To Aru Majutsu No Index

とある魔術の禁書目録 – To Aru Majutsu no Index
Volume 1

Prologue: The Tale of the Illusion Killer Boy.
The Imagine-Breaker.
"Eh?! Damn it! Damn it! Arghhh! Such misfortune!!!"
Though he realized his frantic shouts must have made him sound like a maniac, Kamijou Touma
has no intention of stopping his headlong flight. Fleeing down a back alleyway late at night, he
glanced back over hisshoulder.
Eight people.
Even after he had run nearly two kilometers, there were still eight people in pursuit of him. Of
course, as he was neither a cook from an ex-foreign unit[1] nor a cyber ninja still surviving in the
modern era, Kamijou Touma would have stood no chance against their numbers even if he chose
to fight them. To begin with, any fight between high school students that exceeded3-on-1 wasn't
worth mentioning. At those numbers, things like true strength and such are useless from the start.
Kamijou kept running, kicking a slightly dirty polyethylene bucket and scaring a black cat away.
July 19.
Yeah, it was because it's July 19.
Because he had been reveling in the fact that summer break started tomorrow, he picked up a
manga at the bookstore that was obviously a dud. Thisfact was also why he went into a family
restaurant thinking Maybe I'll splurge a little on something to eat, even though he hadn't been
very hungry. And so, when he saw a middle school girl surrounded by drunken thugs, he got this
wacky idea in his head telling him, Hey, maybe I should help.
However, he couldn't have dreamt that all their buddies would start popping out of the bathroomtogether. He thought, Only girls were allowed to use the bathroom together, right?
"I had to run out of there before I could get the bitter melon and escargot hell-lasagna I had
finally decided on. Now I'm a dine-and-dasher without even getting to dine! Arghhh, what's with
this misfortune?!"
Kamijou grabs his head as he bursts out from the alleyway onto the main street, yelling.
"Gyuh!"
Moonlightdescends upon Academy City, which is approximately one-third the size of Tokyo
and therefore crowded with couples. It's definitely July 19. This is all July 19's fault, the single
thought roared within Kamijou's mind.

1

とある魔術の禁書目録 – To Aru Majutsu no Index
Volume 1

The three-bladed, wind-powered generators that stood here and there glittered like tears shed by
a bachelor, basking inboth pale moonlight and the lights of the nighttime city.
Kamijou cuts through the couples in order to run swiftly through the night street. While he ran,
glanced down at his right hand. Concealed within it was a power that was rather useless in this
sort of situation. It couldn't take out a delinquent, raise his test scores, or even make him popular
with the girls.
"Uwaaa! The misfortune!"If he managed to completely shake off the group of delinquents, the ones who had lost sight of
Kamijou could simply use their mobiles to call for reinforcements and possibly even
transportation. For the sake of making them collapse from exhaustion, Kamijou Touma had no
choice but to bait the struggling pursuers into following him, in order to slowly but surely wear
them out. It similar toboxing: Letting your opponent hit you recklessly in order to drain his
physical strength.
Kamijou's motive to the end was assuredly an "act of mercy".
It was certainly useless to fight, and he would consider it a "victory" if his pursuers were shaken
off and made to give up. At the very least, Kamijou was very confident in long-distance running.
Plus, the pursuers were in poor health due to alife-time of drinking and smoking and were
wearing boots: Footwear with zero functionality. Disregarding the pace and the need to fully
sprint to keep up, basic long-distance running was without doubt not possible for them.
He dashed from one alleyway to the next as his pursuers kept growing in number until he could
no longer recognize their individual shapes, simultaneously trying to think of...