Free A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 7 by Kazuma Kamachi

or struck the road on the shore. Those launched into the sea skipped across it like a thrown pebble.
    After mowing down twenty-one knights in all, Kanzaki quietly landed atop one of the tetrapods.
    When the damp night wind lightly caressed her hair, the floating knights at last fell to the ground. A loud
wham
echoed across the dark seashore.
    “I tried to hold back. This way, there would be no fatalities. Wearing sturdy armor made my job easier, and for that I thank you.”
    “You…bastard…”
    The knights took her quiet voice as an insult and tried to stand. But they had been utterly shaken to their cores, and moving their fingers was all they could manage.
    That’s why the knights instead moved their mouths—the one thing they could still operate freely.
    “Do you…understand? Who you just…attacked? You’ve just bitten the hand…of the three contracts and four lands…of the United Kingdom itself!”
    “I, too, am a part of it. I’m sure those above me will take care of this, as it was trouble not between us and Roman Orthodoxy or Russian Catholicism, but within the English Puritan Church itself…Oh.” She realized the knight who had spoken had lost consciousness, and she promptly stopped talking.
    “There were some I tossed into the ocean…But it didn’t look like they had disengaged their submersible technique yet, so I don’t believe I must worry about them drowning,” whispered Kanzaki to herself, glancing once at the dark surface of the sea.
    “Your words lack punch when you say them with such worry on your face, you know.”
    “Hm?” Kaori Kanzaki finally stirred and turned around to the familiar voice. It was a young man with short, spiky blond hair, blue sunglasses, a Hawaiian shirt, and shorts.
    Motoharu Tsuchimikado.
    Kanzaki saw where he was standing and was surprised. Her honed senses wouldn’t have missed someone’s approach in the first place…Nevertheless, when she looked at Tsuchimikado, ten meters away, she still couldn’t feel his presence.
    “Have you come to stop me?”
    When Kanzaki reached for the hilt of her katana, the eyes behind the sunglasses remained smiling.
    “Give it a rest, Kaori Kanzaki. You can’t beat me.” Despite the situation, he showed no nervousness, held no weapon, and didn’t even position himself for a fight. “No matter how strong
you
might be, you can’t kill people. And an esper like me might die just from using magic to fight you. This battle…I would die whether I won or lost, but are you really prepared to kill Kamikaze Boy Tsuchimikado and keep moving forward? Eh?”
    Kanzaki clenched her teeth.
    She manipulated her techniques so that people wouldn’t die. For Kanzaki, a fight in which someone would die whether they won or lost held no meaning. In fact, that was the worst outcome she could imagine.
    She could feel her fingers trembling as they touched her katana’s hilt.
    Then Tsuchimikado pulled a one-eighty and switched to an innocent, childlike grin. “That’s fine, you can keep glaring. I wasn’t told to stop ya personally, Zaky. Though I was told to head you off and eliminate you if it looked like you were gonna cause an issue. And I’ve got my own job to do anyway.”
    “Your…own job?”
    “Yeah. I got the cushy job of digging around for the original copyof the
Book of the Law
while the Roman Orthodox Church and Amakusa are preoccupied with their little firefight.”
    Kanzaki’s eyes narrowed slightly. “On whose orders? The English Puritan Church’s or Academy City’s?”
    “I wonder. Well, common sense will lead you to the answer. Which wants grimoires—the magical world or the scientific world, hmm? Well, considering which I’m the spy for, it’s pretty easy to figure out.”
    Kanzaki fell mum at Tsuchimikado’s words.
    There was a terrible air dominating the area, one that could freeze even the tropical night wind flowing between them.
    Seconds of silence ensued, and the first one to break eye contact was