A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 16

by Kazuma Kamachi

  As soon as she said that, ceiling hatches over Acqua began popping open.

  The members of Amakusa appeared from them. Every one was wounded, red staining different spots on their clothing, but their numbers hadn’t yet decreased.

  All fifty of them—one hundred eyes—focused on Acqua.

  The monster, however, wasn’t even scared.

  “It matters not.”

  He swayed.

  He didn’t take a single step; his center of gravity alone had fallen.

  “Come,” he said as all the members of Amakusa dove for him.

  8

  Itsuwa charged Acqua directly. Before the man—who stood on the giant screen projecting a starry sky—responded, blades challenged him from the Amakusa men: from the left, right, back, and overhead.

  Close to twenty sharp edges aimed for Acqua’s body. Even if he dealt with those, thirty more would attack him after that.

  An absolute number. No normal person could have dealt with even the first wave.

  But Acqua responded.

  Vwohh!! The giant mace split through the air. It batted away Ushibuka and Kouyagi, floating in midair, and the shock wave he’d purposely scattered to their surroundings assailed other ones. Ignoring the people in front of him who had been blown away or broken, Acqua slammed his mace straight behind him without looking.

  His chain of movements was practically an explosion.

  With Acqua at the center of the maelstrom, the skilled warriors fired away in every direction.

  “!!”

  Itsuwa, a moment away from adding her own attack to the mix, abruptly stopped herself on the screen.

  Acqua used the chance to slide toward her as though skating across the floor.

  Itsuwa immediately put up her guard, but he slipped through her defensive net, bringing his raised mace down toward her skull.

  It was a flash of steel lightning.

  But the strike didn’t hit her.

  Acqua felt the sensation of his attack whiffing. Itsuwa, who had just been in range, had disappeared. He looked and saw only the brightly colored sweater she’d been wearing clinging to the tip of the mace. His gaze moved from his hands to what was in front of him. Itsuwa stood a short distance away, wearing her tank top, which she’d somehow kept on despite shedding her sweater.

  Acqua flicked the mace to remove the cloth scrap from it. “A substitute?”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t have very many of them,” said Itsuwa quietly, readying her cross spear again. “Don’t make me do something too embarrassing, please.”

  Before she finished speaking, they clashed again.

  Acqua’s mace, which looked like it could easily break the earth itself, came again.

  But Itsuwa’s spear responded. She must have reinforced her body with several spells, putting in tremendous effort to keep up with his sainted movements. He struck once, twice, then a third time. Itsuwa’s motions were half a tempo slower, barely managing to deflect his attacks.

  “You move well,” said Acqua in honest praise of his enemy as he quickly swung the mace. “But can you keep this up? Your rhythm is steadily lowering.”

  “Urgh…!!”

  Little by little, she was being pushed back as their gap widened. Once it passed a certain point, Itsuwa wouldn’t be able to stop his strikes, and she’d be smashed to little bits.

  In order to support her, other members of Amakusa, like Tsushima and Isahaya, attacked Acqua from several different directions, but his mace struck out with terrifying speed, acting like a wall to prevent their strikes. As he crossed blades with Itsuwa, Acqua controlled the combatants around him as though they were a mere distraction. And when he had the chance, he shone runic letters, counterattacking with highly pressurized water jets.

  Tatemiya, dealing with the ferocity, glanced toward Itsuwa. “(…How’s it coming?!)” he whispered through his teeth.

  “(…I don’t…have time…!!)”

  “Itsu—!!” began Tatemiya in a shout, meaning to reposition the Amakusa members, but Acqua’s attack came.

  It knocked away his flamberge, which he’d abruptly gotten ready, and the shock wave sent him spinning into the giant screen.

  “Let’s see,” said Acqua, getting his mace ready again as he watched Itsuwa’s ragged breathing. “I shall enjoy seeing how many seconds you last.” As he spoke, his muscles expanded all at once.

  It was impossible to escape his range. His giant mace and Itsuwa’s spear collided. She’d barely avoided a direct hit, but that was Itsuwa’s limit. Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam!! Each time their weapons clashed—almost as though the cogs forming her attacks were sliding out of place—Itsuwa’s speed clearly dropped more.

  She didn’t have room to counterattack. She couldn’t even fully receive his attacks, which pounded the screen underfoot with shock waves. The special fabric, which must have had bulletproof fiber woven in or something, began to tear apart like stockings.

  This was a hellish battle of attrition. A marathon. A race where a blender to grind human flesh was slowly approaching from behind the runners.

  If she stopped, she was dead.

  But if she kept running, she would go past her limits and destroy her own body.

  The collision of weapons, bladed and blunt, was all that continued.

  “Hnn…!!” Acqua sucked in a breath, and when he lifted his leg for another powerful step toward her, Itsuwa moved.

  She didn’t go forward, but backward. As hard as she could—to evade Acqua’s attack.

  It was a little retreat, only a few meters. From Acqua’s perspective as someone with the physical abilities of a saint, it was a distance he could cross in a heartbeat. But for Itsuwa, this was a desperate decision. Because she’d jumped back with all her strength, she lost her balance and was about to topple over.

  The young warrior couldn’t engage him with another attack. Nor could she dodge one of his or defend it.

  “Hmph,” sniffed Acqua, moving to finish her off.

  He dove into certain-kill range with the speed of a jet fighter carving through the air.

  Zzzt!

  But then he stopped—as though something had sewn him down.

  “What…?”

  Surprised, Acqua looked at his feet. His speedy movements were something he’d supported with a spell. By laying a thin film of water between his shoes and the ground, he could slide across it using the same logic as when tires slipped on ice.

  The spell had failed without him realizing it.

  Itsuwa shouldn’t have had the leeway to invert his spell and destroy it. In fact, she’d made no motions to actually cast such a spell.

  However…

  Before he realized it, a faint light appeared. It came from his feet. An incomprehensible pattern extended from them, blocking the movement spell he’d been using.

  The strike Itsuwa had failed to receive. The aftermath from it was a shock wave that had torn the screen underfoot. And the pattern of that torn fabric itself had constructed a circular shape, which, by curious coincidence, had blocked his movement spell.

  Except—this was no coincidence.

  The Amakusa-Style Crossist Church didn’t use any special incantations or Soul Arms when they used sorcery. They constructed their spells by recovering and reassembling the magical symbols hidden in omnipresent, everyday items and events.

  And above all…

  Seeing how she’d gotten just a moment’s opening from Acqua…

  …Itsuwa, in front of him, had a very faint grin on her face.

  As Acqua tipped forward, Itsuwa thrust her spear at him without mercy. Finally able to counterattack after everything, she struck with lightning speed.

  Roar!! The straight strike tore through the air, and for the first time, Acqua took evasive action.

  “Urgh?!” Acqua jumped not forward, back, left, or right, but up. The unstable screen at his feet didn’t matter. With just one hop, he dove upward almost five meters, then hung by his foot, which he hooked on
to one of the thin support beams holding up the screen.

  “Tatemiya, everyone!!” And yet Itsuwa remained in her stance. She lowered herself, then once again thrust her Friulian spearhead at Acqua. “Time for the trump card!!”

  After she called their names and mustered all her strength, the members of Amakusa, scattered about nearby, acted in concert. Some approached Itsuwa, while others took a certain set distance from her, reinforcing the formation that placed her as the central point.

  Having caught one foot on the thin beam as he looked for a place to land, Acqua looked at the scene below and felt it—a focusing of all their wills and mana onto Itsuwa.

  It was a warning. The first wave before something enormous happened.

  Here it comes…!!

  Before Acqua could speak, Itsuwa moved.

  Ga-bam!! A burst of air.

  By the time he perceived it as the sound of a human foot kicking away from the screen, Itsuwa had already shot through the night air with the force of a rocket or a space shuttle. The mind-boggling force caused several of the beams supporting the massive screen to break and collapse. In her hand, as she accelerated at a tremendous speed, was a small cloth that looked like a hand towel. She’d used it, tying it around the spear’s shaft, to change her stance.

  “A pipe spear?!”

  By reducing the friction between her palm and the spear, she added speed and power to the shaft as it thrust. But Itsuwa was currently going for something different with the addition.

  “Take this!”

  And that was because, with the strike she was about to unleash, without any protection, she’d lose her hand at the wrist in the middle of the spell.

  “Saintbreaker!!”

  Ga-bam!! The spear exploded in Itsuwa’s hands.

  It wasn’t a metaphor, or anything of the sort—it actually turned into a flash of light. This time, the straight, sharp thrust dug brutally into the middle of Acqua’s gut. Pale blue lightning erupted from his back, cleaving the darkness of the night. Because of the terrible friction, the cloth wrapped around the shaft she gripped gave a puff of black smoke and blew away.

  With a thunderous roar, a cross of light, different from the sparks erupting from Acqua’s back, exploded out in four directions.

  “…!!”

  Before Acqua could manage to say anything, the hidden spell activated.

  Itsuwa—no, the entirety of the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church—had just unleashed a literal Saintbreaker.

  Because saints possessed similar physical characteristics to the Son of God, they, by idol worship theory, possessed the same type of talents and powers as Jesus.

  On the other hand, by using artificial means to destroy the balance of those physical characteristics similar to Jesus, it was possible to temporarily seal away his powers as a saint.

  Having abruptly lost that balance, the saint wouldn’t merely lose their power—they’d be unable to control the power remaining inside them, be caught up in a runaway reaction, and be unable to move.

  Once…

  The Amakusa-Style Crossist Church had lost a saint.

  A kind saint, who had left her home for fear of involving others with her strength. The members of Amakusa hadn’t even had the strength to stop her.

  After that, they had made a vow.

  They would one day attain enough strength to no longer be a burden to her.

  This time, they would gain the power to chase after her, grab her by the hands, and tell her it was all right.

  The blood, sweat, and tears they’d shed culminated in the Saintbreaker.

  In order to support her as a saint, they had to properly understand her as a saint. They had to overcome that wall, had to stand up to problems that even she, as a saint, was threatened by.

  It was something that was genuine, real.

  It was something only the Amakusa-Style Crossist Church had successfully devised.

  A unique attack spell that existed for the sole purpose of defeating saints.

  He’ll be frozen in place because of his berserk mana for maybe thirty seconds.

  Theoretically, this spell only worked on saints and wouldn’t have any effect on normal sorcerers. Because of that, there were never any saints around who would purposely risk themselves as test subjects, meaning this was its first-ever usage.

  But Itsuwa had definitely felt it hit. She calculated the effective time from that. We’ll use all our time to fully neutralize Acqua, now that he’s a normal human!!

  However—

  “That was a good spell.”

  This time, Itsuwa’s face really froze.

  Her Friulian spear, which had become a bolt of lightning, had, at some point, returned to its normal form. Itsuwa hadn’t told it to. The spell had been calculated and disengaged by an outside power.

  Acqua’s left hand was at his stomach.

  He wasn’t pressing on a wound. His palm now held Itsuwa’s spear, which was a mere hair from touching his skin. Right before her spear had changed into lightning, Acqua must have grabbed its tip with his hand. With the alteration before it went off, the special lightning bolt had veered off, ever so slightly.

  “If I had been a normal saint, that might have gotten me.”

  Acqua’s lips curled up. Not in scorn—but in a deep smile, displaying his joy at having met such strong opponents.

  “It was very close.”

  Still controlling Itsuwa’s spear with only his left hand, he moved his right. And the hunk of metal that was itself a mace, over five meters long.

  “But I am both a saint and of God’s Right Seat!!”

  Da-pahh!! A roar reverberated throughout District 22.

  She didn’t even have the chance to use her clothing substitution spell. By the time she realized the noise had come from her own body, she’d already stopped breathing. Struck from above, her body launched into the thick, bulletproof fiber screen in less than a second, ripping it open and hurtling her the rest of the twenty meters to the ground.

  “Gah— Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

  As Itsuwa fell, she saw the glow of defensive spells spreading around her. It must have been her comrades. Itsuwa used what she had, too, desperate to build a spell that would decrease her speed. Unfortunately, her body crashed through all of it and slammed into the asphalt.

  A gray dust cloud billowed up like smoke.

  As her broken body lay half-buried in the shattered asphalt, she managed to move her neck and look up. Past the screen, torn this way and that, she heard something burst. Za-bshhh!! It sounded like a wave crashing against a boulder, but by the time she heard it, a huge geyser of water had already spurted from the screen’s fissures. The several dozen tons of water looked like a giant arm, like a dragon’s jaws. The members of Amakusa scattered into the air below, crushed by the sheer quantity. She heard several screams.

  But she saw one person float to the ground like a feather.

  “How dull. You came in full force, formulated a plan, and now you’re done?”

  It was Acqua. He put a foot on a piece of asphalt near Itsuwa, who was almost completely broken, speaking quietly.

  “You still have several hours before the time limit I set.”

  The water fell like a waterfall from above the screen they used as a planetarium, causing mechanical warning alarms to go off everywhere. But Acqua was unperturbed. He looked down at Itsuwa with perfect composure, as though it were natural he would crush any enemy who came to him.

  “I give you this choice. Hand over the boy’s right arm, or stain the road with your blood.”

  “…”

  He didn’t get an answer.

  But there was movement. She grabbed a cracked fragment of asphalt, forcing her bloodied and broken body to move, and tried to stand up.

  “Then I have no choice,” said Acqua quietly, bringing his huge mace around again. “If it is death you desire, then you will vanish in the waves.”

  His mace’s tip pointed at her head.

/>   Boom!!

  In answer to Acqua’s call, a vast amount of water that truly threatened to crush the fourth stratum cascaded from the screen above like a waterfall. It was a little under twenty meters long, shaped like a giant hammer with joints. Like the arms on construction vehicles it curved, as though it were aiming for both its prey, who had crawled up out of the ground, and the very lands themselves.

  Itsuwa didn’t close her eyes.

  And that was why, at the very last moment, she noticed it.

  Acqua’s hand had suddenly stopped.

  But she still felt an unknown murderous intent fill her surroundings.

  It came not from Acqua of the Back; nor the other Amakusa members like Tatemiya and Ushibuka who had fallen nearby; nor Itsuwa, whose entire body was covered in wounds. It was a simple sensation of hostility, with an unknown range and direction. Acqua stopped himself and moved his attention away from his target. Something that even he, such a man as he was, would need to take caution of, was very close.

  “…I see,” murmured Acqua, before cracking a smile.

  She’d seen that up close before—the look he gave to a strong opponent. But this time, the smile was many, many times deeper.

  The tons of water roiling through the air of the fourth stratum broke. Without any magical control on it, the water sunk toward the artificial rivers, scattering huge, tidal wave–like ripples, putting the embankments underwater.

  Acqua relaxed, then put his giant mace back on his shoulder.

  Then, just once, he looked at Itsuwa. “You’ve kept your life. Thank your master for that.”

  Bam!! A burst. By the time she heard it, Acqua of the Back was gone. He went far too fast for her to follow with her naked eye.

  She stared at the emptiness in front of her in complete bafflement.

  She’d survived.

  Given the disaster here with the ruined asphalt and concrete, the wreckage from all the water making it look like a bomb went off, she wasn’t happy. Still, that was a vague conclusion; she didn’t know if they’d won or lost. Without knowing how to judge the situation, Itsuwa simply repeated what Acqua had said.

  “Thank…my master…?”

  She craned her neck to look around. She wanted to follow where the man had looked to before, but nothing was there. It was gone, vanished just like Acqua, with only darkness there now.