Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 1===

With the siren stopped, the battlefield was silent.

Aradia’s bare feet traced sharply across the floor of the broken walkway.

Collapsed and unmoving, Anna Sprengel glowed with a pale light.

Mut Thebes, having become a massive bird, tilted her head.

“A barrier? No, a witch ointment. That can help you fly or transform you by rearranging the structure of your body.”

“It’s nothing that fancy. Only a mild protection. I can’t remove the Shrink Drink itself, but I can slow its spread.”

“But this anti-explosive suntan lotion disappears if you die, doesn’t it?”

“Do I really have to answer that?”

“Only one way to find out.”

An explosive boom rumbled out.

Mut Thebes horizontally swung her massive right wing, which was actually a pair of 300m aircraft cruisers.

The white torrent smashed up the entire top half of the giant cinema complex and scattered the pieces into the air.

Kamijou Touma was tossed into the air as well.

Aradia grabbed him by the back collar while straddling a mic stand used when the director or cast made a public statement at an advance screening or opening night.

A witch did not necessarily need to use a broom to fly in the night sky.

What mattered was the ointment rubbed onto the tool.

“Whoa!?”

“Grab onto me, not the mic stand. I like to think we’re safe as long as you don’t touch the shadow, but if your right hand does affect it, we fall. Also, Mut Thebes isn’t the only threat!!”

The witch goddess then took a more cautious tone.

“Why isn’t she using the Shrink Drink? Oh, she might want to avoid friendly fire.”

Aradia turned a sharp glare elsewhere.

Someone else was soaring through the night sky on a long mic stand of her own.

''It was the other Aradia.

Even her choice of tool when short on time was the same.

The identical silver-haired woman held her palm out with an alluring whisper on her lips.

“''The Apostle Peter forbids Simon Magus’s demonic flight''!!”

“You can tell it’s her first day. She needs more training. How do you call yourself the goddess of witches and then use that!?”

Kamijou and Aradia plummeted. Flying was easy for magicians, but the counter spell was also easy, making it hard in practice. They were forced to land atop one of the aircraft cruisers Mut Thebes was swinging around.

“Where’s Anna!?”

“How are you concerned about someone other than yourself right now? I covered her with a protective ointment, so she’ll be fine! As long as you don’t touch her with your right hand, she could be buried in a pile of concrete without so much as a scratch!!”

Mut Thebes again swung the two ships of her right wing together like she was shooing away a fly.

Aradia was tossed into the empty air. She knew her flight would be canceled by the counter spell, so she guided Kamijou to different footing a lot like descending in a parachute.

They were behind Mut Thebes this time.

They were on the bow of the aircraft cruiser – also at least 300m long – that acted as the giant bird’s body or tailfeathers.

The other Aradia landed her bare feet atop a trio of ship’s guns towering overhead like a mountain. She laughed and looked down at them with the moon behind her. Even the cheap ventilation fan cover mesh was the same. Even though there was no need to match the emergency fixes if that was an official costume.

“Don’t worry. I will protect your hope. I will ensure the good witch child need not wander in the dark.”

Next to Kamijou, Aradia twirled the long mic stand like a baton and rested it on her shoulder as she looked up at her target. The two Aradias’ gazes clashed head on.

And they both spoke at once.

“''I will kill her.''”

“''I will kill her.''”

Aradia jumped up from the deck to the guns in a single bound and the identical Transcendents began their battle.

However, Kamijou was in no position to simply watch on.

He needed to settle things with Transcendent Mut Thebes.

(If this whole thing is a bird, then this is the body or tail. Mut Thebes is at the center, so I need to move from the bow to the stern of this ship!!)

Mut Thebes of course responded.

The nearest trio of guns slowly turned.

Those giant ship’s guns had a diameter of 35cm.

“Yikes!”

Multiple blasts erupted simultaneously.

The deck kicked up below him so hard he thought he would flip over onto his back. He was shaken so hard his vision broke apart and he didn’t even have it in him to thrust his right hand out toward the source of the sound.

But unexpectedly, it didn’t hit him.

Kamijou held the side of his head with a hand and wobbled on his feet while he moved to the narrow side deck. And he continued onward.

“Ow.”

(I guess I should have expected that. Aircraft cruisers aren’t designed to shoot themselves. As long as I’m on the deck, this ship’s guns can’t hit me.)

But only this ship’s.

He heard something scraping along metal rails and looked up to see movement from the ships forming the great bird’s left wing. An angular white shadow was launched into the sky from the flight deck created by removing the stern weaponry.

That was an HsF/A-49 Sharp Frame, a stealth craft designed for aircraft carriers.

Although it looked weird colored entirely white.

“How much did she absorb, dammit!?”

Mut Thebes could increase her forces whenever her shadow touched another shadow, so even the aircraft cruisers were expendable to her. She had no problem with using the plane to obliterate this ship with its autocannons and aerial bombs.

And Kamijou was dead if even one shot hit him.

If he failed to defeat Mut Thebes and then reach Alice Anotherbible, there was no way left to save Anna Sprengel from the Shrink Drink.

The stealth craft circled sharply through the night sky and finally took aim.

(Can I stop that with Imagine Breaker!?)

Kamijou held up his right hand and clenched his teeth as he ran. If that thing sprayed 6000 bullets a minute from its Gatling gun, he would be killed before he could even use Imagine Breaker.

His throat went dry when he saw the stealth craft’s belly open up to reveal the weapons within. Apparently it was going to launch an air-to-surface missile or an aerial bomb. If the explosive contained napalm or white phosphorus, then “bad” didn’t even begin to describe it.

But Kamijou belatedly realized something.

The aircraft cruisers and the stealth craft were shadows absorbed my Mut Thebes’s magic.

So he was thinking about this wrong.

''The stealth craft and its bullets or bombs weren’t the only thing his right hand could destroy. He could also destroy the very aircraft cruiser he was running on.

“!?”

He didn’t even aim for a door – he directly punched the wall of thick armor. With a dull crash, a 2m cube was torn away. Was it divided into blocks like that? Kamijou lost his balance, so he tumbled right on inside the ship.

Shortly thereafter, the outside world was engulfed in explosive flames and shockwaves.

More than his ears ringing, he felt a pain akin to an electrical tingling across all of his skin. There had been multiple explosions out there. Like someone had tossed in a bundle of giant-sized firecrackers.

“Was that a cluster bomb!?”

“I don’t know how to use it, but I assume if I simply drop it on you, you will die before you can complain.”

Mut Thebes’s emotionless voice played from the ship’s internal speakers.

Kamijou didn’t know what kind of equipment the ship had, but apparently she was tracking his location and could hear his voice.

Still, he figured he should be safe as long he remained in the indoor passageways. Whether or not the Transcendent knew where he was, the ship couldn’t shoot itself, the walls were plenty thick, and the stealth craft was too big to fit through the door. Even if he did come across a locked door or bulkhead, it was all made of magic and he could break through with Imagine Breaker.

That meant this was a sturdy and safe tunnel for him.

“What a pain,” said Mut Thebes.

“I wouldn’t be so calm if I were you! I’ve found a safe zone, so now it’s time to turn the tables on you!!”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

Kamijou heard a sound like an electric razor.

He looked to the side to see something skillfully turn a corner in the passageway, slip through an open door, and slowly approach him at a height of about a meter.

The white shadow was only about 45cm.

Overall, it resembled the sharp isosceles triangle of a delta wing, but it had a round hole in the center and it used coaxial rotors to move vertically or hover in place like a helicopter.

What was it?

Was it another piece of the aircraft cruiser’s equipment, making it another weapon Mut Thebes had acquired by absorbing its shadow!?

“Eh?”

He was caught off guard when the lightweight solid fuel ignited and the self-destruct drone shot toward him like a missile.