“Guard…? Wait, so that whole stinking fleet is just extra?” said Tatemiya, in less of a suspicious tone and more of an astounded one. His expression looked like he’d just seen a trinket that reeked of the nouveau riche, but Kamijou couldn’t blame him. The fleet was already enough of a threat just with that.

“Y-yes. We don’t know what exactly the Queen of the Adriatic is, ourselves…But we think it’s so amazing that we can’t even understand it.”

“After you defeated us during the Book of the Law incident, we were reprimanded and removed from the front lines,” continued Lucia. “We were made to work in the Queen’s Fleet under the guise of repaying the debt we created for the Roman Orthodox Church…But all we were given was direct orders, so we didn’t know what we were actually contributing to at the time.” She loaded up Angeline’s plate with only vegetables and handed it to her, causing the smaller nun to look like she was about to cry. Of course, the taller sister didn’t care.

“When you say made to work, what were you doing?” asked Kamijou with a tilt of his head.

Lucia and Angeline exchanged glances. Angeline said, “W-we were assigned to removing the wind from the seawater…”

“What? Wind???”

“Oh, well, umm. When I say wind, I mean it in the magical sense.”

…“Wind in the magical sense”? thought Kamijou, his eyes shrinking to the size of little dots. He had no idea what the difference was. He was about to say, Hey, what on earth is that even supposed to mean? before Index cut in.

“Hmm. Wind means it was the early steps of alchemy. So it wasn’t physical work but mental work?”

“Then one of the four aspects,” Orsola said. “And if you were removing that, then…”

“That might mean they were making you purposely create something unstable,” Tatemiya continued.

The people from the magical side kept throwing out comments among themselves, and the Amakusa members around them were nodding along in understanding. Kamijou seemed to have lost the chance to ask his question. The obvious bit of knowledge that “any moving air constitutes wind” came to mind, but that was all his brain could think before exhausting itself.

“The escort ships all seem to be using seawater, so I assume they were likely being used for another spell,” mentioned Lucia.

“B-but I can’t think of anything besides the Queen of the Adriatic.”

Kamijou, driven out from the ring of the conversation, tried to dive back into it. “But, err, the Queen of the Adriatic? I feel like I’ve heard that term somewhere besides in respect to the Roman Orthodox Church,” mused Kamijou, putting salad with lots of little octopus legs on his plate.

Index answered him. “The Queen of the Adriatic is one of Venice’s nicknames.”

“Hmm? That means it’s some sorcery deeply related to Venice, right? Like an ocean spell that their branch in Venice created or something.”

“It is that, but…” Orsola tried to give Angeline’s plate some fresh ham, but Lucia politely refused the attempt, saying that she couldn’t baby her. “…Originally, though Venice and the Roman Orthodox Church are both on the Italian peninsula, there is a period in history when they were on extremely bad terms with each other.”

“Huh?” Kamijou frowned.

Orsola continued. “The city of Venice was first created when those who opposed others invading and controlling them fled to the Adriatic Sea. Even after that, their independent spirits left an extremely strong society there; the city even went so far as to reject all counsel given to them to join under the Roman Orthodox Church or the Byzantine Empire.”

Index, eating her buttered, stir-fried Manila clams, said, “Historically, a trader brought the remains of Saint Mark, one of the Twelve Apostles, onto the island of Venice in 829. By doing that, their stance became one of independence for the sake of protecting his rest. Maybe the Venetians wanted the Vatican to see them as equals, since they were doing the same for Saint Peter.”

Lucia nodded as well. “Venice gained much fortune by trading salt and other commodities. Meanwhile, they repelled countless invasions from larger nations like the kingdom of the Franks and Genoa. The city had enough military strength to overtake one nearby city-state after another, such as Padua and Chioggia.” She paused. “That’s how they ascended to being a strong, seafaring nation, not controlled by the Papal States despite how close they were to the Church’s base of operations.”

Next to Lucia, Angeline put some chopped black porgy on her plate. “Apparently, Venice was directly excommunicated numerous times by the papacy over how high-handed the city was. Normally, that would be a death sentence, but the city paid it no mind and continued to expand anyway…The Roman Orthodox Church never knew when the city-state would bare its fangs at them, so they wouldn’t have given them the gift of a giant fleet spell like that. In fact, it was…”

“…a special, huge fleet of ships made to fight against Venice,” said Kamijou quietly, his fork pausing in midair.

“Yep.” Index nodded. “The Roman Orthodox Church at the time felt they were experiencing a crisis, so the Queen of the Adriatic is what they put together so they could bury Venice with one strike if it came to that. A large-scale anti-city spell wouldn’t be able to handle a fleet intercepting it, so the Queen’s Fleet was created as a defensive network against the Venetian navy.”

A huge spell that could wipe out an entire country at once. The fact surprised Lucia and Angeline more than it did Kamijou or Tatemiya. They had probably just been confronted with what they’d been doing this whole time and where they’d been doing it.

“…So they brought out some really old equipment, eh? What are they planning to start, here, with something so ridiculous?” Tatemiya shook his head and gazed out at the off-white lights floating on the distant sea.

Index made a difficult face. “The large-scale spell, the Queen of the Adriatic, can only be activated against Venice. The reason is simple. They were scared of it being stolen and pointed back at them.”

“Th-then they’re actually going to destroy Venice?!” Angeline’s face paled.

This time, though, Orsola frowned. “The Roman Orthodox Church and Venice’s rivalry was a thing of centuries ago. Right now, it’s a world-renowned tourist attraction, and the Church should be benefiting greatly from it as well. I cannot conceive a reason to come here all of a sudden and destroy it.”

“…Maybe there is one—a big enough reason to attack Venice,” said Index into the silence settling around them.

Kamijou gulped audibly. “The Queen of the Adriatic spell is hundreds of years old, too…Can’t say it as well as Orsola, but why now?”

“Hmm…You would think they would be trying to show their authority to outside powers.”

“But the Roman Orthodox Church is already the biggest faction in the world, isn’t it? Did something happen with them recently to make them have to do something like this…?”

Kamijou paused midsentence for a moment.

And then he said, “…The Croce di Pietro?”

Lucia and Angeline were taken aback at the unexpected term. Index and Orsola, who knew the details behind that, shared Kamijou’s expression.

Only Tatemiya seemed to be completely oblivious. “That was the top-tier Soul Arm of the Roman Orthodox Church, wasn’t it? They used it to attack Academy City during the Daihasei Festival, and it didn’t work one bit. Only natural they’d be a little panicked.”

That wasn’t all it took for the science side to defeat the magic side, but it must have had a measurable impact on the Roman Orthodox Church. Their strongest trump card had no effect, so where did that leave their other cards?

“But even if they are showing that they’re panicked, why’d they end up going after Venice? And what the heck was the idiot thinking who planned all this…? Index, do you get anything out of using the Queen of the Adriatic? As in, taking control of towns, like the Croce di Pietro?”

“There’s nothing like that. The Queen of the Adriatic’s only value is in destruction. It’s basically the divine judgment exercised at Sodom and Gomorrah—its effect is that it robs everything of its value. I don’t think it’s going to end up creating anything of value.”

“Sodom and Gomorrah…,” repeated Tatemiya, tilting his wine-filled wooden cup. “That one about the archangel, the POWER OF GOD, raining down arrows of fire?” He started to speak as if he was flipping through a book. “An angel was ordered to deliver judgment on a city of immorality, but there was one pious family there. So before the angel destroyed it, he told that family to run away. And he gave them one rule. But on the day of the destruction, the wife broke that rule, so she was destroyed along with the town…”

“Yep. The Queen of the Adriatic first identifies Venice as a city of immorality, then rains bolts of fire down on it. By doing that, it’ll destroy everything from the city’s center to its outskirts. That’s the first stage.” Index’s voice was flat. “The second stage goes after the people and objects who had left Venice, on top of that. People off on vacation, pieces of art donated to museums, the culture forming the foundation of Venice—it takes away all that stuff. Even the Venetian branches of academics and history might instantly disappear…”

Those were chilling words.

Just the idea was unimaginable, making the sheer scale of it stand out all the more.

It was completely out of the realm of normal imagination.

“Sister Agnes…,” said Angeline suddenly. “I don’t think she knows anything. If she knew what the Queen of the Adriatic was for, she would never keep quiet about it. Maybe you won’t believe me, because we attacked you before, but battling professionals is one thing. I can’t imagine Sister Agnes being okay with killing normal Roman Orthodox followers who don’t know anything about magic.”

“My image of her is not so embellished,” continued Lucia, “but it’s likely true she doesn’t know the details. Considering the situation, the Roman Orthodox Church doesn’t need to explain it to her; they just need to use her and discard her. She is the key, and that is all they see her as. A tool.” Her voice was bitter.

Kamijou felt like he understood both their opinions, but he looked next to him and saw Index frowning just a little. As if she’d noticed something about what they were saying that bothered her.

Tatemiya exhaled quietly. “Well, anyway, guess we gotta get Agnes Sanctis out of there before the spell goes off. Which is obviously way more easily said than done. I mean, if you’re saying they’re gonna blast Venice out of existence, my heart’s not going to let me do nothing about it.”

Lucia and Angeline couldn’t help but fall silent at his realistic words.

“Do we have a concrete time limit here?”

“…No. But now that the fleet has assembled, we most likely don’t have much time. An enormous amount of energy is required to maintain it. And once the sun comes up, it would stand out far too much. Even with a ward against humans, against something that size…”

“U-until now, the ships had each been doing their own preparations separately. And the actual number of ships was only a fraction of what’s there now…But considering they just now made a big move, I don’t think they would purposely wait for a long time.”

“…Which means we’ve gotta get a move on, eh?” said Tatemiya with a hint of tension in his voice.

“Hey, this is a sorcery problem, right? Why can’t we ask the English Puritan Church?” asked Kamijou. He didn’t understand the specifics, but he was pretty sure Necessarius, the group Index was a part of, was made to handle issues like this.

But Tatemiya shook his head. “We already did. London’s pretty far away. And this isn’t some sorcerer’s society we’re looking at here. It’s the Roman Orthodox Church itself. The real thing. If the English Church brings its full force to bear and crushes them, that could cause fissures and problems all across the world. This is already their home territory—if any other religious group starts putting together a large force, they’ll find fault with it.”

According to him, even the fact that they’d helped Kamijou and the others had been a veritable tightrope act. He gritted his teeth in frustration at how the only conditions piling up were disadvantageous. But on the other hand…It’s not over yet. That means that we, at least, can walk the tightrope.

For example, even without calling extensive reinforcements, he believed they could use only the forces present now for legitimate self-defense and just barely have enough of an excuse to cover it.

That was probably why they’d used Tatemiya and Amakusa to save Kamijou and the others, and possibly why they weren’t trying to cut off their connection with Lucia and the other sisters without giving them a chance to explain.

The vicar pope moved his plate and cup on the table to the side, then pushed a big plate full of salad in Orsola’s direction.

“So here’s the situation.”

Tatemiya put a wooden container filled with salt into the middle of the open space with a click.

“This is the Queen’s Fleet. Right now they’re ten kilometers off the southern coast of Venice. They’re far from the main island and also fairly distant from each of the outlying islands. They’re in a good spot; nobody will happen to see them, even if they don’t use a warding spell.”

Next, he took the container of sauce and placed it farther back, about thirty centimeters away.

“And here’s our current location. It’s another ten kilometers south. We can’t see the light from the Queen’s Fleet from here. In this direction, we see the sandbar of Lido at night. It’s a long, thin island that goes from where we are in Chioggia to the main island of Venice.”

“Its casinos are famous,” said Angeline, giving trivia unsuited for a sister and earning her another push on her head by Lucia.

“And…” Tatemiya picked up a wooden fork. “About five and a half kilometers out from the Queen’s Fleet, given the size and angle of the cannons, is probably their search range. If we enter this circle, their cannons will start firing at us and won’t stop.”

Scriiiitch! Tatemiya drew a circle in the wooden table. Centered on the container of salt, the edge of the circle was just about halfway between it and the sauce container. It was like a line of battle.

“In reality, they’re not gonna start firing as soon as we get into range. There’s probably a good dead zone from around four to five kilometers out.”

Tatemiya drew another ring inside the first. It was starting to look like the rings to mark age in a tree trunk. Then, with a pak, he tapped the fork’s tip on the five-kilometer line.

“Simply speaking, we’ll need to move this close to get into the Queen’s Fleet. Our ship’ll be gone as soon as they hit us once. They’ve got a little under one hundred, and each has thirty or forty cannons to a side. They’re all pretty close together, so they can’t all fire at once…but the cannon fire will still pour down on us like rain.”

Scratch! Tatemiya drew a straight line on the table from the salt to the sauce, then started tapping the fork on the inside of the circle marking their firing range.

“So the question is, how do we charge in while avoiding that?” he asked. Then he continued, “Though if we did charge in, we’d have to fight even more enemies on the ships themselves.”

Everybody gulped.

There was a term called fusillade. It referred to a wall made of incoming fire. He was asking how to slip past a thick, solid wall with no holes. It was an impractical proposition.

“Five kilometers…I guess that’s three minutes by train?”

“…Man, your examples are hopelessly homely,” Tatemiya said, rolling his eyes.

He explained. “Five kilometers on land is totally different than five kilometers at sea. Try putting a warship engine in a car. Might actually fly into the sky. Well actually, the car would probably break just from the weight.”

Many thought of seafaring vessels as slower than cars or airplanes, but that was because the water put up a lot of resistance to being displaced. Going straight there was five kilometers, but it felt like many times that. It dragged out the distance, meaning they’d have to make their way in little by little while avoiding the incoming fire.

The more he heard, the more depressing it got. It was enough to ruin his appetite.

“Excuse me. Why don’t we dive underwater and travel there in secret, like you did before?” Orsola asked at length.

“…U-umm, when we broke out, we did sort of the same thing. We used the seafloor coaster to flee. But that’s exactly why…”

Lucia put the nail in the coffin Angeline had set up. “The Queen’s Fleet’s commander is no fool. He won’t let it happen a third time. The leader is called Biagio Busoni. He holds the rank of bishop, but many say his guile exceeds even that of cardinals. I believe he is rethinking his sea-control systems to deal with underwater combat as we speak.”

Biagio Busoni.

“I hear he is particularly good at moving several pieces rather than using his combat prowess on its own. But I’m sure he isn’t simply sitting there being protected by the escorts. Creating a perfect defensive line like this proves he can almost physically feel the movements of his enemies. One doesn’t gain the rank of bishop very easily.”

“??? Wait, so how important is a bishop?”

“A…A bishop can order around a thousand of us nuns to act almost on a whim,” said Angeline, not in a self-deprecating way but in an entirely normal voice.

Tatemiya clicked his tongue. “So we’re just lucky we don’t have that many people after us, eh? Either way, back to the topic, the issue seems to be how versatile the Queen’s Fleet’s combat strength is. They don’t need to stop by a naval port to resupply, since the ships are all made of ice. They’re a real pain, man.”

Kamijou wasn’t sure the religious group that just made a submersible out of pieces of paper had any room to talk, but facts were facts. The great fleet was originally made to avoid the entire Venetian navy. Maybe they weren’t on the right track, thinking they could stand up to it with one or two little underwater vehicles.

Lucia and Angeline clenched their teeth in frustration. An outsider giving an objective viewpoint on their combat potential must have made them realize again where they stood.

“But…Still, we must go,” Lucia said, her face hard.

Tatemiya scratched his head. “Hey, now.”

“I will not ask you to come with us. Asking to borrow a ship would be insolent of us as well. We have a spell to create a seafloor coaster. We really don’t have any choice but to use that to get inside.”

“I-it isn’t like we have no chance of winning…,” Angeline added timidly. Fear was clear in her eyes, and her shoulders were shaking. Still, she didn’t stay quiet. “If we string the seafloor coaster through the water like tree roots…we might be able to stop the fleet from moving. Or we could try to poke holes in their hulls and force them aground—”

Tatemiya cut in. “It only takes one of those rounds to sink our ship. But those ice ships are hitting one another with dozens of ’em, and they just heal up all the damage. I don’t think breaking them’s going to put a dent in their fleet.”

Lucia and Angeline fell silent for a moment. The only things Kamijou heard were their stifled breathing and the sound of waves.

Finally, Lucia spoke. “…Then what would you have us do?” Her teeth were clenched. “Nobody desires the destruction of Venice. At this rate, Biagio’s insensible commands will have Sister Agnes used and tossed away for this insensible ‘Queen of the Adriatic.’ She’ll be left an empty husk, wordless and motionless. Are you telling us to sit by and watch quietly as it happens?” She shut her eyes as she talked. “Why do you think we follow her? Sister Agnes is the one nun who is so faithful in her service to the divine that it gives even me chills. The treasure a church needs is not money or riches—it is people like her. I will not think someone I have acknowledged is at all deserving of such an end…no matter what the case may be.”

“For me…faith doesn’t decide my actions as much as it does for Sister Lucia.” Angeline smiled a little and continued. Not so anyone would agree with her—just to say what she thought. “Everyone’s reasons really depend on the person. Sister Agnes has saved me many times in the past. It wasn’t just one or two times in my life when big things happened. She’s constantly been saving me. I don’t want to say good-bye to her without repaying her somehow. And if I’m going to repay her, now’s the time.”

“…” Kamijou fell silent for a moment. No—he was moved to silence. The words of Lucia and Angeline hadn’t been compelling at all. In fact, they sounded more like a rejection of the others here, an attempt to place them farther away from the rest.

But…

That was just it.

“Hey, Tatemiya. Why don’t you give it a rest?”

“Eh?” Tatemiya frowned.

Kamijou continued. “All this stuff about chances of winning, strategies, practical problems, getting five kilometers in, dying if we take one hit…We get all that, you know? That’s not what this is about. Isn’t whether we want to help Agnes really all we should be discussing right now?”

Lucia and Angeline looked at him in surprise.

Index’s shoulders fell as she breathed a heavy, tired sigh. Orsola lightly rubbed her back to comfort her. They both knew about this side of Kamijou, since they had been personally privy to it.

“Tatemiya,” he said, using his name as the one person representing all of Amakusa. As if aware of that, all of its young men and women looked at him, too.

“Agnes Sanctis isn’t a perfectly good person or anything. But she purposely gave up her own chance of being rescued in order to let her friends escape. She’s about to be used for the Queen of the Adriatic, but she doesn’t know what it’s for, either. They’re going to take advantage of her feelings, use them for their own purposes, and then destroy her. She’ll end up like an empty shell, and then we really won’t be able to save her, and then the curtain will fall. What’s important is whether we should rescue her or not, right? And won’t that prevent all of Venice from being destroyed, too? Isn’t there only one thing to do now?”

Kamijou didn’t look away. His eyes remained fixed on Saiji Tatemiya as he spoke.

“If you don’t want to save her, I’ll go there alone if I have to.”

“Hah,” Tatemiya laughed. Crick! He stabbed the wooden fork into the table. “Seriously, now you’re making me out to be the bad guy here…” He clicked his tongue in frustration. “Shit, that stings. That wasn’t what I wanted to say. We figured out all that a long time ago. That’s why I was asking what we should do next. If being reckless hasn’t been working up till now, then we have to find a way to force it to work.” He shook his head, fed up with all this. “We had a plan ready from the outset.”

Everyone present, Kamijou included, was surprised.

“Whether or not you all agree to my proposed plan depends on whether you think it’s a good idea. I won’t hear any complaints if we mess it up. Well, if you’re complaining, it’s already too late, anyway. What I wanted to know was if you all had the balls to do it. And you came in and took my legs out from under me!!”

Tatemiya fired a really disappointed glance at Kamijou, then looked around. His allies, those young men and women—his treasured friends—were around him. The vicar pope spoke to them next.

“Well, that’s what it adds up to for us. We’re all living through this and coming back. If any of you are thinking you don’t want to die today or that you’ll carry out your own brand of justice even if you die, you should quietly leave now. No compromises. If we go to a battlefield, we’re all coming back. Understand?”

There were no objections. Their silent affirmation represented their shared intent.

Tatemiya asked the next question quietly, like a teacher asking his idiot students a question. “What’s the teaching that our priestess taught us?”

All the members of the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church responded with a shout.

“The hand of salvation for the unsaved!!”

5

After Kamijou, Amakusa, and the others boarded the submersible, it began to move slowly north over the Adriatic Sea—and toward the Queen’s Fleet. They stood on its deck as it floated above the water.

Tatemiya’s weapon of choice was called a flamberge: a giant sword over 180 centimeters long. The double-edged blade featured a wavelike construction, evidently for widening wounds. Unlike normal weapons, it wasn’t made of metal. Kamijou didn’t know what the pure-white blade was made of.

“This thing is better suited to muddy battlefields…Guess I’ll just have to be resourceful, eh?” said Tatemiya to himself, sticking the sword down into the ship.

I guess weapons change based on the place and situation, thought Kamijou. He couldn’t imagine the reasons why; he used just his fist no matter where he was.

Lucia was holding a giant wooden wheel, like one a horse-pulled cart might use. The weighty-looking object had been created using Amakusa’s paper talismans.

“I do sense something of a unique ‘scent’ to it…” She gripped the wheel and slowly swung it, testing how it felt to her body. “…But I can use it. This should be more than enough to use the offensive techniques modeled after Saint Catherine’s Legend of the Wheel.”

By Kamijou’s memory, she was good at making the big wheel explode and using the rain of splinters to attack.

On the other hand, Angeline had a small cloth bag filled with gold and silver coins. She had used the blunt weapon before as a flail, relying on its heavy strikes to attack. “Ah…I can still put in more. But it’ll hurt if I put in this much…M-maybe just a few more…”

With particular attention, she put in another couple of coins, then crooked her head to the side and took them back out of the bag. Lucia approached, her face one of irritation.

“Sister Angeline!” she said. “Why are you being so stingy while making your weapon?! Put in at least this much more! You have to give them what for!!”

“Wa-wah! But if I hit them with this, it’ll do more than hurt them!”

“If you want to talk things out, then you must start by preparing an environment in which you must talk things out. If we could put our hands up, unarmed, and hold a conversation with them, nobody would be having a problem in the first place!”

As Kamijou watched from a distance the noisy argument between the two sisters, he sighed a little. “I feel like…I’ve been misunderstanding the Roman Orthodox Church.”

“Different strokes for different folks, in terms of Roman Orthodoxy…is not quite how it works,” said Orsola quietly, standing next to him. “If someone is in the wrong, it is not the right thing to eliminate that one person. Everyone possesses many things. The negative side of the Church that you witnessed is something I, too, possess…I, myself, once caused a lot of trouble for everyone from Amakusa by not trusting them completely.”

Is that how it works? Kamijou mused. “…I find it hard to compare you to a bad person, though.”

“Now, now. Women have many sides to them, you know,” said Orsola with a smile, her words sounding both somehow dangerous and somehow erotic. Whether it was her clothing or her words and actions, the sister was always—unconsciously—overemphasizing certain things.

Then Index slid in between them. In her hands was a staff. “Here! I borrowed this from an Amakusa person, but I can’t use Soul Arms that need you to temper mana, so I think it’s better if you have it.”

“Oh,” said Orsola, taking the staff. It was made of silver. A small carving of a crouched angel sat on its tip. The six wings extending from its back shrouded it like a birdcage of its own making.

It was the weapon Agnes once used. Amakusa had been the ones to temporarily take Agnes’s unit into custody after she surrendered during the battle over the Book of the Law. Maybe they’d acquired it at that time.

Then Kamijou noticed that Index was staring at him. “Wh-what is it, Index?”

“…” Index was silent for a moment. “Nothing really.”

“What?! Why are you turning away and being all irritated, then?! Not that I enjoy your usual biting overreaction, but such a cool and collected reaction is hard for me to take in its own way!!”

Kamijou’s shout garnered no response from Index as she stormed away. Orsola watched, then sighed and said, “…It’s because you don’t look after her well enough.”

Now that she mentioned it, he and Index were actually supposed to be eating local pasta and going around to famous locations right about now, making all sorts of fun memories. Next thing he knew, this was happening. He thought to himself that Index might have been the one most excited about this trip.

“You condemn your ‘rotten luck’ quite often, but you have no intention of stopping now, do you?”

“…I’m like an idiot father too wrapped up in his job.”

The submersible proceeded ever onward. He thought he could see the off-white glimmer of the Queen’s Fleet growing slightly stronger.

“This should be a good spot. Let’s get started.”

Tatemiya took a bundle of paper bound by a rubber band out of his pants pocket.

Kamijou frowned. “Start what?”

“Taking on this Queen’s Fleet of theirs is a bit much for one ship to handle, y’know? So, well, we’re just gonna make ourselves a bit stronger. Check this out.”

Tatemiya took off the rubber band and flung the entire bundle of papers overboard with a rustle. All the Japanese papers were strewn about like confetti as they danced through the air and fell to the dark water’s surface below. Finally, the thin paper melted into the seawater.

Boom!!

As the papers expanded with the moisture, they created stacks and stacks of lumber, which then came together to form a sailboat. Unlike those in the Queen’s Fleet, the minor details of its construction felt more Japanese than anything else. The new ship was thirty meters long, seven wide, and a little under twenty high including the mast. Compared to the one-hundred-meter-long ships in the Queen’s Fleet, it looked pretty meager.

But more than one or two ships appeared. Several dozen came up out of the water at once. As the boats expanded, they pushed and jostled against one another, seeming to force themselves into existence. One bounced into the submersible Kamijou was on as well, and the ship shook to the side.

Kamijou regarded the sight with blank amazement. “…We’ve got a fleet, too? Why even bother with a plan in the first place? Can’t we just ram it into the Queen’s Fleet?”

“You’re thinking a wee bit too highly of me. And take a good look. These things aren’t warships like theirs are. No cannons anywhere, see?”

“…?”

He was right—they had nothing that resembled cannons. The walls and ornaments on the ships also looked pretty delicate, weak to impact. Did that mean they were really just sailboats? “What are you going to do with such weak-looking ships?”

“Here’s how it goes. Warships ain’t the only things that fight on the sea. Our Amakusa religion developed in secret by blending into our location and its customs. That means, of course, we’ve studied English history, too.”

Tatemiya grinned and continued.

“You ever heard the story about how the English sank the Spanish’s infamous invincible armada?”

6

Ship 43 of the Queen’s Fleet was an intelligence ship specializing in reconnaissance. Sister Agatha, who was permanently stationed there, was standing before the giant wheel at the very front of the ship’s deck when she gasped. There was a small table on either side of the helm, and several documents made of ice were stuck to them. On the thin ice tables, modeled after old parchment paper, were displays containing various real-time information: everything from maps and charts to the ship’s status.

One of those stood out. The ice document displaying the nautical chart of the water in and around the Adriatic began to give a warning ring. Below the cloud of chess-like pieces representing the Queen’s Fleet, several new pieces appeared and began to approach at a high speed.

“Bishop Biagio!!” she shouted.

“I see it,” came a voice that seemed to vibrate the air itself. “Give me the details.”

“Thirty to forty ships detected approaching from the southern Venetian Bay on the Adriatic! Their speed is…very high! They will arrive at the main ship’s position in a little over fifty seconds!!”

A little less than five kilometers remained between them and signs of the ships that had appeared. Calculating from the distance and time showed that they were moving at approximately 360 kilometers per hour. But the fundamental basis of speed on water was different than that on land, due to the big difference between air resistance and water resistance.

The speed was, by all rights, absolutely impossible. Even the science faction’s high-speed craft could reach only about ninety kilometers per hour. One would need a whole lot of power to move 360 kilometers per hour over water, and too much of it could cause seawater to force its way into the ship. Their enemy was forcing it to work in spite of that.

“Can you sink them?”

“Ships Twenty-Five through Thirty-Eight, deployed south of the Queen of the Adriatic, are in position to fire. If other ships change position while those ones are intercepting, we may be able to prevent them from slipping by.”

“Be quick about it. They’re after the Queen of the Adriatic. Do not allow them to make contact.”

“Understood!” declared Agatha as she relayed the situation and targets to all the other ships. New ice documents floated up to the tables on either side of her, displaying things such as the Queen’s Fleet’s positioning and firing lines.

Four and a half kilometers to the new ships.

“The sighted group of ships will make contact with this fleet in fifty seconds! Sink them before they reach us!!”

No sooner had she barked the order than one explosion after another began to pound on her eardrums. The Queen’s Fleet had just fired a whole slew of rounds.

Agatha called up another ice document, watching as several thick columns of water arose on the night sea and projected on the paper’s surface. A few of the enemy sailboats began to sink, one after the other.

But they weren’t stopping. They used their own allied ships as springboards to bounce across the water’s surface, drawing even closer.

Are they using the ships in front as a shield…?

Agatha began to feel doubt. But still, they didn’t look like they were protected by special armor or defensive spells. The enemy boats were going down easily, not attempting to dodge the cannonballs as they approached. Not even trying to take evasive maneuvers, even though more than ten of them had already taken direct fire.

The distance between them closed in the blink of an eye.

It was only a few hundred meters now, and the enemy ships had yet to fire a single bullet.

…Wait. Agatha looked again at the enemy ships displayed on the ice document.

And then she gave a surprised start. Those ships had no cannons.

“Which means…All ships, defensive maneuvers! The enemy, they’re…!!”

But before she could finish her command to all the ships…

The wooden boats didn’t slow down as they plunged toward them at an insane speed, mercilessly stabbing into the sides of the Queen’s Fleet’s escort ships. But they didn’t stop there. The wooden boats began to emit light from inside them, and all of a sudden, there was a big explosion. It was like the entire boat had been a giant bomb.

Kaboom!! came the roar.

The surface of the water whipped about madly, and Agatha shouted out, her body now pressed against the helm. “Those are fireships—unmanned warships built to self-destruct!!”

As he listened to the explosions, Tatemiya quietly closed his eyes. “Fireships were the first unmanned weapons made to travel across the water, before torpedoes were invented. Normally you use pretty small boats for it, but when faced with the Invincible Armada, the English navy loaded up their actual big ships with explosives and rammed them, unmanned, into the enemy.”

Kamijou had to sigh. “And while they’re distracted by all the nonsense here, we go right up next to them? That’s a pretty messy plan.”

“Sister Agatha.”

“Agh…Y-yes, sir!” answered Agatha to Biagio’s voice, her ears pelted with one exploding fireship after another.

“If their goal is to stop the Queen of the Adriatic’s activation, then I doubt their attack will end on the perimeter. They have something else. Figure out what.”

Agatha’s eyes flew over the ice documents on the table. The information from the sea charts and maps was blurring heavily in response to the explosive impacts, making it very hard to read.

If the fireships aren’t their main plan…then their flagship is somewhere else. But…

She changed the magnification, but though she checked five kilometers, ten kilometers, and twenty kilometers out, there were no such ships to be found nearby. Maybe three civilian cruisers were on the water, but those wouldn’t be it.

Agatha considered zooming out even farther, but then her hand stopped abruptly.

…“On” the water?

Several ice sheets disappeared. In their place arose one, standing up on its side, with a sea chart on it. A block of ice, with the same width and depth as the sheet, appeared on the table. It wasn’t displaying the sea horizontally: It was a vertically oriented map.

In other words, it was searching toward the seafloor.

“There it is! Giant structure spotted eighty meters south and forty meters below the Queen’s Fleet…It’s the submersible again!!”

“We’ve been noticed…,” said Tatemiya, suddenly raising his head.

As if in response, the voices of the Amakusa members controlling the submersible came back to him.

“Enemy cannons confirmed! Estimated firing angle: thirty degrees! They’re clearly aiming underwater!”

“Movement detected from enemy ships in the south. They appear to be taking a formation to prevent us from rushing them!”

Artillery warfare was invisible—or rather, by the time you saw it, it was already too late. You couldn’t normally move around in sea combat as quickly as you could in the air, so it was essentially impossible to evade or shake off enemy attacks at these speeds.

Therefore, the basis of marine warfare was to find a place where you could shower the enemy in attacks and not be fired at yourself. It was a theoretical battle, and one that actually started before any cannons fired. With the natural state being the lack of a reaction, and any reaction immediately spelling defeat, the battle was a mental one, marked by heavy silence.

And…

“Several firing axes are aiming at the submersible!”

“They’re handling both vertical and horizontal axes! This is sooner than we thought! At this rate…!!”

“This is the worst…,” muttered Tatemiya bitterly. “All hands, brace for impact!! Watch for enemy fire! If this ship takes just one of them, it’s—”

Before he could finish, a storm of explosions took away all sound.

“Successful hit on the submersible! Its movement speed has decreased!!”

“Good,” responded Biagio to Agatha, his voice a little less tense. “The same trick won’t work three times. We were prepared for an anti-submarine bombardment.”

What he’d used were shells that froze all the seawater in close proximity. The submersible was now surrounded in thick layers of ice, unable to move. And because of the ice’s buoyancy, they could do nothing and wait for the submersible to rise above the surface on the artificial glacier. Then, they could bombard it with normal shells and destroy it for sure.

“Approximately sixty seconds until the enemy ship completely surfaces. In the meantime, we’ll prioritize the remnants of the fireships…”

“Sister Agatha! It’s an emergency!!”

Then, a different voice from Biagio’s cut into the communication. It was one of the sisters she worked with.

“The enemy has boarded Ship Twenty-Nine! Based on their equipment and spell usage, it has to be Amakusa!!”

“What?!” Agatha doubted her ears.

Then she looked again at the ice sheets on the table. An unmanned fireship had rammed into Ship 29 before…but when she looked at it, it was undamaged. If the fireship had exploded, the ship would normally have been heavily damaged…

That meant one thing.

“They prepared one ship that wouldn’t explode at all, boarded it, and then blended in with the other fireships as they rammed it…Are you saying that submersible was a second-level decoy…?!”

Touma Kamijou jumped from the “moored” wooden boat to the ice ship. Following closely, Index, Orsola, Lucia, Angeline, Tatemiya, and the members of Amakusa all began to board one after another.

“Don’t think about taking over every ship! They have way more people than we do, anyway! Just think about destroying the core of their operations!!”

“Their flagship…Where’s the Queen of the Adriatic?!” Kamijou looked around, then spotted an even more giant ship than the others several hundred meters away. But there were over ten ice ships in the way just in its shadow.

“We’ll handle making bridges between the ships! Anyway, you all get to the flagship…”

Another voice overlapped with Tatemiya’s. It was a woman’s, like someone announcing something to the ship. “All passengers of Ships Twenty-Nine, Thirty-Two, and Thirty-Four, evacuate immediately! If you don’t have the time, go into the water! Our fleet will now destroy those three ships, then re-create them!!”

“Shit!” spat Tatemiya. “They’re gonna wreck these ships again! Hurry up!!”

Tatemiya scattered a wad of papers into the surroundings. They expanded vigorously, then began to change shape into a wooden arch bridge stretching from ice ship to ice ship. However, before they could cross, there was cannon fire from nearby. It didn’t need to be a direct hit for Kamijou to nearly fall over onto the deck from the shock wave of the blast alone. “Urgh!”

Even groaning like that was wasting time. The giant ships here and there began to collapse like earth. Ship walls were ripped away, falling into the sea and raising thick columns of water.

The spray made it onto the deck. One of the masts, so thick he wouldn’t be able to put his arms around it, bent under a strike from a cannon.

“Index!!”

Kamijou grabbed Index’s hand, who was shrinking in fear nearby, and ran, pulling her out from underneath the falling mast. Ka-thud!! The pillar fell over. Miraculously, it created a bridge that went to the ship nearby.

Kamijou didn’t hesitate to jump on.

The Amakusa people, beginning with Tatemiya, climbed atop the wooden bridges they’d prepared and began to disperse onto the other ships.

He held Index’s hand as they crossed the sea and moved onto the adjacent ship. He looked back to see Orsola, angelic staff in hand, also following the mast and making it to the ship they were on. A moment later, a second wave of cannon fire slammed into the previous ice ship, causing it to list. The broken mast forming an arch was dragged away and into the sea.

“Touma, what about everyone else…?”

Most appeared to have used the wooden bridges Amakusa had prepared, but he saw several jumping into the water. He unwittingly clenched his teeth in frustration.

Next to him, Orsola said, “They each possess a talisman that will allow them to create bridges and ladders. They decided they should head for the water for now because it would give them a chance at victory.”

Her opinion could be called rather hopeful, but he had no choice but to believe in it for now. In either case, there were over ten meters from the deck to the water. Kamijou’s hand would never be able to reach them.

“Damn it! Let’s crush the Queen of the Adriatic fast!!”

But just as he was about to make for the Queen’s Fleet again, there was a fwump as a new set of footsteps caused him to stop in his tracks.

Standing on the big, stagelike deck were dozens of sisters. Like Lucia and Angeline, each wore a mainly black habit with yellow skirts and sleeves attached—they were the laborers of the fleet. And part of Agnes’s unit as well.

The sisters more than likely knew why Kamijou and the others had come here, but they didn’t say a word to them before brandishing their weapons. Some looked like weapons and some didn’t—they possessed everything from swords, axes, and staves to Bibles and torches.

Those sisters were the only ones here.

Overseers were supposedly on board as well, but they were nowhere to be found. Maybe it was their plan: to leave combat to the workers and flee on their own to a safe place. Considering their strategy was to sink entire enemy ships, though, that didn’t seem to be working well for them.

“…You know what’ll happen to Agnes, right? And you’re still not gonna take our side?!” shouted Kamijou.

One of the sisters, however, shook her head. “Unfortunately, we do not have time to let emotions get in the way of our jobs,” she declared, representing all those present.

“I’m sure they don’t actually think that,” said Orsola to him, truly sounding pained. “Even they probably have yet to realize it. However, they are certainly loyal to Miss Agnes and serve under her. She is their leader, and they believe she will overcome this for them. It must be painful. They’re wishing, deep down, for her to turn things around.”

“…” They were not allowed to express themselves with words, so they were sending out an SOS using a different method. A situation where they had to hurt each other, contrary to how they felt. When he thought about that, Kamijou’s fist naturally tightened.

As if in response, the dozens of sisters all took a step forward.

Only seven meters separated him from the wall of enemies.

And then it happened.

Whoosh!! A small shadow flew over Kamijou’s and the sisters’ heads.

He looked up. There, flying ten meters in the air, was a thrown cart wheel.

“Sister Luci—?!”

Before one of the enemy nuns could finish saying her name…

Bang!! The wheel exploded with force. Its trajectory had been an odd one, avoiding only Kamijou, Index, and Orsola as all the little wooden splinters shot straight down. It rained destruction. The sisters tried to use their weapons and spells to guard against it, but their entire front line still staggered.

“Over here!!”

He turned to the shout and found Lucia and Angeline, who had crossed over to this ship by a different route. The edge of the deck was right behind them, and a bridge made of wood linked it to a nearby ship.

A moment later…

“Passengers of Ship Forty-One, evacuate immediately! If impossible, to the water! The main fleet will sink that ship and re-create it afterward!!”

Tension broke out around them. He didn’t have to know the details on their ship numbering to know they meant here.

“Quickly!!”

Lucia shouted, urging them toward the bridge, but it was then that the scared sisters all moved at once.

Not to flee—to make sure Kamijou and the others couldn’t do the same.

“You…All of you, idiots! If you have the gall to do this, then why don’t you try to save Sister Agnes?!”

With a wave of her hand, Lucia reverted the wooden fragments scattered nearby into the shape of a wheel. With that in hand, she dove toward the sisters.

But before combat began, the roar of a cannon shot ripped through the air.

“Gwahh?!” cried Kamijou as it slammed against his eardrums. With the thunderous roar, a cannonball from the escort ship right next to them stabbed into their ship. The entire deck began to sway heavily sideways—it had been a direct hit.

And the second wave wasn’t far behind.

This time, the cannons creaked as they pointed farther up, as though targeting the deck this time.

The cannons’ bores pointed right at Kamijou’s group. The black holes stared at them like the eyes of monsters.

Just then…

“Vieni! Una persona, dodici apostoli, lo schiavo basso che rovina un mago mentre e quelli che raccolgono!!” (Come! One of the twelve apostles, tax collector and humble slave who destroys sorcerers!!)

The shout came from Angeline.

The four coin bags she carried responded.

Red, blue, yellow, and green. The heavy pouches sprouted wings in four colors, and each rammed into a nearby mast like an iron fist. The strike focused on one point, crushing the pillar of ice at its roots. The giant mast swayed and began to fall.

One moment later.

A barrage of cannon fire pelted the toppling mast. The bombardment aimed at Kamijou’s group had just barely been blocked by Angeline’s quick reaction.

The mast, its role as a shield over, burst apart from the impact before it hit the deck.

Its fragments scattered in every direction and rained down on them. Fragments each as large as a refrigerator.

“!!” Lucia lifted her giant wheel overhead and immediately caused it to explode. The wooden splinters collided with many of the mast’s icy fragments, but it couldn’t repel all of them.

What chunks of ice made it through headed for the Roman Orthodox sisters.

Toward the group of nuns once called Agnes’s unit.

When Angeline saw that, she began to run for the sisters despite their being her enemies.

“I…Where are you going?!” Lucia blasted a shout.

Ignoring the amazed nun, Angeline called back her four coin pouches, then she tried to drive away the giant masses of ice pouring down.

But the coin pouches’ cloth ripped, and the coins went flying everywhere.

“Withdraw, Sister Angeline!!” Lucia shouted to Angeline; there was nothing she could do anymore. Lucia looked around and saw the boy named Touma Kamijou running toward her. Most likely to tackle Angeline out of the way.

However…

Angeline didn’t step back.

Not that she couldn’t—she took another step forward. She clenched her teeth and rammed into the chest of the sister closest to her. The girl, dumbstruck and unable to move, bounced backward and started to fall to the deck.

After Angeline had seen her to safety, she tried to duck for cover.

But the refrigerator-sized chunk of ice landed right next to her a moment before she could.

Upon colliding with the deck, the ice sprayed another rain of boulder-sized fragments.

Boom!!

With a dull noise, the girl’s small body flew into the air.

“Si…!” shouted Lucia, as if watching something unbelievable. “…Sister Angeline!!”

The sisters nearby wavered for a moment as they saw Lucia about to run for the short, fallen sister. But then, perhaps remembering their mission, they brought their weapons up, when just then…

“Man. This is the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen! I’m disappointed!!”

Tatemiya and the members of Amakusa had made a wooden bridge from a nearby ship and jumped, moving between Angeline and the sisters to form a wall.

He brought a wad of papers out of his pocket, then threw the entire stack at Lucia. “An escape submersible. Doesn’t offer much, but it’s better than sitting in the middle of enemy territory. Don’t use just one. All you gotta do is spread out some fireships and mess up their detection capabilities, and you’ll have a lower chance of getting sunk!!”

Lucia ran over and stuffed the papers in her sleeve. It was all Tatemiya could say; Agnes’s unit wasn’t weak or dumb enough to let her simply use the talismans. If she panicked and brought out the submersible, the other ships could focus their fire on it, sinking it.

But now wasn’t the time for that.

There was something more important than their mathematical probability of victory.

“…Sister Lucia. Your hands…They’re shaking.”

“Of course they are!!”

“That’s…silly. I wouldn’t die in a place like this, ma’am…” Angeline squeezed out each and every word. “…We’ll all…go back together, right? Sister Agnes, and us, and those people over there fighting…Everyone means…everyone.”

Creak-creak. The cannons on the ship next to them moved into position again. They were preparing for a third wave. But Lucia wouldn’t take her eyes from Angeline.

“So I…won’t die. You promised, too, ma’am…so I won’t, either. So please…Sister Lucia. Don’t worry about enemies…or allies…Won’t you fight with us…to just protect…everybody…?”

“…” Lucia gritted her teeth. With a ka-boom, the nearby escort ship fired at them.

The attack, however, did not crush their flesh.

Something blocked the immensely powerful cannon fire: a single right hand.

Reaching out from the side to block an unwanted guest, the completely regular boy’s hand caught the magically launched ice cannonball and crushed it with the power of his five fingers.

“Do it, Lucia. Promise,” he said. “If I can help, I’ll blow away as many of these bullshit illusions as I have to. So promise her! Say it, so she knows it was a good thing she was here! So she can believe it was worth enduring the pain!!”

“Yes.” She looked at Angeline and quietly said, “I promise you I will protect everyone. So you must fight your own fight as well.”

The small nun smiled a little at her voice.

More cannon fire struck the ice ship, rocking it. Kamijou’s right hand couldn’t block all the shells—there were too many. It wasn’t safe here. It wasn’t safe anywhere. After Lucia squeezed the fallen Angeline’s hand, she stood up with it still grasped in hers. She couldn’t use the wheel like that, but it didn’t seem to bother her at all. It was simply a display of intent: that she would fight alongside her, even if it put her at a disadvantage.

The sisters began to move forward to follow Lucia as she retreated.

But Amakusa and Kamijou’s group formed a wall between them.

They were all staring in the same direction.

The flagship, the Queen of the Adriatic, was just a few ship crossings away.