tracking spell

He placed on the ground the card Oriana had left. Then all he did was draw circles
around it and position origami of all colors nearby. It was apparently Stiyl’s job to
actually trigger the magic.
“The spell’s name is Four Ways to Truth...Man, I wish we could’ve used this during
Angel Fall, nya. I was already a wreck from the defensive spell I used to escape its effects,
and Kanzaki nee-chan’s bad at drawing barriers. It was a disaster! And of course, I
couldn’t teach spells to someone from the Russian Orthodox Church—another
denomination entirely...”

“Why not work your hands instead of your mouth? Didn’t you say the search range isn’t
even three kilometers?”
“Oops, you’re right. Okay, Kami-yan, stand back. This won’t mean much if your right
hand busts Four Ways to Truth.”
Kamijou, a little startled, took a few steps back. After placing markings on the ground
here and there, Tsuchimikado backed away as well and stood next to him.
On the ground was a black circle about fifty centimeters across. In the middle was the
card Oriana had stuck on the side of the washing machine. Four pieces of newly made
origami each sat at ninety degrees within the circle—blue, white, red, and black—
dividing the circle into four parts. It looked like it was separating east, west, south, and
north.

Stiyl knelt down by the circle Tsuchimikado had drawn, then placed his hands together
and shut his eyes as if praying. A small bead of sweat trickled down his brow.
“IITIAWHAIICTTPIOA (It is carried through the wind, however air is not conveyed
through the place it originates at.)”
With his words, the four pieces of origami moved despite there being no wind. Like
puppets controlled by an unskilled puppeteer, they wafted upward. Each of the colored
papers stood upright, then paused abruptly. Their edges evoked images of sharp blades.

“Runes work by coloring and decoloring,” said Tsuchimikado, watching the circle on the
ground. “One carves out meaningful characters, triggers the spell by coloring the
grooves with power, and turns it off by decoloring it. Stiyl uses cards that he colored in
advance—using a method called printing—so he’s crazy fast at activating spells. Plus, he
can just burn the card and skip the decoloring process entirely, nya. It does mean he can
only use spells that he ‘colored in’ beforehand, but...”

The four papers danced around above the circle. Each time they drew a smooth line
through it, it would draw a curved line of the same color on the ground. The circle grew
narrower, little by little, moving toward the card in the middle Oriana had left them.
“As long as you follow the fundamental rule of coloring and decoloring, then you can
actually get pretty far away from the runic alphabet, futhark, and still have the magic
work, nya! We may call them all runic characters, but there were a few different types of
them depending on what time period you look at.”

—Fifteen centimeters remained until the circle closed in at the middle.
Kamijou watched the four swiftly revolving pieces of origami.
“So if you use this, you can figure out exactly where Oriana is?”
“Well, within three kilometers it’ll pinpoint her, nya. If she’s gotten outside that range,
though, we won’t get anything out of it.”

- Toaru Majutsu no Index Volume 9, Chapter 2 Part 9