Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter7 (section)

===Part 7===

They took the stairs down from the monitor room.

An interminable stone spiral staircase led down and down.

That was bad.

First, it was a single path. If they were attacked, they could not escape to the sides. And the spiraling meant they could not see very far down. Some might think that was better than a straight staircase with a direct line of fire, but that was meaningless with fire or poison gas. Anything that filled the entire space could pass that curve with ease.

That was of course an intentional part of the design.

The first goal of a shelter’s design was to allow the VIPs to escape, but the second goal was to eliminate any approaching enemies. If anyone could approach, then they could reach the door and destroy it by force.

However.

“Nothing’s happening?” asked Lucia while holding her large wooden wheel at the ready.

No attack was a good thing, but it was also disconcerting. It did not feel like Tu and the Catholics were clashing. They were surrounded by an unwanted tranquility, like it was over already. It would have been more of a relief to be met by a hail of bullets as soon as they opened the hidden door in the monitor room.

Eventually, they descended the final step.

They were at the bottom.

Agnese looked around to see a large round metal door just like for a bank vault.

Light was escaping from within, showing it was already open.

“Dammit!!”

She stepped inside.

Whether it was designed to resist explosions or there was some religious meaning, the space within had a hemispherical shape. Even more so than the great hall prepared for the choir. Surprisingly, it had none of the everyday necessities and no diamonds, gold bars, or other assets for use in an emergency.

There was an altar.

There were pews.

There was stained glass on the walls despite being so deep underground and there was a giant cross.

The space was a chapel. And one meant for use ''in combat''. The altar and stoup built into the wall and seat of honor for the lord of the castle were a lot like the chapels used to sanctify swords and such in Medieval European castles.

Although in the Vatican, the seat of honor was intentionally left empty.

Just like with a castle chapel, it was part of a giant building yet the thick columns and such appeared independent to it, but that was because chapels like that were designed to be the opposite of the castle’s great hall.

If the Vatican was a single bivalve containing everything necessary for life, then this chapel was like a small crab inside the shell. It was hidden within the great cathedral and was wholly independent from it, but it remained a sacred mystery in and of itself.

However, its defenses had not been perfect.

The solid defense of the bivalve had been pried open with a knife, exposing the squishy contents.

People littered the floor like fallen leaves.

The old men wore the special red robes denoting them as cardinals.

And in the center was the one man allowed to wear white: the Pope.

“Oh?”

The only person still standing noticed the nuns.

The tall figure looked back and spoke to them.

“And here I thought I had cleared the final obstacle. No, I suppose you are not an obstacle standing in my way but the hounds pursuing me from behind. Perhaps it took me too long to break down this final wall.”

“Tu!!!???”

[[Image:AgneseSS_7.jpg|thumb]]

Albert Dying.

He looked like a blond priest in a stereotypical black cassock. He may have even obtained an official position in Vatican City so he could come and go as he pleased while undercover.

But that was no ordinary cassock.

It was more like a stage magician’s handkerchief. When the young man spread his arms wide, the fabric unraveled and became a pure white. The loose white outfit made him look just like one of the marble sculptures that Renaissance artists were so fond of.

It did not matter how much of this was an act and how much of it was just him.

The Guild.

That nameless group had survived for so long by clinging to the winners of each era and throwing stones at the losers. They knew no shame or defeat as they spat on yesterday’s beliefs and sent their old friends to the gallows so soon after enjoying their time together.

They had no set beliefs or principles.

They were reversible, like a Mobius strip. The more you tried to figure out what they were deep down, the further you would be led astray.

The time had come, so they would destroy Christian society.

They had done all this for no more reason than that.

Lucia and Angelene readied their spiritual items and Agnese took a step forward while starting a conversation.

“You’ve failed.”

“I have,” agreed Tu in a childish way.

It hardly mattered that it was one-against-three. His lack of attachment and his aimlessness were actually frightening when he had already proven how powerful he was. They could not predict what he would do next.

“I thought it would be over once I attacked the Vatican, but I met some surprising setbacks there. From the beginning, the Anglican interference came as a surprise. I had caused a few decoy incidents to give me time to secretly secure the Sickle and prepare for its use, but the idea was for Catholic special forces to take that bait in order to cover up those internal scandals.”

The Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Church, and the Russian Orthodox Church were known as the three major denominations, so they were of course constantly clashing in secret, no matter how peaceful things looked on the surface. But that did not mean they wanted one of their major foes to collapse. Just like when America and the Soviet Union had aimed their nuclear missiles at each other after the war.

Enemies could be useful too.

Organizations had a greater influence then one might think. Whether they wanted to or not.

“So.”

A moonlike glitter adorned the castle chapel.

It appeared like stage magic in Tu’s dominant hand. The source looked like a perfectly ordinary sickle, except that the blade was not made of metal. It was made of a rougher material fully coated with something like a transparent sand.

In Greek mythology, that was the Sickle of Adamant.

And that word was the source of the word diamond.

“This is over once I kill the ‘core’ creating the Vatican’s barriers. With nothing more to stop me, I can once more make this small country my own.”

“Kill the Pope!?”

Lucia’s eyes bugged out, but Tu was frighteningly gentle.

“Did you want to do that yourself? Sorry, but you will have to settle for a front-row seat.”

It was not over yet.

The cardinals and the Pope were collapsed on the floor, but they were still alive.

Agnese guessed Tu was not sure how to proceed. The Pope’s robes were as special as they came. They were on the same level as the Walking Church worn by that grimoire library. They would not be broken even by a point-blank blast from a high-powered divine punishment cannon.

This was the same as a shelter’s door. No door was impenetrable, but prying it open would require exposing your defenseless back. As long as Agnese’s group continued resisting, Tu could not focus on the work necessary to take the Pope’s life.

Or so they thought.

But the next thing they knew, they heard a series of solid sounds.

“!?”

The noise was enough for Angelene to gasp.

Metal belts crossed in an X-shape and connected to a disk. They squeezed at the collapsed Pope’s chest and passed through the donut-shaped disk to press a metal stake down toward his heart. Great power slowly but surely built up pressure.

“What did you do, Tu!?” shouted Agnese.

“Violator of the Peace,” whispered Albert Dying.

Was that the name of a spiritual item?

That was originally a term related to the Peace of God, one of the rules of war spread by the Christian Church. Even in the fiercest of fighting, one was never to target women, children, churches, or food supplies. Even a noble or knight who broke that rule would be branded a Violator of the Peace and excommunicated from the church. In Medieval Europe, the church had held near absolute political and social power and wolves had roamed outside the cities, so that had essentially been a death sentence.

Then again, that may not have meant much of anything to followers of Roman mythology who had already been kicked out.

“I prefer not to make people suffer needlessly, but it seems I must pry this open to take his life.” He sounded perfectly casual, like he was explaining how he needed a can opener since this can had no pull tab. “Four doors, three corridors, two bell towers, and – hm – one cross for a total of 10 equilateral triangles. Fascinating. We inherited these number games from the Greeks, so I’m quite good at them. From the look of it, I think I can get this open with an hour’s work.”

Agnese clenched her teeth and told herself not to let despair stop her. She had to count herself lucky the hurdle was within sight. The path to success was right there in front of her. She could still do it. If she refused to give up, this was doable.

“But what can you really do?” Tu knew that, but his tone remained casual. “This is the Roman Catholic Church, after all. Yes, it is the world’s largest church with 2 billion followers, but it costs a fortune to protect an organization of that size. They simply cannot perfectly manage everything that happens around the world. And the only reason anyone has been paying any attention to it of late was Fiamma of the Right’s rampage.”

“…”

“He was very obviously a rogue member, but without his efforts, the Catholics could never have remained in the center of the world. The current state of the world is the result of tragedy. The world has lost its core. The current age is ending. A culture that should have ended is stubbornly holding onto its former glory, mucking up the entire system. The only course of action is to hit the reset button. The time has come to destroy Christian culture starting with the Vatican.”

“You’re nothing but a dreamer,” spat Agnese.

Maybe it was wrong to refer to that as an underworld job. It was probably more of a nature or disposition.

But there were people who would list out the pros and cons and then intentionally deceive people with an unobtainable dream.

Yes, deceive not inspire.

“Destroy some great power now and you can liberate the world. Then we can reach the utopia we have all dreamed of.” Agnese confirmed her own stance while speaking as carefully as if she were defusing a bomb. “It’s a stereotypical dream. Every powerful person and revolutionary around the world has worked up the people with some variation on it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But no matter how many enemies they tore down, no perfect civilization was ever born. They all claimed they had the ultimate answer, but from ancient to modern times, they were about as successful in that as people proclaiming they have the perfect educational theory or a foolproof diet. That’s because no such thing exists. Only god is perfect, ultimate, and absolute. No human can see the future, so any who claim to have such a thing are frauds.”

“Maybe so.” Tu, aka Albert Dying, smiled softly. “But imperfect though we are, humanity can only decline if we do not strive for perfection. Even formless dreams have the power to change reality. And only those who know how to wield them carry the power to change the world.”

“How simple.”

“If there is anything you want to do, you need only make the attempt. The possibility lies hidden even in you.”

It really was simple.

As simple as a song written for teenagers that you could listen to as often as you liked for a monthly fee.

The voice coming from the speaker was so pleasant and obeying it would provide a set amount of pleasure and exhilaration. It was not a perfect 100, but still a solid 70. It gave no complex answers, but if things did not go its way, it would criticize the questioner after the fact. It took as much as it liked without ever taking responsibility. Yes, these were very much the words of a dreamer. People who wanted to abandon needless effort and enjoy an efficient happiness would dive right into that ocean of words.

Yet the ones who would lose everything were the carefree listeners.

By the time they decided to complain, the dreamer himself would have vanished beyond their reach.

“…”

Agnese recalled Sister Monica.

That pitiable puppet had torn off her own face and set herself on fire for the Guild, but Agnese could now see what kind of words had convinced her to do that.

They had been enemies.

They had never reached an understanding.

But they had also been nuns who had once lived together.

(Did you really think I felt nothing after seeing how gruesomely she died, dreamer?)

“Tu. Albert Dying.”

“We have reached the finale. This has already ended. You showed up too late to change anything, but if you do interfere, the responsibility will still fall on you.”

“So you expect me to sit idly by and let this happen?”

“If you do not, you will only be harming yourself and those you care for. Even you must be aware that this world is imperfect. Humanity has not achieved equality. But at the same time, ''no one is at fault for that.''”

“…”

“Everyone hopes to bring about an age of peace, but no one has managed it. There are no villains there. There is no single person you can defeat to end it. So we must stir up that stagnation from a position beyond morality. The time has come, so we must act.”

His tongue and throat formed those gentle words so very smoothly. What did those unnaturally kind eyes see in Agnese? Was it some dark part of her that even she refused to admit existed?

“You can be honest.”

When looking at this one moment in isolation, like the online news cherry-picking a single soundbite from a press conference, she could see it.

For a brief moment, everything faded away.

Lucia and Angelene stood immediately on either side of her, but even they seemed to grow distant. Her world was populated only by her own breathing and the dreamer’s words.

“No individual could have arrived at the truth of this, so you too must have companions. Are they friends from your hometown who were thrust down into the depths of hell along with you? Or are they the foreign saviors who took you in knowing the burden it would be?”

She wanted to say he was wrong, but she could not.

That likely meant he had arrived at the truth to an extent.

This was not just about herself. The Catholics had abandoned her and all of the companions she had lived with. The entire organization had lost control thanks to God’s Right Seat, but that was only an excuse.

“What do you even gain by solving this case?” asked Albert Dying with a slight head tilt. It was a genuine question. “Those using you are not even being intentionally malicious, but with each new job, you will be worn down and broken a little more. Do you intend to continue this until you inevitably collapse? I said I am approaching this from a position beyond morality, but that means I think everyone should have an equal opportunity.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You could always find a way to transfer back to the Catholics, but even then, you would still be outsiders. Once great chaos rocks Christianity, everyone will be vying for the positions of power. And when you know a catastrophe is coming, you can make sure you are ready. Yes, you are a weak group, but you can outdo the rest if you make sure you have a head start. Ally yourself with the chaos and ''you'' can name the new denomination.”

“…”

“You will not be borrowing power from anyone else. You will not be letting others use you while you are in no position to protest. Use the coming struggle for power and you can overthrow all those who would keep you down. You can become your own independent power. But to do that, the time to act is now.”

Sister Lucia feared the Anglicans would get after them for even the slightest mistake, so she was constantly fretting over the second hand on her watch and she never got a moment’s rest.

Sister Angelene feared they might have nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep tomorrow, so she had formed a habit of eating any food she could get her hands on and she had forgotten how to slow down and enjoy her food.

They were all the same.

Agata was and Caterina was. None of these things were entirely new, of course. Lucia had always been a perfectionist and Angelene a glutton. But it had all been twisted and exacerbated by the stresses of their current situation. Whether or not they were aware of it themselves, they could never fully relax. No matter how comfortable their lives were and no matter how many kind people they lived with, they knew it could all be taken away from them at any time for political reasons.

After having exactly that happen to them once, the fear of it happening again was hard to shake. They had belonged to the world’s largest denomination, but that had meant nothing. It had all been taken from them in the blink of an eye.

The church had been in an unusual position then.

They had been at the mercy of God’s Right Seat, so they had simply cast out so many people’s lives.

And if Agnese stood back and let Tu do his thing, he would take revenge for her. She would not even be charged with any kind of crime.

“Surely.” Albert Dying made his final plea as if tearing into her heart. “No one is at fault, but surely you feel powerless as you watch your companions fall. Don’t you hate to see how weak you are? But you can still save them. You can save them and prove you were right all along.”

“Heh.”

Agnese laughed.

Maybe he was right. Whatever she might have said, she had her thoughts about the Catholics who had cast her out and even attempted to kill her.

But Tu was no god.

He was only human, so the girl had noticed something off just as he was about to win her over.

“But.”

“?”

“What would the Anglicans gain if we took revenge on our old home? And what about everyone who has found a new home there?”

“What are you- wait, it can’t be.”

“You’re right. I do hate the Catholics for casting us out. They did so much to us, but after Fiamma of the Right fell and World War Three ended, they never bothered to slip in an apology among ''all the congratulations''. I loathe them from the bottom of my heart for that.” Agnese continued with a devilish grin. “But if acting on that will not help the people I hope to protect, I will swallow that hatred. I don’t want to save anyone for my own glory or pride.”

“Kh.”

“You missed the mark, Tu. You misread my desire.” She had regained the composure needed to press a hand against the center of her chest and wink. “Doing it for myself just rings hollow in my ears. Now, if you had finished it off by saying it would help Sister Lucia, Sister Angelene, or even Kanzaki Kaori or Sister Orsola, I might have stepped aside for you. But you screwed it up, proving you’re only human. No matter how enlightened you try to sound.”

A prophet lost everything once they were proven wrong.

And the more people had believed them, the greater the backlash.

“Your dreams revealed nothing to you. You just laid out suggestive words in the hopes that you could instill your own desires in others. You convince people they can find happiness if they follow the flowchart found in your words. That is all you are, Tu. Your dreams are no more than dreams! There is no reality to be found there!!”

Agnese Sanctis raised the Lotus Wand in both hands.

This would be the final battle.

“Sister Lucia.”

The tall nun wordlessly responded while readying the giant wooden wheel in her hands.

“Sister Angelene.”

So did the stooped sister with heavy gold coin bags floating up around her.

One thing had not changed here.

They had no reward for Tu. Agnese Sanctis was satisfied with the reality around her, so she had no need for dreams!

“Let’s teach this silly dreamer a lesson!! We will wake you from that dream even if it means smashing your skull in, Albert Dying!!”

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