So somewhat expectantly, I guess, Oriana was both a decoy and a pawn, used to throw the scent completely off of St. Peter’s Cross while in a way being duped into helping Lidvia who, sadly, sounds too much like today’s religious fanatics, trying to use the cross as a way to make science subservient to religion once and for all by claiming control over Academy City.  In the end, she was foiled by the Night Parade’s fireworks, and then sucked out of a plane by Archbishop Laura who was rather ruthless in her dealing with Lidvia.

I'm gonna make everyone happy by making their lives suck! Oh wait...

I thought this arc ended rather lamely.  Oriana was finally done in by a punch, of all things (after she had already taken several) and Lidvia was foiled no thanks to all the events in the past six episodes in this arc.  I mean, it was a somewhat exciting arc, I guess, but I felt kinda cheated that the last 6 episodes led to a conclusion where nothing they did actually stopped the threat.

As for Archbishop Laura, I’ve always kind of found her a creepy kind of sweet, and she showed it here when she just dropped  Lidvia from the plane (along with the pilot), presumably destroying the cross along the way (though I think that part might be in dispute).  Lidvia seemed to be rather crazy, anyway, and rather obsessed with making the Roman Catholics dominant by “denying science” as she put it (not that that’s very different from reality, though the Catholic Church is hardly alone in that regard).

So at the end of this arc, everyone is all happy again.  The main thing that last might be that Himegami may be more involved in the romantic feelings for Touma now.  Of course, this changes things from merely being an Index-Touma-Mikoto triangle to an full on harem for Touma.  Luckily there don’t seem to be any other females that would seem to imminently become romantically interested in him at this point.

After his first fight with Oriana, Touma and the others discover that the Stab Sword is merely a myth and that the item is actually St. Peter’s Cross, which would allow the Church to claim control over any land it is stuck into.  This means if the Roman Catholic Church claimed Academy City, the balance between science and magic would be swung completely into magic’s favor, allowing the Roman Catholics to essentially take over the world.

Such Misfortune

This arc has strayed a long way from it’s school competition beginnings, though I guess that’s fine with me.  Oriana seems to be pretty nasty, though in the sense that she has such a breadth of magical spells and not because her spells are all that powerful, per se (at least to this point).  She’s hard to defend against because you have no idea what’s coming next.  However, Tsuchikimado’s successful bluff suggested that she may be easily deceived or otherwise not all that knowledgeable about the workings of magic.

Otherwise, Oriana’s most brutal attack came against Himegami, whom she mistakes as a magical agent, and attacks her by virtually blowing her up.  Touma now seems to be on his own against Oriana now as Tsuchikimado seems out for the count and Stiyl is staying behind to try to help Himegami, and it seemed like Tsuchikimado’s threat that Kaori might show up really was a bluff (but we’ll see I guess).  We also got a brief glimpse of the other half of the transaction, Lidvia, though that’s all we really know right now.

Otherwise, Mikoto and Index seem to be developing a bit of a rivalry over Touma, and of course Kuroko hates Touma because of her jealousy over Mikoto.  I just wondered why it look this long for Mikoto to ask Touma who, exactly, Index is.  We’re only, what?, 35 episodes into the series now?

We only have one more episode until it heads into the spring season, but this arc doesn’t seem anywhere near ending.  It could end next episode, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it went on into the January episodes at this point.

So we start a new story arc, with Stiyl, Tsuchimikado, and Touma trying to stop a transaction which would give an item known as the  Stab Sword to an agent of the Roman Catholic Church.  These two episodes mainly deal with their chase after one of the two magicians involved, Oriana Thomson, whom Touma finds by accident when his Imagine Breaker reacts to her when he shakes her hand.  Most of the second episode deals with the three trying to break a spell she has set up which is preventing Stiyl from performing any magic within academy city.

There is so much wrong here, it's almost hard to know where to begin

We got some information about what the Stab Sword is – it’s a magical item, apparently held by the Anglican Church, that is harmless to most people, but can slay a saint with a single stab.  This makes it equivalent to an item that could neutralize another nation’s nuclear arsenal in ordinary military terms, thus giving whoever had the item a supreme advantage – such an advantage that by even having the advantage, a religious war could break out.

Oriana hasn’t really shown much yet other than a bit of craftiness and the fact that she pre-planned some countermeasures, but we haven’t really seen the full force of what she’s capable of yet, I don’t think.  At least Touma is being useful in that he can easy cut through magical counter-measures without slowing the trio down.

As for other characters, we get a lot of red-faced Mikoto, but that’s about it.  We also get a lot of hungry and lonely Index, though that’s nothing really new, either.  The primary secondary character so far has really been class rep Seiri Fukiyose who seems to be paying a lot of attention to Touma, and ends up getting zapped by one of Oriana’s spells at the end of episode 9.

I have a feeling this arc will go to the end of the fall season for this show (which would be episode 12) since we’re not even done dealing with Oriana, and we haven’t even been introduced to the other half of the transaction yet.