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[AI CENSORSHIP BLOCKED THIS CHUNK - RAW ENGLISH RETAINED]

Index spotted the beat-up and collapsed Accelerator and a man in a white robe kicking him. By curious coincidence, it was the same scenario she’d first spotted them in, near the underground mall entrance.

He’s from that time!! Are these people related to what’s going on?!

Unfortunately, she didn’t have the time to go to them.

The most important thing for her was the key to suppressing the big angel.

However…

?!Index’s eyes went wide. The man in white walked in front of Accelerator and slammed his foot hard into his head. Accelerator rolled away helplessly. She began to run over there out of reflex.

“Ooohhhhaah!!”

But after producing a sound from his throat that wasn’t quite a shout or a cry, Accelerator slapped a hand onto the office desk and got up. Right between the man and Index, like a shield.

For a moment, she vacillated, but she had too much to do. After grabbing a disconnected phone from off the desk, she threw it at the man in white. Seeing Accelerator charge at the same time, she turned her gaze to the ten-year-old girl sleeping on the desk.

Index had seen her once, in a cell phone picture. This was the one Accelerator had been searching for.

She was the key to everything.

I can’t do it here. I need to get her somewhere safer to do any “work”…!Index picked up the limp girl. But as she was about to leave the abandoned office, she saw that Last Order had grown very weak and decided any careless movement would be dangerous. Instead, Index lowered her from the desk to a spot in the shadows so she wouldn’t be caught in the fighting.

“You little shit!! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” shouted the man in white before Accelerator grappled onto him.

Index inspected the girl again, from head to toe—from a magical viewpoint.

Yes, she’s the core of it all. The fundamentals are angel fabrication. It pours formless Telesma into a pocket in the shape of a human, then starts building the silhouette like a balloon doll. And this spell was used by the golden sorcerer’s society, which Crowley was a part of.

Whoosh!!The information in her 103,000 grimoires elucidated the sorcery in the blink of an eye.

Unfortunately…I can’t see any more than that.Index bit down on her teeth.I understand the general composition, but I can’t figure out what sort of things it’s made of!!

As an analogy, this was like telling a craftsman who carved violins out of wood to make an electric guitar out of electric parts. While both were musical instruments, they were so far apart that all the craftsman could do would be to hash out a very rough idea.

And a “rough idea” wasn’t going to be enough for delicate work. On her own, Index had hit a wall.

Therefore, she didn’t hesitate to ask for help.

“Short-hair, questions!!” shouted Index into the cell phone in her hand. There was a certain girl on the other end.

“That’sMiss Mikototo you!! Anyway, what did you—zzzzttt! Kkkrrrkk—want to ask?!”

Bam-bam-boom!came frequent explosions from the other end. None of them touched Mikoto—as though saying she didn’t need to shoulder them.

Index decided to take her up on her friendliness. “What is a ‘brain-wave-utilizing electronic network’?!”

Mikoto began to answer her questions using the full scope of the knowledge she’d gained at Tokiwadai Middle School.

After hearing the answer, Index threw another question at her. “What does ‘involuntary diffusion fields proliferating Academy City’ mean?!”

The two girls each lacked knowledge: one ignorant of science, the other of magic. Neither of them could completely understand the answer they were both trying to arrive at.

“What is ‘safety device for the electronic network using brain waves as a base’?!”

Yet the two girls pressed on—to solve the problem. They didn’t need to understand the methodology as long as they got the right answer. In a way, they threw away their pride and accepted it was beyond their respective fields, hoping only to recover the situation little by little.

So basically, the city is filled with a special power, and that girl is all that bundled up. All they did was make an “angel” by restricting her mind and bending the special power to their will!! In that case…!!

“We have to untie the ‘knot’ in her head!!” Someone from the science side might have called it a “virus.”But how can I put this idea into practice?

Index couldn’t use sorcery. And sorcery couldn’t be used to save Last Order. To untie the “knot,” she decided to use “words.” That may have sounded quite particular when it came to tinkering with a person’s mind, but reading and studying a book were the same things. From the start, humans had their “windows” for that open.

She would choose words attuned to that “knot,” and by saying them, she would “untie” it.

In concrete terms, that meant…

“…A song.” That’s what Index thought. “It’s easier to get across than normal words. People can sit through hour-long lectures and not cry, but one-minute songs can do the trick. You can use rhythm and pitch to exchange emotions on multiple levels, so…”

But when Mikoto heard that, she argued, flustered. “Wait, wait. Are you sane?! The fundamental way to overwrite things in someone’s brain is through repetitive learning. Plus, their memories and brain compatibility might not even be that good in the first place!! Besides, if you want to get into an electronic network, you need to input digital values into a specific device, like a Testament. Are you telling me you could make that happen with primitive, analog methods like voice and song?!”

Index didn’t know the meaning of the scientific terms Mikoto mentioned, and she didn’t have any proof her own method would work. She knew several ways to attack people through their minds, like Sheol Fear and Spell Interception, but this would be the first time she tried this.

“I can do it…,” she answered, despite everything. “Prayer will reach. It will save people. I’m a nun, and that’s how I’ve spread the teachings!” She looked only ahead. “We’ll save them with our prayers—this girl, Hyouka, and Academy City!!”