Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter3 (section)

===Part 6===

The woman had called it a curse.

She had very clearly done so.

“Baron Samedi is the fearsome death god who stands at the crossroads.”

She crossed herself with trembling fingers, but her words suggested it probably meant something different than Angelene was used to.

“But just as any priest can use any curse, any good god also possesses the aspects of any evil god. The opposite is also true. Oh, purifying death god with a red lack of eyes, separate me from the threat like the knife that slices the lime!!”

A powerful crashing sound followed.

The glass door at the entrance had been destroyed by Angelene and her bike, yet the spider-legged thing that cried like a baby was blocked from entry like there was an invisible wall there. Its front end was squished flat against nothing, like a dump truck that crashed into an unseen barrier. It was reminiscent of the distorted face of a murderer squished against thick glass.

“This way, hurry.”

“What is-?”

“This will only buy us some time because the curse has already locked onto us. It will come in here to kill us no matter what!!”

The woman grabbed Angelene’s hand and guided her back into the restaurant’s kitchen. Even at these indoor walls, the magician woman would cross herself and create an invisible barrier at every door they passed through.

But again, this was only buying time.

This did not solve the fundamental problem, so the curse would catch up to them eventually.

Angelene belatedly realized her thighs were trembling.

That was half due to fear and half due to her simple exhaustion. They said crises gave you incredible strength, but she was still amazed she had managed to escape that thing on such a cheap bike. If she had to do it again, the same miracle would not occur a second time.

“Th-that spell. Is it…?”

“Yes. As you can see, it’s Voodoo.” The woman wiped sweat from her brow. “But Voodoo doesn’t actually have any fixed teachings or spells. It’s a culture that borrows the gods and ceremonies of other mythologies and religions, makes them its own, and adds in their own things to continually expand on it. It might even include familiar aspects of your Christianity.”

“Voodoo.”

Hadn’t that come up during the incident in Spain?

Not to mention Isabella Theism of Necessarius.

“I was studying a curse,” spat out the woman. “Divine punishment and divine wrath are a part of god’s will, right? Just look at the stories of Saint Andrew or Saint Vitus. A painful demonstration to the people can be used to show the world god’s glory. And since Voodoo continues to grow while it incorporates all other mythologies and religions, I thought the key to quickly contacting god could be found there.”

“…”

“It’s apparently called the Ceremony of Ba Moun.”

Angelene had no idea what language that was or what it meant.

Maybe that was for the best.

She did not want to think about where that knowledge might lead.

“The spell allows you to bind a priority contract with a demon who will grant your every wish, but in exchange, you must sacrifice someone you care for once every year. And once you run out of people you care for, the demon will devour you. It’s the worst and most wicked spell in Voodoo. But I should have been able to control it with enough research. Keyword: should.”

“Then…”

Angelene gulped.

She sensed some kind of link between the requirement to sacrifice people you cared for and the boys and girls who kept going missing.

“After losing control of the curse, you started forcing it onto unsuspecting people to escape it yourself!? You had them take your place every time you couldn’t escape it any longer!?”

“''If that were enough to save me, I’d be out there enjoying my life right now''.”

She did not even reflexively deny it.

Did people really become this self-centered when they were pushed to the limit?

“I wanted to get rid of the curse. No matter what it took. That habit is Catholic, but I get the feeling you aren’t a normal nun. A pro has finally shown up, so I hope you’re something special.”

She had tired to force it onto someone else to get rid of it.

She had wanted to let them dispose of the problem for her.

She was not even a procurer. She was more like someone who dumped babies or spirit tablets in a coin-operated locker or park trashcan. Knowing someone would find it before long, she abandoned the thing so no one would know it was her. She forced all responsibility onto whoever discovered it so she could run off.

And she would grimace each time the curse returned to her afterwards.

Yet she never gave up and kept doing it.

“There’s something wrong with you,” said Angelene. “And that’s putting it nicely.”

“You had that curse after you too, so you know how terrifying it is, don’t you? What was that nonsense about once a year? It doesn’t wait at all before it comes to devour you. It’s completely broken as a curse.”

Angelene did not want to die.

That was her primary goal here.

And when she calmly analyzed her situation, she found this supposed dead end actually had a path out. But only she could use that path out; the other magician could not.

This was a curse.

The Ceremony of Ba Moun was a spell to create a priority contract with a demon who would grant the magician’s every wish. The demon described there was very poorly defined. It simply required repeated sacrifices of people the magician cared for and, once the magician ran out of those, it would devour the magician themselves.

That might sound like a complete dead end with no escape and it could be described as the worst possible curse, but that was not quite accurate.

There was a very simple way of immediately ending the catastrophe.

The woman who had caused it all had to die to the curse.

That would complete the process.

No more sacrifices would be needed and the thing known as a demon would leave immediately.

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Angelene heard a terrible crash like a thick wooden pillar had been mercilessly snapped. Her shoulders jumped and she looked back toward the door. She could sense a presence there. She could hear it. Something was clawing at a door, meaning it was inside the building.

How many more doors were in its way?

The woman had said that would only buy them some time and she had not just been being modest. Those barriers were not showing any more of an effect than she had claimed.

And.

The solution Angelene had thought up was correct.

Even the most powerful curse could be eliminated if it had a set target and it finished off that target. Assuming the curse did not remain behind afterwards, creating a lasting house of death.

But could she do that? Was she allowed to make that choice???

“I can’t believe this.”

The woman bit her thumbnail without noticing the girl staring so intently at her.

She had demonstrated an ugly fixation on life.

But that also proved that she was most definitely alive.

“This is nothing more than a spell created by humans and meant to be used by humans. No matter what kind of power it’s borrowing to boost itself, there has to be a way of getting rid of it. If I analyze it enough, I should be able to dispel any and all forms of magic.”

The crying of a baby could be heard through the door now.

But those cries were not something a lovable life would ever produce.

This magician had saved Angelene from that once.

She was of course being self-serving here. She was only keeping Angelene around to have someone to shove the curse onto while she escaped. But even so, Angelene would not be alive right now if not for that decision.

Could she really decide this was the right thing to do like she was throwing a switch?

Was it really allowed?

Whose approval could she receive to be freed from the guilt weighing on her gut like lead!?

“What…?”

“?”

“What did you wish for? Even if you only wanted to study the curse, you must have had some kind of wish you wanted granted. You must have used it at least once. So what was it?”

“Oh, that.”

She sounded like she was only now remembering.

Or like she was thinking back to a time when she had still had a conscience.

“I wished no one else would ever have to suffer from a strange curse.”

That clinched it.

Angelene could not do it.

It was true this magician was beyond helping. She had gotten a bunch of innocent people killed and had even tried to force the curse onto Angelene so she alone could escape to safety. It was all so hopelessly self-centered.

But.

She was still a human being.

That should have been obvious, but once you were reminded of that obvious fact, you could not go through with it. Angelene did not even know her name. Maybe she had been afraid it would keep her from acting if she knew. Once she accepted her as a fellow human, she could no longer abandon her.

But that terrible subconscious bulwark had just crumbled away.

This knowledge closed off her fate and guided her to her doom.

That seemed fitting for the person who had created this curse, so Angelene bit her lip.

She could no longer think of taking the easy way out.

“Tell me…”

“What now?”

“Tell me your name.”

The door to the kitchen finally dented in toward them. It bowed inward. Once that thing caught up, they would be devoured and killed. Angelene could just tell that the thing was not something you could think about “defeating” or “beating”.

But she still asked for that piece of information to make a clear decision for herself.

The woman looked taken aback.

She narrowed her eyes a little before answering.

“Frau Halveria. And you?”

“Angelene.”

That eliminated one option.

She could no longer abandon the coward and run to safety while pretending it was the right thing to do.

She had decided she would capture that woman alive and throw her into the Tower of London.