CHAPTER 2

Opening Offensives and Counteroffensives
Angel_Stalker.

1

As she was walking over the white snow, Lesser was clicking together some small metallic parts.

“…Hmm. Even with all my spare parts, I can’t make the Lesser Special Custom…I’ll have to revert it to the old Steel Gloves. I should have bloody documented at least the custom-made one’s theoretical values. There was so much trial and error, and I added so many parts while testing that even I can’t figure out the balance distribution anymore…”

As Lesser muttered on, she suddenly peered into the snow.

“Whoops. There it is—there’s just the thing!”

Kamijou had no idea what she was doing, but after pausing his stride with her, he learned what she was looking at.

He’d thought the snow was about a foot deep, but following Lesser’s gaze revealed a cavernous hole that was clearly over three meters deep. It was like a tunnel made out of snow.

“It was probably a ditch shaped like a V before. With all the snow piled up over it, it looks flat from above.”

“…But weren’t there transport trucks and stuff driving toward the base over this normally?”

“To begin with, if the snow had piled up as usual, it would have changed shape to match the V. They used sorcery to change the accumulation and hardness. I’d bet that if a passenger jet landed here, it wouldn’t even budge.”

Kamijou glanced at his right hand. “…We won’t get buried alive as soon as I touch it, will we?”

“Who knows? Just to be safe, you might want to keep your hands off the walls,” said Lesser offhandedly before sliding herself into the cavern.

As Kamijou tried to follow her, she suddenly stopped and said, “Oh, great…If I’d slipped and fell on the snow, I could have opened all sorts of routes, like naturally falling into his arms or showing him my panties.”

“I get it. You’re queen today. Just get moving already.”

A train line ran through the inside, two paths stretching far into the distance alongside it. On the tracks, a distant cargo train was stopped, about five cars linked up. No electric lines or anything were visible, so maybe it had a diesel engine.

“So this is how they secretly got what they needed inside.”

“I’m surprised,” said Lesser, her expression puzzled. “Fiamma of the Right wiped out the pope of Rome and Second Princess Carissa with one hit, didn’t he? I didn’t think he was the type to be obsessed with creative methods for maintaining secrecy. I always imagined someone who would simply clear away anything he came across that he didn’t like.”

“He is the one who used his authority as God’s Right Seat to impel the Roman Orthodox Church to act and set all sorts of things in motion without doing any of it personally, you know. This is actually more normal for him. If he ever came out to deal with something directly, it would be a sign that his curtain fire had thinned out.”

For Kamijou, finding a freight train was a windfall. After all, it was thirty or forty kilometers until the base. No matter how much they searched for shortcuts, if they had to walk over the snow because they had no means of transportation, they’d run out of stamina before even confronting the man.

“Still, if we start up the freight train ourselves, they’re sure to notice us.”

“So we’ll wait for its scheduled move. Over here. Let’s hide in one of these containers.”

As Kamijou made that suggestion, he moved toward the container linked to the first train car. The door was openable from the side as well. After sliding back the iron door like the rear seat of a minivan, Kamijou and Lesser climbed inside.

Lesser watched his pants pocket closely, then said eventually, “By the way, I’ve been wondering this for a while—what is that frog strap you have there?”

“It’s called Croaker. I don’t really know more, though.”

“…A fanciful mascot character you don’t know much about…? I smell another woman’s hand in this. I may need to alter my strategy. I should take the initiative and wipe it out…”

Lesser was mumbling to herself, but after quickly checking the inside of the container, her expression slowly changed into something more dangerous.

“Hmm. Judging by the symbols, most of these must be Crossist-type Soul Arms, as expected. I can’t tell exactly what they’re used for, though,” she said, her eyes having quickly gotten used to the darkness. “I have to say, you seem like you’re used to this.”

“…Well, during the coup, I had to stow away on a freight train filled with Knights all the way to Folkestone.”

“Oooh. Come to think of it, Florice was talking about that. She was saying if she ever saw that Japanese person again, she’d whoop him real good.”

“Oh. Why did the Knights capture her anyway?”

As they were talking, they started to hear several footsteps and voices from outside. They cut their conversation short and strained their ears.

The people outside seemed to be speaking Russian, so Kamijou didn’t understand them, but it sounded like they were opening several container doors to load extra cargo. Kamijou and Lesser tried to squeeze behind a pile of Soul Arms, thinking the people would open the container they were hiding in, too, but it turned out that there was nothing to worry about. The lead car’s engine roared to life without the door to their car opening. With a clunk and a shake, the freight train began to move.

“…Are those Russian soldiers? Or sorcerers?”

“I can’t say for sure, but probably the latter. It’s highly probable they’re from the Russian Catholic Church. I heard them complaining about the Soul Arms they were loading.”

Two people, hiding out in a freight train container.

With each passing second, the train drew ever closer to the mysterious fortress’s center.

And…

“…Wow, it sure is hot in here. It seems like the effective temperature in closed spaces generally rises because of your own body heat.”

“You’re not airing out your skirt in here. I forbid it.”

“I wasn’t going to. That was only effective at the right time as a surprise atta—”

Lesser suddenly broke off what she was saying.

An instant later, Kamijou realized why.

She’d just figured it out: That because of her sweat, the sports shirt she was wearing had turned see-through. And that her bra, with such little surface area that a spy couldn’t even hide a small computer chip in it, was visible.

But Lesser didn’t blush or try to cover her chest with her hands.

“No!! My secret weapon—now it’s been wasted. I was going to save this for the best possible moment…!!”

“Why did you even come all the way to Russia?! I thought there was something up when you were airing out your skirt before, but—no, that can’t be true!”

Kamijou was trembling, but in the meantime, the train was closing in on their destination.

After about twenty or thirty minutes, it reached the base’s central area. The train stopped, and as they began to hear Russian again from outside, Lesser spoke up.

“Let’s get out.”

“Huh? Shouldn’t we wait until they leave?”

“You’re really dumb about certain things, huh? They were using this freight train to carry cargo, right? They’re sure to pull stuff out of the containers next. And then we’ll definitely run into them. We have to leave before that, or we’ll be in trouble.”

Now that she mentioned it, that was true, but it still took courage to jump out where people were clearly moving around.

Kamijou opened the container’s sliding door a tiny crack. Peeking out, it seemed like nobody was nearby, miraculously. Several wooden crates were piled up on the flat snow’s surface—if they could pass through while using them as cover, they could probably keep themselves from getting caught.

…Getting cold feet now won’t help.

“Guess it’s time to go,” he said, widening the door gap a little bit more. Then he wriggled through the opening and exited. After dropping down to the ground from a height of about a meter, he immediately went behind the pile of crates and hid. Lesser followed after him. Her movements were limber, like some sort of carnivore.

As they were doing that, the work of unloading cargo was proceeding on the other side of the stacks of crates, making Kamijou feel like he was surrounded by footsteps and talking voices. He was intimately aware of the sweat coming out of him every time he heard one of those sounds.

“Think positively,” said Lesser, her expression cool in contrast. “If they’re being noisy, they won’t notice if we make a little noise.”

The exit to the makeshift train platform was at a spot about ten meters away from the stack of crates. What looked like a staircase leading up was visible. The platform was under the snow, so this probably led up to the surface.

From here, they’d head to the heart of the fortress Fiamma had made.

That would have far more eyes about, incomparable to this unloading area, and it would be more dangerous as well.

They couldn’t afford to trip up here on a lower difficulty level.

Attentive to his surroundings, Kamijou was about to head for the exit when…

…he bumped into a Russian sorcerer.

The young man was older than Kamijou but probably nothing more than personnel for unloading the cargo, as evidenced by the crate he was carrying in both hands. The event seemed to be unexpected for him, too—he was staring at them blankly.

For Kamijou, the fact that he had his hands full was a silver lining.

It delayed the sorcerer’s reaction for a mere instant.

And in that instant, Lesser moved.

“!!”

It was an incredibly cold act. Without a sound, she closed the distance and thrust her arm up at the sorcerer’s defenseless throat. A sharper impact than what could be delivered with an ordinary punch struck him, and his body crumpled. Rather than catch the falling sorcerer, Lesser reached for the wooden crate he’d released.

Only a minimal noise escaped, and the work continued around them as though nothing had happened.

An unpleasant chill shot through Kamijou’s fingertips.

“Please be careful.”

With just that, Lesser lowered the box with a slow motion. Then, after tying some kind of wire around the young man’s ankles, she rearranged some nearby crates to form an enclosed space and hid him in the middle.

“…H-he’s not dead, is he?”

“It would have been easier to kill him. Then I wouldn’t have had to use a valuable detainment Soul Arm like Dromi.”

The ankle wires apparently had the effect of blocking all body movement. After smoothly explaining, Lesser got the sense that Kamijou really did live in a different world than her.

Meanwhile, as she moved her tail, fluttering the hem of her miniskirt, she thought, This tactic doesn’t seem to be very effective, so maybe being straightforward and racking up points instead will be more efficient in the long run? No, no—I am sexy; I must be!

After they climbed the exit stairs and emerged onto the surface, they found themselves inside the base proper. A few hundred meters away, they could see what looked like an iron fence barricade.

And.

The base was about ten square kilometers in total. Its center, an area measuring about seven kilometers, was raised quite a bit. The height difference looked to be about twenty meters…which made it look like a huge sheet of snow was casting a giant shadow.

“Standard doctrine would dictate that you want to make your base flat…”

“Maybe that just goes to show this isn’t your standard place.”

There was a large entrance in the “wall” of the giant slope, maybe for getting cargo inside. That was where Kamijou and Lesser began their infiltration.

Inside, it looked like a European castle. Not, however, the kind decorated with glittering silver and gold treasures. It was a damp space, made of stone, like a place for locking away prisoners.

Fortunately, they didn’t run into any lookouts or patrols on their way.

Perhaps Fiamma himself had forbidden anyone from entering.

“Ngh!”

Kamijou grabbed Lesser’s shoulder as she tried to proceed.

They were in front of a door.

Peeking in through the slightly open gap, he saw a vast empty space on the other side. He couldn’t tell what it was for. But he certainly remembered the voice he heard coming from inside.

“…It’s Fiamma. Didn’t think we’d run into the big boss right away,” whispered Kamijou, and even Lesser stiffened with nervousness.

It was like a church undergoing renovations—a modern steel frame ran here and there over the old-fashioned stone construction. Fiamma was idle on that frame. An out-of-place high-class table and chairs were set up there, and that’s where he was seated. On the table there was a thick open book that had a faint light emanating from it.

Nobody else was there.

Only Fiamma’s voice was audible.

So was that book a communication Soul Arm?

“It is necessary. This is a space. Meaning both coordinates and volume are important.”

Kamijou’s heart stirred at the voice. It’d been a while.

“I have no interest in Russian palaces. If all I wanted was to sit on the throne, I wouldn’t have smashed up St. Peter’s Basilica, would I? To me, this place is more important than Moscow, and that’s all that matters. Though it does take some time for news about the current state of affairs to reach me, which is a problem. Nevertheless, I cannot leave here if I am to go forward with my plan. Not when considering it from the viewpoint of Project Bethlehem.”

“…”

Kamijou carefully maintained his silence. If he didn’t put his mind to it, he’d probably cry out and charge in this very moment.

“I know that. This was not a battle any of you wanted. And I’m not talking about World War III—I’m talking about the greater movement at play, of Academy City and the Roman Orthodox Church opposing each other.”

They were quite far away, but perhaps because nobody else was around, Fiamma’s words reached Kamijou’s ears. On the other hand, that meant they were in danger of their own words reaching him. Kamijou’s tension only grew.

Who on earth was Fiamma talking to?

“If Academy City wins, an age controlled by the science side will be ushered in. If the Roman Orthodox Church wins, it will be the start of an age of magic. But either way, there is little for the Russian Catholic Church to savor. Even if an age heralded by sorcery does come, if the Roman Church is in a leadership position, then the Russian Church will lose its footing.”

Kamijou thought about this as Lesser translated the Russian for him.

But then his thoughts were interrupted—he’d spotted something.

Another Soul Arm on the table.

“That was why you acted at such an early stage. To reap the greatest profits once this great war ends by aligning yourselves with the faction that will bring the most benefit. In that case, you should hand over the investigation results soon. Give me the reports from the Russian soldiers I sent out everywhere.”

It was a small, cylindrical item.

It had several ringed metal fittings on it, making it look almost like a padlock with a dial.

The Soul Arm that remotely controlled Index.

The object that was causing her to suffer in unconsciousness.

If only.

If only he could destroy that…

“Yes, that’s right. That’s a good boy…The Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations? Yes, if Sasha Kreutzev were there, it would make sense that we couldn’t find her despite searching all over Russia.”

Kamijou leaned forward in spite of himself.

But then someone covered his mouth from behind.

It was Lesser.

Then, with her other hand, she delivered a sharp blow to his side. He tried to cough in agony, but he couldn’t even do that with his mouth clamped shut.

Strength began to fade from his body.

“No, they’re still sorcerers serving on the front lines. Regular soldiers wouldn’t be able to properly deal with them. Although, if they get shot and killed, that would be troubling in its own right. The Russian Church? No, Annihilatus is useless, too. I don’t know if they were unconsciously pulling their punches against former colleagues or if their specs are simply that low, but the fact of the matter is that they still haven’t captured her, even at this stage…I’m loath to say it, but I’ll have to do it myself. If it brings more certainty to my plans, it’s for the best.”

His body still pinned down, Kamijou glared at Fiamma through the gap in the door.

He hadn’t noticed them.

“…And one more thing. Your plans don’t involve you stopping at bishop, do they? The patriarch is the highest authority in the Russian Church, right? But at this rate, you won’t assume that position during your lifetime. That’s what I’m talking about. If you want to use me for your own purposes, start working hard enough to convince me to want to use you. If you still plan on being oddly parsimonious and waste my time with worthless offers, I will cut you away without a second thought and find someone else. Understood?”

Closing the thick tome as if to cut off the conversation, Fiamma left the book there and grasped the Index remote-controlled Soul Arm.

Kamijou hadn’t noticed until now, but there was a steel window-like object right next to Fiamma. Fiamma flung it open and sunlight shined into the dimly lit room. He nimbly jumped through it, making his exit.

The remote-control Soul Arm had been one step away, but now it was out of reach again.

As Lesser uncovered Kamijou’s mouth, he whipped around to face her.

He was very close to grabbing her by the collar.

“(…What’s the big idea?! He was right there!!)” he hissed.

“(…What were you planning to do?)” she hissed back. “(There are over two hundred sorcerers in that room!)”

Kamijou stared at her blankly.

He hadn’t noticed at all.

But now that she’d told him, he took another peek through the gap between the wall in the door and saw several things here and there in the vast space, deeper in the dark, that looked like the glint of eyes. Maybe they were doing some kind of work, or maybe they were standing by as Fiamma’s bodyguards.

“(…If we had marched right in, we wouldn’t have reached Fiamma. If he’s the kind of person you say he is, he would have had his men stall us and escape through the window anyway.)”

Lesser spoke each word slowly, quietly, in order to soothe Kamijou’s agitation.

“(…He mentioned the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations. And Sasha Kreutzev. He sent an order for Russian soldiers to stand down, so he might be trying to make contact with Sasha alone. If you want to steal that Soul Arm, we’ll just have to head him off. As long as we can catch Sasha Kreutzev before he does, we’ll be able to take time to plan a surprise attack against him.)”

“(…Damn it,)” Kamijou forced out in a huff.

Fiamma of the Right. He was exactly the kind of person to manipulate all these people just to cause global turmoil, then watch the fallout from on high. Kamijou knew he wouldn’t be able to get to him that easily, but still…

“(…Anyway, let’s look for Sasha,)” he continued at a whisper. “(If Fiamma wants her, it can’t possibly be for anything good…And besides, I need to settle the score for what he did to Index.)”

2

Shiage Hamazura drove the stolen car.

They’d gotten food, funds, and fuel. Now, it was finally time to “fight” Academy City—by finding a bargaining chip to guarantee his and Takitsubo’s safety.

“…But what should we even be looking for?”

“Since we’re at war, it might be a blessing in disguise that Academy City soldiers and weapons will be hanging around in Russia, too. Hamazura, maybe we should attack from that angle.”

“You mean we should seize brand-new military weapons and stuff and use the technology to negotiate?”

“We could also monitor Russian military movements to offer Academy City as intelligence.”

Hamazura was the one who had brought it up, but none of it actually felt very real to him.

Who could blame him?

He had a wealth of experience, but at heart, he was nothing more than a delinquent kid. Even with words like soldiers and weapons getting thrown around, it didn’t have a sense of reality for him. And he didn’t have any clue about how exactly one would cut a deal with a massive global power like Academy City.

Meanwhile, Takitsubo, who had peered into the depths of Academy City’s darkness, was giving him advice.

“Hamazura. Think about what Academy City wants from this war.”

“Huh? They’re worried Russia will invade, so they’re trying to defend the City, right?”

“If that was all, they wouldn’t have to mount an offensive into Russian territory. They could simply focus on building a comprehensive line of defense in the Sea of Japan. Normally, no one would be able to intercept so many bombers and ballistic missiles, but Academy City can. While they buy time with their defenses, they could gradually manipulate the global economy and put enough financial pressure on Russia that they had to stop the war.”

“…You mean Academy City has another goal in mind?”

“And since we know that, we should head for the heart. Imagine a set of balanced scales. You might only be a small weight, but if you can take a position where you can tip them no matter which side you’re on, you’ll be able to make any demands of Academy City you want.”

“…”

That meant they’d have to dive straight into the battle raging between Academy City and Russia. They would hurl themselves at the issue and hope they came up with information. The strategy could literally shave years off their life, but if they didn’t do it, they’d be giving up one of their only chances.

“They were really going at it around here, too. The Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations, was it? We should be close to there. Maybe we start searching in that area.”

“…Yeah, we should, Hamazura…”

“? Takitsubo?”

Hearing her hoarse reply sent a bad feeling down Hamazura’s body. He spared a glance toward the passenger seat, then, without thinking, hit the brakes.

Something was wrong. Her face was drenched in sweat.

“Hey, what’s the matter, Takitsubo? Are you all right?!”

“No…problems. I’m fine…So…let’s move quickly, Hamazura.”

This was no joke.

Anyone could see her condition wasn’t normal.

Takitsubo was still was suffering from the ill effects of Crystals. The fact had been thrust before him again, but that didn’t mean he could do anything about it. Would it be better to bring her to a hospital after all, even though he knew it wouldn’t help? If he had an outside doctor look at her, they wouldn’t have any idea how to cure her. And even if they did, he was worried about who would take custody of her. It was wartime, and to begin with, neither had so much as a passport—they were both illegal immigrants.

But.

He didn’t want to do nothing. He didn’t want to leave her like this. For emotional reasons more than logical ones, he wanted to reduce the strain on Takitsubo’s body as much as possible. Then what should he do? To find a bargaining chip to negotiate with Academy City, they’d have to enter the heart of the conflict and obtain useful information. That was the only way.

As Hamazura was anguishing over it, he heard a soft rapping nearby.

Someone was tapping on the driver’s side window with a fist.

He turned to look and saw a tall Caucasian man standing there. Probably Russian. Without thinking, Hamazura drew his pistol and kept it pressed against the door so the man wouldn’t be able to see from his perspective. As stated previously, Academy City and Russia were not on good terms right now. The fact that Hamazura hailed from Academy City, Japan, meant there was a possibility of harm coming their way.

The pistol still hidden, Hamazura carefully opened the window.

The tall Caucasian man said:

“I’ve done tour guides in Japanese for sightseers before. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“What are you supposed to be?”

“It looks like you need a doctor.”

The tall man gestured with his chin to the passenger seat.

Hamazura found himself taken aback at the question. The man smiled and continued, “How about some give-and-take? Our settlement is out of generator fuel. It’s below zero, and at this rate, everyone will freeze. This thing’s got a diesel engine, right? If you would be so kind as to give us the fuel stored in this junker, I can bring the young lady to see our doctor. What do you say?”

3

Had tanks really ever gotten any more comfortable?

The engine was loud, and the smell of fuel and exhaust mixed with the sweat and grime to create an incredibly foul stench. Of course, with five old guys packed into such a cramped space, maybe any environment would have been uncomfortable.

Antseka S. Kufalke, sitting in the commander’s seat, sighed.

They were in central Russia. They had no manual for deploying troops in this area in a defensive outline to protect themselves from foreign enemies. Defense was meant for places closer to the border, and many plans, depending on the situation, anticipated preemptive troop deployment inside the enemy’s borders.

They’d never calculated for an enemy that could push in this far.

Nevertheless, Academy City’s ground forces were on the move. Against all odds—to devour them from the inside outward.

“…Damn it. It’s still falling,” grumbled Antseka bitterly, aiming his gaze through the gap in the hatch to the white skies. “Deploying the bare minimum defensive weaponry to protect the peace, my ass. Those are top-of-the-line vehicles that we might get zero kills on even if we had an entire platoon charge in—and they’re sprinkling them around like promotional fliers. The enemy is clearly prepared for invasion and occupation.”

“Students make up eighty percent of their population of 2.3 million, right?” said one of his colleagues in the tank, finding it uncanny. “How can they rival Russia’s forces like that? The troop counts make no sense. Did you hear? Apparently, there’s nobody riding in those tanks, but they can move around anyway.”

Antseka’s brow furrowed even more deeply. “It’s an absurd rumor, but I get the feeling they could pull anything off.”

No sooner had he seen an Academy City supersonic bomber soar through the skies than a huge line of parachutes fell down in a line along its route. This time, they weren’t airborne tanks. They were probably materials for constructing a simple base.

Their bases came in several stages.

They were everything from “log cabins” assembled from multiple steel plates to shelters made from quick-drying reinforced cement. Those, what were they called, power suits? Their armor weapons assembled these bases at a staggering pace, and the bases were deploying all over Russia like cockroach nests.

What’s more, Academy City seemed to dislike letting outsiders lay hands on their technology.

Which meant these various fortresses must have been installed with mechanisms to be blown up or collected afterward. Unlike the Russian soldiers, who had their hands full with fighting, Academy City was already thinking of what would happen after the war was over.

“We’ll never see the end of them,” spat one of his colleagues. “While we’re putting together a plan to attack a base that suddenly cropped up in front of us, they put a base behind us, too, before we even realized. Then, while we’re sitting around scared, they put down another, this time to disrupt our supply routes. Their speed is too much. Even criminals fleeing through the night wouldn’t be this fast.”

At first, they’d tried shooting down the parachutes. But it didn’t have any effect. They could punch holes in the fabric with their anti-aircraft and machine guns, but then they’d sprout glider-like wings or deploy even more parachutes. It was limitless.

It gave Antseka and the others a very blunt, clear impression.

They wouldn’t be allowed to fight on their own terms.

And they weren’t idiots, either. In terms of combat experience, they were head and shoulders above Academy City, which persisted through technology. If it came down to a pure shoot-out, they were confident they could at least achieve fifty-fifty results. They’d force the battle into a stalemate and hold off any further encroachment of their homeland that way.

However.

It wouldn’t turn into the exchange of gunfire that they knew so well.

It wouldn’t become a battle of seasoned tank veterans.

Academy City’s peculiar tactics were absolutely impossible under normal circumstances. The materials necessary for the bases—the time and manpower needed to construct them—and the resources and energy needed to maintain them: No one could look at these conditions and call it realistic to build one base after another deep in enemy territory, all the while linking the facilities together with supply lines. It didn’t take a soldier to understand—any observing journalist could take one look at it and point out all sorts of problems.

And despite that.

Academy City had overcome those flaws with the brute force of their technology.

With normally impossible speed, the supersonic bombers were constantly dropping vast quantities of materials and fuel. With extreme swiftness, the powered suit groups accurately assembled the materials as they landed. The situation got more ridiculous the more you thought about it. It wasn’t possible to keep up without first rewriting the textbooks soldiers used during their training.

“What should we do, sir?” asked one of the younger crew in the tank, though still certainly a middle-aged soldier. “We’ll run out of fuel and ammunition soon. Those bases have sealed off our escape route and supply route. I wish the strategists would come up with some sort of radical plan to counterattack.”

“At this rate, we’ll wither away before any tank battles even begin,” grumbled another soldier, disgusted.

The first time one of the supersonic bombers had dropped all those parachutes, their team had tried to prioritize stopping the enemy base’s construction. But shooting down the parachutes was ineffective, and the powered suits that’d landed slightly ahead of that evaded their shots with incredible mobility, then used massive shotguns that could have been for bunker busting to mount a precise counterattack.

The enemy’s odd movements had thrown their forces into confusion, and in the meantime, the bombers had dropped additional materials and airborne tanks, one after another. The next thing they knew, a very wide gap in combat power had sealed off all of the Russian force’s options.

By this point, Antseka was well aware that they’d fired pointlessly.

If he’d known they’d come out with these tactics from the start, he might have been able to conserve ammunition a little more calmly, but pointing that out now would get them nowhere.

As he recalled the situation in his mind, one of his colleagues looked in his direction.

“It’s clear we’ll have to surrender. But I can’t stand this being over without us doing anything. Let’s at least blast one of them in the end. It might be a drop in the ocean, but if we don’t whittle down their forces even a little, this country really is done for.”

Antseka looked up at the white skies from the gap in the hatch.

Even as they talked, several bombers tore through the Russian sky at over seven thousand kilometers per hour, dropping innumerable parachutes in straight lines.

“Hey, if those were big bombs to take out pillboxes and not resupply materials, what do you think would have happened to us?”

“…”

An unpleasant silence fell upon the inside of the tank.

He was right. That was exactly what the supersonic bombers were meant to do. And that might have been a simpler way to shut Antseka and the others up for good.

Why was Academy City purposely adopting such roundabout tactics?

Still looking up at the sky bitterly, Antseka spat his next words.

“Humane weapons usage, is it? The bastards are treating us like fools.”

4

The Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations.

Kamijou and Lesser had reached its interior. Since it was wartime and the country was on the verge of invasion, they’d expected the border to be in a state of high alert, but they mostly just walked on in.

“It’s not an island nation like Japan or the UK. If countries neighbor one another on land, you can enter them fairly easily.”

“But that was a little too easy. With the way things are going, we should have gone in expecting to be shot.”

“They probably don’t have enough time to bother doing that. Besides, didn’t you sneak across a bunch of borders to get to Russia?”

“Actually, I just kept hitchhiking here and there, and eventually, I ended up in Russia. I don’t know exactly how it happened.”

“…Hmm. Maybe they just weren’t able to talk to you, making it a big adventure…?” muttered Lesser.

They were in a plaza-like place, and all kinds of people were coming and going around them. They seemed to be of various ethnicities, not just from one homogenous group. And while he couldn’t understand much of their words, it felt to him as though several languages were intermixed here.

“The Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations was originally a bunch of smaller regions who couldn’t agree with Russia’s way of doing things that gained independence and formed a country, right?”

“More precisely, it’s a group of such nations,” corrected Lesser. “This area is landlocked, after all. Even if one country gained independence, they would be surrounded 360 degrees by Russian territory. If that happened, they would end up needing permission from the Russian government for any movement of people and goods. The Alliance is several small countries linked together to escape that kind of indirect control, and they apparently built their own routes out of Russia to eastern European countries…Thanks to that, though, even some among the independent nations have been isolated, particularly from Russia.”

Because of the circumstances surrounding its formation, the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations stretched long and thin from east to west. Its length was around three hundred kilometers…The chances of coincidentally bumping into someone you were looking for was infinitesimally low.

“Anyway, we’ve gotta make contact with Sasha before Fiamma does,” said Kamijou as if to hurry himself up. “Now, then. How do we go about searching for her?”

“First, let’s find an inn we can use as a base.”

“Yeah, I guess when we have so much area to search, we might not find her in one day.”

“And just one room, of course, so we can conserve our funds. You may assign a degree of indecent implication if you want.”

“Are your thought processes basically just locked to that, or what?!”

“You don’t want an inn? Then, outside?! W-well, that might pose a problem. Being outdoors by itself is no issue, but given the incredibly cold climate, it might just be boring and difficult.”

“…All right. Let’s be serious for a moment.”

After grabbing Lesser by the back of the neck and heading toward a back road, Kamijou lectured her earnestly for about fifteen minutes. Then, with Lesser’s mental state completely clobbered, he dragged her back to the plaza again.

“How are we going to look for Sasha? She’s a sorcerer, so if we can spot any traces of her using something strange and mysterious, we might be able to find her.”

“A-actually, there’ s an easier way.”

“?”

Kamijou cocked his head to the side, but a moment later, he realized something was wrong.

The issue was around them.

Four or five men were staring at them, mixed into the crowds of people coming and going. They wore deep-green military uniforms that sort of made them stand out more against the white snow.

“It’s the border patrol,” stated Lesser simply. “You said it was still too easy before, didn’t you? You were right. They’re no idiots, either. They don’t seem to have a way to get camo gear suited for the environment, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re trying to protect this nation.”

“W-wait, then what do we do?”

“Do you need me to spell it out? We’ll just ask them.”

Lesser, saying indecipherable things…When Kamijou gave her a dubious look, she explained again, this time slowly.

“Fiamma was searching for traces of Sasha Kreutzev by using the Russian military, right? That means some of them would have been crossing the border to look for her. Even if Sasha herself was nowhere to be found, don’t you think Alliance soldiers would know that the Russian military was hunting her? And the fact that we know the war’s mastermind will be trying to sneak into the Alliance—isn’t that a bargaining chip they can’t possibly ignore?”

5

The Strait of Dover, located between the UK and France, had transformed into a battlefield, with each faction staring their enemies down, face-to-face.

The water’s surface was covered by a strange, translucent substance, and atop it, dozens, hundreds, thousands of blades were crossing. It was beyond the scope of a simple “battle” this time. This was a clash worthy of the term war.

France had the raw numbers advantage, but the UK was the one on the advance.

Kaori Kanzaki was, after all, a major force to be reckoned with. A single swing from her would unleash the power she wielded as one of less than twenty saints in the world, mowing down several sorcerers at once. On top of that, the members of the Born Again Amakusa-Style Crossist Church around Kanzaki were supporting her at times and using her as a distraction so they could carry out precision strikes, making them a far more effective fighting unit than their numbers suggested.

“Hoooh…!!”

Kanzaki’s katana sheath demolished a wide swath of the translucent land at her feet, and as their footing broke and bulged upward, girls in black nun’s habits leaped up and staged a surprise attack on the French sorcerers from the air.

They were the sisters from the former Agnes unit. This team, centered around Agnes Sanctis, was performing in much the same way as the Born Again Amakusa-Style Crossist Church. Aside from pure combat potential, their intimate knowledge of their enemy—the Roman Orthodox Church’s—battle tactics were also working to their advantage.

However, that alone couldn’t defeat the French forces. They didn’t have any sorcerers in incredibly unique positions like saints; instead, they bolstered their forces by borrowing enormous quantities of weapons and Soul Arms from the Roman Orthodox Church, an organization that boasted over two billion followers. Their armaments weren’t only the archetypical kinds equipped by individuals, like staves and chalices, but also Soul Arm vehicles, which looked like strange tanks with claymores in place of gun barrels and iron-plated suits of armor in place of normal equipment.

When Second Princess Carissa saw that, she said in a fed-up tone, “They’re still just warming up. Probing to gauge our combat forces, and all that.”

She still wasn’t holding any weapons.

Protected by many knights, Carissa exuded an elegant, unwavering air.

In a light tone of voice, she asked a question of the Knight Leader, who was standing beside her.

“Now, I wonder what the French camp’s main forces are like. It looks like there are some who seem associated with knights mixed in with their Roman Orthodox Church–based sorcerers. Still, even the knights seem to be at a level that can be filed within the category of Crossism.”

“If we’re talking about French-bred knights who are Crossists, wouldn’t Charlemagne be an appropriate assumption?”

“Or maybe the holy woman, their leader who’s been napping in Versailles, swallowed what little pride she had and went crying to the remnants of the Knights of Orleans.”

“…You would do well not to underestimate me…”

Suddenly, a voice Carissa couldn’t pinpoint interrupted them.

Her eyebrow twitched slightly.

“My pride is not so cheap that I would allow something like that to remain for the sake of my protection. In fact, I am indignant that the issue was resolved by a British mercenary in the first place.”

“Well, now. You must still be sleepy, so maybe you should do your morning routine and then come back. You may be confined to Versailles, but your slow response was to blame. Just like this time.”

“Ah, but you, too, can do nothing,” said the Versailles “leader” in a low voice. “News that the Curtana Original has been broken reached us as well. We also know that the Second is with Queen Elizard. In other words, you have little power of your own right now. As long as you are outside the United Kingdom’s borders, the knights by your side won’t have much strength, either. I understand you are the bellicose type, but do you realize how much of a hindrance you are?”

“Fool,” barked Carissa.

A moment later—

Zwaa!!

The knights around the second princess obtained an immense amount of power from the Curtana.

The power supply itself had come from the Curtana Second. Elizard had probably given it some kind of order. But that alone wasn’t enough to explain it—as far as anyone knew, the Curtana was only effective within the UK’s borders.

“You know how, if I’d succeeded in my coup in the UK with the Curtana Original, I’d planned to advance into Europe and bury every single one of my enemies?”

“That can’t…”

“How, exactly, did you think I planned to carry that out? Did you think I would whine and cry about not being able to use the Curtana outside the country?”

There was a massive thump sound.

It came from over ten kilometers behind Carissa.

Something was hovering there. An exceedingly gigantic structure. A mysterious object made of dozens of randomly assembled cubes—perhaps it would be best described as a square bubble. Completely removed from rational architectural techniques, it both looked like a castle wrought by human hands and an enormous boulder forced up out of the ground and into the air.

“The mobile fortress—Glastonbury.”

Carissa intoned its name.

“By forcibly defining the area around this fortress as part of the British domain, it allows for a rapid extending of the Curtana’s effective radius. It doesn’t take the enemy’s intent into consideration whatsoever. The perfect large-scale Soul Arm for invasions, don’t you think?”

The tables had completely turned.

The knights, filled with renewed power, drew their swords to defend Carissa.

“This is not a defensive battle of attrition.”

The formation of knights deployed to guard Carissa smoothly began to shift to an aggressive posture.

The voice of the princess of military affairs declared what this meant:

“It’s mop-up operation leading into our offensive.”

6

Kamijou and Lesser walked through the plaza, surrounded by multiple large men. It didn’t feel good to be escorted by people he couldn’t communicate with and who appeared to be soldiers. He was on pins and needles, and Lesser, who walked next to him, reassured him, her tone sounding bored.

“We’ll be fine. The Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations should want any information they can get on Fiamma, want it so badly they can taste it. They’re not going to ship us off to a concentration camp. Besides, the Alliance doesn’t have any facilities that frightening to begin with.”

“…Really? What if they show us to a room with just chairs that have belts on them?”

“Yeah, yeah. If that happens, I’ll apologize, wear a baby doll outfit, get on all fours, and shake my butt around for you…Hmm, that sounds nice. You know what, let’s do that right now.”

“It looks like I haven’t lectured you enough, young grasshopper. We’ll be making a fuss here, so let’s put a pin in that for a moment.”

As soon as he grabbed the back of her neck and tried to leave the ring of people, angry Russian shouts rained upon them. Several of the large men already had their hands on their holstered guns.

“Yipes!! I get it, I get it! Damn it, this doesn’t exactly feel like a warm welcome!”

“I was joking anyway. I don’t plan on providing a free service like that for whoever happens to be around. It probably wouldn’t benefit the United Kingdom anyway. I’ll be a good girl and follow your lead for now. Leaving aside whether I’ll wear baby clothes once we get into our inn room later.”

As they continued to squabble, one of the men in the group surrounding them muttered something, seeming incredibly unhappy. Kamijou couldn’t understand it because it was Russian, but Lesser interpreted for him.

“He asked if we rescued a mother and her daughters on the trucks in Russia. One girl was a baby, about two, and the other was about ten.”

“Ah? We helped a convoy that had trucks and armored carriages in it, but…Wait, there were, like, dozens of people there. I’m going to need some more information.”

As Kamijou made a dubious face, the large man continued in Russian, this time spitting out the words.

When Lesser heard it, she frowned for a moment. Then she shrugged and looked at Kamijou. “Apparently, that was his older sister and her daughters.”

…If the man knew about this, maybe the people on the trucks had safely arrived in a nearby town and contacted them via phone or something.

Maybe the reason he only had his hand on his holster without outright pointing his gun at Kamijou was because he thought he owed him something.

In the meantime, Kamijou and Lesser were taken to a square stone building near the plaza. Originally, it was one building that was part of a large church, but right now, they seemed to be using it as something else—a military facility.

For an office, a lot of paper documents were scattered wildly around. The positions of the steel desks weren’t organized, either. On a whiteboard on the wall, they’d hung a map of the surrounding area. It had different-colored magnets on it—maybe positions of Alliance and Russian tanks or something. The colors on one side were far more numerous.

A blond-haired woman was waiting there.

She was rather skinny. If she’d been wearing a swimsuit, you’d be more worried about her than excited. She directed her slightly sunken-in eyes toward them, then smiled thinly.

In Japanese, she said, “It seems Fiamma of the Right is on his way.”

Lesser whistled, impressed.

Did they know each other? Kamijou had to wonder, but it seemed he was wrong.

“…She’s the namesake of the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations,” Lesser offered. “She’s like a saint who worked hard to gain independence for a bunch of countries and bind them together.”

“It seems Fiamma of the Right is on his way.”

Elizalina, the person in question, repeated herself.

The name Fiamma of the Right must have been inauspicious enough to the Alliance for illegal immigrants to suddenly meet a person like that.

Not that you could blame them.

He was the one who had pulled the trigger on World War III.

If not for that, the Russian forces would never have considered launching an invasion into the Alliance.

“The words came right out of his own mouth at the Russian military base right across the border. I don’t think there’s much doubt about it…”

After explaining that much, Kamijou felt something was out of place.

“…Wait a minute. You know the name Fiamma of the Right, Miss Elizalina?”

That would mean she was aware of the world of sorcery. And to a great extent, when it came to the Roman Orthodox Church.

Elizalina answered almost without moving her lips at all. “Inept though I may be, I am still a sorcerer.”

“If she wasn’t, she couldn’t have responded this quickly to nothing but fragmented reports from her men, could she? She realized how much we were worth and instructed them to bring us to the heart of the country right away. It’s obvious just from that that she’s someone who knows about magic,” added Lesser in an offhand tone.

Apparently, she was familiar with this person named Elizalina’s achievements and legends.

“On the surface, she creates a foundation for political and economic national independence, but behind the scenes, she’s a powerful sorcerer who repelled every single Russian Catholic soldier who tried to pull off occult sabotage missions. If she fought for real, she might even be able to blow me away.”

“I’m nothing that amazing. I only proposed a few procedures and helped out. Comparatively, I’m a far cry from my sister in France.”

Elizalina brushed it off as a triviality. She seemed to dislike it when others flattered her more than they needed to.

She quickly returned to the topic. “Fiamma is a central figure of this war—of this invasion encroaching upon our nation. If we have a chance to defeat him now, the threat to our people’s lives should decrease quite a bit.”

Up until that point, Kamijou was in agreement.

But what came after was another story.

“On the other hand, I don’t think I can beat Fiamma of the Right very easily—and not here. It’s a matter of the difference in skill as sorcerers. Even if I scraped together everything we have in this country, I wouldn’t be able to defeat that man.”

A hint of distress appeared on the woman’s face as she spoke. She must not have wanted to let Fiamma go so easily.

Now that he was near, she wanted to do whatever it took to escape the threat as soon as possible. Insisting on that—maybe that’s what made her a talented politician.

Because what if, even though the situation looked like an opportunity at first, it was actually rife with incredible danger?

“What’s most important for us are the lives of the Alliance’s people. If by some trick or mischief, those could be lost, then we must avoid combat with Fiamma at all costs.”

“You’d let him do as he likes after coming this far?”

The question came from Lesser.

Elizalina shook her head. “No,” she answered immediately. “I’ve heard from my subordinates. Your goal, and Fiamma’s, is Sasha Kreutzev. We do know where she is currently. She’s right nearby. So close that if I gave the order, we could summon her here right now. On top of that, we’re also thinking about ways to defeat Fiamma while protecting our people’s lives…Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

“…You’ll send Sasha and us back outside the Alliance into Russian territory, then execute a plan to fight Fiamma?”

“Yes.” Elizalina nodded. “Think of me as coldhearted if you wish. But that’s how delicate this situation has become. A single careless decision could lead to countless innocent lives being lost.”

“Nah.” Kamijou smiled a little. “We were trying to use you all to find out where Sasha is to begin with. At this point, I’m grateful just for not having handcuffs on me without a chance to explain.”

“Despite the difference in scope and degree, you seem to have someone you need to protect as well.”

“Everyone does,” answered Kamijou in resignation to Elizalina’s words, which were also spoken as though to herself. “…I realized it late, and she was almost taken away from me, but I might still be able to make it at this point.”

Either way.

They had to find Sasha Kreutzev as soon as possible, lure Fiamma outside the Alliance, and defeat him. For now, there was a chance they could create a more advantageous situation than Fiamma could, but as time went on, the possibility would very quickly deteriorate.

And the chances of rescuing Index would fall with it.

After confirming the situation to himself again, Kamijou faced Elizalina and asked her a question.

“What’s the plan?”

“Come this way…Still, this is all rushed, so I can’t guarantee much chance of victory.”

As she talked, Elizalina headed toward the whiteboard in the room’s corner.

And then it happened.

“Indeed. If you’re still holding strategy meetings at this stage, you’re already too late.”

A man’s voice suddenly echoed throughout the room.

It was a familiar voice. A voice Kamijou could never forget.

Fiamma of the Right.

The sound’s source was the window. Kamijou spun around, and Lesser and Elizalina moved at the same time. Lesser attached a bar magnet to the tip of a retractable, police baton–like object on one of the steel desks, while Elizalina plastered a piece of translucent blue cellophane, normally used to wrap up sweets, to the side of a glass filled with water.

In just a few seconds.

They’d created improvised Soul Arms.

A moment later, flames and water burst forth.

Boom!! With an air-splitting roar, two kinds of attacks rushed toward the window like an avalanche. The glass shattered to pieces. But the voice didn’t stop.

“I was merely saying hello,” Fiamma continued.

On the other side of the broken window floated a small doll of kneaded flour.

“This is where it really begins.”

A moment later.

Ga-gam!!

Touma Kamijou’s brain rattled madly.

For an instant, his vision churned. He thought something heavy had hit him in the face. He was on the floor without realizing it, and finally, he realized what it was that had delivered the impact to his face.

It was a piece of debris, a little smaller than a baseball.

Half the ceiling or so had collapsed.

Part of it was on the floor now, dragged down by debris.

Where everything had been crushed, he could see a wall made out of some sort of orange light.

And then.

Something like a giant sword, whose length had to be thirty to forty kilometers, swung down from above, and Kamijou, who was the closest, didn’t realize. After all, the base of the sword was so large it seemed like it would disappear beyond the horizon. The blade emitted sizzling noises like it was steaming, and after wiggling from side to side like an ax being pulled out of a large tree, it slowly lifted.

“It’s an awful pain to aim with something so large.”

The voice was carefree.

As Kamijou shuddered, the huge sword that looked big enough to cleave a mountain range in two continued to rise with ease.

Until it was almost vertical.

And then, Fiamma’s sword swung down all at once.

The air shook.

This time, there was no mercy.

Its aim corrected, the giant sword dropped from the sky. The town of the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations split in half along a line, and the stone building in which Kamijou and the others were, the spot where its force was strongest, blasted apart into a million pieces.

Clouds sprang up.

Because it had torn through atmosphere and created an air pressure differential, it had created something like an airplane’s vapor trail.

A single attack that even affected the weather.

And.

“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

A roar.

Touma Kamijou had thrust his right palm directly up.

An awful creaking noise came from the core of his bones.

But.

The boy’s utterly normal arm had stopped the map-wrecking attack dead-on.

Did he…stop it…?

Surprise filled Elizalina’s face—this was the first time she’d seen the Imagine Breaker in action. Even Lesser, who had witnessed it before, still seemed to have a hard time accepting it. However, there was no time to explain everything. Not even Kamijou could be sure his bones weren’t actually broken.

And then.

“What’s this? And here I thought you’d learned a little from the British Halloween.”

Suddenly, a man’s voice came from right next to him.

Fiamma of the Right.

Kamijou saw the red doll flying straight at him and immediately understood.

There was a gap between the one who had cast the spell and the place in which it had activated.

Just like how Second Princess Carissa had used the Curtana Original and the bunker clusters in tandem, this was a method of focusing someone’s attention on a large-scale attack first before driving the real attack right into their wide-open core.

“…?!”

Kamijou tried to get his right hand in position immediately, but his palm had just crushed the orange-colored sword. A tingling, numbing pain was still shooting through his arm and it delayed his response. Taking advantage of the tiny opening, Fiamma reached his hand toward Kamijou with a relaxed look on his face.

A mysterious hand—one Kamijou didn’t know the effects of.

“Guh!!”

Elizalina wedged herself between them.

The front of her body was glowing faintly. She probably had some kind of spell activated. A sorcerer with the skills to liberate several countries from the huge nation of Russia and who had continued to exercise her powers behind the scenes. He could assume from her history, among other things, that she could freely use incredible spells.

But Fiamma ignored her.

He mercilessly knocked both Kamijou and Elizalina several meters away.

Kamijou’s breath caught.

Fiamma was about to go for a follow-up attack he couldn’t even imagine, but then his movements stopped.

The cause was his right arm. Something strange, like a third arm, had sprouted from near his shoulder.

Elizalina’s skills had saved Kamijou.

If not, he might have been in two pieces right now—upper and lower.

“I see.”

Fiamma tapped his shoulder with his left hand as though impressed.

“The wall seemed a little too hard to break that easily.”

Then, two of the tall men who had been serving at Elizalina’s side jumped in.

“Beraggi!! Longie!! Stand down!!”

The fallen sorcerer frantically shouted, but they didn’t stop. And Fiamma didn’t have any mercy with them, either.

“But it’s not impenetrable. Don’t underestimate me too much, all right?”

Sound vanished.

A moment after Fiamma swung his third arm, Beraggi and Longie were knocked straight to the side. The distance hadn’t mattered. Beraggi was close, but Longie was clearly outside the third arm’s reach. Despite that, he’d been mowed down just the same. They were launched outside the building from a hole in the debris from the initial attack.

Kamijou dragged his injured body upright through sheer force.

“Fiamma!!”

“You’re the main dish. I need to prepare before I dig into you.”

The assailant’s gaze was turned toward Elizalina.

An unknown faint light once again emanated from the surface of her body.

But it was clear from the earlier exchange the difference in skill between Fiamma and Elizalina. He’d even pierced through her defensive magic. If he got serious, Elizalina might be killed.

But my right hand can…

Conscious of his smarting arm, Kamijou gritted his teeth.

But can I really block every single one of his attacks?! Can I save Index by constantly being on the defensive?!

Fiamma couldn’t care less about their shock and hesitation.

He simply moved—advancing smoothly.

“!!”

But Fiamma’s right arm never reached out to grab Elizalina by the throat.

And the reason was Lesser:

The petite girl’s hand was now somehow gripping a spear-like object—the Steel Gloves, a magical weapon fitted with four blades like fingers. Lesser had slammed them downward like a guillotine, but…

“Out of the way.”

The motion was less of a backhand, more of brushing away a spiderweb.

And despite that, the single hit shattered the Steel Gloves. Not only that, it sent Lesser flying away like a cannonball. Just before she collided with a wall, Beraggi, who had once again jumped inside the building, reached out his arms. He barely managed to soften the impact.

A single moment, earned by risking one’s life.

Elizalina, meaning to regroup, rose from where she had been prone with a backward bounding motion, moving her five fingers in a complex fashion. Faint lights dancing at the end of her fingertips flickered irregularly.

When Fiamma saw it, he let out a breath like a chuckle.

“You would use your right arm to build a spell against me?”

A moment later—

Ba-bam!! A flash of light burst forth.

It came from Fiamma’s right arm.

He wasn’t showing off his strength—he was acting in a different dimension than that. The motion was almost like swatting an annoying fly flitting about his face. It was a movement to crush both Elizalina’s resistance and rend her flesh, no matter what she tried to do.

From the beginning, she had said that, even if she combined all the Alliance’s military strength in one spot, they couldn’t beat Fiamma of the Right. That was why, when they did set forth to defeat him, she wanted to catch and face him outside the Alliance.

In which case.

Maybe the fact that Fiamma was here, now, had already determined Elizalina’s fate.

But it didn’t happen that way.

Gkk-keeeeee!! came a roaring sound, intent on contending with him.

It was the sound of Fiamma’s flash and Kamijou’s right hand clashing.

At that time, Kamijou, who had jumped in front of Elizalina, should have accurately blocked Fiamma’s hit. The flash of light didn’t disappear right away, but it splashed out in all directions as though trying to escape from his right hand. Those splashes should have been mere aftereffects, entirely different from the main thing.

Nevertheless.

The sound was driven away from Kamijou’s eardrums.

The flash’s aftermath, parried to the sides, this time completely devastated the room’s barely standing walls and proceeded straight toward the plaza beyond them. Its trajectory was diagonally upward. Thanks to that, the people standing in the plaza avoided a grisly fate, but the roofs of stone buildings facing the plaza were all ripped clean off and carried away.

Touma Kamijou and Fiamma of the Right.

Two wielders of two special right hands glared straight at each other.

“You’re opponent is me. You know why I’m fighting, don’t you?”

“What?” In contrast to Kamijou’s shouting, Fiamma slowly cocked his head to the side—while glancing at a spot near Kamijou’s right shoulder. “I thought I said you were the main dish. You’re planning on serving yourself up first?”

“!!”

Lesser, who had been blown away to the wall, moved. After picking up a broken piece of metal from the Steel Gloves, she hurled it at him like a bullet.

Her target wasn’t Fiamma.

He’d proven with the last attack that it wouldn’t work.

Her projectile struck Kamijou directly in his side. Stiffening, his body doubled over and was knocked straight to the side. A moment later, Fiamma’s right hand dropped like a guillotine. The floor melted. A good imagination wasn’t necessary to know what would happen to human flesh that came in contact with it.

“…Guh…Argh…?!”

Kamijou rolled, bursting out of the “building,” now no more than a pile of broken walls with only the floor and part of the structure barely remaining, and into the plaza. As he writhed on the snow, Fiamma slowly walked over to him. He didn’t spare so much as a glance toward Elizalina, who was supposedly his original goal. She wasn’t a tactically important target—he must not have thought of her as anything more than an annoying fly to be batted out of the way.

For Fiamma of the Right, there were only two important targets.

The first was Touma Kamijou’s right arm.

The second was Sasha Kreutzev.

…Not good, Kamijou admitted to himself. He’s having his way with us. In this state, I can’t exactly fight him while protecting Sasha…

Fiamma still hadn’t located Sasha, which was a small mercy. She was apparently right nearby, according to Elizalina, but if he hadn’t found her yet, Kamijou had more options.

Or so he thought anyway.

But suddenly, Fiamma came out and said, “Hey, did you know? Modern sorcerers, who came into being at the end of the nineteenth century, generally dislike group action. Even genius organizations, starting with the Golden Dawn, in most cases see internal rifts stemming from personality issues. That’s why the Roman Catholic Church made a point of structuring its group combat doctrine around its religious teachings, but…Well, you know how it really is, don’t you? Sorcerers see individualism as very important, and that’s why the subjective aim of ‘magic names’ is still seen as extremely important, and why the secret organization called God’s Right Seat was born.”

“What…are you trying to say?”

“Here’s my point.”

Fiamma slowly lifted his right hand horizontally to the ground.

As he stood in the middle of the plaza, he paid no mind to any of the townspeople around. Not making any effort to conceal the magic he was using in front of all these people who were smothered by fear to the point that they couldn’t even bring themselves to run, he said this to Kamijou.

“Someone in front of you seems like they’re about to be killed. From this moment on, hundreds or thousands of blameless civilians will probably be killed in an imminent invasion. In a situation like that, would a sorcerer who possesses power remain quiet and hidden simply for the sake of tactical importance?”

“?!”

Kamijou’s body stiffened.

And then he noticed the angel amid the crowds.

A red shadow. A body bound in black belts, an unnatural figure that seemed to be covered in a red innerwear and a mantle. Nobody was paying attention to her, despite her being in the middle of the plaza, perhaps because she had used some sort of magical illusion.

Sasha Kreutzev.

When he spotted her, he unwittingly felt a little relieved, forgetting about the situation up until a few moments ago. The archangel who had parried the saint Kaori Kanzaki with one hand—and who had in the meantime built a spell to “purge” six billion people. Nothing would feel more dependable than if they were able to borrow that power.

But he realized it a moment later.

That was not the archangel Misha Kreutzev that Touma Kamijou knew.

She was no more than the Russian Catholic human sorcerer, Sasha Kreutzev.

She was trying to do something.

She was a professional Russian Catholic sorcerer—and she probably had first-rate abilities.

However.

“Today must be my lucky day.”

Fiamma flicked something with his fingers.

With just that, Sasha, who had woven through the crowds with the force of a speeding arrow to attack him, was blasted straight backward, still at her original speed.

“I thought it’d be a massive pain, but two of my objectives found their way into my hands so, so easily.”

Fiamma must have been confident that he’d completely stopped Sasha with one attack. Without any particular follow-ups, he turned his eyes to Kamijou again.

“…”

Kamijou quietly assumed his standard stance.

He wasn’t exactly knowledgeable when it came to magical combat. But his Imagine Breaker was the only thing that had been able to oppose Fiamma’s right arm so far. This wasn’t the time to be debating whether he could do it. If he didn’t go in now, a great deal of people would be killed for Fiamma’s convenience.

One-on-one.

There was nothing he could rely on, nor any weapons to cling to.

And then.

Fiamma of the Right made a strange move.

Casually, he shook his head.

A moment later, something passed by Fiamma, grazing past his cheek. A strange fissure ran through the building wall behind him.

The people in the plaza didn’t appear to know what had just happened.

The unreal sight seemed to be one factor paralyzing their judgment.

“…”

But Kamijou, who knew about magic, albeit only on an amateur level, sucked in his breath softly.

Fiamma had just taken evasive action.

Kamijou was surprised at the unknown attack itself, too, but he was more shocked that Fiamma had responded like that.

“Now there’s a familiar face,” Fiamma muttered.

Kamijou turned around.

He saw yellow.

A woman, eyes adorned with gaudy makeup, piercings all over her face. Her appearance made it seem like she purposely wanted others to despise her. Her clothing appeared to be based on women’s wear from the Middle Ages, but perhaps because it was shocking yellow, it didn’t come off as outdated in any way. In fact, it almost looked related to super-conspicuous punk fashion.

On September 30, with a spell that used divine judgment, she had almost completely put all of Academy City to sleep. As a member of God’s Right Seat, she had shown Kamijou a fight that went above and beyond any he’d known before that.

A clinking noise.

Her tongue was pierced, and a slender linked chain ran through it. The chain reached down to her waist, and a transparent, icelike cross hung from the end. That cross, however, was the one thing different from what Kamijou remembered.

Vento of the Front.

The one who had forced Fiamma of the Right to dodge for the first time was a sorcerer supposedly in the same organization as him.

“It’s not like I’m responsible or anything for that brat or the Russian Catholic sister. I just can’t stand watching you cause mayhem in the Roman Orthodox Church anymore.”

“I thought I’d received reports saying you couldn’t use your special ‘divine judgment’ anymore.”

“You really thought that would be the end of me?”

Roar!!

A tempest whirled about.

Two of God’s Right Seat.

Two sorcerers from a different dimension, who stood at the pinnacle of two billion followers, collided.

7

Leaning on his crutch, Accelerator glanced around the room.

That stack of parchment he’d found during the fight on the freight train. If Academy City’s underworld was undertaking a retrieval operation with the same level of importance as chasing him down, that also meant it was possible these were no mere superstitious drawings.

Accelerator didn’t believe a lick in the occult, but he wondered if ancient “magic” was simply today’s science and technology.

…But that’s all just me forcing myself to use my own head to talk about it.

Accelerator took just one deep breath.

He sensed, in an incredibly subjective way, that something was wrong with this parchment.

A sensation like the core of his chest was under pressure.

It was similar to what he felt sometimes when he was near Mitsuki Unabara. Come to think of it, he used powers that were different from pure supernatural abilities…or so his words and actions implied (of course, there was a non-insignificant chance that it was a bluff, so he didn’t have to reveal his hand). Maybe it was related.

Which meant he was curious where they had intended to transport the parchment.

Obviously, Accelerator couldn’t understand what kind of information it was just from the parchment. That meant his fastest option would be to extract information from whoever was supposed to receive it. The destination would only be one relay point, of course, and he might not find out who was to ultimately receive it, but in that case, he would keep going from one relay point to the next until he arrived at someone who knew what the parchment would be used for.

If it was a clue to saving Last Order’s life, said to be unsavable even with Academy City’s cutting-edge technology…

He thought that if worse came to worst, he would simply have to directly attack a military facility, but…

“Damn. They raided it one step ahead of me.”

The air was suffused with the smell of burning.

It probably used to be a Russian Air Force base. The white snowfield had been cut away for several kilometers to pour asphalt into, and it was surrounded by a fence-like barricade. Inside it were several runways and many large buildings made from special concrete used for pillboxes.

There wasn’t a soul to be seen.

The fence was torn up, the thick concrete walls leveled wholesale, and the fighters on the runways lying on their sides like toys with fire spurting from them. Even now, as though explosives were still detonating somewhere inside the ruined buildings that held no hint of human life, firework-like explosions that resounded in his stomach were going off sporadically.

Someone was here who knew how to use this parchment, or maybe it was simply a relay point before continuing its trip by air. And now he wouldn’t even know that anymore.

Academy City, eh…? guessed Accelerator.

Although it probably hadn’t been the regular forces clashing head-on with the Russian military. Their modus operandi was different. This was the work of a shadowy organization from the “evil” world, which had secretly snuck deep into Russia.

He couldn’t spot a single cartridge.

Cracks ran through the walls, but the bullets that would have gotten stuck inside had been removed.

Academy City had always tended to avoid letting their technology leak into the outside world. This, though, was altogether more conspicuous than expected.

If taking this position was all they’d wanted to do, they wouldn’t have needed to use a group from the underworld. All Academy City had to do was direct the regular forces to mount an offensive on the base.

Did that mean their goal, then, was the parchment Accelerator possessed?

They’d dispatched one retrieval team for the parchment itself, then also committed a separate detachment to its shipping destination, the airport. Survivors might be inside if he searched every nook and cranny inside the base. But they would’ve at least massacred everyone who knew anything about the parchment or used the shadow group to personally bring them in.

There weren’t any hints left here.

It was like his already unreliable lifeline had been cut off, but in his mind right now was not panic, but a question.

…You telling me this parchment is really worth that much?

If it was, how did one actually use it?

Was that usage something Academy City wanted to acquire at any cost?

And.

Would it help him, even slightly, to heal Last Order’s battered body?

…That shithead Aiwass told me to go to Russia. Is this connected to that? And there was that whole thing about the key being of a completely different “rule set” than Academy City…

He mulled it over, but he had no way of getting any answers.

Setting it aside for the time being, he considered his next course of action.

…I’ve got no more leads on finding someone in Russia who can explain to me what this parchment actually does now. Which means the next route I can try is Academy City’s shadow group. The people running interference should understand how valuable this parchment is.

Accelerator didn’t have concrete details on who would have the necessary information, so any combat ran the risk of landing him in a protracted battle. As long as his electrode battery power was finite, that wouldn’t be a favorable development for him, but he couldn’t care less. If he needed to, he’d crawl through the snow to finish off his target.

It was an extremely combative idea.

Recalling the limp, unconscious Last Order’s weight, he let out a grin.

“Not good…”

He thought he’d been hiding it up until now.

He thought he’d decided that no matter how bloody the world he lived in was, this girl was the one person he didn’t want to have to pretend with.

…I’m losing my grip on the brakes.

He didn’t say those last words—because he didn’t want Last Order to hear? Or because a slight unease had crossed through the back of his own mind?

Either way, he couldn’t afford to call it quits here.

Academy City owned several large supersonic jets. Monstrous aircraft that could soar through the skies at over seven thousand kilometers per hour and arrive on the other side of the planet in just two hours. If the City used something like that to move the shadow group that had attacked this base to another location, he wouldn’t be able to pursue them at length. If he wanted to stage an ambush, he’d have to follow their footsteps immediately.

There was no time to hesitate.

And yet, as Accelerator tried to turn on his heel, he stopped.

There were several figures.

The air base was set up on a flat, expansive surface, centered around its runway. Hiding spots were few and far between. Nevertheless, almost ten silhouettes had surrounded Accelerator without him realizing it. Actually, it might have been more than that.

The men and women were largely in their twenties, all wearing the same outfit.

Accelerator frowned. Their gear wasn’t cutting-edge, technologically enhanced military uniforms—they were more like a certain kind of old-fashioned religious clothing. He felt the same sort of pressure from them as he did from Unabara and the parchment.

One of their number addressed him in Russian.

“You with Academy City?”

“I should ask you— You’re not the ones who attacked this base?”

“You haven’t denied it.”

The habit-wearing man dropped his center of gravity slightly.

Accelerator took it as a signal that he was prepared for a death match.

“Don’t really have the time for this.”

Reaching a hand to the switch on the electrode around his neck and retracting his extendable crutch, he continued:

“You don’t mind if I finish this quickly, do you?”

8

Fiamma of the Right.

Vento of the Front.

The two monsters of the Church didn’t suddenly leap onto nearby roofs or start fighting so quickly that eyes couldn’t follow.

Swoosh.

With wordless glares, they smoothly dodged from side to side in an almost relaxed manner. Maintaining equal distance and moving in tandem, they continued toward the center of the snowy plaza.

There were no explosions or flashes of light—nothing so utterly clear-cut to trace the exchanges of their fight. In spite of that, the people below, who were nearly in a panic because of Fiamma’s attack, were unable to react save for one thing: The crowds naturally moved away from Vento and Fiamma like so much water overflowing from a bathtub after a giant lowered himself into it.

Kamijou, meanwhile, couldn’t move.

He should have been providing backup.

Elizalina, Lesser, and Sasha Kreutzev. He knew he had to help someone back to their feet.

But he couldn’t move.

He had no idea when this bomb would go off, and if he tried to mount a rescue right next to it, his mind would naturally be drawn to it. That was the kind of mental state he was in.

Clunk.

He thought a gust of wind had blown through—and then Vento’s right hand was gripping something, some kind of hammer with barbed metal wire wrapped around it. It was about a meter long, and its tip was touching the ground.

Fiamma’s eyebrow moved slightly.

“How strange.”

“What is?”

“God’s Right Seat cannot normally use magic. Not unless the spell is perfectly designed for us to use. The divine judgment spell that almost brought Academy City to a complete standstill is kept inside you, but the Soul Arm for supporting its activation should have been destroyed on September thirtieth. And yet…”

“Are you saying you find it surprising that I’ve caused a strange phenomenon?” said Vento tiredly, lifting her heavy hammer onto her shoulder.

Yes:

It was natural to forget because of each of their incredible achievements, but Fiamma and Vento were both still human. Supernatural phenomena that ignored natural laws weren’t things that could be used except through some contrivance. If Vento had grabbed a hammer out of thin air, there must have been a rule or principle that supported such a phenomenon.

In other words.

…Vento can use magic right now…?

Recalling the spell that had knocked out almost every single resident in Academy City, Kamijou paled.

But Fiamma didn’t seem too shocked.

“Still, I’m sure you haven’t successfully recovered your divine judgment yet. And even if you had, its methodology wouldn’t be able to defeat me.”

“Even your ways of thinking about malice and hostility are twisted beyond recognition. I never thought about using something like that on you.”

“Then what will you do?”

“You, of Michael, cannot use your complete power in your current state.”

“Indeed. That is why I desire Sasha Kreutzev and the Imagine Breaker.”

“That right arm,” spat Vento, as if to cut off his prattling. “It must have a usage restriction.”

“…” Fiamma finally stopped talking.

In the silence, the only remaining voice continued on alone:

“After bothering to use it on those small fry, it’s practically breaking apart in mid-use, isn’t it? For sorcerers, wielding supernatural powers is subject to logic. And God’s Right Seat have a hard time using any spells other than ones custom-made for them. Meaning that once your stock runs out, you’re nothing but a human.”

A smile cracked.

It wasn’t Vento.

Fiamma’s lips had pulled away in a slight curve.

“You think so?”

An eerie, chilling pressure emanated from him into the air around him.

Moving the five fingers on his right arm slowly, he spoke.

“You think you can close the gap with me like that?”

“No.”

The handle of the hammer resting on Fiamma’s shoulder floated a little.

Only a few centimeters.

As she made the subtle motion, she declared:

“This is where it gets good.”

Ga-bam!!

A moment later, Fiamma of the Right was knocked straight backward.

Even only a dozen meters away, Kamijou couldn’t immediately grasp what had just happened.

The abnormal part wasn’t the speed, but the scale.

Out of nowhere, a giant structure had appeared, splitting through the snowy earth in the plaza’s center—a sailboat, made of translucent ice. It sprang up on an angle and was about forty meters in total length, but its hull hadn’t completely appeared. It was forty meters with just what was visible now.

With rattling and creaking, the ice cannon affixed to the ship’s side aimed at Fiamma.

What blasted out of it wasn’t the flames of gunpowder, but instead, fine particles of ice.

The icy attack, the polar opposite of Fiamma’s namesake “flame,” wasn’t composed of a mere cannonball; this was a translucent anchor. A clump of ice two or three meters large had stricken Fiamma and careened several kilometers away along with his body.

Ba-grrram!! The sound of the shock wave hit the plaza’s entirety a moment later.

Without any attention to the clamor this caused around them, Vento said:

“…Did you know that in Chioggia, Italy, Biagio Busoni was in command of the Queen of the Adriatic and its escort, the Queen’s Fleet?”

Vento spoke while twirling her giant hammer around in one hand, whether out of some meaning or just a whim. Her voice was low, almost whispering, but she’d probably used magical means to deliver it to Fiamma’s ears.

“It was I who readjusted the Ten Rites of the Holy Spirit to bring it to a usable level. Controlling the entire Queen of the Adriatic spell wasn’t possible, but even I have enough affinity to maneuver part of the great fleet.”

He heard a jingling.

It came from Vento’s tongue.

“Oh, right—one more thing.”

A slender chain, like the sort you’d use for a necklace, extended from it, and at its tip hung a cross.

One made of a clear, almost icelike material.

A cross that looked rather like an anchor.

“In Crossism, there are quite a few stories about calming storms at sea and keeping ships safe. The Son of God did, for example, as did Saint Nicholas. By nature, the aspects I must preside over are wind and air, but storms at sea are a combined aspect of wind and water. By going through these stories, I can gain partial influence over water as well…And unlike your complete devotion to fire, I can bring forth more complex and wide-reaching effects.”

A blast went off.

It was the sound of the giant ice anchor igniting with Fiamma caught in it, several kilometers away.

It was no mere gunpowder explosion.

The blast wind manifested in the form of an ice stake hundreds of meters long. The ice’s tip, sharper than any old spear, expanded in all directions, to form ten thousand, then a hundred thousand tips. They bore a huge hole out of the land, and vast amounts of snow and black soil were flung up into the air. It was fortunate that only plains lay within their scope. With that many of them and with that much power, it definitely would have made Swiss cheese out of any underground shelters.

The people in the plaza probably couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. But they seemed keen enough to pick up on the unique energy of battle and bloodlust contained within the icy pincushion that had suddenly appeared. Some even put their hands together, fervently praying for something.

It wasn’t clear from here what had become of Fiamma.

Even whether anyone could manage to find out was a mystery.

That’s how much sheer destructive power it had.

Vento of the Front.

She, too, had possessed insane strength as one of God’s Right Seat, which stood at the pinnacle of two billion followers.

“If you had planned tactics purely to kill me, the result might have been somewhat different. But with your right arm disintegrating as we speak, you can’t defend against that attack,” she mocked, sticking out her tongue with the Soul Arm on it. “You waste too much ammo, you moron…I guess you can’t hear me anymore, though.”

“Is that so? Then I may have brought more to this than you think.”

The voice, its source unknown, put a stop to Vento’s banter.

A moment later.

Ka-boom!! went an explosion. It came from several kilometers away—and it was the sound of the pincushion of ice needles shattering apart from the inside. Calling it a volcanic eruption would have been an understatement. The insane force meant the debris didn’t even rain down over the ground. All of it scattered, carried off by the wind.

The icy pincushion, now in shambles, blasted away in large chunks in all directions. Directions that included the plaza Kamijou and the others were in. It was like the area was raked with artillery fire. Several buildings were flattened, and the people in the plaza covered their heads with their hands and dropped to the ground. Voices rang out, lamenting the incomprehensible calamity and crying in anguish.

As Vento scanned the distance, her brow twisted bitterly.

There was a flash of light.

It was so far away that Kamijou and the others couldn’t see it in any detail. But Kamijou understood. It was an arm. A third arm, that had newly appeared out of Fiamma’s shoulder.

“I don’t seem able to avoid the disintegration itself, but I have succeeded in stabilizing it.”

Something glittered brightly.

Shining, reflecting…There was something in Fiamma’s right hand giving off light.

He couldn’t see it in detail either, but he had a good guess as to what it was.

The remote-control Soul Arm for Index.

A device that could draw out the knowledge of 103,000 grimoires at any time, in any amount.

“Frankly speaking, there no longer exist any restrictions upon me.”

Vento refused to remain silent, however.

Several cannons went off from the sailboat near her all at once. A second anchor of ice lances, then a third, tore through the air, plunging one after another toward Fiamma.

A far greater cannonade than the one that had flung Fiamma several kilometers away earlier.

But Fiamma, at their landing point, didn’t even bother dodging.

He only did one thing.

Shake his right arm to the side.

“I don’t need brute force.”

That was all.

The roaring of anchors shattering split the air. Some of them fractured in midair, while others stabbed into the ground, missing completely. Along with all of it, an explosion several dozen meters wide broke out.

The sight was like some kind of joke. It all went on shaving away hills and rivers—the very landscape itself.

“It ends with a touch, so I don’t need effort to break my opponent.”

“Shit!!”

Vento hastily repositioned her hammer, muttering something to herself. Maybe she had another trump card in store. Even Kamijou, untrained in sorcery, could sense it was like she was stringing out a cat’s cradle very quickly.

However.

“I don’t need speed.”

A casual voice interrupted all that—by force.

And by overwhelming presence.

“If I swing, it will hit, so I don’t need any effort to aim.”

He couldn’t tell what had happened.

The next thing he knew, Fiamma, who was supposedly kilometers away a moment before, had stepped right up underneath Vento’s jaw. A moment later, her body was flying backward.

Fiamma didn’t stop moving there.

As Vento floated, her chain fluttered after her. Without difficulty, Fiamma grabbed it in midair. The motion was so casual it was like snatching a piece of paper drifting on the wind.

With Vento’s body still flying.

So naturally.

The slender chain couldn’t support Vento’s body weight. Kamijou heard a ripping noise. It was the piece holding the chain tearing off. Off of Vento’s tongue.

There wasn’t time for her to cry out.

The woman clothed in yellow careened several dozen more meters away. She squarely struck the center of the ice sailboat sticking out of the center of the plaza, breaking the giant symbol of cannon fire into two clean pieces, upper and lower.

And at last.

After all that had happened, Vento let out a scream.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!”

“It’s not like I ripped your whole tongue out. You’re exaggerating— It was just a little tear. And your fading defensive spell probably helped you when you hit that boat of yours.”

Staring at Vento with absolute boredom as she lay screaming a dozen or so meters away, Fiamma tossed the torn-off chain. He swung the third arm poking out of his right shoulder through the air and shattered the translucent cross into pieces.

Pieces from the broken ice sailboat fell toward the plaza, and the residents in the area quickly rolled out of their way. Fiamma didn’t bother glancing in their direction, of course.

“Gh, brgh?! Wh-what…?!”

“It’s simple. What I possess is not the right arm itself, but the strength within it. In Crossism, most ceremonies are done with the right. The archangel Michael brought low the leader of fallen angels with his right hand. The Son of God cured the sick with his right hand. The Bible was written with the right hand—and so on and so forth. What I’m saying is that I can freely utilize that many Crossist supernatural phenomena. You figure out the rest. I’m sure you’re not that dull.”

“That’s…not possible…That right…arm is…”

“Yeah. It’s incomplete. Not normally something I could show off. Still, it’s nothing you need to state with such grandiose tones. God’s Right Seat…no, this whole world, is becoming something more vague in the same way.”

“…?”

“The angel that appeared in an incomplete state during Angel Fall seems to have called itself Misha.”

That was the only thing Fiamma said in anything resembling low spirits.

“Mikhail is another name for Michael, the LIKENESS OF GOD. It isn’t a fitting name for Gabriel, the POWER OF GOD. Despite that, the archangel named itself as Misha. A name that should have been a role in and of itself, created by God. Do you understand how serious a matter that is?

“Also,” continued Fiamma, “supposedly Vento of the Front bears wind, yellow, and Uriel; while Terra of the Left bears earth, green, and Raphael; but this is a deviation as well. Normally, wind applies to Raphael, and earth to Uriel. It’s odd that it’s anything else.”

Vento’s expression looked like her heart had stopped.

Her face appeared to say that the mental damage from a pillar in her own mind being toppled was even greater than the injury to her tongue.

“Nobody notices it.”

Only Fiamma’s words echoed out slowly.

“The world keeps on turning like nothing happened, with no one the wiser. Magic triggers accidentally. Do you understand it now? With it, the four great aspects are beginning to distort, little by little. This world is in a more dangerous situation than you realize. Someone must do something about it.”

“You…mean…?”

Vento shook her head, delivering words even she had no confirmation of.

“Are you saying the Angel Fall left aftereffects of that magnitude?”

“I’m saying the opposite. Only because such a large distortion in natural laws existed to begin with did that ridiculous spell activate in the first place…Get it now? Can I stop explaining?”

Fiamma smirked, then raised his third arm high.

An extremely primitive motion.

Dozens of meters still separated them, but considering his phenomenal strength, that offered zero peace of mind.

However, before the motion could complete, Kamijou charged at Fiamma from the side.

“I have no need…”

Fiamma’s reaction, though, was truly simple.

“…to turn around.”

His arm changed course and swung around.

As if to accomplish its original purpose, it knocked Kamijou to the side. It was like hitting someone with a wooden club—primitive, and therefore, no way past it. Not only his organs but his very spine groaned. Yet, it was strange…if it could crush a giant anchor and destroy an entire sailboat in one hit, it should have reduced a human body to powder.

The role given to it…

Had it automatically calculated and chosen the optimal force with which to bat Touma Kamijou away?

It was different from a saint, who overwhelmed with strength or speed.

To give an analogy to an RPG battle, say you had a list of commands, like fight, defend, spell, and item—and also an absurd option that just said defeat.

Most likely, Fiamma would respond in the same way against Kanzaki and Acqua as well and dominate them in the same way. Even if he had less speed, even if he had less muscle power, it wouldn’t matter. This altogether absolute “strength” ignored all actions taken by an enemy leading up to the very last instant and then defeated them in one fell swoop. It was almost like pushing a giant wall and knocking down a hill of sand made by a child.

Brawling with Fiamma head-on wouldn’t get him the win.

But he couldn’t retreat, either.

If he left things like this, Fiamma would finish Vento off. He wouldn’t necessarily let Lesser or Elizalina go, either. And he’d definitely take Sasha Kreutzev away.

And above all.

In Fiamma’s hand was the Soul Arm that controlled Index.

“…”

Kamijou tasted blood—maybe his lips had split.

Ignoring it, he got to his feet again.

He tightly gripped his fist.

“You’re an amusing one.”

Fiamma glanced his way, keeping Vento well within his firing range.

“How many people have you stood up for? How many incidents have you used that fist to resolve? You really are amusing. I suppose the most amusing thing about you is how you let others catalyze you into putting yourself into dangerous positions and then, in the end, accumulate all the results and rewards for yourself.”

“What…are you trying to say?”

“Do you have the conviction that your actions are truly right?”

Fiamma slowly moved his arm.

His third arm.

The incredibly irregular item that probably couldn’t be explained by mere magic or science.

“Fundamentally, there’s nothing different about my actions, which you’re enraged over, and what you’ve done up until now. I use my right arm to resolve my own problems, and you use your right arm to resolve incidents that happen around you. By shattering all the hard work people have so desperately done, too. Nothing separates our methods. And I have the conviction—conviction that my own actions will bring about an achievement of absolute good.”

“…Are you telling me to abandon Index after you’ve made her suffer so much?” Kamijou shot back, not hesitating for a second. “That’s a load of bull. You used the people of the Roman Orthodox Church for your own convenience, instigated a coup d’état in the United Kingdom by having France put more pressure on them, and you call that absolute good? Are you fucking insane?”

“Then you would call yourself good for putting a stop to it?”

“It’s not a matter of whether it’s good or not.”

“…”

“Index is suffering. How many people do you think are crying right now because of this shitty war you started? Is it strange to you that someone would want to stand up to you? Is it bad to want to fight for a girl who can’t even open her eyes? At the very least, you have no right to complain about anything when you take so much delight in making so many people suffer.”

However.

“How amusing.”

Chuckling, Fiamma proffered his right arm to Kamijou.

In it was a small, cylindrical device.

The Soul Arm to remotely control Index.

As Kamijou’s face changed, Fiamma’s cheeks loosened into a grin, and he said:

“Those words—could you still say them in front of the sister you’ve been lying to all this time?”

Prkk.

Kamijou’s shoulders gave a slight start.

Does he…?

“Sometimes her consciousness connects to mine through this Soul Arm. And sometimes, the information I see and hear is transmitted to her.”

Has he actually…?

“Now, in this situation, under those circumstances, could you say it again? If I’m mistaken, then you don’t have a problem. If you truly feel that way, then why have you kept up this shameless act with her?”

Does he know…?

A cold shudder ran through him.

It wasn’t an emotion relating to the crisis he was in.

A certain girl.

He could feel something, like an invisible pillar holding her up, slowly beginning to crumble.

On the other hand…

Fiamma tapped his temple with his normal fingers and, still smiling, said, “You’re the only one who understands that which you hide. Only she can give judgment on how she feels. You seem to be protecting her to satisfy yourself, but as for whether that will actually save her, well…I look forward to the judgment she will pass.”

His third arm swung.

Kamijou, movements completely blocked by the malicious words, couldn’t react to it.

But he wasn’t aiming for Kamijou.

It was Sasha Kreutzev, whom Fiamma had knocked down with one hit, who was still lying on the plaza ground.

“Firstly.”

The next thing he knew, Fiamma’s third arm was holding the short girl’s body.

He’d ignored the distance between them. The arm had undulated like a whip, then reeled back in like a chameleon tongue.

“?! Fiamma!!”

“I’d love to have the second, but there is still the issue of compatibility.”

After Kamijou snapped out of it and shouted, Fiamma responded in a light tone, almost a whistle.

“I’d like to ensure the angelic medium is sealed, but if I do, your right hand’s special effect will interfere. It would probably be hard to carry both at once.”

Still gripping Sasha like a bag wrapped in branches, Fiamma turned his back to Kamijou.

“Don’t die too easily,” he offered.

Kamijou ignored them and charged forward.

Fiamma, however, didn’t even turn around.

“I need that right hand for something.”

An explosion went off.

By the time Kamijou’s right hand had canceled it out, Fiamma was already nowhere to be seen.

The buzz returned to the plaza at last, now that the crisis had withdrawn.

As the scenery began to move, Kamijou alone remained still.

The only thing in his mind was what Fiamma had said.

“…But as for whether that will actually save her, well…I look forward to the judgment she will pass.”

9

Shiage Hamazura was sauntering about in the snow.

He’d been in a building at first, but he’d lost his patience for staying still and ended up wandering back and forth out in the snow, thinking over what he could do about the weight sitting in the pit of his stomach.

It was a small settlement.

It only had about fifty private homes, all made of logs. Nobody but the people living here could tell the difference between a dwelling and a store. And in fact, only those buildings existed out here.

“It looks like treating the girl’s symptoms is the best we can do, after all,” a tall man addressed him as he was ambling about.

It was the man who had brought Takitsubo and him to this settlement in exchange for the fuel in the stolen car.

His name seemed to be Digurv.

“The drug affecting her is from Academy City, which is several decades ahead in technology, right? A small clinic like this can’t possibly know how to cure the underlying condition. The greater danger is us doing something that ends up making things worse.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I know.” Hamazura shook his head, unease coloring his features. “But I haven’t even been able to let her sleep in a normal bed until now. Please—just get her health in a more stable condition. I can’t stand seeing her in pain.”

“Sure, but what are you going to do, ultimately?” asked Digurv.

Hamazura fell quiet for a moment. Takitsubo had said that Academy City might have a hidden reason for such a committed invasion of Russia. If they could find out what that was, then place themselves in a position that could influence the combat situation, they might be able to conduct negotiations on equal terms with the giant organization that was the City.

And searching for it was the only way. Before Rikou Takitsubo was completely out of action, he needed to head for the center of this world war on his own.

Spirits flagging at the sheer enormity of that wall, he decided to change the topic. Glancing around, he said, “Seems kind of busy around here.”

“Mm. A nearby settlement seems to have been attacked by Russian forces, but an Asian boy apparently saved them from a truck convoy transporting them to a concentration camp. More people here are runaways than actual villagers at this point.”

Were those the circumstances leading to the apparent lack of goods?

“…Will the generator be okay?”

“For now. Normally, we have regularly scheduled shipments of supplies and fuel, but the situation being what it is…The Russian forces are stationed on the roads, cutting off the usual route. To be honest, if you hadn’t been passing by a little while ago, things would have gotten pretty bad.”

A problem that wouldn’t have happened had there not been a war between Academy City and Russia.

“I’m sorry…It’s our fault.”

For a moment, a ridiculous idea had crossed Hamazura’s mind: Could this large-scale war have started because he and Takitsubo fled to Russia? He was fully aware of the fact that they were trivial and didn’t nearly have that much value, but he couldn’t entirely shake the thought, either.

However, Digurv shook his head. “No, it’s not. If I’ve offended you, then I’m sorry. In all honesty, I get it.”

“?”

“The Russian military has been targeting this settlement since before World War III started. The border with the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations is a stone’s throw away, you know. This is the perfect site to build a front-line base to mount an invasion. We’ve been in danger of a takeover several times already. It’s an awful real estate scam. Things got so bad they’ve been using the excuse of ‘preventing Alliance invasions’ to have transport aircraft lay out tons of land mines. Russia might have a way to find all of them and employ machines to retrieve them, but obviously, this settlement doesn’t have anything like that.”

The idea was unimaginable.

In Japan, a government perpetrating something like that was absolutely out of the question.

“Don’t worry about it. We basically treat it like a store point card—the land mines, too. If we retrieve them and give them to an NGO, they’ll exchange them for food and supplies. It would actually be safer to set them off where they are, but peace activists seem to appreciate results that are easy to understand.”

Digurv pointed to a small house at the edge of the settlement. That was where they threw all the land mines they dug up and stabilized the fuse pins on.

“…Russia really wants to attack the Alliance, huh? What does the Alliance have anyway?”

“Who knows? It might not be an actual threat—the Russian government might simply fear their huge lands fracturing more than they already have. At the very least, the Alliance doesn’t seem like it would ever be a military threat to Russia. Whatever the case is, our country can’t possibly have the combat strength to fight a direct war.”

Just because he was a local didn’t mean this man knew everything about the country’s circumstances. Digurv’s tone made it seem like he’d heard this all from someone else. He was just another person. He couldn’t get any news beyond what came on the television very easily.

And then it happened.

Zzzk. Hamazura heard someone’s footsteps on the snow.

Digurv turned toward the noise, then immediately shoved Hamazura down onto the snow. He didn’t even have time to argue. Digurv pulled on the fallen Hamazura’s clothes, then frantically dove behind a building.

“Wh…what? What happened?”

“Russian soldier,” answered Digurv in a purposely low voice, putting his index finger to his lips.

When Hamazura, startled, peeked around the wall, a man in his twenties wearing an army uniform was indeed standing on the snow.

The seriousness in Digurv’s face intensified. “I thought we had sensors around the settlement to prevent intruders. Did they short out somehow?”

“…Hey, the Russian army is after this settlement’s land, right?” asked Hamazura, but then something strange happened.

All of a sudden, the waddling Russian soldier fell into the snow.

Hamazura and Digurv exchanged glances, but the Russian soldier showed no signs of moving after that. After watching for a good thirty seconds or more, they slowly exited from the building’s shadow.

Even when they drew near the fallen Russian soldier, no surprise attack came.

When they turned the facedown soldier onto his back, parts of his face had turned blue or purple.

“Frostbite,” said Digurv.

With almost-closed eyes, the soldier looked up at his keepers and muttered something in Russian. When Digurv heard it, he glanced at Hamazura.

“Says he wants us to save him. He was waiting at a nearby air base for…something, but they were attacked by Academy City forces before it arrived. The cold must have been awful in his indoor uniform.”

Hamazura almost grimaced at the mention of Academy City, but worrying about that on its own wouldn’t get them anywhere…Sure are a lot of visitors today, he added internally.

“…What do we do? Save him? Seems like one hell of an uninvited guest.”

“Don’t give me that look. It’s written all over your face that you want me to save him.” Digurv sighed pointedly, then lent his shoulder to the frostbitten soldier and brought him to his feet. Hamazura helped support his body, too, shuddering at how cold his skin felt.

“Hey, will you guys be okay with this, Digurv?”

“I’d take the coldhearted route if I could. But leaving him to die won’t change the situation at all.”

Their destination was the tiny clinic Takitsubo was also resting in.

Hamazura didn’t know any actual treatments for frostbite, but he idly guessed that just carrying him to a fireplace or heater would help quite a bit.

“…Something,” huh?

As he held up the cold Russian soldier, he suddenly had a thought.

If the Academy City force had a reason other than the obvious war…in other words, if they’d been on a raiding mission to get the something scheduled to be delivered to the air base…Would the existence of that something be a tool he and Takitsubo could use to cut a deal with Academy City?

Right.

The soldier had said the Academy City force had attacked an air base where something was supposed to be delivered.

In that case, wasn’t it possible that something hadn’t made it into that force’s hands yet?

Hamazura glanced at the exhausted Russian soldier’s profile.

He doubted an amateur high school kid could “elicit information” from a professional soldier who went through daily training and had plenty of experience in actual combat. But in a weakened state like this, maybe there was a chance.

After he started to craft this plan, he said, “…Damn it. I wouldn’t be able to face Takitsubo if I did something like that.”

“?”

Digurv gave him a dubious look, but Hamazura didn’t say anything else.

There was more than one method. There had to be an opportunity to make a deal with Academy City that didn’t involve using a stranger’s misfortune as a stepping stone.

Carrying this guy someplace warm comes first.

But as they were about to open the clinic door, someone burst out from inside.

It was a girl of about ten. Probably one of the people rescued from the in-transit convoy and not an original resident of the settlement; he could somewhat tell the difference from things like her clothes. As soon as she saw Digurv’s face, she began to rattle away in Russian. It seemed to be a message for him, but Digurv was frowning. Maybe she was too excited for her words to get across.

However, as though finally realizing what the girl was trying to say, Digurv’s face changed. Entrusting the frostbitten Russian soldier to Hamazura, he rushed into the clinic.

Hamazura didn’t know what was going on, but he followed him inside while carrying the soldier.

He was tense.

The building the girl had burst out of was the clinic where Takitsubo was supposedly resting; maybe something had happened.

He had a bad feeling…

But his prediction was wrong.

The situation was even graver than he feared.

“What the hell’s going on?! What happened?” shouted Hamazura in Japanese, lowering the Russian soldier to the floor in front of the electric stove near the clinic entrance.

Digurv, who had been speaking quickly, eventually turned around to Hamazura. He was in a whirlwind, like he was about to make an escape through the night.

“…Privateers.”

“What are those?”

“They’re like corsairs. Originally, it was a name for a military system during the Middle Ages. Government-approved pirates who would prioritize attacking ships from enemy nations, both causing them financial stress and filling their own country’s coffers with the gold they plundered. During that time, the pirates would be under national protection, since they’re approved by the government. Apparently, a few were even knighted.”

“What’s that got to do with this?”

“Russia’s military uses privateers like that even in modern times,” answered Digurv, not paying any attention to the nervous sweat forming on his face, his eyes bloodshot. “Empty units exist in the military. Their official personnel count is zero. Like the name privateer implies, most of their missions are to acquire funds by attacking hostile forces. Originally, they needed to carry out operations to disrupt enemy supply lines and indirectly sap their combat strength, but raiding operations targeting lightly armed people were never popular and tended to cause the spread of unnecessary unhappiness, so I also hear they established teams for the express purpose. Apparently, they’re now the go-to team for when they need dirty missions done.”

Digurv added that he didn’t know how much of it was true, though.

“…They gather people mainly from western Europe who have armed forces experience and want to let loose. I even hear they recruit over the Internet. Military regulations don’t apply to them, and you can make a lot of money in a short time, so it seems to be somewhat popular. In addition to that, Russia gives them top-of-the-line equipment and pushes the dirty jobs on them—so if push comes to shove, they can immediately disband the team and all its documentation. Any troops that cause a ‘problem’ are treated as having been thrown in a political prisoner camp on paper only, and then they go back to whatever country they came from. That’s how they’ve built this system where they can smoothly carry out missions that would otherwise earn them criticism from the global community.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me…You’re saying crooks like that are on their way here?”

Hamazura looked at the Russian soldier he’d carried in front of the electric stove.

“O-oh yeah, and there’s a Russian military ally here. They wouldn’t level the entire settlement, would they? They would at least do some checking first.”

“We’re up against privateers. They don’t care about any of that.”

Digurv shook his head.

The Russian soldier, too, let out a groan upon hearing the word privateers.

After a moment, Digurv said, “They’ve sent privateers into real combat several times already.”

Originally, the Russian military had been after this land to build a front-line base for attacking deeper into the Elizalina Alliance. And they’d even spread land mines using transport aircraft as part of their real estate scheme for it.

“But until now, we’ve detected them approaching and held out by running away before they started their main attack. I mean, they’d bust up our buildings and take anything worth money, but it was a small price to pay. And we’d always have a chance to manage to rebuild it all.”

“Th-then, can’t we do that now?”

“…The situation’s changed. We’re in World War III. The Russian forces have refurbished the privateers’ gear. We can’t escape anymore. The armored cars they have are far faster than our legs, and their firepower is something we can’t deal with.”

“This must be some kind of joke…”

Digurv and the others had also said they couldn’t run the generator because they had no fuel. Right now, it was possible they didn’t even have enough escape cars to fit everyone in the settlement.

They couldn’t use their usual methods.

What would happen if they ran out of all other options?

“Away from here is a steel lookout tower that uses magnetism to detect when people are approaching. It’s been blown to bits—probably by the privateers. They’re already very close; we don’t have much time. They don’t abide by the rules of war, so if they get inside, they won’t bother arresting us or capturing us—they’ll slaughter everyone on the spot.”

Hamazura glanced toward the clinic’s wall.

Were those called AKs? He didn’t know the exact model number, but assault rifles with wood here and there were standing up against the wall. He’d been surprised to see them when he’d first brought Takitsubo into the place, but it seemed like they were more common than fire extinguishers in these parts.

But they wouldn’t work; running around with things like that was unlikely to lead to taking down the attackers, because they’d know the settlement’s circumstances well in advance. Plus, they were probably preparing to one-sidedly massacre the people here.

They had no way to fight back.

Hamazura had used pistols sometimes in back alleys in Japan, but he’d never touched a gun that big before. It probably worked completely differently.

“…What do we do? Where are we even supposed to run?!”

“That’s what we’re searching for now.”

10

In the remains of the Russian military air base attacked by the Academy City shadow organization, Accelerator quietly thought.

Almost ten men and women were standing ready, surrounding him.

And they were a strange bunch.

It didn’t seem like they were mere Russian soldiers. Garbed in darkly colored religious habits, they gripped unique ornamental objects resembling swords, spears, staves, and axes in their hands.

Normal thinking named these items impractical weapons. They were anachronistic, by one or two eras, but strangely enough, in the ruins of the base, spurting flames and smoke…they appeared to fit perfectly on a Russian battlefield. He felt the same sense of oppression from them that he felt from Unabara.

There was just something about it…but that wasn’t the most important thing.

In his arms was a girl named Last Order.

She was unconscious, her body limp.

If he applied his reflection to his whole body in order to fight while holding her in one arm, he ran the risk of harming her as well. He would have to be careful with his ability usage.

The ability to walk without assistance on two legs.

Deliberate lowering of defensive strength so as not to hurt the girl.

And…

“…”

Thinking for a moment, Accelerator scowled.

And then he went into action anyway.

He concentrated his offensive vector conversion ability into his right hand.

The air thundered and roared.

Accelerator manipulated his leg-force vectors and instantly burst ahead like a javelin. Out of the ten men and women, he closed in on the nearest one.

He stuck out his right arm.

With a strike like a light touch, the habit-wearing man’s body flew over ten meters away without much impact.

And yet, even as he careened back, the man spoke clearly:

“Vodyanoy!!”

It was spoken like a name.

The group, on the verge of faltering at the sudden whirling injury to their ally, regained freedom of movement at the call. The woman standing diagonally behind Accelerator, directly in his blind spot—probably the Vodyanoy—moved her fingers in an unnatural manner.

A moment later:

The snow around her melted, turned into a watery spear, and lunged toward Accelerator.

Neither a bullet nor a bomb—an incomprehensible attack.

A normal person would have stopped moving at the sight of that, then been impaled in the meantime. But Accelerator wasn’t shaken. He was a heap of incomprehensible things himself.

He held out his right arm, the only part of him he had applied his reflection to.

The spear burst apart, its water shifting into prismatic beams of light flowing from his hand and out behind him. It became a wall of heavy pressure, and it knocked down four or five of the habit-wearing people who were supposedly Vodyanoy’s allies.

Accelerator, however, frowned. Even though he was the one who had blocked it.

It didn’t make sense to him.

If his reflection had succeeded, the water spear should have plunged toward the woman herself and penetrated her arm. Instead, it had veered off target…and only after degrading into rainbow light.

It was a strange phenomenon. It wasn’t water or ice or water vapor. Even he, the one who had caused the reflection, was mystified as to the process that had dismantled it into light.

…What was that…?

He felt like something slimy, something caught in his fingers, was escaping.

He’d learned from experience that when he reflected a teleportation ability, queer phenomena would occur in the three-dimensional world, but this was a different sensation from that, too.

But he didn’t have time to mull it over.

Vodyanoy must have had her own questions about it. As if to confirm it once again, she purposely created the exact same water spear. As if to observe carefully—as if this time, she’d find a way through to him.

That was convenient for Accelerator, too.

He held out his hand, and once again, the watery spear turned into a rainbow of light.

But this time, something was different.

Part of the seven-colored light nearly grazed Last Order’s cheek.

“…Careful.”

Boom!! A gut-rattling explosion went off.

It was the sound of Accelerator tapping his foot on the ground and bringing up a huge amount of snow like a tsunami. As it went, it swallowed up Vodyanoy and all the others with overwhelming speed. The snow wall had fired more swiftly than a crossbow, and with a slamming shock wave, it knocked out all his assailants in one fell swoop.

“Figures a right hand wouldn’t suit me.”

After making sure he’d eliminated all the enemies, he switched off his electrode and thought for just a moment.

What was that water spear?

The way he had to think about the vectors was altogether different from the scientific abilities developed in Academy City.

Different vectors.

Different rules…

Unconsciously, he recalled the parchment he’d obtained on the freight train.

Did he attack this base, or didn’t he? Was he from Academy City, or wasn’t he? That was how they’d questioned Accelerator. That meant they must not have been the Academy City shadow group, but Russian people…

They might know something about the parchment.

Maybe how to use it, too.

The chances of this being a breakthrough to save Last Order from her critical situation weren’t zero.

What a pain…

Now it seemed like he’d have to ask the assailants he’d just knocked out.

He needed to make sure he didn’t accidentally kill them.

So he thought, but then he paused and looked up.

An Academy City supersonic bomber shot through the skies. If that were all, it wouldn’t be unusual, since this nation was at war. However, the bomber dropped something into the sky over the ruined base.

And it wasn’t a parachute. It was fitted with cruising wings, like a more complex version of a hang glider.

He could see a human shape.

He didn’t have to think any more than that.

It was an enemy.

He came to the conclusion with but a single irritated click of his tongue.

A moment later, he switched on his electrode and kicked a pebble at his feet.

With an explosive bang, the aerial wings were shot out of the sky.

However, the human shape didn’t slam onto the ground.

Purple lightning scattered, and the human shape’s speed of descent decreased in stages. Even with their wings lost, at the end, they floated lightly down onto the ground.

…They caused the air to explode?

That was Accelerator’s idle guess, but it was nothing to be surprised about.

He himself had jumped out of a bomber in Avignon without a parachute once.

What made him curious was the ability that was used.

Electric power.

And an ability Accelerator was very familiar with.

“Who is that?”

The person was clad in combat gear colored white to match the snowfields and wore special masklike goggles that covered their face. It wasn’t clear where their eyes or nose were. The expressionless mask only featured eight small lenses, fixed in a circle like the face of a clock. The clothing had no gaps in it, so one could store anything inside. Because of that, the visible body build didn’t do much good, but as a first impression and nothing more, the person looked like a girl of about high school age.

Crackle.

A strange sense of tension ran through him.

The whiteness of the skin on her ears, which slightly showed at the sides of the mask, and the fluttering of her shoulder-length brown hair gave him an incredibly bad premonition.

Yes.

He got the feeling that this girl was identical to the one in his arms.

“Who the hell are you?”

The figure in white didn’t remove her mask.

Her expression wasn’t visible.

With only the small lenses—placed in her mask like the face of a clock—shifting place slightly, she answered:

“If Misaka said Third Season, would you know who Misaka was?”

Accelerator almost unwittingly caught his breath.

But the girl who had called herself Misaka continued.

“Heyo! Came to kill you, Number One. Misaka doesn’t care what happens with this war. Never got inputted with any orders like that. Misaka’s goal is only to exterminate Number One. For that purpose, for that goal alone, they went through the trouble of dispatching Misaka from her culture medium.”