Kamijou Touma has a horrible record of misfortune. Truly like no other, that if there were a global championship for bad luck, he'd not only win it, he'd trip over the trophy, crash into the audience, and accidentally set off the fire alarm before getting blamed for arson.
Slipping into a convention of oiled, muscular men. Falling into a pipeline maintenance shaft while chasing his dropped wallet. Getting chased by a horde of cats after rescuing a kitten from a tree, only to crash face-first into a girl's bountiful bosom in full view of the public. And these were instances from a whole day.
One might say the last part had a trace of good fortune for his troubles. But that would be missing the point.
Because today... Things had gotten worse. Much worse.
"It hurts! Arrgh, pull yourself together!" the spiky-haired teenager groaned to himself, voice tight as pain throbbed through his every nerve. His body lay buried under jagged debris, the cracked pavement and twisted steel pinning him down like nature itself had chosen violence.
Among other things, his right arm was gone.
Not metaphorically. Physically severed, lying a few inches away. Blood sluggishly poured from the open wound, only partially staunched by the way the rubble pressed into the stump.
But even as darkness crowded the edges of his vision, his thoughts were no longer on himself.
The girl.
With everything that happened today, from Esper attacks -specifically from a human lightning rod- to collapsing buildings, from a street brawl turned explosion to being thrown by a teleporter into a wall, every problem had led back to her. She, who had been the eye of the storm. The reason, the catalyst, the current priority for this teenage boy.
"Did she make it out?"
That was his final thought before the pain, the blood loss, and the sheer exhaustion dragged him into unconsciousness. And all the lights went dark.
.
.
.
Darkness.
An abysmal black devouring all light. Where hope could be hidden and the unfathomable beyond slumbered with silent hunger, slivers of distant, colourless illumination flickered like dying stars, scattered in a void that seemed to whisper threats and secrets in equal measure.
Kamijou Touma floated, drifting through the void with neither up nor down, no sense of body, no gravity to anchor him to the world he knew. Shapeless with no view of its end.
This wasn't sleep.
This was the space between.
He should be afraid. He was afraid. But the pain was gone now, and with it came a disturbing clarity, like staring into a still lake and realising the reflection wasn't yours. It calmed him as noise thrummed to his ears like whispers of common winds.
A sound emerged, not a voice, not a scream, a low thrum, like pressure against the soul. A weightless pulse that beat louder than any heart, yet came from nowhere and everywhere presumably.
And then something moved in the dark.
Shapes.
Not just silhouettes, but memories. Fragments.
A nun in white, with more food than body mass. A girl covered in bandages like a mummy, cold as winter. A certain lightning princess, glaring with enough volts to flatten an elephant. A teleporting girl with deadpan eyes and swift kicks. A magician in black robes with a blade of light for a tongue. Scientists emboldened by knowledge seek the constant pursuit of knowledge. A girl with wings of light, screaming his name... all of them were.
Each one flickered like static. Familiar, yet warped, distant, like watching a dream in reverse.
Then she came in a flashback, not in memory.
Standing before him.
That girl. The one from today. The reason he'd lost everything. Hair like shadows, eyes like dying suns, and an expression that bore the weight of sorrow and loathing deeper than any city. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Her image, impossibly close, was separated by an invisible chasm neither could cross.
He reached out or tried to.
Only to find his right arm didn't exist here either. Instead, something else flickered in the void.
A light.
No.
A spark.
Faint, twitching like a newborn flame at his shoulder where his arm should be. A silent heartbeat. It pulsed once. Then again. Each time brighter. Each time more painful. Until.
*Slam!* White light.
The ceiling above was too clean to be real. Pale white, tiled, and painfully boring. A faint antiseptic sting in the air confirmed the inevitable: a hospital?
"...Huh?" Kamijou croaked, throat dry as sand.
Machines beeped beside him. Tubes ran into his arm, his left arm. He dared to turn his head the other way, only to feel a stabbing pressure in his temple.
His right shoulder was bound tightly in layers of gauze and bandages. There was no hand. No fingers. Just... a stump.
"Ohh boy..." he groaned, voice barely louder than a whisper. "Such misfortune..."
But even as pain returned, and the weight of his new reality sank in, a question burned at the back of his throat, more urgent than any discomfort.
"The girl... Did she...?" Did she make it out? Is she okay? Limbs intact? Okay, the last part was a bad joke on his poor ass. Sigh~
Before he could finish, the door creaked open. "Ah, it seems you've woken up at last, Kamijou." An elderly man wearing a doctor's coat entered, checking the papers in his hands before looking blankly at him, "Has it been the 4th time this week?"
Kamijou only chuckled nervously towards Heaven Canceller, who still reminded him of the frog from the kid show of an acquaintance, not sure if they are friends with the whole lightning artillery. "My bad. Though, thanks for saving me. Again."
Most of me, anyway, was left unheard. He knew the doctor before him saved his skin many times, and he would've been dead ages ago. Expressing even the slightest sliver of dissatisfaction was wrong for the young Touma to imagine. The old man didn't deserve that; it was his foolish behaviour.
The doctor let out a quiet hum, arms crossed loosely over his white coat as he leaned back slightly on the stool.
"Grateful or not, I'm afraid this isn't the kind of news anyone wants to wake up to," he said with a weary sigh, eyes drifting toward the edge of the bed where the blanket hung unevenly.
He looked at the boy lying there, conscious now, barely, but still as pale as the hospital lights above.
"We recovered your right arm from the scene. The paramedics brought it in quickly, but..." His voice dropped a notch, not out of coldness, but caution. "The damage was too severe. The bones were shattered in multiple places. The muscle tissue? Torn beyond repair. Nerves, vessels, nothing we could salvage. In short, reattachment wasn't possible."
There was no malice in the words. Just tired honesty. He paused for a beat, giving the boy a moment to process. Or not.
"I'd say you can stay here for a few more days." Kamijou flinched when the doctor glared at him, "However, given your record of leaving the hospital after assessing you'll recover naturally, alongside the worries about finance." The patient winced, and the doctor continued.
"But, you can't. You won't. We'll prescribe you some antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and pain relievers later, since phantom pains and other symptoms may likely occur. And you'll be staying here for a couple of days to a week to monitor your condition."
Kamijou would say he doesn't need to, but the look he's getting was serious. Heaven Cancellar is often his GP, and he knows when to stop testing fate. Especially when said GP looks like he's deciding whether or not to chain him to the bed this time.
"...Alright, alright," Kamijou sighed, waving his remaining hand in surrender. "I'll behave. Pinky swear—wait. Uh..." He lifted his left hand, paused, and stared at his now very lonely wrist. Yep. No right pinky to seal the deal anymore.
Heaven Canceller didn't comment, though the edge of his mouth twitched upward. It was subtle, but there was a flicker of amusement before professionalism returned.
"Good," the doctor said, standing up with a grunt. "Though I'd advise against signing any contracts right now. You're a little short-handed."
Touma blinked. And then groaned into his pillow. "Ow. Doctor... that was evil."
The old man chuckled. "Laughter aids recovery. Unless you rip your stitches, then it's your fault."
Kamijou peeked one eye up from the pillow, squinting. "Is that an official Academy City medical policy?"
"It is now."
There was a silence after that. Not the heavy kind, but the sort that settled once all the routine things had been said, and the harder thoughts came creeping back.
Touma turned his head toward the window, distant, blinding white, with the sky just out of reach. He could see some students zipping past on anti-grav boards below; the common and normal days for everyone else.
"Doctor..." he started, hesitant. "The girl who was with me. Is she?"
"Alive," Heaven Canceller interrupted gently, adjusting his clipboard. "Bruised. A few fractured ribs. Dislocated shoulder. Some shrapnel, but nothing life-threatening."
Kamijou felt a wave of something between relief and guilt. Like unclenching a muscle he didn't know was tight.
"She'll walk again," the doctor continued. "She's already been walking around trying to get updates on you, though I told her to sit her reckless self back down."
A ghost of a smile formed on Kamijou's lips. "That sounds about right..."
"She'll probably sneak back in here the moment I leave," the old man added, turning toward the door. "Try not to let her trip over your IV lines this time."
The door clicked shut behind him, and silence returned.
Kamijou stared at the ceiling again. Same boring tiles. Same antiseptic smell. One less arm.
"...I need to stop waking up like this," he muttered.
Then, frowning, he breathed, "Seriously, what kind of dream did I not have this time...?" Nothing. No visions. No magical nun. No exploding teachers or cultists or psychotic middle schoolers with swords. He couldn't recall what he had dreamt. Just pitch blackness, pain, and now a very empty right sleeve.
He gently touched the bandages with his remaining hand.
"...I guess I'll have to learn how to tie my shoes with one hand."
A beat.
"...Damn it, how do you even clap with one hand!?" A good question. The problem was that he lacked any meaningful answers. Plus, what's he gonna do about school work and chores? He needed a pair to cook, and his right hand was his dominant hand in writing.
He groaned again, flopping onto his back. "Such rotten luck..." Another day for Kamijou, showing his luck is as awful as ever. But perhaps things will change.
A/N: I can't believe I'm publishing this during my birthday (June 14), of all things, but no matter, I've published something barely decent! Now we have some focus from the saviour himself. But we should address the many things. His harem production in the making being shattered? The disease that two idiots have railed over the years? The power that gives magicians hope? So many ideas are in my head, and I say I'll try writing them. I'll postpone my other works for now and get this one to at least 20-30 chapters. Maybe I'll drop another chapter outside this story, but we'll see. See ya next time!