Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 8===

The setting sun dyed the hospital roof.

After giving Kamijou Touma a (gentle) noogie headlock for so rudely viewing witches in a lewd light, Witch Goddess Aradia had emerged into the chilly air.

She was a Transcendent who had chosen ‘saving all persecuted witches” as her condition for salvation. When Kamijou Touma had wielded magic to fight Anna, knowing it would destroy him, he had become a target of the witch goddess’s salvation. If he was going to fight, Aradia was willing to join him.

But she knew that wasn’t enough to win.

Christian Rosencreutz had effortlessly killed the Transcendents participating in that ceremony. Even the extraordinary Alice Anotherbible had her head destroyed, killing her.

A single regular Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal wouldn’t stand a chance against Rosencreutz.

Then what could she do?

Kamijou Touma was a target of her salvation, so she couldn’t give up just because it seemed impossible.

''She had to find some way of saving him.

“Kh.”

She heard a flapping noise.

With what sounded like bed sheets beating at the air, a sexy demon alighted on the chain link fence. That Transcendent had long wavy blonde hair, pale skin, animal horns on her head, an arrow-tipped tail at the back of her hips, and large batlike wings on her back.

Aradia looked up at the person who had flown through the sky in a one-piece corset – in other words, in her underwear.

“Bologna Succubus.”

“Jhhbrhbh…I take it thou too found a way to survive.”

The Bologna Succubus’s casual comment sounded odd because her ''common tones'' were still somewhat off.

Aradia sighed softly.

“I hear Alice is dead.”

“Aye.”

“And all of you took out Anna. How many of the regular Transcendents are left?”

“Hmm? There’s me, Good, Old Mary, Mut Thebes, and I reckon a few others. The rest of y’all weren’t there, so I’m a rare example of someone who was at the ceremonial ground and survived. You should be proud of me, really.”

“What about H. T. Trismegistus?”

“''Gone.''”

That was an odd word choice.

Did that mean he hadn’t fought and been killed by Christian Rosencreutz?

CRC remained inside Academy City.

He had said he would kill all of the Transcendents.

And for no good reason. It wasn’t about right or wrong, or even about his likes or dislikes. She recalled what Kamijou Touma had relayed, sounding apologetic.

The Bologna Succubus breathed a heavy sigh from atop the fence.

“Because he’s bored. To kill time.”

“…”

“That means he will arrive at this hospital eventually. Sooner or later, he will set his sights on Anna Sprengel. But if we know his target, we can ''lay a trap for him''.”

The words were steeped with the kind of mockery and malice that stuck in the back of the mind.

Having a monster like CRC after your life just for the hell of it would be enough for the average person to lose their cool, but before even reaching that point, there was an aspect of this Aradia had trouble accepting as a Transcendent.

“Can you believe this?”

“What about it?”

“The true face of our ‘savior’.”

“What you see is what you get. If he won’t do anything to save the wrongly accused, then I just have to find a different method. …He simply ''wasn’t what I was hoping for''. We went out of our way to resurrect someone who should have remained buried and dead.”

Rosencreutz had no policy for salvation.

For what did he wield that immense power?

Whatever the answer, he had already removed the “salvation” card from his deck. This was never going to end well.

Witch Goddess Aradia truly existed to save persecuted witches.

Whoever she had been before, she had remade herself into such a being.

What if CRC wasn’t going to help with that and would in fact bring harm to the people she meant to save?

No, that wasn’t a hypothetical.

Stop kidding yourself.

He was already doing it. Since Kamijou Touma had used magic to protect Academy City, he counted as one of Aradia’s goodhearted witches.

And Christian Rosencreutz had attacked him.

He had violated that goddess’s holy ground.

“What will you and the other survivors do?”

“Ach, you have a talent for asking the hard questions.” The Bologna Succubus sat down atop the tall fence and looked down at Aradia. “''I honestly care not if he comes to kill me.''”

“Hm.”

Aradia didn’t seem particularly surprised.

Transcendents chose someone other than themselves to save. You could say only someone who had modified themselves to that point could claim the title. The only exceptions were Alice and Anna.

“And even if he goes on a rampage, the damage he causes doesn’t have anything to do with false accusations. I ain’t gonna save pure aggressors, but I also ain’t gonna expand my salvation conditions to include pure victims. I know it would be too much to handle and I would only be destroying m’self.”

“…”

“Don’t give me that look. You’ve narrowed down your conditions to only persecuted witches. You must know that expanding those conditions endlessly will only tear you apart.”

Aradia was aware.

But confirming that wouldn’t convince the Bologna Succubus to help. Aradia alone was no match for Rosencreutz, meaning she couldn’t save Kamijou Touma, so she needed to do whatever she could ''to drag the other Transcendents into her business''.

“Heh heh♪”

The Bologna Succubus must have realized this.

She swung her legs atop the fence and hopped down.

She placed a hand on the center of her chest, winked, and spoke with the gentle yet toxic voice of a tempting demon.

“Good, Old Mary, Mut Thebes, and me – that should be good enough for now. Can you picture the intertwining threads in your noggin, Aradia?”

*One wanted to deliver miracles to the people who had been driven out of a special category.

*One wanted to use the art of punishment to protect the group she had chosen for herself. That group was currently the Bridge Builders Cabal.

*And one wanted to save anyone who was falsely accused.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you that we Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal only act based on the salvation conditions we’ve set for ourselves. So if you want us to act, you need to match our conditions. Each of our conditions, with nary a contradiction.”

“…”

Aradia had to understand just how much of a challenge that would be.

It was the apparent incompatibility of their conditions that had led the Transcendents to hope the resurrected Christian Rosencreutz could save the entire world for them.

“So what will you do, Aradia?”

The Bologna Succubus held her hands behind her back and leaned in.

The demon smiled sweetly.

“''Are you prepared to solve this impossible puzzle to save that boy''?”