A Certain Magical Index: The Primal Spirit Descends to My Side

Academy City is a circular city located west of Tokyo, Japan. It has a population of 230 million, 80% of whom are students. All students undergo superpower development, and its technology is highly advanced, approximately 20-30 years ahead of the rest of the world.

On the eve of summer vacation, the scorching sun shone on the ground, making the gray cement radiate heat waves and even distorting the ground in the distance.

This is the 7th school district. Despite the sweltering heat making everyone irritable, Touma Kamijou is walking along happily. The school dismissed early today because of the heat, and although his spiky black hair looked like melting asphalt from the midday sun, Touma still strolled briskly into a side alley.

If they go through here, they can get back to the dorm sooner. Just thinking about going back to a cool air-conditioned room instead of sitting in a sweltering classroom, Touma Kamijou couldn't help but hum softly.

"Hmph hmph hmph~ Hmph hmph hmph~ Hmph hmph~ Hmph~"

Wandering into the alley, the shaded ground created by the buildings allowed Touma Kamijou to escape the scorching concrete. Although it wasn't exactly cool, it was still quite pleasant. He could even feel the black backpack slung over his shoulder becoming cool.

I stopped halfway through my walk.

It wasn't because of something as trivial as Touma forgetting his homework at school, but because a girl was kneeling on the ground in front of him.

The surrounding walls had been transformed into bizarre shapes, as if scooped out of a cake, and were emitting suspicious white particle effects. If this were in an RPG game, it would look like a battle animation was about to begin.

Touma Kamijou initially wanted to instinctively choose the escape option, but he took a closer look at the girl.

Her long, soft, gray-white hair swayed slowly in the breeze, and her pure eyes were like those of a newborn baby, while her fair skin was faintly visible among the messy strands of hair.

Touma Kamijou staggered back two steps, pinched his nose with his free right hand, and shook his head, his face flushed. He placed his backpack in front of him and slowly moved over.

"Uh... hello?"

As someone with terrible foreign language skills, Touma Kamijou stared at the girl's gray-white hair. He didn't know what gray-white hair color meant, but he was sure she wasn't speaking Japanese. He continued, uttering in broken pronunciation, "Look, is there any dead skin I can catch in a basin of mud?"

The girl's eyes focused, looking at Touma Kamijou in front of her. Her lips moved slightly, as if she were saying something. Touma Kamijou moved a little further away, wanting to hear what she was saying.

"..."

"I still can't hear you... Am I not close enough?" Touma Kamijou scratched his head, put his schoolbag aside, slowly slid down the edge of the pit, and then squatted down next to the girl, listening to her voice.

"Ha...lost..."

She speaks English! Touma Kamijou, like a gambling god who'd guessed something, smoothed his sun-damaged spiky hair. He was about to help the lost girl in English when he suddenly remembered that his own English was terrible.

"Uh... haha..."

Kamijou Touma scratched his head awkwardly, pulled out his new phone that he had just bought last week, casually tossed it aside, pressed a few buttons, and opened a new translation app.

"Um... I'm Touma Kamijou... May I ask who you are... um... what's your name?"

"..."

After Touma Kamijou finished reciting his lines, he played the recording of the translation for the girl. He saw that the girl's lips slowly moved after hearing the sound, so Touma Kamijou quickly pressed the translate button.

"Um, I'm Touma Kamijou. Who are you? And what's your name?"

After hearing the girl's words translated, Touma Kamijou was stunned. Somewhat puzzled, he opened the recording before the translation and found that it was not his own voice, but a delicate and clear voice.

"Why? Does Mr. Kamijou not even know how to use a translator properly? Is this really a sign that we're going to have to close the country off..."

Touma frantically fiddled with his phone, only to find that the translation apps were useless. On the contrary, the girl listened to many recordings and seemed to have learned something, then spoke to Touma.

"Hello…"

"Ah... hello..." Touma Kamijou replied casually while downloading a translator. He instantly realized, "This is Japanese?"

"Ah... um? You speak Japanese?" Touma Kamijou's hand remained on the button as he instinctively asked.

"I don't know..." The girl shook her head, and Japanese sounds came out again. Her hair swayed as she shook her head, and parts that were previously invisible became visible. Touma Kamijou stood up with a "whoa!" and immediately took several steps back, averting his gaze.

Although he was supposed to refrain from looking at indecent things, Touma Kamijou was still a hot-blooded high school boy, and his eyes kept glancing at the girl. He turned his eyes around, his face flushed.

Just then, footsteps sounded from behind. As if he was doing something he couldn't reveal, Touma Kamijou suddenly jogged over, took off his white shirt and covered the girl with it, then reached out to help her up.

"Anyway, let's get out of here first!"

His right hand grasped her slender, cold wrist—there was nothing special about it, just like holding any ordinary person's hand. Touma Kamijou scooped up the girl wrapped in the shirt and quickly left the area.

On the seventh floor of a high school dormitory, the elevator broke down a few days ago, and the automatic doors had to be manually pried open, which drove Touma Kamijou, who was holding a girl in his arms, almost crazy.

He had been avoiding surveillance cameras and passersby the whole way, afraid of being mistaken for a pervert. Now that he was home, looking at the girl he had placed on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, Touma Kamijou felt that his life was heading in an unpredictable direction.

He went to the kitchen and took out some simple ingredients from the refrigerator. Modern technology is truly amazing; even in the middle of summer, refrigerated food that would normally only last a few days can now last for several more.

While Touma was frantically preparing a simple meal, he didn't notice that a girl had crawled out of bed and was lying naked on the floor, reaching for books under the bookshelf.

Kamijou Touma carried his masterpiece and two bowls of instant noodles to the only round table in his room and set out the dishes.

"Um? Although it was wrong of me to bring you back... could you forgive me if I treated you to a meal?"

Touma Kamijou sat down on the floor by the bed, then clasped his hands together. Finding no sound for a while, he looked up and realized the bed was empty. Just as Touma breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he might be daydreaming, he heard the sound of pages turning beside him.

Touma Kamijou turned his head stiffly and found the girl reading next to the bookshelf. Various books were stacked on the floor: his textbooks, extracurricular books and magazines... a dictionary and his summer homework... and more...

Kamijou Touma's eyes widened as he snatched the magazine from the girl's hand and, blushing, stuffed it under the bed.

"Um...that!" Touma Kamijou raised his voice as if to lessen the awkwardness, but then fell silent, making the situation even more awkward.

"Hello, Touma Kamijou." The girl sat there, speaking in perfect Japanese. Even Touma Kamijou, a native Japanese speaker, had never heard such perfect pronunciation before; it sounded like a listening comprehension recording.

"Ah...yes!" Upon hearing his name, Touma Kamijou instinctively sat up straight, puffed out his chest, and pressed his hands firmly against his knees.

"You asked me my name before..." the girl said softly, a hint of doubt in her eyes, "I don't know..."

"ha?"

Kamijou Touma looked at the girl in front of him with long gray hair and eyes as pure as laboratory glass beads, and slid down to the ground against the wall.

"What...did I just pick up?"

The premonition of misfortune had never been so clear.