Toaru Majutsu no Index SS

Volume 2, Chapter 4: The True Strength of the Seventh of the Seven. The Third Friday of March.

March 15, 8:10 PM.

Not much had happened on White Day for Haratani Yabumi. It was the day after, and he was casually walking aimlessly around the shopping district when some ill-bred older Skill-Out boys grabbed him by the nape of his neck and dragged him into a dark, damp back alley—a very shounen manga-like bit of trouble. He was punched a few times, and then had his wallet and his cellphone, which doubled as a digital wallet, taken from him. If he didn’t contact the service center soon, he would end up experiencing a disaster akin to having his credit card stolen.

“Okay. We don’t want him getting his phone shut off, so how ‘bout we tie him up to buy some time?”

“Huh? Really? But the city’s birds are brutal. If some meat that can’t resist falls in front of them, they’ll end up pecking at it.”

“Wallet phones sure are convenient. As long as you can get the number out of the guy, there’s no credit limit.”

Pyaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!? Why did I get a new phone with functions I’ll never use just because the lady at the service center recommended iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttt!?

It used to be that muggers would only take his wallet, let him go, and that was that. The conveniences of civilization could be horrible sometimes. Just by possessing them, the user’s crisis experienced a major evolution.

Haratani Yabumi, surrounded by five or six older boys, wondered how he was going to get out of this one.

But then a voice suddenly rang out.

“You lack guts, mister. You aren’t gonna satisfy anyone that way!!”

Looking at the entrance of the alley, Haratani saw a figure striking a pose.

The five or six boys turned towards the figure and remained silent for a second.

*Bang!!*

Before anyone knew who the figure was, one of the delinquents suddenly pulled out a handgun and fired it.

The mysterious figure collapsed to the ground. The delinquent clicked his tongue in disinterest. Haratani’s dissatisfaction with God leaked out from his heart.

What kind of ridiculous turn of events was that!?

“Frwaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!”

The mysterious figure stood right back up. The whole thing took only around three seconds. Unsurprisingly, the figure standing right back up like a self-righting doll messed up the delinquents' pace.

Despite having clearly taken a shot right to his heart, he had the tension of someone who had stayed up all night and approached with heavy steps.

“You truly lack guts if you’re willing to just shoot someone without warning. Or is it restraint? Is it restraint you lack? Well, overall I’d say you’re just a kid that throws a tantrum too easily!! Don’t you think it’s sad that it’s gotten so bad that you’re in a position where the media can just say whatever it wants about you!?”

The delinquent didn’t understand what was going on at all, so he decided to shoot again. He continued to pull the trigger, but the figure only shook a bit instead of falling to the ground.

Unsurprisingly, the boy was getting rather angry and he lowered his gaze to the gun in his hand once.

“Why won’t you die...?”

“Guts! It’s about guts!!”

“There has to be more to it than that!?”

“If you insist on me telling you, I’m also the seventh of the seven Academy City Level 5’s known as Number Seven Sogiita Gunha, but that’s just an insignificant detail. The issue here is about the overflowing guts burning within me!!”

The mysterious guts guy naming himself Sogiita spread his arms wide, bent his back like a bow, and announced this to the heavens. Haratani didn’t know how it worked, but an explosion of colorful red, blue, and yellow smoke appeared behind him.

Haratani was completely dumbfounded.

The delinquents gathered together a bit and started whispering amongst themselves.

“If he’s the seventh of the seven, that means he’s the weakest of the Level 5’s, right?”

“That sounds like something Level 0’s like us could handle.”

The very Number Seven they were discussing could not remain silent.

“Non non!! I already told you! That whole Level 5 and Number Seven thing was all a boring digression!! What’s important here is guts!! It’s not too late! So just listen to m—Ow! Stop beating me with a bicycle chain lock and stabbing me with an ice pick! Ow ow ow ow! You all lack guts!!”

It looked like a comedic scene, but about ten episodes worth of material for two hour-long suspense dramas was present in the storm of violence.

And after it all, Sogiita Gunha simply wouldn’t die. His assailants began to find this odd, although their attacking hands did not slow in the slightest.

“Daaarashaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

Yelled the irritated Number Seven, forming an explosion centered around him. The villains were thrown off of their feet along with a special effects-like 'BOOOM!!'.

“You’ve just been doing whatever you want this whole time!! I won’t allow it anymore! I will now show you what true guts are!!”

There was no real excuse for getting all worked up on his own like that, since his last attack had knocked the delinquents out cold. The fact that he threw in additional attacks made it a little unclear who the villain was. Haratani began calmly thinking that the delinquents were the ones that were going to have to show true guts to get out of this.

Then...

“Heh. I suppose that’s all that can be expected from small fries like them.”

A new presence appeared from the darkness. Haratani heard footsteps as an urban monster born from the darkness of Academy City approached. A huge muscular human weapon of a man made his appearance. He looked like the kind of person who had passed through three countries with a foreign mercenary group on his way there.

“I am Yokosuka the Organ Crusher. It seems you were showing some love for my boys.”

Lower middle class Haratani Yabumi thought that this man should be off plotting some master plan to overthrow the foundations of the world somewhere away from him instead of mugging people in back alleys, but the voice of Haratani’s heart did not reach that muscular final boss.

“However, you’ve stuck your nose where it doesn’t belong. There is no repentance here. Now that you have stood before an anti-esper battle expert like me, Yokosuka-sama the Organ Crusher, you—”

“Sorry, I farted!!”

“Wait, aggh! Stay quiet and listen to what people are saying!! So, um, fuck, where was I? Oh, right. Ahem. Now that you have stood before an anti-esper battle expert like me, Yokosuka-sama the Or—”

“Amazing Puuunch!”

“I said listen to what people—Bgrh!?”

Yokosuka-san the Organic Something-or-Other was trying to say something, but he suddenly rotated at high speed like a bamboo copter. There had been more than ten meters between Number Seven and Mr. Organic, but some kind of odd shockwave or psychokinesis had gotten a clean hit on him.

“Wait... cough... What... What was that...?”

“Hh hh hhhnnn. That was the true worth of Academy City’s Number Seven. I create an unstable wall of psychokinesis in front of me and destroy it with a stimulus provided by my own fist. That causes it to send an explosive after-effect a long distance. It’s my special move, and I call it Attack Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssshhhhhhhhhh!!”

He revealed this new fact with an explosion.

But Haratani spoke up calmly.

“No, that’s impossible.”

“?”

“I don’t think just applying a stimulus to a field of psychokinetic power would have that kind of reaction. My chosen field of study in the psychic power development curriculum is about that kind of thing, so I know a lot about it.”

“...”

“...”

The attacker and the attacked both held an awkward silence.

Sogiita Gunha lowered his gaze to his clenched fist briefly.

“Then what did I do and how did I do it?”

“Heeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy!! What the hell!? What kind of half-assed way is that to treat your special move!? Think about how the people who were taken out by it feel!!”

“Amazing Puuunch!”

“That’s exactly the same as the first ti—Brrhhfd!?”

Yokosuka-san the Organic Whatever flew into the air spinning around.

Haratani’s shoulders drooped. He had been saved, but he wasn’t happy about it at all.

It seemed Mr. Organic would rather die than lose to someone who would look more at home at a festival, but the physical damage he had taken was real. He tried to stand up, but his legs were shaking uncontrollably.

“Kh. I-I would expect no less of Number Seven.”

Mr. Organic didn’t have the strength left to run away, much less fight.

He must have known how this was going to end, because he looked up at Sogiita’s face and spoke.

“...Just grant me one thing.” A genuine smile one wouldn’t expect to see on a villain appeared on his face. “At least finish this with some extraordinary attack—not something as boring-sounding as 'Amazing Punch'. Give me a genuine attack that almost sounds worth losing to.”

Hearing that, Number Seven quietly nodded.

He slowly clenched his fist, and...

“Amazing Puuunch!”

“I said not tha—Bibrchfsda!?”