Ceremony of Ba Moun

The Ceremony of Ba Moun (バ・ムーンの儀式, Ba Mūn no Gishiki^?) is a Voodoo ceremony which involves a contract with a demon. The demon grants the caster's wishes, but in return they must annually sacrifice someone they care for, otherwise they will be devoured by the demon.

Etymology

Ba Moun roughly translates to "give man" or "give person/people" in Haitian Creole.

Principles

Described as the worst and most wicked spell in Voodoo, as well as its most horrific curse, the Ceremony of Ba Moun allows a magician to create and bind a priority contract with a demon, who will grant their every wish. In exchange, once a year they must sacrifice the life of someone they care about, who it will pain them to sacrifice, such as a lover or a family member. If they fail to deliver the sacrifice, be it through running out of people they care about, not bearing to continue, or being unable for other reasons, they pay with their life instead, with the demon itself coming to devour them.

The Ceremony of Ba Moun is lacking in safeties, being fully optimized towards granting the user's desires regardless of the risks, with any additions or subtractions likely to decrease its purity. It was described as a spell which someone created but cannot control. According to Frau Halveria, the demon did not wait at all before coming to devour her. Isabella Theism described the spell's cost performance as wild and noted the mistake in figuring out how to draw out so much power from a poorly planned design, as well as the tendency for spells that catch on as rookie-killers (such as Kokkuri-san and the Ushi no Koku Mairi to be the easiest to set up. Additionally, the type of pressing situation which may lead someone to try the spell might not leave them in a position to fully consider the risks when they make the decision.

In describing how the spell granted the heart's desire, noted to be somewhat vague, Isabella compared it to the mechanisms behind zombies, a Voodoo speciality. In that case, rather than making corpses rise from the dead, chemicals are used to intentionally harm the body and remove the Ti Bon Ange from the five components of the soul, robbing a person of their mind and remaking them into a living unit which can be controlled. Using the demon as an amplifier, the Ceremony of Ba Moun forcibly shifts things up from a micro level to a macro level - effectively making the physical world ill in order to control the diseased area. Isabella also said that in terms of Phase Theory, it could be seen as corrupting the current phase instead of inserting a new one, though noting that since the spell abandoned safety, the corruption would reach the magician themselves sooner or later.

Though described as powerful and nearly impossible to mess with, even for someone who has mastered Voodoo, the Ceremony of Ba Moun has a crucial difference from normal spells. As its power comes from a contract with a demon, the curse has a master - a definite and physical source rather than a truly formless collection of malice or something similar. As the demon is an individual, no matter how powerful it is, there will still be a one-on-one deal.

The Voodoo demon described and involved in the Ceremony of Ba Moun is noted to be very poorly defined, other than the fact that it requires repeated sacrifices and will come to devour the caster if the sacrifices are not made. In the Frankfurt incident, the demon manifested inside a round backpack, with many multi-segmented giant black spider legs, described as heavier than heavy machinery, emerging from within and supporting the torn backpack in mid-air, though its core body was not seen in full (with Angelene fearing what would happen if she did, knowing it would be much worse than a mere giant spider). Even with the legs not fully spread out, its shape was as wide as a table for four. The demon cannot split into multiple bodies.

The demon makes a noise similar to a crying baby but much more malicious. Capable of moving at considerable speeds, it relentless pursues its prey once it has locked onto them, with protective barriers only briefly slowing it down, and attacks anything that moves in its proximity, living or dead. It will personally come to take the life of those who fail to follow the rules of the contract.

Most would be unable to kill the demon, but there are ways to potentially escape from it and survive. Although not certain, Frau Halveria considered the possibility of inducing a state of pseudo-death with a drug to make the demon think that its target was already dead and make it lose its purpose, though death cannot be feigned indefinitely and the demon would lock back onto its true target as soon as they revived. Isabella Theism's solution was to use two high-quality fake corpses, imitating the demon's main target Frau Halveria and positioned at distant points in the room. Unable to distinguish the fakes or ignore its objective, the demon moved to attack both simultaneously and ended up tearing itself apart with a brutal scream, splattering into pieces across the room which touched ordinary shadows and disappeared as if absorbed. This did not actually kill the demon, but it resolved the current problem.

Background

It isn't known when and how the ceremony was devised, though it has apparently been used enough times for it to become well-known and infamous.

Chronology

Toaru Majutsu no Index

Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Agnese's Magic Side Work Experience

Main article: Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Agnese's Magic Side Work Experience

While Agnese Sanctis, Lucia and Angelene were investigating the forensic cleaning at Nihili Padpois's restaurant in Barcelona, and considering the fact that he had supposedly lost his wife to a curse in Haiti, Lucia referred to the Ceremony of Ba Moun (though not by name) as the most horrific of the many curses in Voodoo, with the nuns briefly worrying about his daughter Solene Padpois, before identifying the true culprit.

The incident which the nuns later investigated in Frankfurt was the result of attempts by the magician Frau Halveria to escape from the curse of the Ceremony of Ba Moun, having previously researched the spell and failed to control it. Threatened by the curse, she made use of a delivery app to repeatedly arrange for young bike delivery workers to be sacrificed to the demon so she could temporarily escape from it (as well as hoping that someone else might be able to deal with it), with the workers receiving a package and on delivering it to an abandoned building, being devoured by the demon emerging from the package, leaving only a bike and a pool of blood behind.

Having heard about the disappearances from Isabella Theism and discovered Angelene's secret side-job, doing bike deliveries for snack funds, Agnese Sanctis and Lucia had her participate in a sting operation. Posing as a restaurant manager, Frau Halveria gave Angelene a spherical backpack and remained at the restaurant as Angelene was transporting the deadly cargo. Angelene cycled to the warehouse designated as the delivery point, with Agnese and Lucia secretly following her on rooftops. As Angelene arrived at the destination, the nuns thought over the circumstances for things they might have missed and realized that the backpack contained the murder device, but their warning to Angelene was too late as the demon emerged and set its sights on her.

Angelene fleeing on bike from the demon of the Ceremony of Ba Moun

Pedalling for her life, Angelene fled from the pursuing demon and on her comrade's advice, managed to retrace her trail and break into the restaurant, to Frau Halveria's horror. With the demon locked onto both of them, Frau Halveria fled with Angelene to the kitchen, forming barriers to slow their pursuer down, while explaining her circumstances. The demon soon broke through the barriers and the doors, as Frau Halveria mixed a drug to induce a state of pseudo-death in a final gamble, intending to give it to Angelene and sacrifice herself, having had a change of heart after listening to Angelene's words. However, Isabella (having been prompted by Agnese and Lucia) was able to deal with the demon through use of life-like fake corpses modelled after its target, leading it to tear itself apart.

Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index

Salome Arc

Main article: Salome Arc

During her encounter with Accelerator, while talking about how she had sacrificed her body through Internal Offering and how what matters for a sacrifice is how important it is to the one offering it, Salome referred to Voodoo rituals (though not referring to the Ceremony of Ba Moun by name) where one sells their soul to the devil and has to offer up someone whom it pains them to sacrifice once a year, paying with their own life once they run out of people.