Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament

Volume 17, Afterword

If you’ve been buying one volume at a time, welcome back. If you bought them all at once, welcome.

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

With this, New Testament has reached 17 volumes too. And this marks the end of the story revolving around Kamisato Kakeru. The owner of the right hand becomes the ruler of the girls. The theme here was Kamijou and Fran’s escape through chaotic Academy City in order to break that curse.

Unlike Volume 16, I changed my focus when putting together the battles. Instead of letting the situation carry him along, I put in a lot more scenes of Kamijou clenching his fist and charging right in. I tasked myself with seeing how many people he could save that he did not really need to save. And you could even say that Kamisato Kakeru and the 100 girls fall into that category. I like them both, but which one tugged at your heartstrings?”

Fran was a character that grew from me wondering what we called UFOs before that word existed and how we handled them. The rabbit-ear antennae were an idea from Haimura-san, but I thought it really worked with her cover story if her design included an element of the moon rabbit.

When people saw a strange light in the night sky, they would fear some important event was occurring, or they would try to use it by gaining special knowledge that supposedly poured down from the distant planet (or the moon and the sun as well when using the magic side’s terminology). When you look at all that, using horoscope results to create protective charms isn’t all that different from creating a special device to communicate with UFOs.

Including her, a few girls in the Kamisato Faction had their family names revealed this volume. Maybe that will change your impression of them?

I’m betting some of you think there are too many girls in the Kamisato Faction so you can’t remember all their names, but Kamijou Touma’s acquaintances have grown several times that size. That too was part of the experiment this time.

Useful Spider was the exact opposite in that they were an important part of the story and yet almost nothing was given about their names or what they looked like. They acted as a contrast to the Kamisato Faction. I think by making the individuals fade away in a group, they gain a different sort of presence. They are the faceless people who think normal things like normal and do not hesitate to take action. That might be a lot like what Kamisato Kakeru would have been if he had never gained a special power in his right hand.

As for the occult, I used the sense of mystery from the UFOs while also getting back to the basics with the magic, such as with Crowley’s hexagram. With Ghost Girl Maya, ghosts manifesting through incense is an idea everyone has probably heard of, but I added in the modern scientific(?) explanation of low-frequency waves that has followed after the plasma and electromagnetic wave theories. I think the charm of this series is in how those things can mix together.

I wrote this story as one to break free of a lot of things. For example, Kamijou spat out everything about his frustrations about what happened with the High Priest and Kamisato. In addition to Kamijou, I also followed that theme with Fran’s answer to Kamisato. I think her and her surroundings may have broken through some things concerning the strange and abnormal-looking Kamisato Faction, creating more of an affinity there. Really, I just hope you found her cute.

But in the end, they are still the Kamisato Faction. I didn’t reveal the answer even at the very end, but I hope you will all debate whether “she” survived or was killed.

I give my thanks to my illustrator Haimura-san and my editors Miki-san, Onodera-san, and Anan-san. There was a huge variation in characters this time! This had to have been even more of a pain than the Amakusas. Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end.

And I give my thanks to the readers. Putting in so many heroines actually creates a large burden. The connection between Kamijou Touma and Kamisato Kakeru was even more experimental than usual, so it may not have gone down smoothly. Still, as long as you enjoyed seeing a surprising side of Kamijou Touma and his friends, I couldn’t ask for anything more.

It is time to close the pages for now while praying that the pages of the next book will be opened.

And I lay my pen down for now.

I’m still trying to figure out how to delve into the new territory of a brokenhearted girl.

-Kamachi Kazuma