However, Fiamma said, almost jokingly, the exact opposite of this idea. “First, destroy Britain.”
“What?” said the pope.
Fiamma ignored him and continued. “You don’t understand? Thanks to our alliance with the Russian Catholic Church, we have complete possession of all Europe aside from them. We contact all the nations and run Britain dry. People, goods, money—we cut off the flow of everything. It is still an island nation, after all. With nowhere to run, I estimate they’ll run out of power in a matter of months.”
The pope tried once again to understand what Fiamma was saying, but gave up. “I don’t understand the point,” he said honestly. “True, there is a pipeline between Academy City and the English Puritan Church. But if we take Britain, I don’t think that would be a fatal blow to Academy City. Even if we took the entire United Kingdom hostage, that city would be fine with continuing the war. They could use saving them as a pretext, after all.”
On the other hand, if they conquered Academy City first, the British side would grind to a halt. English Puritanism may have been one of the three largest denominations of Catholicism, but it also meant they were only one-third of it. They wouldn’t start a war against the other two-thirds—the Roman Orthodox and Russian Catholic Churches.
The British were being so aggressive because they were allied with Academy City, and the entire rest of the science side, too. If they could just disable Academy City, Britain would wake up before it was hurt.
“Not quite,” interrupted Fiamma simply. “That’s not quite right, Mr. Pope of Rome.”
“Academy City thinks nothing of us.”
This time, the pope caught his breath. He didn’t understand what Fiamma of the Right had just said. It wasn’t that he half understood—he didn’t comprehend a single word.
Fiamma continued, disregarding his shock. “The United Kingdom has something. Something we absolutely need. They won’t simply offer it, of course. That was why we had to cause a commotion. To get it, we need the great power of the Roman Orthodox Church to take action.”
“What…are you saying…?”
“Hmm? I believe I answered your question. And this isn’t necessarily mutually exclusive with your wish, either. As long as we get it, we can destroy anything—we could get rid of Academy City and the entire science side at once.”
“What…?” The pope still didn’t understand. He just asked, “What is that something…?”
“Ah yes.”
Fiamma of the Right spoke it easily. And the words he said were…
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
There was a thud.
It was the sound of the Roman pope staggering and hitting his back against a thick pillar in St. Peter’s Basilica.
“That’s…absurd…,” he managed to say, wringing it from his throat. “Are you truly a Crossist disciple…?”
Fiamma responded casually. “Hmm. Well, what do you think?”
“Damn!!”
“That will not do. You are the pope—swearing like that will simply not do.”
The man ignored Fiamma’s words of ridicule. He couldn’t pay attention to them. Vento of the Front, Terra of the Left, Acqua of the Back. Each of them moved according to his or her own warped principles and ideas, but God’s Right Seat was still a single Crossist group. They would acquire powers beyond those of angels, become kami-jou, “gods above,” and save man directly. While that way of thinking was arrogant and blasphemous, as a person, he could understand parts of it.
But this was different.
Fiamma of the Right, alone, was decidedly different.
He’d told the pope to isolate Britain using the Roman Orthodox and Russian Catholic Churches’ power. But Britain wouldn’t sit idly by and wait for that to happen. When they realized their energy would actually deplete, they would fight like their lives depended on it. This could turn all of Europe into a battlefield. This was in a different dimension than sending one or two important people sneaking into Academy City—this would cause a genuine war.
“You…You don’t think I’ll sit quietly and let you do this, I hope.”
He couldn’t let him do that. He was aware that a conflict had started, one that shouldn’t have begun in the first place…but he could still stop it.
“You want to fight?” asked Fiamma, looking directly at him, slowly shaking his head. “Fight the leader of God’s Right Seat?”
“Do not look down on me. You are captain of a mud-boat about to sink.”
“Strong words. Yes, the others may have had rare qualities, but it was just three people. I can just assign the Front, Left, and Back positions to others. As long as I, the great Fiamma, survive.”
“You think I’ll let you?” rumbled the pope. “Fiamma of the Right. You will be silent for a time. Or perhaps for eternity.”
Boom!! An explosion. Nothing in particular had suddenly appeared. Instead, the space itself, unchanging, was wavering, making odd, cracking noises. The scene looked like the inside of a box being crushed from the outside.
“I announce to apostles one through twelve. I beg the Lord who cannot be counted. Power need overflow. I know its proper meaning, and with that power, I desire the defeat of my enemies.”
Several lights flew around. They were supposedly mere glowing orbs, but each held within it a completely different image, like a mysteriously upside-down cross and a scallop.
The symbolic lights surrounded Fiamma, forming flat planes between them. A prison shaped like a soccer ball formed around his body.
He heard a whistle.
It came from Fiamma’s mouth. Fiamma, who was completely encircled.
“Symbols of Jesus and the twelve apostles? Are you sure? You’re even borrowing the seal of Judas, the betrayer. And yet you are the pope.”
“Do not misunderstand. Judas may have betrayed the Lord, but it was the Lord’s mercy extended to him as an apostle. Thou shalt love thy neighbor. It’s easy to bury what works against us. But the purpose of the Word of God is to never seek the easy way out.”
Bwoom!! The sound of an explosion.
The thirteen-faced polygon surrounding Fiamma formed a ring to restrain him. Not to physically bind him but to sever his body from his mind and to have them spin fruitlessly within his flesh for eternity—restraints that did not wound.
“After Judas’s betrayal, he was overwhelmed by a strong sense of self-reproach and hanged himself. His world was dark, cold, deep, and painful. No matter where he looked, he couldn’t even see a single ray of hope. Remember it, for that is what you will experience now.”
Fiamma probably couldn’t hear him, but the pope kept talking.
“This will force you into a state of idleness for forty years. Have a long taste of the self-isolation Judas succumbed to, and re-polish your inexperienced mind.”
Standing frozen inside the thirteen-faced polygon, Fiamma’s lips trembled slightly.
Perhaps it was all the resistance he could muster, as he couldn’t move a muscle.
“Stop. Despite my failings, I am the pope. The powers I wield now are sacred, ones which have guided and supported two billion faithful for over two thousand years. The arrogance of a single man or two is not enough to ward it away.”
In addition, St. Peter’s Basilica was the strongest, greatest fortress in the entire Catholic sphere. To top that off, Vatican City itself functioned as one giant Soul Arm, adding layers upon layers of strength to the pope.
“Hmph.”
And then Fiamma’s mouth actually moved.
Shock entered the pope’s expression. Those weren’t the movements of someone restrained.
Fiamma spoke, his tone neutral.
“Unfortunately, it was only two billion, and only two thousand years.”
A moment later, everything disappeared.
The pope’s eyes could just barely make out a br
illiant, explosive light from the vicinity of Fiamma’s right shoulder. An instant later, his vision had covered over in white, and a storm of destruction had brewed.
A dome-shaped wind blasted.
One-third of St. Peter’s Basilica had just been blown to pieces from within.
The magical devices supporting the immense building severed one by one, causing a chain of collapse of other facilities supporting the Vatican, utterly destroying the defensive circle supposedly safeguarding the area, whipping up mana without anywhere to go, bending and warping the scenery.
The pope was blown over a hundred meters back. He rolled onto the cobblestones of a plaza.
He watched, dumbstruck, as the basilica collapsed into dust. The world’s strongest fortress, Crossism’s largest basilica, tore open like a flimsy piece of paper. The horrible sight made the pope forget even the pain of his wounds.
At the center of all the destruction, Fiamma of the Right reigned supreme.
He slowly began to walk to the plaza.
There was something strange around his right shoulder.
In addition to his arm, there was a distorted bundle of light, like a failed wing, like a giant’s arm with five ugly rings on it. Greek mythology spoke of the goddess Athena being born from a wound in Zeus’s forehead—and this seemed just as surreal a sight.
“Pathetic. That was all it took for it to break apart?”
Fiamma looked between his right arm and the thing growing out of his shoulder. Then he spat, as though he’d tried to start a car that had a bad engine.
The pope, leaning against broken cobblestones, moaned, “That…arm…Could that be…?”
“Yes. The right arm is the symbol of miracles,” said Fiamma, walking slowly into the debris. “Jesus healed the sick with his right hand and raised the dead. We make the sign of the cross with our right hand, and we sprinkle the holy water of baptism with our right hand. And Michael—he who is like God. His right hand held the most powerful weapon in history. It consigned many a fallen angel to oblivion, strong enough to cut down even Lucifer, the bearer of light.”
The right.
The man symbolizing the color of burning red, Fiamma, simply continued his lecture.
A lecture to the pope—the highest of the Roman Orthodox Church.
“Urgh…”
“Of course, because this ‘holy right,’ the right hand of God, has such incredible power, normal humans can’t handle it. When regular disciples genuflect or handle holy water, well…you know how the powers those in the legends wield is only a fraction of it? Saints, God’s Right Seat, whatever—their flesh is always based on that of a normal human. Do you get it, Mr. Pope? I’m just a regular human. Unfortunately for me,” he said, sounding annoyed.
He wielded such inhuman powers at a whim and yet scorned himself as nothing but human.
“What I mean is, I’ve got this wonderful crystallization of these right-handed miracles but no output terminal for stocking it, controlling it, and exhibiting it. And you barely get anything out of trying to use it like that, right? It’s like watching a video taken by a high-definition camera on a monochrome television.”
The giant, warped, ominous arm swayed behind Fiamma.
He licked his slender fingers. “Hey, don’t you want that power?”
Fiamma of the Right, who had utterly ruined St. Peter’s Basilica as though it were no problem, as though it were a mere man-made cathedral, just a few holy secrets assembled as one.
“The Holy Right symbolizes all miracles. The power of the right can destroy any evil or wickedness without issue, bind the Devil himself to the bottom of hell, and guarantee a thousand years of peace. If there were a right arm capable of drawing that power out in its entirety, wouldn’t you want to know how it worked on the inside?”
He…can’t mean…
He’d read the reports.
He knew of the unknown supernatural power possessed by a boy in Academy City.
And his right arm, said to nullify any holiness or sorcery.
“I could use it.” Fiamma smiled, holding his right arm straight out. His third arm, which had broken apart, moved as well, under its own power, as if in response. “With this, God’s “Likeness,” the power of Michael, I will handle it perfectly. And for that, preparations are necessary.”
Of course, just having the requisite materials didn’t mean you could control a spell. In order to suppress an overwhelming power, you needed overwhelming knowledge beyond the realm of man. And the Roman pope knew of such a treasure trove of knowledge. The singular crystallization of knowledge, with all the world’s grimoires collected in one place.
Fiamma must have known what the pope was thinking from his expression. His smile widened. “The Index of Prohibited Books. Those Brits really put together something fantastic.”
And that was why…
…he needed England.
Not the person herself, who was staying in Academy City for now—but specifically Great Britain.
“I won’t…let you,” muttered the pope.
He dragged his blood-covered body to its feet. He thought that if he asked for guidance from God’s Right Seat, if he became one of them and aimed for the kami-jou, he could save many more of his followers. He hadn’t wanted such a thing to elevate his own position and power as the pope. He hadn’t become the pope to create a world where innocent lambs were used as stepping stones.
That was why the man now stood in the way.
The futures of two billion were behind him.
“This will be fun.”
Fiamma laughed, his giant arm still level with the ground.
“One-sided contests are ridiculous but still fun.”
Ga-boom!!
They didn’t even clash.
Fiamma’s overwhelming power simply pierced the pope, sending him flying.
St. Peter’s Square was destroyed into fine particles. The explosion’s aftermath knocked over several buildings and caused the already-damaged basilica to collapse even further. Part of the outer wall encircling Vatican City fell. That was where the pope had been blown to.
The commotion made the Vatican’s guard, who were convinced there could never be a crisis in a place like this, finally come running. At first, they stared at Fiamma with a blank look. They probably didn’t think a mere person could cause destruction on this scale. Eventually, a few snapped out of it to do their duty. They were crushed and sent flying. And that was when the “dominator” was sure of that power’s destruction.
“Hmm?” he muttered, looking at the Vatican’s outer wall, thoroughly destroyed.
Strange. No victims.
By all rights, the aftermath from his previous strike should have turned Rome, outside the wall, into a mountain of rubble hundreds of meters across. But the destruction was actually only inside the Vatican. It hadn’t reached the city outside.
“He took it all himself? What a guy.”
Fiamma hummed to himself, heading for the mostly destroyed St. Peter’s Basilica.
Neither a lowly guard nor heavyweights like archbishops or cardinals could say a word.
The blood-soaked Roman pope collapsed against the outside wall of a house.
Fiamma hadn’t bothered to conceal the explosion. Now there was a huge disturbance in the area, with people thinking it was a terrorist bombing.
An ambulance siren wailed somewhere.
He thought for a moment that there had been casualties, but apparently, it was coming closer in order to carry him.
He looked around, but none of the houses looked caved in.
Several windows had broken due to the shattered fragments of the outer wall, but it didn’t look like anyone had died.
It put a faint smile on his lips, when suddenly, he noticed a girl in filthy clothes looking at him from a small alley between houses.
It was dangerous here.
He tried to tell her, but he couldn’t put together real words.
The girl was shouting somet
hing at him, maybe to keep him from losing consciousness. She wasn’t carrying any bandages or disinfectant. However, the pope, who didn’t desire any more technology than necessary, was actually thankful for it. After his brush with a massive evil, this little act of kindness touched his heart.
“Hah. Now there’s something.”
He heard a voice.
He looked up and saw a woman wrapped in yellow clothing standing there.
Vento of the Front.
“Damaging your honor to save the lost lambs and, in the meantime, thinking about a nobody worrying about you? And you still hate being chosen by others? You were elected to this position, Mr. Pope.”
“…Britain.”
The pope’s mouth managed to open between gasps of breath.
He spoke, though it was mostly blood coming out.
“Fiamma’s target…is in…Britain…”
“Nobody gives me orders,” spat Vento. “But I’ll let it slide this time, since we both want to kill that shithead.”
Vento fell silent for a moment. The filthy girl was glaring at Vento in challenge.
“Such good malice,” she said, smiling thinly. “And you’re in luck. If I had my actual weapon, you’d be dead where you stand.”
The ambulance siren approached.
Vento said nothing more before disappearing into an alley between houses—seeming more familiar with it than the filthy girl.
Little Venice, London.
The archbishop of the English Puritan Church, its highest authority, Laura Stuart, lay on a boat, napping. The boat was on a man-made river controlled by several gates. As the name Venice might imply, they seemed to be going for some of the Venetian feel…but they’d messed something up, and though the sight was beautiful, it was wholly unlike that city. It wasn’t even a city on the water or anything. This was simply a dock where three rivers met.
Behind the scenes, this was also a place meant to reproduce and allude to the geography of Venice, the city constructed atop the sea, from a magical viewpoint. Very few people knew the truth, though.
A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 16 Page 20