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

===Part 5===

“…”

Kamijou Touma was standing.

He had remained on his feet to the end.

Something appeared to have torn through his arm, but he felt no actual pain.

He saw white bone.

The skin and flesh had come away more easily than with chicken on the bone.

Maybe he was hallucinating it.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

He didn’t let it bother him. His sense of pain melted away within the growing heat and he lost all interest in his own injuries. To be blunt, they didn’t matter.

He took a step forward.

“Tea…cher?”

Alice Anotherbible was still down where she had fallen on her rear.

She was trembling.

She may have seen a bit of what she had done. It had come into focus for her. Who could say when it would all “cloud over” once more, but for this moment at least, her vision was clear.

She sounded more than a little dazed. The fully-grown woman spoke with unstable confusion in her voice.

Like she had finally caught on.

“It’s alright.”

Kamijou smiled.

The smile came to him naturally.

“You did enough to deserve that. But now we’re even. Aren’t we, Alice?”

“No…”

The fully-grown woman shook her head.

Like a small child.

Something floated in the air. The teacups and saucers had been flying around weightlessly, but now they vanished into thin air like fading sparks. Everything around them distorted as the illusion inside the girl crumbled away.

Alice’s dream was ending.

Kamijou could sense reality pushing its way in.

It wouldn’t be long now.

He had not put together any kind of response to the prophecy from that absolute being.

But he had accomplished a more important task.

He had saved her.

So.

It was time to pay the price.

“…”

Had it taken a long time, or a short one?

Reality had raised the white flag almost immediately, so maybe this hadn’t been a path that could be measured with time.

So many events had happened in such a condensed time period.



December 24.

In the middle of the Christmas season, R&C Occultics had suddenly risen to prominence and revealed the hidden existence of magic online.

And CEO Anna Sprengel had appeared in Academy City.

She had mouth-to-mouth delivered the body-hijacking St. Germain microbe to Kamijou, infecting him.



December 25.

Anna Sprengel had stood on center stage.

Kamijou had attempted to communicate with the St. Germain microbe infecting his body and had fought Anna using magic despite the side-effect it had on his body.

Kamijou had just barely managed to defeat Anna, but to protect Kamijou’s life, St. Germain had negated himself with Imagine Breaker. This made it a bitter event for Kamijou.



December 25.

Another incident occurred in Academy City that same day.

Defeated Anna was left in Anti-Skill’s custody, but the problem hadn’t ended there. A probability-manipulating spiritual item called the Coin of Nicholas had been spread around Academy City. The new Board Chairman’s plan to quietly correct the city’s darkness was hijacked and Anna easily left her cell.

Kamijou was barely involved in this incident.

But it was very significant that he encountered Alice Anotherbible after that incident full of so much death and defeat.



December 26.

The threat of R&C Occultics was not limited to Academy City. Los Angeles was suddenly engulfed in yellow sand and its tens of millions of residents disappeared. While pursuing this, it was revealed that Anna had caused such a large-scale incident just to acquire a skilled engineer.

At first glance, it looked like an arrogant act that ignored the costs and risks.

But thinking back, Anna had already been mentioning her “king” at this point.



December 29.

But the true center of the world’s problems was not Anna Sprengel.

Anna readily threw out her global IT company to join the Bridge Builders Cabal.

Alice Anotherbible, the mysterious girl at the top of that cabal, caused plenty of trouble for Kamijou in the darkness of Academy City.

This was the true starting point.

Alice had warned him thrice.

She told him he would die if the altered branch was returned to normal.



December 31.

In Shibuya, Kamijou began working to correct his extreme lack of funds. There he found the Bologna Succubus and Aradia waiting for him. Those magicians were known as Transcendents and possessed powers on another dimension entirely. A clash between just those two produced enough overflowing charisma to engulf the entirety of Shibuya in rioters.



January 1.

A building calling itself a consulate for the Bridge Builders Cabal suddenly appeared in District 12, which had a focus on mythology and religion. The greater focus on the idea of Transcendents further showed how unique Alice was.

Alice wanted to provide deadly punishment for H.T. Trismegistus and the other Transcendents who threatened Kamijou’s life, but Kamijou himself intervened, driving a decisive wedge between the two.



January 3.

Kamijou happened to rescue Anna Sprengel after she was captured by Aleister and fled around Academy City with Aradia, who they had happened across. They were pursued by Mut Thebes, a Transcendent in charge of punishment.

This was when Kamijou first heard Anna clearly talk about her “king”.

She wanted someone who would restrain her wickedness and protect her.

But she never had a chance to meet this person. She was doomed to die after being hit by the Shrink Drink, a special spear that borrowed a portion of Alice’s power.

Alice was the only one who could save Anna, but at the same time, the Bridge Builders Cabal was working to bring back a dead magician: CRC, Christian Rosencreutz. But when he was reborn, he was not the man seen in the legends. He obliterated the Bridge Builders Cabal just to stave off boredom and Alice Anotherbible was killed.



January 5.

The reborn Christian Rosencreutz began fighting his boredom.

Kamijou faced that ultimate threat to protect Anna who was on the verge of death in the hospital. As the ring of defenders grew, ultimately Academy City as a whole was working to stop CRC from taking that life.

Once it was all over, Alice got up like nothing had happened to her.

CRC was not the greatest monster.



And today.



It had been a long time.

Yes, a very long time.

Unbelievably long.

This wasn’t about the literal time it had taken.

Far too much had happened over winter break. Kamijou had been exposed to multiple new forms of threat and been badly beaten, but that had built up his unseen heart and soul enough to make it this far.

And.

He had dragged his heavy body far enough to stand before Alice Anotherbible.

He had stood right in front of her.

He could say that for certain.

Everything that had happened had been leading up to this moment.

He had arrived.

All the past storms seemed like a fantasy now.

It hadn’t been pretty and he had been badly delayed, but he had made it.

On his own two feet.

“I’m here, Alice.”

He barely got his voice out.

With all the blood clogging up his throat, he wasn’t sure if his voice was even audible.

“I made it here.”

“You can’t defeat the girl, teacher. If everything had gone as planned and the girl had used her full power, you might have been spared this death ''coming from the outside''.”

Alice could say what she liked, but the winner made the decisions.

That’s what he had been fighting for.

So he could tell her it would be alright.

The girl might not get what she wanted.

If Kamijou died here, Alice’s wish to make up with him would go forever unfulfilled. She had become a world-destroying storm to make that happen, but Kamijou himself had put a stop to it.

But.

He just hadn’t been able to leave her all alone and howling.

“…”

His limit had arrived.

He would die today.

But Alice still had her life. She still had plenty of happy paths left for her. She could meet so many people and surround herself with so many smiles she forgot all about today.

Surely he was allowed to wish for that.

She had been abducted, remade, worshipped, and rejected.

She had appeared free, but she had always been bound by something unseen. She had always been underneath someone’s foot. And no matter how powerful she was, she had ultimately been unable to change that herself.

So on the verge of death, surely Kamijou was allowed to imagine a world where she was happy enough to make up for all that with interest.

Allowed by who?

Not that bastard god.

Kamijou Touma would allow himself that happy wishful thinking.

He would celebrate this ending.

Slowly, fully-grown Alice once more got up from the floor. She stood up.

As if to cling to him.

“You will die if you move any more, teacher. You will die and leave nothing behind.”

“So...what?”

The pointy-haired boy dragged his body along and struggled to support himself.

He faced Alice head on.

The girl seemed unable to move beyond her incessant trembling. She was extraordinarily powerful. She had easily killed the reborn Christian Rosencreutz, who not even all the regular Transcendents working together had been a match for, but she was rendered motionless at the sight of this ordinary high school boy.

It wasn’t a physical matter.

But just this once, Kamijou Touma had defeated Alice Anotherbible.



He was an unfortunate person.



He had lost his memories, been placed in mortal peril more times than he could count, and actually died on occasion. Not even being killed had been enough to end it. There probably wasn’t any real reason why. He just so happened to be there, so he was dragged into it. His life was a series of those coincidences.

It hadn’t started here.

And it had probably happened plenty of times he couldn’t remember.

But.

Even so.

“I…”

He felt the grasping hand of death at the center of his chest.

He didn’t need to hold his hand to his chest to know his heart wanted to rest.

Wounds caused by Alice Anotherbible could not be healed with Good, Old Mary’s resurrection.

The tearing sound inside him was continuing.

Only he could hear it. Were those blood vessels tearing? Or maybe muscles?

It didn’t matter.

Some major arteries and even his heart had probably already ruptured.

But there was something he still had to say.

“…I…”

Maybe it was the blood loss, but the sweat on his brow was unusually cold. His tongue and cheeks were numb.

He had trouble speaking.

He prayed that he would get the words out. Failing to say this before the end would just be too cruel.

But what was he praying to?

Not to god, that was for sure. He knew better than to expect anything from that jerk.

So he chose to pray to himself. To the human being he was. Only he could change the world with his will. He would endure until the end. He just had to think back on the path he had taken and compare this to all that pain and suffering.

A little thing like death was nothing.

If he clenched his teeth, he could keep on moving for a little while longer.

He had a lesson for that girl.

If she understood this, she would be alright.

Alice Anotherbible could probably do anything.

But there were no absolutes for any human.

So he had to tell her.

No matter how extraordinary she might be, if she acted thoughtlessly and carelessly long enough, she would pay a painful price eventually.

And if she took it too far, that price could even be the life of someone she cared deeply for.

Alice could protect herself from anything. Even if she died, she could resurrect herself right away. She was so powerful it was fundamentally wrong to even think about defeating her. But could she protect other people?

Violence took important things from yourself and others.

She could fight and win, but would that even matter?

Had Kamijou gained anything at all when he released the mysterious dragon from his severed right arm and defeated Rosencreutz with it?

Violence was not a valid solution.

He had forever lost a future where he and CRC could smile together.

He had done it himself.

By giving up.

That wasn’t a solution.

He had realized that afterwards.

And he had stopped himself from making that mistake again.

“I don’t…”

So.

If Alice was greater than Rosencreutz – if her power was truly extraordinary – she had to think even deeper about strength and power.

Kamijou was just an ordinary high school boy. He wasn’t arrogant enough to think he was in any position to teach anyone anything. But if Alice realized this for herself, she could stop herself. She could learn to think about ''compromising with'' the wide world around her instead of focusing only on what she wanted.

That was Kamijou’s battle.

There was no avoiding death for him, so that was his one and only win condition.

So he made sure to keep speaking to the end.

Because he had to accomplish that.

He held the fully-grown woman’s face between his bloody hands.

He looked Alice straight in the eye.

And the ordinary high school boy got the words out.

''He made it in time.

“I don’t want to see anyone suffering from even more misfortune than me!! You got a problem with that!?”

From the start, they had both known how this would end.

There had been no changing it.

Alice fell back onto her rear. As if she were backing away from a truth she didn’t want to accept.

She had blood on her cheeks.

The faint red stains left by the boy’s fingers.

What little warmth was left in that blood was fading fast.

“Tea…cher?”

Her voice was scratchy.

It was a definite physical voice.

The voice of her original young form.

But no one answered her fearful, trembling question.

The boy had not fallen.

Whoever remained standing in the end was the winner. So he had refused to fall until he had saved Alice. This proved his resolve more than anything.