Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter8 (section)

===Part 2===

To be honest, Tu had no real reason to talk.

The more he revealed about his spells, the more of his hand his opponents could defeat. Telling the truth gained him nothing.

(Well.)

But he did it anyway.

(I have plenty of needles. ''If I can convince her'' that I can only use one of a few options, then my next move can take her by surprise.)

It was all to help him win.

It was all to remain in a constant state of winning.

He never would have bound himself with the term “duel” unless he thought his victory was assured. That term was a double-edged sword that would prevent him from escaping if he unexpectedly found himself losing.

And he had the next needle loaded.

(Now, what is your battle plan?)

Albert Dying thought to himself while gripping the large compass in his hand.

The Sickle of Saturn was the foundation of his offense and defense.

The compass was sufficient if he only wanted to crush and kill his opponent.

A battle plan appeared to eliminate the unnecessary options while building up an optimal route to victory, but it really only narrowed your field of view. And the narrower that field, the easier it was for an attack to slip in through a blind spot.

(If she thinks I was simply defeating them one at a time, then she will die next time. Keeping a set distance to fire projectiles creates a blind spot right in front of you. But protecting that old man does not restrict her quite enough. If I want to move in close enough, I should wear down her stamina a little further. I will wait two or three more moves.)

“Theory: Juturna IV.”

This one was a high-pressure water cutter.

The horizontal sweep could easily slice through the girl’s torso.

The attack played out properly, but it did not provide the expected result.

“''Too slow.''”

“!?”

Why hadn’t it hit? Albert Dying took a step back while opening the transparent cover. He dropped the twisted needle to the floor and inserted the next one.

Or he should have.

“Hold up.”

He was interrupted by an absurdly casual voice.

Agnese Sanctis was no longer just protecting the helpless old man.

When had she moved so close?

“How can you keep up with me!?”

His hand was blocked from loading the compass, like someone had grabbed his wrist just before he made an iai strike.

To rid her grip from his arm, he clicked his tongue for the first time and swung the sickle with his other hand. He just barely escaped her restraint, but the needle he had intended to load slipped from his grasp.

The following unpleasant sound would not stop ringing in his ears.

The small sharp piece of metal hitting the floor was not part of his own battle plan.

(Wait.)

Once the thought entered his mind, he came to a shocked stop.

He had violated his own rule.

(Outside my “battle plan”? You mean I too was narrowing my view with one of those?)

“The individual spells weren’t what worried me.”

Bloody Agnese Sanctis did not force herself in closer.

Was she being cautious?

Or was she confident?

“That compass ''was missing'' its ejection and reloading phase. Which makes sense because that’s the part you would most want to hide. You might have a million cards available to you, but you can only use one at a time. And you have to use that ‘theory’ incantation to activate it.”

“…”

“I might not know what’s coming next, but that’s nothing to fear as long as I know when it’s coming. If I can dodge just one of them, then the time it takes to reload allows me to fight back. The million different cards were just meant to overwhelm us, weren’t they? The real trick here was how you ''shifted the timing''. Figure that out and neutralizing you is easy!!”

“………………………………………………………………………………………!!!!!!”

He took immediate action.

He had to load a needle in the compass to use it.

To keep Agnese away, he scattered several of the sharp metal pieces on the floor. Her high-soled sandals worked against her here. Afraid of tripping, she came to a brief stop and Albert managed to stick the needle inside and close the glass cover.

The loading was complete.

“Theory: Dius Fidius I!!”

“Easily dodged.”

She had been late to respond, but she dodged the formless divine punishment with a snort of laughter.

Even though he had spoken the name of “another chief god” said to be on the same level as Chief God Jupiter – who corresponded to Zeus in Greek mythology – but had vanished into the shadows of history.

“You always keep that round compass in your hand. I thought maybe you could keep casting the spells as long as you had the needles, but it’s awfully large. In an age of smartphones, you don’t often see compasses too large to fit in the palm of your hand. That means you have some secret hidden in there, doesn’t it? Something that warrants its larger size.”

The young man said nothing.

Agnese interpreted that as an admission he could no longer play games.

“You would open the glass cover, throw out the old needle, set the new one in the center, and then close the cover again.”

She paused between each step as if checking over them in her head.

And…

“That would take a few seconds, wouldn’t it? But that doesn’t make any sense. While the Amakusas use everyday objects for everything, a combat spiritual item has generally been so optimized that it looks strange to the untrained eye. That unnecessary structure is needlessly delaying your actions.”

Agnese did not hesitate.

The look in her eyes said she already knew the answer. That young man used nice-sounding words to deceive and manipulate people, so that was the last thing he wanted to see.

“So what’s the trick here? The palm wood? Did you include that important religious symbol to create an acceleration spell that lets you move too fast for the eye to follow? Or is it the sweet smell? Are you using some kind of chemical to make me hallucinate? No, no, no, it’s none of that. This isn’t about any of the mysterious hints you’ve created to lead me astray. The answer is much simpler. Because the simpler the structure, the less risk of malfunction. I know what a coward would choose when his life is on the line.”

So she presented him with the decisive words.

“''There never was a glass cover.'' With a silly scam artist’s trick, you greatly reduced the time needed to reload while deceiving anyone watching it happen. Right?”

Time stopped.

Yes, the “glass” cover was no more than a frame.

That part was not needed to activate the magic.

Albert Dying would ignore the cover altogether to push the needle in with a finger and then exaggeratedly open and close it with his thumb.

That was why Agnese had always overlooked when the reloading happened.

No matter how carefully she watched as he popped open the glass cover, she was never going to see it happen when the reloading was already complete at that point. Just like staring at the train track was meaningless when the train had already passed by.

That was all it was.

The silly trick had ''eliminated'' the deadly few seconds when he was most defenseless.

They both viewed a duel as a chance for a dishonest person to hold a public execution and they both knew someone would only call for one when everything was set up to ensure their victory.

“…”

This revelation had erased his advantage.

But Tu still had a chance. Agnese had already stated this did not tell her what was coming next.

(You assume anything I use will be another projectile. Narrowing your vision like that creates a short-range blind spot. I will use your own battle plan to kill you. I will emerge victorious here and I will remain forever victorious!!)

As long as she remained trapped in her “battle plan”, Agnese would not even notice the blind spot she had created. She could only grimace from the wound she had taken to the back and struggle to keep her legs steady below her.

Yes.

The tides could turn against Tu here, but she had only revealed the ancient god spells used through his compass. His true power lay elsewhere.

He did not hesitate.

He sliced down his own arm with the sickle.

“Wha-!?”

Agnese tensed with surprise.

No, he had sliced his own shadow on the wall from shoulder to elbow. That damage was then transferred to Tu himself, just like someone injuring a doll to harm the target.

And that was an accurate comparison. The Sickle of Saturn overwrote who controlled the land it stabbed into and set up a more convenient field.

So it could also be used like this.

By slicing and tearing into oneself, it could overwrite the inner world of the human body. And by tearing down the wall between the micro inner world and the macro outer world, he could wield magic unusable by mere humans.

Such as…

“Theory: Saturn 0!!!!!!”

He did not need the compass needle this time.

And people could not respond to something that caught them by surprise.