Tsuchimikado glanced at the lying motionless on the cot. He would have thought she was dead, if not for the breathing and the faint shifts in position every once in a while. He contemplated waking her up, if only to see the news.

It was big.

And Aleister Crowley's pawns were all playing a role.

Celeste Crowley groaned and sat up, the faint voices of the television enough to keep her from falling back asleep. Through bleary eyes, she glared at the colourful screen, before the words reached her brain and she jolted fully awake, as if she had drank four jugs of coffee.

World War Three had begun, declared by Russia on Academy City. Celeste sighed and rubbed her eyes. Humans were idiots. This confirmed it. She hoped Accelerator was alright, that he wasn't getting himself tied into all that mess, but she had the niggling feeling that he was right in the center of everything. Like always.

She sighed again and stood up. Celeste didn't feel fully rested, but she knew her energy levels were at full power again, which meant it was time to go in. If a world war was going on, then it was imperative that she got her part of Aleister's orders done, so she could return to Academy City. And if necessary, help with the war.

Celeste didn't think that would be necessary, though. After all, Aleister had plenty of pawns, and the entire city full of espers to deal with the problem. Even Aiwass was available, if Aleister deemed it necessary to summon the AIM entity. Accelerator won't be happy if it came to that, of course, because it would further harm Last Order.

But Aleister had never cared about that, never cared about who and what he had to sacrifice.

"Let's go," she said curtly.

Switching off the television, Tsuchimikado stood without a word, and followed her out the door. Strange, he thought, that they were walking so boldly in broad daylight, heading towards St George's Cathedral. It was the enemy base, after all, and he would expect the girl to exercise some caution.

"Ne, you do know magic, right?" Celeste finally asked as the cathedral came into sight.

Tsuchimikado raised an eyebrow. "Of course. I'm an onmyouji. But after taking the courses in Academy City to become an esper…"

"Don't worry about that. I'll handle it. Just use magic freely for the time limit I state, okay? Before and after that, you'll feel the effects."

His brow twitched, questions on the tip of his tongue, but he bit down on the inside of his cheeks to resist his curiosity. He doubted that she would answer, anyways.

They snuck in, and the moment they rolled through the open window, they were met by a blast of coolness. The cathedral was dark and almost chilly, and suddenly a feeling of foreboding washed over Tsuchimikado. It was almost like entering this place was a death wish. He had never felt this way before, even when he was disobeying their orders and acting as a spy against them.

And suddenly he saw the reason.

Tsuchimikado felt his blood freeze, his body growing cold and stiff. While he had expected all of Necessarius' magicians to be there, he didn't expect all Church magicians to meet in the cathedral. He had no doubt that they were not only there to discuss the living Crowley, but also the war that now loomed over the horizon. He wanted to wonder why he hadn't been invited, but he knew the answer quite well. Even though he was a magician, he was also a spy, and for that purpose he had lost his ability to use magic. In other words, in this scenario, he was absolutely useless to the church.

Tsuchimikado caught sight of a flash of red, and a sword below white. Kanzaki and Stiyl. He would have groaned, if the sound wouldn't have given them away. So his suspicions were right. All the lower ranking magicians were there, and by lower ranking he meant anybody who was not someone like Fiamma.

To go in before was insane. To go in now was suicide.

But it was too late. They were already inside, sneaking behind the magicians' backs, flitting behind objects and creeping through shadows. For a moment, Tsuchimikado wished his hair was black, and that he was wearing black clothing to blend in better. He glanced at Celeste. Her clothes were black, but pale skin and pale hair that threatened to shine under any bit of light that caught it were quite noticeable too.

Tsuchimikado found himself praying to all the Shinto, Buddhist, and Christian gods that they wouldn't be found out.

His prayers were answered. The two infiltrators practically melted through the door, and it was like a breath of relief to find no human, magician or otherwise, in the rest of the cathedral. They soon found themselves outside the library.

It wasn't locked.

Tsuchimikado stared, dumbfounded, as Celeste easily pushed open the library door and crept inside. One would expect a library full of dangerous magic texts and precious books to be guarded or locked in some manner. Perhaps a barrier or ten, and some traps too. But no, nothing. She shut the door lightly behind them with nothing but a faint creak, and they had gotten through everything.

"Do you know what we're looking for?" Tsuchimikado whispered, afraid to raise his voice in case someone walked past the door.

She grinned. He found himself hating it when she smiled, because it never meant anything good. "The Grand Grimoire. Red Dragon."

"Are you insane?!" He hissed, feeling like it was the only line he had said lately.

Her grin only revealed more teeth. "Get to work."

This time he let himself groan as he rolled his eyes, before he started scanning the shelves. He could hear her hum lightly as she perused the books, examining each spine for the title that would give it away.

After six hours, he felt like his eyeballs were dried and about to fall out of its sockets, and his feet ached from walking around. The only comfort was that she was probably no better.

"Oh," Celeste said suddenly, voice filled with surprise. "It's a doily."

Tsuchimikado turned so fast that he nearly dislocated all the joints on his legs. "What?!"

"The Red Dragon. It's being used as a place mat, for people to put tea cups on it," Celeste repeated, voice amused.

He quickly walked over and glanced down. It was exactly what she said. The book sat, dusty and untouched, with a cup of evaporated tea sitting on top. He felt a sudden destructive urge to slam his head against the wall over and over. One of the most dangerous grimoires in the world, the only physical copy not in Index's brain, and it was used for teacups. He could just scream.

Tsuchimikado reached out to pick it up, to check if it were the real one, but before he could touch the book, Celeste's hand snatched his wrist.

"Don't. There's a lot of magic on it. If you touch it a whole bunch of magicians will attack us," she warned, eyeing the book with a look in her eyes that were the exact opposite of relaxed.

"So how are we going to get it?" Tsuchimikado asked, exasperated. "It is the real one, right?"

"Yes. It's real. Do you know how to undo seals and barriers?"

"Yeah. It's an onmyoudou specialty."

"Good," she grinned. "How long will it take?"

Tsuchimikado hesitated. "Five minutes. And the magicians will know immediately when their spells are broken."

Celeste paused, thinking for a moment. "I cannot use ESP while carrying the book. There's too much magic. We'll have to use magic to escape too."

"Fine. As long as you know some good spells, we can probably handle escaping," Tsuchimikado said. "As long as the whole bunch of them don't come in on us…"

Celeste laughed.

And he found that he really hated her laugh too.