Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume11 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 1===

Kamijou Touma and Christian Rosencreutz.

The result of a direct battle between the two of them should have had an obvious result. Before, Academy City had gathered all its forces to oppose that man and Kamijou had relied on the Dragon Strike emerging from his right arm, but he had still failed to fully defeat him and Alice Anotherbible had needed to deliver the finishing blow.

He was that much of a monster.

If a mere high school boy faced him, it was a foregone conclusion that he would be turned to mincemeat in less than a second.

''And yet.

''Pop!!!

The instant Kamijou swung his right hand horizontally, something in the empty air burst and vanished.

Everything about this hell was twisted and wrong.

The right hand that acted as a reference point negated and destroyed the magic of the living that was considered out of place by that negative world.

In that moment, it wasn’t Kamijou Touma whose eyes widened in surprise. It was Christian Rosencreutz who had held his palm straight out from a short distance away.

The puny boy was a step ahead of CRC.

That alone should have been impossible.

“!!”

Rosencreutz slashed his fingers through the air a few more times, but still he could not hit.

Kamijou swung his right hand in the same way, negating each extraordinary piece magic just before it hit.

They were evenly matched.

They were fighting on equal footing.

Was it Imagine Breaker?

No, that wasn’t enough to explain this.

The boy shouted at his opponent.

“What’s next, CRC? Citrinitas? Or maybe the Pneuma-less Shell!?”

“!?”

A giant silver sphere slammed down behind the red-clad young man. Kamijou’s prediction was correct. Rosencreutz finally realized that his actions were being predicted. He panicked as he reached behind himself and rotated the round handle to randomly produce one of the world’s oldest causes of death.

It produced a thin tree branch.

That was the world’s oldest whip. But that cause of death had to have more openings than uranium or plutonium.

Did bad luck tend to stack?

Conversely, the momentum and trend were tilting in Kamijou’s favor. Which was unusual thanks to his misfortune.

That meant something other than luck was controlling this.

CRC clicked his tongue and tossed the tree branch aside.

“What did you do? Boy, nothing about your body has changed. Or is this old man expected to believe that a boy with no knowledge of magic manipulated this entire hell to produce something to your advantage!?”

That wasn’t the answer.

Kamijou couldn’t possibly control hell.

The answer was much simpler, which may have been why that overthinking expert had missed it.

“We walked through hell together, didn’t we?”

That brief explanation was his immediate answer.

“You haven’t forgotten, have you, Rosencreutz? When we fought you in Academy City, it was our first time seeing any of it. None of us knew who the legendary CRC was or what he could do. It was new to us. So we had no choice but to run defenseless into it all! …But that’s changed. I’ve seen all your spells. And more than that, I know you’re actually Johann Valentin Andreae! I know how you use everything at your disposal and I know how you use familiar attacks to trap us!! No matter how strong you are, this isn’t the same as our last battle!!!”

And it wasn’t just Kamijou who had drawn out Rosencreutz’s various methods of attack back in Academy City.

Anti-Skill had been there. And Judgment.

Misaka Mikoto, Aradia, Index, and Aleister had all been there.

Kamijou had to remember the home he was to return to.

The life he still had ahead of him.

The people waiting for him in Academy City.

Kamijou could only stand here now because of the cards they had each flipped over.

He now understood both CRC’s tactics and Johann’s way of thinking.

No longer did he have to agonize over this game of concentration.

Once it was his turn, he could take all the cards for himself!!

“No…”

CRC audibly gulped.

He couldn’t believe it, but he also couldn’t deny what was happening here.

Because he was wiser than anyone else.

“You cannot make up for your inferior skill that way. You are no more than a high school boy, while this old man is the Christian Rosencreutz of legend. Nothing can ever fill the endless gap between us!”

Kingsford then spoke to the shocked-looking silver-haired young man in red.

As if returning to the start of the boy’s words.

“Have you forgotten, CRC?”

“…”

“You left after Alice ☠️ed you and have spent the rest of your ⌚ holed up in your false hell preparing for your resurrection, but ❌ so for him. He lived on after that. It was ❌ for long, but in that ⌚, Kamijou Touma defeated Alice Anotherbible.”

“He…what?”

“On his own. Without relying on 🐉 Strike.”

He finally fell silent.

Common reality had surpassed his imagination.

“Kamijou Touma has already done one thing that CRC could ❌. Do you 💭 he gained nothing from that?”

The benevolent expert was unshaken.

The simple act of living was precious in and of itself.

Those words would sound so cheesy coming from an ordinary person, but Kingsford properly understood their meaning. So even as she easily crossed between life and death, Anna Kingsford would never treat lives and souls with anything but the utmost care.

“The ☠️ are forever stuck in place, but the living are always growing. A puny boy? Do ❌ assume he is the same as he was when you ⚔️ him.”

On his own, Kamijou Touma might have understood this intellectually, but his body wouldn’t have kept up.

But he had that benevolent expert with him.

Kingsford supported and realized the inexperienced boy’s ideas.

And the opposite, the expert who brought only death and destruction, responded.

While cynically returning to the same starting point.

“But did you forget, boy?”