Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume14 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 6===

In the same district, not far from Kamijou and the others, stooped Angelene was waving her hands anxiously.

“Ehhhh!? Saint Georgios’s Fire? Is the Vatican really trying to defeat Coronzon!? A-are you sure they aren’t just using this as an excuse to destroy Academy City?”

“Some of them might think it would be safer to destroy it before it’s officially absorbed into the Anglican Church.”

Lucia appeared to be doing her best to remain calm.

The conversation wasn’t just between Agnese, Lucia, and Angelene. More than 250 nuns would be listening in through the Barbara Branch communication spiritual item.

Agnese had her doubts about that too. How far into the future were the Roman Catholic cardinals looking? Even though none of it would matter if the world were destroyed tomorrow.

The Former Agnese Force had already been told to evacuate.

They were to abandon Academy City and the Anglicans and escape the city with only the Roman Catholics among them. They had been given a few different conditions for activating Saint Georgios’s Fire, but it all boiled down to one thing: the cardinals would use that large-scale spell no matter what happened. The only difference was if it happened sooner or later.

The branch between launching it or not had already passed.

Being stubborn here was fine, but anyone who remained would die.

With zero exceptions.

Lucia looked to Agnese. She may have been peering into her eyes.

“This force is under your command, Sister Agnese. What will we do?”

“I do not have the right to order you all to die.” Agnese smiled bitterly as she spoke to them all. “You are not obligated or bound to stay. From here on, this is all voluntary. If you choose to leave Academy City, you don’t need your Barbara Branch. The Anglicans are experts at combating human magic. They might be able to track your location using it, so abandon it and escape in complete silence.”

“Wh-what can we accomplish by staying?”

“Protect Academy City from Saint Georgios’s Fire of course,” replied Agnese, her voice low.

That human-targeted attack wouldn’t work against inhuman Coronzon. So stopping the spell that would cause asphyxiation and ruptured organs would not affect the battle against Coronzon.

“Think of it like the neck of an hourglass. Saint Georgios’s Fire is large-scale magic that gathers power from the two billion Catholics across the globe without their knowledge and allows the cardinals in the Vatican to control it. Once gathered together, the attack travels through the ley lines to reach enemy territory and scatters back into two billion attacks after emerging from the ground. Then it causes enough damage to destroy a city.”

A city. Was that at least better than Adikalika that would have affected the entire Italian Peninsula? Agnese smiled a little. So they were retaliating with a smaller attack. The Vatican’s cardinals really had found a way to lower the psychological hurdle as far as possible.

“T-two billion. Th-th-then I don’t see what we can possibly do!”

“''That means it must be a long-range spell.'' In fact, it must travel all the way around the earth. Have you forgotten how Index stopped Adikalika? There must be any number of options: diverting its aim, cutting off the flow of the ley lines before it arrives here, or even preventing the two billion powers from gathering at the Vatican.”

Her argument had to be correct.

But she understood full well that this was wishful thinking.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been sweating so heavily in this cold weather.

(Even if the theory is solid, we’re talking about power from two billion people… Can we really stand up to that sheer force of quantity? That will likely be the greatest obstacle.)

There was no guaranteed method. If they stayed too long, they would lose the lives they could have saved.

They had to build it all up starting now. They had nothing at the moment to tell them it would be alright.

So Agnese Sanctis could not demand her companions join her in this.

In the worst case, she would have to stand up to the two billion all on her own.

And…



“I volunteer.”



That was Lucia.

She used to be so fastidious she would rage when so much as touched by a non-Catholic, but now she was the first to raise her hand and volunteer to fight to protect Academy City.

“What? The Roman Catholic Church is the largest sect in the world, so we must consider the world as a whole. Of course I will reach out a helping hand when lives are at risk. I couldn’t call myself a Catholic if I wouldn’t.”

She wasn’t alone.

Angelene was trembling, but she too chose to raise her hand. Even if only a little.



“U-umm. I volunteer. I mean, if we ran away now, then the Anglicans ''and'' the Catholics would be after us. So I want to at least keep a place for us with one of them. Our home is the women’s dorm in London and, if we want to return there with a clear conscience, we have to save Academy City!”



More and more voices came over the Barbara’s Branch communication spiritual item.

It only provided audio, but Agnese could easily imagine them leaning forward in defiance.



“Sister Apollonia. I volunteer too.”

“Sister Paula. I’ll volunteer if there are any tickets left.”

“Sister Agata. I-I volunteer!”



…This was who they were.

They hadn’t started out this way, of course. They hadn’t forgotten the brutal violence they subjected Orsola Aquinas and Kamijou Touma to. But Agnese and these more than 250 nuns had grown enough to say this during such a crisis.

After seeing another way to live. After being accepted with a smile after everything they had done.

It must have taken trust to do that, so they couldn’t turn their backs on that trust.

Did this mean they all felt that way?

Lucia pushed the conversation onward.

“Sister Agnese. We haven’t heard your answer yet. What will you do?”

Agnese Sanctis raised her head.

She stared straight ahead and raised her voice to a roar.



“I volunteer!! …Now that you’ve chosen this for yourself, you had better be ready. I said I don’t have the right to order you all to die. So no matter how bad this gets, I will not let you take the easy way out and choose an emotional death. Cry and wail all you like, I will bring every last one of you back alive even if it means crawling through hell on earth!!”