Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter1 (section)

===Part 3===

“What kind of training is this, you morons?”

A short nun was terribly frustrated.

Blood and gore were splattered everywhere.

If the Anglican magicians did not clean up all of that red and black before it was seen, it was sure to cause an international incident. This was the Roman Catholic nation of Spain, so things worked very differently than in the English capital of London. They could not leave behind any chance of trouble.

Agnese Sanctis had originally led a team of Roman Catholic nuns, but they had since joined the Anglicans instead.

“Even so, this is honestly impressive.”

A taller nun in an identical habit sighed next to her. Sister Lucia was something of a clean freak, so she viewed the mess with obvious disgust while repeatedly crossing herself.

“This is very high quality for an imitation. What did they say they did? Rearrange pig and cow bones and organs to match human anatomy and then treat them with chemicals?”

“AEDs and epinephrine are apparently off limits. Trying to revive this could cause the soulless doll to get up and start moving.”

A Necessarius magician could conceivably make something like that.

The nuns were here for training, but not against Stiyl Magnus or Isabella Theism. Their task was to clean up afterwards. The combat magicians were not going to hold back, so the logistical support nuns had to show up after the fact and erase anything that risked an international incident. That was why those two Necessarius members had traveled to a foreign country, fought an imitation of a real battle, and left a fake corpse splattered all over the scene.

They had of course not informed Spain of this and the corpse was so realistic even the average magician would mistake it for real. In other words, a real international incident was still very much a possibility.

“Wh-what do you think he meant when he said this could ‘realistically happen’, Sister Agnese?” asked Angelene, whose hunched back made her look even shorter than she really was.

The answer to that was obvious enough.

“I imagine he meant exactly what he said. A magic cabal called Armada probably really does exist here.”

The Anglican Church, and especially Necessarius, were second to none when it came to eliminating magicians who had strayed too far. They never stopped gathering intel on existing threats and they could easily create identical models for training purposes.

Agnese pointed her thumb at the red splattered on the walls and ground.

“Anyway, we need to get to work. Let’s get this over with already.”

“I would rather not. There isn’t much I would like to do less.”

“B-but they’ll be mad at us if we don’t. And we need to meet our quota if they’re going to keep us around.”

A clattering sound came from Agnese’s feet.

They already had all the necessary tools: buckets, mops, spray bottles, rags, etc.

“Let’s do everything we can. I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces when they see our Catholic thoroughness	.☆”

This kind of work was known as forensic cleanup.

It had begun as a service for real estate owners. When a mummified or rotting corpse was discovered inside an apartment or hotel room, every last trace of the corpse – including any stains on the floor after it was reduced to a stew – had to be removed lest it bring down the value of the room. Even though forensic cleanup often required handling a dead body, no special license was required and it was done by cleaning professionals (for an extra fee) instead of by the police or fire department.

However.

When magic was involved, the cleanup job had to include some more unseen areas.

“Residual thoughts are our top priority. Make sure you eliminate any readable impression of who did this or what happened here.”

“That rune freak put those cards everywhere around here, but does he expect us to collect all of them!? How many thousands is that!?”

“U-umm, Sister Lucia? Don’t some of those explode when they sense magic power nearby?”

Now they had to play the bomb squad as well. If you were not familiar with the magicians who fought on the scene, you could run across some unpleasant surprises while cleaning up. They didn’t want to be cursed while dragging the corpse around, and triggering an explosion while removing a card would create lots more material evidence needing to be cleaned up.

They needed to be careful so that did not happen.

The trick to cleaning was to “loosen up” and then “wash away” the filth.

If you did not know what was filthy and what was dangerous, you would miss something.

Thus, Agnese started by clapping her hands together in front of her flat chest.

She kept her eyes open but focused them on some unseen place while speaking under her breath.

“Apas of Prithvi, you are a silver crescent moon shining within a yellow square. Open the door of otherworldly afterimage and provide us with the eye that perceives the unseen realm.”

A buzzing groan ran through the space around her and the objects, bloodstains, and anything else with traces of human-altered magic power glowed with a faint light. The rune magic with a faint blue and the necromancy with a faint red. Angelene groaned like a young wife who discovered a clump of wet hair in the drain of her brand-new home.

“Ugh. Y-you can’t get away with anything, can you?”

“This is what you get with the short-term memory of something that happened less than an hour ago. Now, we need to clean all this up so it doesn’t become long-term memory and soak into this location.”

If Agnese could do this, so could other magicians.

To prevent that, they had to erase all hints leading back to the Anglicans and then make themselves scarce. Of course, they also could not let anyone see them in the process of cleaning it up.

Lucia stuck a mop in a bucket and sloshed it around.

“Are we using water for this?”

“92% water, 6% protein, and then some salt and other minerals for flavor.”

“Th-that isn’t the recipe for holy water.”

Stoop-backed Angelene was right.

The Roman Catholic Church would add salt when sanctifying water, but this included more than that.

“Basically, we are making artificial human blood. Although it will be transparent since it won’t have any red or white blood cells. Wipe up the bloodstains with this to eliminate any residual information before the cleaning begins. It’s the same idea as adding a decoy stamp over the addressee’s name on a letter so that personal information is no longer readable. Even if someone catches on that this place was cleaned, they won’t be able to recreate what was cleaned up. Once that’s done, we can get to the actual cleaning.”

“We also have to worry about that zombie powder and the rune cards, right?”

“The Haitian toxin can be decontaminated with heat of 1000 degrees or higher and that isn’t enough to melt the stone walls. But Stiyl’s cards are resistant to flames, so that method won’t work. Still, it would take all night if we tried to manually remove them all, so would acid be the best way to deal with them all at once?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Runes were originally carved into stone and I hear acid rain is a real threat to cultural preservation. Something made from nitrogen oxide or sulfur dioxide would probably be best.”

That might sound awfully ordinary for this kind of work, but that was normal. Almost anything found in everyday life could be used for magic. In particular, things used for cleaning and sterilization could be used for purification and things that led to pollution and decay could be used for curses. Good examples of the former were water, salt, and fire. Good examples of the latter were mud and animal blood.

“Well, it’s a pain, but let’s get started on this thankless work.”

Magic could seem all-powerful, but all the preparation and cleanup it required were actually a pain in the rear.

And every field had annoying tasks that were traditionally left with the newcomers. A top-rate stage magician would carefully check over the stage and props that could kill them if not properly set up, but they would not clean the theater bathrooms themselves.

“Umm, Sister Agnese? Am I imagining things or are the clumps of flesh on the ground moving? Ah! I’m not imaging it! They’re definitely throbbing!”

“Argh! We need to gather those up before they run off and form a globster!! Everyone, prepare the tarps. We’ll wrap up these stubborn Iberian pigs and roast them in the incinerator!!”

“Plastic tarps don’t burn, Sister Agnese.”