Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 2===

The gloomy young butler known as H. T. Trismegistus pushed his cane sword up with a thumb and attacked.

They had more than 10m between them, but it didn’t matter. The boy only saw it as something like a tremendous explosion.

A silver explosive blast formed a sharp, straight line.

That wasn’t possible when swinging an ordinary blade, so it had to be some kind of twisted magic.

“!!!???”

Kamijou felt a tension strike him on the cheek. A moment later, the air burst, blasting him in the right eardrum. He couldn’t even tell if that was a sound or a rapid pressure distortion.

But he had dodged it.

Kamijou Touma had just barely dodged it.

At the last second, he had concluded Imagine Breaker and its ability to negate all supernatural powers wouldn’t be enough. A memory he shouldn’t still have throbbed in the back of his mind. Had something happened long ago that gave him a powerful fear of ''iaijutsu and other sword-drawing techniques''?

He could hear something.

Despite the vibration of his aching eardrum, some distorted common tones reached him from head on.

He knew he couldn’t afford to miss this.

“''No more holding back. Risk 4: Releasing the numberless seal – leaving human territory. Rapidly renewing myself using a trio of great beings.''”

“…”

Kamijou gasped, forgetting even to frown.

It wasn’t exactly the same, but he recognized those words. When Witch Goddess Aradia was pushed to the limit in Shibuya on the 31st, she had attempted to draw on something.

Kamijou’s Imagine Breaker had shattered it that time before it was complete.

But not this time.

“My right hand contains Zeus. My left hand contains Indra.”

''From the very first move, Transcendent H. T. Trismegistus was taking this to the level of tearing down half of the world supported by science and magic!?

“Thus I am renewed. ''Z. I. Trismegistus'' conversion complete.”

“Really!?”

“Think about it.”

The young butler silently pushed his thumb up against the head of the cane that hid a blade.

A few millimeters of the deadly glint emerged once more.

“Common sense says I have no reason to hold back. If an enemy is being a nuisance, you should kill them right away, don’t you think?”

“…”

“The drowning man grasps at straw. An excellent saying. The proverbial man is earnest about survival and, no matter how pathetic he might appear, he is not causing anyone else any trouble. …But with a plank of Carneades, the drowning man must snuff out the life of another in the fight over the plank floating in the ocean.”

That was probably what led him down this path. Or a small glimpse of it.

Hadn’t he said that, no matter how logically you explain your academic theories, there is nothing you can do when people brush them aside based on emotion?

But using that reasoning to ban people from having emotions wasn’t going to create an ideal world.

“Have you heard that people once believed madness was caused by a stone of folly inside the head and victims actually had their heads cut open in a serious attempt at medical treatment? How about the baseless legend that all medieval castles have cruel dungeons or long, hidden escape routes? This is not unique to any one era. Superstitions always find their way into the world of academia and they are extremely hard to extricate once they have taken root. They cause so much harm to the human world. So someone must prevent these farces from altering common sense. And the distortions that my Alice would bring to the world are the greatest such example. Someone must put a stop to it.”

This probably wasn’t about Carneades. If he simply hated that story about a plank, he wouldn’t be trying to solve this by killing Kamijou. Trismegistus was a throwaway penname shared by academics in an older age. So who was this guy?

Kamijou stepped on a frozen puddle.

He didn’t have time to prepare for the impact.

They had more than 10m between them, but since Aradia had been cut down in front of him, he could tell the length of the cane sword and the range of the actual attack did not match.

From there, Kamijou Touma recalled something else.

He had to set aside the intense fear of death trying to numb the back of his mind and the uncontrollable racing of his heart. He couldn’t forget what really mattered. What did he need to focus on most here?

Transcendent Aradia.

First and foremost, he needed to prevent any further attacks on her while she lay motionless on the ground.

It was distorted.

To Kamijou, the deadly slash flying straight toward him looked a lot like an exploding firework.

The roar of bursting air arrived after a short delay. The explosive sound crashed into his right eardrum as he just barely dodged to the side. The green grass was torn through and a zigzagging line of destruction sent dark soil soaring into the sky.

This time, he had done it with his own willpower.

Time had seemed to stretch out infinitely, but it soon returned to normal.

The rose hedge behind him was torn through.

(Damn, I can’t let this scare me so much. Aradia’s in trouble if I don’t move in and negate this with Imagine Breaker!!)

“Tch!!”

“I feel like clicking my tongue as well. I clearly have a long way to go as a Transcendent if I fail to kill my target with the first attack, even if outdoor battles do add in many complicated environmental factors. I cannot look my Alice in the eye after this.”

More small explosions followed. And some shattering glass sounds. The garden’s streetlights and bug zappers were scattering sparks, but Kamijou knew he was dead the instant he looked toward them.

He didn’t have time to stand around.

He kept his momentum going as he charged toward the small woods in the garden. They were only decorative and would not even function as a windbreak, but this was still better than out on the open grass.

Kamijou ducked down after just barely surviving, but he was also smiling.

(H. T. Trismegistus is focused on me, which means he won’t attack Aradia again.)

Some words were already escaping the young butler’s mouth.

“Shall I call Alice?”

Kamijou heard the young butler’s footsteps from beyond the thicket. He also heard the rubbing of metal hinges, so the man was presumably opening a storage case and pulling out a notebook or pocket watch or something.

He was confident.

But that made Kamijou smile even more. ''What luck.'' Even Mr. Misfortune himself couldn’t help but think that.

H. T.? Or was it Z. I. now? Whatever it was, Trismegistus was pursuing Kamijou. Luring him away from collapsed and unmoving Aradia was the right thing to do here. What was this if not a silver lining to his predicament?

“There is no common sense at all in your attempt here, but I suppose it is the only option that could possibly allow you to defeat me. But either way, I will have this dealt with before Alice arrives.

Common sense.

Kamijou hadn’t heard the details, but was that the starting point for this Transcendent calling himself Z. I. Trismegistus? It was possible he had seen the moment when a major ''disturbance'' in that concept had led to a vast tragedy.

Just like Witch Goddess Aradia had roared after witnessing the persecution of so many witches.

Just like the Bologna Succubus’s soul had been burned by the false accusations her name pointed to.

Z. I. Trismegistus was the same.

“…”

Was it Zeus and Indra?

But Kamijou didn’t have Index with him. And he had thrown 15cm Othinus to go seek help. On his own, Kamijou was only a high school boy, so he didn’t know what these magical words meant. Even though he knew they had to contain the key to a miraculous upset here.

He heard a metallic sound at his feet.

His throat went dry. He had stepped on the stainless steel cover over a drainage ditch.

He sensed his impending death.

“''There you are.''”

“''!!!???''”

The instant after he rolled to the side, a long-range slash lashed out. In fact, it circled around the large tree he had been leaning against and sliced right through the stainless steel cover, sending sparks flying.

(That didn’t even move in a straight line!? This is bad. I can’t even imagine what kind of path it can take!!)

The young butler’s voice came from somewhere in the windy artificial woods.

“Hm, so I missed. Then I should visually confirm your location first instead of relying solely on intuition. I do not want to destroy the beautiful garden I created for Alice.”

(Does that mean he wasn’t using any kind of clairvoyance or precog? No, wait. He’s a Transcendent. He might just be trying to trick me into lowering my guard that way!!)

Hiding behind the trees was relatively useless if the slashes could move around obstacles. But running out into the open garden would be suicide. So…

(I need to get inside the consulate!!)

He tackled the back entrance opening out into the woods and tumbled inside. If he had knocked or even grabbed the knob, a slash from behind probably could have sliced horizontally through him along with the door and the stone wall.

But he had survived. He got back up and ran down the long hallway.

(I don’t like the idea of relying on this.)

Kamijou gulped and pulled out his old folk’s smartphone while still crouched low.

He used the device to connect to R&C Occultics’s official website.

And to the magic database that had been leaked to the public.

If you typed in a term and ran a search, it would pull up a list of webpages, especially ones selling related products, but when Kamijou tapped the link now, he only got a simple “this service has been shut down” message. He realized he should have expected that after he destroyed the giant IT company during the incident in Los Angeles.

But a few external sites apparently still had cached versions of the website. That would only contain fragments of the vast database, but it was better than nothing.

Staying on the 1st floor too long could get him killed by a horizontal attack since that slash’s range was unknown, so Kamijou made his way to the nearest stairway before the young butler made an appearance.

(Zeus at least sounds vaguely familiar. He’s some kind of god, right?)

He ran a search and found Zeus was a Greek god.

He was the final child of Cronus and Rhea. He was the ruler of heaven and symbolized by the blessing of the rain. On the other hand, he was also known for the lightning bolt he held in his hand which obliterated all of the gods’ enemies and meted out divine punishment.

(A lightning bolt?)

He tapped another link in the explanation to delve deeper, but none of it was very clear. He could tell Zeus had an ultimate weapon symbolized by lightning, but nothing said whether it was a spear, a bow, a sling, or a magic bullet. One sculpture of Zeus showed him holding something rodlike, but that was only meant to be the lightning itself and other art depicted various designs for his weapon.

A formless weapon.

Bright light, an explosive sword drawing, streetlights and bug zappers destroyed just because they were nearby…

“!?”

Outside the window, a slash suddenly flew Kamijou’s way.

If he had left the stairs and entered the 2nd floor hallway lined with windows, that would have hit him. He fell on his rear and the horizontal line sliced through the walls just above his head. Was the attack aimed solely on a vague figure visible through the window? But the windows remained shut and the glass intact.

How ''disturbing'' that was belatedly crawled up Kamijou’s back.

(How does that work!? Is it not just the blade extending out through space!?)

Z. I. Trismegistus must have been able to see him from outside, so he needed to move elsewhere. He quickly turned around and fled further up the stairs.

(Dammit, I can’t do that. If I hide on the 3rd floor, I’m putting the Bologna Succubus at risk!!)

He turned around again.

Surrounding the consulate’s White House-style mansion were several walls and towers straight out of a fairy tale castle. If he wanted to keep anyone else from getting hurt, he had to avoid the main structure and escape into one of the towers.

Indra.

When he typed that other foreign term into his old folk’s smartphone, he found that was a god from the Hindu religion spread across the Indian region. That felt like it had nothing to do with Zeus, but apparently there was a cultural connection. For example, the names of the Indian god Dyaus, the Greek god Zeus, and the Roman god Jupiter all came from the same name. And Indra used lightning too. But Kamijou doubted the pair had been chosen for that alone.

Most likely, there was some other rule at play. Something that would be obvious if he could only look it up in some kind of magic or occult ''dictionary''.

(Do Zeus and Indra have something in common?)

The site said the form of the Hindu lightning weapon was just as unclear. For example, Indra’s weapon was known as the Vajra. When the stories arrived in China and Japan, the Vajra was said to be shaped like a five-pronged club or a pestle with a blade on the ends. But those were only exorcism weapons designed by Indian artists and priests because “lightning is difficult to explain without giving it some kind of shape”.

Both traditions incorporated the same name.

Both had weapons symbolizing formless lightning.

Weapons that could later be given form by someone else – even mere humans.

(Is that it!?)

Kamijou ran up a tower’s spiral stairs and exited through the skylight leading to the roof. At first glance, the height made this a dead end, but there were still a few paths he could take, like the tall castle walls or the roofs of the elevated passageways. And useful items could be found anywhere.

For example…

“A solar power cable!!”

Z. I. Trismegistus could freely change his name and his attacks were undeniably frightening. Both for their simple power and range, but also because the slashes could change direction and circle around cover. They moved too quickly to react to, so they would be deadly when combined with iaijutsu, which could be so hard to predict.

But those attacks had to follow some kind of rules.

(That stainless steel ditch cover in the artificial woods.)

What connected the Greek Zeus and the Hindu Indra?

(I’m pretty sure the window frames on the 2nd floor were metal too. That means his sword strikes follow paths of electrical conduction!!)

“And if his weapon is lightning, I should be able to redirect it!!”

“Sigh.”

The young butler’s voice softly but bluntly interrupted him.

“''This is not Zeus.'' Common sense should have told you that right away.”

How – and when – had he arrived on the tower’s roof?

Something flashed. The person using the Trismegistus name had flicked up a clear plastic cocktail pin with his thumb.

Then the cane sword was released from its scabbard and light surged out.

Kamijou held his right hand out, but it wasn’t enough. He definitely felt something being negated, but when the blade’s light hit the cocktail pin overhead, the light scattered as if from a disco ball.

That light carried the sword strike.

This didn’t follow the rules of electricity at all.

The victim didn’t even have time to feel a chill on his spine. More than eight glowing slashes rushed toward his neck from different directions.

His death was a silent one.

His vision spun around.

It wasn’t Zeus’s lightning bolt or Indra’s Vajra.

And he was punished for his wrong answer.

After failing to find the key to a miracle, the boy could only look back up at his own headless body, still standing there.

(Aradi-)