CHAPTER 4

Steel Swarm Covering the Sky
Cruel_Troopers.

1

Kamijou ran through the streets of Avignon.

Despite all their earlier terror, the rioters were no more. Most of them had been exterminated.

With overturned chunks of pavement and broken buildings’ stones all over, the roads were in no condition for them to advance normally.

A slew of cars were sitting around, too. Kamijou burst through the smoke and gunpowder-corrupted air, running through holes in walls and scaling the occasional piece of rubble on his way to the Papal Palace.

Powered suits were swarming the streets. Some on the road, others on the tops of buildings. If a quick glance showed this many of them, there must have been hundreds, even thousands of them in all of Avignon.

Damn it. What’s going on here…? he wondered, running through roads that had been flooded from burst water pipes while being careful to avoid fallen streetlights. The Church set up this war, right? Academy City should be trying to stop that. How the hell did it turn out like this?!

Something important was missing in this battlefield.

The smell of blood.

The powered suits’ anti-bulkhead revolver shotguns seemed capable of using different bullets for different purposes; blanks were the only things hitting live people. The colossal amount of explosives they used, though, made those shots into shock waves, and their sonic shells were mercilessly mowing down Avignon residents.

Here and there were hills made of unconscious demonstrators. Just nearby were exoskeletons, inflating giant balloons with bulletproof fibers woven into them.

For reconnaissance…? He’d seen something like this in an Academy City–made drama.

They were loaded with small cameras and moved through the sky by warming the air—like hot-air balloons. Their shortcoming was their extreme battery consumption due to the electronic reactors they used to heat the air. Still, they were quieter than propellers. Above all, each unit was cheap and well suited to carrying around.

The balloons that the powered suits were inflating now were many times larger than the ones in dramas. These even had gondolas on them, with the same bulletproof fibers as the balloons’ bottoms.

They were probably used in a similar way as regular hot-air balloons. Essentially, they were to toss unconscious people in while leaving it to the floating machines to eject them from the battlefield.

He glanced around again, finding the black balloons floating all over the sky like dandelion fluff adrift in the wind.

That view was, ultimately, how many people the powered suits had mowed down.

“…”

Perhaps they were thinking the same as Tsuchimikado.

The rioters strutting through the confined Avignon were making the mission difficult. The enemy with the document could have also been blending into those riots to flee. Therefore, they would first quell the riots, then get to work on their main objective.

However…

“Tsuchimikado wouldn’t have done it this way…”

“Huh?” Itsuwa turned her head toward him, but Kamijou didn’t answer.

As he ran, he balled his hands into tight fists, looking at the exploded cars. Putting their own actions above everyone else, using violence to force the people in the streets to submit…He’d never accept this kind of method!!

Finally, Kamijou realized what one of the General Board, Monaka Oyafune, had wanted to stop. She didn’t simply hate the Roman Orthodox Church. She didn’t want him to defeat Academy City’s enemies, either. Everything had been about wanting to prevent this situation—this all-destroying “conflict.”

I’ll stop it. Kamijou clenched his teeth and ran through the town-turned-battlefield. There’s no way we can leave this destructive vortex alone. If someone shows up and tries to justify this situation even a little, I’ll smash their illusion to smithereens!!

“W-we’re here. It’s right over there…!!”

In the meantime, Kamijou and Itsuwa arrived at the Papal Palace.

From the name, he’d imagined a magnificent church or a glittering palace, but what actually stood before them was a stronghold from the Middle Ages—more a fortress than a castle. The giant building, constructed with multitudes of quarried rocks and boulders, even seemed to make those who witnessed it feel rejected.

The moment he saw the Papal Palace standing proudly and looking down at him with an outer wall over ten meters tall, Kamijou scowled.

“A crack…,” mumbled Itsuwa, carrying her spear.

The giant double-doored front entrance had been blown out from inside, and the windows on high floors had been smashed up along with the walls nearby. He started hearing sporadic gunshots and the sounds of explosions.

“Damn, it’s already started. Let’s go, Itsuwa!!”

“R-right!!”

Going into a building noisy with gunshots was far from a normal thought to have, but they had no choice.

2

Motoharu Tsuchimikado had blood on him.

It wasn’t from being shot by powered suits; rather, it was a side effect of using his origami sorcery to divert their attention.

But now he had a chance, incredibly slim though it may have been, as he ran down the narrow, winding road before rolling behind a parked car.

Several reports screeched through the air toward him.

Those blanks were strong enough to suppress insurgents, even though they were nothing but masses of air. In one volley they shattered the car’s glass, sonic masses pounding on its metal doors and instantly denting them.

You’ve gotta be kidding me…Tsuchimikado tsked, still clinging fast to the side of the car. He wouldn’t easily die if one hit him but getting knocked out was a foregone conclusion. Now motionless behind his shield, Tsuchimikado suddenly heard a dull bang!!

Surprised, he whipped his head around—just as one of the several powered suits that had been pursuing him bounded over ten meters through the air with shocking power and readied itself straight above him.

“Shit!!” Tsuchimikado immediately retreated, just as the suit’s massive bulk crushed the car underfoot. Unable to stand the weight, the vehicle crumpled and exploded all at once. Tsuchimikado took the shock wave and was sent careening farther than his own jump.

As he bounced and rolled onto the road, the powered suit in the flames calmly aimed its gigantic shotgun muzzle at him.

He was in an area with cliff-like buildings lined up on either side of a tight road. He tried to swing around a corner to use a building as a shield, but the powered suit moved before he could. A mass of air fired with a crack, landing a hit on his leg.

The leg sweep sent him tumbling.

As he lay on the ground, he managed to round the bend.

Guh…ahhhhhh?!

He looked around his ankle and saw it change to a bluish black. His bone seemed to have managed to remain unbroken, but he made no mistake: It would limit his movements.

As far as I can tell, there are…fourteen powered suits. Their armor looks thin, but they’d be able to take an anti-tank missile head-on. Plus…

As he listened to the mechanical operations from around the corner, Tsuchimikado took out emergency tape from his pocket and tied it firmly around his ankle.

…they’re using the new drive compensators. They’ll learn from the battlefield conditions and adjust themselves to give the most efficient performance.

Using such weapons would be more or less effective given the environment, such as a tropical rain forest or Antarctica. In a desert, sand getting in would require care, and in wetlands, one would need to make sure mud didn’t get caught up in it.

Most machines were maintained to be easy to use in specific environments, their weapons’ features naturally changing with the region, but these powered suits were different. These machines would scan the nearby environment and automatically adapt themselves to it, allowing them to perform well at default settings in battlefields throughout the world.

And they’ll be exchanging their auto-adjust info to every unit in the operation. Ha-ha…They’ll probably know how to traverse Avignon better than the locals.

Maintaining balance was the bottleneck for legged weapons, but Tsuchimikado wouldn’t be able to use that weakness against them. Even if the ground under them was falling apart, they’d walk more skillfully than a human and overcome it.

Damn. How do I attack…? He muttered to himself as he double-checked the tape on his ankle.

And all the while, they were approaching.

3

The Papal Palace’s interior was spacious.

But it had a loneliness to it, Kamijou thought. There were no things here. Not even wallpaper—the stone walls surrounding them stood bare. Other than the evenly spaced pillars supporting the ceiling, nothing was in here. It was like a pyramid after someone had run off with all the treasure.

Like we thought…It doesn’t look like the Church stationed a major force in Avignon. If they’re only using a small elite team, does that mean they want to hide the document from the rest of the Church, too? Terra might even be the only one on the team.

“It…doesn’t look like anyone is here,” said Itsuwa, holding her spear at the ready. This place was open to the public on weekdays for tourists, but that was out of the question right now. Avignon had been scared of the rioters’ shadows until now, and the building was the center point of the rampaging powered suits.

The gunshots and explosions continued even now.

If they were continuing, then was there an actual battle happening rather than just a one-sided subjugation?

Other sorcerers besides Terra seemed to be here in Avignon to use the Document of Constantine. Academy City’s powered suits were one thing, but the Church was another. They couldn’t afford for both factions to attack them here and now.

However, Kamijou’s pace had slowed. “…Those powered suits…Where did they come from anyway?”

“Huh?” Itsuwa looked at him.

“Are there Academy City people piloting those, or did they lend them to some group?” he continued. “Besides, they can’t possibly hide them after standing out this much. What the heck is Academy City planning to do…?”

His cell phone had a television function. Making any careless noises in this situation was dangerous, but he decided he wanted information more.

After making sure nobody was around, Kamijou got his cell phone out and turned on its television, but it didn’t show anything, probably because it didn’t work with overseas stations. He thought for a moment, then brought up his saved numbers list. He chose one and called it.

“Misaka!!”

“Wh-what?”

He was calling Mikoto Misaka.

“I wanted to ask you something. Do you have time right now?”

“R-really, now. It has to be me, does it? You can’t ask someone else? My mother, for example?”

“Huh? …Oh, right, I guess so. I could just ask Ms. Misuzu instead of you.”

“Non, non, non, non, non!! H-hold on—didn’t you call me because you wanted to ask me something?”

“??? Well, I suppose you’d be better than Ms. Misuzu since you live in Academy City.” Kamijou was a little confused but got to the point. “Can you turn on the news? Or the Internet. I want you to check foreign news to see if something’s happening in a city called Avignon.”

“What?” muttered Mikoto, probably because the question was so sudden.

…That was what he thought anyway. Apparently, the reality was different.

“What the heck are you talking about? There’s news flashes going on every television in the city. Avignon is that city in France, right? They’re talking about how some religious group made special weapons of destruction against international laws and started trying to gain total control of the place.”

“…What?” said Kamijou, startled.

“Seems like the French government would normally settle this, but they needed experts in special technology, so Academy City is pretty deeply involved…Wait, where are you anyway? I’d think it would be harder to find a place where you didn’t get this information.”

“Um, well, that is…,” stammered Kamijou, wondering how to fool her, but his thoughts were interrupted.

The roaring had ceased.

The sounds of battle, mostly gunshots, had suddenly stopped without him realizing it. The painful silence of the Papal Palace’s normative state was slowly returning.

…

Mikoto said something on the other end. Kamijou didn’t answer her. He held his breath and listened, but he still didn’t hear anything at all.

He exchanged glances with Itsuwa and slowly walked forward.

What is this…?

He felt an indescribable sense of tension seeping to him from down the passage, from between the walls, from past the doors. It was like the very air around them was being remade into something other than what was already here.

Kamijou couldn’t penetrate the cause.

Because before he could, the answer came from the other side.

Wsshhwwsshh!!

With a roar, the thick wall right next to Kamijou suddenly broke.

The identity of what had crashed through the wall was quickly found to be a powered suit. It rammed into Kamijou, instantly knocking him to the floor. The cell phone in his hand clattered away, its liquid crystal display smashed to bits.

“Urgh?!”

Itsuwa hastily thrust her spear’s head toward the attacker, but her hands stopped halfway.

The powered suit’s limbs were hanging limp, driven to a state of dysfunction. Someone had thrown it—that seemed the most apt way to describe it.

Cylindrical objects were scattered around where it landed—juice can–like cylinders, 350 millimeters wide. Were they the shells for the suit’s anti-bulkhead shotgun? A giant revolver that looked like their source was lying nearby.

“Ugh…” Kamijou stood up and shook his head, then heard the ka-click of a footstep.

He looked up.

Itsuwa had her spear up, standing before him as a guard.

Past her…

…on the other side of the wall, broken down by sheer force, was a sorcerer holding a giant white blade.

Terra of the Left.

The man who had just used his prioritize spell to destroy the powered suit didn’t have a bead of sweat on him.

“You certainly got me good,” he said in a slow, relaxed tone with just a hint of irritation mixed in. “To stop the chaos of the riots, they caused an even greater chaos to swallow it up. I suppose Academy City is quite serious about this in their own right. They must want to deal with this little thing even if it draws a certain amount of international criticism.”

His left hand, opposite the one holding the white guillotine…

…gripped a rolled-up piece of parchment. A small paper, condensed to about fifteen centimeters long and three centimeters in diameter. Sealed with wax, it was none other than…

“The Document of Constantine…,” breathed Itsuwa, amazed.

The Soul Arm was mighty enough to make someone believe anything the speaker said was completely correct in Roman Orthodoxy. If Terra had it, rather than the original caster using it, that meant…

“I say, they are quite the bothersome lot. I could easily rout them all myself, but when they focused their attacks on the caster using this, it affects even my spell usage. I swear, my body’s makeup is such a problem, what with it unable to use human techniques. Average spellcasters ended up holding me back because of it…so I suppose calling it quits here would be for the best.”

“You think I’ll stay quiet and let you go?” demanded Kamijou, slowly readying his right hand. “You can use the document even after you go back to the Vatican. You know that, and you still think I’ll let you go?”

“But what’s the point? Even the forces of Academy City suppressing Avignon here cannot stop me. Do you mean to say your right hand surpasses them all? Have you any proof for such a declaration?”

“…” Now that the gunshots in the Papal Palace had ceased, it was best to think Terra had defeated all the powered suits attacking it.

Boasting that much true power, the man laughed, further scorning Kamijou and Itsuwa. “Still, I suppose it would be difficult to convince you while doing nothing,” he said, putting away the document in his left hand and calmly taking up the white guillotine in his right.

“Please fight to your heart’s content and resign to your heart’s content. I do so love it when things are interesting.”

4

The Avignon townscape was coming down, piece by piece.

With blanks like shock waves, the knocked-out rioters were being dragged away by sturdy powered suits, piled up into mountains, thrown into balloons woven with bulletproof fibers, and then sent off to who knew where.

In the midst of it all ran Motoharu Tsuchimikado.

Changing from one position to another, from behind rubble to behind cars, he continued his flight from the powered suits pursuing him by making minute changes to his movement. Despite making a myriad of course corrections to put himself behind as many obstacles as possible, bursts of gun discharges were still intermittent. He had to avoid flat ground as much as possible, choosing places with fallen streetlights or ruined roads to advance, but…

Shit. This isn’t enough to trip them up. Those drive compensators are really working…!!

Regardless of being unbalanced bipedal creations, and despite their considerable weight, the powered suits didn’t seem harried in their movements in the slightest. This wasn’t the kind of walking they’d done on flat ground, with each step a destructive stomp, but rather smooth, cockroach-like movements.

These powered suits would scan and automatically optimize for every environment and circumstance. They advanced as fast as cars and tread across the ground more lithely than the average human as they chased Tsuchimikado.

Checkmate would only be a matter of time.

Tsuchimikado stopped in the middle of the road. The tall buildings to his left and right were in tatters, blocking it off like a landslide. The rubble was fairly large. He’d be able to get over it if he grabbed the fragmented bumps and climbed, but the powered suits wouldn’t give him that kind of time. They’d shoot him in the back as he clung to it, and that would be the end.

The ka-click of metal sounded behind him.

A dull sound like gears turning.

A chill crawled up Tsuchimikado’s spine. He hadn’t heard this sound yet—the sound of something switching. It was easy to imagine what had caused it.

…The anti-bulkhead shotguns.

It was the sound of them switching from their riot-suppression blanks to the real bullets, the kind that could break down nuclear shelter gates.

Here it comes!! Without turning around, he jumped to the side with all his might. A moment later, the burst of an explosion hit his body. The landslide of rubble blocking the way forward vanished into thin air with a roar. That single shot had opened up a circular hole meters wide.

“…!!” Covering his ears, Tsuchimikado glanced behind him.

The powered suit aiming its fist-sized barrel at him put its finger to the trigger again.

Avignon’s roads were narrow.

It was impossible to jump to the side any farther to dodge.

“?! Hey, wood-for-brains, you can at least serve me as shields!! Use the green tree talisman and protect my body!!”

The same moment Tsuchimikado took out a piece of origami and shouted, the gunshot roared from right in front of him.

With a thunderous bang!!, dozens of anti-matter shots burst forth—only to bounce off the tiny shield in front of Tsuchimikado. They scattered, destroyed the surrounding buildings’ walls.

A chunk of blood spurted from his lips.

The side effect of sorcery.

Nevertheless, he took out another piece of origami, black this time, and shouted.

“Wake up, you shitheads. Bust up everything so we can go home laughing!! The color black is the symbol of water. Use its violence and open the path!!”

A watery orb about one meter across suddenly appeared out of thin air. It shot into the powered suit, sending the machine flying backward all at once.

But that was the limit.

Tsuchimikado’s side was slowly leaking blood now from using sorcery in succession. He tried to put his hand on what remained of an old building, but his legs gave out from underneath before it reached.

“Damn…”

A quick glance around revealed several exoskeletons. Others were aiming at him from building tops, too.

…As Tsuchimikado checked where each of them was located, he slowly raised his hands. He moved his lips and produced the words: “I surrender…Do with me what you wish.

“That is,” he added, “if you can.”

The instant he said that, a change occurred in the powered suit that held its barrel toward him.

Ga-clunk.

The powered suits, which had been moving more fluidly than normal humans, had suddenly tensed up. They quickly began to do an actions check, but they simply creaked and groaned as though their gears had clogged. They couldn’t move a finger, so he would hear no gunshots.

“You want to know?”

He slowly approached and communicated with them.

They may have been powerful weapons, but people like him were controlling them.

“You’ve got those new drive compensators in those things. Whether you’re in a desert or Antarctica, the machines will automatically investigate the environment and do their own maintenance for you.

“But,” he said, “that can end up tying you down in certain cases. You know how automatic systems can have errors when you travel a series of routes with specific conditions? To put it simply, it’s a security hole—tell it to turn right and turn left at the same time, give it any contradictory conditions, and its decision-making functions will dull. The HsPS-15 just got displayed in an interceptor weaponry exhibit. Did you forget it was a prototype?”

To make matters worse, this version of the powered suit was built to share everything. In other words, if one malfunctioned, they’d all be affected.

Tsuchimikado drew close to one stopped powered suit, then wrenched the anti-bulkhead shotgun out of the machine’s arms. “…One drive compensator’s error will propagate to all the rest. If you want to get out, you’ll have to switch the ejection function to manual and do it yourself. It’s an annoying process, too, so it’ll take you ten minutes at the least,” he said, putting the huge shotgun, which looked like a sawed-off tank cannon, on his shoulders.

The people inside the powered suits seemed to be listening to him in shock. Not even they knew about their machines’ issues, so how did this man? They couldn’t imagine the answer.

Meanwhile, Tsuchimikado gave a punch to a nearby powered suit’s armor and continued, fed up with them. “If you’re going to come out, hurry up. If the Avignon rioters know you won’t attack them, they’ll be all over you in a heartbeat.”

With those words, he began to hear creaks and clangs from inside the suits. They seemed to be considerably panicked. Tsuchimikado thought to himself as he watched them.

Now then…He’d succeeded at temporarily disabling the powered suits, but the soldiers themselves weren’t dead. This is where the real deal starts, he thought.

For now, they were immobile until they restored their ejection functions and came out. Once they were out of their combat states, he could talk with them, too.

Should I explain that I’m an Academy City spy first? No, wait, I’m acting out of line with the higher-ups’ intentions. Jeez, I hope I can discuss this without making things worse.

As Tsuchimikado mulled over how his negotiating should go, his thoughts came to a halt and he abruptly looked up.

A roar.

His eyes showed him jet-black bombers circling leisurely through the blue skies.

There was more than one of the one-hundred-meter-class aircraft. Over ten bombers were drawing wide flight arcs around Avignon airspace.

The sight of their unique silhouettes made Tsuchimikado clench his teeth. Academy City’s HsB-02…Our supersonic stealth bombers?!

He and Kamijou had used a supersonic passenger plane that could produce speeds of over seven thousand kilometers per hour to get to Avignon. These stealth bombers used the same technology. With their incomparable speed, it was said they could shake off homing missiles just by flying straight.

Thinking calmly, there had been just one issue: the question of where on earth all these powered suits in Avignon had come from.

This was the answer.

Bombers from Academy City loaded with powered suits had carried them to France in an hour, and they’d dropped them all with parachutes into Avignon’s outskirts. It was an incredible feat of brute force, but Academy City’s elaborate technologies had made it possible.

Of course, the HsB-02s were loaded up with more than that. They would have what they needed to do what they were meant to do: bombing runs.

Damn…, he cursed, glaring up into the sky. They dropped the powered suits first to make sure the Document of Constantine was here in Avignon. Now that they have, are they going to use those bombers to blow the entire Papal Palace away?!

It was a crude, easy-to-understand mission, but given the effects of the unique spell Terra of the Left possessed, it was hard to imagine the mission bearing any certain results.

With a bang, Tsuchimikado slammed on one of the powered suits’ armor. “Hey! How is the evacuation of Avignon’s citizens going?! When are they carrying out the bombing?! Don’t tell me they’re using the brand-new HsB-02s so they can use that here!!”

As he shouted, he felt impatience creeping into his mind. What are you thinking, Aleister? The others aside, you know full well what the sorcery world is like. If you could completely settle everything with normal military action, there would be no groups like Necessarius around. Did you not realize this wouldn’t be enough to be sure you’d destroy the Document of Constantine?

Or, he thought, a different idea coming to him, could you…have yet another trick up your sleeve?

5

Nine thousand meters above Avignon.

Inside one of the eleven HsB-02 supersonic stealth bombers rode a Level Five esper with a cane. Normally, the large space would have been loaded with bombs, but here, only the Level Five and several maintenance crew members were present.

A shrill alarm bell and messages full of static came over the speakers attached to the bomber’s interior. Hearing this, one of the maintenance crew members turned to look at the Level Five.

“Operational objective A accomplished! Now moving to operation B. When operation C begins, this partition will open. Get your parachute ready!!”

“Don’t need it,” answered the Level Five tiredly to the maintenance crew member.

The Level Five was relaxed as he leaned on his cane, staring at the thin monitor attached to the wall of the craft.

Man, this is such a pain. I’m a busy man, you know. Who told them they could start shooting things up outside Academy City? God, just let me get this crap out of the way and get back to the real stuff.

Avignon seen from the skies above was a small town surrounded by old walls. The tall buildings inside it looked crammed into a confused jumble, probably because the walls limited the amount of land available.

The Level Five saw it and chuckled. “Ha-ha. Just like a miniature Academy City.”

“What?”

“Nothing. When did the world get this convenient? Seriously, one hour to fly from Academy City to France?”

“I-it’s not all convenient,” responded the crew member to the Level Five, choosing his words carefully. “For supersonic aircraft, the drag causes the exterior surface temperature to skyrocket. At top speed, it can get close to one thousand degrees, so liquid coolant pipes have to be strung up all throughout the craft.”

“Liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen?”

“Yes. Pipes with low-freezing-point coolant go through these tanks to amplify the coolant’s effects. This liquid oxygen and hydrogen is also used for space shuttle propellant, and this craft uses it as one of its fuel sources…In other words, the more fuel runs out, the more coolant effects it loses.”

“Which is why you were saying we were stopping at London on the way back instead of just making a U-turn. Can’t believe you got permission to let this bomber get refueled. Japan isn’t even allowed to have bombers in the first place,” he said, astonished, as another alarm bell came over the in-flight speakers.

After hearing the announcement, the maintenance crew member raised his voice. “Beginning operation B!!”

As he spoke, four of the bombers flying nearby veered from their circling course.

They flew some fifteen kilometers away in a turn, slowly expanding their circle’s radius. Then their noses turned, and they abruptly accelerated.

The four aircraft were tracking through the air together in a square formation, and there was a piece attached to those bombers that was different from the one the Level Five rode in:

Jet-black blades, half the total length of the aircraft.

The blades could retract and extend like police batons. Their surfaces, made to compress electricity, featured patterns and irregularities that could be controlled on the micrometer level.

The massively long and delicate blades began to swing around from the supersonic bomber’s acceleration force, slicing through the skies at over seven thousand kilometers per hour.

Just that made the generated downward-facing blades insanely destructive.

If a small amount of iron sand was also mixed into those atmospheric blades, what would happen?

The answer appeared a moment later.

Crsshwoosh!!

The four bombers carved a square into the land around the town of Avignon.

The blades’ surfaces had only scattered a few grams of iron sand.

But with their immense speed of over ten thousand kilometers per hour, the metal powder had skipped melting and vaporized. Despite being kilometers up in the air, the gaseous blades cleaved into the earth with a temperature exceeding eight thousand degrees Celsius, leaving an orange glow behind.

Guh-chunk!! The bomber the Level Five rode on shook.

A friendly supersonic bomber had passed by them, stirring up turbulence.

“…!”

The Level Five placed a hand on the nearby wall but didn’t take his eyes off the monitor.

The first thing to be created was a ditch, twenty meters wide and over ten deep. Immediately after, those ditches melted in the orange and collapsed. The geology itself was roiling like magma. In a flash, the ancient city of Avignon was isolated by a river of molten rock. It cut off electrical lines and water pipes, and even forced apart the flow of the river Rhone passing near the town. Flooding was already starting to occur around the town’s outskirts.

With this, the people in the ancient city of Avignon were completely trapped.

The town extended beyond Avignon’s ramparts, too. He remembered hearing that the powered suits had forcibly removed civilians from the areas that were now molten lava beforehand, but he was pretty sure nobody was about to thank them.

Hah. Just three kilograms of iron sand, and those Earthslicers can rip apart all of Eurasia in an hour. Academy City’s making some interesting stuff.

Normally, bombers had an escort of several fighter craft. Unlike the smaller jets, hulking bombers couldn’t make tight turns. If one tried, it would immediately decelerate, and if things were really bad, its momentum could crush the plane and it would break apart in midair. If an enemy got a lock on one, it had no way to dodge the missiles. It could fool the lock to a certain extent with things like chaffs and flares, but those weren’t perfect, either. Therefore, the only option was to station fighters around the bombers as an escort to help them avoid missile locks.

Those rules, however, didn’t apply to these supersonic HsB-02 bombers.

If all they could do was go straight, they’d make a plane that could shake off missiles just by flying ahead.

They would make it happen by giving it the overwhelming speed of seven thousand kilometers per hour. Air-to-air missiles fired by fighters were nothing, and even ground-to-air missiles waiting beforehand at the bombing point would barely have time to acquire a lock before the bombing run was done and the bombers were already outside missile range.

High-speed bombing tactics that defeated the old rules of air combat with brute force. Add Academy City’s own high-efficiency stealth tech to the mix, and it became virtually impossible to stop an HsB-02’s attack before it happened.

“Isolation of operational area confirmed!!” shouted one of the aircraft crew.

The bombers that fired the Earthslicers got a good twenty kilometers out and began to decelerate. Meanwhile, they stopped creating any downward wind currents, probably because they adjusted the patterns on the surface of their blades.

“Now beginning aerial bombing of all operational areas, including the objective zone!!”

The Earthslicers appeared to be an extremely unsubtle attack, but by electrically manipulating the “pattern” on the blade’s surface, the bomber could make attacks not only in a straight line, but in arcs and pinpoints as well, able to deliver surgical destruction like cutting pieces out of a jigsaw puzzle. If they wanted to, a single bomber seemed to be able to create several lines simultaneously, too.

“This bomber’s course will now change to secure a flight route for the eight units conducting the bombing. Brace for sudden impact!”

Their next attack target was the old city of Avignon itself.

The target wasn’t just a single building like the Papal Palace, but the entire region they called the “ancient city.” The powered suits that had dropped earlier were there as well, but the pilots had a sort of transmitter. That signal alone was enough for the bombers to avoid those spots while burning the rest of Avignon to the ground. The pilots would pretend to be locals and move to the nearby Mediterranean shoreline, then use submarines stationed there to leave France. It would obviously be too conspicuous to go long distances while wearing the powered suits, so they’d have to leave the irretrievable equipment on-site and destroy them.

But if the operation went as planned, the grounded forces would have to get through the sea of molten rock on their own. They probably had some kind of gear for that, too. The entire city would conveniently be turned to lava around them, and it would create something of an updraft, so maybe they planned to use portable gear that applied the principle of dandelion fluff and go for a little sightseeing flight.

“…” As far as he could tell from the monitor, there were still quite a few people in the ancient city of Avignon who were late to escape. Those lucky enough to be near the forces would be saved, but most of them would be burned down by the eight-thousand-degree blades.

“Change of plans.”

“What?”

“We’re after the Papal Palace, right? Focus your attack on that first. If you still don’t get results, I’ll go down. And if you lose contact with me, then you can go ahead and bomb the entire ancient city.”

“I, well…The Level Five drop operation is categorized under operation C. Normally defeating the enemy forces is calculated under operation B, so—”

“Change of plans,” repeated the Level Five.

The crewman’s spine stiffened. He must have just remembered why this Level Five was on the bomber.

He was their bomb.

And like a nuclear bomb or a hydrogen bomb, he was loaded on the big bomber to be dropped into the mission’s operation area.

The crew member grabbed the radio in his lap and started communicating with someone. He seemed to be negotiating with the higher-ups handling the operation, and after repeating the exchange several times, he put the radio down and quietly looked at the Level Five.

“…R-request accepted. We’re changing our plans for operation B and focusing our attacks on the Papal Palace.”

His face was clearly baffled as to why his stubborn superiors had accepted so easily. Meanwhile, the corners of the Level Five’s lips turned up. “That’s fine.”

“B-but how will you…?” asked the man.

The Level Five tsked, unamused. The monitor showed the isolated town of Avignon and the people fleeing like little grains of rice. “Maybe it’s all the same to you, but there’s different types and levels of evil.”

An electronic tone echoed through the craft—they were probably starting the procedure to open the partition. As he listened to it, the Level Five spoke to the crew member.

“And first-rate villains don’t go after honest people.”

6

A roaring sound, many times louder than sprinkling cold water on a burning-hot metal plate, reverberated through the Papal Palace.

Something seemed to be happening outside the building, but neither Kamijou nor Itsuwa nor Terra looked outside.

Kamijou got his right fist ready and glared at Terra.

About seven meters separated them; he was already inside the range of Terra’s flour guillotine. Plus, he had his special prioritization effects.

The floor was in poor shape. Fragments of the stone wall Terra had shattered were scattered about, along with several cylindrical shells that must have been from the defeated powered suit.

“I’ll ask one last time. Any intent on handing over the document quietly?”

“No, none at all. Please die the warrior’s death you desire.”

Upon hearing that, Kamijou sprinted forward.

Terra matched his movement by swinging the flour blade in his right hand.

Kamijou stuck out his right hand, taking up a defensive posture while running, but…

“Prioritize—atmosphere as lower, flour as higher.”

Shoom!! With a roar, the weapon instantly expanded.

Now a giant fan shape about three meters across, the guillotine flew toward Kamijou, engulfing a ton of air on the way.

“?!”

Kamijou couldn’t react.

Itsuwa, who had run for Terra at the same time as him, grabbed onto Kamijou’s arm. She jumped, dragging him to the side, and a moment later, the “mere air” that shouldn’t have had any hardness or sharpness to it ripped through the floor and wall of the Papal Palace. Several shells littered about the floor burst like fireworks. The blast was like a shock wave and almost made him choke.

Itsuwa gently let go of his arm.

Then, with motions unimaginably quick considering that act, she put up the spear in her hands again and drove it at Terra’s throat like an iron stake.

Boom!! The sound of air splitting apart rang out.

“Prioritize—blade as lower, human skin as higher.”

With a few words from Terra, Itsuwa’s attack bounced off his skin.

Only the geen!! sound of vibrating metal echoed through the Papal Palace.

A stinging pain engulfed Itsuwa’s hands, as though she’d stabbed a boulder.

But she didn’t stop moving.

Her spear still flat, she kicked up a small rock at her feet, launching it sharply at Terra’s eyes.

Terra didn’t turn his head; he didn’t even close his eyes.

Instead, he casually swung his arm.

The horizontal sweep plunged toward the rock, Itsuwa, and Kamijou—who was charging in from another angle—as well, forcing them all back a distance.

With a dull wham!! Kamijou and Itsuwa were thrown to the floor.

As she tried to get back up, the girl grimaced. “Ow…?!”

They had fallen into a spot with a great amount of debris from the wall Terra had destroyed. She’d fallen on top of it, and it had damaged her ankle.

And Terra wasn’t about to let that go by. “Prioritize—human flesh as lower, flour as higher.”

The guillotine flew.

Itsuwa, who couldn’t move with her hurt foot, immediately brought her spear up.

Just then, Kamijou broke in from the side.

He stuck out his right hand, sending Terra’s attack scattering in all directions.

A thunderous roar!! sounded.

When Terra tried to swing his right arm again, this time Itsuwa shoved Kamijou to the side, then pushed off her injured foot to jump in the other direction.

Terra’s guillotine crashed into the spot between them.

“Oh, how valiant,” said Terra with a short laugh, staring at Itsuwa as she held in her pain. “But you’re at your limit. Dragging your heels…in a literal sense.”

Those words made Kamijou flare up.

Itsuwa, though, stated, “…Yes.” Yet there was a smile on her lips. “But you finally showed an opening. A critical one.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“That thing Mr. Tsuchimikado was about to say. The priority spell you’re so good at, Light’s Execution—it has a weakness. He was right. There was something unnatural about what you did just now…”

“Oh?” said Terra offhandedly, amused.

Itsuwa slowly leveled her spearhead at Terra. “The Amakusa-Style Crossist Church doesn’t use any incantations or magic circles. Instead, we combine magical symbols left over in everyday items and customs. Looking for those symbols is what we’re good at.”

“I see. That is indeed troubling,” said Terra emotionlessly. “Still, there’s no time for you to apply that knowledge now that you’ve realized it, I think?”

Terra raised his right hand above his head.

The guillotine there sharpened like a screw and drove up toward the high ceiling.

“Prioritize—ceiling as lower, flour as higher.”

And when his hand jerked, as if to pull a light cord, it came.

Tug.

Like a trap in an old castle, the ceiling on this floor suddenly came tumbling down.

The pillars supporting the ceiling began to sink into the floor with unnatural smoothness.

“!!” Itsuwa hastily put her spear straight up.

It stuck between the fallen ceiling and the floor, allowing them to just barely avoid being crushed to death.

But because of that, Itsuwa no longer had her weapon.

And that was when…

Terra’s guillotine came swooping mercilessly in.

A booming roar burst out.

Terra’s blade came in horizontally and landed directly on Itsuwa’s unarmed torso. She bent over at the impact, and with a dull sound, her body went flying back. It bounced a few times on the floor, rolled several meters away, and finally lost its momentum, coming to a stop.

She stayed down, body limp.

Her arms and legs were sprawled out. Kamijou could see her chest slowly rising and falling, so she didn’t appear to be dead yet, but it didn’t look like she’d wake up anytime soon.

Damn it…, thought Kamijou, gritting his back teeth. “Itsuwa!!”

“Well, that’s about how it is. A simple sorcerer thinking she could stand up to God’s Right Seat was a mistake to begin with,” boasted Terra as the fallen ceiling slowly began to rise back to its former height. The compressed pillars started returning to their original lengths as well.

Itsuwa’s spear, which had avoided being crushed, clattered to the floor.

“You…” Kamijou slowly, slowly began to tighten his right fist.

But even upon seeing his face, Terra didn’t look any less calm. “Oh my. It won’t do me any good if you get angry like that. We’re in the middle of a battle. I’m sure you’re not about to tell me to hold still and not attack so you can keep punching me forever, yes?”

“…”

“And I must say, I’m quite disappointed myself. With a name like Imagine Breaker, I thought I’d have a more difficult time of it, but I hadn’t thought it was so imperfect. If its original abilities were restored, you could have easily protected that sorcerer from my attack.”

“What?” Kamijou frowned.

The Imagine Breaker—its original abilities.

Kamijou unwittingly looked at his right hand. Terra saw it and gave a thin smile.

“Oh. Could it be that you don’t know?”

“!”

“Keh-heh…Well now, that can’t be possible. Normally, you would need to know about it. Which means…hmm? Could it be…that you don’t remember something that you should have known?”

“You!!”

“Was I spot on? Oh my. I seem to have found myself an entertaining research subject indeed!!”

“…!!”

Maybe it was illogical to get angry right now.

But for Kamijou, who was an amnesiac, those words were enough to bore a hole into his heart.

“Ha-ha!!” Terra burst out laughing as he watched his adversary manage to wobble up to his feet. “I see, I see, so that’s how it is! I certainly don’t recall any reports to that effect, but…Could you have been hiding it? What for? Did you make sure to tell that sorcerer taking a rest over there? Maybe it would be interesting to look into why you lost your memories, hmm?”

Damn it all!!

Anger dominated Kamijou.

He had decided not to tell anybody he’d lost his memories for the sake of the girl in white—the first person he’d met after losing them. That was the rule he gave himself. It was something he had to uphold. That rule being broken now, and like this, was enough to almost drive him mad.

“Well, what’s the problem?” Terra of the Left laughed. “You’re about to die anyway, so why bother worrying? I don’t know what’s getting you so gloomy, but I’ll do you a favor and get rid of it all.”

With slow motions, Terra brought his blade up. Kamijou clenched his back teeth so hard he thought he’d break them.

…That blade’s destructive power isn’t the fatal part, he thought, glaring at the white powder roiling around Terra. The problem is that prioritizing thing…He can use it for both attack and defense. If I can find a weakness in it—if there really is one—I can use it to drive him back!!

Both Tsuchimikado and Itsuwa had declared that there was one.

It could have also been a riposte to Terra of the Left—or more simply, a mere bluff.

No, there’s something, he thought, gauging the distance between them. Now that I think about it, Terra’s attacks have been somehow strange. But I was brushing it off as a fortunate miscalculation and didn’t really think about it. How he…

“Oh, you won’t be coming to me?” mocked Terra, waggling his flour guillotine. “Then waiting for you would be a pain. Allow me to make the first move!!”

He flung the white blade as he finished speaking.

And as Touma Kamijou watched it come right before his eyes, he…

7

Shwoom!! As the flour blade came rushing at him, Kamijou didn’t bring his right hand to meet it.

Instead, he swung his head out of the way to dodge the strike.

As he did, he bent backward as though falling to the floor and picked up a fragment of the ruined wall—a rock the size of a bento box.

Then he rose again, flinging it at Terra like a counterattack.

“Prioritize—building stone as lower, human skin as higher,” sung Terra.

The rock hit him in the forehead, but he didn’t even blink.

At the same time, Kamijou’s hand dove into his pants pocket. Terra’s eyes sharpened. Kamijou ignored it, grabbing what was in there and hurling it straight at him.

The flour guillotine howled.

But when he looked at what its tip had just sliced, he frowned.

It was a simple wallet.

Kamijou had thrown a piece of leather with no use as a weapon at all. When he saw Terra’s reaction, he spoke. “I wonder why that is.” His words were cutting. “You could have easily turned away Itsuwa’s spear and Tsuchimikado’s spell, so why didn’t you block a simple wallet with your prioritization?”

“…?!” Terra flung his flour guillotine at him, as though trying to shut him up.

Kamijou turned it aside with his right hand and went on. “Now that I think of it, it was strange.”

He stepped forward, cutting through the powdery remains of the guillotine.

“It was strange how Itsuwa and I are both still alive after getting hit with that white blade. You’ve got no reason to hold back, and you don’t seem the type to let the loser get away. Which makes things simple. When you slashed us with the blade, it wasn’t that you purposely left us alive. It was that you couldn’t actually kill us, no matter what you did.”

The force of that swinging blade alone wasn’t enough to kill a person because Terra was using his prioritization spell to strengthen it.

Which meant…

“Your prioritization isn’t very flexible. Your blade always lost strength right after you stopped one of our attacks. Which means you can’t use it against multiple targets at once. If you want to change from one prioritization to another, you have to set it up every single time. Something like that, right?”

“Heh,” chuckled Terra. The corners of his lips softened, and he brought his giant blade up again. “So that was what you lot meant by the Light’s Execution’s ‘weakness.’”

He almost sounded relieved that the mystery had been solved.

“After all, I haven’t fully adjusted it yet. I will admit I was somewhat interested in what you had to say.”

The clergyman smiled.

“However,” he went on, flipping back into his typical scorn, “so what if you’ve figured it out? Terra of the Left isn’t so weak that you could defeat him like that!!”

With the sound of ripping wind, the white blade flew.

Kamijou blocked it with his hand, and as Terra backstepped to gain distance, he chased.

“Terra!!” he shouted, but the man was faster. He swung the flour guillotine again, bringing it stabbing straight down.

“Prioritize—floor as lower, flour as higher.”

The thick stone floor was blown away, and its fragments rushed at Kamijou. He jumped aside to dodge them. “What’s the reason you’re going this far?! You got not only us but everyone in Avignon wrapped up in this! Is whatever you’re doing really worth all this?!”

“Hah, I do believe half the blame belongs with your Academy City, am I wrong?!” answered Terra, retreating with short hops and gathering the floury powder at his hands. “All of Crossism shares one final goal—the kingdom of heaven.”

“What?”

“Oh, but were you of a Crossist culture, you’d know it better than the colors on traffic lights. Well, you do seem to be from a Far Eastern island nation, where organized religion runs thin, so I suppose there’s no helping it.”

Terra spoke with light boredom and disappointment.

“After the Last Judgment, God will build a new kingdom with his own hands. Only those whose faith runs deep will be permitted a sojourn in its eternal salvation. Don’t you think it’s truly wonderful? That is where I aim, and I was fortunate enough to help others toward that same goal.”

Terra fired the flour guillotine, and Kamijou repelled it with his right hand.

Several of the cylindrical shells on the floor began rolling around with the wind pressure.

As he watched his weapon scatter into powder, he said, “But then I had a thought, you see.”

No wind was blowing, but the powder began to return to Terra’s hand unnaturally and systematically.

“Wouldn’t man wage war in this holy land? Even if God built a perfect kingdom and called together the faithful and just from around the world, would the group called mankind be able to answer God’s expectations?”

Kamijou ran forward, listening.

Terra flung his guillotine to stop him. “Suppose I lead the faithful of Crossism to this holy land. But even the Roman Orthodox Church is separated into countless factions. If God used the search condition of ‘only pious Roman Orthodox followers’ to grant salvation, it would mean the Church’s faction problems would carry over into that land.”

The flour wriggled in concert with Terra’s right hand and changed into a giant blade.

The white guillotine and Kamijou’s fist collided.

“…No matter how perfect the kingdom God builds, if the humans inside it break up in an unsightly way, what’s the point? If we brought the same old wars into this so-called perfect kingdom, everything will have been for nothing. You cannot call that ‘eternal salvation.’”

Even as Kamijou nullified the flour guillotine with his right hand, he listened.

Terra, too, moved forward, realizing it was pointless to retreat any farther.

“We want salvation. And I want to give salvation. Even if God’s plan is perfect, if we, mankind, fall below his expectations, everything will start over! I want to know!! Is humanity doomed to warring within the holy land as we stand now? And if so, I want to know what direction I should steer everyone in before the Day of Judgment!

“And that is why I am in God’s Right Seat!!” he roared.

Unlike his fellow member Vento of the Front, he had chosen this path himself, for the sake of the Roman Orthodox Church. If he had gone that far, then maybe he really was trying to protect all those who believed in the institution.

But…

“…Is that all salvation is?” asked Kamijou, unwittingly clenching his back teeth.

The face of Monaka Oyafune came to mind, who had taken a bullet to get him to act.

He thought about Tsuchimikado and Itsuwa, who had fought alongside him.

“It’s not like the Church is wrong. I don’t think the teachings of the Church that raised Orsola and Agnes have grown into this. You’ve got a problem before that. You have no idea what the word salvation even means!”

The rioters all about the town of Avignon.

The powered suits that had come to suppress them and been crushed by this man.

“There’s no way your God spread teachings so that they would create this kind of war! That’s bullshit. If you insist on redefining what salvation means so that it satisfies you alone…”

He simply set his eyes forward, sending a glare at the man before him.

There was his enemy.

“…then I’ll tear down that screwed-up illusion here and now!!”

Kamijou dove at Terra.

The man retreated farther, readying his guillotine. At this rate, Kamijou would never catch up, no matter how long he chased.

But he advanced anyway.

The bottom of his foot caught a powered suit shell on the floor, but he ignored it and stepped forward with even more force.

Then he used all his might to kick something at his feet ahead.

It was the Friulian spear Itsuwa had dropped.

The spear didn’t get kicked up easily and went sliding across the floor. It collided with the barrel of an anti-bulkhead shotgun that a powered suit dropped; its trajectory curved somewhat but still slipped toward Terra’s feet.

“!!” Terra swung down his guillotine and smashed Itsuwa’s spear. He could have avoided the attack simply by lifting his foot, but he expressly used the guillotine to block it.

Just like I thought. Meanwhile, Kamijou stepped even closer to Terra, sharply making his way toward the man, more deeply than he’d been able to get thus far. If Terra himself had so much strength to begin with, he wouldn’t need that whole “priority switching” magic at all. He wouldn’t have to switch them; people at the top were already at their highest point. It doesn’t mean they have high physical abilities. In other words…

Kamijou’s conclusion was reached.

He poured every ounce of strength into his right fist.

…Terra of the Left isn’t strong at all. This bastard’s just been watching from a safe distance, pretending he’s strong. But there’s no way he’s stronger than Itsuwa or me, when we’ve actually been on the battlefield personally!

After smashing Itsuwa’s spear to the floor, Terra countered, muttering his “priorities” and launching his flour guillotine. But Kamijou’s right fist destroyed the attack.

“You’re too slow!!”

His fist flew at Terra’s face.

A dull wham!! burst out.

He felt his tightly clenched fist make a direct hit from the recoil.

He’d put all his weight into his right arm, so his body pitched forward.

I got you!! he thought, confident.

But Terra didn’t go down.

“You…bastard…You heretic monkeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!!”

With an angry scream, the man’s strength returned.

The scraping sound of shoe soles resounded on the floor. Terra’s foot got caught on a powered suit, almost tripping. He lost his balance and leaned back, but his will to fight hadn’t broken. He swung his right hand from his unstable position, sending the flour guillotine stabbing toward Kamijou’s gut with all his might.

“Prioritize—human body as lower, flour as higher!!”

The blade he fired had been set to cleave a human.

Meanwhile, Kamijou punched Terra in the face again, sending him flying.

In this state, it would be hard to repel the guillotine with his right hand. The same went for twisting himself out of the way.

—!! Kamijou suddenly stomped hard on an object at his feet.

It was an extremely thick-barreled anti-bulkhead shotgun—the one from the powered suit Terra had destroyed.

The shotgun was on an oblique angle atop a pile of debris, and when Kamijou stomped on it, it swerved like a seesaw, the hunk of metal standing straight up in front of him in reaction.

“That is…quite naïve of you!!”

But Terra’s expression didn’t change.

The anti-bulkhead shotgun was heavy and not easily brought to bear. Even if Kamijou had grabbed onto the giant firearm, it would take seconds before his hands could aim it in this state and pull the trigger on his enemy.

His desperate recovery had failed. Terra’s guillotine crashed toward Kamijou’s side, encompassing the anti-bulkhead shotgun he’d frantically tried to grab as it went.

A tremendous sha-bam!! echoed throughout the Papal Palace.

Red blood flew.

The slimy liquid dropped from Kamijou’s mouth as he doubled over. Unable to block it with his right hand, unable to twist himself out of the way, he had taken the hit straight to the gut. Energy seeped from his body.

“Wha…?”

A gasp.

But Kamijou wasn’t the one who produced it; it came from Terra of the Left’s mouth.

It was only natural. He’d strengthened his guillotine with his prioritization spell, and yet Kamijou’s body hadn’t come apart in two pieces.

“…” Kamijou grinned and tightened his right fist around the guillotine poking into his stomach.

That was all it took to blow the flour blade to smithereens.

Terra tried to retreat, but Kamijou stepped forward before that.

He was within firing range of his fist now.

“This result is absolute nonsense…The Imagine Breaker should only work in your right hand. What happened? Could this heretic monk have possibly already…that power—?!”

“It’s nothing like that,” said Kamijou, clenching his right fist tightly. “This didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Then—?!” Terra tried to shout, but Kamijou moved first.

He aimed straight at Terra of the Left’s face, colored by shock as it was.

“Think I’ll answer you?”

A dull whump!! rang out.

This time, Terra’s body hit the floor.

8

“Urgh…” Kamijou held his stinging belly, strengthened his wobbling legs, and managed to prop himself upright. The guillotine hadn’t torn his abdomen, but there was a nice bruise there expanding to quite a range.

I’m saved…somehow.

As he looked at the anti-bulkhead shotgun, twisted from the impact, and Itsuwa’s spear nearby, he breathed a sigh of relief. The last flour guillotine Terra had thrown out…The attack aimed at him should have, of course, been loaded with the spell saying “prioritize the guillotine’s strength over Kamijou’s body.” If it had landed directly, it probably would have easily torn through his gut.

But Kamijou was alive—thanks to the powered suit’s anti-bulkhead shotgun, which he’d kicked upright at the last second.

Terra’s prioritization was strong, certainly, but the priority could only apply to one type of item. To change the priority from one item to another, he had to reset the conditions every time.

In other words, in a state where the guillotine’s strength was prioritized over Kamijou’s body, it wouldn’t particularly affect anything besides his body. If you stuck a different object between Kamijou’s body and the guillotine, the guillotine would stop. Things like air or wallets were soft to begin with, so they wouldn’t do much, but the shotgun was made of metal.

The guillotine’s natural power wouldn’t let it rupture internal organs, even with a direct hit. Using something with decent hardness as a shield made it easy to block the attack.

The bottleneck was that he didn’t know how far the spell would apply the prioritization to his body…but leaving his clothing and his possessions aside, it didn’t seem to treat other people’s possessions—the powered suit’s anti-bulkhead shotgun—as part of his body.

Even Itsuwa’s spear, which he’d kicked at Terra right before that, was someone else’s possession, like the shotgun. That was why Terra couldn’t cleave both the spear and Kamijou’s body in two at once. If Kamijou normally carried around a spear, though, it would have been treated as his.

That spear had been how Kamijou realized Terra’s weakness. Without it, Kamijou’s body would be in two pieces right now.

“…” He gazed down at Terra, lying on the floor.

All that flour, unable to maintain its shape as a blade, was scattered around him.

One way or another, it’s over…Is Itsuwa okay? And Tsuchimikado…He could still be fighting the powered suits…Kamijou looked at the white grains slowly blowing away on the wind, having lost their magical efficacy.

As he endured the pain, he still breathed a sigh of relief.

He looked at Terra again.

A cylindrical item had rolled out of Terra’s clothing and onto the floor. It was a rolled-up piece of old parchment, the Document of Constantine—a powerful Soul Arm.

Kamijou stooped down and grabbed it up with his right hand.

Actually, it crumbled before he grasped it.

As soon as Kamijou’s fingertips touched the document, the parchment tore apart like ashes tapped away from a cigarette. As it crumbled into powder, a gentle breeze swept it away to who knew where.

It was all so very quick.

Enough to make the ruckus up until now feel empty.

Kamijou diverted his attention from the lost Document of Constantine and began to think about the enemy he’d been fighting until now.

…Terra, huh?

He looked down at the unconscious man lying there.

This wasn’t Academy City. He couldn’t leave their fight’s cleanup to Anti-Skill. He couldn’t let his guard down until he was certain he’d restrained Terra and taken him to where he needed to go.

Come to think of it, I wonder if Tsuchimikado’s doing all right. I should contact him and talk it over with the Puritans for now. Partly because I get the feeling Academy City doesn’t have much influence here…

The powered suits that had assaulted Avignon were Academy City–made, but strangely, Kamijou didn’t consider discussing this with them. Maybe their first impression had been too terrible for him.

He looked around.

Itsuwa was lying a short distance away.

He approached, then grabbed her delicate shoulders and gently shook her, but she showed no signs of waking. Regular breathing was coming from her lips, though, and her chest was rising and falling slightly.

“Oh, right. Her spear…”

Kamijou went to pick up the spear he’d kicked away, then returned to Itsuwa’s side.

He gently placed the dangerous-looking blade right next to her.

“Thanks, Itsuwa. If you hadn’t been here, I don’t think I could have won,” he said quietly to the girl with her eyes shut.

Terra had taken her out, so she hadn’t heard those things he and Kamijou had talked about regarding his amnesia…probably. But he wasn’t happy about it. She’d helped him and fought beside him without knowing any of that, after all.

“…”

Only bitter things were in his heart.

But for now, Kamijou shook it off. Anyway, let’s talk to Tsuchimikado…

He thought about calling him on his cell phone, but despite looking in his pocket, it wasn’t there. He looked around and saw what seemed to be it lying on the floor a few steps away.

But when he picked it up, the LCD was too far gone to see anything, and he couldn’t close it, either; some part was probably blocking it.

“Damn,” he muttered, before hearing a rustling behind him.

“!!”

He wheeled on his heel, but Terra was still lying on the floor. However, his arm was in a slightly different position. He must have tried to get up but didn’t have the strength.

“Ha-ha. I see. Yes, the Imagine Breaker has terrible compatibility with us. It cancels out everything, as though rejecting all the hard work we’ve put in,” he said, lips moving slowly as he lay on the floor and glared resentfully at Kamijou. “…Will you not ask?”

“Ask what?”

“About the Imagine Breaker.”

The words took him by surprise, and Kamijou paused for a moment.

The Imagine Breaker.

He’d been using it like it was nothing this whole time, never having any real doubts about the power. But Terra had said he knew something about it; did that mean it wasn’t of the science side but of the sorcery side? But Index, who had 103,000 grimoires memorized, didn’t appear to know what it really was.

He thought for a moment. “Do you know?”

“Keh-heh,” sneered Terra of the Left cruelly. “Asking me for confirmation…It would seem you really have lost your memory.”

“…”

“Heh-heh. You should give some thought as to why the Imagine Breaker is within your right hand. Therein lies an important answer. Still, its effect of nullifying any sorcery without question has meaning as well…”

Terra watched Kamijou wonder, then smiled, amused.

Then he spoke:

“It’s a simple matter.”

The slight sigh Terra gave rang awfully loud in Kamijou’s ears.

Slowly, the man’s lips moved.

“The Imagine Breaker is actually—”

Kamijou couldn’t make out the next words.

Because with a massive boom!!…

…Terra’s body suddenly exploded.

Actually, strictly speaking, Kamijou hadn’t seen the moment itself.

An orange flash of light had plunged through the ceiling and fallen right on top of the man. As soon as the three-meter-wide pillar of light pierced the floor, an incredible wind blasted through the room in the Papal Palace.

Kamijou’s feet were instantly peeled from the floor, and he was blown several meters backward like a ball of dust. Itsuwa and the powered suit, lying in other places, took the blast in the same fashion and rolled toward him.

“Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh?!”

Kamijou screamed as he was slammed into the floor.

Apart from that overall injury, he felt a thin, stinging pain shoot up his arm. It felt like the day after getting sunburned. He looked and saw that the skin had reddened. It was burned.

Wh-what…?

He shook his hazy head and looked over to where the blast had hit.

Then his body went rigid.

The place Terra had been lying just a moment ago had already changed to a vortex of molten rock. Over several meters, the floor made of stone had changed into a muddy swamp shining orange, and from the ceiling with a big hole in it as well, the same kind of thing was dripping. He heard the sizzling sound of water evaporating. Simply trying to get near, a hot blast like an invisible wall clung to his skin.

He looked around and spotted something out the window.

Circling slowly, as though creating black smudges against the blue sky—multiple bombers.

Instead of their bulkheads for dropping bombs, they had jet-black metal blades. He didn’t know what had happened, but it was clear they’d carried out some sort of attack.

“Terra…”

Still unable to get very close to the wall of heat, Kamijou called the name of the man who had been his enemy.

The steel wings dancing in the skies once again set their sights on this place.

The bombers, which had used a sufficient approach distance to accelerate, darted through the air at incredible speeds.

“Terraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

His scream was drowned out.

Several pillars of light flashed down through the ceiling, again pinpointing the exact spot Terra had been.

Their precision might have been closer to sniping than bombing. The orange light blocked out his vision. Taking some kind of aftershock, Kamijou’s body bounded over the floor again and again.

That was when he passed out.

But even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have found Terra again.

From the section in front of the fallen Kamijou, the walls and ceiling had disappeared, all replaced by a sea of lava. A third of the Papal Palace had been lost.

…And Terra of the Left had vanished, leaving not even a corpse behind.