Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter7
Chapter 7: Arrival of Catastrophe
Part 1
The ceremony had succeeded. The gatekeeper was defeated.
The upside-down U of the double doors made of sparkling wine stone had opened and something was visible through them. It looked as unstable as a mirage and gave off a terrifying sense that it would suck everything in like a black hole.
That was the Strange Underpass.
The former slaver woman sighed at the sight of it.
Her voice contained a hint of resignation, or maybe of getting over something.
“Good grief. Now I feel silly focusing so much on money. Why don’t I just use magic ceremonies to give me everything I need for an ideal life?”
The old mayor and guild receptionist wiped sweat from their brows and viewed everything around them.
Thoughtfully.
“To think a joint task between humans and elves would actually succeed.”
“I don’t like that we can’t keep the gate open, though.”
Lavender the Knight and Brain the Butler were focused on the result of the recent battle.
They must have needed a certain level of satisfaction to feel they could continue on by themselves without relying on slaves.
“Milady, you have finally become a commander who can win the battles she wants to win no matter how poor the odds.”
“Heh heh. How could they have ever lost when I, Lavender, was helping them!?”
The sneakthief-faced lord was focused on the world’s economy.
Someone who could look to the realistic issues more than his own pride or appearance might be useful now that this world had stopped using slaves.
“The most important task is to help the economy recover from the fulgurite crash. How well you can recover without slaves may determine the next world leader.”
The king served by the two witches viewed the gate curiously.
The witches viewed it with more exasperation.
“It would seem the gate only goes one way.”
“I would recommend not touching it unless you have a strong sense of purpose.”
“That’s right, sister. Our job is to create happiness here in Celesaqphere.”
Whoever that was from the Hegemony held her head high in meaningless pride.
She was apparently quite strong in an ordinary battle.
“Heh. I wouldn’t expect anything less from someone who could defeat me, the Queen of Explosions.”
The superpower’s king nodded just once.
He spoke as if he had already seen what form the next age would take.
“A world with no privileged class, hm? What that world of freedom and equality looks like may be dependent on how we live our lives.”
“Patissiet.”
Mikoto called to the nearby elf and reached up to the side of her own head.
She removed one of her hairpins and placed it in Patissiet’s hand.
“Maybe it would be better not to leave a memento, but if you want it.”
“Thank you, Lady Misaka.”
Maybe it was because the three treasures ceremony was complete and maybe it was because she had to say goodbye to Mikoto and Shokuhou so soon, but she held the hairpin between her hands, which she held to her flat chest while speaking with great emotion in her voice.
“It is finally time…”
“It sure is,” said the two girls with a nod and weary smiles.
A dull “crash!!!” rang out.
Bikini armor Mikoto and dancer Shokuhou hadn’t hesitated to throw their fists at each other.
They pulled off a cross counter right away.
Their refreshing smiles were distorted by the punches.
The lack of hesitation showed they had both planned to betray the other from the beginning.
“We said we’d cooperate until we had a way home.”
“That’s right. I kept you around until now because I was worried about the two goddesses part of the ceremony’s incantation ability, but now I’m going home to a peaceful world without you!!”
Mikoto and Shokuhou butted heads hard.
And they rubbed their foreheads together.
Everyone else watched on, dumbfounded.
The two girls glared into each other’s eyes from point-blank range and spat out their words simultaneously.
Part 2
“Are you stupid? Why would anyone ever trust you? A lazy, scheming ball of fat like you shouldn’t be anything more than a low-level grinding monster jiggling at the farthest reaches of some other world. There’s no way I’m going back to Earth with you. It just isn’t happening. I mean, your power is to brainwash people. I just can’t stand that. And what kind of childhood did you even have to mess up your personality so bad that’s the power your scheming heart ended up with? This wasn’t a case of your Personal Reality getting messed up – it’s a deeper personality issue. When people ask if you’re really in middle school, it’s not cause they think you’re older than that. Oh, no. The way you talk and your weird obsessions are just so childish people think you must be in elementary school. Did you pick up on that? You didn’t? Didn’t think so. Is there anything more impervious than a thick head that converts every insult into a compliment? And to be clear, that wasn’t a compliment either. And about that rule of yours where you only eat natural ingredients without any artificial additives. That’s completely and utterly meaningless. Even if you buy ingredients from a farm that specifically avoids using chemical fertilizers, you have to remember that the knives, cutting boards, pots, and other kitchen equipment are all washed in chemical detergents and the water used to cook with it is tap water full of chlorine, so you’re not getting away from it at all. Must be nice to have the wonderful skill to ignore any and all inconvenient facts. And when it comes to being sexy, it’s not like a school test where you can get a perfect score everyone agrees with. And keeping up with the latest fashions is the same as listening to art critics who just praise whatever appeals to their personal fetishes. Working so hard to appeal other people’s kinks just makes you a pervert. Not to mention an exhibitionist. Tokiwadai is supposed to be a school for proper young ladies, so what the hell are you doing there? Could you stop competing to see who can be the most indecent? Or at least stop obsessing over it? Maybe that’s asking too much since that seems to be your purpose in life and you just love keeping your skin all smooth and shiny, but it makes being around you a trial. I’m so sick of it. You’re honestly even worse than Kuroko. Have you ever asked yourself what it’s like having a pervert visit you day in and day out? Can I just pay you 300 yen to make you go away? Here, I’ll drop it on the ground, so crawl over, pick it up, and get lost. You disgust me on a fundamental level. Do you get it now? No one can compete with your ability to forget inconvenient facts, so is that the secret behind the Personal Reality that created Mental Out? No, forget it. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. There’s no point in arguing with someone who converts every single thing into a compliment. I’m smart enough to recognize a lost cause when I see one, so just keep your mouth shut before you cause more trouble. Why don’t you understand the best thing you can possibly do is shut up and go away!!?”
“You’re basically a walking violation of the laws against guns and swords, so it’s probably best if you didn’t return to Japan. Do you have any idea how much trouble ability you cause for everyone? Thinking you can get away with anything as long as you have a just cause is a very dangerous way of thinking. That’s how terrorists think. So Academy City was basically handing weapons to a terrorist with you. One of the worst mistakes they’ve ever made. And what’s with that weird Gekota mascot thing? That obsession of yours is completely at odds with how you shoot arcade coins at three times the speed of sound. How about a little consistency? Are you trying to confuse people? And let’s not forget how you wear shorts under your skirt. Was it so impossible for you to correct your own unladylike behavior you had to do that instead? If only you could grow up. Oh, I’m sorry. I should know better than to except you to grow in any way, shape, or form. It was cruel of me to ask that of someone with the flattest of flat chests, wasn’t it? Don’t start bawling, though. Because I can’t imagine anything more annoying. Also, I simply can’t believe you can eat any old thing without investigating what kind of chemicals it has in it when you’re going through the Curriculum that involves injecting you with special drugs alongside the hypnotic suggestion and electric shocks. What is your secret to staying so ignorant? I’d really like to know. Not because I want to live like that though because I absolutely do not. And what kind of mindset led to you developing a power as violent as the Railgun? Did you know actual humans aren’t monsters who eat batteries and circulate machine oil? You’re an enigma from a biology standpoint, so I hope academia can get off their butts and prove that you are neither human nor animal. That would eliminate so much confusion from the world and everyone would be able to sleep a lot sounder at night. Are you even aware how much trouble your very existence causes? Did you think roundhouse kicking vending machines, picking fights with high schoolers, and blasting the city with billion-volt electricity was normal? You did? Huh, fascinating. You feel so little guilt about your misdeeds you could probably start your own cult. Would you purify everyone’s sins by taking them onto your own irresponsible shoulders? Disgusting. I bet the driving force at the root of your being is loneliness. You can’t trust anyone, so you keep your distance. The way you try to solve all your problems on your own is the most obvious way that manifests, but you have an icy heart that trusts machines more than people, don’t you? That would explain where you got that Personal Reality from. I rejected people’s minds after getting to know them too well, but you never even tried to get to know them. I wouldn’t complain if you would just go off and die on your own, but you insist on taking out your frustrations on the people around you. If you hate people that much, why don’t you go visit a desert island so remote it only has a number for a name and protect the country’s front line from there? Not that anyone’s going to attack. When you get down to it, you can’t seem to decide whether you want to be feared as the ultimate fighter or to be protected as a damsel in distress. And that causes constant trouble for everyone around you!!!”
Part 3
Even as Mikoto and Shokuhou grappled, they recalled the contract they had made with Reincarnation Goddess Salinagaritina: any world is fine as long as she’s not in it.
The reincarnation goddess hadn’t been saying she would bring them to a world where they could settle their differences.
Only one of them would be returning.
Then Earth could fit that definition.
Bikini armor Mikoto pulled out an arcade coin and dropped it. Dancer Shokuhou started to aim her TV remote before throwing it aside.
After the three treasures ceremony and the battle with the dorm manager from hell, the Level 5 girls were too worn out to even use their powers properly.
So what?
At this point, it came down to a one-on-one fistfight.
They saw the “let’s settle this” look in each other’s eyes.
So they were confident the other felt the same way they did.
“I-I’m never trusting humans again!! Wahhhhhh!!!”
The elf felt betrayed and wept. She must have been expecting a beautiful ending of newfound friendship after everyone – enemy and ally – worked together to defeat the final boss.
Such purity.
But no one from Celesaqphere had any way of actually intervening and stopping those two.
“Gahhhhhhh!!”
“Gwohhhhhh!?”
The two girls shouted from the bottom of their gut and charged at each other from point-blank range. Mikoto threw a punch and Shokuhou just barely dodged by tripping over nothing.
No one tried to stop them.
Their intensity was too frightening.
“Did you think you could defeat me in a physical battle without a plan? You know that isn’t your style.”
“I might prefer mind games, but I have my pride.”
There was no logic to it. It wasn’t even about their personal preferences. This confrontation must have been destined from the moment they were born.
They felt certain they were linked in that way.
“Rahhh!!!” “Rahhh!!!”
First, Shokuhou gathered strength in her shoulders and made a full-body tackle.
Holding Shokuhou back with her arms, Mikoto slammed her forehead down into Shokuhou’s back.
“Tch.”
“Why you!!”
After moving a bit apart on their knees, their hands flew at the same moment.
Shokuhou still went with a slap, but Mikoto threw an actual punch.
Slipping past the cross counter, Mikoto landed her fist directly in the center of the queen’s lovely face. Shokuhou’s slap found only air.
“Gh!?”
Shokuhou grunted but somehow managed to stop herself from staggering back. She was past complaining about being unathletic. She was out of breath and dizzy, but her adrenaline temporarily forced her mind past the weariness and pain.
But before she could make a counterattack, Mikoto made her next move.
Mikoto grabbed the long blonde hair spreading in the wind.
While Mikoto had short hair and wore solid bikini armor, Shokuhou had long hair, wore a dancer outfit with lots of frilly parts, and even wore a handbag diagonally across her chest. That gave Mikoto plenty of handholds to grab at.
“You’d better not call foul at this point!!”
A second punch exploded out at close range.
A metallic smell splattered out.
But it was Mikoto who groaned.
Shokuhou had guarded her face with an arm wrapped in a thin cloth. Mikoto’s fist had hit that, but it felt odd.
Shokuhou had placed her hard plastic remote below the cloth.
The punch had only damaged Mikoto’s fist.
“What was that about not calling foul!?”
Shokuhou had some room for movement even with her long hair in Mikoto’s grasp. She swung a cloth containing several remotes, aiming for the side of Mikoto’s head. That was a makeshift morning star.
“What is that, a convict’s handmade weapon!?”
Pissed, Mikoto threw sand in Shokuhou’s face. Technically, it was the fine dust created by breaking the stone floor during the fight with the dorm manager.
Blinded, it was Shokuhou who staggered.
Mikoto didn’t overlook the opportunity.
She stomped hard on Shokuhou’s foot to keep her from moving and thrust both her palms out in front. Unable to see it coming, Shokuhou fell hard. To keep Mikoto from climbing on top of her, Shokuhou rolled to the side.
“Did you think you could get away like that!?”
“Gah!?”
Shokuhou felt a great pressure.
Mikoto had used her thighs to constrict her right arm and neck.
With clean pressure on her carotid artery, she would pass out in less than 30 seconds.
“When you get to hell, tell them a middle schooler’s thighs sent you!!”
“Ghhh...chomp!!”
An unthinkable pain caused Mikoto to release the chokehold and spring to her feet. Of all things, Shokuhou had bit Mikoto’s calf hard.
“Is nothing off limits for you!?”
Quite a thing to say after grabbing her hair and blinding her.
They both got up.
They glared at each other.
That was all it took. With no signal, they both raised their voices and charged.
Part 4
A great roar exploded out and blood splattered onto the sparkling wine floor.
Misaka Mikoto’s lip was split and Shokuhou Misaki’s nose was bleeding.
The elves watched in disbelief, but for a different reason from before. They weren’t just overwhelmed by the intensity and trembling in fear. A different emotion was beginning to warm their hearts.
Even as they bled and grimaced in pain, those girls still looked just as beautiful.
In fact, this seemed to unveil a deeper inner beauty.
“Pant, pant.”
“Phew!!”
The girls known here as goddesses would never admit it, but they were completely in sync here in their desire to settle things once and for all.
Everyone sensed that the next attack would end it.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!” “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
Their arms crossed.
The wind roared dully.
Instead of slicing like a blade, this torrent of violence smashed like a hammer.
It felt like the sound came first and everything else quickly caught up.
Shokuhou Misaki had thrown a right punch with all her might.
Misaka Mikoto had swung up her right leg for a high kick. It was the move she had trained up attacking that vending machine day after day.
Silence followed.
One of them wobbled to the side.
“…”
“It’s not great for real battles since I have to stop moving, but for one single attack, a leg has more reach and power than an arm.”
Part 5
The last one standing was Misaka Mikoto.
She would return alone.
Part 6
“Ugh.”
Misaka Mikoto realized that was her groaning.
She had journeyed and fought across Celesaqphere for so long, but strangely it felt like she hadn’t spoken in a long time. She forced her stuck vocal cords to move and tried to get some kind of sound out.
But when she checked her phone, she found only three days had passed.
The midterms weren’t even over.
Their theory about life support devices and about time flowing at different rates appeared to have been correct.
She took her time pulling back the covers and didn’t find bikini armor anywhere. She was wearing ordinary pajamas.
The ordinary was back.
“…”
There was a curtain separating them, but she sensed someone in the next bed over.
She chose not to check that bed as she changed into her uniform and left the hospital.
The sun was shining in a cloudless sky.
Finding the ordinary Academy City all around her brought tears to her eyes.
She was back.
She was really back.
“But what do I do now?”
She wanted to see Shirai Kuroko.
Uiharu or Saten would work too.
Or maybe she should be a little more daring. Right now, she felt she could meet that pointy-haired boy without getting into a fight. She was so thankful for everything about Earth she didn’t want to bring violence into it.
“No.”
She didn’t need to plan it.
She decided to walk through the city and be thankful for anyone she happened across.
And she spoke without thinking.
“Honestly, never a dull moment in this ci-”
She stopped before finishing the sentence.
Her smile froze.
She had seen something.
Something she absolutely should not have seen.
“No… Heh, heh heh. Eh heh heh. You’re kidding, right?”
Her own voice sounded fake. This world suddenly felt a lot less real.
She had seen someone walking toward her from beyond the horizon.
They wavered like a mirage.
She now had tears in her eyes for a very different reason.
“Misaaakaaa-saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!! This isn’t overrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”
That girl had left the bounds of humanity.
She looked like a demon.
It was said a beautiful woman was uniquely frightening when angered, but this went far beyond that.
Her long blonde hair was floating a bit.
“Wh-what- but? The three treasures ceremony was over. You were supposed to be stuck in Celesaqphere forever!!”
“Time flows differently between the two worlds. After you left, I used the three treasures to do the ceremony a second time☆ To be honest, I’m relieved I wasn’t thrown a hundred years into the future!!!”
And someone walked alongside the beautiful demon.
The short girl had long ears.
“Oh! There’s the one who left on her own. You were supposed to being Lady Shokuhou with you.”
“!!!???”
She was there.
That elf was here on Earth!?
Was that allowed?
Wasn’t that an even more dangerous abnormality than Shokuhou’s presence!?
“This is apparently a life-size doll. I can apparently travel between worlds in the same way the two of you came to Celesaqphere using an out-of-body experience, so I am using a temporary body to move around in this world.”
“So for our world, it’s like a bisque doll is walking around?”
Apparently that let her ignore the question of what kind of influence a supposedly nonexistent elf’s presence on Earth would have on the environment around her.
It was a mystery what such a realistic elf doll was doing in Academy City, though.
“Why did you have to help her with the ceremony, Patissiet!? She’d be stuck in the Strange Underpass Cathedral otherwise!!”
“But, um, we all discussed it together and decided it would hurt the power balance if she stayed… With Lady Shokuhou in Celesaqphere, we feared we would end up having the one queen with every other form of life as her slaves.”
(So they decided that “goddess” was too much trouble to keep around? Pff! But it makes sense a world that just freed all its slaves wouldn’t want the ultimate brainwashing queen hanging around. …Ha, ah ha ha. So maybe Shokuhou’s bloody tears here are about more than just me leaving without her?)
An awkward silence fell.
Mikoto hesitantly spoke to the lonely girl.
“Um, uh.”
“Grrrrrr.”
“So…is this headed where I think it is?”
“…for rou…”
“No, wait, that was a mistake. I can’t leave that choice with you right now. If we follow the timeline back, it’s only been three days since we nearly died in that propane tank explosion, so we need to think about our midterms! There’s no reason at all to put our lives at risk again here, so it seems to me it would be a good idea for both of us to just calm dow-”
“It’s time for round twooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”
