บท 7: Chapter 1: The Magician Lands on the Tower. Part 6
Those days, one could not buy even a large gyuudon with only 320 yen.
"… … …Regular, hm?"
The girls who happily ate a bento the size of a light novel would likely not understand, but a sweating, growing boy saw the regular size as nothing more than a snack.
After driving off the Biri Biri girl, Kamijou went to a gyuudon restaurant to eat his "snack". With only 30 yen remaining (tax included), he approached his dorm building with the sun having already set.
The place seemed deserted.
It was the first day of summer break and so most people were presumably out enjoying themselves.
The building looked like that of stereotypical one-room apartment housing. Pathways along one wall of the rectangular building had doors lined up. It being a male dorm, the metal railing lacked plastic sheets to prevent peering up at girls' skirts.
The front doors, and the balconies on the opposite sides of them, were built on the sides of the building going inwards as seen from the road. In other words, they were in the gaps between buildings.
The entrance to the building was auto-locking, but the distance between buildings was only two meters. One could easily sneak in by jumping from roof to roof as Index had that morning.
Kamijou went through the auto-locking entrance, passed by the storage room known as the dorm manager's room and got on the elevator. It was out of enjoyable spite that the elevator was dirtier and more cramped than the a factory elevator for bringing goods in, but the "R" button, indicating the roof, was sealed via a small metal plate in order to prevent Romeos and Juliets from heading up to the rooftop night after night.
With a microwave oven-like ding, the elevator stopped at the seventh floor.
Kamijou pushed aside the door that clanked as it opened and exited into the passageway. He was on the seventh floor, but there was no wind and seemed even hotter and stuffier than before because of the neighboring building being so close.
"Hm?"
Kamijou finally realized something. Down the straight passageway and right in front of his door, three cleaning robots were gathered. Seeing three of them was rare. For one thing, he was nearly sure only five were ever deployed for that dorm.
From the way they were trembling and moving back and forth, they seemed to be cleaning up quite the horrible mess. For an unknown reason, Kamijou felt an intense feeling of impending misfortune.
Drum robots had enough power to cleanly rip up gum stuck to the floor. So, what was giving three of them such trouble?
Kamijou shuddered at the thought that his neighbor Tsuchimikado Motoharu might have gotten drunk while acting like a delinquent in order to lose his virginity and had ended up vomiting in tremendous quantity, all the while using Kamijou's door instead of a telephone pole.
"What happened…?"
People had an unfortunate tendency to want to see horrible things.
After taking a few more subconscious steps forward, he finally saw it.
The mysterious girl named Index had collapsed from hunger.
"… … …Ahh."
She was not entirely visible because of the robots, but someone wearing a white nun's habit covered in glittering safety pins was clearly collapsed face down.
Though the three drums were continuously ramming into her, Index was not moving. It made her seem all the more pitiful, like if she were being pecked at by city crows. For one, the cleaning robots were made to avoid people and other obstacles. Why did the machines fail to register her as human?
"…I guess this is misfortune, too."
Had Kamijou Touma seen his face in a mirror at the time, he would have been surprised to see a smile on his face. Deep down he was worried. Perhaps he did not believe her about the magicians, but it was possible some cult was chasing the girl.
He was glad to see her in her usual, starved state.
And even ignoring those worries, he was simply glad to see her again.
Kamijou then remembered the one thing she had forgotten: the pure white hood he had not given back to her. He found it strange that he saw that hood like some kind of charm.
"Hey! What are you doing here?"
He called out to her and ran over.
Why does just going over there make me feel like an elementary school kid who can't sleep the night before a trip? Why does each step I take forward make me feel like I'm headed to the store on the release date of a major RPG? Such were his racing thoughts.
Index had yet to notice him.
Kamijou Touma forced down a smile at how "Index-like" that was.
And then, he finally noticed that Index was lying in a pool of blood.
"…Ah…?"
The first thing he felt was confusion, not shock.
He was unable to see it previously because of the group of cleaning robots in the way. As she lay face down, he could see a single horizontal line near the bottom of her back. The wound was from a blade, but was so straight it looked like someone had used a ruler and a box cutter. The end of her waist-length silver hair had been cleanly cut off and that silver hair was dyed red by the liquid flowing from the wound.
For an instant, Kamijou failed to comprehend that it was human blood.
The difference in reality between the instant before and the instant after sent his thoughts into chaos. Red… red… ketchup? Did Index use her last strength to suck up ketchup just before she collapsed from hunger? With that pleasant image in his mind, Kamijou almost smiled.
He almost smiled, but he did not.
There was no way he could.
The three cleaning robots continued to move back and forth while making a clanking noise. They were cleaning the stain on the floor. They were cleaning the red substance spreading across the floor. They were cleaning the red substance flowing from Index's body, like digging at a wound with a dirty rag: they were sucking out the blood inside Index's body.
"St…op. Stop! Shit!!"
Kamijou's eyes finally focused into reality. He frantically grabbed at the cleaning robots gathered around the seriously injured Index. He failed to do so because the robots were made necessarily heavy to prevent theft on top of relatively high horsepower.
In reality, the cleaning robots were only cleaning the continuously spreading stain on the floor and never actually touched Index's wound. Even so, Kamijou saw them as bugs swarming a festering wound.
He was having difficulty moving aside even one of those heavy and powerful robots, much less three. While his focus was on one of them, the other two would head for the stain.
He was supposed to have the power to kill even God.
But, he was unable to move those toys out of the way.
Index said nothing.
Her pale purple lips were so still he was unsure whether she was breathing.
"Shit, shit!!" Kamijou shouted out in confusion. "What happened? What the hell happened!? God damn it! Who the hell did this to you!?"
"Hm? That would be us magicians."
A voice sounded from behind him, one that did not belong to Index.
Kamijou spun his entire body around as if meaning to rush in and punch the person. A man was standing there who had come from the… no, not from the elevator. It seemed he arrived from the emergency staircase next to the elevator.
The white man was over two meters tall, but his face seemed younger than Kamijou's.
His age was… likely 14 or 15, similar to Index's age. His great height was characteristic of foreigners while his clothes were… a pure black version of the habits worn by church priests. However, it was unlikely you would find anyone who would call that man a priest even if you searched all over the world.
It may have been because he was standing upwind, but Kamijou could smell the horribly sweet perfume on him even though he was over 15 meters away. His shoulder-length blond hair had been dyed red like the sunset, silver rings glittered on all ten of his fingers like brass knuckle, poisonous earrings hung on his ears, a cell phone strap could be seen sticking out of his pocket, a lit cigarette moved at the edge of his mouth, and, as if for complete, he had a barcode-like tattoo underneath his right eye.
One could not call him a priest and yet, neither a delinquent.
In the passageway, the air around the man was clearly strange.
It was as if the area were being ruled by completely different rules than the ones that Kamijou had been accustomed to at that point. That strange feeling spread throughout the area like icy tentacles.
What Kamijou felt first was neither fear nor anger…
…But confusion and unease. It was a desperate loneliness akin to have a wallet stolen in a foreign country with an unfamiliar language. The icy, tentacle-like feeling crept into his body and froze his heart. It was then that Kamijou realized something:
This is a magician.
This has become a different world where strange things like magicians exist.
He could tell at first glance.
He still did not believe in magicians…
But, he could tell that this was definitely a resident of a place that existed beyond the world he lived.
"Hm? Hm… hm… hm. She got her pretty good." The magician looked around and the cigarette in the corner of his mouth waggled as he spoke. "I heard Kanzaki sliced her, but this is… I thought there wasn't anything to worry about because there was no blood trail…"
The magician looked at the cleaning robots gathered behind Kamijou Touma.
Most likely, Index had been "sliced" elsewhere and had barely escaped there with her life before collapsing. She surely had left fresh blood as she went, but the cleaning robots had cleaned it all away.
"But… why?"
"Hm? You mean why she came back here? Who knows? Maybe she forgot something. Come to think of it, she had her hood when I shot her yesterday. Did she lose it somewhere?"
The magician standing in front of Kamijou had used the phrase "came back".
In other words, he had been following Index's actions all day. And he knew that she had lost the hood to her Walking Church nun's habits.
Index had said something about the magicians searching for the magic power of her Walking Church.
That meant the magicians had been following Index by detecting the supernatural power in her Walking Church. They would have known the Walking Church was destroyed when the "signal" cut out… Index had mentioned that too.
But then, Index had to have known.
She had known, but she still seemed to have relied on the defensive powers of the Walking Church.
But why did she return? Why did she need to recover a portion of the destroyed and therefore useless Walking Church? Kamijou's right hand had rendered the entire Walking Church useless so there was little point in recovering the hood.
"…Then will you follow me to the depths of hell?"
Suddenly, it all clicked.
Kamijou remembered; he had never touched the hood of the Walking Church that was left in his room. In other words, the hood still had magic power. She must have thought the magicians might detect it and headed there to retrieve it.
And so, Index had braved the danger and "came back".
"…You idiot."
There had been no need to do that. It was Kamijou's clumsiness that had destroyed her Walking Church, and he had realized she had left her hood in his room yet left it there. And more importantly, Index lacked any obligation, duty, or right to protect Kamijou.
Even so, she could not help heading back.
Kamijou Touma was a complete stranger that she had met less than half an hour before.
She could not help but risk her life and return to prevent him from getting involved in a magician's fight.
"You idiot!!"
Index's unmoving back irritated him for some odd reason.
Before, Index had told Kamijou that his misfortune was due to his right hand.
Apparently, his right hand was subconsciously negating even the faint supernatural powers that were things like the divine protection of God and the red string of fate.
Also, had Kamijou not carelessly touched her and destroyed her Walking Church nun's habit, there was have been no need to return.
No. Those kinds of excuses don't matter, he considered
His right hand and the destruction of her Walking Church were not the reason she had felt the need to return.
Had Kamijou not wished for that one connection… Had he only returned her fallen hood that instant…
"Hm? Hm… hm… hm? C'mon, I can't have you looking at me like that." The cigarette in the corner of the magician's mouth moved as he spoke. "It wasn't me that sliced her and I doubt Kanzaki meant to turn this into something bloody. The Walking Church is supposed to be an absolute defense, after all. Really, she shouldn't have been injured at all by that. …Honestly, what twist of fate led that to be destroyed? Unless St. George's Dragon has come again, I don't see how a Pope-class barrier could be broken."
That last bit was spoken to his self and his smile disappeared as he said it.
However, this lasted only an instant. The cigarette in the corner of his mouth twitched back up as if he had suddenly remembered to smile.
"Why?" Kamijou asked despite not expecting an answer. "Why? I don't believe in the magic from fairy tales and I don't really understand magicians or whatever you are. But aren't there good and evil types of you? Aren't there magicians that protect things and people?"
He knew very well that he had no right to be moralistic.
When Index had left, Kamijou Touma had let her go and returned to his normal life.
Yet he could not resist saying the words.
"You ganged up on this little girl, chased her all over the place, and then injured her this badly. Can you really say that you're justice with this reality staring you in the face!?"
"Like I said, Kanzaki did this, not me." The magician paused for a second. Kamijou's words had not hit home with him in the slightest. "And whether she's injured or not, we have to retrieve her."
"Retrieve her?"
Kamijou did not understand what the magician meant.
"Hm? Oh, I see. You knew the word magician, so I assumed you were completely filled-in. I guess she was afraid of getting you involved." The magician exhaled cigarette smoke. "Yeah, we need to retrieve her. Technically, it isn't her we need to retrieve though; it's the 103,000 grimoires she has."
…There were those 103,000 grimoires again.
"I see, I see. This country isn't very religious, so I guess you don't understand," said the magician in a bored sounding voice despite the fact that he was smiling. "The Index Librorum Prohibitorum is a list created by the church of all the evil books that will sully your soul just by reading them. Even if you were to announce that these dangerous books existed, people could still unknowingly acquire one, despite the fact that they don't know its title. Thus, she has become something of a crucible of poisonous books with 103,000 such books. Oh, but be careful. Reading just one of the books she has would make a vegetable out of someone from an irreligious nation like this."
Disregarding his words, Index owned not a single book. The lines of her body were clearly visible in that habit and would be obvious if she were to hide any books under her clothes. No need to even mention that not a single person could walk around carrying 100,000 texts, an entire library's worth of books.
"D-Don't be ridiculous! Just where exactly are these books!?"
"Oh, they're there, in her memory," the magician said as if it were obvious fact. "Do you know what perfect memory is? It seems to be the ability to memorize anything you see in an instant and never forget even a single sentence or letter. Simply put, it makes you a human scanner." The magician smiled disinterestedly. "It has nothing to do with our occult or your science fiction. It's a natural condition. She has been to the British Museum, the Louvre, the Vatican Library, the Pataliputra ruins, Chateau de Compiègne, Mont Saint-Michel Monastery, and everywhere else that has grimoires that cannot be taken from where they are sealed. She stole them with her eyes and stores them as a grimoire library."
He simply could not it.
He could not believe that these grimoires existed or that she had a perfect memory.
However, what mattered were not its truths but the fact that someone believed it was true and resulted in the slicing of a girl's back.
"Well, she has no ability to refine magic power herself, so she's harmless." The cigarette in the corner of the magician's mouth moved up happily. "But since that stopper was prepared, the church must have some concerns. Well, that has nothing to do with a magician like me. At any rate, those 103,000 grimoires are quite dangerous, so I came to shelter her before anyone who would use them comes to take her away."
"To… shelter her?"
Kamijou Touma was utterly astonished. What had that man just said in the face of such a blood-red scene?
"Yeah, that's right. Shelter her. No matter how sensible and good hearted she may be, she cannot stand up to torture and drugs. The mere thought of handing a girl over to the likes of them hurts my heart, y'know?"
"…"
Kamijou's body trembled.
Not pure anger, Goosebumps covered his arm. The man before him only viewed himself as true; he lived ignoring his own mistakes. The put together sent a chill across Kamijou's entire body like that of plunging into a bathtub filled to the brim with tens of thousands of slugs.
The term "mad cult" oozed into his brain.
The thought of magicians that hunted people based on groundless beliefs made him feel like the nerves of his brain were going to burst.
"Who the hell, do you think you are!?"
His right hand felt engulfed in heat as if responding to his anger.
His two feet that had been planted to the ground shifted before he even thought about moving. His thick body, of flesh and blood, charged toward the magician like a bullet. He clenched his right fist so hard that he felt like he was smashing his fingers to pieces.
His right hand was of no use. It would not help him defeat even a single delinquent, would not raise his scores on tests, and would not make him popular with girls.
But his right hand could also be quite useful. After all, he could still use it to punch out the bastard standing before him.
"I would prefer to call myself as Stiyl Magnus, but I guess I'll have to go with Fortis931."
The magician was completely motionless expect for the wagging of the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.
After muttering something under his breath, he spoke to Kamijou as if introducing the pet black cat he was proud of.
"That's my magic name. Not familiar with those? It seems we magicians cannot give our true name when we use magic.
It's an old tradition, so I don't really understand why myself."
They were 15 meters apart.
Kamijou Touma filled half of that gap in just three steps.
"Fortis… I guess in Japanese it would mean 'the strong'. Well, the etymology doesn't really matter. What's important is that I have given that name. For us magicians, it is less a magical name when spell casting and more like…"
Even as Kamijou Touma took two more steps down the passageway, the magician's smile did not crumble. He seemed to be claiming that Kamijou was not an opponent even worth ridding his smile over.
"…a name of bloodshed, I guess."
The magician named Stiyl Magnus grabbed the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it away to the side.
The lit cigarette flew horizontally, over the metal railing, and hit the wall of the neighboring building.
An orange line traced the cigarette's path as an afterimage and sparks flew when it hit the wall.
"Kenaz (Flames)."
The instant that Stiyl muttered, the orange line exploded.
A sword of flames appeared in a straight line as if someone had turned on a fire hose loaded with gasoline. The paint gradually changed color like a picture being scorched by a lighter.
He was not in contact with the fire but it still felt like his eyes were being burned just by watching it. Kamijou instinctually stopped running and brought his hands up to cover his face.
Kamijou stopped so suddenly that it looked like his feet had been staked to the ground. A sudden question entered his mind.
Imagine Breaker could negate any kind of supernatural power in one blow. Not even the Level 5 Biri Biri girl's Railgun, which could destroy a nuclear shelter in one strike, was an exception to that.
But the truth was…
Kamijou had yet to see any supernatural power whose nature was non-psychic.
In other words, he had never tested it.
He had never tested it on magic.
Would his right hand really work on the strange power known as magic?
"Purisaz Naupiz Gebo (A gift of pain for the giant.)"
Past the hands covering his face, Kamijou could see the magician smiling.
While smiling, Stiyl Magnus swung the blazing flame sword horizontally at Kamijou Touma.
The instant it touched him, it lost shape and exploded in all directions like an erupting volcano.
Heat waves, flashes of light, explosive noise, and black smoke burst in every direction.
"Maybe I overdid it."
Stiyl scratched at his head in front of what looked like the aftermath of a bombing. Just to be sure, he looked around to see if anyone was coming out to see what was going on. It was the first day of summer break, so most of the residents of that boy's dorm would be out. However, it would be bad if some friendless shut-in was in one of the rooms.
He could not see ahead directly because a screen of flames and smoke.
However, he did not need to check. That strike had created hellish flames of 3000 degrees Celsius. At temperatures above 2000 Celsius, the human body would melt before it burned which meant the boy likely looked similar to the metal railing that had melted like a sugar sculpture. It was probable that he was splattered across the dorm wall like a used piece of gum.
Stiyl heaved a sigh as he reflected on how right he had been to get the boy away from Index. Things would have been a bit more difficult if the boy had used Index's injured form as a shield.
But he could not retrieve Index as things were.
Stiyl sighed again. The wall of flames blocked him from heading to the other end of the passageway where Index was. If there was another emergency staircase on the other side of the passageway, he could manage. But, it would hardly be funny had Index been caught in the inferno while he took such a detour.
Stiyl shook his head in annoyance and spoke as he peered into the smoke one last time as if he could see through it.
"Thank you. Excellent work but too bad. Well, at that level, you couldn't win even if you had a thousand tries."
"Are you so sure I can't win no matter how many times I try?"
For an instant, the magician froze in place at the voice coming from those hellish flames.
With a roar, the wall of flames and smoke swirled and was blown away.
It was as if a tornado3 had appeared in the center of the flames and smoke and blew them all away.
Kamijou Touma stood there.
The metal railing had been melted like a sugar sculpture, the paint on the floor and walls had peeled, the fluorescent lights had melted and dripped down in the intense heat, but the boy had remained unharmed in the middle of those unworldly flames and scorching heats.
"Honestly, what was I so afraid of?" asked Kamijou rhetorically with the sides of his mouth twisted in disinterest. "This is the same right hand that destroyed Index's Walking Church."
In reality, Kamijou knew nothing about what was called magic.
He did not know how it worked or what went on where his eyes could not reach. Most likely, he would only understand half of it if it were explained to him from start to finish.
Regardless, there was one thing even an idiot like him understood. In the end, it was just a supernatural power.
The crimson flames he had blown away had not been completely extinguished.
In a perfect circle around Kamijou, the scorching flames continued to burn. But…
"Out of the way."
With that one statement, Kamijou touched the 3000 degree magical flames with his right hand and the rest of the fire vanished.
It was like the candles in a birthday cake had all been blown out at once.
Kamijou Touma looked at the magician standing before him.
The magician was as flustered as any normal human being facing an unexpected turn of events.
In fact, he was a normal human being.
If you punched him, he would feel pain, and if you cut him with a cheap knife, he would bleed red.
He was a mere human being.
Kamijou's legs were no longer cramped with fear and his body was no longer frozen with nerves.
His arms and legs moved like normal.
He moved!
"…Wha-?"
Meanwhile, Stiyl very nearly took a step backwards in shock of the incomprehensible phenomenon before him.
From what had become of the surroundings, that attack could not have been a dud. But did that mean that boy was powerful enough to withstand 3000 degrees? No, if so, he would not have been be human.
Kamijou Touma paid no heed to Stiyl's confusion.
He clenched his heated right fist as hard as a rock and took a step toward Stiyl who was swaying on his feet.
"Tch!!"
Stiyl swung his right hand horizontally. The flame sword that appeared followed suit and flew forcefully toward Kamijou.
It exploded. Flames and smoke flew about.
But after the flames and smoke were blown away, Kamijou Touma stood there just as before.
"…Could he be using magic?" Stiyl muttered under his breath, but he immediately rejected the idea.
There could not be any magicians in that country that knew more about Christmas than magic and only knew Christmas as a day of dating and sex.
Also, if Index, despite lacking magic power, were to join forces with a magician, she would have had no reason to run. That… was how dangerous Index's memories were.
The 103,000 grimoires were on a completely different scope even in comparison to the possessing of a nuclear weapon.
All living creatures eventually die, an apple dropped from above would fall down, and 1+1=2. You would be able to take those kinds of natural and unchangeable rules of the world, destroy them, rewrite them, and create new ones. You could make 1+1=3, make an apple dropped from below fall up, and make all dead creatures eventually be revived. Magicians called such being Magic Gods.
Not the god of the demon plane4,but a magician who had thoroughly mastered magic to the point of entering the domain of God.
Magic God.
But, Stiyl could not feel any magic power in the boy in front of him.
He would be able to tell at a glance if he was a magician. The boy did not have the "scent" of someone from the same world as him.
Then, why?
"!!"
To hide the shuddering spreading through his body, Stiyl created another flame sword and attacked Kamijou. This time, it failed to even explode.
Kamijou swatted at the flame sword with his right hand like flyswatter and the flame sword shattered like glass and disappeared into thin air.
He shattered that 3000 degree flame sword with a right hand that had no magical reinforcements of any kind.
"…Ah."
Abruptly, truly abruptly, something floated up in the back of Stiyl Magnus's mind.
Index's Walking Church nun's habit was Pope-class and its barrier rivaled a London cathedral in its power. It was absolutely impossible to destroy it unless the legendary dragon of St. George appeared.
But Index's Walking Church had clearly been utterly destroyed since Kanzaki had sliced her.
Who had done it? And how?
"… … …"
By that point, Kamijou Touma had walked right up to Stiyl.
With one more step, he would be close enough to punch the magician.
"M T W O T F F T O. (One of the five great elements from which the world is constructed.) I I G O I I O F. (The great flame of the beginning.)"
An unpleasant sweat began to drip from Stiyl's entire body. This was because the creature before him in a summer uniform had taken the form of a human's. Stiyl's spine trembled as he got the feeling that inside that boy's skin was not flesh and blood but some strange oozing something.
"I I B O L A I I A O E. (It is a light of blessing that raises life and a light of judgment that punishes evil.) I I M H A I I B O D. (It is overflowing with calm blessings and with freezing misfortune that destroys cold darkness.) I I N F I I M S. (Its name is fire and its role is the sword.) I C R M M B G P! (Be manifested and become the power that eats into my body!)"
The torso of Stiyl's priest's habit swelled out and forces from within popped off the buttons.
With the roar of flames sucking in oxygen, a giant mass of fire shot out from within his clothes.
It was not merely a mass of flames.
The crimson burning flames had something black and dripping like fuel oil at its core. It was in the form of a human. The thing was reminiscent of the seabirds dripping with black fuel oil after a tanker accident and it was eternally burning.
Its name was Innocentius whose meaning meant "I will surely kill you."
The giant flame god who bore the meaning of certain death spread its arms and charged toward Kamijou Touma like a bullet.
"Out of the way."
Kamijou used a backhanded blow with the annoyed attitude of someone brushing aside a spider web.
Kamijou Touma blew away Stiyl Magnus's final trump card. As if he had stabbed a water balloon with a pin, the human-shaped fuel oil symbolizing the giant flame god burst into spray and scattered about the area.
"…?"
Kamijou Touma had no real reason for not taking his last step at that moment.
It was simply that Stiyl was still smiling despite having his final trump card destroyed. That expression was enough to make him hesitate before carelessly taking that last step.
The sound of a viscous liquid moving could be heard from all around.
"Wha-!?"
As Kamijou took a step back in surprise, the black spray returned from all directions, gathered in midair, and reformed into a human shape.
If Kamijou had taken that last step, he would certainly have been enveloped by flames from all directions.
Kamijou's mind was thrown into disarray at the scene before his eyes. If his right hand could do what he was always saying it could, it could negate even the systems of god seen in myths in a single strike. If that had been the supernatural power known as magic, he should have been able to negate it with that one touch. And yet…
The oily fuel within the flames writhed, changed form, and now seemed to be holding a sword in both hands.
No, it was not a sword but a giant cross, over two meters long, of the crucifying type.
It lifted the cross up with both hands and aimed a downwards swing at Kamijou's head like a pickaxe.
"…!!"
Kamijou immediately held up his right hand to receive the blow. Disregarding his right hand, Kamijou was a simple high school student. He lacked the battle skills needed to see through the attack and evade.
The cross and his right hand clashed.
This time, it failed to even disappear. As if he were grasping a mass of rubber, Kamijou felt that he was going to be the one to lose that struggle. His opponent used both hands while he could only use his right hand. The flaming cross neared Kamijou's face millimeter by millimeter.
Despite his confusion, Kamijou just narrowly managed to realize one fact: that mass of flames known as Innocentius was definitely reacting to his Imagine Breaker. However, it was being revived soon after annihilation. Most likely, the lag between annihilation and revival was less than a tenth of a second.
His right hand had been sealed.
If he let go for even an instant, he would likely be turned to ash by Innocentius in that instant.
"Runes."
Kamijou Touma heard something.
Due to the danger in front of him, he could not turn around, but he certainly heard someone's voice.
"Those twenty four characters used to indicate mysteries and secrets have been used as a magic language by Germanic tribes since the 2nd century and are found in the roots of Old English."
However, Kamijou could not believe it was Index's voice despite knowing it was.
"Wha-…?"
Despite how beat up and bloody she was, how could she be speaking so calmly? He shakily thought.
"Attacking Innocentius will have no effect. Unless the rune engravings carved into the walls, floor, and ceiling are eliminated, it will revive as many times as necessary."
Kamijou Touma supported his right wrist with his left hand and just barely managed to keep the cross from advancing any further.
Kamijou timidly turned around.
The girl was indeed collapsed there but Kamijou was unable to give "that" the name "Index". Like a machine, her eyes were utterly lacking in emotion.
With each word she spoke, more blood flowed from the wound on her back.
She paid no heed and seemed to truly be nothing more than a system meant to explain magic.
"You're… Index, right?"
"Yes. I am the grimoire library belonging to Necessarius, the 0th Parish of the Anglican Church. My proper name is Index Librorum Prohibitorum, but that can be abbreviated to Index."
The way that grimoire library named Index was acting, Kamijou almost forgot about the giant flame god trying to kill him. He experienced such a chill coming from her.
"With my introduction complete, I will return to my explanation of rune magic. Simply put, it is like a reflection of the moon in a lake at night. No matter how many times you strike the lake surface with a sword, it has no meaning. If you want to strike the moon in the lake surface, you must first turn your sword on the real moon floating in the night sky."
After hearing that explanation, Kamijou finally remembered the enemy in front of him.
Did she mean that what stood before him was not the true form of the supernatural power? Was it something like a photograph and its negative? Would it continue to revive unless he destroyed a different supernatural power that was creating the giant flame god?
Even then, Kamijou did not completely believe what Index was saying.
No matter what was going on around him, the common understanding that magic did not exist refused to depart.
But, with Innocentius sealing his right hand and preventing his movement, he could not test anything regardless. On top of that, it would have been difficult to ask Index to help him, given her bloody state.
"Ash to ash…"
Kamijou looked up in shock. From beyond the giant flame god, a flame sword had appeared in Stiyl's right hand.
"...Dust to dust…"
Another one. A bluish-white burning flame sword extended silently from his left hand.
"…Squeamish Bloody Rood!"
With those power-filled words, he swung the two flame swords horizontally so that they would slice straight through the giant flame god from left and right like a giant pair of scissors. With his right hand sealed by Innocentius,
Kamijou could block nothing else.
Shit… I need to run!! He desperately thought.
Before Kamijou Touma could even shout out, the two flame swords struck the giant flame god and forces morphed into one enormous, exploding bomb.
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