A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 18

But before he could, Fiamma of the Right moved.

He gave an order to his third arm and fired a huge flash of light at Kamijou.

“Right, well. I need to pay a quick visit to Russia and pick up the ‘materials’ left by the angel, too. Until then, I leave your right arm and its management to you.”

“…?!”

Kamijou automatically held back the flash attack with his right hand, but by the time his vision cleared, Fiamma was already nowhere to be found. All that was left were the blood-covered Carissa, the unconscious Index, and debris from the asphalt she’d broken through.

Patter-patter-patter-patter!! The sound of several sets of footsteps rang through the building.

Sasha Kreutzev, member of the Russian Catholic Church’s Annihilatus, brought her head up in surprise. After placing on the table the thick book she’d been reading and taking a sip of the black tea that had been spiked with an ungodly amount of brandy, she slowly stood from her chair.

She looked toward the window. Vasilisa was there, peering outside.

“This isn’t good. I told them a Roman-Russian alliance would be foolhardy. It looks like God’s Right Seat’s influence has gotten to the Russian Catholic Church, too. They have orders to capture you, Sasha, and now our own fellow Russian Catholic devotees have mobilized.”

“Question one. Could it be Bishop Nikolai Tolstoj, wrapped up in that long thing, trying to profit from the chaos again?”

“Would you happen to have any ideas why that piece of shit would be tailing you?”

“…” Sasha fell silent for a moment at the question.

Thinking from a magical perspective, from a Crossist one…It must have been that time with the massive quantity of telesma that had apparently gotten into her body at some point. Sasha had no recollection of it whatsoever, but as far as she could learn from the traces…enough had been temporarily stored inside her to hold an entire angel.

Vasilisa’s expression turned rather serious, too. “Hmm. You’re just too gosh-darn adorable, Sasha. Maybe that’s why he’s trying to pull you away from me…If that’s the case, beheading that old fart would be too good for him.”

“Ignoring that absurd opinion to answer you—this is probably the result of the Roman Orthodox Church wanting to capture me for some reason and bargaining for me with the Russian Catholic Church now that it’s a puppet. Question two—what do you intend to do now?” asked Sasha in a brusque tone. “To explain further—though Bishop Nikolai Tolstoj may have ambitions elsewhere, should the Russian Catholic Church officially order it, you may be obligated to obey him. If you cooperate with me any further, you will be punished alongside me.”

“Mweeen!” Vasilisa made an incomprehensible noise.

She took an old sheaf of papers out of her personal bag. They looked like some kind of work-related contracts. She may have been rotten, but she was her superior, so there were a lot of painful-looking documents in there.

“Hi-yah!”

Rp-rp-rp-rp-rp-rp-rp-rp-rp-rp!! Vasilisa suddenly started tearing up all the contracts into little pieces.

“Wha—? You— Question three, what on earth do you think you’re doing?!”

“Well, um, betraying the Russian Catholic Church, rebelling against the state, and breaking my contract to various state-related people, I guess?”

As Sasha’s mouth gaped like a goldfish in shock, Vasilisa responded with a creepy wink.

“Yay! We made an enemy of a pretty big part of the world, yeah?! Now I don’t need to listen to the Church’s orders, so I can be on your side forever and ever!”

“A-are you drunk? Question four, are you in your right mind right now?”

“Oh, poo. Don’t mind me—get out of here already. Go! Look, I packed everything you’d need for your escape, like clothes and money, into this bag here, so take it and escape out the window!”

As Vasilisa continued the conversation on her own, she opened the window, took out a different bag than the first, then hurled it at Sasha, who was hesitating by the window. Splop!! came the incredible sound as Sasha vanished out the window, thrown clear outside the building.

Underneath was a deep layer of fresh snow…so she wouldn’t get hurt too much when she fell.

Vasilisa sighed slightly—and at that very moment, the door and its lock were destroyed and the remnants were thrown into the room.

She looked over to see a bewitching woman come forward—another member of Annihilatus.

“Oh my. I had heard Sasha Kreutzev had come here.”

Skogssnua.

The name came from a Russian fairy. They lived in the forest, weren’t particularly aggressive, and sometimes fell in love with humans…but their sexual activities were so forceful that they’d cause their partners to die.

The woman wore a straitjacket—and not the functional kind, either, but one made of lace and leather with maximum emphasis on sex appeal, stretched tightly over her upper body. She was an expert in every possible form of sex magic.

“Oh! That is an attractive outfit, very much my type…but for you to be dispatched to the one staying faithful to Sasha, this must be one of that piece of shit Nikolai’s pranks, hmm?”

“Well, I wanted to ‘play’ with this Sasha Kreutzev myself, too. I’m not currently in the mood for the whole old-lady thing, but I have to do what I need to or else I’ll be in trouble. The higher-ups seem to want to cozy up to the Roman Orthodox Church, after all. Sorry about this, but would you mind giving up?”

“You’ve got me,” said Vasilisa, her tone leisurely. Then, she put an index finger to her lips and asked, “Oh yes—why, do you think, did they make me the coordinator for Annihilatus?”

“Eh?”

“…It’s because I’m the strongest one in the organization.”

Roar!! Something invisible started to storm and swirl.

As the something spurted out from Vasilisa, Skogssnua frowned.

“Man-eating woman in a one-legged house, please grant me strength for the sake of your unfortunate, faithful daughter,” sang Vasilisa in an unnaturally youthful voice.

Vasilisa’s name originated from a heroine in one of Russia’s most famous folktales. The unfortunate heroine is abused by her stepmother and older sister, and a man-eating witch living in the forest takes a liking to the girl’s faithfulness, which continues to remind her of her own late mother. Instead of taking the girl’s life, the witch gives her several magical items, allowing her to achieve happiness.

“Man-eating woman in a one-legged house.”

Softly:

Vasilisa removed her index finger from her lips. Then, as though grabbing a huge glass of brandy, she curled her fingers in the air, palm up.

In order to execute, by the hands of the witch, the way by which to achieve happiness.

“Please give me the death’s-head lamp, the death’s-head lamp to spit flames and burn my faithless stepmother and sister to death.”

Ba-boom!!

With an explosion, the two sorcerers began their battle.

After falling into the snow from the window, Sasha Kreutzev decided to run along the freezing land, even as it pulled hair out of the back of her head, in order to not waste Vasilisa’s determination.

The temperature was negative-five Celsius.

And this was still on the warmer side. Though it was moderate for Russia, the temperatures around here boasted minimums as low as negative-twenty Fahrenheit, which could stop some tanks dead on their treads.

While using magic to maintain the bare minimum thermal insulation and heat retention, Sasha advanced across the land as the snow burst up off the ground and danced in the air. When a gale blew across and whipped up the lighter snow, it could completely blanket your vision in white.

And yet her pursuers had a clear read on Sasha’s position.

A light flickered in the distance. No sooner had she seen it than a crater-size clump of snow right by her blew into the air. Sasha quickly dropped into hiding. A second, then a third explosion hit, caused by long-distance projectile weapons.

She knew that as they prevented her from moving, another team was approaching her in the meantime. Sleipnirs—eight-legged metal horses designed to be used in these frozen lands. Riding on these Soul Arms was probably a pursuit team comprised of Annihilatus members.

At this rate…!!

As Sasha gritted her teeth, someone plucked her up by her slender arm. The person yanked her into a standing position before addressing her.

“Over here. Seriously, this is getting annoying.”

It was an odd woman with all-yellow clothing covering her whole body. She wore thick makeup on her face and even had piercings on it.

Her outfit, of course, was unnatural, but…

“Q-question one: Where did you—?”

“Over there. The cave entrance is hidden under the snow,” said the woman in yellow as she tugged on Sasha’s arm. “I knew it was a good route choice to go to Russia instead of Britain. Considering the situation, I knew that bastard Fiamma would come looking for this girl.”

“U-um…Question two: Who are—?”

“Where did I come from, who am I—what are you, some sort of novice sightseer who has to be right up the ass of your tour guide at all times? Where were you going to escape to if I hadn’t shown up, anyway?”

The words caught in Sasha’s throat as she fell silent, her expression one that would make Vasilisa writhe in pure glee.

The thought Run away, run away, just run away now had been at the front of her mind. She hadn’t been thinking about an actual plan at all. Of course, being suddenly marked in Russia meant you couldn’t blame her.

But the woman in yellow looked clearly fed up. “Whatever. Russia is feeling the effects of God’s Right Seat thanks to the Roman-Russian alliance. Anyway, you won’t be able to rest until you leave this country.”

“…”

“The closest border to us is the Elizarina Alliance of Independent Nations. It’s not like I have an obligation to help you this much, but I can’t stand the people who want to get their hands on you. If it’ll make them foam at the mouth, then sure, I’ll do something I’m not used to.”

“Question three: What is the Elizarina Alliance of Independ—?”

“I told you: I’m not your tour guide. Anyway, it’s a group of small countries that declared independence from Russia recently because they didn’t like its methods. In there, it won’t matter if you’re with the Russian Catholic Church or the Roman Orthodox Church.”

“No, not that…To repeat question three—we must be of the utmost importance for the Roman-Russian faction to retrieve. If we head for another nation, would it not cause a pretext for war—no, for a military act of invasion?”

“Too late…An attack has already begun on the Independent Nations with Russian forces at the forefront.”

Sasha gasped in spite of herself.

“Align with the Roman Church and you’ll win wars—that’s how the overeager Russians seem to be taking it,” the woman in yellow continued. “They’ve already started invading the Independent Nations, declaring themselves rulers of a new world. Even if we stayed here, they’ll be fodder for indiscriminate bombings soon enough.”

“But that’s…However…Answer one—that shouldn’t be a good enough reason to bring in the tinder that will have a one-hundred-percent chance of burning into tragedy.”

“It’s the opposite, you blockhead,” said the yellow-clothed woman, cutting down Sasha’s viewpoint without mercy. “If most-wanted people like us are in their territory, the Russians won’t be able to indiscriminately bomb, shell, and massacre. They can’t kill us when they need to capture us, after all. At the same time, the English Puritan Church and Academy City want to stop the ambitions of God’s Right Seat—or rather, Fiamma of the Right—and this will make their eyes naturally shift toward the Elizarina Alliance of Independent Nations. It’s a great chance. We can make them intervene in the international society and pretend we don’t know anything. As a result, there’s a fair possibility we’ll shackle the Russians and prevent their violence.”

“Question four: In that case—?”

“Well, we will be living where we’re going away to hide. Paying the rent is only polite.”

Sasha didn’t know who the woman was, but she’d made an unforeseen ally. She nodded honestly.

Then the saffron woman noticed Sasha’s clothing and her face crinkled, appalled. “Anyway, what is with that straitjacket? We’re going into hiding, so couldn’t you put on something a little less conspicuous?”

“Answer two—in terms of clothes, I don’t believe someone wearing all yellow has a right to say that. Anyway, my boss gave me a set of things I’ll need,” she said, opening the bag Vasilisa had given her and pulling out the change of clothes.

It was the dress suit worn by Magical Powered Kanamin.

“Wait a minute, why are you trying to go back? …What? You’re going to give your asshole boss a piece of your mind? Hey, wait, stop, stop stop stop stop stop stop!!”

Touma Kamijou stood there in a stupor.

As Index lay on the road, many people had come around them. Even the English Puritan Church’s professional sorcerers had bewilderment on their faces.

The unconscious Index wasn’t waking back up, no matter how long they waited.

Kaori Kanzaki, who had knelt beside her, looked up at him and said, “Her breathing and pulse are normal. There shouldn’t be any threat to her life.”

Hearing that didn’t put Kamijou’s mind at ease. What on earth had happened? His understanding hadn’t caught up yet.

“…What is this?” came a voice.

It wasn’t Kamijou. The words belonged to Stiyl Magnus, who was edging closer to Laura Stuart a short distance away. The first thing he’d seen after finally joining up with everyone else was Index lying there.

“What is this?! Just how…how much more are you going to deceive people? How much more are you going to hurt that girl before you’re satisfied?!”

All notions of superior and subordinate gone, Stiyl grabbed Laura by her collar and seethed. But there was no major change in Laura’s expression.

“Give it a rest. We needed to place several safeties on the Index to secure her basic human rights,” interrupted Elizard from beside them.

Stiyl remained silent, so the queen continued. “If we hadn’t created a way to control her remotely from London, we would have always needed to consider the threat that someone might make off with the Index. For example, we would have had to confine her in a Tower of London room forever or cut off her limbs to prevent her from escaping.”

“Are you…being serious?”

“The 103,000 grimoires cannot be managed through our personal feelings alone. If we hadn’t made her fully controllable and the mechanism safe, should she be caught in a crisis, we wouldn’t be able to argue against the opinions that it would be safer just to kill her because the Index is a threat…An extreme argument, but to stop it, we had to prepare several safety mechanisms.”

“Shit!!” swore Stiyl, shoving Laura violently away.

What’s going on? wondered Kamijou.

Hadn’t everyone been brought together as one just a few moments ago? Wasn’t this supposed to have a happy ending? Just because that Fiamma of the Right guy showed up, everything turned into this. Everything scattered apart in an instant, and now they were glaring at one another.

The final member of God’s Right Seat.

Fiamma of the Right…

“We could never have predicted that the Imagine Breaker would so easily destroy the Collar, an important factor comprising John’s Pen, from the planning phase,” explained Elizard to the still-frozen Kamijou. “We’d never tested using the remote-control Soul Arm while the Collar was broken like that, and this was how it malfunctioned. If Fiamma accesses the knowledge in the Index of Prohibited Books now, it will likely place great stress on her body.”

As she spoke, she squatted next to Index as she lay on the road. She picked up the girl’s body in both hands.

“You know what you need to do, right?” said Elizard pointedly. “We’ll take care of the Index for the time being. We were the ones who built the Index of Prohibited Books and her system, so we’ll have experts apply healing to her and work to block as much of Fiamma’s influence as we can. But that won’t be enough. Unless we defeat him and completely destroy the remote-control Soul Arm, we can never guarantee her safety.”

“…”

The queen couldn’t leave this place. She had to protect the United Kingdom.

That was a very correct choice, and Kamijou had no way to argue it.

But he didn’t intend on insisting that she help him.

“Stiyl,” said Kamijou to the red-haired sorcerer, “I’m gonna go give Fiamma a beating. Can I leave Index to you in the meantime?”

“…Are you bloody serious? Are you telling me to sit by and do nothing to the person who did this to her?!” shouted Stiyl, looking like he was about to have a row with Kamijou himself.

But instead, Kamijou grabbed Stiyl by the collar and pulled him in close.

Bringing his mouth to Stiyl’s ear, he whispered so only he could hear:

“…Excuse me, but do you have any proof the people plotting all this bullshit aren’t going to do anything to Index in the future?!”

“…?!”

“…I don’t know anything about how it works from a magic perspective, but even if I was with Index around the clock, I could miss cheap tricks. If they tell me not to enter a magical facility because of my right hand, that’s it. That’s why I’m asking you to do this! A sorcerer I know will protect Index until the very end, no matter what the situation, without letting the bigger organization’s plots throw you around!!”

After saying his piece, Kamijou pushed Stiyl away.

He didn’t like thinking that way, but he had to. The kind of malice emanating from Fiamma made Kamijou remember the faults among individuals in a group that he knew had just been connected.

Feeling bitter, Kamijou turned to Queen Elizard and spoke. “…He could have been trying to mess us up on purpose, but if what Fiamma said is true, he’ll be going after Sasha Kreutzev next. God’s Right Seat uses angel magic, right? Sasha would be too tempting for him to pass up…After all, she had an actual archangel in her body once before.”

“I’d like to keep as tight a lid on losing control over the Index as I can. Which means you won’t have a just cause to save her. In other words…”

“…If it’s cooperation you mean, then I don’t need it,” said Touma Kamijou.

It wasn’t that he felt nothing. The anger boiling out from his heart was finally being expelled into the outside world.

“I’ll get there myself. I’ll go to Russia, then beat that shithead Fiamma to a pulp for you.”

There were two things Touma Kamijou hadn’t said.

The first was that he’d lost his memories regarding the Index incident.

The second had to do with the third arm, another right arm, that had come out of Fiamma.

It was like an actual right arm had broken through the skin—an incomprehensible object of power. Fiamma himself had said that the two men’s right hands were similar to each other.

He had a lot of questions he needed to ask.

So, quietly, he vowed to himself: he’d ask them all, then punch him without hesitation.