EPILOGUE

Cicerone to Further Disturbance

True_Target_Is…

Touma Kamijou awoke in a hospital bed.

He was used to this room by now. He must have been moved out of District 22 to District 7, where the frog-faced doctor was. Every time he was hospitalized, perhaps because of his link to all these incidents, they took the time to bring him to this single-person room with no other patients. He was actually a little nervous that they might have been seeing him as a massive nuisance.

“Oh, oh—have you woken up?”

That was Itsuwa, who was sitting in a pipe chair set up for a guest visit. Kamijou tried to sit up, but his body wouldn’t move. And it wasn’t just his deep wounds doing the talking there; he felt a strange sense of exhaustion—he had no energy at all. It felt like the core of his tiredness was spread throughout his whole body. As he wondered in confusion about this unaccustomed sensation, Itsuwa sighed in relief and relaxed.

“I-it’s only natural you can’t move. You slipped out of the hospital when you were supposed to have absolute bed rest and went back to the battlefield, and then you pulled off a surprise attack against Acqua.”

He asked Itsuwa a few things—after they’d fought off Acqua of the Back, no civilians or Amakusa members had died. But it didn’t feel real at all.

Actually, he couldn’t remember much of what had happened after sneaking out. He felt like he’d run into Mikoto on the way, but how much of that had been a dream? Still, he was fundamentally hiding the fact that he was an amnesiac, so he wouldn’t talk much about not remembering parts of events. For now, he smiled vaguely.

“…Still, well…That was crazy. Acqua was God’s Right Seat and a saint at the same time, right? And you beat him…Does that mean I witnessed a historical moment?

“Y-you were the one who did the most! In fact, it was a miracle we even beat a saint, and on top of that, we did it without any losses—it’s like Santa Claus tripped and all the presents came out of his bag at once and flew all over the game board, and…!!”

For some reason, Itsuwa went red in the face and started waving her arms in front of her surprisingly large chest…Well, anyway, the takeaway was that Amakusa was amazing for beating him, right? It was a super-sloppy judgment, since Kamijou didn’t know anything about the world of sorcery.

Though in reality, it had actually been Itsuwa holding the key—the Saintbreaker—who had delivered the finishing blow, but she didn’t seem to realize that whatsoever. Which was worse: a natural, airheaded idiot or a serious, humble one? Anyway, he could sum it up as incredibly unfair from Acqua’s point of view.

“Blah…Wait, what day is it? I-I’m still okay on attendance, right?! Crap, I feel like I probably need to make sure of that or something bad will happen!! I feel like incidents have been happening one after another lately!!”

“Oh no, you mustn’t get up!!”

Itsuwa grabbed his shoulders and tried to push him back down onto the bed when he tried to get up. As a result, their faces rapidly neared. They were a little less than five centimeters apart. Frankly speaking, Itsuwa’s surprised, blushing face had filled his view. He got the sense that the air between their faces had turned into a soft wall, but for some reason, he didn’t consider the option of pulling away.

And then…

“………………………………Touma, you’re the same as always.”

Prompted by the low voice, he looked over and saw a girl, in other words, Index, standing idly near the entrance to the hospital room. She came with a bonus: a broken flower vase on the floor at her feet, very nicely expressing her current state of mind. The suspense went off without a hitch, and her timing was perfect—God-given, even, as though he were saying Kamijou would always be dealing with some incident.

“E-eeeek!! Wait, please wait, Miss Index!! I can tell without you saying it! Your Greatness is about to give up on poor Kamijou’s existence and humanity, aren’t you?!”

“…I was the one sitting there until a minute ago. I take my eyes off you for one second and it’s already gotten to this…You haven’t even said sorry for sneaking out of the hospital without telling me…”

“Yes, yes, you’re right! I fully agree with that! I wasn’t acting sane when I went back to Acqua in that state! What on earth would you have done if the worst had happened?!”

“Acqua?! You mean from God’s Right Seat?! That Acqua?! How could you not rely on me for an enemy who’s basically made of magic?! I’m the Index, for crying out loud!!”

“Wait, what?! When did Itsuwa’s position change like that?! Is this the power of Amakusa’s environmental adaptation?!”

Meanwhile, in front of the room where their exchange was going on, there was a woman, standing at a loss in the straight hallway: Kaori Kanzaki. She’d come to make her own hospital visit, but it seemed like she’d missed her chance (or been beaten to the punch by Itsuwa), so now she didn’t know what to do.

“(…What do I do? I have to go back to London tomorrow, so this is the only chance in my schedule, but both Itsuwa and that child are here at this very moment…)”

“Lady…You’re burning daylight, you know.”

A sudden voice from right behind her nearly sent her jumping out of her boots. She turned around to find a boy with blond hair and sunglasses—Tsuchimikado Motoharu.

He brought a hand to his mouth and grinned meaningfully. “You’ve been blessed with a chance to visit Japan in the middle of your very busy schedule. Now’s your chance to thank him for taking care of Index and Amakusa, nya.”

“I—I know that. But, well…How to put this? Talking to him one-on-one would already be awkward, but now that both Itsuwa and the child are there, well, I’d appreciate waiting a little longer, or, well…”

“Anyway, you brought the fallen angel maid costume, right?”

“Bfghbt?! O-of course not!! Why would I?! The Seven Heavens Sword barely got through customs!! Besides, if I was going through with that absurd plan, I’d definitely have to get him alone!! I could absolutely not have Itsuwa or that girl in the middle of it!! You know how powerful that girl’s eidetic memory is!!”

Kanzaki shook her head quickly, imagining the terrible scene.

But Tsuchimikado, with a know-it-all look, nodded generously. “I know you’re super-serious and blush easily, so…Ta-daa!! Today, I brought an evolution of that outfit—an erotic fallen angel maid costume, nya!!”

“How is that any different?!”

“Huh? What do you mean? Look, the chest is open more, and the skirt portion is more transparent—”

Kanzaki grabbed onto Tsuchimikado’s hand for dear life as he tried to suddenly unfold some kind of fabric in front of her. Despite her saintly gripping force threatening to crush his palm, he maintained a grin, albeit a pained one.

“Then what’re you gonna do? Like, seriously, tell me what you’re gonna do. You dragged yourself this far—you’re not gonna just walk in, smile normally, blush a little, tilt your head, and say thank you, right? You need to realize something! While you’ve been diddling around, this story’s getting to the point where you won’t be able to do anything about it!! Don’t think I’ll let you keep me in all this suspense and then sidestep the entire issue!!”

Fierce lights flew from Tsuchimikado’s eyes behind his sunglasses, and Kaori Kanzaki lost all her usual coolness. Drawing back, she asked, “Then what do you think I should do?! No matter how much of a debt I accrue, the only thing I can do is wholeheartedly—”

“You can at least give him a squeeze and a rub, damn it!”

“??? Squeeze? Squeeze what?”

“Oh please, get off your freaking high horse…Question, question for you, now!! Zaky, what are those attached to your body for? I’m asking you what purpose those proofs of mammal-hood, in other words, those boobs, are stuck to you for!!”

“A-at the very least, they’re not for squeezing and rubbing things…”

Kanzaki’s face clouded in confusion, unable to imagine what Tsuchimikado was trying to get at.

He clicked his tongue softly. She was being surprisingly hardheaded.

“But really, you’re sure you’re all right with going at it so slowly, huh?”

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

“(…Look at Itsuwa,)” he whispered. “(You know, the one who’s slow to mature. I’m telling you, she might be willing to put on the erotic fallen angel getup.)”

“(…???!!! Th-there’s no way…!!)” she replied, needlessly drawing in to reflect Tsuchimikado’s secretive tone.

He let out a suppressed, catlike grin. “Do you know that for sure? We all tend to think she won’t make any bold moves, but considering how much she’s going for the hand towel plan, when you really think about it, she acts independently a lot. The towel thing has been doing nothing but failing, so when she comes to terms with what she’s missing—the erotic fallen angel maid outfit, I mean—and everything clicks, how much attack power do you think it will give her?”

“Th-that can’t be! I know her—she would never do that!!”

“You know, to be blunt, with her size, she’d have no problem squeezing and rubbing.”

“??? Again, what do you mean by that?”

Kanzaki gave him another blank look. For once, Tsuchimikado was at his wits’ end. He couldn’t get her on the same page. He changed his mind, deciding to attack from a different angle.

“In the end, that’s all you are, Zaky. The only thing that stands out about you is how embarrassed you get. You don’t actually have any gratitude toward Kammy at all, do you?”

“N-no, you’re wrong!! It’s just that your examples, like that erotic fallen angel maid thing, are too out there!! I’m grateful in a normal way!!”

“But I don’t think Itsuwa cares. That means she’s more grateful to him than you. To be honest, she could do a simple fallen angel maid outfit, no problem. And she’d want to power it up to the erotic version. Do you know what the difference here is?”

“I—I don’t understand what you mean.”

“What I mean is, she has you beat, Zaky. On being a woman.”

“?!”

“Blech. Is Amakusa even going to be all right like this? Sheesh. Pride’s the only thing you’ve got much of. You don’t know what it means to slave away at something. Can you guide little lost lambs like that? When push comes to shove, you’ll be the only pretty one left and abandon everyone else, nya.”

“N-no, I…This is all too much for a stupid erotic fallen angel maid costume…”

She was 100 percent sure she was in the right, but when he said all this like it was so obvious, she wavered. She already had a debt to Kamijou to begin with. It wasn’t taking long for her brain to deflate like a punctured tire.

N-no, this all has to be a ruse! There is no possible way a stupid erotic fallen angel maid costume can determine a woman’s worth!! U-um…I feel like that’s beside the point…? My worth as a woman isn’t the problem; it’s how to thank him properly…I keep saying that outfit isn’t how, but can I think of any alternatives…? Ack!! I—I mustn’t be weak!! This is all a trap!! No, wait, but…Hmm, well…I need to calm down. First, I need to calm down and think this through!!

“Hmm? Wh-what is it, Zaky?”

As her thoughts raced fruitlessly in her mind, Tsuchimikado winced a little. She must not have heard a word he’d said. After putting on a flat, expressionless face, Kanzaki quietly sat down in seiza position in the middle of the hospital hallway. Then, with slow movements reminiscent of flower arranging, she took out almost twenty roofing tiles from who knows where and began to pile them up.

“H​h​h​h​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n​n!!”

She laid her fist into the pile from above, punching through the tiles and down into the floor. Listening to the breaking, she spoke to Tsuchimikado in an incredibly cool tone of voice.

“I will be fine. I am thinking.”

On the other hand, Tsuchimikado, having witnessed an oddly level-faced Priestess, was a little unsure. Crap. Did I go too far with my half-joking lecture? He broke into a bit of a cold sweat.

Eventually, Kanzaki held out a swaying hand to him. Her five fingers were in a straight line like for a karate chop, and she had her palm up, pointed at Tsuchimikado as if to take off his head.

She spoke.

“Tsuchimikado.”

“Y-yes?”

“I am prepared. The item, if you would.”

About ten minutes later…

After burying her fist in the cackling Tsuchimikado’s face, withdrawing extra womanliness, and leveling up once again, the Priestess of Amakusa, Kaori Kanzaki, charged into a certain hospital room.

For the sake of the Priestess’s honor, we will omit here what sort of chaos struck the world after that.

The one thing we can say is that Touma Kamijou would, for a time afterward, be terrified by the shadow of a third angel, separate from Misha Kreutzev and Hyouka Kazakiri.

A message came from the English Puritan Church.

A person called a strategic negotiator had called to present several documents and several plans for surrender. He’d implied they should choose for themselves the end they wished for most. Before hearing half of it, the pope cut the communication off.

“Damn!!”

He seethed. Acqua losing meant two things. First, they had lost a valuable combat asset. Second, the enemy had more combat potential than they’d thought.

How in the world could Acqua have lost?

Touma Kamijou.

He may have had a rare ability, but that wouldn’t beat Acqua alone. However, many people had naturally gathered to defend the boy. His faction—made up of simple friends and comrades.

“…”

The pope of Rome thought in silence.

The boy was formidable.

As he brooded over this with a glower, he heard a set of footsteps.

“This will not do. Acqua, defeated? They must have grown since last time. Still, that’s why we have our pretext. Our justice. Hah—should chaos appear in this Roman Orthodox–controlled world, the source must meet with a swift end, no matter who it is, eh?”

Footsteps echoing in the Vatican, within St. Peter’s Basilica.

The pope saw him and gave him a deeply troubled look. “Fiamma of the Right…Y-you…You didn’t come from back there, did you?”

“Well now, isn’t that a dangerous look on you?” said the young man, Fiamma, to the pope. He seemed disappointed. “They do say the true stuff of a leader only shows itself in dilemmas. That response just will not do. It makes you look like you aren’t worthy of being the pope.”

“What…do you plan to do?” asked the pope carefully.

Vento of the Front was recuperating, Terra of the Left had died, and they didn’t know if Acqua of the Back was alive. In other words, the one holding decision-making authority for God’s Right Seat, and the Roman Orthodox Church, lay in the hands of Fiamma.

Fiamma had always been an ominous presence, even within God’s Right Seat. The pope felt as though even the other more self-willed members had always left the final decision on their actions to him.

“Vento’s surprise attack on Academy City. Terra’s global group control. Acqua’s overwhelming genius…Every one of them a failure. Is there a better plan? An overpowering one that will stop Academy City, the main base of the science side?”

The pope’s face darkened. The Roman Orthodox pope could not tolerate the science side rising to power—that was why he’d asked instruction from God’s Right Seat. Still, he did not want to find himself besieged, with the guiltless faithful caught in the mess.

However, Fiamma said, almost jokingly, the exact opposite of this idea. “First, destroy Britain.”

“What?” said the pope.

Fiamma ignored him and continued. “You don’t understand? Thanks to our alliance with the Russian Catholic Church, we have complete possession of all Europe aside from them. We contact all the nations and run Britain dry. People, goods, money—we cut off the flow of everything. It is still an island nation, after all. With nowhere to run, I estimate they’ll run out of power in a matter of months.”

The pope tried once again to understand what Fiamma was saying, but gave up. “I don’t understand the point,” he said honestly. “True, there is a pipeline between Academy City and the English Puritan Church. But if we take Britain, I don’t think that would be a fatal blow to Academy City. Even if we took the entire United Kingdom hostage, that city would be fine with continuing the war. They could use saving them as a pretext, after all.”

On the other hand, if they conquered Academy City first, the British side would grind to a halt. English Puritanism may have been one of the three largest denominations of Catholicism, but it also meant they were only one-third of it. They wouldn’t start a war against the other two-thirds—the Roman Orthodox and Russian Catholic Churches.

The British were being so aggressive because they were allied with Academy City, and the entire rest of the science side, too. If they could just disable Academy City, Britain would wake up before it was hurt.

“Not quite,” interrupted Fiamma simply. “That’s not quite right, Mr. Pope of Rome.”

“Academy City thinks nothing of us.”

This time, the pope caught his breath. He didn’t understand what Fiamma of the Right had just said. It wasn’t that he half understood—he didn’t comprehend a single word.

Fiamma continued, disregarding his shock. “The United Kingdom has something. Something we absolutely need. They won’t simply offer it, of course. That was why we had to cause a commotion. To get it, we need the great power of the Roman Orthodox Church to take action.”

“What…are you saying…?”

“Hmm? I believe I answered your question. And this isn’t necessarily mutually exclusive with your wish, either. As long as we get it, we can destroy anything—we could get rid of Academy City and the entire science side at once.”

“What…?” The pope still didn’t understand. He just asked, “What is that something…?”

“Ah yes.”

Fiamma of the Right spoke it easily. And the words he said were…

…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​

There was a thud.

It was the sound of the Roman pope staggering and hitting his back against a thick pillar in St. Peter’s Basilica.

“That’s…absurd…,” he managed to say, wringing it from his throat. “Are you truly a Crossist disciple…?”

Fiamma responded casually. “Hmm. Well, what do you think?”

“Damn!!”

“That will not do. You are the pope—swearing like that will simply not do.”

The man ignored Fiamma’s words of ridicule. He couldn’t pay attention to them. Vento of the Front, Terra of the Left, Acqua of the Back. Each of them moved according to his or her own warped principles and ideas, but God’s Right Seat was still a single Crossist group. They would acquire powers beyond those of angels, become kami-jou, “gods above,” and save man directly. While that way of thinking was arrogant and blasphemous, as a person, he could understand parts of it.

But this was different.

Fiamma of the Right, alone, was decidedly different.

He’d told the pope to isolate Britain using the Roman Orthodox and Russian Catholic Churches’ power. But Britain wouldn’t sit idly by and wait for that to happen. When they realized their energy would actually deplete, they would fight like their lives depended on it. This could turn all of Europe into a battlefield. This was in a different dimension than sending one or two important people sneaking into Academy City—this would cause a genuine war.

“You…You don’t think I’ll sit quietly and let you do this, I hope.”

He couldn’t let him do that. He was aware that a conflict had started, one that shouldn’t have begun in the first place…but he could still stop it.

“You want to fight?” asked Fiamma, looking directly at him, slowly shaking his head. “Fight the leader of God’s Right Seat?”

“Do not look down on me. You are captain of a mud-boat about to sink.”

“Strong words. Yes, the others may have had rare qualities, but it was just three people. I can just assign the Front, Left, and Back positions to others. As long as I, the great Fiamma, survive.”

“You think I’ll let you?” rumbled the pope. “Fiamma of the Right. You will be silent for a time. Or perhaps for eternity.”

Boom!! An explosion. Nothing in particular had suddenly appeared. Instead, the space itself, unchanging, was wavering, making odd, cracking noises. The scene looked like the inside of a box being crushed from the outside.

“I announce to apostles one through twelve. I beg the Lord who cannot be counted. Power need overflow. I know its proper meaning, and with that power, I desire the defeat of my enemies.”

Several lights flew around. They were supposedly mere glowing orbs, but each held within it a completely different image, like a mysteriously upside-down cross and a scallop.

The symbolic lights surrounded Fiamma, forming flat planes between them. A prison shaped like a soccer ball formed around his body.

He heard a whistle.

It came from Fiamma’s mouth. Fiamma, who was completely encircled.

“Symbols of Jesus and the twelve apostles? Are you sure? You’re even borrowing the seal of Judas, the betrayer. And yet you are the pope.”

“Do not misunderstand. Judas may have betrayed the Lord, but it was the Lord’s mercy extended to him as an apostle. Thou shalt love thy neighbor. It’s easy to bury what works against us. But the purpose of the Word of God is to never seek the easy way out.”

Bwoom!! The sound of an explosion.

The thirteen-faced polygon surrounding Fiamma formed a ring to restrain him. Not to physically bind him but to sever his body from his mind and to have them spin fruitlessly within his flesh for eternity—restraints that did not wound.

“After Judas’s betrayal, he was overwhelmed by a strong sense of self-reproach and hanged himself. His world was dark, cold, deep, and painful. No matter where he looked, he couldn’t even see a single ray of hope. Remember it, for that is what you will experience now.”

Fiamma probably couldn’t hear him, but the pope kept talking.

“This will force you into a state of idleness for forty years. Have a long taste of the self-isolation Judas succumbed to, and re-polish your inexperienced mind.”

Standing frozen inside the thirteen-faced polygon, Fiamma’s lips trembled slightly.

Perhaps it was all the resistance he could muster, as he couldn’t move a muscle.

“Stop. Despite my failings, I am the pope. The powers I wield now are sacred, ones which have guided and supported two billion faithful for over two thousand years. The arrogance of a single man or two is not enough to ward it away.”

In addition, St. Peter’s Basilica was the strongest, greatest fortress in the entire Catholic sphere. To top that off, Vatican City itself functioned as one giant Soul Arm, adding layers upon layers of strength to the pope.

“Hmph.”

And then Fiamma’s mouth actually moved.

Shock entered the pope’s expression. Those weren’t the movements of someone restrained.

Fiamma spoke, his tone neutral.

“Unfortunately, it was only two billion, and only two thousand years.”

A moment later, everything disappeared.

The pope’s eyes could just barely make out a brilliant, explosive light from the vicinity of Fiamma’s right shoulder. An instant later, his vision had covered over in white, and a storm of destruction had brewed.

A dome-shaped wind blasted.

One-third of St. Peter’s Basilica had just been blown to pieces from within.

The magical devices supporting the immense building severed one by one, causing a chain of collapse of other facilities supporting the Vatican, utterly destroying the defensive circle supposedly safeguarding the area, whipping up mana without anywhere to go, bending and warping the scenery.

The pope was blown over a hundred meters back. He rolled onto the cobblestones of a plaza.

He watched, dumbstruck, as the basilica collapsed into dust. The world’s strongest fortress, Crossism’s largest basilica, tore open like a flimsy piece of paper. The horrible sight made the pope forget even the pain of his wounds.

At the center of all the destruction, Fiamma of the Right reigned supreme.

He slowly began to walk to the plaza.

There was something strange around his right shoulder.

In addition to his arm, there was a distorted bundle of light, like a failed wing, like a giant’s arm with five ugly rings on it. Greek mythology spoke of the goddess Athena being born from a wound in Zeus’s forehead—and this seemed just as surreal a sight.

“Pathetic. That was all it took for it to break apart?”

Fiamma looked between his right arm and the thing growing out of his shoulder. Then he spat, as though he’d tried to start a car that had a bad engine.

The pope, leaning against broken cobblestones, moaned, “That…arm…Could that be…?”

“Yes. The right arm is the symbol of miracles,” said Fiamma, walking slowly into the debris. “Jesus healed the sick with his right hand and raised the dead. We make the sign of the cross with our right hand, and we sprinkle the holy water of baptism with our right hand. And Michael—he who is like God. His right hand held the most powerful weapon in history. It consigned many a fallen angel to oblivion, strong enough to cut down even Lucifer, the bearer of light.”

The right.

The man symbolizing the color of burning red, Fiamma, simply continued his lecture.

A lecture to the pope—the highest of the Roman Orthodox Church.

“Urgh…”

“Of course, because this ‘holy right,’ the right hand of God, has such incredible power, normal humans can’t handle it. When regular disciples genuflect or handle holy water, well…you know how the powers those in the legends wield is only a fraction of it? Saints, God’s Right Seat, whatever—their flesh is always based on that of a normal human. Do you get it, Mr. Pope? I’m just a regular human. Unfortunately for me,” he said, sounding annoyed.

He wielded such inhuman powers at a whim and yet scorned himself as nothing but human.

“What I mean is, I’ve got this wonderful crystallization of these right-handed miracles but no output terminal for stocking it, controlling it, and exhibiting it. And you barely get anything out of trying to use it like that, right? It’s like watching a video taken by a high-definition camera on a monochrome television.”

The giant, warped, ominous arm swayed behind Fiamma.

He licked his slender fingers. “Hey, don’t you want that power?”

Fiamma of the Right, who had utterly ruined St. Peter’s Basilica as though it were no problem, as though it were a mere man-made cathedral, just a few holy secrets assembled as one.

“The Holy Right symbolizes all miracles. The power of the right can destroy any evil or wickedness without issue, bind the Devil himself to the bottom of hell, and guarantee a thousand years of peace. If there were a right arm capable of drawing that power out in its entirety, wouldn’t you want to know how it worked on the inside?”

He…can’t mean…

He’d read the reports.

He knew of the unknown supernatural power possessed by a boy in Academy City.

And his right arm, said to nullify any holiness or sorcery.

“I could use it.” Fiamma smiled, holding his right arm straight out. His third arm, which had broken apart, moved as well, under its own power, as if in response. “With this, God’s “Likeness,” the power of Michael, I will handle it perfectly. And for that, preparations are necessary.”

Of course, just having the requisite materials didn’t mean you could control a spell. In order to suppress an overwhelming power, you needed overwhelming knowledge beyond the realm of man. And the Roman pope knew of such a treasure trove of knowledge. The singular crystallization of knowledge, with all the world’s grimoires collected in one place.

Fiamma must have known what the pope was thinking from his expression. His smile widened. “The Index of Prohibited Books. Those Brits really put together something fantastic.”

And that was why…

…he needed England.

Not the person herself, who was staying in Academy City for now—but specifically Great Britain.

“I won’t…let you,” muttered the pope.

He dragged his blood-covered body to its feet. He thought that if he asked for guidance from God’s Right Seat, if he became one of them and aimed for the kami-jou, he could save many more of his followers. He hadn’t wanted such a thing to elevate his own position and power as the pope. He hadn’t become the pope to create a world where innocent lambs were used as stepping stones.

That was why the man now stood in the way.

The futures of two billion were behind him.

“This will be fun.”

Fiamma laughed, his giant arm still level with the ground.

“One-sided contests are ridiculous but still fun.”

Ga-boom!!

They didn’t even clash.

Fiamma’s overwhelming power simply pierced the pope, sending him flying.

St. Peter’s Square was destroyed into fine particles. The explosion’s aftermath knocked over several buildings and caused the already-damaged basilica to collapse even further. Part of the outer wall encircling Vatican City fell. That was where the pope had been blown to.

The commotion made the Vatican’s guard, who were convinced there could never be a crisis in a place like this, finally come running. At first, they stared at Fiamma with a blank look. They probably didn’t think a mere person could cause destruction on this scale. Eventually, a few snapped out of it to do their duty. They were crushed and sent flying. And that was when the “dominator” was sure of that power’s destruction.

“Hmm?” he muttered, looking at the Vatican’s outer wall, thoroughly destroyed.

Strange. No victims.

By all rights, the aftermath from his previous strike should have turned Rome, outside the wall, into a mountain of rubble hundreds of meters across. But the destruction was actually only inside the Vatican. It hadn’t reached the city outside.

“He took it all himself? What a guy.”

Fiamma hummed to himself, heading for the mostly destroyed St. Peter’s Basilica.

Neither a lowly guard nor heavyweights like archbishops or cardinals could say a word.

The blood-soaked Roman pope collapsed against the outside wall of a house.

Fiamma hadn’t bothered to conceal the explosion. Now there was a huge disturbance in the area, with people thinking it was a terrorist bombing.

An ambulance siren wailed somewhere.

He thought for a moment that there had been casualties, but apparently, it was coming closer in order to carry him.

He looked around, but none of the houses looked caved in.

Several windows had broken due to the shattered fragments of the outer wall, but it didn’t look like anyone had died.

It put a faint smile on his lips, when suddenly, he noticed a girl in filthy clothes looking at him from a small alley between houses.

It was dangerous here.

He tried to tell her, but he couldn’t put together real words.

The girl was shouting something at him, maybe to keep him from losing consciousness. She wasn’t carrying any bandages or disinfectant. However, the pope, who didn’t desire any more technology than necessary, was actually thankful for it. After his brush with a massive evil, this little act of kindness touched his heart.

“Hah. Now there’s something.”

He heard a voice.

He looked up and saw a woman wrapped in yellow clothing standing there.

Vento of the Front.

“Damaging your honor to save the lost lambs and, in the meantime, thinking about a nobody worrying about you? And you still hate being chosen by others? You were elected to this position, Mr. Pope.”

“…Britain.”

The pope’s mouth managed to open between gasps of breath.

He spoke, though it was mostly blood coming out.

“Fiamma’s target…is in…Britain…”

“Nobody gives me orders,” spat Vento. “But I’ll let it slide this time, since we both want to kill that shithead.”

Vento fell silent for a moment. The filthy girl was glaring at Vento in challenge.

“Such good malice,” she said, smiling thinly. “And you’re in luck. If I had my actual weapon, you’d be dead where you stand.”

The ambulance siren approached.

Vento said nothing more before disappearing into an alley between houses—seeming more familiar with it than the filthy girl.

Little Venice, London.

The archbishop of the English Puritan Church, its highest authority, Laura Stuart, lay on a boat, napping. The boat was on a man-made river controlled by several gates. As the name Venice might imply, they seemed to be going for some of the Venetian feel…but they’d messed something up, and though the sight was beautiful, it was wholly unlike that city. It wasn’t even a city on the water or anything. This was simply a dock where three rivers met.

Behind the scenes, this was also a place meant to reproduce and allude to the geography of Venice, the city constructed atop the sea, from a magical viewpoint. Very few people knew the truth, though.

“I would have at least preferred a rowboat…”

Laura cast a bored glance to the boat’s rear. There was a man there, who must have been the captain, but the boat had a small engine on it.

“A report, ma’am.”

The captain had come to her with work. She’d finally slipped out of St. George’s Cathedral, and now this man was ruining the atmosphere. Laura frowned but prompted him to continue.

“We have evidence of internal strife in the Roman Orthodox Church. The pope appears to have been involved. We don’t know if he’s alive. We’ve confirmed they transported him to a hospital, but the situation is unpredictable.”

“…”

He mixed in speculatory information based on eyewitness reports from Rome and mana flows, detailing this alleged “internal strife.”

“Judging from the massive quantity of mana we observed inside the Vatican, the damages should have swelled to many times what it did…Please give our calculations a bit more time, ma’am. We may have been mistaken somewhere.”

“Hmph. You shan’t find anything. An entire city is at His Holiness’s back. The result is clearer than looking at a fire.”

She turned, her expression now hidden from the captain. As she did, she muttered the words, “Damned good person.”

The captain couldn’t determine how much those words meant, or what she felt when she said them. Laura Stuart’s age was not what it appeared to be, and the experience she’d accrued was an order of magnitude removed from regular people. That was why the captain couldn’t understand what she was thinking.

“…But I’m sure you were smiling, you damned good person.”

However, the entirely average captain got one impression.

Somehow, in some way, Laura Stuart sounded lonely.

A windowless building stood at a corner of Academy City.

This building boasted enough defenses to survive a nuclear blast, but it had been designed for a single person.

The Academy City General Board chairperson, Aleister.

On the lips of that “person” floating upside-down in a giant glass tube was a smile.

He was watching a square window displayed directly in the air.

Information from the Underline.

The Underline was a unique network made up of incredibly small machines scattered throughout the city.

Normally, this window would display any information he wanted. Now, all he saw was gray noise. Because of the major explosion that occurred after defeating Acqua of the Back, the Underline information network was temporarily disabled. It was made with extremely unusual technology, but the pieces were just seventy nanometers in size. Sometimes explosive blasts and shock waves damaged them.

The noise occurring in one area had spread to other spots in the network, causing an overload on the entire thing. It would be a few hours before it was completely restored. For Aleister, it was like someone had removed an arm, but he merely smiled.

“As I thought, I will have to do something about this problem. It must be rectified…”

In fact, he seemed happy—as though it was clear to him now what he needed to do.

The swarm of machines surrounding Aleister did a multilateral analysis of the information from right before the Underline had gone down, unifying all the noise-covered fragments into clearer, effective intelligence. Vivid colors appeared on the gray screen, immediately converting to a crucial report on display.

The report regarded the power a certain boy’s right arm possessed.

Various chemical equations danced, calculating his brain’s activity from the quantities of oxygen he inhaled and the carbon dioxide he exhaled. From the counterbalancing of the AIM diffusion fields prevalent in Academy City, they calculated his right hand’s power and characteristics.

From start to finish, this was a world constructed of only science.

Aleister scanned the letters in the corner of the monitor, his smile deepening.

Before this “person,” who appeared to be both adult and child, both man and woman, both saint and sinner, was the following report:

Illogical phenomenon-rejecting Point Central O maintaining stability level 3.

Specified core speed confirmed, now idling at center.

Plan influence coefficient for specimen named Imagine Breaker: 98%.

Strength as main plan backbone, along with Academy City no. 1, operating according to plan.