The girl was around twelve.
“Hey, Mark!! You slacked on the symbolic weapon prep, didn’t you? I’m not even getting eighty percent output from this thing!!”
“Boss, isn’t the symbolic weapon’s user supposed to be the one to produce and consecrate it?”
“Pff. Anyway. Never thought I, of all people, would be pitching in to help the world out.”
“Judging by the situation, Fiamma of the Right is trying to purge the surface by spreading purifying telesma and altering everything starting with fundamental structures. He seems to want to save the world.”
Mark continued, wondering aloud if everything on top of those structures would change, too, if their foundations changed. “…But that’s a lot of it. This much telesma all over the place is going to have destructive results. And unlike the mana refined in human bodies, telesma contains elements from the start. We’re seeing an outbreak of each aspect—or of things derived from them.”
“Basically, it’s the great flood Noah built the ark for. For shameful humans, this overblown sense of cleanliness is a catastrophe.”
The blond-haired girl referred to as Boss gave a wicked grin that didn’t match her age.
And yet, it held so much force it made it seem like no expression was more suitable for her pretty features.
“And we call shameful humans shameful because they’re really bad losers.”
Boom!! She heard a distant explosion.
It came from the horizon. Even she wouldn’t be able to eliminate all the golden arms. An empty ocean surface, with no people or boats, was low on the priority list, so “explosions” like that had been happening sporadically.
Moments later, things like giant angel halos and bones began to appear inside the calamity’s affected area.
“…I see. He didn’t forget the aftercare, either. He’s collecting the resources he’ll use for the ‘restoration’ after washing the world clean—how nice of him. That’s a lot of stuff, and it’s all more valuable than pure gold, or platinum, or tungsten. And more convenient.”
“Well, telesma makes up everything from an angel’s body to its clothing and weapons, so I suppose it’s possible to convert into matter…but for someone using human sorcery, I can’t help but be baffled at the sheer scale of it.”
“But it won’t matter,” said the blond girl quietly. “True—if every person on earth had enough resources to be satisfied, it might solve most of the wars in the world. Individuals would settle things on an individual level. But that won’t work. If you give people resources, they’ll use them to expand their control. Someone could use a rocket to go and take over the moon’s surface, and you couldn’t stop them. Then they’d use the moon’s heavy hydrogen to aim for Mars next. Having a larger amount of resources won’t stop wars. It’ll only make them bigger.”
“On top of that, human technology can’t manufacture materials equal to angelic arms and armor. You wouldn’t hurt them with lasers or diamonds, and I doubt human sorcery can do anything to an angel’s body. Those things aren’t resources—if anything, it’s just bulk-sized refuse.”
“Well, our goal is to command the entire world, sorcery and science alike. No point controlling a world if it’s going to be washed away, leaving us with nothing but piles of logs we can’t use. I guess we’ll have to work hard for the cause of good this time.”
Wha-bam!! Several more golden arms burst out of the ground and the sea.
The girl didn’t pay attention to them.
Putting the staff she’d been twirling onto her shoulder, she unflinchingly took a step forward. Then, using a megaphone handed to her by a man in full uniform, she shouted to every corner of the battlefield.
“Listen up! I don’t care if you’re with the UK, or France, or Academy City, or Russia!! Any unit that can still move needs to support us with equipment that can transmit infrared-targeting information! As soon as we receive the coordinates of a target, we’ll come and provide full support for an attack!! From now on, it’s time for some bombing—of the people, by the people, and for the people!! Let’s raise hell, baby!!”
The petrified British soldiers, who couldn’t put together the words they needed to say, opened their mouths anyway.
“Wha…what…? What is…? Who are you people…?”
The girl didn’t turn around to answer.
With many soldiers trailing in her wake, she put her mouth to the megaphone and lobbed over her shoulder as though singing, “A sorcerer’s society. The Dawn-Colored Sunlight.”
Elsewhere, Acqua of the Back, standing in a white snowfield, spotted a deformed silhouette breaking through the snow on the ground to show itself.
Academy City, the Russian forces, science, sorcery—none of it mattered anymore. Everybody charged the golden arm as one.
They wielded their weapons to crush the source of the calamity before an even greater rupture could occur.
All to defend those precious to them.
…How foolish you are, Fiamma.
Acqua smiled faintly.
This man who almost never changed his expression had smiled—only a little, but it was unmistakable.
It will not be you nor I who saves this world. No matter what you destroy, no matter what you bless, the people will no longer submit. I suppose it was obvious that those living in this world would defend it.
In that case, the time had come for him, too, to wield his power as one of those people.
Acqua was no longer a saint. Nor part of God’s Right Seat. He didn’t have the strength to lift the Ascalon, his greatest weapon, and the amount of mana he could refine had fallen to a level comparable to a regular sorcerer.
But what did it matter?
Acqua didn’t fight because he was a saint or because he was part of God’s Right Seat. He didn’t think he’d led a praiseworthy life by any means. But unfortunately, he was attached to this world—because he could envision someone he wanted to protect.
Meanwhile—
“There you are. Finally found you!”
An old man muttered quietly to himself, moving his face away from the binoculars.
The young man next to him sighed in his direction. “Is it all right? Russia was probably the worst place to come back to. I’ve even heard rumors that the old name of your group, the Astrologers’ Brigade, is still stuck on their blacklist.”
“Would you shut up? It’s about time I used those Soul Arms I’ve been stockpiling for myself, isn’t it? Besides, when you got the information William Orwell was headed for Russia, you were the one who tried to go after him without even reporting it.”
“I’ll admit I let the blood go to my head. I still have a debt to repay from the Knights of Orleans business. If I let that go, it would leave a bad taste in my mouth.” The young man who answered him held a French sword called a colichemarde, derived from sporting equipment. And next to him stood a woman able to use a spell called the Revelations of Arc.
They weren’t the only ones. Many had gathered here; that was how many people the mercenary had saved on the path he’d walked.
“How is our mercenary doing?”
“Same old mercenary. But something’s not right. I feel like it would take more than that to get him in a playful mood.”
“Are you worried about him?”
“Of course not.”
The old man sighed haphazardly, shaking the Japanese katana resting on his shoulder.
A Thundercleaver.
A modern, mass-production-type Soul Arm based on folklore wherein a group of swords had intercepted strikes from the very heavens themselves.
And as if in response, hundreds of figures behind the old man readied their own preferred weapons.
“If he has that much charm, it’ll be worth fighting alongside him.”
“But…,” said the young man. “We’re just treating the symptoms. Those calamities are springing up all over the world—I don’t think it’ll put an end to them.”
“I kno
w that. That’s why we’re the former Astrologers’ Brigade. People who have crossed all over the world have a huge network to match. In fact, it means we can freely work in lines we’d never be able to connect with just the stubborn ones who’d set up shop in one place to defend it.”
“?”
“Well, connecting those teeny-tiny threads is about all this old man can do. Someone more suitable will take care of the real hard stuff…After all, at their roots, they’re no idiots, either.”
After saying what he wanted to say, the old man shook his Thundercleaver.
“We’re free spirits, and what we need to do is simple. Do you know what that is, youngster?”
“Not to think about anything complicated,” said the young man, smiling and waving his colichemarde in the same way, “and to take up our swords when someone needs protecting.”
All they needed were the two words Let’s go.
As one, they pushed toward the battlefield.
At the same time, a woman named Vasilisa, head of the Russian Church’s special forces team Annihilatus, kicked a sorcerer who was once her subordinate and sent him flying, slamming him into the locked double doors like a cannonball and destroying them.
She was in a palace in Moscow.
There was a massive ga-bam!! It made the person confined in the room jump out of his skin.
This person was a boy about fifteen years old. He was slender and had a more curvaceous beauty than even Vasilisa, an already beautiful woman, and he was so thin he’d probably go to his eternal rest in three days if abandoned out in the wild. Even his majestic attire, created for the Patriarch, fit him even worse than a little kid wearing his father’s suit for fun, dragging it around behind him.
Spitting the blood in her mouth onto a random spot on the carpet, Vasilisa gave a sweet smile. “Why, hello there, revered leader of the Russian Catholic Church. What a luxurious birdcage they’ve thrown you into—it looks like they took good care of you. Fairy tales would normally have reversed the positions of the young man and heroine, but in any case, I’m here to rescue you from the evil demon lord’s castle now!”
“…To think anyone would still call me the Patriarch. I never had any real power. No matter how much I shouted, nobody would even leave me a weapon. Everyone held up my forged signature as an indulgence and didn’t listen to me when I asked them to withdraw.”
“I’ll forgive you, since you’re cute,” interrupted Vasilisa in an obviously jocular tone. “And there’s still something you can do. Something only the Patriarch can do.”
“?”
The Patriarch tilted his little head so adorably that even Vasilisa, who only ever thought about Sasha Kreutzev, nearly felt her mind swaying. The method she used to decide what side to take was very simple. While unconsciously putting a hand to her face to make sure she didn’t have a nosebleed, she thought, Jeez, would you stop that? I’ve already lost more blood than I can probably afford…
“Can you see that?” Quelling her impulse to agonize over his cuteness, she pointed out the window.
Even from here, they could physically see the fortress floating in the golden skies. It had just that much scale and altitude. It was the temple of Fiamma of the Right, of God’s Right Seat, which had come to be called the Star of Bethlehem from remaining fragmented sources.
“That fortress was formed from the necessary parts in the necessary quantities from Crossist churches and cathedrals throughout the world. But each of those buildings has its own form. You can’t fuse them all just by collecting them in one place.”
“What are you…getting at?”
“There’s a spell to connect them.” Vasilisa waggled her finger. “Fiamma used the Roman Church and the Russian Church. He used both kinds of spells to their maximum effect to give that fortress its structure.”
“Which means…”
“If you analyze it, you can break the fortress’s joints. I’m sure Nikolai Tolstoj was the one who provided the Russian Catholic spell, but there was no evidence of it in his palace. Still, though, that doesn’t mean we have to give up. Understand what I’m saying now?”
Naturally, the spell being used was probably a secret among secrets of the Russian Church. It was unthinkable that Fiamma would use something so easily analyzed as the keystone to his final plan.
However…
“I get it.” The Patriarch moved a slender finger and rubbed his cheek. “There’s a facility nearby for reproducing and managing scaled-down versions of phenomena, right? It runs all sorts of experiments by making one-to-one-hundred-scale building dioramas to figure out what conditions cause ghosts and spirits to appear…”
“If we remove its limiter, it can be used for Russian Catholic magic, too—the kind people use. And if the simulation goes well, we could go backward and figure out which spell Fiamma used.”
“And you want me to remove it.”
“Mm-hmm! Think you can? I do have the man-eating woman in a one-legged house, but that doesn’t mean I can guarantee your safety.”
The Patriarch, on the verge of having his head patted, deftly moved his head to escape Vasilisa’s hand and headed for the room’s exit. Not realizing how his behavior had actually caused her to shudder, the Russian Church’s leader asked, “The Star of Bethlehem’s joints use a Roman Orthodox spell in addition to our Russian Catholic one, don’t they? We might not be able to weaken it all by ourselves.”
“…Things will be fine on that end. I got a stubborn old man to help me—a weird one, who had a weird number of contacts—and had him connect the teeny-tiny threads.”
“Ah?”
Accompanied by the shade of an old, wrinkly woman as she followed the Patriarch, Vasilisa gave him a simple answer.
“What I mean is that it turns out those people aren’t as rotten as everyone thought.”
Meanwhile, Matthew Reese, the old man who had abandoned his position as the pope of Rome, had delved far below the great Vatican cathedral. His goal was to analyze the spell Fiamma had been using for his plans. The spells a single member of God’s Right Seat could use probably couldn’t have completely covered the utter scale of his project. Leaving what was central to it aside, it was highly likely he’d used an existing Roman Orthodox spell to fill in the gaps.
“Hiya, you dandy gentleman. How’s it going over there, hmm?”
“Hmph. Should I be the one you’re calling? I’m no longer the pope.”
“I thought I was speaking to the leader of the Roman Orthodox Church in both name and function. And besides, Peter Iogdis wouldn’t have been suitable for our adorable Patriarch.”
“By the sound of it, you got your audience with the Patriarch. I’ve finished sorting out the important documents myself. I’m now constructing an ultra-long-distance spell circle that can interfere with the Star of Bethlehem currently hanging over Russia.”
“Oh, how convenient. I see the Vatican has all sorts of secret tricks up its sleeves after all. If my subordinates could get that kind of funding, we could do whatever we wanted, too.”
“Anyway, how reliable is the theory that robbing the Star of Bethlehem of its power will cause the disasters on the surface to stop as well? I’m getting reports of golden arms causing mayhem from all over as we speak.”
“Hmm? It should be fine, shouldn’t it? The surface disasters are happening in response to the celestial ones, after all. I’m almost certain if we stop the celestial disasters, all the others will go away, too.”
“Fine, then. Even if we stop Fiamma, it wouldn’t mean anything if we forced sacrifices onto everyone else.”
“By the way, I take it this is all okay for the Roman Church?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Fiamma of the Right isn’t compatible with us. But the fact is he’s been giving incredible benefits to the Roman Orthodox Church until now. If you shatter that foundation yourselves, doesn’t that mean the Roman Church may not reach the same kind of prosperity as before?”
&n
bsp; “It doesn’t matter…A power that cannot protect is meaningless. To save the people, I will hold Fiamma in check, even if it means reducing the Roman Orthodox Church’s power.”
“It sure is a crime to be so adorable.”
“…What? Now what are you talking about?”
“Oh, just our leader over here. And how maybe you had a time when you were like this, Gramps.”
“My nature did lead others to look up to me, but it never cast me in a such a light. I was chosen to be the pope, after all. They probably thought I was a stern father symbol or something.”
“Oooh, that comment is making our adorable father symbol get all angry. But he’s so cute!! And I’m going to hug him!!”
“…And that light is one mainly cast on fairy-tale heroines, is it not?”
Rather annoyed, Matthew Reese scanned the innumerable documents sleeping in the basement. There was a huge collection of books in this library, where a little girl named Index had once been invited.
If he could learn what spell Fiamma was using, he might be able to use it to mount a counterattack. He might even be able to stop this great war.
But that would mean…
“We’re contributing to our own defeat, aren’t we?” uttered the young priest who had followed after Matthew Reese.
“This isn’t a defeat,” corrected Matthew, voice firm enough to sever the hesitation of others. “We are fighting for victory. Even now.”
“That victory won’t gain us anything.”
“If you truly thought so, then you wouldn’t be taking the same action as me.”
The young priest fell silent for a time.
Only the sound of pages turning continued.
“…Will we be able to start over?”
“Yes,” said Matthew. The old man even smiled. “We certainly will.”
That was when it happened.
Matthew scowled slightly. A moment later, a stabbing headache dug from his temple all the way across his skull. The knowledge in this treasure trove was so pure they had to invite the Index of Prohibited Books here. Even the man who was once the pope would experience severe physical and mental effects from prolonged viewings.
A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 22 Page 11