Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter3 (section)

===Between the Lines 4===

Anna Sprengel was a bad person.

There was no wiggle room on that point. She had admitted to it herself.

She had of course done what she could as a wicked woman to survive. She had detected a plan she couldn’t allow to continue and put together a concrete plan to stop it.

But.

Deep down, she had known all of her efforts ''would never bear fruit.'' Or you could say she had resigned herself to her fate. She hadn’t known when exactly it would happen. But she had known her hopes and prayers would be smashed to pieces at some point. They would be destroyed at the worst possible point. She had spread her arms and done so much in this attempt, so she had known the retaliation would be coming sooner or later.

In a way, that despair may have been the core of who Anna Sprengel was.

So she had frozen up when Anna Kingsford – something capable of threatening her very existence – had shown up. She had forgotten all about enjoying the situation as a wicked woman and had grown aware of how much she disliked loss. It wasn’t an issue of skill with spells or the amount of magic power they could refine at once. She had been shaken at a more fundamental level.

That had to be it.

In the end, she couldn’t live free without being disrespectful.

So the more that little wicked woman struggled, the worse things got for her.

It had been all too obvious. Simply put, the bad guy is meant to make a memorable exit when it was time for their defeat.

(Well.)

She felt cold.

Ice cold.

This wasn’t the biting chill of the January air or of the floor she was lying on. It was a more intense cold coming from her spine. It was the invisible hand of death spreading through her from the inside out.

Anna Sprengel slowly narrowed her eyes.

(I already told them about the Bridge Builders Cabal’s grand plan. The line between Alice Anotherbible and Kamijou Touma has only been bent not broken. Really, I’m not strictly necessary…anymore…)

So maybe this was good enough.

She had advanced the game pieces far enough for the next move, so maybe she was the most expendable one in the group. If Kamijou Touma received Witch Goddess Aradia’s help and smashed the Bridge Builders Cabal’s ambitions, wouldn’t that qualify as a happy ending?

And in a way, maybe she could call herself lucky this had ended before Anna Kingsford could reveal everything.

But.

Even so.

“Are you saying you will fight me?”

“I am.”

She heard that voice.

It reached her.

“But you’ll die?”

“Probably!!”

She heard the voice of someone who refused to accept that ordinary ending.

She heard the voice of the boy who would stand back up as many times as it took while he clenched his teeth and fought back against this unfair world.

“Oh, dear. But I have no real reason to fight an innocent boy.”

“How the hell am I innocent after everything I’ve done!?”

It was not a voice of anger.

It was the cry of a boy who was fighting to suppress the tears and struggling with all his might to keep from trembling.

So the wicked woman found herself biting her lip while collapsed on the ground.

(Damn. And I was all ready to accept this. I had eliminated my fear by wrapping it all up with me smiling and dying, wicked to the end.)

The Shrink Drink was a special product made with the help of extraordinary Alice Anotherbible. That spiritual item had been created for the sole purpose of killing a traitor and its lethal effect was already at work within her.

There was no saving her.

She knew that.

(But how can I die when he says that?)

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