“Oh!” blurted out Kamijou. He was right about that…“But if they can’t use it, the guys trying to use it in the palace will realize, right? And then they might be able to get away.”
“Yeah. Can’t deny that. That’s why everything rests on how we schedule this. It’ll all come down to how fast we can get to the palace after severing the pipeline.”
Tsuchimikado’s plan seemed to make a certain amount of sense. Had he gotten that information before they’d boarded the plane? Or had he, after getting separated from Kamijou, been investigating Avignon while fleeing from the riots on his own?
Still, even Kamijou’s amateur senses saw a problem with it. “If the document is in the Papal Palace, we won’t know who’s using it, will we? If they want, they could just blend into the crowds to hide. If that happens, it’ll be really tough for us to find them on our own.”
“…” On the other end of the line, the agent was quiet for a moment. “Well, we’ll manage it somehow. For now, stopping the document comes first.”
Kamijou didn’t like where this was going…Don’t tell me he’s gonna use sorcery to locate the enemy again.
Motoharu Tsuchimikado had a handicap—when he used magic, it damaged him. But Kamijou knew he could ignore that handicap if he needed to. He’d been splotched with blood during the Daihasei Festival when they finally tracked down Oriana Thomson.
Aware of Kamijou’s unease or not, Tsuchimikado’s voice was cheerful. “We finally have our way out, Kammy.”
6
Kamijou and Itsuwa passed through a housing complex and out a back door.
“Itsuwa, your friends…the Amakusa guys. They’re still held up?”
“I…I’m sorry. We never thought this would happen. I sent an emergency message a few minutes ago, but they’d be lucky to get to us by tomorrow morning. If we were in Japan, we could have used one of the swirls for the Pilgrimage in Miniature movement spell…”
This road contained no blockades; it even started to seem like they could get to the Papal Palace without a problem. But they didn’t know when another huge crowd would clog the streets again, so it was better not to waltz on through the long distance. They’d have to aim for the nearby pipeline, like Tsuchimikado had indicated.
“O-over here.” Itsuwa, spear in hand, took the lead.
The “walls” on our sides are awfully tall. Taller than before…, he thought. This area looked like it had stone buildings built on top of cliffs that were already there. Even the black grime and dirt on the stronghold-like buildings made it seem like a kind of bulwark; he couldn’t tell what the structures were for at a glance. The residential buildings, stores, and churches all had the appearance of fortresses.
“Um, I know the spot Mr. Tsuchimikado is referring to, but…is there really a pipeline connecting the Papal Palace to the Vatican there?”
“Don’t ask me…,” muttered Kamijou, looking toward his phone.
Tsuchimikado’s voice came back buoyant. “Well, different cultures read ley lines completely differently. There’s not much doubt about this one, though.”
The “point” was apparently quite close to where Kamijou and Itsuwa were. They were fairly far from Tsuchimikado, so it had fallen to the two of them to cut the pipeline. “So, uh, what’s this pipeline going to look like?” he asked. “It wouldn’t, like…be sticking out of the ground, right?”
“Ley lines are basically flows of energy in the land. The energy could take any shape or direction. Even if a ley line has significance for one religion, it could mean nothing to another. That happens all the time. That’s why I said different cultures read them differently…”
Kamijou still looked confused. Next to him, Itsuwa, possibly having picked up on the conversation from the phone’s speaker, clarified, “It’s like different ways to use ingredients.”
In Western cuisine, things like Berkshire pork were high-class ingredients, but in Japanese cuisine—recent creative dishes aside—nobody took the slightest notice of it. In the same way, pulling out only the power you felt necessary from all the different kinds of energy seemed fundamental to using ley lines. Itsuwa had spoken smoothly and clearly about it, leading Kamijou to idly wonder if Amakusa specialized in spells using the lines.
“Anyway, there’s no rank in these lands. Meaning we’re the ones assigning our own value and using them, nya.”
“An amateur wouldn’t be able to tell just by seeing it, right?” asked Kamijou.
“Yep. An important Roman Orthodox ley line links Avignon with the Vatican. A distorted one, strictly speaking, that people created by destroying the geography,” he continued smoothly. “Ley lines shake easily. It’s a basic concept in feng shui.”
“Right. I don’t get what these ley lines are. But they’ll be lines engraved right into the ground, right?”
“What I’m saying is that if someone levels the ground, they’ll twist the ley lines there, too. Feng shui practitioners use things like the locations of mountains or directions of rivers to decide what spots are good or bad…but these days, it’s not that uncommon for people to fill up rivers and shave away mountains.”
“Sorcerers who make use of the land need to try hard, lest others develop over those important points,” added Itsuwa.
…Sounds like a huge pain, Kamijou thought with a sigh.
“On the other hand, you can use sorcery calculations to change the geography, too. More precisely, it’s closer to reselecting one ley line from many independent ones in a region, based on which flavors they can bring out the strongest. But if you mess up, you could ruin the balance and cause a huge disaster, so they end up being these huge national-scale projects, nya.”
“Like the Church’s pipeline…,” muttered Kamijou.
“As I mentioned, there are so many lines throughout the land with heaps of different kinds of energy, you couldn’t even count them all. Which, well, means it’s extremely tough to pick out one line you’re after without any hints,” added Tsuchimikado. “But if you have a search condition…in this case, a line tying the Papal Palace to the Vatican, it’s a different story. You can find it just as easily as a car GPS can find a destination you give it, yeaaah~? Anyhow, if you two could go bust that pipeline soon, that would be great. Uh, Itsuwa, right?”
“Y-yes!!”
“Just want to confirm you knyow a spell or a way to destroy the pipeline.”
“Um, well, I know an Amakusa-style one. It should cover anything standard, as long as it’s Shinto, Buddhist, or Crossist…”
“That should be all you need. If you find the pipeline on your end, you’ll do it.”
Kamijou quirked his head to the side as he listened to their exchange. “Wait, couldn’t my right hand take out any of these ley lines or pipelines in one hit?”
He had a power called the Imagine Breaker. Whether sorcery or magic, a single blow would destroy any preternatural power.
Tsuchimikado, however, didn’t approve of the suggestion. “We don’t know if your Imagine Breaker can actually destroy ley lines.”
“Huh?” Kamijou asked, surprised. “But ley lines…they’re magic…right? Then…”
“About that,” he interrupted. “We don’t really understand everything about your right hand. It can negate anything, magic or supernatural ability, but…for example…right. A person’s ‘life force’ is an occult energy, but you can’t kill people just by shaking their hands, can you?”
“Well, no…”
“I get the feeling there’s some strange exceptions. And I think ley lines fall under that category. It’s hard to imagine you touching the ground and the planet blowing up.”
But at the same time, Misha Kreutzev hadn’t tried to touch Kamijou’s right hand, and Hyouka Kazakiri was unconsciously afraid of it.
“…”
Kamijou suddenly fell quiet and glanced at his hand.
…Exceptions?
How did it work on the inside? Did the way it worked mean something?
Thinki
ng about it calmly, he realized he didn’t know much about his own power, the Imagine Breaker. Part of it was because he’d lost his memories…but maybe he wouldn’t know even if that hadn’t happened. At the very least, there were no hints, much less answers, in the “knowledge” that remained after his amnesia.
In any case, severing that pipeline was their first priority now. Kamijou collected himself and looked ahead.
7
Kamijou and Itsuwa came to a small museum in Avignon.
The museum wasn’t a big, isolated building. Like the other housing complexes and stores had been, it was just using a section of one of the fortresslike buildings towering to either side of the road. The small, ancient city of Avignon, surrounded by its ramparts, didn’t have that much space to begin with. City planners had probably wanted to keep the scenery unified.
At the front entrance stood a signboard in French, but seeing as how the store’s metal lattice shutter was pulled down over the wooden door, the plate near the doorknob probably had the word for closed on it. Even though today was a weekday afternoon.
“They probably closed up early for fear of the riots,” said Itsuwa, looking up at the building.
Kamijou glanced at the sturdy shutter. “But according to Tsuchimikado, the invisible pipeline runs through this museum, right? How do we get in? Does Amakusa have some kind of lock-picking skill, or—?”
“Yah!” came a cute call, interrupting him.
A moment later, Itsuwa stuck her spear’s tip through the gap between the shutter and the ground, then moved it, using something like the principle of leverage. The very cogs that moved the shutter creaked, then broke apart.
A high-pitched crime-prevention alarm went off, but Itsuwa ignored it as she pushed the shutter farther open and used the principle of leverage again to pry open the wooden door behind it. Then she waltzed inside.
“Come on, hurry.”
“Um…Itsuwa?” said Kamijou, staring in shock at the girl. His eyes asked, Weren’t you supposed to be a normal girl…? but she only looked at him blankly. Was she planning to punch out anyone who heard the clamor and came to the museum?
Fearful of the loud, shrill alarm, Kamijou entered as well. It wasn’t well lit…Actually, it was pretty much pitch-black. They’d probably closed all the windows so the exhibits wouldn’t get hit by direct sunlight. Their normal fluorescent lights wouldn’t cause a problem, but right now, the only light was the faint glow of the emergency exit sign. Walking around in here made him uneasy.
“Tsuchimikado was saying…”
“Now that we’re here, I can tell. Looks like it’s over here.”
Itsuwa went farther in, spear in hand. Kamijou followed; the floor was completely normal. Looking at where the glass exhibition showcases were, though, this one spot broke the rules for some reason. It was unnaturally empty.
Itsuwa looked slowly across the unnatural floor. After a few moments of observation, she eventually nodded, satisfied with something. “It definitely looks like it’s here. I can feel power treated in Roman Orthodox fashion…a certain purification effect applied to other religions’ spells. This ley line is unique to Western Crossist society. Though it’s hidden quite well…I had to get fairly close before I could sense it.”
Then she looked over at Kamijou. “…Mr. Tsuchimikado hasn’t come yet, but we should do this before the enemy notices us. I’ll get to work cutting the pipeline, so please stand back a bit.”
“It doesn’t look like there’s anything there,” said Kamijou, staring hard at the floor near Itsuwa. “…Is cutting it going to be that easy?”
“Well, breaking the ley line clean in two would take a lot more people.” Itsuwa laughed. “We only need to make it so they can’t use their Papal Palace–Vatican line. All I’m doing is damaging it a bit and shifting its direction slightly, so I can manage by myself.”
“I see,” he said, not really seeing.
Anyway, I can’t let the Imagine Breaker get in the way. He backed up a few steps.
The Amakusa girl put down her bag and rummaged through it. She seemed to be choosing everyday items to use for the spell.
As he watched, he asked, “I forget—did Amakusa use stuff like that to make their spells?”
“Y-yes. Right now, I need…a camera, slippers, this pamphlet, a bottle of mineral water, white panties—”
After taking them out, Itsuwa gave a “hyaa?!” and hurried to put the article she’d probably just changed out of back into the bag. Her face grew bright red, but the rest of her froze completely.
“Wh-what’s wrong, Itsuwa?”
“…Essential…,” mumbled Itsuwa, still not moving. “It’s absolutely essential for this spell…”
Her face drained of hope, she took the underwear back out with slow movements. Seeing her about to cry, Kamijou considered turning around, but she told him, “N-no, please don’t worry about it”—so he couldn’t move at all.
Meanwhile, she arranged the items from her bag on the floor. At first, it looked like a circle…but it was probably governed by some kind of minute regulations.
After she finished positioning them all, she spun the spear in her hand around and pointed its tip downward.
“Here I go,” she said, a short declaration before taking it in both hands and stabbing it into the floor.
It hit the exact middle of the circle.
It didn’t make the sound of a blade hitting stone.
The spearhead slowly vanished into the floor as though sinking into a swamp.
When Itsuwa cuts the pipeline, it’ll make the document lose its effect. That means the riots happening in this old city should calm down, too, he said to himself as the girl kept her spear in the floor. It continued to sink deeper, ever so slowly.
But when that happens, the guys using the document in the Papal Palace will suspect they’ve failed. If they decide the prospects are grim, they could take it and run back to the Vatican.
Her foot moved—her heel kicked the floor.
The index fingers of her hands grasping the spear tapped out a rhythm on its handle.
It’ll be a race against time. Once the riots are settled, we’ll run to the Papal Palace right away. We’ll coordinate with Tsuchimikado and capture them before they vanish from the building.
Over half the spear was now buried, and the end of the shaft had fallen to the height of her chest.
She took her hands off, then regripped the spear.
Then she bent her wrists and twisted it.
Like turning a giant key…
…the next thing to come was a sound.
However—
It didn’t come from Itsuwa’s spear.
Bam!!
Suddenly, some kind of attack ripped through the museum’s outer wall and flew toward both the spear in the floor and Itsuwa.
In terms of what it felt like—a blade swung by a giant.
White in color.
The attack traveled a straight line toward Itsuwa.
When she realized it, she left the spear stuck in the floor and wheeled around behind it. The unleashed attack shot right past her, but the fragments of the destroyed wall—a big bundle of rocks—struck her spear directly.
“Itsuwa!!”
Upon receiving the attack, the spear bent in the middle like paper.
Itsuwa took the aftershock. Still grasping the broken spear, she bent over backward.
After stirring up a certain amount of destruction, the white attack swayed and vanished like smoke.
“Why, you…!!”
Itsuwa took each of the spear’s broken halves in each hand. After removing the broken rod piece from the place where it was attached, she kicked the bag on the floor into the air, grabbed a replacement rod from out of it, and built the spear anew.
The second attack came a moment later.
Tearing through one outer wall after another, a white blade rushed in from outside the building at them.
The white blade’s motion, having
penetrated straight through from wall to wall, was erratic, like a child violently swinging a tree branch. But the overwhelming destructive force behind it changed things. Stone walls and flooring crumbled, glass showcases shattered, and all the fragments flew in every direction.
Boom-bang-crash!! A series of loud noises.
Kamijou, crouching, saw a thin powder dancing down.
Crap…This building won’t hold up…!!
“Itsuwa!!” he shouted, gesturing for her to run to the exit.
She complied, and they hurried to the museum’s front exit.
Meanwhile, white blades swung around and carved up the walls, hot on the heels of their prey.
It felt like with each strike, their aim was getting more precise.
Was the opponent getting used to how they were fleeing?
Or…
Was the attacker at a long distance, approaching little by little?
After barely scraping past a blade falling on them like a guillotine, they practically stumbled out of the museum.
And there…
“Well, well. As I thought, it seems this is less precise if I’m not at close range.”
…they heard a voice from nearby.
Only a dozen centimeters or so in front of him…
Someone was there, as though they’d waited from the beginning, and now Kamijou was the surprised one.
The person in front of them didn’t wait for him to answer before swinging his right arm.
Something white was coiling around it.
Despite the languid motion, it shot toward Kamijou’s neck with the speed of a guillotine sliding down.
Boom!! came an air-splitting roar.
“Oooohhhhhhhh?!”
Kamijou immediately held his right hand out and it crashed into the white blade.
The blade blew to smithereens that very moment. And not metaphorically—it actually turned into a fine, white mist and burst out into their surroundings.
His attacker made a gesture with his fingers, and the roiling, fog-like curtain of powder reassembled.
A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 14 Page 11