The path to the Palace of the Popes was impassable.
Kamijou and Itsuwa were in the small old town of Avignon that was surrounded by only 4 kilometers of castle wall, but they still couldn't reach a certain spot. The streets in the old town were small. They were only about 3 meters wide and were surrounded on either side by stone housing complexes towering up 15 meters high making it difficult to take detours. And to go ahead, they had to go through a solid wall of hundreds if not thousands of rioters. It was like trying to move from one end of a packed train to the other.
At this rate they would never make it to the Palace of the Popes.
They would be taken out here before they had a chance to destroy the C-Document.
"Not again…" Itsuwa said as she caught her breath and stared at the new group of rioters ahead of them.
Some of the rioting men with bloodshot eyes were pointing and yelling at them. Kamijou didn't know French, but they may have been yelling, "They're Japanese!", or "They're from Academy City!", or something similar.
Before they could move, Itsuwa grabbed Kamijou's arm and started running.
"This isn't going to work. Come on. This is just going to end in a stalemate!"
"Hey, what about the Palace of the Popes!?" Kamijou yelled as Itsuwa led him back the way they had come.
It looked like the men who had been glaring at Kamijou and Itsuwa started following them, but they got pulled back into the huge mass of rioters.
Itsuwa didn't like the situation any more than Kamijou.
"…That group of rioters was clearly the biggest one yet. We're not going to get through just by running!"
"So you're going to find another route? But…"
Kamijou started speaking, but he spotted some youths who were taking part in another riot ahead. The small path was completely blocked by a wall of people.
It wasn't too surprising. Kamijou and Itsuwa had just pushed through that group of rioters.
"Here too!?"
Itsuwa's voice sounded surprisingly pissed and she grabbed Kamijou's hand while running towards the housing complex making up the wall. They leaped into the stone building that almost looked like it was made out of a cliff.
They pushed the thick wooden door closed with their backs.
The sound and impact of the rioters going by on the other side pounded on the door. But it wasn't because someone was trying to destroy the door; it was just from the shoulders and arms of the rioters crammed into the road scraping against it.
Kamijou slid down to the ground while keeping his back on the door.
"…What do we do about this? At this rate, we'll never get to the Palace of the Popes."
"Making progress through these riots is difficult…" Itsuwa spoke in a quiet voice.
She lowered her bag to the ground and pulled out a few rods about 70 cm long. They came together into a single rod when she connected them using sockets that looked like gas valves. Lastly, Itsuwa connected a steel blade to the end.
It was a Western-style cross spear.
Kamijou thought it was called a Friuli Spear.
(Sigh…Well, I had thought a lot about this secret mission thing, but…)
As he was thinking, he saw something that made him choke.
He saw Itsuwa's cleavage that was visible due to the front of her blouse being tied closed in a makeshift fashion. Kamijou thought there were plenty of problems with how she was dressed, but she didn't seem to notice.
"What do we do now? I act so as to avoid the riots, so I don't actually have any plan or spells to use if I ever actually got caught in one."
"Y-yeah…We need to get to the Palace of the Popes in order to stop the riots and we need to stop the riots in order to get to the Palace of the Popes…Damn it. This is just going in circles."
And on top of all that, there was the fact that if the enemy felt any danger they would take the C-Document and return to the Vatican while Kamijou and Itsuwa were stuck here. If the C-Document was used there, it would be even more difficult to get it. And then these riots could last forever.
They had to act now, but they were stuck. It was quite a dilemma.
Each second that was wasted felt like tens if not hundreds of times longer.
But then…
Kamijou heard his cell phone ringing in his pocket.
It was from Tsuchimikado.
"Kami-yan, you okay!?"
"Where are you!? Are you caught up in the riots, too? Are you hurt!?"
"I'm en route to the building known as the Palace of the Popes. If the C-Document is really being used in France, it has to be there."
"The Palace of the Popes…? So you're headed there, too?"
"?"
Kamijou continued before Tsuchimikado could respond.
"So my parachute didn't end up somewhere way off target. We really were aiming for Avignon."
"Well, yeah…Kami-yan, how do you know about the Palace of the Popes? I thought we jumped off the plane before I explained that."
"I met up with Itsuwa of the Amakusas here and she explained it to me. But the riots are so intense we can't reach the Palace. What about you?"
"It's about the same here. Well, a lot has happened. These waves of people are working too well at blocking the small roads of Avignon. There's no way we can get through like this."
And with that, they both understood the other's situation.
Tsuchimikado must have gotten caught up in the riots and was now hiding somewhere.
"Hey, Tsuchimikado. I'd like for us to meet up. Do you know a good place for that?"
"These riots are occurring all across the city. I'd rather not stay in one place for too long."
"Then what are we going to do? Wait for the riots to die down?"
"That would be a good plan if these were occurring naturally, but these are being caused by the C-Document. The Roman Catholic Church can make this last as long as they need, so things aren't going to change for the better with time."
"But is there anything else we can do!?"
"Yes," Tsuchimikado readily responded. "We need to change our way of thinking about this. If we can't get to the Palace of the Popes, we just have to solve the problem in a way where we don't have to go to there."
"…?"
"Since you had that Amakusa person explain it to you, I'm sure you know why we're focusing on Avignon's Palace of the Popes, right?"
Kamijou thought about that for a second.
"Well, they can operate devices in the Vatican from there, right? That's why they can use the C-Document here."
"Right. So we just have to sever the magical pipeline connecting Avignon and the Papal State which is now the Vatican. If we do that, they shouldn't be able to use the C-Document anymore. It may be too difficult to get to the Palace, but we should be able to get to the pipeline."
"Oh," Kamijou responded.
(Now that I think about it, that's true…)
"But surely the people using the C-Document in the Palace will notice if they can't use it anymore. Once that happens, they'll flee."
"True enough. I can't deny that. That's why our schedule is important. This will all rely on whether we can get to the Palace after we sever the pipeline."
Kamijou thought that Tsuchimikado's plan made sense.
He must have been gathering information on this well before they had gotten on the plane. And he must have continued to investigate while being chased by the rioters after they had gotten separated.
But Kamijou, an amateur, spotted a problem in the plan.
"Even if we know the C-Document is in the Palace of the Popes, we don't know who's using it. Couldn't they just hide within the crowd of rioters? We'd never find them then."
"…"
Tsuchimikado stayed silent for a moment before he started speaking.
"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Stopping the C-Document comes first."
Kamijou had a bad feeling about Tsuchimikado's words.
(He isn't going to use magic to find the enemy's location again, is he?)
Tsuchimikado Motoharu had a major handicap in that he injured himself whenever he used magic.
But Kamijou knew he would ignore that handicap and use magic if he had to. He had tracked down Oriana Thomson during the Daihaseisai even when he was covered in blood.
Whether he was aware of the unease Kamijou was feeling or not, Tsuchimikado continued speaking.
"Now we finally know what exactly needs to be done, Kami-yan."