And so:
The English Puritan Church, the Roman Orthodox Church, and the Russian Catholic Church.
The three greatest denominations of Crossism had finally joined forces.
To strip power away from Fiamma of the Right’s fortress, the Star of Bethlehem, and stop any further atrocities.
Together, they broke the chains binding the world and began to act.
Touma Kamijou and Fiamma of the Right each swung around his “arm.”
Several shock waves rattled their surroundings, the magical aftereffects turning into a flood of light and scattering nearby. Aside from the direct collisions, light sporadically flickered around them, bloodred rays firing in multiple directions. These were attacks utilizing the 103,000 grimoires.
However, their clash was not even.
Little by little, like a sharp beak picking away at meat, with every collision the strength drained from Fiamma’s third arm. He could tell that his arm, for which he had obtained special flesh and blood through various rituals, was crumbling into dust.
It wasn’t that Kamijou’s power was special.
The source of the power supporting Fiamma of the Right was just steadily breaking.
Why? wondered Fiamma.
His third arm, which was supposed to have incredible strength, was rapidly losing output. As for the Star of Bethlehem, which he’d put together using the essential parts of churches and cathedrals from around the world, it was cracking here and there, and it had lost its original shine. And no matter how much time passed, he was unable to bring the surface, which was supposed to alter in the same way as the golden sky, under his control. Far from it—in fact, small, dull stains had appeared in a few places in the field of gold. Something was wrong. It seemed stopping one cog’s rotation had hindered the motion of every single other part of the mechanical contrivance.
Nothing was going as he wanted it to.
At this rate, he wouldn’t be able to keep up.
His power’s emission had grown larger than its supply, and that would result in Fiamma weakening.
“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”
Fiamma, screaming, exercised his third arm faster and with even more strength.
But he himself had realized the action was contradictory. His arm was all-powerful to begin with. If he swung it, it would hit—he didn’t need speed. If he struck, he would crush, so he didn’t need to seek force, either. Despite that, Fiamma was relying on his shallow arm strength. Proof that the “essence” supposedly residing in that arm was wavering.
Bu-boom!! came a low shaking.
The entire Star of Bethlehem was rumbling. But it wasn’t because of Kamijou and Fiamma’s battle. This quaking was completely isolated. The very fortress was about to experience a collapse.
The fortress’s speakers turned on by themselves.
Fiamma didn’t know this, but the voice belonged to a girl named Lesser.
“The English, Roman, and Russian Churches have begun disengaging the spells on the Star of Bethlehem’s joints! Once me and—um, the Russian Church’s Sasha Kreutzev have embedded a relay point for the disengagement spell, we’re getting into an escape container. There are barely any containers left! You need to hurry, too, please!!”
Once again.
An irregular, one that Fiamma of the Right hadn’t even considered, had struck a blow to his plans.
A factor by the name of goodness.
“It’s over, Fiamma,” said Kamijou quietly, readying his right fist. “The core of your plan, your right arm, is losing power. Your ritual site, the Star of Bethlehem, will be useless soon. And most importantly, if you’d really wanted to save the world, you would have been happy that the goodness in people’s hearts won out over the evil…And since you can’t be happy about it, that means your illusions have already broken down.”
“You may be right.”
Fiamma chuckled.
“I’m at a disadvantage in this situation. If that essential power is diminished, my grand plan cannot continue. My purification of the surface has stalled as well…Even if I swing this right arm, losing power as rapidly as it is, I wouldn’t even be able to take the surface with me. At this rate, everything will be brought to nothing.”
“…”
“At this rate anyway.”
They were ominous words.
And then—
Wham!! The golden skies overhead swayed. Shading appeared in its glow. Then, all at once, a mass of light headed for the Star of Bethlehem. Clumps of energy, produced one after the next, taken in, compressed into the fortress’s interior.
As Kamijou’s expression changed, Fiamma shook the remote-control Soul Arm a little. “I didn’t use this, just so you know. This is something all of you caused.”
“What…?”
“I couldn’t get anyone’s support, but time has taken my side,” Fiamma explained.
He wasn’t going to open the door to Heaven. The world around him had turned into something incredibly sacred, and he would remake it in Heaven’s image.
The changes progressed over time until they crossed the line.
“Originally, the surface was supposed to change, too, a little at a time, in stages. But because your so-called goodness has refused that at every turn, like continental plates bending and building power, the lot of you have created unnatural distortions between the skies and the surface.”
Even now, huge quantities of energy were pouring into the Star of Bethlehem. Once it exceeded its capacity, he wouldn’t be able to hold back the buildup any longer.
“And as a result, enormous swaths of power are descending from the telesma-filled skies to the telesma-less surface like a flowing electric current…It’s honestly not the route I had in mind, but as long as the earth is filled with that light, it changes nothing. This world’s transformation will continue.”
“You understand what’s happening?” said Kamijou through clenched teeth. “It’s a huge chunk of energy, like for making an angel body. If something like that falls to the surface, it won’t just be a transformation—there’s gonna be an insane explosion covering the whole map!! It was the same with Misha during Angel Fall. If that level of power goes out-of-control crazy, it could wipe out human civilization as we know it!!”
“That’s right—it’s certainly too bad. For you anyway. Judging by how much power it is, it’ll at least engulf the entire Eurasian continent in its light.”
A fire still flickered in the lights of Fiamma’s eyes.
This was the first time the phrase Never give up had come across in such a wicked fashion.
“A little goodness may have sprouted during this war, but this overwhelming destruction will blot it out from above. Now you realize it was all for naught, that brandishing your goodness could not stop this tragedy. And the hopelessness of that realization will change into something far deeper, far heavier than the evil that was around from the start.”
And that highly dense mass of evil borne of resignation would whet the power within Fiamma. Even more than before. Even more strongly than what Fiamma had predicted. He would stand at the pinnacle of all things living on this planet, wield his power however he wished, and transform the world.
“The colossal divine punishment will easily raze the trifling unity of humanity. Just as the Tower of Babel’s destruction split apart human bonds. It will create evil, and I will respond to that, once again able to draw forth incredible power.”
“…Fiamma…”
“You were too late to save the world by your methods,” he declared, smiling, as Kamijou gripped his fist tighter than he had ever before.
It was a comforted smile, one borne from having leeway—of a supply of immense power guaranteed.
“And now, I have won.”
INTERLUDE EIGHT
After stuffing a piece of cloth into a small, window-like depression in the Nu-AD1967’s warhead side, Mikoto finally he
aved a sigh.
“Hff…hrff…Well, that better have disabled this warhead. If they start using all sorts of ultrasonic stuff, I’m going to be in trouble.”
“Judging from the chaos in their communications, they do not appear to have any further measures, reports Misaka. They seem significantly confused that nothing is happening, adds Misaka, appending emotional information.”
“Think they’ll come out with another plan?”
“Now that they’ve lost their implementation unit, they seem to be moving into a retreat, guesses Misaka. Because they don’t have the power left to carry a warhead of this size, they appear to be abandoning the nuclear weapon, Misaka also offers, listening in on the details.”
“Still, if we leave this here, I bet we’ll have trouble later.”
“…That seems to be what a separate faction in the Russian forces has decided as well, and a special forces team has surrounded the officers, reports Misaka, intercepting another communication. It seems they will engage them as they leave the building with a ‘special suppression operation,’ finishes Misaka.”
“Maybe they’re not stepping right into the building to give them a false sense of security and not give them a reason to set off the nuclear bomb. They can’t ignite it right away from inside a vehicle, after all.”
Mikoto pushed the end of a shovel, which she’d had the Sister throw to her, into the spot above where the cloth was shoved in. It had been attached to a tank body. Mikoto, controlling electromagnetic forces, shattered the reinforced glass around the light receiver.
“Then it’ll be over if I bust the warhead connectors.”
After destroying three more spots that connected to its computer, Mikoto turned back to the Sister.
“Okay, it’s over. Now the warhead’s useless. Unless they put it in a different shell anyway.”
“The warhead alone weighs two tons, so they most likely cannot carry it without a crane, estimates Misaka.”
“Just to be sure, I’ll give Russian authorities or Academy City a tip to help them find this place.”
With that, the issues regarding the nuclear weapon were solved.
Now it could start.
The real show would finally begin.
Mikoto Misaka hadn’t come to Russia to do something like this. She’d come here so she could see that spiky-haired idiot and give him a piece of her mind in the form of a punch to the face.
She spun around, taking in her surroundings. “You come installed with the ability to handle weapons, right?”
“If necessary, I can also obtain additional information from the Misaka network, says Misaka offhandedly, while conversing with the other individuals regarding how to proceed with negotiations for part-time pay.”
“Can’t pay anyone high school or younger, so you’re working for free.”
Ignoring the Sister as she muttered Are you not getting your priorities wrong in several ways? Mikoto pointed in a certain direction.
“I don’t know if they wanted more air combat power or a means of transportation, but there’s a VTOL over there. We could fly to that fortress in the sky if we used it, couldn’t we?”
CHAPTER 12
Final Battle in the Arctic Ocean
Last_Fight.
1
The white snowfield was veiled in silence.
Accelerator had stopped singing. The tip of his crutch, supporting his body off the ground, slipped out. He buckled at the knees, covered head to toe in scarlet blood. In that white hell that denied even color, he alone gave off some of his own, borne of his wounds and pain.
Ragged breaths escaped him, scraping against his weary throat like sandpaper. His exhalations occasionally brought red fluid out with them, his body damaged even on the inside.
He couldn’t sing any longer.
Something sticky was glued to all the tubes in his body.
However.
His lips, stained dark red, were loosened in a subtle smile. That’s right, he thought. I don’t have to sing anymore. Because…
“Are…you okay…? asks Misaka asks Misaka.”
In his hazy vision, he heard a small voice.
The voice of a girl that he’d wanted to hear for so, so long. The words of a girl who hadn’t even been allowed to stay conscious until just now, who hadn’t had even a minimal guarantee that she would live. When he heard that voice, Accelerator had regained a little of his core—he was sure of it.
It flickered, maybe ready to disappear at any moment—a terrifyingly unreliable thing. But he knew that a pillar was placed in its center now, one that would last forever.
Last Order was finally stable.
She’d never have to suffer through this unreasonable violence ever again.
Accelerator ruminated deeply on this truth. And before he knew it, he was moving. That Level Five, once called the strongest monster in Academy City, reached out with trembling hands and embraced Last Order’s little body, still limp, devoid of energy.
Tightly.
So that they would never part again.
“…I’m glad…”
The words escaped him softly, his voice shaking.
And not only because his insides were so torn up.
“Shit. I’m so fucking glad…!!”
Those words may have never come from the true Accelerator.
But how was he able to say which was the true one? Couldn’t this also have been his true self? Before all these tragedies had begun, before Academy City’s darkness had swallowed up a young Level Five, wasn’t the true him a child who had laughed like every other, who had cried like every other?
Even as all that evil had permeated him, that was inside him, unchanged.
It had been there the whole time.
Maybe this was what Kikyou Yoshikawa and Aiho Yomikawa had seen—and what they’d tried to keep safe within a society of adults.
Last Order, who had for a long time only been occasionally conscious, wouldn’t have known any of the details of these events.
But that didn’t matter.
As he hugged her, she put her little hands around Accelerator’s back and slowly rubbed it.
As if to accept him.
In the same way, probably, as she had when she’d been the first to find what had remained inside him.
“…”
As he felt her finally regain warmth, Accelerator turned inward to think.
This world was cold, harsh, and filled with a hopeless amount of evil.
But there was salvation, too.
If you reached out with your own will. If you gritted your teeth and kept moving forward. At the end of endless, endless struggles, there would always be light. And this world wasn’t so hopeless that it would steal even that last ray of hope.
“Sorry for raining on your big, emotional reunion, but…”
Then it happened.
Misaka Worst, who was nearby, spoke in a tone with a thorn of caution in it.
“With the way things are going, this bullshit war probably ain’t gonna have a happy ending.”
Before Accelerator could turn his neck to check his surroundings, he felt something wrong.
It bolted down his back with a shudder.
An awful sensation, like something cold had entered his entire body through his skin. Except, no, that was backward. The trembling was from inside him, escaping onto his skin.
Either way, though, his five senses weren’t acting normally. This had to do with his body’s sensors, or his brain’s calculation circuits were malfunctioning because he’d forcibly taken information he shouldn’t ever have.
He felt an immense pressure from directly above.
Mitsuki Unabara, the angel of water, the parchment. Whatever those things gave off, this was like a far more concentrated version…
Still embracing Last Order, Accelerator cast his gaze to the skies.
The giant fortress was floating there.
Golden light covered the skies, steadily engulfing the fortre
ss. The pressure of an enormous force, all converged on one point, sent a tingling sensation through Accelerator’s skin. He sensed its aim. That strange mass of power was targeting the surface.
He didn’t know what that fortress represented.
Nor did he understand what sort of effects it would bring when the power hit the surface.
But…
“…Nothing good’s gonna happen if that thing fires.”
Its goal may not have been only pure destruction. It might produce some sort of special effect. But the result was the same. If that much power fell to the ground, how far would the damage spread? Plus, if he followed the feeling on his skin and assumed it was a different sort of energy than a purely scientific force, his reflection wouldn’t work on it.
If it penetrated that, everyone would die.
Accelerator, Misaka Worst, Last Order…Every single person.
“…That’s a load of bullshit.”
It happened a moment later.
Boom!!!!!!
With an explosive sound, wings, jet-black like ink, spurted from Accelerator’s back.
The black wings that symbolized his anger.
A massive power wrapped in an enigma: It didn’t seem like something simply borrowed from the Misaka network, and it was unclear whether Last Order could force it to stop. In fact, when these wings had appeared, Accelerator himself was almost always in a state where he’d lost his mental balance. When he wanted so badly to kill the enemy before him that he’d abandon all sense of principles, of who he was. The killing intent bursting out from within his chest violated the world in the form of black wings. An incorrigible power.
It was almost like the pressure from the celestial fortress had squeezed them out of his body.
Just like when he’d fought Aiwass.
However.
“…Misaka Worst.” His words were a whisper. “I’ll go stop that thing. Can I get you to protect the kid?”
“From Russia? Or from Academy City?”
“From everything.”
Misaka sighed at the unreasonable command. Turning against both sides was like telling her to fight the combined forces of everyone in World War III.
A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 22 Page 13