Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 3===

Stiyl Magnus lay motionless on the rooftop.

“…”

The pointy-haired boy glanced down at his weapon and then tossed it to the rain-wet concrete. His overuse had left the cup at the end broken and unusable.

Kamijou breathed a heavy sigh before something intruded on his thoughts.

The raindrops.

Rules formed in the supposedly random noise and the complex collision of sound waves produced a clear human voice.

He recognized it. That voice belonged to Academy City’s #1.

“How the hell are you alive?”

“It’s a long story.”

Accelerator would have come in contact with bits and pieces of magic, but Kamijou doubted he could keep up with an info dump about going to hell and back and that the hell he visited was in fact an artificial field created by Rosencreutz.

Kamijou had actually experienced it himself, but even he didn’t understand it all.

“More importantly, aren’t you the Board Chairman at the very top? I know I got back up after being dead for more than 24 hours, but I assure you I’m not a zombie infected by some strange new pathogen. This works differently. The Magic Gods are still a concern, but can’t you at least do something about those Bio Secure people?”

“I’ve got no info on them. I’m using ''the master key'' to gather information now, but I can’t order them to withdraw right away. Because their chief, Kihara Goukei, intentionally took herself out of commission. She’s using the fact that I can’t contact the person in charge to give her people freedom to act.”

“Out of commission?”

“She bit her tongue. Leading to massive blood loss and cardiac arrest. What a pain in the ass.”

He wished he hadn’t asked. There really was something wrong with those Kiharas.

Academy City was worn down. Not that it could have stood against two legit Magic Gods at the best of times. When Othinus was at her full power, she had destroyed and restored this world thousands or millions of times.

The standard methods didn’t apply.

The only way to possibly beat them was to trigger some kind of extraordinary chemical reaction.

So he would defeat them with Imagine Breaker and Alice Anotherbible.

“We just have to do whatever we can.”

“It’s the people who talk like that who end up dead in mere seconds, leaving it to everyone else to clean up their mess.”

Kamijou couldn’t argue when he had indeed died against Alice. How sad.

The link to Accelerator ended.

He apparently wanted to focus on Bio Secure.

“…”

Kamijou wobbled.

But he couldn’t afford to collapse here.

His heavy breathing was white as it left his mouth. He might die if he stayed out in the rain too long.

But he wasn’t there yet.

Not if his presence could save someone just by continuing to live.

The boy slowly turned around.

“Next…”

An especially loud rumble shook the entire building.

He picked up a broken bike chain and a metal pipe and stuck them in his belt.

He took the emergency stairs down.

To the third floor.

Alice was battling someone in the long hallway there.

Magic Gods Nephthys and Niang-Niang.

He was already this battered and near death after fighting Stiyl. Immediately joining a battle against extraordinary Magic Gods was obviously suicide. Even with the rule-breaking trump card that was Alice Anotherbible.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t give up.

He wouldn’t let anyone say he shouldn’t have come back to life.

Alice Anotherbible had cried.

She had wailed loudly for him.

For Kamijou Touma to live.

He had accepted it.

That cry was one thing he could not deny.

He didn’t know how intelligent the Magic Gods were with their bizarre wisdom and he didn’t know why they saw him as such a threat for crawling back out of hell. It didn’t matter. If their misunderstanding would lead them to destroy this little world where Index, Othinus, the calico cat, and everyone else lived, then he would fight and protect this place in the world. Because being alive meant you could physically act.

He didn’t have any concrete odds of winning.

Mr. Misfortune could never play the card of relying on a selfless miracle.

Nevertheless, Kamijou Touma faced forward.

And walked on his own two feet.



He wouldn’t die.



Something was different from when he fought Magic God Othinus.

And from when he fought Alice Anotherbible.

Anna Kingsford and Christian Rosencreutz had taught him something before giving him the ticket of resurrection.

Death could not be whitewashed.

It was a simple fact, which was why no one in the world could overturn it, but that didn’t mean you had to make light of or despair in the limited life you had left.

He had reclaimed his own life.

So he had to make the most of it.

He had longed for this in that hell. What was it he had wanted to do in this silly world? What had Kingsford shown him when he came to a stop, saying he had no reason to return to life?

He wanted to apologize to everyone who had worried over him, return to that room with Index and Othinus, go to school like always, have no reason left to fight against Aradia, Anna Sprengel, and the rest, and to have Alice as a part of it all.

He only felt the word “preposterous” creeping up on him because he still didn’t have a concrete plan.

He had to find out how far he had to go.

Instead of speaking of vague hopes, he had to count the steps on the stairway to making that dream come true.

That wouldn’t be easy.

He didn’t have time to rest.

He couldn’t stop walking until he had accomplished everything he had envisioned while wandering through hell and looking up at the world of the living so far overhead.

The two Magic Gods – Nephthys and Niang-Niang – who would harm Alice were his first hurdle.



So he wasn’t going to die just because they were so powerful.



He hadn’t come back to life so he could run away, curl up behind cover, and force a stiff smile while avoiding all risk.

He was through suppressing what he wanted to do.

Nephthys and Niang-Niang seemed to have noticed the boy’s appearance from behind Alice.

“Oh?”

“Huh, does that mean you took Stiyl out?”

They didn’t seem to care at all.

The battle wasn’t over yet.

Kamijou pulled a metal pipe of a handy length from his belt at the side of his hip.

(How many times did I die against Othinus?)

He hadn’t been counting.

And even after all that, he never had truly defeated her.

And now he was up against two at once.



“''So what?''”



At the same time, Nephthys and Niang-Niang stopped where they were. They slowly raised their hands. Like a joke.

Kamijou roared while tightly gripping the pipe.

“Huh!? What the hell are you doing now!?”

“We have no reason left to fight,” answered a grinning Niang-Niang.

This was weird.

The Magic Gods might just destroy the world for fun, but they were always true to their actions.

He couldn’t think of any reason for them to hesitate when they had a path to victory.

And there was no sign of any kind of unexpected accident on their part.

Then was this the ending Nephthys and Niang-Niang had expected?

What had they gained from this?

(Wait.)

Kamijou thought back on what Nephthys had said.

He reviewed the basic information.

(A Magic God is someone who doesn’t hesitate to improve themselves by all means available, up to and including their own death. That won’t necessarily make you a Magic God, but they wouldn’t want it to happen.)

“This wasn’t about me at all. You were ''worried about Stiyl''?” asked Kamijou, astonished.

The bandages woman lowered her raised hands and shrugged.

“That priest is so dead set on protecting the grimoire library no matter what, it was obvious he was going to try something extremely reckless in the near future. Now, in all likelihood, attempting a deadly trial would only end in his meaningless death, but there would be some really annoying consequences in the unlikely event he succeeded.”

“What happens when a pure, straitlaced guy like him becomes a Magic God and begins seriously thinking about world peace? The world becomes a lot more restrictive. And there’s no way I’m dealing with that.”

Niang-Niang cackled and waved her baggy sleeves around.

Kamijou had thought this was weird. Nephthys and Niang-Niang were Magic Gods on Othinus’s level. Alice Anotherbible was one thing, but they should have killed Kamijou in the blink of an eye. It would have been truly instantaneous. Yet they hadn’t done that.

Kamijou let out a rough breath.

“So what are you going to do now?”

“Leave. Academy City isn’t our home.”

And that was that.

Perhaps the conflicts among the puny humans meant nothing to the gods up in heaven.

Regardless, Kamijou was glad he wouldn’t be forced into a hellish situation where he had to begin a fistfight with two Magic Gods until one side or the other couldn’t keep going. He really hoped those capricious Magic Gods would leave Academy City before they changed their minds and decided to start fighting again.

“Then get going. You can see what state the city’s in, can’t you? We can’t even fix the broken buildings, so we’re not exactly in a place to entertain tourists.”

“Yes, yes.”

“But we can drop by to play whenever we want, you know? We are true Magic Gods, after all.”

And during that conversation…



“Gah!?”



Someone’s voice caught in their throat.

Nephthys and Niang-Niang both reached a hand to the center of their chest.

They doubled over but still couldn’t stand it and wobbled before collapsing to the floor.

Despite supposedly reigning as one the greatest threats imaginable.

Kamijou glanced over at Alice, but the small girl shook her head.

This wasn’t Alice’s rule-breaking magic.

But in that case…

(Wait.)

Who else could it be?

(It can’t be.)

Slowly – no, hesitantly – Kamijou Touma turned to look behind him.



Stiyl Magnus.



He couldn’t stand straight.

He looked ready to collapse at any moment.

Still, the tall priest was indeed on his feet. Once more. The outline of his shoulders wavered unsteadily. Almost like some kind of mirage effect.

It didn’t seem to be a gas.

A voice like wetter and stickier blood foam spilled from the priest’s mouth.

“Magic Gods started out as human but improved themselves until they became something known as gods, right?”

An unstable cracking sound came from him.

The priest was quite tall. Unusually so for the age of 14. But his frame was straining even further.

Like he was forcibly taking in something inhuman which was causing him to slowly rupture from within.

“Stiyl…?”

“It’s no different from Telesma. People can draw power from an object of greater purity and precision. From the outside.”

With a talisman bearing the name or symbol of a constellation, you could borrow the power of the stars.

In the same way,  could you directly draw power from Goddess Nephthys by using a pyramid symbol?

“No matter how far you take it, magic is ultimately a technology. No one can ever keep it to themselves forever. Once you know how it works, you might not be able to use it yourself, but you can at least develop a trick to take advantage of it.”

“Wait, Stiyl!! What are you doing!?”

“''Stealing the magic power specially refined from the Magic Gods’ life force.''”

Stiyl tossed a single card into the air.

A different symbol was drawn over the rune with blood. A circle was drawn inside a triangle reminiscent of a pyramid. If Niang-Niang saw it, she would probably stiffen too.

“Maybe you could compare it to shoving rocket fuel inside a commercial car. Ordinarily, you’d only end up blowing up the engine, but if you managed to fit it in right, it would give you shocking acceleration. I’d prefer not to think about what this is costing me, though.”

The cost.

Kamijou had seen hints here and there that magic was a dangerous thing. For example, if an esper attempted to use magic, they risked destroying all of their blood vessels and nerves. Then there was Aleister’s talk of the sparks produced from the collisions of phases…which caused the unearned deadly fate that had taken his family from him and triggered the Battle of Blythe Road.

But what about this?

Did this carry a brand new form of risk!?

“I call it Crossroad,” said Stiyl. “I created the spell from the ground up, but the idea itself isn’t that unusual, is it? I heard a report saying the idea of making multiple religions and gods your own once caused some trouble for Orsola Aquinas.”

“…”

“That is my spell’s name. I will incorporate other cultures if it will help me achieve my wicked and shameful goal!!”

Kamijou immediately threw aside the metal pipe he held.

It wasn’t going to help.

The priest grabbed his cigarette between two fingers and crushed it.

An explosive roar followed.

Flames rushed out.

The metal pipe melted away to nothing before it even hit the floor.

The railing glowed red hot and the paint audibly peeled from the wall.

But Stiyl was not wielding a pair of red and blue flame swords.

Only a single fist.



What meaning had he placed within that form?



If Stiyl had only wanted to trap and kill Kamijou Touma, he hadn’t even needed to make his presence known. He could have sent a report to Anti-Skill and let those grownups crush the boy. Or he could have watched on while the two Magic Gods attacked.

But he hadn’t done those things.

No matter how ugly and selfish an action it was and even if it meant ignoring his Anglican orders in an act of betrayal, that magician had still come to the front line to do this himself.

“Fortis931…”

Something spilled from Stiyl Magnus’s lips.

A magic name.

The words engraved in his heart and the reason he challenged this great world.

This priest would use up every last bit of his life for the sake of a single girl.

For someone who had walked that different path, choosing to burn away part of his lifespan in a single act of magic may have been the obvious choice.

(Yeah…)

Kamijou Touma accepted that.

Which was why he clenched his fist even harder than before.

Trickery wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

(He really is a towering wall in my path. He’s my greatest enemy!!!)