Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 8===

The sexy silver-haired young woman with her brown skin wrapped in bandages was Nephthys.

She was the Magic God that existed as a collection of the people used as grave goods in the pharaoh’s tombs in Egyptian mythology.

The small girl with black hair, corpse-pale skin, and a modified mini-China dress was Niang-Niang.

She was the Magic God of a Shijie-Xian, one who had faked their death to cut all ties to the living world.

…It would probably be crass to ask what they had been doing all this time.

They were gods, after all.

They gave no concern for human matters and simply popped in whenever it suited their fancy. They had apparently hung out with Hamazura Shiage a while in London, but even that had been on a whim. It was never clear how long they would remain in a single field – which could mean a world or a phase or whatever.

“Hee hee.”

“Ha ha.”

The two extraordinary beings nestled up against Stiyl Magnus from either side, but something wasn’t right.

It was true Stiyl used Norse runes.

But he was fundamentally a part of the Anglican Church. He was a priest who believed in Christianity’s monotheism. How could he work with a pyramid mummy and a disguised corpse Shijie-Xian?

Kamijou’s inability to speak must have been enough for them to know where the confusion lay because Nephthys and Niang-Niang’s laughter grew louder.

“Is it really so odd?”

And after that.

The bandage woman spoke.

“Unusual people working with Necessarius should hardly be a surprise at this point. I mean, the Archbishop at the top of the Anglican Church is Dion Fortune right now. But not the actual woman – a tarot deck that is in fact an original grimoire designed to look like her.”

She sounded cheerful.

Like she was catching up with an old friend.

“And Magic Gods are, you know, the kind of people who are willing to die in our pursuit of knowledge. Christian Rosencreutz, Anna Kingsford, and hell, albeit an artificial one. It would be a problem if the process of resurrecting you left any odd trace of those legendary experts with you, wouldn’t it?”

“Powerless is about right for normal humans. I mean, those Transcendents? When an individual like you can gather them together and influence the world as a whole, things get really restrictive and just a pain. We want to live free, remember.”

It didn’t sound like those two had a change of heart that led them to side with Necessarius.

Did their interests simply align here?

For one thing, properly using all 103,001 of Index’s grimoires could possibly turn you into a Magic God. Nephthys and Niang-Niang may not have wanted to leave that thread hanging and possibly lead to more and more Magic Gods being created.

Kamijou heard a heavy metallic clunk.

Something rolled over to him.

It was the bucket-like helmet of a powered suit.

Magic God Niang-Niang had tossed it in front of him while grinning.

“We didn’t want any interruptions, so we hunted them down first.”

“…”

They were a greater threat than Bio Secure.

Of course they were. They were Magic Gods. Just remember Othinus’s former power. She had altered the world itself on a whim.

''There wasn’t even any point in counting how many times she had destroyed Academy City.

With Magic Gods involved, the previous diagram was obsolete.

“Alice…”

“No problem.”

Alice’s voice partially drowned out his own.

As if to keep him from saying the rest.

“The girl will defeat anyone who threatens your resurrected life.”

That only worried him more.

That was only a statement of intent. It did nothing to prove her ability.

This would be Transcendent versus Magic God.

…How would that play out?

Othinus didn’t count since she had lost her power, so wasn’t this the first full-power clash between the two groups? Alice Anotherbible certainly reigned at the top of the Transcendents, but it wasn’t clear how much power she had outside that category.

“Silly boy.”

In response, Nephthys boredly toyed with a lock of her silver hair.

“Just let us fight and all those questions will be answered.”

The brown goddess brought the tip of the hair to her lips and gently blew on it.



Something larger than his entire head flew right past his face at extreme speed.



The blast of wind only came after the fact. And the sound of destruction far after that.

“…”

He couldn’t react.

Had he been slow to act because it was invisible, or had the fear glued his feet to the floor? Even he wasn’t certain.

Nephthys spoke while once more brushing back her long silver hair.

“Oh, sorry about that. Were you trapped by the delusions of a little boy, thinking we might go easy on you because we know each other? We really will kill you this time, Kamijou Touma.”

He thought he would freeze.

The Egyptian goddess looked down on him with piercing eyes.

Her voice was far chillier than the winter rain.

The worst part was she was correct.

This wasn’t their first meeting. They did know each other.

These weren’t just any Magic Gods – they were Nephthys and Niang-Niang.

And with Othinus, he had reached an understanding with a Magic God before.

…Could he really say for sure he hadn’t been expecting, even a little bit, for that to mean something? Even though their presence here in Academy City meant their preparations were already complete?

These were true Magic Gods.

Othinus had been rendered harmless, but these two were still deadliness itself.

And they were ''truly'' here to kill.



Probably?

Maybe?

His battle against Alice Anotherbible should have taught him those words didn’t guarantee anything!



His body felt heavy just from imagining it.

Like he had molten lead in place of blood.

…''I might not be able to win this one.

That was Kamijou Touma’s honest thought. He wasn’t even sure what would happen against Stiyl and his 3000 degree flames, but he also had to deal with two true Magic Gods. His past battles against Othinus and High Priest were enough for him to understand the despair he was facing. These were not opponents he could face without any kind of preparation.

He gulped.

And then he realized something specifically because he couldn’t get his voice out.

“Alice…?”

Alice could not suppress the shaking of her body, but she was still biting her lip to keep from screaming.

On her own, she could survive anything.

Then what was she so afraid of?

The answer was obvious.

''Alice Anotherbible was terrified of the possibility of losing Kamijou Touma again.

…Now it was pissing him off. Why was he so incapable of considering the value of his own life?

And there was that empty room.

Index and Othinus… How many other people had he troubled with all this? Stiyl had said coming back to life was wrong and that it had caused all sorts of confusion. Maybe so. Looking at the world as a whole or at public interests, maybe Stiyl had a point.

But.

Was Kamijou really just going to accept that and die again?

He didn’t even know how many tears had been shed for him. He had been shown images of Index and Alice in that artificial hell, but that was all. It could be many others had wept and he just didn’t know it. Was he really going to give up because he couldn’t defeat two Magic Gods and a magician and accept death as the natural order of things without ever learning about all those people!?

Something happened at the center of his body.

His heart was beating.

That proved he was alive.

“…No…”

He didn’t have any kind of magical trick.

It didn’t matter that he had seen proof that a soul could be collected from death if an expert created an artificial hell to catch it.

Kamijou Touma.

Did you truly feel remorse in that hell? Did you feel anything at all while walking the path of regret the man going by Christian Rosencreutz had taken and when the expert named Anna Kingsford had stayed true to her way of life by giving him the impossible ticket to salvation?

“Don’t worry, Alice.”

He made a vow.

To the girl who had wept for him.

To the girl who had seen someone returned from the dead, wept in relief rather than fear, and spread her arms to embrace him.



“I’m not going to die here!!!”



It was time he thoroughly destroyed the ridiculous illusion that it was better he be dead.

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