For adolescent high school students, only nabe sets were insufficient, so until additional orders arrived at their tables, everyone was doing his or her own thing. The majority of the class was screaming *gyaa! gyaa!* noises inside the store, but Kamijou went out and was resting for a bit. One might say, as they were in the underground mall, there was not much of a feeling of being outside.
(War, eh…)
(An unreal word—no, it'd be better as an unreal word,) Kamijou suddenly reminded himself.
In the underground mall, oriented for college students, people a little older than Kamijou were walking back and forth. And everyone was pleasantly smiling. That was itself peace. It was everywhere in the townscape. And it seemed to diminish the credibility of the word 'war'.
Even so, scars certainly remained.
With the turmoil on September 30th, several buildings in a street block were mowed down, and the outer sections of Academy City took a land-transforming scale of a bombing. Those kinds of scars wouldn't go away in a day or two.
After this, 'that' would probably occur around the world.
There was no definite promise that world-shattering event would definitely not occur.
The Roman Catholic Church.
And the God's Right Seat.
(...Seems I have to do something.)
He didn't know what he could definitely do. In the first place, he had a feeling that he would be doing more than what a mere high school student could do.
However, Vento of the Front, who had arrived in this town the other day, said, "—I've attacked Academy City to eliminate Kamijou Touma."
Kamijou was not in the middle of a large flow.
The large flow was happening with Kamijou as the center.
(I dunno what's what, but if so, even I can probably do something; I'm not a spectator here. I dunno who decided this, but if I'm the axis of the story, is there no room left where I can change the flow of the events?)
Even with the long-awaited pot, the more he thought about it, the more he was feeling depressed. With his mood changing, Kamijou took out his cell phone and opened it, unaware that he had mail.
It came from Misaka Mikoto.
(The usual from lunchtime eh,) he thought as he tried to open the mail, but even as he opened the inbox, the message [no new mail] was being displayed. Somehow, her address was treated as spam and was automatically segregated into a different folder, but even as he punched his way into it, that spam folder couldn't be found at all. That function wasn't used much, so he had no idea.
"?? …What was that?"
He tilted his head and figured he'd deal with it later, so he put his cell phone back into his pocket.
"Kami-yan."
A voice reached Kamijou's back.
Turning around, Tsuchimikado Motoharu was standing there.
He was holding a small fifteen centimeter metallic bottle in one hand. Its contents might have been whiskey. He had probably come there to secretly drink it and keep it from Komoe-sensei.
Tsuchimikado's appearance was totally normal. Without even a single plaster. However that lad had probably risked his life in battle; looking closely, his gait was suspiciously awkward.
As usual, the self-styled spy Tsuchimikado could see that from looking at an amateur like Kamijou the latter was suspecting [awkward]. As expected, his was no minor injury.
Tsuchimikado probably knew why Kamijou was secretly excluding himself from the class.
He smiled as he said, "…You're mistaken if you think the war that will occur from here on is all your fault. Thanks to you, everyone in the class is not dragged in. You were able to protect those around you. And so you experiencing feelings of alienation is too unreasonable."
"…I see."
"That's right. The war occurred because someone behind the scenes blundered. For an amateur like Kami-yan, to be angry that it's the fault of someone somewhere else is enough."
On hearing that, Kamijou instinctively smiled.
After all, both Kamijou and Tsuchimikado were really similar, burdening themselves with their own baggage.
Tsuchimikado said, "It's starting."
"Yeah."
"The scale of the war is changing. This is totally beyond a mere brats' squabble. You better be on the lookout, Kami-yan. From the way it is now, it might be difficult to escape situations from here on."
"…I get your point."
Kamijou slightly glanced downwards.
Onto his own flexing right hand.
"Even I didn't think this would end up good. It's because that rather than 'something is insufficient', there are many with their own insufficiencies. What happened up to this point is miraculous. Perhaps, if they were rightly recognized, I wouldn't have advanced to this fate."
"The other side won't be waiting leisurely for our preparations."
"That might be the case. Even so, I know what I must do. No matter how small, I'll have no choice but to learn it in detail."
Having said that, Kamijou shifted his gaze up.
"It's no use complaining over the insufficiency. We'll be advancing little by little. It's a difficult problem even in the best of cases. But if we don't do it, we can never get close to our intended people."
"Kami-yan…"
Tsuchimikado tried to say something, but held it in.
He was a professional spy, different from Kamijou. A person who knew the darkness of the world far better than Kamijou. The hesitation had disappeared from Kamijou's tone, which caused Tsuchimikado to fumble for the right words.
"I've depended on others until now. And I've left it all to others for the world I don't know myself. I believe even I burdened you with troubles. These will be no more from now on. I have to walk on my own to the new world I haven't seen up to now!"
Kamijou had gotten the attention of Tsuchimikado Motoharu.
He silently clenched the Imagine Breaker, his right hand.
"Tsuchimikado, I've decided."
In a voice filled with a strong will, he clearly said it.
In a sense, to the senior of that business.
"That's right, from now on I'll study English!!!"
............
"Hah?"
Aware that Tsuchimikado was reflexively and completely agape, Kamijou brought out his cell phone from his pants.
"Now look, Tsuchimikado! I've downloaded a mobile app called Easy English Training! I'm onto Level 3 of daily conversations, but as I thought, it's tough. But I have to reasonably remember non-Japanese words, so the Roman Catholic Church and God's Right Seat are not always limited to always talking in our language!!"
"Errr…"
Stepping too far back, Tsuchimikado's unintentional expression was like he was talking to someone for the first time.
"Why English for this situation?"
"Eh? If they're in Rome then Italian will do. However, there are two billion of them. For that, English will do."
Kamijou's puzzling answer came back.
For something like a definite way to survive, that was the last thing on Tsuchimikado's mind.
It seemed that Kamijou was somehow hell-bent on beating words into two billion opponents.
"Well, I was thinking that words won't go through, but if the soul is sent along, one would expect that they should understand, I think. There's no reason why everyone should be fluent in Japanese like Lidvia or Biagio. Or rather, everyone is talking to one another in Japanese, but we shouldn't be too dependent on that. Hence that's my reason."
"—"
A thick *BAM!!* sound resounded in the underground mall.
Because of the extreme stupidity, Tsuchimikado almost reflexively unleashed his fist.
Tsuchimikado exasperatedly shook his head, ignored the lad rolling nearby, and went back inside the sukiyaki restaurant as he lowered his shoulders.
Afterwards, it went without saying that Kamijou Touma was unable to get even a bit of the additional pile of meat.