A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 22

by Kazuma Kamachi

  “I can still keep going,” said Matthew Reese as the young priest hastily put out a hand to try to give him care. “I can still fight. To open a path to a hopeful tomorrow, we can’t afford to stop now.”

  In truth, however, he had concerns.

  Roman Orthodox secret ceremonies and Russian Catholic wisdom.

  If they took advantage of their technical information used in the Star of Bethlehem, they’d be able to deal significant damage to it.

  There was no clear guarantee, however, that they’d be able to tear it from the sky.

  After all:

  Those aren’t the only techniques being used.

  He’d received a report that Fiamma of the Right had stolen the remote-control Soul Arm for the Index of Prohibited Books. Which meant the techniques being used weren’t only Roman Orthodox and Russian Catholic.

  Yes.

  The final key was…

  “The English Puritan Church’s archbishop…”

  “Hey, I have an idea. Want to play rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets to talk to that vixen?”

  Simultaneously, in the Star of Bethlehem floating in the Russian skies, Sasha Kreutzev pulled an assortment of tools out of her belt. She began to draw a huge magic circle, using her L-shaped crowbar to make marks in the floor.

  The one losing her head was Lesser, who had been preparing a container to escape in.

  Several metal container-like objects equipped with giant parachutes hung from the bottom of the fortress. Lesser had been going to each in turn, getting them ready to use.

  Apart from the two girls, over two hundred Russian Catholic sorcerers, used and discarded by Fiamma, were present here, too. They had to let them all flee to the surface in stages before Fiamma disposed of them.

  And also.

  Even if it started to look like they could defeat Fiamma, it wouldn’t make a difference if they couldn’t find a way for everyone, including Lesser and Sasha, to escape.

  They were still at an altitude of ten thousand meters.

  “Wait! I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but the last flight is taking off soon!!”

  “Answer one: I’m not here because I want to be. As an addendum, my feelings are that if we are going to leave soon, I want to do it right now.” Sasha didn’t stop working her tools as she answered. “As for my opinion—despite saying that, I do feel resistance to fleeing without doing anything. In reality, the only one fighting Fiamma is that boy. As a professional sorcerer, I must support him, even in vain.”

  “But how?!”

  “Answer two: Fiamma used my body to summon the POWER OF GOD and change the heaven’s condition according to his wishes…Which means I myself might be able to become a factor that drives a wedge into his plans.”

  She didn’t know how far-reaching the effects would be.

  At the very least, Sasha Kreutzev’s actions alone would never prove a setback to Fiamma’s grandiose plans.

  But she’d do it anyway.

  The light in Sasha’s eyes, hidden by her bangs, never wavered in unease.

  Lesser, for her part, scratched her hair half-heartedly. “Grr!! Then I’ll make you finish quickly!!”

  “?”

  “It’s true—I’d like to stick here until the very last moment if possible. That boy seems like he’ll be a boon to the United Kingdom, after all. I’ll help you out so I can kill time before the limit.”

  “Answer three: You don’t need to go that fa—”

  “Either way, it seems that when you chose that route, it forced our escape plans to take a time-out.”

  Lesser used her thumb to point behind her.

  Some Russian Catholic sorcerers had climbed out of their escape containers and were walking toward them.

  To spread even more intricately the magic circle Sasha was trying to draw.

  With Sasha surprised, Lesser grinned and said, “We’re not stopping this now—not until we get results. We might as well get in our parting shot at Fiamma’s plans while we can.”

  Elsewhere, a band of girls wearing mainly black nun’s habits were racing across a Russian snowfield.

  Their clothing seemed Roman Orthodox, but their current location meant they were far, far from home.

  It was the former Agnes unit.

  The two-hundred-odd Sisters were heading for a place where Academy City and Russian soldiers had fallen.

  Battles could be decided on a lot more than killing enemies.

  They had their own fight to win.

  “Sister Agnes, rescue targets spotted. It’s impossible to evacuate them all outside the explosion’s effective range. As planned, please use the rescue target distribution map to calculate points for shelter construction!!”

  “Listen well, Sister Angeline. The shelter applies the theory of Jesus’s swaddling clothes and manger! All nuns specializing in the usage of Mary-type ex-votos are to give instructions immediately upon constructing each shelter!!”

  “The large rescue helicopters are standing by three thousand meters behind us! Please get the heavily wounded on board before the next explosion occurs!!”

  “The lightly wounded should head to the shelters! We don’t have enough time to get everyone onto the helicopters!!”

  It happened in the blink of an eye.

  The things they were calling shelters were nothing more than tentlike structures made of wooden frames and big white cloths. However, they shouldn’t have been able to erect them in a few seconds to half a minute. To an unknowing observer, they may have looked like automatically expanding spring-loaded toys.

  They began to carry fallen soldiers who could no longer move to the shelters set up in the middle of the battlefield, one after the next.

  Both the Academy City and Russian forces were baffled.

  They were all humans, and all had the same reaction.

  If they’d realized that sooner, maybe the war wouldn’t have gotten so out of control.

  “…What…are you do…?” croaked out a man who had been operating an Academy City powered suit. He’d asked the question even as various parts of his body were being wrapped in bandages. “Who are you…with…? Whose side are you on…?”

  “Oh, but we did not come all this way to discuss things such as those,” answered one of the black-clothed nuns. “But if I was to answer, I would say our only goal is to reduce the damages of this war by as many individuals as possible.”

  “…”

  The soldiers were speechless as they watched the Sisters, who were using medicine made from plants rather than the antibiotics they were so used to. To fill in the science, a communication came in to the wood-and-cloth shelter.

  A man’s voice echoed from what looked like a card taped to a shelter column. “Sheesh. Fiamma sure is a neat freak. We had no idea his big cleaning spree would be this widespread, man.”

  “Then this is part of Fiamma’s purification operation after all?”

  “Probably best to assume so. Not only is he destroying the preestablished harmony, he’s creating the materials needed to rebuild… ’Course, if he gives people a new form of matter nobody can destroy—if nobody can work it, it’s just huge pieces of garbage, man.”

  Rumble-rumble…!! A sharp, heavy growl shook the snowfield a moment later.

  The Academy City man, lying down on the cot, sat up, wincing in pain. The Russian soldier receiving aid the next cot over did the same.

  “Damn it. Give me a gun,” groaned the man, reaching out for a nun. “I won’t sit by and wait for them to do us in. I don’t know who you are, but you’re good people—good enough to repay in full. I’ll buy you enough time to escape, at least.”

  But the Academy City agent and the Russian soldier wouldn’t have to mount a suicide charge.

  They hadn’t even been given that much time.

  Truly, it happened in an instant.

  Skkrrr!!

  A very long katana severed the golden arm at its base.

  Through the gap in the clot
h of the simple tentlike shelter, they saw the majestic scene unfolding outside.

  The Asian woman swinging around a katana two meters long was certainly remarkable, but the golden arm being torn clean through in a single attack was far more shocking.

  The golden arm’s length exceeded one hundred meters. Its thickness, too, was similarly massive. No matter how sharp the two-meter katana’s blade was, it was a matter of simple thickness—it could never have cut through such a thing.

  And yet…

  “It’s essentially the same logic as cutting open a plastic bag.”

  They could hear a woman’s voice from the card communicator stuck to the wall.

  “After making a small wound to the target, you leave it up to the target to tear open a hole on its own. Legends from all over the world, past and present, depict people splitting open evil dragons and the like that are clearly too big for their swords—this is an essential property for those stories.”

  A black-clothed nun aimed an old-fashioned light source—an oil lantern, maybe—onto the baffled Academy City man’s body. A circular flashlight-like light crawled over him. He thought she was checking him for injuries, but something wasn’t right. Even after the circle of light left part of his skin, the surface of his body glowed faintly.

  As though supporting his body from the outside.

  “Whether you wish to survive or to confront a powerful enemy, we must first create an environment in which you can move your body to your satisfaction.”

  As he was cared for, the Academy City man remembered what the snowfield outside the shelter was like.

  Thinking about where the still-usable tanks and powered suits had been left, as accurately as he could.

  In moments, his sortie preparations would be complete.

  And this time, his enemy would not be the Russian forces.

  Meanwhile, two swords chopped through a giant golden arm that had sprouted from the ground.

  The first was a sword of light, extending from a fragment of the British sword, the Curtana Second. The second was a French sword, the Durandal.

  Wielding them were representatives of each nation: the second princess, Carissa, and the Femme Fatale. The wounds they had sustained while facing the archangel Misha Kreutzev hadn’t healed, but sharpness of their motions hadn’t waned.

  “First an angel, now symbols of the right arm? He really has a thing for telesma, doesn’t he?” Carissa waggled her sword, seeming bored. “Move the mobile fortress Glastonbury from point B to point C. And perform a check on it. Can’t have it malfunctioning on us now, so.”

  “…If you could disable the Glastonbury’s altitude limiter, you could probably board Fiamma’s temple fairly quickly.”

  The Femme Fatale was looking up overhead. There—over ten thousand meters in the sky—a fortress referred to as the Star of Bethlehem was still raising its altitude.

  “We wouldn’t be struggling if it was that simple. The Glastonbury was developed as a mobile fortress for suppressing land territory, you know. It didn’t really have high-altitude aerial combat in mind.”

  Carissa turned back toward the Glastonbury.

  Remaining turned around, she muttered.

  “…Still, the Star of Bethlehem, eh? I’m surprised the Russian and Roman Churches disclosed the information for it.”

  “They were being used, just like us. I suppose it simply means they aren’t so irredeemable that they’d serve a plan like this in silence.”

  Shoo, shoo. Lightly spinning her sword with only her wrist, the Femme Fatale thought deeply.

  …Come to think of it, I believe my younger sister’s independent nation was around here somewhere.

  After randomly punctuating her thoughts with a hum, she continued. If I indebt myself to her now, it may benefit France down the line.

  Wait a minute, Sis. Could one of Europe’s representative countries not try to pluck from a small nation? It’s puerile.

  Oh, Eliza? I do believe it’s good manners to at least knock first.

  You’re in range of my bombardment spell, you know.

  I do believe that if you were that talented, the French government wouldn’t have let you depart.

  We were planning on making that location into an anti-Fiamma battlefield, so my troops have planted all sorts of dangerous things there. In the end, Fiamma invaded before we could use them and stole Sasha Kreutzev in the process. In any case, if it’s that location alone, the bombardment spell will reach.

  Do you mean to indebt me to you?

  I should think a smaller nation plucking from one of Europe’s representative countries is the more natural course, wouldn’t you?

  Crackle-crackle. Sparks flew between the sisters.

  And Carissa seemed to have gotten a communication as well. However, hers wasn’t a magical one. The second princess had reacted to a beep, taking out a radio hidden in her chest.

  The Femme Fatale looked at Carissa like she was wearing a vulgar swimsuit. “…I keep saying this, over and over and over, but do you really need to keep things in there?”

  “Quit your prattling. What are you, my mother? …Unfortunately, my dress doesn’t have any sort of pockets. And between this and putting them in my panties, I actually think I’m being rather sensible here, so.”

  Carissa, having pulled out her radio, seemed to be in contact with London.

  “I see, I see. Right. Then to bring down the Star of Bethlehem, we’ll need to provide technology and information from the English Puritan Church as well.”

  She nodded to herself several times.

  “Then tell the leader of the Puritans this. If you don’t give them the necessary information at once, the Royals’ second princess, Carissa, military might of the nation, will shove this Curtana so far up your ass—”

  After saying what she needed to, Carissa turned off the radio.

  “…You heard it. Looks like they’re working on pulling it down, but it also looks like the damage will get worse if we just wait around.”

  “Then there’s only one thing to do.”

  Spitting the words out, the two once again readied their legendary-class swords.

  Several golden arms appeared from the ground, surrounding them.

  Entrusting their backs to each other, they spoke:

  “Even without actually going inside the Star of Bethlehem, there are ways to keep Fiamma from getting what he wants, so.”

  “…Destroying every last one of the golden arms appearing on the surface, in other words.”

  Several slashes struck out, and in the blink of an eye, the encirclement collapsed.

  The men of the Knights, as well as Necessarius and the French sorcerers, followed after them.

  Their invasion had begun.

  At the same time, in St. George’s Cathedral in Britain, a slim western sword made of what looked like particles of light ripped into the sorcerer Stiyl Magnus, slashing him from his shoulder to his breast. The sword of Freyr, god of fertility. Moving on its own, the Soul Arm would always slash the opponent’s vital spots, and it had just torn Stiyl’s clavicle and ripped through thick arteries and internal organs.

  The expression on the girl named Index remained still.

  Stiyl’s movements stopped.

  And even then, multiple attacks continued.

  Two more swords stabbed into Stiyl’s waist and back, and as if to land the finishing blow, the bloodred wings swung down—an utterly hopeless, overwhelming attack. A combo that, as it crushed every bit of his human flesh, also dealt fatal damage to his life force, the wellspring of mana.

  However.

  The expressionless Index then tilted her head slightly to the side.

  The swords and wings had certainly slid inside Stiyl’s body. That, however, was the only change. It had happened too smoothly. No blood spilled, and no flesh crushed. Human bodies couldn’t be cut apart like a spoon going through yogurt.

  Her judgment lapsed for a moment.

  And by the time s
he realized it was a product of sorcery, the next thing had happened.

  “A mirage. A common trick.”

  A voice from behind her.

  An odd feeling on her back.

  A moment later, there was the zhh-bang!! of an explosion that sounded like a lightning strike. Stiyl had demonstrated the full power of the binding cards he’d pasted all over.

  Creeeeeeaaaaak!!!!!! Index’s spine arched and cracked.

  “Warning. Chapter 47, Verse 80. Confirmed psychosomatic binding effect due to psychological effects. Affecting cognitive faculties. Guiding binding effect toward dummy region and prioritizing the securing of the ability to back-calculate spell.”

  Starting from the side that’d been triggered, the runes inscribed on the laminated cards began to fade, like posters left in the sunlight too long. The coloring, an important matter for runes, was beginning to be undone. Naturally, when the color was gone, the effects would end. They wouldn’t hold for long.

  …The remote-control Soul Arm’s intervention is weakening her, but she’s still a library of 103,000 grimoires. I doubt this will be enough to seal her.

  All Stiyl Magnus could do was buy time.

  On a fundamental level, he could not beat Index.

  However.

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  Stiyl smiled a little, taking new rune cards out of his inside pocket.

  “If that detestable man finishes things in the meantime, we’ll have won.”

  Click. He heard the sound of a footstep.

  He looked that way and saw Laura Stuart smiling.

  She was waggling something she was holding in her hand.

  Stiyl was stunned, at first thinking it was the remote-control Soul Arm—but it wasn’t.

  What she was holding was a card-shaped communication Soul Arm.

  “Reward for you,” she said.

  The Roman Orthodox Church and the Russian Catholic Church.

  While bringing her lips to the communication Soul Arm connected to each of their leaders…

  “Well! It looks like you’ve filled your quota, so I, too, will do my very darndest to recover the library of grimoires.”