lete bust. They might have used some older source when deciding on their list, but he doubted a centuries-old tradition would have been passed down with perfect accuracy. At best, it would have partially incorporated some of it. He felt an urge to lash out at the half-assed system here. This was like the stores telling you to give chocolate on Valentine’s Day just to sell their products. He could not entrust his life to that.

He heard a disconcerting zapping sound.

It was not aimed directly at him, so he was slow to react. The electricity instead crashed into the showcase in front of him, causing it to burst from within. The wall of sharp glass pummeled his entire body and he was knocked to the floor.

“Hit.”

“Ah..kah..”

“I think I see how this works now. You’re nimble, but it dulls your intuition when your life is not directly targeted.”

There were countless types of magic.

And Anna Sprengel was in the deepest depths of that world. Was he just not going to find the answer by looking through some random bits and pieces of magical knowledge?

But.

St. Germain spoke from within Kamijou while the boy clenched his fist.

“I see. You cannot find the answer right away, but you can arrive at the answer by eliminating each wrong answer in turn.”

“..?”

“The runes are not necessary and we can eliminate the yoga and Buddhism as well. R&C Occultics has spread all forms of magic. That may have made the occult harder to detect, just like the city lights hiding the stars in the sky, but if you understand the Rose’s methods, the knowledge requiring our focus makes itself readily apparent.”

Kamijou Touma did not know enough to take issue with that conclusion.

He had to rely on St. Germain’s senses since he still knew the Rose, just like people never forgot how to hold chopsticks or ride a bike.

“The answer is 3.”

Kamijou felt so woozy, but he was guided to that specific answer, not 4 or 5.

St. Germain went on to explain.

“The Rose often used Kabbalah, which says the entire world can be explained using the 22 Hebrew characters. You merely need to subtract the 7 metals and the 12 constellations from 22. If you remove each of the petals on the outside, you are left with the number hidden in the center of the flower. You are left with 3 characters.”

Come to think of it, hadn’t Anna herself mentioned the rose and the cross?

“Shin is fire, Mem is water, and Aleph is wind. The rose symbol represents the world by surrounding those three elements with a ring divided into sevenths and with the 12 colors.”

Kamijou managed to keep breathing, but it felt like breaking through a sticky barrier.

Was that due to being torn up on the outside or eaten away on the inside?

It was hard to tell anymore.

“Then..is Anna using that to create different things out of the energy produced by that angel named Aiwass?”

“Yes, but that does not simply mean 22 different attack patterns in all. Kabbalah has a code system known as Gematria. The characters are assigned numbers and two words with the same number are considered to have the same meaning.”

“But..”

If she only started with three characters, weren’t there only so many combinations she could use?

But St. Germain got ahead of that question.

“For example, Shin’s numerical value is 300, but Gematria adds the digits together to reach a single-digit number. That gives you an answer of 3. But that can be read simply as 3, aka Gimel, or it could be read as 1+2, aka Aleph and Bet. So depending on how you break it down, the possibilities are endless. That is why a powerful grimoire can be such a hotbed of misreadings.”

“I was wondering about that, but it wasn’t my main question. Where is Anna hiding her rose accessory!?”

He doubted it was the decorations in her fried shrimp hair.

Nor would it be her thin dress.

She would need a detailed symbol that accurately placed the 22 Hebrew characters on as many rose petals, but Kamijou could not see anything like it.

The sexy woman grinned and raised her right hand from a short distance away.

“This will never end unless we destroy that. We’ll be killed if we can’t rob Anna of her power!!”

Part 5

“Found it!” Index shouted excitedly in the District 7 hospital.

If basic magic could be constructed from magic words, gestures, and hand signals with no need for a spiritual item, it might seem like there was no way to save the espers from the side effects.

But that assumption was wrong.

“The stars, the three prophets, a link to the date, and it only activates on the 25th.”

“So it’s a curse that takes advantage of Christmas’s date!?”

That might sound ridiculous, but at some point, Christmas became more than just an enjoyable festival. Either a very twisted person had spread the idea or a lot of people had wanted to believe it because there were traditions of that sort out there. For example, there were mysterious figures who generally only appeared on Christmas and who you never wanted to so much as encounter, like the dark Santa Claus that abducted bad children or the Kallikantzaros that was only active during the end of the year.

And human psychology had a fascinating tendency to spread stories of misfortune more than ones of fortune. For example, everyone would immediately forget an urban legend that still remembering the keyword ‘silver mirror’ when you turned 20 would bring you happiness, but no one could bring themselves to forget the urban legend that still remembering the keyword ‘purple mirror’ when you turned 20 would mean your death.

So the happier a time Christmas was, the more the dark joy spread of wondering about the people for whom Christmas was an unhappy time. Yes, joy. When people at a large party started wondering about the people who had no date to share Christmas with, they were generally imagining someone worse off than them to make themselves feel better about their own situation. There may have been a magician that provided that with a concrete effect at some point. Either to ruin Christmas or to make sure the event would never be forgotten.

In fact, it was not uncommon in the world of magic for experts to give concrete form to something they encountered and thought was neat. Othinus who once destroyed the entire world' was not one to talk, but magicians had a tendency to cross some lines generally considered taboo.

Take, for example, everything related to the Cthulhu Mythos.

Or the Rosy Cross that Andreae claimed to have invented himself.

“A good luck charm meant to confirm your own happiness, huh?” Othinus sounded disgusted. “And it ends up destroying their body as they keep using it. Self-doubt really is the greatest poison. Besides, if you need something to objectively tell you you’re happy, then you’re not really happy at all.”

“But now that we know this..”

“Yes, we can bring the party to an end. Let’s leave a present by the patient’s pillow while they sleep and before they can start using that magic while emptyhanded. Santa’s visit is considered the highlight of Christmas in this country, so once they have their present, Christmas is over, right?”

“A spell to end Christmas.”

“Once it’s ready, search out an adult among the visitors. If they aren’t an esper, we can get them to use the magic without any side effects.”

Normally, they might not find anyone willing to cooperate with that. Especially in Academy City. They might even get yelled at for asking for something so extremely inappropriate.

But things were different now.

It was R&C Occultics who had lowered the barrier toward magic.

And the god of war, deception, and magic would use everything available to her. If the enemy was going to give her a gift, she would use that gift to bring the enemy to their knees. That was Othinus’s style.

“Then let’s settle this,” said the god without hesitation.

Part 6

Anna Sprengel considered what to do with her right hand next. But only with the tension of someone pondering what to make for dinner that night.

She had well over a million attack options.

(The optimization should be done soon and the boring result has already shown itself.)

She had made her choice.

40 + 300. Each digit was split out separately and summed together, so that came out to a 7. That meant the true character she had extracted was Z or Zayin. That corresponded to The Lovers in tarot and it was the channel that connected the spheres of understanding and beauty in the Sephiroth.

It meant a sword or armor.

That determined the nature of her right hand.

(The emotion of irritation is a rare one for me, but I do experience it from time to time. If this result is not to my liking, maybe I should dispose of him and move on to my next objective.)

Anna Sprengel gently stretched out her slender hand. Her right hand could use just two fingers to slice through anything. In other words, simply closing those two fingers would create a massive invisible maw with her target’s head between the jaws.

Just then, Kamijou Touma took an unusual action.

“Change!!”

He did the opposite of his usual move of suicidally rushing in with fist clenched. In fact, he jumped backwards to move away from her.

That was still suicidal, but the boy did not have any projectile attacks.

Which meant..

(St. Germain!!)

Anna smiled.

It might look at first like Kamijou Touma had acquired a great variety of options here, but it was actually the opposite. When it came to the essence of Rosicrucianism, no magician knew more than the master of the No. 1 Temple in Germany. No one had any chance of defeating her if they challenged her on that field. They might put up a decent fight, but they could never win. They would only be postponing their inevitable death.

It could not have been more apparent that the only way to defeat this magic was to destroy the illusion.

(Attempting to keep your distance and wear me down with projectiles after all this is just pathetic.)

St. Germain specialized in creating diamonds.

That meant carbon manipulation.

(Then all I need to do is absorb all forms of carbon, both solid and gaseous, to remove it from this space.)

Something gathered in her small left palm. It was a filthy black ball a little larger than a pill.

(Now St. Germain is helpless. Or will he use his host’s own body to create a diamond? Based on the optional services offered by funeral homes, an entire human body’s worth of carbon should only get you a diamond no larger than the tip of your fingernail!!)

Anna laughed, but then she silently grimaced.

No matter what she said, she clung to success and victory more than anyone. To the point that she could not maintain herself without them.

The boy’s words were coming back to her and they were accompanied by pain.

However.

“..................................................................................................”

A brief pause followed.

After falling back – and thus gathering Anna’s attention as she pursued – Kamijou Touma lightly tossed something into the air.

It was a symbol made from cheap gold plating and it was only a few centimeters long. Instead of a number or a letter of the alphabet, this symbol looked sort of like an ‘n’ with a loop at the end.

The symbol stood for Capricorn.

Its essence was femininity, activity, Saturn, longing, and prosperity.

As well as..

(The element of earth.)

Yes.

The 22 characters were broken out into 3, 7, and 12. With only 3 in the center, the rose symbol managed by the 22 Hebrew characters had no place for earth in the center of the flower.

And while it was a magical symbol, it had no magic power within it. In fact, it felt like someone trying to use what little knowledge they had without any practical skills to back it up. This could not be St. Germain who did have those skills.

In other words..

“Was this Kamijou Touma?”

She knew that, but human thoughts were so easily altered by your assumptions.

Something extra had been thrown into the mix.

Capricorn was a symbol of the earth element.

How things looked in a red room was very different from how they looked in a blue room, so a train’s driver’s compartment had its coloration chosen carefully.

Because the wrong coloration could be distracting.

(This could be bad!!)

Part 7

December’s birthstone is either turquoise or lapis lazuli.

All you Capricorns out there, don’t feel too bad about being the earth element. Christmas is your season. Today’s the day to ask for a special gift!

“!!”

Kamijou clenched his teeth while kicking aside one of the handmade signs scattered across the floor.

Up ahead, Anna Sprengel grimaced and held her feminine right wrist with her other hand. He doubted that had actually accomplished anything and, even if it had, it would still give him the opening he needed.

He just needed a large enough opening to take one big step.

He cut powerfully forward as if defying the white light expanding explosively in front of him. He gathered up the very last of his strength to move right up to her.

Anna must have no longer cared about losing control because she tried intercepting him with her right palm even as it continued to produce a blinding blowtorch-like light.

“But how!?” roared the bewitching woman who seemed to corrupt everything around her with her very presence.

Yes. Kamijou Touma had fought plenty of magicians, but he could not construct a spell himself. He would be able to use magic if he let St. Germain take control, but St. Germain would not rely on the fist that would kill him.

But the answer was simple.

“R&C Occultics.”

“..”

“You spread this knowledge yourself. If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been able to fight back!!”

Anna gave up on trying to control her right hand.

She broke her own rules by raising her other hand.

Yes, Anna Sprengel’s right hand was not actually special in any way. That was only an unnecessary restriction she was placing on herself. She had cheated like this once before, so Kamijou did not hesitate.

He took action.

But if he used his right fist here, it would only be a repeat of last time. While his right hand clashed with her left, she could use her right hand to blow him away.

So..

“Wha-!?”

He bit at her alluring hand. At her long, slender fingers. It was such a primitive choice from the perspective of an intellectual well-versed in all forms of magic, but it was certainly effective.

Because..

(Her fingers.)

Kamijou Touma clenched his teeth.

It made sense that a jewelry store would focus on something like this.

Because if wearing a ring on a finger other than your left hand’s ring finger gave it a special meaning, that might give them another way to advertise to people.

Yes.

Anna did not need to carry around a full rose symbol.

A scrap of paper on the floor – probably some notes for speaking with customers – explained which elements each finger corresponded to.

(Starting with the thumb, they’re ether, water, fire, earth, and wind. So by bending her index, middle, and little fingers as a command, she can switch the basic elements of fire, water, and wind on and off, creating whatever Hebrew character she wants in her palm. That’s how Anna was controlling her angel. That’s her magic! Which means..!!)

However he did it, he only had to keep her from moving her fingers.

That would let him seal away Anna Sprengel’s Hebrew-based rose spell.

And with his right fist still free to use, of course.

“..!!”

Kamijou Touma and St. Germain had arrived at this point along very different paths. One of science, the other of magic. They were very different people with nothing in common.

But at this moment, the two of them stared in the exact same direction.

It did not matter if they were dropouts or if they were considered disappointments.

Any being living here and now still had the freedom to change what happened to them.

No matter what form that being took.

They only had to act upon their desire to protect the people and feelings they held dear.

Then they could fight on equal footing with anyone in the world!!

(Kamijou Touma.)

(St. Germain.)

He had used his mouth.

With his teeth clenched tight, they could not speak aloud.

So they faced their single enemy and attempted to end this in silence.

They had both only ever wanted to do one thing about Anna Sprengel’s tyranny.

To clench that fist as hard as can be.

To gather everything that woman had done to them, place it in that fist, and send it..

(Back to you!!)

(Back to you!!)

This time, those two battered wills caught Miss Sprengel square on the cheekbone.