Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 6===

''Kathoom!!!

A tremor thrust up at them from below. Kamijou seriously did lose his balance and fall to the floor before he heard the sound of snapping metal. The anti-earthquake supports broke and the refrigerator-size computers by the wall began to topple, one after another.

“Whoops.”

Aradia tugged on little Anna’s hand and then picked her up to protect her from the falling machinery.

And…

“The trouble I go through for you.”

Kamijou heard a high-pitched sound.

As soon as Aradia ran her bare feet across the floor, a circular shockwave formed around her. The professional computers had to weigh at least several dozen kilos each, but all of them were smashed against the wall.

“Saving this little wicked woman despite her misdeeds counts as a good deed. So as a witch, you owe me thrice the benefit in return, world.”

Kamijou stared in astonishment after she saved him from the group of machines that possibly weighed as much as a ton.

“Th-thank-”

“Hmph. It is only natural for the witch goddess to save you,” interrupted Aradia, brushing her silver hair back from her shoulder with her empty hand.

She then released Anna whose face had been pressed into Aradia’s chest.

“Also, we don’t have time to discuss it. What caused the tremor matters more than the tremor itself. This reinforced concrete building has to weigh 150 thousand tons, so it would take more than a traffic accident to shake it that badly.”

The deep siren ended suddenly.

Unnaturally suddenly.

That meant Academy City likely hadn’t used their online controls to shut it off for some reason. Most likely, all of the outdoor speakers had been destroyed.

All of them? Over how wide an area?

“What’s happening?”

Kamijou was creeped out, but he wasn’t going to find an answer in this small room. It had no windows.

While on the run, that siren had been a symbol of death, but it was still part of the infrastructure meant to warn the city’s people of danger.

If that had been destroyed…

“This isn’t Academy City’s next-gen tech. Why did the siren cut out like that?”

This meant someone was here.

But who?

Was it Transcendent Mut Thebes of the Bridge Builders Cabal? Or was it Anna Kingsford who was working with Aleister? Either option was about as bad as it could get.

The instant Kamijou kicked open the bent door and rushed out into the hallway, he found he had wandered into another world.

Everything had changed.

The cinema complex was well soundproofed since it was designed for screening movies. Now Kamijou knew why he had suddenly heard the siren through that soundproofing.

“!?”

He heard an endless series of dull sounds like something hard being chewed apart.

He moved to guard little Anna who was clinging to him.

He didn’t need to investigate the source of the noise.

The thick wall of reinforced concrete had collapsed. The piercing cold wind of the January 4 night blew in, but Kamijou was beyond sensing such things. What he saw was too overwhelming for that.

He saw Mut Thebes.

The brown-skinned girl whose long, wavy blonde hair spread out behind her.

A massive white flower was spread out behind that hair. Armor and gun turrets stretched out for dozens – no, hundreds – of meters. This was a large cinema complex, so each floor was extremely tall. This floor was the equivalent of dozens of floors up on an ordinary building, but Mut Thebes was at his eye level. And not because she had used a flight spell.

''She was standing''. On the ground.

That Transcendent could absorb any shadow cast on the ground and use it as her weapon. It worked for a tank, an attack helicopter, a security robot, and even an AWACS aircraft.

But this?

Could this be real?

“A…warship!?”

“It is called an aircraft cruiser. Its exact name and specs were given, but I don’t remember what they were. Ask a military nerd if you care.”

The brown girl was careless even with this.

She felt no attachment to it.

She treated this even more casually than selecting a hot snack next the convenience store register. She saw a new product and didn’t know what it was or if it was any good, but decided to buy it just because. But for her, that meant absorbing the shadow of a 300m…aircraft cruiser?

And not just one.

Five of them formed legs arranged around her like a long skirt. Another four were spread out behind her like wings. Another continued on behind her like a bird’s body or tailfeathers. Altogether, 10 aircraft cruisers formed a giant white bird. Didn’t that mean she had an entire carrier group with her!?

“I absorb shadows,” casually explained Mut Thebes. “So by providing multiple light sources, I can increase the number of shadows on the ground and absorb multiple copies of a single weapon. The number of physical objects is irrelevant. Admittedly, it did take some time to absorb multiple 300m shadows at once.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Goddamit.”

She had previously used multiple tank guns at once. Did this mean she hadn’t necessarily stolen the shadows of multiple weapons for that?

And these weapons were on another level altogether.

The giant bird she formed even had legs with a proper avian backwards joint. That meant the white aircraft cruisers were forcibly bent near the center.

If you sliced apart a tanker, aircraft carrier, or other ship measuring several hundred meters long and then painstakingly welded all the parts back together like that, you could indeed construct a similar silhouette. Just like forming a long cylinder from stacking coins. But even so, no one would think to bend a ship down the center to produce a walking joint.

She would use any weapon she came across, but she only saw them as materials for her white shadows.

She didn’t care how they were meant to be used.

Was that because she was ultimately a magician?

How many main guns and antiair guns did she have in all? What did the aircraft part of the name mean?

It was bound to have cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, but based on the flight deck, it might also have stealth craft.

The weapon specs were frightening enough, but at the same time…

“How did you do it?”

“?”

“Where did you acquire that and how did you get here from there!?”

“''I walked''. It should be fine. Thanks to the martial law, I probably didn’t step on anyone while walking here.”

Kamijou shuddered.

Should be?

Probably?

How could she talk about people’s lives like that?

They were speaking. Probably using the strange technique known as common tones. But the conversation did nothing to help him understand Transcendent Mut Thebes.

And even if they did find common ground, she was bound to put her own convenience first in the end. She would pursue them when necessary and kick them aside when they were in the way. No matter how much she praised peace and benevolence beforehand.

If no discussion came with a guarantee, then he couldn’t trust anything she said.

She was likely the reason the creepy siren had suddenly ended.

It didn’t matter if she had meant to do it or not. Had she directly stepped on them, or had the tremor of her footsteps knocked them over? The countless temporary speakers for the siren must have been destroyed more on accident than intentionally.

And the damage wasn’t going to end there.

With those white “wings” spread, that white colossus was over 600m wide.

''That had walked through the city.

What had happened to Index, Mikoto, and the city they called home!?

This was on another level entirely. She wasn’t even attacking people with a powerful intent to kill. In all seriousness, what had happened to Academy City when that thing simply walked across it? The Transcendent hadn’t tried to hide what she was doing, so some people would have tried to run away in fear but tripped and some people would have stood up on trembling legs and tried to defend their city. What had happened to them? How far did the damage spread? Some of the casualties could be people Kamijou knew. No, this was beyond that!!!

The Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal could singlehandedly fight the entire magic side and emerge victorious if the conditions were right.

Mut Thebes definitely qualified there.

The entire building raised a groaning cry. The earthquake countermeasures at the base must have reached their limit. Mut Thebes had smashed a hole as large as a theater in the building, but some armor or a gun still caught when she tried to enter.

But that wouldn’t last long.

If she made a powerful horizontal sweep with her massive wings or fired with the guns sticking out from them like feathers, she could probably destroy the entire cinema complex building.

Kamijou shouted to her on reflex.

If he let his momentum die here, he would be paralyzed by fear. Or so it felt to him.

“Mut Thebes!!”

“Yes?”

The brown girl at the center of the armor flower was surprisingly responsive.

She tilted her head like this was only a casual chat.

Was that because she didn’t feel a single twinge of guilt over the violence she was causing?

“We know what your cabal wants! You’re inserting a special soul in a fetus to create a savior, right!?”

“Is that all you know? Then I have no reason to stop. The best way to achieve our goal is to swiftly and surely eliminate the source of our information leak. As the Transcendent in charge of punishment, I will fairly carry out the will of the cabal.”

What did Mut Thebes want to protect as a Transcendent? H. T. Trismegistus had said she would do anything to protect whatever she had defined as her territory. Aradia had said she was the goddess and queen who protected her country.

Was she an ancient Egyptian god, or was she a human?

Was she a Transcendent who protected Transcendents?

Or was she a Transcendent who changed what group she would save from one moment to the next?

He couldn’t get caught up in this.

Better to keep speaking than be overwhelmed into silence. Otherwise, her fierce attack would begin.

“That’s not my point!! Your plan should need all of the cabal’s Transcendents. ''Which includes Aradia''! That’s right. Won’t your plan fail if you let her die here!?”

His logic was sound…he thought.

The Transcendents had to surround the container holding the fertilized egg with their imperfect good to distort things in just the right way to give physical birth to the ultimate being they were willing to bow their heads to.

''But.

(Huh? But wait.)

Something cold ran down Kamijou’s spine as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

(If that were true, why were the Bologna Succubus and Aradia trying to kill each other on the 31st? And what about when Good, Old Mary and H. T. Trismegistus fought and when Alice knocked them all down on the 3rd? I get how I could be a hindrance to their plan, but ''if any one of the Transcendents is lost in trying to save an outsider like me, wouldn’t that ruin everything for them''?)

Or had they decided any of their own members that died could be brought back with Good, Old Mary’s resurrection?

That was Kamijou’s best guess, but he was completely wrong.

The truth was much worse.

“That is not a problem.”

Transcendent Mut Thebes remained entirely expressionless and tilted her head as she explained.

''We already have a ''new'' Aradia.”

Kamijou heard footsteps.

But these were not the sound of solid shoes. It was the lighter sound of bare feet on the floor.

“Ah.”

Kamijou couldn’t believe it.

“Ahhh.”

Or maybe it was better to say he had believed a little too much about the enemy.

He had believed that there couldn’t be all that many Transcendents out there since they were so powerful. He had believed they must be special, irreplaceable beings like Academy City’s Level 5s or the magic side’s Saints.

He had been naïve.

A woman with pale skin and long silver hair emerged from the shadows in the same cinema complex and joined Mut Thebes at the broken wall. She wore an ankle-length wimple and an unusual purple bikini. That Transcendent could create various witch ointments by rubbing together her outfit’s decorations to sprinkle metal powder in with the chemicals at her feet and mix that with the sebum from her bare feet.

In other words, she was the witch goddess who ruled the night and the moon.

She was ''a second Aradia?

[[Image:GT_Index_v08_BW5.jpeg|thumb]]

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Kamijou Touma felt faint.

Was that allowed?

Could they really get away with cheating like that!?

That witch goddess had nearly destroyed Shibuya all on her own. She had killed Kamijou multiple times in the process and he had only managed to defeat her and reach an understanding with her thanks to lots of help from the Bologna Succubus and Good, Old Mary.

And another one could just appear like this?

It was true the Bridge Builders Cabal was a group. He knew there were Transcendents other than Aradia out there. But this was something different. It entirely changed the level of the threat.

What if Aradia could be duplicated or mass-produced?

What if, with effort or training, a second or third could be produced?

Wouldn’t that mean it was even possible ''an Aradia Squad'' existed out there!?

“…”

But.

On the other hand, it had been strange.

Anna had said H. T. Trismegistus was from BCE times and that Good, Old Mary was from the 3rd century at the latest. And that Aleister was the wickedest man in the world and the greatest villain of the 20th century.

How did that work?

''How could a legendary person from around 2000 years ago have their magic based on Aleister’s magick when he was active in the 20th century?'' The timeline didn’t work.

It was also puzzling that the Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Russian Orthodox Churches had never noticed any sign of the Bridge Builders Cabal’s existence. Not to mention that Othinus, High Priest, Nephthys, Niang-Niang, and the other Magic Gods from the underside of the world hadn’t known anything about the Transcendents.

For that matter, Aradia hadn’t seemed to know about the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress spell until she was hit by it in Shibuya on the 31st.

In the consulate on the 3rd, H. T. Trismegistus and Good, Old Mary had only then been working out what each other’s secret techniques were.

How could you explain that if they really had been working together in the Bridge Builders Cabal for centuries, if not millennia?

Which suggested…

“''I had it wrong?''” blankly muttered Kamijou Touma.

He looked back and forth between the Aradia standing with him and Anna and the perfectly identical silver-haired girl standing with Mut Thebes.

“The Bridge Builders Cabal ''wasn’t'' a legendary magic cabal going back millennia? The Bologna Succubus and Aradia, ''are magicians who only started using those names recently''!?”

“It’s called ceremonial magic, fool. They play parts in the ceremony.” Anna Sprengel smiled softly. “By systematically positioning the necessary symbols and an imperfect good around the sterile container holding the fertilized egg, an inhuman beast or spirit’s soul will enter the human child and manifest in the physical world. And in their case, they seek their savior. I explained that was the point of the cabal’s spell, didn’t I? So the Transcendents are just more symbols for the ceremony. But the colors and forms are what they need, not the actual goddess Aradia or the actual sage Trismegistus. So each member of the cabal has changed form by dressing up in the appropriate costumes and truly dedicating themselves to their respective conditions for salvation. Using a borrowed power gives them a strong sense of how imperfect their goodness is, right? And it is all to perfect the ceremony meant to summon a special high-level soul.”

Kamijou felt faint all over again.

Hadn’t H. T. Trismegistus himself said ''the Transcendents were not like Magic Gods''? Kamijou should have thought harder back at the consulate about how they differed!

Their names and appearances were only costumes.

Their spells were all connected to the Secret Chiefs, weren’t they? In other words, they were borrowed.

Each of them had tremendous power, but they were entirely different from Othinus in every conceivable way!!

“But…but…”

Kamijou was at a loss for words.

Why did this shock him so much?

He should have been happy to have the enemy’s illusion broken. Had he started to hope that the Transcendents were higher beings than him at some point?

He found himself shouting at Anna in defense of his supposed enemies.

“Th-that can’t be true! Oh, right. The Bologna Succubus said she wants to save the falsely accused because of an incident that happened centuries ago!”

“Don’t modern people feel their heart ache when they read articles about wars and crimes from the distant past? Fool, how old does she look to you? You aren’t going to tell me you think she’s more than 500, are you?”

Come to think of it, what was it the Bologna Succubus had said in Shibuya on December 31? She could never forgive the people who executed a man for the absurd charge of running a brothel full of succubi.

He had accepted that reasoning at the time, but thinking back, it didn’t add up.

He still didn’t know for sure if the Bologna Succubus he knew was a human or a demon, but if she had been in Bologna hundreds of years ago, she would be the living proof that beings known as succubi really had existed there. So whether or not the charge was true, it at least wouldn’t be “absurd”. If the Bologna Succubus had really existed back then, she would have looked down at herself and thought, “yeah, I could see that happening”.

But…

Even then…

“What about Witch Goddess Aradia!? If she didn’t exist in ancient times, who were the real witches worshiping back then!?”

“Forget it, fool. The goddess named Aradia almost certainly didn’t exist and was a legend invented on the spot by a witch in Tuscany, Italy. The story only got out of hand after Gardner, the top witch researcher, included the story in his own theories. So why does the magician using the name now need to actually be that goddess?”

“…Um…”

“Despite the danger we were in, Aradia was picky about what she ate and made sure to leave the cramped confines of the vehicle to stretch. Those unnatural actions were a continuation of her daily routine to keep up the Aradia persona. You could think of it as training to prevent her behavior from slipping. She needs daily corrections to ensure the margin of error doesn’t reach a noticeable level.”

Kamijou couldn’t find anything to say.

Harsh truths sounded better coming from a wicked person’s mouth.

“Why was she doing voice training? The witch goddess’s spells are based on her witch ointments, so incantations aren’t all that important to her. Why was she so upset about falling out of her exercise routine during the few days you had her tied up? My guess is it came from the fear that her Aradia persona would fall apart.”

Kamijou stopped breathing and his head wobbled atop his neck.

Not even Aradia – either Aradia – said a word.

Was this true of Good, Old Mary and H. T. Trismegistus too?

Thinking back, Good, Old Mary had called herself the one who ''rules over'' the Tribikos, Kerotakis, and the other experimental tools that had built the foundation of alchemy, but she had never said she was the person who had ''invented them'' in the 3rd century.

According to Othinus, Trismegistus was ''only a throwaway penname'' used for ancient academics to release texts anonymously. That had never been someone who needed to be declared real or fictional.

“Then…”

Hesitantly – for a different reason this time – Kamijou looked to a certain girl.

“Mut Thebes too?”

“Fool, I have heard that true military nerds will weep upon seeing an old map of Greece or Egypt – they don’t even need to visit the ruins of an old castle. Just like a train nerd seeing a regional train schedule.”

Aradia had explained that Mut was an Egyptian goddess, but ''she had never said that about Mut Thebes.

The blonde-haired, brown-skinned girl tilted her head.

Like a small bird.

Her secret was revealed, yet…

“Why does that matter?”

That was all.

She acted like it had never been a secret to begin with.

“You’re kidding…right?” asked Kamijou, dazed.

That meant they chose the clothing that fit their goal.

That meant they watched what they ate.

That meant they used exercise and stretching to achieve the ideal body down to the muscles and skeletal structure.

That meant they carefully watched the people of every job they came across.

That meant they made sure to look in the mirror and practice their expressions.

That meant they monitored their condition every single day so they wouldn’t overlook even a slight error.

That meant they used even swelling, bloating, and emaciation to change their appearance.

That meant their morning voice training was not for magic incantations.

That meant they had memorized a detailed and accurate script just like a phone scammer.

That meant it was all thorough training to perfectly rearrange who they were, even on the inside.

That meant the Bridge Builders Cabal ''had not'' recruited the people needed for their ceremony – they had created them from scratch?

They probably had originally loathed false accusations. Or deeply hoped to save all the witches around the world. So those ordinary people had chosen a demon or goddess that would most strongly emphasize that incomplete goodness needed to draw in the desired soul like a magnet. They had ''dressed up'' as those identities and become Transcendent.

“…”

It was hard to believe.

How was he supposed to believe something so ridiculous?

But there had been statements that caught his attention.

From time to time, Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the other cabal members had referred to “irregular Transcendents”. They had spoken the term with annoyance, but also with an envy of ''those who could reach out and save or accuse others without having to follow a detailed flowchart''.

One of those was the pure Alice Anotherbible.

The other was the wicked Anna Sprengel.

They were the only two who couldn’t be reproduced.

No third party could replace them. They existed outside the usual rules for Transcendents.

Or to put it another way, the rest were ''regular Transcendents''. Did that mean all of them could be mass-produced and managed and were willing to follow the original calculations?

Their irregularity – that they didn’t fit the usual definition – may have been what allowed Alice and Anna to criticize the ''ordinary Transcendents'' from an outside perspective.

''Come to think of it…'' Kamijou had no way of knowing if there was any basis to it, but he had sensed something on an instinctual level removed from logic.

(I thought something was weird. I thought they were different from normal magicians. Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the other Transcendents all wear those costumes. And ''it’s almost like they tell each other apart using those flashy costumes instead of by their faces''.)

That wasn’t how it usually worked. Magicians were extreme individualists. They carved their way of life into their hearts. So no matter what might happen, they would never place the core of their being in something they could simply remove.

“The old Aradia is no longer necessary,” plainly stated Mut Thebes.

Even though this meant rejecting her own purpose.

Something was terribly different between the Transcendents and the magicians Kamijou had encountered before.

“Anna Sprengel was not originally part of the cabal. She was a last-second addition of dubious origin. A guest performer may have brought the performance to new heights, but she has gone beyond some unasked-for adlibbing. So we have decided to return the plan to its original form. By preparing the sterile container as the irreplaceable target of our performance and by promoting Alice Anotherbible as our lead, we will complete our parade with only the original cast. Old Aradia, you have been too affected by Anna Sprengel’s influence. And as internal distortions cannot be seen, we can never know for sure if we have removed them all. Since you are easily replaced, we can reduce our odds of failure by placing a fresh Aradia on the stage.”

To the audience, the big star of the parade at the center of everyone’s attention was a unique and irreplaceable performer. They ''were'' the world of the performance to the point that you couldn’t imagine anyone else there.

But to those managing the parade, the star was just one more person who could be fired and replaced if they weren’t providing the desired performance or effect. No matter how many dreams an event or festival performer inspired in people, they were little different from the person inside a mascot costume.

But how could she do it like it was nothing?

“You would throw out your fellow cabal member that easily?”

“Did I confuse you with my use of ‘old’ and ‘new’? That Aradia by you was only ''chosen to be Aradia'' by proving her skill and outdoing the other candidates. I did the same. I only stand here now as Mut Thebes because I took my own audition and won the position I wanted.”

“What do you want enough to do that!?”

“To bring unbiased salvation to the world.”

Her answer was quick and certain.

These people had big dreams because, unlike Saints or Magic Gods, they had only managed to create an imperfect righteousness. They were permeated by the temporary worldview they shared as performers on the stage where they would perfect their magic.

“We want someone who can really and physically – not philosophically or hypothetically – bring about a salvation that aligns with all of our hopes. ''We want the holy bearer of the cross.'' Unlike us Transcendents, that man can truly save the entire world, so we wish to invite him back through the process of rebirth.”

Kamijou could not sense personal conviction or a personal cry of the soul – yes, he could not sense a magic name there.

To achieve this one goal, they had thrown out their insignificant individuality to become a part of the Bridge Builders Cabal.

Just like a type of destructive cult.

“Satisfied now? I have a job to complete: punishing the traitor Anna.”

“Do you really think I’ll let you?”

“Do you think I care? You are blameless and thus not my target. This is a staff-only backstage matter. I would prefer not to involve ''an outsider'', so I would prefer if you ran away.”

The wind stirred like a solid mass.

No, that was a side effect of Mut Thebes moving her giant wings. The countless guns of various sizes installed on the 300m aircraft cruisers all turned to accurately take aim.

Kamijou expected an explosion.

But giant cannons unleashed a scattershot of throwing spears from muzzles measuring more than 30cm across.

Every single spear was a spiritual item designed to kill Transcendents.

They were all the Shrink Drink.

Hadn’t that weapon been created to slay even the most irregular Transcendent?

“Anna!!!” shouted Kamijou, leaping forward.

He felt like a wall of spikes was approaching fast. His right hand couldn’t handle so many at once. But at the same time, the Shrink Drink was ''only'' designed for use against Transcendents. If he used his full body as a shield, he might be able to protect Anna.

The wicked woman spoke in an uncharacteristically weak voice behind him.

“Thank you…”

That was good enough for him.

He wished he could negate them all with his right hand, but he figured he could survive being pierced by one or two of them. At the very least, doing this was better than standing by and watching the tragedy play out.

Or so he thought.

But he was knocked away by a hard blow from behind.

“Wha-?”

From behind.

That meant it had to have been Anna Sprengel.

“''But, fool, that is the one thing I cannot accept.''”

She had put her full weight behind her little foot to forcibly kick away the boy protecting her. She kicked him toward Aradia.

She had a point.

These spiritual items were designed to kill only Transcendents, but that meant Aradia was as much at risk as Anna. Mut Thebes did not show any concern for the cabal member she had already given up on. Kamijou had completely forgotten about her, but at the same time…

There was still the irregular Transcendent.

That little wicked woman could do things normal Transcendents couldn’t.

While everything else moved in slow motion, Anna Sprengel cutely stuck out her tongue.

Written on her face was a refusal to let herself be rescued and turn into a good person. She would instead keep her true intentions hidden to the very end and go on deceiving people.

She was saying she would walk the path of the wicked woman to the bitter end.

A moment later, everything sped back up.

The Shrink Drink spears crashed into the world as if filling up the entire space around her.

There was no dodging that. Anna Sprengel might be a Transcendent – albeit an abnormal one – but maybe not even her defense spells could have stopped the onslaught.

The countless spears pierced her small form.

Strangely, not a drop of blood was shed as the sharp glass tips shattered inside her. The toxic pink liquid contained in all those spears permeated her from the inside out. Something unhealthy circulated through her little body.

Yet Kamijou, who had ended up guarding Aradia instead, remained standing even though his right hand wasn’t enough to block them all.

Anna didn’t scream. She didn’t even writhe in pain. She simply lay motionless on the ground.

If what he had been told was correct, Anna Sprengel was beyond saving.

Just like he couldn’t resurrect an incinerated corpse by touching it with his right hand.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Kamijou screamed.

Almost like he was screaming in Anna’s place since she couldn’t even express the pain.

Maybe he had started to sympathize with her while traveling with her. Maybe her wicked side was easy to forget now that she couldn’t display it any longer. Maybe he had actually found her cute in some ways. The reason didn’t matter. He just had to gather up whatever strength he could find inside him, no matter how small, and use it to break through this worst case scenario and save that little wicked woman!! That was the only thought in Kamijou’s shaky head.

But none of that could alter the reality.

He was too weak.

He crumbled to the ground after protecting Aradia and he couldn’t get back up.

Sure, she was a wicked woman.

''But what did that matter,'' goddammit!!?

“My job is now complete,” said Mut Thebes, all business.

She was a punishment expert. She knew not to let her emotions interfere and to avoid causing any unnecessary harm.

She played her role with the accuracy of turning gears.

“But since we have ''updated'' Aradia, the retired one is no longer needed, so I will kill her. This isn’t meant to be my job, but better safe than sorry. Once that is done, I can bring the new one back with me and order will have been restored to the cabal.”

“No, not yet.”

“You would resist me? You are no longer Aradia. What can a retired nobody do in the professional world? Any attempt to survive is doomed to fail.”

“No, I am the goddess who always finds a way to rescue a witch in need. So I figured I might as well save Anna Sprengel.”

When he heard that, Kamijou slowly looked up.

The silver-haired woman had lost her position as a regular, but she still hadn’t given up.

She stood in the way, just like a goddess.

“Save her?” asked the slumped and battered boy, his voice scratchy.

He looked to that faint light that continued to shine like the moon in the darkness of fear and rejection.

“She can still be saved?”

“Yes, so don’t worry. This is not a loss or a dead end. You don’t need to give up on anything. The goddess of all witches will turn it all around. Wandering good witch child, behold a miracle.”

Mut Thebes stared at the light protecting the boy who looked ready to blow away in the night breeze.

She stared at the person whose skin shined a pale white after bathing in the moonlight for so long.

The punishment expert expressionlessly tilted her head.

“That is not possible. The Shrink Drink borrows a portion of Alice’s power, so not even Good, Old Mary’s resurrection can heal Anna Sprengel. It would violate the cabal’s order.”

Deep, dark resignation threatened to blot out Kamijou’s vision again.

But the goddess would not allow it.

''Aradia, goddess of witches, the night, and the moon,'' spoke clearly.

“Silly girl. You just gave the answer right there.”

The brown girl clearly didn’t know what Aradia meant.

Goddess Aradia gave the answer to raise the light of hope in the darkness.

The shadow of magic was not a depthless darkness.

The night was meant to be a kinder and gentler thing.

“''We just have to get Alice’s help.'' If Good, Old Mary can do it, you can’t tell me Alice can’t. And if Alice does it, the quality is bound to be better. So as long as we get Alice on our side, we can avoid the Shrink Drink’s death sentence. It might be cheating, but there is still room to save Anna Sprengel.”

This didn’t even feel like the logic of magic anymore.

It was entirely based on the Transcendent ''belief'' that Alice Anotherbible was the most frightening thing imaginable.

But Mut Thebes’s response was immediate.

“I will not let you.”

Which meant ''it would work''.

Her confidence was gone.

Something about her voice was different from before. She forgot all about the air of stability she always carried with her. She remained expressionless, but she showed some panic that said this really would work if she didn’t do whatever it took to stop it.

“Alice is the biggest irregularity there is, but she is one of the main performers and has the charisma to match. Traitor Anna and Retired Aradia, you have been purged from the stage and are no longer permitted back in. Hand over your cabal member passes and begone. We cannot have outsiders disturbing the order of the cabal any longer.”

“But you can’t tell Alice Anotherbible what to do. There’s no actual rule saying it has to be a professional member of our field. The one and only key lies elsewhere, like the performer’s lover rather than the performer herself. And ''that'' is why you are panicking, isn’t it, Mut Thebes?”

“…”

Everyone’s eyes gathered on a single point.

The tension was so dense an ordinary person might have suffocated.

But.

That brought a quiet thought to a certain boy’s mind.

''Oh, right.'' If they were that cautious…

(Then it really would work.)

Of course, this wasn’t the result of Kamijou’s own efforts.

He held the final key to saving the girl he had thought was lost. So he didn’t have to curse his own life here. This was the unique treasure that none other than Anna Sprengel had given him.

He was the only one in the world.

This was about as selfish as it got after hurting her and making her cry. He knew that. But what if he still had some slight connection left with that girl?

Then a miracle was still possible.

Kamijou Touma could change Alice’s mind and have her save Anna Sprengel.

That knowledge was all it took.

The perfectly ordinary high school boy stood back up on his own two feet.

He clenched his right fist as hard as a rock and rejudged the size of his foe.

“Aradia.”

“Just to be sure, you do mean me, right?”

The witch goddess who had protected Kamijou stood alongside him and glared at the woman dressed identically to her.

Yes, they had more than one enemy now.

It was two-against-two.

“''Can I leave her to you?''”

“''Of course. I will take care of the other Aradia. Witches operate on the threefold return. If that wicked witch did a good deed, then the least I can do is return her life to her.''”

Thinking back, Kamijou had always died instantly when he tried to fight a Transcendent.

Good, Old Mary wasn’t around this time. Even if she was, he couldn’t expect her to save him when their interests weren’t aligned.

He wouldn’t be resurrected.

If he died here, that was the end.

But Kamijou Touma had zero intention of falling back.

Anna Sprengel was an indefensibly wicked woman.

She had deceived Kamijou to the end with a smile.

''So what?

Morality could get lost. That was a measuring stick invented by someone else. This was his life. It was up to him to decide who in this world he would save and whether or not he would risk his own life to do it.

Mut Thebes quietly tilted her head while surrounded by weapons weighing hundreds of thousands of tons.

She looked to Kamijou Touma and asked him a question.

“Are you saying you will fight me?”

“I am.”

“But you’ll die?”

“Probably!!”

She wasn’t being ironic.

The blonde-haired, brown-skinned Transcendent really was worried for the reckless boy.

“Oh, dear. But I have no real reason to fight an innocent boy.”

“After everything you've done and you expect me to believe that!?”

It was two-against-two.

Kamijou Touma vs. Mut Thebes.

Aradia vs. Aradia.

Power through it. No matter how impossible it seemed, if they didn’t win here, there was no saving Anna Sprengel, who had refused salvation and been pierced with a smile on her face.

This was the best result?

She had done well for the ultimate wicked woman?

If that girl would sneer and say she couldn’t escape her wicked ways – if Anna truly thought that while lying all alone on the ground…

“I’ll destroy it.”

Kamijou Touma clenched his teeth and chose to challenge certain death once more.

He wouldn’t be bound by the morality invented by someone he’d never met. If he felt any doubt at all, he only had to hold a hand to his heart and ask himself what he should do. That would tell him what was really and truly important.

Yes.

So the perfectly ordinary high school boy raised his head.

“I’ll smash that illusion until not even the tiniest piece is left!!!”

If the right person were to hear this, they surely would have been reminded of a certain theory.

The theory that a certain human had advocated until the moment he vanished from the known world, even as he was rejected by all and called a demon.

''Do what thou wilt.

They had parted ways, but that power did still reside within this boy.

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