Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume11 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 4===

Time froze.

Kamijou Touma couldn’t believe it.

But maybe that disbelief was proof that he had already been taken in.

There was precedent.

Rosencreutz was the opposite of benevolent expert Kingsford. Unlike the common legend, he was an expert who selfishly and capriciously spread death.

Had Kamijou forgotten how dangerous he was?

Had he forgotten what had happened in Academy City?

He had been deceived by the idea of a truth that couldn’t be found by simply following the righteous path, a cynical view, a possibility of using a trick or a loophole.

Hadn’t Kingsford said that the Qliphoth could only be used by a fully-equipped expert? And that any normal person contacting it would simply be engulfed by disaster?

This was the stereotypical example.

If Kamijou had doubted Kingsford enough to part with her, what would have happened to him in this hell?

Demons did not rely on simple physical strength or shoot fire from their mouth. They used apparent kindness and tempting words to send people racing toward a mistaken ending. Everyone knew demons were dangerous, but they assumed they alone were built different and could take advantage of the world’s hidden rules to escape unscathed.

Kamijou had been directed toward his own doom to eliminate him without Rosencreutz having to dirty his own hands.

Was that why Anna Kingsford had responded so coldly to Christian Rosencreutz when compared to Kamijou?

“That expert was back at work even if he had to do so from beyond the 🪦. Just ☠️ing you once was never going to be enough, was it, CRC?”

Kamijou had thought it was just the difference between an amateur high school boy and a professional expert.

But the answer was simpler: CRC was the villain from the very beginning. Kamijou had completely forgotten, but the benevolent expert had seen right through him all along.

Anna Kingsford revealed people’s true nature in a different way from hell.

Not only had she revealed Kamijou Touma’s shameful side like a red cabbage indicator, but she had also stripped away the demon’s kind and pretty makeup to reveal the true nature hidden below.

The one and only villain had been obvious from the very beginning: Christian Rosencreutz.

“This hell…”

He was shaken. The silver-haired young man in red trembled and raised his voice.

Was this some kind of irony?

Or did hell flip everything on its head?

The death-dealing man was pleading his own righteousness.

“This hell is a great device meant for this old man. This old man made it himself!! It is not for the two of you who showed up later!”

“?”

Kamijou didn’t understand.

“🎯.”

But the benevolent expert did.

Generally speaking, there was nothing she did not know. Nor did she stray from righteousness. To oppose her was a truly terrible idea. Not because of her strength in battle. No matter who you were, if you opposed her, that alone was proof that your being or thoughts were not righteous.

“This is ❌ the real hell,” said the benevolent expert. “It is a temporary space created by combining different 🖼️es of hell. It covers up a supposedly ☠️ soul with a phony hell to shuffle its destination and forcibly convert its affiliation to a vague near-☠️ state that is neither wholly alive nor wholly ☠️. It exists solely to fake the qualifications needed to return a ☠️ soul to the living world. Simply put, it provides a miraculous survival after the fact.”

This was not the real hell.

Kamijou had seen figures flitting through the shadows and legs sticking upside-down from the ground. But he had mostly passed them by as just a part of hell instead of trying to save those suffering people. Thinking back, that felt unnatural, but did this explain why?

Everything here, including those figures, had been hollow, so none of it sparked any emotion in him.

But…

“Are you saying you created this resurrection zone?”

“❌.”

Kingsford immediately rejected that idea.

Unlike the masses who had once been swept up by the Rosicrucian movement, she would not bend the truth for her own advantage.

“This hell was inserted by Johann Valentin Andreae who is currently going by Christian Rosencreutz.”

“You mean…?”

Come to think of it…

If Kingsford had created this hell, how had Rosencreutz ended up here? If she had only wanted to save Kamijou, only the two of them needed to be here.

Rosencreutz was a mystery addition.

''Except he wasn’t.

“We found Rosencreutz at the gate – at the very starting point of hell. But we never saw when he arrived here.”

“Of course you didn’t. This old man arrived here first. It’s you two who arrived later who don’t belong here!!”

“🎯, that is true.” The righteous one never made any attempt to hide anything. “But I made a promise to Aleister that I would save Kamijou Touma ❌ matter how much I must break the rules. So I must keep that promise. CRC, I will do so even it means breaking your pure but destructive ambition and using it for my own ends.”

“This old man will be resurrected.”

“So you can remove all trace of Rosicrucianism from the present 🌍?”

“This old man has things he must do in the living world!! So I cannot remain here!!”

“Even if that would result in the direct destruction of the 🪄 side’s countless 🪄 cabals and the resultant chaos would indirectly cause the science side to collapse as well?”

The hell this group had walked through all this time was a temporary space created by Rosencreutz so he his dead soul could return to the realm of the living.

But Kamijou and Kingsford had broken into it.

That was the accurate view here.

That was why Johann’s past and sins had been revealed along the way. The path had been tuned to him from the very beginning.

And Rosencreutz wouldn’t have cared as long as he could achieve his jailbreak. And if he had only paid the smallest possible cost to escape this hell, Kamijou could guess at something else.

That is…

“''This hell was only made to return a single soul to life''.”

“…Are you going to take it from me?”

“After the damage it took, Academy City is in ❌ state to endure another attack by CRC. A second attack would truly finish it. Johann, your resurrection must be 🛑ed at all costs.”

“You are going to steal this old man’s seat!? By giving the resurrection ticket to Kamijou Touma who so conveniently died, you will waste that one and only ticket so that ''this old man can never be resurrected''!!!”

“The boy’s ☠️ was inevitable. Nothing at all could be done to prevent it. So the best option was to take that ☠️ into account and find a way to still save him. And it is my responsibility for making use of him to send his young soul back to the living 🌍 where there is so much he has left undone.”

That was all of it.

But this did not account for two things: Anna Kingsford and Christian Rosencreutz.

“❌ matter how powerful we are, we are 🧙s who have already ☠️ed. I will not allow either of us to foolishly and shamefully resurrect ourselves at the expense of a still-living boy. The 🎟️ to survival should go to the living, CRC. So with just the one 🎟️ available, we should hand it to the boy. It is ❌ our place to intrude.”

Kingsford did not hesitate.

From the very beginning, she had not even considered the possibility of her own resurrection.

“Young lady…are you really satisfied by that?”

“I am.”

“By that silly argument!!!? T-this isn’t just about this old man. You really can reach the door to the realm of the living. If you were to abandon that boy and resurrect yourself, you could save far more people. Since you name yourself an expert, you must be able to perform the actual calculation. So why give him the ticket!? Why throw out your life for such foolishness!?”

“Everything I do is in service of those around me. Even if that was all nonsense you wrote for a prank and even if the groups naming themselves followers of the 🌹 and the ✝️ were something else entirely, there were indeed experts who believed in the ideals ✍️en there and dedicated their lives to upholding them. Those true experts saved people in secret and many people reclaimed their ☺️s thanks to them. I am merely joining their ranks. As long as there is a lost one before me and I have been blessed with the opportunity to provide a helping ✋, it makes little difference if it all began as a truth or a lie.”

“…”

“CRC did ❌ actually exist? Rosicrucianism was a made up story? You can tell me that all you like, but there is ❌ need for me to come up with some clever trick to counter it. I need only 💬 that I truly believe in the great deeds carried out in Rosencreutz’s name. Christian Rosencreutz – or the illusion of him – has moved many 🧙s’ ❤️s into saving so many people. And so I wish to become one such 🧙 and join the ranks of my predecessors.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………”

Silence.

Even Rosencreutz was driven to silence.

“Blessed with,” Kingsford had said. If not for the excess baggage that was Kamijou, she could have used this to resurrect herself. In fact, she wouldn’t have had to visit hell in the first place.

But she felt no hesitation or reluctance.

She was really and truly looking only toward sending Kamijou Touma back to life.

And by preventing CRC’s resurrection here, she could save Academy City and the world as a whole.

Even if he had been cleverly tempted into doubting her.

The complete lack of doubt in her eyes made Kamijou feel his own foolishness all the more vividly.

“This old man won’t let you.”

The expert who spread death and destruction had failed.

He had said death was the default state for the dead and that Kingsford must have some kind of ulterior motive. But after all that whispering in Kamijou’s ear, this was his true nature.

He was only interested in himself.

Once you knew that, the truth or fiction of the rest of the information fell into place nicely.

“This old man created this hell!! So whatever you say, this old man will be using it! You wretched thieves. Act as benevolent as you like, this old man holds the legitimate claim here!!”

“Weren’t you 👂ing, CRC?”

“Kh.”

“I promised to save Kamijou Touma ''❌ matter how much I must break the rules''.”

CRC. Christian Rosencreutz.

Or Johann Valentin Andreae.

His true nature was dangerous through and through. Kamijou couldn’t forget what he had done in Academy City. But at the same time, that silver-haired young man in red had never once lied to himself. Even if that worked against him and led to his own downfall.

He had in fact wandered between the realms of life and death for more than 400 years.

He had just one goal: take responsibility for what he had done.

That was all.

So the man who had once been a 15-year-old boy had turned himself into a monster.

He had achieved this after so much hardship, so what was the point? He wasn’t gathering wealth or fortune for himself.

That didn’t matter to him.

He hadn’t done it for his own happiness.

He had continued on while thinking only of punishing himself.

He had thrown out his name of Johann Valentin Andreae and dressed up as the person he most loathed: the fictional Christian Rosencreutz. He had poured all his energies into eradicating the Rosicrucian legend spreading through the public consciousness, but he had failed to keep up with the self-replication rate of the story spread by word of mouth and the story’s own inventor had ultimately become a corpse and vanished from history.

“This old man will be resurrected.”

This identity.

And his sins.

They had both been revealed by the benevolent mirror, but Rosencreutz still gnashed his teeth and roared.

“It will happen, no matter the damage to my reputation and even if this old man must abandon himself to do it!! Can you do that, boy? You cannot even have a dream for your future or a picture of what occupation you will take up. But do you still claim to have a reason to crave resurrection that surpasses this old man’s 400 years of regret and resentment!!?”

The words pushed in.

Like a great invisible wave.

Kamijou Touma was in fact a mere high school boy who hadn’t even decided if he would continue on to college or get a job after graduating. Presented with the 400 years of persistence and righteousness of Christian Rosencreutz after becoming one with a legend, he could easily lose sight of his position and have his soul shattered.

“Are you kidding me?”

But he managed to speak.

He didn’t even need to use his right fist. His words alone shattered a 400-year-old illusion.

He wouldn’t doubt himself anymore.

It was easy to listen to tempting words. At times, joining the dangerous one in skepticism could look more clever than trusting as the benevolent one did. But that was wrong. The truth was straightforward. Always choosing the clever and sly path was not guaranteed to take you to a happy future. Trusting a shady expert could make you a laughing stock, but that did not mean that always doubting anything and everything would make you happy. Forcing yourself to always take a cynical view accomplished nothing.

You had to decide for yourself.

Focus your mind there and you would feel a great power in your heart.

No one was asking you to choose based on what was more solid, more clever, more savvy.

To put it another way, what was wrong with making the flimsy, silly, and foolish choice?

So.

The words seemed to come to Kamijou Touma’s lips of their own accord.

He did not lower his head.

He stared straight ahead and accepted the deadly expert’s gaze head on.



“I want to talk with Index again.”



“I want to return to Academy City and apologize to Misaka and the others I worried so much. As many times as it takes for them to forgive me.”



“I want to see Aogami Pierce, Fukiyose, and the others at school during the third term and discuss our winter breaks. I want to enjoy our time together at school now that we’re second and third years!”



“I want to wipe away Alice Anotherbible’s tears with this hand – this fingertip – right here!! I want to tell her I died because of my own choice and it wasn’t her fault! 400 years of regret and resentment? Sure, I don’t have anything on that grand a scale. But that doesn’t mean it’s any better than my reasons, CRC!!!”



Anna Kingsford said nothing, but she did appear to be smiling.

She may have seen a small, pale light.

All people had the right to live and hope.

All people had the right to work toward bettering themselves.

Kamijou Touma would use all of his rights here. He would throw out the arrogant idea that he should back down or give up in advance due to some kind of hierarchy or ranking. He would return to the living world no matter what. And if Rosencreutz was trying to once more bring ruin to Academy City and the rest of the world, he would do whatever it took to put a stop to it.

CRC.

This wasn’t like before.

He couldn’t rely on everyone else in Academy City.

This time, just the puny boy had to challenge that man and win.

So what?

If it had to be done, then it was up to whoever was here to save the world.

Strongly.

Kamijou Touma clenched his right fist very, very strongly.

“Christian Rosencreutz.”

“Why did that power choose you? Why can you have it without any kind of objective or direction for it?”

But this received an odd reaction.

It came from CRC’s expression.

His face crumpled up, but not in rage or resentment. The faintest hint of envy was displayed there.

“if you believe you can achieve your dream by trampling everyone else underfoot…”

“If this old man only had that…if my hand only possessed that one supernatural power…”

“And if you intend to continue destroying the world once you return there…”

“This old man wouldn’t have had to wander for 400 years! I could have destroyed the illusion of the rose and the cross back theeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!!!”

The boy made his announcement all the same.

He trusted that it still remained in his right hand.

It too must have stuck around because he wasn’t really dead yet.

So he came out and said it.

“Then I’ll destroy that illusion!!!”