Red Sky

[ACMItM: Arisa's song]

"What?" None of the three could understand what Ladylee meant. A saint born from science?

"I had never put much research into saints until Arisa." Ladylee admitted "But from my research on her, there is a fundamental difference between the miracles that they can perform and magic."

Index's eyes sharpened "Not really, it's Idol theory. Those who are like the son of god-"

"Those who are like the son of god can use the powers of the son of god." Kanzaki finished for her.

Ladylee let out a bark of laughter "I guess you don't see it. That's just it. 'The power of the son of god' isn't Magic! You may be using the power via idol theory but that doesn't make that power that Arisa and Joule can use 'Magic'. Joule after all is an Esper right? And yet her power is adding to my array all the same!"

"That's-" Kanzaki began but Ladylee spoke over her.

"Odd isn't it? I can only imagine something strange happened there. Maybe Aleister figured something out in those projects of his. I don't know. Regardless, what Arisa and Joule are using are most certainly 'Miracles'."

Touma stepped forward raising his hand "Even so, that doesn't matter now."

Ladylee nodded with a calm smile "Indeed, it doesn't. What matters is that I've managed to stall for just long enough to do this;"

[ACMItM: Those cursed by magic]

She waved her hand and the holograms to her side glowed red.

"What's this?" Kanzaki asked.

Index answered quickly "She's activating the array!"

Outside the window that gazed out into space, red circles and runes were appearing.

Touma ran forward as the area began to shake.

"Touma stop!" Index called out "It won't work, this isn't the core!"

Touma froze just before touching the hologram that Ladylee was using. He had knocked Ladylee aside as he reached it and now she was on the floor.

"I wonder..." she spat blood before looking up at him "Would I die if I touched your hand?"

Touma looked down at her as if thinking. Would he...?

Elsewhere, in the backstage room, Joule and Arisa stopped just before the next song began. They had felt the shaking of the tower as had the audience. Everything was still working but the audience were still worried that something was wrong with the tower.

An earthquake is scary enough when it happened on the ground, what did it mean when you were at the edge of space?

Over the sound system there was an alert.

"We're sorry for the disturbance, the show will restart shortly."

Joule and Arisa shared a look. Something was wrong.

"Should we do something?" Joule asked her friend quietly.

Arisa shook her head "I don't know, if we sang to calm the audience it might still be helping her plan."

To sing or not to sing.

A door opened and Joule and Arisa turned to see Gunvolt burst in with his pistol drawn. When he saw they were the only ones in here he nodded.

"Are you two okay?"

"Physically? Fine." Joule noted.

"Mentally? We've been better." Arisa followed with a forced smile.

"What's going on?" GV asked.

Joule shook her head "We don't know. I was actually hoping that you did."

"Contact the other team." He advised "Is her AIM reader still on?"

Joule nodded and tapped the necklace that had been forced around her neck. It looked quite fancy but it was just a place to keep the AIM reader and, according to the security guards, enough explosives to 'pop her little head clean off'.

"I'm going to kill them." GV muttered as he disabled the trigger that would have killed her if she had tried to take it off. He picked it up gently and disabled the rest of it's systems before casting it onto a table.

He looked over to Arisa but she shook her head "I don't have anything like that, don't worry."

Joule immediately felt for Index's mind and re-forged the link.

"Index? What's going on?" she sent quickly.

The answer came a moment later.

"Joule! You're free."

Joule skipped the chance to say something sarcastic.

"I am, but we need to know what's happening."

"Ladylee has activated her spell. It's building up it's force now. I think we have maybe five minutes before it's done and it will go off." Index explained quickly.

"And what will happen when it does go off?"

"This half of the planet will be destroyed!" Index was panicking and after sharing that news, Joule felt like she wanted to panic too.

Joule relayed the information to the others while asking Index how they could help.

"I don't know if you could. Touma's going to try something but he's already left. I don't know if he could reach the core in time!"

Arisa collapsed to her knees at the news "We were helping her to do this?"

Joule felt weak at the knees too.

She took a breath though and asked Index one more thing.

"Would there be any risk in us singing now?"

Index didn't respond for a good few seconds but finally she spoke.

"It wouldn't make things any worse."

Jouled nodded and walked over to Arisa.

"Arisa?"

The girl looked up towards her.

"What?"

"Those people out there are starting to panic. Let's sing for them again."

Arisa said nothing for a moment. She then rubbed her eyes with her dress to clean up the tears that had started to form and she stood up.

"Right."

The two of them headed out to the stage.

"There are different laws in space."

Ladylee still lay of the floor. Touma hadn't tried to touch her but Kanzaki had bound her in metal threads. It didn't matter to her though.

"It's too late now. It's already done."

She knew that it was finally time. Even if it hadn't been Touma.

"Today, is the day I'll die!"

End of chapter.

The back half of this movie is taking a long time to get through. Shouldn't take too much longer though.