CHAPTER 8

Their Multilateral Counterattack
Combination.

1

Misha Kreutzev.

The size of the angel’s body by itself wasn’t that unusual. Two meters, give or take. Perhaps its consistently feminine silhouette was because this being stood as the only female angel in legend.

The details of the angel’s form, however, were clearly distinct from humans.

Instead of skin, a silky fabric covered its body; and it had no face to speak of—no eyes, nose, or mouth. Those organs were all depicted solely by unevenness in the cloth. In place of its hair was a cloth spread in the shape of a trumpet, flowing from the back of its head.

No strict distinction could be made between skin and cloth; they were one and the same. Gold-colored veins, like that of a leaf, ran through the white cloth’s surface, held in some places by pins of the same color. On the whole, it was closer to a white or gray, but the faint-blue light emanating from its body caused its impression to morph into something more radiant.

Its wings were ice.

They numbered around a hundred.

Their sizes were anywhere from a dozen inches or so to three hundred feet.

The countless wings, towering like a massive pin frog turned to the heavens, possessed a beauty unique to crystalline structures. A gemstone beauty, one which would confront any who tried to reproduce it with the disparity between them and nature.

However.

Those from Academy City, their units deployed across Russian lands, could not watch in fascination.

They knew of its horrors.

No—they were forced to know.

Roar!!!!!!

The countless wings of ice caused the snowy lands to shake.

The action Misha had taken had been simple.

It had descended, straight down, from the air to the center of the tightly clustered, tank- and powered suit–laden enemy ranks. During its meteoric impact, it swung its three-digit wings protruding from its back wildly down in all directions.

That was all.

With no more than a giant stamping-like movement, the Academy City teams who had been sweeping through the huge nation of Russia were scattered like an ant line trampled on by a child.

“Whooooooooaaaaaaa?!”

“Get away from it! It’s too close for bombardment!!”

“Does it look like we have time for that?!”

As the tanks retreated with enough force they nearly ran over their allied powered suits, they rotated their turrets with precision.

Fire spewed from their muzzles.

With the organ-scrambling boom of their bombardment, the artillery, made to dig deep inside armor before igniting, ripped through the air.

The angel didn’t even turn its head.

Its wings, giant as steel towers, simply swung—faster than the speed of sound, stirring the atmosphere, and even leaving trails of condensation in their wakes. With overwhelming force, the unleashed wing attack easily shot down the paltry tank shells.

There was no counterattack.

To begin with, Misha hadn’t even viewed this action as a hostile one with a winner and a loser.

“anhwrNEXTnxdp”

By the time anyone had heard the bang, Misha’s body had already soared up thirty thousand feet into the air.

Academy City’s unit deployment spanned far more than merely three hundred feet.

Misha set its sights on its next landing point, away from the crater in the crowd.

A moment later.

In the same way as before, Misha Kreutzev plunged straight toward the middle of a unit.

“nipsergNEXTnsig”

“sbrgNEXTsnmtph”

“nithgNEXTgbsvrfl”

Bang!! Boom!! In rapid succession, Academy City units were gouged and hollowed. It wasn’t certain whether Misha had a sense of friend or foe. Brought into the melee, the Russian tanks and armored vehicles moving about in confusion were mowed down at the same time.

It was an overpowering sight to behold.

The Academy City tank crewmen crawling out of their tanks, which were now like shredded empty cans, locked eyes with the sunken Russian troops then. But they never pointed their muzzles at one another’s chests. The Russian troops simply shook their heads in dumb amazement. The Academy City tank crewmen could understand how they felt.

This was far more than a war now.

Even the act of war was nothing but part of a life cycle that humans had created between themselves.

This was a true catastrophe.

And faced with that, human agency had no way to continue.

“hbsugzevnzfNEXTsboisngrger”

Words, sent forth.

A language indiscernible to the human ear, incomprehensible to the human mind.

The soldiers looked to the skies, feeling like blade tips had been thrust at their throats. The angel of destruction reigned supreme. Misha’s movements didn’t change. And it never altered its method of attack on a whim. Did it feel like this was a tedious job? An instant after Misha’s face pointed in their direction, its body had slammed into them like a meteor, without hesitation.

They were done for next time.

It was a miracle they’d lived this long.

Their luck had hit rock bottom.

“…”

Energy drained from the Academy City tank crewmen, and for some reason, smiles came to their lips.

The Russian troops were probably making the same kind of expression.

And a moment later, the archangel descended.

Without mercy.

To grant death to all living things.

Boom!! echoed an explosion.

However—it was not the sound of Misha Kreutzev making landfall.

It was the sound of someone colliding with the archangel in midair.

Neither the Academy City tank crews nor the Russian troops understood what had just happened. Their state of confusion was so stunning that it took them time to even realize the simple fact that their lives still continued on.

A woman had clashed with the archangel.

A blond-haired woman, wearing a dress that was red like burning fire, holding a sword of flashing light in her right hand.

Despite her location three hundred meters aboveground—a clear departure from the range of motion a simple human was supposed to be capable of—the woman, shot at her target like a rocket, had clashed one-on-one with the archangel.

For the first time, Misha’s trajectory deviated.

Losing most of its force and speed, Misha Kreutzev’s body, its trajectory forced into a sideways slide, thrust toward the ground—not vertically but at an angle. This time, no crater was created. Bouncing a few times, Misha stabbed its ice wings into the ground to force itself to stop. It was evident that troops from both armies were hastily moving away from the archangel’s surroundings.

What was that?

What happened?

One of the Academy City tank crewmen was rattled, but he neither had time to think deeply nor settle his mind. The woman in the red dress who had exchanged blows with Misha in the skies landed right next to the tank crewman.

Without using a parachute or anything.

With only her two feet, she floated down.

“Ah, ah, whooaa?!”

The tank crewman, fallen on his rear end, tried to get away, but the woman paid no attention to him. She only gave a shake of her sword made of flashing light and glanced toward the archangel.

At the horror that he didn’t want to place in his field of vision, even for an instant.

“…Seriously. Even these so-called heavenly gofers are basically just monsters like this, so. I thought I’d get an earful of all sorts of heaven’s secrets considering she’s the angel of the Enunciation, but we can’t even speak to each other.”

Her voice was plainly scornful.

In addition.

“If you are anything of a nation’s princess, why not have a little more restraint? …Although I suppose I have no right to criticize now that you’ve persuaded me to come to a place even Napoleon grew sick and tired of.”

What?! …What—? When did she show up?!

The tank crewman, who turned around after perceiving another woman’s voice, then noticed for the first time the pallid woman wearing a loose-fitting outfit of white cloth.

But that wasn’t all.

“Even still, ma’am, the idea of you exchanging blows in these conditions makes this a grave situation. It does indeed seem that the enemy has prepared something with purity equaling—or even exceeding—the Curtana.”

This time, it was a man’s voice. There, behind a man wearing an expensive-looking suit, waited hundreds, if not thousands, of people. It was unbelievable. Sure, there were a few hills and valleys here and there—but it was basically flatland here. There were no obstacles that could hide this many people. And despite that…

But it didn’t seem like this situation was something he could ask the details of from the woman in the red dress, the pallid woman, or the man in the suit.

They exchanged words with cool expressions.

“I figure your weapon nullification spell doesn’t work?”

“Unfortunately no, ma’am. This is far beyond its level. And it may be that those wings are being perceived not as weapons, but as part of its body.”

“What is Necessarius doing anyway? Can’t we use that saint they have?”

“They seem to be prioritizing medical aid for the wounded, for both Academy City and the Russian forces. For her, it seems battle is but one means of salvation, and other methods were higher on her priority list.”

Carissa tisked softly at the Knight Leader’s words.

The Femme Fatale’s eyebrow twitched. “That seems the proper response for the Puritans, no?” Ignoring the glare the second princess cast on her, the French holy woman continued. “In the first place, that department has been killing far too much.”

“Don’t need you to tell me that,” muttered Carissa. “Hmph. That means I’ll just have to manage with this.”

Voom!! She swung the sword of flashing light once.

Then she turned toward the woman with the sickly looking skin, who gripped a sword adorned with decorations, and said, “You good, Frenchy?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me when you’re the one who fiddled with the mobile fortress Glastonbury’s parameters. Now that you’re pouring French national power toward the Durandal, I’m sure you fully intend to use and discard me.”

Creak-creak-crack-crack resounded an abnormal noise.

It was the sound of Misha, fallen in the distance, pulling its wings of ice out of the ground.

The woman in the red dress held out the tip of her flashing sword and made her defiant announcement.

“Come at me, monster. It’s time to teach you that same archangelic power rests condensed in my hand, too.”

2

Carissa, second princess of Britain.

The Femme Fatale, holy woman of France.

The action they took was a simple one.

They charged directly for Misha Kreutzev.

B-b-b-b-boom!!!!!! The burst exploded after their movement had already taken place. The identity of the loud reverberation, similar to an artillery blast, was a shock wave due to breaking the sound barrier. Carissa and the Femme Fatale, fanned out to either side of the archangel, both aimed for Misha Kreutzev’s neck like a huge pair of scissors.

Everyone’s eyes opened wide.

Their two swords each sunk into Misha’s icy wings.

But even that only lasted a moment.

The blades shaved off the countless wings with the effortlessness of mowing grass before attempting to end Misha’s life in one fell swoop.

Misha Kreutzev’s hands moved. It pointed each of its palms outward, as though holding open a train door.

That was all.

The Curtana and the Durandal, which had sliced through one death-inducing ice wing after the next, couldn’t even deal a grazing blow to the archangel’s palms. The swords’ motions were gently halted, as though adhering to them.

The angel’s head shifted smoothly, setting its hollow eyes on Carissa.

A moment later:

Roar!! A thunderous booming echoed.

It was the sound of Carissa and the Femme Fatale having their respective swords’ energies explode. The two were thrown out to the left and right in a large arc. They didn’t fall to the ground, but their soles slid over the snow, and the sting of impact remained.

“hboirgPRIORnbugbITIZEvoraghv”

Misha Kreutzev spoke, its head tilting slightly with a pop.

Its body turned to face Carissa again.

“nriosgnPRIORITIZEiorseog”

The archangel’s palm was thrust out.

And then:

Krshhh!!!!!! Something grazed Carissa’s cheek and instantly exploded behind her, shattering an entire hill.

Her reactions couldn’t keep up.

She could do nothing but realize that fact as Misha slightly adjusted its palm.

It had corrected the trajectory.

“…!! Out of the way, barbarian!!”

Just before it fired, the Femme Fatale moved faster than the speed of sound. Traveling in an arc around the supernatural being, she came in at Carissa’s side and delivered a flying kick. A normal person might have blown up in that situation, but for them, even something this insane was an act of kindness.

A moment later, something fired from the archangel’s palm.

Clumps of snow and dirt exploded spectacularly, but they both still had all their limbs attached.

“What was that? I couldn’t even see it.”

“Gabriel is a messenger angel. She probably excels in the sending and receiving of information. She uses the information of intuition and indication as a clever decoy, then sends it out in any direction, at any distance, and with any timing. Rely on your normal senses. If you trust your sixth sense, your timing will be off.”

“hbwioraEFFECnbsitbgTIVEoargwerge”

“This isn’t good. She’s gotten a taste, and now she wants more, so.”

“No, you just fell for her schemes, you barbarian.”

Shwahhh!! Many wings unfolded from Misha’s back. They all seemed off. They’d probably been changed so that the speed at which one read indications from the wings would be faster or slower, just like whatever it was that had fired from her palm before.

They couldn’t get ahead of them.

If they tried to predict them, it would backfire.

Right after they made sure they knew that, Misha’s wings moved.

With speed surpassing sound, over a hundred wings assaulted them at once.

“…!!”

Ba-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-za-za-za-za-za-ga-ga-ga-ga-gi-gi-gi-gi!!!!!! Countless sparks flew. It was akin to a situation of repelling every shot from a gatling gun, but when the bullets moved around like living creatures, the difficulty soared higher. Just keeping up with the motions was plenty praiseworthy for humans, but Carissa and the Femme Fatale wore ill expressions.

Since decoys hid within the indications they used to get a read on the wings, they always had a timing lag during their initial movements.

Because of that, while they could intercept, they didn’t have room to turn things around.

The battle situation stalled, with them only receiving attacks from Misha one-sidedly, descending into a war of attrition.

The battle stalling was not a good thing.

All it did was show how they hadn’t found any way to counterattack.

“Something wrong, barbarian?! Didn’t the Curtana eat up as much archangel power as the enemy?!”

“Shit. It seems like it’s gobbled down enough of the quantity, but I don’t know anything about angels. Seems like I’m losing in technique, not strength. What about you?”

“I can’t keep up with the power—just with the relic embedded in the hilt! And our objective wasn’t to kill an archangel; that would be a pipe dream!!”

Skree!! went the sound of something scraping.

On its face, only recognizable from indentations, the piece corresponding to its mouth squirmed around.

“bzsoINCRgzEASINGeuipghSPEEDerug”

“This…thing…!! We still haven’t seen the most of i—!!”

Carissa’s face drew back, but Misha surmounted her expectations further.

Over one hundred wings of ice, big and small.

It took them…

…and suddenly aimed not at Carissa or the Femme Fatale—but at the forces of Academy City and Russia.

Damn this thing…!!

A moment later, as the second princess was moving at a supersonic speed, she twisted her body to change direction, diving between the archangel and the soldiers.

To protect the lives of the people from this angelic tyranny.

Misha Kreutzev showed no mercy.

For the archangel had been expecting this opening.

I see.

In that instant, Carissa, time passing unnaturally slowly for her, realized, Military actions utilizing the martial strength of an archangel. It really goes to show you how worthless my revolution that I forced upon the people was.

A hundred wings swung down at once.

Someone let out a shout.

And then.

Brrm-brrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmm!!!!!! A massive quaking struck the Russian lands.

Carissa had gritted her teeth, but sticky, fresh blood spurted from between her lips.

Her entire spine groaned in agony.

She’d stopped the attack using the Curtana’s power, but caught between the pressure from above and the earth below, she’d very nearly spit out her organs like a full can of soda getting crushed.

But that wasn’t even the most terrifying part.

Blood fell from the second princess’s palm.

The fragment of the Curtana itself, which had created that sword of flashing light, had shattered, unable to withstand the immense force.

“bndoEFFECTIVENESSlgCONFIRMEDbsdog”

Misha Kreutzev calmly observed her.

And then:

“bguzsegbCONTrlgINUINGvbATTACKrgb”

Vwah!! The hundred wings attacked once again.

As if to say that it planned to repeat any effective attack as many times as it needed.

But Carissa had already lost the sword of flashing light in her hand.

She didn’t have the Curtana fragment, either, that had created it.

It came at her.

An attack of absolute wings that would destroy all things.

And this time.

Even sound itself went away.

Everything was frozen.

The French faction, starting with the Femme Fatale; the British faction, represented by the Knight Leader; and the Academy City and Russian forces, who didn’t even have a proper recognition of the thing called sorcery. With what just happened before their eyes, they all had stopped in their tracks.

However.

It wasn’t because of the destructive force Misha Kreutzev had unleashed.

“…Sure, my sword borrowed the power of all of Britain by routing it through a fragment of the Curtana Second. And it would make sense that it would lose its power once destroyed.”

They heard a voice.

It came from the one in the red dress.

From the princess of the queen’s nation.

From the woman with mastery over military affairs.

“But I never said I only had one Curtana Second fragment, so.”

Kzzt!! Flashing pure-white light burst forth.

And not only one.

One in each hand. And then, as if to adorn her dress skirt, ten more swords floated behind her waist.

“…I’m still a princess with her nation on the line, so. Did you think I’d bite the dust that easily?”

“hdtrnDAMAbGEgurgCONFIRMEDhtr”

Skreeeek!! With a shrill noise, Misha repositioned its icy wings.

“bauoCONTINgrlnUINGjjATTACKyhBASEDfvgASSUtgseagREDtrrhgsDESTRUCTIONr”

Carissa snorted.

Even as her legs trembled from the effects of sustaining severe injuries, her grin never wavered.

She spoke to the Femme Fatale, who had landed next to her in a single leap.

“…How much longer until our true goal is complete, do you think?”

Preparations for withdrawal were progressing.

Academy City and Russian military alike—currently they were being made to swiftly retreat as directed by the forces of Britain and France. Soldiers were being dragged from broken powered suits, and the wounded were being loaded onto still-operational tanks.

“It depends on how far they need to run before they’re safe. If not even the other side of the world will help, then it’s over anyway.”

“How laid-back of you.”

“Do I seem that way?”

The archangel and the two women clashed once more.

Neither Carissa nor the Femme Fatale, each wielding their blades, was unharmed. Misha’s ice wings were already moving at incredibly high speeds—and their timing was off thanks to the feints. They’d avoided taking lethal damage, but smaller cuts and scrapes were beginning to accumulate on their bodies. The wounds weren’t from direct hits from the ice wings, but rather from the icy shards that broke off when their weapons clashed.

Even so, it didn’t change the fact that they were being whittled down.

If this kept up, Carissa and the Femme Fatale would surely exhaust themselves, decisively dulling their movements, and end up taking a mortal blow.

But still.

Neither had confronted the archangel because they wanted to commit suicide.

So swinging her flashing blades in wide, sweeping arcs, Carissa, along with the Femme Fatale, created distance for now.

“Anyway,” said Carissa, taking a small communicator from her dress’s chest. “I would like to keep my life intact. I think it’s time I used the next best plan.”

“…Would you please not take things out of there? As another woman, I find it quite improper.”

Carissa ignored her and spoke into the radio.

“All Pellet Crossbow vehicles on standby. Fire your SAMs at once.”

About five kilometers away from the battlefield, behind a hill, was a group of over thirty parked vehicles: some for firing missiles, others for providing targeting assistance via radar, some trucks loaded with additional ammunition, and still others with cranes for loading it all.

The main vehicles were irregularly shaped, like trucks with caterpillar treads. And instead of truck beds, they had beehive-like missile-launching containers on them, each comprising twenty cylindrical tubes.

And nobody said to conserve their ammo.

Starting with one vehicle, twenty flames spurted out in rapid succession. Missiles also fired simultaneously from the other vehicles lined up next to it. The white, stringy smoke began to fill the skies. Over a hundred missiles tore through the heavens.

At first, Misha Kreutzev didn’t even bother looking.

It must have decided it could let them all hit it without a problem.

But immediately after, it realized the truth of the matter.

Those projectiles were surface-to-air missiles. In other words, they weren’t aiming for Misha, who was on the surface—they were aiming for the Star of Bethlehem, floating high in the sky.

“I don’t know if you understand human words, but I’ll ask this anyway.”

As Carissa swung her flashing swords, she mustered the most wicked smile she could.

“You sure you should be wasting time here? I’d think defending your base has a pretty high priority itself.”

“buigbsuiezgsLOSEutrsethtsrth”

“Don’t get mad at me.”

The second princess casually brushed off even the bloodlust pouring toward her.

“I’m only doing what you did before.”

Bchhheeee!! came the explosions.

Carissa and the Femme Fatale were repelled backward simultaneously.

They didn’t have time to reestablish themselves.

Misha Kreutzev looked directly upward before using its wings of ice to take immediate flight into the air with the force of a rocket—to intercept the cluster of SAMs aimed at the Star of Bethlehem.

As the Femme Fatale lowered the Durandal, she looked up into the sky. “…I doubt that’s enough to bring the fortress down.”

“Twisted, distorted, or whatever, angels are angels. They’re just slaves that determine requirements programmatically, controlled by a superior’s instructions. If the mastermind is trying to do some sort of ritual in that temple up there, it’s perfectly easy to predict he would have put together a list of commands so it won’t fail.”

After Carissa spoke, her body swayed.

…I must have taken more damage than I thought.

She’d just fought an irregular enemy, after all: an archangel. And continuing to draw out power using only the Curtana fragment was a strain in the first place.

Still, that didn’t mean she had to retreat now.

The militaristic second princess knew well that war wasn’t so simple.

“The SAMs are national resources, too. We can’t fire them endlessly, so. Now’s our chance to evacuate the wounded. That target won’t keep tying it down forever.”

Even as Carissa commanded her subordinates to “just keep firing,” she thought, Damned monster.

She spat out the blood in her mouth.

The flashing sword in the second princess’s right hand still had immense power within, enough to properly command a nation.

But it was a power for man, created by man.

A true archangel would be one dimension higher than that.

Fact of the matter is: We’re up the creek. Couldn’t even find a clue as to how humans can beat this thing.

3

The intermittent rumbling continued.

The shaking was strong enough to cause aftershocks even on the Star of Bethlehem floating in the heavens. Kamijou was too afraid to even imagine what was going on down on the ground.

“…We’re going higher up,” murmured Kamijou while running down a stone-built passage, glancing toward the evenly spaced windows.

With nothing but sky outside, it was hard to tell how high they were. Still, the clouds’ height was fixed, and seeing them falling away hinted that the Star of Bethlehem was ascending.

“Answer one. The Star of Bethlehem was originally a heavenly body that a prophet witnessed. By this star’s light, the prophet became confident of the Son of God’s birth.”

“A star floating from artificial methods, huh? That’s got a really ominous sound to it. We’ll just have to pray we don’t go all the way to satellite orbit and that we don’t help cause another ice age like a giant meteorite.”

Even as they spoke, the passage was creaking and cracking, changing form. But the temporary explosive expansion was gone. It was like a newborn star had cooled and stabilized.

Its size was about forty kilometers in radius.

The spot Kamijou had been in at first was, on the whole, close to the back. The ritual site Sasha told him about, though, was on the edge of the right part, which was longer than the others. As long as Fiamma wasn’t after a different destination, he’d be near to it. To stop the archangel Misha rampaging even now, it seemed they’d have to head for the ritual site where Fiamma probably was, but some random high school kid wouldn’t be able to run the entire distance on foot.

…But Sasha had escaped from the ritual site at the rightmost part and gotten all the way to where I was.

It would be one thing if she had incredible running abilities, but otherwise, that meant some other method had been prepared for traveling through the Star of Bethlehem at a high speed.

“Answer two. Personally, the option of returning to where I came from after managing to distance myself from it doesn’t seem very beneficial.”

“Then you can wait here if you want, Sasha.”

“Answer three. If I could, I wouldn’t be in this trouble.”

“I guess not…No way to escape this place without finding a parachute or something. I’ll have to really think about that once I beat that asshole’s face in.”

As he spoke, Kamijou continued through the expansive fortress, guided by Sasha.

“This fortress goes on for miles. It’s practically a full marathon. We’ll run out of steam just running around, won’t we?”

“Answer four. I don’t have that much confidence in my stamina, either. I have a method of transportation here.”

Eventually, they found it: a monorail. Only one—maybe it really was just for getting around. It looked more like a relative of a car than a train.

And naturally, it wasn’t magical.

As Kamijou gaped, Sasha tilted her head. “Question one. Aren’t you getting on?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s just…The place is like a big rolled-up ball of historical ruins. Why would there be a monorail here?”

“Answer five. Please don’t ask me.”

Now that he thought about it, there were furnishings that looked historical and footholds and scaffolding used for construction strung along inside Fiamma’s base, too. Had he put it together specifically for this sort of design?

…Lesser said there are over two hundred Russian sorcerers. Did they need to repair the existing infrastructure, too, in order to make the place more efficient?

Kamijou and Sasha boarded the monorail.

He didn’t know how to control it or anything, but apparently neither did Sasha. It seemed like they only needed to enter a destination, and then the machine would move on its own. Maybe it was more like an elevator than anything else.

For a while, the monorail trailed through the fortress, but eventually it left the proverbial tunnel and came out in the middle of the sky. It looked like they were going on a rail running underneath the fortress.

A view of the sky.

And that sky was dark, without any stars, painted completely over in black.

“The Star of Bethlehem…,” murmured Sasha, staring at the purposely constructed darkness. “Opinion one…The star announced Jesus’s birth. Is the one known as Fiamma trying to re-create that using only man-made objects?”

The clouds below were dense, but gaps existed in places. Through them, he noticed flashes of red light. That was no nighttime scenery; it was probably flames. He recalled the time when he’d been watching a TV program and they were showing a satellite view of the Amazon. The regions that were doing slash-and-burn farming had glowed red then.

Krrk…Kamijou softly clenched his teeth.

And then it happened. From near the red glow on the earth’s surface spurted some kind of water vapor–like stuff. The clouds passed over it a moment later, taking it out of sight, but then suddenly that thick cloud was torn apart. From inside, a dully shining cylindrical object flew out.

“A surface-to-air missile…?!”

And not just one or two, either. Fifty, even a hundred flames blew a wind hole in the night’s darkness.

Whoever fired the missiles might have meant them as a last-ditch effort, but some of them were headed straight for the part of the fortress’s underside that the monorail car carrying Kamijou and Sasha was traveling along. If they kept going, they’d land a direct hit. And even if the missiles didn’t hit the vehicle, as long as they destroyed the rail, there was a good chance Kamijou and Sasha might fall along with it.

But at this point, they had no way to avoid it.

There was nowhere to run in the cramped, boxy monorail car.

An explosion went off.

The monorail car’s glass all shattered at once. Fierce winds blew inside. Kamijou tried to cover his ears and curl up, but then he noticed something.

The missiles hadn’t hit them directly.

If they had, the monorail car would have been a crushed empty can right now. He and Sasha would have died instantly, too.

The missiles had been shot down—by something.

Kamijou looked.

And then, on the inside of the below-freezing car, he caught his breath.

It had been the archangel Misha Kreutzev.

The huge-winged monster was flying alongside the monorail car, matching its speed.

Kamijou stopped caring about the missiles, exploding one after another, and even the sound of them exploding.

That was the level of tension that ran through him then.

And in the meantime, the archangel flapped its wings again and again, intercepting every one of the countless missiles created with the latest technologies.

“…”

When he got another close-up look, he was surprised by how imposing it appeared.

From afar, it only looked like a human-shaped silhouette with huge wings growing on it, but when he saw it like this, he noticed the similarities to Sasha. Its height, to begin with, was almost six feet. According to Kanzaki, Gabriel was a female angel, but its face was actually smooth, expressionless. It was almost like a doll face still in the manufacturing process. The insufficient hills and valleys actually engendered a strange sort of allure.

It was feminine, surely, but it was more feminine than female, assumedly to grant it a sense of uncanniness.

Its skin and clothing weren’t demarcated, with the silky white cloth showing its body lines. Golden pins fastened the cloth in various places. Its general color scheme was white and gold, but the pale-blue light emanating from its body changed its impression to something viewed on a screen.

The white cloth extended back where the hair would be, spread out in the shape of a trumpet. It looked like a lily, but it probably had some sort of religious meaning.

In a place that wouldn’t get in the way of that hair, a small ring made of water was floating. Its speed of rotation would increase or reduce according to the angel’s movements as though some sort of rules were at play.

What did Sasha, a genuine Crossist follower, see when she looked at that angel?

Kamijou didn’t have the time to ask.

His eyes locked with the archangel’s.

Even though its face comprised only indentations, with nothing anyone could call eyeballs, Kamijou definitely felt a terrible sensation in his spine.

Misha Kreutzev made a gesture like someone tilting their head slightly in confusion.

A moment later.

The giant wings on its back filled with power, like someone pulling back on a bow. The movement was clearly trying to attack their monorail car.

…Shit…?!

Fiamma of the Right had said that his right arm and Sasha’s body were essential to his plans.

However.

Maybe those circumstances didn’t matter to Misha Kreutzev.

Its face, expressed only with unevenness, seemed to be watching Kamijou’s right hand closely.

The right hand that could cancel out any strange power.

Then, as though drawn to what one could call “her” natural enemy, Misha Kreutzev flapped its wings.

Grrkk-eeeee!! A tremendous sound like two crags ramming together rang out.

For an instant.

Kamijou thought the shock would make his heart would stop—but that didn’t actually happen.

That was not the sound of Misha Kreutzev firing an attack at Kamijou and Sasha.

In fact, it was just the opposite.

Someone had intervened, driving an extremely fast flying kick into Misha Kreutzev, knocking it away.

“Question…two. What on earth…?!” said Sasha, groaning.

Nothing normal could have dealt an effective blow against an archangel. And they were high in the air—up above fifteen thousand feet. Coming up here by itself had to be impossible for a normal sorcerer.

But Kamijou knew.

He knew exactly one being, one who could overwhelm even saints, one who could probably compete with the magical angel Misha Kreutzev.

A being created by science.

An aggregate of AIM dispersion fields.

And she had dozens of wings coming out of her back, flinging purple lightning every which way.

“Hyouka…Kazakiri…!!”

Kamijou shouted her name as the raging winds gusted past them.

What the heck is she doing here…?!

He doubted she could have heard him.

But she did, just once, glance his way.

For just a moment, a trace of her usual timid nature crept into her face.

A second later, after turning back to face Misha, Kazakiri possessed a fighting spirit he’d never seen in her before.

September 30. Kazakiri, in her angelic winged state, had been under the control of a third party. But he didn’t sense that sort of dangerous light from her gaze. Their births may have been different, their body structures may have been different, but a human light filled her eyes. Her hair had changed to a golden hue, and there was a ring over her head and wings on her back, but she was, without a doubt, the Hyouka Kazakiri that Kamijou knew.

They intersected for the blink of an eye.

Since the glasses-wearing girl had stopped in place in order to hold off Misha’s follow-up attack, the monorail car zoomed away.

The mouth of a tunnel—another entrance into the fortress—was closing in.

But right before they shot inside, he saw the knocked-away Misha Kreutzev arcing toward Kazakiri. And he saw a strange sword extend from Kazakiri’s right hand in response, one that looked like a transformed sinister wing.

He didn’t know what became of them.

Because a moment later, the monorail car entered the dark tunnel.

And then.

Vr-vvrrrrmmmmm!! A massive shaking hit them after another instant. If they hadn’t been in the tunnel, its aftermath alone might have sent the car flying from the rail.

“Damn it!!”

Kamijou ran to the back of the car, but he still couldn’t tell from here what was happening in the skies.

…What was that? What the hell happened?!

Judging by the second shock wave that came rushing through, and then the third, their battle hadn’t finished.

Kazakiri was supported by Academy City’s AIM dispersion fields— How was she here? And why was the fainthearted girl fighting? Kamijou didn’t understand anything.

In any case, there was only one thing to do.

This wasn’t just for Index anymore. To protect her friend as well, he had to stop Misha Kreutzev’s movements as soon as possible.

4

Hyouka Kazakiri.

The girl had abnormally large wings coming from her back, but this was the first time she’d actually flown in the sky. In fact, she hadn’t even known whether these wings had such a commonplace function. But they weren’t giving her any problems. It wasn’t that she’d “remembered” how to use them or that she’d learned it anew. It was as though the countless lightning-scattering wings were being remade to bring out the effects she desired—giving her buoyancy just as she wanted.

She’d protect her friends.

That was the feeling with which she’d come all this way, but then she’d found something. A being much like her. And one trying to kill the one on the monorail car, the one she owed her life to.

In the skies, over fifteen thousand feet in the air, she glared at the enemy before her.

They resembled each other.

They weren’t humanlike, but they still looked feminine. Giant wings sprouted from their backs. A small halo hovered above their heads. They possessed immense strength, which carried the risk of collateral damage. In other words, their existences were supported by a kind of power.

As they faced off, and as she thought about how they were alike, she realized something.

I see.

Almost like an angel.

Was that her impression of the enemy before her or an impression of herself? Hyouka Kazakiri didn’t strictly make a distinction. She didn’t need to. Any impressions she had of her applied to herself as well—as all impressions she had of herself applied to her. She had the vague notion that’s just how they were.

What was the other one thinking and feeling?

Did she have the ability to think and feel at all?

Did that apply to herself, too?

Was she herself truly succeeding at thinking and feeling from her heart?

In this situation, where starting to consider it too deeply seemed like it would lock her into an endless loop, the two monsters, paused in midair, eventually began to slowly move.

Hyouka Kazakiri tightened her grip on the “sword” made of the same essence as her wings.

In contrast, the angel of water gently waved its empty right hand and produced an icy blade from midair.

They didn’t need a signal.

By the time one had moved, the other had already begun as well.

That was their connection as they clashed head-to-head.

Boom!!

A spherical shock wave fired out and spread—endlessly.

The air tingled and shook.

The shock wave had the density of a physical wall, and it even rattled the floating stone fortress. Several rooms caved in, but their fragments, instead of raining down on the surface, hung suspended as though liquid in a zero-gravity space, before being reabsorbed into the fortress.

There was no time to idly watch.

Even as that happened, the battle continued.

As the monsters’ swords locked together, the giant wings on their backs wriggled like living creatures.

They howled.

And then they crashed into each other.

Ba-bang!! Ba-ga-zk-zk-gak-gak-gak-greeee!! With momentum exceeding the speed of sound, dozens of blades attacked their targets, each at its own angle. But victory was not decided. The reason was that as both of them continued their fierce offensive, they kept enough power in store to deal with the other’s.

Icy wings swung, icy wings tore apart; lightning wings attacked, lightning wings broke. The fragments, severed from their masters, turned into fine particles in midair and scattered, becoming an all-encompassing snowstorm of lights that took on color. They looked like small feathers, left behind in the wake of a white bird soaring away.

Still flapping its innumerable wings, the angel of water also swung the watery sword in its hand horizontally in an attempt to decapitate Kazakiri. Kazakiri repelled the assault with her own sword before preparing for a new attack.

The face of the angel so close to her was blank.

It was like an incomplete doll, and while its face possessed alluring irregularity, it didn’t have any isolated parts, like eyes, a nose, or a mouth. It looked like a smooth mask—and the valley corresponding to its mouth was writhing.

It sounded like quiet mutterings.

The words didn’t belong to any nation. Maybe it was in a range unperceivable by human ears.

But Kazakiri could hear. She could understand. She could feel.

She couldn’t comprehend every little thing perfectly, of course. She probably couldn’t tell it to speak her language, either. But she could manage to pick out words in the sentences here and there.

“hbo…RETURN…fbyuo…”

At first, it was the color of an emotion.

When she realized what the color was, the words creating that color, too, began rising to the surface.

“RETURN. frPOSITION. CORRECT. SEAT. uj. HEAVENLY PLANE. ORIGINAL. MUST BE. gePLACE.”

Something was blurred.

The contours of the angel of water, whom she’d thought was a single being, swayed slightly.

It wasn’t that something was overlapping it. Nor was something trying to burst out. Kazakiri didn’t possess a body made of physical matter—and that was how she penetrated its identity.

“…Someone is forcing in power of a different format…?”

She could see fire.

Its presence was like oil to water.

The two kinds of energy had been poured into a cup and stirred up, creating what must have once been a properly blended angel. However, as time passed, they separated, and the two energies were now trying to create a line of demarcation in the single container.

Two powers must not be placed into one container.

One could have called that purity the polar opposite of Kazakiri, who was an aggregate of every single AIM dispersion field. They seemed the same at first, but in reality, they were based on two entirely different things. Two who could have been alike precisely because they stood at opposite ends. Perhaps that was the relationship between Kazakiri and the angel.

Did that amount to blasphemy, for her?

A color of anger was in the angel as it formed words.

“go back. necessary. workt. conduct. fiamma. advantage. interest. alignment. yplan. cooperate”

“…If that is the reason you would harm my precious friends, then I’ll use all the power I can muster to stop you.”

“damage. ignore. prioritize. return. correct. position. necessary. obstruction. evil. synonymy. decision. everything”

Zzzaa!! An enormous vortex of energy began to roil about from inside the angel of water.

Its watery sword swung in an even wider arc, colliding with Kazakiri’s feather sword, and both gained a small amount of distance.

The angel of water raised its sword overhead.

And then it happened: The angel of water’s halo gave a slight jerk. Its focus diverted away from Kazakiri to something else.

“capture”

Its mouth opened.

The mouth of the archangel who could now see naught but its own objective.

“necessary. information. parchment. acquire”

5

Still carrying Last Order, Accelerator climbed into a civilian car parked in the snow. He was in the passenger seat, with Misaka Worst in the driver’s.

“Where to, sir?”

“Sneaking around in the shadows is just gonna wear me out. Quickest way to make things right is to jump right into the middle of the chaos.”

“Understood,” said Misaka Worst in an offhand tone, inserting the key given to her by Elizalina and starting the engine. She didn’t seem to have any difficulty driving with one hand, maybe because the car was an automatic.

The headlights’ glow danced, piercing across the unnatural darkness that had fallen. The passenger car, driven by Misaka Worst, made it out of the small town quickly, coming out onto the snowfield.

“About five minutes until the border…Man, you can tell all the way from here how insane the battle is. Unscientific would be an understatement.”

A giant fortress had risen in the dark skies.

It was incredibly huge. It had to be quite a distance away, but it was practically covering an entire swath of the sky as though a cumulonimbus cloud had come overhead.

And then, with that fortress behind them, two faintly glowing angels clashed again and again in midair. Their respective wings tangled together and plucked the others’ out, and shock wave–like shouts were sent scattering into their surroundings. As their battle continued, a starry sky, equally as unnatural as the blackened night, began to spread.

“Gah…ah…?!”

It was just like whenever he was near Unabara. But this time, the pressure crushing Accelerator’s chest in the passenger’s seat was extraordinary, nothing like those times. He felt like it would be strange if nothing happened to his heart. Something about that starry sky wasn’t right.

Groaning through the pressure in his chest, Accelerator said, “…You really have no clue what that is? If you’re designed to pick up anger and hatred from the Misaka network, then you should be able to draw information from it, too, right?”

“Which angel are you referring to? The one over there with the ice wings? Or that one with the lightning wings?”

“…”

“And for your information, just because Academy City has the information, I don’t think that necessarily means it’s scientific.”

…Which meant maybe it was only natural not to have enough strength with only science in order to save Last Order, who was deeply related to it.

That thing.

The sky those monsters danced in—that was the world wherein lived the cause of Last Order’s suffering.

So maybe, in order to rescue Last Order from there, Accelerator himself would need to ascend into that territory.

How?

Aiwass’s power had been overwhelming. Accelerator’s black wings alone didn’t put up any kind of fight. His trivial villainous crown couldn’t protect the little girl. What should he do, then? How could he protect her smile from this unreasonable world?

The sheaf of parchment hidden in his inside pocket almost felt sarcastic in its insistence on its own existence.

The scribble-like spells and magic circles drawn on them were linked to their technology, which could use “mysteries” on the same level as the angel Amata Kihara created on September 30 or even higher levels. He would fight a problem where theory didn’t apply in a way that ignored theory. It was a dangerous gamble, one that came with many unknown risks. Normally, he would have needed to strictly avoid entrusting Last Order’s fate to something like that. But still, maybe at this point that was his only chance to win. It was like groping through utter darkness, not knowing what paths would lead to a cliff.

And then—

—It happened.

The two monsters fighting in the skies, tangled together, rapidly descended. The scene would have been so powerful to a religious man that it would add a page to the legends; but Accelerator didn’t shed tears of emotion. He didn’t have time. The monsters with those wings growing out of them were, no matter how one thought about it, headed straight for their car.

More specifically, it looked like one of them was after Accelerator while the other chased it.

“…Did they catch a whiff of this parchment?”

Feeling it in his pocket, Accelerator grinned evilly.

He recalled Elizalina saying something about there being a chance the Russian organization responsible for this situation wouldn’t be able to complete their little project without retrieving the parchment.

In the driver’s seat, Misaka Worst, gripping the steering wheel, whistled. “Phew!! What now, what now? This could be more dangerous than a hurricane rushing our way!!”

“Natural disasters and man-made ones have a simple difference,” said Accelerator in a low voice, opening the passenger’s seat window. Without paying attention to the fiercely cold, stabbing winds, he said, “It’s whether there’s an enemy to kill. How nice it is to have a clear target in front of me. Means I don’t have to let anything annoying hold me back, like my anger not having an outlet.”

After finishing, he leaned his upper body out from the passenger’s seat. Then he sat on the window frame like some motorcycle gang member in the old days.

“You take care of the kid. Buy me some time until I can settle the score.”

“Not sure about you trusting Misaka. She’s absolutely awful with that stuff, you know.”

“You’re lucky you’re useful. You still have a chance not to get killed even after a shitty joke like that.”

“Mm-hmm. Misaka likes that better.”

He didn’t have any more time to chat. The two monsters would make landfall in a moment.

Accelerator flipped his electrode’s switch.

Manipulating air currents to extend four tornado-like wings from his back, he threw himself from the car window frame.

He didn’t crash into the ground.

His body shot through the battlefield like a rocket.

Another monster had just joined the fight.

6

Like the advent of a solar eclipse, darkness had spread. In addition, a large number of unnatural points of light twinkled like the interior of a poorly constructed planetarium. A few, however, were straightforwardly joyful at the sight, which one could express as either eerie or mystical. Even now, all kinds of explosions and rumblings echoed in the distance.

Amid all that, Grickin was walking through a snowy forest.

He was the Russian soldier who had operated the mobile anti-air gun with Hamazura and Digurv to protect the settlement that had been under attack from privateers.

Currently, because Academy City’s forces had garrisoned there, the danger of a Russian follow-up attack had decreased. Thanks to them building temporary housing, the people of the settlement no longer needed to worry about freezing to death in a blizzard, even with most of its original wooden buildings destroyed.

“…”

However, Grickin couldn’t meekly accept the favor.

He’d come from the Russian military. And the air base he belonged to had been attacked by Academy City. Their conduct and the armaments they’d used had been wholly different; those providing emergency supplies to the settlers and those merciless killers seemed clearly to be separate units, one official and one not. Even so, he wasn’t in a state where he could simply trust them.

It was different from anger.

At the core of that resistance, there was fear.

…From the moment I fought the privateers, I no longer had a home in Russia. Maybe I should have just gone to Elizalina while I still had the chance.

That was what Grickin was thinking, but getting away from the settlement wasn’t why he was walking around the snowy forest like this right now. Even if he was going to the Alliance, he felt an obligation to thank the people of the settlement who had saved him.

Then why was he wandering around a place like this at all?

Where the hell did that kid get off to…?

He was lost.

There were children, too, in the settlement. And once they were freed from their state of extreme tension from the privateer attack, they’d started running around to play again—that was how kids were. Maybe they’d gotten even more excited now that the danger to their lives had passed. After all, even the adults in the settlement had started drinking and carousing.

In that time, a girl of about ten had vanished.

The children she’d been playing with said they hadn’t seen where she’d gone, just that she suddenly wasn’t there anymore.

An adult like Grickin would have been somewhat cautious of this unnatural night sky (even if he knew he couldn’t do anything about it). But the girl who had disappeared was just a child. She was at an age where she still believed in Santa Claus. It was even possible she’d wandered out too far while looking up at the sky with some kind of hope.

But the Russian winters were severe. The biting cold, for one thing—and there was a significant possibility of encountering a carnivorous beast woken from its hibernation by the clamor of bombings and artillery fire. To top it off, he’d heard there were land mines seeded throughout this area. This wasn’t an environment you could safely let your child play in.

The girl’s mother had apparently wanted to join the search, but everyone else stopped her. The child’s life was important, but if she succumbed to the chill or the land mines in a second tragedy, that would defeat the purpose. Instead, a small number of people, starting with Grickin, were now looking around here and there in the settlement.

Their group was small, so only Grickin was here right now.

He’d walked about three kilometers from the settlement, but he hadn’t spotted anything even resembling a girl. He wondered if a little kid’s legs could even bring them this far in this amount of snow. It might be possible with a child’s stamina, if they were walking with the intent to die, but if she’d simply been playing, that would reduce her motivation to come all this way; normally, she’d decide to go back to the settlement. So should he go back for now?

As Grickin began to mull it over, he spotted an indistinct figure moving through the blizzard.

But it was large.

“?!”

He rushed to hide behind the trees, thinking he’d accidentally found a bear or something. But that wasn’t it. Wild bears didn’t wear white combat clothing made for soldiers operating in extremely cold regions. He could tell from its design that they were Russian army uniforms, but he’d never put his arms through anything that high-class.

…An unofficial saboteur team?! Wait, isn’t that the unit everyone calls the Eastern Angels of Death?!

It was a team that mainly relied on sniping or bombings to assassinate important targets from other countries and one that had provoked wars between nations that brought disadvantage to Russia. During the Cold War, people whispered about them like an urban legend: All someone in power had to do was write a name on a piece of paper, and they’d immediately come assassinate them.

This may have been wartime, but they weren’t the sort one could run into for no reason. If that team was walking around in those clothes, then they were already dragging tragedy along behind them on chains.

What were they doing here?

And why had they gotten out of their vehicles to advance on foot?

Grickin couldn’t help but think of Digurv and the others in the settlement, which had been targeted so Russia could create a frontline base, and the Academy City people who had garrisoned it.

But if Grickin, who had been on indoor service in the air base here, took on a team of handpicked elite agents, he’d have no chance of winning. He could only see one right now, but if they were in the middle of some military operation, they’d have multiple people on the move, even if this was for unofficial combat.

The best thing to do would be leave here immediately and go back to the settlement.

If those Academy City people did something—and it bothered him to say it—they’d handle this team of saboteurs. These guys didn’t win through massive numbers; they were pros at secret maneuvers with only a few people, causing enemy military forces to fall into chaos. If one only knew where they were and the timing of their attack, one could repel them with numbers.

Grickin took a step away from the tree he was hidden behind.

But he couldn’t take a second.

The figure through the blizzard had suddenly jerked to a stop. Shit, Grickin thought, feeling a pressure from a set of eyes.

Nobody else was around—and that was why Grickin clearly sensed those eyes, staring straight toward him.

“…”

He was at quite a distance, but even so, each read the other’s silence.

A moment later, the agent put his assault rifle stock to his shoulder, then swung the muzzle mercilessly in Grickin’s direction.

“Damn it!!”

Forcing down the terror strangling his heart, Grickin turned his back. The rifle bullet stabbed into the trunk of the tree he’d just been up against. As the gunshot sounded, a piece of tree bark bounced off and grazed his cheek. Without time to reflect on that bit of luck, he simply kept running through the snowy forest.

It didn’t seem like he’d have a chance to win.

Simply fleeing the one soldier coming after him wouldn’t save him.

He called me in, he thought, desperately working his legs, which seemed like they were about to collapse out of fear. I don’t know how many people they have, but if they surround me, I won’t be able to escape!!

The snow under his feet as he ran was flung about by a rifle bullet. He kept running, practically in a stumble, and then actually twisted his foot and fell into the snow. But he didn’t have time to stop. Even now, an enemy aiming for him was following him from behind. The more the distance dropped, the higher the chance that he’d die. But when he forced his snow-covered body up again to start running, he was presented with yet another obstacle.

But not an enemy.

It was the girl who had been lost until now.

She must have come here after hearing the shots ringing out in the snowy forest. For Grickin, that was the worst thing that could have happened. There was no guarantee he’d be able to escape even on his own—if a kid was holding him back, they’d definitely be overtaken.

But that didn’t mean he could leave her here.

The agent hadn’t confirmed Grickin’s identity before discharging his rifle. He was simply getting rid of any witnesses. And it probably didn’t matter if that witness was a civilian or a child.

“Shit!!”

Scooping up the confused child, Grickin tried to run farther. But his feet caught in the deep snow, and his body fell into it, his balance ruined by her unexpectedly heavy weight.

The soldier approached.

Grickin could see, even from this distance, the agent’s finger pressing the trigger.

Until.

Baaaang!! A gunshot echoed out through the snowy forest.

Grickin had unconsciously closed his eyes, but he felt no pain.

Nervously, he opened his eyes and saw the soldier fallen on the ground a short distance away. A lump of snow piled up on a branch, about twenty pounds’ worth, had suddenly fallen on his head.

It was not a natural occurrence, of course; the gunshot just now hadn’t been from the assault rifle in the soldier’s hands. A third party had fired at the trunk of the tree near him, from somewhere. After all, hitting a big target sitting still was easier than a small target that was constantly moving.

“Are you okay?!”

He heard a shout. Japanese—rare in these parts. Another gunshot went off. The snow on the ground near the agent trying to get up flew about. He saw the brawny soldier raise his hands.

“Grickin, tie him up!! That was a lucky surprise attack that happened to work. If we take him on for real, we won’t be able to deal with him!!”

He remembered that voice. He looked toward where it came from just as Shiage Hamazura was running toward him, weaving between the trees, a gun in his hand. In a moment, as though irritated by how Grickin still wasn’t moving, he tied the agent’s hands behind his back with barbed wire.

“…Why…?” murmured Grickin, not thinking properly, before remembering the situation. He peeled the girl he had been trying to protect off him and said, “Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Let’s get away from here. The guy you just tied up is from an elite Russian unit. His friends will figure it out soon from the gunshots and radio silence. We have to run before they surround us.”

“I’ve got a bone to pick with them.”

“?”

Grickin frowned as a girl approached, following in Hamazura’s wake. Her name was Takitsubo, if he remembered correctly. She’d been sick with something until a little while ago, but it seemed like she’d recovered.

Hamazura looked her way, and Takitsubo dutifully took the girl’s hand. Then, as natural as anything, she led her away—so she wouldn’t hear what they were about to say.

“The Kremlin Report.”

“The what?”

“There’s a nuclear launch silo near the settlement that isn’t active anymore. The top Russian officers think Academy City might seize it, so they want to hit first and deploy a bioweapon in the area. Apparently, they set up a process for handling all this in advance.”

“…Bastards…,” groaned Grickin.

Normally, such a story would have been immediately unbelievable. But the presence of that unofficial combat unit, the soldier after his life just moments ago, had been far too sinister.

“You mean that unit is gonna spread a horrible virus or something?! Even if we had all the settlers evacuate now, I don’t know if they’d have enough time!!”

“Well, Takitsubo was the one who read the report because it was in Russian, but apparently they have to go through certain steps to spray the weapon. There was a report on predicted casualties that had data on wind direction, temperature, humidity, and stuff like that. It seems like the humidity—the amount of moisture in the air—is important for spreading the contagion, but it’s highly possible it’ll turn into diamond dust with how cold it is.”

“In that case…”

“But if they use a large amount of water vapor to change the temperature and humidity, the contagion will spread out like an explosion. They want to take this heat-retaining gel and make it into powder, then scatter it upwind from the target point. Special gel that won’t freeze even at these temperatures. Once they’ve optimized the temperature and humidity in the appropriate area, they can unleash the weapon in question. If a person goes into it one time, the virus will survive by the infected person’s body temperature and moisture, creating a carrier.”

“Then we might be able to do something if we can just stop them from spreading that heat-retaining gel they need for the first step.”

“It said on there it was called the Steam Dispenser. It’s a device for making the gel into powder and shooting it into the air. Like a special humidifier, I guess. Anyway, that, uh, unit or whatever. We have to somehow destroy that machine before they take action.”

Somehow.

That was easy to say, but it meant fighting that elite unit and winning. If the enemies moved as a group, two people wouldn’t be enough to take them out in a surprise attack.

“…What do we do? Call the Academy City forces garrisoned in the settlement?”

“There’s no time. And if we do something big, it might make them push up their schedule for spreading the stuff. We can estimate the Steam Dispenser’s rough position by geographical and weather data with the wind direction. We haven’t figured out exactly where it is. If that unit starts right now, we’re already too late. And…”

Hamazura paused.

Grickin lowered his face slightly at his silence. “Sorry…”

“It’s fine. But we need to move before the ones left get suspicious. Grickin, can you drive a car? Here’s the key. We hid the jeep three hundred meters west of here. You take the girl and go back to the settlement for now.”

“But then you’ll be—?!”

“More of those guys could be wandering around here, so we can’t leave the girl here. It’s too dangerous to have her walk back alone, and bringing her to the battlefield is out of the question. Please, escort her back. And the soldier I tied up, too.”

After saying that, Hamazura took out his cell phone.

“Let’s trade phone numbers. There’s nothing around here, but apparently we still get a connection because of some relay antennas. I’ll contact you once I find the Steam Dispenser. At that point, even if they realize Academy City’s doing something, I can put a stop to them before they start the spread. And then you have to do whatever you can to persuade the Academy City soldiers to have the people in the settlement go on an exodus. If I don’t contact you for thirty minutes, same thing. Be careful of the wind direction. It may not matter much if they actually spray the weapon, but it’s probably better than moving around without thinking. I’d actually like them to run away right now, but not if they run blindly to where the Steam Dispenser is waiting for them. Understand?”

“…”

“Do you understand me, Grickin?! If something happens to me, and you don’t do your job, a lot of people in that settlement could die!!”

“…”

“It’s impossible that every single person in the Russian army wants to use a bioweapon like that! That’s why they sent in a team that would willingly take on the heartless mission of the first spraying operation!! If they get a certain amount of results here or whatever, those soldiers will lose all self-control!! Meaning the same thing could happen in the rest of Russia!! We have to avoid that. I don’t want anyone being a victim—not any of the Academy City soldiers or anyone in the settlement. Do you understand me now, Grickin?!”

“Yeah, I understand you, damn it!! I’ll protect those settlers with my life. You’d better not die out there, either!!”

Hamazura and Grickin, after exchanging cell phone numbers, slapped their palms together as if to run the plastic devices into each other. They said nothing more after that. Takitsubo, judging that their conversation was over, returned with the girl. Grickin took the girl’s hand, put the tied-up soldier on his shoulder, then headed off for where they’d hidden the jeep.

Hamazura put his cell phone in his pocket, then turned to Takitsubo and said, “We should go, too.”

“Hamazura. Considering the weather and geographical data in the report, I suspect the spot is about five hundred meters north of here.”

Takitsubo spoke smoothly, perhaps because she’d been in charge of reconnaissance for Item. It didn’t have anything to do with her ability, but she’d probably polished the skill to figure out plans based on data, too.

“There’s a small mountain, less than a hundred meters tall, and the wind blows down from there toward the nuclear launch silo and the settlement.”

“Won’t be at the mountaintop. They’re on a time limit, too—they want to wrap things up as fast as they can. I think they’ll try to quickly set up the Steam Dispenser as close to the foot as they can manage.”

Hamazura walked up to the place the soldier had been lying a few moments ago, then picked up the assault rifle and magazine he’d been carrying. Its weight and texture were entirely different from his handgun. He doubted he could use it properly, but going in with a single pistol would be far too unreliable.

For just a moment, the chill of the lethal weapon gave him pause.

But then he looked up to shake off the feeling, slung the band around his shoulder, and took a determined step toward the mountain to the north.

“Hamazura. Let’s finish it quickly. I’m sick of this war.”

“Yeah. And I gotta say, I hate this solar eclipse. Least they could’ve done is given us a view of the aurora.”

7

As Accelerator blew away the white snow on the ground like a blast wave, he charged at the two angels. For just a moment, he considered which of the two, clashing their blades together, he should launch a preemptive strike on.

Whatever the case was, they were monsters with wings growing from their backs.

He had no responsibility to help, either.

In which case.

Accelerator applied his reflection to purposely intervene between the two angels.

A thunderous ba-bam!! rang out.

Of the two angels, his reflection didn’t work properly on the one flapping wings of water with a doll-like face. It was just like Vodyanoy and the others at the remains of the air base. He was definitely using his reflection ability, but the watery wings twisted and squished like candy, gouging out a forest nearby, ground and all, and flinging it into the air.

The rebound angle was shallow. If the angel pressed Accelerator any harder, it would hit him directly, too.

But his expression didn’t change. The other angel—the one that looked like a woman wearing glasses—his reflection worked on her wings just fine. Ignoring the angel, surprised almost like a human would be, Accelerator forcibly converted his attack vector on the angel wearing the glasses.

He converged it into a single point, then brutally slammed it into the water angel’s chest.

All sound disappeared.

Ignoring gravity, the angel’s body, which had been freely dancing through the air, shot over three hundred meters backward. The monster fell spectacularly, shooting across the surface while pulling up the ground underneath like an airplane crash.

The reason Accelerator had gone after the water angel first was simple.

His ability worked on one of them—and not on the other. It made sense to go for the more troublesome one first.

“You…are…?”

The angel wearing the glasses, who probably wielded a power of a sort even Accelerator could understand, stammered, sounding baffled.

In Japanese. Without any blurring like with Aiwass.

“You controlled my wings, made of an aggregate of AIM dispersion fields…?”

“I’m surprised a monster like you has a brain in there capable of having a serious Q and A.”

Accelerator opened his jacket and showed her the sheaf of parchment he had shoved into his inside pocket.

“Did this thing draw you here, too?”

“…?”

The scientific angel frowned, as though confused.

But then—

Whumm!! Something like a wall of pressure spread out over the area. It was like an invisible explosion—and it had a strange, unknowable killing intent. When he looked at ground zero of the immense negative emotions, more than a single human could ever output on their own, the knocked-away water angel was just getting up.

The snow disappeared.

All the white drifts in a five-hundred-square-meter range centered on the angel melted and turned into water.

Zm-zm-zm-zm-zm-zm-zm-zm-zm-zm-zm-zm!!!!!! A huge amount of fluid was absorbed into the water angel. In the blink of an eye, its already enormous wings changed into something even more fiendish.

“How candid. Trying to introduce yourself?”

Accelerator closed his jacket and turned to face his adversary.

While standing side by side with the science angel, as it were.

“Um, I…”

“I’ll deal with you later,” said Accelerator, sounding bored. “Got no interest in Academy City–made stuff. I’m getting the feeling that other monster has the key I need to save the kid.”

He’d learned something from the initial clash: Both angels were monsters but not as strong as Aiwass.

It was obvious when it came to the science angel—his reflection and vector manipulation worked on her. Even with the unknown water angel, though, if he could blow it away using the science angel’s power, it was far from being Aiwass.

After all.

Aiwass never even left an opportunity to counterattack.

I can win.

It was a cynical method of judgment—but Accelerator knew it wasn’t wrong.

That was when it happened:

“…hbuiesdfosfnisadofhjohnvouazeswhfpiASNFcpiAENFpiANJvpidnkljndsigps…”

The water angel’s mouth writhed about.

Something was coming out. A small sound, hard to make out.

He didn’t know what country’s language that was in the first place, but…

“…sergvSCOPEhySETTING…”

A clear revolution occurred in Accelerator’s ears.

He felt like someone had shown him another painting buried inside a trompe l’oeil.

“DROPgrePREPARATION…djkuCOMPLETE”

This language.

Accelerator knew this language.

As he brought up his face in surprise, every one of the watery wing tips pointed up to the ominous night sky. Almost like a radio antenna. Almost like it was receiving a signal from the heavens.

And then.

Its voice, which had just become clear, said:

“Command Eradicationdropping.”

The night sky sparkled.

He didn’t have time to see why.

Tens of millions of destructive stones began to rain down over an area about two kilometers in radius.

Divine punishment, of the same nature as the power even he couldn’t fully reflect.

“?!”

He couldn’t react in time.

Dodge or block? Before he could think about it, the tempest of destruction slammed into him with all its brutality. He lost his concept of where the sky and the ground was. By the time he realized he’d taken a direct hit, his body had been flung through the air. He tried to alleviate the damage through vector manipulation, but the taste of blood crawled up from the bottom of his throat. Snow, dirt, and everything else whipped up and around, whiting out Accelerator’s vision.

“Gh…gah…agh?!”

When he slammed into the ground, his voice was harsh but broken. Breathing felt impossible. Using his ability, he controlled vectors to expel the blood accumulated in his throat all at once, finally regaining the ability to breathe.

You piece of shit…!! What the hell is this…?!

In his vision, now white with the risen snow, he saw one spot of color in front of him.

A blue light.

The symbol of destruction known as an archangel.

“…”

He saw the night sky once again taking on an uncanny glow.

It wasn’t over after that one volley. Whether it took five or ten, the water angel would continue to execute this until its target no longer moved.

You can…fuck right off…

Even as his body creaked and groaned, Accelerator slowly stood up.

He couldn’t afford to die here.

There was still something he needed to do.

He couldn’t afford to lose—not until he tore apart every single bit of the unfairness binding Last Order.

Doesn’t matter if I can beat it on paper or not. As long as I have a reason to crush it, that’s all I need!

Boom!! went an explosion.

Manipulating the vectors of his leg forces, Accelerator dove straight at the monster’s blue light.

And then the water angel delivered more of its heartless words.

“WAVEkoTWO. ATTACKwagrCOMMENCINGwsPREPARATION. THIRTY SECONDiseUNTIL SECONDnvspERADICATION DROP”

Meanwhile.

Bbbrrrrrrrrmmmm!!!!!! The thunderous boom shook Russia’s night sky.

It was the first Eradication.

“She’s going too far,” murmured Fiamma of the Right from the Star of Bethlehem, floating over seven thousand meters high. The incredible shaking made it even to his feet, but this one hadn’t been a surface shock wave that had climbed up here.

It had been collateral.

The magic circle for Eradication that the archangel had prepared had deployed even higher in the sky than the Star of Bethlehem. And when Gabriel had restrictively dropped that Eradication, it had shaved off part of the Star of Bethlehem floating directly underneath.

Just by looking at the color in the night sky, he estimated she would fire a second volley within thirty seconds. The damage to the Star of Bethlehem would surely grow.

But there was no major change in Fiamma’s expression.

He only had to let her do as she pleased. In any case, now that the Star of Bethlehem had expanded enough, it had acquired self-repairing abilities. Even now, part of the crushed castle floated in midair, trying to return to its initial placement.

Fiamma, who had linked his senses to an extent with Gabriel, who he himself controlled, said “Is this all?” in a bored-sounding tone. “Is this all my enemies amount to? I know you could simulate how the war would change if an archangel appeared.”

The angel that seemed to belong to Academy City had whet his interest ever so slightly but hadn’t affected him much. And a certain esper, positioning to battle alongside that Academy City angel. He was probably the treasure, so to speak, of the science side—but even together, they couldn’t take down Misha Kreutzev.

The effects of Eradication were tremendous.

Even now, the Academy City monsters were persisting in their attack on Misha. But they couldn’t deny the damage was building up. At this rate, a second and third wave of Eradication in quick succession would stop them in their tracks for sure. After all, they couldn’t avoid it or defend against it.

No need to decide things in a single attack.

If Gabriel could slowly but surely whittle away at their strength, she could annihilate them with that accumulated damage.

This was the brute force of numbers the Roman Church so excelled in.

It was the same as river water eroding the land.

“If this is how it will end…”

Fiamma’s fingers brushed his staff.

“If nobody will stop me…”

That Soul Arm he had applied to the archangel’s control, embedded with the remote-control Soul Arm for Index.

“…then my Eradication will cover the world.”

That was when it happened.

Suddenly, a voice spread from within Fiamma of the Right, separate from his sense of hearing.

He knew exactly who owned that “voice.”

“…It’s been so long, Acqua. Do you still intend to call yourself a member of God’s Right Seat? Or have you reverted to the simple mercenary’s life by now?”

“It matters not, so long as I am in a position to stop your atrocities.”

“And how will you do that?” murmured Fiamma of the Right in a casual tone, twirling his staff. “Six billion now cross blades in heated battle throughout the world. You are but one man among them in this situation. How will you save them all?”

“…”

“In fact, you are the symbol of those battles. An affirmation of good, clothed in violence. You were a wonderful pawn, destroying unknown threats throughout the lands and sowing your seeds to the people you saved. People look up to you, thanks to that. And to your way of resolving problems through violence.”

And I have no use for a pawn whose role has ended.

Even regret toward releasing that great martial power was not present in Fiamma’s voice.

“I’m quite sure you understand why this war broke out. It was I who pulled the trigger. But bullets cannot fire without gunpowder. I know you comprehend the meaning behind this structure—and I will still ask you. How will you save everyone?”

“And that is enough reason to wield an archangel against the people?”

“Will you stop me? It would be resolution by violence, once again. A story unfit even for a farce—but how would you do it? Even if you join that Academy City angel, victory is already decided. You must know this—you are the one who infiltrated that city to retrieve Vento on September 30.”

A scornful voice.

“The existence of Academy City’s angel distorts the planes and produces a strong negative effect on sorcery control. That was what forced Vento into a needlessly agonizing battle. You are unable to fight on its side. And if you use martial force anyway, the most you would do is cause mutual competition, mutual chaos.”

“…”

“And if you took turns battling individually, Misha Kreutzev’s raw power would outstrip you all. Despite how it may look, it is a true archangel. The only one who could possibly win in a fair fight is me.”

Thus, he spoke his ultimatum: an utterly one-sided conclusion.

“You have some power, certainly, but only as a piece on my game board. However you choose to wield your sword now, however you utilize your violent force, the archangel will not be stopped. I can yield you the right to at least put up a futile resistance, but the better idea would be to twiddle your thumbs and watch.”

“I see.”

And then Fiamma heard a chuckle.

Acqua had laughed at him.

“Then I will show you a way using no ‘violent force,’ as you say.”

Boom!!!!!!

A moment later, a third of Misha Kreutzev’s total power was gone.

An angel was a body comprising a certain type of energy. It didn’t normally possess a physical form. The insides, for lack of a better term, of Misha Kreutzev’s nonphysical body had suddenly and drastically thinned. And that was enough to make Fiamma, his senses partially linked to her, catch his breath.

“What…did you do? No, this is…”

“Have you forgotten? I am Acqua of the Back. One of God’s Right Seat, the most secret organization in the Roman Church. The symbol of blue, the moon, and the back—and the one who commands Gabriel of the Four Archangels.”

“Wait, have you…taken it into your own body…?!”

“The sealing and release of telesma—angelic power—is the most basic fundamental in Crossist spellcasting. And my body itself functions as the greatest medium to link with Gabriel…If I thoroughly absorb this water-aspected telesma, it goes without saying what will happen to its source, which is Gabriel’s power.”

“…”

It was insane.

No normal sorcerer, to start with, would ever consider packing all the power of an archangel into their own single body. No matter how one viewed it, the person would explode and die in the process.

However…

“It is certainly not impossible.”

Acqua’s voice cut through the walls of common sense.

“In fact, you set your eyes on that Russian nun you used because she was able to do just that.”

“You fool…It was only because she had the knowledge and capacity that it flowed naturally into her during Angel Fall!! It’s not something just anyone can do. Even if you cloned Sasha Kreutzev herself, I doubt the clone would have the same capacity!! Without that much inborn talent, even I would never consider using it in that manner!!”

“That is not what I am saying…If someone else can do it, then so can I. I offer only that simple fact.”

I see, thought Fiamma. He is still part of God’s Right Seat. I suppose this means trying to argue with him using common sense is the wrong move.

“Then go ahead and try.”

“You can be certain that I will.”

“Still, I do hope you’re aware that your reckless challenge will shatter your power. What you’re doing is suicide, plain and simple.”

One man stood alone in snowy Russia.

He was a short distance from the national border with the Independent Nations. He was distant from Fiamma’s fortress, but that presented no inconvenience for the spell he was about to perform.

He’d stuck his great sword, far longer than his height, into the ground halfway and used it to support his own tall frame.

The surrounding air distorted.

The man stood in the middle of an abnormal swaying, as if a large amount of sugar had been dissolved into water.

Immense power.

It flowed inside.

Attached with the color blue and responding to the light of the moon—an enormous amount of telesma.

“Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa???!!!”

A rush.

A vortex of power, seeping in through every pore, collecting at the center of his body. The quantity was too much to reside fully within a human body. It was the same as how only a certain amount of air could fit into a balloon. If you tried to pack even more into it, the eventual outcome was clear.

Red blood sprayed out from his arms and legs.

He felt like sparks were arcing across his spine and neck.

His blood vessels and nerves weren’t safe, either. He now knew the feeling of all that wiring, split up into countless branches, splitting and tearing apart. His two legs shook madly, and his body, which had been so sturdy before, was now on the verge of breaking.

But he wouldn’t fall.

The sword he had driven into the ground—and his own heart. Steadying himself with only those two things, this man would never crumple.

The damage didn’t stay in his physical body.

Something important, something that had maintained his functioning as a sorcerer, continued to pull apart.

He was a saint—and a member of God’s Right Seat. A fusion of the two talents was within him, and he was one of only a very few sorcerers who wielded such immense power. He could feel the wellspring of that power shattering, crumbling to pieces. Even now, with every passing moment, more of his magical power was lost. He would probably drain himself of it utterly. And it was likely things wouldn’t stop there. Even as he felt himself breaking apart from within, he didn’t stop.

The enemy’s strength would weaken for every bit of telesma that flowed to him.

The angelic power of salvation would decrease the chances his opponent would kill others.

That was enough.

As long as that held true, the man would be able to continue gritting his teeth and confront this incredible telesma.

And…

Roar!!!!!!

Accelerator’s attack landed squarely on Misha Kreutzev.

The Eradication it had tried to rain upon them lost control over its aim, only causing the night sky to shake before stopping.

As Misha Kreutzev careened away, Accelerator and the angel of science headed toward it.

To deliver a follow-up attack.

To prevent it from further reducing the battlefield to scrap metal and rubble.

And…

Fiamma of the Right smiled slightly.

The total telesma Acqua of the Back had forced into its own body was around half of what Gabriel could muster. Even that alone was plenty threatening—but nevertheless, humans were humans. Unless he was a special exception like Sasha Kreutzev, he wouldn’t be able to contain the entirety of an archangel.

And.

“Even fifty percent is more than enough to win,” said Fiamma, sounding bored. “To have lost both your sainthood and your place in God’s Right Seat, only for it to end now? Your life will go unrequited.”

Kill them, he commanded.

That would be the end.

The archangel Misha Kreutzev would kill the angel of science and Academy City esper, then swiftly eliminate Academy City’s armored units. None could stop Fiamma’s plans. As long as he had Misha, even if over fifty thousand nuclear missiles were fired at the same time, they could never bring down the Star of Bethlehem.

That was how it should have been.

But she wasn’t moving.

Misha Kreutzev, to whom he had given his command to kill, was frozen.

He had a bad feeling about this.

He had a perfectly advantageous position—and now it had very slightly tilted. It was no more than an extremely tiny movement, and yet, he felt an unease that he couldn’t ignore, as though everything, strangely, was about to slip away.

And—

“That bastard…”

Fiamma of the Right figured it out.

One other thing.

There was one other presence that could only use his full power on this irregular battlefield.

“That bastard.”

8

Meanwhile.

Touma Kamijou was in a corner of the Star of Bethlehem. At the ritual site on the fortress’s rightmost section, where Misha Kreutzev’s summoning using Sasha’s body had been conducted.

Fiamma had apparently embedded the Index-remote-control Soul Arm into his staff in order to control Misha. If Kamijou could destroy that staff with his right hand, it should stop Misha, but to do that, he’d have to clash with Fiamma, an unknown value.

And there was one more thing.

Kamijou had thought of a possibility that could stop Misha Kreutzev with more certainty and also quicker.

“…Misha Kreutzev appeared after the Star of Bethlehem did,” he murmured—as if to explain to Sasha next to him or perhaps to confirm it to himself. “If he could use something as strong as an archangel in the war, he didn’t need to conserve it. He wouldn’t have to cause World War III. He could have just done everything with the one archangel. But he didn’t. Not until the Star of Bethlehem appeared.

“In other words,” he continued, “he needed the Star of Bethlehem to summon the archangel Misha Kreutzev and control it!! He couldn’t have used it before the fortress went airborne, even if he wanted to!! There’s something in the Star propping up Misha. If I can find whatever it is and destroy it with my right hand, then…!!”

Touma Kamijou had grabbed onto a thin pillar-like object in the ritual site.

It was about three centimeters across. There were dozens of straight-standing pillars with black fluid flowing through them. Others had white fluid in them, too. According to Sasha, white and black formed a pair, controlling the ritual site’s “gate,” used for drawing occult powers from outside to inside. There were dozens of them because, apparently, that “power” needed complex routes to travel through.

There they were, right in front of him.

So he began to break every single one.

With shrill cracks and creaks and crashes, the transparent vessels shattered. The white-and-black liquid inside them spilled out, marbling together on the floor.

He felt something abruptly tilt.

He couldn’t see it with his eyes, but it was something that was clearly there. And Touma Kamijou had definitely just felt its foundation shake.

And.

With Acqua of the Back reducing its total power by half.

And Touma Kamijou destroying the foundation supporting it.

As the strongest Level Five created by Academy City and the angel of science fiercely attacked, Misha Kreutzev…

The archangel’s roar ripped through the night sky over Russia.

A scream filled with sinister emotion, utterly incomprehensible to the human mind but clearly different from the simple sound of an explosion.

Misha’s form, barely maintained in the shape of a human body, collapsed into a mush.

It reverted to a ball of pure power.

To an immense amount of energy.

And it was a bomb.

Accelerator, confronting the archangel from the closest position, gave a start; then, ignoring his electrode usage time, shot straight toward the archangel at full power.

…Doesn’t matter if it’s out of place, or incongruous, or whatever.

The power to press forward.

The power he never had when he’d been wandering around Russia after fleeing Academy City.

He detonated all of it.

Yeah, that’s right!! I want to protect her! I don’t want to lose her!! I don’t even want to think about that!! If I can protect that one illusion, I’ll face whatever reality I have to!!

He couldn’t control that massive power with simple reflection alone.

He didn’t know if the angel of science was an ally or an enemy, but he shouted this at her:

“H o​l​d i​t b​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​c​k​!​!​!​!​!​!​”

Did she have time to move?

Was she able to make it?

Immediately after.

It detonated.

A pure-white flash of light reached out, shaped like a dome. A terrifying light, all too pure, that swallowed everything. Light intense enough to burn one’s eyes even if they were shut painted over the unnatural night in bright white.

Normally, everything for dozens of miles around would have gone to ash.

It was an explosion due to a unique force. Even aside from that, if odd side effects occurred, it wouldn’t be strange. It was even highly likely it would have become a literal barren wasteland.

However.

Before the explosion could expand, it gave off unnatural distortions.

The angel of science rammed the massive power residing in her body into Accelerator, who then manipulated its vectors to create a transparent wall that surrounded the explosion in a spherical shape. The explosion had reached out about three hundred meters in the span of an instant and, covering it completely with an outer shell, too, further increased the force trying to tear through it from the inside.

Light and sound intensified.

But Accelerator held it back.

Two enormous powers contended, one from within and the other from without.

The entire event only took place over a few seconds.

And then…

After verifying the telesma’s dispersion, Acqua’s hand slowly released his giant sword.

The hand was covered in blood. No—his hand was not the only thing stained red.

He could feel his power draining.

Leaving his sword, stuck halfway into the ground, Acqua collapsed onto the snow, his face not changing very much. His mouth alone, however, had just slightly slackened.

This was enough.

If they could just eliminate the archangel Gabriel, the war’s balance would shift greatly. Fiamma possessed a great strength, but he was too confident in it. That was why he’d forgotten people could challenge strong enemies by banding together. He could no longer see the option of entrusting the war to another with the same goals. Indeed—just like Acqua himself was, once upon a time.

His nerves and blood vessels had been torn asunder, and he had lost his foundation for controlling magic.

His life wouldn’t last much longer, either.

He would die, taking the archangel with him.

This was enough.

It wasn’t his goal to see this through to the end. He had prepared one necessary foundation for that purpose. With this, everyone had taken another step closer to Fiamma high in the sky. So it didn’t matter. As long as everyone was smiling in the distant future, it was a grand enough victory for a mercenary like himself. Whether he was part of that future wasn’t the problem.

Then it happened.

“Damn it…!!”

He heard a voice. He saw someone running through the snow to him. A young man. Asian. If he recalled correctly—one of the people using that Russian anti-air gun in an attempt to defend that settlement from the foreign mercenary unit.

“What happened? Those aren’t just any gunshot wounds. What happened, damn it?! We’re already busy with the Steam Dispenser stuff!! Hey, Takitsubo, I don’t know much about first aid. Can you do something?!”

The pair squatted down next to Acqua and took out what appeared to be bandages. However, Acqua’s expression never changed. He knew his own body.

“Don’t…bother,” he said, working his mouth that was filled with the taste of blood. “In any case, I will not last long. This is a battlefield. There will be no lack of need for medical supplies. Find someone else or consider the future and set it aside for that. Either way, there is no reason to waste it now.”

“Shut up.”

“I cannot reveal the details, but I just picked a fight with the man behind this entire war. I succeeded in frustrating his plans for now, but I cannot deny the possibility of a follow-up attack. It’s dangerous to be here. Leave me and go.”

“Didn’t you hear what I just fucking said?! If that’s the case, I definitely can’t leave you!! I’m so sick of this already!! I’m not gonna watch anyone else die in front of me!!”

“I’ve fulfilled my objective. I am nothing but a hindrance now.”

“Then…what about the people waiting for you?” squeezed out Hamazura.

Acqua’s motions paused for a moment.

Hamazura continued, “That’s how you’ve lived your life until now, right? When you helped Digurv and me and the others, it wasn’t because we were special to you. That’s just how you’ve lived up till now!! Someone like that could never be alone. Even if you don’t think about it, you have a lot of people behind you. What about all those people, huh?!”

It was a strength that didn’t exist in Acqua.

Because of that, he looked steadily at this man named Shiage Hamazura.

Each one of his words was like a wedge.

A wedge to stop his body as it continued to slide down the road to death.

Hamazura’s words were certainly not simple salvation.

In fact, the force with which he drove them in actually gave him pain.

However.

Those words just barely held Acqua together.

“You died protecting the world. You fell defending others. Do you think they’ll be happy with any of that stuff?! Of course not!! Was your whole reason for fighting to watch those waiting for you cry while you put smiles on other people’s faces?! I don’t think so!!”

What came to his mind then, with all the blood lost and his consciousness hazy, was that self-satisfied Knight Leader, the old man from the Astrologers’ Brigade, and the couple threatened by the Knights of Orleans.

And.

The third princess of Britain.

“…Stand up, hero.”

Not even caring anymore that he was wounded to the verge of death, Hamazura grabbed Acqua by the collar.

He grabbed him and said this:

“Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!!!!!!”

There was a whmmp.

It was the sound of Acqua, who had fallen faceup, grabbing onto the snowy land with his hand.

He could hear a pulse.

He was still alive.

This wasn’t the end.

If he could still move…

“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!!”

Even as his body audibly creaked and cracked, even as still more fresh red blood spurted from him, Acqua of the Back stood up once again.

His power as a saint had been lost.

Nor could he use his power as one of God’s Right Seat.

His body had been torn apart and reduced to that of any other normal person, Acqua nevertheless gritted his teeth and began to temper mana inside him again. He allocated that power only to controlling his physical body, trying to keep any more blood from seeping out of his wounds.

He barely had any strength left.

He probably couldn’t even heft that sword, taller than he was, that he’d brought with him as his weapon all this time.

But.

So what?

The title of true hero wasn’t for people who gave up after falling down one time.

It was for those who got back up, again and again, in response to the people’s cries.

9

“I see.”

Fiamma of the Right picked up his staff.

The staff with the Index-remote-controlling Soul Arm affixed to the top, which he used to control the archangel.

Gabriel had apparently headed for the surface in pursuit of the parchment, but she had failed to retrieve it. That parchment had all the necessary information for Project Bethlehem.

But it wasn’t an issue.

Fiamma’s and Gabriel’s senses were linked. And Gabriel’s perception capabilities were far greater than that of humans. Even if the parchment was tucked away in the target’s pocket, he could obtain the magical info written on it.

He’d already gotten the knowledge he needed.

Fiamma had extremely deep knowledge regarding Michael. And after gleaning the necessary knowledge from the 103,000 grimoires, he could clear away the rest of the obstacles in his way, too.

But there was one thing that even he didn’t have.

The other archangels aside from Michael—in other words, the symbols of the other members of God’s Right Seat.

The most secret of secrets in the Russian Church, that has reorganized unconfirmed information collected from all over Russia and inferred spells for each angel. If I can obtain that, I will have no problems left.

He didn’t need this staff anymore.

He removed the Soul Arm for controlling Index attached to the top.

“I see, I see, I see.”

He twirled the staff around.

Then smiled pleasantly and said:

“Damn you, you filthy piece of shit.”

Crack.

He broke the staff in two.

After tossing the scraps aside, Fiamma smoothly held out his right hand. He had a rough position. He held his palm in that direction, then muttered something under his breath.

Sound vanished.

An intense flash of light burst forth.

It crushed and melted the walls of the Star of Bethlehem in one hit, then blew away several buildings as well, charging in a straight line toward its target.

He didn’t get any feedback.

And if he’d gotten too much, that would have been a problem anyway.

After all, it had probably been repelled by the right arm in question.

Fiamma heard a strange crackling noise from around his right shoulder. His third arm, which had disintegrated before, was on the verge of separating. But for Fiamma, now bolstered by the knowledge in the 103,000 volumes, it didn’t present much of an obstacle.

Tap.

He took just one step forward.

And with only that, Fiamma’s body traveled over five kilometers. Even if there was no floor along the way, even if it was through the very air, it didn’t matter. If there was an open, level route, he could move as far as he wanted.

He arrived in a room.

It was the ritual site where he’d called the archangel using Sasha Kreutzev’s body. His earlier attack had caused over half the room to collapse, and most of its interior furnishings had been dropped onto a lower level as though something had dragged them down there. The boy he was looking for stood alone at the ritual site. He also spotted something red in the hole leading to the lower layer. Maybe someone had fallen into it, trapped by the collapse.

“You seem to enjoy causing me trouble,” said Fiamma—one hand toying with the Soul Arm used for remotely controlling Index. “Thanks to you, I had to execute the ritual before Academy City or Britain could interfere. Which means I’ll be taking that right arm of yours now.”

“…You think it’ll go that easy? You don’t have Misha anymore. I still don’t know why things went so well, but humans managed to beat an archangel. No matter how you think about it, the scales are tipping in our favor.”

“That doesn’t warrant any worry on my part,” said Fiamma, pointing to the sky.

The building’s walls and ceiling had been blown up by his attack. Thanks to that, the unnatural night sky beyond the collapsed structural material was visible.

Yes.

The spiky-haired boy must have realized.

That even though the archangel Misha Kreutzev had been defeated, the sky hadn’t changed at all—and why that was significant.

“The angel’s role ended after it changed the night sky to my liking,” described Fiamma—while spreading his third arm out farther. “I talked about how the symbols of Uriel and Raphael were shifted, out of place, right? And how Misha Kreutzev’s name originates in Michael—and how it is unfit to name itself Gabriel.”

The spiky-haired boy seemed to be on his guard, but it was too late.

Now that Fiamma was talking about it, it was over.

“I lifted only the Star of Bethlehem into the incomplete skies filled with telesma after erasing all stars from the sky using Gabriel as part of a ceremony to regulate a great flow of power and reset the four aspects…You defeated the magic circle that Misha covered a portion of the sky with during Angel Fall, as well as the Croce di Pietro, which used the positions of the stars as seen from earth. I don’t need to explain to you how crucial the magical meaning is that comes with the idea of controlling the skies like a screen. To begin with, the prophet knew of Jesus’s birth by the appearance of a certain star in the sky. The large-scale spell I’m using essentially applies that legendary truth.

“Still, I also affected the flow of power on the surface by moderately destroying churches and temples all over the world, too,” added Fiamma.

Heaven and earth.

Three and four.

In other words, he now had exclusive possession of all numbers crucial to Crossist culture.

“What…? What are you trying…to…?”

“I’ll ask you instead. You didn’t think this would be over just because the Star of Bethlehem had risen, did you?” jeered Fiamma. “You know how it is. I’m just saying I have to prepare the location properly before I can execute the spell I want. Phase one is just about over, but despite how early it is, there’s a nice little bonus in store.”

Ker-crack!! went a strange noise.

A starry sky spread out.

First was yellow, then red, then blue, and finally green. Oddly colored stars began spreading across the pitch-black night sky, as if putting a veil over it, all in time to Fiamma’s signal.

The Star of Bethlehem was a gargantuan planetarium.

“Did you know this little tidbit?”

A starry sky of colors absolutely impossible in nature. An amateur with no knowledge of sorcery would never be able to decipher the detailed meaning behind it. But somewhere, deep inside his very life force, he understood. Understood this clear, true world. Understood the feeling of the four aspects returning to their original locations.

“Fire, water, wind, and earth—each one of these four aspects holds up the edge of its respective power, but at the same time, manipulating one aspect affects, in a broad sense, all the other aspects as well. That’s why in large-scale rituals, excluding realistic combat actions, it’s fundamental to ready not one symbolic weapon, but the entire set. Even if that ritual is of fire. In other words, the ability to control all four aspects rested within my fire from the beginning. I should have gained magnificent power by controlling them all…If only a distortion hadn’t existed in those aspects worldwide.”

To which Fiamma explained:

“One can only fully wield true power in a true world.”

Boom!!!!!! Something invisible exploded out of his body.

It was intent to kill.

A force overwhelming enough to make Kamijou feel like he was on pins and needles.

“…”

But he had no reason to back off.

The man in front of him was holding the Soul Arm that could remotely control Index. To destroy that, he’d have to defeat the root cause of this aura.

Kamijou clenched his right hand into a tight fist.

His mind naturally drew toward Fiamma’s right shoulder.

To the third arm.

Writhing.

Something massive, some power that should have caused it to disintegrate, was gathering in it.

“It’s time I showed you the meaning of true power.”