Chapter 150: The Original Trigger

"Now then, let’s deal with the immediate problem."

Aleister spoke while twirling his silver staff as if it were a conductor’s baton.

"For starters, one person needs to leave."

The next instant, it happened.

WHAM!!! Terra was blasted to the left, his body flung away before anyone could even register the flash of a white blade tearing through the windowless building. In that single moment, one of God’s Right Seat—the very man who had destroyed the King of the Scientific City’s residence and marked a decisive turning point in the long history split between science and magic—was erased from the battlefield.

"Wha…!?"

"No time to gape, Black-and-White Sawblade Jagged Edge."

Even Reicia, who prided herself on composure, was struck speechless by how effortlessly the man had been removed.

And yet, despite having just taken down a magician counted among the greatest of two billion, Aleister spoke as if it meant nothing.

"From. This. Point. On. We. Run. Stay. Here. And. We. Die."

A clear and undeniable declaration of defeat.

Final Chapter: I Don’t Know Anything About Predetermined Harmony  -  Theory_"was"_Broken.
Chapter 124: The Original Trigger  -  Near-Death_Promiss.

"Aleister!!"

It had been maybe ten minutes. After sprinting nonstop through the early morning streets, they finally reached the center of District 7. That was when Reicia could no longer hold herself back and shouted. Aleister, running ahead, had been almost entirely silent up to now. Reicia herself had been too busy trying to process the sudden upheaval of their situation to say anything earlier. But ten minutes of running had given her enough time to sort through her thoughts.

Aleister Crowley. The root cause of everything.

With him right in front of her, the questions came pouring out.

"What is it? Well, since you’re a party to all this, I’ll answer a few questions—if you can keep running while you ask."

"I have nothing but questions! That so-called Near-Death Contract, the ‘Promiss,’ for one! But more importantly—what on earth is happening right now, and just how deeply are you involved in this mess!?"

"What’s this? If that’s all you want to ask, the answer is simple."

Aleister’s tone carried a hint of disappointment, then he said:

"It’s simple. His-to-ry has just con-verged."

"…What?"

The words hit her like a hammer—nonsensical, incomprehensible.

Before Reicia could even begin to catch up, Aleister continued.

"History is, at its base, a single line. Imagine a corkboard with a rubber band stretched across it. Parallel worlds aren’t separate bands of history. They’re points where that one band has been pulled and pinned to the board."

His explanation flowed smoothly, like a teacher lecturing a class.

"When a pin fixes the future to a point different from where it should be, history bends in an unnatural direction. Events that never should have happened come to pass. For ex-am-ple… Gensei Kihara reaching ‘Dra-gon.’"

"But… but that incident! Yes, parts of it were strange, but each step of the chain was still a sequence of ordinary, explainable events! To say they were all being pushed along by some phenomenon—why, that’s nothing but an excuse, a sore loser’s—"

"Your words are faltering. Which means you’ve realized something yourself, haven’t you? Especially when it comes to your ‘roommate’—Shiren Blackguard, and the fate surrounding them."

"…!"

Reicia tried to object, but Aleister’s voice never wavered.

On the contrary, it was as if her own life had become supporting evidence for his theory.

"Even within Academy City, there exist powers that predict the future. Precognition abilities, such as Foresight Vision. You know that much, don’t you? Then it isn’t such a leap to think this: if it can be observed, then it can also be manipulated."

For a high-level esper familiar with powers rooted in observation, that was a truth too plausible to dismiss. And if something could be manipulated as an ability, then by natural consequence, it could also be manipulated by science. For those who lived in Academy City, that much was obvious. Beyond dispute.

──He compelled conviction without leaving room for rebuttal. For Aleister Crowley, wielder of the Archetype Controller that had once sundered the world into science and magic, persuasion like this was child’s play.

"And Shiren Blackguard possessed a trait—the ability to generate parallel worlds, to warp history itself."

"…!"

This time, Reicia said nothing.

No—that wasn’t accurate. More precisely, she no longer had the luxury of interrupting.

"You must see the signs yourself. The collapse of the Level 6 Shift Project. The unplanned birth of certain Level 5 espers. The rise of Gensei Kihara. The systematization of Dual Personality—Square Face. In such a short span, the activities of Reicia Blackguard as a ‘test case’ warped nearly forty percent of Academy City’s ability development model. That much is not an exaggeration."

And then, almost casually, Aleister added:

"At the same time, the parallel worlds she creates are of an extremely small scale. At most, they nudge away minor tragedies, side by side with my ‘Plan’—mere trifling distortions."

"……"

To Reicia, it was a story all too familiar.

From the perspective of someone who knew the “correct history,” the path she and her companions had walked could only be called distorted. Petty villains who were never supposed to matter had risen to become Level 5 espers. Girls who should never have stood by a “hero” had fought for his side. Technologies that should have appeared far in the future had been unveiled prematurely. They had reached into the deepest layers of the world itself—yet, even so, the broad outline of history remained unchanged.

If all of that could be explained by the trait her other half—Shiren—possessed, then even their turbulent yet strangely peaceful journey could be accounted for.

"And her so-called ‘minor distortions’—they can draw in greater distortions as well, and flatten them."

Reicia understood at once. Greater distortions. Those who could tamper with history itself as easily as breathing—the Magic Gods.

Shiren’s “minor distortions,” when corrected back into place, would also smooth over the distortions the Magic Gods caused when their very existence warped the world—like the AIM diffusion field. If that was true, then Reicia finally understood why Aleister valued Shiren so highly.

(A countermeasure against the Magic Gods…! That’s what Shiren’s existence means to this man…!)

Reicia had, of course, always found it strange.

Reicia Blackguard herself had never been a piece in the original “Plan.” From Hamazura Shiage’s example, she knew Aleister would never allow pieces outside the Plan to run rampant on the board. That was his way of playing.

And yet, Aleister had permitted her rise. That could only mean he saw some kind of value in her. She had assumed it was tied to the Dual Personality—Square Face system. But now the truth was clear.

And then there was that earlier statement—that he had “intended to summon Shiren.” The word “harvest.” And the fact that the Plan itself revolved around the growth rate of Kamijou Touma’s Imagine Breaker.

Reicia put the pieces together, and arrived at her final conclusion.

"…The Near-Death Contract—Promiss. You mean to use Shiren as nothing more than a tool to twist history however you please, don’t you?"

"To be precise—was going to. Re-st assured. The moment I summoned you by mistake, the Near-Death Promiss project was already a failure."

"So a vast conspiracy was uncovered—and collapsed—at the exact same time…"

That was the true nature of the man called Aleister Crowley.

"There were many factors, but the greatest was that Shiren chose—consciously—to converge history into ‘the form she desired.’ …The case of the Doppelgänger retaining individual existence is a prime example. Hah, things never go as smoothly as one might hope."

"That too—was Shiren’s doing?"

"Indeed. In the correct history, the Doppelgänger should have lost any means of interacting with the outside world in exchange for healing Ryoko Kuriba’s injuries. …Though in truth, that was the result of calculations performed with the Tree Diagram on the basis of a ‘historical distortion.’"

The phrase “historical distortion” alone was enough to make Reicia bristle—but there was another remark she found even more impossible to ignore.

"…Tree Diagram? You mean the Tree Diagram? That was supposed to have been discarded, wasn’t it?"

"That too is a distortion. In correct history, Tree Diagram should have been destroyed. In this world, it was written off as a critical bug and ‘discarded.’ But in truth—it was merely made to look discarded, and continues to run as a computation device with access privileges granted to me alone."

"My… I have no words for this."

Reicia already knew the collapse of the Level 6 Shift Project had been part of Aleister’s Plan. So she could imagine that Aleister had forced the disposal of Tree Diagram to prevent it from recalculating and relaunching the project. But now that he said it, there had been no reason to truly throw it away.

This, then, was Aleister Crowley in his purest form—turning even failure into personal advantage. By this point, Reicia was beginning to grasp the essence of the “human” standing before her.

"Now, to return to the first point—thanks to your efforts up until now, the world had been moving in a ‘slightly better’ direction. For example, when Stiyl Magnus captured Sherry Cromwell peacefully, the tension between science and magic diminished. When the Croce di Pietro plan failed, Roman Catholic hostility toward Academy City eased. In correct history, those frictions would have sparked worldwide protests and riots among the Christian faithful, which in turn would have provided the motive for God’s Right Seat to move. But in this history, thanks to your actions, none of that occurred."

"…"

Come to think of it, that was true.

Reicia and Shiren had never managed to change the grand flow of “true history.” But they had still left behind something tangible. Those small changes, piled together, had guided history toward a future that was—if only slightly—better than the one they had known.

However, the "different future" brought about by Shiren’s interference would converge before long.

The easing of tensions between the Roman Catholic Church and Academy City eventually collapsed back into the shape of "true history." The recoil of that convergence gave birth to a certain incident.

"The trigger was Fuse=Kazakiri, who manifested during the Daihaseisai."

Aleister revealed the truth with the casualness of someone laying out a parlor trick.

"That was a recreation of their object of worship—the archangels themselves—rebuilt with the technology of this city. Put simply, her very existence was both an overwhelming show of force and the gravest possible insult. Well, I did build her to provoke exactly that response."

"Your humanity is appalling…"

"Yes, I’ve heard that often."

Aleister showed no sign of caring about Reicia’s exasperated remark, and simply continued.

"On top of that, you had Gensei present, the battles involving the Level 5 espers and Imagine Breaker, even the Kihara clan. That fight was practically a trade fair showcasing all the ‘abnormal powers’ this city holds. So how do you think Roman Catholicism reacted after being shown such an extravagant display? …Not hard to imagine, is it?"

First, they had to watch the enemy parade a monster built by imitating the very foundation of their power. Then, immediately afterward, they were forced to witness abilities so overwhelming that even that monster paled in comparison.

Naturally, when people are shown that kind of military might, their instinct is to destroy it outright. Whether that’s always true in reality is irrelevant—because in this timeline, "that’s what happened." And that very tendency to "make things happen" is Shiren’s nature.

"Which is why three of God’s Right Seat stormed Academy City at once. By the way, Terra of the Left didn’t die from that strike. He probably lowered his spell’s hierarchy at the last moment and managed to survive. Of course… any spell has a maximum durability it can be adjusted to. So if even my attack didn’t reach that threshold, it means he underestimated me."

"……?"

Reicia knew of "Execution of Light," but officially, she wasn’t supposed to, so she feigned ignorance. Even so, another detail puzzled her: why Aleister described being blocked as if he had been insulted.

The answer lay in Aleister’s weapon, the Blasting Rod. It amplified a spell’s power tenfold. In other words: if Execution of Light’s processing limit wasn’t reached even after a tenfold increase, Terra had judged Aleister’s magic too weak to bother strengthening further.

Reicia couldn’t have known this. Aleister’s arsenal had only been revealed after the incident with Kamisato Kakeru, the last event she remembered. Naturally, she had no way to connect the dots.

"Of course, if I’d truly wanted to, I could have forced my way past that limit."

"That sounds like sour grapes to me…"

"Not quite. They certainly aim straight for my life, but God’s Right Seat aren’t my only enemies. Once word spreads that I was driven from the Windowless Building, a fair number of this city’s underworld will come gunning for me, hoping to stage an overthrow. By keeping me alive, I can redirect their attention toward God’s Right Seat, who are also this city’s enemy. If handled correctly, I might even use the chaos to flush out the rebels who usually stay hidden."

For the so-called king of this city, it was a pitifully sad statement. Yet Reicia thought again—maybe it wasn’t so unreasonable.

After all, the delinquents here were the type to eagerly challenge Level 5 espers just because of a half-baked rumor that "the Number One lost to a Level 0." If the scale was the city’s underworld, then of course they’d think: “The Windowless Building’s in ruins, so this is our chance to kill Aleister and take the throne ourselves☆.”

Compared to that, Reicia’s own past ambition—“I can’t beat Misaka Mikoto while I’m just a Level 4, but once I reach Level 5, she’d better watch out…”—felt downright restrained.

"In fact, just like… him."

It happened in the very next moment.

KRRAAAAK-KABOOOOMMMM-GRRRZZZZZZ!!!! A hellish roar, like two titanic blades clashing, thundered above Reicia and the others.

Instinctively shrinking back, Reicia looked up—only to see a shower of sparks bursting in midair as two "somethings" collided.

No… not sparks. They were feathers—countless feathers raining down from above, crashing into an unseen force.

"Nothing to worry about. Right now, you’re the same kind of being as Fuse=Kazakiri. Compared to my human body, you’re practically immortal."

"……Putting aside that ridiculous ‘immortal’ comment, I really will punch you in the face if you keep that up. Fuuzetsu is not some manufactured toy of yours named Fuse=Kazakiri. She is far more than that."

"Understood."

Aleister only shrugged, giving a half-hearted reply. At that, the furious clash overhead seemed to settle into a tense lull.

And then—the culprit descended from the sky.

Not that anyone there was surprised. After all, even in "true history," he had always declared this was his purpose.

"Academy City’s in a state of emergency. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not here to tear everything apart for fun. The system itself is still plenty useful to me."

The boy landed soundlessly, his three pairs of pure white wings beating as he spoke.

—Esper, Level 5, ranked Second.
—Ability: Dark Matter.

—Kakine Teitoku.

"But as for you… whatever happens here doesn’t matter much, does it? Aleister Crowley."

The unmistakable monster bared his fangs in a smile.