Toaru Majutsu no Index SS

Volume 2, Chapter 15: Art is Divided between Geniuses and Eccentrics. The Fourth Friday of September.

A great number of the Anglican Church’s battle members were gathered in a women’s dorm in London. One of them was Kanzaki Kaori, a woman with her long black hair tied in a ponytail.

As always, she had Shichiten Shichitou, her Japanese sword that was over 2 meters long, hanging at her hip.

She was trembling alone in the dining hall with a leaflet in her hands that said, “The scabbard is a lovely and stylish outfit for your sword. Wouldn’t you like to dress up your beloved sword even more beautifully?”

The pretty four-colored leaflet had a number of sample photos in small boxes and animals made from black cloth and finely cut vermillion maple and gold leaf much like would be seen on the outside of a multi-tiered bento box.

Kanzaki heard a gulping noise.

She did not realize that it was the sound of herself swallowing.

(...M-mhhh...!! I-it’s true I was thinking that this plain black scabbard wasn’t enough. If I just got that Vermillion Maple or the Yellow Crane...N-no, no!! The core of the Amakusa-style Church needs to draw out the magical meanings of the objects around her and use them! If I just change the meaning of the scabbard so simply...b-but...the meaning of this Evening Cherry Tree might not be a problem...)

The always cool and collected Yamato Nadeshiko that was Kanzaki Kaori continued to groan in indecision. As if to kick her while she was down, a different leaflet slipped from her hand and landed on one of the dining hall tables.

This one said, “Armor is the ultimate partner that protects your back. You should feel the breath of this wonderful partner that will stay with you no matter what predicament you are in.”

“M-mhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Kanzaki glared at the pictures on the advertisement that looked like the dolls from the Boys’ May Festival.

(I suppose an entire set of armor is a bit much...but with just an arm or a leg or even a breastplate I could wear it under my normal clothes and...no, no!!)

Kanzaki continued like this until she suddenly returned to her senses.

She looked up, cleared her throat, and slowly put the leaflets aside. It was no time to have her heart stolen by those leaflets that had been left there almost as a trap.

Kanzaki moved from the dining hall to the kitchen area.

As a large amount of food had to be prepared, the kitchen was a fairly large area. It had a business-use oven, a business-use refrigerator, and a business-use sink. Kanzaki entered the kitchen that was full of business-use objects, opened the large silver fridge, and pulled out a small storage container from the back.

It contained the leftovers bits of a sea bream.

Kanzaki had been in charge of the food that day and she had saved the sea bream bones. She had used a kitchen knife to scrape off the little bit of flesh from the thick bones.

The small Sister Angelene who was always sneaking food had commented “Wah! Are you that much of a glutton?”, so Kanzaki had been feeling a little down, but now she could admit that Angelene was exactly right. This was one of her favorite foods.

Kanzaki took the last little bits of rice from the large rice cooker one would usually see at a school, put it in a rice bowl, and then put the sea bream leftovers in the center. She then took the broth she had made by boiling the bones and head of the sea bream, put it in a small teapot, and poured it into the rice bowl.

She slowly put down the small teapot and brought her hands together in front of her face in a small clap making sure not to make any noise.

“Hee hee. Hee hee hee. ...Sea bream chazuke☆”

Kanzaki continued her excited silent clapping half feeling that someone should point out that she had used broth instead of tea, but it didn’t really matter. She simply preferred broth. Someone might complain that she wasn’t doing it right, but it wasn’t going to stop her.

She took some chopsticks from a cupboard and hurried back to the dining hall with her rice bowl. She was smiling widely and couldn’t keep her butt from swaying rhythmically while wrapped in her indigo-dyed yukata.

“Now then. Time to eat.”

“Hey, who’s eating something that smells delicious this late at night!?”

“It smells so good!! It’s making me so hungry I can’t sleep!!”

Kanzaki started panicking once she heard a couple of female voices suddenly come from the ceiling. She heard hurried footsteps getting closer and closer.

She only had one sea bream chazuke, so there was no way she could comply with the request that was sure to come now that those girls had smelled it.

That left only one path.

(At this rate, they’ll start fighting over it...!?)

Kanzaki Kaori built up her resolve, grabbed the rice bowl that still had steam rising from it, put her lips to the edge, and stared quickly moving the chopsticks. Her eyes filled with tears, but it was hardly the time to worry about that. That was the only way to stop a pointless fight from occurring. It wasn’t that she was afraid of having someone else take the sea bream chazuke from her.

Kanzaki threw the empty rice bowl and chopsticks in a dishpan full of water and disposed of the small bit of broth still left in the teapot and pot. Finally, she sprayed a deodorizing spray around the area.

It all only took about 30 seconds.

Just as she straightened up after putting the can of deodorizing spray back in its proper spot, the starving nuns noisily entered the kitchen.

As expected, the first one in was the short nun with braided blonde hair, Angelene. She was sniffing around with her small nose.

“K-Kanzaki-san! Did you see some mysterious person with food that smelled amazingly good wandering around here!?”

“N-no. I didn’t see a mysterious old man delivering ramen or anything.”

“...Odd. I could have sworn the smell was coming from around here...”

Angelene wandered around the kitchen sniffing like a war dog that had lost its prey. Kanzaki slowly turned her gaze away from Angelene and the other nuns behind her and looked to the window. She noticed a grain of rice on her mouth and hurriedly pushed it into her mouth with a finger.

As all this was going on, the tall nun with cat’s eyes, Lucia, entered the kitchen having noticed all the noise. She began speaking to Angelene.

“Sister Angelene. ...What is going on here?”

“This is the autumn of art! And so I thought I’d try my own hand at art.”

Kanzaki looked over at them questioningly and saw a choco cornet in Angelene’s hand. The bread had three silver-colored forks stuck into either side. The look in Lucia’s eyes eloquently expressed her anger over the wasted food and that she was going to spank Angelene 100 times later.

Angelene spoke while holding the dessert bread with its wing-like forks.

“This is an expression of the anger swirling around inside me.”

“I see...”

“The anger in my heart wants to leap from my chest, but energy is needed for it to do so. The exchange of energy means that anger directed towards others comes back to you. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that getting too angry makes you even hungrier!!!!!!”

“...”

“Okay, now that Master Artist Angelene’s audio commentary is over, I’ll be spanking you 100 times,” said Lucia with a heavy sigh.

That was when Sherry Cromwell, a Gothic Lolita magician with light brown skin and blonde hair like a lion’s mane, entered the kitchen.

Sherry was the manager of the magical side of the Royal Academy of Arts and, when she entered the kitchen, she completely ignored the issue of Kanzaki and the sea bream chazuke and looked over at the dessert bread with forks (Title: Anger Burns the Self) that Angelene was holding in both hands as she was being spanked.

“Art...!?”

“D-don’t make strange jokes that are so difficult to understand!! Look, now that you’ve said that, Sister Angelene is yelling out as if she has had her eyes opened to some mysterious truth!!”

The real reason Angelene was yelling and opening her eyes wide was because Lucia had added 80% more force to her spanking as she snapped at Sherry, but Lucia didn’t seem to realize that.

Meanwhile, Sherry must have had great respect for the mysterious dessert bread with forks that frankly expressed human emotion because she started putting on thin gloves as if she were about to handle a true antique.

“Hey! Nuns number one and number two!”

“Don’t refer to us like we’re levers on the toilet!!”

“Don’t refer to us like we’re levers on the toilet!!”

“...C-can I touch that dessert bread? No!! I understand! I’m well aware I’m making an inelegant request!! But three dimensional objects always make me want to look at them from every angle!!”

It seemed the brown sculptor was suffering, but Lucia said she could have it as long as she would actually eat it. However, as soon as Sherry took it she started speaking as if she was moaning.

“The direction of the forks...this wing shape... I see. This says that the anger over an empty stomach empties the stomach further...!!”

All of the nuns left the kitchen muttering that they just didn’t understand artists. Kanzaki left along with them and sighed as she walked along the hallway in her yukata. Then she tilted her head to the side in puzzlement.

(Huh? Why did we end up on the topic of art?)