Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 4===

For a moment, Kamijou’s memories refused to link together.

Like film cut apart with scissors that wouldn’t fit together again.

Had CRC’s great attack influenced him mentally as well as physically?

''No.

“Gh,” Kamijou groaned, a dull ache in his temples. Yes, this reminded him of the pain felt when looking at the sun for too long.

In other words…

(A powerful flash of light? Did Misaka produce some powerful sparks to try and dazzle Rosencreutz’s eyes?)

Evasion was the only option. They mustn’t even think about defense.

This move didn’t violate that rule. And since Kamijou wasn’t dead, it must have been effective in this battle against Rosencreutz. But now that Rosencreutz had seen it, Kamijou seriously doubted it would work a second time.

He didn’t see Index, Mikoto, or the others.

He felt a strange weight in his clothing. He looked down the neck of his shirt to see a metal plate larger than his hand. Had Mikoto used that to magnetically fling him as far away as she could?

He hadn’t had time to do anything on his own.

That was fine.

Feeling fear wasn’t a bad thing. Because the fear motivated him to observe as much as he could, think through it all on a deeper level, and find an opportunity. True defeat was only found if he stopped analyzing that fear and let the trembling take over.

“But where am I?”

Still curled up in a ball, Kamijou slowly turned his head.

Had this originally been a trendy laundromat that doubled as a café? He must have subconsciously hidden himself behind the collapsed building.

He didn’t know his exact location.

But it seemed like Rosencreutz had lost track of him.

That didn’t mean he could relax, however.

With no one left to stop him, that man would resume his march toward the District 7 hospital. That endangered Anna Sprengel and the hospital staff who were working so hard to save her even though they knew she was a villain.

Kamijou couldn’t place that burden on their shoulders.

This was his selfish desire. He should carry the burden and the risk. He clenched his teeth, placed a hand on the wall, and slowly stood up.

He could still do this.

(Where are Index, Mikoto, and the rest? I just hope Rosencreutz didn’t go after them.)

Just then…

“Hey. I can’t help but notice you’re risking your life by repeatedly throwing yourself against an unrivaled monster, so I’m here to help out, laddie.”

He heard an oddly relaxed female voice. And it came from the open sky overhead.

And a moment later…

“Oops, botched my landing.”

“Bwahh!?”

Kamijou went blind. It took him several seconds to realize the Transcendent Bologna Succubus had descended from the sky above with her batlike wings and then caught his face between her two thighs and something else. I’d rather not explain what exactly that something else is. Simply put, it was like a backward and upside-down piggyback ride. Using the alphabet, it was something like an S.

“Bwbhbh, get, bhbhj, off of, bhehb, me!?”

“Nhh… Don’t breathe on me there, you jackaninny.”

“Agh, I said get off!!”

While the succubus was being extremely succubus-like, more sets of footsteps approached. After somehow extricating himself from the crotch trap(!?), Kamijou observed the new arrivals with his recovered vision.

“Is it in a demon’s nature to act so inappropriately? Or was the boy responsible for this one?”

“I think they’re having fun.”

Good, Old Mary and Mut Thebes were here.

So was Witch Goddess Aradia.

“Did you call them here?”

“Those of us with nowhere to go gathered together on our own,” simply stated Aradia, not looking him in the eye.

But these Transcendents were not like Alice Anotherbible or Anna Sprengel. They did not act on a whim. They would mechanically list out their salvation conditions and only save whoever met them. Since they were all acting together, these survivors must have been working toward a single goal, which would have required untangling the many threads and solving a challenging puzzle.

For example, there was Mut Thebes.

It seemed like a fundamental contradiction for that punishment expert to be fighting for Anna Sprengel. She was the very person who had chased Anna down before.

Although Mut Thebes herself only quizzically tilted her head.

“My Shrink Drink attack on Anna Sprengel is complete.”

“Kh.”

Those words seemed to tear sharply into Kamijou Touma’s heart.

They stated a fact that could never be overturned.

But she wasn’t done there.

“''Which means my task as a punishment expert has concluded.'' Whatever happens to her now is none of my concern – even if she does find a way to live happily ever after. She is no threat to the Bridge Builders Cabal with her cardiopulmonary function ceased and I doubt she can leak information as H. T. Trismegistus and the others feared she might. I use punishment to protect the group I have chosen for myself. And at the moment, the much greater and more direct threat to the cabal is Christian Rosencreutz.”

“Y-you mean you’ll help us for now?”

“No? You do not fit my salvation conditions.”

So whose side was Mut Thebes really on?

But Kamijou truly felt he would be spared her deadly blade no matter how many times he failed to meet her mechanical search conditions.

However, that it was impossible to know where all that power would be directed was frightening in a different way from a capricious beast that simply obeyed its instincts. There was no chance of escaping her interest by playing dead or taming her so she wouldn’t attack. If anything, she was even more inhuman – like a drone weapon. He felt like he was being followed around by a faint chill that carried great power but could kill based on a ''sensor error'' no matter what her personal feelings might be.

In this case, a neutral stance was someone who might shoot you in the back at any time.

Mut Thebes-chan had effectively come running to his aid, but she still scared him.

However, she ''hadn’t malfunctioned yet'', so she only looked confused.

Mut Thebes was the Transcendents’ punishment expert.

They probably had the least in common and convincing her would be challenging, but there wasn’t time for Kamijou to let that scare him into being more withdrawn.

Rosencreutz wanted to slaughter all of the Transcendents.

And only as a way of entertaining himself because he was bored.

If Kamijou failed to tell that girl some critical information, he would be responsible if she lost her life as a result. So as scared and nervous as he was, they had to work together and share their information for now.

“A-are you aware Christian Rosencreutz is wandering around somewhere nearby?”

“More or less.”

“He isn’t someone you can beat in a normal fight. But that’s your specialty as Transcendents, right? Mut Thebes, having you here is especially important. I want you to immediately fall back to District 18. You at least need to head to the second…no, the third defense line.”

Kamijou was beginning to sound like a weather forecaster during a typhoon.

“His shortest route will take him through Districts 12, 23, 18, and 7. Even if he does go through Districts 12, 6, 5, and 7 instead, you can still blast him from District 18. Your Dead Phoenix lets you absorb the shadows of people and things, converting them into your own power, so you have a lot more options than the rest of us. It would be better for you to fire on him from a safe distance than to attempt a close-range battle with that monster!!”

Mut Thebes displayed no malice.

Her head tilt came from pure confusion.

“Why should I do that?”

“Because you’re the strongest here when it comes to pure firepower. Dead Phoenix lets you absorb any shadow and make its power your own, so you can use all the next-gen weaponry you want. That’s perfect for being in Academy City. You’re the only one I can rely on here!!”

She froze in place for a moment.

After blinking twice she puffed out her flat chest.

And for some reason, she looked not to Kamijou in front of her but to the Transcendents to her side.

“Heh heh. I’m the strongest. I shine the brightest. Heh heh heh♪”

“Hmph☆” “Hmph☆” “Hmph☆”

[[Image:GT Index v09 BW3.jpg|thumb]]

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and even the usually composed Good, Old Mary reacted. Kamijou couldn’t imagine why the opinion of a high schooler like him would matter. Or, as unlikely as it seemed, did they have some kind of strength ranking within their cabal? They seemed to have a rivalry in the same vein as Yarou web novels or VRTubers.

Mut Thebes-chan’s eyes were as emotionless as ever, but she couldn’t keep the grin off of her lips.

“If you want me to deliver an effective blow to CRC, then I’m willing to help. My current salvation conditions are to protect the Bridge Builders Cabal as a separate entity from the rest of the world. If CRC is after the Transcendents, then defeating him would be the fastest way to accomplish my goal.”

“Huh? Hold on. Are you saying I bowed down for no reason?”

“If you don’t ask me properly, I will launch my own attack.”

Kamijou Touma went past 45 degrees and bowed to a full 90 degrees. The salaryman spirit carried by his Japanese blood had suddenly awoken within him.

Mut Thebes put her hands on her slender hips and gave a satisfied snort from her little nose.

“I will fall back to the third defense line, but absorbing a large weapon will take time. And if it is unwieldy enough, it would be more efficient for me to act as a stationary turret rather than try to lug it around.”

“And?”

Kamijou had to admit he didn’t want her to be stompnig along with something hundreds of meters tall like she had before. She would become the real threat to the city then.

“The question is what I do about targeting. Either I will need to absorb a targeting device capable of tracking CRC, or you will have to instruct me from the front line while you- brr, it’s freezing.”

She gave up before finishing her thought.

And she started tugging at him. He looked down to see what that was about and saw her wrap herself in his coat to warm herself.

The Bologna Succubus’s eyes widened at this display of even more brazenness than an ill-behaved high school girl unplugging the electric display in front of a convenience store to charge her phone.

“What’s this, are you his girlfriend now? I’m a lewd succubus and even I resisted the urge to steal his coat!”

But if the Japanese winter was too cold for Mut Thebes, why had she skipped right past a bikini (difficulty level: normal) and worn that even more revealing costume (difficulty level: hara-kiri crazy nightmare)? Since Magic God Nephthys had walked around outside in nothing but bandages, did ancient Egyptians have something against wearing sufficient clothing?

Mut Thebes had nerves of steel.

The cold girl was entirely unbothered by sharing someone else’s coat without asking.

“I do not dress this way because I enjoy it. I can only activate my spell by casting my own shadow on the ground, so this is merely the logical choice. Do not confuse me with those exhibitionists who have chosen to take off most of their clothing in this frigid January weather for no good reason.”

“Mama would prefer if you did not place her in the same category as the witch goddess and the horny demon. Mama dresses perfectly normally. She has never stooped to cheap exhibitionism or sex appeal.”

“Huh? How can you say that when we all bathed together back at the consulate?”

Sparking tension grew between the Transcendents.

From multiple directions.

“She pretends to be the only one who knows how to behave, but I bet she’s wearing some really sexy underwear below that chaste long skirt! Keeping that composed look when she’s secretly wearing the naughtiest panties you’ve ever seen makes her way more of a pervert than us!!”

“Stop it with the baseless speculation. Mama is nothing like you superhuman perverts; she is just as pure and adorable as she looks.”

“If you take a gander at everything from my one-piece corset to the leather outfit of Alice’s punishment mode, it doesn’t take long to notice what all us Transcendent women have in common.”

“Oh? And have you ever seen below mama’s skirt? You have not, so your words are powerless. Accusations made without solid evidence can only lead to the false accusations you despise.”

“Gh!?” The Bologna Succubus flinched back for once.

Kamijou stared into the middle distance, worried this group was going to tear itself apart before they even fought CRC.

“I never said I would save Anna. The accusations against her aren’t false. She is the villain everyone says she is,” said the Bologna Succubus, with the bluntness of a Transcendent. She laid out her conditions with frightening precision. “But if we focus on Christian Rosencreutz’s attempt to kill all the Transcendents, ''then I have no issue with helping.'' …It turns out he isn’t going to save the world. If nothing is done, it’s obvious he will destroy the entire world along with all of our salvation conditions. So I’m willing to give my all to this fight.”

Salvation conditions.

It worried Kamijou that she still hadn’t removed that self-imposed constraint, but he needed as many allies as he could get right now.

She would give her all to fight for those weaker than her.

If that was all it was, she may have been a greater example of justice than the puny boy.

Then Kamijou’s attention turned toward another Transcendent: Good, Old Mary.

It happened suddenly.

“What about Alice? Can you-”

He left the question unfinished, realizing too late that it was a meaningless question.

She silently shook her head.

Her big hat wobbled sadly.

Not even Good, Old Mary could save Anna from the Shrink Drink’s effects. Because a mere Transcendent could not resist even a fragment of Alice Anotherbible’s power.

He doubted she would be able to interfere with Alice herself so easily, especially to overturn the girl’s death.

Was there any crueler irony than her own great strength preventing her from being saved?

“I see,” said Kamijou Touma.

He had already known it, but having it stated by someone else was like a knife to the heart. Good, Old Mary’s resurrection could revert the dead to the exact moment of their death, providing a chance for CPR. But not even that could save Alice. Or Anna.

The row of falling dominos had suddenly stopped.

The frog-faced doctor was fighting to save Anna’s life.

Kamijou had his own task to complete. He could not allow Christian Rosencreutz to reach the hospital.

He noted that H. T. Trismegistus was not here.

Had he been killed when Rosencreutz first appeared? Or did he no longer see any purpose in the Bridge Builders Cabal now that he had lost his master Alice Anotherbible?

For that matter, there were so few Transcendents here given that Good, Old Mary could resurrect people. The Bridge Builders Cabal had pooled their combined strength into that ceremony. Kamijou didn’t know how many there were in all, but there had to have been a large number of Transcendents in Academy City.

Had the CPR failed after their bodies were returned to the moment of death?

Or had the CPR succeeded but they had lost the will to fight and fled?

He had no way of knowing.

“We’ve already lost to him once, so we know just how much of a threat Christian Rosencreutz is,” said the Bologna Succubus.

“But we can’t just let him go free.”

“We are aware,” said Good, Old Mary. “And since we know a direct attack will not work, what we need is observation and preparation. We must make ourselves disappear, find safety, and get a fresh start. So before Rosencreutz notices us, we must leave here, keep our distance, and find cover.”

Their argument was logical.

They had not given in to their fear.

The Transcendents were not like Kamijou. It wasn’t that they didn’t know. They had lost and they had experienced the fear of death, but they still used their reason and knowledge as weapons to challenge their greatest enemy.

“Mut Thebes. You too.”

Aradia spoke to the most dangerous of the bunch.

But maybe being known as the most dangerous actually made her the safest one when it came to the problem of a malfunction in her salvation conditions.

Good, Old Mary looked like the gentlest and calmest, so if she suddenly shot him in the back, Kamijou wouldn’t know what to believe anymore.

“What kind of weapon shadows should I absorb? Or ''should I absorb your Transcendent shadows now as insurance in case something happens?'' Given this battle’s difficulty level, it would be best if we had multiple copies of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection.”

Just then, Kamijou felt a chill.

He turned toward it without even thinking. But that didn’t mean looking left, right, or even behind. He looked up.

He was speechless.

And a voice responded to his unvoiced question.

“Found you☆”

“Dammit!!!”

The voice was peering down from the top of a wall still standing among the rubble.

Kamijou immediately rolled away just before the entire scene was obliterated. Christian Rosencreutz dropped like a meteor, blowing away the unnaturally-standing concrete wall.

The silver young man stood at the center of the resultant crater.

He displayed a joyful smile at discovering new prey.

They needed a fresh start.

They had to escape before he found them.

It was the thinnest of threads, but they had finally found a definite chance they could reach for.

It had shattered from a single blow.

“Kh.”

Fear clutched Kamijou’s heart.

But he wasn’t even given time to freeze up.

Kamijou glared at red-clad Christian Rosencreutz and swept a hand out to the side to protect Mut Thebes standing by his side. Then he shouted to her.

“Hurry to the third defense line and stock up on as many next-gen weapons as you can! A simple close-quarters battle will only wear you out, so we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you get away!!”

“Kyun☆”

He heard a strange sound.

No, was it a voice? Kamijou looked over in shock to see the girl clasping her hands in front of her flat chest. And for some reason her cheeks were flushed pink.

What had happened?

The Bologna Succubus snapped at Mut Thebes whose eyes were wavering on her otherwise expressionless face.

“Now is not the time to let the suspension bridge effect pierce your heart! I know this is basically your first time speaking with a boy, but how about you get to know him a little before you fall for him!?”

“Wait, is that what this is? I’m flatt-”

“Mut Thebes’s specialty is hunting people down, so if she is in love with you, she’ll probably pursue you to the ends of the earth. Lucky you, if you’re into that. And with a passionate stalker loaded with a limitless supply of blades and firearms, you never have to worry about her cheating on you and you know she’ll accept your love.”

This clarification by Big Sis Aradia (whose eyes looked unnecessarily icy for some reason) made Kamijou’s shoulders jump. The gravity of Mut Thebes’s love was apparently on par with a black hole. If you got too close and let it catch you in its pull, time and space would lose all meaning and you would find escape to be impossible.

Also, based on the way they had phrased some things, he got the feeling H. T. Trismegistus didn’t count as a boy in the eyes of the female Transcendents. That young butler was getting caught in the crossfire despite having gone missing.

How did this all look to Christian Rosencreutz who wielded violence on a whim?

At the very least, he didn’t interrupt their conversation with an attack.

“The Transcendents, hm? The group that lost sight of their own selves through excessive and mistaken ''roleplaying''. I have already defeated the lot of you once. …A repeat of that would be a disappointment. You had better have developed some new special attack now that you have chosen to stand in this old man’s way again.”

There were multiple Transcendents here.

As hard as Kamijou found it to believe, CRC did not appear to view them as a threat.

“Why?” asked Witch Goddess Aradia. “Why dedicate yourself so thoroughly to violence? Our Bridge Builders Cabal has chosen to abandon the self to take up roles that will help others and we even completed a major spell through that. Even for us, ''we had to define our values to wield our power without causing collateral damage''.”

He was not someone to hold an ordinary conversation.

She had to know that, but she couldn’t help but ask.

And.

He gave a response.

“''Passion.''”

A sharp explosion erupted and Kamijou’s group each rolled in their own direction to distance themselves from it.

The blast must have hit a jeweler’s shop because lots of gold and jewelry rained from the sky.

Christian Rosencreutz traced his fingers through empty space.

He displayed no interest in the sparkling precious metal.

He delicately used two fingers to catch a small white flower carried in by a crosswind and gently inserted its stem in the gap on the door of a crushed and twisted luxury car.

He prioritized appreciating nature over strategy or his own interests.

“Playfulness, whims, letting off steam – call it what you like. Kee hee hee. This old man is well aware how great a power I hold in my hands. So I will never blame its results on anyone else. I will not say I did it for justice, for an individual, to save someone, or even to save the world. With power this great, shifting the blame onto someone else could very well break them. No matter what anyone might say, only I am capable of bearing the burden of this power. And I wield my power only to fulfill my passion and my playfulness. ''Because that is ultimately the kindest option for the world at large.''”

“That’s all?”

This question came not from Aradia herself but from Kamijou.

He couldn’t help but ask.

“That’s your only reason!? It isn’t about right or wrong? It really is all about your own momentary whims? So you don’t even hate the Transcendents who brought you into this world? It isn’t that you can’t bear to see what the world has become!?”

“''When did this old man say a single word about hating the world''? The world remains as immature as it was millennia ago and its people continue to attempt a deeply flawed but adorable resistance against it. Heh heh. You thought I would solve everything for you? Ah hah hah hah!! Oh, how adorable. What other word is there for it!? This old man is only choosing who to fight based on how much they amuse me. Which is why I want in!!!”

Sordid emotion erupted from the silver young man.

He could kill because he liked the person.

He could destroy out of pure playfulness.

He was not a stalker who grew violent when the target of his affections didn’t do what he wanted. Did he threaten the world a lot like a sadistic killer who had been handed the nuclear launch controls?

“…”

Aradia fell silent.

As did the rest of the Transcendents.

They really did think only of saving the world. The Bridge Builders Cabal had resurrected someone it turned out they wanted nothing to do with. A great monster who could only be sealed by a vast span of time had been revived in the modern world.

The Transcendents understood this on a deep level because they were the ones responsible.

What had they prayed for and how much had they hoped to leave in his care?

He had trampled on all of that, but they hadn’t let that stop them. Because they needed to bring an end to the foolishness they had caused. So that this disaster could not reach the people they had vowed to protect. That was Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the rests’ reason for fighting.

“That too is just another silly passion,” said Rosencreutz, chuckling and holding his own body. He had seen right through them. “All this old man is doing is consciously making use of those passions. Which is why I will not say you are wrong. Ah ha hya. Because it would bore me if you tried to make excuses and shift the blame onto someone else!!!”

The silver young man took action while laughing.

He casually held out his palm.

A deadly attack that ignored the concept of distance was coming!!

With a solid clang, the air glowed bluish-white.

There was a barrier there.

Good, Old Mary held her hands together and crushed a 500mL glass container. It was an aroma water maker that extracted the scents of herbs using evaporation and cooling.

“A still contains an entire world within. Whether the life of the homunculus created in the transparent bottle or the enchanting potion that can dissolve all materials, it is all contained within. So by preparing one side and then defining the seen and the unseen – the interior and the exterior – your attack cannot reach us, CRC.”

“Oh, really? I take it you are a kitchen alchemist?”

“CRC. To a master of a single path like you, this may appear a simple and unrefined ceremony, but that is what makes it of a system older even than your own. Its influence on you is imperfect, but mama can still remove a portion of your magic and receive it from head on.”

“An alchemist wife? Heh heh. How very interesting!! All magic is an illusion, so it would be a shame to strip it of all dreams and comedy!!”

“Listen to me. Mama is unmarried, so you should address her with Ms., you imbecile.”

For the very first time, a Transcendent did not flee from Christian Rosencreutz’s outstretched palm. She received the attack head on and deflected it away.

Evasion was the only option. They mustn’t even think about defense.

That rule crumbled away and their possibilities seemed to spread out infinitely.

“''But.''”

Rosencreutz scoffed.

Good, Old Mary wobbled to the side. The color red stained her mouth.

“''You can only remove a portion. That is not nearly enough to repel this old man.''”

“Dammit!!!”

The rule remained unbroken.

Evasion was still the only option. There were no exceptions for those who attempted defense.

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

(But even if it was just once and incomplete, she still stepped off of the rails he set up for us. There really is something different about the Transcendents. But he knows that, which is why he’s targeting them first. That’s all the more reason I can’t let him do that!!)

“Aradia!! And Bologna Succubus!!!”

The boy addressed those two because of something they had in common: they could both fly.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to take flight. While carrying Good, Old Mary after snatching her up before she could fall unconscious to the ground. Aradia grabbed the sign leaning diagonally against an electric car charging station, placed blankly-standing Mut Thebes on that makeshift broom, and then soared up higher than the skyscraper roofs.

“Oh, I wanted to absorb Good, Old Mary’s shadow to have her resurrection on hand.”

“Now isn’t the time. That kind of greed will get you killed!!”

Evasion was the only option.

They had to stick to their best option.

Absorbing CRC’s shadow might have turned everything around, but that kind of greed probably would also have gotten her killed. There seemed to be a short lag before Mut Thebes could lay claim to something as her white shadow, so she would have to stand ''defenseless'' before their nemesis for a few seconds. He was sure to kill her in that time. Death was closer than ever before, so they didn’t even have those few seconds to spare.

Rosencreutz did not even look up into the sky.

The look on his face said he wasn’t interested in such a poor plan.

But it seemed unlikely he was going to just let them escape either.

“Flying is a simple task for a magician, but so is bringing them back down to Earth. Surely you know that.”

“Do you think we’ll give you the time?”

“You said that last time. You bore me.”

Even as he said that, the silver young man chuckled and stared straight ahead.

He was apparently interested in Kamijou.

“Thought up any new special moves?”

Kamijou’s vision exploded.