Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume11 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 1===

“…”

“…”

Silence.

After all, this was ''the'' Rosencreutz. How were you supposed to hold a conversation with the monster who single-handedly made a mess of Academy City!? It felt like being alone in a cramped elevator late at night with a man who had a prominent pompadour. The tension was intense. Kamijou was more friendly and welcoming to science, magic, and weirdos than most, but even he had his limits. Just walking alongside this man counted as an emergency in his book!

“Hm, hm♪ Oh, dear. Maybe I should have 🍴en some 🗾ese katsudon before I died.”

Kamijou heard a carefree voice.

The only smiling person here was Anna Kingsford as she walked a step ahead of him.

A great gale blew across the wasteland here, but she simply held her hat down with a hand like none of it mattered.

She even hummed a casual tune.

Kamijou really would have preferred to stick with that gentle and safe young woman who looked so soft in every aspect than to have anything to do with that dangerous man, but doing that would have meant turning his back to CRC. How could he do that? Wouldn’t that be just as suicidal as refusing to stick with the group and holing up in a room alone while a murderer lurked the halls of the mansion? It honestly terrified him!!!

“Don’t worry so much, boy.” The red-clad young man chuckled while stroking his beard. “This old man must also travel through hell, so at the very least I will not disturb your journey. They say all travelers could use a companion, don’t they? This old man has died, so now I must redo things. So let’s form the greatest all-star party and enjoy a picnic together!!”

“…”

Kamijou felt blue.

He sensed more to that man’s words, or he wasn’t sure how to interpret them. Regardless, each and every thing he said seemed to carry a deep and dangerous meaning!! The way he talked about a traveling companion with such a dark grin was terrifying!!!

“The ✝️ hell is shaped like a giant mortar,” said Kingsford without looking back.

She didn’t seem to mind.

Was she not afraid? Hadn’t Rosencreutz killed her once?

Or was being killed just the once a trivial matter to an expert who had transcended life and death?

This was unlike Aleister Crowley and Anna Sprengel, who were extraordinary magicians in their own right. Those two still clung to their lives and formulated their plans and strategies without giving up on living. So even if their skills were transcendent, Kamijou and others could predict their actions to an extent.

The Magic Gods like Othinus and High Priest had sacrificed their lives to master their paths, but it was their understanding of how valuable a life was that allowed them to make such great use of their own.

But this woman lacked that, so she could casually cross the boundary between life and death.

She could leave and return.

That was Anna Kingsford.

Doing things normally and ordinarily in these circumstances was in fact extremely bizarre.

“The shape of hell is ❌ so much like a 🌕 crater as it is like what you’ll see if you search for an image of open-pit mining. Each level is like another step, with the levels growing narrower as they go down, with the very bottom converging on a single point.”

Kamijou heard the clinking sounds of hard objects colliding. Rather than plastic, this was the high-pitched and dangerous sound of glass or crystal.

Rosencreutz held something like a clear jigsaw puzzle in his hand.

“This was originally a single card.”

The jumble of pieces refused to fit together, their contours constantly bumping together.

It looked the full shape would be…a V?

No, a mortar.

But when viewing a cross-section from the side, it may have resembled a deep canyon.

Although it appeared to be glitching and refused to function.

“My miniature model of the world recreates all phenomena within itself, thus gathering all phenomena relating to the world’s past, present, and future in my hand. However, it does not seem to work with the realm of hell which is found outside the world.”

Regardless, Kamijou and the others were at the very top of the mortar, on the outermost edge.

Hell was spacious.

They were supposed to be pulling a jailbreak, but where were they supposed to go and what were they supposed to do?

“Like I 💬, hell is shaped like a giant mortar or like an inverted pyramid.”

Kingsford poked the broken model with a smile.

Those two were both experts.

The location was hell.

All things considered, this was one hell of a roadside chat.

“By 👣ing all the way around each level, we should find a stairway or slope leading down to the next level.”

“Hmph. I doubt that’s ''all'' we will find.”

CRC boredly poked his finger at the V-shaped miniature model(?) floating in front of his face to guide a stray piece toward the whole.

“This hell is a mixture of a few different ideas. There is no accurate model, so there is no correct path. We might suddenly wind up in the Buddhist Eight Great Hells or in the Shinto Yomotsu Hirasaka. In fact, if we go waltzing down there, thinking we know the answer, we might just run into a dead end.”

“I am aware of that.”

Kingsford and Rosencreutz looked Kamijou’s way at the same time.

He didn’t understand it.

Feeling like an outsider, the idiot had been only half-listening, waiting for the experts to arrive at an answer, so he panicked now.

“Wh-what? Me?”

“In this case, I expect he will be the 🗝️. Our view will mostly be the Western conception of hell, but he is 🗾ese and will think of the Eastern conception of hell, ruled by Lord Enma and full of 👹.”

“If we’re lucky. How are we supposed to predict what we’ll run across if he’s thinking of the ‘demon world’ shown on some trading card? This old man’s miniature model of the world is only meant to reproduce the past, present, and future of the real world. It can’t do the same for a purely fictional story.”

Kamijou didn’t like what he was hearing.

Apparently he had leveled up from dead weight to a ticking time bomb.

“Also, do ❌ lose the sense that you do ❌ belong.”

“?”

“Traveling through hell is all well and good, but you must ❌ let it influence you too much. This is only a temporary place for you. If you plant roots too deep, you will ❌ be able to return. Just think of it as a good-luck charm to help our jailbreak succeed.”

That made sense.

He doubted he could ever feel at home in hell, but how long would that last? Who keeps company with the wolf will learn to howl. The Japanese language contained multiple phrases to that same end, which suggested everyone knew it could happen. Kamijou had a feeling the Japanese were especially prone to just going with the flow. Like how everyone complained about global warming while gradually getting used to the higher temperatures.

But.

“Okay, I get the idea, but what exactly am I supposed to avoid doing? I’m not sure how I can avoid it if you don’t tell me what the ‘land mines’ are.”

“There is ❌ way to know how many there are in all.”

Wait.

“Wouldn’t the simplest examples be eating or drinking the food and drink of hell?” said Rosencreutz.

“What about looking back?”

“In the story of Orpheus stealing back his wife, he had promised Hades he would not look back until he had left hell. We just have to hope we do not run afoul of any rules we can break without first making a promise.”

“Um.”

Kamijou wanted them to slow down.

Weren’t there any more obvious “land mines” like kicking a jizo statue on the side of the road or eating a grave offering? Now he was more worried then ever he would step on one without realizing it!

Kingsford gently placed a hand on her cheek and looked his way.

“It should go without 💬ing that hell does not play fair.”

“Ugh.”

“But at the same ⏱️, hell is meant to make sinners suffer, not to apply violence indiscriminately.”

In that sense, was hell better than the overly passionate and indiscriminate stories of being chased through the school all night long after happening to see a ghost there or finding a strange woman waiting at an intersection?

The idea of only the properly judged sinners being chosen for punishment was very different from the 2-hour summer ghost story specials on TV where the suffering dead would grab at anyone and everyone to drag them down to hell with them. In Japanese horror, it was more the fresh and still-living souls that would gather around.

But…

“We were in fact properly judged and sent to hell. Not this young lady who cheated her way here, but I doubt you or this old man will be awarded that luxurious mystery prize.”

“Ugh!!”

Kamijou had forgotten he had wound up in hell the ordinary way.

But at least he would be less hesitant to escape from a gloomy and torturous hell than from a heaven where all his wants were fulfilled.

He could become bound to hell.

There were taboo actions hidden in the scenery around him.

Without knowing the exact conditions, he couldn’t predict when or where he might step on a “land mine”. It was possible one wrong move was all it took, but he decided to assume the danger grew the longer he remained in hell. Like how the danger of Russian roulette grew with each consecutive round.

“☠️ing and being killed in hell are ❌ problem. What you need to 👀 out for is becoming bound to hell. Keep that in 🧠.”

“Watch that you do not ''cling to'' hell, boy.”

Kamijou decided to assume hell was always hostile.

And that it would pull out all the stops on violence and deception.

He heard a rustling sound.

He turned toward it and saw something there.

A muscular macho man with a bull’s head was carrying a humongous axe.

Was this a random encounter!? What were the “land mines” he had to avoid here? Was he really supposed to keep going without knowing the rules of hell!?

“Hey, wait, wh-what is this all of a sudden!?”

“Good question. A Greek harpy or minotaur as a gatekeeper is a very odd thing for a Christian-based hell.”

“That is not what I meant! Quit grinning at me like thaaaaaaaat!!!”

Even as Kamijou shouted, he clenched his right fist.

Would that help here?

Did he even still have Imagine Breaker now that he was dead? And even if he did, he had no clue if it would work against that mountain of muscle!!

The minotaur was a bipedal and muscular monster standing what looked to be 3m tall. It raised an ultra-heavy axe that rivaled the minotaur itself in size. The wind roared as the air was compressed. That axe had the unmistakable weight and glint of steel. At the very least, the weapon part didn’t look like an illusion.

Oh, I might be screwed.

Just as that thought came to the spiky-haired boy, Anna Kingsford and Christian Rosencreutz each took a step forward. The two experts both waved their right index finger.

Casually.

The great mountain of muscle was sliced through diagonally down from each shoulder, forming an X-shape.

The minotaur didn’t seem to have any weight. Instead of its pieces falling to the ground, they turned to thin shadows and vanished into nothingness.

The two experts didn’t seem to care much.

“That should do it. Since we have descended from earth to hell, the heaven-to-earth format of the Sephiroth needed to be replaced with the Qliphoth, but it worked out well enough. It would seem magic is still functional even in hell.”

“Sigh. There really should ❌ have been a minotaur at this shallow a level. A world of 🧠 images must be more easily influenced than I thought.”

Kamijou had no words.

One was an expert of good, the other was the opposite.

They really were on a level far beyond Kamijou Touma’s understanding.