Kanzaki Kaori looked at the boy standing before her—a boy who could casually fight a Saint one-on-one—with a complicated and helpless expression.
'We could have tried to help Index slowly develop bonds with others,' Kanzaki thought bitterly. 'But instead, Stiyl and I chose to handle it in the worst possible way, trying to cleanly sever our ties so she wouldn't suffer. And now we have to face the consequences.'
'Hopefully, this boy won't launch an attack without letting me say a word first.'
After two days of secret observation, she and Stiyl had verified that the boy had absolutely no ill intentions towards Index. Based on the highly classified intelligence later provided by Tsuchimikado Motoharu, the boy's true identity was revealed.
Not only was he the Eighth Level 5 in Academy City, but he was also formally registered as the world's strongest Gemstone Esper. On top of that, he was apparently the leader of a heavily armed Dark Side faction.
'It's no surprise that things have developed this way,' Kanzaki analyzed.
Moreover, during their two days of surveillance, Kanzaki saw that he took great care of Index. The girl was smiling happily at every moment.
How heartbreaking was it for her and Stiyl to watch all this from the shadows? Soon, Index's memory would have to be erased again, and all that newfound happiness would be violently stripped away.
"So, it's you, Kanzaki, right? You've teamed up with Tsuchimikado? This is getting interesting," Yuuya said, looking at Kanzaki with dark amusement before glancing sideways at Tsuchimikado.
"Wait a minute, young man! I would like to ask you to speak with us peacefully," Kanzaki quickly replied in a gentle, pleading tone.
"Young man... we are not actually evil Magicians hunting down Index. We are protecting her in secret."
"I think I've just heard the funniest joke in the world," Yuuya scoffed. "I was originally planning to go hunting for you later, but you've generously delivered yourselves right to my door."
Yuuya slowly stretched out his hand. A blinding flash of light gathered in his palm, and the atmosphere violently crackled with a deafening noise as high-voltage arcs of green electricity began to flash around his fingers.
Having just experienced the absurd, physics-breaking power of the Platinum Treasure Chest he got from Yuriko, Yuuya was eagerly anticipating the unlocking of the second Platinum Treasure Chest currently hovering over Kanzaki Kaori's body.
He was determined to crack that chest open today, no matter what.
Tsuchimikado Motoharu's eyelids twitched wildly beneath his sunglasses as he felt the sheer, lethal power gathering in Yuuya's hand.
"Oh dear! Kami-yan, I think I should run away first, nya!" Tsuchimikado squeaked, slowly backing toward the roof access door.
"Young man, please! I am a member of the Church of Necessary Evil of the English Puritans, and I am Index's companion!" Kanzaki frowned and quickly explained, desperate to de-escalate. "If Stiyl and I were really evil Magicians hunting down Index to extract the Grimoires, she would have been captured or killed by us long ago, instead of us trying to negotiate with you now, right?"
A fight simply couldn't happen right now. If another all-out battle at the Saint level were to break out in the middle of a school, she and Stiyl would be immediately targeted by the city's military, and Archbishop Laura would be forced to intervene diplomatically to save them.
"Indeed..." Yuuya hesitated for a moment, purposely acting thoughtful.
He slowly withdrew his Meltdowner ability and looked at Kanzaki's cold, heroic face, calming down as he asked the question he already knew the answer to. "So, what exactly are you trying to say? And what is your reasoning for terrorizing her?"
"I am truly sorry to have troubled you with our actions, young man," Kanzaki bowed her head in apology, her voice turning sad. "This was all a terrible misunderstanding. We were protecting Index from the shadows."
"That child should have told you that she stores 103,000 forbidden Grimoires in her brain. Ordinary people would go violently insane if they saw even a single line of text from these Grimoires. That child has a special, magically-altered constitution and has perfectly memorized 99% of the magical books in the world."
"The arcane knowledge in the Grimoires is fundamentally different from ordinary, secular knowledge. Even the total amount of conceptual data in a single book is terrifyingly large. The sheer volume of knowledge from 103,000 Grimoires has already occupied 85% of Index's total brain capacity. The remaining 15% of her cognitive space can only hold exactly one year's worth of everyday memories... otherwise, her brain will overload, and Index will die."
Kanzaki paused here, sighed heavily, and continued.
"To save her life... Index has had her memories forcibly erased by the Church four times so far."
"After the last memory erasure cycle, due to my own negligence, Index woke up alone, terrified, and found herself in a foreign country. She thought she had been captured by evil Magicians, so she ran away."
"Stiyl and I felt incredibly guilty at the time. Because... for personal reasons... I didn't want Index to have to look at everyone she loved with a heartbroken, desperate expression at the very last moment when her memories were being erased again. So we decided to play along. We pretended to be the evil Magicians hunting her so we could secretly protect her from a distance, ensuring she wouldn't despair over losing her friends at the last minute."
"Do you understand our burden now, boy?" Kanzaki said, her expression turning deeply pained. She had taken a magical oath to lend a helping hand to those who couldn't be saved... but in the end, she was utterly powerless to save her best friend.
"Ha. That story is absolutely full of biological loopholes," Yuuya criticized mercilessly, his eyes narrowing slightly. "The Grimoires occupy 85% of her memory? Only 15% of the area remains, yet she can only live for exactly one year? Does that mean Index supposedly died when she was barely old enough to start elementary school?"
"That's because Index has a condition called Perfect Memory," Kanzaki argued quickly. "Anything she sees or hears will be permanently stored in her brain, even if it's a trivial scene she would normally forget the next moment. Because she can't forget anything, her remaining capacity fills up incredibly fast."
"Pfft. That is hilarious," Yuuya burst out laughing. He then looked at Tsuchimikado with a deeply amused smirk. "Tsuchimikado Motoharu... as a student of Academy City, do you really think that 15% of a human brain's full memory capacity can only hold a single year's worth of visual and audio data?"
Tsuchimikado's eyes darted around nervously beneath his glasses, and he casually scratched the back of his head, choosing to remain completely silent.
"What's so funny about this?!" Kanzaki demanded angrily, frowning at his mockery of her pain.
"Foolish. Stupid. Ridiculous. Naive," Yuuya listed four words in a row to describe Kanzaki's worldview.
"What did you just say?!" Kanzaki gritted her teeth, her eyes flashing with a mix of confusion and anger. Why would this boy inexplicably curse her? What was so funny about the tragedy she had just shared?
"Perfect Memory—also known as photographic or eidetic memory—is not an exceedingly rare medical condition in the Science Side," Yuuya said casually, keeping his hands in his pockets. "There are currently 131 registered Espers with perfect memory abilities in Academy City alone. Three of them are Gemstones who were born with the condition."
"Then you should easily understand the seriousness of Index's medical matter!" Kanzaki argued.
"Serious? Do you really need me to give you a crash course in basic human biology?" Yuuya tilted his head mockingly.
"Young man, I am losing my patience," Kanzaki warned, her lips pursing. Her eyes turned cold, and her whole body exuded the oppressive, heroic aura of a Saint.
"Heh. If what you're saying is biologically true—that Perfect Memory users can only live for a few years without constantly erasing their memories—then explain this: the oldest registered Perfect Memory user in Academy City is already 32 years old, and she currently works as an active teacher at Tokiwadai Middle School," Yuuya stated with a sneer.
Kanzaki paused for a moment, her pupils contracting slightly.
'No... that's impossible,' she thought frantically. 'The Archbishop said...'
"Tsuchimikado, shouldn't you give Kanzaki-san a quick crash course in secular knowledge?" Yuuya looked at the spy with dark amusement. "How many years of absolute, perfectly retained memories can the average human brain actually store? You're not telling me you've forgotten middle school biology, are you?"
"Hehe... well, about that..." Tsuchimikado chuckled dryly. He then looked over at Kanzaki, dropping his jovial act, and said in a low, serious voice, "Kanzaki-nee-chin... according to the Science Side's research, a person with perfect eidetic memory can theoretically retain continuous, flawless memories for roughly 140 years before the human brain even begins to reach its data capacity."
Kanzaki let out a sharp gasp, her breath catching in her throat as if she had been physically struck.
"Even if the 103,000 Grimoires do somehow conceptually occupy 85% of her cranial space... the remaining 15% of her brain could still easily hold at least twenty to thirty years' worth of continuous memories without any issue," Yuuya declared in a strong, uncompromising voice. "So, the claim that she can only live for exactly one year is a complete, unscientific lie fabricated entirely to deceive you."
"If... if that's the truth," Kanzaki stammered, her calm facade crumbling completely, "then how do you explain Index falling into a deep, painful coma on the exact last day of every single year, to the point of her life signs actively failing?!"
"Yes, it's clearly a biological lie. So why does she fall into a coma like clockwork?" Yuuya asked rhetorically.
Yuuya's smile suddenly became incredibly dark and meaningful.
"103,000 Grimoires contain enough esoteric power to destroy the world multiple times over. They are currently stored freely in a young girl's head. What happens if she suddenly decides to betray the Puritan Church? Even if it's only a one-in-ten-thousand chance, it's an unacceptable risk for whoever leads your faction."
"If it were me..." Yuuya's eyes narrowed maliciously. "I think it would be vastly safer to artificially lock her brain. To systematically wipe her mind and turn her into an obedient, automated tool completely devoid of long-term memories, attachments, or rebellious thoughts."
Kanzaki's heart began to pound wildly against her ribs, and her beautiful face gradually turned an ashen, deathly pale.
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