1_Chapter 1_ Academy City

CHAPTER 1 Academy City Science_Worship. 1 “The second semester is always busy, you know! There’s the Daihasei Festival, the Ichihanaran Festival, the field trip where we study far away for a few days, the Art Appreciation Festival, the Social Studies Festival, the Great Cleaning Festival, Finals Festival, the Follow-Up Festival, the Remedial Class Festival, the Crying Detention Festival…It’s basically all festivals. Everyone’s gonna be busy preparing for them all.” September 8. That afternoon, in the hallway of a student dormitory, Maika Tsuchimikado spoke in a carefree voice. She was around the same age as Index, if not a bit younger, and she was wearing a strange maid uniform. Even more mysteriously, she was sitting seiza atop an oil drum–shaped cleaning robot. The robot’s programming was trying to move it forward, but Maika had stuck her mop on the floor in front of it to stop it, so it was just shaking and rattling around. “But I’m bored! I have nothing to do! Touma won’t pay attention to me! He won’t play with me!” Index stood in front of Maika Tsuchimikado and argued. She was sneering and moving from left to right. Her locks of silver hair and her long white hood fluttered. The calico cat she held in her slender arms appeared to be interested in the sparkling of the gold embroidery decorating her hood—it was waving its forepaws around and swatting at it. She knew how busy Touma Kamijou had gotten lately. But he was the only one in Academy City Index could talk to. Of course, it wasn’t like he was locking her up in the dorm or anything. He had given her a duplicate key, so she did actually take walks here and there while he was away at school. (Of course, it usually ended up in her running back home after coming up against machines she couldn’t handle—like the ticket vending machines at the station or locks that required fingerprint, venous, or bioelectric field authentication.) This city was just strange. Built when the western areas of Tokyo were developed all at once, this city of science was 80 percent students. While Kamijou was at school, Himegami and Komoe were at school, too. So when Index had tried to go out and find someone new to talk to, she found the city eerily empty. For the past week, she’d been looking around the city in her own way. She did discover that the lady at the clothes store would talk to her cheerfully—except when she was replacing clothing on the racks—but Index didn’t quite think that’s what she was looking for. Maika Tsuchimikado, though, was an exception among exceptions. In this city, people came and went at very specific times of day, but this girl alone wasn’t bound to any of time’s rules. Index had seen her around the city both in the morning and in the afternoon, at the convenience store, the department store, the park, the bread store, the station building, the student dorm, on the roads, and near school—it didn’t seem to matter when or where. Maika insistently pounded the palm of her hand on the cleaning robot, dissuading it from moving forward, and continued. “Touma Kamijou has his own issues to take care of, so you shouldn’t get in his way. He’s not locked up at school because he likes it, you know. There are a lot of difficult things about school!” “Mgh. I know that, but…How come you’re not locked up at school, then, Maika?” “Hee-hee! I’m an exception. Basic maid training is all fieldwork!” The home economics academy Maika Tsuchimikado attended wasn’t just a strange, anachronistic school that pumped out maids. They produced specialists—people able to assist their masters in any location, from scraping gum off the sidewalk to aiding international summits. Thus, Maika carried out her “fieldwork” in a variety of locations. Of course, not all the students were out on fieldwork. This was a special step only for those elites who passed a standardized test and were judged to have the ability never to look disgraceful despite still being in training. Index didn’t know about all the sweat and tears that went into it. She cutely tilted her head to the side. “So if I became a maid, I could go anywhere I wanted whenever I wanted? I wouldn’t be locked up at school? Could I even do fieldwork in Touma’s classroom?” “Well, no, that’s not what maids really—” “Then I’m gonna become a maid, too! And then maybe I can go to Touma’s class to play!” “That sounds great, but becoming a maid is no easy task, you know. You have no household skills whatsoever. You’d have it tough needing to make lunch for boys day in and day out.” “Then I’ll make Touma a maid! Maybe then I can get him to come play!” “That sounds so great I’m practically crying over here, so maybe the nice thing to do would be to not tell Touma Kamijou you said that!” The bored Index puffed out her cheeks, annoyed, and then quickly jolted to the left. “She’s right. Sorry, but there’s no time for you to be a maid—nor to make him one, for that matter.” Suddenly, a voice came from behind the girl in white. Huh? Index’s mind went blank for a moment. Maika, in front of her, was probably looking at the person standing behind Index. The maid’s face looked more scared than surprised. Who is…? Before the sister in white could turn around and speak up… A large hand pressed down over her mouth, sealing it like masking tape. 2 Touma Kamijou, an average high school student of the sort that seemed ubiquitous, trudged down the road in the evening sun. An oil drum–shaped cleaning robot passed by him, and the propellers of the wind turbines that stood in for telephone poles spun around and around as if trying to swat away the city crows. There were plenty of advertisement blimps floating along in the orange sky, but the curtains hanging beneath them weren’t simple cloth signs, but rather the latest in super-thin screen technology. One display said, WELL-PREPARED MEANS NO WORRIES! DO YOUR BEST TO PREPARE FOR THE DAIHASEI FESTIVAL! —JUDGMENT, the text a marquee running from bottom to top like an electric signboard. The Daihasei Festival was basically a big athletic meet. Academy City had millions of students, and it naturally turned into a big affair with every school in the city participating. Plus, all of the students were espers who had grown into some sort of special power or another. On top of that, because the Academy City General Board had originally proposed the festival so it could gather data on large amounts of espers interacting with one another, full usage of one’s powers was recommended for that day only. That meant you could see clashes between espers that you wouldn’t normally be able to see. For example, during a soccer or dodgeball game, the ball could become invisible, or light on fire, or be frozen in ice. Anything went. During that week, Academy City would be opened to both the general public and television crews. As far as he could tell, the ridiculously over-the-top situations that sprang up during matches drew in large numbers of viewers, since you absolutely couldn’t see anything like it at normal sporting events. That was the reason Judgment always went full throttle preparing for it. Another part of it was the fact they wanted to raise Academy City’s public image during those few days it was open. As a precaution, the city would also place Anti-Skill officers at crucial ability development locations under the pretext of special antiterrorism forces in order to prevent the general populace from getting into places the city didn’t want it to see. “B-blech…” At least, that was what he’d heard from voices around him this week. Kamijou had lost his memories after a certain incident, so he didn’t know anything about the Daihasei Festival. But based on what he’d heard, he could guess, though, it would be an extremely dangerous event for him in particular. The fundamental rule was that you could use your powers freely. In fact, not being assertive enough in using them would land you right in the loving arms of a medical squad. That was Daihasei. In other words, depending on the time and place, there could be balls of fire, lightning attacks, and vacuum blades flying every which way during simple events like mock cavalry battles. He looked at his right hand. In it was a power called Imagine Breaker. It would erase any strange ability, whether magical or supernatural, at just a touch. He still didn’t want to be charging into a fierce, chaotic battle filled with dozens of espers with just that, though. …Why do I have to work my ass off to set up for an event that could end up as yet another bloodbath for me…? Even his preparations weren’t going smoothly. As soon as he pitched an observation tent in the schoolyard, a female gym teacher had smiled in chagrin, clapped her hands together in apology, and said, “Sorry! We didn’t actually need a tent!” And then when he put it away again, a tiny female teacher got mad and said, “Ahh! What are you doing, Kami?! Didn’t you get the message that we needed the tent after all?” Just saying what rotten luck wasn’t going to cut it. He dragged himself toward his dormitory, his body completely exhausted from all the futile labor. “Ah. Now that I think of it, the fridge is totally empty, isn’t it?” He could see a supermarket right near him, but he would have to go back to the dorm to get money first. Man, I have to go back out again? he thought, limping onto his street. His cheap sneakers had hard soles, so every time they touched the pavement, it exacerbated the pain in his feet. Then, once he got close to the entrance of his dormitory, he suddenly heard a girl’s voice from overhead. “Ahhh! T-T-To, T-T-T-Touma Kamijou! Hey, Touma Kamijou!” Hm? He looked up and saw Maika Tsuchimikado leaning over the metal railing on the seventh floor, waving her right arm. She was kneeling atop a cleaning robot as always, so her current position looked rather precarious. Her left hand held a mop, and she had it stuck on the floor. It seemed to be preventing the robot from moving forward like it was supposed to. “S-s-s-something happened, something bad happened! Also your cell phone battery is dead!” “Huh?” At that, he took his GPS-equipped cell phone out of his pocket. Its battery had indeed run dry. He pushed a button and looked at the screen to find a ton of text messages from one Maika Tsuchimikado. Come to think of it, though she spoke in a long, drawn-out way, her face did look a little pale. He was a little confused, but he hurried into the elevator. When he arrived on the seventh floor where his room was, Maika released her mop, binding the cleaning robot, which proceeded to sluggishly wander over toward the elevator. The cat, which was normally always with Index, was sitting in the hallway for some reason, its ears down. It was unhappily holding Index’s free-with-contract cell phone in its mouth. The cleaning robot arrived before Kamijou, and Maika put the mop back down in front of it to hold it in place again. “It’s an emergency, an emergency! The silver-haired sister got kidnapped!” “Huh?” he grunted without thinking. She continued, her face white. “A kidnapper! She’s been taken away! He told me if I reported him he’d kill the hostage, so I couldn’t do anything! I’m sorry, Touma Kamijou!” The silver-haired sister—that must have been Index. The maid didn’t look like she was joking. And there were plenty of reasons people would want to kidnap Index. She was a library of grimoires—there were 103,000 of them recorded in her memories. Sorcerers throughout the world desired that knowledge. Once, on August 1, she’d been kidnapped for that very reason. “Wait a second. What happened? Could you explain in order?” he asked. Maika began to explain little by little. She had come to the student dorm for her “fieldwork” two hours earlier. While she was making her rounds, she ran into the bored Index on the seventh floor and started to make conversation. Then, someone came up behind Index and put a hand over her mouth, interrupting the conversation, and made off with her. “Before the kidnapper left, he gave me an envelope. He wrote a bunch of stuff in it…” She handed him an envelope—a wide one, like the ones used for junk advertisement mail. Her voice was more than a little unsteady. It wasn’t plain fear—it was probably also guilt at not having been able to do anything. He glanced down at the envelope, then back up. “No, if you had been careless, things would have gotten much worse than they are now.” He intended those words to comfort her, but she grew more worried instead. The tension in the air could burn through skin. She was just a normal student here who had no connection to any of this, so she couldn’t help it. “Anyway, what did this asshole look like?” She looked up slightly, thinking to herself. “Umm. Well, he was at least one hundred and eighty centimeters tall. And he looked Caucasian, too. But his Japanese was really good, and just by looking at him I couldn’t tell what country he came from.” “Uh-huh, uh-huh.” “And he had on these clothes that looked kinda like a priest’s.” “Uh-huh?” “But even though he was a priest, he smelled like perfume. And his hair was shoulder length and dyed really red, and he had a silver ring on all ten fingers, and he had this tattoo of a bar code underneath his right eye, and he was smoking a cigarette, and he had tons of earrings!” “…Wait, I know exactly who that is. It’s that rotten English priest.” She tilted her head to the side with a confused look. He checked out the envelope again. Inside was one piece of letter paper. The characters were written in pen and looked as though they’d been drawn using a ruler. It said: Touma Kamijou If you value the girl’s life Come to the abandoned Hakumeiza theater Outside Academy City At seven PM tonight Come alone “…Using a ruler to conceal your handwriting? That’s so old-fashioned.” Was he seriously trying to conceal his identity just by hiding his handwriting using a ruler? How behind the times was he? There were methods of appraising handwriting that looked at the indentations of characters and measuring the slight finger tremble that varied from person to person. It used the same technology as the lasers for reading data off CDs. And anyway, there was no shortage of psychometers in Academy City. I think he’s serious about this. At this point? Is this his idea of a joke or something? thought Kamijou, a bit baffled. What is that idiot thinking? Did he get a late summer vacation and decided to come out here to fool around? As far as he could gather from what Maika had told him, Index’s kidnapper seemed to be her colleague, Stiyl Magnus. But he would never threaten her life. Quite the contrary—he wouldn’t hesitate to protect her even if it meant charging into enemy territory or into a fortress. That reduced his nervousness by a good deal. At this point, he felt bad letting Maika stay so seriously depressed about it. “Ah, it’ll be fine, Maika. I think the culprit is someone Index and I know. So you don’t need to worry.” “Huh? You two know him?! His motive—was it love gone wrong?” “Uh, what? No, that’s not it…Though that does seem pretty possible.” All that did was make Maika’s face go white. Kamijou sighed. He shook the envelope, and out came a few more folded-up pieces of paper. He unfolded them to find an exit permit and related documents. All the necessary fields had already been filled in. Where did he even get this stuff? he thought, mystified. I mean, with these I should be able to just walk out the front door, but you’re supposed to go through a whole bunch of other steps to get these… He was appalled at the absurd juxtaposition of the threat letter and the carefully prepared documents to help him. What could that priest be thinking, anyway? 3 Hakumeiza, the abandoned theater whose name meant “twilight seats,” was only about one kilometer outside Academy City. It had gone under less than three year earlier, so there were no visible signs of disrepair inside it. The interior furnishings had all been disposed of, so the place was completely empty. There was dust piled up here and there, since it hadn’t been cleaned, but it still didn’t give the impression of a ruin. It seemed like it would immediately spring back to life if given a thorough cleaning and restored with all its old furnishings. It was as though the building was only hibernating for the winter. Maybe they hadn’t knocked the place down because they were still looking for its next owner. Index and Stiyl were up on its empty stage. The large hall, about the size of a school gymnasium, came with a fixed stage and audience seats. All of the light fixtures had been removed as well, so the only illumination was the evening light shining through the five opened entrances. The thin dusk settled upon the stage, on which Index was sitting on her knees, with her feet out at her sides. She pouted and puffed out her cheeks. “Coward!” “I have nothing to say to that, nor any need to.” Stiyl Magnus nearly flinched for a moment at her hostile stare, but he would never let it show. The flame that he touched to the end of the cigarette in his mouth slowly rose and fell in the dim light. The white smoke billowing from it combed past a sign on the wall that read NO SMOKING and disappeared. “I believe you understand the general situation. I won’t ask you if you need me to go over it again. Given how powerful your memory is, there would be no point in repeating myself.” “…An official edict from the English Puritan Church.” Index played back the explanation he’d been given after he’d brought her here. Someone had appeared who knew how to decipher the Book of the Law, which should have been impossible to decipher. The name of that person was Orsola Aquinas. If the Book of the Law were deciphered, one might gain angelic techniques that would destroy the Crossist power balance. During a trip to Japan, someone had stolen both the Book of the Law and Orsola. The culprits appeared to be the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church. The Roman Orthodox Church was beginning to take action to get the Book of the Law and Orsola back. Nobody could contact Kaori Kanzaki of the English Puritan Church, who used to be the leader of Amakusa-Style, and they predicted she would do something less than desirable. On the surface, the English Puritan Church was involved in this incident, since they were cooperating with the Roman Orthodox Church, but their top priority was to deal with the problem before Kaori Kanzaki had time to make any needless moves. “So you’re going to get a normal person like Touma wrapped up in this official ‘job’ of yours?” “Actually, I’m somewhat unconvinced about why we need to, myself. But it’s an order from the powers that be, and all that.” The cigarette in his mouth wiggled as he spoke. “And it still puts us in a difficult position. He’s from Academy City. If we went directly to him and asked for his help, people might see it as the science faction sticking their neck into the magic faction’s problems. If this issue had occurred solely within Academy City, we could use our lame self-defense excuse again, but it’s different this time. We needed a way to give him a suitable motive for getting involved with this.” And that had been the reason for the kidnapping. In other words, Kamijou would leave Academy City not because of the Book of the Law or Orsola—he’d leave just so he could rescue Index. Then he would just happen to run into people from Amakusa, and end up with no other choice but to fight them to save his friend. That would be the justification. Index was from the magic side, of course, but Academy City and the English Puritans currently had a handful of deals with each other that placed her temporarily in the city’s hands. She had been entrusted to the city, so it wouldn’t be strange for a resident of that city (Touma Kamijou) to go help her. “I understand most of what’s happening, but I’m still not convinced.” “Is that so?” “Yeah. You don’t have to be so roundabout with him. If you just asked him to help you, he’d do it. Even if it led somewhere dangerous, he’d definitely come to help. I guess that’s why it’s hard to ask him to do it, though.” “…Is that so?” Stiyl gave a slight grin. It was the smile of a father listening to his young daughter talk about a boy she liked. “So what happens from here? The Book of the Law and Orsola Aquinas have fallen into Amakusa’s hands. Are you saying we’re going all the way to their headquarters?” There was now a note of seriousness in her voice—likely because with Touma Kamijou now involved, she wanted to collect every tidbit of information she could in order to decrease the danger. “No, the situation has changed slightly.” Stiyl bitterly exhaled smoke. “Eleven minutes ago, the Roman Orthodox people clashed with the fleeing Amakusa members. It’s going to be a war to rescue Orsola.” Index narrowed her eyes in thought. He was probably using the cigarette smoke to communicate. Index had seen mana clinging to the thin strands of smoke on a few occasions already, and each time, the white smoke fluttered unnaturally despite the lack of wind. Signal flares were a means of long-distance communication that were used all over the world during every time period. She knew of more than a few spells that used the concept originating in many different ages and countries. “If they had succeeded, then I wouldn’t have needed to be here, would I?” “That’s right. But they haven’t clearly failed, either. There were no deaths on either side, but apparently it was a chaotic battle. I’m not sure about the Book of the Law, but it seems that Orsola slipped away during the confusion.” “She didn’t go back to the Roman Orthodox Church?” “That’s what it would mean. And as she is currently missing, she may have even fallen back into Amakusa hands.” “…That wouldn’t be good.” Kidnappers used force to silence resistant hostages. If she had been grabbed a second time after already having fled, then who knows what they would do to her to exhaust her rebellious attitude? That meant they didn’t have time to be waiting here. The scramble between the Roman Orthodox and the Amakusa for the runaway Orsola would be spreading as they spoke. “I’d like Touma Kamijou to hurry up, too, but I can’t change the command I left for him at this point. I had wanted to meet up with him before the Roman Orthodox contact arrived, but…” As Stiyl spoke, a figure appeared in one of the opened entrances to the great hall. “…unfortunately, it looks like we, too, don’t have to wait for him before starting.” The figure was their contact from the Roman Orthodox Church. 4 “I feel like I’ve been leaving the city a lot lately…It’d be nice if I could just relax and do some sightseeing,” muttered Kamijou as he walked down a road along the outer wall of Academy City. The outer wall was more than five meters high and three meters thick. Still, I guess security’s lax because we’re in the middle of setting up for the Daihasei Festival. He shot a glance over his shoulder at the entrance, now far behind him. The preparations were as large as the festival itself, with 2.3 million people participating, in addition to a lot of tradespeople from outside the city. Normally Academy City’s security was tight, but with the current situation, they had no choice but to loosen it. He had exit papers, but he felt like they hadn’t checked them as carefully as they usually did. And so, with a little of this and a little of that, he left the cat with Maika Tsuchimikado and walked out of the city. He checked his watch—it was past six. There was still almost an hour before the appointed time. The Hakumeiza theater in question gave him a lot of trouble finding it. The names of abandoned buildings weren’t included on his cell phone’s GPS map. It made Kamijou think they were too quick to update. He had considered picking up a “slow-to-update,” faded Tokyo sightseeing guidebook on a convenience store shelf, but when he checked his pocket, his wallet wasn’t there. When he realized he must have forgotten it in his room because he’d left the city right after talking to Maika, he opened his eyes wide enough to cause the clerk to draw back a bit and decided to read it in the store. Umm…So I take that street, then cross the big road over there…Ugh! I-I feel like I’m about to forget where it is. Man, Index has got some brain up there… Lost in thought, he saw a bus stop nearby. The Hakumeiza building site he was going to meet them at was about one kilometer away. He would have liked to take a nice, air-conditioned bus, considering he was exhausted after school, but unfortunately, he had no money. Damn it…! Ah, doesn’t matter if it’s a bus or not—I just want to get somewhere air-conditioned. The bus stop was small, with only two benches and an overhang to keep out rain. It looked like it was deteriorating, though—the plastic roof had all kinds of cracks in it. Then, he noticed someone at the bus stop. She looked like a foreigner—a woman about the same height as him. She was staring at the timetable signboard from super close, like she was about to devour the whole thing. From the way she was completely frozen like that, he considered she might not know how to read it. And her clothing—what was she thinking in this heat?—was a jet-black habit, including, of course, long sleeves and a long skirt. Upon closer inspection, he saw lines of silver fasteners both around her shoulders and twenty centimeters above her knees, so she must have been able to take off both her sleeves and long skirt—but like an idiot, she was in full sister garb. She had a thin white glove on each hand, and he couldn’t see her hair. Her hood was different from the kind Index wore; it was a wimple that completely hid her hair and everything on her head but her face. By how easily the single piece of cloth concealed her hair, she probably had it cut short. He gave her a sidelong glance and thought, Hmm, it’s a sister…It couldn’t be some maniacal nun who Index knows, could it? This was a bias that nuns throughout the world probably vehemently objected to, but Kamijou had run into all sorts of crazy people during his summer break, like Stiyl and Tsuchimikado. For him, a girl wearing a weird habit was someone to be careful around. But… “Excuse me…” …the sister addressed him instead, beginning to speak in extremely polite Japanese. “I beg your pardon, but will this bus take me to Academy City?” Not only was it polite—it was weird. Kamijou stopped in his tracks and turned around to face her again. All her skin but her face was hidden, but she was strange—she had quite a rousing chest and a slender waist. (Though depending on how you looked at it, they could seem purposely accented.) “No, there are no buses going to Academy City.” “I beg your pardon?” “What I mean is, Academy City is cut off from outside transportation. So buses and trains don’t go there. Licensed taxis could bring you in, but it would be cheaper just to walk there normally.” “I see. I understand. Is that why you came out of Academy City on foot, sir?” The sister said that pretty smoothly, so Kamijou looked back, but he couldn’t see the gate from here. He looked at her again to see her rustling around in a sleeve, and then she brought something out. It was a cheap-looking opera glass. “I saw you from here,” she said with a smile. Then, a rickety bus arrived at the equally rickety bus stop. Its automatic doors opened with a hiss of air being released. Kamijou didn’t have any intention to use the bus, so he decided to walk away from the bus stop a bit. He looked back over his shoulder to the sister and said, “Anyway, you can’t get to Academy City just by going on a bus. If you have a permit, you can just walk to the gate. It should take about seven or eight minutes…” “Well, well, I see. I am deeply grateful for your advice, despite how busy you must be.” The sister in black smiled at him, bowed her head… …and got right onto the bus. “Wa…Hey! I just said not to take the bus like five seconds ago!” “Oh, yes. You did, didn’t you?” The sister swept up her long skirt in both hands and joyfully alighted from the stopped bus. He continued. “Like I said, Academy City is cut off from all outside transportation. So buses and trains won’t go there. If you want to get into the city, then go walk through the gate, understand?” “Indeed I have. I apologize for making so much trouble for you.” The sister smiled painfully and bowed her head again to him, then turned, went up the steps, and began to disappear into the bus. “Hold on You weren’t listening to a word I said! You were just smiling and nodding” “What? No, I would never do anything like that.” The sister once again joyfully got off the bus. The driver, looking annoyed, closed the bus’s automatic doors and floored it. Kamijou looked at the nun as she absently watched the bus leave, growing intensely worried. If he took his eyes off her for ten seconds, she’d probably get lost. But the sister, entirely ignorant of his apprehensions, said, “Oh, it seems you are quite frustrated with something. Would you like a piece of candy, perhaps?” “Look, I’m not really frustrated. Candy? What, is this orange flavored?” He had taken the orange-colored candy without any hesitation and pretty much unconsciously. He couldn’t throw it away at this point, though, so he tossed it into his mouth. Then… “Ack, it’s bitter! What is this? It’s clearly not orange!” She sighed. “I believe it is sour persimmon candy. I am not familiar with the details, but I hear it is good for when your throat is dry.” “…Right, because it makes your mouth water. But that doesn’t mean anything if my body is low on moisture in the first place from walking around in this heat.” “Oh, my. Are you lacking moisture? If you had but said something—I have some tea right here.” “What? Did you just pull a magic bottle out of your habit sleeve? You know what, never mind. I think I’d actually really like that. What’s inside?” “It is roasted barley tea.” “Oh, I’ll have some!” Kamijou was honestly delighted. Ice-cold barley tea is perfect for the middle of summer, he thought to himself idly as he took the cup lid of the magic bottle. “—Ow, it’s hot! Why is it boiling?!” She sighed again. “If I recall correctly, the people of this country appreciate hot drinks during the warmer seasons, don’t they?” “What are you, my grandmother? You’re an old lady, aren’t you? I thought the way you were talking and acting was suspicious! You think exactly like an old lady, don’t you?!” shouted Kamijou, but the sister just stood there with a well-intentioned smile on her face. He couldn’t throw away the cup she’d poured the tea into at this point, though. Trembling, he downed the magma-like liquid. “…Thanks. Also, I’ve got a question for you. You said you wanted to go to Academy City, right?” “Yes, yes.” “Umm, I mentioned this before, but do you have a city-issued permit?” “A…passport?” This startled her, as he expected. You needed a city-issued passport to pass through Academy City’s gates. The reason didn’t need to be explained at this point. After he told her that, the sister placed a hand on her cheek, worried. “Where might I be able to go so that I can acquire a permit?” “…I’m sorry, but they won’t let a random person in no matter how hard you try. If you were a relative of a student in the city or a supplier bringing goods or materials, that would be one thing, but even they have to be investigated.” “I see. Then I guess my only option now is to give up.” The nun’s shoulders drooped dejectedly. She didn’t seem to want to back down, though—so perhaps Academy City wasn’t necessarily where she needed to go. Unfortunately, this is something I can’t do anything about… He was stricken with a tinge of guilt, but suddenly he realized that the sister had said “good-bye” and had begun to walk toward Academy City’s gate. “Get back here, you Didn’t you hear me?! You can’t go in without a permit” The sister stopped and turned back as if the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. Despite having been smiling in such a heartwarming manner the whole time, her face was now rapidly clouding over. She seemed very worried about something, and he found himself daunted. In reality, sorcerers could jump over the walls and stuff at will even if they didn’t have permits, but it didn’t seem like she had such skills. Nevertheless, there was nothing he could do for her right now. To get into Academy City, you needed to have a permit first and foremost. And he had Index to worry about, so he didn’t have the luxury of wasting too much time here, either. Missing the specified time at the specified place was something he absolutely wanted to avoid. “Hey. Why do you want to go to Academy City?” The sister sighed once more and tilted her head a bit in worry. “I am actually on the run right now.” Kamijou felt the temperature around him decrease. “On the run…?” “Yes. There was a slight bit of trouble and I am currently in the midst of my great escape. I had heard Academy City was out of reach of the Church factions, so I wanted to flee there if possible.” “The Church…Hey, does this have anything to do with sorcerers?” asked Kamijou. The sister, visibly surprised, asked, “How do you know of the existence of sorcerers?” “Guess I hit a bull’s-eye, judging by that look.” Kamijou sighed. “Academy City, huh? You know, if you’re seriously being chased, then going into the city won’t make you completely safe. Illegal invaders come screaming into the place pretty much all the time.” He knew about everything revolving around the girl named Index, so he was all too aware that fleeing into the city wouldn’t shake off the sorcerers’ pursuit. “Then what should I—?” The sister’s face was slowly getting to the point where she might cry. He was pretty sure he knew how dangerous these sorcerer people were, so he was hesitant to just leave her here, but… “—Would you happen to be able to read the bus route map?” “How many pages ago did we leave that topic?! And this time you added a new term, ‘bus route map’! Where did the issue of whether you could get into Academy City or not go?!” Kamijou shouted. He was thoroughly exasperated at the surprised sister who had backed up to the topic of some minutes earlier. If sorcerers were really chasing her, he didn’t think it would be good to ignore her. But he had a situation on his hands and couldn’t afford to take anything lightly. He was worried about Index, who had been kidnapped (apparently). It was a deeply suspicious situation, but he still couldn’t ignore it. I don’t want to discard either of them! Jeez, what should I do?! wondered Kamijou, about to start frantically scratching his head, when he suddenly realized something. Wait…Why don’t I take this nun with me to Index? He thought it was a splendid plan. He did seem to recall something in the threat letter about coming alone, though. 5 Stiyl and Index left Hakumeiza’s great hall and walked into the remains of a lobby that must have been where tickets were sold. A girl wearing a jet-black habit led them a few steps ahead. She was about one or two years younger than Index, and her hair was a reddish-brown—she was essentially a redhead. Her hair was braided into many strands, each about the thickness of a pencil. The sleeves on the habit she was wearing were long enough to cover her fingertips, but in contrast, her skirt was so short you could see her thighs. Looking closer revealed a fastener-like object on the skirt’s edge. She must have taken off a detachable piece of the clothing. Her waist was more slender than Index’s, who was still definitely on the skinny side. She was as tall as Index. But when you followed the sound of her clopping, horse-like footsteps down to her feet, you would find them wearing cork platform sandals thirty centimeters high. They were called chopines, footwear popular in seventeenth-century Italy. She was a nun of the Roman Orthodox faith, and she had introduced herself as Agnes Sanctis. “The situation is already a mess. We’re getting conflicting information, too, so we don’t exactly know where Orsola went, I suppose? We don’t rightly know if they secured the Book of the Law, either, so we’re in a pile of trouble.” There were no Japanese people here, but Agnes spoke in fluent Japanese. “For the moment, our raid against Amakusa-Style as they were transporting the kidnapped Orsola could be considered a success. Despite one of our people rescuing Orsola, Amakusa kidnapped her again before they could reunite with the main force. Then, when we took her back a second time, a separate Amakusa-Style group kidnapped her yet again…We’ve been going around in circles. We spread out our scouting operations too thin, and it came back to bite us. Even though we have more people than they do, each separate group has been losing people, and they’ve been capitalizing on that. So while we’ve been stealing and capturing Orsola over and over and over and over again, Orsola herself, whom we should have caught up to by now, has disappeared to who-knows-where.” Agnes’s tone was both rough and polite. If she had learned the language on the job, it might have been from talking to Japanese detectives and investigators. As Stiyl mulled that over, Agnes spun around. Her short skirt fluttered, revealing more of her pale thighs. “What is it? Oh, I apologize. I can speak English as well, but I can’t seem to get my Italian accent out of it. No one usually cares, unless they’re from England, anyway. So if you wouldn’t mind, I’d prefer to speak in the local language.” Stiyl smoked the cigarette in his mouth, not seeming particularly concerned. “No, I don’t mind much. In fact, I could speak Italian as well.” “Please, don’t. If I heard my mother tongue spoken with an English accent, I would be laughing too hard to do my job. We should stick to a language that’s foreign for all of us. We won’t get into any fights as long as we both sound weird speaking it.” Clop-clop went Agnes’s platform sandals like a horse’s hooves. She had a point, but Stiyl needlessly worried about what language she planned on using with actual Japanese people in this country. If those around her couldn’t use it in the first place, then he wasn’t sure why she needed to learn the country’s language. Index had been silent the whole time. She didn’t say a word. She just pouted. She shot an angry sidelong glance at Stiyl to show that she wasn’t talking to him, then returned her gaze to Agnes. “So this Amakusa-Style borrowed the Book of the Law and Orsola Aquinas from your home. Do they really threaten you that much?” “You mean, why is Roman Orthodoxy, the largest religion in the world, having so much trouble, don’t you? Well, I don’t actually have anything to say to that. We have more in terms of numbers and armament, but they’ve been disrupting us by using the terrain to their advantage. Japan is their backyard, after all. It does make me pretty mad that we’re taking damage from someone with a numbers disadvantage, though. I don’t want to admit it, but they’re strong.” “…So they won’t give in easily, will they?” Stiyl’s voice was just slightly bitter. He’d thought the “walk softly and carry a big stick” idea would have been the fastest and most peaceful way of resolving things, but if the opponent had enough might not to capitulate to your negotiations, the only thing left to do would be a protracted fight. The longer the battle went on with Amakusa, the higher the danger that Kanzaki would stick her neck into this. Now that things had come to this, the smoothest option might be to abandon any sense of mercy and take down Amakusa with one blitz before she noticed. The Roman Orthodox Church’s objective was to retake the Book of the Law and Orsola Aquinas, not to annihilate Amakusa. If they were to get what they actually wanted, they would likely pull back right away. After that, they just had to worry about ridding Amakusa of their will to fight. “I don’t know much about the history of Crossism in Japan, but do you know what sort of techniques Amakusa uses? You might be able to set up some amulets or warding circles for searching or defense based on that.” Stiyl had been partners with Kanzaki, former leader of Amakusa-Style, in the past, but he never bothered to try and analyze her techniques. After all, she was one of less than twenty saints in the world. Even if he did figure them out, a normal person like him would never be able to use them. No human would ever think to measure the distance between the sun and the earth with a fifty-centimeter-long ruler. Agnes looked worried at the priest’s question as well. “Actually…We haven’t been able to properly analyze Amakusa-Style’s techniques. If they were based on Xavier’s Society of Jesus, then that would mean they were a branch of Roman Orthodoxy, but you can’t even smell Christianity anymore. There’s too much influence from Oriental religions, like Chinese and Japanese ones, mixed in there.” Stiyl still didn’t blame Agnes even after hearing that. Just them being able to determine from their skirmishes yesterday that Buddhism and Shinto were mixed into things might have spoken volumes for their analytical abilities. He looked away from her and to Index, as if interested in her opinion. She had at least ten thousand times the knowledge of a normal person, so at times like this, she was the unchallenged champion. The sister all in white spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “Amakusa-Style is famous for their secrecy. They’re Christians in hiding from the motherland, after all. They thoroughly conceal their Crossism using Buddhism and Shinto, and they hide their techniques and spells within greetings, meals, habits, and behaviors—they hide all traces that Amakusa-Style ever even existed. So Amakusa-Style doesn’t use any obvious incantations or magic circles. Their dishes and bowls, their pots and knives, their bathtubs and beds, their whistling and humming…They use seemingly everyday, ubiquitous concepts for their sorcery. I don’t think even professional sorcerers would be able to figure out Amakusa-Style’s spells, even if they saw them. I mean, it wouldn’t look like anything except a normal kitchen or bathroom.” Stiyl slowly moved the cigarette in his mouth up and down. “Which means they’re essentially idolatry specialists. Hmm. They seem more suited for long-range sniping combat than close-range melee combat. Though we can only pray they’re not part of something like the Gregorian Choir.” “No, not at all. Even when Japan is in isolation, they aggressively absorb the cultures of other countries. They possess close-quarters combat techniques as well—original methods fused from all manner of sword arts both from the east and west. They could be swinging around anything from katana to zweihänders.” “…They’re warriors and scholars both, huh? What a pain in the ass,” spat Stiyl resentfully. Incidentally, Agnes, who had at some point been driven outside the ring of the conversation, was shyly kicking her toes lightly against the lobby floor. Her short skirt fluttered every time she kicked it. Her feet made clapping sounds, which sounded a little silly. The cigarette-smoking priest turned back to Agnes. “So how far out does your search go for the Book of the Law and Orsola? We probably shouldn’t be standing around, either. Where should we look?” “Ah, right. We’re handling the search on our end, so it’s fine.” With the conversation now back on track, Agnes straightened up a bit hastily. “We practically have a patent on human wave tactics. Even now, we’re doing it with a group of two hundred and fifty people. Nothing will change by adding one or two more, and you’re under different command anyway, so it would actually run the risk of getting confusing.” “So then why did you call us out here?” Stiyl frowned just a little, while the corners of Agnes’s mouth curled into a smile. “It’s simple. We want you to investigate what we cannot.” “Like what? There’s no church in Japan directly administrating English Puritanism. In terms of places you couldn’t search if we refused to help, it’s pretty much just the British Embassy.” “No, there’s also Academy City.” Agnes waved one hand in the air. “Considering the occasion, it’s not impossible. If Orsola fled into Academy City, Amakusa wouldn’t be able to get to her. Or, rather, it would be more difficult to follow her. So I want you two to get in contact with the city. The Roman Orthodox Church has no connection to it, so it would be a pain for us to do it.” “I see…However, you might have told us a little bit earlier. I sort of wish I could make my past self ask you sooner.” As could be understood from Index having been entrusted to Academy City, there was a slender thread connecting the city to the English Puritan Church. It was just barely significant enough to say there was diplomatic relations, but that was enough to make it far easier for them to contact the city than it would have been for the Roman Orthodox Church, who had no such connection. “…But that would mean she’s fled into quite the troublesome spot.” “This is just a possibility. Let’s pray that Lady Orsola at least has that much discretion. Anyway, about how long would it take to get in touch with them and confirm?” “Right, it wouldn’t be just a phone call. I would have to contact St. George’s Cathedral first, and then have them put me through to Academy City…Even if I told them it was an emergency, it would probably take anywhere from seven to ten minutes. Also, if we get permission to intrude upon the city, things will turn into a hassle. It’s technically possible to sneak in, but realistically, I’d want to avoid that.” “Oh, you can just ask them for now, so if you could do that quickly that would be gre—” Agnes suddenly paused in the middle of her sentence and froze. He followed her gaze to the entrance of the building in the front of the lobby. It was a large entryway with five glass double doors. “What is it? What’s wr—” Stiyl also stopped mid-question. “?” Finally, Index followed where they were looking. On the other side of the glass entryway was an open square of asphalt that used to be a parking lot. Despite the size of the building, it was an extremely small space. There should have been nothing there at the moment but robust weeds growing through the hardened cracks in its surface…but in the former parking lot that should have been empty, there was something. Or rather, there was somebody. “Oh, it’s Touma!” Index said the name of a familiar boy. “Or…sola…Aquinas?” Agnes spoke the name of the sister in black walking next to the boy. The two whose names had been voiced didn’t seem to have noticed the sorcerers inside Hakumeiza yet. 6 A little while earlier… Though the evening sun was cooler than other times, Kamijou was cursing the heavy manual labor of walking three kilometers in the summertime. C-come to think of it, I was already totally beat from gym class and that other stuff today… He had left his wallet in his dorm, so obviously walking was his only method of transportation. The sister in black walking beside him didn’t have any money, either. He couldn’t help but wonder how in the world she planned on actually taking the bus. Dripping with sweat from all that had happened, he had trekked three kilometers down the road in the harsh last heat wave of summer in September and had arrived at Hakumeiza, but… “Umm…Miss Nun Lady? You’re wearing black clothing in this blazing heat. How are you going along smiling and not sweating at all?” “Well, the agony of the flesh is nothing compared to the agony of the soul.” “…You’re a nun and a masochist?” “Excuse me, but how much longer must we walk until we arrive at the bus stop?” “Are you still on that whole bus joke?! I told you we were going to go see a guy from the English Puritan Church! Were you just ignoring every single thing I said back there or what?!” “Oh, my. Please excuse my rudeness—you seem to be sweating quite a bit.” “Argh! You keep taking the conversation in totally different directions” “Now, now. I will wipe your sweat for you, so please hold still for just a moment.” “Eh, what? Hey, wait, brfgh?!” The sister suddenly took a handkerchief out of her sleeve and wiped his face. It was only a handkerchief, but it was made of expensive-looking lace, and was faintly warm, and smelled like roses. He tried to escape from it, but she was pressing it against his face unexpectedly hard, so he couldn’t. “There, there. All finished.” The sister smiled at him brightly enough to shoot sunbeams at him. “…Well, thanks.” Exhausted, Kamijou stepped into the site of the Hakumeiza theater. Though the building looked giant even from far away, the parking lot right out front was so small it must have been for employees only. It was probably because there was a train station nearby, as well as a parking garage next door. The property was enclosed with two meter-tall metal plates, but the entrance for workers to go in and out had been forcibly opened—a thick chain and padlock were lying on the ground. There was no heavy construction equipment or anything of the sort in the tiny parking lot. Even the building itself had no trace of graffiti or broken glass. Perhaps they’d found a buyer for it and someone came to do periodic maintenance on it. When he and Orsola approached, they could see that Hakumeiza was larger than a gymnasium and constructed in a perfect square. Maybe it resembled a famous theater somewhere, and maybe it was just that designing the building had been a pain. All right, I guess they’re inside. It’s hot out here, after all. He directed his gaze to Hakumeiza’s entrance. It was large, with five glass double doors lined up. There were no boards or anything in the way. It was less of a ruin and more just closed for a while. As he thought about this, one of the five doors in front of him opened up. “Huh?” he grunted. Out of the three that exited, he recognized two of them as Index and Stiyl. The last one—he didn’t know her. She was a foreigner who looked a little younger than Index. She was dressed in the same black habit as the nun he’d met at the bus stop. However, this girl’s habit had been made into a pretty small miniskirt—she must have undone the fasteners on the skirt to remove that part. His eyes fell to her feet, and to his surprise, she was wearing wooden sandals with soles thirty centimeters high. As soon as Index saw Kamijou, she burst out, “Touma, where did you meet that sister?” “…That didn’t take long. Anyway—and this question is mainly for the evil priest next to you—but why did you bother with such an elaborate faked kidnapping again? And I would definitely like to know why you made me exhaust myself by walking three kilometers in this insane heat! Please, go ahead! Actually, no—you’re gonna tell me whether you like it or not” Stiyl turned a tired expression on the shouting Kamijou. “Ah, what? So you knew it was a trick. I wanted to call you out here to get you to help search for someone. I just used the Index of Prohibited Books as a decoy. By the way, this is the one in charge here. She’s Agnes Sanctis, from the Roman Orthodox Church.” Stiyl pointed in her general direction with the tip of his cigarette, and the nun wearing the platform sandals bowed and said, “H-hi.” It looked like she was aware already that Japanese people bowed their heads all the time, but her motion was exaggerated, making her look like a hotel worker. Kamijou was a little embarrassed at someone he’d never seen before suddenly addressing him. He was currently at max anger, but he couldn’t let himself vent it on someone he had no acquaintance with. As if pressing him hard now that his pace had been broken, Stiyl said, “Sorry, but we don’t have time to go along with your nonsense. Like I said before, I brought you here to have you help look for someone. Two hundred and fifty people are looking for her now, and yet they can’t locate her. It’s a race against time. Her life is on the line, so we need you to help us quickly.” “Nonsense…? Hey, that’s no way to treat a guest you’re asking for help! Damn it, what is this? What do you mean her life is on the line? Explain it to me! And besides, I’m an amateur! I have no skill at tracking people down! Don’t leave such an important job to a high school student!” “Oh, everything is all right. If you just hand over the nun next to you, that’ll be fine.” “What?” Kamijou’s eyes became pinpoints. Stiyl, who seemed to think this was truly foolish, exhaled cigarette smoke. “That nun is the missing person we were looking for. Her name is Orsola Aquinas. All right, thank you very much. You did very well. You can go home now, Touma Kamijou.” “…Excuse me, but I was set up in all this, and in addition to having left the city with a suspiciously acquired Academy City exit permit in one hand, I walked three kilometers when it’s almost forty degrees out. What’s my position in all this?” Kamijou muttered, looking down. However… “I already said you did well, didn’t I? You want me to treat you to some shaved ice or something?” Index’s face turned blue and panicky at seeing Touma Kamijou looking down and grinding his teeth. They heard a funny grrkk come from around Kamijou’s temples. “You know, until now, I know we’re not what you could call friends, but we were getting along just fine otherwise. I’m serious. I seriously thought that, you know? Yeah, at least, until this moment” “Enough of your jokes. Just hand Orsola over to Agnes already. What? You want me to pay more attention to you? Unfortunately, I can’t take away your loneliness, and I wouldn’t want to anyway because it would be creepy.” On top of getting seriously angry, having been ignored so briefly caused Kamijou to collapse where he stood, as if he had burned out. “Urgh, uurrgh. I don’t even have the energy to make dinner tonight anymore. Index, we’ll have to have commonplace takeout pork bowl for dinner tonight.” Kamijou ignored the always-hungry girl shouting, “What?! But Touma” and turned back to face the sister in all black, Orsola Aquinas. “…You did say someone was after you. Did this search have something to do with it? You should be fine now that your allies are here, right?” When Kamijou addressed her, Orsola’s shoulders gave a jerk for some reason. It was a small tremble, like she had tried to suppress it and failed. He tilted his head. She seemed to be looking at Stiyl and the others, not at him. Stiyl closed one eye, uninterested. “Hmm. There’s no need to be anxious. We English Puritans are getting out of here as soon as our job is done. Well, I suppose you should at least have that much caution.” For an outsider like Kamijou, everyone looked lumped together as either “someone from the Church” or “someone belonging to the magic world.” He wondered, though, if they were viewing one another as hostile and subdividing them into Roman or English or whatever. But then… “Oh, no. I can’t give her to you so easily.” Suddenly, they heard a deep, male voice. Unnaturally, it came to Kamijou from straight above. He looked up to the night sky and saw a paper balloon about the size of a softball floating around seven meters up in the air. The thin paper making up the balloon was vibrating of its own accord, creating the man’s voice he had just heard. “Orsola Aquinas. You should know that best of all. You could live a much more meaningful life with us than you could going back to the Roman Orthodox Church.” That moment. With a sharp zip, a single blade plunged out of the ground in between Kamijou and Orsola. It came close to being a surprise attack to the spots of Kamijou and the others, whose attention had been directed overhead. And then two more came up around Orsola with a zing and a ging The swords that leaped out at them slid in a straight line through the ground like a shark fin cutting across the surface of the water. The three blades cut across the ground, carving out a triangle two meters on each side with Orsola at the center. “Aahh!” As Orsola felt gravity give way, she gave a cry that sounded more bewildered than afraid. But before it could turn into a clear scream, Orsola’s body began to plunge into the dark underground along with the entire triangular piece of asphalt. “Amakusa” shouted Agnes, trying to reach her hand out, but she was too late. Orsola was already being swallowed up into the pit of darkness. Kamijou frantically ran to the edge of the hole and swore angrily. “Shit, a sewer…?!” The paper balloon overhead continued in an enthusiastic yet still focused voice. “If we simply follow the Roman Orthodox commander, it did not matter where Orsola Aquinas flees or who she is captured by—she would eventually be brought here. I suppose running around underground waiting was well worth it” Kamijou couldn’t get even a marginal hold on this situation. Who was hiding in the sewers? For what reason had they suddenly taken Orsola away? He knew one thing, though. They came out suddenly and without warning with blades and had kidnapped someone. And from what it sounded like, it was not just a random occurrence, but something they had planned beforehand and had waited and waited for their chance to come. “Damn it” Kamijou peered into the triangular hole in the ground. As it was dark, his depth perception was a little off, but it didn’t seem too steep to him. He faced the hole, about to jump in, when… “Wait! Don’t do it, Touma” The very moment Index shouted… Glitter—light glinted off dozens of blades in the darkness. As if reflecting a little bit of light from the evening sun, the orange rays radiated and twisted inside the sewer. With the light from the blades, only the faint outlines of those hidden underground came into view. The sight reminded him of bandits wielding rusted swords and axes, waiting with bated breath in the thickets beside a thin mountain trail for their sacrifices to pass by. A ball of pure malice blew straight into his face like a burst of hot wind. In an instant, Stiyl, beside Kamijou, whose movements had been locked down, pulled out cards with runes inscribed on them. He threw the four cards on the ground, positioning them around himself. “TIAFIMH (There is a fire in my hand), IHTSOAS (it has the shape of a sword), AIHTROC (and it has the role of conviction)” Stiyl shouted, flicking his cigarette directly upward. An orange trail followed it up, and in the next moment, a sword made of flames jumped into his hand along that line. The newly created source of powerful light immediately wiped away the darkness in the sewer. Stiyl brought the flame sword around in a large arc…but then stopped suddenly. Inside the sewer illuminated by the flame sword, there was nobody. All those people had vanished into thin air along with the darkness that had been wiped away. All of those silhouettes in the hole holding swords, as well as Orsola, who should have fallen in, had disappeared in the blink of an eye—like a pack of sea lice attached to a riverbank all running away at once. The paper balloon that had been lazily floating overhead slowly descended to them. Nobody reached out a hand for it as it fell into the triangular carved hole in the ground. “Shit! What the hell is going on here?” demanded Kamijou as if spitting something out. “Hey! You’re gonna explain this to me in full, right?” “Actually, I am the one who’d like an explanation for this,” responded Stiyl Magnus, as if to crush the paper balloon under his foot. INTERLUDE ONE At last, the sun set on the shore, fortified with man-made objects, and the night was welcomed in. It was a craggy area only a few hundred meters from a swimming beach. Just onshore was a cliff almost ten meters tall, and tetrapods were piled up high so that waves wouldn’t erode it. Now that the sun had completely set, the sea was covered in a deep black. Then, as if awaiting the night’s arrival, a hand appeared from the surface of the dark water. It wasn’t just a hand—it was a covered one. Heavily armored fingers, shining in silver, grabbed hold of one of the concrete tetrapods. Then, a person in Western-style full-plate armor broke the surface of the water and climbed up onto it. Clad in steel from head to toe, it was questionable whether there was even a person inside. When the first one made it to land, twenty more of the “knights” emerged from the water’s surface. One after another, they climbed atop the tetrapods, emulating the first. The lettering emblazoned on the arms of their armor read UNITED KINGDOM—letters that also represented the nation called England. They had swum here. That wasn’t a figure of speech. They had begun in England, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, passed through the Indian Ocean, and had at last infiltrated the water of faraway Japan. It was sorcery for manipulating ocean currents using the legend of Saint Blaise as a framework. Simply put, this was a technique for high-speed sea travel that allowed one to go fast enough to circumnavigate the earth in three days. It was not a Soul Arm–like function attached to their armor—it was something activated purely by each individual knight’s own body. The armor they currently wore had no such functionality. Because the knights themselves were so highly maneuverable, adding Soul Arm effects to the armor would have just slowed them down. With their tremendous strength, they could go on rampages more violent than effects produced by Soul Arms, so they would have run the risk of destroying their armor with their own power. They were simply called the Order of the Knights. They had once gone by names such as “Seventh Mace” and “Fifth Axe” in England but had abandoned such titles seven years ago. That was not because the current Order had lost its outstanding individuality, but because the Order had been reborn by each knight having acquired every skill. The reason they needed to acquire such strength was related partly to circumstances particular to England and partly to the original objective of establishing the Order. Right now, the United Kingdom operated under a complex three-sided chain of command. The Queen Regnant and the Royal Family Faction, headed by Parliament. The Knight Leader and the Knight Faction, commanding the knights. The Archbishop and the Puritan Faction, led by the faithful. Their power relation was as follows. The Royal Family Faction issued royal commands to the Knight Faction, controlling them. The Knight Faction used the Puritan Faction as convenient tools. The Puritan Faction gave direction to the Royal Family Faction under the name of Church advice. In this beautifully triangular system, if one attempted to carry out an agenda while even one of the others was not convinced of the policies therein, the other could present total opposition by taking the long way around the chain. However, there was another reason that the United Kingdom was said to have the world’s most complex Crossist culture. The United Kingdom was a combination of nations consisting of England, the northern part of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Reminders of this remained to this day—certain places even issued their own currency. For example, there could be bad blood between the Puritan Faction’s English and Welsh members, despite them belonging to the same group. Conversely, it wasn’t unusual for separate factions within one nation, like the Puritan and Knight Factions of Scotland, having pipelines to each other. When Sherry Cromwell, the code-breaking expert, bared her fangs at the English Puritan Church—which she belonged to—she had this sort of backing in addition to her personal motive. Three factions and four cultures. This two-dimensional diagram where each affected the other led to the nation called England becoming more complex. In turn, the greatest mission given to the Knight Faction was to make sure this complex combination of countries didn’t break apart in midair. Thus, these particular knights hadn’t been persuaded beforehand… …that the English Puritans—the Puritan Faction—had gained the same power as the Knight Faction. The English Puritan Church, also known as the Anglican Church, had originally been created to oppose Roman Orthodoxy, which had the entire world under its rule. They wanted to operate their own nation themselves, but if they didn’t obey the Roman Orthodox Church, they would be attacked as a nation that disobeyed the teachings of the Crossist god. So by placing an independent church within England, they could explain themselves by saying their actions were in line with the teachings of the god of Crossism—meaning English Puritanism—even if they weren’t strictly following Roman Orthodox canon. In other words, the English Puritan Church had been created as a political tool. The Church was the oil they had created to lubricate the giant cogs of the royal family and the knights under its command. But right now, the relationship between the Puritans and the royal family and knights was being undermined by the Puritan chain of command. Nobody appreciated the fact that their actions were being restricted by something created to be a tool. Actually, though, with the Knight Leader and Queen Regnant as their masters, the knights would not only cut corners when carrying out the Archbishop’s orders—in severe cases, they’d outright spurn them. Their answer to their current mandate, to support the rescue operation of the Book of the Law and Orsola Aquinas, had been simple: All members of Amakusa should be killed. They had no obligation to put their lives on the line for an order from someone who didn’t acknowledge them—the Archbishop. They didn’t take their religious and ethical relationships with the Roman Orthodox Church or Amakusa even slightly into consideration. It wouldn’t affect England’s national interests in the least if Amakusa were to disappear. It would be easy to kill them. The skills of the knights—the many works passed down through legend by the Murder Crusaders, who buried multitudes of heretics during the Crusades—were powerful enough to wipe a small island off the map. A sect on a far eastern island nation, they could destroy within a day. And they wouldn’t care what happened to the possible hostage, Orsola, in the process. The English Puritan Church didn’t actually have any interest in the contents of the Book of the Law. They were already recorded in the prohibited Index’s memories, so they just needed to leave it to her. Whether Orsola lived or died, it wouldn’t damage English interests. The Roman Orthodoxy might cause a fuss about it, but the chore of suppressing that would fall to the Archbishop. The Archbishop had warned them to be careful of what action Kaori Kanzaki, former leader of Amakusa, might take, but the knights were far from taking that piece of advice to heart. If Kaori Kanzaki came upon them, blinded with rage over Amakusa being annihilated, they would just make her into a bloodstain on the wall as well. Or they would have. But all those plans went awry in just three seconds. Once the knights had broken the surface and climbed atop the tetrapods… …it appeared from below and pierced through them. Bang! Boom The many tetrapods, each weighing more than a ton, blew away like a volcano had erupted. The knights on them, having also been thrown upward, recovered their balance in midair and scanned the surface below to look for a landing point. At ground zero—the center of where the twenty-one knights and vastly numerous tetrapods had gone flying—was a lone girl. She had long black hair tied in the back, white skin covered in lithe muscles, a squeezed short-sleeved T-shirt, jeans with one leg cut off, western boots, and a katana more than two meters long called “Seven Heavens, Seven Blades” resting on the leather belt at her waist. Kaori Kanzaki. She didn’t speak. She began her attack on the twenty-one airborne knights without a word. It was a simple thing she was doing. She would attack each of the twenty-one knights, one at a time, who were floating without footing and unable to move. Not by using her sword to slash, either—but by politely bashing them with its sheath. But she was so desperately fast. Too fast. The knights hadn’t actually been in the air for one second yet. But they all immediately felt like they had been frozen in midair. That was how fast Kanzaki’s movements were. It was like time had stopped, and she alone was moving through it freely. If someone had been observing time properly, it would have looked like an invisible storm erupting from ground zero. Each knight that took a hit from the scabbard crashed into the ground, sank into the cliff face, or struck the road on the shore. Those launched into the sea skipped across it like a thrown pebble. After mowing down twenty-one knights in all, Kanzaki quietly landed atop one of the tetrapods. When the damp night wind lightly caressed her hair, the floating knights at last fell to the ground. A loud wham echoed across the dark seashore. “I tried to hold back. This way, there would be no fatalities. Wearing sturdy armor made my job easier, and for that I thank you.” “You…bastard…” The knights took her quiet voice as an insult and tried to stand. But they had been utterly shaken to their cores, and moving their fingers was all they could manage. That’s why the knights instead moved their mouths—the one thing they could still operate freely. “Do you…understand? Who you just…attacked? You’ve just bitten the hand…of the three contracts and four lands…of the United Kingdom itself!” “I, too, am a part of it. I’m sure those above me will take care of this, as it was trouble not between us and Roman Orthodoxy or Russian Catholicism, but within the English Puritan Church itself…Oh.” She realized the knight who had spoken had lost consciousness, and she promptly stopped talking. “There were some I tossed into the ocean…But it didn’t look like they had disengaged their submersible technique yet, so I don’t believe I must worry about them drowning,” whispered Kanzaki to herself, glancing once at the dark surface of the sea. “Your words lack punch when you say them with such worry on your face, you know.” “Hm?” Kaori Kanzaki finally stirred and turned around to the familiar voice. It was a young man with short, spiky blond hair, blue sunglasses, a Hawaiian shirt, and shorts. Motoharu Tsuchimikado. Kanzaki saw where he was standing and was surprised. Her honed senses wouldn’t have missed someone’s approach in the first place…Nevertheless, when she looked at Tsuchimikado, ten meters away, she still couldn’t feel his presence. “Have you come to stop me?” When Kanzaki reached for the hilt of her katana, the eyes behind the sunglasses remained smiling. “Give it a rest, Kaori Kanzaki. You can’t beat me.” Despite the situation, he showed no nervousness, held no weapon, and didn’t even position himself for a fight. “No matter how strong you might be, you can’t kill people. And an esper like me might die just from using magic to fight you. This battle…I would die whether I won or lost, but are you really prepared to kill Kamikaze Boy Tsuchimikado and keep moving forward? Eh?” Kanzaki clenched her teeth. She manipulated her techniques so that people wouldn’t die. For Kanzaki, a fight in which someone would die whether they won or lost held no meaning. In fact, that was the worst outcome she could imagine. She could feel her fingers trembling as they touched her katana’s hilt. Then Tsuchimikado pulled a one-eighty and switched to an innocent, childlike grin. “That’s fine, you can keep glaring. I wasn’t told to stop ya personally, Zaky. Though I was told to head you off and eliminate you if it looked like you were gonna cause an issue. And I’ve got my own job to do anyway.” “Your…own job?” “Yeah. I got the cushy job of digging around for the original copy of the Book of the Law while the Roman Orthodox Church and Amakusa are preoccupied with their little firefight.” Kanzaki’s eyes narrowed slightly. “On whose orders? The English Puritan Church’s or Academy City’s?” “I wonder. Well, common sense will lead you to the answer. Which wants grimoires—the magical world or the scientific world, hmm? Well, considering which I’m the spy for, it’s pretty easy to figure out.” Kanzaki fell mum at Tsuchimikado’s words. There was a terrible air dominating the area, one that could freeze even the tropical night wind flowing between them. Seconds of silence ensued, and the first one to break eye contact was Kanzaki. “…I need to go. If you want to report this to your superiors, feel free.” “Is that so? Ah, we’ll handle rounding up all these groggy guys. It’d be a pain if the police picked ’em up, after all.” “I’m in your debt.” Kanzaki bowed her head courteously, and Tsuchimikado said to her, “By the way, what brought you so far from England anyway, Zaky?” She left her head down and stopped moving. After a good ten seconds had passed, she finally lifted her face. “Who knows…?” she said, smiling mechanically, like she was angry and about to cry at the same time. “…Honestly, what do I want to do?” Word Count: (13390)