“Please stand back!!” shouted Itsuwa from behind him.
Kamijou quickly put distance between them.
Finally, his eyes focused on the entire form of his assailant.
It was a man wearing a green dress uniform.
Perhaps short for a Caucasian, he was about Kamijou’s height, if not shorter. On the other hand, he might have been twice Kamijou’s age. He had a slender frame, and the uniform seemed to have some space on the inside. An odd sense of vitality exuded from his hollowed cheeks.
Kamijou kept his right hand up and asked the attacker in uniform, “…From the Church?”
“You aren’t wrong, but I would have liked it if you’d called me God’s Right Seat.”
The man spoke with levity, and his words made Kamijou speechless.
God’s Right Seat.
Once before, on September 30, Vento of the Front, one of their number, had almost completely paralyzed all of Academy City’s functions by herself.
If he was on her level, then…
“My name is Terra of the Left.”
The white powder, which had gathered at his hand, now took shape.
It was another guillotine.
A plank-shaped blade, as though cut apart diagonally from the lower part of a seventy-centimeter square. The man was grabbing it by the hole where the rope would normally hang from.
“It seems my turn has come at last. After all, we can’t use the normal sorcery humans can—we must entrust the usage of the document to another caster.”
Terra let the blade of execution dangle loosely at his side, speaking with a bemused tone.
And smile.
“And so, I’ll have you accompany me to kill some time. You two are the first ones I’ve caught in the anti-ley-line investigation trap, so I’d very much appreciate it if you would let me have a little fun.”
8
In front of the museum’s destroyed outer walls were Kamijou, Itsuwa, and Terra. As the view worsened from the dust, they moved, splitting through it all.
Terra of the Left swung his right hand.
From left to right.
The white guillotine matched his hand’s motion. He wasn’t so much holding it as something floating in the air was moving in tune with his arm. The guillotine had been about a meter long, but now it abruptly lost its form, turned into a giant white wave, and mowed through everything in a horizontal sweep.
A rumbling boom!! split the air.
“Oooohhh?!” Kamijou instantly readied his right hand.
A moment later, the vortex of destruction shot after them. The streets of the old city of Avignon were narrow; the attack carved craters into the cliff-like buildings standing on either side, blew away cars parked on the road, and tilted the very buildings themselves.
Was it to Kamijou’s right or his left? He didn’t know—that was how neatly it was dividing the old streets and mountains of rubble.
The attack was certainly powerful, and he’d be helpless if it hit him straight on, but…
I can do something about that white blade with my right hand!!
“Itsuwa!!” he shouted, dashing off toward Terra without waiting for her to answer.
As he drew Terra’s attack to him, Itsuwa used the time to slip closer. It was the most efficient pattern.
Meanwhile, Terra seemed to have taken notice of Kamijou’s right hand.
Narrowing his sickly-looking eyes, he spoke with admiration. “Normally, you would have died from that attack just now. I see, so that is the Imagine Breaker…Still, I heard it nearly got the better of Vento of the Front.”
With a smirk, he swung the guillotine.
From back to front.
To match the motion, the white blade sharpened, and the keen strike flew straight at Kamijou’s chest.
“…!!”
He managed to block it with his right hand, but now that he had to focus on defense, his own movements dulled.
Whoosh!
Itsuwa ran by Kamijou’s side in a low crouch, her spear at the ready.
“Hmph.”
Terra directed his guillotine toward her.
A huge boom!! hit Kamijou’s eardrums. The white blade had fired in a straight line, but Itsuwa had swung her upper body around to dodge it. Despite that, her feet kept moving. As she dodged a second critical attack, then a third, she regripped her Friulian spear and dove closer to Terra.
After pulling the spear back once, she unleashed a powerful forward thrust.
Terra repelled it with a sideways swipe of his guillotine. Then he moved it in the opposite direction, attacking Itsuwa from the side this time.
The giant blade shot out as a counterstrike.
“!!”
Itsuwa didn’t force herself to parry it, instead jumping forward and to the side to evade while advancing. Meanwhile, she pulled her spear back and gave another full-force thrust with the energy.
But because of the extra dodge, Itsuwa lost her balance, and there was a moment before her attack began.
Terra used that moment to release the next guillotine.
At this rate, Terra’s white blade would stab through her faster than her spear could hit him.
Flick.
A small light popped up next to Terra’s face.
By the time it registered, rays of light had already crossed before her adversary’s eyes, with many more of them winding and weaving through his surroundings like a spiderweb.
“Allow me to apologize…”
At the same time the words left the man’s mouth, there was an alarming grinding sound.
Filled with her power, they were…
“…Seven Teachings, Seven Blades!!”
…steel wires.
A ga-bam!! split the air as the wires surrounding Terra blasted toward him. The superthin blades attacked him from seven directions, aiming to sever every part of his body, from his ankles to his heart.
Terra didn’t have the time to get out of the way.
Kamijou thought they might have been traveling faster than bullets from a pistol.
However…
“…Prioritize.”
…Terra’s expression didn’t change.
All he did was mutter a single word. But the seven wires targeting his body didn’t cut him up—in fact, they simply coiled around him like kite strings, not damaging his skin in the slightest.
Itsuwa’s face filled with shock.
Terra lightly waved his right arm as if to split the spiderweb apart, ripping open the seven wires on his skin.
“!!” Itsuwa shoved her pulled-back spear forward. The sharpened head flew at lightning speed and nearly stabbed Terra through the shoulder.
“Prioritize—outer wall as low, human body as high.”
It happened the moment Terra said those words. His body disappeared into the wall behind him, as if passing through an invisible hole.
“?!” Itsuwa’s spear collided with the empty wall with a shrill clang.
The impact traveled back up her wrists; she grimaced in pain.
Then…
“Prioritize—outer wall as low, blade movement as high.”
With a whack!!, the white guillotine pierced through the wall, then came in on a sideways sweep toward Itsuwa’s torso.
She gave up on blocking, instead rolling onto the ground to evade the horizontal slash.
Strands of severed hair danced through the air.
Meanwhile, Terra reappeared outside from the gap in the outer wall he’d destroyed. Finding Itsuwa right after she’d taken evasive action, he recklessly swung the guillotine once again.
The girl, her body now pressed to the ground, couldn’t avoid it.
So Kamijou jumped between them to interrupt.
“Wooohhhhaaaaahhhhh?!”
Just before the giant blade came down onto her neck, he sent it flying with his right hand.
The guillotine began to burst apart into a white powder.
Terra’s expression remained level. Calm wa
s the only thing on his face.
“Prioritize—outer wall as low, blade movement as high,” declared Terra again, casually stabbing his reassembled white blade into the wall to his side.
Then he swung both the guillotine and the wall, as if knocking over shelves.
The outside wall fell apart, and ten or so rocks the size of melons came flying at him.
“!!”
Kamijou grabbed his champion’s arm as she tried to get up and yanked her back. The spot they’d just been in immediately became buried in building materials.
Rather than chasing them right away, Terra walked slowly toward them, stepping on the rubble as he went.
“I heard about the Imagine Breaker before, and I must say, I was hoping for a bit more.” Terra laughed in a low voice, his white blade of unknown composition hanging in his right hand. “As far as I can see, it doesn’t seem like much. To be quite honest with you, I find myself disappointed at seeing it in real life. Disappointed enough to consider it not worth seeing. You apparently defeated Vento with it, because not only was her divine judgment gone but Academy City was also using things such as the fallen angel and the plane compression, strangling her from within. If her attacks had been at full strength, she would never have struggled against the likes of you.”
Kamijou backed up as Terra moved forward, covering Itsuwa.
This is…Even as he felt a chill in his spine, somewhere in his mind, he was convinced. A man on Vento’s level would have more than just that blade to attack with.
This is God’s Right Seat…!!
He gritted his teeth, but Terra wasn’t about to wait around for his confusion to settle.
“Oh my. What’s the matter?” Terra laughed, ominous guillotine in hand. “I know you don’t think backing up like that is enough to beat me. Please let me have some more fun. This won’t help me tune it.”
“Urgh!!”
Kamijou and Itsuwa, dragging their heavy bodies, charged at Terra at the same time.
Terra held his right hand with the guillotine in it out in front. “Prioritize—the spear movements as low, the air as high.”
That was all it took for Itsuwa to grind to a sudden halt. The tip of her spear, which she’d flung out toward Terra’s throat, stopped as if hitting a wall made of air.
Kamijou saw it out of the corner of his eye; he clenched his fist tightly and stepped toward Terra.
But the man was faster. A simple, casual sideways swing of the hand, and he fired the white blade. The giant blade grazed past Kamijou’s right hand and stuck into his body.
Oh, shi—, he thought, before being cut off.
The blade, bigger than his thumb, pressed into his body. It felt like it was eating into him.
Pain exploded.
The guillotine continued, bending Kamijou in half, slamming him full force into the wall to the side.
Thwunk!! Then a painful snap from inside.
…?! The extreme situation disabled his ability to think.
Pressure jolted into his gut and his back at the same time, driving the air from his lungs.
“Gho…hah…?!”
But that was all.
Unlike the outside wall, it didn’t cleave his body in two.
He took his trembling hand and punched the guillotine pinning him down. The giant blade exploded into a fine dust, and Kamijou fell to his knees, trying desperately to catch his breath.
“…” Terra stared at his destroyed guillotine with keen interest. He took a step back, flicked his fingers—and just like that, the powder returned to him.
I’m…alive? thought Kamijou, rubbing his stomach, which still throbbed. A direct hit from that blade, and I’m alive…?
Terra’s very first attack had easily carved up the museum’s outside wall. If he used the same attack, his body couldn’t stand up to it.
Which meant…That blade was different than the rest…?
Kamijou looked from his stomach to Terra.
The man, standing in front of the ruined museum, was the picture of relaxation.
Is something amplifying its power? It must mean there’s a trick to that blade.
One thing stood out as most suspicious.
Kamijou locked his eyes on Terra, who was checking the condition of his once-destroyed guillotine.
“Prioritize…,” Itsuwa suddenly said, having pulled in her spear and swapped positions with Kamijou, now covering him. Then she noticed the powder stuck to the spear’s tip. “…Flour?”
She thought for a moment, then her face lit up in surprise. “Wait, that weapon…It interacts with the body of Christ…?”
“Well, well. Even an Asian can tell?” said Terra, challenging the speechless Itsuwa. “During Mass, wine and bread are treated as the blood of Christ and the body of Christ. And for Mass itself, it’s modeled, of course, after one thing—the crucifixion of the Son of God.”
Itsuwa bit her lip. Kamijou didn’t understand, but Terra’s words seemed to pack a punch for people who knew magic.
“The Son of God was hung on the cross…but thinking rationally, it isn’t normal for a regular human to be able to kill him. It would probably be hard even for me. But sometimes, in the legends, the order of priority changes. Like how a normal human killed him, ignoring the natural order, so that he could shoulder mankind’s original sin.”
His guillotine made a coarse sound as it crumbled. His expression was getting more and more amused, despite Kamijou being on his guard.
“The secret that completes the Son of God’s legends…Changing the order of priority. That is the true form of my only spell, Light’s Execution. The optional transformation into a blade with flour as the medium is like a side effect. I wonder—do you understand now?”
In other words, this is what he meant: Terra had prioritized his body over the wires, so he hadn’t been wounded. He’d prioritized the blade made of flour over the outside wall, which gave it all that destructive potential. He’d prioritized the air over the spear, which stopped Itsuwa’s attack dead in its tracks.
“Strength and weakness mean nothing before me,” said Terra. “Because I can control their very order.”
This was the power of God’s Right Seat.
Vento of the Front had attacked Academy City’s functions wielding her divine judgment, used by gods. This time, it was the Son of God’s crucifixion.
Every sorcerer Kamijou had ever met used queer theories and rules that he didn’t know anything about, but he got the feeling the ones God’s Right Seat used were unique.
“But what shall happen now? I’ve revealed the secret, but now what? I’m sure you don’t think everything’s over now that the mystery is solved.”
Kamijou unconsciously tightened his right fist at Terra’s words.
He was right. Just because he knew how it worked didn’t mean he could find a way to beat it. That was why Terra had so calmly revealed his trick to them.
“Why don’t I give you some time?” said Terra mockingly. “For me, drawing this battle out isn’t terribly bad. I’ll give you ten seconds. Please come up with a plan in that time, whether it’s to defeat me or flee…if such a thing exists, of course,” he said, amused, or perhaps searching.
“Shit,” spat Kamijou despite himself. Was the gap between him and Terra of the Left that big?
As Kamijou clenched his teeth, Terra watched, as if to savor each of his reactions…
“Real nice of you. With ten seconds, I could think of three plans.”
…when suddenly, Kamijou heard a familiar man’s voice come from the side.
Before he could look over, a red bullet pierced through the air. It was a piece of origami, wrapped in an orange flame. The complex folds in the square paper shot toward Terra’s face with the strength to tear apart concrete.
All Terra did was move his eyes in that direction. “Prioritize—sorcery as low, human skin as high.”
It was a direct hit. But the moment the origami touched Terra’s skin, it radically changed
direction and crashed into the wall right next to Itsuwa. The response was like a bullet ricocheting off a metal wall.
Kamijou finally looked at the intruder.
Standing there was a boy wearing blue sunglasses.
As a side effect of forcing the sorcery, a bead of blood trickled from his lips.
“Tsuchimikado…?!”
The youth nodded slightly in response. His eyes were still on Terra.
“Really, now.” Terra chuckled, right hand holding the dangling guillotine. “I do hope that wasn’t your plan to overcome the situation.”
“Unfortunately, no.”
Tsuchimikado was smiling as well. Despite his attack ending in failure, only calm filled his expression.
“That was to back you into a corner.”
“…?”
“My next move will be checkmate. What I’m saying is that my deductions are being confirmed.”
As he spoke, he took something out—something not related to magic.
It was a shining black handgun.
The same one he’d used to shoot Monaka Oyafune in the stomach.
“You think a toy like that could beat me?”
Tsuchimikado didn’t answer. He squeezed the index finger on the trigger.
Standing in the road without any particular cover to hide behind, Terra slowly opened his mouth.
““Prioritize—bullet as low, human skin as high.””
Tsuchimikado’s voice overlapped Terra’s.
Bang-bang-bang!! A series of gunshots.
The lead bullets struck Terra’s face and heart but then bounced off.
The result was clear.
Despite that, the smile on Tsuchimikado’s lips didn’t disappear.
“Terra of the Left…”
Keeping the gun level with one hand, his other dove into his pocket.
He took out a black piece of origami.
“I told you it would be checkmate.”
“…”
Terra stayed quiet.
Then, slowly, he readied his guillotine again.
An odd silence overtook the streets, which should have been wrapped up in rioting.
It’s changing…, thought Kamijou.
For better or worse, the battle situation was about to change significantly.
A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 14 Page 12
