A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 14

by Kazuma Kamachi

  He almost found himself absorbed by their confrontation, but then Itsuwa, who had approached without him realizing, whispered into his ear:

  “(…Um, when Mr. Tsuchimikado moves, I’ll take advantage and run in.)”

  “Huh?”

  “(…I have a message from him. Defeating him isn’t important—stopping the document in the Papal Palace is.)”

  Itsuwa showed him a piece of origami in her hands.

  It must have had directions from Tsuchimikado on it. He didn’t know when he’d given it to her, but he’d probably flung it at her while talking to Terra.

  Tsuchimikado and Terra both inched forward, step by step.

  They were about to clash.

  Right as Kamijou thought that, there was a roaring noise loud enough to pierce his eardrums.

  …?!

  It wasn’t caused by sorcery.

  It was the sound of a bomb demolishing the streets of Avignon.

  Obviously, it wasn’t something Tsuchimikado or Terra had caused.

  A third party had interrupted.

  As proof, both of them swore and retreated a distance.

  As Kamijou looked on in surprise at the sudden event, the outside walls of the housing complexes towering over the roadside like cliffs began to crumble. A gray dust cloud whipped up and began to block their vision.

  On the other side of it, he saw the silhouettes of the things that caused the explosion.

  But they were very far from being human.

  “…What the hell? What’s going on here?”

  Where Kamijou looked, hidden beyond the curtain of gray, distorted human shapes crawled.

  9

  Academy City’s unofficial composite armored unit began the attack on the old city of Avignon from its edges.

  Their main armament was the HsPS-15, code-named “Large Weapon”—a powered exoskeleton suit built with the very best technology Academy City had to offer.

  Powered suits were Academy City’s new weapon. Covered in special armor resembling Western plate mail, they used electrical power to move their joints and granted dozens of times the strength of a regular human being.

  Different standards specified different sizes and combat capability, but each here was a hunk of metal with a total height of two and a half meters.

  These machines, specially camouflaged in blue and gray, each had robot-like armor with two arms, two legs, and even five fingers on each hand. But if one were to ask if these powered suits looked human, the answer would be no. Their headpieces were enormous, and when added to their large chest armor, it made it look like they were wearing oil-drum-shaped police robots on their heads. They had no neck; their headpieces rotated on a fixed axis atop the chest.

  Snap-snap-snap-snap!! The sound of hard objects being crushed.

  It was the noise from their legs trampling over rubble.

  They were destroying the wreckage of the stone and brick streets, which had lasted hundreds of years with incredible ease.

  The powered suits gripped special firearms, their barrels awkwardly thick, in their hands. They looked like large rifles—like tank cannons cut short—but strictly speaking, that was incorrect.

  They were anti-bulkhead revolver shotguns.

  The ammunition these firearms used was special. Dozens of bullets that would be loosely classified as anti-matériel were crammed into each shell; every single shot packed enough punch to blow through a tank. A few shots from short range could even wrench open the door to a nuclear shelter. Normally, the barrel wouldn’t be able to withstand the gunpowder’s explosiveness, but through fine adjustments to the type of powder and loading position, the gun delivered the most destructive potential for the least possible strain on the weapon.

  These armaments were developed for breaking down and devastating thick shelter entrances, which enemies often holed up behind. Now, dozens of powered suits had these guns trained on Avignon’s ramparts.

  “Commence invasion.”

  Two short words.

  As the voice spoke, flames erupted from their anti-bulkhead shotguns. Each time they pulled the slide, like a pump-action rifle the revolver’s cylinder rotated.

  The stone walls, which had restricted entrance for centuries, blew away like tissue paper in the wind.

  The powered suits stepped over the wreckage and began to enter the old city of Avignon.

  Their artificial limbs advanced more smoothly than real humans could have.

  In front of them were the young people who had been rampaging through the city. They showed no single emotion like fear or anger; instead, the abruptness of the situation tossed them into a mixed-up vortex of emotion that defied any such easy classification. Even their bones were rattling.

  Meanwhile, the powered suits’ response was incredibly simple.

  They aimed their thick shotgun muzzles, which had blown apart the ramparts in one shot, straight at the humans.

  A curt voice spoke to his allies over the radio.

  “Enemy faction spotted.”

  10

  Upon seeing the swarm of powered suits ignoring the tightly interlocking roads of Avignon and breaking down whatever walls they wanted to walk where they pleased, Kamijou was stunned. The walls of the cliff-like buildings towering over them broke down, and on the other side of the wreckage was them.

  Such things weren’t supposed to exist in the normal world.

  Academy City was likely the only facility that could develop powered suits of a practical level.

  In their hands, they held anti-bulkhead revolver shotguns.

  As they blew through one obstacle to their advance after another, tearing through buildings and cars, they also began mercilessly pointing their muzzles at the recklessly counterattacking rioters.

  Flame burst from a gun barrel that was easily thick enough to fit one’s fist into.

  With echoing crashes and bangs, it mowed down swaths of people effortlessly.

  But those probably weren’t real bullets. Kamijou didn’t know how they operated, but the anti-bulkhead shotguns were probably made to use different bullets for different purposes. Maybe the gun distinguished how to handle them on the inside of the revolver’s cylinder, based on whether it was an even shot or an odd shot, rotating two shots at a time. If that was the system, then switching modes between even and odd would sort of make sense.

  They were firing blanks.

  However, the shock waves, which used a ton of explosives to fire, was all it took to drive the oxygen from the people’s lungs and send their bodies careening to the ground. Once they silenced the first wave of hot-blooded rioters, the ones standing back as the second and third waves went white-faced and began running every which way.

  The powered suits didn’t overlook them.

  After passing by a civilian who was cowering in the street and trembling, they fired blanks without mercy at anyone who showed even the slightest sign of resistance. The sound of shells kept on clapping. Then when the force had neutralized the immediate rioters, they affixed their shotguns to their metal backpacks, leaving the machines to automatically reload them.

  …What’s going on? Kamijou could do nothing but stare at the absurd situation. Didn’t Tsuchimikado say Academy City wasn’t going to do anything? And even if they decided to, why the hell are they going about it so senselessly?!

  Monaka Oyafune had talked about Academy City’s higher-ups purposely not making a move, thus trying to make the current chaos worse.

  Did this mean the time was ripe?

  Were they trying to end it all with a flip of the switch since the damage from the chaos had exceeded what was deemed allowable?

  Kamijou clenched his teeth.

  Academy City’s higher-ups.

  The General Board.

  And the true top of the science side who led them.

  “I see. It’s come to that, has it?” said Terra, sounding amused.

  With those few words, he retook control of the air colored by shock around th
em.

  Even Tsuchimikado, leveling his smoking gun muzzle, was emitting a piercing enmity.

  “As the ones using the document in the Papal Palace are, indeed, normal casters, this looks to be something of a predicament,” said Terra. “I had wanted to collect more combat data for my priority spell, Light’s Execution. Ah, well.”

  Without sparing a glance for any of them, Terra rolled into a housing complex whose outer wall was blown open by a powered suit and left.

  “Wait!!” shouted Tsuchimikado, but a split second later, he jumped to the side.

  Before Kamijou realized why, a huge blast exploded from inside the complex—possibly coming from a powered suit.

  With the thundering boom!! Kamijou’s tiny body was swept off his feet and thrown backward. The gaping hole Terra had gone through was instantly covered in flames.

  “Ow…?!”

  “Are…are you all right?!” cried Itsuwa, hurrying to take his hand.

  As she helped him up, Tsuchimikado shouted, “Kammy, can you move? We’re going for the Papal Palace, too!!”

  “Those powered suits have got to be from Academy City!! I thought they weren’t supposed to move!! They’re just making things worse. Shouldn’t we be stopping them?!” Kamijou shouted.

  “Following Terra comes first!! And they’re after the document, too. We might be able to calm the chaos by destroying that Soul Arm!!”

  “Damn it,” he spat bitterly. “That better be what they’re really after—calming the chaos.”

  The document riots and the powered suits—which were the people of Avignon really more afraid of?

  “Let’s go, Kammy. God’s Right Seat has made light of us in the past. But now that things are like this, they’ll try to escape with seriousness. Now’s our only chance to destroy the document!!”

  “Shit,” he cursed reflexively.

  Several powered suits clambered out of the flaming hole in the wall Terra had escaped through and were now out onto the narrow road.

  They aimed straight for them, even though they were Academy City citizens, too.

  It didn’t seem like they’d bother to ask who they were with. They’d set every single person in Avignon as an attack target.

  “…Kammy, let’s split into two. Itsuwa, right? You take Kammy and head for the Papal Palace.”

  “Tsuchimikado?” Kamijou asked, confused.

  “It looks like Avignon has two problems now. I thought we could leave the powered suits to their own devices, but that’s not looking hopeful. Kammy, follow Terra and do something about the document. I’ll stop these party-crashing Academy City idiots.”

  “But you—” can’t do that, he tried to say, before Tsuchimikado interrupted.

  “They’re not completely hostile. We’ll fight for now, but I’ll basically be looking for a chance to talk to them. I think I’m a little more cut out for a gamble like that than you, Kammy.”

  “…Damn it.”

  “Kammy, go!!”

  “Damn it!!” shouted Kamijou, running with Itsuwa down the slender street. From behind, they heard the noises of the powered suits moving and—Tsuchimikado must have done something—a series of what sounded like ice shattering. Kamijou clenched his teeth. He knew using sorcery just once would leave Tsuchimikado bloody, but there was nothing he could say to him.

  They ran down the narrow path and advanced through the old city of Avignon.

  He smelled gunpowder and smoke.

  Saw frantic people escaping and powered suits chasing them with surgical precision.

  What the hell is going on?!!

  This wasn’t even comparable to the demonstrations and riots. The sight of this overwhelming violence called “military action” made Kamijou feel like he was about to burst a blood vessel.

  Itsuwa, who had already been investigating Avignon, remembered where their goal, the Papal Palace, was. As she ran ahead to guide him, he looked up and saw its outline ahead.

  INTERLUDE THREE

  Stiyl Magnus had briefly left the Tower of London.

  The city was seeing fairly sunny skies today, but tourists were sparse. Unlike other nations, England hadn’t experienced any large-scale rioting, but that didn’t keep an air of tension from spreading through the streets.

  “God’s Right Seat, eh…?” Stiyl said to himself, a freshly lit cigarette in his mouth.

  According to Lidvia Lorenzetti, it only had four official members, but each possessed the attribute of one of the four archangels.

  “What do you think of their story?” said Agnes Sanctis in a bored tone, having left the building with him. “I wonder how much of it’s true. At least, I know I’ve never heard anything about such matters when I was with the Church. They could be feeding us lies to throw us off their scent.”

  “I can’t deny that, but anything said in those interrogation rooms is magically recorded. The things you wrote on that parchment, if we analyze it, we’ll be able to tell the truth from the lies.

  “Can’t say it’ll be perfect, of course,” added Stiyl, thinking to himself. If Lidvia was telling the truth, God’s Right Seat referred to both an organization in the dark side of the Church and to their ultimate goal.

  …The seat on the right. Sounds like a hint, but it might not be. It isn’t enough to narrow things down. For now, I suppose I’ll see what else they have to say.

  Stiyl glanced over at Agnes. “Should we take a break for a little longer?”

  “No, let’s get this finished up already.”

  “All right.”

  They returned to the dark Tower of Execution.

  CHAPTER 4

  Steel Swarm Covering the Sky

  Cruel_Troopers.

  1

  Kamijou ran through the streets of Avignon.

  Despite all their earlier terror, the rioters were no more. Most of them had been exterminated.

  With overturned chunks of pavement and broken buildings’ stones all over, the roads were in no condition for them to advance normally.

  A slew of cars were sitting around, too. Kamijou burst through the smoke and gunpowder-corrupted air, running through holes in walls and scaling the occasional piece of rubble on his way to the Papal Palace.

  Powered suits were swarming the streets. Some on the road, others on the tops of buildings. If a quick glance showed this many of them, there must have been hundreds, even thousands of them in all of Avignon.

  Damn it. What’s going on here…? he wondered, running through roads that had been flooded from burst water pipes while being careful to avoid fallen streetlights. The Church set up this war, right? Academy City should be trying to stop that. How the hell did it turn out like this?!

  Something important was missing in this battlefield.

  The smell of blood.

  The powered suits’ anti-bulkhead revolver shotguns seemed capable of using different bullets for different purposes; blanks were the only things hitting live people. The colossal amount of explosives they used, though, made those shots into shock waves, and their sonic shells were mercilessly mowing down Avignon residents.

  Here and there were hills made of unconscious demonstrators. Just nearby were exoskeletons, inflating giant balloons with bulletproof fibers woven into them.

  For reconnaissance…? He’d seen something like this in an Academy City–made drama.

  They were loaded with small cameras and moved through the sky by warming the air—like hot-air balloons. Their shortcoming was their extreme battery consumption due to the electronic reactors they used to heat the air. Still, they were quieter than propellers. Above all, each unit was cheap and well suited to carrying around.

  The balloons that the powered suits were inflating now were many times larger than the ones in dramas. These even had gondolas on them, with the same bulletproof fibers as the balloons’ bottoms.

  They were probably used in a similar way as regular hot-air balloons. Essentially, they were to toss unconscious people in while leaving it to the floating
machines to eject them from the battlefield.

  He glanced around again, finding the black balloons floating all over the sky like dandelion fluff adrift in the wind.

  That view was, ultimately, how many people the powered suits had mowed down.

  “…”

  Perhaps they were thinking the same as Tsuchimikado.

  The rioters strutting through the confined Avignon were making the mission difficult. The enemy with the document could have also been blending into those riots to flee. Therefore, they would first quell the riots, then get to work on their main objective.

  However…

  “Tsuchimikado wouldn’t have done it this way…”

  “Huh?” Itsuwa turned her head toward him, but Kamijou didn’t answer.

  As he ran, he balled his hands into tight fists, looking at the exploded cars. Putting their own actions above everyone else, using violence to force the people in the streets to submit…He’d never accept this kind of method!!

  Finally, Kamijou realized what one of the General Board, Monaka Oyafune, had wanted to stop. She didn’t simply hate the Roman Orthodox Church. She didn’t want him to defeat Academy City’s enemies, either. Everything had been about wanting to prevent this situation—this all-destroying “conflict.”

  I’ll stop it. Kamijou clenched his teeth and ran through the town-turned-battlefield. There’s no way we can leave this destructive vortex alone. If someone shows up and tries to justify this situation even a little, I’ll smash their illusion to smithereens!!

  “W-we’re here. It’s right over there…!!”

  In the meantime, Kamijou and Itsuwa arrived at the Papal Palace.

  From the name, he’d imagined a magnificent church or a glittering palace, but what actually stood before them was a stronghold from the Middle Ages—more a fortress than a castle. The giant building, constructed with multitudes of quarried rocks and boulders, even seemed to make those who witnessed it feel rejected.

  The moment he saw the Papal Palace standing proudly and looking down at him with an outer wall over ten meters tall, Kamijou scowled.