Surprise!
Kamijou Touma was instantly alert!
"Huh?"
"Yo, Tsuchimikado, thank goodness you're finally here. Haven't seen you all morning—I thought you'd gone off on your own for some fun. Let me sniff... Mmm, a faint fragrance of a charming lady... ah—"
Hooked around Kamijou Touma's shoulders, the blue-haired earring guy looked at his friend with the blonde afro, sunglasses, and chunky gold chain. With a theatrical flick of his own hair and a blissful expression, he sighed as if overwhelmed with emotion.
Though looking closely, Kamijou could tell this guy had never once felt genuinely moved in his life.
Troublemaker, partner-in-crime—this guy was the definition of a bad influence!
"Maybe so. But for now, I'm taking Kami-yan with me!"
Before the blue-haired guy could react, he suddenly felt the support under his arm vanish. He watched as his two buddies clasped hands and dashed off without so much as a backward glance.
"Hey! Tsuchimikado, what's going on... ah! Slow down!"
Watching the ironclad trio of their high school crew suddenly fracture, Kamijou and Tsuchimikado running off together like they were eloping, the blue-haired guy instinctively leaned forward, reaching out with a wail of despair.
Judging by the tragedy in his voice, you'd think he'd just been dumped by a girl.
"Hey hey! Kami-yan! Tsuchimikado! You're just gonna ditch me like that?! Got some big secret or something?! Wait for me—argh!"
Running off so openly—those traitors! How could they leave without me?! I want in too—
"Freeze!"
Grabbed by the collar, the blue-haired guy slumped to the ground as he heard a charming voice behind him. "Ugh, I'm so tired. I'm done for."
"Seriously, what is this mess?!"
A pretty girl with a slightly wide forehead, due to her parted black hair tucked behind both ears, clutched the back of his collar. Seeing their classmates sprawled out with no motivation whatsoever, she was momentarily stunned.
Wearing a Daihasei Festival Operations Committee armband over her tracksuit, it was easy to make out her impressive bust under the T-shirt. The girl's proud figure stood out clearly.
"It's bad enough you're all sluggish, but now you're trying to desert the team?! Kamijou Touma, Tsuchimikado Motoharu, you two idiots—get back here!"
Hearing the black-haired girl's displeased shout behind him, Kamijou Touma grimaced.
"Hey! Fukiyose! Sorry, but I'm leaving the match to you! As for me and Tsuchimikado—just think of it as misfortunate Kamijou going to face some life obstacle."
"What kind of twisted logic is that?! I hate people who use misfortune as an excuse to run away! When you act all listless, it drags everyone else down too!"
"Just wait—I'll deal with you later!!"
Hands on her hips, Fukiyose Seiri scowled as she pointed and shouted after the two escapees. Completely unaffected by Kamijou's abnormal luck with women, she lived up to her title as "the Iron-Walled Girl who's completely immune to Kamijou."
Clack clack—
Who knew how far Tsuchimikado had dragged him. After winding through narrow alleys and finally coming to a stop, Kamijou Touma, panting heavily, gasped:
"Tsuchimikado, what the hell's going on? Another crisis threatening to destroy Academy City? Now will you finally explain it?!"
"That question... let me answer it for you, boy."
"Stiyl?" Kamijou turned toward the voice and gaped. "Weren't you thrown out of Academy City by Selene?"
The red-haired priest in a black robe leaning against the alley wall—wasn't that Stiyl Magnus?
Kamijou Touma vividly remembered how during the Endymion incident, Stiyl and Kanzaki Kaori, representing the magic side, had been vying over Meigo Arisa—or rather, Shutaura Sequenzia—only to be casually tossed out of Academy City by Selene.
In Selene's words: don't act so arrogant on her turf, magic side.
Still bandaged and clearly not fully recovered, Stiyl's face reddened. He coughed a few times.
"Let's not talk about that. We've got more important matters."
"This incident... it's a real pain. While the thing we're dealing with doesn't have much physical destructive power, in terms of its effect, it absolutely has the potential to destroy Academy City."
"So what is it, exactly?"
Straightening up, Kamijou leaned against the wall beside Stiyl and grumbled, "Why is it that every time you show up, something bad happens? Someone gets attacked, something explodes..."
"You think I enjoy it?!"
Stiyl sighed. "We've confirmed it now. According to Charles Conder, director of the British Museum, it's not the 'Curtana Original'. Kanzaki won't be in danger. But our problems have just begun."
"It's the Vatican's highest-tier magical artifact, long kept secret—'Croce di Pietro'."
...
District 7, Main Venue.
"'Croce di Pietro'—that's the one planted beside Saint Peter's tomb, one of the twelve apostles of the Roman Orthodox Church."
In short: a tombstone.
Streams of crystalline blue data flashed through scarlet eyes as Selene swiftly reviewed the intelligence from Aleister Crowley, the Board Chairman. She let out a soft laugh.
"That's right. Its destructive capabilities are weak, but the 'Croce di Pietro' has a very peculiar effect. Within its active range, Vatican Roman Catholic followers will feel a deep sense of happiness. And others will feel that being a Roman Catholic is a great joy."
Aleister's mechanical voice continued to echo in Selene's mind.
"In short, the area where it is placed—whether physically or spiritually—will be forcibly converted into territory belonging to the Roman Orthodox Church. Everything on that land will trend toward what benefits the Church, and no one will question it. On the contrary, they'll gladly accept it."
Isn't that basically a Mental Seal?
"Sounds exactly like the kind of thing those parasites in the Church would pull."
Seems we're all just comparing degrees of awfulness—no one's really noble.
"This thing..."
Utilizing the quantum information channel established with Aleister via UNDER_LINE, Selene examined the images and reference data for the Croce di Pietro replica, her brow twitching slightly.
"An effective range of 47,000 square kilometers—about 200 km in radius. No wonder they disguised it as the 'Curtana Original' to fool the Anglican Church... Even without entering Academy City, its effect could still envelop it."
"Board Chairman, I trust you've already made full preparations? So, what do you need me to do?"
Meanwhile, inside the "Windowless Building."
Suspended in a life-support apparatus filled with weakly alkaline nutrient fluid, Aleister allowed a faint, nearly imperceptible smile to form. Having a reliable partner with aligned goals really made things easier.
"The British Royal Knights and the Roman Orthodox God's Right Seat seem to be converging toward your brother's location... Selene, don't move yet. The time isn't right. Don't stir up too much trouble. The Daihasei Festival must conclude smoothly."
Aleister laid out his request.
"...Understood."
Ending the communication, Selene tapped into the permissions granted by Aleister to access UNDER_LINE and [Bank], and quickly began reviewing all available data on foreign personnel in Academy City.
Selene understood Aleister's warning well. With the post-Daihasei Festival tourist exodus, and the global spread of the Misaka Network via Misaka Imouto, Aleister's magical constructs—based on Honkai crystals—would also soon proliferate worldwide, even reaching into space.
From what Selene knew, before Stargate Corporation came under her control, it had suddenly received a large injection of funding from the Board of Directors. The reconstruction of the space elevator had rapidly moved up the schedule. It wasn't hard to guess what was coming.
After all, there's no way Aleister was doing all this just to chase death like Ladylee Tangleroad... well, on second thought, maybe he was. Even if he succeeded, he'd be completely annihilated.
Ah, his martyr-like "noble" spirit—it really deserved Selene's sincere hymns of praise.
She didn't care what anyone else thought. Right now, she was a die-hard Aleister supporter.
The next moment, Selene called an old friend. "Kihara Amata, got a job for you. Dispatch the Hound Dog unit. I'm authorizing you to take over all riot control units in District 7. Coordinates XXXX... The target's a Vatican pest, high-level—one of the God's Right Seat."
"Endless infighting among the schools is boring. A war between the magic and science sides was bound to happen someday—just treat this as a warm-up."
The God's Right Seat, regarded as the ultimate weapon outside all Roman Orthodox institutions, always maintained four members, each bearing attributes linked to the four archangels: "Vento of the Front", "Acqua of the Back", "Terra of the Left", and "Fiamma of the Right".
From what Selene knew, the power differences between them were immense. Fiamma of the Right was the strongest, Acqua of the Back second, Vento of the Front next.
The one who first surfaced in Academy City, Terra of the Left, was the weakest.
Not really a threat. The only ones Selene had to truly watch for were the Magic Gods. Half-Magic Gods were still powerless insects. Crushing a Right Seat member with one of her split avatars would be simple—only Fiamma of the Right posed some trouble.
Since only Terra of the Left had shown up so far, and only vague traces of Vento of the Front and Acqua of the Back had been detected, with Fiamma of the Right nowhere in sight, Selene would hold off—for now. No point in scaring them off prematurely.
Better to let Kihara Amata handle Terra of the Left. He was the perfect one to take out this "shame of the God's Right Seat."
And why not Selene herself playing the part of a weakling? Well... doesn't she have any pride?
More importantly: absolutely not!
Terra of the Left was too hideous. His looks were bad enough, but add in his perversion and neuroticism—it was like stacking debuffs. Selene feared she'd rip him apart in a rage.
"Sorry to keep you waiting."
Adjusting her mood, Selene left the arena and entered the VIP seats. Spotting Katie—now dressed in a tracksuit and wearing a baseball cap—Selene twitched.
"Uh, Mom... when did you change clothes?"
"Oh, Selene, seeing you looking so gallant out there got me fired up too! There's gonna be horse racing—"
Katie looked visibly excited, clenching her fists and urging Selene.
"Don't even think about it, not happening. Give it up, Mom. The Daihasei Festival has no parent events, and I'm not giving the Operations Committee and Judgment any more work. They'd probably want to hang your daughter from a lamppost."
Selene took a bottle of water and shut her down with three rejections in one go, dousing Katie's enthusiasm on the spot.
"Wuu! Little Selene's bullying her mom again."
Watching her mother wipe away fake tears, Selene calmly pointed behind her to a timid-looking girl and changed the subject. "Mom, hold off on the whining. Who's she?"
Of course, she knew the answer. From the start, Selene had noticed the blonde girl surrounded by bodyguards in suits.
Dressed in a floral dress with a wide-brimmed hat, the girl's silky golden hair cascaded like ribbons, matching her fair skin and giving off a bright, youthful beauty.
Despite her simple outfit and lack of fancy accessories, her delicate, vulnerable aura was reminiscent of a textbook princess—instantly eye-catching.
"Um, my name is Villian. Hello, Miss Selene."
She curtsied gracefully. Recalling her mother's encouragement before coming to Academy City, Villian mustered her courage. Though her voice remained soft and timid, she managed to speak.
Villian didn't have the benefit of Katie's maternal filter. Kind, lonely by nature, she had sharp instincts when meeting people for the first time.
Despite being almost 25, she felt completely overshadowed by Selene, who still looked like a middle school student. Selene's commanding military aura was far more terrifying than even her second sister, Carissa.
"Mm. Hello, Villian." Looking at the delicate princess, Selene's mind was elsewhere—wondering if she could use this girl to threaten Acqua of the Back. Would he kneel to her?
Chances seemed... "Ow!"
"Ow what? Selene, what happened to your manners?!"
Noticing Selene's arms crossed and dominant stance, Katie glared and pinched her daughter's waist.
She scolded, "She's Queen Eliza's daughter, the third British princess, Villian... and no matter her status, when someone greets you politely, Selene, your attitude was too arrogant, too rude, too improper."
"This was a one-time mistake. Won't happen again."
Katie's anger rose. Seeing this one small instance already revealed so much, she had a sinking feeling. Her noble lady etiquette training hadn't completely failed... but it was pretty close.
"You want a next time?!"
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