Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 9===

Inside a District 7 hospital, it was still early morning.

No one else was inside the hallway waiting area where a few vending machines were lined up. The frog-faced doctor sat alone on the artificial leather sofa there staring out of the window as raindrops pounded on it.

The paper cup in his hand hadn’t moved in a while. The coffee had long since gone cold.

“…Phew.”

His let out a heavy breath.

He had seen the hearse off.

It was necessary, but this was his hardest job as a doctor.

Would the funeral be starting about now?

He drew the line here.

As the doctor who had failed to save him, he felt wrong heading to the funeral. He wished the boy’s surviving family could at least direct all their anger at him, but his parents wouldn’t even be in the city.

There were lives he could not save.

No matter what strange alternate name he was known by, there was nothing he could do when the patient’s heart and brain activity had stopped by the time they arrived at the hospital. The frog-faced doctor could only save the living.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but wonder.

What if?

If he had broken more of the rules, could something have changed here?

(Does it make me coldhearted that I can calmly say I shouldn’t do that specifically because it is technically possible?)

“…”

Hurried footsteps snapped the frog-faced doctor out of his reverie.

Someone poked their head out from around the hallway corner.

It was a familiar face.

It belonged to a young medical intern.

“Doctor, we have an emergency! A District 7 ambulance is headed our way. There was an accident at a construction site and a worker had their hand caught in the machinery.”

“Understood. Prepare to receive them immediately.”

He swallowed the rest of the liquid in the paper cup, crushed it in his grip, and tossed it in the nearby trash can.

He stood from the sofa.

The frog-faced doctor turned around.

His white coat swishing around him.

He turned his back.

He cut off all feelings related to Kamijou Touma who was already gone.

It was a conscious choice.

Nothing he could do would bring back the dead.

But there was another emergency patient he could still save.