Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume11 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 2===

What were they doing again?

Kamijou Touma’s mind was too woozy to remember.

Regardless, he opened his eyes.

What he saw looked strange. Was he lying down? He felt something soft below his head. Someone was peering down at him, but he couldn’t tell who it was due to the large pair of breasts blocking his view of their lower face.

The glasses jogged his memory.

It was her.

“Whoa!?”

He was resting on Kingsford-sensei’s lap pillow.

And since she was wearing a swimsuit, it was a bare lap pillow.

“Oh? You could have 💤ed longer, you know?”

The glasses woman placed a hand over her mouth and laughed elegantly. He decided he needed to get up before he developed any further problems with his heart rate. Why did he feel like he was losing years from his life when he was already dead?

Surprisingly, Rosencreutz did not seem exasperated.

He stroked his beard in his hand and commented on the situation.

“Hm. It would seem sleeping in hell does not eternally bind you here.”

“Old man, do you have to take this so seriously?”

“Hm, hm. You should count yourself lucky that sleeping does not eternally trap you in a dream within a dream within a dream…to the point you lose track of how many dreams deep you are.”

“Wait, what? Are you telling me even a woman’s thighs could be a devious trap in hell!?”

Kamijou’s party continued trekking through hell while taking the occasional short break.

They traveled through a variety of different hells, which mostly seemed to be fire based.

They had managed to descend a few levels thanks to Kingsford’s guidance.

“Wow…”

Kamijou hadn’t actually been counting what level of hell they were on, but in this hell, tons of embers were pouring down on them like a blizzard. The embers were especially noticeable in the darkness and they continued burning without extinguishing even after falling onto the sand. He knew nothing good would come from having those land on his skin. He doubted any kind of unexpected romance would be starting here. The embers reminded him a lot of white phosphorous or napalm.

The wind changed and the fiery snow blew this way.

Kamijou froze in place.

What was he supposed to do?

There were no gaps in that. Was he supposed to play a real-life bullet hell game!?

“Bwah, bwah, bwah!? Ah, no, it’s burning, it’s on fire, gya, gya, gya, gya, this old man’s beard is burning, bwah, bwah, bwah, bwah!?”

Kamijou had hoped there was some kind of loophole or safe zone hidden away in this general area-of-effect attack, but that hope was dashed when he saw the person rolling on the ground and burning. The distribution was just too even. Unlike in a shmup, there were no gaps at all. And once one of those embers touched your skin, it apparently kept on burning. The fact that water was immune to fire and the human body was 60-70% water didn’t seem to matter. Kamijou Touma learned the all-too-unpleasant fact that humans really did dance when they were burned alive.

Oh, right.

He had forgotten.

Tears formed in Kamijou’s eyes. The dead were horrifically punished after descending into hell and, since they were already dead, they wouldn’t die even if they were burned and stabbed in hell! Even if the total damage was well past a fatal level and even if it was complete overkill, their lives wouldn’t shut down at the moment of death, in a way making this even worse than the world of the living!

“Phew.”

Kamijou heard a sweet sigh.

It came from the teacher-like glasses woman.

Anna Kingsford untied the pareo she wore around her hips and spread it out overhead. She provided an umbrella not for herself but for Kamijou walking next to her. As if to protect just the spiky-haired boy from an unexpected rain shower.

Apparently she considered her witchy hat to be protection enough.

“You will be safe now. I guarantee it as an expert. I will ❌ allow your soul to be lost until you have been safely returned to the 🌍 of the living.”

A sweet scent wafted over to Kamijou.

It may have been the scent of her sweat.

When she was this close, he couldn’t ignore the warmth of her shoulder against his even if he wanted to. Her newly uncovered thighs were dazzlingly bright and his attempt to not look at them hurt his neck.

“?”

The oblivious woman tilted her head.

At extreme close range.

…Hold on, Kamijou panicked. Could it be that the sexy young woman was rapidly becoming his greatest obstacle in this journey through hell? She rattled his adolescence in a different way from the Bologna Succubus who walked around in her underwear or Aradia who did the same in a star-shaped bikini. Anna Kingsford wore something like a near-future racing swimsuit, so she didn’t show off all that much skin.

But.

Did she have to act so clueless and unguarded? This probably was necessary for them to pass through the fiery snow and continue on their journey, but the pareo umbrella made him feel like he was sticking his head up an ordinarily meek glasses woman’s long skirt. His worldly thoughts meter was on the rise and he already knew hell would react and make those thoughts visible!!!

“Eh heh. I’m burning. Eh heh heh. Now that I’ve lost all feeling, this old man is kind of enjoying it.”

Half of Rosencreutz’s surface area was now pockmarked with burns several centimeters in diameter, a sight that helped recover Kamijou’s SAN a bit.

If he made Kingsford go “eek, pervert!” and shove him out from under the umbrella, he would end up with that fiery snow all over him too. He would end up traveling beyond the realm of pain and start twitching on the ground.

(Come to think of it.)

Kamijou started to reach his right hand out from under the umbrella to touch an ember.

“Kh.”

But he pulled back.

Was that really safe?

He wanted to test if he still had Imagine Breaker, but surely there was a safer way.

If he was wrong, he would end up seeing his own finger bone.

Kingsford, meanwhile, decided to completely ignore her fellow expert, Rosencreutz.

Her kindness must have been limited to amateurs.

The traveler with no sympathy for the scorched first-rate pro began to speak.

“Sigh. This area of hell is still partway between the medium and 🌶️ levels. To be blunt, Westcott, Mathers, and my other students saw much worse when they made a mistake.”

“…”

What was education like in the late 19th century?

Kamijou had trouble imagining it. He lived in an age when no one was even asked to stand out in the hall holding buckets, so this was beyond anything he could imagine. And was the Mathers she mentioned ''the'' Mathers he had seen in London? Had that ultimate genius actually cried after being beaten up by his teacher? What in the world had he done to deserve that?

Rosencreutz (who was lying burnt at their feet) joined the conversation.

“Pant, wheeze. B-by the way, a little later in the early 20th century, the famous Crowley had this to say to his students: ‘You made a mistake? Then slash your arm with a razor to leave a permanent scar. That pain will teach you your mind is capable of controlling you.’ ”

“Who let a guy like that reign at the top of Academy City?”

Had Aleister been that strict? Then again, he did seem like the type who would writhe on the floor in agony when someone dug up a story of his past.

But apparently Anna Kingsford was from the era before even that.

She looked like a gentle and smiling glasses woman, but maybe Kamijou needed to focus a little more on what was hidden deep inside?

Rosencreutz was still smoldering, but by the time he returned unsteadily to his feet, his burns had all vanished.

He really was an expert.

The ability to turn horrific burns like that into a joke was anything but normal.

“But, well, you know.”

“Hm?”

“You know. If Anna Kingsford were only a little nicer, this old man would see her as a certain ideal.”

“She seems nice enough to me.”

“Does she now? Then are you saying you see her as the ideal you-know-what, boy? I envy you.”

The ideal what?

Did he know what?

Kamijou Touma felt a cold sweat dripping down his back.

Oh, no.

He shouldn’t have let himself think it. But now that the thought was in his mind, it wouldn’t leave.

It was the worst possible thought.

Yes.

Wasn’t Anna Kingsford a lot like ''the ideal dorm manager''?

He knew he shouldn’t think it, but he couldn’t escape the image he had conjured into his mind.

The ideal.

She was a generally clueless and gentle woman, but she was stylish, sexy, older than him, could do both her job and housework, and she would accept anything he might do, but she also loved his attention as the sweet and lovely school dorm manager. That ideal was so powerful he couldn’t shake it. ''Don’t give in. Harness your mental fortitude. Weren’t you going to crawl out of hell and wipe away Alice Anotherbible’s tears back in the world of the living? C’mon, Kamijou Touma, you’re better than this. Just remember that crying face waiting for you! You need to return. Don’t think about if it’s possible with ordinary methods. You have two extraordinary monsters with you. Didn’t you decide to escape from this hell with Kingsford’s help and Rosencreutz’s power!? This isn’t about a dorm manager!!''

…''But wait. As well guarded as her front is, the back of that racing swimsuit is wide open, leaving a lot of exposed skin. Isn’t it a lot like a naked apron? No!! Don’t let her swimsuit distract you. Refocus your mind. This is only the starting point. There has to be more to this. This place is called hell, so there’s bound to be some hellish obstacles here. So stay focused! Shut down your imagination! Keep that image out of your head!! But it’s true a dorm manager would be at a city pool, not a midsummer beach. And she would wear a racing swimsuit instead of a flashy bikini. Wait!! I don’t need to pursue a dorm manager all the way to hell when there are plenty of them back on earth!! Nwoahhhhhh!!! Good morning, Kamijou-san. Hee hee. You have some bedhead. My, my, did you only just get up? What a naughty boy you are. Oh, by the way, Kamijou-san, do you have some free time? I can’t figure out how to hook up my TV and digital recorder. Oh, this? I made too much nikujaga, so I thought I would share some with you☆

The world warped around Kamijou.

He paled. He had noticed the change.

This was bad.

Very, very bad.

Nothing could be worse right now! This wasn’t just the surface-level stuff like boobs or a butt. This was the very core of what made Kamijou Kamijou. He had to admit it. If a young woman gave him an icy look and rejected this softer part inside him, he really would cry. The boy’s soul was wracked with the fear of a lack of acceptance and understanding. ''No, wait! Anything I say now will only hurt me. If they find out about this, they can directly attack my innermost desires!!!

“S-stop this, hell!! Don’t react now of all times. Ah, ah, ah, nooo. Why does hell have to be so merciless? Why does my dorm manager dream have to appear like this? Damn, the very center of my heart is blooming before my eyes! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”

Hell shined bright.

He was dead.

Kamijou flailed his right hand at the empty air, but hell refused to disappear. No matter what. Unable to bear it, the teenager covered his face with his hands. Couldn’t someone silently kill him right this instant? Without speaking a word?

But he waited and waited without hearing any comments from Kingsford or Rosencreutz.

He puzzled over this in the darkness of his hands.

…Were they too disturbed?

…Had his open display of worldly desire left them speechless?

But something still felt off. There was a tension in the air. A serious tension. He didn’t get the sense they were going to criticize his desires. Nervously, he moved his hands from his face and viewed the outer world through the gap.

“What…is that?”

This wasn’t at all what he had expected.

He saw some kind of city.

However, it wasn’t a modern city of concrete skyscrapers and asphalt streets. This was something older – much older – with nothing but stone-paved roads and pointy roofs he could imagine an RPG king living below.

So was this a fantasy world?

No.

“I see. This imagery comes from him. Hell is designed to reveal each individual’s sins and provide an appropriate punishment. So even an expert – ❌, especially an expert – will have his greedy and defiled soul revealed before us.”

Anna Kingsford still had her back to them. As if protecting them from the scene spread out before their eyes.

Yes, them.

It wasn’t just Kamijou this time. She was protecting the other one as well.

Christian Rosencreutz.

“…”

His head was lowered.

He was averting his eyes.

CRC was never slow to provide verbal abuse or mockery, but now he said nothing.

(Is that monster afraid?)

“1602, the Holy Roman Empire, the University of Tübingen. That would be modern day 🇩🇪. Back then, you were ❌ more than a 15-year-old boy who was still learning theology while also engrossing yourself in the works of John Dee, the queen’s 🧙‍♂️.”

Had that monster really been 15 years old once?

And a student?

Wait, wasn’t 15 the same age as Kamijou?

It should have been obvious, but Kamijou found that obvious fact surprising. He had more or less imagined that Rosencreutz had been born an expert in magic who destroyed the world as he pleased while shouting about how he was an old man.

But that wasn’t the case.

“This is your origin, CRC. The center point of your sin and your distortion upon the 🌍. …This is why Anna Sprengel chose the path of 🪄, why the Golden cabal was born, why Westcott, Mathers, and my other students strayed in pursuit of their own desires, why the 👿 lord known as Aleister Crowley was awoken within the world’s greatest cabal and destroyed it all, and why some unknown person created Alice Anotherbible without Crowley noticing.”

Aleister.

And Alice.

Kamijou leaned forward at the mention of those familiar names.

Yes, this wasn’t something from a game or an isekai fantasy story. As large as the scale was and as absurdly unrealistic as it might sound, this story was directly connected to the real world.

This was a story Kamijou Touma needed to know.

“So he was 15 back in 1602? But what happened there?”

“The beginning happened.”

Anna Kingsford’s voice was stiff as she responded without turning back.

“The beginning of it all. The very moment that the Rosicrucian cabal, the world’s most mysterious 🪄 cabal, came to be.”