“I see a bunch of other ruts in the snow that are about the same size, though. Well, I guess I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. For now, it’s enough to know the base lets similar ‘carriages’ inside. It’s definitely not your normal military facility.”
“A normal military facility, he says…”
The fortress itself was only about ten square kilometers. It was nominally a front-line base adjacent to the national border shared with the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations, but it probably wasn’t operating as a regular installation. It was where Fiamma was secretly advancing his schemes.
Furthermore, there was a defensive perimeter extending about forty kilometers all around the fortress.
Naturally, it wasn’t ringed with high barriers like the Great Wall of China. The system consisted of a series of observation towers covering all directions that would radio in as soon as they spotted any suspicious figures, then direct tons of artillery onto that location.
“…Which is why they kicked out all the residents from an area even larger than Academy City itself.”
“Still, this region is mostly wilderness. Even with all the villagers together, I don’t think you’d have more people than a Japanese hamlet.”
The comment was enough to remind Kamijou once again how enormous in scale this country called Russia really was. Someone could look all over the Japanese archipelago and not find any stretch of untouched nature that was comparable in size.
“Anyway, what are we doing now?” Lesser asked from the driver’s seat. “If we set foot inside their defensive line like this, we’ll be fodder for missiles and grenade launchers in no time. The carriage isn’t maneuverable enough to evade them. Don’t we need to consider our options? Then again, I doubt they left any obvious blind spots open.”
“Not necessarily,” Kamijou answered, his tone somewhat tense. “Remember what I said before? Fiamma is using the Russian army for his own ends, but he wouldn’t have revealed the details of his magic-related plans. It’s like how he pretended there was some noble cause behind starting World War III—he must have built a secret route for bringing in magical equipment. There’s gotta be one.”
“And if we can find that, we can get inside the fortress without anyone knowing?”
“Most people on the Russian side don’t know about magic. At the very least, normal military guys probably can’t use it for battle. That means finding that route’ll be easier than marching in from the front, right?”
“…Maybe, but Fiamma of the Right is a force to be reckoned with, right? Isn’t the story that he’s the leader of God’s Right Seat? I get the feeling that even just his traps and followers will be pretty high-level, magically speaking.”
“And that’s where I come in, right?” Kamijou grinned and wiggled the fingers of his right hand.
A power called Imagine Breaker resided there—one that could cancel out any and all preternatural powers.
“Professional soldiers armed with rifles and bombs aren’t exactly the kind of people I should ever be fighting. Group combat against a large number of Russian Catholic sorcerers is a no-go as well. To be honest, I was right at the point of worrying that I wouldn’t be able to get into my groove…But this is where it starts. Finally, this is where I can really take the stage.”
Touma Kamijou looked straight out the armored carriage’s slit-like window.
And toward the shadow of the facility that stood near the distant horizon, he whispered:
“…I’m coming for you, Fiamma.”
11
In the depths of Moscow stood a middle-aged man in an extravagant military uniform, the kind that no actual soldier would ever wear into battle. He was inside a building that almost looked like a palace but was actually a fortress officially registered to the military. The man, his uniform adorned with numerous decorations, had always believed he’d been at the very bottom of Russia’s shadows. But it seemed that was no longer the case.
Other men in similar uniforms were gathered here as well.
Aside from their clothing and records, they all held similar positions to him.
“…The Russian Church’s patriarch…The world seems to have broadened significantly in an undesirable direction.”
“We instigated this war as they wished, but I wonder—can we repel Academy City’s troops?”
“A surprising number of people have sided with Academy City. The benefits of their science and technology must have been great, to have created a line this wide.”
“For all intents and purposes, this is escalating into a conflict between the Roman Orthodox–Russian Catholic dominion and the rest of the world. Not gaining India’s or China’s support hurt us.”
“I can’t see what Academy City is after. Putting this much military force on display, including their unmanned weapons, can’t possibly bring them any advantages.”
“Would you say they have goals other than simple interception and defense, then?”
“Maybe it’s our silos.”
“Even if everything else falls, we must not allow those silos to be taken. With Academy City’s technological power, they might be able to activate them without the proper codes. And it’s possible they’ll bring it in from outside.”
“Which would mean…”
“I’d like to propose that we consider activating It.”
Everyone present fell into a stony silence at those words.
They’d had this same discussion among themselves several times already. Those words had such weight, though, that even given the dire situation, they hesitated to give a concrete go-ahead signal.
Eventually, while glancing at the stack of documents on the table, one among them spoke up:
“The Kremlin Report…”
INTERLUDE ONE
Academy City had gotten very busy in its own right.
In a girl’s dormitory room, Mikoto Misaka was sitting on her bed. Her roommate, Kuroko Shirai, wasn’t here. She’d apparently been summoned for some sort of job, fulfilling her duty as a member of Judgment.
School, too, was closed today. And not exactly because a typhoon had made landfall.
The possibility was apparently slim so far, but there was still a nonzero chance that Russian warheads or bombers could appear in the skies above Academy City.
Incidentally.
Academy City and Russia seemed more than willing to have at it, but the Japanese government was taking a rather passive approach to the war. It made sense—Japan didn’t have its own military, so even if someone suggested they go to war, nobody could really snap to it and say Yes, right away, sir. With Russia acting as though this was a global-scale war, the US’s so-called deterrence wasn’t working, either.
With no chance of victory in a real clash, the Japanese government was even trying to pressure Academy City to quickly accept Russia’s demands in order to avoid a full-scale war.
In response, Academy City had offered a very simple video.
It showed a ballistic missile blowing up outside the earth’s atmosphere.
It wasn’t just one—or even two.
Over thirty shadows flew past at once, and Academy City’s interception weapons shot every one of them down.
“We will not make any demands of you.”
During a mobile 1seg broadcast, the Academy City press secretary had this to say:
“However, we also have no responsibility to protect anyone beyond our own allies. Russia has already launched ballistic missiles without warning. Thankfully, we confirmed that none were loaded with nuclear warheads at this time, but we do not know when that taboo will be broken as well. We’d like you to use your own judgment to make the decisions you feel are right. Still, the nation of Japan also possesses Aegis warships and PAC-3s secured through massive tax investment, so we don’t believe this will be a major issue.”
…It’s practically a threat.
Academy City had essentially said that if Japan interfered, they would remove Japan’s cities
from its air defense network. The American-made interception systems the Japanese Self-Defense Force had, in desperation, procured were certainly excellent, but they were incomparable to ones made in Academy City, which was said to have science and technology twenty to thirty years more advanced than the rest of the world. Even a child could understand these devices couldn’t guarantee 100 percent precision. And how huge a tragedy it would be for even one shot to make it through.
It was almost like Academy City was using Russian-made missiles to make a threat, but most people thought of the issue this way: I don’t care; just please don’t drop it on my head.
Thanks to that, large throngs of citizens were apparently all over their politicians right now, telling them not to provoke the City to ensure that their own cities and towns remained safe zones. The immense flood of public opinion prevented the politicians from doing anything, and meanwhile, Academy City continued to do whatever it wanted.
The contents of the declaration of war had been revealed to the entire world, and Mikoto had viewed it online herself.
However.
It was a fact that she was strangely dissatisfied. Academy City was using indirect threats to stir up the masses, while continuing to claim to be allies of justice who would protect the people—staying clean, never getting their own hands dirty. This image of absolute integrity was eerie, as if everything had been whitewashed with bleach. Eerie enough that it made her think things would be stranger if there wasn’t something at the bottom of it all.
Something…
Mikoto glanced away from her mobile device and looked at her cell phone.
The phone had her Croaker charm attached to it.
She’d dialed the number of a certain spiky-haired boy several times already but hadn’t gotten any sort of response at all. And just the other day, he’d said that he was in London during the coup d’état.
She’d thought it was some kind of joke at the time.
But what if…?
What if he hadn’t come back to Academy City yet?
Mikoto decided it was worth investigating.
After the outbreak of war, the City had restricted usage of the District 23 airport by civilians. Plus, considering the timing of the coup and the war, maybe it was difficult to return.
Academy City: seemingly detached from all the disturbance outside it, but actually the centerpiece of a world war.
If that boy was on the outside, the danger he would face shot through the roof. In that case, she couldn’t very well sit back and do nothing.
CHAPTER 2
Opening Offensives and Counteroffensives
Angel_Stalker.
1
As she was walking over the white snow, Lesser was clicking together some small metallic parts.
“…Hmm. Even with all my spare parts, I can’t make the Lesser Special Custom…I’ll have to revert it to the old Steel Gloves. I should have bloody documented at least the custom-made one’s theoretical values. There was so much trial and error, and I added so many parts while testing that even I can’t figure out the balance distribution anymore…”
As Lesser muttered on, she suddenly peered into the snow.
“Whoops. There it is—there’s just the thing!”
Kamijou had no idea what she was doing, but after pausing his stride with her, he learned what she was looking at.
He’d thought the snow was about a foot deep, but following Lesser’s gaze revealed a cavernous hole that was clearly over three meters deep. It was like a tunnel made out of snow.
“It was probably a ditch shaped like a V before. With all the snow piled up over it, it looks flat from above.”
“…But weren’t there transport trucks and stuff driving toward the base over this normally?”
“To begin with, if the snow had piled up as usual, it would have changed shape to match the V. They used sorcery to change the accumulation and hardness. I’d bet that if a passenger jet landed here, it wouldn’t even budge.”
Kamijou glanced at his right hand. “…We won’t get buried alive as soon as I touch it, will we?”
“Who knows? Just to be safe, you might want to keep your hands off the walls,” said Lesser offhandedly before sliding herself into the cavern.
As Kamijou tried to follow her, she suddenly stopped and said, “Oh, great…If I’d slipped and fell on the snow, I could have opened all sorts of routes, like naturally falling into his arms or showing him my panties.”
“I get it. You’re queen today. Just get moving already.”
A train line ran through the inside, two paths stretching far into the distance alongside it. On the tracks, a distant cargo train was stopped, about five cars linked up. No electric lines or anything were visible, so maybe it had a diesel engine.
“So this is how they secretly got what they needed inside.”
“I’m surprised,” said Lesser, her expression puzzled. “Fiamma of the Right wiped out the pope of Rome and Second Princess Carissa with one hit, didn’t he? I didn’t think he was the type to be obsessed with creative methods for maintaining secrecy. I always imagined someone who would simply clear away anything he came across that he didn’t like.”
“He is the one who used his authority as God’s Right Seat to impel the Roman Orthodox Church to act and set all sorts of things in motion without doing any of it personally, you know. This is actually more normal for him. If he ever came out to deal with something directly, it would be a sign that his curtain fire had thinned out.”
For Kamijou, finding a freight train was a windfall. After all, it was thirty or forty kilometers until the base. No matter how much they searched for shortcuts, if they had to walk over the snow because they had no means of transportation, they’d run out of stamina before even confronting the man.
“Still, if we start up the freight train ourselves, they’re sure to notice us.”
“So we’ll wait for its scheduled move. Over here. Let’s hide in one of these containers.”
As Kamijou made that suggestion, he moved toward the container linked to the first train car. The door was openable from the side as well. After sliding back the iron door like the rear seat of a minivan, Kamijou and Lesser climbed inside.
Lesser watched his pants pocket closely, then said eventually, “By the way, I’ve been wondering this for a while—what is that frog strap you have there?”
“It’s called Croaker. I don’t really know more, though.”
“…A fanciful mascot character you don’t know much about…? I smell another woman’s hand in this. I may need to alter my strategy. I should take the initiative and wipe it out…”
Lesser was mumbling to herself, but after quickly checking the inside of the container, her expression slowly changed into something more dangerous.
“Hmm. Judging by the symbols, most of these must be Crossist-type Soul Arms, as expected. I can’t tell exactly what they’re used for, though,” she said, her eyes having quickly gotten used to the darkness. “I have to say, you seem like you’re used to this.”
“…Well, during the coup, I had to stow away on a freight train filled with Knights all the way to Folkestone.”
“Oooh. Come to think of it, Florice was talking about that. She was saying if she ever saw that Japanese person again, she’d whoop him real good.”
“Oh. Why did the Knights capture her anyway?”
As they were talking, they started to hear several footsteps and voices from outside. They cut their conversation short and strained their ears.
The people outside seemed to be speaking Russian, so Kamijou didn’t understand them, but it sounded like they were opening several container doors to load extra cargo. Kamijou and Lesser tried to squeeze behind a pile of Soul Arms, thinking the people would open the container they were hiding in, too, but it turned out that there was nothing to worry about. The lead car’s engine roared to life without the door to their car opening. With a clunk and a shake, the freight train began to move.
/> “…Are those Russian soldiers? Or sorcerers?”
“I can’t say for sure, but probably the latter. It’s highly probable they’re from the Russian Catholic Church. I heard them complaining about the Soul Arms they were loading.”
Two people, hiding out in a freight train container.
With each passing second, the train drew ever closer to the mysterious fortress’s center.
And…
“…Wow, it sure is hot in here. It seems like the effective temperature in closed spaces generally rises because of your own body heat.”
“You’re not airing out your skirt in here. I forbid it.”
“I wasn’t going to. That was only effective at the right time as a surprise atta—”
Lesser suddenly broke off what she was saying.
An instant later, Kamijou realized why.
She’d just figured it out: That because of her sweat, the sports shirt she was wearing had turned see-through. And that her bra, with such little surface area that a spy couldn’t even hide a small computer chip in it, was visible.
But Lesser didn’t blush or try to cover her chest with her hands.
“No!! My secret weapon—now it’s been wasted. I was going to save this for the best possible moment…!!”
“Why did you even come all the way to Russia?! I thought there was something up when you were airing out your skirt before, but—no, that can’t be true!”
Kamijou was trembling, but in the meantime, the train was closing in on their destination.
After about twenty or thirty minutes, it reached the base’s central area. The train stopped, and as they began to hear Russian again from outside, Lesser spoke up.
“Let’s get out.”
“Huh? Shouldn’t we wait until they leave?”
“You’re really dumb about certain things, huh? They were using this freight train to carry cargo, right? They’re sure to pull stuff out of the containers next. And then we’ll definitely run into them. We have to leave before that, or we’ll be in trouble.”
A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 20 Page 6