This…is bad…I really…might die…

It was a long way down to the seafloor.

He even started to feel like he was staring at an opening high above from the bottom of a ravine.

…That’s…

As he looked, the black color of the sea spread out before him suddenly separated.

He thought an orca or a shark was coming near him, but a moment later he realized he had mistaken how far it was. It was very, very distant, and it boasted a length of at least thirty meters.

Could that be…?

Before he could think…

Grble. The side of the long, thin structure facing him opened up into four parts like a flower—as though it were a giant mouth about to swallow up the drowning boy.

3

On the wooden floor, Touma Kamijou, dripping wet all over, lay faceup.

Looking down on him was Index. There was a rectangular travel bag and a suitcase on either side of her. She had secured both those things as they were about to be carried away by the canal’s seawater in the town of Chioggia.

They were in a long, thin, dimly lit space. Its height and breadth were around eight meters and its length about thirty. The walls and ceiling weren’t squared off but curved like a tunnel. It was like the blackish, hollowed-out inside of an ancient tree. Its creation had been very carefully calculated, too, like a wooden roller coaster support beam.

“Don’t need to look so worried, there. He’ll wake up on his own soon,” came a man’s voice from the side. “When that enemy ship got blasted off the map, it definitely scared me a little. But man, looking at the results, we should be thankful it wasn’t worse.”

That’s not the problem, thought Index.

And the man probably knew that, too. He made his next words short. “See? He’s up.”

Index immediately perked up and turned around to Kamijou again.

His eyelids, somewhat hidden behind his wet bangs, opened slightly. “Index…” After saying her name, he slowly sat up on the floor.

“Are you hurt, Touma?” That was the silver-haired, green-eyed girl wearing the pure-white habit. She seemed to be relieved upon seeing Kamijou’s face, but that quickly returned to a look of exasperation.

And next to them was…“S-Saiji…Tatemiya?”

“Yup. Been a while, eh? Vicar pope of the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church, at your service. Currently under jurisdiction of the English Puritan Church, though.”

His hair, originally black, had been dyed jet-black again, giving his spiked-up locks the sheen of a stag beetle. He also wore a baggy shirt and jeans. He was tall, but compared to his clothing size, he was extremely slender. He wore four small electric fans looped through a string around his neck, and for whatever reason his shoelaces were over a meter long.

Kamijou breathed a sigh of relief. He was another person he knew from the incident with the Book of the Law, like Agnes and Orsola. “Which means…Amakusa’s here?”

He knew they’d come to Chioggia to help Orsola move out. Had Index been running around the town looking for them after being separated from him and Orsola?

Kamijou reached up to wipe the sweat from his brow, but his hands and clothes and insides of his pockets were all sopping wet. As he sat there at a loss, he suddenly saw a white towel being held out from beside him. He turned to see the girl with the epicanthic folds in her eyes standing next to him.

“Here, take this.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Kamijou took the towel and watched as the girl said, “It’s not a problem” and withdrew.

“Wait, so…why are you all the way out here…? And where is here, anyway…?” he asked, rather confused by all this.

Upon looking around, he felt ten or twenty people farther back in the dark room with their eyes on him. Amakusa’s main force must have all been in this wooden, tunnel-like place. They were saying things like, “Itsuwa, how did it go?” and “You should have stayed with him longer.” What were they talking about?

“Oh yeah…! What about Orsola and the rest?!”

“No worries, man. They’re here, at least. We identified Orsola, Lucia, and Angeline, if I remember their names right. Also, we found a man tied up and a Roman Orthodox nun. All sorts of people. We’re in the middle of questioning them separately.”

Not knowing exactly how many people were actually on that ship was troubling, but for now Tatemiya’s words came as a relief. Kamijou took a look around. “So is this Amakusa’s secret base or something? Wait, how did you even get to me after I fell into the sea like that?”

“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Tatemiya. “I guess it might be a little hard to imagine. First things first: This ain’t a building, man. It’s a vehicle.”

“Huh?” Before Kamijou could give voice to his question, he felt a sudden burst of inertia. His body slowly began to slide backward. The entire tunnel-like facility was moving.

Struck dumb, he stiffened. “Wait, so this is a…?!”

“A submarine? Heh, that’d be nice, but it’s not that advanced. It’s more like a wooden canoe that can just barely go underwater,” said Tatemiya in an almost crooning tone. “Basically…”

“…It’s just a submersible.”

Crash!! He heard the roar of the tunnel breaking through the layer of water. His vision swayed heavily up and down. Before his still-disbelieving eyes, the ceiling of the tunnel began to part completely from the center. It was like double doors opening, its wood scraping and creaking all the while.

What he saw was a sparkling yellow and white night sky.

The smell of seawater drifted to his nose. His footing rocked and swayed like he was riding a boat.

“Maybe it’s still tough to get. Heh. I mean, who would believe it, right?”

Tatemiya followed the utterly unimpressive wooden wall.

There was a huge rattle as the entire floor, which must have been thirty meters long, began to rise up. The clunking of gears moving in unison reverberated, and in about forty seconds, the floor reached the height of the opened ceiling. Essentially, the floor had become the ceiling of the tunnel.

He saw the night sea.

Kamijou was standing on a giant structure shaped like a rugby ball, thirty meters long and eight wide. The opened ceiling was spread out to either side of it like wings. It had crept up above the water: a small man-made island built from tons of wooden materials.

“This is insane…,” muttered Kamijou.

It certainly appeared to be a submersible, but it didn’t have an engine room, or a command room, or fuel tanks, or even a communications room. It was just a vague, empty tunnel on the inside of this “submersible.” Even assuming it burned wood for fuel made no sense. It was like a moving hunk of papier-mâché.

“…So you brought this thing with you to help her move?”

“Eh? We’re originally a group of hidden Christians. Of course we’ve got a weapon or two hidden up our sleeves. And given where we come from, we specialize the most in marine warfare.” Tatemiya grinned. “Paper is made from trees, which you can also use to make boats. If you know how to use the connection there, you can easily have something this small.”

As he spoke, he took what looked like a stack of bills out of his baggy jeans pocket. It was a pile of Japanese paper, casually bundled up with a rubber band. Was he saying those all changed into boats? Kamijou thought for a moment some strange incantations were written on them or something, but they were actually just blank pieces of paper.

Sorcery…is just insane, thought Kamijou, looking away and exhaling before moving on to what was around the submersible underneath him.

He could just barely make out land near the horizon. It could have been Chioggia…but then again, maybe not. He thought he saw more lights from this one.

Meanwhile, in the other direction, he could see a band of pale-white light floating on the dark sea. It could have even been giving off stronger light than a town would…and it was probably the Queen’s Fleet. Looking at it from afar, the immense scale stood out much more easily. Kamijou had no knowledge of the world of sorcery, much less marine warfare, so he didn’t know if they were in a safe place or not.

He’d walked right into enemy bases before. But whatever those bases were, they never had more facilities inside them than he could count on one hand. This time, though, was different. There were almost a hundred military structures all clustered together.

…Agnes…He frowned a little, recalling the face of the girl who had implied she would stay in a place like that by herself.

Index watched him, then said, “Whatever we do now, we have to ask what’s going on first. I want to know how far away we have to get until we’re safe…And you look like you really want to say something, too.”

“Well…” Kamijou found himself a little lost for words. “I didn’t understand much about that run-down ship, either. I think Lucia and Angeline would have a better explanation than I would.”

“…”

“Wh-what?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking how Touma is still Touma even when he’s right in the middle of enemy territory.”

“That was uncalled for!” he shouted again.

Index had her annoyed, pouting face on, though, and wouldn’t answer him.

They were getting nowhere, so he took a quick look around, trying to move the conversation along. Oh, right. Where are those two, anyway?

Then, the crowd of young Amakusa men and women standing a little bit away from them parted.

From the other side of them came Lucia and Angeline. They seemed ready to back right out again, but Orsola pushed their backs from behind, smiling.

“Oh, I guess…you’re all right, too. We’re all lucky to be alive. Maybe no cannonballs hit us in the face, but we still fell into the sea from five or seven stories up.”

Kamijou addressed them casually, but Lucia’s and Angeline’s faces reddened and they looked away without a word. Huh? His expression froze—he was making no progress with this conversation.

Orsola chuckled and said to the two Roman Orthodox sisters, “Now, now. You don’t have to be so embarrassed about it.”

“P-please don’t say something so unreasonable so easily!!” Angeline snapped back, halfway to crying, swinging her baggy sleeves everywhere. Lucia hadn’t raised her voice, but she closed her eyes, murmured something, and surreptitiously crossed herself. Maybe she was trying to calm down.

“???” Completely bewildered, Kamijou frowned.

“Ha-ha-ha,” laughed Tatemiya upon seeing his confusion. “Well, there were dark curtains on every side, so I don’t know exactly what happened inside them.”

“…That was a super-creepy comment.”

“What I mean is, Lucia and Angeline, their habits were kind of different from Orsola’s, right? You know, the yellow on their sleeves and skirts. Those are restraining garments the Roman Orthodox Church gave them. When they wear them, they’re like chains and collars, basically saying they can only get a certain distance away from a certain point. Or so they said. They broke out once before, so they were the only ones they gave ’em to.”

“So what are you trying to say?”

“Oh, come on! Get a clue, man. If they were intact, their magical effects would’ve taken ’em down. That would be no good. So, sorry about this, but we used your right hand while you were passed out.”

“Huh?” Kamijou’s eyes became pinpoints.

“I’ll say it even more simply. Their habits went…” Saiji Tatemiya’s lips turned up into a vulgar smile and he pointed at Lucia. Her expression was blank, and the vicar pope had one solemn word.

“…poof!”

Lucia’s face immediately reddened, and with her hands inside her shortish sleeves, she held Angeline and turned her away. It was like a mother trying to use her own body as a shield to protect her child.

He looked more closely and saw a handful of safety pins attached to each of their habits, like Index’s. The golden circlets tight around their foreheads were gone, too.

Kamijou had a good picture of what happened, and it took him a minute to react. “Wait…Such an amazing—I mean terrible—event happened while I was unconscious?! And how am I supposed to deal with Index being right next to me now that she’s remembering and starting to get angry?! I mean, I didn’t see anything, and you’re the ones who did it!! How is it fair to get mad at me?!”

Even as he argued with his words, he was already moving into the early stages of a groveling position. Index was quiet to the wailing Kamijou, but that only made her slow, silent movement of lips and baring of glinting teeth all the more terrifying. The bloodlust in the air audibly whirled around her. Even the veterans of Amakusa started to flee in fear. The entire submersible was wrapped in chaos.

Meanwhile, Angeline pulled her face from Lucia’s stomach and escaped her arms, then seemed to remember something. “O-oh, that’s right! This isn’t the time for…Sister Agnes is still…! Umm, we owe you all a debt for saving us, so we should at least explain the situation…!”

But her stammered, quiet words didn’t reach the ears of Kamijou, currently putting up the defense of his life, or those all around him.

“You’re just always like that, aren’t you, Touma?!”

“But you’re always like this, Index! I’ll admit that there are times people should get mad and lecture others on their faults. But why the heck do you always come in with a biting attack like you’re chowing down on seafood or something?!”

“Umm, excuse me…” Her audience wasn’t listening to her, and Angeline waved her hands in the air, flustered with a worried expression. It was a lot like a bad school debate the way it was going. “Well, umm, we still have a goal to accomplish, so if we could explain about Sister Agnes, that would be really…ahh…”

“It is strange! It’s totally strange! Besides, if you have such a powerful biting attack, you should be using that against sorcerers, too! 103,000 grimoires? That bite is way more dangerous than them!!”

“Touma, Touma. I don’t think I’m easy enough that your plan to act defiant will work!!”

Kamijou, for a change, had turned his back to Index trying to bite him and was running away. The sister in white jumped after him, and the two of them tumbled down to the ground. The girl with the epicanthic folds found herself rolled up as well, and she yelped as she fell to the deck. The white towels she was holding flew everywhere. From nearby he could hear the Amakusa people shouting things like “Itsuwa, now’s your chance! Go for it!” and “Go for a little kiss on his earlobe!” and “At least try to push your chest into him!” and “Shut up! First thing is getting rid of the powerful enemy in the index! Itsuwa, if you’re a woman, then use all your might to kick her out of there!!” Tatemiya laughed as he watched, and Orsola put her hand to her cheek with an “Oh my.” Lucia just sighed in exasperation.

Frankly speaking, not a soul was listening to Angeline.

“Umm, uummmmm, excuse me…!!”

The pace of Angeline’s fluster began to accelerate steadily.

At the moment when it reached its highest peak, her eyes snapped wide open.

She’d made up her mind. Lucia was standing right next to her. She grabbed Lucia’s skirt with both hands.

“L-look! Everyone pay attention!!”

She vehemently flipped up the skirt of Lucia’s habit.

Suddenly.

Everyone stopped talking.

Beginning with Lucia, everyone was startled at the earsplitting silence that followed. Lucia frowned as everyone looked her way, starting to get suspicious of their silence, reminiscent of when the pope waved his hand out the window of a palace. Then, she noticed the odd draft at her legs and looked down, mystified.