Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 3===

He couldn’t rely on Anna Sprengel or H.T. Trismegistus anymore.

The other Transcendents were a far way off too.

The ordinary faculty room was everything.

It must have been cut off from the rest of the world long ago.

So it was one against one.

Kamijou Touma vs. Alice Anotherbible, or someone who had once been Alice Pleasance Liddell.

This had been about them from the beginning, so there was no better two to settle it.

So.

“Ooooooaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

“Ooooooaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

They clashed head on.

Alice roared like an animal and spread her arms wide.

Hugging.

An act of reliance on another and using your full body to acquire a sense of fulfillment from the outside world.

Of course, a hug from her here would have easily torn Kamijou’s body apart.

A dull sound indicated a direct hit.

From Kamijou. He felt the solid impact of landing a punch.

The sensation in his fist was enough to clear his mind.

In a way, this was to be expected when Alice went all in on attack, spreading her arms and coming straight toward him without even considering defense. 

“Kh.”

Beads of sweat flew from the grown woman as she bent back and left her “hugging” pose. With the trunk of her body still collapsed, she clawed at the air with her fingers bent like hooks.

The boy dropped his body down.

After just barely dodging a deadly attack that sliced through the walls and pillars, he threw another punch that Alice blocked with her other hand. But unlike with her “walking” or “binding”, there was no special effect here.

Alice didn’t have time to extract and refine a miracle out of that action.

They clashed a few more times after that, but still Kamijou was not dead.

They both took a step back.

“Curioser and curioser.”

Alice tilted her head.

The fully-grown bondage woman moved with the mannerisms of a 10-year-old.

It was strange and bizarre.

Everything about her was.

“You’re the only one still standing, teacher, but you’re moving in ways you shouldn’t be able to on your own.”

“Of course I am.”



When Alice was taking evasive action by “crawling”, any and all attacks would pass through her.

H.T. Trismegistus had proven this for everyone to see by not hesitating to bisect the girl he so adored.



Alice could extract miracles much like the Pneuma-less Shell but without relying on any tools.

That knowledge came from Anna Sprengel.



However.

“So why don’t you just keep on ‘crawling’ while you attack? Then you could remain untouchable the entire time you send your unfair attacks our way.”

“…”

“Since you aren’t doing that, I can only assume you’re limited to using one miracle at a time. For example, your ‘crawling’ causes any attacks to pass right through you, but it also keeps you from laying a finger on us, so you can never actually end the fight that way, can you? Your ‘walking’ and ‘cursing’ are the same. ''Your miracles are isolated things – they can’t be combined or used in parallel''! Which means I’ve found your weakness, Alice Anotherbible. I don’t know how tough you are, but you can’t make yourself untouchable while you attack. The damage will reach you then!!”

So he would aim for a cross counter.

It wasn’t much, but that was the one and only way out of this battle against Alice Anotherbible.

Alice could use any and all miracles with nothing more than her own body, but she had the mannerisms of a child. She was extremely powerful, but her attacks were all made “on a whim” or “on reflex”, which made it easy to match her timing.

Kamijou hadn’t realized this on his own.

He never could have.

He wouldn’t let anyone say the defeated people’s feelings had been any weaker than anyone else’s.

If Alice could “grab” any object, phenomenon, or person and make it her weapon, then he was supported by the strength of the feelings that had led him to this point.

He couldn’t let this end in tears at this point. He wouldn’t leave anyone behind in the darkness. He would grab Alice’s hand and drag her out of there.

Because that was the power of reality, something not even Imagine Breaker could eliminate.

“What does it matter if they’re not standing here with me? Anna, Trismegistus, and the others showed me the way. They risked their lives to test your abilities and I never would have made it this far without everything they learned. Don’t you get it? They’re still here fighting alongside me.”

“Then the girl will heal herself.”

That was all Alice said.

She was so powerful she had never had a chance to experience defeat and so didn’t worry too much about who won an individual battle. She didn’t fear the possibility of being beaten and dying.

If she did ultimately bury the enemy who stood in her way, it was no skin off her nose if she died once or twice first.

Because…

“Have you forgotten, teacher? The girl already had her head crushed by someone calling himself Rosencreutz. And yet here she is as good as new. So it doesn’t matter to the girl even if you do manage to kill her in exchange for severe damage on your part. ''The girl just has to resurrect herself a billion or even a trillion times if necessary and wait for you to finally wear yourself out''.”

“''But you can’t do anything else while you’re focused on healing yourself, can you''?”

He also had an immediate response.

This wasn’t enough to break him.

Kamijou did not fear that the wishes and feelings left with him would amount to nothing and that all his efforts would be negated in an instant.

She could heal herself?

It would all be for nothing?

So what?

Surprisingly, it was Alice who spoke next.

The fully-grown woman spoke with an oddly calm and quiet voice, like a pot on the verge of boiling.

“What do you think you can accomplish?”

“What, out of miracles already? Why not search through my mind yourself, Alice?”

Alice’s prophecy was accurate.

Kamijou Touma would die.

He had accepted that.

And he had decided he would save this girl using the power he gained in exchange.

So he took the first step forward.

They clashed.