Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 1===

Late at night in District 7, Anna Kingsford stood at the very top of an enormous crane.

She stood tall and simply directed her gaze overhead.

The night sky seemed blotted out by the lights of the city, but viewing the clear stars in the sky gave this expert access to more information than searching the world linked together by fiber optics.

And she only used this for just causes.

Which was what made her an expert.

(The ⭐s are in place. That boy should become aware of the branch he passed by now.)

She sighed.

That was a complete side issue.

For one, Kingsford had never directly met Kamijou Touma. Which made him no more than a stranger in the same city as her.

(But awareness does ❌ allow him to change it. It may be his life, but he can ❌ change the decision he made on a branch he has already passed. Just like CRC passed a crucial branch ''and was defeated in a ⚔️ he should have won easily.'' The greatest enemy in an individual’s life is their own karma.)

“Not that he can ignore it now that he knows.”

But she would not just abandon him.

That expert did not consider her own interests, the state of the battle, or even whether or not she knew the boy.

He was a complete stranger?

So what?

If anyone was troubled, uncertain, or suffering, she was already taking action.

Anna Kingsford had perfected that way of life.

A fool who had yet to reach that point spoke to her.

It was the human named Aleister.

“Where are you going, Kingsford?”

“To serve others.”

“That’s my job. There’s no reason for you to continue fighting!!”

Even her battle against Rosencreutz had essentially been a miracle.

She had not actually won the battle. CRC could instantly search for any information about the world, but he had ''just so happened'' to overlook the fact that Anna Kingsford was a preserved corpse. If not for that, he would have destroyed her more thoroughly and she couldn’t have recovered.

She was reliant on unpredictable miracles.

Even a magician who mastered the field to the point of being known as an expert would lose eventually.

She had to know that.

Alice Anotherbible had easily crushed and killed CRC and so thoroughly eliminated him from the world that he could never recover. She was a true monster.

Kingsford had not reached that point.

She had to understand that. She wielded great power using the correspondence between the microcosm within a person and the macrocosm of the physical world around them, so she would have thoroughly analyzed herself in that way.

But the woman with a proper understanding of magic’s essence smiled as she responded.

She was accurately viewing her own fate, but she didn’t hesitate to speak.

“This is 👋.”

“But!!”

Contact with the new Board Chairman had been lost.

They couldn’t hope for anymore cooperation, so they had to settle this on their own.

The situation was clearly worsening and Alice was even more powerful than CRC. Certain death awaited Kingsford. Alice waited in a land that brought death to all who set foot there.

“Aleister. You must have understood from the beginning that I am ❌ more than a preserved corpse. You are only using ⚙️s to move an already ☠️ body around, so I never was alive. I escaped the previous ⚔️ intact by pure luck, but ❌ even that can save me next time. This ☠️ body will find only ☠️.”

“…”

As an expert who understood the secrets of the world of the living and the world of the dead, she was not too attached to her own life.

The only ones who clung to life with such ugly desperation were the half-baked magicians who remained fixated on this one life.

Still, he understood in his own inexpert way.

Anna Kingsford was an expert through and through. She didn’t even think of clinging to life or staying in this world forever.

She was only interested in eliminating the unknown threat making someone suffer before her eyes.

She didn’t even consider whether or not she had ever met that person.

She had no intention of returning. Her win condition didn’t even take that into account.

She was an example of how far people could go if they mastered their field.

“What was my role meant to be? I was supposed to be a trump 🃏 for use against the unbeatable Anna Sprengel. Now that Miss Sprengel has been freed from her wicked ⛓️ and that ⚔️ need ❌ be fought, my purpose is complete.”

Aleister had no response to that.

Because she was exactly right.

This goodbye could not be avoided. This was Aleister Crowley’s reward for wielding superhuman knowledge, doing what no one else could do, and enduring trials normal people would never even know existed. Kingsford was correct that the greatest enemy in an individual’s life was their own karma.

He was already in checkmate.

And yet…

“That just means I have to do the work myself.”

He understood it intellectually but he still tried to fight it. Was that because Aleister was an inexpert and ugly human?

But you must never forget that, while that human had accumulated a lot of bad karma, he would never stop struggling for his own ends.

“Aleister Crowley officially died in 1947 and stubbornly clung to life until he actually died battling Great Demon Coronzon. I’m as dead as you are. If someone has to save that boy, I’ll do it. I can do it if necessary!! And I’m better suited for that role. The wickedest man in the world should be standing up to the world even after death, not a pure and proper holy woman!”

“But you are still fixated on this 🌍.”

She shot back.

A true expert did not bother arguing about secrets.

She had already seen into the depths of his mind that even he wasn’t consciously aware existed.

She did it naturally.

And kindly.

“Conscious or ❌, you hijacked that great 👿’s body to cling to life. Either you still have something you want to do in this 🌍, or there is something you are ❌ yet willing to give up here. Dying for him is not the same as living with him. It never can be. Either way, it is too soon for you. Everyone dies eventually, so there is no need to rush toward ☠️. Live out your life first, Aleister. You can prepare yourself for ☠️ once you have done that.”

Kingsford smiled as she said this.

Smiled faintly.

Aleister lightly clenched his empty right hand.

He felt the pressure of a staff so twisted his fingertips tingled at the mere sight of it.

Special numbers scattered from his hand like sparks.

“I’ve had enough. What if I said I would stop you by force?”

“I would knock you aside and continue on my way.”

“Kh.”

She didn’t even hesitate.

She said it gently, like it was a foregone conclusion.

Kingsford used no more than words to overpower the victor of the Battle of Blythe Road.

He couldn’t say she couldn’t do it. He was already well past his limit with Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel. He had only so insolently decided to make use of this preserved corpse because he couldn’t handle them.

Trickery, betrayal, surprise attacks, intrigue, and – when necessary – direct confrontation.

He had used every trick in the book to drive the world’s greatest magic cabal to destruction at the Battle of Blythe Road, but none of it would work here.

He could not win in a direct one-on-one confrontation.

If Anna Kingsford went all out, Aleister had no way of opposing her. He knew she would simply prove how inexpert he really was. He would never manage to get his hands on the switch hidden below her skin.

“I do ❌ want you to ☠️ here. No number of previous ☠️s is any reason to accept ☠️ next time. So I will use all of my power to defeat you here. Soundly enough that you do ❌ have enough strength left to go out and ☠️.”

That was contradictory.

Kingsford kept saying she would not let people die so easily, but she was about to head out for her own death.

She was saying she would use up all of the tickets provided for her as a thinking and moving preserved corpse.

But that gentle smile of hers made the contradictory premise and conclusion seem to fit together with no problem.

It was strange really.

Was this the essence of magic known only to the few true experts – a position Aleister had yet to reach? This was the human-made miracle of protecting everyone you encountered and spreading smiles everywhere you went.

He couldn’t stop her.

This wasn’t the ''divine cosplay spell'' that simply let one dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. Nor was it the reverse logic where one tried to divulge the workings of the world to rebel against the god they so hated.

With a quiet bump, the failure of a student buried his face in Anna Kingsford’s chest.

He sniffled like a child.

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have to die.”

“That I met someone who feels that way and that I inspired these feelings in you, who felt betrayed by everything, tells me that I have won a victory against this 🌍.”

Clear drops spilled out.

Anna Kingsford held the lost child’s head to her chest and whispered gently to him.

She stroked the inexpert one’s blonde hair like a mother.

“I think you did have need of my preserved corpse. Especially on December 31. If no one had stopped Anna Sprengel, the 🌍 would have been thrown into chaos before CRC could even be reborn.”

One by one, the expert explained everything to the fool.

She taught him some terribly simple things that no one had ever before taught that human.

Not his parents who had thought meaningless strictness was a virtue, not his teachers who had failed to correct the social problem left in their care, and not the Golden magicians who had abandoned their pursuit of knowledge to spend their time on ugly internecine conflict.

Even though these should have been the first things he was taught.

“But you must ❌ toy with life. Because you are powerful enough to do so with ease, you have ❌ way to keep yourself focused other than using pure willpower to manage yourself. The ☠️ have their own dignity. Humans remain human even in ☠️. You ensured your own pain from the moment you disrespected the ☠️ for the sake of the living. Improve yourself, Aleister. If you do ❌ fear taking the long way around to avoid pain, there is much you can learn. Just like any magician.”

“…”

“And do ❌ worry, lost child of the living. You will not be alone. As an expert, I will do whatever it takes to save the one you care for. Even if it requires every trick in the 📖. So there is ❌ chance you will be crushed by loneliness.”