Book 2 Chapter 7
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  Aiko Sakai waved her friends goodbye and then took a deep breath. She had her back to the shoe locker's wall, staring out towards the school gate, as she watched various classmates filter back out towards home, generally in clumps of friends, each having their own conversations about the day. She could eavesdrop on them if she liked, with magic, but what was the point? They'd surely be thinking about dinner or the like. If someone was thinking of sneaking up behind her and stabbing her, her magic would convey the thought ahead of time. Keeping her mind reading at a higher sensitivity just wasn't worth it. Even though she had told the boy not to be late, she had had after school practice with the tennis club. It's not like the coach would accept an excuse like, "Sorry, I have to go see my boyfriend," and so now she was late. She hoped he wasn't mad. She hoped their relationship didn't make a record for shortness at half a day.

  There she is, a familiar mind thought. The same mind that had spied on her a month ago, she'd finally caught out by coincidence, by sharing the same roof. Her mind reading had really paid off this time. If she had dated a boy at random, it never would have worked. But she felt safe around this boy. His mind felt safe. The previous time, and this time, his thoughts were as gentle as a feather. There was a tenderness to them, that her magic could catch, because ultimately emotions were just thoughts too. Aiko didn't turn around and look for him, it wouldn't do to look too prescient. She waited anxiously, butterflies in her stomach, for him to enter her line of sight.

  "Good afternoon." The boy said, walking up from behind her. He was nervous. Is this all just an elaborate prank, because she caught me staring at her too long? He wondered. Really, the nerve of the boy. Like she was capable of doing something like that.

  "Good afternoon." Aiko bowed pleasantly. "You've been watching me. For how long?"

  Two years. The boy thought. "Two years," the boy said. Good boy. You pass. "I didn't think you had noticed. I didn't mean to trouble you."

  "It wouldn't have been any trouble to talk to me, you know." Aiko reprimanded him. "If you really liked me that much."

  "I. . .that would be impossible. Until recently, you were so unapproachable, there was just an invisible wall that warned everyone to stay away. I. . .besides, how could a boy the same age as a girl interest a girl? I knew it was helpless, all the way up until you asked me on the roof. . .actually, all the way up until you actually showed up here. . .actually. . .I still think it's hopeless." The boy laughed nervously. "This is like a dream."

  "You know my name, but I don't know yours." Aiko pointed out.

  "Oh, forgive me." The boy drew himself up and bowed politely. "My name is Kioshi Nishimura, it's nice to meet you, I'll be under your care from now on."

  Aiko gravely bowed back to him. "My name is Aiko Sakai, it's nice to meet you, I'll be under your care from now on."

  "So. . ." Kioshi trailed off, not knowing what to say next to a complete stranger who was already his girlfriend.

  "'Pure', is it?" Aiko seized desperately upon the same introductory technique that Sayuri had succeeded using with her. "That's a wonderful name. You really are so pure."

  "I, well, I try to be. It is my name, so I don't want to shame it, or my parents who named me." Kioshi Nishimura replied.

  Aiko smiled. She could like someone like this. He was honest. He was humble. He was safe. And for whatever reason, he adored her. He had passed every test so far.

  "This isn't a dream, or a trick. I really do want to be your girlfriend," Aiko reassured him. Then she stopped and thought about it for a while. "Let me rephrase that: I'm lucky to be your girlfriend. I'm glad I'm your girlfriend. I'm grateful I'm your girlfriend, and not someone else's, who would love me half as much and treat me twice as badly. It looks like you've forgotten entirely, but I'm an hour late!"

  "Oh, that. That's nothing. I just got out a book to read, I didn't even notice." Kioshi said. Aiko kept her smile to herself. Liar.

  "What are you reading?" Aiko asked.

  "Oh, you know. . .Index." Kioshi shrugged.

  "That's. . .the light novel, right?" Aiko tried to recall. It was a popular series geared towards boys. Science fiction, she thought. But it was hardly literature. Father wouldn't be caught dead buying something like that for her.

  "Right. It's about a guy with anti-magic in a city of super technology and people with psychic powers. . .just silly stuff. . .really. I guess it sounds silly if you haven't read it." Kioshi trailed off, embarrassed.

  "Really? It's about psychics? Then maybe you could help me. I'm trying to assign twenty different psychic powers to the characters in my book." Aiko brightened energetically. "I could use all the psychics in Index as reference points." Aiko laughed. She was a psychic talking about psychics in science fiction/fantasy, silly stuff that could never really happen.

  "Well, Misaka Mikoto can generate electromagnetic waves, and her best friend can teleport." Kioshi supplied readily.

  "So in Index, psychics can do anything? It isn't just constrained to telepathy or telekinesis?” Aiko asked, relieved. She had wanted to do something similar, allowing her psi powers to fit any authorial need she had, and be more expressive of her character’s personalities. After all, these psychics had to fight and win a war for her.

  “No, that’s old hat. Nowadays psychic means someone who can manipulate reality to fit what’s in her mind, in a way she’s expert at. I guess you could say they’re reality programmers, but very low level. I don’t know if I’m making sense.” Kioshi said worriedly.

  “No, I understand. I’m rather smart, if you didn’t know. I can handle big words and complex sentences.” Aiko joked.

  “I know. Smarter than me.” Kioshi was extremely worried about that, her mind reading told her. How to assuage his fears?

  “What are your grades?” Aiko asked.

  “A’s and B’s. But you know that isn’t the proper measure of intelligence. The proper measure is I read Index while you read Plato.” Kioshi said.

  “A's and B's are fine, and if you like to read anything, you're already a step above the competition . If you let me borrow Index from you, I'd love to read it.” Aiko said. “But how did you know I read Plato?”

  “You took it out under that tree, the one you always read at. I saw it walking by. Actually. . .I arranged to walk by that tree at that time on my way home every day. Just to see you one more time before I went home. Sad, huh?” Kioshi confessed.

  “It isn’t sad, it’s charming. Thank you for wanting to see me.” Aiko replied.

  “You’re welcome.” Kioshi said.

  “There, that’s better." Aiko nodded encouragingly. “Intelligence isn't everything you know. My whole family's bright but we’re just an ordinary family, we have our own faults too. I know people way better than me who aren't nearly as intelligent.” Except the ordinary family part was a total lie. Well, we’re an ordinary family in some ways. It wasn’t a total lie.

  “So this book you’re writing, what’s it about?” Kioshi asked, wanting to get off a sore point quickly.

  “The perils of nondiscrimination.” Aiko said. This was another test. If she couldn’t tell him the truth about her values and beliefs, if he couldn’t understand and respect her values and beliefs, then there was no future together. There was no point drawing a relationship like that out.

  “The perils of non-discrimination?” Kioshi asked, making sure he had heard right.

  “Precisely. If the principle of nondiscrimination is enshrined as the highest good, then it would be natural for the government to start supporting it with 'positive action' laws. In my story, nondiscrimination has become such an overriding wish that even choosing your own spouse is considered discriminatory and who you marry and have children with is instead determined the only fair way, by lottery. It's the only way to stop racism, classism, oppression and exploitation, you see. Only indiscriminate mixing can ever erase all differences between groups, and so, since everyone agrees nondiscrimination is a good thing, eventually the state just mandates it." Aiko explained.

  "But you're worrying about nonsense. Isn't discrimination, not nondiscrimination, the real problem of today? Isn't that why there's still so much crime, poverty, and war in the world?" Kioshi asked.

  "You're just like the bad guys in my book." Aiko laughed. "No, discrimination isn't causing anything. All the problems of the world are due to people's own incorrect beliefs. They have no one to blame but themselves. If they made fruitful choices in their own lives, they would prosper, no matter what someone else thought about them or what nasty names they were called once upon a time. War is because people incorrectly believe that if they just kill some hated group, their lives would improve, without having to improve themselves in any way. Poverty is because people incorrectly apply themselves to systems that don't yield results, like communism or corruption. And crime is because people incorrectly show mercy to criminals, when a tough enough policy can virtually eliminate any incentive to ever dare go down that route, and at the very least stop recidivism cold."

  "So racism has nothing to do with any of these problems?" Kioshi asked with a severe degree of disbelief.

  "Correct, and I'll prove it: Take the Jewish people. They were the most hated and despised ethnicity in history. A few decades ago, Hitler nearly managed to kill them all. But did that stop them? No. Today they're richer than ever, with a slew of Nobel Prizes to their name, and even their own country. If Jews can overcome that level of external bias, so could anyone else who had the ability and the will. Racism isn't holding anyone back. But that culture of entitlement, of always wanting to blame someone else for your own failures, sure does. To make matters worse, continuously campaigning against discrimination, blaming all evil on Earth on discrimination, has the capacity to mutate into a world devouring beast. If discrimination really is the cause of all suffering on Earth, then obviously it should be banned, right? And if discrimination is banned, then how could Japan control its borders? How could any state discriminate between foreigners and citizens? How could we enforce the law? Isn't that just discriminating against the perfectly valid alternate lifestyle of criminals? How could we even live in families, shouldn't husband and wives and children all be in common, so that no one favors one person over another? Is love even possible without some form of discrimination?" Aiko challenged Kioshi.

  "That's just hyperbole. No one's against that kind of discrimination." Kioshi replied.

  "Aren't they? But it doesn't matter, because someday they will be. They'll have to be, if they continue to insist that discrimination is innately evil. My book's villains are just the full flowering of the ideas we already see in their infancy today. I want to write about the issue now, when it can still do some good, and a science fiction thriller where psychics fight the forces of enforced mediocrity is the best answer I have." Aiko concluded.

  "Hmm." Kioshi pondered her answers for a short time, then nodded to himself. "Instead of talking about it, how about I just read it?" Kioshi offered. "I could proofread, comment, and give you reference materials for your fight scenes. If your book's argument is compelling enough, I'm sure to change my mind." And with that he passed her final test.

  “Okay.” Aiko agreed to his offer happily. “Would you like to come over to my place? We can look over my book in my room. Or I could go over to yours. Your parents are okay with you dating someone, right?”

  “I wouldn’t have agreed to date you if I knew I couldn’t.” Kioshi quickly reassured her. “They’ll just insist we don’t. . .and it’s not like I was. . .so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “My parents feel the same way. This is going to be really juvenile stuff, you know. They won’t allow anything, and I don’t want to risk upsetting my future just to get a head start on. . .something we can have whenever, if we’re real.” Aiko told him.

  “It’s okay if it’s juvenile. It’s strange. I always wanted to talk to you. But I never thought this is what you’d say.” Kioshi said.

  “You can still dump me, no harm done. I’m not invested in you emotionally yet.” Aiko proffered.

  “No. That’s not what I meant. Your shell is different, but your soul is exactly what I thought it would be.” Kioshi corrected her.

  “Just from watching?” Aiko asked.

  “Just from watching.” Kioshi affirmed.

  “So, this weekend, your place or mine?” Aiko pressed.

  “Yours.” Kioshi chose.

  “I want this to last, Kioshi. I’ve read a lot of romance novels.” Aiko warned him.

  “I want this to last too. Having you was my dream.” Kioshi Nishimura said simply. He was telling the truth.

* * *

  Isao Oono studied his quarry, sitting patiently on the floor as the dictator of Chad watched TV before bed. It was late into the night, and his official duties were done for the day, whatever they were. Isao supposed they were rigging elections and crushing rebellions, which is what every dictator in Africa spent all their time doing. Because of these people, Africa was still the basket case of the world. The moment colonialism ended, tribalism and cronyism began, and civil wars led by opposing dictators from opposing tribes and religious affiliations wracked the entire continent for decades. It would have made more sense for colonialism to have only ended once a secure and efficient government was already in place to take over from the imperial powers, but the Africans were so anxious to be free, and the Europeans so anxious to leave, that such a hypothetical never could have happened. Which meant Africa, largely, was still in the chaos the Europeans had originally left it in, only now with five times the population, courtesy of modern medicine, foreign food aid, and a complete disregard for birth control. The women were too poor to afford it and too powerless to insist on it, and thus the spiral continued. Isao was here to break the spiral in the only way he knew how. At the very least, he could dethrone unpopular dictators and give the people the chance to choose their own future. If a new dictator came to power in Chad, he'd kill him too, until the country figured out only a democracy would be accepted by whatever higher power kept striking down the world's tyrants. Isao Oono was twenty-one years old, but he'd already changed a large portion of the world. North Korea had already surrendered to and reunified with their brothers in the South, who had footed the bill to lift the North from poverty just like West Germany had done for East Germany when the wall came down. Burma had lost its military junta and held free and fair elections. Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam had all lost their current leaders, until they promptly announced to the public that they were modernizing the bureaucracy and introducing an elected parliament that would henceforth carry on the duties of the state. Isao was ashamed of how many dictators had still been allowed to rule Asia, ostensibly a civilized region on par with the West, but he had finally cleaned out the whole nest.

  It was time for Africa to share in some of the terror that had forced Asia's hand. But something held Isao's killing blow back. His instincts felt something was out of place, and so he waited, and studied, and watched.

  This was definitely the dictator of Chad, Black's scrying was never wrong. The armor he had chosen for his suit was simple, complete invisibility. When he had imagined the armor, he had thought the best armor possible wouldn't need to divert any blows, it would just mask your presence magically such that no one could hit you in the first place. The magic was perfect, just like he had imagined, nothing could observe him. Weight sensors didn't pick up his weight, infrared cameras didn't detect his heat, eyes couldn't see him, guard dogs couldn't smell him, and sound sensors couldn't pick up his footsteps. The armor was perfect, but it only masked himself and his magical weapon, which he had imagined as an extremely sharp spear to pierce his opponents with at close range. If he tried to carry in a gun, it would be seen as floating in the air, which meant all the assassinations had to be up close and personal. The suit had served him well so far, but it still had its limits. He couldn't carry in extra explosives or hold people's hands and thus make them invisible too. It was just him and his spear versus the world.

  His magic had been less straightforward. He had dimly wanted 'ninja moves' to go with his ninja clothes, and his magic had delivered. But most of his spells were stupid. He could conjure smoke bombs or illusionary replicas, but those were just worse stealth modes than his suit. His flash move, which accelerated him twenty meters for every step a normal human took, was almost as dangerous to himself as it was to his opponents, since he would end up careening into walls and obstructions at splatter-speeds. And some of the magic was just dumb, like the ability to magically hold his breath underwater so that he could stylistically swim up on his opponents unseen, or a grappling hook so he could break into people's houses through their windows. What was the point when you could just walk into a building through the door unobserved? Isao Oono was proud of the magic he had been allowed to design, his suit and spear. But the part he couldn't design was just embarrassing. He knew exactly how Kotone felt.

  I can't be thinking of Kotone right now. That's done. I've got to figure out why all my instincts are telling me to just get up and leave, to not kill this guy and just move on to another country. The man's completely oblivious. My suit is foolproof. So why am I afraid to move?

  There were no bodyguards to worry about, they were all left outside to protect the dictator's privacy. There was a wife or a concubine in the other room, already asleep, but he would be gone long before she could raise an alarm. Invisibility did have one weak point, if someone saw you deliver the killing blow, they by default knew you were there and could begin their counterattack. The spear was visible the moment it touched another person's body, but even if it weren't, the impact of the spear would be visible. After Isao killed his target, preferably while he was alone, like in the restroom, it was always a good idea to leave quickly. But were there more weak points? Was there a risk his unconscious was telling him was here, now, right in front of him?

  Isao Oono scanned the room for at least the tenth time. There shouldn't be any hidden cameras. No dictator would want his own room bugged. If there were any, he couldn't see them. His eyes scanned over his quarry, again for the tenth time, and stopped.

  His shirt was very, very thick. Why was the President of Chad, only slightly north of the equator, wearing a long sleeved sweater? The shirt wasn't bulging tight against the man's body as though he were fat. It was thick in and of itself, taking up its own space. A sweater or coat like that wasn't out of place when it was cold, or even if it was some formal business suit attire. But this man was wearing it to bed, in his own home.

  He's rigged. Isao gulped, finally putting the pieces together. He's wrapped in a suicide vest, with a detonator primed to his heartbeat. The moment his heart stops beating, he's going to blow. And he's going to take the 'tyrant reaper' with him. Isao wasn't trying to hide what he was doing, he was trying to make it as clear as possible, to convince tyrants it was hopeless and their days were done. But it seemed his enemies had come to a different conclusion. And he had almost fallen for it.

  If he had gone this far, there were probably secondary and tertiary layers to the trap as well. Why not rig the entire house to blow the moment the first explosion caught the guard's notice? No doubt they'd set dynamite around the entire palace, ready to take it and everyone in it down just to catch him. The dictators of the world knew he would be coming for one of them, and one of them would have to die to flush out their prey, but if they all agreed to work together, they also knew this would be the last one who died, and all the others would be safe to tyrannize their people again. There probably were hidden cameras in place after all. Why not? What if there were steel doors set to slam down the moment an emergency button was hit and trap him in a cage? Isao's spear could probably break through them eventually, but by then the area will have been sprayed with poison gas, or machine gun fire, or just plain heated steam. Heat was a great equalizer. It pierced all armor and killed everything in a given area.

  Okay, so now I know their trap. The next question was how to beat it. Isao was not going to let this man go. Not him, and not any other tyrant on Earth, would ever be able to relax and enjoy themselves while he still lived. If they were finding countermeasures, he just had to find counter-countermeasures. If they were no longer afraid of him, or in awe of his supernatural abilities, he would just have to become even more terrifying and even more supernatural.

  How do I kill this man while still being safely outside the range of their trap? Isao scanned the room again, then walked into the adjacent apartment and scanned the bedroom with the girl.

  Perfect. He looked with satisfaction at the window. Isao started stripping out of his suit. He already knew it covered more of his body than where it exactly overlaid, because he had left a classic horizontal slit for his eyes in the original design, but was still completely undetectable. So long as he was still wearing part of the suit, this should work. He carefully tied a knot around his spear with his shirt, then a knot from his belt to his shirt, and then a knot from his headpiece to his belt, and stood in just his trousers and boots. Then he tested throwing his makeshift chain and sickle in a clear area of the room. No matter how much noise it made, it was undetectable. So long as he didn't stupidly break something, no one would notice his practice. It was awkward, but he was accustomed to learning things on the fly. By his fifteenth throw or so, he had a wickedly fast snapping crack of his clothes-whip and the spear tip went where he wanted. It was a very sharp spear. And if it blew up in the guy's suicide vest, along with half his suit, it wasn't an issue. Suits and weapons regenerated while they were folded away, and were good as new next time you summoned them. His suit had even changed in size as he grew up, always fitting him perfectly. Magic was nice like that.

  Isao climbed up to the window, cutting a hole in the hardened bullet-proof glass like it was paper with his spear. He kept the glass in place even though it was cut, ready to be knocked out whenever he pleased, but indistinguishable from not being cut until that time arrived. Then he waited. Assassinations were always about waiting. The strike would reveal itself when the time came. Isao retained his focus. The man would have to come to bed eventually, and then he would be in range. He will be in my range, but I won't be in his. Not even if this whole mansion explodes. This is my win.

  An hour later, Isao sitting on the windowsill as patiently as a stone, Chad's dictator finally retired to his bedchamber, his stuffy sweater still on. If I didn't know already, that confirms it. He's never going to take that sweater off, probably not even in his bath. Isao practiced the move in his mind, over and over. He knew exactly where the man had to stand. He was only a few steps away. The strike always announced itself when it was time.

  Now. Isao whipped his shoulder, his elbow, and his wrist, which whipped his clothes whip, which whipped his spear through the air. The crack of his whip was only loud to him, the outside world detected nothing but silence, up until the spear plunged with a thunk through the man's ribcage, straight through the heart. Isao didn't wait to see the results, he knew it had been a killing blow the moment his wrist twitched. Isao kicked the cut glass out from the window and jumped through the hole, gathering his body into a roll to hit the ground. Behind him there was an explosion. Poor girl. Oh well, next time don't marry a bloody tyrant. Those who sanction evil and ride on its coattails are equally to blame. They can all blow up together for all I care.

  Isao hit the ground and rolled, regaining his orientation and making sure the path in front of him was clear.

  "Flash move." Isao shouted, and he was whistling like an arrow through the air. Three steps later he had cleared a good fifty meters. That was when the second explosion rocked the ground behind him. Pieces of the mansion fluttered through the air, raining down around him.

  Too late, suckers. Isao smiled triumphantly, turning to look back at his handiwork, a good thirty meters deep into the safety of the night. You can't catch me. I'm the gingerbread man.

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