Kanzaki let loose a roar to inspire herself, even to the point of squeezing her damaged organs. Acqua batted away her simultaneous attack—metal clanging against metal—then a chain of those metallic sounds, layered over one another, instantly caused the air to burst.
Ga-bam!! Sounds of clashing and collisions rang out.
The two saints crossed blades once more.
They were both so fast that the arrival of that observation would be late for the next strike.
Kaori Kanzaki swiftly swung her blade, dragging the seven wires through the gaps as though sewing, re-sheathing her katana at the slightest opportunity, then striking out with incredibly fast sword draws. At the same time, she created attack spells of flame and ice, continuously ambushing Acqua in an unpredictable pattern by combining three-dimensional magic circles made out of her wires, her footwork, and the rhythm of steel banging on steel.
In response, as soon as Acqua batted down her katana with his giant mace, he would suck in the night air and the fragments of moonlight within it—perhaps an attribute of Gabriel—and thereby increase his mace’s power. He also used the properties of the Adoration of Mary, which mitigated severe punishment, to overcome the condition that God’s Right Seat couldn’t use ordinary sorcery. As he loosed a string of attacks that exceeded the speed of sound, he simultaneously used vacuum blades and chunks of rock to strike at Kanzaki from multiple angles.
Bagagagagazazazazazagigigigigi!! Sparks flew. A miniature starry sky danced around them.
“Guh, uff?!”
But the result was clear as day.
Blood spurted from Kanzaki’s mouth at uneven intervals. She was already past her limit. She’d unmistakably taken severe damage in places on and in her body. The speed at which she wielded her blade diminished conspicuously, and now that she couldn’t keep up, an image of a hopeless future flashed through her mind. She was devoting everything just to stay with him; there were no strikes she could make that would turn the tables—for turning the tables was something you could only do by keeping a card up your sleeve.
She had used all her cards, and they couldn’t deal with him. She wouldn’t have that chance. If she couldn’t afford to keep even one trick up her sleeve, it wouldn’t be possible to even the score.
But…
“I’m telling you…to shut…the hell up!!”
What came to mind next were the words he’d said when she’d first met him in Academy City.
Remembering them returned her strength.
It was all coming back:
“That’s got nothing to do with it! Are you protecting people just because you feel like your strength obligates you?!”
The boy, who had stood up to a saint with a single clenched fist—all for their treatment of one girl named Index.
“That’s not it, is it?! Don’t fool yourself! You got that power because there was something you wanted to protect!”
She didn’t exactly think his words were the most beautiful in the world. There were as many ideas as there were people, and none of them stood at the top of all the rest. That said, Acqua of the Back must have had his own reasons and beliefs that required him to fight.
However.
His reason—to mercilessly beat an ordinary person, even aware of his immense strength as a saint and of God’s Right Seat—wouldn’t let him beat that boy. She knew it.
The boy’s actions, being just a boy but taking a hit from Acqua to protect Itsuwa, would never lose out to someone who dominated as though doing so was as natural as one of the “chosen ones.”
As she wielded her blade, Kaori Kanzaki gritted her teeth.
The reason the boy had shown her.
The conviction he’d risked his life to show her.
She couldn’t let this coward, with talent as his only possession, trample that.
4
The Amakusa-Style Crossist Church members, numbering almost fifty, paid no attention to their miserable state—the bandages they’d used to fix themselves up had been torn apart, redness seeping up through them—instead, they stood at the edge of the giant hole Acqua had punched in the fourth stratum, watching, dumbstruck, the battle unfolding between the two saints in the fifth.
The aftermath of the explosions, the blasts, and the shock waves were incredible on their own, and given the amount of debris scattered around them, it was a wonder no civilians had gotten caught up in it.
Despite being human, the overwhelming momentum and shock waves drove away even the raging vortex of mana as the monsters’ duel unfolded. Roars sounded, clangs of metal on metal rang out, and the blasting winds blew out the vapor in the air, creating afterimages like condensation trails. Several flashes sparked between every single attack—a spell that would have turned any of those currently in Amakusa to ash with just one hit—and then that spell would be intercepted by another, in an endless cycle.
From their distant perspective, it looked like the collision of two galaxies. With the clash of the saints, stars exploded, space warped, planets were swallowed in darkness, and new lights were born, strong enough even to drive away that oppressive void. What, then, did the two standing at the center of those transient galaxies represent?
One of them was Kaori Kanzaki.
A woman who had once led the Amakusa, and who still gazed warmly upon them from the shadows.
The Amakusa’s former Priestess was now fighting for them:
To save the civilian boy Acqua had designated as his target, as well as to save the current Amakusa members he had attacked.
But—
“…”
They heard a crash.
It was the sound of Itsuwa’s Friulian spear slipping from her bloody hand as she gazed at the battle. The spear she’d poured every last drop of their skills into reinforcing in order to save one boy. It was the crystallization of her efforts—and now it lay on the ground, like a rock by the roadside.
It wasn’t just Itsuwa.
Several others had dropped their weapons in the same way. Some of their knees gave out, and some of them put a hand on a wall. And they all had the same expression she did.
Absolutely spiritless.
What have I been doing this whole time? thought Itsuwa.
The more Kaori Kanzaki fought for their sake, the more it felt like a rejection of their hard work. No matter how hard they tried, they’d never step off the palm of their saint. She would look at them as if gazing at something dear to her, and if danger approached, she would fight to such heights that nobody could ever reach.
They’d never gotten him to look at them.
No matter how far it went, it was nothing but play to him.
They felt as though the harsh truth would crush them. At the same time, they felt so petty for not being able to think anything else of the life-risking kindness she’d shown them. And that loss would inevitably shatter them even further. But they couldn’t do anything about it. They were like ants to a giant. They couldn’t step into this incredible battle, and just watching it completely drained what little stamina and willpower still remained in their worn-out bodies.
If that boy was here, he wouldn’t have cared.
If he’d seen a friend, Kaori Kanzaki, fighting before his eyes and being hurt—that would have been all it took for him to clench his fist and break right into the middle of the fight.
That was another kind of strength.
But right now, the Amakusa didn’t have the conviction needed to display such a thing.
The battle between two saints continued.
Without realizing that even if their completely overwhelming strength wasn’t hitting them directly, it was still gouging holes into the hearts of their audience.
INTERLUDE THREE
The distress signal had come long ago, but none of them could make a move.
It wasn’t as though they were heavily wounded. It wasn’t as though their destination was very far away, either. They couldn’t move simply because of position and politics.
The distress signal had arrived from a British royal long-distance escort coach.
The horse-drawn coach’s magical defensive net should have been perfect. It was so tough that ever since they’d made it, they joked that not even the planet tearing in half would cause it to emit a distress signal. It was far beyond the Walking Church, the special habit. England, the great land of magic, had used all its technology and history to design it, giving it the moniker Mobile Fortress. This coach, meant for the royal family, should never have been stopped, no matter who attacked it.
And it had sent them a distress signal.
Under normal circumstances, this was absolutely impossible.
It meant something very simple.
There had been a political deal of some sort.
And England’s third princess on board was a piece that had been sacrificed.
The members of the Knights faction, on the national border along the Dover Strait, listened silently to the distress signal as it repeated, again and again, their hearts gripped with pain.
Nobody said a word, and everyone grated their teeth in frustration, clench their fists hard enough for blood to seep from their palms.
The Knights’ goal was the prevention of internal schism within the United Kingdom—which possessed a complex relationship between three factions and four cultures—and to defend with their lives all who inherited enough royal blood to lead the kingdom.
The men of the Knights worked within that Machiavellian vortex, and because their environment was so harsh, so cruel, they could speculate as to their situation without needing any real explanation.
The Third Princess of England was under attack by the Spanish Order of the Star. They were an extremely large group within the Roman Orthodox Church, and ever since the Spanish Armada had been destroyed during the age of Elizabeth I, the magical factions of England and Spain had been at odds with one another.
The royal family had purposely allowed this attack to occur, likely because they desired a war with the Order of the Star. They’d been the ones to spread Crossism during the great age of exploration, and even now, the Order exercised almost complete influence over all the Catholic cultural factions in South America. England was trying to wrest influence in South America away from the Roman Orthodox Church’s Spanish Order of the Star and thus extend their own sphere of influence. Further, the third princess didn’t have much authority in the royal family. They’d probably weighed her against an entire continent and decided to sacrifice her.
It was the Knights’ job to protect the princess. As a matter of course, they would run to her aid even when she didn’t request rescue. Ignoring a distress signal from her was, normally, completely out of the question.
However.
Right now, at this exact moment, the Knights could be no more than rocks.
They’d been ordered to move with swiftness if the magical battle in France extended to England across the Dover Strait, but they were ordered—without reason—not to move unless those embers reached the homeland.
“…”
William Orwell left a tent the Knights had set up.
Even now, an intermittent light shone beyond the Dover Strait that night. It wasn’t a lighthouse. It was the aftermath of the Spanish Order’s magical attacks, escaping to them from over the French border.
“Are you going?”
A voice addressed him from behind.
William turned and saw the top of the Knights, the Knight Leader, standing there. Unlike the sturdily built Acqua, the man had an elegance about his behavior. It was likely thanks to his upbringing, in particular the fact that he’d needed to learn etiquette at castles and palaces. Which was only natural, given his expected, permanent role of defending those with royal blood.
William Orwell was a mercenary who would fight for anyone who hired him.
The Knight Leader would spend his life in service of his nation. They wouldn’t normally be able to get along.
But in actuality, they would have drinks together whenever they had the chance. The Knight Leader had invited William into the Knights numerous times, and William had refused every time. But after fighting elsewhere in the world, he would naturally drift back to England to wet his throat with a cup. Everything about them was different, from their positions to their perspectives, from their fighting styles to their ways of life. And yet, strangely, they accepted each other.
Which was how the Knight Leader knew.
Knew what William was thinking when he left the tent without a word.
“You are fettered as ones who protect the nation. The actions of those with the nation at their back will represent the nation’s will. You can’t cross the border to France without orders and engage the Spanish.”
William Orwell spoke quietly, adjusting the giant mace on his shoulder.
“But I am different. I am just a mercenary. I can run rampant all I like—I don’t have the nation backing me. What I do will not reflect at all on England’s intentions.”
“You think I’ll let you go on your own?” The Knight Leader’s lips turned up. “You may be a storied veteran, but I can’t leave this in your hands alone. Come—with your luck, you’ll survive. But it’s our duty to protect the princess; we can’t entrust her to a mercenary of unknown origin. She might just be one kid, but she’s an unmarried woman. If a lawless brigand kidnaps her, it puts the entire nation in danger.”
“Did you not hear what I said?” William said, mildly shocked that the man’s argument was nothing more than a farce. Still, he knew the Knight Leader was speaking out of consideration despite his joking tone.
When their eyes met, each knew what the other was thinking.
It was a bond they couldn’t escape from.
“Yes, you said the Knights have all of Britain on their shoulders, so they can’t intervene,” said their leader simply, removing a pure gold decoration from his chest. His identification emblem—decorated with his family emblem, escutcheon in the center. The man gazed at it wistfully for just a moment, but eventually let it go.
Without returning his eyes to his emblem, now on the ground, he looked directly into William’s eyes. “Now I’ve been disqualified from knighthood. Which means you’re taking me with you. If the distress signal is still being sent, the third princess must still be alive.”
“I see. How very like you.”
William Orwell, now aware of his friend’s determination, smiled slightly.
He’d probably known the Knight Leader would do that, too. He knew what kind of person this man was, this man with whom he’d shared drinks time and time again.
That was exactly why he entrusted his back to the man during fights.
The Knight Leader glared bitterly at the popping lights across the strait and urged William onward. “Let’s hurry. It may not be able to move anymore, but its defenses should still be functional…The royal faction set it up personally, though, so we don’t know how long it will stay that way. In any case, we need to rush there posthaste.”
“You are right.”
William candidly agreed, but a moment later, he’d rammed his fist deep into the Knight Leader’s gut. With a dull whump, he looked at William with an expression of disbelief.
“What…are you…doing…?”
“No. I cannot take you with me. You know that.”
William removed his fist, and the Knight Leader crumpled, as though he’d lost something holding him up. Still, it wasn’t enough to knock the man out, trained as he was. William didn’t watch as he struggled—he just spoke.
“I use my trivial position as mercenary to travel the world’s battlefields at will. But even I cannot enter England’s castles and palaces. That is something only you can do.”
“Will…iam…”
“If you truly want to protect the third princess, you must look to the future, not just the present. The disaster that invited this strategic move will strike the third princess many more times in the future. When that
happens, she had better have someone with her. Protect her, leader of knights. Not only the third princess, either, but the royal family as a whole, though rotten with such political horse-trading. That is the job you were given, as a knight—not I, a mercenary.”
“William Orweeeelllllllllllllllllllllll!!”
Shrugging off the Knight Leader’s shout from where he lay upon the ground, William headed to the battlefield.
The Knight Leader heard a magic name.
A certain mercenary’s magic name.
“The time has come to name myself. My name is Flere210—the one who changes the reason for your tears!!”
The Dover Strait lay between England and France.
But William Orwell, equipped with spells that allowed him to move through the water, shot across the national border with the speed of a cannonball.
CHAPTER 4
The Protector and the Protected
Leader_Is_All_Members.
1
Mikoto Misaka trudged through the late-night streets.
She had been out using a bath facility to get the post-bath Croaker cell phone strap, but her timing had been poor. She’d happened across a dangerous event unique to District 22 called an “anoxic warning,” stranding her inside a building. The next thing she knew, it was very late at night, she had impeccable post-bath chills, and she’d lost the reason to take a bath at all.
Gah, damn it…After all that, I guess I’ll have to use the one in my dorm…, she’d thought—but for some reason, the exit to District 22 had been cordoned off.
It seemed as though the anoxic warning had settled for the moment, so the building-exit restriction had been lifted. Apparently, some system or other had malfunctioned. The middle-aged man managing the gate was just as confused as she was.
Normally, she’d want to put in a complaint, but she heard a lot of hurried footsteps behind the man, as well as deep shouts and reprimands flying back and forth. The face of the man who came to deal with her was also somewhat glum. She pitied him too much to pile on any more complaints, so she gave up the idea of snapping at him.
A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 16 Page 15
