CHAPTER 12

Final Battle in the Arctic Ocean
Last_Fight.

1

The white snowfield was veiled in silence.

Accelerator had stopped singing. The tip of his crutch, supporting his body off the ground, slipped out. He buckled at the knees, covered head to toe in scarlet blood. In that white hell that denied even color, he alone gave off some of his own, borne of his wounds and pain.

Ragged breaths escaped him, scraping against his weary throat like sandpaper. His exhalations occasionally brought red fluid out with them, his body damaged even on the inside.

He couldn’t sing any longer.

Something sticky was glued to all the tubes in his body.

However.

His lips, stained dark red, were loosened in a subtle smile. That’s right, he thought. I don’t have to sing anymore. Because…

“Are…you okay…? asks Misaka asks Misaka.”

In his hazy vision, he heard a small voice.

The voice of a girl that he’d wanted to hear for so, so long. The words of a girl who hadn’t even been allowed to stay conscious until just now, who hadn’t had even a minimal guarantee that she would live. When he heard that voice, Accelerator had regained a little of his core—he was sure of it.

It flickered, maybe ready to disappear at any moment—a terrifyingly unreliable thing. But he knew that a pillar was placed in its center now, one that would last forever.

Last Order was finally stable.

She’d never have to suffer through this unreasonable violence ever again.

Accelerator ruminated deeply on this truth. And before he knew it, he was moving. That Level Five, once called the strongest monster in Academy City, reached out with trembling hands and embraced Last Order’s little body, still limp, devoid of energy.

Tightly.

So that they would never part again.

“…I’m glad…”

The words escaped him softly, his voice shaking.

And not only because his insides were so torn up.

“Shit. I’m so fucking glad…!!”

Those words may have never come from the true Accelerator.

But how was he able to say which was the true one? Couldn’t this also have been his true self? Before all these tragedies had begun, before Academy City’s darkness had swallowed up a young Level Five, wasn’t the true him a child who had laughed like every other, who had cried like every other?

Even as all that evil had permeated him, that was inside him, unchanged.

It had been there the whole time.

Maybe this was what Kikyou Yoshikawa and Aiho Yomikawa had seen—and what they’d tried to keep safe within a society of adults.

Last Order, who had for a long time only been occasionally conscious, wouldn’t have known any of the details of these events.

But that didn’t matter.

As he hugged her, she put her little hands around Accelerator’s back and slowly rubbed it.

As if to accept him.

In the same way, probably, as she had when she’d been the first to find what had remained inside him.

“…”

As he felt her finally regain warmth, Accelerator turned inward to think.

This world was cold, harsh, and filled with a hopeless amount of evil.

But there was salvation, too.

If you reached out with your own will. If you gritted your teeth and kept moving forward. At the end of endless, endless struggles, there would always be light. And this world wasn’t so hopeless that it would steal even that last ray of hope.

“Sorry for raining on your big, emotional reunion, but…”

Then it happened.

Misaka Worst, who was nearby, spoke in a tone with a thorn of caution in it.

“With the way things are going, this bullshit war probably ain’t gonna have a happy ending.”

Before Accelerator could turn his neck to check his surroundings, he felt something wrong.

It bolted down his back with a shudder.

An awful sensation, like something cold had entered his entire body through his skin. Except, no, that was backward. The trembling was from inside him, escaping onto his skin.

Either way, though, his five senses weren’t acting normally. This had to do with his body’s sensors, or his brain’s calculation circuits were malfunctioning because he’d forcibly taken information he shouldn’t ever have.

He felt an immense pressure from directly above.

Mitsuki Unabara, the angel of water, the parchment. Whatever those things gave off, this was like a far more concentrated version…

Still embracing Last Order, Accelerator cast his gaze to the skies.

The giant fortress was floating there.

Golden light covered the skies, steadily engulfing the fortress. The pressure of an enormous force, all converged on one point, sent a tingling sensation through Accelerator’s skin. He sensed its aim. That strange mass of power was targeting the surface.

He didn’t know what that fortress represented.

Nor did he understand what sort of effects it would bring when the power hit the surface.

But…

“…Nothing good’s gonna happen if that thing fires.”

Its goal may not have been only pure destruction. It might produce some sort of special effect. But the result was the same. If that much power fell to the ground, how far would the damage spread? Plus, if he followed the feeling on his skin and assumed it was a different sort of energy than a purely scientific force, his reflection wouldn’t work on it.

If it penetrated that, everyone would die.

Accelerator, Misaka Worst, Last Order…Every single person.

“…That’s a load of bullshit.”

It happened a moment later.

Boom!!!!!!

With an explosive sound, wings, jet-black like ink, spurted from Accelerator’s back.

The black wings that symbolized his anger.

A massive power wrapped in an enigma: It didn’t seem like something simply borrowed from the Misaka network, and it was unclear whether Last Order could force it to stop. In fact, when these wings had appeared, Accelerator himself was almost always in a state where he’d lost his mental balance. When he wanted so badly to kill the enemy before him that he’d abandon all sense of principles, of who he was. The killing intent bursting out from within his chest violated the world in the form of black wings. An incorrigible power.

It was almost like the pressure from the celestial fortress had squeezed them out of his body.

Just like when he’d fought Aiwass.

However.

“…Misaka Worst.” His words were a whisper. “I’ll go stop that thing. Can I get you to protect the kid?”

“From Russia? Or from Academy City?”

“From everything.”

Misaka sighed at the unreasonable command. Turning against both sides was like telling her to fight the combined forces of everyone in World War III.

But when she gave him a grin filled with malice, she took an iron spike out of her pocket and said, “…Well, we were already gonna make them pay for this, so I guess it’s all the same. And if we analyze Last Order and the data for the song in the Misaka network, it might grace us with a chance to obtain technology that doesn’t exist in Academy City.”

Last Order, perhaps uneasy with how dizzying these developments were, latched on to Accelerator’s clothes. “Where are you going? asks Misaka asks Misaka.”

Her eyes wavered as she looked up at him from his arms.

She probably knew what Accelerator was about to attempt. And because she knew, she was trying to stop him.

“You’re not going anywhere, right? says Misaka says Misaka, getting confirmation and stuff.”

“Nothing to worry about. It’ll be over soon,” said Accelerator, not mentioning if he’d ever return, if he’d ever come back home.

The monster who had sprouted black wings gently released the girl’s fingers that were clutching his clothing, one by one, as if to throw off the last fetters still keeping him on the surface.

“No!” came Last Order’s weak voice. “I want to be with you forever, says Misaka says Misaka.”

“…Yeah.”

Accelerator, too, admitted it.

At the very end, he gave a cherubic smile and answered:

“I wanted to be with you forever, too.”

Crack-crack-crackle-crackle!! With a sound like ice breaking, the color of the monster’s wings began to change. From a deep ink-black to an immaculate snowy white. From their roots to their tips, in mere instants, everything—from its outer coloring to its inner essence—began to be replaced.

Just above his head, a small ring of the same color appeared.

This was how he had changed.

How his mind, the wellspring from which his singular power gushed forth into this real world, had altered.

Accelerator placed his hands on Last Order’s tiny shoulders and gave her a soft push. Like an astronaut in zero gravity, the recoil caused his body to float gently into the air.

Last Order’s small hands reached toward the man in the air.

But they didn’t reach.

Accelerator was already floating several meters high.

This was the right thing to do.

Convinced of that, Accelerator flapped his pearly wings. They were giant, reaching hundreds of meters in length, and they didn’t change mere wind force into lift but, instead, had a much stranger energy: They applied zero force to the surface, and yet, his body shot straight up like a cannonball.

In the blink of an eye, he ascended three thousand meters, scattering the edges of the thick clouds about to cover up the skies.

The aerial fortress moved at the same time.

A mass of golden energy, taken from above and accumulated on its lower part, dropped without mercy. He felt the sort of pressure that sent people’s spines tingling. As he’d thought, it, like Accelerator’s white wings, was not a normal power. His reflection probably wouldn’t affect it, either. Reflection’s power would penetrate it, just like when Aiwass had defeated him.

But so what?

Accelerator worked his white wings even more, skyrocketing his ascension speed. He headed straight for that falling golden mass without using any tricks. There was even a subtle smile on his lips.

I get it, thought Accelerator belatedly.

This is what it’s like to fight to protect something.

A moment later, at an altitude of eight thousand meters, two enormous forces collided.

2

Whu-whuuuump!!!!!! A tremendous impact rocked the Star of Bethlehem.

There was an explosion of golden light.

“What…?”

However, the great calamity Fiamma of the Right expected to assault the earth never came to pass. And the surface was never steeped in the same gold as the skies. Some other factor had stopped the large-scale telesma that was dropped from the Star of Bethlehem.

“It should have had enough output!! Destruction enough to fulfill my strategic objective on the surface should have assured my victory!! What in the world…?!”

The tragedy he’d hoped for hadn’t happened.

Malice’s amplification went unrecognized, with the tragedy instead having been held in check—and thanks to that, the dark parts of people’s hearts were starting to be wiped away.

Perhaps it was no more than temporary, like the feeling of oneness with the world only felt during sporting festivals, the heat of wild excitement.

However.

Even if for no more than an instant, those on the surface must have thought this.

This world is doing fine with just us.

Your condescending salvation can fuck off.

“You good now?”

Touma Kamijou, fist clenched, took a step forward.

One step. Two steps. Three steps.

“It’s about time for your illusions to call it quits.”

With a boooooom!!!!!! he turned his steps into a run, all at once.

Kamijou didn’t need any silly tricks. All he’d do was get close, fair and square, as close as he could. In response, Fiamma of the Right swung the symbol of his power, his third arm, with all his might. Even the Imagine Breaker wouldn’t be able to cancel out the enormous power packed inside. If he failed to divert its path, it would be able to pulverize his entire right arm. Perhaps that was what Fiamma thought when he used brute force to try to eliminate the obstacle before his eyes.

But Kamijou didn’t stop.

As soon as he rammed his right fist squarely into the oncoming third arm, Fiamma’s greatest weapon, that malformed arm, was squarely blown away.

Fresh blood and flesh danced.

His third arm, which had finally gained flesh, lost its vessel, shaking in agony in midair.

“Wha…what?!” cried Fiamma, face warping, as though an unknown and intense pain had slammed into him like an avalanche.

It wasn’t that Kamijou’s power had been increased or anything. The Imagine Breaker was still only the Imagine Breaker.

Fiamma’s third arm, which responded to malice, had weakened to the point where even the Imagine Breaker could destroy it. As a result of that small goodness rippling out to cover the surface, the shaft supporting Fiamma’s power had broken.

The power that made Fiamma of the Right special no longer existed.

Indirect forms of attack from the third arm were unlikely, of course—but so was his evasive maneuver that instantly moved him kilometers away in a horizontal direction.

And now, nothing stood in the way of Touma Kamijou’s advance.

“Shit…!!”

Fiamma thrust Index’s remote-control Soul Arm in front of him. He tried to use the knowledge in the 103,000 grimoires to intercept the approaching Kamijou. He felt a terrible, stabbing headache, as though his defenses had weakened, too, upon losing his special power, but he ignored it and continued to search the knowledge base. His eyes were a declaration that he’d kill the enemy before him no matter what it took.

But then Fiamma heard a voice.

It belonged to what he was supposedly magically connected to—the library of grimoires.

…Warning. Chapter 88, Verse 1. Anomaly detected in currently searching main body. Excess of external stimulation has caused a serious reduction in search efficiency.

“…?!”

The index’s main body was supposed to be in safekeeping in St. George’s Cathedral. If external stimuli had caused an error, then an English Puritan sorcerer must have done something.

His final option was totally cut off.

This was the difference between the two.

The decisive difference between one who had only polished his power to stand alone at the peak and one who had struggled to stand at that peak through the help of others.

The small, unimportant high school student tightened his right fist and ran toward the king manipulating the world.

Deeply.

Sharply.

All the way to a throne that had never let any others near it.

And then it happened.

Slllppp…!! Kamijou’s feet suddenly sank.

The Star of Bethlehem was weakening.

Its power source from Fiamma of the Right severed, it had naturally begun to collapse.

At the very, very end, something had stopped Touma Kamijou.

And it was called…

Rotten luck.

Fiamma’s lips twisted eerily.

He focused his mind on the remote-control Soul Arm in his hand one more time.

Five, ten seconds—that’s all I need. That’s long enough for me to rewire the grimoire library’s settings!! I don’t care if the high load burns out the 103,000 volumes. I will wash away this enemy before me right now!!

“Oo—”

However.

Touma Kamijou’s forward march didn’t stop there.

The boy shouted and plunged ever onward.

“—​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​!​!​!​!​!​!”

Bam!!

With a boom, Kamijou jumped from his nearly crumbled foothold.

To cross the fissure separating the two.

Forward, toward Fiamma—like an arrow.

And then Fiamma knew.

He knew what sort of being this “enemy” before his eyes fundamentally was.

Are you…kidding me…?

Index’s remote-control Soul Arm wouldn’t make it.

This enemy wouldn’t even give him that little bit of time.

I’m using the miracles and blessings of Jesus at their full capacity and causing all sorts of phenomena—and this bastard doesn’t care?! It has nothing to do with good or bad luck—this fool has the power to personally trample over all such ambiguities…!!

“If you don’t think you can save anyone without doing things this way…”

The words came from deep within Touma Kamijou. Uniting those raging emotions together, he put all his strength into his right fist.

“…then first, I’ll destroy that illusion!!”

A thundering boom rang out.

Fiamma, who had never received an attack from anyone, was knocked down with sheer momentum by a punch to the face.

The vestiges of the third arm, still trying to cling to this world, vanished completely this time, melting into the air.

At the same time.

From his hand fell the remote-control Soul Arm that had been manipulating Index.

3

Fiamma of the Right’s loss of the third arm visited major aftereffects on his floating fortress as well. Greater shaking was happening frequently now, inviting more unrest than before. The fortress’s ascent had stopped dead, having still been continuing until now. The source of its flotation of this much matter was steadily being lost. At this rate, it would eventually start to descend. Escaping before that was probably the only way to live.

On the ground, Fiamma looked at his own hand.

The remote-control Soul Arm was gone.

When he’d been punched, the impact had wrested it from his hand. It had fallen somewhere through one of the cracks in the floor. It was likely still inside the fortress, but he had no idea where it would have gone.

If only he had that, maybe he would have been able to counterattack with normal magic, he thought.

But he didn’t have any strength left in his limbs. Now that he’d lost the third arm, he was no different from a mere human. Even a light concussion would be enough to stop him from moving.

In his hazy consciousness, he heard a voice.

It was from the speakers set up all around the Star of Bethlehem.

“We didn’t have time, so me and—er, Sasha, was it?—and I…Anyway, we went ahead and used a container to escape. Please hurry. The Star of Bethlehem is going to start falling soon. The fortress itself is falling apart, and there are only so many usable containers left.”

He could see the fortress’s lowest level beyond the broken floor. And that was only a few layers of overlapping metal grating; the very bottom was connected to open sky. Escape containers hung from it, too, but most were unusable now. Some containers had been crushed, while the lowering hooks on others had broken and were now inoperable.

There was probably only one usable container left.

It was swaying unreliably and only about the size of a public phone booth. Not one of the larger containers that could carry over fifty people at once. Only one person would be able to ride it. Having lost his third arm and becoming a normal person, Fiamma couldn’t even get himself down from this altitude by his own power.

Touma Kamijou and Fiamma of the Right.

Which would go aboard the container, and which would perish along with the fortress?

The question didn’t even warrant consideration.

…So this is it.

That was all Fiamma thought.

If every human living in this world would refuse salvation, it didn’t matter to him anymore. They could follow their chosen path and hurtle toward extinction for all he cared.

Slowly relaxing his entire body, Fiamma closed his eyes.

And then someone grabbed his collar.

“Hey, we’re going.”

It was Touma Kamijou.

Forcing Fiamma upright, his own body covered in blood, he began to walk, dragging the limp villain behind him.

“…What…are you doing…?”

“We don’t have time. The Star of Bethlehem is starting to fall. If we don’t escape before then, we’ll be stuck here.”

“Do you not understand the situation?” accused Fiamma in his puppet state. He used his jaw to gesture toward where they were going. “The escape containers are unusable. At most, there’s one good one meant for one person. It’s me or you. It’ll only help one of us.”

“Looks like it.”

Kamijou exhaled once.

So he said, “Then you escape. Either way, there’s no time. Let’s get there fast.”

“…”

This time, Fiamma looked up at the side of Kamijou’s face, dumbfounded.

In the meantime, still dragging him along, Kamijou went down to the lowest floor and headed for the escape container.

He was serious. There was no need to posture at this stage in the game. If he abandoned Fiamma, the cause of all this, and climbed into that escape container, he could return alive. He’d be a hero, acknowledged by everybody. Nobody would criticize him for letting Fiamma die. In fact, many would doubtlessly praise him for delivering the finishing blow to the mastermind who caused so much tragedy.

And yet.

Why did he say those words now?

No matter how much he thought about it, Fiamma couldn’t find an answer. And in that time, they arrived in front of the escape container. Kamijou, with much trepidation, reached for the container door. His right hand’s power didn’t destroy the container.

After opening the door, he unflinchingly stuffed Fiamma’s body inside.

This guy was insane.

He tried to get out of the container, but being so gravely injured, his body couldn’t move.

Automatically, he shook his head.

Even he didn’t know what he was trying to reject.

“…Are you sure…?”

“About what?”

“I have no idea how large this world you talk about really is.”

“Oh,” said Kamijou, smiling a little.

Why had he smiled? Fiamma couldn’t understand.

“Then now’s when you start getting out there and seeing everything you can.”

The escape container’s door was locked from the outside. A moment later, the container slid along a short rail before being tossed into the open sky.

For a while, Kamijou watched the container as it fell and grew smaller.

Eventually, he shook it off and peered up.

The final container had launched.

There was no longer any way for him to safely escape this fortress.

And then it happened.

There was a thunderous boom. The raging winds changed direction. Kamijou, having unconsciously covered his face with his arms, spotted a fighter jet. It was called a VTOL, an aircraft that could ascend vertically like a helicopter and stop in midair.

He knew the face of the person riding in the cockpit.

It was…

4

“More to the right!! …Little more!! Get a little closer!!”

Mikoto Misaka, leaning out of the rear seat, shouted at the Sister operating the flight yoke.

Finally.

After all this time, finally.

She’d finally reached the same time and space as that idiot!!

“Big Sister, your face is eerily smiley, indicates Misaka.”

“Bfuh? That’s not true!! And you’re just comparing me to yourself, which is messing up your judgment!!” said Mikoto, hastily pulling on her cheeks to check. She continued, “Argh! What the heck is even happening?! It was floating up there just fine until a minute ago. Why did it decide to start falling now?!”

“Misaka’s apologies for interrupting your excitement, but if you don’t open the cockpit canopy, your voice will never reach, indicates Misaka.”

“Where is it? Which button?!” asked Mikoto before suddenly having doubts.

They were high up, past ten thousand meters. The outside air was below negative fifty degrees Celsius, the air pressure was very low, and there was little oxygen. Would it be okay for her to open the canopy now?

If she didn’t, she’d never reach him. But the elements wouldn’t let her open it.

Caught in an incredible dilemma, the Sister, impassively bending her head to listen to something, said, “…Something is strange about how the engine sound is reverberating, reports Misaka.”

“?”

“This transmission pattern is for below one atmosphere at negative seven degrees, says Misaka, finishing precise calculations. The exact mechanism is unknown, but despite being at an altitude of ten thousand meters, the outside environment seems set up in the same manner as the surface, reports Misaka, giving her conclusion.”

“Meaning…”

“You should be able to open the canopy without a problem, declares Misaka.”

A moment later.

The canopy, shaped like a rugby ball cut in half lengthwise, opened right overhead. The Sister must have pushed the button.

Just as she’d said, Mikoto had no trouble breathing. She felt a chill on her skin, but it was a far cry from dozens of degrees below zero.

The Sister, keeping the VTOL slightly tilted, moved it slowly. Not with the nose pointed at the fortress, but vertically…in other words, with the right wing tip approaching it, steadily sidling foward.

Just a few meters left.

Only a multiple of a hundred centimeters.

The fortress was swaying unstably, and the precise distance changed each time.

But it was far closer than she had been when she was hesitating in Academy City.

“This is as close as we can get…,” the Sister declared. “Landing may be too much of a problem, says Misaka, tightening her grip on the yoke.”

The fighter jet’s forward movement stopped dead in midair.

They’d only had a little bit left until they reached the fortress.

“VTOLs are for slowly landing on the surface, explains Misaka. If we were to try to force a landing on the fortress when it is bobbing up and down like this, we run the risk of crashing the underside of the fuselage into it, says Misaka, voicing her concerns.”

“What about a wider area? The fortress is gigantic. If we go up some more, we should find an area bigger than a midsize farm.”

“The fortress’s rumbling itself will not change, so we cannot avoid the risk of crashing no matter where we are, says Misaka, responding with a negatory viewpoint. And even if we were able to land on the fortress, if the plane loses its flight capability, escape would become impossible, says Misaka, frowning.”

“Fine, then.” The canopy still open, Mikoto reached for her belt buckle. “Keep it as balanced as you can! I’m going out to the wing to pull that idiot up here!!”

Mikoto rose from her seat and crawled toward the wing on all fours.

She felt less fear than she thought, maybe because she could glue her feet to the main wing with magnetic force.

She inched forward.

The distance to the spiky-haired boy closed.

Come on…

Clunk. The fortress gave a major rattle.

Her altitude had decreased.

It didn’t feel as stable as before.

The rattling was like…

…the invisible strings holding up the fortress were being cut, one by one.

Come on! Reach!!

The VTOL, its body wobbling around and Mikoto plastered to the main wing, closed in on the fortress a little at a time.

And then:

Her eyes met the idiot’s.

The spiky-haired boy seemed confused at the means of escape that had suddenly sprung up. Part of her wanted to yell What the hell were you planning on doing, stupid? but now wasn’t the time to be sticking to her old ways. She’d scold him until he was dead after this.

After coming to the wing’s tip, Mikoto stretched her hand out as far as she could.

Would she reach, or wouldn’t she?

Their fingertips drew near, until they almost touched.

However.

Then the boy did something she’d never expected.

He shook his head.

And his hand, which he’d almost reached out far enough, stopped.

Wha…?

Mikoto was dumbfounded, and then the boy’s lips moved.

She couldn’t hear the words.

But she could read his lips.

There’s something I still have to do.

Ga-bam!! The fortress gave a massive jolt. Its descent accelerated even more, and became even more unstable, than before. It was as though a large ball rolling down a hilly road had picked up so much speed nobody could turn it back. She had to retrieve the idiot now.

However.

The VTOL suddenly rocked. The aircraft swayed, almost as if it was flying away from the fortress.

“Hey!! What do you think you’re doing?!”

“The fortress’s shaking has exceeded a threshold, reports Misaka. If we continue our approach, this aircraft may crash into it.”

“…!!”

Still plastered to the shaking main wing, Mikoto held out her palm and grabbed hold of nearby magnetic forces.

She’d get him by force if she had to—she didn’t care.

Anything would work: a button on his school uniform, a belt buckle. She’d use magnetism to drag the boy up and evacuate him from the fortress.

That was her plan. But in actuality, the thread of magnetism that connected her to him abruptly broke off.

“Huh…?”

Mikoto stared blankly, completely in the dark about what had just happened.

A moment later, though, she understood. The boy had a strange power that canceled out all Mikoto’s abilities.

And it had cut off his last lifeline.

Even if she had the power to take on a bunch of tanks at once—even if she had the power to stop a nuclear missile launch.

It wasn’t enough to rescue that one boy.

As the fortress continued its unstable descent, the VTOL drew away from it. The Sister pulled Mikoto, who was idle atop the turbulent main wing, into the cockpit and shut the canopy. The blessing of the mysterious field around the fortress was immediately lost.

The reason was simple.

That was how far away they’d gotten.

Leaving the boy, who said he still had something he needed to do, behind in the fortress.

A moment later, the only sound was Mikoto Misaka’s scream.

5

…There’s still something I have to do.

The VTOL pulled away. The fighter craft that might have been his last way to escape.

But Kamijou had turned his back on it.

His fight couldn’t end just yet. The Star of Bethlehem had a radius of over forty kilometers. If a structure this big was in free fall, the damage it would do to this celestial body called Earth would be incredibly severe. The war wasn’t over until someone did something about this problem.

And besides…

Kamijou looked around and searched for his objective: the remote-control Soul Arm meant for controlling Index from the outside. It had fallen through a crack in the floor after the last attack. He needed to find it and destroy it.

His footing swayed.

The way it shook made him anxious, like an elevator moving at a fixed speed that suddenly stopped.

This fortress wouldn’t hold for long.

And when he realized that again, he heard a girl’s voice ringing in his ears.

A voice that couldn’t possibly have been there.

“Touma…”

It was the voice he thought he’d wanted to hear for so long.

The remote-control Soul Arm had left Fiamma’s hands, but it was probably still working. Her consciousness, no longer suppressed by anyone, was drifting about the space around the Soul Arm.

“Touma…”

Then, faintly…

…her body appeared, translucent, as if rising out of the air. Upside-down and ignoring gravity, she looked at Kamijou’s face.

She spoke.

“Why didn’t you escape?”

“Because nothing’s finished yet,” he answered, going farther into the Star. He wasn’t searching blindly; her very presence was leading him to the Soul Arm. “Your Soul Arm is still around, of course, but I have to take care of the fortress itself, too.”

After saying that, Kamijou’s expression suddenly clouded.

There was just one thing he hadn’t resolved during his battle with Fiamma of the Right.

“…I’m sorry.”

The fact that he had amnesia.

The question of whether hiding it all this time was truly the right thing to do, he simply hadn’t wanted to hurt Index. He wanted to be the Touma Kamijou she believed in. But wasn’t that only because he personally didn’t want to see Index’s face in shock? Wasn’t he just scared she’d leave him?

Now that he’d finished his fight with Fiamma, he understood:

If he truly thought it was best for her, then he had to overcome.

Overcome the painful, overcome the bitter, overcome everything.

Don’t fear the position in which you stand.

“I’ve done something terrible to you. I’ve been lying to you all this time. I’m going to tell you everything now. I don’t have a guarantee I’ll be able to come back from the Star of Bethlehem, so I’ll tell you while I still can.”

Very slightly, Kamijou looked down.

And then, once more, he lifted his eyes of his own accord.

“I…”

He spoke.

And this…was the first time.

The first time he’d ever felt like this.

Felt like opening his mouth took so much courage.

“I…”

What he’d been hiding from her all this time.

His amnesia.

The truth.

“

 

.”

As he moved his mouth, forming words, he thought, That was long.

“It’s fine.”

He heard Index’s voice cutting him off.

“That’s all fine now. It doesn’t matter. If the same old Touma comes back home, none of it matters.”

“…”

For just a moment, he was silent.

He truly wanted to take her up on her kindness.

“I’ll come back. I promise.”

But being hard on himself and being pessimistic were different things.

He’d live and return for certain.

For that, Touma Kamijou needed to promise this.

“And it won’t just be for this Soul Arm. Once I get back, I’ll apologize to you for real.”

He glanced at a panel on a nearby pillar. It was a communication device fitted with a microphone for broadcasting audio through the speakers all over the Star. He couldn’t read the Russian writing, but he did understand the numbers written with them.

“Tell this to the English Puritan Church: The frequency is 50.9 megahertz. That should let them connect to these speakers. If this much matter falls uncontrollably, there’s no telling how bad the damage will be. I’ll have to lower its speed in stages and set it down somewhere safe. And the only one who can take the wheel right now is me. But I need advice to do it.”

“I can’t do that.” The girl’s voice became troubled. “I can’t go back to my body by myself.”

“Didn’t think so,” Kamijou agreed casually. His eyes settled on that accursed Soul Arm on the floor. “You’ll have to go back before me.”

He reached out his right hand and grabbed the small, cylindrical Soul Arm.

That was all.

The Soul Arm crumbled into pieces, and at the same time, the power sustaining her was lost. Her translucent body disappeared, too, like an eraser had rubbed it out.

Now he was well and truly alone.

The Star of Bethlehem was still continuing its descent in the meantime. Its speed, too, was steadily increasing. Once it went past the point of no return, it really would crash into the ground at a speed close to free fall.

A direct impact from of a mass over forty kilometers in radius.

If that came to pass, it would demonstrate in twenty-first-century Earth that a meteor collision had caused the Ice Age. Some historians might be pleased, but for most people, it would only spell tragedy.

The final battle was about to begin.

As a reward for his gamble, he had been presented with the very fate of this shooting star.

6

“According to information from the Roman and Russian Churches, the Star of Bethlehem floats in the air using twenty large Soul Arms for levitation. Losing the power from Fiamma has caused its output to drop. At this rate, it will lose all buoyancy after one hour and fall straight down toward the surface.”

He could hear Stiyl Magnus’s voice emanating from the speakers around the fortress. Kamijou had entrusted him with guarding Index; he’d ended that mission earlier by destroying the remote-control Soul Arm, and now he was guiding Kamijou.

“But if you destroy any of the levitation Soul Arms, we can control the Star of Bethlehem’s facing and direction. Meaning your right hand is perfect for the job.”

“What exactly should I bust up?”

“Hold on. I just got a map sent to me. It’s based on assumptions, so the actual model might be different. If anything seems wrong, report it at once.”

Following Stiyl’s directions, Kamijou used the facility’s monorail, and where he couldn’t proceed with that alone, he continued running on his feet. There was no time left anymore. If he failed, six billion lives would be at risk.

“I’ll tell you the exact positions by word of mouth, but you’ll want to destroy number three, number nine, and number thirteen in the south part. That will cause the Star of Bethlehem’s trajectory to change. Have it head for the edge of the Arctic Ocean. We’ll drop its speed as much as possible and have it land in the water to prevent the impact. Considering its altitude and mass, that’s the only way we won’t do massive damage to the planet’s environment.”

“If we reduce the number of big levitation Soul Arms, won’t that make it fall even faster?”

“They share a power source. If there are fewer Soul Arms, that alone will increase the output, one at a time. Of course, it’ll be limited to just one at a time, but you don’t need to worry about the power supply weakening at the moment. If you thin them out, the output might increase momentarily.”

“What are the chances of a tsunami or something if we drop it in the ocean?”

“The cities along the Arctic Ocean’s coastline have been warned to evacuate. The Roman and Russian Churches are being disgustingly cooperative in helping them. Otherwise, we would have had to be aware of a few casualties.”

In the meantime, Kamijou arrived at the number three Soul Arm.

The place looked like a factory.

Large facilities, even bigger than school buildings, lined this enclosed space, with dozens of thick pipes running everywhere. Metal staircases and walkways were a tangled mess between them. Green light particles flitted about intermittently—were they responsible for making this giant fortress float?

Bam!!

Kamijou struck a nearby pipe with his palm.

That was all. With just that, countless cracks formed in the pipe; the square, stone structure tipped over; and brilliant explosions began going off inside it. Kamijou distanced himself to not be caught up in it, then ran toward the next Soul Arm, number nine.

“…Never did I think we’d be fighting side by side in the very end,” muttered Stiyl. “It didn’t have to be me. I’ve been getting sporadic reports from her, too, now that she’s finally woken up. Her mind was in the Star of Bethlehem earlier. Couldn’t you have solved this situation by relying on her knowledge?”

“I’m not fooling around here. I couldn’t let Index suffer in that state for another minute.”

“I get it. It’s not my style to owe anything to someone like you, but I’ll make an exception this time and accept it.”

“If that’s really how you feel, could you get a recovery team or something near the projected landing site? I’d really rather not be waiting around in subzero ice water.”

“I’ll do something about that,” answered Stiyl quietly. “If the gradual descent goes as planned, you shouldn’t die even if it lands on the water.”

In the meantime, Kamijou desperately ran through the Star of Bethlehem.

The number nine Soul Arm was right there.

We’ll manage, thought Kamijou. This big war that started from a quarrel with the Roman Orthodox Church had been nothing but terrible in every way. But in the end, they’d manage. They’d manage for sure. Confident, Kamijou ran ever forward.

Until…

“What’s this…?”

…an impatient voice flew at him from the speakers.

Kamijou listened to it as he ran.

“That’s strange. Some kind of massive…telesma? Why would something like that be…?”

He had a bad feeling about this.

But he couldn’t stop now. As Kamijou headed for the number nine Soul Arm, Stiyl grumbled:

“Of all the times—why in the hell is Misha Kreutzev surfacing now?!”

7

Concurrently, the archangel who had cooperated with Fiamma of the Right was about to recover its body once again on the wintry Russian lands.

The fluctuations in the four aspects had been corrected by Fiamma’s hands. Now, she was not Misha, a mixture of the LIKENESS OF GOD, Michael, and the POWER OF GOD, Gabriel, but an archangel in a pure sense. It would not be a mistake to say that at this point, her goal had, to a certain degree, been accomplished.

But it wasn’t enough.

She wasn’t perfect.

Her goal was simply to return her own existence to its original “seat.” Having been about to go off the rails once, she could see no other goal, nor did she consider how much damage would occur in achieving her goal. She would just return. For that, and that alone, the archangel began to move once again.

The massive telesma scattered about her surroundings began to converge toward one point.

She had been torn apart once by the power of the scientific monsters, but they hadn’t damaged her essence. Bringing a fist down on water would cause it to splash, but it wouldn’t reduce the amount of water itself. It was the same as that.

But it wasn’t enough.

She wasn’t perfect.

Now that its action had been stopped once, the archangel sought an additional increase in her practical power. She knew well what would serve as material for it. She controlled water. In the winter, Russia had so much snow it covered the ground, but simply melting that wouldn’t be enough.

But it wouldn’t be enough.

She wasn’t perfect.

But it wouldn’t be enough.

She wasn’t perfect.

But HWSR it wouldn’t be enough.

She ZVDF wasn’t ZDFB perfect.

B​u​u​u​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T​T.

Yes.

To turn around a situation using an overwhelming power, one needed to take all precautions.

A huge amount of ice with special signage and symbolism.

The special ice, for example, from a planet’s pole.

“…What is happening…?”

In St. George’s Cathedral in London, a Sister around twenty years old let out a moan. She’d been monitoring the flow of magical power in Russia.

“Misha Kreutzev has begun moving northward at a high speed!! The polar ice has also begun to melt extremely quickly!! Additionally—confirmed a massive line of telesma between them!! There is clearly mutual interference occurring!!”

“It wants new power—no, to replenish its body?” Stiyl asked, frowning.

Thinking simply, if that angel had instantly melted all the ice in the Arctic Ocean, phenomena similar to a large-scale tsunami would occur in regions bordering the Arctic Ocean. If the situation progressed too far, an insane water vapor explosion could engulf everything in a radius of thousands of kilometers.

And it wouldn’t continue in such a simple manner. If Misha Kreutzev, already brutal, was to take in so much water and ice that it would cause the Arctic Ocean to collapse, how far would her power swell? Now that Fiamma had lost, what was that archangel’s objective? Did she not have one at all? They didn’t know a single thing, but the endgame she’d create as a result was clear.

They wouldn’t be able to withstand it.

In the first place, nothing could contain a God-created angel’s full capacity with only matter from the physical world. Even during Angel Fall, Misha Kreutzev hadn’t been any more than an incomplete manifestation. If she attempted to forcibly draw out even higher output than envisioned, the body itself composing Misha would explode, equating to a massive discharge of telesma.

A planetary ignition, centered on the North Pole.

At the very least, it would annihilate all living things in the northern hemisphere. In the worst case, it could seriously throw off the actual planet’s orbit, possibly pushing it away from the solar system.

But how do we stop it? thought Stiyl, glancing at a magnet that was moving of its own accord on a whiteboard. I don’t know if we could have held back the old Misha even if we fought her as one group. Clashing with an archangel in that wounded state would only magnify the damage.

Still, if they did nothing, a destructive ending surely awaited them.

And then—

“…Hey, what are you doing?” Stiyl muttered at the screen.

There had been a change in the Star of Bethlehem’s flight path, even though it had just been going smoothly. It had begun to travel down a clearly different route than Stiyl and the others’ plan. He thought it was a glitch in the fortress, but as far as he could tell from their monitoring, no such trouble had been detected.

Clearly, Touma Kamijou, who was inside it, had done something to a large levitation Soul Arm in an effort to purposely veer it away from the safest route.

In order to block Misha Kreutzev, who was heading for the Arctic Ocean…?

The fortress was falling faster now.

And inside it, Touma Kamijou was running at full speed.

The Arctic Ocean coastline, between sea and land. He’d destroyed a different one of the large levitation Soul Arms to twist the fortress’s trajectory that way. In order to stand against the archangel, Kamijou just kept on running.

On the surface, there was a change. Some sort of small shadow was approaching at a high speed.

He could see the snow along the path of whatever it was, shooting along at a low altitude with incredible velocity, being gouged out in enormous chunks. It wasn’t simply getting blown away. Hundreds of meters—no, whole kilometers of snow centered around “her” were all getting absorbed at once.

Drawing a long, thick line over the white lands, the archangel headed his way. There was nobody to stop her advance. There seemed to be several along the way who flung magical-looking lights at it, but the archangel didn’t even glance their way. She just passed through, mowing down all the professional sorcerers.

The archangel reached the Arctic Ocean from the coastline.

And at the same time…

…The Star of Bethlehem fell directly on top of it.

With an earsplitting bbb-bbooom!! the giant fortress fell into the sea along with the archangel. As it sank, Kamijou headed ever downward as fast as he could. Unable to withstand the immense pressure, the walls and pillars inside the fortress collapsed one after another. Severely cold seawater poured inside, but Kamijou didn’t pay attention to it. He kept going down. To the bottom. He went below sea level.

There was no more illumination around him.

But there was one speck of light in the expanse of darkness.

A quiet light, deep and blue, reminiscent of moonlight.

Touma Kamijou squeezed his right fist as tightly as he could. She’d noticed him, too. In the dark, only the lights of their eyes clashed a step before they did. As an incredible sense of hostility overflowed, the boy, a simple human, plunged forward, never stopping.

So much had happened before coming here.

And it had all started when he lost his memory. He’d decided to go forward, lying in order to prevent one certain girl’s sadness. He’d fought an alchemist to save a girl possessing special “blood.” He’d fought the strongest monster, too, to rescue the third-ranked Level Five and her Sisters. At the beach house, he’d fought a death match against a traitor from his class.

A bunch of things had happened on August 31: He’d stood up against a real golem to save a friend, an aggregation of AIM dispersion fields. He’d picked a fight with the largest Crossist denomination to help a Sister professing to be able to decipher the Book of the Law. There’d even been an incident related to the Tokiwadai girl’s underclassman.

During the Daihasei Festival, even as an executive committee member and a classmate got wrapped up in everything, he’d protected Academy City from the threat of the Croce di Pietro. In Chioggia, Italy, he’d clashed with a fleet of ships made of ice to save a girl who used to be his enemy. On September 30, to save his utterly changed friend, he went head-to-head against a woman from God’s Right Seat. The sukiyaki he’d eaten with everyone in his class had been delicious, and he’d run into Skill-Out, too, to help the Tokiwadai girl’s mother.

In Avignon, France, he’d fought God’s Right Seat over the Document of Constantine. In Academy City’s underground city, he’d fought alongside the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church against a powerful saint. In London, England, he’d stopped a coup d’état led by the second princess.

And now.

It’s been a long time, he thought.

The things that had transpired up until this point hadn’t all been enjoyable.

He’d hurt others, many, many times, and been hurt by others in return, a cycle that had kept on repeating.

However.

Touma Kamijou could still run.

He knew that his actions had saved no small number of people.

He could take on his greatest enemy, this archangel, proudly.

…Maybe this world will be destroyed one day. Even planets have a life span, and I know it’ll be swallowed into the sun once it expands. Maybe it’s more likely all the creatures will die off the face of the earth before that happens.

But, thought Kamijou, gripping his fist and charging forward.

It’s okay for the ending to be less tragic.

It’s okay to fight to stop this thing.

With a boom!!!!!! the two figures charged at point-blank range.

At the same time, the giant body of the Star of Bethlehem, which had transferred its landing impact in its entirety, was crushed to a pulp.

And.

October 30.

Academy City and the English Puritan Church.

The Roman Orthodox Church and the Russian Catholic Church.

World War III, started by a fight between two factions, ended.

Just before it did, the Star of Bethlehem was confirmed to have fallen into the Arctic Ocean.

Some flood damage was confirmed in cities on nearby coastlines, but not enough to kill anyone.

The very same fortress was completely destroyed by the impact of its landing.

Misha Kreutzev, who had been heading for the Arctic Ocean, had disappeared from all sensors. It was assumed that it had lost the power supporting its existence, disappated into mere energy, and returned to another phase. A stopping of the ice-melting progressing in the same ocean had also been confirmed.

And in that ocean, they detected no survivors.

A search team was dispatched from an alliance of Crossism’s three biggest factions, but they never found a survivor in the two-degree-Celsius water.

Touma Kamijou was thus assumed dead.

It was his second death.