Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 4===

Aradia stepped out into the hallway, leaving Kamijou Touma dizzy on the recreation room floor.

The witch goddess looked right, then left, and sighed.

Finally, she shut one eye.

An individual could only remain focused for so long. She had thought he would leave an opening eventually if she pretended to obey for a few days. Her Triple Reload spell was triggered by a witch’s ointment made by mixing several powdered herbs with the sweat and sebum from her own bare feet. That meant she could not use the spell with her feet duct taped up, but that changed if she could be alone for a while.

Anyone could remove the duct tape given enough time.

With a fighter nearby, she would be attacked while attempting persistently trying to remove it, but she could get rid of it safely right now.

She crouched down and brought her hands to her right ankle.

“God, you can tell what an amateur he is from the way he thinks he can keep an enemy indefinitely restrained without some kind of organized power. If he wanted to take my power away for good, he only needed to chop my feet off while I couldn’t resist.”

“''That’s what I said.''”

Aradia literally jumped from the floor.

The gap between her giant wimple and long silver hair widened and a 15cm god’s exasperated face emerged. The god stood on the witch goddess’s shoulder and whispered into her ear. Which meant she was in the perfect position to jab her arm in Aradia’s ear.

“But that human isn’t willing to do that, so he chose to accept the risks of keeping you around. Do try to pay attention, you overstudying witch.”

“Okay, okay. I get it.”

Aradia slowly raised her hands without straightening back up.

She doubted it would be difficult to crush 15cm Othinus in a hand, but if the tiny god threw out her pride and screamed, she had no idea who would come running. She could guess how Kamijou Touma would react, but she wasn’t sure what Alice or the other Transcendents would do if she exacted violence upon a guest of the consulate. Especially when her position in the group was on shaky footing after losing.

Aradia smiled.

“So are you the organized power tagging along to make up for that foolish high school boy’s mistakes? Surely you know these half-assed restraints aren’t enough to defang me.”

“Why do you think I warned him to remove your feet if it ended up killing you? He’s seen countless times that his foolish efforts go unrewarded, but he still bets his own life on this crap every single time. It makes my head hurt.”

“?”

Aradia looked puzzled and Othinus sighed.

“You can lower your hands. So why do you think that human chose to do this the hard way?”

“Because he isn’t willing to slit his defeated enemy’s throat or at least cut off their limbs to keep them from using magic?”

“Got it in one, dammit.”

Aradia had meant that as an obviously silly reason, so she was taken aback when it turned out to be right.

Othinus went on, sounding a bit sulky.

“Or more accurately, he wants things to end when he defeats an enemy. No matter how harsh the battle, he thinks the end of the fight should signal a new beginning where both sides can throw out their hard feelings and get a fresh start.”

“…”

“Anna Sprengel has shaken his confidence in that idea. He defeated her himself on December 25, but when he left her with Academy City, she easily escaped her cell. And if that weren’t enough, now Academy City and the Bridge Builders Cabal have concluded that killing Anna is the only option. …It all must have come as quite a shock for that kindhearted idiot. That’s why he’s so desperate to prove using you that defeating a powerful enemy is all you need to have a nice happy ending.”

Aradia stared at her right ankle while crouched down like she was retying her shoelaces. She stared at the crude safety device made from the waterproof duct tape the boy happened to have on hand.

“He knows this isn’t the smart thing to do,” said Othinus, looking down on Aradia for scoffing. “But he does it anyway because he thinks he can protect you if he finds a nonlethal way to neutralize a Transcendent. He’s doing all this because he believes your life can still be saved as long as he doesn’t give up, no matter how hopeless it seems. …And here you are mocking him for it. Just goes to show truly selfless acts go unappreciated. Is that one of the cruelties you see in this immature world? Is this one of your complaints with the current world, Transcendent?”

“I never asked him to do this.”

“Then are you going to tear off that duct tape and join your old pals in the Bridge Builders Cabal? You already know they don’t need you as much as you think they do. They have no reason to accept the risk of taking you back in unless you bring them back a souvenir that more than makes up for your failure. Because the fact that he defeated you becomes a vulnerability or backdoor for the cabal as a whole. I don’t know what the cabal’s ultimate goal is, but if they decide you would be a hindrance, they’ll just kill you.”

“I will still become a goddess who is a protector to all witches!! That is the only way I can live my life!! You think you can remove the fangs I need to save people and call it a nonlethal way of saving me? That only leads to a future where I have to watch helplessly as so many others die. You can’t force this compromise on me and assume I’ll just accept to abandon the less fortunate to their suffering. You think too little of Aradia, goddess of witches and ruler of the night and the moon!!!”

This wasn’t about her magic power or spells. That Transcendent’s way of life and determination gave her words enough power to crush someone’s soul.

But it had no affect at all on Othinus.

She may have lost her powers, but she was still a Magic God.

“You say you’re the goddess people expect to save all the witches being unjustly persecuted by the wealthy Christian church?” asked Othinus as if seeking confirmation. “Then you have made a fundamental misunderstanding here.”

“?”

“You didn’t know? That boy is far from unscathed. He carries the scars of all the idiotic stunts he’s ever pulled. To be fair, he chose to do those things on his own, but the majority of them were related to that Index Librorum Prohibitorum. In other words, the Christian church is using an innocent high school boy to protect their ultimate weapon. Oh, and I haven’t seen any sign of them rewarding him or paying him for everything he does. And as a result, he’s missed class so often he’s at risk of having to repeat the year.”

Time stopped within Aradia.

It took more than 5 seconds of actual time for her to get the next word out.

“…What?”

“Also, he has, just once, used magic of his own free will. It happened in his battle against Anna Sprengel on December 25. Of course, he didn’t refine his own lifeforce into magic power and it was mostly done by the microscopic St. Germain infecting his body, but he still chose to use magic to protect everyone in Academy City even though he knew it could mean his death.”

“!!”

Aradia completely stopped breathing for a moment.

Yes.

If she was to truly live the life she had defined for herself…

“And the word witch can also be applied to male practitioners of heretical magic. Just think back to the Bologna Succubus’s story. The person killed at a witch trial for the absurd crime of running a succubus brothel was a man. …Doesn’t this mean that human is someone who was forced to using magic at the risk of his own life because the Christian church took advantage of his kind heart and sent him into battle time and time again? Oh? Aradia, wouldn’t that make him a poor witch unjustly persecuted by the wealthy Christian church? So isn’t it very odd that he’s the one you’re attacking here?”

Originally, witches did not call themselves witches.

They did not seek fame or fortune.

They simply gave nearby villagers advice and secretly dealt with those villagers’ problems using special means unavailable to most people. So no matter how many people a witch saved, they would never be understood or rewarded for their actions.

Just like Aradia had thoughtlessly pushed Kamijou away here.

The witch goddess paled.

“A-are you kidding me!? Do you have any idea how many times I’ve killed him? And I’m supposed to be a guardian to all witches! Sure, maybe I was in no state to think it through on the 31st, but I kept antagonizing him today on January 3! Why didn’t he say anything!?”

“''Because saying something would bind you.'' So he has chosen to abandon the trump card of borrowing your power. He really is betting his life on the absurd idea that one day everyone will come to an understanding without the need for any of those special conditions.”

“…”

The long history of witches was, by and large, a depressing one, but there were some people accused of being witches whose hellish trials were overturned or who were protected by the people and lived out happy lives. For example, there was Biddy Early, a bottle magician who healed injury and disease without asking for any kind of payment, and there was Kyteler, a marquis’s wife who used her authority to fight back against a bishop abusing his own authority. No one determined to be a witch could survive in those days, yet they had done so because the people hadn’t forgotten what their local witch had done for them, had refused to provide false testimony, and had never succumbed to the great pressure of the church that had such power over people’s lives back then.

Aradia had failed to do the same.

Was a violent mob deceived by misinformation the real threat? That wasn’t the only way people could respond. The true saints who saved the lives of the desperate were ordinary people who didn’t think they had done anything special. Crossing that tightrope was second nature to them, so they didn’t see it as something to be proud of.

“That human smiled.”

When Aradia fell silent, the girl known as a god clicked her tongue and made her point even more clearly.

“On December 31, I mean. You probably don’t remember since you had just been punched out, but when he learned that covering your feet would keep you from using your magic, Kamijou Touma breathed a wholehearted sigh of relief. Once he knew how to switch your supernatural power on and off, ''he didn’t need to fear you anymore.'' The witch goddess was an extraordinary monster, but he could finally say that cutting off your feet and killing you wasn’t the only option. Sure, the possibility was slim, but you were still savable.”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………” 

Something replayed in the back of Aradia’s head.

What was it the Bologna Succubus had told her on December 31?

''“If you could only calm down some and recall the kinds of hell the witches of yore experienced in those sorry excuses for trials, you would have gone out of your way to become the good goddess of the silent night who would protect Kamijou Touma.”

Othinus had one more thing to say to the dazed witch goddess.

In a tone that said she hadn’t thought Aradia was this dense.

“But your rudeness destroyed even that faint hope. You should thank me, foolish goddess. I’ve chosen to save a stranger like you even if it means smashing up that human’s dreams. Because if you do tear that tape from your feet and kill that human again – and this time doing a thorough enough job that not even this city’s doctors or Good, Old Mary can reverse the process – then you will no longer be able to call yourself a goddess to all witches.”