Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 11===

What was he feeling in that moment?

Maybe only a Kihara would know. It was possible not even another Kihara could have understood.

“No.”

The old man’s outlines blurred.

Something about his incorporeal form had visibly changed.

“No! You are not a Kihara or even from Academy City. A wannabe-scientist like you does not get to talk to me like this. Yes, I get it now. I don’t need eternal life. Forget about the earth’s core. I will reject your theory, your thesis, and your way of life!! I will take everything from you and tear it all down to reject it for all time!!!!!!”

“''Is that so? Kee hee hee. Then I’ll be taking cute Risako-chan from you.''”

Something was taken from Kihara Hasuu with a sparking sound.

It looked so easy.

“What?”

Did that exclamation of surprise come from Kamijou Touma or Hamazura Shiage?

A new form floated up at the colosseum-like space’s tall, tall ceiling – a place everyone could see but no one could reach.

The “cocoon” surrounding the unconscious little girl was sliced through to extract her. She wore gym clothes a lot like Sodate’s.

Risako’s limp form was held in the arms of another girl.

But this one was very different. She seemed even more vaguely defined than an artificial ghost as she descended to the floor as weightlessly as a cotton ball or a leaf.

The slender silhouette of a girl had wings and a tail reminiscent of marine creatures. No mention of this hidden being could be found in the texts of any mythology or religion.

“A demon?” groaned Kihara Hasuu. “A real demon!?”

“What? You’re how old and you still don’t know your demons? I’m Qliphah Puzzle 545, a UK-made fake. Oh, and don’t you dare claim this came out of nowhere. Really, you’re the one that decided to intrude on ''the peaceful city that boy wants to protect''.”

Someone else was doing everything they could to protect a complete stranger.

The new head of the city was even reaching beyond the bounds of science.

But Kihara Hasuu couldn’t even try to take back Risako after she was laid down on the cold floor.

Kamijou Touma and Hamazura Shiage passed the demon on either side, taking a step toward the distorted collection of electricity.

Their limits didn’t matter. They had both been close to death before they even arrived.

“Hah. I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Same. But I do know that buying some time by delaying him here is all we need to save Risako!!”

The two boys wiped blood from their cheeks and mouths with no idea if they could really win or even survive this.

''They had no idea what was going on,'' but they still grabbed a coil of plastic rope to protect their fist or lifted a wooden hammer in both hands before approaching. Even Kihara Hasuu had to hesitate when he saw that. They weren’t afraid of all his electricity. They would try whatever it took to break down his silhouette. There was even a belligerent light of hope in their eyes.

Frillsand #G had used the logic of a ghost photo or a curse, keeping her distance from her enemy and overwhelming them with a great army.

She was still doing that now.

The demon girl showed off her ratty dress made of English newspapers held together by tape.

The articles began to wriggle and change.

The demon spread her arms to display the text personalized for Risako.

Almost like there was no reason to hide any of it even with the girl’s eyes still closed.

“Demons like me are sensitive to people’s desires. And I’m the Qliphah Puzzle 545 who used the mood of war to confuse the people of an entire country, so the dark parts of people lives are like my backyard. If I want to know the history of my target, I just have to take a look at my dress’s articles.”

If his chainsaw was still working, Kihara Hasuu would have attacked the demon girl’s back. He was especially fond of the kind of malice that overturned scenes like this.

But the chainsaw was bent and broken. The roaring of the engine did nothing to turn the chain covered in short teeth.

And the racing swimsuit girl who had broken the weapon stood in his way. Almost like she was moving between him and the reckless Level 0s.

Ladybird wanted to protect the children from the city’s cruelty.

She must have seen those bloody brawlers as two of those children.

That android had been born from the infamous Kihara family, but she had found who she wanted to be and was taking her first step in that direction.

He was a collection of electrical energy using High Voltage Cutting, but Ladybird was not an ordinary human. No matter how much of her body was destroyed, she would continue to carry out her objective without batting an eye. Because she understood the strength of being an android.

“I won’t let you.” That manifestation of malice clenched his teeth, groaned, and roared. “Risako-kun said she doesn’t want to hurt ‘Sodate-chan’ or ‘the ghost lady’. But! She has yet to say how she does intend to stand up to this cruel world!! She has simply stopped thinking. Once she is finally forced to reach an answer, she will say she wants the power to fight and to kill so she can protect her loved ones!!”

“Are you sure about that?”

The gym clothes girl’s shoulders jumped.

Her eyes were still closed, but for some reason, those words reached her.

The newspaper articles surrounding Qliphah Puzzle 545 may not have really meant anything. Everyone probably saw something different, like with a Rorschach test. The words were changing like a living creature in front of Risako.

“I’m a demon, so I can see your desires. But I’ll ask the question anyway.” Qliphah Puzzle 545 moved her face toward Risako’s, her smile growing. “Refusing to think about it wasn’t enough to push back Kihara Hasuu. That’s why you lost to that mean old man in the end. So let’s keep going from there. Instead of hesitating and putting it off, it’s time to reject his answer with an answer of your own. Show him there’s an answer other than asking for the power to fight.”

A whisper designed to speak directly to people’s desires sank deep into Risako’s hardened heart. Even though emotionally rejecting a logically sound argument should have felt horribly violent to her and caused her to harden her heart further.

“No one wants other people to suffer because of their own weakness, so they seek out strength by any means necessary. It’s a fine thing to want, but can you really achieve it by shutting your heart up tight, clouding your vision, and swinging a blade just because someone tells you to?”

No, that was the wrong way of looking at it.

The term “desires” could make it sound like they were talking about something emotional.

But there were plenty of logical desires. This was most readily apparent in the financial world where people’s interests could be mathematically calculated. Sports medicine and biomechanics, where scientist in lab coats spoke of the human body in numerical terms, was rooted in the same word. People wanted to win first place. What was that if not a desire?

And what was it Risako had said in the illusion shown by Frillsand #G?

She wanted to conquer her weakness and become strong, no matter what it took. It was a flimsy logic, lacking quite a bit, but it mattered that Risako had been thinking of strength ''as a numerical thing that could grow and existed in a hierarchy.''

It looked a first like she was rejecting Kihara Hasuu’s idea, but she could not fully reject it. Because if she did have the #1’s vector control, she could have changed how Handcuffs ended. She could have saved those people. That much was certain.

People were free to think Vivana Oniguma and Drencher Kihara Repatri wouldn’t have wanted to see her like that.

But she was the one who had watched them die, so there was a part of her that wished she had a more obvious sort of power. She had managed to hold that part of her in check and reject Kihara Hasuu’s tempting words, but she had not been able to rid herself of that part.

And.

Since she wanted to measure things with a numerical hierarchy, there was room for desire there.

One’s instincts and reason did not always need to be in conflict. In fact, your mind would fall out of balance if one or the other ceased to function. That would be like using hypnotism to reduce activity in the brain’s dorsal anterior cingulate cortex to get someone to obey any command without question or resistance.

“But what you really desire isn’t a number.”

That was Qliphah Puzzle 545’s greatest weapon and only opening, but she rejected it herself.

Think about it rationally. Wanting to feel good and wanting to make others happy were both examples of shameful desires.

In that case, wasn’t this odd?

What desire would be met by relying on this Kihara and picking up that heavy chainsaw?

What part of the human heart was satisfied by a power that could only maim and kill?

If the girl could not answer those questions herself, then something was seriously wrong there.

“I get that you want power. But is the power you want a lonely thing that hurts and pushes away everyone who talks back to you? Of course not. What did you think when you saw Kihara Noukan, when you saw Vivana Oniguma, when you saw Drencher Kihara Repatri, and when you saw Hamazura Shiage!? Did you want to cause even more bloodshed in a world where only you could survive? Of course not. You wouldn’t find any peace in a boring argument over who’s the strongest or in showing off your specs. Your true desire has to be somewhere else!!”

The demon girl pressed her forehead against the other girl’s forehead and shouted at point-blank range.

“So tell us, Risako!! Remember what your original desire was!!!!!!”

Without a sound, the young girl slowly opened her eyes.

“I want…to be strong.”

There was a tremor in her voice, but it definitely filled the people gathered here with strength.

“But I don’t want a strength that hurts people.”

Maybe it didn’t really mean anything. Maybe it had nothing to do with their actual abilities.

But there was a real strength in her voice.

Her clouded eyes cleared up and her hardened heart opened.

This wasn’t Imagine Breaker or Accelerator, but the strength the demon had inspired in that small heart – that young desire – left no room for any malice!!

“I want the gentle kind of strength that puts a smile on the ghost lady and Sodate-chan’s faces and lets everyone draw on 120% of their strength when we’re in trouble.”