A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 16

by Kazuma Kamachi

  9

  A place about two hundred meters from the road where Itsuwa had fallen:

  The hardened riverbanks of concrete had been turned into a small observation platform. Because of the Opila, the warding spell, there wasn’t a soul to be seen in the cold facility—save for a pair of saints.

  One was Acqua of the Back.

  The other…

  “I see you’ve been taking good care of my friends.”

  A tall body and fair skin. Black hair, tied at the back, reaching down to her waist. A T-shirt, tied up at the waist, with a denim jacket over top and jeans. The jacket’s right sleeve, however, was cut off at the shoulder, and in contrast, the left pant leg of her jeans was cut off at the thigh.

  Her outfit was plenty unique—but it all paled in comparison to a single item she carried.

  A single sword, fastened to a western-style belt.

  A Japanese katana, over two meters long, dubbed the Seven Heavens Sword.

  “Yes, I believe I have heard of a saint in the Far East living by the creed of one-hit kills.” Acqua nodded in satisfaction.

  Saints who were affiliated with nations or organizations couldn’t exactly go wherever or do whatever they liked. And yet, this one had accepted the risks to stand before him.

  Acqua reaffirmed his grip on the mace.

  At last, it wouldn’t be bullying anymore. He could finally revel in a true fight.

  “I believe I’ve also heard that the Amakusa saint is one who dislikes battle. Do you have what it takes to fight me?”

  “Yes.”

  She—

  “I still feel the same way. But it would seem I’m far more immature than I would have led myself to believe.”

  —Kaori Kanzaki.

  “Perhaps it’s because you made such a vivid show of routing them. Why, I’m almost ashamed of myself, despite my magic name. Despite having been taught that wrath is one of the seven deadly sins.”

  The saint, once called Priestess…

  …simply ruled over this place as if she would blow away the very darkness that sat among its wreckage.

  “My tedious worrying ends now. I will not let their determination be in vain. That’s all I need.”

  For the sake of the boy who had been unfairly hurt.

  For the sake of her friends, trampled by overwhelming force when they tried to stop him.

  She gripped her katana’s hilt almost tightly enough to crush it.

  The two saints’ gazes clashed.

  That was the signal.

  A battle between two monsters, whose ranks numbered under twenty in the whole world, was now under way.

  INTERLUDE TWO

  The Knights of Orleans.

  France’s largest sorcerer’s society. That was the name that had taken all hope from the boy.

  Originally, this group, attracted to Joan of Arc’s personality, wasn’t an official fighting force. It consisted of volunteers gathered to support her journey from the shadows. Nor were they a unique group specializing in magic. As long as a person abided the goal of saving France, their position, social standing, and family didn’t matter. The group was supposed to have been—in an extremely rare instance at the time—a place for nobles and farmers alike to stand shoulder to shoulder and laugh among one another.

  But on May 30, 1431, something happened that distorted the group’s direction forever.

  Joan of Arc was captured by England and burned at the stake as a heretic.

  After that, the Knights of Orleans twisted into a strange group bent on vengeance. One of their goals was, of course, the destruction of all England, who had been the ones to personally execute her. But the targets of their revenge reached very far and wide, including French soldiers and nobles for not taking any real action to steal her back—despite having been saved by her—and even French civilians, who, strictly speaking, couldn’t have done anything if they’d wanted to. But their group wasn’t about to accept extenuating circumstances.

  Though they were indeed the largest sorcerer’s society in France, turning everyone against them at once meant their prospects of victory were grim. And they should have realized that fact, but they hadn’t.

  The Knights of Orleans had a single hope.

  Joan of Arc hadn’t been born with any special talents. When she was thirteen, she began hearing a strange voice, which is what led to an immediate blossoming of her ability.

  After her death, the Knights still desired that ability, which they called the Revelations of Arc.

  Not to defend anyone as she had done—but simply to sate their own vengeance.

  Why had nobody realized that God would not help any who wished for miracles for their own personal gain? As a necessity, the Knights transformed into a group dealing in mysticism, and its distinctive features began to smell ever more of sorcery.

  After hundreds of years and many generations of Knights, and their esoteric knowledge continuously passed down from one to the next, they were still continuing their experiment that would never work—the artificial mass production of those with Arc’s power.

  One boy and one girl were born in the midst of that.

  The girl was chosen, if mostly by force, as a “subject” for the Revelations of Arc. The boy opposed it. He thought of plan after plan to let the girl escape, using all the strength he had to fight—and he’d failed.

  She was no longer at his side.

  The last thing the dying boy had heard was the girl’s voice, saying, “I believe in you.”

  But the boy didn’t have the strength to stand.

  If he had, he would have used it a long time ago.

  His body lay collapsed on filthy ground in a decaying alley.

  “Do you plan on crawling there until death, giving up on everything?”

  He heard a voice.

  It was the tough-looking man claiming to be a freelance mercenary.

  He’d come to France to stop the Knights of Orleans’ tyranny. There, he had met the boy and the girl, and had made a diversion of himself in order to let the girl escape…but the boy was far too weak and had let them take the girl away.

  “What am I…supposed to do?” muttered the boy.

  If he stretched out his hand, he could reach his sheathed sword. His colichemarde. A lightweight French short sword, modified from the sabers used in sporting events so that the boy could wield it in one hand. But that hand was a mess. He hesitated to even touch the sheath, as though it were boiling-hot water.

  “I’m…not anyone special. I can’t overcome every crisis just by using what happens to be around me!! There’s no way I can win. I’m up against the strongest sorcerer’s society in France! How the hell am I supposed to fight them?!”

  “Will you give up on her, then?”

  “…”

  “Are you not still crawling on the ground here, moving toward her, because you can’t accept that?”

  “…”

  The boy didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.

  Somehow, he worked his wound-covered, dirt-caked body and sat himself up, but that was all he could do. It wasn’t just stamina he was missing—it was willpower.

  The mercenary didn’t act concerned for him. “This isn’t the time to wallow in hopelessness.”

  No matter how long went by, he didn’t pick the boy up. He took his sheathed sword in hand.

  “The enemy is strong, and considering their ability to accomplish their goal, the girl’s fate is clear. I should think there is only one thing you need to have on your mind right now.”

  “In other words,” the mercenary said, “how she said she believed in you, despite this hopeless situation.”

  Time stopped within the boy. The only thing that continued was the mercenary’s words:

  “What will you do? Get up again to protect the dreams of a foolish girl? Or teach the foolish girl the truth and grant her even deeper despair?”

  The mercenary gripped the sheath, his face almost up against the boy’s, thrusting th
e sword’s hilt against him—that colichemarde he was to wield courageously.

  “Choose. What is your decision?”

  It didn’t need worry.

  It didn’t need thought.

  There was a mountain of problems piled up before him. The risks were all over, scattered this way and that, numerous as the stars. But it didn’t matter. Only those who had done something were allowed to think about those things.

  The boy stood.

  He ignored his wound-covered flesh, grabbed the hilt of the sword, undid the slender clasp holding it in place, and pulled his weapon from its sheath.

  “A good choice.”

  The mercenary smiled.

  The boy’s expression had changed. He walked next to the man, standing as his exact equal, as comrades-in-arms. They walked to the dark alley’s exit, their sights set on the enemy they needed to defeat and the hideout holding the girl they needed to save.

  “Let’s go,” said the boy quietly.

  “The time for fear is over.”

  Their enemy was France’s largest sorcerer’s society, the Knights of Orleans. A group of combat professionals driven by historical vengeance. But this would be the start of their real counterattack.

  CHAPTER 3

  Death Match of Monsters on a Different Level

  Saint_vs._Saint.

  1

  Have you ever heard the sound of the world breaking?

  The world’s screams of pain. Beyond explosions and shock waves, destruction far beyond the range of human hearing? Only the fragments of aftermath compounded onto aftermath finally became explosive blasts humans could see. But those screaming fragments now blew away the street-side tree branches, rocked the fourth stratum’s concrete ground, and bent the metal railings like they were sculptured candy.

  Kaori Kanzaki and Acqua of the Back.

  Their magical clash was all and everything on the observation platform that night, surrounded on all sides by science.

  “Oooahhhhhh!!” With a shout, Kanzaki used a god-speed quick-draw technique. A strike certain to kill even angels, made by subverting spells used in one dogma against another.

  A Buddhist spell for what a Crossist spell couldn’t do.

  A Shinto spell for what a Buddhist spell couldn’t do.

  A Crossist spell for what a Shinto spell couldn’t do.

  By covering for each one’s weaknesses in the next timely cast, her attack techniques were second to none, delivering perfect, interlocking destruction.

  It was, in other words, a single glint of light.

  Her slashing attack was one nobody could have stopped—but Acqua repelled it with his giant mace. Several exchanges later, Kanzaki knew: Acqua had just as versatile a set of spells as she did, if not more so—and he did it by fully executing his ability to use regular magic, said to be impossible for God’s Right Seat members.

  When Kanzaki tried to detour to a Buddhist spell, he responded, and when she converted it to a Shinto spell, he immediately changed his defensive form. Vast amounts of mana shifted and switched between them, developing into a supersonic hand-to-hand battle in the midst of a parallel mental battle, with each reading the other’s moves on a different dimension.

  Physics and sorcery.

  Flesh and mind.

  Disturbance and meditation.

  Gagagazazazazagigi!! Sparks flew in this battle of two saints as their weapons clashed. They appeared at first to be parallel but then showed a certain large undulation within.

  In general, to use sorcery, one needed talent. The craft truly showed the skill difference when those without talent tried to create the same miracles as those with talent.

  But could anyone say that after watching their movements? After seeing the incredibly exceptional, abnormal talent of the saints?

  “…Wonderful. Such popularity. For this many men, this much strength, to come running to his aid alone. That boy may be my enemy, but I am impressed,” noted Acqua, easily swinging around his five-meter-plus iron chunk like a tree branch. “However, you should prepare yourself. If you stand on my battlefield, your only path leads to destruction!!”

  Grah!! A new explosion.

  Behind Kanzaki flowed a dark river. By the time she noticed the black surface had shaken, a water pillar had already risen, close to twenty meters tall. It was a giant hammer with joints. The terrible weapon grazed the underground city’s ceiling, closing down on Kanzaki’s head.

  If she had had her hands full merely with Acqua’s other attacks, she wouldn’t be able to deal with this one, and she’d die.

  However…

  Dbah!! A splitting sound rang out as their death match unfolded, and something near Kanzaki gave off a glare.

  The moment he saw it, seven slashing attacks had brutally sliced up the water hammer approaching from behind, sending it back into the river.

  It had been Seven Glints, using her wires.

  “…I’m surprised you would think this was my full strength.”

  The instant her lips moved, the seven slashing attacks all converged on Acqua from various directions, as though complementing the track of her katana.

  Acqua’s chain of attacks sped up.

  Some he repelled with his mace, and others he moved his head out of the way to dodge. Having overcome both her katana and wires, he saw—a sudden crimson flame obscure his vision.

  “…?!”

  The wires streaking through the air had created a three-dimensional magic circle. By the time Acqua realized this, the flames of the explosion had already engulfed his stalwart body.

  A second blast followed, and then a third, with the seven wires slicing up through the blasts. They were finally followed by a single flash of a katana bathed in moonlight.

  It didn’t sound like a chain of attacks. It had been entirely too fast; the noises all rolled into a numberless clump.

  Bang!! The roar was like a giant arm had torn through space itself.

  But Acqua was no longer there. Kanzaki’s gaze shifted to a distant spot in front of her. He was on the concrete ground, about ten meters away, having jumped back.

  A single cut appeared on his cheek.

  A slight graze, probably caused by a wire. But any wound was more than anyone had reached before now. As a drop of red blood trickled down his cheek, Acqua spoke quietly. “You are one of the Amakusa. What you’re doing is fundamentally the same as them.”

  He fingered the flowing blood, then pressed that index finger onto the side of his mace, scrawling words onto it.

  “And yet it changes so much when done by a saint. I am ever more stricken by the cruelty of talent.”

  Sorcery was a history of rebellion caused by those without talent. However, the word from the heavens, saint, easily quashed all of it.

  The words gave Kanzaki slight pause.

  “…”

  Looking simply at the result, his complaint might have been correct. Without her, Amakusa couldn’t even scratch Acqua.

  However…

  “Allow me to correct you,” she said, sheathing her katana. She lowered her center, preparing for a quick-drawing strike. “They can’t use Single Glint. But its foundations—the sword techniques, the wires, the spells, their combinations and tactical patterns—were all taught to us by the precursors of the Amakusa. The result has nothing to do with something as trivial as talent. It is a crystallization of history they’ve built. My school was the Amakusa. My masters were my friends. I will not allow you to speak ill of them.”

  Criiick!! The hand gripping the katana hilt filled with power.

  “Moreover, a brute aware of all the power he holds mercilessly beating a mere high school student with it has no right to look down on others.”

  On reflection, those words dug into Kanzaki as well. It was an admonishment of herself as well, for once having attacked that same boy for a certain purpose.

  “…The very fact that my words should anger you is proof of your indulgence,” said Acqua, slowly bringing his mace b
ack up, now with a pattern drawn on it in his own blood.

  The ten meters between them was no more than a hairbreadth for the saints. Watching them face off against each other was like watching a classic western film.

  A film of long-past halcyon days.

  “The foot soldiers who have just begun their reconnaissance when they suddenly encounter an enemy tank—that is a battlefield. Countermeasures are not always prepared in advance. There are no routes of escape, no safe zones, and certainly no gentlemanly manners. If you align all the same conditions, adjust the outcome to be fifty-fifty, what you are doing is not fighting—it is sport. That’s how talent is. How power is. If soldiers encounter a tank without appropriate equipment, one does not need to ask what happened to the soldiers. They will be brutally bombarded and crushed. Is your battlefield different?”

  “That way of thinking is your own.”

  “You and the others have nevertheless tread into such territory,” said Acqua calmly, without so much as a sneer. “In the boy’s case, actually, was there someone, somewhere, pulling him up?”

  “…”

  There was no signal, no advance notice before Kanzaki moved.

  She charged up close to Acqua with such speed that even a professional sorcerer would have seen only a blur. Sparks flew like an explosion behind her, trailing after her as her sheath’s tip scraped against the concrete ground. But before they could catch up, the unleashed Seven Heavens Sword mercilessly flew toward Acqua.

  Ga-keeeeen!! A shrill metallic noise rang out. Kanzaki’s and Acqua’s weapons clashed, and they glared at each other from up close.

  “You know all that! You know he’s just a normal person caught up in this! Why, then, did you use your powers as a saint against him?!” she cried, her emotion on full display, something one wouldn’t hear normally.

  Perhaps it was because they were both saints. Or maybe it was because as saints, they shouldered a heavy past, one where they’d hurt many people.

  “You know what happens when you wield that power, which not even twenty people in the world have—that power that strikes fear even into real sorcerers! Were you ignoring that when you went through with these atrocities?!”