CHAPTER 2

Preparations for London
Un_Frammento_di_un_Piano.

1

The house Orsola had been living in was right down a small road that turned off of a larger one. Just nearby flowed a seawater canal, and the water’s smell drifted toward her home. Small shells hugged the stone street.

She must have been renting a single apartment, as she stopped in front of a rectangular building with five floors. It had not been constructed recently; it had no auto-locking doors or heated floors. Instead, the walls were made of brick, painted light beige. It had character, sort of like a historical building. Only the television antenna sticking up off the roof spoiled the impression.

“All the buildings here look like this, huh? Like, old-fashioned or whatever.”

“They’re not old-fashioned, actually—they are simply old. Personally, I found myself overwhelmed by Japan’s cities and all their shiny buildings. Treating places not even twenty years old as run-down…In my opinion, time in that country seems to go a little bit too fast.”

“Did your ancestors all live here, too?”

“No, not at all. I simply happened to be assigned here, so I was just renting an apartment.”

“Pretty much the same as me and my dorm, huh? Oh, another thing—why are all the buildings these different bright colors, like blue and yellow?”

“This is a town on the ocean, so I believe the reason for the distinctive colors is to let one spot one’s own house even from a boat far away. Of course, nowadays, whether the building is on the water doesn’t have very much to do with it.”

Apparently the town needed such identifiable coloring because people launched boats directly from their own homes, rather than having all the boats gathered at one large port.

Orsola guided Kamijou into the apartment complex. She lived on the fourth floor—but of course, there were no elevators. Climbing the metal stairs for a while with a heavy suitcase was a little demanding.

“Here we are,” said Orsola.

Kamijou looked and saw her standing next to one of the many doors in the hallway. It, too, was an old-fashioned wooden door, but the lock on it was unnaturally shiny, as though it had been replaced recently.

Orsola rummaged in her habit sleeve and retrieved a key. Before she could put it in, though, the door opened on its own.

Four people came out, all of Asian descent—well, actually, they were the sort of young Japanese men and women Kamijou was accustomed to seeing. They wore similar clothing, but there were subtle differences in color composition and the way they wore them. He was the one standing out here; their clothing matched exactly what the people in this town wore, but he had the strange wallet chain from his belt to his pocket and his hidden spare wallet on his calf. Orsola must have originally been tasked with some shopping, as with a smile, she handed them a paper bag the color of French bread containing a smattering of daily necessities.

They began to greet the two of them, but before Kamijou could return the favor in his haste…

“Ah! It’s Touma! Touma, Touma!” came a familiar female voice from the back of the apartment. It was followed by approaching footsteps not very suited to indoors, sounding as though she were still at the Daihasei Festival.

Pushing through the small crowd of young men and women to reach the front door was Index. She had ice cream in her arms. Yes, both arms—four or five square cases of it, cradled like a stack of comic magazines. She stuck a professional ice-cream scoop into a mountain of vanilla and said, “Touma, the gelato here is all so delicious, but it’s really, really cheap on sale! Yum!!”

“You little…I was worried about you, and now I see you stuffing your happy, sticky little face with ice cream! No, we’ll leave the fact that you left me behind for later. You can’t just come into someone else’s house and eat all the dessert you want!!”

“Huh? But they said they wanted me to help clean out the freezer, since they’re moving.”

As he watched Index’s beaming smile, Kamijou’s face started to break down, like he was on the verge of tears. “Damn, that actually makes sense…But I’m still not satisfied that you’re the only one who looks ungrateful about it!!”

All Kamijou could do now was stamp his feet in frustration as Index dug into the ice cream with her scoop. Orsola smiled sympathetically at him, while the four young men and women stared at him, not saying much at all.

Were they the ones who brought her here? Is there a Japanese part of town somewhere nearby? “Oh, wait—you said the friends who came to help you out were from Amakusa, didn’t you?”

The Amakusa-Style Crossist Church: originally a sect of Crossism taught in Japan but currently an organization the English Puritan Church had taken under its wing, just like Orsola. I see…They did seem to specialize in keeping up with the times and blending in, he remembered, impressed. He could tell with one look at their clothing.

Or so he thought.

He listened a little more closely and heard them talking in hushed tones in a way that didn’t match their surroundings.

“…So that’s the gentleman our vicar pope yielded the palm to…But how strong is he really…?”

“You doubt because you weren’t part of the mission to rescue Orsola…”

“…This gentleman is the one who declared war, by himself without a single weapon, against two hundred and fifty of the Roman Orthodox Church’s proud combat sisters…”

“Also, I just received this info from the vicar pope, but he stood up to our priestess with the Seven Heavens Sword in Academy City with his bare hand, punched her in the face, and flung her to the ground…”

The Amakusa members’ conversation stopped abruptly.

The young man who had first begun to speak turned his head slowly toward Kamijou. “…A monster?”

“Hey! The first thing you think of after seeing me is that kind of twisted evaluation?!” asked Kamijou, the edges of his lips quivering. The Amakusa group members paled and retreated farther into the apartment.

Actually, he had lost his memories, so he didn’t know what they were talking about when they mentioned Kanzaki. And he was afraid he’d reveal his amnesia if he carelessly asked about it. What were you doing punching a girl in the face, Touma Kamijou?! he asked himself, filled with trepidation.

Orsola sighed and turned back to Kamijou. “…Please, you mustn’t scare them too much.”

So she said, but from the door, he could hear them say, “Also, I heard he saw the priestess’s naked body around the end of summer, and after she slammed him with the Seven Heavens Sword’s sheath, he didn’t even need to be bandaged up!” and “What?! Against a saint appointed by the Lord?! How much training has that gentleman been through?!” They sounded brimming with curiosity more than anything else. Were they actually scared at all?

“I just want to sit on the floor and do nothing…”

“I would rather you not suddenly grow exhausted, so please come inside soon.”

Orsola had the door open and was gesturing him inside, so Kamijou and Index moved past her and into the apartment.

The place she was renting wasn’t a single room like Kamijou’s dorm; there were several rooms made for a family to live in. Most of Academy City’s residences were student dormitories made for one or two people each, so this kind of place was fresh and new for Kamijou.

“Wow, must be nice to have such a big apartment…Wait, you even have a second floor?!”

Orsola chuckled. “That goes to an attic. I suppose it is rather like floor four and a half. We only use it to store cheese; there isn’t enough space to stand up without bumping your head.” This all appeared to surprise Kamijou, so she smiled a little. “In any case, I will first go and prepare some food,” she said as they went into the living room, one of the several rooms in the apartment.

Index’s eyes glittered, but Kamijou frowned just a bit. “Wait, you were going to treat us to lunch to thank us for helping with your move, right? We haven’t done anything yet.”

“Now, now.”

“What kind of response is that?!” shouted Kamijou instantly, but Orsola was already diverting the conversation.

“First I must be a good hostess to the two of you. Besides, it will be time for dinner when we finish all the work, so if we pack everything into moving boxes now, we won’t be able to get the cooking tools back out. We would have to wash them in the sink again, too.”

Oh, okay, thought Kamijou in understanding. He looked around again. Folded cardboard boxes were piled on one side of the living room. The helpers from Amakusa were probably leaving Orsola in charge of deciding which things she would get rid of now and which she would take with her to London. She was right; if they let the chance go, they probably wouldn’t have easy access to all the household goods later.

2

After Kamijou spent a while staring at the strangely shaped Italian power outlets and Index spent a while pressing each button on the TV remote control in order, Orsola came out of the kitchen with a tray in both hands, stacked with dishes and eating utensils.

The main course was pasta with Manila clams, with cold soup containing crabmeat and a plate that had only some kind of gooey, jet-black squid ink on it. Orsola explained that you kneaded cornmeal into soup to create something called polenta, and then dipped the result into the squid ink and ate it directly.

As Kamijou took a seat, the Amakusa girl who had carried the plates with lunch on them into the room with Orsola held out a moist white towel, asking, “Would you like one?”

“Oh, thanks.” Kamijou bowed his head and took it. The girl said, “Not at all” and hurried back out of the room. He noted that her eyelids stood out; they had epicanthic folds. On the other side, he heard more voices. “Itsuwa, how did the towel mission go?!” “Idiot. It’s too soon to expect results. You have to keep removing the obstacles between you.” “Don’t you think this is a little roundabout?”

Kamijou wondered what they were talking about. Weren’t they going to eat with them? He asked after the four young men and women who weren’t coming to the table. “Umm, what about the people from Amakusa?”

“I believe they said they’re currently training, and said their bodies would grow dull unless they used specific ways of eating specific ingredients…”

“After all, Amakusa uses the trace religious ceremonies present in daily activities like eating, sleeping, bathing, and walking. I think depending on the case, they may only be able to eat certain things,” Index put in.

“Well. They do seem quite picky.”

After Orsola arrived at that slightly off-kilter conclusion, she urged them to eat. Kamijou and Index thanked her for the food.

“Whoa! What is this? I never knew pasta could taste so good!”

“Yep! This might be five hundred times better than the kind Touma makes all the time!”

“You don’t have any right to say that when you don’t help me cook! But it’s so good I don’t care! Mmm!!”

Orsola smiled drily at the evaluation of her cooking and the subtle hostility mixed in. “I simply threw together whatever I happened to have on hand.”

“You can just throw together something like this…? I was planning on going around to a bunch of stores with my guidebook, but now it feels like I already accomplished what I wanted to do.”

“…Touma, I think I already made the biggest, most important memory of this vacation.”

The two tourists were already satisfied, not even sparing a glance for the floating World Heritage Site twenty kilometers away. Even Orsola, the subject of all the praise, found herself in a supporting role. “B-by the way…Am I correct in assuming your goal in coming to Italy was not here but Venice?”

“It was supposed to be. That’s what the vacation plan said, but I can’t get in touch with the local tour guide. We still have a hotel to check in to, but then I don’t know what we’ll do. Venice is the most worthwhile spot for a trip, isn’t it?”

“Go to Venice to look, and go to Chioggia to live—or so they say. You can’t use a car in Venice, and there are issues with moisture, mold, and chills…Most importantly, the monthly rent there is many times higher than it is here.”

Orsola spoke fluidly, with no particular hesitation.

“But even with the disadvantages, it is worth seeing. After all, it is the City of Water, the Queen of the Adriatic, the Bride of the Adriatic…It’s such a pretty place that it has all kinds of names extolling its virtues.”

“I guess there’s a whole Adriatic series of names, huh?” Kamijou dipped the polenta, which was the color of a cheese block, into the black squid ink and brought it to his mouth. The squid ink looked thick, but it had a light, plain taste.

“Well, originally, the militaristic maritime nation of Venice controlled the Adriatic Sea, so it was appropriate for them to receive such treatment. Once a year they would have a national ceremony called the Marriage of the Sea. The doge—the head of state—would throw a golden ring into the Adriatic as a wedding ceremony to bind Venice and the Adriatic Sea. That is how close and important the sea was at the time.”

“Huh? Venice was its own country once?” he asked.

After scooping up some of the cold soup containing crabmeat, Index answered. “Touma. What we think of as Italy only came about in modern times. Until then, the vast lands of the Italian Peninsula were divided into a bunch of smaller city-states. Kind of like how the Sengoku era was in Japan, I think.”

“…”

“What? Why did you get quiet?”

“…No reason. I was just thinking you know a lot of stuff.”

“Mgh. Wh-why does it sound like this surprises you?” Index glanced at her soup bowl. He thought he saw her cheeks reddening a little bit, too.

Orsola continued to speak, twirling pasta onto her fork. “Venice was one of the strongest city-states. They despised being ruled by others, so they opposed the pope of Rome and even ended up being excommunicated. That isn’t the amazing part, though. It was the fact that the city continued to prosper even though it had been deemed an enemy of the Roman Orthodox Church. It also has a history as a powerful nation. During its height in the fourteenth century, it took over powerful city-states in northern Italy one after another, such as Padua, Mestre, and Vicenza.”

“And here, too?”

“Yes. Chioggia was once a rival marine city-state to Venice, but after a string of battles, it fell. At the time, there were plenty of other city-states on the water like Venice that got their power from trading in salt and foreign goods, but their numbers fell due to war, politics, disasters, and many other factors. In the end, only Venice was left.”

“Huh,” said Kamijou as he followed along.

That meant it would have taken only a tiny coincidence in the past and Chioggia would have been the one to leave its name in the annals of world history. Kamijou, who lacked much historical knowledge, found this a little impressive. It was like playing a Three Kingdoms or Sengoku-era video game.

“In any case, if you’ve come all the way here, I think you should see Venice. For a Crossist disciple such as myself, the city has extremely fascinating styles of architecture, among other things, but even without them, Venice is quite simply beautiful. Chioggia has motorboats but no gondolas. You can see things there that you can’t see here. In all of Italy, Venice is the only city where you can go about your business without needing a car.”

“Huh, that sounds interesting! Thanks, Orsola. Anyway, Index, after we get our luggage squared away, do you want to go to Venice?”

“Hmm…This food is all I need. I think I could stay here forever.”

“Index, that’s a pretty unreasonable request to make of someone moving out tomorrow.”

3

“All right, let’s get on with the packing.”

With that, Kamijou and Index headed for the household supplies’ location.

There were several rooms in Orsola’s apartment, so everyone went into the same one as her and asked if she wanted to bring each item as they packed them into cardboard boxes. After that was finished, they carried out the larger pieces of furniture, like her bed and shelving, then cleaned the ceiling and walls. Finally, they’d move to the next room; that was how they did the work. Orsola and Amakusa had already finished a couple of rooms.

For now, Kamijou and Index decided to clean up the living room first, having finished their lunch. Kamijou wrapped the plates and utensils in newspaper and placed them in cardboard boxes, then brought the table and chairs outside the building. They loaded the things into a truck parked outside the apartment building with a canvas covering the flatbed. The lady driving it was apparently a member of Amakusa as well.

With this and that, they had been working for about an hour now.

“Wow. Touma, I think my habit’s getting kind of dirty,” said Index, who had been engaged in close-quarters combat with the dust behind the bookshelves.

Kamijou sighed. “You know, you should have expected to get a little dirty while helping her move.”

“Now, now. That certainly is true, but still…,” Orsola broke in from the side, mediating.

Kamijou looked over at the sudden voice just in time to see Orsola patting the dust off the chest area of her habit. The action, of course, made various womanly bits start to sway. Kamijou sputtered and whipped his head back around to look away. He wished she wouldn’t start talking to him while doing something like that. Index shot him an irritated glare.

Orsola, of course, didn’t appear to be bothered by it in the slightest. “You must have spent many long hours on the airplane to get here, right? If you haven’t even gone to your hotel yet, it is only natural to worry about such things. If you like, you may take a shower here,” she said proudly as a huge ball of dust atop the fluorescent lampshade fell on her head, sticking to her black hood. She smiled. “Come, come, Miss Index. The bathroom is right over here.”

“Hey, wait! I think you’re the dustiest one here right now!!”

“Do you think so?” asked Orsola, cutely tilting her head. The giant, fluffy ball of dust remained on her head as she took Index’s shoulders from behind. “In either case, Miss Index may go first. Umm, the dryer is right over here.”

“Dryer for what?”

As they left the room talking, Kamijou’s shoulders drooped tiredly. “Oh, right. Orsola, where did you keep the newspapers again?”

“They’re right over here. Why?” came her voice from outside the room. Then he heard a door slam shut.

…She’s so worried about sweat and dust. I guess it’s because she’s a girl? He felt like Index would bite him if she knew he was thinking about it, but despite his insignificant impressions, he returned to cleaning and tidying the room. He started sealing the packed boxes with packaging tape and carrying them to the front door. There were big, expensive-looking decorative plates on the floor nearby, so he decided to wrap them in newspaper to help soften any impacts during moving and place them in a box, when…

“What’s this?” he said suddenly. He’d run out of spare newspaper.

I don’t know how much these plates are worth, but I think it’s a lot…Wouldn’t want to leave them on the floor and then accidentally step on them.

He stood his mop up against the wall and looked around the room. He thought Orsola had told him the spare newspaper was behind that door over there.

But when he actually went through it, there was a short hallway instead of a room with two white doors of the same design on one side of the wall.

Which one is it? I guess I should just go into the closest one first. And so, without really thinking about it, he put his hand on the doorknob before hearing something from the other side.

“Hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm-hmm. ”

Along with the cheerful humming, he heard a watery sound like rain falling.

Th-this combination of the voice and the water…Kamijou stopped dead in his tracks. Is it the shower…? Ack, that was close! This is what I call the bathroom trap! Man, I was about to fall for it. And get totally beaten up!!

He breathed a quiet sigh of relief and took his hand off the doorknob. By process of elimination, the other door had to be the one where Orsola kept the newspapers, like she said.

However.

“Hmm-hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm-hmm, hmm. ”

I hear a voice from here, too…What the heck? What’s going on here?! N-neither bathroom has a plate on the door to tell me…Wait, I wouldn’t even know the Italian word for bathroom if I saw it.

As one mystery led to another, Kamijou’s heart rate actually increased a little because of the innocent humming. But he had to stay calm. He knew one thing for sure: There couldn’t be two bathrooms. Orsola had said the newspapers were here, so one of them had to be a normal room. And the two doors couldn’t possibly lead to the same room.

That meant one thing.

The walls must be thin, which is why I can hear voices from both doors…? One of them is what I want, and one of them isn’t. Shit! These are the kinds of choices that could lead straight to a game over!!

He listened closely and carefully to the sounds coming from each door.

Right…No, left? No, this is…It’s the left one. I can hear both the shower and the humming from the left one but only humming from the right one! Which means the sound is actually coming from the left one, and the softer sounds of the shower aren’t getting all the way to the right-hand door; it’s all logical, which means that’s why I can only hear humming from the right side!! Everything’s fine! Kamijou wouldn’t ever encounter so many intimate events!!

“I’ve got it!!” His ears guiding him, with absolute confidence, he threw open the right-hand door.

In front of him was a steamy bathroom.

“Oh?”

And the one with the startled voice was actually Orsola Aquinas. The shower curtain was open; she was currently reaching for a bottle of shampoo on a shelf. Hot water poured down her large chest, which was usually hidden behind a thick habit, and he saw drops tracing a path to her navel. He saw everything.

“U-ugyaaahh!! This was the bathroom?! There’s even a shower here!! Sorry, Orsola, but my ears told me the dangerous one was on the left…!!”

He was so rattled that he unthinkingly forgot to close the door as he fled toward the left door.

And then.

This time, from the left-hand door, he heard the motor of a hair dryer go on.

A moment later…

“Kyaaah?! The weird stick went vroom, and hot air came out and attacked me…!!”

The left door slammed wide open from inside, and a naked Index stumbled out. She had a towel in her hand, but it accomplished nothing. She hadn’t dried her slightly reddened skin with the towel, either; every time she waved her arms, droplets of hot water flung from her body. Her long hair was still wet, too, and the moisture was clinging to her modest chest.

He looked to see that behind the left door was also a bathroom.

Kamijou stood dumbfounded at the sight.

“The right door was a bath and the left door was a bath?! That’s bull! Hell was waiting for me no matter what I did!! This isn’t fair! Why in the world are there even two bathrooms in one apartment?!”

No longer having anywhere to run, Kamijou sank to the floor. Even Orsola was slightly embarrassed by this, as she pulled the translucent vinyl curtain to cover herself and hunched down a little before speaking.

“W-well. There is a story where Saint Barbara once renovated a bathroom into a room for baptism. One is for daily life and the other for religious use. Its baptismal functions aren’t active because I’m moving right now, so I was simply using it as a normal shower.”

“Another stupid story from the unscientific magical world! I’m so sick of this!!” he shouted, pounding his fist against the floor that didn’t belong to him.

Then…

“…Why are you even here in the first place, Touma?”

Index had looked down and sunk to the floor as well, actually wrapping the towel around herself with slow, precise movements.

“Huh?”

“…And why don’t you say you’re sorry for seeing someone naked?”

“L-look, Miss Index, that’s not it! I, Touma Kamijou, had just discovered decorative plates left over in the room from before and was kindly informed that the newspaper for softening impacts during the move was here…Wait, that’s right. Orsola, where’re the newspapers?! Don’t tell me you store them in the bathroom! That’s not usually where they go!!”