These guys really aren’t picking up.

They weren’t getting anywhere; both tour group and guide were nowhere to be found. Still, going right back to the airport and flying home wouldn’t even be funny. For the moment, they did have today’s itinerary and hotel rooms already.

“We have a sister good at being overseas with us, so I guess we’ll be fine. There’s no point standing around here—let’s at least bring our stuff to the hotel. We’re all staying in the same place, so we might run into the tour guide.”

“Ah, aauuuuh…Touma, can’t we take a break? Five steps after coming here and I think I’m already beat…”

“Don’t worry. I was beat after only eight steps. But the hotel should have beds and an air conditioner, so we can take a rest and then go sightseeing.”

She groaned. “That won’t be enough to cheer me up. I don’t think I’ll come back to life without one of Italy’s famous gelatos. I’ve never eaten one, but I’ve seen the name a lot, so it must be delicious.”

“Is that how it works? Well, we’re tourists, so I guess we’re supposed to go for some famous stuff, right?”

“Yep. By the way, Venice is famous for squid-ink gelato.”

“…If you don’t mind my asking, is that actually famous?”

While noting that her requests felt oddly seasonal, Kamijou glanced over to the service schedule on a square board posted on a pillar. The first hurdle at the moment was what bus to get on.

“…No point in worrying about it. I’ll have to just give up on reading it myself…Index! Sorry, but could you go read which bus we’re supposed to take to get to the hotel?”

“Huh? Oh, sure, but…”

As he watched her scamper over to the board on the pillar, he sighed. Had it really been a good idea to choose her to accompany him? Frankly, he would have at least a few clues to go by if it was written in English, but with Italian he had no chance. What if I’d been thrown into this all by myself? he thought, feeling a sense of renewed gratitude toward the usually oblivious sister.

But then she spoke. “Touma, how do you read a bus schedule?”

“Gyaaahh!! I should have known! What a schoolgirlish look of confusion!!”

In the end…

…the two of them got cold feet and it took fifteen minutes to get on a bus.

2

The highlight of their five-night, seven-day trip to northern Italy was the main island of Venice.

The hotel they were staying in, however, was twenty kilometers south of the city in a beeline—they had to follow a curving path along the shoreline, so the trip was even longer than that—in a small town called Chioggia.

It hadn’t been chosen to cut down on travel costs; on the whole, Venice’s stores closed up early, and there wasn’t much nighttime entertainment to be found. The pamphlet had explained that if the goal was to party all around the clock, most people would purposely reserve a hotel a bit farther away from Venice…but Kamijou, a high school student, didn’t feel like that information applied much to him.

“We’re close to the water again, huh?” said Kamijou to himself as soon as he stepped off the bus. His hand gripping the suitcase quickly grew tired as he pulled it along.

The airport had been on the sea, too, but all of Chioggia seemed thick with the sea breeze.

There was no beach here, though. Their “coastline” was a stone canal. The river of ocean water was a straight line, like someone had taken a saw and cut away the land.

Index, standing next to him, said, “I think it’s more like we’re surrounded by water than close to it.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kamijou, stopping in the midst of people passing by. He was the only one with luggage here, so most of them must have been going to or from work or otherwise out to enjoy themselves.

“The center of Chioggia, where we are now, is an island town on the Adriatic Sea, split into three canals. It’s really small—only four hundred meters across. There’s no way to expand the land, so all the buildings are tightly packed. You can tell just at a glance. There’s almost no gap between the houses here.”

“Huh.” Kamijou took another look around.

One of the canals she’d mentioned flowed in front of him. The seawater, blue with a tinge of green, split the town like a ruler. It was about twenty or thirty meters wide. A pair of roads ran in parallel on each side of the canal, but in the middle, houses suddenly blocked them off. The flat walls, beige and white, protruded all the way out to the canal as though they were levees. The gaps between each building were extremely narrow—it looked like something as small as a soccer ball wouldn’t pass through. He wondered how they cleaned them.

Then a small motorboat floated by in the canal.

Many boats were berthed on either side of the canal, all packed tightly together. They took up about half the width of the canal. That was just how necessary they were for living here, and it went to show that the sea was incorporated at a fundamental level for transportation in Chioggia. The boats weren’t polished like private leisure ones were; there were quite a few that looked well used. Another glance revealed some with items like rags and buckets carelessly thrown in.

Kamijou wasn’t accustomed to things like that. “Seems like a pain,” he said honestly.

But as soon as he sighed, Index simply concurred. “It’s actually supposed to be a pain,” she said. “Since the town is split up by all the canals, you would need to take detours to bridges if you wanted to walk everywhere. You could just use a boat, but then you’d have to go all the way up and down the canals, since you can’t cross the bridges. Frankly, it would obviously be easier if they were all just roads.” She gave a pained smile. “I think it’s like Venice in that way. In fact, they say Chioggia still looks like what Venice looked like before it became a tourist attraction in the sixteenth century. In other words, they left the flaws here, too.”

“…” Kamijou fell silent for a bit in spite of himself at the fluid explanation.

Index looked at him and frowned. “What’s wrong, Touma?”

“I can’t believe it…Index is actually useful for something other than sorcery…”

“Touma’s making fun of me for some reason! Why do you have to make me so frustrated after all I did was nicely explain it?! If you’re going to do that, then I think I’ll have to bite you without mercy!!”

“‘I think,’ nothing!! And besides! Why bother saying you’ll do it without mercy when that’s no different from all the other times—but wait, no, don’t test it out, I get it, it’s gonna hurt even if you don’t try it out!!”

Index chomped her teeth at Kamijou, causing him to take a step back. He was ready to use the suitcase as a shield if it came down to that, but he actually felt it would be somewhat dangerous—would she really have trouble gnashing through such a lame defense?

But contrary to the trembling Kamijou’s expectations, Index surprisingly didn’t attack him. Instead she relaxed and sighed. “Well, we’re here to enjoy our vacation, so I don’t think being angry will get us anywhere. Come on, Touma, don’t hide behind the luggage. You can come out now.”

“…You’re not using nice-sounding words as a ruse and then planning to attack the hideout the instant I leave it?”

“No.”

“And it’s not a two-layered counter, where you say that, then launch your assault after I feel relieved?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Huh? Okay, but just to make sure one last time…Really?”

“I said it’s not!”

“That’s a lie! You’re definitely mad! You can try to trick me with your girls-mature-faster-than-guys act, but I’m not going to fall for it that easily!! Ha-ha-ha, did you think I would be hopeful about this when I’m always unlucky?! It’s obvious that at the end of it all, you’re just going to bite me as hard as you can like you always do! Warning, caution! The savage sister Index is watching vigilantly for a chance to aim for the top of my head even as we speak!!”

“…”

“See, I knew you were mad! Your shady act is really starting to come apart now, isn’t it…? Er, wait, are you, um, actually mad? Gyaaah! The gentle sister’s mouth, very quietly opening up!! Crap, I knew it would turn out like this! It’s just like I said it would be!! And that doesn’t make this any betteeeeeeeeeer!!”

The sound of flesh being bitten.

And at the same time, the agonized shout of the boy who got Index mad for no reason.

3

The first thing he’d been coaxed into after arriving in northern Italy was more safety pins.

The first memory he’d made after arriving in Chioggia was his head being bitten.

“…One word. Why?”

“What, Touma? You look like you’re about to cry tears of blood.”

Index looked at him blankly. Her ire from a few minutes ago seemed to have dissipated.

They were on a small road on the way to their hotel. He’d realized this after actually walking through a bit, but it seemed the roads in this town were for the most part separated into two sizes: extremely narrow or extremely large. They’d leave streets so small that cars would have trouble using them only to find much bigger roads, wide enough to be a town square, waiting for them.

Kamijou and Index were walking down one of the larger ones right now. It was big enough for a six-lane road, but there were no white lines on the ground. No distinction between where cars went and where pedestrians went, either, and people were walking all over the street. It was a lot like a pedestrian paradise in Japan. Though nearly every single person was a westerner, like in the movies.

Buildings of brownish red and yellow lined either side of the street. The ones that were around three to five stories tall looked like cafés and eateries, with tent-shaped sheets to block sunlight hung from the shops’ second-floor portions, going all the way across the widths of the buildings and perfectly covering the entire open café spaces. All the places next to the road were using parasols and other things to block the sun, so each side of the road was like a shopping arcade made of fabric.

This was the part of the city where all the restaurants were.

There was a simple reason behind Index’s improving mood: There was plenty of food nearby.

Simple was really the only thing to call the girl’s reaction. Kamijou sighed. “We’ll eat after we drop off our things at the hotel, all right?”

“Y-you didn’t have to remind me! I already know!!” she shouted, flustered, her face growing red. Kamijou couldn’t tell if she really understood or not—as soon as the words left her mouth, her eyes were already on several other storefronts.

“Right…You know, I like eating as much as the next guy, but we should think about seeing places we can only find here, too. For example, uhh, the church of whatever! I want to go there! Take a look at the pamphlet—I have no idea what it’s for or anything, but isn’t it cool?!”

“Touma, that’s called Saint Mark’s Basilica, built to preserve the remains of Saint Mark, Venice’s patron saint. And the center of sorcery in the City of Water.”

“Enough annoying explanations! I want to go there so badly it’s killing me!!”

“Ooof! My kindness just bounces off you!”

“After we check in to the hotel, I’m gonna grab that stupid tour guide and we’re going to Venice! Hooray for gondolas!!”

“Listen, Touma! Food isn’t the only thing on my mind, either!!…Wow, this isn’t working! Touma, are you so enthralled by the Italian air that you’re not listening?!”

Index waved her arms around as she spoke, but Kamijou didn’t respond to her. He was a Japanese-made high school kid. All he could imagine in Italy was pizza, soccer, and combat nuns. Now all of a sudden he was actually there, in a place like in the movies. He was overwhelmed with excitement.

Just being surrounded by all the people clamoring and calling things out in Italian that he couldn’t understand the meaning of—like “Quanto?” and “Posso fare lo sconto del dieci per cento”—was enough to make his vacationer senses explode.

“Vuoi?”

“Wow! I…I think that might be actual squid-ink gelato…?”

“Sto solo guardando. Grazie.”

Wait, did I just hear Japanese in there? wondered Kamijou. But no, it had to have been his imagination. As he rolled their suitcase along behind him, Kamijou turned around to look at Index. “I know, Index. After we eat lunch, I was thinking…”

He paused midsentence.

All the way here in Italy, Touma Kamijou remembered the Japanese word for speechless.

There was a simple reason, really.

Index had been right there three seconds ago, and now she was nowhere in sight.

“Wait, you’re lost in Italy already?! I guess that thing I heard about gelato was really Index!”

Kamijou looked around in blank amazement, but he couldn’t spot her ridiculously ornate habit anywhere.

“Damn. Is she in the crowd? Did she go down a small street? I have no idea where the hungry sister has gone! Shit, food really is all you think about, isn’t it?!”

No voice answered Kamijou’s wail. No matter where he looked, he was completely unable to find Index. Kamijou was the one with the wallet, though, so there were only so many things Index could do off on her own. She would come back naturally even if he didn’t follow her, but…For some reason, he had this feeling that if he didn’t drag Index back by the nape of her neck, he’d be flung into even deeper trouble.

“Heeeey! Index!”

First Kamijou took a look around, then he carefully stepped onto a smaller street that branched off from the main one. He walked down it, gazing to and fro, and then lost track of where he was. He hastily ran farther down the path, and even though he thought he was running into it, he ended up right back on the same road as before.

He stood there, befuddled, time passing by.

“Wait, now I’m getting lost…?!”

Kamijou broke into a fairly cold sweat and then stopped for a moment.

M-my last resort is my cell phone!

But.

Once again and as usual, Index’s zero-yen cell phone was powered off. (He’d turned it off before getting on the plane, and it was probably still like that.) At hearing the regular, synthesized voice—not in Italian, of course, but in Japanese—announcing that the number he called was unavailable, he forgot to put away his phone and instead literally crumpled to the ground in front of the suitcase, still clutching the handle.

Touma Kamijou’s state of mind could be summed up in one phrase.

“Now what do I doooo?!”

The people walking by turned around at his shout, but Kamijou didn’t have the time to even see that. Then, as he sat on the ground with his forehead pressed up against the suitcase, a woman who seemed to be a local approached him.

She smiled in a way that imparted a somehow stirring feeling, as though she worked with her hands for a living, and asked, “C’è qualcosa che non va?”

“Huh?”

The woman was only asking him if something was wrong, but Kamijou had no way of knowing that. Meanwhile, the woman, not particularly offended, spoke again, this time slowly and pronouncing each word separately. “Non puoi parlare l’italiano? La c’è un ristorante dove un giapponese fa il capo.”

She had just asked if he didn’t speak Italian and then suggested a Japanese restaurant nearby whose manager was also Japanese. Kamijou didn’t have any clues to interpret her meaning, though. But just from her tone of voice and facial expression, he got the feeling she was friendly toward him.

I…I don’t understand Italian, but if I let this chance go, I think I might really end up all alone in the world! Okay, so…I probably can’t speak Japanese to her, but maybe I can at least get her to speak in English. But I can’t even begin to imagine how to ask someone to please talk in English, in Italian! If I knew that, I wouldn’t be worried about people speaking Italian at all!!

Kamijou was caught in a grand dilemma. If the woman could actually communicate in English, he could just say one or two words, like please English, and she’d probably understand. But Kamijou was so unfamiliar with foreign languages that his mind wasn’t able to come up with such a roundabout path. Finally, as his brain started to overheat and he began to grow dizzy…

“Senta!”

…a female voice suddenly broke in from beside him.

“Lui è un mio amico. Ringraziate per la sua gentilezza.”

At the smoothly spoken words, the woman made a surprised look. Then she said, “Prego!” in a cheerful tone, turning her back on Kamijou just like that and vanishing into the crowd.

Meanwhile, Kamijou, left behind, couldn’t figure out what had just happened. “Gah! She suddenly gave up on me? Why you…I was all set for a dramatic two-hour-long tirade of sweat and tears, having created nonverbal camaraderie with that woman, all in order to reunite with Index!! Just who’s the person who interrupted us, anyway?! I don’t care if I am speaking Japanese and you don’t understand! I’ll make as many quips as I want!!”

He shouted in spite of himself.

The world’s so big nobody’s going to hear me shout, anyway, Kamijou despaired, mind half taken up by timidity and cowardice. However…

“Oh my. I appear to have done something inexcusable. You looked to me as though you were being troubled by the language.”

Suddenly, he recognized that familiar way of speaking. It was Japanese, of course, but he knew this feminine voice from somewhere.

“You’re…” He turned around. With the eight-hour time difference between here and Academy City, the one he bumped into all the way in faraway Chioggia was…

“By the way, earlier I told her that you were my friend and thanked her for her kindness…Perhaps it was somewhat presumptuous of me to refer to you in such a way.”

“Orsola! What are you doing here?!” shouted Kamijou.

Even now, the mellow sister in the black habit was smiling.

4

Orsola Aquinas.

Formerly a Roman Orthodox sister, now an English Puritan after an occupation change. She had deciphered a grimoire called the Book of the Law, and she directly opposed the Roman Orthodox Church that had tried to stop her. The incident was already resolved, and she should have been relaxing in her new home in London right now.

Just like the previous time he’d seen her, all her skin from her head to her toes was hidden behind a habit. She wore white gloves, too, and her hair was completely covered by a wimple. The only skin visible was on her face. Inversely proportionate to her skin exposure was her feminine body; her plain habit actually brought out her curves, giving the sister sex appeal.

She spoke. “I might ask you the same thing. What are you doing here? If I recall correctly, you live in Academy City, Japan, correct?”

“Uh, I won a couple of vacation tickets. What about you?”

“My residence has been here until just yesterday, in fact.”

“Wait a minute. Orsola, you should be living in London. You were there when you passed along info from the British Library during the Daihasei Festival.”

“Yes, and I have been hurrying around moving from the Roman Orthodox Church to the English Puritan Church. I still had things left over here. Today I returned in order to have my household possessions sent to London.”

“This is where you used to live?” asked Kamijou.

Orsola answered with a simple “yes.” She did so in a casual way, but the fact that Kamijou was able to have a relaxed conversation with someone in this situation threatened to open his tear ducts a little. I don’t care if this is a coincidence or what! I’m saved! he thought, mentally putting his hands together in a gesture of appreciation.

“Oh. Huh. I see you’re still wearing the same habit as always even though you’re transferring to English Puritanism. Won’t the people from Necessarius get mad?”

“Yes, well. Despite my saying I would send the household goods there, I won’t be carrying them. I hear I will be fortunate enough to have everyone from Amakusa help me as movers.”

“Eh?! Oh, wait, you went back to the earlier topic?! Wait, so you mean the Amakusa Church? That’s where that Tatemiya guy was, right? What’s he doing these days?”

“In regards to my clothing, it is perfectly fine. The English Puritan Church is quite proactive in its integration of many different techniques and cultures as a means of combating sorcery. For the time being, I am the Roman Orthodox of the English Puritan Church. They did the same for those in Amakusa by allowing them to retain their identities within the Amakusa framework.”

“And now you’re talking about the habit!! You’re not even completely ignoring what I’m saying, either, since you still mentioned Amakusa! I have to say the rhythm of this conversation is really hard for me to figure out!!”

Her way of conversing wasn’t random; she seemed to be simply speaking in her own unique mental order of things. But that made it pretty hard for others to talk with her.

Meanwhile, Orsola hadn’t noticed at all and simply tilted her head cutely. “By the way, are you out shopping?”

“Well, that…I got here fine with Index, but now she’s disappeared somewhere, her head full of Italian gelatos! What should I do, Orsola? Do you think if I hung some ice cream on the end of a fishing line, she’d bite?! Keep in mind—for me, fifty-fifty odds are a good deal!”

“Now, now. Please regain your composure. I understand that you and Miss Index have come here on a vacation, correct? Not as any particular messengers for Academy City?”

“You’re…Actually, you’re on the same topic now. But I think halfway around the world is a little far to send someone to deliver a message.”

“Whichever the case, you have a little bit of free time, do you not? Meeting you here must have been destiny. You came at the perfect time. To tell you the truth, we were short on people to help pack things up for moving. If you are bored and have nothing to do, I will make you some lunch in exchange for your help.”

“Nope, not on track anymore! We came here to have fun on a vacation, and now it’s being canceled for someone else’s convenience?! B-besides, we were going to go sightseeing after this, and there are plenty of restaurants around, so you don’t need to go through the trouble of making us food.”

He thought he’d given a normal reply, but Orsola looked at him again, this time dubiously. Not at his face, really—his clothes were what she was staring at. She looked at his wallet chain and the suitcase in his hand.

“Oh my. Just so I’m certain, you are going to do so…like that?”

“You have no right to be telling me how to dress!!” he shouted. Though the summertime, and the heat waves that came at the end of the season, had passed, the weather was still just hot enough for him to have to think about whether to wear short sleeves or not. But this was coming from a nun dressed from top to bottom in a black habit.

But Orsola looked at him like that was a silly thing to say. “Unlike in Japan, there are many nuns in this area.”

“A normal answer? From Orsola?!”

“More importantly,” she continued, not noting Kamijou’s surprise, holding out her index finger and pointing at one thing at a time. “Carrying a brand-new suitcase for luggage, holding a travel pamphlet in one hand, and in possession of a cell phone with a camera…Well. It is quite like you are saying this to swindlers and con artists: ‘Hello, welcome. Would you like my wallet? Or perhaps my passport?’”

“Urgh!” Kamijou hastily closed the cell phone and put away the pamphlet. “I-it’s kind of surprising to hear words like swindler and con artist coming out of your mouth, Orsola.”

Orsola gave a sigh. “This is still a smaller city, so it’s not a significant issue. On a global scale, however, large Italian cities are some of the most unforgiving to travelers. Eateries are much the same. Landmark cities are ripe with tourist traps. They could easily make you pay ten times the sticker price. If you make judgments based only on if an establishment is on a main road or if there is a greeting in Japanese written on the signboard, you will not have a good time traveling.”

“Wahhh! This is your home, so now I’m scared!! Then what should I do?!”

“Why not come to the conclusion that my offering of food would keep stores from tricking you? I can teach you how to differentiate between those kinds of establishments as well. Come now, why stand here talking? You would need a place to meet with the forbidden index nun again, wouldn’t you? Still, Chioggia’s inner area is small: only thirteen hundred meters one way and four hundred meters the other way. It isn’t an issue you need to think about so seriously.”

Kamijou found himself convinced by her fluid, unhesitant words. Of course—he was in Italy, so relying on an Italian would be best. It was pretty much the most basic lesson of all. But then he thought of something. “Still, I’d like to focus on sightseeing…”

“No, no! Miss Index looks perfectly entertained at that gelato shop.”

………………………………………………………………What?

“Wait, Orsola. Did we skip part of this conversation?”

“I know. If you are here for sightseeing, then why not visit a normal person’s house in Chioggia? You can go to all the famous beautiful sightseeing spots you want as long as you have the money, but on the other hand, seeing the natural atmosphere the inhabitants are immersed in isn’t something you can find simply following after a tour guide.”

“Wait! Don’t go back to the topic now! I admit you have a point, but you just said something about Index…!”

“My word! You already understand without needing to ask. You lucky dog!”

“Ack! Did you jump ahead or back?! I can’t tell!!” shouted Kamijou in spite of himself.

Orsola just continued to smile warmly. “If you’re looking for Miss Index, I saw her a few moments ago with her face pressed against a gelato shop window.”

“I would have really appreciated it if you’d told me that right off the bat!!…But then where’s Index right now?”

“Like I said, I can tell you how to read the bus stop…”

“Bringing this back around right now—where’s Index?!”

“What?” said Orsola, tilting her head in mild confusion. “Oh yes. That’s right. I asked a friend of mine earlier to show Miss Index to my house.”

“That little…She left me behind?!”

“When my friend spoke of lunch, she seemed to follow her quite happily.”

“Damn iiiiiiiit!!”

I forget! Who was that nun again, who’d said I could rely on her in Italy?! Kamijou slumped to the ground.

“Nooo…Sniff…Orsola, what do you think I should do? I’m always the one getting bitten, every single time…but today, for once, it’s my turn. Just you wait, Index!!”

Gnash!! He bit the suitcase handle.

“Now, now,” said Orsola, beaming. “Would she not defeat you in the process?”

“Urgh?!” The strike brought Kamijou back to himself.

Orsola continued to smile broadly, her face full of happiness. “Whatever the case, if you’d like to meet Miss Index, coming to my house would be the fastest way. It would be bothersome for me to explain the rest, so in conclusion, you should kindly come with me.”

Now that she’d said it directly, he felt like she was right: Going to her house would be the shortest route. Besides, if he refused, he’d just be alone again when he didn’t need to be. “…I feel like my rotten luck is coming on again…”

“Now, now. Vacations overseas never do go as planned.”

Whether that was life advice or an offhanded comment was unclear to Kamijou, but he nodded at Orsola. Thinking about it again, he felt like vacations were fun for that reason.

Though as an amnesiac, he’d never experienced going outside Academy City in the first place.