Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sunday, July 19

I stared at the mess in a mixture of awe and disbelief. Even after watching it happen I struggled to understand the mechanics of what just happened.

I looked at the spiky haired boy standing in the middle of it all. He was covered in the remains of the food I had made. Somehow despite standing next to him when it happened, I was completely untouched. He looked more resigned than anything else.

“Such misfortune…” we both said simultaneously. It was a phrase I had become all too familiar with recently.

“I know I shouldn’t be surprised at this point, but even for you, Touma, this is excessive. Three boxes, all of which were duct taped shut, and you still somehow managed to spill all of them in less than ten seconds," I said, walking over to the cabinet to grab cleaning supplies.

“Honestly, I consider the two meals I had today to be a huge success,” he responded, “Before you came along most of the food I even managed to eat was takeout or made from the cheapest ingredients I could find. The past two months have been the best I’ve eaten in a long time.”

He wasn’t wrong. When I first met Touma I hadn’t truly understood just how atrocious his luck actually was. Maika had told me stories about him but I had thought she was exaggerating. No one could be that unlucky.

I was quickly proven incorrect. If anything she had understated his luck. 

The first week I worked as his maid were some of the most exhausting days of my life. None of the training at school came even close to the difficulty of keeping this boy fed and healthy. Even putting everything I could into it, I had only been able to get him an average of 1.25 meals in a day. And somehow, that was an improvement to what he was used to. 

It was definitely worth the effort though. After two months I had improved by leaps and bounds in basically every aspect. I used to be at the bottom of my class in most areas, cooking in particular was especially difficult for me. I was still adequate, but for a Ryouran maid adequate was unacceptable. We needed to be exceptional. The only area I had really excelled in before was hand to hand combat.

Now though? I was top ten in my class in nearly every area (though I was still lagging behind in etiquette).  

As for cooking? I was now in the top five in the school. I had gained experience cooking in every set of adverse conditions possible. I could cook almost any recipe with my eyes closed. I could even cook minute rice in only fifty eight seconds.

Touma had been a huge help. Apparently he was actually a really good cook. Since his luck was so bad he had learned to cook with a severely limited budget, so he was able to help me learn a lot of recipes that were tasty and healthy while also being dirt cheap.

I had even leveled up my ability. I had been at Level 1 before I started here. Then, at the System Scan a couple days ago, my ability had increased to Level 2.

Two weeks ago I had managed a full week of two meals for the first time. It wasn’t like it was getting easier either, every improvement had to be built on top of the strategies and precautions I was already taking. If anything, whatever it was that caused Touma’s bad luck was trying harder than ever.

Today I had come closer than ever before to giving him a third meal. The food was prepared, edible, at his apartment, in my hands, and ready to serve. Then, like always, it all went wrong.

I knelt down, scooping the food into a garbage bag, “You can go get changed, I’ll finish cleaning up here. Do you want to try getting something from Benny's? I’m not too optimistic but it’s worth a shot.”

“Sure. Thanks Maki,” he said, grabbing a change of clothes and walking into the bathroom.

I glanced at the singular untouched bento that I had set aside for myself. I knew from experience that if I even thought about giving it to Touma it would swiftly meet the same fate as the others. I picked it up and put it in my bag, if we did manage to get food tonight I could always eat it tomorrow.

Benny’s was a standard chain restaurant, the food wasn’t great but it was cheap, close, and open 24/7, so we ended up coming here on days when Touma’s luck was exceptionally bad and he didn’t manage to get any food. Usually, on days like today I would just quit while I was ahead, but I had gotten so close, and I was too stubborn to admit defeat. 

“I’m going to head to the bathroom. You go on ahead,” I said.

He nodded and went to go find a table, while I headed to the bathroom.

On the way I was stopped by a group of clearly drunk guys who were just coming out. They looked like they were going to try to talk to me, but they wisely backed off once they saw my uniform.

After I finished I looked around for Touma and—

I let out a sigh.

Touma was standing next to a girl arguing with the same group of guys from earlier.

Of course he would get involved. That was actually one of the things I admired about Touma. He was always willing to help others no matter the risk or inconvenience to himself. Unfortunately, it frequently ended up with him in the hospital.

As I got closer I realized the girl he was “protecting” was Misaka Mikoto.

The good news was that he probably wouldn’t end up in the hospital.

The bad news was there was zero chance of him getting anything more to eat today.

Misaka Mikoto, also known as Railgun, was the third most powerful esper in the city. She was also a bit of a delinquent. She could have easily handled the entire group and a hundred more. 

For some reason she was also obsessed with fighting Touma. They met about a month ago in an almost identical situation. Ever since then Misaka would try to fight him every time they saw each other.

Before I was able to make it over and try to deescalate, Touma turned around and sprinted towards the exit. The guys started chasing after him, with Misaka not far behind.

I saw Misaka’s roommate sitting in a booth near where they had run off from. She had the same exhausted look of resignation that I felt on myself. I didn’t know her name, and I’d only seen her in passing a couple of times. But as we made eye contact I felt a sense of camaraderie with her.

Walking outside I found a group of groaning bodies lying on the ground on the sidewalk. Black scorch marks dotted the area around them.

I’d seen Misaka in action a few times before and it never failed to amaze me how powerful she was.

I saw Misaka’s roommate pull out a judgement armband and start talking into her phone so I decided to leave her to sort out everything here.

I didn’t see Touma or Misaka anywhere, so I used the windmill trick Touma had told me about. I saw a few wind turbines turning the wrong direction a ways off and started walking towards them.

I wasn’t too worried about either of them getting hurt. Every time they fought, Misaka would try zapping him, Touma would negate it with his weird hand, and repeat until Misaka got tired of yelling at him. Neither one of them ever got seriously hurt. It was honestly kind of entertaining to watch. It wasn’t often you got to watch a Level 5 esper fight someone that actually challenged them.

I hadn’t actually interacted with her much. She mostly focused on Touma. Last time they fought was actually the first time I had talked to her. We hadn’t said much. We introduced ourselves, I said something about needing to sleep, she called Touma an idiot, then we left. Both of us were too tired to say anything more.

After walking for a few minutes I heard shouting and the telltale biri biri that was Misaka’s ability.

I saw them on a bridge. Misaka was yelling at Touma, sparks of electricity flying off her. Touma was sitting on the ground, occasionally moving his hand to intercept one of Misaka’s sparks that would have hit him.

There was a perfectly straight line burned into the pavement running from where Misaka was standing along the bridge. It seemed she’d already used her railgun today, usually she waited a while before pulling that out.

“What do you mean Level 0! Nothing I do can land a hit on you! Lightning and Iron Sand are negated! Even my Railgun was cancelled!” Misaka shouted. “I’m not so weak that a Level 0 would be able to beat me. So STOP MOCKING ME!”

“Hello again, Misaka,” I said walking up to them. 

“Oh, hello, Kobayashi,” Misaka responded, turning to look at me, “This idiot keeps trying to say he’s a Level 0. Who does he think he’s fooling?”

“He really is a Level 0,” I said in a calming tone, then added, “Technically.”

Misaka blinked, “What? How?”

“The System Scan isn’t a perfect measurement of the power of an ability. Some Level 0s are classified that way because there’s no way to directly measure their power. His power is particularly difficult to measure. The System Scan functions by measuring the effects of an esper power, even Level 0s without a usable power still create detectable phenomena through their AIM field. His hand though? It negates even his own AIM field, so there’s nothing to even measure.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to say,” Touma complained. “I actually am a Level 0.”

At this Misaka started to calm down. Maybe we could get out of this without any violence.

Then Touma opened his mouth again, and I knew he was somehow going to dig himself into a hole.

“Let’s just drop this whole rivalry thing, Biri Biri. I mean it’s not like you’d ever be able to actually hit me with anything. I’ll just keep negating everything you throw at me and this will never end.”

I let out a sigh. God damnit. I swear, he has no filter between his brain and mouth. Maybe it’s from all the head trauma.

“You know what, you’re right,” she said, sparks starting to fly off of her again. “Let’s end this right now.”

Around us thunder clouds started forming in the sky.

“I’ve always held back because I didn't want to kill you. But you’ve always taken everything I could throw at you without so much as a scratch. So now I’m going to hit you with everything I have! And my name is MISAKA MIKOTO, NOT BIRI BIRI!”

Shooting a railgun at him was holding back!?

I started backing away. “I’m… I’m gonna go hide under the bridge. Misaka, please try not to kill him.”

Once I was clear I felt more than heard an extremely loud bang and saw a bright flash. Even under the bridge looking in the opposite direction I had to shield my eyes from the light.

After I was sure there was no danger I walked back over to where they had been standing.

“Oh good, you’re still alive,” I said once I made it over to them.

“Such misfortune,” He moaned.

Touma was sitting in the same place he had been when I left. He was completely unharmed, though his hair was even spikier than normal from all the static electricity.

“No, no, no. That was all on you. No ‘such misfortune’ this time.” 

It looked like he was about to say something but stopped when the lights around us suddenly went out. Then the buildings around us went dark. The power outage spread until it looked like most of the city had lost power.

“Holy shit Misaka. What did you hit him with?”

She actually looked embarrassed at that, which was kind of adorable.

“I’m going to head back home now. Are you two good to get back to your dorms?” Touma asked as he stood up.

“Yeah I’m good, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

“Yeah, I also need to hurry back before curfew or I’ll be in serious trouble,” Misaka said.

“What time is your curfew?” I asked. 

It was already pretty late.

She pulled out her phone. Her eyes widened and she winced when she saw what time it was, “Fifteen minutes ago…”

“Hey, why don’t you help me with fixing the power outage. That should excuse you for being late.”

Misaka blinked in confusion. “Huh, why would you fix the power outage? Shouldn’t the city handle that?”

“A lot of the city’s infrastructure is actually maintained by Ryouran maids. The scientists tend to be really hands-on while developing new technologies, but once they’re up and running they get bored and move on to the next project. We actually have access to almost every building in the city,” I explain, “I usually wouldn’t be involved. Most of that work is done by the middle school maids. But, since I have the cause of the outage here with me, I figure we could fix it before anyone starts asking too many questions.”

“Yeah, I can totally help. Thank you so much,” Misaka replied looking relieved.

As we walked to the District 22 power station, Misaka turned to me. “So, why are you always with that idiot? Are you his girlfriend or something?”

I laughed. “Oh god no. He’s way too much work for me to consider dating him. Instead of normal high school, Ryouran assigns us to other students as personal maids to gain work experience.”

“Oh, I think there’s someone at Tokiwadai like that. I think her name was Kirara?”

“Yeah, I don’t know her very well, but she’s doing the same thing.”

“What makes it so difficult? I mean he’s an idiot but he doesn’t seem like he’d be too demanding to work for.”

I groaned. “He’s not. It took forever for me to get him to let me do things for him. I can still barely ever get him to ask for anything. No, the problem is that he’s the embodiment of Murphy’s Law. He says he just has really bad luck. I think it’s more that he uses all his good luck staying alive when he does dumb shit, like antagonizing Level 5 electromasters.”

Misaka laughed at that. “I’ve honestly never really tried to kill him. He just pisses me off when he just stands there taking everything I can throw at him and then calling himself the weakest Level 0.”

“I know, I wish that fighting you was all he got up to. The guy ends up in the hospital almost weekly. All of the nurses know him by name. I’m pretty sure they’ve got a room reserved just for him. It’s almost always because he saw someone in trouble and rushed in to help them without thinking.”

As we walked I told her a few stories about Touma being an idiot then she told me a bit about what she had been up to. Apparently, she had been trying to get information about something called the “Level Upper” when Touma had interrupted.

“So, are you a weird Level 0 too or do you have an ability that actually makes sense?” She asked after a short silence.

“No, no, that's just him. I’m a Level 2,” I explained.

I crouched down and picked up a small rock. “My ability lets me teleport something from one hand”—I focused and the rock vanished from my right hand and appeared in my left—“to the other. I can also teleport it around in one hand. Not very strong compared to what you must be used to at Tokiwadai, but it has its uses.”

“You know, my roommate, Kuroko, is a Level 4 teleporter. If you want I can see if she would be interested in giving you some tips.”

“Really? That would be great, thank you so much.”

I brought out my phone and we exchanged numbers.

Arriving at the power station, it didn’t take us long to find the issue. Apparently, the superconducting transmission line that connected District 22 and District 10 to the rest of the city had been damaged a few days ago. Due to the rarity of the materials, repairs were expected to take at least a week. 

It was the backup transmission lines that had been damaged by Misaka. Those used standard conductors and hadn’t been able to handle the sudden surge from the lightning strike. Given that their capacity was measured in the hundreds of gigawatts and megavolts, it really showed how powerful Misaka was.

I grabbed some excavation robots and an automated utility vehicle and had them follow us outside.

Misaka used her ability to sense where the failures had occurred, then the robots dug up the cable and we began the repair. Misaka actually had a lot of electrical engineering knowledge and was really helpful, even beyond her ability.

It took about an hour to get everything functional again. There were still some areas without power. Notably most of District 10, the nuclear reactors there would take a while to get fully back online. I also noted with some amusement that the area around Touma’s dorm was also still offline. Because of course it was.

“Thanks again for the help, Misaka. Feel free to call me if you ever need an excuse to miss curfew again.” I said as we started to leave.

“No problem, it was fun getting to work with this kind of stuff,” she said, waving as we parted ways.

Monday, July 20

The next morning I felt cautiously optimistic about the coming day. 

Today was the first day of summer vacation. While I didn’t get any time off, Touma was off school for just over a month. Hopefully that would give us some breathing room to deal with his misfortune.

As I set about getting ready for the day, something in the back of my mind was bothering me, but I set it aside to start preparing for whatever Touma’s bad luck would throw at me.

I had already written off anything that was stored at his place. Because of the power outage I knew that anything he had there had almost certainly spoiled already.

I decided to make simple bacon, egg and cheese breakfast tacos today. I had long since grown used to making excessive amounts of food as reserves so twelve tacos barely registered to me.

Once they were finished I wrapped them all in foil and put them in a plastic bag. I put the bag in my backpack and triple checked that I had zipped it closed.

Leaving my dorm I took care going down the stairs not to slip and went outside. 

Keeping my eyes peeled I started the walk to Touma’s dorm

By the time I was halfway there the feeling had turned into alarm bells and my cautious optimism had turned into extreme paranoia.

Nothing had gone wrong today. 

The water hadn’t been contaminated by some experiment in the neighboring labs. My stove hadn't exploded due to a gas leak. There were no wandering gangs of skill outs specifically looking to steal food cooked by a maid. There was no esper with the power to make people ravenously hungry. I didn’t even have random bouts of incoordination.

That had never happened before. 

Breakfast was usually the easiest meal of the day. It was rare for him to not eat anything at all in a day. But even then it was never easy. There was always at least some token resistance to keep me on my feet.

But today? Nothing.

Was Touma dead? Did Misaka’s lightning have some sort of delayed effect? I tried texting him. The likelihood of his phone working was nearly non-existent, but maybe he was also experiencing this relief from his misfortune.

I didn’t know what caused Touma’s extreme bad luck to take a break but I wasn’t going to waste it. I hurried the rest of the way, watching carefully for anything that could interrupt me.

When I finally made it to Touma’s dorm I hadn’t gotten a message back from him, though I hadn’t really expected one. I used my ID to unlock the door, pulled it open, then froze.

Sitting right inside the door was a girl with silver hair who seemed to be 14 or 15 years old. She was wearing what looked like a white and yellow nun’s habit. For some reason I felt a sense of impending doom at the sight of her.

As soon as she saw me, she got up and grabbed my hands.

“Hi, I’m Index. Touma said you had food?”

Chapter Text

Monday, July 20

“Hi, I’m Index. Touma said you had food?”

I stared at the girl. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Touma had a reputation for his tendency to attract girls into his orbit. I didn't have much firsthand experience with it, only having known him since May. In that time, Misaka was the only one I could think of, if she even counted.

Actually, now that I thought about it, I might count. While I wasn't attracted to him, he did have a sort of oddly endearing charm to him.

With that mildly terrifying thought, I turned my attention back to the girl.

“Hello…” I said hesitantly. “Yes, I do have food.”

I walked inside and found Touma sitting at the table in the center of the room. His phone and cash card were sitting in front of him. Both appeared to be broken. I shot him a questioning look and gestured at Index.

“Don’t look at me. About ten minutes ago, I went to air out my futon and found her draped over the balcony. The only thing she’s said since is her name and that she’s hungry.”

Index followed close behind me as I made my way to the table.

“I’m about to die of starvation. Would you please give me some food?”

“Sure. I made breakfast tacos today. You’re lucky, today I actually managed to keep all of the food I made this morning. I made four times more food than anyone could reasonably eat. That should be more than enough for the three of us.”

If I hadn’t been distracted by the sudden appearance of Index, this would have when I started panicking. Not only had I said the word lucky in the presence of Kamijou Touma, I had used it in the context of food. 

Had I acted immediately, it’s possible what happened next could have been avoided. At the time though, I was busy worrying about how to keep the food safe so it could be eaten, not considering that that, in itself, could be the problem

I set down my backpack and placed the bag of tacos on the table. I offered the first one to Index. Before I could even process what was happening, the taco—foil and all—was already gone.

“Holy shit!” I said. “You can slow down. It’s not going anywhere. You’re supposed to remove the wrapping before you eat it.”

“Mmmm, that was really good. Can I have another?” Index asked, completely ignoring me.

That moment marked the point of no return. 

I took out another, making sure to unwrap it first, before handing it to her. Once again, she consumed the entire thing horrifyingly fast. Human mouths weren’t meant to open like that. Then it was gone, and she was sitting there looking like an innocent little girl.

When I reached into the bag to get some for me and Touma, there was nothing left. I slowly turned to face Index. The eldritch horror in the shape of a girl smiled sweetly back at me. Only the foil littering the table in front of her betrayed that she had even moved.

At least she had unwrapped them first.

“Is this how you always feel?” I asked Touma, too stunned to even feel upset.

“Pretty much. Think my bad luck might be spreading over to you?”

I shuddered. “Don’t joke about that. I don’t know if the world could survive two of you.”

I turned to Index. “So, now that you’ve had something to eat, are you up to answer some questions? You said your name was Index? I’m Kobayashi Maki.”

“Yes, my name is Index Librorum Prohibitorum. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Index of Prohibited Books? That’s your actual name?” I asked. She nodded and I continued. “Ok… How did you end up hanging off Touma’s balcony?”

“Well, I was running across the roof and tried to jump to the next one, but just before I jumped I was shot, which messed up my jump,” said Index, entirely too calm for someone describing being shot.

“You were shot!?” Touma shouted, jumping up to check her for injuries.

“Oh, don’t worry. These clothes provided more than enough protection. I'm perfectly fine.”

What was she talking about? Every question this girl answered brought up a dozen new ones. Though, looking at her, she did seem to be fine. Was her habit bullet proof or something?

“Who shot you?” Touma asked.

“I’m not sure exactly, they never gave me the name of their group. They were almost certainly from a magic cabal though,” Index… I hesitate to say explained, because that implies that what she was saying made any sense.

“A What?” Touma and I asked simultaneously.

“They were magicians, likely from a magic cabal seeking to use the 103,000 grimoires I carry,” Index continued. “There are two of them. One is a pyromancer that specializes in runes. The other is a Saint who primarily uses metal wires.”

Touma stared at her like she was going crazy.

Wait a minute. Middle school girl, from outside the city, obviously fake name, wearing a nun’s habit, talking about magic cabals and grimoires…

“Ah, I think I know what’s happening.”

“You do?” Touma asked warily. He scooted away from us, looking like he thought we had some kind of contagious disease.

“The explanation’s obvious,” I said, feeling the pieces coming together. “She’s got chuunibyou. She’s also clearly from outside the city, so she’s never seen esper powers before. She probably ran into some thugs. From the sound of it, a pyrokinetic and either a metallokinetic or electromaster. She sees their abilities and thinks they’re from a ‘magic cabal.’ They chase after her but are low level and weren’t able to hurt her. Then she messes up a jump and lands on your balcony.”

“Ah, that explains so much,” Touma replied.

“Hey! Stop talking about me like I’m not here! I don’t know what ‘chuunibyou’ is but it doesn’t sound very nice. I’m not talking about the esper powers that you have here, I’m talking about actual magic, it’s completely different,” Index interrupted, waving her arms in front of us so we would stop ignoring her.

I looked at her with the “my client is an idiot but I’m not allowed to tell them that” smile. It’s one of the first things every Ryouran maid learns.

“Sure it is,” I said placatingly. 

“Magic exists,” Index said firmly.

I kept smiling gently at her.

“I’m serious, Magic exists,” She said, remaining steadfast in her delusion.

Touma seemed to take pity on her. “Can you do any magic for us? Cast a spell or something? We would believe you then.”

“I don’t have any magic power, so I can’t use it.”

“How convenient,” I replied.

“You live in a city full of people with supernatural powers and yet you refuse to believe in the existence of magic?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call esper abilities supernatural. Just because we don’t perfectly understand their principles, doesn’t mean that no coherent framework to describe them exists or that the idea of studying them is pointless.”

“How is that different from magic? You just don’t understand it yet,” Index argued.

“You mean aside from the mountain of scientific papers and experiments proving their existence. I can also just do this.”

I grabbed one of the foil wrappers off the table and teleported it so that it was folded into an origami swan. Folding origami with seemingly impossible restrictions was one of several exercises psychokinetics like me had to do to train our ability. I had done it several thousand times at this point. Even when I was Level 1, I could have done it in my sleep.

“Woah.” Index leaned forward and picked up the swan. Turning to Touma she asked, “Do you also have an ability like that?”

“Yeah, but mine isn’t as easy to demonstrate. My right hand negates any kind of supernatural power it touches. If magic actually were real, my hand would almost certainly be able to negate any kind of magical effect too.”

“Anyway, I know esper powers exist because I have first hand experimental proof of their existence,” I said, returning to the original topic. “Without something like that, or at least confirmation from multiple credible sources, I have no reason to believe in magic.”

“Wait! I do have something magical I can show you,” Index yelled. She stood up and grabbed at her clothes. “My clothes, they’re a defensive barrier called the Walking Church. Nothing can harm me while I wear them. Go ahead, grab a knife and try to stab me!”

“Why is that the first thing you think of? I’m not going to stab you,” I said.

“If your clothes really are some supernatural barrier, then shouldn't they be torn to pieces if I touched them with my right hand?” Touma said.

She scoffed, “Try it. I doubt your hand could do anything to even remotely harm it. The Walking Church is one of the most powerful magical defenses ever created.”

“Alright, watch me.” Touma moved to put his hand on Index’s shoulder.

“Wait!” I grabbed his arm before he could touch her.

“Huh, why?” Touma turned to look at me, confused. 

Sometimes Touma could be one of the most insightful and intelligent guys I’d ever met. Other times, he could be the biggest idiot on the planet.

“Touma, should I be concerned with how eager you are to tear a girl’s clothes to pieces?”

Index blushed and scooted away from Touma and his still outstretched arm. 

“Don’t tell me you actually believe her,” Touma said, though he did lower his arm and look a little abashed.

“Of course not, but just in case, maybe we should try some non-destructive testing first.”

I reached into my skirt and pulled out one of my knives.

“I keep forgetting you have those,” Touma muttered.

I pulled one of Index’s arms toward me and held out the end of the sleeve. I brought my knife to the fabric and tried to cut it. It was surprisingly difficult. It shouldn’t be this hard to cut, but nothing I did could do anything to it.

I had Index hold her arm horizontally. I moved my empty hand right next to the fabric and teleported my knife so it was intersecting her sleeve. Or rather, I tried to. For some reason, right before I finished the calculations I got a splitting headache and wasn’t able to finish.

“What the fuck?” I whispered.

“See! I told you magic was real!” Index shouted happily.

I wondered if perhaps this was some sort of anti-esper technology. Something that prevented abilities from affecting it. No, there was no way anyone in Academy City would ever design something to look like a nun’s habit. They were all violently anti-religion and anything else not firmly based in science.

Could she be right about magic existing? Surely not, right?

“Wait, shit! I have remedial classes,” Touma shouted, suddenly standing up.

I gave him a disappointed look.

“Don’t look at me like that, with how much school I’ve missed even getting a perfect score on everything wouldn’t be enough to get out of it,” He paused and looked at Index. “But maybe I should stay. If people really are after you I wouldn’t want to leave you alone.”

“It’s fine. You go to school,” I interrupted. “You’ve already missed too much. I’ll say here with Index. If anything happens I’ll call…” I trailed off, looking at his broken phone, “Tsuchimikado, and have him tell you.”

“Alright, I’ll see you after class.” He said, then grabbed his bag and ran out the door.

“Thank you for helping me and for the food, but I’ll leave now as well,” Index said, also getting up. “If I stay here the people after me will likely come here.”

“What? Hey, no, it’s fine. You don’t need to leave. Touma deals with stuff like this all the time. And I guess, I do as well now. Besides, Touma would never forgive me if I just let you leave. It took a lot of work to get him to trust me that much, I don’t want to betray it.”

“I’ve already caused you enough trouble. I don’t want you to get hurt on my behalf.”

“Is there somewhere you can go that’s safe? Do you have a family or something?” I asked. Maybe I could walk her to wherever she was staying.

“I don't have a family but if I can find a church they should help me. I’m from the Anglican Church.”

“I doubt you’ll be able to find any church in this city, much less an Anglican one. I can't imagine those being too common in Japan.”

“Don’t worry, I'll just have to keep persevering until I find one.”

“Look, Touma gets hurt all the time anyway. Helping you means at least it won't be for nothing. And I’m more than capable of handling myself.”

With the saddest smile I had ever seen she said, “Then will you follow me into the depths of hell?”

“If that’s what it takes, then I can at least make sure you’re not alone when you go.”

I could tell that I had almost convinced her, so I added, “I’ll make you lunch too. As much as you can eat.”

That sold her and she sat back down at the table, wiping a bit of drool off her chin.

“So, if you’re from England, how did you end up in Academy City?” I asked once she had decided to stay.

“I’m not completely sure. Around a year ago, I woke up in an alley here in Japan with no memory of my life before then.”

“So you have amnesia? Then how do you know you’re from the Anglican Church?”

“While I can't remember any personal details, like my childhood or even if I had a name before I became the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, my mind was filled with knowledge of magic and Necessarius, the organization in the Anglican Church I belong to.

“As soon as I woke up I knew I needed to run. Not long after, magicians started chasing me. I’ve been on the run from them ever since. I entered Academy City because I thought they wouldn’t be able to enter a city so closely tied to science.”

If they’d been chasing her for the whole year, it wasn't likely they were espers. Academy City rarely let espers leave the city, even for short periods of time. Maybe there was something to her claims, though not entirely. There was probably a more reasonable explanation than magic being real.

“You mentioned something about grimoires earlier, is that related to your name?” I asked. Maybe I could untangle the real story once I’d heard enough of Index’s.

She nodded, “ Normally, grimoires are incredibly dangerous to anyone who reads them. But since I can’t use magic, they aren’t able to harm me. On top of that, I have a perfect memory. Anything I read, I can recall perfectly. That made me ideal for becoming a library of grimoires. I’ve read all 103,000 grimoires that Necessarius has access to.”

We talked some more about magic and how it functioned. It was surprisingly interesting. Index was clearly passionate about it and she was remarkably consistent with her explanations. I didn't know how much to believe, but it was seeming more and more like there might be a mechanism for powers other than Academy City’s esper powers.

After a few hours, she got hungry again, so I made us some stir fry for lunch. I made sure to set some aside for myself before serving her this time, and to keep it out of reach until I was finished. 

“As much as she could eat” turned out to have been a lie. Even with all of the extra ingredients I had on account of Touma’s luck, she was able to eat all of it and still asked for more.

It wasn't until much later in the day when I realized that, since Index ate all of the food, I hadn’t remembered to bring any to Touma.

After lunch, I showed her how to use the TV. Somehow, she was completely clueless on how to use even the most basic of technology. Maybe a side effect of her amnesia? I pulled up an anime for her to watch. It was some mecha anime but instead of mechs they used giant balls.

I pulled out my laptop and lay on the bed, only occasionally paying attention. My main focus was on the favorite pastime of every isekai protagonist: copyright infringement. Though instead of copying famous music or stories I was remaking my favorite video games.

I didn't get many chances to do programming during my work as a maid, though there were more than I had expected, so I wanted to make sure my skills didn’t atrophy. Over the course of the last year I had spent a lot of my free time slowly recreating Factorio. 

I was starting to experience withdrawals from how long it’d been since I last played. Luckily, Academy City development tools were leagues better than what I had been used to, so it shouldn’t take me decades to finish. Then again, with how little free time I’d had lately, it might anyway.

Around an hour after lunch I got a call from Tokiwadai Middle School. 

“Hello, is this Kobayashi Maki? This is Tanaka Minato, the supervisor for the Tokiwadai outer dorms.”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“I’m calling to confirm that you had Misaka Mikoto help with the power outage last night.”

“Yeah, she was a huge help. Probably shortened the length of the outage by a few hours. Sorry if her missing curfew caused you any problems.”

“It’s good that she was able to help you. There is one thing you could help clear up. What time did you ask Miss Misaka to help you? Because I distinctly remember the outage happening a few minutes after her curfew.”

Uh, shit. I put on my professional maid voice and started bullshitting. 

“Ah, I can see how that would have caused you some confusion,” I said calmly. “We actually knew about the storm that caused the outage well in advance. Tree Diagram predicted an unusual dry thunderstorm that was expected to produce a large amount of lightning. It should have been fine, but just before it was supposed to happen we learned that some of the equipment in the area was damaged. You see, the bombings from last week damaged the infrastructure in the area, so only the less resilient backups were functional. Unfortunately repairs weren’t able to finish before the storm occurred. So I actually asked her for help before the incident.”

Most of that was actually true, one of the bombs had been what took out the primary transmission cable for District 22. I also knew that she wouldn’t have access to the weather reports generated by Tree Diagram. All of the raw data produced by Tree Diagram was zealously hoarded by the city and only given out to people who absolutely needed it.

“Of course, and I’m sure that Miss Misaka had no involvement at all in causing the outage.” She said, mimicking my tone.

“Nope, just a completely natural thunderstorm,” I lied.

“Well, Miss Kobayashi, that was a quite believable story. Your teachers at Ryouran should be very proud. I almost certainly would have believed it. Unfortunately, Miss Misaka does not have the same training,” she sighed. “While I would prefer her to not cause any in the first place, I do appreciate that you had her take responsibility for the damage. I’ll lighten her punishment somewhat for that. You seem like a good influence on her,” Then she hung up.

Fuck, I can't believe I forgot to prep the witness. I would get points docked for that.

I rubbed the back of my neck, for some reason it felt really sore.

Chapter Text

Monday, July 20

At around six in the evening there was a knock on the door. 

“Did he lose his key or something?” I muttered as I got up to go answer it.

Standing outside was not Kamijou Touma. Instead, there was a man who looked to be in his early twenties. He was well over six feet tall, had shoulder length red hair, and a tattoo of a bar code under his right eye. The black robes he was wearing went all the way to his feet and he had a lit cigarette in his mouth. Based on the description Index gave of the people chasing her, this was one of them.

“Smoking is bad for you,” I said quickly. Then, before he could say anything, I flicked the cigarette out of his mouth and slammed the door in his face.

I ran back towards Index, pulled out my phone, and called Tsuchimikado.

“Hey, is Touma there?” I asked as soon as he picked up.

I motioned for Index to get up and pushed her out onto the balcony.

“Hey Kobayashi. Nah, we split up like ten minutes ago.” He replied.

Outside, I swung over the railing and edged my way around to the neighboring balcony. Once I was across, I helped Index follow after. Behind us, I could hear the knocking on Touma’s door grow louder.

“Do you know where he went?” I asked. I tried the door to Tsuchimikado’s dorm. It was locked.

“When he left, he was with that middle schooler—you know, the electric one that keeps following him around.”

I put my hand to the lock and started the calculations for my power. Before I teleported something, I could feel the internal structure and mass distribution of the object I was teleporting. The researchers called it Haptic Tomography of Inertial Tensors. I just called it my mass sense. I used it to feel out the inside of the lock and teleported it into the unlocked state.

“That’s perfect. Hey, side note, can I use your dorm to escape from the wizards trying to kill me? Kay thanks bye,” I said quickly, then hung up and called Misaka.

I opened the door and walked into Tsuchimikado’s dorm. It was the same layout as Touma’s, though it was significantly messier. The bed was unmade, manga and school work were scattered across the floor, and—I crinkled my nose, ew.

It seemed like Maika hadn’t been here in a while. My inner maid was screaming at me to clean this place up, but we didn’t have time for that.

Misaka picked up shortly after we entered.

“Hey, Misaka. Is Touma with you?” I asked quietly.

“Who?” She asked. “Oh, uh, that idiot? Yeah, do you need to talk to him?”

Did she not know his name? After all that yelling about being called Biri Biri?

“Just tell him the wizards are attacking and he needs to hurry back. Actually, you should come too.”

“What? Wizards? What are you talking ab-” I cut her off and hung up.

I motioned for Index to stay quiet and cracked open the front door. Peeking out, I could see that the man was still standing outside of Touma’s door. He was muttering something that I couldn’t make out from here. After a few seconds, there was an orange flash and the door exploded inwards.

As soon as he went inside, I grabbed Index and sprinted towards the stairs.

We made it about a third of the way there before he came back out and called after us, “Look, I don’t need to fight you. I’m just here for the Index. Hand it over and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“I’m terribly sorry. Regrettably, I am unable to comply with your request because she is A FUCKING HUMAN PERSON!” I shouted, still running towards the stairs.

“Alright then, I guess we’re doing this the hard way. Kenaz.”

Then he shot a jet of fire at us.

I ducked behind Index, hoping she was telling the truth about how strong her habit was. Surprisingly, instead of hitting Index, he seemed to have missed, the fire going past us to the side.

Something about the fire felt wrong. I couldn’t describe it. Just that it didn’t feel like the flames of the pyrokinetics I knew.

It wasn’t until I turned back around, that I saw what his target actually was. He had hit the stairs. The entrance was blocked off by the partially melted debris of the walls and the floor above.

“Shit.”

“Do you even know what she’s carrying in that head of hers. 103,000 grimoires, any one of which would cause your brain to spill out of your ears if you read it. If someone were to gain the power from all of them, they would be able to make a nuclear bomb look like fireworks. I’m here to make sure they don't fall into the wrong hands,” He said, calmly walking forward.

“And I suppose you’re the right hands?” I asked, trying to buy time while I thought of a way out.

He ignored me and started saying something I couldn’t make out clearly, but I thought it sounded like English letters.

The elevator would be too slow and there weren't any other stairs. I could have easily found a way down if I were by myself, but not when I had to bring Index with me.

But what if I didn't have to…

I turned to Index and asked, “Index, does the Walking Church protect against falling? Like from a seven story building?”

“Yeah, it should protect me from any kind of harm. Why do you…” She trailed off as she realised what I was thinking. “Wait, you’re not gonna throw me over the railing are you?”

“Perfect,” I said, then threw her over the railing.

As soon as I let go, I rushed at the magician.

I brought up my left fist, clearly telegraphing that I was going to try to punch him in the face. He easily dodged to the left, towards the railing, and I ran past him. Now that I was behind him, I grabbed a fistful of his hair, using it to help me come to a stop. He grunted, interrupting whatever he was casting.

Still holding his hair I jumped over the railing. The guard rails for the dorms here were solid concrete, instead of metal bars, so there wouldn’t be anything I could use to catch myself. I heard his head impact with a thud and he let out a cry of pain. I let go and fell, making sure to keep my hand touching the wall.

Right before my hand reached the bottom, I teleported out a divot to use as a handhold. I shoved my fingers into it and swung onto the next floor. Now on solid ground, I sprinted to the stairs.

When I made it outside, I checked on Index. She pouted at me—clearly upset, but unharmed.

I dragged her away from the dorm onto the street. I was surprised not to hear sirens from Anti-Skill or the fire department. The magician hadn't exactly been subtle. That was when I noticed the area around us was completely devoid of people.

That was unusual. While the area usually wasn't too busy around this time, there should be at least a few people here and there.

A moment later, I spotted Touma and Misaka running towards us. Index and I ran over to meet them.

“Maki, Index, what’s going on? Are you ok?” Touma asked.

“We’re fine, but we need to go. One of the wizards that was chasing Index is here.” I said, herding the group away from the dorm.

“You said that on the phone too. What do you mean, wizards?” Misaka asked, looking very lost.

“She was referring to us. Though, the term magician is more accurate,” said the wizard.

We spun around and saw him walking out of the dorm towards us.

“I already asked the maid, but maybe you’ll be more cooperative. Hand over Index and I won’t kill you.”

“Who the hell do you think you are!” Touma shouted and ran towards the magician. He raised his fist, ready to punch him in the face.

Sadly, he just dodged out of the way like he had upstairs. A surprisingly large number of people never thought to do that.

Misaka sent a bolt of electricity at him… and then right through him? What?

“What the?” Misaka said, mirroring my confusion.

“It’s a mirage,” Index said. “He’s using heat to refract light to disguise his position.”

The magician smirked. “The name’s—”

That was as far as he got before Misaka fired a second bolt. This one aimed at what looked like empty space.

Abruptly, he vanished and reappeared directly in the path of the lightning. He convulsed briefly, then collapsed, unconscious.

“Visual light isn’t the only spectrum I can sense. By using the difference in how each wavelength was refracted, I could calculate his real position,” Misaka said, looking incredibly smug.

“Nice job getting him while he was monologuing. I’m still working on getting Touma to do that.”

With the magician taken care of, I ran back up into Touma’s dorm to grab my stuff. I always felt uneasy without my backpack.

When I came back down, I walked over to the unconscious magician and squatted next to him. I pulled out some zip ties and put them around his wrists and ankles. Then I telefragged them partially into the ground.

“We shouldn’t stay here for long. Index said there were two people chasing her. I don't want to stick around to see if the other one will show up,” I said, once I was finished.

I ended up bringing everyone back to my dorm, since Misaka’s didn't allow guests.

My dorm had a similar layout to Touma’s. The bathroom was right inside the front door and a small kitchen on the other side of the hallway. The bed was on the right wall with shelves opposite it. They held a few books, some of my knives, and a pile of fidget cubes. There was a desk next to the back window and a small table in the center of the room. A partially disassembled cleaning robot sat in the corner.

“Your dorm has so much space,” Misaka said, looking around.

“Really?” I asked. “When I worked at Tokiwadai, the ones I saw were around the same size, if not bigger.”

“You were probably at the interior dorm. I live in the exterior dorm, which has smaller two person rooms in exchange for ‘the privilege’ of living outside the school garden.

“Anyway, can someone explain the wizard stuff you were talking about. Who was that guy? How did he use two abilities? Is it related to the Level Upper? Who is this?” Misaka pointed at Index for the last question.

Right, we'd never caught Misaka up on the whole “magic is real” thing.

“Misaka this is Index, Index this is Misaka Mikoto,” I said introducing them to each other. “Apparently magic is real and Index memorised a bunch of books called grimoires that other magical groups really want. The guy from earlier was a magician from one of those groups. This morning Index fell onto Touma’s balcony while she was running from him. She stayed at Touma’s dorm with me for a few hours until we were attacked.”

I looked at Index to see if there was anything else.

“Yep, that’s about it,” she said cheerfully.

Misaka raised her eyebrows. “Seriously? ‘Magic is real?’ What does that even mean?”

“Eh, I’m also not entirely happy with the terminology, magic seems like an unnecessarily vague way to describe it. But whatever you call it, everything I’ve seen has been pointing to something enabling supernatural phenomena that behave completely different to esper powers. If you want proof, zap Index’s habit. It’s been pretty much indestructible so far."

“Are you sure?” Misaka asked, looking sceptically at Index.

“Go ahead,” Index said, standing up and putting her arms on her hips.

Misaka sent a weak shock at Index. It harmlessly dissipated into the fabric. She furrowed her brow and tried a slightly stronger one. It behaved exactly the same. Moving closer to Index, she stared closely at the fabric of the habit.

“That is so weird. It feels completely different to when I hit your right hand,” she said, motioning at Touma. “It’s like the charge is just being deleted when it hits. And now that I’m paying attention, the way it feels to my senses is really weird too. Your arm just feels like a black box. I can't sense any electric field from it and any waves I send at it never come back, but I can still see its ‘shadow,’ which is consistent with it negating my ability. But with Index, it just feels like there’s nothing there at all. Microwaves just pass straight through her and the electric field around her feels the same as the air. I’m honestly surprised we can even see her right now.”

She reached out and poked Index’s shoulder then shuddered.

Once she was done experimenting with Index’s habit, Index and I recapped everything that had happened today for the other two. Misaka decided to accept our explanations for the time being and we moved on to discussing what would happen to Index long term.

“So Index,” Touma started, “do you have any plans or somewhere you’re trying to get to.”

“Not immediately. I talked a little with Maki about this earlier. I’m part of the Anglican Church, so if I can get to one of their locations they’ll shelter me, but Maki looked and there’s not any in the city, or even any close to it.”

“Alright, well for now, you can keep staying with us. We’ll do whatever we can to keep you safe.”

“Have you tried calling them or something?” Misaka asked. “Even if there’s not any locations nearby, they might be able to send help or tell you what to do.”

“I can't believe I didn't think of that,” I said, facepalming.

I pulled out my phone and brought up the official website for the Anglican Church. I couldn't find anything on Necessarius—not that I was expecting to—but it wasn't hard to find a general contact page. It didn't have a phone number, but there was a contact email.

“They’ve got an email on their website. I guess we can try that.”

I brought up my email and started writing.

to: [email protected]
from: [email protected]

Dear Necessarius of the Anglican Church,

Index Librorum Prohibitorum has recently come into my care during her stay in Academy City. She is being pursued by members of a hostile magical organization. I would like to transfer her into your hands while ensuring that no harm comes to her.

Please Advise,

Kobayashi Maki
Ryouran Maid School

Once that was sent, I decided to start working on dinner.

“Misaka, do you want me to make you some? I have more than enough for the four of us”—well, three of us, it didn't seem to be possible to satisfy Index—”so it wouldn’t be any trouble.”

“No, I’m good, but thanks for offering. I should probably get to my dorm now. Curfew’s coming up and I don’t want to miss it twice in a row.”

“Alright, have a good night.” I said, waving.

“You too.”

“It was nice getting to talk in a more relaxed context,” Touma said, before she had gone all the way out the door. “Maybe sometime we can meet without any fighting involved.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Misaka responded, blushing slightly. Then she left and closed the door.

I decided to make curry tonight. When I started cooking, I quickly learned that Touma's misfortune was back in full force tonight. I wasn't sure if I should feel relieved or not.

The non-stick coating on the pot I was using, when exposed to oil, heat, and the specific brand of dish soap I used, started releasing phosgene gas. I had several detectors around the kitchen for situations exactly like this, so I was able to quickly move it into my hazardous waste disposal bin.

While I was distracted, Index wandered into the kitchen looking for something to snack on. She tripped on the hem of her habit and threw out her arm to catch herself, in the process knocking the rice cooker off the counter.

I managed to see this out of the corner of my eye as I let go of the pot. I lunged forward. My fingers only just brushed the end of the cord and I teleported the rice cooker into my other hand. I put it back on the counter and reset it.

I got a new pot—one I had cooked curry in before—and started cooking again. I was able to finish before any more bad luck struck.

I scooped the curry into the dishes and started placing them onto the table. I handled mine and Index’s fine, but then I accidentally used the wrong signals to move my arm, and caused my leg to spasm.

That had stopped being an issue for me months before I met Touma, but when it came to him “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” So now it happened around once every few weeks.

The food was fine. I always used dishes with lids, even for the short distance to the table. But I bumped into a glass of water and knocked it into Touma’s lap. And you know what, if that’s what it took to get him a meal, I’d take it. I gave him the spare clothes I had in my backpack and he went to go get changed.

The rest of the meal passed without incident and after a while we got ready for bed. Touma and Index were staying here tonight, since we didn't know how safe his dorm was currently. Touma was on the spare futon, while Index was in the bed with me.

Note to self: Never sleep in the same bed as Index again. She bites.