Kamijou and Itsuwa made their way to a small museum in Avignon.
It wasn't a large building solely used as a museum. Just like the housing complexes and stores, it used one portion of the fortress-like buildings towering above the roads on either side. There just wasn't enough room in the old town of Avignon that was surrounded by the castle walls and they had probably wanted to maintain a sense of unity in the scenery.
There was a sign in French on the main entrance, but the wooden door had a metal shutter down in front of it. The plate hanging from the knob most likely said "closed".
It was midday on a weekday.
"They must have closed early in fear of the riots," Itsuwa said while looking up at the building.
Kamijou stared at the solid looking shutter and spoke.
"But Tsuchimikado said the invisible pipeline runs through this museum, right? We have to get in somehow. Is there some Amakusa lock-picking skill or-..?"
"Eyah!"
Kamijou was cut off by a cute yell.
The tip of Itsuwa's spear stuck into the gap between the shutter and the ground and she moved the spear according to the principle of leverage. The very gears that moved the shutter broke with a crunching sound.
Itsuwa ignored the security alarm that began ringing and lifted the shutter higher. Then she broke the wooden door using leverage as well.
She entered the building with a sleek expression on her face.
"C'mon, hurry."
"Um…Itsuwa-san?"
Kamijou stared at the short girl's face in shock.
His eyes seemed to be saying "And I thought you were just a normal girl…", but her expression didn't change. She must have been preparing to beat down any museum employees who might come to see what was going on.
As the security alarm continued to ring, Kamijou entered the building, too.
The lighting was fairly dim. In fact, it was almost completely dark inside. All of the windows were covered so the exhibits wouldn't receive any direct sunlight. With the normal fluorescent lights, it wouldn't have been a problem, but Kamijou was a bit unsure of his footing with only the faint light from the emergency exit sign.
"Tsuchimikado said it was…"
"I can tell where it is now that we're this close. It's this way."
Itsuwa continued deeper into the museum holding her spear in one hand.
Kamijou followed her and found nothing more than a normal floor. But looking at the arrangement of the glass showcases, the usual pattern was ignored here which left it oddly empty.
Itsuwa slowly circled around the oddly empty floor. She looked around for a bit and then nodded in satisfaction.
"Yes, it's here. I can feel a power manufactured by the Roman Catholic Church. It feels like a type of purified power that is used in the spells of some other sects. This is a leyline characteristic of a Western church society. They did an excellent job of concealing it; it's hard to sense until you're almost right next to it." She spoke while looking towards Kamijou. "…Tsuchimikado-san isn't here yet, but I should take care of it before the enemy notices. I'm going to sever the pipeline, so please stand back."
"I don't see anything here," Kamijou said as he stared at the floor next to Itsuwa. "…And is severing a pipeline such an easy thing to do?"
"Well, completely severing a leyline requires a large number of people."
"Ah ha ha." Itsuwa laughed. "But if we just need to make the line connecting the Palace of the Popes and the Vatican unusable, I can do it. Basically, I'm going to damage it which will cause its direction to be slightly shifted."
"I see…" Kamijou nodded even though he didn't really understand.
He didn't want to mess it up with Imagine Breaker, so he moved a bit away from Itsuwa.
The Amakusa girl put down her bag and rummaged around inside it. It seemed she was choosing the everyday items needed to use this spell.
Kamijou asked a question as he watched her.
"So the Amakusa Church uses things like that to create spells?"
"Y-yes. For this spell I need a camera, a slipper, a pamphlet, some mineral water, and white panties…"
As she took them out, Itsuwa screamed and hurriedly stuck them back in her bag. They were most likely the ones she had changed out of before.
Her face turned red and she stopped moving.
"Wh-what's wrong, Itsuwa?"
"…this spell."
Itsuwa spoke while still not moving.
"I need them to complete this spell…"
All hope left her face and she slowly took the panties back out from her bag. Itsuwa looked like she was about to cry, and Kamijou thought about turning around, but he couldn't get himself to move after she told him not to worry about it.
Itsuwa lined up the objects she had taken out of her bag on the floor. To Kamijou it just looked like a circle, but there must have been subtle rules about how to do it that she was following.
When she had finished arranging the objects, she spun her spear around in her hand so that the tip was pointed down.
"Here goes," Itsuwa said as she stabbed down towards the floor with her spear.
It hit the very center of the circle.
There was no sound of blade hitting stone.
The tip of the spear disappeared into the floor like it was sinking into mud.
(Once Itsuwa severs the pipeline, the C-Document will stop working. In other words, the riots taking place here should calm down.)
The Amakusa girl mumbled something while her spear was stabbed into the floor.
The spear ever so slowly sank deeper into the floor.
(But then the people using the C-Document in the Palace of the Popes will realize they've failed. When they've determined that the situation is no longer in their favor, they may flee to the Vatican with the C-Document.)
She tapped the floor with her heel.
She also lightly but rhythmically tapped the handle of the spear with the pointer finger of the hand holding the spear.
(So this is a race against the clock. We need to rush to the Palace of the Popes once the riots settle down. We'll join up with Tsuchimikado and stop them before they can leave.)
The spear was now over halfway into the floor and the end of the handle only reached up as high as Itsuwa's chest.
She let go of the spear and adjusted her grip.
It was like she was turning a giant key.
Next, there was a noise.
But…
It wasn't a noise caused by Itsuwa's spear.
With a loud crash, the outer wall of the museum suddenly burst open from some kind of attack. It was aimed for Itsuwa and her spear that was sunk into the floor.
It looked like a giant blade being swung.
It was white.
It traveled in a straight line for Itsuwa.
When she noticed that, she altered her position without moving the spear so that she was behind it. The attack passed right by Itsuwa, but a piece of the destroyed wall…or rather, a piece of stone too big to reach your arms around, hit her spear dead on.
"Itsuwa!!"
The spear broke clean in half where it was hit.
Itsuwa was knocked back a fair distance while holding the broken spear.
After causing this destruction, the white attack fluctuated and disappeared like smoke.
"Damn it…!!"
Itsuwa held the two halves of her broken spear in her hands. She removed the broken piece from the attachments and threw it aside. She then kicked her bag up from the ground and grabbed a replacement rod from the bag in midair. She used that piece to remake her spear.
The second attack came shortly thereafter.
The "white blade" came bursting through the outer wall again.
The motion of the "white blade" as it moved from one wall to the other was rough like kid swinging a tree branch around. But this had overwhelming destructive force. The stone walls and floor crumbled, the glass showcases shattered, and the pieces scattered in every direction.
The sounds of destruction continued one after another.
Kamijou bent over and saw a fine powder falling down from the ceiling.
(Not good…This building isn't going to last…!!)
"Itsuwa!!" Kamijou yelled and moved his arms to tell her to run for the exit.
Meanwhile the "white blade" continued to fly around destroying the walls like a predator chasing its prey.
With each strike, it seemed to be getting closer and closer to its target.
Whoever was controlling it may have been getting a feel for how they were avoiding it.
Or perhaps the attacker was attacking from a distance and he or she was getting slowly closer.
Kamijou barely managed to avoid the blade as it fell like a guillotine. He leaped out of the way and out of the museum in what was almost a roll.
And then…
"My, my. It seems when attacking from a distance my accuracy drops."
The voice came from nearby.
Quite nearby. It was only a few dozen centimeters away from his face.
Kamijou was surprised as the man must have been waiting for him there.
The man in front of Kamijou's eyes swung his right arm without waiting for Kamijou to respond.
Something white appeared behind his arm as it moved.
Unlike the slow movement of the man's arm, the white object shot towards Kamijou's neck at the speed of a falling guillotine.
There was a loud roar as it flew through the air.
"Ohhhhhhh!?"
Kamijou immediately held up his right hand and the "white blade" hit it.
The "white blade" fell to pieces the very second it did. Literally. A white powder really did scatter around the area.
The fog-like curtain of powder fluctuated and gathered back together when the attacker moved his finger.
"Get back!!" Itsuwa yelled from behind Kamijou and he hurriedly put some distance between himself and the attacker.
Kamijou was finally able to focus on all of the attacker at once.
It was a man wearing green ceremonial clothes.
He was wearing green from head to toe.
He was a bit short for a white person as he was about Kamijou's height or maybe a little shorter. On the other hand, he looked about twice Kamijou's age. He was quite skinny so his ceremonial clothes were very loose fitting. His sunken cheeks gave him an odd sense of vitality.
Kamijou held out his right hand and asked the ceremonially-dressed attacker a question.
"…Are you from the Roman Catholic Church?"
"I am, but I would prefer it if you said I was from God's Right Seat."
Kamijou was at a loss for words at how carefree the man's response was.
God's Right Seat.
Another member of that group, Vento of the Front, had almost completely paralyzed Academy City single-handedly on September 30th.
If this man was on the same level as her…
"My name is Terra of the Left."
The white powder gathered in his hand took shape.
As before, it was the shape of a guillotine.
It was a board-shaped blade that looked like a 70 centimeter square that had had its bottom cut diagonally. The man held it by the ring that would normally have the supporting rope tied to it.
"It seems my turn is finally here. Since we of God's Right Seat cannot use normal magic, I had to leave the operation of the C-Document to another magician."
Terra smiled as he let the execution blade hang casually by his side.
"And so I was hoping you could help me kill some time. You're the first ones to get caught by my anti-leyline spell probe, so I hope you'll be good for some fun."