Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 7===

A flapping sound echoed through the schoolyard night.

Something flitted by the right corner of Kamijou’s vision. It was a monster with the body of a lion and the head and wings of a bird of prey.

It was a deadly creature mixed in with the other characters in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

This was the Gryphon.

“!?”

That specialist in swift destruction and cleanup was only released when Alice Anotherbible was bored with the world. He was like switching life to double speed. He had in fact bitten off Kamijou’s right arm at the District 12 consulate.

Kamijou didn’t have time to do anything.

As soon as the great wings spread wide, the trauma surfaced from the depths of Kamijou’s mind. Reflexively holding his hands up to guard himself was an obvious mistake. By flapping his wings and converting the power of the air into forward momentum, the truck-sized Gryphon charged straight toward him.

Kamijou heard a deafening roar.

But he felt no pain.

A pink color sliced sharply through the night air.

It had appeared out of nowhere.

The flamingo bat held back the Gryphon’s massive beak and even slid the enemy’s attack to the side before delivering a powerful blow in return.

The Gryphon was noisily knocked to the ground.

“You?” said Kamijou in wonderment.

He reached out without thinking and the hovering pink bat slipped away from him. He felt like he was trying to grab a leaf in the water.

Maybe it wanted to avoid Imagine Breaker.

Even so, it flew slowly but playfully around Kamijou before clashing with the Gryphon’s talons when the creature attempted another attack. Orange sparks burst into the night air.

The flamingo bat wasn’t alone. Several hedgehogs much larger than real ones were bouncing around near Kamijou’s feet. Shortly after he noticed them, they exploded. More accurately, they formed long swords made of countless spines and they struck. They all rushed in to attack the emaciated multi-armed doll that had appeared. The enemy was made of bones. It was a full skeleton made of a transparent crystal-like material.

Kamijou had seen this during the clash with the dark side on December 29.

Wasn’t that the Executioner that took people’s heads off on the Queen of Heart’s command?

The distance between them was little comfort. That thing did not use its physical strength to decapitate. It took the heads off with an attack more like an invisible curse.

The battle was fought between different monsters found in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Unlike with the Shrink Drink, these had not been converted into a tool by an outside magician – these were the pure and untouched toys. Most likely, a high school boy with nothing but a special right hand going for him wouldn’t have been able to stand up to even one of them. If he had directly clashed with these things, he would have been killed instantly before he could reach Alice herself.

But Kamijou still lived.

Beings controlled by Alice were battling with other beings controlled by Alice.

Maybe this meant she was conflicted.

Regardless, Kamijou wasn’t without allies.

Even if Alice herself was mercilessly attacking the intruder.

“Alice is waiting,” said Othinus, sounding exasperated.

“Yeah.”

“I wonder what the grimoire library is doing. Well, she was specially designed as an anti-magic combat specialist. Since she had her ability to fight directly intentionally stripped from her, I would hope she excels in other survival strategies.”

“Like what?”

“Negotiating herself a position in the enemy group, or making herself so adorable the enemy would prefer to protect her than exact violence on her.”

“…”

“What’s that silent look supposed to mean? Hey, did you just mouth ‘not a chance’? I was providing an optimistic viewpoint to assist with your mental health.”

He couldn’t picture it.

Index was the last person he could imagine doing something so Machiavellian.

Her perfect memory would let her memorize the position of every single playing card or mahjong tile, but he had a feeling she would still lose to a normal person in those games…

On the other hand, there were miracles that could occur because of her complete lack of scheming, but the same could be said of Alice.

Being unable to predict enemy or ally presented an extreme challenge. Especially when it came to rescuing a hostage.

Othinus gave a disgusted look from his shoulder.

“Does she carry the infinite possibilities of a child? Damn her. She’s physically preventing herself from making a choice and limiting herself to one course of action. At this rate, there will be no obvious distinction between enemy and ally. A million organizations and plans will spring forth from Alice and a million armies will clash in a nonsensical battle. Humanity will be dragged into it and destroyed without any say in the matter.”

“We’ll settle this before that happens.”

Kamijou spoke quietly, but with great conviction.

“Alice is only being so aggressive because she can’t trust anyone around her, but that’s because people taught her that the future is something to be feared. I think I was one of those people. I hurt her. So I need to reach her and tell her directly that life isn’t all that bad.”

“But will she listen? Human, have you forgotten that she abducted the grimoire library? Not to mention that your right hand has burdened you with such an unreasonable amount of misfortune. Has your life really been a happy enough thing for you to argue for the goodness of the world?”

“What if I put it like this? Luck is all in how you look at it. Sure I’m an unfortunate guy, but I don’t have to feel inferior to special people like you and Alice. Just because I started a lot farther back from the starting line doesn’t mean I can’t reach the goal.”

That statement carried a lot more weight coming from the boy who had dealt with misfortune for so long.

Because he was the boy who had overcome millions or billions of deaths to slowly approach Othinus during his direct confrontation with that Magic God.

The flamingo bat swooshed through the air and stopped right in front of Kamijou’s face. The hedgehogs exhaled through their noses at his feet. There were also a large caterpillar and piglet he didn’t recognize. Where did they appear in the story and what did they do? He wished he had read more of that story.

They wordlessly told him they would watch his back.

But that must have been one of Alice’s opinions.

The gym noisily split apart from within. An enormous fluffy cat emerged. It gave a displeased growl and glared at Kamijou with open hostility. It was shaped like an adorably round pet, but it was the size of a kaiju. Kamijou felt something other than fear crawling along his spine. His pride and dignity as a person were gone if he was slowly tormented to death by that thing’s kitty punches.

Humor felt horribly out of place when combine with death.

This one was different. It was clearly far more powerful than the others.

Kamijou gulped.

“What is that? The cat in Alice is, um…what was it again?”

“Do not become the kind of person who needs his phone to know anything.” Othinus sounded exasperated. “That’s probably Dinah, Alice’s pet cat. Butterflies and birds talk like normal in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but Dinah is the one being who is nearly invincible and unbeatable. She only appears in the parts of the story that take place in the real world, but she possesses such deadly power that the other characters tremble in fear and run away at the mere mention of her name.”

This was another opinion.

It was a very real thing Alice thought.

There was definitely a part of Alice that wanted to kill Kamijou.

But there wasn’t time for fear.

Kamijou hadn’t been unfairly dragged down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. He had chosen for himself to set foot in this deadly world.

“Hm, so her coat is a mixture of black and white.”

“Is that important?”

“As much as Alice bragged about Dinah, she never mentions what type of cat she is. Since Dinah is caring for a white kitten and a black kitten in Through the Looking Glass, you can infer she is one color or the other, but this appears to be using the idea that Dinah provided both kittens’ colors without needing the father’s help.”

“Is that really so important when a giant cat is about to kill us!?”

Index was here too. And had been for far longer than Kamijou.

And more than that, was this really what Alice wanted to create and proliferate?

“This is no more than the dolls and toys controlled by mere fragments of thoughts. We have yet to see the real Alice Anotherbible, human!”

“Yeah, I know. Alice is waiting for me. That’s why I came here, so I’m not turning back now!!”