Toaru Majutsu no Index Light Novel Volume 22/Chapter 10

Synopsis
Sasha runs through the Star of Bethlehem after being split up from Touma by Fiamma's earlier attack, studying her surroundings in an attempt to strike back at the massive temple. Although she is no match for Fiamma in a straight fight, she plans to sabotage his plan through indirect methods. In the middle of her thoughts however, Lessar pops out from behind a pillar, causing her to swing a crowbar out of shock. Lessar blocks the attack with her Steel Glove and explains how she was leading the Russian Orthodox magicians to the emergency escape pods up until now.

She then offers Sasha one of the pods in exchange for a promise to help out the United Kingdom in a time of need, but Sasha tells her she will not be leaving yet until she manages to finish her sabotage. Lessar then asks for details regarding her plan, annoying Sasha into refusing to answer. Lessar then rebukes her with an offer of chewing gum, causing Sasha to be even more annoyed than before. Then in the middle of their run, Sasha bears witness to Touma's right arm being severed at the shoulder by Fiamma's blade of light.

Vasilisa arrives in Moscow to confront Nikolai Tolstoy, annihilating her former allies in the Russian Orthodox church when they attacked her. Upon reaching his location, she summons a monstrous shadow to send at him, but Nikolai is able to counter her spell using a technique derived from the Waters of Death. He explains how most stories about cannibal witches resulted in victory for the witch, but there was one story where a group of knights pushed the witch into the waters of death, leading to victory on the side of humans. Despite this, Vasilisa is completey unfazed and continues to play around.

Unnerving Nikolai, he takes a step backwards, and her body instantly regenerates from her injuries the moment that happens. She reveals that the central theme of the story he spoke was about discovering the Waters of Life, and therefore her magic has greater priority over Nikolai's, while mocking him for forgetting this fact despite having the story come from his own mouth. Furthermore, she accuses him of having illegally stolen the Patriarch's signature through trickery using a dummy document, since the order for the declaration of war was written in a military format, rather than an Orthodox format. And so Nikolai Tolstoy meets his end at the hands of Vasilisa.

Touma's right arm spins through the air, where it is caught by Fiamma, disassembled into pieces, and assimilated into his Third Arm. Although Imagine Breaker would be constantly negating the energy supplied by his Holy Right, it also acts as the final component neccesary to regain the full power he was originally meant to wield. As the Imagine Breaker is absorbed into Fiamma's Third Arm, it travels into his flesh-and-blood right arm and completes the process for him to achieve La Persona Superiore a Dio. The Heavens then open up in response to this transformation, dying the planet through the energies of Telesma. Fiamma then tries to eliminate Touma now that his role in the plan has been completed, but his attack is easily blown aside by an invisible mass of power originating from the stump of Touma's right arm.

Fiamma quickly realizes that this invisible entity far overshadows his own abilities as it applies an immense pressure onto his mind and body. Right before it acts however, Touma crushes it with yet another third power of his own, telling the mysterious entity to stay silent and that he would take care of everything. After that, Kamijou Touma instantly regrows his right arm containing the Imagine Breaker, causing the old arm embedded within Fiamma's body to lose its power. Fiamma speculates that Imagine Breaker is such a unique power that there cannot exist more than one copy at a time, and that it would only be considered to be Imagine Breaker if it was a right arm connected to the individual known as Kamijou Touma.

Kamijou then announces his realization of why Fiamma's plan appeared to be so over-the-top. He questions why the Star of Bethlehem had to be so large, why it was neccesary to ignite World War 3, and why he even bothered to make an alliance between the Roman Catholics and the Russian Orthodox Churches. Kamijou accuses Fiamma of lacking the confidence in his own power to save the world, and was afraid that it would not be enough.

Although he cuts directly into the heart of the matter, Fiamma attempts to refute his arguments by claiming that issue did not only belong to him. He then rhetorically asks whether Kamijou had the experience needed to save the world, not expecting his reply to be yes. Touma argues that his many experiences with conflicts had "saved" many individual people's "worlds", even if it was small enough to be insignificant compared to the entirety of humanity. He then rejects Fiamma's salvation and declares that humanity is not weak enough to require saving from somebody as misguided as Fiamma.

Between The Lines
Misaka Mikoto has just finished neutralizing the nuclear launch after defeating the 200 troops making up the independent Russian unit. The Sisters is somewhat jealous of this display of power, but Mikoto shrugs it off claiming that their total numbers, network communications, and cutting-edge tactic inputted into them by Academy City would easily take down those troops. Suddenly, the Sister intercepts another transmission, stating that the people behind the mission were unable to get in contact Nikolai Tolstoy, the man in charge of the whole operation.

After some deliberation over the transmission, the Sister reports that another unit is planning to continue the original plan by sending out an emergency signal meant to remotely fire the missile. Although the missile has already fallen over, the unit is not aware of this fact, and so the Sister warns it is likely to detonate while still on the ground. Mikoto panicks at this statement, especially upon hearing that the emergency signal is based off of infrared waves, and thus immune to her electromagnetic jamming. They quickly come up with a brief plan to cover the sensor with cloth to prevent the signal from being detected.

Adapted To

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

Characters
By order of appearance
 * Sasha Kreutzev
 * Lessar
 * Vasilisa
 * Fiamma of the Right
 * Kamijou Touma
 * Nikolai Tolstoy
 * Misaka Mikoto
 * Misaka 10777

Locations

 * Russia
 * Star of Bethlehem

Cultural References

 * When Telesma is brought down from the heavens, Fiamma of the Right compares the process to "when a certain Christian holy woman who was forcibly thrown into a brothel, that brothel had turned into a shining place for sermons" and "when a different holy woman was thrown into a cold and dirty prison while injured, the entire space had overflowed with the shining power of the angels making it like a pure spring and the woman’s injuries were kindly healed." Both are references to the martyrs of and  respectively.
 * Nikolai Tolstoy refers to Vasilisa as "just the ruins of a girl from a fairy tale who obtained happiness by burning her mother and sister to death." This is referring to the Russian story of Vasilisa the Beautiful, hinting that the Toaru character known as Vasilisa is also the national icon Vasilisa, having somehow obtained eternal youth.