Toaru Majutsu no Index Light Novel Volume 22/Chapter 9

Synopsis
Mugino Shizuri appears before Hamazura's eyes, with a case of Body Crystal sticking out of her tongue. He initially assumes she is here to force Takitsubo Rikou to ingest the contents, but quickly realizes his mistake as she crushes the case with her teeth and starts chewing it. As the Body Crystal begins reacting with Mugino's body, she announces her intent on wipe out everything in the area as her powers spiral out of control.

Kamijou Touma faces down Fiamma of the Right on the uppermost level of the Star of Bethlehem, where Fiamma gloats about having fixed the distortion of the 4 elements by controlling the celestial bodies in the heavens with Archangel Gabriel. He reveals the motivations behind his actions in igniting World War III, and the purpose in relation to his plan. Fiamma sends a horizontal slice towards Touma using his Holy Right, but it is deflected by Touma using an uppercut strike. He is impressed by how Touma has grown in using his Imagine Breaker more effectively and developed strategies to overcome attacks that cannot be fully negated at once.

Suddenly, an Academy City optical weapon blasts Fiamma with a laser beam, but is easily blocked with his Holy Right, before being destroyed outside of the atmosphere with a casual hand motion. As the battle between Touma and Fiamma continues, he horizontally teleports 3000 meters away and begins utilizing spells derived from Index's John's Pen Remote Control.

Fiamma activates Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani, shooting a pillar of red light out of a magic circle, while simultaneously attacking from behind with his Third Arm. Touma is able to barely throw himself onto the floor in time to have the two attacks interfere with each other. Fiamma then activates Scarlet Stone of Pexjarva, causing an invisible force to assault Touma's legs before he swiftly negates it. Immediately after, Sulfur Rain will Scorch the Earth is activated, causing 50 orange arrows to fall from the ceiling. Touma then realizes that Fiamma is using both his abilities as a member of God's Right Seat and from Index's remote controller one after another in order to overwhelm him. Fiamma explains his plan to save the world, before suddenly severing Touma's right arm from his shoulder by projecting a giant sword of light.

After having defeated Gabriel, Accelerator sinks into the snow in despair, having seen the damage his attacks had caused to the surrounding environment, including the car that held Misaka Worst and Last Order. As he worries if she will last long enough in her fragile condition for him to reverse engineer the secrets behind the Lambskin Parchments he carries in time, Kazakiri Hyouka calls out to him while disappearing. She reveals that the information regarding Index's song from September 30th has been stored within Last Order's memories, which can be used to heal the affliction caused by sustaining Aiwass's existence, since she was the basic template used to create Aiwass in the first place. Accelerator then calls out to Misaka Worst and orders her to search through the Misaka Network to find the memories Last Order stored with them as a backup. Pulling out the parchments, he then reveals his intent to combine the information behind Index's song and the unique properties of the parchment to find a cure.

Mugino explodes with a maelstrom of Meltdowner beams, disintegrating everything in its path as she approaches Hamazura. The numerous beams then converge into each other to form a giant arm of light, swinging it down onto his location. Although Hamazura is able to survive by avoiding a direct hit, the arm causes a  to occur, blowing his body several meters away. On the verge of giving up all hope of survival, Mugino suddenly collapses into snow, cutting off all the beams before they reach him.

Hamazura then realizes the Body Crystal had ravaged her body on the inside due to her lack of affinity with the deadly product, causing immense pain and physical degradation. As Mugino struggles on the ground, cursing at him all the while, Hamazura falls into a dilenma of whether to kill her or not. As he looks upon her horrific condition, he throws away his assault rifle and embraces Mugino, much to her shock. Hamazura finally admits his true feelings about the entire matter: he is sick and tired of fighting. He questions why ITEM had ended up like this in the first place, and questions why the higher-ups of Academy City forced them to fight a doomed battle against SCHOOL during the underground conflicts.

So he begs her to lay down her pride and to stop killing, saying he would do anything if it meant ending the cycle of violence. Mugino wonders how he can possibly say such words when she is guilty of murdering Frenda and endangering Takitsubo's life. Hamazura admits neither of them can get off easily for the crimes they've committed, and it will take a long while for them to together again. But he promises her that when that day comes, they'll finally become ITEM once again. Although they manage to come to an understanding, an Academy City supersonic bomber flies by and drops 3 mysterious individuals down to their location. Mugino warns him they are likely Dark Side assassins sent to eliminate any loose ends, but Hamazura heads to confront them anyways.

Underneath St. George's Cathedral, Index continues her fight against Stiyl Magnus under the control of John's Pen mode. She nullifies his attempt at lessening the burden of summoning Innocentius by constructing them into a Trinity format, before countering his magic style with her own fusion of Christianity and Norse mythology. Stiyl is able to buy some time for his Innocentius to recover thanks to Index's poor mental condition, but is unable to strike back due to hesitation in his heart, and loses the opportunity.

Between The Lines
Misaka Mikoto has stolen a tank from the front lines using her electromaster abilities and drove with the Russian Sisters towards the area where the nuclear warhead is being stored to stop it. The independent Russian unit in charge of its launch notices their approach from the night vision scopes and launches 30-40 missiles to intercept them, but Mikoto is able to scramble their radar using large amounts of EM waves. This tactic causes the Sister to be incapacitated by the jamming effect however, forcing them to abandon that strategy prematurely. Nevertheless, this convinces the independent unit to give up on surface bombings and bring out their tank units. Mikoto responds by unleashing a tsunami of iron sand with her magnetism. As they reach the nuclear warhead, she swiftly disables the launch by frying its control circuits.

Adapted To

 * Anime: Toaru Majutsu no Index III Episode 24
 * Manga: N/A

Characters
By order of appearance
 * Mugino Shizuri
 * Hamazura Shiage
 * Kamijou Touma
 * Fiamma of the Right
 * Accelerator
 * Misaka Worst
 * Last Order
 * Kazakiri Hyouka
 * Index Librorum Prohibitorum
 * Stiyl Magnus
 * Misaka Mikoto
 * Misaka 10777

Locations

 * Russia
 * Star of Bethlehem
 * St. George's Cathedral

Cultural References

 * The chapter makes what is quite possibly a  reference, comparing Mugino's constant beam output to that of the Beam Sabers.
 * Index uses the against Stiyl.

Unanswered Questions

 * What do these 3 shady individuals from Academy City plan to do with ITEM?