A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 20

by Kazuma Kamachi

  “We’ll be fine. The Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations should want any information they can get on Fiamma, want it so badly they can taste it. They’re not going to ship us off to a concentration camp. Besides, the Alliance doesn’t have any facilities that frightening to begin with.”

  “…Really? What if they show us to a room with just chairs that have belts on them?”

  “Yeah, yeah. If that happens, I’ll apologize, wear a baby doll outfit, get on all fours, and shake my butt around for you…Hmm, that sounds nice. You know what, let’s do that right now.”

  “It looks like I haven’t lectured you enough, young grasshopper. We’ll be making a fuss here, so let’s put a pin in that for a moment.”

  As soon as he grabbed the back of her neck and tried to leave the ring of people, angry Russian shouts rained upon them. Several of the large men already had their hands on their holstered guns.

  “Yipes!! I get it, I get it! Damn it, this doesn’t exactly feel like a warm welcome!”

  “I was joking anyway. I don’t plan on providing a free service like that for whoever happens to be around. It probably wouldn’t benefit the United Kingdom anyway. I’ll be a good girl and follow your lead for now. Leaving aside whether I’ll wear baby clothes once we get into our inn room later.”

  As they continued to squabble, one of the men in the group surrounding them muttered something, seeming incredibly unhappy. Kamijou couldn’t understand it because it was Russian, but Lesser interpreted for him.

  “He asked if we rescued a mother and her daughters on the trucks in Russia. One girl was a baby, about two, and the other was about ten.”

  “Ah? We helped a convoy that had trucks and armored carriages in it, but…Wait, there were, like, dozens of people there. I’m going to need some more information.”

  As Kamijou made a dubious face, the large man continued in Russian, this time spitting out the words.

  When Lesser heard it, she frowned for a moment. Then she shrugged and looked at Kamijou. “Apparently, that was his older sister and her daughters.”

  …If the man knew about this, maybe the people on the trucks had safely arrived in a nearby town and contacted them via phone or something.

  Maybe the reason he only had his hand on his holster without outright pointing his gun at Kamijou was because he thought he owed him something.

  In the meantime, Kamijou and Lesser were taken to a square stone building near the plaza. Originally, it was one building that was part of a large church, but right now, they seemed to be using it as something else—a military facility.

  For an office, a lot of paper documents were scattered wildly around. The positions of the steel desks weren’t organized, either. On a whiteboard on the wall, they’d hung a map of the surrounding area. It had different-colored magnets on it—maybe positions of Alliance and Russian tanks or something. The colors on one side were far more numerous.

  A blond-haired woman was waiting there.

  She was rather skinny. If she’d been wearing a swimsuit, you’d be more worried about her than excited. She directed her slightly sunken-in eyes toward them, then smiled thinly.

  In Japanese, she said, “It seems Fiamma of the Right is on his way.”

  Lesser whistled, impressed.

  Did they know each other? Kamijou had to wonder, but it seemed he was wrong.

  “…She’s the namesake of the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations,” Lesser offered. “She’s like a saint who worked hard to gain independence for a bunch of countries and bind them together.”

  “It seems Fiamma of the Right is on his way.”

  Elizalina, the person in question, repeated herself.

  The name Fiamma of the Right must have been inauspicious enough to the Alliance for illegal immigrants to suddenly meet a person like that.

  Not that you could blame them.

  He was the one who had pulled the trigger on World War III.

  If not for that, the Russian forces would never have considered launching an invasion into the Alliance.

  “The words came right out of his own mouth at the Russian military base right across the border. I don’t think there’s much doubt about it…”

  After explaining that much, Kamijou felt something was out of place.

  “…Wait a minute. You know the name Fiamma of the Right, Miss Elizalina?”

  That would mean she was aware of the world of sorcery. And to a great extent, when it came to the Roman Orthodox Church.

  Elizalina answered almost without moving her lips at all. “Inept though I may be, I am still a sorcerer.”

  “If she wasn’t, she couldn’t have responded this quickly to nothing but fragmented reports from her men, could she? She realized how much we were worth and instructed them to bring us to the heart of the country right away. It’s obvious just from that that she’s someone who knows about magic,” added Lesser in an offhand tone.

  Apparently, she was familiar with this person named Elizalina’s achievements and legends.

  “On the surface, she creates a foundation for political and economic national independence, but behind the scenes, she’s a powerful sorcerer who repelled every single Russian Catholic soldier who tried to pull off occult sabotage missions. If she fought for real, she might even be able to blow me away.”

  “I’m nothing that amazing. I only proposed a few procedures and helped out. Comparatively, I’m a far cry from my sister in France.”

  Elizalina brushed it off as a triviality. She seemed to dislike it when others flattered her more than they needed to.

  She quickly returned to the topic. “Fiamma is a central figure of this war—of this invasion encroaching upon our nation. If we have a chance to defeat him now, the threat to our people’s lives should decrease quite a bit.”

  Up until that point, Kamijou was in agreement.

  But what came after was another story.

  “On the other hand, I don’t think I can beat Fiamma of the Right very easily—and not here. It’s a matter of the difference in skill as sorcerers. Even if I scraped together everything we have in this country, I wouldn’t be able to defeat that man.”

  A hint of distress appeared on the woman’s face as she spoke. She must not have wanted to let Fiamma go so easily.

  Now that he was near, she wanted to do whatever it took to escape the threat as soon as possible. Insisting on that—maybe that’s what made her a talented politician.

  Because what if, even though the situation looked like an opportunity at first, it was actually rife with incredible danger?

  “What’s most important for us are the lives of the Alliance’s people. If by some trick or mischief, those could be lost, then we must avoid combat with Fiamma at all costs.”

  “You’d let him do as he likes after coming this far?”

  The question came from Lesser.

  Elizalina shook her head. “No,” she answered immediately. “I’ve heard from my subordinates. Your goal, and Fiamma’s, is Sasha Kreutzev. We do know where she is currently. She’s right nearby. So close that if I gave the order, we could summon her here right now. On top of that, we’re also thinking about ways to defeat Fiamma while protecting our people’s lives…Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

  “…You’ll send Sasha and us back outside the Alliance into Russian territory, then execute a plan to fight Fiamma?”

  “Yes.” Elizalina nodded. “Think of me as coldhearted if you wish. But that’s how delicate this situation has become. A single careless decision could lead to countless innocent lives being lost.”

  “Nah.” Kamijou smiled a little. “We were trying to use you all to find out where Sasha is to begin with. At this point, I’m grateful just for not having handcuffs on me without a chance to explain.”

  “Despite the difference in scope and degree, you seem to have someone you need to protect as well.”

  “Everyone does,” answered Kamijou in resignation to Elizalina’s words, whi
ch were also spoken as though to herself. “…I realized it late, and she was almost taken away from me, but I might still be able to make it at this point.”

  Either way.

  They had to find Sasha Kreutzev as soon as possible, lure Fiamma outside the Alliance, and defeat him. For now, there was a chance they could create a more advantageous situation than Fiamma could, but as time went on, the possibility would very quickly deteriorate.

  And the chances of rescuing Index would fall with it.

  After confirming the situation to himself again, Kamijou faced Elizalina and asked her a question.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “Come this way…Still, this is all rushed, so I can’t guarantee much chance of victory.”

  As she talked, Elizalina headed toward the whiteboard in the room’s corner.

  And then it happened.

  “Indeed. If you’re still holding strategy meetings at this stage, you’re already too late.”

  A man’s voice suddenly echoed throughout the room.

  It was a familiar voice. A voice Kamijou could never forget.

  Fiamma of the Right.

  The sound’s source was the window. Kamijou spun around, and Lesser and Elizalina moved at the same time. Lesser attached a bar magnet to the tip of a retractable, police baton–like object on one of the steel desks, while Elizalina plastered a piece of translucent blue cellophane, normally used to wrap up sweets, to the side of a glass filled with water.

  In just a few seconds.

  They’d created improvised Soul Arms.

  A moment later, flames and water burst forth.

  Boom!! With an air-splitting roar, two kinds of attacks rushed toward the window like an avalanche. The glass shattered to pieces. But the voice didn’t stop.

  “I was merely saying hello,” Fiamma continued.

  On the other side of the broken window floated a small doll of kneaded flour.

  “This is where it really begins.”

  A moment later.

  Ga-gam!!

  Touma Kamijou’s brain rattled madly.

  For an instant, his vision churned. He thought something heavy had hit him in the face. He was on the floor without realizing it, and finally, he realized what it was that had delivered the impact to his face.

  It was a piece of debris, a little smaller than a baseball.

  Half the ceiling or so had collapsed.

  Part of it was on the floor now, dragged down by debris.

  Where everything had been crushed, he could see a wall made out of some sort of orange light.

  And then.

  Something like a giant sword, whose length had to be thirty to forty kilometers, swung down from above, and Kamijou, who was the closest, didn’t realize. After all, the base of the sword was so large it seemed like it would disappear beyond the horizon. The blade emitted sizzling noises like it was steaming, and after wiggling from side to side like an ax being pulled out of a large tree, it slowly lifted.

  “It’s an awful pain to aim with something so large.”

  The voice was carefree.

  As Kamijou shuddered, the huge sword that looked big enough to cleave a mountain range in two continued to rise with ease.

  Until it was almost vertical.

  And then, Fiamma’s sword swung down all at once.

  The air shook.

  This time, there was no mercy.

  Its aim corrected, the giant sword dropped from the sky. The town of the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations split in half along a line, and the stone building in which Kamijou and the others were, the spot where its force was strongest, blasted apart into a million pieces.

  Clouds sprang up.

  Because it had torn through atmosphere and created an air pressure differential, it had created something like an airplane’s vapor trail.

  A single attack that even affected the weather.

  And.

  “Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

  A roar.

  Touma Kamijou had thrust his right palm directly up.

  An awful creaking noise came from the core of his bones.

  But.

  The boy’s utterly normal arm had stopped the map-wrecking attack dead-on.

  Did he…stop it…?

  Surprise filled Elizalina’s face—this was the first time she’d seen the Imagine Breaker in action. Even Lesser, who had witnessed it before, still seemed to have a hard time accepting it. However, there was no time to explain everything. Not even Kamijou could be sure his bones weren’t actually broken.

  And then.

  “What’s this? And here I thought you’d learned a little from the British Halloween.”

  Suddenly, a man’s voice came from right next to him.

  Fiamma of the Right.

  Kamijou saw the red doll flying straight at him and immediately understood.

  There was a gap between the one who had cast the spell and the place in which it had activated.

  Just like how Second Princess Carissa had used the Curtana Original and the bunker clusters in tandem, this was a method of focusing someone’s attention on a large-scale attack first before driving the real attack right into their wide-open core.

  “…?!”

  Kamijou tried to get his right hand in position immediately, but his palm had just crushed the orange-colored sword. A tingling, numbing pain was still shooting through his arm and it delayed his response. Taking advantage of the tiny opening, Fiamma reached his hand toward Kamijou with a relaxed look on his face.

  A mysterious hand—one Kamijou didn’t know the effects of.

  “Guh!!”

  Elizalina wedged herself between them.

  The front of her body was glowing faintly. She probably had some kind of spell activated. A sorcerer with the skills to liberate several countries from the huge nation of Russia and who had continued to exercise her powers behind the scenes. He could assume from her history, among other things, that she could freely use incredible spells.

  But Fiamma ignored her.

  He mercilessly knocked both Kamijou and Elizalina several meters away.

  Kamijou’s breath caught.

  Fiamma was about to go for a follow-up attack he couldn’t even imagine, but then his movements stopped.

  The cause was his right arm. Something strange, like a third arm, had sprouted from near his shoulder.

  Elizalina’s skills had saved Kamijou.

  If not, he might have been in two pieces right now—upper and lower.

  “I see.”

  Fiamma tapped his shoulder with his left hand as though impressed.

  “The wall seemed a little too hard to break that easily.”

  Then, two of the tall men who had been serving at Elizalina’s side jumped in.

  “Beraggi!! Longie!! Stand down!!”

  The fallen sorcerer frantically shouted, but they didn’t stop. And Fiamma didn’t have any mercy with them, either.

  “But it’s not impenetrable. Don’t underestimate me too much, all right?”

  Sound vanished.

  A moment after Fiamma swung his third arm, Beraggi and Longie were knocked straight to the side. The distance hadn’t mattered. Beraggi was close, but Longie was clearly outside the third arm’s reach. Despite that, he’d been mowed down just the same. They were launched outside the building from a hole in the debris from the initial attack.

  Kamijou dragged his injured body upright through sheer force.

  “Fiamma!!”

  “You’re the main dish. I need to prepare before I dig into you.”

  The assailant’s gaze was turned toward Elizalina.

  An unknown faint light once again emanated from the surface of her body.

  But it was clear from the earlier exchange the difference in skill between Fiamma and Elizalina. He’d even pierced through her defensive magic. If he got serious, Elizalina might be killed.

  But my
right hand can…

  Conscious of his smarting arm, Kamijou gritted his teeth.

  But can I really block every single one of his attacks?! Can I save Index by constantly being on the defensive?!

  Fiamma couldn’t care less about their shock and hesitation.

  He simply moved—advancing smoothly.

  “!!”

  But Fiamma’s right arm never reached out to grab Elizalina by the throat.

  And the reason was Lesser:

  The petite girl’s hand was now somehow gripping a spear-like object—the Steel Gloves, a magical weapon fitted with four blades like fingers. Lesser had slammed them downward like a guillotine, but…

  “Out of the way.”

  The motion was less of a backhand, more of brushing away a spiderweb.

  And despite that, the single hit shattered the Steel Gloves. Not only that, it sent Lesser flying away like a cannonball. Just before she collided with a wall, Beraggi, who had once again jumped inside the building, reached out his arms. He barely managed to soften the impact.

  A single moment, earned by risking one’s life.

  Elizalina, meaning to regroup, rose from where she had been prone with a backward bounding motion, moving her five fingers in a complex fashion. Faint lights dancing at the end of her fingertips flickered irregularly.

  When Fiamma saw it, he let out a breath like a chuckle.

  “You would use your right arm to build a spell against me?”

  A moment later—

  Ba-bam!! A flash of light burst forth.

  It came from Fiamma’s right arm.

  He wasn’t showing off his strength—he was acting in a different dimension than that. The motion was almost like swatting an annoying fly flitting about his face. It was a movement to crush both Elizalina’s resistance and rend her flesh, no matter what she tried to do.

  From the beginning, she had said that, even if she combined all the Alliance’s military strength in one spot, they couldn’t beat Fiamma of the Right. That was why, when they did set forth to defeat him, she wanted to catch and face him outside the Alliance.

  In which case.

  Maybe the fact that Fiamma was here, now, had already determined Elizalina’s fate.