A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 7 (24 page)

Everyone present looked at her.

The
Book of the Law
.

The thing everyone had forgotten about—the one grimoire that triggered this whole incident. Said to have been written by Edward Alexander…the world’s strongest sorcerer, Crowley. Thought to be able to freely control angelic techniques. Rumored to declare the end of a Crossist-dominated age upon opening it. The ultimate forbidden tome, sealing away utterly vast knowledge.

If the book was really that dangerous, they might be able to use it for negotiations just by declaring they’d undone the seal.

“But the book being stolen was just a farce made to trap us, man. I doubt the real thing was even ever brought to Japan in the first place. If they brought in a fake and the original is still in the Vatican Library, that’s it.”

““That’s it!!””

Kamijou and Index spoke at the same time.

They had the original copy of the
Book of the Law
right here.

“Even Index couldn’t decipher the book, right? That means
she’s gone through it to try and decipher it.
So it wouldn’t be strange if you still had the whole book stored in your memories, right?”

“Yep. The encoded text has been collecting dust in the corner, though.”

This time, Stiyl’s facial expression worsened. “You can’t! If you do that, she’ll record the contents of the
Book of the Law
. If that happens, far more sorcerers would start going after her!”

“??? Are you worried about me?”

Index, “a complete stranger,” tilted her head in confusion, while Stiyl, “who knew her well once,” reddened as if he’d been caught unawares, then immediately erased it with a click of his tongue. Index
thought that sorcerers chasing her was a natural event
, and
Stiyl was well aware nothing he could say would stop her—as well as the fact that he couldn’t think of anything better.

Stiyl made a sour face, then suddenly shouted, “Touma Kamijou!!”

“Wh-what?!”

“Grow stronger! If she dies because of what happens here, I will burn your body and soul to a crisp until not even ashes remain!!” He swore under his breath and turned away. Index was still looking confused, looking like she couldn’t tell why he felt the need to get mad over this. Tatemiya looked at Kamijou and Stiyl in turn with a complicated expression. Kamijou wished he wouldn’t look at him like that.

Index, her head still crooked in bafflement, asked, “So what is the decoding method for the
Book of the Law
like?”

“Ah, yes. I’ll give you an explanation now.”

At her question, Orsola smoothly and steadfastly began their conversation again.

A bead of sweat broke out on Kamijou’s forehead.

He had thought it a pipe dream this whole time, but now that it was becoming real right before his eyes, he sensed the risks he hadn’t given much thought to come rushing to mind one after the other.

Kamijou alone (ironically enough) truly understood from personal experience how dangerous these angelic techniques, which were no more than rumors and speculations for sorcerers, could really be. The “purge” that one of the archangels, the Power of God, had tried to unleash would have burned half the planet to a crisp with billions of bullets of light.

If they could use those here, it would completely change the situation.

But…

Was it really all right for
anyone
to possess such immense power?

Orsola read Kamijou’s expression. “We are not saying we will use the
Book of the Law
’s power. We simply need to display our intent and ability to decipher and use it. I would much rather not use such a power,” she explained seriously.

That’s right—her reason for originally studying the book was
about the seal on the knowledge within. Orsola wouldn’t have wanted things to turn out this way, and even if they broke out of here for the moment, sorcerers around the world who desired the book’s knowledge might begin going after her.

She had made this decision having considered all that.

She would take action she didn’t wish to take. She had considered the dangers therein and yet still she said she would lend her power to Kamijou and the others.

The method to decipher the
Book of the Law
, a method no one in history had ever broken.

The very moment they unlocked the forbidden tome that not even Index, who contained 103,000 of them, could read…

“It’s based on Temurah—in other words, a character replacement method. However, the rules are abnormal in that they are strongly related to the line number. First, you arrange the twenty-two characters used in Hebrew into two lines, then note the line number above each—”

Kamijou had absolutely no clue what she was talking about, but it all probably meant a lot to Index. Her face was more serious than he’d ever seen it.

Right now, the knots in the grimoire nobody could read were coming undone in Index’s head one by one, being rebuilt as the blueprints for an ultimate weapon. As he thought about how mysterious it was, he got a chill—had they done something they would never be able to take back?

“—in other words, the character conversion pattern changes based on which line number of the character’s page it’s written on, so while it may look quite intricate, you understand the rules for sentences on the same line number don’t change even depending on the page number, right? In addition—”

“You would take the phrases,” interrupted Index suddenly, “converted by using the line number character conversion pattern, then match it up with the page number and change their orders. Then, finally, you’d come out with a single sentence. The title would be
The End of Two Ages
, and its contents outline physical angelic
techniques in Enochian.” It was as though Index had anticipated what she knew, and Orsola blinked her eyes in surprise. “That’s enough, I understand it now.”

Orsola, whose explanation was cut off in the middle—she should have been the only one who knew of this—paused in puzzlement. “Excuse me, but what is it that you understand?”

“Right,” grunted Index.

“This isn’t the correct method. It’s a dummy answer set up to trap people.”

“Wha…,” started Orsola, her entire body freezing for a moment.

Index, though, looked her in the face with a truly pained expression. “I’m sorry. I got this far, too. Actually, there are tons of other dummies, too. That’s what’s scary about the
Book of the Law
.” She exhaled. “There are more than a hundred ways to decode it. And each of them gives you different sentences. They’re all dummies. It isn’t that nobody can read this grimoire—it’s that everyone can actually read it, but everyone gets lured in to a false decoding method.”

“B…”

But…,
she squeaked.

“It’s set up so that even incorrect decoding methods give you readable sentences. So even if you come up with an incorrect one, you’ll think that it’s the right one. It stinks, but maybe there was no way you could have realized it. There is a sentence in English written on the front cover of the book—do you remember it?” Index’s face looked like she was struggling to convey the harsh truth. “
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
In other words, the decoding ‘laws’ one thinks are correct will lead to an infinite number of
mistaken
correct answers. It’s a terrifying grimoire.”

All hope vanished from Orsola Aquinas’s face.

It was only natural. She had risked her life to take on this challenge, believing that the knowledge she acquired would make everyone happy, and vowing that they would one day be able to destroy the original copies of grimoires—the root of all evil.

The decoding method, her greatest treasure, dear to her heart, could do nothing.

Not destroy the original grimoire and not rescue her allies from this terrible situation—nothing.

“Depending on how ya look at it, this may have saved us. Hey, think if we tell ’em we don’t know how to decode the thing after all, they’d let us off the hook?”

As Tatemiya finished his question, there was a
boom
and the church doors shook.

“I…don’t think so. They can’t retreat now that we’ve seen so much of what’s happening behind the scenes,” answered Stiyl, giving a thin smile to the hopeless situation.

There was no longer anything to be done.

Their hope was lost to eternity, having never gotten it in the first place.

We need to run away
, thought Kamijou, feeling an intense panic. He went to guide Index and Orsola to the back door, but then he ran into Stiyl, his flame sword at the ready. His “certain kill” rune cards scattered helplessly all over the floor.

Ba-bam!!
With a much louder impact, the doors of the Church of Final Anointment were destroyed and slammed down into the floor. As Kamijou and the others exchanged two or three words, into the church that carried out the ceremonies concerning funerals came hundreds of sisters all in jet-black, hoisting their religious weapons, flooding in like an avalanche.

Ten more minutes had passed.

Only their leader, Agnes Sanctis, stood in the darkness-enclosed Church of Matrimony. The ten sisters assigned to her guard had looked about to be crushed by the tension, so she had relieved them of their duty and ordered them to join the fray. It would have been
more dangerous to head out directly to the battle, but the girls all went to the battlefield with bright expressions. They would still have been bound by a considerable, unseen fear.

There’s no need for them to be in a hurry. Why are they so tense?

Remembering the faces of her cowardly subordinates made her sigh. She could still hear explosions and clashing from outside the building, but her face harbored no unease. With experience, one could understand the situation by sound alone: the fact that unlike earlier, the enemy’s unity was now in shambles and they were completely on the defensive.

What’s this?

Suddenly, her ears caught an odd noise that didn’t fit into the rhythm of the battle.

It was one set of footsteps, and their owner threw open the double doors of the church.

Bang!!
came the loud sound.

There stood Touma Kamijou, but Agnes Sanctis’s face didn’t show a hint of change. In fact, she almost seemed to be smiling. Unlike how he’d done the same thing before, his face was plastered with exhaustion and his body covered with wounds.

“No matter how I think about it, though, with that many people against you, you shouldn’t have been able to move freely around here,” remarked Agnes, resting her back casually against a marble pillar.

Kamijou smiled, his breath ragged. “Well…we made a little plan.”

“A plan? Oh.” She closed one eye. “I get it, I see! Is that so? After all that acting cool when you came in here last time, you ended up using your allies as decoys, didn’t you? It’s true—our forces are spread evenly to attack all of you, so nobody should have been able to get here, hmm?”

“…” He remained silent at the meaningful end to her sentence.

Agnes smiled gleefully—she had hit the bull’s-eye. “Ku-ku. Orsola Aquinas said something. That you act on faith rather than deceit, or something like that. A-ha-ha! What a laugh. In the end, you’re only alive because you deceived your own allies and used them as decoys!”

“No.” He answered her scornful voice with the direct opposite—a friendly smile. “I have faith in them—unlike you. There are things only they can do. I can’t do them, so I got them to give me something else to do. That’s all.” He tightened his right fist. “Though I wish they could have a little more faith in me. I told them they didn’t need to worry, and I could handle my own problems by myself.”

“…So you told them you could stop the whole attack if you defeated me, their commander? Wow, I’m surprised you can still manage to remain so optimistic. Even though everyone thinks a flock of sheep without a shepherd will go batshit insane.” She lifted her back from the cold marble pillar. She kicked her toes against her silver staff lying on the floor, then caught the flying weapon with one hand.

“Well, that’s fine. I was just thinking I had some time to kill. Sloth is a sin, after all. I will destroy one of your illusions, one of your hopes—it will make a great diversion!”

Touma Kamijou checked around him.

There were about fifteen meters between him and Agnes. The building was under construction and thus empty, so there were no obstacles in the way. Despite all those people warring outside, only Kamijou and the girl were in this closed-off space.

She held a silver staff in her hand. The angel at the narrow staff’s tip was designed like an angel curled up like Rodin’s
The Thinker
, its six wings enclosing it like a cage.

Clack
,
clack
, came the hard sounds.

Agnes Sanctis took off the thick soles on both her shoes and jumped backward.

“
Tutto il paragone. Il quinto dei cinque elementi, ordina la canna che mostra pace ed ordine!
”

She held the staff with both hands, and after intoning words of prayer, the angel on the end of the staff spread its wings, opening up like a flower. The six wings stopped at equal points of a circle, like a clock face.

“
Prima. Segua la legge di Dio ed una croce. Due cose diverse sono connesse!
”

She lightly swung her staff as she spoke.

Clack
came the sound of its tip tapping against the marble pillar beside her.

…
?
Kamijou frowned to himself at the strike that had been made outside her range, when—

Whack!!

A moment later, Kamijou’s vision had toppled ninety degrees to the side.

“Gah…! Agh?!”

By the time he’d realized something heavy and metal had hit him in the side of the head, he was already crumpled on the floor. He desperately shook his unsteady head and made sure he had a clear view; then Agnes, with the bottom of her twirling staff, hit the marble floor with a
takk
.

Right as Kamijou, shuddering with fear, rolled along the floor, an impact struck it where his head had just been a moment ago. The dull
wham
created depressions and fissures in the floor like a hammer had slammed into it.