The lightning that exploded out of thin air instantly cracked the stone-paved ground within a radius of more than ten meters, blasting it apart into flying rubble.
The searing, tearing agony across Terra of the Left's face and the bridge of his nose instantly transformed his arrogant, sinister chant into a howl. As his gaunt body flew backward, his hoarse scream sounded like that of a beast with its fur standing on end.
Boom—!
He smashed violently into the deserted arcade, plowing through row after row of arcade machines and shattering them to pieces, sending a vast spray of LCD glass fragments flickering with electrical arcs into the air.
Bzzzt—!
Back on the ground, after handing Ferdinand over to the Schicksal Research Institute agents who had followed them, Arisa unfurled a pair of lightning wings behind her, streaming with blue-white plasma.
The girl bent her knees slightly and raised her right forearm, which was wrapped in sky-blue electrical currents. In the next instant, a "Railgun" blasted into the arcade.
Vwoom—boom!
Not far away, ratatatat!!
Boom!
Inside an abandoned office building awaiting demolition, continuous gunfire erupted. Amid the storm of bullets, several conical missiles trailing crimson flames shot forward. The violent explosion instantly engulfed an inconspicuous room inside the condemned building, while the powerful shockwave tore down the corridor and swept away doors, windows, glass, and abandoned furniture within dozens of meters!
Yet in the very next second, "Bright-Colored Severing Axe."
The surging wave of heat and spiraling flames was torn apart and dispersed by a wind-wrapped blade of compressed air. Then, following several dull impacts, two figures leapt from a shattered window of the condemned building and dropped from the upper floors, slamming heavily into the flowerbed-like ground below.
"So this is what you called a very simple delivery job, my dear employer. You certainly never told me beforehand that God's Right Seat, the darkest division of the Vatican, would interfere..."
The "Courier," Oriana Thomson, bent at the waist beside the flowerbed and lightly clapped her hands, looking at her employer with an amused, ambiguous smile.
Her outfit had already changed from work clothes into a slit skirt that reached her ankles, while her upper body was now clad in a tube top. The surging pale curves of her chest were barely concealed, making her look extraordinarily seductive.
"I only just found out myself. The Church contacted me at the last minute. They added other elements to my plan. The current situation is already beyond my control."
The old-fashioned white habit bearing a red cross was covered in dust and grit from the explosion. Her hood had been blown off by the blast, and even her smooth golden hair had lost much of its luster after becoming stained with smoke and soot. Lidvia Lorenzetti tried awkwardly to rise to her feet.
Although Lidvia was a genuine believer from the Vatican, the heart of the Roman Catholic Church, and held a fairly high position within the Church, when it came to actual combat and dealing with sudden attacks like this, she was nowhere near as capable as a freelance magician like Oriana.
On the contrary, her movements were rather clumsy.
There was nothing strange about that. She belonged to the orthodox missionary type of believer. She possessed extensive theoretical knowledge and knew many magical spells, but compared with believers from combat-specialized branches such as disciplinary institutions and inquisitorial organizations, her fighting ability was relatively weak.
Back inside the room, if Oriana hadn't reacted quickly enough to realize that Academy City's response forces had immediately switched to a dead-or-alive approach after their first capture attempt failed, those rocket shells might very well have killed her.
"Our objective remains unchanged. At 6:30 p.m., we activate the Croce di Pietro..."
Before they could act, scorching bullets came shrieking toward them. "Fire!" Full-power rounds from Hound Dog's rifles tore into the flowerbed like enormous fangs, blasting holes through it as a terrifyingly dense barrage surged toward the two women.
Ratatat!
More and more armed robots advanced on their position. Behind them, flesh-and-blood soldiers wearing full-body armored suits, helmets covering their entire heads, and thick ski-goggle-like night-vision equipment had already set up portable anti-armor missiles and large-caliber heavy weapons. Thump, thump, thump! Explosive rounds detonated against reinforced concrete walls, blasting stone fragments everywhere.
Facing the increasingly dense firepower, Oriana knew they could not continue dragging this out.
"Soil Symbol."
Vwoom!
At Oriana's chant, the exposed earth wriggled violently, and a wall of soil more than five meters high surged up from the ground. With a forward sweep of her hand, the earthen wall slid forward like a runaway dump truck, crushing several advancing military robots while simultaneously detonating another incoming rocket.
"Move!"
The two exchanged a glance before turning and sprinting toward an alley. Fighting Academy City and the Board of Directors' direct forces head-on? Forget it. The longer this dragged on, the greater the chance that they would suffer a disastrous reversal. They weren't Saints, much less members of God's Right Seat. They simply didn't possess that kind of ability.
Tap, tap—
As she ran, Oriana lightly bit down on a blank strip of paper torn from a simplified grimoire. Her lips parted, and she abruptly flicked it backward. Crack, crack, crack!
"Wind Symbol · II." Like throwing knives, the blank paper strips manifested runes before embedding themselves deeply into walls, windows, and the alley itself.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Several ice walls three meters tall and more than half a meter thick dropped out of thin air, crushing parts of the surrounding walls and completely blocking the firing angles of the pursuing Hound Dog forces. Across the ice, magically charged halos shifted and writhed, distorting their vision.
"Relentlessly chasing after ladies isn't very gentlemanly. Here's a little something in return!"
With a long, bandage-wrapped object slung over her shoulder, Oriana glanced back over her shoulder before rounding the corner, her watery blue eyes half-lidded as she threw them a flirtatious wink.
"Fire Symbol · II!"
An orange-red glow suddenly blossomed between the woman's fingers.
A massive explosive fireball wrapped in roaring flames hurtled outward!
Boom, boom, boom!!!
The terrifying force instantly collapsed all the surrounding alleys, burying several armed tactical teams charging toward them beneath mountains of building debris.
"These pieces of trash sure know how to pick their locations. Either construction sites or abandoned office buildings waiting to be demolished. A People-Clearing Field, huh? Hmph. Magicians and their little monkey tricks. Saves us the trouble of evacuating civilians and coming up with excuses."
Kihara Amata stepped out of a black van. From a distance, he watched Lidvia Lorenzetti and Oriana Thomson flee into the deep alleyways under Hound Dog's encirclement. Sensing the suggestive force permeating the surrounding buildings—the People-Clearing Field spell—his tattooed face twisted into a savage grin.
"The magic side, huh? Before I deal with those disobedient experimental subjects, I'll have my fill of fun with you first."
Within Academy City, Kihara Amata generally handled matters involving the Dark Side, tracking and eliminating individuals suspected of posing threats. He was especially responsible for recovery operations involving espers who had gone out of control, such as Accelerator. Most of his usual work was firmly on the science side.
Now that Selene had called him over with a single phone call to cause trouble for the magic side, Kihara Amata found the experience rather refreshing.
Selene: What's the point of fighting a damned civil war? Acting tough against your own people is useless. If you're going to fight, go fight outsiders.
"Sir, should we deploy the heavy suppression armored weapons authorized by the Board member? Under that level of firepower, even magicians should be reduced to ashes along with these buildings."
"No. Wait a little longer. We can't look at this too simply. That woman dressed as a nun holds a fairly high position in the Roman Catholic Church. I don't believe every last rat hiding in the sewer has already crawled out."
"According to the intelligence provided by the Board member, the Croce di Pietro is one of the Roman Catholic Church's secret treasures. That's a big fish and an even fatter piece of bait. There's far too much temptation attached to it. The Church won't be willing to abandon it."
Kihara Amata rolled his neck and said coldly, "Countless small fry are bound to come rushing out like moths to a flame, just like insects swarming through a courtyard in summer. All we need to do is prepare the lampshade and then enjoy looking at the corpses covering the ground..."
"Did you catch the magician who tore through our defensive line and escaped earlier?"
"N-not yet. Our people can't catch him. Several squads of armed robots we deployed were completely wiped out, and our weapons haven't been able to inflict any effective damage on him..."
"Useless!"
Kihara Amata shoved his subordinate aside, a vicious smile full of hostility curling across his lips. "Keep chasing the one who escaped. Post a bounty in the Dark Side and let those hyenas add a little more fire to the festival."
"As for these remaining two, keep them under watch. I don't care what their objective is. Disrupt whatever they're trying to do, and absolutely do not let them use this opportunity to escape. Lock down the entire district and the sewers. Don't leave a single corner unchecked!"
"It's a People-Clearing Field spell, right? Then deploy more armed robot units. What, is suggestion magic supposed to work on robots too?"
"Yes, sir!"
...
Tap, tap, tap—
"Putting aside the private affairs of your Roman Catholic Church for the moment, Academy City's response forces mobilized far too quickly during the Daihasei Festival. None of this matches the assurances you gave me beforehand."
"I can pay you more." Faced with Oriana's obvious displeasure, Lidvia remained silent for a long moment.
"Heh. You still have money?" Oriana chuckled. "Forget it. As a matter of professional integrity as a Courier, I'll complete the objective stated in our contract. But you'd better fulfill what you promised me."
"Otherwise..." Crack!
A blade of compressed air sliced through the wall, and Oriana pushed Lidvia through the opening. She said coldly, "Even if it means making an enemy of the Roman Catholic Church, I'll kill you."
"If I fail, you won't need to say anything. I'll offer my life to God myself." Lidvia clasped her hands together, her gaze calm and unwavering. "I, Lidvia Lorenzetti, swear here in the name of the Lord that every word I said to Oriana Thomson was true."
Lidvia understood Oriana's doubts.
Oriana was a well-known freelance Courier in the magic-side industry, and her fees were extremely high. Lidvia herself, meanwhile, was actually very poor. Because she traveled around the world preaching and helping the impoverished, she was so penniless that she had even pawned the silk vestments and platinum staff personally bestowed upon her by the Pope in exchange for travel expenses...
More than anything else, she had persuaded Oriana through the conviction behind her own goal—to make the world a better place.
The Croce di Pietro was the means through which that goal would be realized.
Once the Croce di Pietro was activated, "everyone would feel happy no matter what happened." If everyone became a believer in the same God, then naturally there would be no more contradictions or conflict. If everything in the world was brought beneath the magic side, eliminating the distinction between the science side and the magic side, then ideological opposition would likewise disappear, and the world would become a better place.
At least, that was what Lidvia believed, and she acted accordingly.
Oriana had been persuaded by that vision as well. But with the intervention of God's Right Seat, the darkest division of the Roman Catholic Church, she had already begun to sense that regardless of what Lidvia herself believed, the convictions of the Vatican's upper echelons might not be nearly so noble or pure.
"I'll draw their attention and stall them until 6:30 p.m. The rest will be up to you." Oriana tapped the disguised object in her hand and said indifferently, "We'll split up here..."
"Found you!"
"Hm?" Oriana looked back at the three people pursuing them and froze slightly. "Academy City students teamed up with a magician from the Anglican Church? What kind of combination is this?"
"You've been leading us around by the nose like dogs for half the day. I'm seriously pissed off!"
"'Courier' Oriana Thomson." The tall red-haired priest slowly approached from the opposite end of the street, crimson flames flickering intermittently in his hand. His narrowed eyes carried a hint of solemnity. "Put down the Croce di Pietro and surrender."
"My, Necessarius... Wind Symbol · III!"
The roar of approaching vehicle engines grew steadily louder. Oriana and Lidvia exchanged a glance. Oriana bit down on a blank strip of paper and instantly flicked it forward. A moisture-laden tornado suddenly erupted into existence and spiraled violently toward the three blocking their path.
"Look out!"
Biu!
"Nice one, Kami-yan! Let's go!" The delinquent-looking Tsuchimikado Motoharu laughed loudly and immediately charged forward.
"Even Anti-Skill is looking for you. We have to finish this quickly." Roaring flames suddenly ignited in Stiyl's hand, making his red hair seem as though it too had caught fire. "The flame in my hand, its shape is a sword, its purpose is judgment—Flame Sword!"
Crackle!
Rumble—!
At that moment, accompanied by a heaven-shaking thunderclap and an earth-shuddering roar, all three suddenly raised their heads and looked several streets away at the pillar of lightning surging into the sky. The enormous azure bolts were visible even in broad daylight, branching outward like the limbs of the World Tree.
"That ridiculously huge electrical discharge... Don't tell me Biri-Biri is taking an exam?"
Lowering his smoking right hand, Kamijou Touma's eye twitched violently. He knew this sort of thing very well.
...
"Aaaaagh—! Damn it! Damn it all! Blasphemy! This is sacrilege against the Lord, you heretic!"
A shrill scream rang out as the gaunt green figure was blasted away by another lightning cannon, punching straight through the arcade before smashing into yet another building.
Crash!
"Lightning below, human body above!"
Pushing away the rubble covering him, Terra of the Left slowly climbed back to his feet. His green robe was now torn open in numerous places.
His arms, shoulders, chest, abdomen, thighs... Bloody gashes left by exposed rebar and other sharp debris covered his body. Combined with his swollen, bruised, bloodied face, they made Terra of the Left look even more hideous and terrifying.
Bang!
Arisa dropped to the ground as blue-white lightning crackled around her. She looked at the dust-covered ugly man before her with open surprise.
"Huh? Even a plasma cannon couldn't melt you... But your body is obviously really weak... That doesn't make sense."