2_Chapter 2_ Roman Orthodoxy_0

CHAPTER 2 Roman Orthodoxy The_Roman_Orthodox_Church. 1 The sun set and night came. But it didn’t come quietly. Agnes, in her black nun’s habit, was busy shouting to the other similarly dressed sisters in another language, giving commands and pointing every which way. She was also writing something in a small book with a quill pen at an incredible speed. Index told Kamijou it was like a telephone call: When she wrote in that book, the letters would apparently show up in a book somewhere else. He thought privately that it was more like a text message than a phone call. A brigade in black—probably the regular sisters of the Roman Orthodox Church—was heading into the sewers via the triangular hole left by Orsola’s kidnappers. Another group spread open a map and began to draw lines in red ink, also with feather pens. He couldn’t tell whether they were designating escape routes or giving directions for the search or their security net. On this busy, bustling night, Kamijou, Index, and Stiyl were stiffly standing apart from the others. Kamijou couldn’t speak a foreign language (and no, he didn’t even know which foreign language they were speaking in), so he couldn’t participate in the conversation. Index and Stiyl were keeping quiet. If they said anything careless, it could spark chaos among the Roman Orthodox sisters—they were part of a different chain of command. Remembering how hungry he was little by little, Kamijou spoke up. “Hey, why did Index and I get called out here, anyway? The Roman Orthodox people are doing everything that needs to be done. We’re just sitting here bored—is there a reason we’re still here?” “…Well, our reinforcements should be arriving somewhat soon. What are those knights doing?” Stiyl said bitterly, blowing out some cigarette smoke. “Also, this incident requires our power. Well, more accurately, her power.” Her must have meant Index. “Hers?” “Yeah. This all has to do with a grimoire. And not just any grimoire—the original copy of the Book of the Law.” In place of Stiyl, who said so in a relatively self-absorbed fashion (meaning he had no desire to explain), Index summed it up in simple terms for him. According to her, the Book of the Law was a grimoire written in a code that nobody in the world could decipher. Its contents were very valuable; anyone who could decipher it would gain vast power. And now a girl had appeared who had finally come up with a way to decode the supposedly indecipherable grimoire. Because of that, both the Book of the Law and Orsola Aquinas, the girl who could decipher it, had been taken from the Roman Orthodox Church by the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church. The one he had met already was Orsola, and it seemed that she had fled during the chaotic battles between Amakusa and Roman Orthodoxy, which involved her being kidnapped and rescued over and over. And they speculated the reason they didn’t know where the Book of the Law was, was because it was in Amakusa’s hands at the moment. Amakusa-Style…Amakusa? Kamijou tilted his head—he’d heard that name before. But anyway. “Nobody can decipher it, huh? Not even you, Index?” “No! I’ve tried to, but it’s not written in normal code.” “Hey. Is this unreadable grimoire really that valuable? I mean, nobody’s read it, so couldn’t it just be scribbles inside?” “It could be,” Index agreed simply. But the fact that she didn’t get angry made her seem relaxed, like an adult admonishing a child—as though he were an ignorant amateur meddling in a professional’s business. Stiyl spat out his now-short cigarette and crushed it with his foot. “The techniques written in the Book of the Law are simply too powerful—it’s said that using them would declare the end of the entire Crossist-dominated world. It has a pretty interesting history. We don’t even want to confirm whether it’s truth or fiction—if it’s sealed up, then obviously we’d rather leave it alone. After all, according to one theory, it lets you use angelic techniques beyond the comprehension of man.” Kamijou froze upon hearing those words. “An…angelic?” “Yes? Perhaps that’s a little fanciful for an unbeliever like you to imagine.” Stiyl sounded like he was ridiculing him, but he was wrong. Kamijou knew. He knew the meaning behind the word angel. He knew what the angel called Power of God had done. That spell it had used on one seashore that summer night—the one that had instantly covered the entire sky in a vortex of enormous magic circles. He knew of the “miracle” that could reduce half the world to ashes. And even that was probably nothing more than a fraction of the kind of techniques angels used. Giving that to a person, to be used at will? He gulped. “But…still, if nobody’s ever decoded it before, then it might not even be real,” he said. Index’s head bobbed up and down. “Yep. But when it comes to the Book of the Law, it probably is, Touma. The sorcerer who strove to pen it is legendary at this point. It’s so high-level it could even appear in the New Testament. He was only active around seventy years ago, but it wouldn’t be going too far to say he rewrote whole millennia of sorcerous history. About twenty percent of sorcerers in today’s world are his followers and imitators. And something like fifty percent of them are affected by him in some way. He was the real deal.” Her words were serious, and Kamijou found himself unable to carelessly get a word in. “I think the Book of the Law is real. I wouldn’t even be surprised if it was even crazier than the rumors, either.” A few sisters in black ran by them. After a few seconds, Kamijou finally spoke up. “Umm…Who is he?” “Edward Alexander. He’s also known as Crowley. He’s buried in a graveyard in the English countryside now.” Stiyl lit a new cigarette. “In a word, he is recorded as the worst human in history. In one experiment during his travels, he used his wife, who had been traveling around the world with him, as a vessel so he could contact the guardian angel Aiwass. And when his daughter Lilith died, he used her to construct a theory of magic without twitching an eyebrow. And he apparently sacrificed girls the same age as his daughter in that experiment…However, his accomplishments did lead to new definitions of other worlds—overlapping planes in different layers than our world, such as the celestial and demonic planes—and revolutionized sorcery at the time.” Stiyl adjusted his position because the wind had changed direction. It looked like he didn’t want the smoke to go toward Index, but instead it ended up coming straight to Kamijou. He coughed hard, and Stiyl gave a truly evil smile, bellowing smoke out of his mouth like a fire-breathing monster. “Well, the many stories about him, good and bad, just and evil, big and small, are well-known to sorcerers. It’s the same for the Book of the Law. When he lost his way, he would perform bibliomancy with the Book of the Law and choose his original path from its contents. In other words, it has the turning points of the world’s greatest sorcerer—it is a grimoire holding the reins of modern western magic history as a whole. It would be wise to consider that it has quite a history attached, yes?” Stiyl clicked his tongue as if his own words tired him. The Roman Orthodox sisters who had passed by them earlier returned, going the other way. One held a giant cog one meter across as she ran—was it used as a weapon or for some other purpose?—and she made a slightly disgusted face at the smell of cigarette smoke. “Wait, so if you’re sure it’s such a crazy book, why not just get rid of it? It’s a book, right? Just burn it or something.” “You can’t burn grimoires. Especially not original copies. The letters, phrases, and sentences written within use the flow of energy within the earth as a power source to convert to magical code and turn into an automatic magic circle. So just sealing one away is the best we can do.” Index smiled vaguely. “But if I dug the original out of my memories and wrote a copy of it, it wouldn’t do anything like that.” “You still need someone’s mana, even if it’s weak, to activate an automatic magical circle like that. The writer’s own mana is used as the starter to rev up the engine, basically. Most sorcerers writing a grimoire don’t even notice that their mana is being inscribed along with the characters they write. You wouldn’t be able to avoid it even if you knew—it happens no matter what kind of writing utensils or paper you’re using. But she doesn’t have the power to temper her life force and create mana, so that wouldn’t be a problem. Most suitable for one who manages a library, wouldn’t you say?…Though the fact that this state of affairs was deliberate is quite displeasing.” “Hmm. Is that right, Index?” “Uh, huh? Starter? What does rev up mean?” Index was the one he was looking to for more explanation, but she looked the most confused of all. Stiyl faithfully tried to explain what the words rev up and starter meant. (For some reason, he looked a little happy about it.) Kamijou watched him out of the corner of his eye and grimaced to himself. He hadn’t thought this was such a big deal at first. Until a few moments ago, he had figured that as long as they rescued Orsola, everything would work out. But now that didn’t seem to be the case. He knew what an angel was. He knew about the technique used by Misha Kreutzev, the Power of God, that could burn down half the planet. He knew what a sorcerer was. Those he had met so far didn’t show mercy or hold back. They would set to work achieving their goals using all the power at their disposal. What if one of those sorcerers got ahold of the angel skills from the Book of the Law? Shit… Index said that original copies of grimoires couldn’t be burned. She said the reason was that the book itself would turn into an automatic magic circle. But if Kamijou used his right hand… If he used the Imagine Breaker inside it, then maybe… This is the worst. It doesn’t look like I can get off this ride while it’s still going! 2 Finally finished giving orders in a foreign language, Agnes walked over to Kamijou and the others, her short skirt fluttering in the breeze. Her strangely high platform sandals made clip-clop noises when she stepped, like horse’s hooves. Kamijou winced to himself. She was a little younger than Index, but magic types didn’t seem to care much about seniority. He could tell that much just by seeing the strange nuns from English Puritanism and Russian Catholicism (well, in the latter case, he only had Misha’s outward appearance to go by). On top of that, until a few moments ago, she had been coolly flinging orders in some other language directly to dozens, and through indirect communication with hundreds more. But his problem was less how self-important she seemed and more the foreign language part. His mental situation could be summed up in one sentence as “How to deal with foreign languages you can’t speak: If she talks to you, your only choice is spirited, high-speed body language” Agnes was on her way over, ready to attempt a culture exchange in a different language at any second. He held his head up straight and steeled himself for a beautiful interpretive dance, when… “Ah, erm, I…If you don’t mind, I now would like to start explaining the current situation, so are you all quite prepared, mayhap, pray tell?” “…” Bam! It was Japanese. What the heck? he thought. She may be unique, but this is… The Roman Orthodox sister was holding herself somewhat tightly. She wobbled uncertainly, and her face was bright red. I see—it doesn’t matter where you go, people are always nervous about foreigners fast-talking them. He nodded to himself, oddly convinced. Agnes continued. “I-I’m sorry. I seem to be somewhat nervous speakin’ Japanese poorly around actual Japanese people. Ah, could I use a different language? One apart from both of our cultural spheres, if you don’t mind, like, preferably maybe Avar, or a Berber language…” She spoke super fast. Index said something in a foreign language that was probably along the lines of “calm down and take deep breaths!” He glanced over to see Stiyl looking down darkly, saying, “Well, you’re not the only one I know who uses strange Japanese,” an explanation nobody was really asking for. Agnes placed a hand on her flat chest and took a few deep breaths. She was forcibly trying to suppress her agitation. And despite probably being used to wearing the thirty-centimeter platform sandals, her feet wobbled like a drunk, helped along by her nervousness. But she was still trying to carry out her duty, so she straightened right up and said, “I apologize. I shall start again. In terms of our current and future actions, we—Hyaa?!” Before she could finish speaking, Agnes, who had forced herself to stand up straight despite her quivering feet, completely lost her balance and toppled over backward. “Wah, wah!” Her hands swam through the air as if she were grasping at straws, and then one latched on to Kamijou’s hand. “Whoa?!” She fell to the ground, dragging him down with her. Unable to take the fall gracefully because of the suddenness, he slammed onto the asphalt. He attempted to writhe in pain (in relative seriousness) when he suddenly realized there was a piece of cloth fluttering above his head. It was Agnes’s skirt. When he brought his face up, he saw a paradise spread out a few centimeters away from his nose. Wha, whawhawhawhawhawhawhawhawhawhawhawhawhawhawhawhawha?! The moment the scared Kamijou panicked and tried to pull his neck out, Agnes finally got a grip on the situation. She gave a shrill “Eek?!” and pushed her hands down onto her skirt with all her might to hold it down. It was an action that she’d taken in defense, of course, but she ended up slamming his head down so he couldn’t pull it out of her skirt. His entire field of vision had been blocked off by the skirt and her thighs, but Index’s shout still reached his ears. “T-To-To-To, Toumaaa! You think maybe that’s going a little far for pranks?” “No getting hot and bothered during work. Come on, get up already.” Stiyl gave him a swift kick in the side, and with that Kamijou finally succeeded in removing himself from the prison of Agnes’s skirt and thighs. The kick seemed less like it was Stiyl’s own volition and more because he had to do something because Index was yelling. Having been kicked in the gut, Kamijou coughed and shook his head. Then his eyes met those of Agnes, who was plopped down on the asphalt. She was trembling, her face was bright red, and there were tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. He blanched. “I-I’b sowwy…” “N-no, you don’t need to apologize. I was the one who fell over and caused it. It’d seem when I’m nervous, my balance goes a little haywire…Umm, can you stand?” Agnes stood up adroitly in her twelve-inch-tall platform-sandal-clad feet and slowly extended a hand to the battered Kamijou. He made a face like it was a ray of light piercing dark clouds and reached out for it. Index watched and got a little mad. Maybe Agnes had calmed down a little from that—her body was still tense and bunched up, but the nervousness was fading from her voice. “All right, then I would like to begin explaining the current trends of the Book of the Law, Orsola Aquinas, and Amakusa, and discuss our actions henceforth and so on.” She was still wobbling nervously, and as if she was scared she’d fall again, she unthinkingly reached out to grab hold of Kamijou’s clothing. Her hand stopped partway there, though. She was probably opposed to clinging to a man she’d just met—and besides that, he’d just dove into her skirt a few moments ago. After groping around, she latched on to Index’s habit instead. “Orsola Aquinas has been confirmed to currently be in Amakusa hands. That goes for the Book of the Law as well, in all likelihood. We have a little less than fifty Amakusa members involved in this matter. It looks like they’re using the sewers to get around, but it is also possible they have already gone aboveground.” “Does that mean you don’t know anything?” asked Index, on whom Agnes was leaning, a little painfully. “Yes. We’re tracking Amakusa’s movements using the lingering traces of their mana, but it’s not going well. I suppose I expect nothing less from the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church, considering it’s a sect specializing in secrecy and stuff.” Still wobbly, Agnes pointed out the triangular hole in the ground. “We have another team drawing a perimeter in conjunction with them, but it looks like they’ll be the ones to nail the target first.” “A perimeter…How big is it?” Kamijou asked, tilting his head. Index was staring at him as if pleading him to do something about the heavy Agnes on her, but he decided to ignore her. “It’s about ten clicks in radius, centered here. One hundred thirty-two streets and forty-three sewer passages—you may consider us to have enough allies to cover the entire range.” Agnes was practically hugging Index at this point. “Of course, if they try to take the Book of the Law and Orsola to their headquarters, they’ll have to run into the perimeter somewhere. Our intel says their base’s location is apparently somewhere in the Kyushu region…and, well, that apparently is another issue. Of course, things will change if they decided not to break through the perimeter and just force the decoding method out of Orsola.” “They probably won’t. Even as she is now, Orsola probably readied the knowledge of how to resist mind-reading sorcery. On the other hand, there’s no good place to drag it out of her physically, either.” Stiyl gave a puff of cigarette smoke. “There are too many enemies around them for them to settle down. They need to torture Orsola, obtain the decoding method, and create a decoded copy of the Book of the Law. I think that’s a bit more than one day’s work. And if they want to get the information from her and break her spirit without letting her kill herself, the best forms of torture would be those that don’t require them to directly touch her—forced menial labor, sleep disturbances, or the like. But they’d need around a week for those. One or two all-nighters isn’t enough for torture; the human mind is set up so that it first starts to break at one hundred and twenty hours of sleep deprivation.” Kamijou was dumbfounded at Stiyl’s detached words. Those were the words of an expert specializing in witch-hunting and inquisitions, but that expert’s point of view was that those who kidnapped Orsola were capable of doing such a thing. And from what Agnes had said, such a group was acting in tandem with almost fifty people. The Amakusa-Style Crossist Church. But something was bothering Kamijou—Oh, right. He’d heard the term Amakusa from Kaori Kanzaki and Motoharu Tsuchimikado in the past. He heard that Kanzaki used to be its leader, and that she had left the organization to protect her precious underlings. Were those people she wanted so much to protect low enough to cause this incident out of greed? Or… Or had those Kaori Kanzaki wanted to defend… …changed after she left them? “What’s wrong, Touma?” Index canted her head to the side, and the action caused her to collide with Agnes’s, who was clinging to her. “Nothing. What should we do at this point, anyway? Those Amakusa guys are gonna run into your perimeter soon, right?” “Ah, y-yes.” Agnes still seemed a little nervous. She was almost pressing herself against Index’s cheek. “Basically, I want you to be rear support…The chances are low, but they could always use the Book of the Law. I think it’d be best if an expert in grimoires was there to—” “Argh, you’re being annoying! I can’t breathe!” Index flapped her hands around. “But are we going to be able to catch Amakusa that easily? Huh, Touma?” “Why are you asking me? Wouldn’t it be? I would think if a group of forty or fifty people was walking around in suspicious nun’s habits, they’d stand out no matter what.” “Amakusa doesn’t have an official uniform, Touma. They specialize in secrecy, so if they were just walking around the city normally, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.” “…” “What is it, Touma? Why do you look like you don’t believe me?” “Don’t worry about it,” replied Kamijou. He didn’t see a single person dressed normally anywhere around here, so he wasn’t sure how universal her definition of normal was. “Anyway, members of Amakusa are experts in hiding and fleeing. It would be stranger, I think, if they hadn’t predicted what the Roman Orthodox Church would bring down on them after they seized the Book of the Law and Orsola Aquinas. And if this incident was planned out, then they would normally have countermeasures for it.” Agnes, now completely leaning on Index, looked a bit flurried. “B-but in reality, they have no way of busting through our perimeter—” “Yes they do. There is such magic.” She sucked in her breath at the immediate response. “It’s a technique limited to Japan, though. In simple terms, there is a handful of special points throughout Japan called eddies, and there is a type of map sorcery that lets you move freely among them.” “The Great Coastal Map of Japan…Tadataka Inou. I see,” Stiyl muttered bitterly, as if remembering something. Kamijou had no idea what they were talking about, so he asked. “What’s that? Tadataka Inou…Is he a legendary sorcerer or something?” His question resulted in everybody there shooting him an ice-cold glare. “Umm, Touma. The first person to survey and create a map of Japan can be found in timelines in the normal world, you know.” “You don’t seem to be too knowledgeable about history, hm? You probably don’t even remember five prime ministers back, do you?” “…Even an Italian like me knew that much.” Touma Kamijou, the young man with failing marks, began to mope at their omnidirectional verbal assault. “Anyway, there’s a special thing planted in this Edo-period map of Japan. Everyone here knows of the Idol Theory, right?” Index paused. “Other than Touma, I mean.” Regular people normally didn’t know any occult lingo, but everyone around him was treating it as obvious, common knowledge. He felt like they were leaving him alone in the dark. “Study session time for Touma, then! Idol Theory is the fundamental theory describing how to effectively use the power of God and angels. Say you have a crucifix—a well-done one, replicating the one used to put the Son of God to death. If you applied the theory and put it onto the roof of a church, it would receive a portion of the actual crucifix’s divine power. Of course, the replica would normally store less than 0.001 percent of it. Even the legendary replica of the Holy Manger stops at just a few percent. Well, even with one percent of the original’s power, it would have power rivaling the Twelve Apostles.” There were countless crucifixes spread throughout the world, from the ones perched atop churches to the ones nuns wore around their necks. Apparently, even with that power spread out across all of them, the power of the original wouldn’t decline at all. Kamijou figured that it was like the relationship between the sun and solar panels. “And this Idol Theory is a theory that says you can reverse it. In other words, not only does the real thing affect the idol—the idol also affects the real thing.” “A theory…So they don’t know for sure?” “There are a lot of exceptions it doesn’t cover—that’s why it’s just a theory. But that’s where getting punished for mishandling a Bible comes from. The Greeks persecuted Crossists long ago, and there are plenty of stories in the Bible of Greek idols getting struck by lightning and destroyed. And long ago in Japan, there were plates called fumi-e that had Crossist symbols on them, and you were supposed to stomp on them to prove you weren’t Crossist. It’s theorized that by harming such an idol, it would work in reverse, and it would cause harmful effects on the original.” Index seemed a little dissatisfied as she spoke. She probably didn’t like words like apparently or hypothesis, being a self-styled treasure trove of knowledge. “Tadataka Inou reversed this Idol Theory. If the real thing can influence the replica, then why not reverse it? He wrote in entrances and exits to teleportation points on his Great Coastal Map of Japan that weren’t originally there and, in doing so, actually created forty-seven ‘eddies’ on the islands of Japan.” Kamijou desperately tried to mentally organize all this “common” information being rattled off to him. The Japanese archipelago and the elaborate miniature map of Japan that this Tadataka Inou guy had made were linked in some way. He had scribbled in some warp points onto that map of Japan, and that led to actual warp points being created on the Japanese archipelago. So then, whatever you happened to doodle on a map of Japan would become the truth? “Wait. That’s absolutely nuts! What if someone erased part of the map? People and cities would just be wiped out!” “That wouldn’t happen. Listen, in order for something to be an idol, it needs to be a proper miniature. If there is even a slight magical disturbance between it and the real thing, it loses its function as an idol. That’s why Idol Theory isn’t all-powerful. If the original ‘image’ gets messed up, the theory itself no longer applies.” Index told him in a serious tone that there used to be a branch of sorcery that tried to use likenesses of the Son of God in order to manipulate the Son of God in Heaven, but that all ended in failure. “On the other hand, it means Tadataka Inou was amazing. He added something that was clearly not right and bent the ‘golden ratio’ of his miniature by a tiny bit. I think he’s the only one who’s ever been able to do something like that in the whole history of sorcery. If he was a sculptor, he might have even been able to manipulate the Son of God and angels…Of course, just controlling the map of Japan is pretty shocking in its own right!” “…Okay, so then Amakusa can use it freely?” “Yep. Tadataka Inou had a strong interest in foreign countries during the Edo shogunate, and there was even one time his faction tried to sell the Great Coastal Map of Japan to Philipp Franz von Siebold. He would have known about the current ban on Crossism through his Dutch studies, so it would be appropriate to say that he had unofficial contact with Amakusa mainly out of academic interest.” Whatever the pesky details were, this was the conclusion: Amakusa had magic right now that would let them instantly warp to anywhere in Japan they wanted. So they wouldn’t even need to break the perimeter. Agnes had been listening to Index with a dumbstruck face. As he continued arranging the information thus far in his head, Kamijou asked, “Then what do we do? They might have already warped, right? Since there’s only a certain number of points, should we investigate them all?” “We can’t do that. Only twenty-three of the eddies from the Great Coastal Map of Japan have actually been discovered—even though when they tried to sell the map over to the black ships, the specifications said there were forty-seven of them.” More than half of the points were still a mystery. That meant they couldn’t follow them or meet them where they were going. “And in addition to this special movement method using the Great Coastal Map of Japan, Amakusa is famous because the location of their base is unknown…That’s how it should be, though, since otherwise they could have their escape routes cut off. Agnes said earlier that it was apparently in Kyushu, but that’s not certain, either. There are countless pieces of information saying where Amakusa’s headquarters are, and it still isn’t even close to being pinpointed. Either the information is false or they’re using all of those places as bases. And we don’t even know which of those it is.” Agnes paled. She grabbed Index’s shoulder with both hands to support her body and shouted, “Th-then what do we do?! Wait, if you had information like that, why didn’t you say anything until now?! We can’t get the jump on them, and we can’t pursue them to their base. If they make the jump, it’s all over! If we had hurried to deal with them before that, we might have been able to do something! Why are you so relaxed about this?!” “Because there’s no need to hurry,” said Index flatly, dumbfounding Agnes once again. “The Great Coastal Map of Japan was a map surveyed by using the stars in the night sky. The motion of the stars is a special quality permeating the map itself, and it has a big effect on using this method. Basically there’s a time restriction. You can only use the method at certain times.” She looked up into the sky, her silver hair swaying. “Right now…As far as I can tell from the stars, it’s about seven thirty PM. The usage restriction will lift right after the date changes, so we still have about four and a half hours. Plus, the eddy point they need to warp from is in a fixed location. Out of the twenty-three known eddies, there’s only one within the perimeter that they can use,” Index declared confidently. “Of course, we can’t discard the possibility that there’s another one that hasn’t been discovered yet.” Whenever she turned up in this kind of situation, it always reminded Kamijou that she lived in a different world. “So where’s this point, then?” “Touma, don’t you have a blinky-blinky map? Give it to me for a minute!” “You mean the GPS in my phone?” He handed his cell phone to her, but she scowled at it, so he decided to stand next to her and hold it sideways. She ordered him to go more to the right, a little farther down. After various other commands, she finally indicated one point with her slender, fair index finger. “It’s right there.” 3 “Our recon team reported that they discovered two suspicious persons near the point in question. They’re likely to be Amakusa, but we’re leaving them alone for the moment.” They got results not fifteen minutes after Agnes had delivered the command upon hearing Index’s advice. It really gave Kamijou a sense of how different things were when you had more people. He was all over the place during Angel Fall, despite it being a chaotic situation to begin with. “But they say they couldn’t locate the main Amakusa force, the Book of the Law, or Orsola.” “Makes sense. Going in with dozens of people at this hour would be sure to raise eyebrows. They’re still open for business over there, after all.” Kamijou didn’t know exactly when the stores would close up, but it still wasn’t even eight yet. If the Amakusa members planned to flee from here using the tricks in Tadataka Inou’s map, then they would need to use a movement point called an “eddy.” He and the others were planning to crush Amakusa when they got to it and rescue the Book of the Law and Orsola. “It’s possible there are other points we don’t know about—and possible that they won’t use the special movement method. Since we can’t see the main force anywhere, it will be hard to split up all our personnel among the designated regions. Unless we funnel a lot of power into both the upkeep of our perimeter and searching those areas, their chances to escape will rise, so. It’s just that it would still be real risky…” Agnes sounded worried, but Index didn’t let it get to her. “I think that’s normal. It isn’t like there’s any definite evidence that what I’m saying is true.” Agnes continued. “Thus, we have seventy-four people to use, including myself. We’re reorganizing our weapons and Soul Arms now, but we cannot promise victory should we encounter Amakusa’s main force. I’m sorry, but I’ll need to have you protect your own hides.” Until now, Amakusa had fought on equal terms with less than fifty people against the Roman Orthodox Church, which boasted more than two hundred fifty. Her remarks were understandable. Stiyl lit a new cigarette. “We don’t mind. I can’t get in contact with those Knight idiots who promised to send us support anyway, and we can’t have ourselves being luggage, either. How long will the reorganization take before you can move out?” “Selecting weapons and armor…And including the application of holy water and each individual reading scripture aloud to gain protection…” Agnes thought for a moment. “Three hours, give or take…At the latest, we’ll be done by eleven.” “And when we include transit time, we’ll need to settle things in a little over half an hour. Well, it’s fine—even if we were really early, we’d just be waiting in vain if the Amakusa main force didn’t come to the point in question anyway.” With this and that, it was decided that mobilization would be at eleven PM. Clap, clap! Agnes clapped her hands together, fired off an order in a foreign language, and the sisters dressed in black all began moving at once. The seventy-four of them immediately formed two-to four-person teams and hastened their respective preparations. For Kamijou, who had grown accustomed to seeing individualistic—or to put it more negatively, self-centered—sorcerers like Stiyl, Tsuchimikado, and Kanzaki, the perfect order with which this group operated was a little surprising. The plan was that Agnes and the others would split into teams to rescue the Book of the Law and Orsola and prepare for combat individually. Those who were finished would switch out and grab a meal and a nap. But how could they catch any shut-eye just hours before a battle? He was dubious, but according to Agnes, you wouldn’t sleep too soundly in a bed if the battle dragged on. It seemed to be common sense for them that if they had any time at all, they should sleep in short bursts—even for just ten or twenty minutes—and recover their stamina. He figured the women in this group must be used to fighting under such conditions. Of course, he, Index, and Stiyl didn’t need to prepare anything anyway, so they ended up getting food right away and taking a nap. He wondered if maybe that was Agnes being considerate toward her guests. And incidentally, their meal and rest would both be outdoors. Why was he camping out in the middle of Japan’s capital, again? He couldn’t help but find this odd, but then he considered it calmly—the sight of seventy-strong people dressed in strange clothing assembling at a restaurant or hotel and preparing for battle would be surreal, and akin to camping out anyway. But if we’re going to be starting at eleven…Am I going to make it to school tomorrow? Ah! Wait a sec, isn’t the deadline for avoiding the summer homework penalty coming up? Panicked, he turned his thoughts back to Academy City, but there was nothing he could do about it. Due to various circumstances, he never finished his homework from summer break. Miss Komoe had given him a replacement assignment because of that (she had created handouts for him alone). The deadline, if he recalled correctly, was tomorrow… Ahh! He blanched. He thought he’d have finished it for sure. The hard-working Touma Kamijou had been desperately racking his brains and desperately evading Index’s desire to play and the cat’s desire for snacks all day. In all honesty, there was a part he would never have been able to do on his own. But after Mikoto Misaka taught him the trick to solving those problems yesterday (she stuck with him for hours for some reason, despite getting angry at him constantly), he had sped up his pace, and he had just begun to catch a glimpse of a ray of hope that he’d finish within the day. Crap, crap, she’ll be so mad! What do I do, ahh…Miss Komoe will definitely get mad that Mikoto helped me, no doubt. Ahh…I haven’t said this in a while. One, two—what rotten luck! He began to tremble a little. He quietly looked up at the night sky—and decided to believe the shining, transparent drops coming from his eyelids were sweat. His shoulders drooped. He trudged over to the camp in the corner and got himself some soup and bread that seemed Italian but he didn’t really know the names. As he munched on it, he took a quick look at his surroundings. There were a number of dome-shaped tents all over the Hakumeiza parking lot. The parking lot was definitely not big enough to cover everyone, but some could sleep inside the building. Besides, more than half of the Roman Orthodox people here were urgently making preparations and didn’t seem to have time to catch a nap anyway. It all made Kamijou hesitant to go to sleep by himself without a care in the world, but Stiyl had said bored people wandering around would be much more of a nuisance. No one’s gonna call the police on all these people camping out in an abandoned building, are they? Or did they do that magic to keep people away so that wouldn’t happen? Kamijou thought as he entered a tent in the campground and wrapped himself up in a blanket. Stiyl was already lying down next to him, and Index was apparently in the next tent over. The sorcerer had wanted to be in the same tent so he could protect her, but that opinion didn’t seem to go over well. If only Kanzaki were here—she’s a girl…, he had muttered, grinding his teeth, while sticking rune cards all over the tent she was in. Kamijou looked at them. It seemed like Innocentius’s power level varied based on how many cards Stiyl used, and the man had been lamenting how limited he was with such a small tent. Kamijou lay in the tent for a little while, but he just couldn’t seem to sleep. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel tired or that he was experiencing pre-battle excitement—he just felt awkward resting by himself when so many other people were working outside. And when he envisioned them in his mind’s eye, he couldn’t help but think of Orsola, dressed in the same habit. “…I’m going to go help with something.” Squirming, he crawled out from underneath his blanket. Stiyl seemed annoyed. “I won’t stop you, but please try not to break any of their Soul Arms with that strange right hand…And if you do, you’re on your own. The English Puritans will have nothing to do with it.” Spurred on by the extremely unpleasant advice, Kamijou left the tent. The night was sweltering. It was hot and humid outside, too. He saw a girl with a big bundle of silver candles in her hands, a sister carrying a good number of old Bibles, a lady hoisting a huge wooden wheel you might see on a horse-drawn carriage—all going to and fro in the crowd, busy as bees. He didn’t know how to use any of that stuff. All right. I wonder if there’s something I can help with…Wait, huh? He noticed something and stopped. Index’s tent, the one right next to his, which was plastered with cards—the zipper for the entrance was open. It didn’t look like there was anyone inside. Where did she get off to—Wait, whoa?! As he was looking over there and walking, he suddenly noticed that he had lost all sensation underfoot. He had unwittingly stepped into the equilateral triangular hole Amakusa had opened in the ground. Eek, I’m falling Just before his body slipped into the sewer without a sound, as he flailed about in midair, a sister in black hurriedly grabbed his hand. She pulled him up, then gave him an angry lecture in some foreign language. He didn’t really understand what she was saying. Aw, jeez, am I being a huge bother right now or what? A heavy, dark aura coiled itself around the dejected Kamijou as he observed the triangular hole he was about to fall into. Amakusa used the sewers as a route to directly attack the surface from underground. Until now, he had considered this place to be relatively safe to wander about, since it was essentially the Roman Orthodox base. Maybe, though, the line was a lot thinner than he thought. It was the command center of Amakusa’s pursuers. He realized they must be concerned about the fleeing Amakusa coming to this base and wrecking it, since it would make it easier for them to run away. Well, I doubt pulling an intricate surprise attack on an amateur like me would mean much. If there was an important point somewhere here, like an HQ, that could be in danger, though. That said, he couldn’t tell the difference between the tents that were important and the ones that weren’t. For the time being, he saw a tent that was a size bigger than the others and got the detached impression that they’d probably go for something like that. But then… All of a sudden, a loud bam exploded from the large tent. A girl’s shriek followed in its wake. “…?!” Kamijou’s mouth dried. His vague idea from a few seconds ago shot back across his mind. Amakusa was able to directly attack the surface from underground. And they would probably go after tents important to Agnes and the others. But that means…really? Are you serious…? “Damn it!” The silver lining was that the tent was quite close to Kamijou. He tightened his right fist hard as a boulder and dashed for it. There were many sisters nearby, but they were standing there at a loss at the sudden situation. Kamijou ran through them to the entrance of the big tent and pulled the zipper on it down in one motion. “Amakusa” At the same time he shouted, there was something heavy in the opened entrance—and bam! It slammed right into Kamijou’s gut. It was heavy and warm, and he thought he could feel watery moisture. Gah…?! Kamijou got goose bumps everywhere at the strange sensation. He was about to swing his fist down when… …he realized that the person with her arms around his stomach was a completely naked Agnes Sanctis. “Huh?” Kamijou heard the sound of a huge bell ringing in his head as his mind went completely blank. The stark-naked Agnes’s hair was wet with water, and there was moisture on her skin, too. Her soft skin was tinged faintly in red, with white vapor rising from it. But his embracer was trembling all over, her eyes were firmly shut with her face buried in his stomach, and she was muttering things in another language—all these amounted to the fact that something was wrong. He didn’t understand what Agnes was saying, but as she clung to him, she pointed at something. He looked that way. There was a small slug stuck to the corner of the big tent. As she pointed, she said something in a foreign language. “W-wait, Agnes. Just get off and put on some clothes. And I only understand Japanese!” Kamijou shouted, his face bright red. Her trembling stopped immediately. With much trepidation, she looked up. Her eyes locked with Touma Kamijou. In the next moment… Agnes passed out and fell straight backward. Ugeh?! The ground was made of rough asphalt. He hurried to gather her up right before she collapsed onto it. A strangely warm sensation came through his shirt, sending all the nerves in Kamijou’s body into a frenzy. Agnes was more slender than Index overall, so she had a firmer feel—but that, in contrast, only seemed to emphasize her softness on a part-by-part basis. Uh…?! Then, when Kamijou directed his gaze straight up to get his eyes off of Agnes, now snug in his arms, he saw something else and quaked again. There was a big metal basin in the middle of the tent. And there was a metal bucket hanging from the tent’s ceiling, right above the basin. There was something like a watering can spout in the bottom of the bucket and a faucet attached to it. It looked like a simple shower, where you put hot water into the bucket and turned the faucet in order to get it to come out. And in reality, water was flowing from it at the moment. And in the middle of the basin area…At the very center of the tent, still being blessed with a rain of hot water… “…Touma?” …was a nun with silvery hair and green eyes, speaking in a very low voice. She wasn’t wearing anything, of course. Her slim chest, to which her hair soaked in hot water was sticking…Her belly button, to which just a few water droplets were gathered…He could see everything. She had pale skin to begin with, which ended up emphasizing the redness coming from her body warmth even further. “N-no, please, wait, Mr. Kamijou totally thought Amakusa had attacked and he was worried so he ran over here so he hopes you take that into account, too, that would be nice and…” “Ooh…” “? Ooh?” Kamijou had been watching Index’s each and every movement with fearful eyes, but… “…nn, hic. Waah…” Sh-she’s cryiiiinnngg?! Jolt! Touma Kamijou’s body gave a strange reaction to the unexpected development. Meanwhile, big teardrops fell from Index’s eyes, and she was rubbing them with her hands. Word Count: (8145)