Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 7===

“…”

In truth, Kamijou Touma had two keys to the hidden side of the world.

The first was of course Transcendent Aradia. If he wanted to know about Alice Anotherbible’s Bridge Builders Cabal, the best option was to ask Aradia. He just had to figure out how to get her to talk when she was supposedly powerful enough to rival the entire magic side on her own.

Then there was the second key.

The pointy-haired boy’s thoughts turned to the old folk’s smartphone in his pocket.

(Kumokawa-senpai hid a GPS tracker on the Bologna Succubus’s clothes. I don’t know how many hideouts they have around the world, but this lets us ignore that question and know exactly where Alice and the others are hiding.)

On the other hand, once he had that answer, he would be throwing himself back into the fighting. The peaceful New Year’s spread out before his eyes would fall apart.

“Touma, this sign says an Eastern god will do you a favor if you throw money in here, whether or not you follow their religion!”

“That’s one way of putting it, I suppose.”

Was it really okay for an Anglican nun like Index to pray at a Shinto shrine? Well, this was a District 11 facility meant to scientifically analyze religion, so it had no connection to the real occult stuff Stiyl and Kanzaki worked with. It probably wasn’t an issue.

Othinus, who was just as disconnected from Shinto, whispered something from his shoulder.

“(Who do these people think they’re praying to if they know this is an empty shrine without a god inside?)”

“What, sad they aren’t all praying to you, Miss God?”

Kamijou’s rejoinder earned him a hard tug on the ear. Apparently a mere human wasn’t allowed comments like that.

Also, he doubted anyone in Academy City gave any thought to whether or not there was a god there. Mikoto and ''some unfamiliar girl'' were lined up in their furisodes, but the looks on their faces suggested this was just a seasonal event for them. Maybe it was like how you didn’t need to believe in ghosts to enjoy Halloween. Or how people would throw coins into concrete fountains with nothing remotely mystical about them. Even if you knew there was some kind of jinx involved with coins and fountains, it was the same as someone praying as a last resort when in trouble: they didn’t have any specific god in mind when they did it.

Meanwhile, there was one thing about this large crowd that bothered Kamijou.

“Aradia.”

“…”

“Please promise me you won’t try to run away when I shut my eyes and clap my hands to pray.”

He made a whispered plea to Witch Goddess Aradia who was looking for a chance to run off. He didn’t want this to count as his once-a-year New Year’s prayer, but where did he put his offering?

While he was dealing with that, someone else stepped up alongside him.

The ringlets girl threw a generous 500 yen in to the offering box, clapped her hands, shut her eyes, and made her prayer. Maybe she thought she was keeping it inside, but it escaped her adorable lips in a whisper.

Kamijou was close enough to hear it.

“''Please do not let me pass my entrance exams.''”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

(Eh?)

He forgot to breathe for a moment.

When the ringlets girl opened her eyes and saw him staring, she tilted her head.

Apparently she hadn’t meant that as a joke for him to hear.

“Excuse me.”

The honey blonde girl was just as confused and hesitantly spoke up.

She approached this as cautiously as someone defusing a bomb.

“Hokaze, what was that about?”

“''Oh, that?''” The ringlets girl smiled and explained without a moment’s hesitation. “''I don’t want to move on to high school for no other reason than ‘it’s time’ when I could instead stay home and spend years seriously considering what path in life would best serve you, my Queen.''”

“Hoka-”

The honey blonde girl started to reply, but couldn’t find the words.

In their stunned silence, Kamijou’s group was ejected to the side of the line. They ended up a bit outside the shrine’s grounds and they saw something else unusual there.

The ringlets girl wasn’t the only one.

The ema, on which the shrine visitors wrote their wishes, included some shocking examples.

“Keep my parents and teachers off my case about passing my exams.” “Please don’t let my System Scan results improve because I don’t want to stand out.” “I don’t need any New Year’s money.” “I want to give up.” “Don’t let anyone get mad at me when I don’t study.” “I want an easy life.” “Why should I care if I get held back?” “I’m so tired.” “FML”

“What the hell is this?” groaned Kamijou.

It didn’t look like a prank. They were all written with different handwriting and different pens. So instead of a single person spreading negativity, this was the result of each individual person writing out their thoughts.

“Kotatsu syndrome, huh? Quite the social phenomenon for such a pleasant-sounding term.” Othinus sighed from his shoulder. “And this is especially bad news for a city of schools like Academy City. For better or for worse, this city is built on the competition between students. If enough people stop caring if they have bad grades and don’t mind if they get suspended or expelled, the teachers lose all power over the students.”

How had this happened?

The anti-elite Winter Cleaning that had sprung up near the end of the year had supposedly been a naturally-occurring social phenomenon caused by Accelerator’s guilty verdict coming at the same time as the collapse of R&C Occultics. And as the new year began, it had apparently transformed into this kotatsu syndrome.

Shirai and Mikoto were holding their own discussion of the issue.

“What do we do about this?”

“It doesn’t look good. Assuming this isn’t a prank by the #5 over there, anyway.”

Without anyone directly harming anyone, the structure Academy City used to prop up a minority of elites was collapsing from the bottom up.

(Since this all goes back to R&C Occultics, could Anna Sprengel be involved?)

Kamijou had no idea where Anna was or what she was doing.

And knowing her, she might have set things up so events would continue playing out how she wanted even if she were somehow taken out of action.

(Anna belongs to the Bridge Builders Cabal, so could this be a plot run by them?)

He couldn’t preserve the peace by sitting around doing nothing.

If he didn’t do something about it, he could only watch as an invisible hand crept ever closer and crushed Academy City in its grasp.

Kamijou Touma focused on his pocket.

His phone was linked to the GPS tracker planted on the Bologna Succubus’s clothing. That was Kumokawa Seria’s special present to him. It was the only way to immediately locate Alice Anotherbible’s cabal hideout.

If he was going to use it, now had to be the time.

He made up his mind and reached into his pants pocket.