Chapter 136: The Bloodied Exterior Path
"...Have you calmed down a little?"
"Y-Yeah. Thank you..."
After that.
For now, I had taken the girl—who seemed to have lost her composure—and brought her to a café to let her catch her breath. (I left the task of keeping an eye on Misaka and the others to Xochitl and her group.) Saying that, I looked across the table at the girl in front of me.
She looked about elementary school age. But she carried an oddly mature air about her. How to put it... she seemed to hold values different from an ordinary student. Not to the extent of someone from the dark side, but still...
I glanced sideways at Index, sitting next to me.
She, on the other hand, already seemed to have entered "serious mode" from the moment things started off so tensely. ...Hmm. Kihara Amata, Shokuhou Misaki—whichever way you slice it, they’re firmly on the science side. I really don’t want to drag Index into this... …No, it’s impossible to take her off the board at this point. It can’t be helped. If it comes down to it, we’ll protect her.
...Wait, hold on. Today’s September 30th, which means... Volume 12 and 13 overlap! I’d been focused on the date with Misaka-san and Vento of the Front’s plot, but wasn’t this also when Last Order was kidnapped by Amata!?
If that’s the case, does that mean Amata is actually targeting Shokuhou-san...? At this point, things are already straying pretty far from the original flow...
No, wait. The reason Amata originally targeted Last Order was because Vento of the Front’s attack had paralyzed Academy City’s functions, forcing them to manifest Fuse=Kazakiri as a countermeasure. So if Amata’s already in motion... doesn’t that mean Vento might have already started moving too...?
...Ah!!
《Reicia-chan!》
《What is it? Is something troubling you?》
《...…No, never mind.》
Good. Still safe for now...
If Vento had actually activated the Divine Punishment spell, then the hostility toward her buried in Reicia-chan’s "True History" knowledge would’ve reacted immediately.
I don’t know how they’d judge us with our dual-personality situation, but it’s better to avoid unnecessary risks. ...Which also means this could get tricky. From now on, I’ll have to carefully hide the truth about Vento from Reicia-chan while we move forward...
"...Miss Black-and-White Sawblade Jagged Edge?"
"Oh, no. I was just thinking a little."
At any rate, the biggest source of information right now was sitting right in front of me.
"Could I ask your name?"
Saying that, I met the girl’s eyes across the table.
From the words "Uncle Amata," she was most likely connected to the Kihara family. But the fact that she was trying to save Shokuhou-san suggested she might be an exception like Kagun-san or Noukan-sensei.
"Nayuta."
The girl—Nayuta-san—answered briefly.
"Kihara Nayuta. I belong to the Advanced Education Bureau’s special school corporation, RFA—Judgment, the Public Morals Committee."
Finale Chapter: As If Turning the Whole World Into an Enemy — Are_You_Ready?
Episode 110: The Bloodied Exterior Path — Blood_Sign.
Kihara.
Even when I heard that name, while my body stiffened, I wasn’t shocked.
I had half-expected it. The real issue wasn’t there. What mattered was why Amata was targeting Shokuhou-san now, and how Nayuta knew about it.
"I, you see..."
After wetting her throat with a sip of tea, Nayuta began with that line.
"My original body is hardly flesh and blood anymore."
"...In other words, a cyborg?"
Gensei too had originally been a cyborg. Though he had gone on to evolve into something far stranger, Nayuta hadn’t reached that point—at least not yet.
"Correct. It all happened through experiments... For example—trials where they tried to implant inside me a power different from esper abilities. Something from outside Academy City."
At those words, both Index and I gasped at the same time.
...M-Magic!? No, wait. There was that story about Academy City once cooperating with the English Puritans, running experiments to see if espers could use magic. Could it be—this girl was one of the subjects!?
"Did you know? When an esper tries to wield an outside power, their blood vessels and nerves literally rupture."
Nayuta said it in the same offhand tone one might use for small talk.
...I couldn’t even imagine the pain it involved. Yet this girl—the descendant of a family of researchers—spoke with composure about the hell she had endured as nothing more than a test subject.
A first-rate scientist also makes for a first-rate guinea pig.
Somehow, that cynical thought crossed my mind as I watched her.
"...That’s because espers and magicians use different circuits," Index said, her gaze toward Nayuta filled with pity.
"Espers expand their neural circuits through power development. I’m no expert, so this is conjecture, but I suspect they run on a system different from magicians—one that converts lifeforce, mana, into another kind of power. In that state, if they try to refine lifeforce into magical energy... the circuits are already filled with something else. It overloads, causing massive damage."
"...Huh? Then, Sister, are you from the outside...?"
Looking puzzled, Nayuta tilted her head, but then continued.
"Yes, that’s right. Which means, as long as an esper possesses an AIM Diffusion Field, they can never safely use magic. Not unless... they had two bodies."
"...…"
Two bodies...?
...The first thing that flashed in my mind was the Doppelgänger. But I quickly realized that wasn’t it.
The Doppelgänger technique only substituted body parts with machines—it never reproduced a full human body. It didn’t mimic nerves or blood vessels.
Of course, if one pushed the technology further, maybe it could reach that level... but recreating neural circuits would demand operations with millimeter precision. Precision to control blood flow and electrical signals at that scale...
"...I see. So that’s where Shokuhou-san comes in."
I thought it through, and it finally made sense.
Sure enough, if you could scientifically analyze Mental Out—the ability to fundamentally manipulate moisture—you could theoretically apply that to form circuits outside the body using fluids. That way, even an esper could acquire an external circuit to channel mana and use sorcery.
…But still…
"But I can’t accept that. Even if Misaki-san had such an ability, her powers may be versatile but they aren’t omnipotent. To form circuits for sorcery—'another type of power'—wouldn’t that be impossible?"
"Yeah, that’s true. Even with big sister Mental Out’s ability, she couldn’t just construct another circuit—Blood Sign—completely without hints. But if there was a hint?"
At that point, Nayuta-san’s explanation twisted in the worst possible direction.
"To tell the truth, my real body is currently imprisoned by Amata-ojisan."
……!!!!
"‘Substitution’ is Souji-nii’s specialty, after all… Doppelgänger. If I put it that way, big sister Jagged Edge should understand, right? Right now, I’m moving and acting through ‘another me’ like this. The real me is asleep, locked up in a lab by Amata-ojisan."
"…Meaning,"
"That’s right. Meaning, as things stand, Amata-ojisan holds the ‘hint.’ The memories of me, sealed with a power different from Academy City’s."
The picture was coming together. In short, Amata wanted Misaki to read Nayuta’s memories and extract the "recipe" needed to create Blood Sign.
…But.
"But that…"
"Yeah. Just looking at the memories probably wouldn’t be enough to get the recipe. You’d have to merge with the ‘me’ inside them, go through the experience of your whole body exploding… and not just once or twice. You’d have to repeat it over and over."
Of course, enduring that kind of excruciating pain countless times would shred anyone’s psyche. No—such a horrific experience would, without question, reduce anyone to a broken husk unless they had the mental fortitude of someone like Touma-san.
"And that’s not all. Even if it’s unstable, the fact that magic is being woven means sorcery knowledge is being referenced on some level. I don’t know what the long-haired one’s ability really is, but to repeatedly chew over sorcery—knowledge of another world—no matter how you look at it, that’s dangerous."
Worryingly, both science and sorcery pointed to the same conclusion. If Misaki Shokuhou fell into Kihara Amata’s hands, her mind would be shattered for sure.
"I think Amata-ojisan has already factored that in. He’ll turn big sister Mental Out into nothing more than a device to spit out abilities, lock down the recipe for Blood Sign, and then… he’ll try to create a ‘Double Face’—an esper who can wield both systems."
Even considering the incidents of "New Testament," Mental Out’s Five Over was already nearly complete. If Blood Sign were truly realized, mass production would be within reach. That would mean the science side could even steal the sorcery side’s exclusive domain. Just what kind of nightmare tech was about to be unleashed here…?
"…In any case, I understand the situation. It’s certain Misaki-san will be targeted by Amata. In that case, I have no reason not to cooperate with you, Nayuta-san. …This time, Index, you’ll help as well, won’t you?"
If the matter involved sorcery, then Index’s cooperation was worth a hundred allies.
After all, if Amata was plotting to combine esper abilities with spells, there was even the possibility he already possessed several rituals. (Setting aside when exactly he managed to acquire them…)
"...For now, that’s a relief. But it doesn’t look like things are going to move along so easily."
At that moment, Nayuta-san rose sharply to her feet and turned her gaze behind us. Most likely, her cyborg detection systems had picked something up.
We, a little slower, confirmed it through airflow detection—feeling the presence of a boy slowly approaching from behind.
"...An errand boy again? You really have no originality."
The words slipped from my mouth before I knew it.
Reicia-chan also stood, turning around. What awaited us there was a short-haired boy.
He wore a navy tracksuit with a white lab coat thrown over it, a researcher exuding that kind of "deliberately painted-over roughness" that somehow still suggested intelligence.
"Since you bring no surprises, I’ll just crush you quickly. Kihara Souji."
"You’re so cold, Blackguard-san. C’mon, play with me just a liiittle!!"
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