CHAPTER 4

The Protector and the Protected
Leader_Is_All_Members.

1

Mikoto Misaka trudged through the late-night streets.

She had been out using a bath facility to get the post-bath Croaker cell phone strap, but her timing had been poor. She’d happened across a dangerous event unique to District 22 called an “anoxic warning,” stranding her inside a building. The next thing she knew, it was very late at night, she had impeccable post-bath chills, and she’d lost the reason to take a bath at all.

Gah, damn it…After all that, I guess I’ll have to use the one in my dorm…, she’d thought—but for some reason, the exit to District 22 had been cordoned off.

It seemed as though the anoxic warning had settled for the moment, so the building-exit restriction had been lifted. Apparently, some system or other had malfunctioned. The middle-aged man managing the gate was just as confused as she was.

Normally, she’d want to put in a complaint, but she heard a lot of hurried footsteps behind the man, as well as deep shouts and reprimands flying back and forth. The face of the man who came to deal with her was also somewhat glum. She pitied him too much to pile on any more complaints, so she gave up the idea of snapping at him.

Weird. I wonder what happened.

Despite how she looked, Mikoto had just as much of a penchant for getting into other people’s trouble as that boy. She worried a little about what was going on with that, too.

“Nyo-wah?!”

Suddenly, there came a crackling of static electricity from her bangs.

Her ability didn’t have minor random misfires very often, so she quickly sent a polite smile to the surprised man in front of her, bowed, and left the place for the moment.

Maybe it was specific to Academy City, not being able to control your own ability, but it was surprisingly embarrassing in its own right. Still, this led her to stop wanting to stick her nose into wherever the trouble was.

If she had been familiar with sorcery, she might have realized the misfire was due to an Opila ward, which affected a person’s senses and awareness, clashing with her own ability-controlling methods.

What on earth could that have been? she wondered. For now, she wouldn’t be able to get back to the surface until the gate’s malfunctions were fixed, so she looked at a sign with a map of District 22, then decided to make a visit to a rather high-class hotel on the seventh stratum.

I hope I can check into a room without any advance notice…And our R.A. is going to be low-key scary. Maybe I should call Kuroko and have her come here and get me out with her teleportation.

Meanwhile, she descended the spiraling, downward slope to the seventh stratum.

And then it happened.

A figure suddenly appeared before her in the darkness, moving as if floating. At the very least, they clearly weren’t walking normally; their motions were less unreliable than unstable. She frowned. A maniac? But when the figure stepped under a streetlight, surprise washed over her face.

It was Touma Kamijou.

“What…What the heck are you doing?!” she called, rushing over to him.

Normally, she wouldn’t have reacted like this. She knew the boy wandered around the streets at night on a daily basis, and they always seemed to run into each other one way or another. Maybe they’d fought sometimes, but she was seldom ever worried.

But right now, Mikoto faced a situation that forced her to divert from her usual behavioral patterns.

Touma Kamijou was clearly not well.

His face was pale, as though he’d been soaking in a sea of ice. The bandages wrapped all over him were coming off in certain places, probably due to the movement, and there was even redness seeping through in a few spots. His clothing was odd, too. It wasn’t the familiar school uniform—all he wore was what looked like an operating gown for a surgical patient.

“Misaka…Is that you…?” groaned Kamijou, leaning against the lamppost, barely managing to hold himself up. There were electrodes taped to his cheeks and arm, with their cord ends hanging down to the ground, as though he’d ripped himself free.

Mikoto was shocked.

She had to look closely, but his left and right pupils were dilating slightly differently. They weren’t completely focused. He was probably seeing everything in a blur, like through frosted glass.

From his expression, though, he didn’t seem to realize it. Or maybe he was in such a fix that he couldn’t afford to pay attention to such a trifle.

“…”

Kamijou’s lips moved, but Mikoto couldn’t make out what he’d said. He merely released the lamppost from his hand, motions slow, and began to move again. As he went to pass by her, his knees gave out.

She almost heard the pop as he nearly collapsed to the ground. Mikoto hastily moved to support him.

“You idiot!! Where did all those wounds come from? And are those electrode cords attached to you…? Don’t tell me you broke out of some hospital or other, did you?!”

“I…have to go…” With them so close now, she finally heard his voice. “They’re probably…still fighting. I…have to join them…”

Just those few sparse words made Mikoto’s entire body shiver.

She’d guessed, one way or another, that this boy had been involved in several incidents Mikoto was unaware of. But she’d thought they were just simple extensions of street fights. Once before, she’d witnessed him fighting Academy City’s strongest Level Five, but she considered that a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Who would have imagined him going through so many incidents that placed him on the verge of death?

At the same time, it made sense to part of her.

A single word crossed her mind.

…Amnesia.

If he kept on fighting like this, whittling away his own life every time, his body wouldn’t be in perfect shape. Mikoto didn’t know whether his amnesia was caused by mental trauma or a problem with his brain’s construction. But unfortunately, she considered both of those possible. That was how badly his body was beaten up right now.

She had to stop him.

Stop him from dragging himself out here, looking like he was about to die; stop him from standing up to all these crisis situations, even after he’d lost his memories.

“…?” Kamijou stared at Mikoto in confusion. She wasn’t letting go of his arm. He seemed to have no idea why she was just standing there. He’d been keeping everything that would make others worry a secret, so he thought it was impossible anyone would reach out to him. He honestly believed that it was just too convenient for someone to realize the trouble he was in and come to help him, even if he kept quiet.

That little thing made her angry.

Truly angry.

“Why…didn’t you say anything?” Before she knew it, she was murmuring. She understood that she’d never be able to go back now, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Say you need help! Say you need someone else! No, it doesn’t even have to be that specific. Be even simpler!! Just say, for once in your life, that you’re scared or uneasy about something!!”

“Misaka…what…are you…?”

“I know all about it.”

Kamijou continued, even now, putting on an act in order to deceive her—no, to keep her from getting involved. She ignored it.

“I know you have amnesia!!”

That moment, Kamijou’s shoulders twitched.

She thought she saw a wavering in him, a big one—one that greatly affected his life.

Mikoto herself felt a shock as she looked at him, standing there at a loss.

But so what?

Once before, this boy had literally saved her life. Not only her, either—all ten-thousand-odd of those girls she’d wanted to protect, too.

She’d been about to face Academy City’s strongest Level Five when Touma Kamijou had appeared. And he’d done it in a way that’d stomped all over her innermost thoughts—of trying to carry everything herself until she died.

His method certainly didn’t have a shard of delicacy, and it was even a greedy, swinish approach, considering how it invaded her privacy like that. But for Mikoto Misaka and her Sisters, it had still saved them.

She wouldn’t allow Touma Kamijou to deny that way of doing things.

It should be fine if this boy was saved like that, too.

So Mikoto spoke:

“I get that there’s something really important going on inside you. But do you absolutely have to carry it all yourself? You’re half-dead, and you’re missing memories! What reason could you possibly have for fighting alone?!”

Kamijou was listening. Mikoto took his silence as a positive and kept going.

“I can fight, too, you know.”

She kept going—to fight him squarely and to tell him exactly what she needed to. Everything she couldn’t say until now flowed out of her.

“I can help you, too!!”

That wasn’t because she was Academy City’s third-ranked Level Five, the Railgun. That was insignificant compared to this. Even if she’d lost all her power right that moment and become a Level Zero, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’d be able to say the same.

“There’s no reason you have to keep fighting by yourself!! So say something. Say where you’re going, or who you’re trying to fight, or something!! Today, I’ll fight. I’ll make things better for you this time!!”

“Mi…saka…”

“I’ll give you a taste of your own medicine! I’ll show you how the people who wait for you feel! I’ll show you how the people who can’t do anything but sleep in a hospital bed and watch from a safe place feel!! That’s exactly what you did when you saved the Sisters, wasn’t it?! You made me talk to you, and then you went out to face the city’s strongest Level Five on your own!! Why don’t you apply your logic to yourself once in a while? Why are you the one not asking for anyone’s help?!”

As she shouted, she stared directly at Kamijou.

And what she saw there was amazement.

But it was not amazement at how she was talking about things she shouldn’t have known. It was the surprise of seeing something he’d kept hidden being forcefully revealed in front of him.

He remembered Accelerator and the Sisters.

On the one hand, she felt relieved. On the other, she hated her own selfishness, for letting such calculated emotion into the picture. She was supposed to be worrying over Kamijou’s physical condition right now, not placating her own unease.

Kamijou didn’t notice. Or maybe he did, but he let it pass.

“A-anyway, we’re going back to the hospital! You won’t listen to sense, so I’m not letting you out of my sight until you’re back in your room!!” Still grabbing his arm, she called up her map on her cell phone and searched for hospitals.

“…I see…”

For a few moments, Kamijou was flabbergasted, but eventually, he began to slowly move his lips.

It almost looked like a smile.

“You found out…”

Although about ready to collapse, an odd strength returned to him. Mikoto decided that meant he was in the most dangerous state possible, so she didn’t let go of his arm.

“But that’s not it,” he said before Mikoto could get a word in. “I have no memory, so I don’t remember the details, but…”

Kamijou’s spirit wasn’t broken.

“I can’t remember myself from before. I can’t even imagine what I felt like at the end. But getting beaten up, fighting until even my memories were gone…Not having a reason to keep getting hurt on my own…”

His amnesia had been revealed. That alone should have been a major event. But his true thoughts were somewhere else.

“I think that was probably why I risked my life to the point of losing my memories—so I could say stuff like that.”

Mikoto’s face froze.

That was the conclusion that lay at the center of Touma Kamijou’s mind.

That was why he’d kept the truth of his lost memories a secret—he didn’t want to hurt anyone by blaming them or saying something stupid about it.

About a past that he couldn’t even remember anymore.

But even then, he had been willing to get hurt to protect something important to him. And he’d actually done it—and this was the result. Not an idealized suicidal wish that would bring tears to your eyes; he’d simply been prepared for the end, for what happened after he did what he needed to do, and he’d pressed on anyway. And this was the result.

“I can’t remember what happened a long time ago, but even if I can’t, it’s thanks to all of it that I’m here now. Whoever I was before, he’s moving me now. He’s still here—not in my head but in my heart. Even if I don’t remember, he knows exactly what I’m trying to accomplish and what I need to do.”

Touma Kamijou probably had pride in that, a “something” not even he had any proof existed. His conviction wouldn’t allow him regret. If he could have met his past self now, he’d have smiled and said thank you without a moment’s hesitation. This boy believed in his fate completely.

“Sorry, Misaka. You should get back soon.”

The next thing she knew, her hand had left him. With a strange strength, he had moved his arm away from it.

“I’m going. I can’t leave this to someone else. There’s nothing forcing me to do it, but…I’m still going. That part will never change. Even if the gears hadn’t locked up and I hadn’t lost my memories, I’d still need to do the same thing. Touma Kamijou won’t let a lack of memories stop him from that.”

The boy turned his back to Mikoto and started walking again.

His gait was unsteady; if she’d wanted to go after him, it would have been easy.

What should I do…?

But she couldn’t move.

His back was right in front of her. If she reached out, she could touch him.

I didn’t say anything wrong. He needs to go back to the hospital right now. And I could always go with him to the battlefield…But I know he’s not lying. Him standing here, now, like this, on his own feet, must have a special meaning for him.

As she thought, Kamijou moved.

As she worried, he walked away.

But I can’t stop him after that. How could I? Seeing him off now is the right choice. Putting my hands together, praying to God, and hoping he comes home safe is the best option. Any other choice, no matter what it is, would be too much. I know he doesn’t want that…

His unsteady back grew distant. She had no time left.

She knew she needed to stop him, but she just couldn’t move.

What should I do? I can’t agree with this at all.

Touma Kamijou probably hadn’t lied about anything he’d said. He’d simply revealed his true intentions, still determined to fight merely because he wanted to.

Logically speaking, she should respect that decision and watch over him.

She knew that. Even an idiot would know that.

But she couldn’t agree.

She just couldn’t.

…I…see.

Without knowing it, her hand had crept up to her chest.

Mikoto Misaka had realized something.

She had an opinion at her core—one not related to logic, reason, reputation, appearances, shame, or scandal. That was at the very heart of who she was. She was wretched, ugly, selfish, and whining—but she realized it made her a thoroughly honest, open human.

She didn’t know what this emotion was called.

She didn’t yet understand how to categorize it.

But today, on this day, at this hour, at this moment…

…she understood a certain thing.

She knew there was an immense emotion sleeping inside her, one strong enough to easily ruin outward appearances. As one of only seven Level Fives in the city, she was fully used to controlling her own mind in the form of her personal reality. But this emotion could easily shatter all that.

Touma Kamijou’s back disappeared into the dark.

The end had come, and she couldn’t stop him.

It wasn’t because his movements had touched her.

It was this glimpse of an emotion she’d accidentally found inside herself, not letting her move a finger.

2

Acqua of the Back’s mace rumbled.

Not from a special spell or Soul Arm. It was pure physical strength. The difference between Kanzaki, who used her special spell Single Glint for a temporary boost in power, and Acqua, who kept running at sky-high full power, suddenly widened—and then came to its limit.

There was a thundering thump!!

Kaori Kanzaki, along with the Seven Heavens Sword she’d used to parry the mace, went flying.

“Gaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!”

Kanzaki, whose fight was crushing the heap of rubble under her feet, shot almost a hundred meters through the air. It was like her body had become a cannonball—she blew through one piece of debris after another, crushed concrete chunks to pieces, and scattered their dust all about.

“Over already, saint of the Far East?”

Disappointment filled Acqua’s voice.

But Kanzaki, stopped under a mountain of debris, didn’t have enough strength to reply. The strength in her bloody body was half what she’d started with, maybe less.

There…must be…

There were no tricks or traps. It was a fundamental difference in skill. So what way could she find to stop him?

What is…his power…?

As she hacked up another clot of blood, she came to a question.

She understood something, as someone who could output the full power of a saint via her Single Glint. Being a saint meant you were already beyond physical human limitations. From the start, that spell had been an instant-kill sword-drawing technique—because if she used it any differently, it could lead to destruction of her own body.

Acqua was past all that.

That was why this difference between them had formed.

There’s nothing…extra…in Single Glint’s composition…

Her spell didn’t just increase momentum. It was built to push a human body to the limit but not destroy their muscles. It was built to move at extreme speeds but not at the cost of balance. All of it was built like a delicate jigsaw puzzle—a pure crystallization of technique. If she demanded more, if she tried to add more pieces to the puzzle, the spell’s entire balance would fall apart. You can’t add extra pieces to a jigsaw puzzle that is already complete.

This was the limitation of a saint mainly fighting in close quarters.

Did that mean Acqua had created a spell to control his physical body that was more polished than that?

Kanzaki had tried several hypotheses, but they’d all failed.

Every time, if she pushed her abilities in one area, it exhausted another part of herself too much. The moment she came out with abilities on Acqua’s level, her body would break apart like a damaged airplane. Both physically and magically.

But Acqua…His power…

To begin with, a saint couldn’t even exhibit 100 percent of the power they were given.

It was said being born with similar physical characteristics to the Son of God allowed them to graciously acquire a fraction of his strength. But even a fraction was something a regular human couldn’t fully grasp.

They could only control an even tinier part of that fraction.

That was how saints were.

No matter how one put together a spell, something would always be too much. In blunt terms, all that power you were given would dissipate. Unlike the power entering your body because of idol worship theory, you could only control so much of it with your own will.

But it wasn’t a bad thing that it was too much. If you could use 100 percent of the power, you instead ran the risk of putting so much pressure on yourself that you’d blow your saintly body to bits. That, perhaps, was more of a self-preservation instinct than anything related to sorcery—because the one thing a baby without any magical knowledge knew how to do was stabilize their own power.

But…

…The limit of a saint…doesn’t apply…to Acqua…? His power…is already easily…beyond what a human can control…?

This was saying nothing of Acqua’s powers as part of God’s Right Seat overlapping his sainthood. He was called Acqua of the Back—and thus possessed the attributes of the archangel Gabriel, the “Power” of God. At a glance, it might seem like it was simply multiplying his strength, but in actuality, the burden that would bounce back would have to increase, too.

Yes.

The oddest thing was that Acqua had a grasp of easily over 200 percent power, and not only was it not going out of control—but he’d maintained a steady face the entire time.

…There’s no…way he can do that. It has nothing to do with talent or genius. A saint…and God’s Right Seat. There should be no way a single body could hold these incompatible traits inside it at once…

The term genius had a lot of persuasive power behind it, enough to convince someone most anything was possible.

But it wasn’t, really.

Kanzaki was in that realm herself, and she knew.

The terms genius and talent weren’t so convenient in reality.

…Something’s…going on…

She heard a soft tap. It was Acqua of the Back, coming to a stop in front of her.

…A saint…and God’s Right Seat…

Kanzaki thought, glaring at the terrible enemy before her.

…He has to be using some kind of trick to make those two powers coexist…!!

“!!”

Before Acqua took another step, Kanzaki, still lying on the ground, rolled to the side.

She snatched up the Seven Heavens Sword from the ground.

At the same time, Acqua whirled his five-meter-plus mace horizontally. As if to brush away all the debris along with the ground itself—a pure brute-force strike.

Kanzaki’s katana, which had aimed for a surprise attack, needed to switch to defense.

Mace and katana clashed with a tremendous keeeeen!! The second blow from the mace nearly sent her flying again, but she stabbed her katana into the ground to stop herself—and then still slid over ten meters back.

“You would continue to fight?”

Acqua sounded impressed.

But it was the kind of “impressed” one got after realizing they had the upper hand.

“You will have no chance to turn this around. You should understand this, given your own hand and the number of cards in mine. If miracles occurred in response to endeavors and prayers, then the few saints like ourselves would not be lionized.”

“…We’re…lionized, are we?” murmured the wound-covered Kanzaki. She sounded disgusted, all the way from the deepest pits of her self. “You didn’t work for this power. It was an option that was attached to you from the day you were born. Are you satisfied wielding something easy?”

“What would you do if I answered?” Acqua didn’t give her a reply. “I believe we talked about this before—about how much truth lies in convictions you want others to hear.”

Kanzaki and Acqua jumped at the same time.

They clashed head-on, sparks flying between metal and metal.

“I know what enrages you. Normal humans, the Amakusa, they all have an overwhelming lack of ability compared to me. You are mad that I involved them in a fight between saints.”

“…!!”

“This, however, is a battlefield. Difference in inborn abilities, the strengths of the weapons you possess, and the number of combat personnel. These are clear differences that attack you on a battlefield. If you would rather me not involve them, they should not have come here to begin with.”

This was no longer a close contest.

Kanzaki buckled under Acqua’s power, and she withdrew.

“I have no need to fight those without strength,” said Acqua as Kanzaki tottered unsteadily. “I would rather cross blades only with true soldiers.”

Was that a glimpse of Acqua’s unspoken conviction?

Unlike the others in God’s Right Seat, this man told them he would destroy only the boy’s right arm.

Was this a fragment of his heart, the heart of someone who purposely wielded the power of Mary, the power of mercy, rather than that of an angel?

Kanzaki’s feelings were of a similar philosophy.

Battlefields were all too unmerciful, and pure combat strength, to say nothing of how much one had trained, had no meaning. No matter how much you prepared, you would die when it came time to die. If a saint like her hated that, the only thing she could do was go around and eliminate all the scattered risks in advance, then force a fight on a safe battlefield.

But obviously, that wasn’t possible.

If you just had to consider respective combat strength and the possibility of soldiers lying in ambush, maybe it would be possible. But actual battlefields didn’t work that way. It was impossible to grasp every single possible nightmarish coincidence in advance and impossible to successfully prevent them all.

Kanzaki had seen this as a sign of her own inexperience.

She wasn’t strong enough, which was why she couldn’t control the battle, always changing as it was, and her precious friends had been hurt. That was what she’d truly felt back then. At the time, Kanzaki, their Priestess, couldn’t bear it and ended up breaking ties with the Amakusa.

However…

What…

Kaori Kanzaki, seeing herself in Acqua of the Back, grated her teeth.

What an arrogant way of thinking.

Amakusa’s sorcerers had been weak, so they had died—if they had powers like a saint, everybody would have lived. But was that true? How could it be true? If it was, then what about the boy? What about the boy who fought alongside everyone, won alongside everyone, and laughed alongside everyone?

She’d said she would fight with them—but had she ever really believed in the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church’s abilities? Not in their character, or their minds, but their abilities? Wasn’t that why Kanzaki couldn’t entrust her back to anyone? Wasn’t that why coordination had broken down? Wasn’t that why she’d been doing nothing but piling on losses they didn’t need?

Was the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church that weak?

Which one of them had really been the weak one?

What could she possibly gain by forcing a win in her terrible state?

If the ages had moved in the way everyone wanted them to, if the world had moved in a better direction, could those who never gained the strength to win be able to keep up with it?

They would think they’d been left behind.

They would think they’d been left out, alone, from the shining light of happiness filling everything.

A saint.

All they had was what they were born with. Fools, wielding their privilege as “chosen ones.” How far did this clash of fools have to go before she was satisfied?

“I’m…a huge idiot,” she mumbled in disgust.

She’d witnessed all the unconscious violence she’d committed before now.

That’s what this was all about.

Acqua of the Back, God’s Right Seat, and Kaori Kanzaki were all the same.

Let someone “special” manage everything. For everything else, simply say the word, and she will manage it for you. It’s for your own sake. Putting in pointless effort would make you look miserable, waste our limited resources, and make you a laughingstock—so don’t do anything. Just be quiet and obey. At some point, had Kanzaki, without knowing it, begun demanding that of her precious friends?

“…”

Kaori Kanzaki wiped the blood off her lip and readied her sword once more.

Which was the right choice?

I know which one.

What was truly the right choice to save her friends?

I know which one!

Which choice was suitable for correcting the mistakes of this absolute enemy, Acqua of the Back?

I know which one!!

Having solved one thing, the rest began to unravel in a chain of revelation. Her hands tightened around the Seven Heavens Sword. Her final strength. The strength of her conviction, which she could put on full display, because she could believe it was correct.

Acqua of the Back, who wielded the powers of both a saint and a part of God’s Right Seat.

With the strongest opponent she’d ever faced before her eyes, Kaori Kanzaki began her final action.

3

At that same moment, the current members of Amakusa, who were staring down in a trance from the edge of the fourth stratum’s new crater—about thirty meters above the fifth stratum where the two saints fought, give or take—heard her words.

“……er.”

The voice of a true saint, one of less than twenty in the world.

“Please…”

The voice of their Priestess, who had once led Amakusa.

“Please lend me your strength!!”

The voice of Kaori Kanzaki.

At first, Itsuwa, Tatemiya, and the others didn’t understand what she’d said. Their brains had processed the intent behind her words, but it didn’t seem like it was directed at them.

But no—she was speaking to them.

Kaori Kanzaki, whom they thought they’d never reach. Kaori Kanzaki, whom they thought was different from birth, someone with more than them. Kaori Kanzaki, who had turned her back on their weakness, saying she didn’t want her precious friends to be hurt.

She was asking for their help.

Their help, to defeat an enemy she couldn’t defeat alone.

“…Ah…”

How many realized they were trembling, then?

How many realized they were about to break into tears?

What Kaori Kanzaki had meant by her words and actions was this:

Their Priestess had accepted them.

Accepted them not as simple burdens, comrades-in-arms—but as real friends who stood as her equals in strength.

She’d never done anything like this before.

Why had Kaori Kanzaki requested the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church’s help at this point in the game?

It was simple.

There was an enemy here that Kaori Kanzaki couldn’t beat on her own.

But she had a reason to confront him despite that.

And…

…her hope to accomplish it in spite of impossibility…

…the final piece she needed to protect her dream…

…was the awfully, terribly normal Amakusa-Style Crossist Church, complete with Tatemiya, Itsuwa, and all the others.

“…”

How long had they been waiting for it? This moment?

Those who had dropped their weapons in enervation now picked them up again.

No one would refuse her.

They were wrapped in bandages, blood seeping from their wounds, the protective fabric itself ripped and torn—but none of that mattered.

They were going to confront this monster—who they couldn’t beat as a group, who even Kaori Kanzaki couldn’t hold a candle to—but not a single heart had fear at her voice telling them to rise again. Instead, happiness had a greater hold.

They could help their Priestess. They could fight alongside her again. That simple fact gave birth to joy.

Some let out roars to rally their fighting spirit. Others shed the brightest tears in the world. Some stood silently, basking in the happiness, trying not to let anyone see. Those leaning against the wall rose back to their own two feet. Tatemiya, the “representative” pope, exhaled, as though a heavy burden had suddenly been lifted.

“…Let’s go.”

Saiji Tatemiya, as the temporary leader of the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church, gave the final order.

As if those two words weren’t enough, he spoke again, this time with a thousand emotions behind his words.

“Let’s go! Our Amakusa-Style Crossist Church now goes to where it needs to be!!”

With a shout, they raced down through the giant hole in the fourth stratum, descending onto the battlefield.

They knew full well how much power they lacked.

But that didn’t shake the reason they had to fight.

The Amakusa-Style Crossist Church, as a group, confronted their enemy.

With the lone woman they’d recognized as their leader.

4

What…?

Acqua of the Back didn’t understand Kaori Kanzaki’s act.

It was clearer than a blazing fire what would happen if she dragged normal sorcerers onto a battlefield of saints. In fact, Kanzaki had distanced Acqua from them because she didn’t want that, because she wanted specifically to create a battleground for them alone.

And yet, now…

“Oooohhhhhhhh!!”

One ran past holding a sword, and another jumped high with a spear. Those who didn’t fear death assembled in the blink of an eye, forming a battle line to protect their gravely wounded saint.

It was a wall fragile as candy, from Acqua’s point of view.

He readied his mace and made a dangerous expression. “Asking for weaklings to save you…Do you value your life that much?”

“Is that what it looks like?” replied Kaori Kanzaki, bringing her Seven Heavens Sword around with bloodied hands.

In fact, there was a smile on her lips.

“I once had comrades who were hurt because they were at my side. I feared it would happen again, so I decided to leave the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church for a time.

“But,” she said firmly, “that tragedy didn’t happen because they were weak.”

“…”

“I labeled them weak, unable to bring myself to have faith in their abilities. Somewhere in my mind, I looked down on them, unable to entrust them with my life. I abandoned the strength right next to me, fighting on despite my inexperience, and in so doing, showed my enemies a glaring weakness! My arrogance, my sense of superiority in thinking I would protect them, was the root of all that tragedy!!”

Those aware of their weaknesses grow when they advance in spite of them.

A new power swirled within Kaori Kanzaki’s beaten flesh.

“I will surmount this. I will take back my Amakusa-Style Crossist Church by believing in them, trusting them, and letting them all display their full power!! We are our leader, and we are our comrades!! We have no need of a single person like a saint to lead us!!”

What…?

He could tell that she’d regained the confidence she’d been lacking.

It was heart.

A stubborn, firm passion that only those with confidence in their own actions possessed.

But it didn’t change the fact that they had no chance at victory. Fifty more added to the rabble meant nothing. He didn’t need his full power to fight Amakusa as it was now. They were people in the background, ones who would be blown away during his heated combat with Kanzaki.

They cling to impossible illusions—group psychology at work.

“Groundless hopes are naught but delusion.”

Power filled Acqua’s body.

“You think you can surpass me with delusion?!”

He swung his mace, annoyed, as though swatting pests out of the way. Kaori Kanzaki lunged into range without fear.

The Seven Heavens Sword and his mace collided, but several Amakusa members developed defensive magic to kill the impact. Whatever spiritualism they brought wouldn’t change the difference in their abilities. And yet, after all that, Kanzaki contended.

“Saints were born with physical characteristics very similar to the Son of God, and by idol theory, they have received a temporary fragment of his power.”

By her own admittance, there had been a blank space of several years between Kanzaki and the Amakusa.

But the two forces didn’t even trade words. They overcame all that time in the span of a breath.

“But even a saint cannot use as much power as you. You clearly have powers above those of a simple saint. And why is that?”

Their contention was a sham.

Acqua immediately counterattacked, sending a major wave through Amakusa’s ranks, including Kanzaki.

Yet the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church still fought in desperation.

“The answer is simple—the Adoration of Mary!!”

Yes, come to think of it, Acqua had been forthright with them in that.

He’d told them he used the attribute of Mary.

But the power Acqua of the Back should have had was that of the archangel Gabriel, God’s “Power.” Compared to the Virgin Mother, a symbol of mercy, Gabriel had burned the entire city of Gomorrah, and in the legends, he would deliver even more direct attacks during the Last Judgment to destroy the world. Why had Acqua avoided such an obvious method of attack and instead chosen the roundabout way of Mary?

“Your physical characteristics resemble more than the Son of God, don’t they? They’re similar both to Jesus and to Mary, which is why you obtained both their powers!!”

The Son of God and the Virgin Mary were mother and child. Their physical characteristics being similar to one another wasn’t that surprising a fact.

And Mary, too, number two in Crossism after Jesus, was said to be the highest of the saints, having great powers as the being who had miraculously given birth to the Son of God. The Adoration of Mary, which extolled her, had moved an incredible number of hearts. As one who had granted exceptional mercy, even more than the impartial Jesus—who was himself an embodiment of the very rules of the world—churches had reports of many miracles occurring by praying to her. At times, the Roman Orthodox Church leaders had even viewed the adoration of Mary with danger, worried that Marian worship could become an independent faction.

A saint and the Holy Mother.

If someone had been born with physical characteristics of both of them…

…it would create Acqua of the Back.

He had probably perfected his talents, given to him at birth, by improving them as God’s Right Seat.

How deep did the power within him run?

“You were born with two differing qualities and, at the same time, two sets of physical characteristics that overlapped. That is why my gifts alone lost in power to yours, as I am only a saint.”

To begin with, God’s Right Seat was a term for those above humans, those who aimed for the kami-jou, a “God above.” Their goal had never been to be simple saints.

Because Kanzaki herself was a “mere” saint, it would be very difficult for her to envision such territory. But the “certain power” that saints and angels possessed had the trait of stabilizing once a certain line was crossed. Airplanes were easier to control if they were slower, but too slow and they would fall. Acqua was purposely flying that plane at very high speeds, thus stabilizing it.

It was above a spacious emptiness from a saint’s perspective, that line where high speeds stabilized.

By possessing the qualities of both a saint and Mary, he was born with that stabilization line, which was unlike normal saints, who would lower their speed to try to stabilize their power. That was doubtlessly why he’d succeeded in forcing all that power, which would have been unstable and out of control, to come together.

However…

“On the other hand, that means you have a weakness,” said Kaori Kanzaki.

Yes—for planes flying at Mach speeds were obviously harder to manage, their control more delicate, than planes taking it slow.

“You must have even more of a weakness than I do, than any saint—to spells that specifically target them!”

Kanzaki stopped talking.

To talk to someone else.

Not Acqua but her Amakusa comrades.

In other words…

“The Saintbreaker!!”

“!”

“Acqua parried all your attacks or dodged them—but that spell was the only one where he used a magical method for a genuine defense. That is where our chance at victory lies!!”

Normal humans couldn’t completely control saintly power, much less use both it and God’s Right Seat at the same time. Kanzaki was a saint herself, so she knew that already.

At first, she thought there was some special spell he was using to perfectly control his power.

She never found out what it was—but of course she didn’t.

He didn’t have one at all.

“What would happen if we used the Saintbreaker, which has never been tested, and hit Acqua, another exceptional being, with it? Even he couldn’t imagine it!!”

Acqua hadn’t used his full power to block the Saintbreaker just because it would render a fraction of his stocked power unusable for a few seconds.

“The Saintbreaker purposely upsets the balance of his Jesus-like physical characteristics, causing the power inside to run rampant, which disables the saint for a time. Normally, it would only silence him for a few seconds, but Acqua has characteristics of both a saint and Mary. The end is clear for all to see—he would detonate!!”

The spell he used depended on delicate inborn traits more than sainthood.

In other words, he couldn’t strengthen it through artificial methods.

If that godlike balance was thrown off even slightly, everything could go up at that moment. It was like a drag on a machine that could hit at over a thousand kilometers per hour. Because it handled immense force, you needed careful attention. That was why Acqua had used his “full power” to go on the defensive.

“…”

With his mystery solved, Acqua didn’t say a word.

But his face did change.

A grin.

Not the condescending sort before now. He’d been named perfect, but there was a single pinhole. They’d pointed it out—and that made the man, Acqua, give a grand smile.

He wouldn’t panic over a weakness.

That wasn’t what battles were about.

He launched into another series of fierce attacks. Kanzaki barely managed to stop them with her Seven Heavens Sword, exhaling just a bit. Then she slightly changed her sword’s angle, purposely causing a shock wave from her strike’s aftermath.

It wasn’t aimed at Acqua. Instead, it destroyed something behind him.

Part of the scenery, buried under heaps of rubble—a rusted piece of barbed wire.

…I see. That’s what they’re after…?!

By the time Acqua looked up, the sharp wires, cut to shreds and launched into the air, had just formed a circle. Following that, Kanzaki’s wires, the Seven Glints, sliced through their surroundings once again. Magical meanings abstracted one after another from the pile of debris, coming up like carvings.

What appeared was a giant cross, a spike like a sharp steel pile, and a crown of thorns.

In other words…

“Symbols of Jesus’s crucifixion!!” he shouted.

Anyone wielding a fraction of Jesus’s power as a saint inherited his weaknesses, too.

Still, if rubbish like this could defeat a saint, nobody would have trouble.

In fact, against a normal saint like Kanzaki, it wouldn’t do much.

But…

Acqua of the Back was a special saint.

Someone with even rarer physical characteristics than the other saints in the world. One who simultaneously wielded the powers of saints and the Holy Mother. In exchange for that immense power, he needed to have incredibly delicate control. That was why the symbols of the crucifixion Kaori Kanzaki formed in this place alone would have an effect.

One might think a crucifixion spell wouldn’t have anything to do with Mary, but in this case, that wasn’t correct.

Yes—for Mary was also considered the highest Crossist saint in all of history.

“…!!”

Kanzaki sensed something bubbling up inside Acqua’s physics-defying body.

A change so clear even an ordinary saint could see it.

In other words, Acqua of the Back…

“…He’s wavering,” stated Kanzaki confidently.

The powers of saint and Holy Mother overlapped each other at the central core of Acqua’s existence. Now, under pressure from an outside source, they were competing, sending up harsh, screeching cries.

Right now, they could do it.

So Kaori Kanzaki bellowed, “Preparations are complete! Longinus, grant us the final key to the rite of crucifixion!!”

“!!”

Itsuwa, who gripped the Saintbreaker’s key, understood Kanzaki’s words. She immediately took out a hand towel, then wrapped it around her Friulian spear before leveling it at him.

“…Interesting.”

But Acqua moved first.

“The Amakusa-Style Crossist Church, was it? I dub thy name worthy of remembrance!!”

Then he jumped twenty meters—no, over twice that, all the way through the crater connecting the fourth and fifth stratum. As he went, dozens, hundreds of wires danced through the night sky, but none of them could stop him.

The city lights filtering through the circular crater made it look like a giant moon.

And with that artificial moon behind him, he readied his mace.

“The Holy Mother mitigates severe punishment.”

Before, this attack had crashed down on Kaori Kanzaki with all the destructive force of an asteroid collision. Enough power to crush her even at full strength. On top of that, the power would easily double due to the height of his jump. Amakusa couldn’t possibly stand up to it as they were now. It would destroy this entire fifth stratum.

“This power, which at times appeals directly to God’s law. Let it wrap you in mercy and ascend to heaven!!”

With immense speed, Acqua shot downward. His mace, bathed in the nightscape’s light, left a bluish-white trail in its wake.

No!! thought Kanzaki, building a defensive line with all the wires she’d positioned in advance, trying to stop the iron hammer. But it wasn’t enough. His strike blew through it and continued to approach the ground.

This attack had hit Kanzaki directly, so she knew: If she was hit by another, she would die. Not only her but the rest of the nearby Amakusa members, too.

The safety net…!!

As Kanzaki gritted her teeth in frustration, Itsuwa aimed her spear overhead.

The Saintbreaker.

But the preparations for the spell weren’t finished yet. They wouldn’t make it.

Give up…

Kaori Kanzaki reached for her sword.

Acqua descended like a wave of pure destruction. She looked up, glaring, pressing her feet hard into the debris-laden plaza. In a flash, she drew the katana, positioning it horizontally.

It wasn’t for a counterattack.

Everything was for defense. She immediately drew every mark, every sign, every symbol from every time and place in her mind to build a spell to serve as a shield.

I won’t give up!!

Acqua of the Back fell to the ground with all his might.

Light raged.

Kaori Kanzaki’s eyes, her ears, her nose, her tongue, her skin—all of it disappeared.

5

Destruction.

She couldn’t even understand that one word.

Her five senses were dead. The world was white. Nothing made it to her brain. Not the raging shock waves, not the whipping dust, not the smell of metal, not the sensation of being crushed. Was this how far destruction needed to go to be true—to be pure annihilation?

“…”

She needed time for her whited-out senses to return.

Then Kanzaki realized something.

Little by little, her senses were returning.

They hadn’t been lost. They were recovering, which meant…

What…?

Acqua of the Back’s attack should have destroyed everything in its path. It should have taken the lives of all the Amakusa, including her, with change left over. Kanzaki, however, was unharmed, as though his spell had disappeared. There was no damage anywhere that she could see.

It’s…gone…? The spell, the magic—it’s gone?

Kanzaki came to and looked up.

One act, in disregard of good or evil, strong or weak, that would cancel any sorcery without an issue.

She knew of only one person who could do something so absurd.

“Could it…be…?”

Her senses returned.

Her own words made it to her ears, and it was as though it signaled the rest of her senses to breathe back into her. Despite Acqua’s nightmarish strike, the scenery was the same as before, as though literally nothing had happened. And one person stood at the center of it.

Touma Kamijou.

He suppressed Acqua’s magical attack head-on, then grabbed the mace hard enough to crush it.

If Acqua of the Back had swung his mace with purely physical strength, the blood-covered Kamijou’s right hand would have been crushed to pieces. But this was a purely magic-based attack. And his right hand had the ability to blow away any supernatural powers, no matter what they were.

Even if Acqua’s attack had been an extremely powerful spell.

His right hand brutally nullified it all!!

“What…?!!”

“…”

The bloody Kamijou murmured something to the shocked Acqua. Nobody else heard it. And then Kamijou collapsed, leaning up against the mace. He hadn’t run out of energy—he was trying to stop Acqua from moving.

“!!”

Seeing that, Kanzaki moved.

On his own, Kamijou would be knocked away with a flick of the mace. But she used Acqua’s momentary shock to her advantage, discarding the Seven Heavens Sword and grabbing Acqua’s shoulders as though she were gripping a log, trying to stop both him and the mace from moving.

“Bastards!!”

Acqua shouted something, but the two of them weren’t listening.

The wound-covered Kamijou and Kanzaki were looking at the same place.

To Itsuwa, of the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church.

To Itsuwa, just a regular sorcerer.

“Please, leave this to me…”

Itsuwa readied her spear again, grabbing its shaft with her hand towel, as the other Amakusa members started up their own unique spells.

“I will hit this time!!”

With a roar, Itsuwa launched.

The girl’s slender body, under the protection of several spells, accelerated at Acqua.

He tried to evade her.

But his saintlike physical force was sealed away by another saint, Kanzaki, and when he triggered a special Mary spell to drive her away as God’s Right Seat, Kamijou’s right hand blew it all away.

“Ohh…”

He was only incapacitated for a few short seconds.

But that was all they needed.

“…o​o​o​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​!!”

At that moment, Acqua gave a war cry.

It wasn’t out of terror.

He realized he wouldn’t be able to dodge the next attack, but his conviction wouldn’t waver. In fact, the battle shout had been to give him extra force so he could take a big step forward, toward the charging Itsuwa.

The Saintbreaker.

Itsuwa’s spear split apart, turning into a single bolt of lightning. Free from its physical restraints, it became a strike that dominated the space, bursting toward Acqua.

Ba-boom!! The noise rattled the very air.

The flash of lightning struck Acqua in the gut, then escaped out his back, this time penetrating into his entire body.

The impact from the hit caused Kamijou and Kanzaki to pull back.

A cross—of light, not sparks—burst out behind Acqua, vertically and horizontally. However, Acqua’s body, which had taken the hit, leaped straight into the center of that cross, where the lines intersected.

His body, having received the Saintbreaker, careened over meters of concrete tile. The giant mace left his hands, and he soared away, plunging into one of the fifth stratum’s man-made ponds. As he shot under the surface like a cannonball and went out of sight, another change occurred.

Mana went out of control.

Acqua of the Back had detonated.

When his attributes of saint and Mary suffered the Saintbreaker, they reacted, began to compete, and then caused a rapid chain of internal explosions the spell would never have been able to cause otherwise.

Kap!! A flash of light engulfed the midnight-dark pond, illuminating it as though it were midday. The flash momentarily blinded everyone, but they still heard the eerie noise of large amounts of water vaporizing all at once.

When Kaori Kanzaki opened her eyes again, Acqua was no longer there.

But all the water in that man-made pond had evaporated. It had been blown away, along with the pond’s edge. A pillar of water vapor, the same thickness as the pond itself, rose straight up. The giant column collided with the ceiling section of the underground city, then dispersed in every direction. The sight was overwhelming, like a giant tree that had lived for over a thousand years, belying the incredible force of Acqua’s abrupt detonation.

INTERLUDE FOUR

About ten years ago, in a deserted port.

William Orwell rubbed his punched cheek.

The Knight Leader was the one who’d struck him.

Between the discontented pair was the Third Princess of Britain, who had been labeled incompetent by the world. Of course, that was why it hadn’t been a problem for her to sneak out of the castle like this.

“That was for lying to me and taking all the good parts for yourself.”

The Knight Leader cracked his knuckles, approaching William with an expression he’d never let society see.

“I’m not done. I haven’t punched you for leaving England yet. So let me make sure. We can’t have any mistakes happening. Here’s my question. Do you really plan on leaving England?”

“Yes.”

As soon as William answered, the Knight Leader punched him hard in the face again. Thump!! Meanwhile, the third princess yelped and covered her face.

William’s face was actually the calmest of them all, despite the beating. “…Are you drunk?” he asked.

“If I was, I’d be hitting you with the empty bottle.” The Knight Leader dropped the leather rucksack and fished around in it. “I’ve got some good scotch. First-rate, without a drop of caramel. Pure barrel color. Yeah, it’s full, but don’t worry about it. You’re leaving today, after all. I’m giving you such a big present that I think I have the right to punch you.”

“What are you angry about anyway?” asked William.

The Knight Leader paused, then eventually said, “You’ll be more than just a mercenary.”

“Have you ever heard the word overestimation? No, you probably haven’t.”

“I worked so hard to get them to finally accept you as a knight in your own right, too…Talk about ruining someone’s efforts. You planning on becoming a great artist somewhere, then? You have to be insane to choose a life people will only acknowledge hundreds of years from now.”

“I don’t know a thing about art. Nor of the lives of those who create it.”

“…What is your goal? You must have a good reason for turning down this invitation.”

“It is not as though I wish to do anything special,” answered William casually. “As I said before, knights and mercenaries do not mix. Knights in this country have great authority, but that isn’t enough to solve some problems. The same goes for mercenaries. I may be free to roam, but I am finding it quite difficult to enter into the realm of trust.”

“…You…”

“I need to have both, as I am sure this incident has taught you. There are problems a swollen group alone cannot resolve. That brings into necessity observation from an outside source. That observer cannot be special alone, either. The cogs forming society may come in different sizes, but everyone influences them and turns them together. This is a truth that must not be forgotten.”

William was correct, and the Knight Leader knew his personality, so he fell silent, expression morose. Seeing his old friend make that face put a subtle smile on William’s lips.

“I am also concerned,” said William, “about why the royal family’s faction is trying to expand its sphere of influence through drastic measures. You know the United Kingdom is made up of three factions—the royal family, the Knights, and the Puritans. The royal family is easily influenced by the Puritans. I believe it correct to assume something happened there.”

The Knight Leader appeared to think of the Puritans’ leader. The Archbishop—Laura Stuart.

With her position as top of one of the three factions, she was in an equivalent position to the Knight Leader. This knight probably didn’t appreciate that fact, though. She was just that ominous a person.

William continued. “The problems extend outside the United Kingdom’s borders. Roman Orthodoxy, Russian Catholicism, and Academy City are all showing unsettling movements. The world is trying to change. And such change causes organizations to run rampant.”

“As a member of the Knights’ faction, I would think we also have the option of stabilizing England.”

“I do not believe that would solve everything on its own. This incident was a good example. I choose to protect from the outside. You need to protect from the inside. If we do this, the breadth of our choices will expand. It increases the probability that one of us can be stopped if we do go out of control.”

“No point debating this anymore, then,” said the Knight Leader in a lonely tone. Then, as if to ward that away, he took the bottle of scotch from his sack and pushed it at William. “A parting gift. Chamberlain even said this was his best stuff this year.”

“…This much would be wasted on one person.”

“Then find some good comrades on your travels. Good enough to share it with.”

His foppish expression caused William to sigh. They would always be a knight and a mercenary. He was honestly surprised they’d gotten along so well before now.

“Ah yes,” said William. “A craftsman should have received an order for an escutcheon. Have him cancel it. If it survives, I feel like my regrets will, too.”

Those were the parting words of a mercenary.

No special ceremony or etiquette. The Knight Leader had displayed himself as a land-owning noble, so William responded in the mercenary way, as grass without roots.

When the mercenary left, the Knight Leader muttered to himself.

“…I can’t do that.”

The third princess looked at him, but he didn’t seem to realize he was actually speaking aloud.

“…Damn it, I can’t get rid of it like that.”