"Touma! I'm hungry! How much longer until we get to the store? How come we never go out to eat? Why do you always buy the cheapest food?"

The ordinary teenager tried to shut out the young nun's voice, but he could not block out the teeth that sank into his cranium.

"Yahhhhh! Index, let go! I've answered those questions before! I was busy looking at something else! Ow! Actually, I'm really sorry and I really wish you'd let go of my-!"

Suddenly, Index disengaged her lethal bite and stared at a store window next to her. Touma, of course, was too busy trying to stem the flow of blood from his skull to notice.

"Huh? Apologizing actually worked for once? That's odd. Index, is something the matter?"

Finally turning to look at her, he saw that her gaze was fixated on the manga store beside them.

"Touma, what's that?" she asked, pointing to the books in the window.

"Oh, that? Those are manga."

"What's a 'manga'? Is it like those textbooks you're always reading?"

"No, Index. Manga are like those…what do they call them in the west? Comigs?"

"I don't know anything about any 'comigs', Touma. Hmmm...But this does look a lot like a comic book," she observed as she stepped closer to the window. "Do you think they're related?"

"Actually, I'm pretty sure they're the same thing, Index."

"Oh." Ignoring the implicit insult, Index began walking towards the door. "I think I'm going to go get one then, Touma. Wait here for me, ok?"

"Wait, Index, you need money to buy manga, and I can't afford to-" Touma warned as he reached out.

"Don't worry about it, Touma. I have my own."

The confused boy froze in his tracks.

"What? From where?"

"Necessarius sends me some money every week in the mail. Haven't you noticed the opened envelopes in the trash?"

His arm fell to his side as he tried to process the incomprehensible truth.

Index has money.

She has money, and yet she still eats all his food. But knowing Index, she probably spends all her money on food. And if that's so, then…

How much would it cost to feed her if they didn't send her money every week?

The delusion that he knew the extent of Index's appetite was shattered.

"I guess turnabout is fair play…" he smiled weakly, a tear leaking from his eye.

Inside the store, Index was looking around at all the various manga books. As she picked up a few and thumbed through them, she was amazed at the level of detail and anatomical correctness. This was nothing like western comics, which exaggerated certain features and ignored others. These drawings looked just like the world she lived in.

There were so many that a person with money could choose from, but in truth, Index could not afford most of them. She had already spent most of her money this week on sweets to keep herself fed while Touma was at school. She now possessed a mere 1000 yen, tucked away in a special pocket in her robes. Eventually, she picked a single manga of her favorite anime, Magical Powered Super Android Girl Kanamin.

As Index was walking out with her purchase (with only 200 yen left) she spied a small stand near the checkout area. Seated at a table was a girl a little younger than Touma, wearing a middle school uniform. On the table were several identical manga books stacked on top of each other. A small sign on the table read: "Doujinshi: 200 yen". On the cover of the manga was Magical Powered Super Android Girl Kanamin and a character that Index was not familiar with.

Index did not know what a "doujinshi" was, but the price attracted her. In a flash she was at the table.

"Um…Excuse me, but what's a doujinshi?"

The girl smiled and said "well, a doujinshi is a manga, but one made by fans. They use characters and settings from other stories to tell a new one. Sometimes characters from multiple different stories that would never meet can find themselves face to face in a doujinshi."

Index's face lit up. "Wow, that sounds great!"

"Yes, see, for example, in this one, Magical Powered Super Android Girl Kanamin meets the hero from Ultra Mecha Wars. It's a pairing I've always really loved, but since it could never happen in the 'real' story, I decided I had to make it happen myself."

"You mean you made these?" Index voiced in shock.

"Yes. I was selling them at a convention last week, but not enough people bought them. So now I have a deal going with the owner to sell the rest here at a reduced price."

"Wow. So are these hard to make?"

The girl smiled and shook her head. "Nope, as long as you can draw and operate a copier, you can make one yourself."

Index scrunched her forehead. "Well, I can draw all right, but I don't know what a copier is."

The girl grinned. "Well, tell you what. Buy one of these, and then tomorrow when I come back, I'll show you the whole process, okay? I've got another project I'm working on, so you can watch."

"It's a deal!" Index jumped into the air to demonstrate her excitement.

It was an ordinary day for Touma. Unfortunately. So far, he had somehow managed to break one microwave, ruin two attempts at lunch due to the aforementioned broken microwave, and drop the only glass cup he had onto the floor. Naturally, while cleaning all of this, he missed some of the slivers, which later all ended up in his feet.

"Such misfortune."

As the poor boy pulled the bloody slivers out of his flesh, he noticed that Index had shown no interest in his injuries. Ordinarily, she would freak out at even the slightest wound (unless, of course, she had inflicted it). Looking over, he saw that she was lying on her stomach on the other side of the room. In her hand was a pencil, and below the pencil was a sheet of paper. Clearly, she was writing something.

"Index, would you pass me the bandaids?"

"Hm? Oh, you're fine, Touma. Don't be such a baby."

Not wanting to argue with her, Touma hopped over to the counter where the bandaid box laid. Unfortunately, when he opened it he discovered it to be empty. Apparently, he had forgotten to buy a new one (most likely due to money problems).

In the end, Touma settled on wrapping an old sock he didn't wear anymore around his injured foot. With the immediate problems solved, he turned his attention to Index and her strange project.

"What are you doing over there, Index?"

"Doing? Um…Nothing. Nothing at all, Touma," Index answered defensively.

"Nothing, eh?" Touma smiled devilishly and snuck over to Index.

By the time the poor European girl saw Touma's shadow over her, he had already spied several groups of words on the page in between Index's fingers, including "kissed the light-haired one" and "unbuckled his pants". Immediately Touma's cheeks turned red and he stepped back.

"I-Index! What the heck are you writing about?"

Index desperately covered her writing with her body and put on her best angry face. "None of your business, Touma!"

It looked like she was ready to pounce on his head at any moment, but she didn't, likely for fear of revealing her work. "Now go away!"

Whether it was due to the fear of being bitten again, or because he didn't want to know any more about this, Touma obeyed. But as he took a step back…

"MROW!"

Touma quickly lifted his foot off of the cat's tail, but it was too late.

"Touma! How could you do that to Sphinx!"

"Index, it was an accident! I didn't mean to-"

CRUNCH!

It had taken over a week, but with the help of her new friend Rei, Index had finally finished her very own doujinshi! So, now, Index was sitting in the manga store along with her, hoping to sell her creation.

"So, do you really think people will buy my doujinshi?" Index asked, wide-eyed.

"Of course," Rei answered. "It's very well-written. And well-drawn, too. Heck, I don't even know the characters, and they came alive for me perfectly!"

"That's because they're not just characters," Index said proudly. "They're people I've met before."

"Wait…You made a doujinshi of real people?" she asked in disbelief.

"Yeah. Is that a problem?"

"Well, normally, it'd be kind of flattering, I guess. But with a story like this…"

"But it's fiction," Index insisted. "It's not like it's real."

"I guess you're right…" Rei relented, even though she was crying inside. She just hoped Index would never write a story about her…

Just then, the bell on the door rang to indicate a new customer had entered.

"Hey, it's Short Hair!"

"What? You again?" the 3rd ranked level 5 said. "I have a name you know, and it's Misaka Mikoto!"

"But I prefer Short Hair."

"Index, be nice," Rei chided.

"Ok…" Index relented. "So…Sh-I mean, Mikoto, would you like to buy a doujinshi?"

"Well, actually I came here for this…" Mikoto answered as she held up a Gekota manga.

But then she laid eyes on the cover of Index's creation.

"Wait, is that…?"

In a flash she was at the table, and within a minute she had bought two copies. She laughed all the way out the door.

The next day was normal for Touma. A power outage shut off his alarm, causing him to wake up late. This led to him meeting an old lady who needed help crossing the street. As he helped the old lady cross the street, he was clipped by a bicycle, which left a nice gash on his elbow. This, of course, led to Touma being late to class. However, when he finally arrived at a certain classroom, he discovered that most of the class was not even listening to Komoe-sensei's lecture, and were instead intently focused on books of their own. However, before Touma could get close enough to see what everyone was reading, his classmates discovered his presence, and in one swift motion each and every student put away their book.

Touma's sense of all that was strange perked up and told him that something was wrong. Clearly, whatever they had all been reading had something to do with him. But what could it possibly be? Had news of his run-ins with magicians and the dark side of Academy City gotten into the newspapers? No, it couldn't be that, because they weren't reading newspapers (and really, who did these days, anyway?). Could they have all been reading that book of urban legends that Touma (or more accurately, his right hand's power) was in? No, because with the exception of Tsuchimikado and Himegami, none of Touma's classmates knew about Imagine Breaker.

"Touma! It's about time you got here! If you keep this up, you're going to end up having to repeat a grade!"

"Sorry, sensei," Touma apologized as he took his seat. As he did so, however, he couldn't help but feel that the class was laughing at him even more than usual.

Back at the manga store, Index's title might as well have been a best-seller. Over the course of the day, a nearly uncountable number of people had come to claim their copy of Index's doujinshi. It became so bad that she had to limit sales to one per customer. She had already turned away Short Hair multiple times that day. Why Short Hair had returned so many times with goggles on her head Index would never know.

"'Misaka Misaka would like to buy one of Nun-san's doujins!' Misaka Misaka says as she states her intentions!"

Come to think of it, this one looked a lot like Short Hair, too. She even called herself "Misaka". If she wasn't so much younger, Index would have sworn they were the same person.

"Umm…Sure," Index said as she handed one over.

"Enjoy," Rei added as she accepted the money.

"'Misaka Misaka definitely will!', Misaka Misaka declares as she makes plans on how to covertly show it to her guardian!"

"That's one odd child," Index observed as she watched the happy little girl leave the store.

"Most of your fans are," Rei noted.

"Hey, that's not true!" Index denied.

The bell rang again as the door opened.

"Hey, is this the place where I can get that new doujinshi of the two boys?" a girl in a maid outfit asked as she went immediately to the table.

"Told you so," Rei whispered to Index.

When classes for the day finally ended, Touma began his usual walk back home, with his bookbag over his shoulder. It was not uncommon for Mikoto to somehow cross paths with him on the way even though they went to different schools. Today was one of those days.

However, instead of introducing herself by stepping in front of Touma, yelling at him, or throwing lightning at him, she was seated about 20 meters in front of him, reading something. As Touma got closer, he noticed that the book was the size of a manga, and the back cover was blank.

"Yo, Misaka."

The electromaster turned her head from the book to look at Touma. Her mouth curled and twitched, as if she was trying to hold back laughter. When she saw Touma's confused look, her eyes drifted back towards the book in her hands. That proved to be the last straw, because she burst out laughing.

"Huh? What's so funny?" Touma asked.

This only made her laugh harder.

"Is it the wound? You'd better not be laughing at that. I got it while saving an old lady from some crazy guy on a bicycle!"

The girl called Railgun either didn't hear him or wasn't listening. The laughter continued unabated.

After about a minute of this, the ordinary high school student was fed up. "Well, fine, then, if you're not going to tell me what's up, then I'm leaving."

Just as he was turning to leave, Mikoto forced out "Wait…haha…I can't help it…heheh…just take a look…ha…and you'll see what I mean…"

As Touma took the book from her hands, the fits of laughter began all over again. He wondered what in the book could possibly be that funny as he turned the book around to look at the cover.

What he saw would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Emblazoned across the cover was a drawing of himself and what was unmistakably one of his greatest foes. Both of them were half-naked.

"Ahhhh!"

Touma dropped the doujinshi like it was on fire. It landed on its spine and opened to one particular page. A page that was quite…explicit.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

Touma covered his eyes in sheer terror. But as horrible as it was, he still could not stop himself from peeking between his fingers. And he hated himself for it.

Unable to tear his eyes away from the horror, Touma reached down, and closed the book with his thumb and forefinger, as if the manga itself were as diseased and depraved as its contents. However, upon closer examination, he noticed that the back cover was not truly blank; it had a small drawing of the artist and writer in one corner.

The picture was of Index.

His mind flashed back to the perverted paragraphs and drawings Index had been making over the last week.

The shoulders of the man who had optimistically faced every misfortune the world could bestow upon him…sank. This was undeniably horrific, even by his standards.

"YOU!"

And it was about to get even worse.

Touma slowly turned around, only to be greeted by the sight of the other character in the doujinshi.

It was the top ranked esper in Academy City.

Accelerator.

And in his hand was another copy of the doujinshi.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?"

Elsewhere, Index and Rei were packing up for the day.

"Wow, Index, you really have some talent!" Rei marveled.

"Really?" Index asked, amazed.

"Definitely!" Rei answered. "I've never seen an amateur sell their full stock in one day! And then there were all those other people who wanted a copy but couldn't get one! We'll have to produce a whole 'nother batch just to fill those orders!"

"That's great! And you know…I already have an idea for a sequel…"

Meanwhile, in another part of town…

"Why does this stuff always happen to me?" Touma cried out to the sky as he ran faster than he had ever ran before.

"ihbfKILLwq" his black-winged pursuer screamed.

"SUCH MISFORTUNE!"