A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 20

by Kazuma Kamachi

  “Russia’s always had a long history of pouring resources into weapons development on large helicopters,” the frostbitten Russian soldier cut in from the side.

  His name seemed to be Grickin.

  “After all, the world’s largest transport helicopter apparently has the same carrying capacity as a C-130 transport plane. Russia’s the only nation that tries to make helicopters based on those design principles, regardless of what’s technologically feasible.”

  As he listened to Grickin, Hamazura could feel his own face going white.

  “If they’re huge, that means they’re loaded with a lot of ammo and bombs, right?”

  His fingers ran over the rough lever in the anti-air tank.

  He’d wanted to set himself at ease by confirming that they had troop strength of their own, but it had had zero effect.

  “Brand-new prototypes?” Hamazura hissed. “Are we going to be okay? Damn it, we can’t fight them in a broken-down anti-air weapon!”

  “No, that might actually give us the chance,” Digurv explained.

  “?”

  “It means it’s entirely possible these are unreliable prototypes, since they gave them to privateers to test instead of real soldiers. If we were facing attack helicopters that have been proven to be highly reliable on the front lines after countless hours of trial by combat, then we’d have had no real chance of winning.”

  “Either way, this is still gonna be a death match!”

  “Here they come,” Digurv noted as he peered through his binoculars.

  These short words sparked tension within the vehicle.

  “…They’re probably hit-and-run types, with most of their emphasis on top speed. They can’t flutter around, so after they go through the battlefield, they’ll probably make a big U-turn before starting a new attack run.”

  “Which means we’re in for a Wild West shoot-out. The only way to win is by trading shots as they go past.”

  Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!! They began to hear the giant rotors hitting the air.

  Even from the little slit in the driver’s seat, Hamazura could see three shadows in the white sky. At this rate, they’d pass overhead in no time at all.

  The last thing they wanted to do was let those helicopters get past them.

  If they didn’t stop the helicopters here, everyone fleeing from the settlement would be killed.

  “Here we go!!” shouted Digurv.

  Hamazura grabbed the levers for controlling the treads, while Grickin reached for the device that rotated the turrets.

  The battle had begun.

  When they’d gotten within three hundred meters of the attack helicopters, the anti-air tank’s muzzle erupted with fire. In exchange for the cannons’ firing rate being somewhat lower than regular machine guns, low taiko drumlike beating threw itself against Hamazura’s ears.

  The attack helicopters split off from their formation with the sound of artillery fire. Orange sparks leaped from one—a round had connected. But it wasn’t enough to take it down.

  “They’ve got thick armor since they’re so big?!”

  “Hamazura, it’s their turn! We’ll have missiles coming down on us like rain next!!”

  As Digurv shouted, Hamazura quickly pulled the anti-air vehicle backward. The steel treads dug into the ground with enough force to spray snow everywhere as they forced the heavy machine where it needed to go.

  Caterpillar treads gave the impression of sloth, but this was still a military vehicle. Glancing at the speedometer, it was apparently designed to reach speeds of about seventy kilometers per hour maximum.

  However.

  The speed of the attack helicopters ripping through the skies was on a completely different level.

  “Hmm-hm-hmm!”

  Meanwhile, the pilot of one attack helicopter, strengthening his grip on the flight yoke, was even licking his lips. Machine guns or missiles—he could smash that anti-air tank to smithereens with all kinds of stuff. After leaving the airspace, he pulled around in a wide U-turn, raised his speed, and dropped his altitude to take aim at the target.

  “Morons! If you survived, you should have just played dead!! Then your chances of holding out might have been a little higher!!”

  The vehicle, its anti-air attack having failed, seemed to be desperately trying to run. However, it wouldn’t be a challenge for the attack helicopters, equipped with all kinds of sensors. The pilot used his thumb to flick open a protective cover near the top of the yoke, then went right ahead and pushed the red “fire missile” button.

  With a trail of white smoke, the little missile sped toward its target. It was too late for it to take evasive maneuvers, and besides, a self-propelled anti-air cannon on caterpillar treads wouldn’t have the speed to dodge it anyway. They seemed to be trying to escape into the tall coniferous trees in the woods, but that was pointless.

  “Hee-hee!! Now you’re toast!!” the pilot shouted.

  …But the results he’d hoped for didn’t materialize.

  It was probably because they’d hidden in the trees. The missile had struck the top of one of them, which hung out like a roof right over the anti-air tank.

  Flames and a shock wave rippled out, but even the anti-air tank, with its relatively thin armoring compared to actual tanks, was nearly unharmed. The conifers blown away by the missile broke apart, raining down on their surroundings.

  Plus…

  “You just gave us an opening, you piece of shit!” shouted Hamazura. “Grickin!!”

  Grickin, manning the turrets, pulled a lever. A surface-to-air missile, fixed to the side of the machine guns, ignited and headed for the sky.

  The sky that was just a moment ago blocked by trees.

  But the SAM shot out from the hole the helicopter’s attack had opened up.

  “?!”

  The pilot’s throat dried up for a moment, but the missile didn’t fly to him. It penetrated a different helicopter, one who had been preparing for a second flyby.

  With an explosion, black smoke sullied the Russian air.

  The attack helicopter, now an orange chunk of metal, crashed into the white, snowy ground. There was another explosion, an even bigger one.

  But the pilot wasn’t sad for his colleagues’ demise.

  “Rain time.”

  Using his comm, he prompted the other attack helicopter to join up with him.

  “Missiles will get blocked. We’ll rain machine-gun fire on them and pump ’em full of holes!!”

  The two helicopters veered off in two completely different directions. After a U-turn, they immediately flew toward the forest where the anti-air tank was hiding.

  They were set up to strafe from two directions at once.

  The anti-air tank frantically hid in some conifers, but the same trick wouldn’t work again. The helicopters’ sensors had a clear read on something big and metal, and thirty-millimeter Gatling cannons could shoot through those conifers like paper. They couldn’t use their cover this time.

  But then he looked at the radar again.

  “Wha?!” he grunted, confused.

  The radar wasn’t displaying right. He was slightly disturbed, but he still properly handled the yoke. The Gatling cannon strafing run traced a line into the ground where he wanted it to.

  In time with the helicopter’s movements, a string of bullets flew out over the white ground.

  Several thick trees snapped all at once, and a huge hole opened up in the hunk of metal hidden under them. Not just one or two, either—the bullets were making it into mincemeat.

  Boom!! An explosion spread through the woods.

  The target was successfully destroyed—at least, it should have been.

  Nevertheless, the look on the pilot’s face wasn’t a good one.

  “Hey, what’s going on here?” he asked his colleague in a voice that was more angry than confused. “Why are we getting more pings on the radar?! I don’t think we hit ’em!!”

  If there had only been one anti-air tank i
n the trees, this couldn’t ever have possibly happened. And then a transmission came in from a colleague to answer that question.

  “Look—a passenger car! They knew we’d go after them all along, and they hid a car from the settlement in the woods beforehand!! That’s why we aimed at the wrong metal indic—?!”

  The voice cut off partway through the sentence.

  Several orange-colored sparks flew about. His colleague’s helicopter’s armor had been shot through. Hit by a stream of fire from the anti-aircraft cannons, it exploded in midair.

  “…”

  At this point, the remaining pilot had the option of going back to base for now.

  But he didn’t choose it.

  The blood rushing to his head was one reason. But more than that, it was because they’d mowed down most of the conifers in the woods. The anti-air tank couldn’t hide anymore; even if they tried to throw off the radars with a bunch of other cars, as long as he could visually confirm them, there was no reason to be confused.

  “Time…to…die.”

  The pilot left the region one more time, veering away to a place the anti-air tank couldn’t reach, then performed a wide U-turn.

  The next run would be the last.

  Without cover, this time, this time for real, the anti-air tank wouldn’t be able to avoid the attacks from above.

  “Gya-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!! You’re gonna look like a beehive when I’m finished with you!!”

  4

  The Strait of Dover.

  Atop the solidified water’s surface British and French sorcerers fought, but now that the second princess, Carissa, and her Knights had taken to the front lines, the British side was now pushing the enemy back, albeit slowly.

  The Knights’ power supply from the Curtana Second using the mobile fortress Glastonbury played an especially large part in this. The Knight Leader was also using his spell that reduced personally perceived weapon attack power to zero to great effect. Ignoring normal national borders, the knights’ swords were proving to be incredibly effective.

  Though they were pushing back the French sorcerers, the Knight Leader’s expression was not pleased.

  “…Whenever we’re winning smoothly, I start wondering if the enemy is setting up for something big. Must be an occupational disorder.”

  “Well, given who we’re up against…”

  “…”

  The Knight Leader unintentionally sunk into silence at Carissa’s answer.

  An opponent against whom common sense didn’t work. The French tactician—the one people called a holy woman—was one who possessed a peculiar quality unique to France.

  The Femme Fatale.

  Jeanne d’Arc. Marie Antoinette. Several women appeared in French history who had greatly changed the nation by their existence alone, whether for good or for ill. This tactician was another one of them. It would be an all-too-painful loss were they to execute her unfairly, but it would have been all too terrifying to grant her freedom. Thus, she had been confined by the French government to a basement in Versailles.

  Up against a personage like that, maybe it was stranger that things were proceeding according to theory.

  Or was his consideration that something was up actually because he’d already been stricken by the Femme Fatale’s aura?

  “These guys are going to be hard to deal with, too,” asserted Carissa in an offhand tone. “If they decide they’re being cornered, we run the risk of them committing to acts of violence otherwise impossible during normal military actions. Do you know what the best way to prevent that is?”

  “?”

  “Gain control of the battlefield quickly, without giving them time to be confused. If our military results are great enough, they’ll go past fear. We’ll have them dumbfounded.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t underestimate me.”

  They heard a voice, source unknown.

  It was the “brain” commanding the French sorcerers from afar—the holy woman.

  But Carissa grinned.

  “Well, maybe if you’d come out here personally, you would have changed things.”

  Protected by many a knight, Carissa made a declaration.

  “But no matter what, you can’t leave that basement in Versailles. Small, compact ranged fire from a distance won’t be enough to take down our Knights. Use your head all you want—you can’t change your troop strength on the field. Using power effectively and raising the upper limit on that power are two entirely different things.”

  Even as she smiled, the second princess’s tone sounded somehow bored.

  “Our goal isn’t France. We don’t have time to spare on the small fry, so unless you want more casualties than you need, make way. Your job is to be the brain, right? I’m positive you know exactly what move you should make now.”

  “Heh-heh.”

  And then the Femme Fatale laughed.

  “You know I’m the type to use her head—so I wonder why you never considered the possibility.”

  “What?”

  It happened right as a dubiousness came to Carissa’s eyes.

  Boom!!

  The Knight Leader next to her was swept off his feet by a massive impact.

  “?!”

  Carissa didn’t have time to be surprised.

  All of a sudden, a woman had flown over to them. One wearing a gorgeous dress, mainly of comfortable white fabric. In contrast to the dress, however, her skin was an unhealthy shade of white, and her eyes were slightly sunken in. The sword she held in her hand was an awful fit for her. It was like a young man who spent all his time reading in the library was wielding a baseball bat.

  She was…

  Her true identity…

  “…The possibility that I can actually act. And that is France’s greatest scheme.”

  Her gaudy Western straight sword, mostly red and gold, pointed at Carissa.

  The first one to respond was the Knight Leader.

  “Zero!!”

  With that one word, the Femme Fatale’s weapon’s attack power should have vanished. It should have turned into something safer than a sponge.

  However.

  “Cute,” said the Femme Fatale quietly and simply. “The histories of Britain and France are actually surprisingly ambiguous. Even William I, king of England, was originally a French noble.”

  She didn’t move right away—perhaps because she was confident in an assured victory.

  “…And your spell doesn’t apply to weapons related to the royal family, does it?”

  “Blas—?!”

  After seeing the Knight Leader’s shock, the Femme Fatale swung her sword.

  Its speed exceeded that of sound.

  It was probably like the Curtana—a special sword imbued with a national spell unique to France.

  Carissa had no way of defending.

  The Knights were borrowing strength from the Curtana Second, but Queen Elizard was the one actually holding the weapon. Carissa herself wasn’t even receiving its benefits. And even if the knights were to offer their bodies, the Femme Fatale’s sword would cleave through all their shields and Carissa with them.

  And.

  With a shrill gkkeeeeeeeeeeee!!

  The blade in Second Princess Carissa’s hand parried the blow she should never have been able to block.

  The Curtana Original had lost its power with the end of the coup.

  The Curtana Second was in Elizard’s hand—Carissa shouldn’t have had any strength at all.

  But nevertheless:

  “The Durandal, eh?”

  Her body wasn’t cleaved in two, didn’t have even a scratch on it. As their swords pressed against each other at point-blank range, only Carissa was grinning.

  “How?” the French woman hissed to herself.

  What Carissa had in her hand was silver metal only a few centimeters long, but a sword made of light was sprouting from it. Considering the force of the weapon she herself carried, the phenomenon was absolutely imp
ossible. This was France’s sword. The destructive power of France itself. To rival it, one should have had to bring out the Curtana, equally a symbol of Britain.

  “The histories of Britain and France are surprisingly ambiguous. You said so yourself, so.”

  “Wh…what?”

  “Your king Charlemagne thought the same. Didn’t he try to embed fragments of the holy lance in his own sword in an attempt to imbue it with sacred power and value?”

  “…You don’t mean…?”

  The Femme Fatale again glanced at the few short centimeters of metal.

  “Is that a fragment of the Curtana Second?!”

  “When I fought Mother, the Curtana Original and the Curtana Second clashed. This is a by-product from that time…Still, I hadn’t thought it would draw this much power just after passing into distinguished royalty’s hands. I can’t simply use it for crushing things. I don’t like this sword—it’s got all kinds of loopholes and secret tricks. I hate it enough to incite a coup d’état, in fact.”

  A magical explosion went off between Carissa and her nemesis.

  Each took distance and repositioned their swords.

  “And actually, me being able to act is Britain’s greatest scheme.”

  5

  The action Accelerator took was a simple one: He swung the jet-black wings sprouting from his back from high to low.

  However, his target this time was not the Level Zero boy running toward him.

  It was the empty white ground in front of him.

  A blast.

  The intense destructive force whipped up a huge cloud of dust and dirt. A tsunami of earth appeared, over fifteen meters high and over three hundred meters wide. Embroiling the very scenery, it lunged toward the boy, aiming to swallow his tiny body whole.

  With this, he should have died.

  Even if the boy had been wearing a military powered suit, it would have crushed him into a bloody mess along with his composite material armor.

  Despite that.

  Wham!! The Level Zero charged through the dust cloud head-on.

  Struck with rocks but never taking a fatal wound.

  “…” Accelerator was surprised at first, but then he figured out the trick.