Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume13 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 1===

The sun was setting on Academy City.

The red snow continued even as night fell.



“Nhh…”

Necromancer Isabella Theism raised her arms and stretched.

Even that dealer in death had visibly white breath in the darkness.

The building was cramped and Isabella knew she was ruining the mood, but she had no real obligation to get along with her colleagues. She hadn’t come to Japan to make friends.

They had taken over this city.

They had accomplished what the magic side as a whole would consider a great feat. This alone had to be causing a kerfuffle in the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches. If the power of science joined the conflict, it would greatly change the three-way stalemate between England, Rome, and Russia.

Offering Academy City to the queen would be enough for Isabella Theism’s name to go down in history.

(How history would describe me is an open question, though. That queen is an upright person who values peace and loathes fighting.)

But controlling the world meant nothing if that world was destroyed tomorrow.

She had to focus on Great Demon Coronzon for now.

“Which means I don’t have time to listen to complaints from ''outsiders''.”

She focused on her earphone and heard an annoyed voice.

“What is wrong with you? Wasn’t that a little quick to completely change your mind on me?”

“All I did was lay some groundwork I felt necessary for my mission. To me, this seems pretty peaceful compared to carpet bombing a jungle or some buildings the enemy might be using to hide.”

“Hold on. It was you Anglicans who said you wanted a united front.” The new board chairman’s voice dropped in tone. “That’s why I didn’t resist much when I discovered your further savagery. Setting aside whether it’s humane or not, I could have ''used magnetic resonance well beyond any safety standards to rattle people’s cranial nerves and turn them into living pawns'' all from a safe distance. I can still do that.”

“Well, that’s a new interpretation of the zombie. And I like that they’re zombies but you aren’t controlling the dead.” Isabella actually sounded amused. “Did we sign any documents? Did we stamp it with our seal? All you’re going off of is a baseless chat with our previous leader, who had no right to be leading in the first place. Now that I’ve taken the position, I’m not bound by any vague verbal promises or implicit understandings. I, Isabella Theism, will do everything necessary to stop the Adikalika large-scale attack spell that Great Demon Coronzon is preparing. …And I mean everything necessary as a necromancer, of course☆”

When the leader changed, so did the overall policy.

That unpleasant side of organizations was rearing its ugly head here.

After trusting and opening up to the previous leader, that leader was driven out by infighting and a completely different person was now in charge and saying the exact opposite. All the personal trust built up before had been shifted onto someone else entirely and all the risk was shoved back onto him for opening up. Even though this was no time to be getting sidetracked with that sort of nonsense.

“Don’t you get that this fun of yours is only going to lead to more meaningless death?”

“Meaningless? Of course not! …I won’t let a single death go to waste. I generally use imitations rather than consume actual dead bodies for my spells, but that doesn’t mean I lack the ability to do so. And creating lookalikes out of safe and reliable ingredient is a lot of work. If Academy City is going to let these real dead bodies go to waste, I will take full responsibility and put them to good use.”

She was smiling.

This was no lie or mockery – she really meant it.

With Isabella Theism, there was little meaning in debating whether she was a good or bad person. The meaning of justice changed depending on your viewpoint and her opinion was technically correct if ''all'' you wanted to do was keep the United Kingdom safe. Of course, that was setting aside the question of if the British people would permit ''a peace built on other’s deaths.''

To Isabella, lives were like a fuel that could be burned with the maximum efficiency. Using them up without any waste was a virtue. So to put it another way, inefficiently protecting others’ lives was not all that important.

Whether this was good or evil didn’t really matter here. That question could wait.

But Accelerator did have an answer for whether he liked it or not: he couldn’t have disliked it more.

“…You’re different.”

“From what?”

“''You’re nothing at all like the necromancer I know.''”

“I should have known the one sitting in the board chairman’s seat would have some delightful friends. But, you see, this field has branched into many different ideologies and factions.”

Yes. Her sensibilities were not off because she was a necromancer or because she was a magician who specialized in human death. This all came down to Isabella’s personal beliefs and tastes.

Her insistence on always doing what was correct rankled Accelerator, but she was the one who had ended up in a position to influence the fate of Academy City and the world as a whole. Was the world really in good hands? In a way, she was even more of a pain than Coronzon who opposed the world more directly.

“But the fact remains that no amount of complaining on your part is going to change anything. I mean, Academy City is a shambles, isn’t it? You can’t gather enough pieces to take on Coronzon. So despite your sensible complaints, you have no choice but to rely on the Anglican experts who have entered your city. And need I remind you that it is we Anglicans who overcame the threat of Coronzon in the past?”

“…”

“Yes, wouldn’t it be nice if Academy City still had a trump card up its sleeve?”