Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 3===

It was time to face the biggest problem: bath time.

“So, um, I’m not sure why you think you even need to discuss this?” said Aradia, feeling a headache coming on. “The answer is simple: remove all this duct tape and let me take a bath.”

Kamijou, Index, and Othinus exchanged a glance.

“Yeah, but we all know you’re running away the instant we remove the duct tape from your hands and feet.”

“You might try to fight back.”

“You’re a Transcendent. If we screw this up, you might destroy an entire city or country in retaliation.”

For some reason, Othinus’s comment was a lot more sadistic than the others.

They only had to look at it realistically.

First of all, Aradia was the Transcendent who had caused such a major panic in Shibuya. Removing the duct tape from the hands behind her back and from around her ankles could mean returning her power to her.

“Yet here you are coming up with excuses to get that duct tape off.”

“It’s not an excuse. Am I the only one who thinks this is a perfectly reasonable request?”

“If we do remove them, then I’ll have to suppress your power with Imagine Breaker. Which means you would have to take your bath with me holding your hand throughout.”

“You expect me to share that tiny bathroom with a stranger?”

Othinus was grinning her face off for some reason.

“Close the shower curtain to hide the tub and you’ll be fine. Barring any freak accidents with lewd results, of course.”

“Don’t you dare jinx me like that! Oh, no! I can just imagine the horrific fate that awaits me 10 minutes from now!!”

“Then what are we supposed to do?”

Apparently not letting her take a bath today was simply not an option. She was a young woman after all. Index’s snapping jaws had a hair trigger, but not even she protested that one.

Which meant…

“I guess you’ll have to take a bath with the duct tape still on your hands and feet. It’s the only safe way.”

“Throw me in the tub like that and you’ll have a nasty drowned corpse on your hands!”

“Let me finish.” Kamijou grabbed a random towel. “You stay tied up and someone else washes you off with a wet towel.”

Aradia quaked at that suggestion.

Her face really did pale.

“Don’t tell me you’re volunteering for that job! There is only so far you can push this unintentional sexual harassment bit and make it believable! Please listen to me!”

“We’re only still having this conversation because you nixed the idea of me being in the bath with you, so calm down that overactive imagination, you pervert witch.”

His rational rebuttal led the goddess to start thrashing about on the floor. It wasn’t very frightening when she was in duct tape cocoon, but who knows what she would do if he let his guard down and she broke free of her restraints. He would be dead for sure.

Kamijou handed the towel to someone else: a confused Index.

“Look, she’ll be doing it. Is that acceptable?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Aradia reluctantly grumbled.

Now, was she aware that when presented with two negative options and asked to choose the lesser of two evils, it was common to make sure one of those options was a non-starter? Was she aware it was a negotiating tactic to present someone with something they would never, ever choose and then present them with a less-objectionable option you actually wanted them to accept?

Yes, Aradia lost sight of something important when she focused only on the fact that this option was better than having to bathe with a boy like Kamijou.

It didn’t occur to her that she had just agreed to have someone rub all over her body while she was tied up and unable to do anything about it.

This was the result.

“Ah hya hya hya hya!? Wait! Wait a second! Don’t stick your hand there! Hee, hee hee! Please can’t you be a little gentler!?”

[[Image:GT_Index_v07_BW2.png|thumb]]


“Shut up and sit still.”

Half an hour later, Aradia languidly crawled out of the bathroom with her skin squeaky clean and the full length of her silver hair washed.

“K-kill me,” said the bound Transcendent between gasping breaths. “Someone please kill me.”

“Hey, Othinus. Why did Aradia take so much damage from this?”

“About the last thing a witch wants is to be helpless in the hands of servant of their nemesis – the Christian Church. It made for a very amusing show, though.”

It was past 10 at night.

The TV remained on and it was shifting to the late night programming. In this case, that still meant a New Year’s comedy special, but one for lesser-known comedians who started out on the stage or online videos. Kamijou had basically been awake since the 31st, so he was already sleepy.

Index didn’t need a bath since she had just taken one with Aradia, but…

“I think I’ll only take a shower. I’m too tired for a full bath. What about you, Othinus?”

“I will not be deprived. Fill a washbasin with bathwater so I can relax.”

“Sure, sure. Yawn. Afterwards, we can drink this and then get to sleep.”

Index and Othinus gave him puzzled looks.

“It’s amazake,” he said, sleepily rubbing his eyes. “This is about the only time you get to drink it.”

Now.

Witch Goddess Aradia, the embodiment of Wicca, was a magician who extracted the medicinal properties of all the plants, animals, and minerals found in the forest and converted them into her spells. If she was resistant to medicines, it would reduce the efficacy of her spells. Being highly sensitive to any form of drug was useful both for using your own medicines and for revealing the methods used by enemy witches.

The problem was that Kamijou only learned this fact once it was too late.

A cup of amazake made without sake lees was perfectly fine for a high schooler to drink, but it had a disastrous result for Aradia.

“Hic. Wuhhh?”

“Wait, are you kidding me!? Aradia’s face is bright red!!!” screamed Kamijou when he saw Aradia’s shoulders shaking with each “hic”.

This made no sense. It wasn’t even an issue of a small amount of alcohol having an exaggerated effect on her. This kind was completely nonalcoholic, so why in the world was Aradia losing control of herself!?

Othinus sighed from her spot atop the kotatsu.

“This isn’t about anything real – it’s the placebo effect. In other words, assumptions are more powerful than any of you humans. Although if she could consciously control this, it would be an excellent weapon for a potion-making witch.”

“Looks to me more like Tipsy Aradia-san is the one being controlled!”

“Hence the ‘if she could consciously control this’ part, human. Harnessing assumptions rarely ever works because it’s a lot like tricking yourself into thinking you’ve become a vessel for a god and then losing yourself in it. Be careful here. Her self-hypnosis is strong enough to physically intoxicate her with a nonalcoholic drink, so a false pregnancy is well within her abilities.”

Aradia herself seemed oblivious to their whispered conversation. She remained limply seated on the wooden flooring – with her legs turned to one side in what some call mermaid mode – staring off into empty space and swaying side to side.

“Nya. Nya, nya, nya, nyaaa♪”

“Now she’s singing.”

“Hey, you. If you’re gonna tie me up, at least have the decency to look after me. I’m the goddess of all witches, so you’re supposed to be serving me, dammit. Hic.”

“And now she’s leaning against me!? Gwahhh!!”

“Trying the begging for attention plan, huh?”

“This happened with Alice and the Bologna Succubus too. Is every Transcendent such a free spirit? Now I know for sure Aradia is too dangerous to free from that duct tape!!”

She was causing this much trouble with her hands tied behind her back. All it took was swaying to the side for her to more or less tackle Kamijou onto his back and fall asleep while the two of them drew out a cross on the floor. Body Press Witch Aradia was apparently the kind to gain a lot of energy when she drank but use it all up almost immediately. In other words, she was the most annoying type of person who would cause all sorts of trouble and then have someone else clean up afterwards.

As a nun, Index was having trouble deciding if she should give into her reflexive urge to bite.

“Grr. Touma, where should we let her sleep?”

“Dammit, this is such a royal pain,” groaned Kamijou on his back.

The usual arrangement was Index in the living room and Kamijou in the bathroom, but where was drunk Aradia supposed to go? In her current state, he didn’t want to leave her anywhere.

After crawling out from under her, Kamijou grabbed her under the arms and dragged her along the wooden flooring.

“People are so heavy. Hmm, I’m thinking the closet.”

“I know you want to close her up in a space with walls and a door cutting her off from everyone else, human, but tying a woman up with duct tape and stuffing her in your closet sounds a lot like robbing her of what this world calls human rights.”

As drunk as she was, Aradia didn’t put up any kind of resistance. In her current state, she probably wouldn’t complain if she was placed aboard a slave ship, so he had no trouble shoving her inside the small closet.

“Sigh. Now I can rest easy.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he heard a heavy thud from the closed closet. Followed by the drunk woman groaning.

“Ugh.”

“This is safe, isn’t it? Her mysterious Transcendent magic isn’t going to run wild and squash the entire dorm building while we sleep, is it? Y’know, like mille-feuille when you use your fork wrong.”

“Touma, don’t talk about food before bed. You’ll make me hungry.”

“This is a boy’s dorm, but you have three girls here – including me – plus a cat when pets aren’t allowed. Scary that you can get away with this at a school dorm. What are Academy City’s adults even doing?”