Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:NT SS (section)

===Part 6===

Sekhmet was a goddess often depicted with a woman’s body and a lioness’s head. She was the wife of Ptah, the highest god in Egyptian mythology, and she was an extremely powerful goddess of war. She would use the strength of a lion to thoroughly rip apart any unbelievers or traitors to the faith and she would achieve pure ecstasy while bathing in the pouring rain of blood produced by her slaughter.

Just like Durga from Indian mythology or Frigg from Norse mythology, she symbolized the cruelty and violence of women that was usually kept hidden.

She was a goddess created from a concentrated extraction of all the most frightening aspects of a woman.

And a priestess that served that goddess needed that same power.

Meaning…

“Ha ha.”

She awakened that mindset by entering a trance.

And she gained the great strength of a lion even if it meant temporarily transforming her physical body.

By bringing the two together, she raised herself to a being that wielded the scorching claws and fangs of a beast with the wise mind of a goddess.

“Ah hah hah. Ah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!!”

She used the bestial claws extending from her fingers to tear at her own chest inside the black cloak. This was a ritual of Sekhmet, goddess of shed blood and slaughter. While she ripped apart traitors of the faith and bathed in their blood, she also grew deeply intoxicated in the overflowing blood of her own flesh. Her priestess could more strongly expose her bestial side by harming herself. This was not the lion seen in a zoological encyclopedia. This was the legendary beast created solely in the human imagination and she was drawing out its power for her own use.

She would fulfill her role as servant of Sekhmet.

She would gain power by slaughtering any traitors of the faith and bathing in their blood.

She did not need to develop any large-scale mysticism or secret art. She simply had to pursue the ability to kill.

And that pursuit led to the power of a beast: claws and fangs.

(Let’s get this over with.)

Merely gathering a bit of strength in her fingers sent a great creaking sound throughout her body. The sound was loud enough to have ruptured the eardrums of a normal person.

(It doesn’t matter what happens to her as long as the head remains. If I open the skull and take out the information within fifteen minutes, I can obtain the Book of the Dead without damaging it!!)

The distance of a few meters no longer mattered.

Even if that entire distance had been filled with thick concrete, she could have torn through the center of the nun’s slender body with a swing of her arm.

So…

And yet…

“Oh, so that’s it.”

In the twentieth of a second it took her to swing her arm horizontally, the Priestess of Sekhmet thought she heard those words.

It was not a voice. A voice would not have propagated through the air quickly enough to reach her.

This was a technique used by a certain type of magician when they needed extremely high speed incantations. Index used that to transmit her thoughts to the Priestess of Sekhmet through the movements of her lips rather than her voice.

The girl casually butted into the realm of high speed that supposedly only belonged to the priestess.

The girl known as Index now existed in that realm.

(No.)

The Priestess of Sekhmet finally felt a chill run down her spine.

But it was too late. She had already started swinging her arm horizontally. She could not cancel that action now.

(She exists in a realm of speed even higher than mine!?)

And to add to that.

(She’s noticed my claws, but she isn’t trying to avoid them. She isn’t even blinking!? What does she have hidden up her sleeve in her realm of even greater speed!?)