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

In the afternoon, after finishing all the food prepared by Ms. Xiaomeng, Index and the gray-haired girl met in a student dormitory. Unlike Ms. Xiaomeng's place, the summer heat here seemed to have solidified, pressing heavily on every corner.

"Wait... isn't this formula used incorrectly?"

Touma Kamijou's voice was hoarse and on the verge of collapse. He was practically embedded in the low table, with clear teeth marks on the mechanical pencil in his right hand and his left hand scratching his already messy black spiky hair.

The open math reference book was covered with densely packed equations, marked with frantic correction lines, like a silent disaster scene.

"Hmm, you used the wrong one."

Index's reply came from across the table. She knelt upright, the hem of her pure white monastic robe, meticulously repaired with safety pins, spread out on the tatami mat. Her long silver hair was covered by the hat that Touma had removed from its magic, revealing her fair neck.

At this moment, she was leaning slightly forward, her emerald green eyes intently scanning each line of numbers on the draft paper.

"Here, we should use the law of cosines, not the law of sines." She extended her index finger, lightly touching the symbol that had been circled three times by the previous point. "From this step onward, the direction is completely off. All subsequent calculations are based on the wrong foundation."

"Cosine...sine..." Kamijou suddenly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes staring at the equation for several seconds before he fell backward as if his bones had been removed, his head hitting the tatami with a thud. "Unfortunately...I've spent almost an hour on this problem...four pages of scratch paper..."

"Yeah, you've been working in the wrong direction for an hour." Index nodded, her tone devoid of blame, only a ruthless statement of fact. She picked up an eraser and began carefully erasing the flawed deductions. "It's like trying to summon water with fire magic; no matter how much magic you pour in, the result won't change."

Kamijou stared at the ceiling, letting despair spread through his body. His gaze unconsciously swept across the room before stopping.

The corner spot was empty.

The gray-haired figure who always sat quietly, seemingly blending into the background, was gone.

She... went out? When?

This realization was like a pebble dropped into his mind, creating subtle ripples. He vaguely remembered hearing the sound of a door hinge turning, very soft, almost inaudible amidst the cicadas chirping outside the window. Then, someone was gone from the room.

"Touma..."

Index's voice pulled him back from his brief reverie. The nun had already wiped away the incorrect equations, pushed the reference book in front of him, and turned to a new page.

"Focus." Her bright green eyes looked at him earnestly, her small canine teeth peeking out as she spoke. "There are still seventeen pages of practice questions left. At this rate, you won't finish before dark."

Kamijou opened his mouth as if to say something, but ultimately swallowed it back. He propped himself up and picked up his pen again.

"Okay, okay... let's continue."

The scratching sound of the pen tip rubbing against the paper rang out again, mixed with the monotonous whirring of the old electric fan, creating a unique, drowsy rhythm characteristic of a summer afternoon.

The streets were bleached white by the afternoon sun, and the air seemed to distort slightly at the horizon. The gray-haired girl walked steadily in the shadow of the wall against the sidewalk.

She was wearing a white short-sleeved T-shirt and black trousers chosen by Touma Kamijou, and her long, gray-white hair was simply draped over her shoulders, swaying gently with her steps.

She has no destination, nor does she need one.

The moment she closed her eyes, another "vision" unfolded in her consciousness.

Countless delicate, almost transparent "connections" extend from all directions of the city. They pulsate faintly, conveying fragments of chaotic emotions: fleeting excitement, deep-seated anxiety, vague confusion, and lingering weariness. These "lines," like seaweed pulled by invisible tides, flow and converge in the same direction.

Those were traces she had seen on Kiyama Harumi before, and also the outline of the entire vast network in her perception.

She walked along the flow of these "lines," passing through the gradually quieting commercial street, and turned into an area where low-rise houses and small research facilities were mixed together. The shadows of the buildings stretched obliquely and were cast on the empty street.

She stopped as she passed a secluded riverbank. A demolition notice was posted on a gray cement building next to her, which was surrounded by railings and tarpaulins.

The "texture" of the air ahead has changed.

Intense emotional fluctuations: anxiety, anger, and a clear protective instinct. "Folds" created by the frequent jumps in spatial coordinates at the microscopic scale. And another kind of... violent oscillation of the "field."

The conflict is taking place there.

The gray-haired girl opened her eyes, her gray gaze calmly fixed on the center of the low buildings. Without hesitation, she changed direction and walked towards it.

The scene at the demolition site was both bizarre and dangerous. The air swayed and distorted like asphalt under high temperatures, the outlines of bricks and concrete pillars fragmented into overlapping, blurry images, and one's vision seemed to be cast into a constantly spinning kaleidoscope. Saten Ruiko clutched her head tightly, crouching against a nearby concrete wall, her face pale.

Shirai Kuroko stood in front of her, her brown twin ponytails slightly disheveled from the frequent teleportation. Her white collared shirt and beige wool V-neck sleeveless knit vest were covered in dust. Her right hand was reaching into her gray pleated skirt, pulling out three needles that were strapped to her leg with a belt.

A black handbag was held in front of her in her left hand, and the "Judgement" armband on her left arm fluttered in the wind. She suddenly took a step back, and at the same time, a needle in her hand vanished.

A needle appeared on the side of a man's shoulder, then fell to the ground and bounced into a nearby sand pile. The blond thug, wearing a black vest, beige trousers, and a necklace, suddenly laughed.

Shirai Kuroko's eyes narrowed. Had she missed? No, the calculations weren't wrong, but it still missed? Could it be an ability to obstruct spatial movement?

"Ha...haha! Before we got the 'Imagine Mage,' we were really afraid of you 'Disciplinary Committee Members'...but..."

The thug suddenly spread his arms and walked towards Shirai Kuroko, revealing an arrogant smile and his voice becoming increasingly maniacal: "Even after obtaining such powerful abilities... I still can't help but seek revenge on you!"

As Shirai Kuroko watched her opponent walk faster and faster, even jogging towards her, she narrowed her eyes. This kind of attack should be a grappling move with both arms retracting, right? Or at the very least, a wrestling technique.

Sure enough, after the thug ran over, he suddenly tried to hug him, but he grabbed nothing. Shirai Kuroko instantly moved behind him, opened her eyes, and prepared to observe his next move.

Before the thug could even adjust his movements, he instantly twisted his body and delivered a high sweeping kick. Shirai Kuroko hurriedly raised her backpack to block the kick. However, the kick went through the backpack and struck Shirai Kuroko hard in the left ribs.

"cough-!"

The instant the kick struck, it felt as if air was being forced out of my throat, making it impossible to breathe. A cracking sound followed, likely from several broken ribs. My entire body felt as if it had been struck by a heavy hammer, a dull, stabbing pain mixed with suffocation and nausea.

Shirai Kuroko was kicked away, smashing through a glass door and landing heavily on the concrete floor with a thud. She rolled twice with the force of the impact, her head hitting a concrete pillar inside.

"Wow, that's a nice voice." The thug walked in slowly, hands in his pockets, whistling as he went. "Not bad...probably a broken rib or two, right?"

"Visual interference... what an annoying ability." Shirai bit her lower lip, trying to focus her vision. But everything in front of her was shaking, splitting, and even turning gray, making it difficult to pinpoint her opponent's exact location.

The leg that had just broken through her backpack's defenses made her realize that the leg she could see was an illusion; the real limb was hidden. Combined with the previous battle, it seemed this person could even choose how to conceal their limbs.

"Oh? You figured it out after only two moves? What... I thought we could play for much longer... But you can't beat me like this~" The thug took a few steps forward again, squatted down in front of Shirai Kuroko, and grabbed Shirai Kuroko's hair with his hand.

Shirai Kuroko knew that what was in front of her was an illusion. Attacking it would be pointless, and she couldn't even breathe normally right now, she could only adjust slowly.

"Shirai-kun!" Saten Ruiko cried out in terror. Shirai Kuroko had told her to leave quickly, but this was Hina Haru's friend, and someone she had just met. Although she was terrified, she stayed.

"I'm fine!" Shirai Kuroko managed to say, but a fine layer of cold sweat had already seeped from her forehead. Her vision was becoming increasingly distorted, even the boy's figure was splitting into three or four swaying double images…

"Oh? There's another one?" The thug released Shirai Kuroko's hair, stood up, and walked towards Saten Ruiko. Saten Ruiko watched the man approach, but her legs seemed to have a mind of their own, frozen in place.

Shirai Kuroko gritted her teeth, preparing to forcefully launch a maximum-distance movement, even if the landing point might be wrong, at least to allow ordinary people to escape...

In that instant, all the "sounds" suddenly fell silent. Not silence, but a deeper kind of "calm," as if even the vibrations of the air had been soothed.

The distorted light and shadow froze. The light rays that had been twisted by the ability returned to normal in an instant.

The thug was stunned.

Shirai Kuroko and Saten Ruiko were also stunned.

They both looked toward the park entrance, where a gray-haired girl was standing.

She appeared out of nowhere, without a sound or a breath, as if she had been there from the very beginning. Her white T-shirt fluttered gently in the afternoon breeze, and her gray eyes calmly observed everything in the room.

She raised her right hand, palm up. There was no light, no special effects, but an invisible "field" quietly unfolded around her. It was neither an attack nor a defense.

The wildly distorted light returned to its straight state. The restless polarized light field dissipated like ripples being smoothed out. The boy's fluctuating abilities were forcibly brought to a standstill.

"What...what did you do?!" The boy looked at his hands in horror. His abilities were still there, but like a wild horse with reins on, no matter how he tried to push it, he could no longer cause the same level of distortion as before.

The gray-haired girl didn't answer. She stepped into the park, her steps light, treading across the cracked asphalt, and stopped in front of Shirai Kuroko and Saten Ruiko. She glanced at Shirai Kuroko, who lay limply on the ground, and Saten Ruiko, whose body was stiff, then turned to the boy.

"Your 'thread'... leads to a place of chaos."

The boy couldn't understand what she was saying, but he instinctively felt fear. He took a step back and turned to run away.

The gray-haired girl stretched out her hand, her fingertips making a virtual tap in the air.

It wasn't a physical pulling or stretching, but a deeper, more rule-based "fixation." The boy's movements froze, as if he were entangled in an invisible spiderweb. He was horrified to discover that not only were his abilities suppressed, but he could barely move his body.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Shirai Kuroko forcefully pushed the ground, knocking the thug down with a headbutt, then used ground techniques to subdue him, and finally pulled out handcuffs to cuff him.

Shirai Kuroko leaned against the wall to stand up, but as soon as she stood, a trickle of blood flowed from the top of her head, dripping from the tip of her nose to the ground. "Arrest complete."

She took a breath, looked at the gray-haired girl, her eyes filled with complex emotions, and after thinking for a long time, she finally remembered. "You... are the one from the restaurant that day..."

"I don't know..." the girl answered calmly, then turned her gaze to Saten Ruiko, "Are you alright?"

Saten Ruiko was still a little dazed, but quickly nodded, "N-nothing! Thank you!"

The gray-haired girl nodded slightly and looked back at the handcuffed boy. She took two steps closer, her gray eyes intently "looking" at the tangled "threads" binding his body.

"These 'lines'..." she described softly, "lead to places where there are many sounds of pain."

She reached out and lightly pressed her fingertips a few centimeters from the boy's shoulder. There was no contact, but the boy suddenly shuddered, his eyes rolled back, and he slumped to the ground.

Shirai Kuroko frowned as she checked the boy's vital signs, confirming he had only fainted, and breathed a sigh of relief. She looked at the gray-haired girl again: "What...what did you just do? Ordinary citizens are not allowed to use their abilities on suspects without authorization! If you do that again, I will arrest you for assault!"

"It's a 'thread'." The gray-haired girl withdrew her hand and looked southeast. "Many 'threads' converge there from all over the city. The 'thread' on him is one of them."

She paused, then added, "This morning, at the convenience store, I saw a person named Kiyama Harumi. She has the most 'connections' to her."

Shirai Kuroko's pupils contracted, and her expression became even more bizarre. This was understandable; she had finally managed to invite a researcher in this field, and her guidance had just led to some clues, only to now hear her testimonies that she was the culprit.

"Huh? Professor Kiyama has connections with these people?"