“According to information from the Roman and Russian Churches, the Star of Bethlehem floats in the air using twenty large Soul Arms for levitation. Losing the power from Fiamma has caused its output to drop. At this rate, it will lose all buoyancy after one hour and fall straight down toward the surface.”
He could hear Stiyl Magnus’s voice emanating from the speakers around the fortress. Kamijou had entrusted him with guarding Index; he’d ended that mission earlier by destroying the remote-control Soul Arm, and now he was guiding Kamijou.
“But if you destroy any of the levitation Soul Arms, we can control the Star of Bethlehem’s facing and direction. Meaning your right hand is perfect for the job.”
“What exactly should I bust up?”
“Hold on. I just got a map sent to me. It’s based on assumptions, so the actual model might be different. If anything seems wrong, report it at once.”
Following Stiyl’s directions, Kamijou used the facility’s monorail, and where he couldn’t proceed with that alone, he continued running on his feet. There was no time left anymore. If he failed, six billion lives would be at risk.
“I’ll tell you the exact positions by word of mouth, but you’ll want to destroy number three, number nine, and number thirteen in the south part. That will cause the Star of Bethlehem’s trajectory to change. Have it head for the edge of the Arctic Ocean. We’ll drop its speed as much as possible and have it land in the water to prevent the impact. Considering its altitude and mass, that’s the only way we won’t do massive damage to the planet’s environment.”
“If we reduce the number of big levitation Soul Arms, won’t that make it fall even faster?”
“They share a power source. If there are fewer Soul Arms, that alone will increase the output, one at a time. Of course, it’ll be limited to just one at a time, but you don’t need to worry about the power supply weakening at the moment. If you thin them out, the output might increase momentarily.”
“What are the chances of a tsunami or something if we drop it in the ocean?”
“The cities along the Arctic Ocean’s coastline have been warned to evacuate. The Roman and Russian Churches are being disgustingly cooperative in helping them. Otherwise, we would have had to be aware of a few casualties.”
In the meantime, Kamijou arrived at the number three Soul Arm.
The place looked like a factory.
Large facilities, even bigger than school buildings, lined this enclosed space, with dozens of thick pipes running everywhere. Metal staircases and walkways were a tangled mess between them. Green light particles flitted about intermittently—were they responsible for making this giant fortress float?
Bam!!
Kamijou struck a nearby pipe with his palm.
That was all. With just that, countless cracks formed in the pipe; the square, stone structure tipped over; and brilliant explosions began going off inside it. Kamijou distanced himself to not be caught up in it, then ran toward the next Soul Arm, number nine.
“…Never did I think we’d be fighting side by side in the very end,” muttered Stiyl. “It didn’t have to be me. I’ve been getting sporadic reports from her, too, now that she’s finally woken up. Her mind was in the Star of Bethlehem earlier. Couldn’t you have solved this situation by relying on her knowledge?”
“I’m not fooling around here. I couldn’t let Index suffer in that state for another minute.”
“I get it. It’s not my style to owe anything to someone like you, but I’ll make an exception this time and accept it.”
“If that’s really how you feel, could you get a recovery team or something near the projected landing site? I’d really rather not be waiting around in subzero ice water.”
“I’ll do something about that,” answered Stiyl quietly. “If the gradual descent goes as planned, you shouldn’t die even if it lands on the water.”
In the meantime, Kamijou desperately ran through the Star of Bethlehem.
The number nine Soul Arm was right there.
We’ll manage, thought Kamijou. This big war that started from a quarrel with the Roman Orthodox Church had been nothing but terrible in every way. But in the end, they’d manage. They’d manage for sure. Confident, Kamijou ran ever forward.
Until…
“What’s this…?”
…an impatient voice flew at him from the speakers.
Kamijou listened to it as he ran.
“That’s strange. Some kind of massive…telesma? Why would something like that be…?”
He had a bad feeling about this.
But he couldn’t stop now. As Kamijou headed for the number nine Soul Arm, Stiyl grumbled:
“Of all the times—why in the hell is Misha Kreutzev surfacing now?!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Concurrently, the archangel who had cooperated with Fiamma of the Right was about to recover its body once again on the wintry Russian lands.
The fluctuations in the four aspects had been corrected by Fiamma’s hands. Now, she was not Misha, a mixture of the LIKENESS OF GOD, Michael, and the POWER OF GOD, Gabriel, but an archangel in a pure sense. It would not be a mistake to say that at this point, her goal had, to a certain degree, been accomplished.
But it wasn’t enough.
She wasn’t perfect.
Her goal was simply to return her own existence to its original “seat.” Having been about to go off the rails once, she could see no other goal, nor did she consider how much damage would occur in achieving her goal. She would just return. For that, and that alone, the archangel began to move once again.
The massive telesma scattered about her surroundings began to converge toward one point.
She had been torn apart once by the power of the scientific monsters, but they hadn’t damaged her essence. Bringing a fist down on water would cause it to splash, but it wouldn’t reduce the amount of water itself. It was the same as that.
But it wasn’t enough.
She wasn’t perfect.
Now that its action had been stopped once, the archangel sought an additional increase in her practical power. She knew well what would serve as material for it. She controlled water. In the winter, Russia had so much snow it covered the ground, but simply melting that wouldn’t be enough.
But it wouldn’t be enough.
She wasn’t perfect.
But it wouldn’t be enough.
She wasn’t perfect.
But HWSR it wouldn’t be enough.
She ZVDF wasn’t ZDFB perfect.
BuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.
✦ ✦ ✦
Yes.
To turn around a situation using an overwhelming power, one needed to take all precautions.
A huge amount of ice with special signage and symbolism.
The special ice, for example, from a planet’s pole.
✦ ✦ ✦
“…What is happening…?”
In St. George’s Cathedral in London, a Sister around twenty years old let out a moan. She’d been monitoring the flow of magical power in Russia.
“Misha Kreutzev has begun moving northward at a high speed!! The polar ice has also begun to melt extremely quickly!! Additionally—confirmed a massive line of telesma between them!! There is clearly mutual interference occurring!!”
“It wants new power—no, to replenish its body?” Stiyl asked, frowning.
Thinking simply, if that angel had instantly melted all the ice in the Arctic Ocean, phenomena similar to a large-scale tsunami would occur in regions bordering the Arctic Ocean. If the situation progressed too far, an insane water vapor explosion could engulf everything in a radius of thousands of kilometers.
And it wouldn’t continue in such a simple manner. If Misha Kreutzev, already brutal, was to take in so much water and ice that it would cause the Arctic Ocean to collapse, how far would her power swell? Now that Fiamma had lost, what was that archangel’s objective? Did she not have one at all? They didn’t know a single thing, but the endgame she’d create as a result was clear.
They wouldn’t be able to withstand it.
In the first place, nothing could contain a God-created angel’s full capacity with only matter from the physical world. Even during Angel Fall, Misha Kreutzev hadn’t been any more than an incomplete manifestation. If she attempted to forcibly draw out even higher output than envisioned, the body itself composing Misha would explode, equating to a massive discharge of telesma.
A planetary ignition, centered on the North Pole.
At the very least, it would annihilate all living things in the northern hemisphere. In the worst case, it could seriously throw off the actual planet’s orbit, possibly pushing it away from the solar system.
But how do we stop it? thought Stiyl, glancing at a magnet that was moving of its own accord on a whiteboard. I don’t know if we could have held back the old Misha even if we fought her as one group. Clashing with an archangel in that wounded state would only magnify the damage.
Still, if they did nothing, a destructive ending surely awaited them.
And then—
“…Hey, what are you doing?” Stiyl muttered at the screen.
There had been a change in the Star of Bethlehem’s flight path, even though it had just been going smoothly. It had begun to travel down a clearly different route than Stiyl and the others’ plan. He thought it was a glitch in the fortress, but as far as he could tell from their monitoring, no such trouble had been detected.
Clearly, Touma Kamijou, who was inside it, had done something to a large levitation Soul Arm in an effort to purposely veer it away from the safest route.
In order to block Misha Kreutzev, who was heading for the Arctic Ocean…?