Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 7===

With a dull thud, Aradia crashed to the wet tile floor with her long silver hair and giant wimple spread out around her.

Kamijou Touma remained standing.

He was out of breath and covered in aches and pains, but he was still on his feet.

He kicked a small piece of concrete on the floor so it hit Aradia’s arm, but she didn’t noticeably react.

At long last, Kamijou Touma brushed a hand through his wet bangs.

“Phew.”

“No!! Do not let your guard down, boy!”

He tensed at the Bologna Succubus’s shout.

“Aradia is a stubborn one, so you need to punch her again and tie her up or whatever it takes. We can’t give her another chance at this, so if she manages to escape- gh!?”

She made a weird sound, so he spun around to find that seemingly invincible woman collapsing to the side. No, the pink wings and tail she was using to prop herself up like a tripod or crutch had given out. She couldn’t get her hand on the nearby wall, so she crashed down to the filthy tile floor.

And face down at that.

She had her mouth in the gray dust-filled bathwater, but there wasn’t a single twitch of movement from the hair spread out on top of her.

That reminded him of a question that had occurred to him earlier.

The Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress rejected all desire by replacing the pleasure signals with pain. That did sound powerful enough to singlehandedly fight against the entire magic side. But at the same time, it did nothing to defend against enemy attacks. So how had that demon defended herself from Aradia’s attack after using the gas explosion to power her Rule of Three magic?

''Had she'' defended herself?

“Hey!!”

Kamijou had misinterpreted what exactly a Transcendent was. Alice probably shouldn’t have been the first one he saw. He had ended up applying her extraordinary standards to the others as well.

The Bologna Succubus was a Transcendent, but what if ''she could still get injured and bleed like any human?'' If so, why had she gone so far to protect a complete stranger like Kamijou!? Why had she risked her life to leave herself exposed to a gas explosion and then take Aradia’s attack head on!?

“Listen. Gh, you need to deliver the finishing blow to Aradia! Cough, cough. Grlhwfy- let her escape and you may not have another chance at this.”

Kamijou looked alternately between Aradia and the Bologna Succubus.

But there was only one real answer.

The floor was soaked and people could drown in a puddle if they were too weak to get up. Plus, that demoness might as well have been hit by a car, so he had no idea what her condition was like on the inside.

He didn’t even have to think about it.

“''Bologna Succubus''!!”

“Are you daft?”

The injured demoness cursed under her breath when she saw the boy running her way, but he thought he noticed a slight smile on her face. She might complain about his decision, but she must have been in serious need of help.

Aradia had vanished from the floor.

Had she escaped outside through the broken wall? If so, she would treat her wounds and prepare to take Kamijou’s life again. But that was fine with him. As long as he could assist the Bologna Succubus now. Because she had no reason to even be here. If she had given up on Kamijou’s life, she never would have had to fight anyone. But after seeing a stranger being attacked over ''false accusations'', she had felt compelled to travel all the way to Shibuya, Japan, and stand in her fellow cabal member’s way.

He couldn’t let someone with such a good heart die.

He could never live with himself if he did.

He picked her up from the wet tile floor and lent her his shoulder. He clenched his teeth at how weirdly soft her limp form felt.

“Listen, Bologna Succubus. We need to get away from here for now. I can’t lay you down and treat your wound in this damp hot spa.”

“Aradia will be…back soon.”

“I understand that.”

“No, you really don’t.”

She was weak, but she got her words out clearly.

She was very obviously displeased with his decision.

But not because she was letting her emotions get the better of her.

That kindhearted demon knew harshly scolding him would improve his odds of survival even a little, so it was a show put on for his benefit.

She was the Cold Mistress, a scorned being who brought a painful death to everyone she held in her embrace. Or that was the claim made by all the “educated” people talking about her behind her back.

Kamijou thought they could all go to hell.

“Aradia has her own pride as a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal. The two of us have left that pride in tatters. Both her pride in her combat abilities and in her ideology. Yet we failed to deliver the finishing blow to truly end this conflict. We cannot expect her to hold anything back now. She will pull out all the stops next time. Witch Goddess Aradia really will tear apart Shibuya and the rest of Tokyo – which includes Academy City – in order to kill you and you alone. And you will die for good next time.”

She might show exasperation, she might criticize his decisions, she might tease him, and she might insult him, but the Bologna Succubus never once attempted to abandon Kamijou. She had lost the only pathway to victory she could think of, but she was still determined to fight alongside him to protect him.

She was worried for him, so she couldn’t bring herself to abandon this complete stranger.

That was the only reason.

His newfound understanding of that allowed him to detect the feelings packed into the core of her rebuke.

“That was our one and only chance to peacefully end this battle against Aradia, but you threw it out. That was the worst decision you could have made. Ugh, and I too am a magician of the Bridge Builders Cabal, remember? I am one of the Transcendents attempting to change the world to fit my personal ideal and I am sure we would find ourselves in conflict over how to deal with Alice. So you should have let your future enemy die- ksh- and dealt with Aradia!”

“Shut up,” he bluntly cut in.

Each and every member of that extreme cabal supposedly rivaled the entire magic side. To Aradia and the Bologna Succubus, Kamijou Touma probably was a truly puny being. Whether they wanted to kill him or protect him, they simply expected to have their way there, so his fate wasn’t in his own hands here.

But he said it anyway.

If she intended to stab him in the back, she should have kept her mouth shut, but that kindhearted magician had openly called herself his enemy.

So he spoke plainly to the woman who had selflessly saved his life.

“Do you really think I could have done that?”

Transcendent Aradia would be back. And soon.

But he wanted to be the kind of person who wouldn’t even hesitate to say he had made the right decision here.