
"I said don't give me that look! I am the leader of the Golden cabal!!" roared Mathers as he wielded powerful explosive flames like a part of his own body."A cabal does not just refer to the individual magicians. If one of us rebels, the group will crush them. Aleister, you should have declared victory only once you were in a position to have the group do your bidding! Like I am here!!"
"... !!"
Aleister was not reacting to Mathers as he fell back.
Several people appeared on the surrounding rooftops.
Dion Fortune.
Paul Foster Case.
Arthur Edward Waite.
Robert William Felkin.
"My reinforcements are unlimited. All magicians must obey the cabal's decisions. As long as I stand at the top, anyway." Mathers wiped blood from his mouth and put on a fierce smile."It's time you learned what a hunted fox feels like, rebel. The primary reason you lost was your inability to stop your battle from being rewritten with the word 'rebellion'!!"
"So after all your talk of masters and apprentices being equal, you're still an authoritarian who looks down on everyone from a special position reserved only for yourself."
The action Aleister took was simple.
He immediately turned around and vanished into the steam and smoke.
"Oh, foolish Mathers, my beloved, " whispered the Black Cat Witch as if reminiscing on the distant past.
She viewed this ended world through her veil.
"That man was caught in the organization's selection process, had his beloved daughter driven out from the protective umbrella, and felt burning inferiority and intense emotion at having to rely on the same power as his hated enemies... And as he raged with anger, did you really think he would continue to rely on logic and efficiency and make a strategic retreat?"
"What... ?"
"It is beginning, " clearly stated Mina Mathers. Her tone seemed to say this was the moment for which she wore the mourning clothes and led around the black cats which symbolized bad luck."The Battle of Blythe Road. The quiet armed conflict in which Magician Aleister Crowley directly faced the world's largest magic cabal."
The stage changed.
A man holding a twisted silver staff blended into London's darkness.
Crowley was on his way to 36 Blythe Road, Hammersmith. The Golden cabal's most important ceremonial ground was located there.
Despite being referred to as a "war", what he did was not all that flashy.
All alone, he forced himself into the building, swept aside the few magicians who were maintaining and inspecting the equipment inside, locked all of the exits, and holed up inside.
"... What is he doing?" asked Kamijou."Won't he just be surrounded?"
"That was acceptable for him. Aleister did not need to win this battle."
"What?"
"Winning and losing meant nothing so long as the fact that he fought remained. You will understand soon enough."
A quill in the office area sliced through empty air.
It grazed Crowley's cheek and raced across the stationery on a heavy desk there.
Flowing writing appeared.
Mina must have been providing assistance because the meaning of the words entered Kamijou's head.
"What is the meaning of this, Aleister? I have already parted ways with you. I do not recall ordering you to occupy Blythe Road!!"
When he read that automatic writing, Aleister Crowley silently formed a smile.
... After this, he would get married despite knowing it would end in failure. And his fingertips would be gently held by a tiny hand. This was an expression that would never be made by this "human" after that.
"But that is the truth of this shallow world, " he said."All members of the Golden cabal will assume that Aleister Crowley, a mere pawn, occupied the Blythe Road ceremonial ground on the official orders of Mathers. In order to take everything away from the Westcott faction.... It's a strange thing, Mathers. They will think that even though you do not recall signing such an order."
"You can't mean..."
"Yes, yes. Did you think I made a nearly suicidal attack on you for no reason? I wanted your blood. With a single drop, forging a document was quite simple. In fact... didn't Westcott forge a letter from Anna Sprengel to give the organization more prestige when creating the cabal?"
"Damn you!!"
The scene changed.
In a location nowhere near Blythe Road, a furious-looking Westcott stormed into Mathers' headquarters. He was not the only one breaking through the thick door. Just as Mathers had his faction, the Westcott faction also incorporated half of the Golden cabal.
"What is the meaning of this, Mathers!? Blythe Road is the foundation of the cabal in London. This has gone beyond anything you can weasel out of by claiming it was the individual action of that failure Crowley!!"
"But it was!!"
"You know Scotland Yard is keeping an eye on me. They do not like that a civil servant like a coroner is participating in such suspicious meetings. Maintaining any connections below the surface is risky enough, so you are quite the strategist to intentionally create friction within the cabal!"
"That really isn't it! That document was-..."
Mathers trailed off as he seemed to realize something.
The Black Cat Witch sighed.
"If they had been meeting alone, Westcott and Mathers might have been able to cool their heads and reach a compromise."
But...
"With so many of their subordinates here, Westcott would never accept it if Mathers insisted this was the same forgery method Westcott had used. If he did accept it, his authority would plummet down to earth."
"Then..."
"Yes, " announced the widow dressed in mourning garb."A single intentional defeat pulled the trigger of a great war between the Westcott and Mathers factions that controlled the Golden cabal."
From there, a hellish scene played out.
Flames danced. Wind sliced. And it not all of it was that simple. Strange beasts were unleashed while curses and diseases ran rampant through the London darkness. Even if this was the age when Jack the Ripper had used the curtain of steam and smoke to work in secret, how had the people of London accepted and comprehended these strange phenomena?
And of course, Aleister Crowley's battle was not yet over.
"He never expected the two sides to entirely wipe each other out. One side was sure to win and the survivors would take over.... All he wanted to cause was chaos. And then he could slip into the confusion to sneak in close enough to stab both sides before they saw him coming. To the end, Crowley only ever thought of fulfilling his revenge by his own hand."
The Blythe Road ceremonial ground was also an armory for the Golden cabal.
After retrieving the necessary tools from there, the silver-haired young man returned to the noisy London darkness.
"In this age of rational magicians, Crowley was one of the few who actively approved of blood offerings."
He was cunning.
When he killed a Westcott faction magician in a back alley, he carved traces of the Mathers faction into the corpse before dumping it on the main road.
When he killed a Mathers faction magician in an underground tunnel, he placed a Westcott faction weapon next to it before leaving.
"Even these tricks were only a front. People will be blinded to the truth as long as they see the malice of trickery. They will assume there is nothing more than this. He was the one who concluded it would take covering the entire planet with blood to guide his great ceremony to success. The sight of washing out blood with blood placed Crowley in a state similar to perpetual motion."
... No, this went beyond a direct clash between the two factions.
Scotland Yard would want to divulge everything that happened, those in the New World would seek a version of the occult backed by greater tradition, the old witch lodges felt their place in the world had been taken by the Golden cabal, and spiritualists with no sense of danger would want to contact them. Everyone who wanted to get involved in this would be drawn to London and the existing power balance would be entirely destroyed. The greater the organization, the more complexly its gears fit together.
The vortex of indiscriminate destruction and chaos was like a marble pattern.
It swallowed everything and chewed it up. The hatred produced more hatred.
When blood was shed by magic, that blood would be used for the next attack.
As the battle escalated further, it created larger openings. It produced an opportunity to secretly enter areas that would normally be unreachable.
This was a path of carnage in which he killed an enemy, changed weapons, and continually resupplied in that way.
And eventually, a dull sound burst out somewhere.
"... Bh?"
The first one to produce a dumbfounded expression was Westcott.
He slowly looked down and saw that piercing his side.
"Westcott's magical ability was said to be not all that great, " explained Mina."At least when compared to true eccentrics such as Mathers and Crowley.... And yet he still managed to control a powerful faction as one of the Three Founders thanks to his quasi-immortality."
"Quasi... immortality... ?"
"I will omit what exactly that entails. But I will say that he specialized in forging documents. And as a coroner, he had the opportunity to contact more corpses than the average person. Also... in our world, parchment was used to converse with demons and transfer souls. But Crowley stabbed straight through that assumption with an attack using the treasure he had brought from Blythe Road."
A single arrow was piercing the old man's side.
But it was not made of metal or wood. It looked like muddy-colored wax. The tip branched out into five twisted prongs. Almost like a hand trying to grab at something...
"The arrowhead is made of bone, the feathers are made of leather, and the shaft is made of wax.... But not just any wax; the grave wax created from flesh and blood."
In other words...
"Imagine Breaker. The ultimate exorcising spiritual item created from a certain Saint's right hand. It was originally the most secret of weapons meant to drive an uncontrolled being back beyond the magic circle after a failed summoning."
Even as a mere spectator, Kamijou Touma felt his breath catch in his throat.
"B-bhboh..."
Westcott had never doubted the absolute strength of his quasi-immortality and he was unable to even pull out the thin arrow now that it was taken from him.
"Bhbohbhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"
Aleister Crowley's eyes did not waver.
With the arrow still in hand, he formed a handgun gesture with his other hand and several numbers danced from that hand like sparks: 32, 30, 10. Then the illusion gun fired an impact that sent Westcott's body flying backwards.
"I have altered the scene again, " softly added Mina."I am sure you understand after seeing it before, but that is a weapon that can only be seen by the one it targets. I am merely placing an objective view of it here."
Meanwhile, time continued to pass.
As nonexistent gun smoke floated around him, Aleister whispered words that sounded like a curse.
"An arrow holds the meaning of a spiritualized attack. It should have thrown off the yoke of the physical once it was launched... but as it negates all supernatural powers, it ironically seeks the physical instead, Westcott."
The 5 branches of the arrow's tip seemed to have torn into the old man's flesh and blood. Specifically, the container of his soul, the red mass at the center of his chest. The old man had been torn to pieces within the wound when that was forcibly ripped out, but Crowley ignored him and turned around with the bloody arrow still in hand.
His nemesis stood there.
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers.
When Crowley stuck out his tongue and licked off the blood that had splattered onto his own face, the ruler of the Golden cabal took a few steps back with a stiff expression on his face. The wand, cup, dagger, and disc symbolic weapons floating around him took a clearly defensive formation.
"Do you find it that hard to accept the death and ruin of a single person?"
"..."
"All lives are born and vanish! Most leave nothing behind and are no more than common weeds that must force themselves to believe they are happy and successful!! You could have redone it. Even as you lamented the daughter who was rejected by the friction between phases and sparks of the world, you could have created a new life! Yes, yes! That's all it was! You could have remade her as many times as necessary!!"
The conversation ended there.
Aleister forcefully threw the arrow that had pierced a magician's life. Mathers had his floating symbolic weapons of fire, water, wind, and earth move to intercept. He lost many great weapons, sacrificed one of his arms, and even then only just barely managed to stop the arrow of the dead.
An invisible explosion burst from within the flesh of the master's arm and the legend of Imagine Breaker vanished from this age.
And where did it go?
That was obvious: down a different path that eventually led to Kamijou Touma.
The boy could not help but look down at his own right hand.
"..."
But the Golden leader should have realized something.
This was not the arrow's revenge; it was Aleister Crowley's revenge.
The silver-haired man altered his stance. As soon as he gestured as if he held something in both hands, numbers scattered from them like sparks from a lighter's flint: 1, 27, 5. Then a double-edged sword appeared in his hands.
The gigantic sword was nearly as tall as he was and looked like something from a children's book.
It was the steel sword of a great king.
There was no point in discussing the laws of physics here. If someone had been able to bring a radar device here, the reflected waves would not have detected anything there.
This deadly weapon sliced directly into someone's perception.
It used a technique of conveying one's meditation to someone else.
It was the magic known as Spiritual Tripping. The name did not sound very sharp, but it linked the user's body to the target's just like with a voodoo doll and it synced up their motions. But this usage allowed the user into the target's mind. The gesture would send the power of the indicated weapon into the target's mind.
"Oh, Mathers, my foolish spouse, " said the Black Cat Witch."If you had not been so obsessed with the details and if you had kept your eyes on your true enemy even if it let that arrow shatter your breastbone, you would have had a way out of this."
Mathers was slow to react as the other man stepped forward.
The man swung the giant sword diagonally down with both hands and the nonexistent blade dug deep, deep down into Mathers' torso through his shoulder.
"A clay... more... ?"
"This is a tribute, so rejoice, self-styled highlander. I finished you off with the sword you so loved."
It did not matter here whether or not it physically existed. Either way, it tore through Mathers' body and dark red liquid erupted from within.
Only one man remained standing.
Aleister Crowley made a quiet announcement to the end of his ideal.
"Now you will either die or have all possibility of success stripped from you as you live out the rest of your days in despair. It is time you withered away, sinner."
"Crow... ley."
"You see, Mathers, this is not a mere outburst of anger at being unable to stop the spontaneous death of a life that has yet to be born."
Unable to swing it all the way through the man's body, the sword had stopped partway through, so Aleister whispered to him from close range.
"The world is filled with such tragedy. The sunny parts of this world are simply overflowing with tragedy. Everyone should be enraged and stand up against it, but they claim it can't be helped and they give up! That is where my sorrow lies!!"
"Aleister Crowleyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!"
In the very, very end, Mathers recalled that he too was a magician.
Several more explosions detonated at nearly point-blank range. The two men were both blown backwards, but the battle was already over.
"I will... wipe out... all magic."
Crowley's body was torn to shreds, but he did not fall.
He had destroyed Westcott and Mathers, the true rulers of the Golden cabal. But his battle was not yet over. There were still countless magicians in the cabal. No, he was looking at something even larger than that.
"I will shatter every last phase and put an end to all mysticism. It can be helped and we need not restrain our tears and bite our lip when faced with tragedy. I will bring back the pure world in which everyone can feel anger like normal and question it all like normal!!"
He had to know the truth.
Aleister Crowley was also a magician of the Golden cabal.
If he was to curse the entire cabal, he could not disobey the rule saying he too must swallow the special poison he himself had concocted.
"That's... why... ?" asked Kamijou.
"Yes."
"Success and failure don't matter. No, he works under the assumption that nothing he attempts will go the way he wants it to. Is that because he too walks a path where all possibility has been taken from him!?"
"This was not a clear end to the Golden cabal. Even after the large organization broke apart, it broke into smaller cabals claiming to be its successor. They tied on splints and spent a long, long time like a large tree rotting away. But as they declined, nothing remained of its former glory. Many people attempted to bring back the Golden cabal. But as history shows, none of them succeeded in regathering the personnel and materials. They all worked to achieve their goals, but every last one of those dreams was shattered before completion and they sank into disappointment and despair jut as Aleister Crowley had announced."
Kamijou knew Birdway's cabal claimed to be of the Golden variety, but would it be hard to say it was the pure form of the Golden?
"And, " added the Black Cat Witch."Aleister Crowley himself was deported a few times and was unable to maintain an environment for any major magical research. Finally, in 1947, his death was announced on British land. At the end of his quiet war, the avenger who had hunted down every last one of the cabal's magicians stayed true to his own rules and turned his blade on himself in the very end."
His battle had not yet ended.
That was why he was in Academy City and standing in Kamijou Touma's way.
Which meant...
"Even after conquering the Battle of Blythe Road and turning his blade on himself... he still could not overturn the common disease that took Lilith's life. That was more than enough for him to thoroughly give up on the laws of god that he had already cursed since childhood."
As the enemy of all magic, he had spent 50 or even 100 years creating a new term: the science side. Modern science had robbed the occult of its legitimacy, made scientific investigation and examinations the symbol of "correctness", won the position of widespread acceptance, and spread a mentality akin to science worship in which the scientific was considered correct and the data was considered absolute.
Everything he did would fail. Even if he tried to use that to his advantage, it would still work against him.
But even as he was forced onto that hopelessly harsh and thorny path and even as the entire world worked to trip him up, he had advanced his game pieces this far.
Aleister Crowley would never stop.
He assumed he would be obstructed and he expected to fail. After coming so far with that mindset, that magician would show no surprise and continue on as normal no matter what obstacle might stand in his way.
"He intends to destroy all phases, " whispered Mina Mathers, someone else who had once lost to Crowley and vanished in the depths of disappointment and despair."So that everyone can laugh like normal and cry like normal. So that every man and every woman is a star. So that the people can be freed from the sparks created by the collisions between phases and from the spray that failed to become miracles. So that he can build a world that is built up by the accumulated efforts of individuals and not influenced by prayers or divine punishment. Only once he achieves that will he believe he has truly fulfilled his duty as a father."
Part 14
... Kamijou Touma had finally seen it all.
Her role must have been complete because the Black Cat Witch was gone.
"..."
Kamijou did not hesitate.
Along with the others, he jumped into the object overhead that resembled a black hole. It felt something like an elevator traveling through a tube. It did not take long, but he had no idea how far they had actually traveled. He only knew they had been sent far overhead.
And the scene at the end of the mountain ascent was not the end of the universe or the center of the Big Bang.
"Stairs... ?" whispered Index.
Yes, a spiraling stairway wrapped around the large space. Instead of stone or metal, it seemed to be made of smooth porcelain or glass.
Othinus sighed from the boy's shoulder.
"Is this the ring of the snake biting its own tail? No, it might just be the stairway up to heaven."
And someone bloody sat on the very first step.
"Hi, Kami-yan."
"Tsuchimikado!!"
Was this the side effect of using magic to protect the others, or had he been forced to use magic a few times after they had been separated? Either way, Tsuchimikado's clothing was stained a dark red.
"A-Aniki... !!"
"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry. I didn't want you to see this, but, well, it's nothing to worry about. I've survived this plenty of times before, so I'll survive it here too."
Kamijou doubted that meant anything. Just because you had survived every game of Russian roulette so far did not guarantee the next one would be fine. But Tsuchimikado had probably wanted to reassure his stepsister even if it was a lie.
"So you'll... be okay?"
"Even I'm surprised by that one. It almost makes me think there was some meaning in having my wounds open when I got here... Like I was being told to wait here until you all caught up."
"..."
Aleister Crowley.
Success and failure did not matter. No matter the result when the die was cast, that magician would turn it into the trigger needed to advance down his path. Deciding it was useless to think about it would only turn you into a puppet, but suspecting that everything had meaning would mean restricting yourself for no good reason.
"Let's go, Kami-yan. It doesn't matter how much he toys with us. We win as long as we get the last laugh."
"... Yeah."
With that, Kamijou started thinking.
Had the Board Chairman really laid some cunning trap up ahead?
Was it truly logic and efficiency that ruled that magician?
Kamijou had seen his war.
He was like dry ice. He was supposedly extremely cold, but he was hot enough to burn all he touched. Which was Aleister Crowley's true core? Kamijou could not find an easy answer.
He set foot on the spiral staircase.
He climbed step by step.
At first he did not notice, but with each step, the glass-like steps grew more transparent. They seemed to gradually fade away into the air. Finally, the steps themselves vanished. Kamijou continued climbing toward heaven.
No, it was not just the steps that had vanished.
"... Index?"
Kamijou called her name in surprise.
"Othinus, Fran!? Dammit!!"
There was no response. The companions he had walked with all this way were gone. No, it may not have been them that had disappeared from the world. It may have been Kamijou Touma who had disappeared.
And then he heard a voice from somewhere.
"Do you understand now?"
It was the same voice he had heard in the distance past.
Nothing about this person had changed after more than a century of fighting.
A silver and gray form stood there.
Was it supported by a trance born from a mixture of weariness and accomplishment?
Kamijou naturally called out to the staticky gathering.
"Board Chairman Aleister... ?"
"Do you understand why you are here?"
Where was "here"?
The top of the Windowless Building? His life in Academy City? Being born into the world in the first place?
"If you have come all this way and still do not understand, I suppose that is fortunate."
That "human" was destined to never have anything go the way he expected, yet he judged this to be fortunate.
"All the necessary information has been inputted. But if you still do not understand the answer, then it is the same as a disease with no subjective symptoms. If you feel no pain, you cannot resist it. I will reach the conclusion during that time."
"I won't argue what was good and what was evil." Kamijou shook his head."But your way of life is sad. If I had to choose between right and wrong, I would say the path you've walked is undoubtedly wrong."
"You make it sound like I caused all of the tragedies you have seen."
In a way, that was not inaccurate.
To erase all magic from the world after destroying the Golden cabal, this "human" had split the world in two by creating the opposing science side. He had created Academy City to obtain the functionality he needed and, if he had controlled the opposition in the outside world, this went beyond just the one city. The science side alone could not explain this. The tragedies inside Academy City had been like sharpening one's claws and fangs and that sharpness was meant for use in battle within the outside world.
But he said more.
He was a mass of silver and gray and he was a shadow that seemed to give human form to every worldly thought. And Aleister Crowley made a definite announcement.
"You are the one that stands at the center of all this, Kamijou Touma."
"What... ?"
"I lost the arrow in that conflict. And I needed to acquire it once it appeared again. So it would be no exaggeration to say I built Academy City in order to attract the Kamijou Touma who would eventually be born."
"..."
"Imagine Breaker's power is only noticeable when surrounded by people with supernatural powers. Kamijou Touma will not express his tendency toward conflict if no one needing help is within arm's reach.... And yet you were able to make your presence perfectly known. Why was that? Isn't it obvious? Because a stage covering western Tokyo was remade into an esper development institution that followed the perfect theory that would allow Kamijou Touma his greatest performance."
Why were esper powers seen as perfectly normal?
... Because someone had set it up that way.
Why had students been able to wield supernatural powers in the streets without anyone questioning it?
... Because someone had set it up that way.
Why were there holes in the system which allowed frequent incidents which would enrage this boy?
... Because someone had set it up that way.
Why had the adults repeatedly plotted to fulfill their selfish desires within the city's darkness?
... Because someone had set it up that way.
What about when Kamisato Kakeru had entered the city from outside? He had not been from the science side or the magic side that someone had drawn out. He had truly come from "outside". Hadn't Kamijou Touma felt like something was terribly off about that boy? Hadn't their conversations never quite fit together and hadn't it felt like something unpleasant was shifting their words out of place? Hadn't he been angry that the other boy had continued wanting to talk about such confusing things?
But Kamijou had been wrong.
Kamisato's way had been right.
It would have been strange for them to reach a true understanding after just 5 or 10 minutes of conversation. There was an invisible barrier between people and it was normal to not truly "see" someone unless you spent a long time breaking down that barrier. It was normal to not understand someone, so wasn't Kamijou Touma's discomfort with failing to understand someone proof that he had been raised in a greenhouse that someone had created?
Having lived and lost his memories in this city, Kamijou had no knowledge outside of what was found in Academy City. This city was like his hometown. He had assumed the way things felt here was the same everywhere and understanding that was enough to have something in common with everyone in the world.
But what if that had been prepared for Kamijou Touma before Kamijou Touma had even been born?
Of course it would feel so very comfortable to him.
It was like creating a baseball school where baseball was everything so that a baseball boy could be sent there.
Meanwhile...
"If you were not that way, Academy City would not have taken this form, " said Aleister's voice."If you could be activated by different conditions, there would have been no need to construct the tragedies that make you shine."
If Kamijou Touma had been an intellectual boy who loved shogi, this city would have been filled with people sitting at shogi boards and moving shogi pieces.
If Kamijou Touma had been a sensory boy who loved cooking, this city would have been overrun with cooking battles that stimulated the senses with flavors, colors, smells, sounds, and aromas.
If Kamijou Touma had been an athletic boy who loved mountain climbing, this city would have been packed with climbing duels in which contestants climbed up the walls of the high-rise buildings.
But that boy had entrusted his life and lifestyle to his right fist.
Thus, Academy City had taken this form. So that it allowed his violence to bloom to its fullest.
"I was the one that prepared the board, lined up the pieces, and constructed the stage."
"..."
"But, Kamijou Touma, I modelled it all after your free Thelema."
Which one of them was the primary offender and which one was the accomplice?
... Why had the human named Kamijou Touma only had his right fist? If he had had other means of resolving things, Academy City might not have specialized in violence to this extent. He recalled the experiment in which Academy City's #1 was made to kill 20, 000 military clones, the method to summon an angel via Last Order and using Kazakiri Hyouka as the triggering mechanism, the military cyborgs of the Freshmen, the anti-Academy City Science Guardians, and the Agitate Halation project which intentionally constructed a weak person needing protection in order to mass-produce countless heroes... It had looked like it had all been started by hopeless villains and the mysterious leaders of the city, but if Kamijou Touma had chosen a slightly different path, none of those tragedies would have had to happen.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Kamijou Touma thought and thought and thought before facing forward.
And he let out a roar.
"I don't need to ask why!! So what, you piece of shit!!!???"
He was aware he was hoping for something far too convenient here.
But.
Asking "what if" would not change anything at this point. Kamijou Touma was currently here. There was no changing that. Academy City had been in this country long before he was even born. There was no changing that either. Even if it had all been built in preparation for Kamijou Touma's arrival, there was no way he could have stopped it since he had only arrived later.
So if he was going to argue, that was not the key point.
He had to face forward.
To ensure he avoided any further tragedy.
He did not have time to hope for what could never be. He had to think about what he could do now. He already knew exactly what he had to do. Even if that was at the end of some rails someone had laid out for him.
He had seen more than enough despair when dealing with Othinus.
So he could handle this.
The structure of the world would not crush him with its pressure.
"I can't let you get away with this..."
"I see."
"No matter what the cause was and even if I sympathize with parts of it, you clearly chose the wrong method!! So I will stop you!! Even if it means wielding the very power that made this city the way it is!!"
"Correcting a mistake with a mistake? If that is how you will grow, that too is fine. My life was always doomed to fall. It would be rare for someone to understand my words as they are."
Aleister Crowley also remained unchanged.
There was no waver in the voice of the one who had built Academy City. In fact, this may have been the voice of the villain he had created in preparation for the future.
He had a single reason.
The collisions between phases and the sparks they created. They had taken his young daughter's life for no real reason and torn his family bonds asunder... and the world was willing to accept such tragedies as no more than cruel coincidences that could not be helped. He wished to strike back against that world, so that "human" made the wickedest move available to him.
"But perhaps you are too focused on yourself to reach the proper conclusion. You are the only one allowing yourself to do this. Your position here will never change."
"..."
There was no more need to respond.
He did not need to be an embodiment of justice.
He only had to be a fighter who clenched his filthy fist.
Even if it meant breaking some rules...
Even if it meant bearing some bad karma...
He had to stop this "human".
Even if no one in the world would accept him, he had to do this.
And with that in mind, he continued up the invisible spiral staircase.
As if charging into the depthless darkness.
But a moment later...
A deafening roar blew a giant hole in this dead-end of a world and obliterated the silver and gray form.
Part 15
The A. A. A.
The machine's core was shaped like a strange magic circle and that core linked it to someone.
It was like looking at the sun through a telescope.
The answer was right there, but carelessly looking directly at it would blind you. Only after intentionally using several thick filters to block your vision to restrict the amount of information being retrieved could she establish a normal link.
Of course, the amount of information she received was limited. She was at the center, but she could not quite grasp it. She could not shake the hesitation, like someone preparing to pull the bombing trigger based on pixelated aerial footage, but she did not need to know everything at the moment.
She knew what she had to focus on.
The One who Purifies God and Slays Demons.
It was written with different characters, but that was a boy those girls knew well.
"... I know the location."
Even if you could not crack the encrypted communication itself, you could determine the distance and direction of the tower from which it was being transmitted. This felt similar. Mikoto used the A. A. A. to locate the person to which it was linked.
The attacker who had used that curse on her may have done the same thing.
He may have sensed the girl carelessly contacting the A. A. A. and sent an invisible attack to those coordinates.
But no matter what it was, technology opened its gates equally to all.
That was an ironclad rule in the cyber wars between organized hacker groups. Cheap revenge should be avoided. Making a largescale counterattack would give the other side a chance to learn how to access or infect your system. So the standard methodology was to always consider whether the results of an attack were worth the risk it brought.
This was the same.
If the person on the other end could do it, so could she.
"The Windowless Building in the center of District 7. That's where the mysterious linked person is!! And they are extremely focused on the name Kamijou Touma!!"
"Wait, wait... Unless they're being used as a stepping stone, that could only mean one person..."
Given the circumstances surrounding the A. A. A. , it was hard to imagine that person was harmless and friendly. Even setting aside the nosebleeds caused by using the A. A. A. itself, that curse had clearly been a malicious attack from a third party.
And defying the master of the Windowless Building brought the risk of having to let go of everything they had built up inside Academy City. They were up against the Board Chairman who ran the entire city, so he would likely be able to expel or kick out a girl or two no matter how good their grades were.
Normally thinking, now was not the time to make waves.
They should be smarter about how they handled this.
But those girls had heard a certain name: Kamijou Touma.
"Let's get started. Let's blow a hole right through that building."
"You never change, do you?"
Metal could be heard fitting together with ominous sounds. Even if it had been turned to scrap and dismantled by its owner, the A. A. A. was still the A. A. A.
Once it had accepted someone as its owner, it would move like a living creature when they desired it and it now attached all around the slender girl. It may have been designed to cause harm, but when it was this obedient, it actually felt quite admirable.
Shokuhou Misaki breathed an exasperated sigh.
"But are you sure this is okay? You might have learned the A. A. A. 's core is something like an antenna, but you still don't know why you get the nosebleeds. We don't know how it's putting a burden on you, but it probably has something to do with your head. Rely on it at random and it might trip you up when you really need it."
"But holding back isn't going to help here. To be honest, I'm several laps behind and I can't stand on the same stage as that idiot. I feel like I can only just barely catch up if I accept these risks!!"
"Like. I. Was. Saying."
Shokuhou placed a finger on her own lips and winked.
She seemed to be joking, but she was showing her respect for the girl who had exposed her own weakness instead of hiding it.
"If I control your mind, wouldn't we at least be able to share the burden?"
Mikoto had never even considered that.
She looked confused and answered the question with a question of her own.
"... Why would you go that far?"
"I will never tell you."
That alone she said bluntly.
"My #5 Mental Out can't control your mind because your #3 Railgun rejects it. But that's because you're subconsciously rejecting my invasion ability. Although that's not too surprising."
"What about it?"
"Question: is that rejection still in place? Will you still reject me if I'm trying to help you save him, no matter what my reasons might be?"
"I don't know how to remove the wall."
"It would certainly be nice if we could all control our subconscious. We're not all expert shogi players or pro golfers, so we don't have our own zone."
Misaka Mikoto once more looked across Shokuhou Misaki's body from head to toe.
And she spoke honestly.
"There's no way we can get along."
"I appreciate the honesty."
"You're extremely suspicious. You sound needlessly full of yourself despite being in the same year as me."
"But now it's starting to piss me off."
"And I can't stand that useless flesh that just annoys me to no end."
"That has nothing to do with this!!"
Yes, no matter how hard they tried, they could never get along. They both triggered biological disgust in the other. It was like someone had gathered everything that irritated them and gave it human form. They could not just flip a switch and get along because it was an emergency.
So they had just one point in common.
Misaka Mikoto asked a question.
"Are you worried about that idiot?"
"That's what I've been saying."
Part 16
And then two locations overlapped.
With the rumbling of the air being compressed, Misaka Mikoto once more sliced through Academy City's blue skies while wearing the A. A. A.
She had a single destination: the center of District 7, aka the Windowless Building.
"!! That is one hell of a headache you have!"
"Now do you understand my pain?"
"But, Misaka-san, do you just have bad posture? Your shoulders are really stiff even though you don't have much of a chest."
"Why must you be so annoying even when you're linked to my head!?"
It was not just Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki who were linked. The thoughts of whoever the A. A. A. 's core was linked to were mixed in as well. Although those were only fragmentary indicators that could not be converted into clear language.
But the words seemed to begin outnumbering the noise as she got closer.
She still could not see the whole picture.
But she could tell that this mystery person was strongly focused on that boy's name.
And that was enough.
"We're up against the Windowless Building which supposedly not even a nuke can destroy. What if my Railgun can't break through the wall!?"
"Well, I have heard some silly rumors that it didn't budge even after the #1 used the rotation of the earth to attack it. However..."
The other girl whispered in her mind.
She maintained the nuance of a mischievous and heated sigh.
"We don't have to hold back for the #1's sake. Let's work together and make an unprecedented record☆"
Shokuhou Misaki's power controlled people's minds, but she technically did so by controlling the miniature bits of liquid in the body.
And since adjusting the salinity could provide conductivity to that liquid, it could also be influenced by electromagnetic powers such as the Lorentz force.
On top of that, the real bottleneck with the destructive force of Mikoto's Railgun was the air resistance. If she simply launched a coin 50 meters, the frictional heat would entirely vaporize it, but that conversation of speed into heat of course caused a loss of kinetic energy.
So.
What if?
What if that Railgun was fired when that friction could be reduced or neutralized?
The Liquid Proof Railgun.
With the limits on distance and speed removed, it produced endlessly frightening destructive power.
She no longer used the frictional heat as the brakes. She reversed that way of thinking. The slight coating of liquid on the coin's surface took away its heat and cooled it. And when that liquid explosively expanded as steam, it gave the coin even more speed. Instead of simply being carried by its initial speed, it accelerated more and more as it flew. The tiny shell gained limitless speed as it produced a thin, spear-like contrail and was absorbed by the impressive wall of the Windowless Building.
This was not possible with just any water manipulating power.
The fine control used to manipulate the liquid in the brain to control the information there was needed to place a special lattice pattern on the surface of the coin. This required precision far greater than the ablation that protected a space shuttle from the atmosphere's heat by melting in just the right way despite being nothing more than a plastic lattice.
The scenery grew distorted.
The impregnable Windowless Building was mercilessly torn into as if the coin were breaking through the wall of space itself.
She did not understand all the details.
But she could myopically make some guesses about the problem right in front of her eyes.
So that girl shouted the words that rose up from deep in her heart.
"There are lives that were saved just because you were here. There are people who were given courage just because you ran forward. So don't hesitate!! I assure you that the path you walked was the right one and that it created a great many possibilities. If something about you is rejected as wrong, then I'll open it all up and explain this to you!! So, so, so!! No matter what anyone says and no matter what logic they use against you! Stay true to your own paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaath!!!!!!"
Part 17
That was all.
Does that seem strange?
But it only took the girl's words reaching his ears.
That boy once more clenched his right fist as tight as he could.
The empty vision of silver and gray was nowhere to be found. The person waiting for him now was the true Aleister Crowley.
Part 18
In truth, not even those girls may have known which one had done it.
"... Phew."
Shokuhou Misaki, Academy City's #5 Level 5, aka Metal Out, sighed in a distant location.
Nothing she did would allow that boy to remember what she looked like.
They could not share their memories and he would forget her no matter how much time they spent together.
Not even if she made full use of her powers as the #5.
But this was different.
It would all be remembered as Misaka Mikoto's words and Misaka Mikoto's actions.
But that meant the girl could leave her mark on him.
A vibrant sound burst out.
Shokuhou Misaki had slapped both her cheeks.
And then the girl took a new step forward after standing in place for so very long.
This time, it did not matter if it was the #3 or the #5.
The girl gave a fierce smile and spoke.
"Now, it's time for a bit of a rampage."
"Now, it's time for a bit of a rampage."
Between the Lines 2
Unlike the older age that called itself a renaissance but still required explaining the world through the existing Christian framework, the age in which natural science such as the steam engine finally swept across the world may have felt like the end of a long winter for the magicians.
The magic cabal with the Golden name was born in that age of steam and gas lights. They did not blindly accept the information written in the bible, looked instead to the ancient religions from before the bible's creation, and attempted to learn how they had changed as they were passed down to the modern age.
Partially due to the Hermeticism they were born from, the Golden magicians tended to look to the Egyptian legends of which traces were found on the African continent across the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, the Golden cabal tended to name their temples after Egyptian gods such as Isis or Osiris.
Aleister Crowley had already been sick of the goodness and justice proclaimed by Christianity, so that had to have been a comfortable age for him.
That Golden cabal eventually broke apart due to ugly internal strife between humans, but even after the Golden cabal's fall, that magician continued to talk about the Aeons of Isis, Osiris, and Horus. And in his later years, he released his own version of tarot which borrowed the name of Thoth.
The Thoth Tarot.
Unlike the normal GD Tarot, he mostly redid the 22 cards of the major arcana. The older tarot predicted an age when the final judgment would be given and people would continue on to the next stage, but by swapping out the images, Crowley's version insisted that the final judgment had already occurred in 1904 and the current age was the Aeon of Horus in which Christian rule had been eliminated.
So what happened in 1904?
If you rely on his own personal view, the answer was as follows:
He contacted the Holy Guardian Angel named Aiwass.
And the original grimoire known as the Book of the Law was released into the world.
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