The conclusion to Touma and friends vs. the Roman Catholic battle nuns.
Don't mind us. Just keep on having your meeting about how you are going to beat us. And since we are deaf, you don't have to worry about us overhearing your plan.
Summary:
The battle nuns under Luccia's command stab their ears with pens in order to nullify Index's special song. Even though the nuns didn't get any better at fighting, Stiyl, Saiji and Index decide to run from them and they join Touma and Orsola who somehow gave their pursuers the slip and are now inside the church at ground level. The battle nuns take a few hacks at the door that separates them from Touma's group, but they the stop and stare through the cracks while Touma and friends have a meeting about how to finish the battle. Orsola suggest that if they had the Book of the Law, they can use a spell inside to at least scare off the battle nuns, and it just so happens that Index knows the contents of the grimoire but doesn't know how to decipher it. Orsola tells Index her method of deciphering the book, but Index figures out that Orsola's method is wrong. Supposedly there are many methods to read the Book of the Law, but they are all traps designed to lead people astray. With this option out of the window, Touma decides to look for a back door and bumps into Stiyl. Stiyl drops his deck of rune cards, and this gives Touma an idea.
Flashback-inducing Uppercut!!!!
At the main chamber of the church, Agnese is waiting for the battle to finish but instead Touma walks in to confront her. The battle starts and Agnese uses her magical staff which causes damage to or near the opponent when Agnese smashes the staff or scrapes it with a knife. Touma has a hard time dodging or seeing the attacks and gets knocked around and bloodied, but he manage to stay conscious. On the next round of attacks, Touma correctly predicts Agnese's move and gets close enough to rock Agnese with an uppercut. Agnese is knocked down and has a flashback about her past life as a poor girl, but she gets back to her feet again. At this time, both Touma and Agnese notice that the sounds of fighting outside have stopped. Agnese thinks that her nuns have won, but Stiyl, Index, Saiji and Orsola bust in through the door followed by Stiyl's Innocentius. It turns out while Touma was battling Agnese, the Amakusa went around placing Stiyl's rune cards around the church and thus allowing him to summon the fire spirit. With the Innocentius around, the battle nuns including Agnese lose their confidence, but just for good measure Touma runs in and punches Agnese out to put an end to the battle. After the battle is over, Touma faints due to his injuries.
Hardly a fair fight, is it?
Touma has increased his "female knockout count" to two.
When Touma wakes up, he is back in his familiar hospital bed, but this time with Kaori by his side. Kaori informs Touma that Orsola is safe with Necessarius and the Amakusa have decided to join the Anglican Church as well. Kaori wants to thank Touma for helping the Amakusa, but Motoharu walks in and starts making fun Kaori about how she should thank Touma, and this causes Kaori a lot of embarrassment. After Motoharu leaves, Touma tells Kaori that she doesn't need to thank him and explains that the reason he helps Necessarius is because of Index. Touma states that he might even have helped Agnese if she came to him for help, and also that even though Agnese was the villain this time doesn't mean she won't be good in the future.
Kaori might be a saint, but she isn't immune to teasing.
Back in England, Stiyl and Laura talk about the aftermath of the incident. Necessarius has publicized that Orsola had the wrong method for deciphering the Book of the Law and therefore nobody should come after her anymore. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholics announced that Agnese's group were acting on their own and it was never the church's official intention to target Orsola. Stiyl wonders why Laura gave the order to rescue Orsola, and Laura reveals she primarily wanted the Amakusa to join the Anglican Church as "positive reinforcement" to keep Kaori in line (related to what happened to the Knights of England a few episodes ago). As Laura walks off smiling, Stiyl realizes that the archbishop is much more calculating than she looks.
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It wasn't the worst finale to an Index story arc. The first couple minutes were pretty slow with Orsola and Index talking about deciphering spells while the "crazy" battle nuns wait outside patiently for the good guys to finish talking before starting to hack at the door again. After that though was not too bad, and the fight between Touma and Agnese was more "entertaining" than I expected. Agnese's magic was at least fairly effective at dealing out pain and bruises and it was fun seeing her punish Touma for a bit. You have to hand it to Touma though: the guy is durable almost to a superhuman level. Touma took a real beating during the fight (including getting hit in the back of the head) and that still didn't knock him out.
Moving onto the finishing stages of the battle, the fact that Touma's first punch induced a flashback for Agnese was pretty funny, and the second punch was also hilarious since it was clear that nuns were beat with the Innocentius towering over them, but Touma just had to run in and punch out the 3ft tall little girl. I guess you can't blame Touma though, since Agnese did beat him up quite a bit, and it's always a good idea to make sure that the villain is out of business. To be honest though, I was looking forward to Touma punching Agnese out, so I'm glad that Touma actually did it. The plan to spread the runes and have Stiyl summon the Innocentius wasn't bad, although it wasn't really even necessary as the battle nuns sucked at fighting. Saiji and Stiyl were taking them out half a dozen at a time. Speaking of the battle nuns, it was also strange that Luccia and Angelene just disappeared off to nowhere this episode despite getting special introductions two episodes ago.
So overall, the final battle wasn't half bad, and it was good that Touma didn't go off on a very long winded hero speech. That "epilogue" was not too bad as well. It was cute seeing Kaori becoming embarrassed over Touma (one more to the harem), although the animation appeared to have gone down a few notches during that segment. The last talk between Stiyl and Laura wasn't too boring either and it really showed that Laura was a very calculating individual beneath that calm and smiling exterior.
Looks like the next arc will be about Kuroko, and thus the Railgun gang will be taking over Index just for a couple of episode. The Orsola arc was okay overall, but hopefully Kuroko's arc will be better.
From the feed of A Product of Wasted Time
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