breaks through to a person who had magically altered percep

“A refusal to understand. Intolerance. The Divine Mixtures take the malice of two people
who have given up on each other and convert it into a physical attack.”
“Oh. Well, if you say we do not understand each other enough, why don’t we patiently talk
it out until we do?” said Orsola. “Now, what will it be? Shall we play chess or do a jigsaw
puzzle to help deepen our understanding? Would it be best if we eliminated this
meaningless awkwardness before heading to the women’s dorm?”

***
Once he had it figured out, it should have been easy.
Kamijou Touma did not need to clench his right fist here. No matter what Orsola did,
there was nothing to fear. In fact, the more he opposed her, gave up on understanding her,
and thought it would be easier to restrain her by force, the more power would come from
the transformer that used the misunderstandings between two people. The more that
power stabilized, the more she could overpower him and the less he could do. IsisDemeter would send out power rivaling a natural disaster.
So how could he give up on speaking with Orsola just because she could not see what was
happening?
So was it really right to remain silent just because anything he said would widen the
wound?
To hell with that.
How would those obedient choices ever lead to the path of an understander?
“Orsola…”
He had been wrong.
He had been mistaken.
He may have been led astray by the precedent of A. O. Francisca being fully controlled,
but even so. Would Kamijou Touma really reject his opponent before even speaking with
them and try to settle everything with violence? He had assumed no one would forgive
Aleister Crowley even if he explained that human’s suffering. He had assumed no one
would understand even if he revealed Lola Stuart’s secret. He had raised the bridge
before even trying, looked at his acquaintances stuck on the other side of the ravine, and
claimed this was their fault. Wasn’t that the entirely wrong approach?
He placed his hand on a broken column to support himself.
He had no idea how long this large space would last. It could collapse at any moment.
Still, Kamijou Touma looked straight at her.
He looked at that symbol of London’s current war formed by the giant magical
transformer that donned intolerance and a refusal to understand so it could shred
everything people held dear.
“Orsola, that’s enough. It’s true I would be hard pressed to call Aleister a good person, but
you don’t need to be so afraid. She isn’t going to take England from you. Aleister Crowley
just wants to save her daughter. And to do that, she needs to find a secret hidden in
London!!”
He walked toward her.
He was unsteady on his feet. He had seen an opening, but his previous wounds remained.
Still, he could not betray himself at times like this. He had suffered from memory loss and
he had experienced a Magic God’s hell of endless suffering where his body was pulverized
so many times he lost count, but even after all that, his body would still respond when he
needed to move and he gathered his strength.
He would save her.
He had to save her.
Orsola had worked so hard to remain understanding, so he could not allow that to be
broken just for the differently-sized coils of the transformer.
He would not allow any further discrepancies.
If people were viewed as different coils and the difference between them was used to wield
power, then he only had to approach her. Once the coils were identical, the transformer
would cease to function!!
Meanwhile.
Orsola still seemed detached and her bare feet floated off the ground as she placed her
index finger on her slender chin and spoke.
“Hm, I’m not sure what to say to that. I don’t know how much you know this person, but
by Crowley you mean the Crowley, don’t you?”
Right-8 and Left-2. Several sundew whips were swung horizontally and the ceiling broke
apart as acid-filled pitcher plants dropped down. Next, it was Right-7 and Left-5.
Something like giant green centipedes flew through the air and twisted their bodies as
they approached. They may have been a type of bladderwort or waterwheel plant. Each
attack introduced a new deadly carnivorous plant to the colorful labyrinth. Kamijou took
a deep breath just as one of them shot up from below to strike him in the center of the gut.
The waterwheel plant had the force of a light punch, but just as his focus reflexively turned
toward his right hand, a horizontal strike from a bladderwort sent the boy flying. It was
pathetic. After saying all that, he had failed to eliminate his fear.
A refusal to understand. Intolerance.
Everyone knew the words peace and calm, so why did they lead to aggressive actions here?
Why was she so detached from Kamijou when she was seeing the same things? This was
not inexplicable or impossible to understand. He had to read what was supporting Orsola
here. Her motivation was more than just anger and hatred.
The cross swayed unreliably at her chest.
It caught and reflected the light like a shed tear.
It looked like a trapped heart.
There could not have been a major change inside her. Even if she had reached for this
great power, Orsola still wore that cross around her neck. She had not abandoned it yet.
She had not been stained yet. Deep, deep, deep inside, she had to still carry the soul of a
pious nun.
(So that’s it…)
“Fear and anxiety.”
“Yes, that’s probably it,” bluntly agreed Othinus after climbing back up to his shoulder.
“If it was an ambition for world domination, she would only have to suppress her own
desire, but with the fear of losing something, nothing you can do can prevent others from
attacking. It can feel hopeless.”
Orsola Aquinas had never cared about the big picture.
Lola Stuart’s whereabouts and the invasion of Crowley’s Hazards were not her main
concern.
She wanted to protect.
She simply wanted to protect the women’s dorm where everyone lived.
That was all.
And someone had used that feeling, abused it, and given her a push in the wrong direction.
They had led her to rely on the immediate power of Isis-Demeter!!
“To hell with that…”
“If you can reach that conclusion so quickly and face your true enemy this time, then you
should be fine. Your hatred should not be directed at Orsola Aquinas. It should be targeted
at something else. She can still be saved. And that salvation is named Kamijou Touma.”
Orsola Aquinas’s soul remained.
As long as she did not let go of that cross at her chest, it would just barely remain.
So what did he lack? He had stood back up, but how could he save her?
He had to view the fear and anxiety inside Orsola Aquinas. She was certain that people
she cared for would be harmed and lose their home. He had to shatter that groundless
fear.
She had to be told Aleister Crowley was not like that.
And the only person who could do that was the boy who had climbed the Windowless
Building and experienced the secrets of the Golden cabal!!
“It all began when a magician named Mathers summoned Great Demon Coronzon. The
demon was ordered to bring down and kill Aleister Crowley and that command eventually
led to Aleister’s daughter Lola being possessed. Orsola, this affects you. You can never
protect England if you don’t free Lola Stuart from Coronzon’s control!!”
“Really?”
It was a casual word. His words were clearly entering one ear and leaving the other.
Bright colors tangled around the halo behind her back. Kamijou told himself to not be
afraid. If he felt no fear, Isis-Demeter’s attacks would have no effect.
Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Keep explaining, no matter how many times it takes.
The amount of effort he exerted was not the issue. The question was how much she
understood. If he felt anger because his efforts had been wasted, Isis-Demeter would
regain its destructive power.
He would be fine as long as he directly faced Orsola and approached her step by step. All
of her many attacks would be smashed and destroyed upon contact.
She could perceive external stimuli.
No matter what it looked like on the surface, it was impossible that his words were not
reaching her deep down. Even if it was a little at a time, he had to pull Orsola Aquinas’s
soul to the surface. Once her horribly blurred vision came back into focus, his words were
sure to reach her. She would understand.
Let us review something that goes without saying.
Kamijou and Orsola thought of completely different meanings when exchanging identical
words like peace, calm, and defense. Orsola wanted to protect the cozy women’s dorm and
she could not bear to see their home destroyed. Those feelings had been manipulated to
bind her with intolerance and a refusal to understand, but she herself was not an
aggressive and malicious person.
From here on, he could never lose sight of who she was, no matter what she might say!!
“Aleister Crowley is not at fault.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve probably suffered tens of thousands of times more, but I’ll still say it: Aleister was a
hopelessly pitiable human.”
“Hm, do we really need to discuss this? I want to hurry back to the dorm to surprise
everyone with some enjoyable memories. And of course, Crowley is invading England in
order to harm it as we speak, right?”
“Kh, the Anglican Church dragged out this Divine Mixture and pressed you into using it!
And they knew what would happen and what they would be trampling underfoot!! Do you
really think this is a one time thing? The root of the problem isn’t Aleister. She’s just
highlighting the problem. Like I said, the only way you can protect the peaceful lives of
everyone you care for is to do something about the person at the top!!”
“How is this a problem? I used Isis-Demeter because I wanted to.”
“Could you have smiled like this if it was Agnese or Lucia that had used it!?”
She paused for a beat.
No, for half a beat.
The cross swayed at her chest as if to show the wavering of her heart.
“But if the Crowley’s Hazards had not attacked, no one would have had to make this
decision.”
“It was England that created the human known as Aleister Crowley!!”
Orsola swung around the olive and grape symbols as she came dangerously close to losing
focus again, so he shook her again. He would not let her escape. He would not let her
become detached so easily.
Stand your ground.
Don’t fear.
If she doesn’t understand, keep at it until she does. No matter how painful it is, no matter
how hopeless it seems, and no matter how much of a beating you take. Continuing to talk
is not a wasted action!!
“At school, she was constantly bullied and abused by pious believers, so she grew sick of
the god that protected them!! And after learning magic just to spite them, she found out
even that only harmed her family! She took responsibility by destroying the Golden cabal
and then her baby was killed just as foreseen!! And the newspaper reporters, who
controlled the great power of the mass media at the time, all pointed and laughed. They
called her wicked, a pervert, and a ghoul!! And you’re saying she alone is at fault? She was
driven out of a country more than once when people around the world gullibly believed
everything in the newspapers and started throwing stones at her. There was no safe space
for her. But can you still say Aleister was 100% to blame? You can’t blame both sides for
that!?”
“Looking at history, Aleister Crowley did many things warranting those labels. Just go to
the library and you will see. Read the newspapers stored as microfilm and you will see bits
and pieces of it. And if you compare that to the Anglican records, you might learn what
was going on behind the scenes.”
“That isn’t the real Aleister… Those articles might include some ‘facts’, but they don’t say
a damn thing about Aleister’s feelings!!”
“I will admit newspapers at the time were not the most reliable things.”
He felt like things had suddenly come into focus.
It may have sounded like he was just arguing more forcefully, but that was not it. IsisDemeter separated what the two of them thought of when using words like love and peace,
but that “diversion” of intolerance may have been losing its effect.
Arguing directly at each other was a happy thing. That meant they had reached the point
where they could lay their arguments down on the same table. It was so much better than
being ignored and rejected with a smile and unable to look each other in the eye.
At some point, Orsola Aquinas had begun to hold the cross hanging from her neck.
Was it a sign of subconscious worry?
While swaying side to side a bit but viewing everything head-on, Orsola opened her mouth
with her focus being adjusted to protect the transformer powered by the discrepancies
between people.
“But that means you have no accurate records to prove what kind of person Crowley was.
Biased personal journals? Accounts by friends and acquaintances? Reports from school
or the cabal? …None of them are definitive enough to build an argument on. In the end,
wouldn’t you find the least mistakes in using the widely-accepted view of Crowley?”
“I’m not writing someone off as a rounding error!! There was no place for her with her
family or at the school dorm. The magician named Aleister Crowley didn’t have anyone
like you to protect their kind home!! Her wife Rose tried to become that, but it all fell
apart when their daughter Lilith died!! How could someone not feel anything after that!?
How could there be nothing more than what’s written in those reports!? Don’t give up on
her. Someone as kind and strong as you must not give up on her. Please!! Is it because it
happened so long ago? Is it because it has nothing to do with your life now? Isn’t it cruel
to ask Aleister to accept that reasoning? Isn’t that just telling her she can’t complain even
though not a damn thing has changed in over a hundred years!? Everything is built on
that foundation. Her return today is directly related to all of it. This isn’t just a natural
disaster or a random attack on the streets!!”
“I see. But nothing you can say will change Magician Crowley’s evil deeds.”
The understander on Kamijou’s shoulder snapped her fingers.
After a short delay, a chill ran down his spine. Orsola’s short statement was far too broad.
Without Othinus’s intervention, it might have toppled everything he had built up.
The god of war sounded somewhat exasperated when she spoke.
“That was hardly fair. It was so vague you could use it to attack Nobel, the Wright Brothers,
or anyone really. Sorry to make this two-against-one, but this god is going to ask a
question to place a weight on the scales. To what evil deeds do you refer: the historical
ones found in the records, or the ones occurring the world right this instant?”
“I am talking about the present, not the past with poor records that can be used to prove
anything depending on your interpretation.”
“That is fortunate. Even as a god, I’m not confident I could defend a life that shitty.”
These had been frightening words as well.
And yet Othinus crossed her slender legs on Kamijou’s shoulder.
“It is true Aleister Crowley has split into more than a billion Crowley’s Hazards which are
making a simultaneous attack on the 53 members of the British Commonwealth. Every
part of the world has been dragged into the war, creating a hellish scene that stains the
planet itself with blood.”
“Are you saying there is some special reason for that? And are you saying the sacrifices
are acceptable if there is?”
“Is that supposed to be criticism? Isn’t your position that you will protect that women’s
dorm no matter what? The thing is, Aleister Crowley has not killed a single person.”
“Wha—?”
“And that includes the Port of Calais. I believe it was all a means of maximizing the
efficiency of her magical power, much like a superconductor. Her goal is the defeat of
Coronzon and that only required the blood sacrifice that she mentioned herself. So she
had no real reason to harm people. Summoning a billion Crowley’s Hazards and allowing
them to be defeated was enough to set a world record. Even World War I pales in
comparison. That is enough to secure history’s largest number of war dead, isn’t it?”
Academy City’s #1 and a god of war, magic, and deception.
When those two had viewed Aleister Crowley and the state of the world, they had said that
human had gone soft. This was why.
“Is this another product of the intolerance or refusal to understand that powers your
magical transformer? Accusing someone without investigating the truth of the matter is
all well and good, but did you never consider the fact that you have only placed the rope
around your own neck if the truth is then revealed?”
There was nothing to be afraid of.
It would all be okay.
This time, Kamijou Touma really did directly face Orsola Aquinas.
The boy told himself to match her.
They were two humans, two coils. The transformer wielded the difference between the
two as power and converted it into various attacks. Right-2, Right-8, Left-3, Left-2, Right6, Left-5, Right-7, and Left-7. Orsola had wrapped that gold thread around her fingers in
a variety of ways, but there was one thing she had never used for an attack: her wrist.
She wore a bracelet at the base of her fingers.
Right-5.
That was Orsola herself. Everything was shifted from there to create the deadly power.
But if he synchronized with Orsola, deepened their understanding, and matched the
number of loops, the difference between the two coils would vanish. He had to swear he
would not let that magical transformer continue to function. He could not leave her
alone!!
“Looking at what has happened in Academy City is enough to know that Aleister Crowley
has hurt a lot of people,” he said. “And Aleister abandoned her own city and released
herself into the world. From an outside perspective, it might seem best to push away that
ominous symbol just to be safe. But you can’t do that… She can only be purified if she is
forgiven by this country where she was born and raised. Nothing anyone else says can
save her! This isn’t like Othinus who truly had nowhere to return to. It wouldn’t truly save
her even if I became her understander!!”
“Has Crowley said that? And even if so, Crowley’s words are not to be trusted.”
“Yes, you can’t trust Aleister Crowley. She’s a contrarian who hasn’t even noticed what
kind of happiness she truly desires, so accepting her words at face value will only lead you
to hell. That’s not the future I’m risking my life to fight for!!”
“Why should we go to any trouble for a happiness Crowley does not even want?”
“I don’t care if she wants the happiness or not! I want to give it to her. And like I said
before, Orsola, this affects you as well!!”
“How!?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Let me be clear about one thing, Orsola. Of all the people I’ve ever met,
you are the most selfish of them all. Not Fiamma of the Right, not Magic God Othinus,
not Kamisato Kakeru, and not Aleister Crowley! It’s you, Orsola Aquinas!! That’s why I
admired you and why I wanted to protect you even if it meant fighting the Roman Catholic
Church!!”
A sundew whip forcefully struck the boy’s cheek.
Kamijou Touma did not even flinch.
His trembling had finally stopped. Fear and avoidance would only be converted into the
power supporting the attack. To strip it of its deadly force and survive, he had to look her
dead in the eye and accept it. Not even Right-8 was acceptable. It had to be Right-5. He
would match Orsola Aquinas’s core. Do that and he could truly view her.
He stepped further forward.
He now stood right in front of that goddess of spring and resurrection who glittered with
gold.
“But…”
It was a gentle action.
Kamijou Touma’s right hand touched Orsola Aquinas’s soft cheek.
“Do you have any idea how much strength is found in that selfishness!?”
Then the other one.
He held her warm face between his hands and pressed his forehead against hers. And
Kamijou Touma roared at her from point-blank range. He was not interested in some
created goddess. He was not seeking the power to fight. He wanted to remind her of the
much stronger and nobler power that only Orsola Aquinas had.
He would not let her escape anymore.
No matter how much Isis-Demeter tried to shift the focus of their conversation with
intolerance and a refusal to understand, he kept himself literally right in front of her eyes
so she could not escape.
It was like reigniting a cooled engine.
The boy did not hesitate to hit her with his words.
“Abandon violence and fight with your words!! Orsola Aquinas is the person who spread
Christianity around the globe even though those people did not know of or want that
salvation!! And all because that’s what she wanted to do!! You dedicated yourself to that
greatest and ultimate selfishness, so shouldn’t you understand this better than
anyone!!!???”
Isis-Demeter used the discrepancies between people.
So what would happen if those were entirely erased?
They already had their answer.
This was something other than the Right-5.
Aleister Crowley might have looked disgusted.
But the cross hanging from Orsola Aquinas’s neck was not a symbol meant to further
conflict. Orsola had tried to remain with that cross even in this state, so if she could show
a power different from the people Aleister had seen throughout her life, those barriers
were meaningless!!
“If you don’t understand someone, don’t push them away. Walk toward them.”
There was no dramatic flash of light or thunderous sound.
It was only a quiet sound like a crack running through a thin layer of ice.
This was not just some lofty ideal. Orsola Aquinas had accomplished exactly that. Orsola
and Agnese got along in the Anglican women’s dorm despite everything that had
happened, but she could have chosen a different path. Orsola had arrived first and
Agnese’s group had arrived later, so she could have said something else: I can’t bear to
live a life surrounded by people who tried to kill me. I refuse to let the former Agnese
Force live at this dorm. Please go elsewhere.
But she had not.
She had accepted them. She had smiled and let bygones be bygones.
Kamijou Touma may have been the one to save the Agnese Force’s lives after they were
used by Biagio Busoni, but it was Orsola who had looked after them afterwards. Just how
much had those girls been saved by the pure smile on her face? That was something only
they could understand and that was fine. What mattered was that Orsola Aquinas did have
her own power to save. And it was a much nobler power compared to Kamijou Touma
who could only clench his fist, hit people, and reject people’s efforts by negating their
supernatural power.
“Don’t screw with me, Orsola…”
How could he let someone deny this?
How could he let anyone trample on this possibility!?
“That’s something that only you can do, Orsola! It’s a strength only you have! Not me, not
Fiamma, not Othinus, not the other Magic Gods, not Kamisato, not Aleister, and not
Coronzon!! The rest of us might talk big, but we always end up fighting! Only you really
did let go of the weapon!! You surpassed any of us in virtue and strength!! …That had to
be hard on you. You’re more honorable than any of us and you did something no one else
could do, so don’t just throw that away!!”
He would not let her escape.
No, Kamijou and Orsola had to be in the same place now. Now that the discrepancy
between them was gone, his words could reach her and she would not mistake the
meaning.
It had to be hard.
It had to be painful.
Looking away from reality would have been easier. But Kamijou was confident that would
not happen. Because Orsola Aquinas was far stronger than Kamijou Touma who could
not stop fighting. This was not just a groundless fantasy. She really did have the strength
to approach a knife-wielding person with no weapon of her own.
“Ah, ah.”
The cracking sound ended.
Isis-Demeter lost its support. It was obvious what was happening.

- New Testament Volume 20 Chapter 4 Part 11