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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume14 Chapter4

2025-12-22T14:30:14Z

Edzo: /* Part 7 */ "rotten" to "rotted"

==Chapter 4: The Brink of Death – Battle_With_ARCHENEMY.==

===Part 1===

The factories of District 17 surrounded them.

The time had passed 4 AM. If it weren’t January, the sun may have already been rising.

One line was far more distinct than the horizon and also quite dangerous.

Academy City’s wall was in view.

The fate of the world would be determined by whether or not the great demon managed to cross that wall.

But neither Kamijou Touma nor Coronzon even glanced in its direction.

They knew the greatest threat at the moment was right in front of them.

Coronzon started first.

“Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Ruler of the eastern horizon.”

“Hoor-Paar-Kraat. Ruler of the western horizon.”

“And south is Set’s direction. The east and the west have already been sealed. The world is now a straight line. Be pierced by the dazzling light stabbing the world from my southern hand and die, human!!”

A fearsome white light was compressed before it raced out, scorching the air as it went.

And several more followed.

“!!”

A single hit to Kamijou and not even a hunk of flesh would remain. He would be truly obliterated.

But he did not catch this with his right fist. He swung his entire body aside to dodge.

Coronzon’s attacks were extraordinary.

Even with Imagine Breaker, carelessly trying to stop them would send his arm spinning with the rest of his body, blowing him away.

His right hand’s power was no use anymore.

However, Kamijou Touma hadn’t been fighting because he thought he thought he could win.

He knew all too well how much of a disadvantage he had.

But there was a reason he couldn’t let this continue, so he was fighting.

His body…moved.

''He couldn’t remember what they looked like anymore, but someone had done something to help him'' and now he could push past his injuries to fight.

(If I can move around like this – if I have enough speed to slip past her attacks – then I can reach her. Each step I take and every centimeter I move brings my fist that much closer to reaching Coronzon!!)

“Ha ha!! So the first attack didn’t take you out!? You really have grown!! And I thought you would be rolling along the filthy ground immediately after spewing some wild nonsense like usual!”

This was not a simple matter of physical strength.

Coronzon tore apart people’s bonds and obstructed their progress. Yet the world still needed her. She hated herself, so she wanted to destroy that framework and create a fair and impartial world void of conflict.

Kamijou knew she was twisted, but part of him couldn’t directly refute what she was saying. That was why he had lost their previous battle. Helplessly so.

What about now?

Could he say she was wrong to her face?

He asked himself that now.

And he fiercely faced forward. At the great demon who was trying to destroy the world by ''overdoing'' her role. At someone who could not accept a world where someone as evil as herself was allowed to exist.

If he couldn’t, this would be a repeat of the previous battle over Adikalika.

He would lose the psychological battle, freeze in place, and receive a serious injury while just standing there.

“I’m not sure I understand all that confusing stuff about the Sephiroth and you being a great demon…but it boils down to you wanting to create a just world, right? That’s why you’re fighting?”

“Yes. That’s right! I will create a pure world without any loathsome roles like my role of tearing people apart!! The next world will be a world of freedom, fairness, and happiness, filled with only just things. I will create an era where no one suffers or is torn apart. And I will do anything to achieve that!!”

“…I see. But I think it’s nice if the world is a little bit off.”

“?”

“As long as the world is kind to people, it’s okay if it’s a little bit off. I mean, a world where only just things happen, and only in the correct way, sounds stifling. There’s no soft cushioning in a world like that. Any impacts will hit you directly, like hitting solid concrete with a metal bat. That would mean no one ever lets anything slide and there are never any surprise bonuses, right? The unjust are expected to be destroyed and never get a second chance. No, the unjust would never come to be in the first place. …Yeah, that would be stifling all right. ''I don’t want to live in a just world where saying the wrong thing doesn’t just get you criticized but gets you executed.''”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying that your next world where everything’s all lined up in order and where everything can be explained doesn’t sound very fun. Your ideal leaves no room for whims and uncertainties. It’s like having a ton of choices, but you know where they lead before you make them. In the worst case, there might not even be any ‘wrong’ choices at all. In that case, then no matter what you choose, the path you take from birth to death will all lead to the same ending. It’d be a boring life of pressing the same button over and over.”

Coronzon’s face turned red.

“What kind of reason is that!? You can’t even benefit from your good deeds in the current imperfect world. It will all fall apart at some point. Are you saying you will accept bad deeds!?”

“There’s something I’ve wondered while looking at Qliphah Puzzle 545 and the Bologna Succubus. Why do demons fulfill people’s desires? Is it to drag people down to their own doom? Without directly physically killing them? If so, there must be better ways, like using hypnosis or illusions to pit the humans against each other. But demons all lend their power to humans and take those humans’ ruin as payment. And they even do this with the kinds of desires that an angel would never grant and you’d be reluctant to tell anyone else about. Doesn’t that mean that you demons are like a cushion to catch the people who slip through the cracks and can’t recover through the normal methods? However you were originally created, you may have ended up functioning in that way.”

Of course, those people would be ruined in the end. You couldn’t rely on a demon and then get away scot-free.

But you had the freedom to choose: die without any say in the matter, or go to hell satisfied you made your own choice.

“Are you kidding me, Kamijou Touma? Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about after only about 15 years of life! I exist to ruin people! God knew I would rebel, yet he did nothing to stop me!! My fall was planned. A soft cushion to catch people who slip through the cracks? I am not equipped with that function and it would be sinful to even wish I did!!”

Kamijou smiled a little.

He wasn’t Hamazura Shiage. ''Kamijou Touma could not agree with Great Demon Coronzon.'' But he felt like he was a little closer to understanding why Hamazura had been worried for her and decided to bet on her. But not much closer.

Hamazura hadn’t wanted Coronzon to be left all alone due to her title of great demon.

She was an embodiment of evil, but she would not call herself righteous. Hamazura had probably seen the weakness in Coronzon that prevented her from arriving at that answer.

“I seem to have struck a nerve. And I thought you demons were supposed to be good at this sophistry stuff.”

“Kh.”

“You’re a demon, aren’t you? But do you really want to defeat heaven?”

Coronzon herself had just said it would be “sinful” to wish she had that function.

She kept saying she would defy god, destroy the world, and wipe the slate clean, but she still understood the weight of the current rules. She kept saying she hated them, but she was constantly aware of them. Almost like a rebellious teenager and their parents.

In other words…

“No matter how much you resent, hate, and curse him, you still picture him as the ruler of the next world, don’t you? You can’t throw out the idea and presence of a good god.”

“Do not attempt to analyze me, human. I am an irredeemably wicked being, but there is one thing I know: baseless accusations are a sin deserving of death!!!”

The roar of splitting air passed above Kamijou’s head.

A group of people rapidly flew by in the night sky above.

It was the Transcendents like the Bologna Succubus and Aradia.

Some lights were flashing. Colorful lights.

“Oh, dear. Have you already forgotten who swatted you down from the wall!?”

“Alice!! If you want to save Kamijou Touma, then get ready. We will lay the groundwork and visualize the extent of the magical damage. Then when you attack, you don’t have to worry about that boy being caught in the blast! Today isn’t a day to be playful, selfish, or in a temper! Today is the day you take this seriously!!”

Lay the groundwork.

Each of the lights flashing in the night sky had to be a deadly attack. They would soon stab into the ground. It would be a downpour of destruction. While the Transcendents were only borrowing those forms, their precision meant the end result was little different from the acts of the gods of myth.

All expression vanished from Coronzon’s face.

And then she chuckled.

To Kamijou, it didn’t look like she was enjoying this. That was the look of someone who had cold water thrown on them.

“I am the great demon who lurks in the Abyss of the Sephiroth and obstructs humanity from arriving at wisdom.”

Kamijou’s shoulders shook.

This was bad.

He had picked up on some kind of invisible change in the air. He knew it was unscientific, but then Coronzon stood at the peak of the unscientific.

''Her presence was growing.

“Thus, this kind of magic is the best fit for me. …Dakshina Kalika.”

A white explosion followed.

It was made of ice.

A point in the sky unnaturally froze. Before Kamijou could even identify it as an icy orb as smooth as a crystal ball, it burst from within, scattering sharp shards in all directions. A mass the size of a soccer ball became tens of thousands of shards. With enough force to snag at and topple the factory smokestacks and blast furnaces.

It didn’t matter how many colorful beams of light were launched by Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the other flying Transcendents. Each of those magic attacks had to be powerful enough to kill Kamijou…but none of them made it through. He had thought of them as a downpour, yet they were all intercepted before reaching Coronzon. Not even one of the glowing raindrops falling from the sky managed to slip through. Instead of accurately hitting each one, it was more like enveloping the entire area with a small explosion. The precision was perfect. It was truly a wall. An impenetrable wall of ice.

Coronzon wobbled on her feet. Blood dripped from her mouth. In exchange for this great power, something was being worn away inside her.

He knew he could end this, but Kamijou still shouted out loud.

“Wait! Kanzaki told me you saved a girl from a violent man while you escaped. Then even you must have some-”

“Yes, It’s true! Ha ha ha. God must truly despise me. I don’t know if he placed it in me to begin with or if he remotely interfered, but he made me do that!”

“No, dammit, that’s not what happened! God wasn’t controlling you! This just means you had that capability inside you from the star-”

Several more ice orbs exploded.

Kamijou’s cries did not reach Coronzon.

Precisely, as if someone had arranged it that way.

And all of the attacks falling from the night sky were shot down before reaching her. Light and explosions danced wildly.

Explosions.

Without end.

And, most of all, with extreme precision.

Interception, shooting down, the act of obstruction. Coronzon made full use of her purpose and grinned. Even as her eyes wavered and red blood dripped from the corner of her mouth.

Coronzon didn’t even look in the Transcendents’ direction. She was only considering how she would use ''this'' to torment, tear down, and kill the powerless boy.

He alone she would make sure to kill here.

Kamijou sensed something else seething behind her wicked smile.

“Cough… What now, Kamijou Touma? I have more than one trump card. I can destroy the human world in so many other ways beyond Adikalika. As I’ve explained countless times already! But I don’t recall saying ''I couldn’t bring about that destruction from within Academy City a second time''!”

She could blow up and shoot down that downpour of rapid projectiles with perfect accuracy. What would happen if she did that to attack him on the surface? Maybe he could stop one or two with Imagine Breaker, but he couldn’t keep up with so many attacks. Then should he run away? How was he supposed to get away from that on his two human legs!?

The distance grew again.

The gap between them had seemed to shrink and he had been certain his right fist would reach her.

But now the psychological distance kept growing.

“I can accurately shoot down objects flying up to Mach 9 whether they come from the front or behind. This is a 360-degree barrier. The Transcendents? That school play of phonies dressed up as gods!? Ha ha ha!! Superior numbers mean nothing to a great demon!!”

“Damn!!”

“Come, Alice Anotherbible!! You are the only one who can likely break through Dakshina Kalika’s barrage by brute force. But I do not fear you! I am an expert at making people give up. That is my purpose as a great demon. So I will face you head on as I wear you down and break every last part of your spirit!! If you don’t act now, I will turn your precious teacher to mincemeat!!!”

Coronzon had to understand the threat Alice posed.

Yet she was goading and provoking Alice for her own enjoyment.

Coronzon was just too much. Kamijou didn’t even have to move in for an attack. If she simply walked toward him, he would be crushed. Whether or not he readied his fist.

Kamijou backed away, driven back by the barrage of exploding ice.

“Are you kidding!? Did you think these brute force tactics would be enough for the Transcendents to give up!? We just have to break that Mach 9 limit!!” said the Bologna Succubus.

“Ha ha!! About what I would expect from a nameless extra. Breaking the Mach 9 limit only lets you get close. Even if that uncontrollable straight line does reach me, I will simply hit you with a cross counter. I have more than the one trump card, you utter buffoon!!”

Lights flashed and explosions boomed.

Kamijou dove into a nearby unmanned factory while hearing the angry cries of those extraordinary people. That alone was a miracle. Yes, without the Transcendents giving him the opportunity, he would have been turned to mincemeat after taking the first step. An ordinary human couldn’t attack, defend, or even move freely against Coronzon. Not even a supersonic Saint like Kanzaki was enough. Coronzon was too great a monster!

“But what kind of factory is this?”

Had he actually gotten away? If this was an ultra-dangerous factory marked with some kind of hazard symbol because it dealt in dangerous chemicals or microbes, he would rather not know about it.

Kamijou took a look around and found a huge indoor space like a harbor warehouse or school gym. However, it didn’t feel spacious thanks to the object at the center. At first, it looked to him like a humongous ikameshi made of gray steel, but it wasn’t.

A sliced aircraft carrier sat there.

It was supported from below by countless wooden pillars and surrounded by metal scaffolding and stairs.

The back half of the whole was complete, but even that half was sliced up. The cross section showed the interior of the ship, including cabins and corridors. Kamijou knew he was seeing something strange. It looked like there were three or four levels below the flat deck.

He frowned.

“They’re building a ship? So is this a shipyard?”

“From the look of it, it will be at most 100m long when fitted together, which is awfully small for an aircraft carrier. It must be a drone carrier that has cut out all the necessities for a human crew.”

“Whoa,” exclaimed Kamijou.

All of a sudden, he found 15cm Othinus on his shoulder. He felt her glaring at him. During all the confusion after that giant LAShTAL thing knocked over the building, Othinus must have been hiding in his jacket.

“You do understand me well enough that I need not explain what I am doing here, human?”

“Fine, fine.”

A drone carrier. Academy City was located in western Tokyo, so it didn’t border the ocean. But come to think of it, hadn’t Transcendent Mut Thebes found a warship to use as a weapon? Since this one was sliced up, maybe large transport helicopters would suspend it from wires and carry it, piece by piece, to a coastal harbor city outside Academy City where the pieces would be welded together into the whole warship. That was far from the normal method, but Academy City could pull it off.

The side of the ship curved back further than vertical and bore the name Kagenui.

Coronzon was protected by a Mach 9 barrier. And this drone carrier was awaiting completion in the shipyard. …Should he try to find something he could use, or was it too dangerous for an amateur to touch anything here? An ordinary high school boy couldn’t even make that judgment. With a great demon as an enemy, he was afraid he would be lured toward what looked like the best option but would actually work against him.

“So what was that thing Coronzon was using? The Dak-whatever!?”

“Dakshina Kalika. Just like Adikalika, that’s another alternate name for the Indian goddess Kali and an alphabetic symbol used in Crowley-style Magick. I assume you can figure out for yourself how highly Coronzon ranks it.”

So it was on the same level as the Adikalika large-scale attack spell…

Kamijou nearly came to a dumbfounded stop.

Even though he knew that great demon’s true essence – yes, the very essence she so loathed and despaired in – was in breaking people’s spirits, making them give up, making them fail, making them rot, and sending them tumbling into the depths.

..Yes, that magic was exceptionally powerful. It might take time, but if Coronzon were to walk through a city or country she wanted to destroy, she could scatter endless destruction and wipe it off the map. None of the people being destroyed could stop her slow approach, so everyone and everything in that area would be obliterated by the ice explosions. It was an absolute interception magic, a Mach 9 barrier. That wasn’t very exciting, but there was no countermeasure!

(Maybe a teleporter would be able to fight back against that… But I doubt that alone would be enough to win.)

“Are you kidding me? If she could do this, why didn’t she use it from the start? It was only a few hours ago that she could have won easily if she had just hung on until Adikalika activated!”

“It’s probably ''too'' powerful. At Scotland and here, she was setting up a major ceremony meant to influence the entire world. Thoughtlessly using a major attack would have damaged her delicate spiritual items and ceremony, so she chose not to use it. But now she has nothing to protect. At this point, she has no reason to hide her presence. She can focus on killing the enemy before her and escaping, so she can more easily draw on her full strength.”

Othinus suddenly stopped talking there.

Because of some footsteps.

In the distance.

“Kh.”

Kamijou was cautious. Could this actually be Alice or someone else on his side? No. There was no rush to these footsteps, so he doubted this was a Transcendent who had hurried inside after breaking through the ice barrage. More than that, Kamijou Touma knew his misfortune too well than to hope for a lucky break like that.

The hundreds of wooden pillars supporting the sliced carrier were thicker than Kamijou’s body, so he hid behind one of them.

Overly long blonde hair.

A beige habit.

But something wasn’t right.

The explosions were continuing.

From beyond the wall and outside the shipyard. Coronzon was already here inside, but they were just as powerful as before?

“I left some turrets out there.”

Coronzon said it herself. Loudly enough for Kamijou to hear her even from this distance.

And with a smile splitting her face.

“This does require me to send magic power their way. They are stationary turrets, but as long as I continue to supply them with power, I can set up as many as I like. Their power, speed, accuracy, and precision are all no different from my own. This keeps the Transcendents pinned down by their barrage. And if you do not choose your exit carefully, you will be turned to mincemeat as soon as you take a step outside.”

“(Human.)”

“(Yeah, I know.)”

Kamijou didn’t believe her.

An analysis by his understander Othinus was one thing, but would Coronzon really reveal accurate specs when he hadn’t even asked? ''Not a chance''. He had to assume she was hiding something, like that those turrets could actually move around at high speed or that they amplified the power of the shots beyond what she could do herself.

She was even more serious than before.

But this was the seriousness of a wounded animal. She had been pushed devastatingly far beyond her limits.

Would she pass through the shipyard to shake the Transcendents and then safely cross the city wall?

“Alice Anotherbible and the rest of the Transcendents will not show up to save you. Besides, they were an unnecessary addition to our confrontation anyway. Now, is there any fat left to be trimmed? For example, what about that Magic God on your shoulder who keeps whispering wisdom into your ear? I will crush her now, Kamijou Touma!!”

Coronzon did not hesitate. She aimed her palm straight toward him from her distant position. Apparently he wasn’t hiding as effectively as he thought!

“Dammit!!”

A frozen white explosion burst forth.

A rapid chain of them did.

Each of the thin carrier slices had to weigh hundreds of tons. More and more of the wooden pillars distributing their weight snapped and they tilted with a great groaning. Kamijou didn’t have time to consider what was safe and what was risky. He ducked below a slice that looked ready to collapse at any moment, diving to the other side of the ship. He wanted to get as far away from Coronzon as possible and put some kind of cover between them.

Coronzon tilted her head in response.

…Yes, it made no sense that Kamijou could escape on foot like that. She had already said that spell could handle anything up to Mach 9.

“Hmm.”

She directed a curious look to her surroundings rather than Kamijou.

“The strike points were scattered. Or rather, my accuracy has clearly dropped. Why would the automatic targeting fail? Is the echo not reflecting right in this indoor space? No, even then…”

“(The problem is in the Telesma forming Coronzon. That is, her nature as a great demon. I know I’m not one to talk after being reduced to a fairy, but wicked monsters traditionally avoid silver or iron. Yes, iron. And I hope I don’t need to remind you that this is a military shipyard. Did she call it an echo? Yes, because Telesma does not rely on the laws of physics, using its weak echo to track a target would provide history’s greatest sensitivity. But her impure demonic power is absorbed by gold and reflected wildly by silver and iron. That means her echo doesn’t work in here.)”

Othinus whispered all this into Kamijou’s ear.

He couldn’t trust Coronzon’s own words, but Othinus’s analysis was a different matter.

“(You just said something crazy in there, didn’t you? An echo that doesn’t rely on the laws of physics!? Are you messing with me!?)”

“(Did you think a magic cabal’s manuals would waste many pages on physics? And that isn’t what matters here. Stop arguing when it means the enemy can’t use that ability here, idiot.)”

To sum up, he could ignore that Mach 9 barrier while inside the shipyard. He approached Coronzon.

This time, his right fist would reach her.

===Part 2===

The space below the pile of debris was not very large.

It was at most a five meter square.

A normal person would have turned on their phone’s light and immediately regretted it. They would have thought the darkness was better. They would receive an intense feeling of pressure while gaining nothing positive, so they might very well have passed out.

Index was seated with her knees against her chest while she toyed with the calico cat in her hands and produced a trembling voice.

“I’m hungry.”

“Didn’t you already say that?” Misaka Mikoto sounded exasperated as she curled up small in the faint light. “I do have some emergency cookies, but the problem is the lack of a drink.”

“Hooray!”

“No hesitation at all!? Have you never experienced that dry-mouth hell before!?”

The resolution had already left their hands.

All they could do was wait for rescue.

They just hoped when they were dug out of the rubble they wouldn’t find the entire planet had been reduced to rubble.

“I hope Touma’s all right.”

“What, do you regret sending him off like that? He’s the guy who knocked out Academy City’s #1 and rescued nearly ten thousand of my sisters. Once he decides he’s doing something, he sees it through to the end.”

“Yeah. No matter how many times I bite him for seeing me naked, it never seems to deter him.”

“That sounds like hi- wait, what has that idiot been doing!?”

They shared some bitter laughter.

They realized they didn’t actually know each other very well. They had Kamijou Touma in common, but barely any direct connections beyond that.

How long was it until dawn?

Whatever the case, this probably wouldn’t last long.

“…I don’t want to die.”

Mikoto stated the obvious.

But there were times when the obvious carried great meaning.

Like when tens of thousands of tons were pressing down from overhead.

“Yeah.” Index again nodded within the deadly rubble. “I can’t go to school with Touma…but I do want to see the ‘new term’ he’s been talking about.”

===Part 3===

Silence had fallen for a change.

Great Demon Coronzon must have stopped using her Dakshina Kalika inside the shipyard.

The muffled booms were coming from beyond the thick walls. From what she had called the turrets.

The greatest threat of that magic was its incredible rapid-fire ability and precision. On the other hand, the destructive force of each individual attack was not great enough to freeze his legs in place just from seeing it. Of course, a direct hit from that sharp 5m explosion would still pierce through every part of his body and kill him instantly, but ''that was all it would do.'' That was destruction he could actually imagine, which wasn’t like Coronzon. He didn’t know if the great demon had realized how the iron trick worked, but she must have decided that attack had lost its ''allure'' with its accuracy so greatly reduced.

…That meant she would not intercept him now.

Kamijou had used the metal scaffolding and stairs to reach the deck of the sliced carrier. Strangely, there was no launching catapult. Also, the flat deck was covered in square panels a few meters across. Perhaps the Kagenui operated its aircraft completely differently.

He kicked away a heavy toolbox left on the deck. The deck was the equivalent of three or four floors above the shipyard’s floor, so about the same as dropping something from a school roof. The toolbox lid opened on the way down, allowing wrenches, a power drill, files, and other tools to pour down like rain. With her directly below.

“Oh?”

An odd sound followed. A distorted popping sound, like striking the air with a whip.

Coronzon extended her overly long blonde hair like a chameleon’s tongue and hopped up to the carrier’s deck three of four floors up.

Bringing her less than 100 centimeters away from Kamijou.

(How is she still showing off new abilities!?)

“Kh!!”

“Now, allow me to shout: Veparrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”

He had to suppress his instincts.

Using Imagine Breaker was too dangerous.

Instead, he immediately let his upper body drop down.

Something like an invisible shockwave burst from Coronzon’s wide-open mouth. It missed Kamijou and greatly ''bent'' the deck of the cutting-edge warship, albeit one still under construction. And it didn’t end there. Something like white grains of rice were eating though it. Those were maggots. The armor panel grew dark and rotten before melting away.

“!!”

Finally.

As powerful as it was, one of Coronzon’s attacks had ''missed''. This was the perfect chance. Kamijou rushed in and clenched his right first, but his feet sank down. The floor didn’t hold.

He fell.

“Gah…owww!!”

But it could have been worse. He only fell one level. He landed in the cabin directly below. He might have died had he plummeted all the way to ground level.

The table and chairs were directly bolted to the floor. It was hard to tell because the computers and wiring hadn’t been installed yet – was that called the outfitting? – but this was where the ship was controlled.

“Is this the CIC?”

So said Othinus. …Why had he been able to come up with “outfitting” but not “CIC”?

Of course, he didn’t have time to sit around listening to Othinus. A second and third roar were launched from directly above. There was no rotting this time. Once the interior of the ship burned away, the other time it shattered like stone or ice. Kamijou rolled away from the large hole overhead, leaving the broken cabin and entering a narrow corridor.

“Rank3” was written large on the wall and red and yellow lines on the floor branched off along different paths, but he had no idea what they meant.

Othinus was saying something while clinging to his clothes.

“So she’s moved on to Goetia now? …Dammit Coronzon. She pouts her lips and acts like a niche specialist, but she’s just a trend-follower. Even she loves the classics. Maybe she yearns for the proper methods since that’s something she can’t do herself.”

“What is that Goe thing!? I may be dumb, but I can tell missing this will get me killed!!”

“After all the attention R&C Occultics gathered, I imagine it’s famous enough that even a goth loli middle schooler would know about it… The general public views it as a handy grimoire that lets you summon a whole bunch of demons with just one book, but the Crowley faction interprets it as a ‘murmur’. Instead of a physical summoned monster, they see them as spells that withdraw unknown power from within yourself through conscious atavism. There are 72 + 1 extra. Crowley himself supposedly drew on a portion of Buer’s power for healing magic. I say ‘supposedly’ because it’s a legend with no corroborating evidence.”

So was it magic that placed a variety of special effects on your voice? Like a paralyzing scream, a slashing shout, or a healing song?

“Are you saying this has more than 72 attack patterns? We’re not talking about some rich kid’s colored pencil set here. How am I supposed to deal with that kind of variety?”

“Goetia is certainly a pain. It starts out with a lot of basic abilities and then has a lot of room for adaptation among them, so it’s hard to guess what could come next. So you need to get her to switch to some other magic, human.”

“?”

She must have expected Kamijou’s frown. It was nice that he could skip past a lot of the annoying trouble with his understander.

“Each spell she has used so far has been extremely powerful, but she has never once used more than one spell at once. She has always focused on one at a time. You saw her bleeding, right? She has been shortening the preparation time for those large-scale ceremonies too far even for a great demon. Because they’re so powerful, she may be afraid of losing control and having them blow up in her face. There’s also Aleister’s obstruction to consider.”

“Meaning?”

“If we get her to use a spell that works in our favor, she will be creating her own blind spot. When using a certain spell, you know she won’t use Dakshina Kalika or Goetia.”

That conclusion meant a lot.

It was enough to make the future look a bit brighter for Kamijou.

“I’ll do it, but what spell does she have to use for us to win?”

“Magick: Flaming_Sword.”

The future sank into darkness.

Wasn’t that the most dangerous of her attacks that she had used against him during the battle over Adikalika?

That ultra-fast and ultra-powerful projectile attack had twisted his entire body around along with Imagine Breaker.

It was the original reason he feared Coronzon.

“But if she uses that, I’m dead!”

“When she had a physical body, yes. But Imagine Breaker worked on it when she was separated from her body in Scotland.”

“And now…?”

“She has a physical body.”

It turned out his hopelessness hadn’t quite been complete before. Now his understander had thoroughly proven he would die instantly.

“Look, human. All of Coronzon’s magic has been powerful enough to kill instantly. Getting scared over the power of the attack at this point is meaningless. And no matter how powerful it is, you know this attack. Between Scotland and Academy City, you’ve been hit by it twice and lived both times. And you negated it once, when she wasn’t at full power. Your body has learned the pattern and timing by now, right? It gives me a headache to consider, but that most frightening of attacks ''has become'' the easiest one for you to dodge. Plus, Coronzon sees those past experiences as successes, so she will use it if she gets impatient. Especially now that she can use it at full power.”

“…”

Was this when he should shout “such misfortune”?

“The worst thing she could do now is produce some new ability you’ve never seen before. You saw that earlier when she used her hair to pull herself up onto the carrier, right? That’s the last thing you want now. So no matter how dangerous it is, a known attack is much safer. When you know the attack already, you just have to dodge it. It’s simple. You can do that, can’t you, human?”

“It is not that simple! If it was easy to dodge, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with!!”

Still, it was true she would be wide open after using that attack. It had been the same with that Goetia(?) attack. If he hadn’t fallen through the rotting deck, he would have been able to get a punch in.

“Just in case you’ve forgotten, I will point out that I am not saying these things to make you suffer. To be blunt, this is the very best option you have left. I’m reluctant to even bring up the other options. Would you go out of your way to choose a more painful and more difficult road, human?”

Was she saying the best line had fallen this far?

Great Demon Coronzon was just that dangerous a being.

Most likely, the vast majority of his options would lead to his death. The normal options would get him killed like normal. So Othinus was presenting him with an unthinkable option and encouraging him.

“Ugh. Where do I start?”

“You don’t have to. …You aren’t an angel, a Magic God, or a Transcendent, yet she failed to kill you. That great demon’s patience will already be running thin. It wounds her pride. The only surprise is that she hasn’t already tried to rely on that past success.”

He had thought it was weird how much Othinus was pushing him toward this, but apparently it was something he had to be ready for regardless.

He was scared of course, but this was all for nothing if he let that guide him onto a losing path.

He heard footsteps.

From nearby, on the same level. He pressed against a corner in the corridor.

“I am a demon, but not from the Qliphoth where the forces of evil gather. I am the great demon hidden by the holy Sephiroth. I dwell in the same abyss as Da’at.”

He heard a voice.

In a tone far too sinister to be called singsong.

“Every number is the same. My right hand contains Nuit of Resurrection. Watch as the possibilities expand and surpass the bounds of the finite. My left hand contains Hadit of Vengeance.”

He recognized this phrase. This was the incantation Coronzon uttered before casting Magick: Flaming_Sword. She really was impatient. Adikalika had been stopped, she had fled through Academy City, and she hadn’t been able to cross the city wall. Thinking back, she had experienced one failure after another. She had to be sensing bad luck, or an unpleasant invisible trend. It made sense she would want to rely on a past success to break free.

If she was focused on that incantation, she must have switched what magic she was using.

No Goetia was coming. He didn’t have to worry about Dakshina Kalika.

Kamijou pressed up against the wall and waited.

Three steps.

Two steps.

One step.

He steeled himself and rushed out from around the corner.

Coronzon was right there. He didn’t even need to let her use that flaming spell. His fist could just reach her!!

And Coronzon’s lips whispered.

“Get him, ''Dakshina Kalika''.”

Kamijou’s heart froze.

But the poor boy could accuse this of being unfair or unreasonable all he liked. It wouldn’t make the reality any less cruel.

“Ohhhhhhhhh!?”

He shouted, twisted around, and – because using Imagine Breaker would be more dangerous – he dropped to the floor to somehow avoid the barrage.

Or he tried to. But in truth, he felt a scorching heat in his right flank. A bunch of ice must have exploded to the side of the sliced carrier. The ice had shattered itself to scatter countless ice shards at speeds greater than bullets. They easily pierced the ship’s armor and one of them tore through the boy’s side.

He spun through the air.

He broke free of gravity and then made a horrifying discovery. The carrier was sliced into pieces. And he had flown beyond this slice. He flew over the three floor drop to the shipyard floor and reached the next slice.

“Gah!!”

Othinus…had been wrong?

No, that couldn’t be.

Maybe Coronzon really could only use one spell at a time. But she could solve that problem by creating a time difference. And she had given some dubious information earlier.

''The turrets''.

If she had set up those stationary turrets (that maybe could actually move) here and there within the shipyard, then Coronzon herself would be free to act. By using her second magic in advance, she could catch Kamijou in a crossfire. The strategy discussion with Othinus had been necessary, but it had given Coronzon too much freedom!!

The drop in accuracy no longer mattered. If the barrage was distributed over a wide enough area, it could still hit.

Kamijou rolled through a large area. Located directly below the flat deck, it was likely the maintenance hangar where the many drones would wait on standby. …But the width of the slice left only about the space of a classroom and there was nowhere to hide.

Plus, Coronzon had been singing. What had she prepared for the other half of the crossfire?

Wasn’t it an attack that would kill if it hit?

“Magick: Flaming_Sword. Manifest thyself through descent of the Sephirah and bathe him in thy power.”

===Part 4===

''Crash!!!

A power even more brutal than lightning pierced Kamijou Touma’s body.

This was not unpredictable misfortune. It was something more definite.

After all his work and struggling, had he failed to overcome this full-power attack launched while Coronzon had her physical body?

“…Hmph.”

(He wasn’t blasted to pieces. Did he use Imagine Breaker at the last second? A valiant attempt when he had to know it would still break and kill him.)

Regardless, the battle was over.

He was still breathing, but he simply lay there twisted on the floor. Finishing him off would be far too easy. The 15cm version of Othinus was shouting something at the boy and glaring fiercely at Coronzon, but that too was meaningless. She couldn’t do anything.

Her magical knowledge had to be useful in battle, but she was not the grimoire library. The disgraced Magic God could not use that loathsome Spell Intercept.

“Perhaps you were not the one who should have been with him, Magic God.”

This pain was not necessary for her victory.

But her soul was afflicted by her nature as a great demon.

When Coronzon sneered, her mouth filled with the flavor of blood. Very bitter blood.

“It didn’t have to be you providing him with magical wisdom. Yet you insisted on keeping that spot for yourself. Did you let your wretched desires influence you? If it had been the Index Librorum Prohibitorum with him here, she may have been able to protect that dying brat!”

“What makes you think you’ve defeated the world here? The battle isn’t over yet. Act triumphant all you like, your precious attack still failed to actually kill Kamijou Touma. You failed. Just like you failed to escape this city!”

“This isn’t even about that.”

Coronzon glanced aside.

The sliced drone carrier and the shipyard itself created several solid layers blocking her view, but she still seemed to be interpreting the stars in the night sky.

“This planet may be on the way to its doom without me having to lift a finger.”

===Part 5===

A shape sliced swiftly through the night sky.

It had been given the beautiful nickname of the Swan, but that was due to the pure white paint which was a self-defense measure to deflect as much of the heat as possible when it launched a nuclear strike. Even those who didn’t know the detailed specs could imagine how many bombs and cruise missiles the strategic bomber was loaded with if they heard the 55 meter and 275 ton craft had a crew of only four.

Currently, its large bomb bay was filled with something even more dangerous.

Punishment for an Archangel.

When that magic circle struck Academy City territory, along with the bomber itself, it would swiftly take effect. The very nature of demons and angels would be affected to forcibly injure that great demon. All lives within 50 kilometers – in a circle stretching from western Tokyo to the Chubu region – would be killed, but those were acceptable losses.

If it would allow them to eliminate such inhuman beings from the earth.

“Hee hee. I’ve waited until the last second, but Coronzon’s reading is still strong. You’ve failed, Academy City. Aaaaand you too, Anglicans. You human specialists should stick to chasing after human magicians. It’s time for the monster specialists to clean up this mess.”

After all that, Vasilisa smiled in self-deprecation.

She was ultimately talking to herself.

The pilot seated next to her was an ordinary soldier(?) who knew nothing of magic, but there was nothing to worry about there since he had been thoroughly brainwashed. At greater than Mach 2, Japan’s Academy City wasn’t far away at all. And she had gotten started long before they had expected.

Vasilisa smiled quietly.

She had at times fought alongside the other sects. Protecting the earth and humanity usually meant her interests were aligned with those of other beliefs.

But not this time.

Given its purpose, the Russian Orthodox Church’s Annihilatus could not compromise on this.

This world was managed.

Thus, inhuman beings could not be allowed to threaten human lives.

That was the base assumption.

As long as they would follow that, Vasilisa and her colleagues could work with the other sects, but if they wouldn’t follow it, those other sects became her enemy.

Vasilisa did not enjoy having to do this. She was using a strategic bomber to deliver the necessary magic circle to Academy City, but the magic circle was only a magic circle. Someone had to supply it with magic power to activate it. Vasilisa would not survive when they crashed into an open park at full speed. Nor would those inside of or near Academy City. Of course she didn’t enjoy having to sacrifice her life and the lives of others.

There were so many people she still wanted to adore, Sasha and the Patriarch not least among them.

But she believed this was the right thing to do.

She was protecting the earth. Protecting humanity. Protecting justice. Protecting peace.

She was using human means to protect all humans from an inhuman threat.

…Yes, doing everything necessary to defeat Great Demon Coronzon was undeniably the right thing to do. Who in the world could resist this joy, temptation, and duty?

(I hope Sasha will see how sensible I was to keep her out of this.)

Academy City was in no state for effective air defense.

The science side angel Kazakiri Hyouka had been the one concern, but even she couldn’t act right now.

The conditions were in place.

If they had been more careful but more bold in their attempts to kill Coronzon, Vasilisa might not have had a chance to act and been stuck watching.

(But instead I get to swoop in at the end and claim the victory for myself.)

The scenery below changed from sea to land.

Academy City was dead ahead.

Strange alarms were sounding within the bomber, but based on the scouting drones they had sent in earlier, the outside troops wouldn’t actually shoot. She didn’t know why, but some rules of theirs forbade it. So a bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons was approaching, but they just let it go. That country never made any sense to her.

An open park was best for delivering the magic circle to the ground. She commanded the pilot.

A mere ten degree tilt to the nose filled the bomber with the definite sensation of falling.

They didn’t need to put out the landing gear. Slamming the fuselage into the ground and letting the surface tear it away would be perfect.

“That will make it easier for me. You can rest easy, Japanese people. Accept that Academy City never did belong here and give up on it!!”

Vasilisa’s words ended there.

A great tremor shook the entire 50m strategic bomber.

Instead of something hitting it and causing damage, it was more like its course had been forcibly diverted. Against the wishes of the control column. And so the Swan missed Academy City. It flew right past it.

“What the-!?”

The bomber’s great size and speed prevented her from commanding the pilot to make a U-turn. Its turning radius was just too large.

But this hadn’t been the scientific angel.

Academy City’s air defense should have been dead or close to it. Then what was this?

She heard a voice.

The strategic bomber was a ceremonial ground tearing through the night sky at greater than Mach 2. This shouldn’t have been possible without permission from Vasilisa, its master.

“We could just shoot you down in your confusion, but then I would feel bad.”

“We are gods, after all. Ha ha! Did anyone ever say we can’t fly!?”

“Nephthys and Niang-Niang…”

Vasilisa spoke their names in a daze before a point deep in her head suddenly boiled over.

She figured it out.

“You damn Magic Gods!!”

“Oh? But we’re not getting in the way of your Russian Orthodox work. There are two monsters right here in front of you. And full-power ones unlike Othinus. I would think we would be a higher priority than attacking Academy City.”

“C’mon, you specialize in inhuman things, right? Well, we’re the crazy Magic Gods who don’t think twice about crossing the line between life and death to obtain knowledge. So come play with us monsters, specialist!!”

===Part 6===

Looking up from within the sliced carrier inside the shipyard, Great Demon Coronzon wrinkled her brow a little.

This was odd.

Why wasn’t the strategic bomber crashing? A direct hit from that wouldn’t do much harm to her. And if it blew away Academy City in the process, it would cause enough chaos for her to celebrate since she wanted to escape the city. Yet it wasn’t happening?

“Is the tide turning? But what caused it?”

(Aleister’s tricks don’t work. Then is this ''your'' doing? No, am I reading too much into this? Either way, I don’t have time to think about it with the way things are going.)

After some thought, Coronzon froze.

Someone had their hand against the ship’s inner wall. As they gathered strength in their legs. Their movements were wobbly, but they were gritting their teeth. Kamijou Touma was standing back up. Once more.

Yes, he was moving.

He had been twisted and blown away.

''Ordinarily,'' he should never have been able to move.

“Thank goodness,” he said.

He had the voice of someone who hadn’t given up.

“My head hurts like hell and I honestly feel like I’m about to die, but thank goodness I didn’t accidentally touch my head… Yes, that’s right. ''I don’t know who it was, but someone helped me out.'' All for this moment. Because now I don’t have to worry about passing out even when my pain must be way past the limit!!”

Hadn’t Othinus asked what made Coronzon think she had defeated the world?

Kamijou Touma was one thing, but that cunning Magic God would not make a baseless argument from emotion. She had known from the start what kind of psychological control had been applied to Kamijou Touma!

Even so.

While he could still fight, what was driving that human so far?

He would have been better off just dying.

A drowning man would grasp at straws. Pain and fear could not be tamed by logic. Even if he had survived, he might have avoided a further thrashing if he had played dead. Maybe the world would later be destroyed, but he would be safe for the moment.

“How can you so innocently believe in the future?”

Coronzon found herself taking an action entirely unrelated to her victory.

Some thick, invisible words left her mouth.

As if she were uttering a curse.

“Imagine Breaker negates all supernatural powers and summons misfortune. It negates the good along with the bad, so as long as you possess that right hand, you can never receive god’s blessings. Just like me, your function intrudes on your life. No, it’s worse for you since you never chose for yourself to rebel. You were abandoned by god from the moment you were born. He said it couldn’t be helped and that misfortune was your lot in life. For no more reason than that!! That’s more than enough for you to reject a world that claims to be fair. So why don’t you curse the world? Why don’t you want to destroy the world that wouldn’t choose you!?”

Battered Kamijou smiled a little.

…He didn’t want to be the happiest person and rejoice in his triumph.

Even if it would look pretty cool to be able to say so like it was nothing.

But he couldn’t say it.

He refused to.

He had once gone to hell. During his tour of hell with CRC and Anna Kingsford, he had seen all too well what his nature was.

He was a filthy human.

When someone cried, it hurt him too and he just wanted to escape that pain. He only clenched his fist and fought so desperately because he was a terribly weak person who lacked the resolve to accept tragedy. Being punched was easier than seeing tragedy, so that was what he did.

He didn’t want the misfortune.

He wanted to be happy.

He wanted to live.

He might be plagued by misfortune, misfortune, misfortune, and more misfortune, but he would not lie about his desire to protect his own life and wish for happiness. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have needed to escape from hell. No matter what ideals he laid out, he still hadn’t wanted to die. No, he hadn’t wanted to give up on life just because he died. There was still so much he wanted to do in this world.

He didn’t mean anything as profound as making a great invention that changed the way people lived or eliminating all crime from the world.

Just a single piece of toast.

He hadn’t wanted death to take even the simple action of biting into buttered toast.

It was ugly, foolish, and filthy.

He knew that and that was what allowed him to speak with such conviction.

“Happiness isn’t something you wait around for someone to give you.”

“Damn…you.”

“Even if you were born into misfortune and even if you made a great mistake, there’s no rule saying you have to give up on hoping for happiness. Anyone can ask for it, even if they’ve hit rock bottom. No one has the right to stand in the way of people’s desire for happiness.”

“~ ~ ~”

This was a different choice that Coronzon hadn’t been able to make.

She had hated, cursed, resented…and destroyed her own desire to be happy. At some point, she had stopped hoping for happiness.

Kamijou stared straight at a fact he didn’t want to remember.

Defeating Coronzon would also mean attacking Aleister.

(But you haven’t rotted either, have you?)

One was rotten and the other wasn’t.

In the end, the decision was easy. Kamijou Touma took the first step forward.

===Part 7===

She needed to fall back.

Great Demon Coronzon willed herself to do so. Ultimately, Kamijou Touma only had his right fist. So she should immediately jump back to put sufficient space between them and then obliterate him with rapid-fire projectiles. She could use Dakshina Kalika, Goetia, and plenty more trump cards besides.

Yet in that moment, her legs froze up.

Did she want to defeat this human head on without any tricks?

…No. Coronzon was a collection of concentrated wickedness, so she would never consider something so admirable. A third party was clearly holding her body in place!

“Alei…ster?”

(You too? You haven’t rotted either!? After everything this world and its people did to you and after you finally lost even your own body!? You still found something left in this thoroughly twisted world!?)

The next thing she knew, Coronzon was saying something under her breath.

“I am a demon, but not from the Qliphoth where the forces of evil gather. I am the great demon hidden by the holy Sephiroth. I dwell in the same abyss as Da’at.”

She should have known from the beginning that both Kamijou Touma and Aleister Crowley were different from her. But the great demon looked devastated.

That difference had just been demonstrated to her.

The idea that people’s environment and circumstances turned them into bad people was a silly fantasy imagined by the wealthy and happy as they looked down on the unfulfilled. There was no truth there.

The difference came in how someone used their environment and circumstances to grow.

This was a demonstration of that.

Misfortune was not an excuse for letting your character rot.

Which meant that Great Demon Coronzon’s wickedness was something she herself had raised inside her.

“If…”

Kamijou Touma thought on this too.

In the end, Coronzon had relied on her past success.

Of course she had. Kamijou had yet to avoid this attack when launched at full power when she had her physical body. He had lost each time, as if it were fate. She had always used this to settle things. By forcibly overpowering even Imagine Breaker’s ability to negate supernatural powers.

Whenever she absolutely needed a win, she would use this.

She would ''indulge in'' this absolute and perfect victory.

Kamijou Touma actually smiled a little.

Great Demon Coronzon was a terrifying being. But this choice seemed somehow human.

“Every number is the same. My right hand contains Nuit of Resurrection. Watch as the possibilities expand and surpass the bounds of the finite. My left hand contains Hadit of Vengeance. The smallest point gathers and concentrates all forces to create a single meaning. Thus, an attack shall be released from the infinite acceleration of the Circle of Ra-Hoor-Khuit and shall appear on the surface layer of this world.”

“If you think the only hope for you is in the next world… And if you say you’re willing to destroy the current world to reach that world…”

He was already badly damaged after being hit by this once. He didn’t know what state his body was in or how long he could keep moving.

And.

This had already been prophesied. What was it Magic God Othinus had said?

“Magick: Flaming_Sword. Manifest thyself through descent of the Sephirah and bathe him in thy power!!”

It shot right past his ear.

A torrent of power greater than lightning rushed out horizontally and tore away a few of Kamijou’s hairs, but that was all.

He had dodged it for the first time.

He hadn’t used any kind of special power. Only his own physical strength.

A few of the carrier slices behind him collapsed with a great cacophony and shaking.

Perhaps Coronzon had a small idiosyncrasy somewhere. Some minor tic that Kamijou himself hadn’t even consciously picked up on.

Her jinx, her curse, her tragic fate…had all collapsed.

Othinus had said the worst thing she could do now was produce some new ability he had never seen before.

To put it another way, no matter how frighteningly powerful it was, a known attack gave him a chance. When his body knew the attack already, all he had to do was dodge it. “You can do that, can’t you?” Othinus had insisted. At first, he had thought she was being absurd, but no longer. She hadn’t rejected the idea before sharing it because she believed he could do it.

He had overcome it.

And he had already seen that Coronzon was wide open after using this attack.

Kamijou Touma focused on his fist.

He stepped forward.

Bloody Coronzon’s surprised face expanded to fill his field of view.

Who was at the surface here in this final moment?

Was it Great Demon Coronzon or Human Aleister Crowley?

Kamijou had no way of knowing.

He clenched his right fist. Hard. Harder than hard.

He still didn’t have an answer.

But he spoke all the same.

“Then!! I’ll destroy that illusion!!!”

The sound and tactile sensation were duller than usual.

He did ''exactly that''.

===Part 8===

It was quiet.

Shortly before the final moment, the area outside the shipyard was in fact deathly quiet.

Coronzon could set up as many Dakshina Kalika turrets as she liked, but she had to constantly supply them with magic power. To pour all her strength into the clash with Kamijou Touma, she hadn’t had any to spare for anything else. All of the turrets made from long, long blonde hair – which looked like lion heads with four legs growing out of them – had gone limp and silent.

Hamazura Shiage had been coincidentally freed from his cell, but unlike Necromancer Isabella Theism, he hadn’t had a clear goal in mind and ended up wandering the late-night city, but following Coronzon’s trail hadn’t been difficult. The entire city had been ordered to stay indoors, so he just had to go where the biggest commotion was. But whenever he arrived, Coronzon had already fled to another district.

He had repeated that process a few times.

And he finally caught up in District 17.

However, that didn’t mean he would catch up in time.

Just think about it. Hamazura was following the tracks she left, so if he had caught up, it meant Coronzon had slowed. So it wasn’t something to rejoice. This meant she was being driven into a corner.

The highly accurate ice barrage of Dakshina Kalika was gone.

Hamazura had no trouble walking into the shipyard.

Although perhaps it would be wrong to say he did so “safely”. He should not have peered inside that massive box.

“Wait…”

The drone carrier was still incomplete and stored in slices.

So he had a clear view inside the ship.

During the final moment.

Looking up from far below, puny Hamazura Shiage yelled.

With all his might, as if he were trying to tear his throat open.

“Waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!”

The demon was already dead.

Her wicked desire remained unfulfilled.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume14 Chapter4

2025-12-22T14:26:16Z

Edzo: /* Part 1 */ fixed typo "with" to "will"

==Chapter 4: The Brink of Death – Battle_With_ARCHENEMY.==

===Part 1===

The factories of District 17 surrounded them.

The time had passed 4 AM. If it weren’t January, the sun may have already been rising.

One line was far more distinct than the horizon and also quite dangerous.

Academy City’s wall was in view.

The fate of the world would be determined by whether or not the great demon managed to cross that wall.

But neither Kamijou Touma nor Coronzon even glanced in its direction.

They knew the greatest threat at the moment was right in front of them.

Coronzon started first.

“Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Ruler of the eastern horizon.”

“Hoor-Paar-Kraat. Ruler of the western horizon.”

“And south is Set’s direction. The east and the west have already been sealed. The world is now a straight line. Be pierced by the dazzling light stabbing the world from my southern hand and die, human!!”

A fearsome white light was compressed before it raced out, scorching the air as it went.

And several more followed.

“!!”

A single hit to Kamijou and not even a hunk of flesh would remain. He would be truly obliterated.

But he did not catch this with his right fist. He swung his entire body aside to dodge.

Coronzon’s attacks were extraordinary.

Even with Imagine Breaker, carelessly trying to stop them would send his arm spinning with the rest of his body, blowing him away.

His right hand’s power was no use anymore.

However, Kamijou Touma hadn’t been fighting because he thought he thought he could win.

He knew all too well how much of a disadvantage he had.

But there was a reason he couldn’t let this continue, so he was fighting.

His body…moved.

''He couldn’t remember what they looked like anymore, but someone had done something to help him'' and now he could push past his injuries to fight.

(If I can move around like this – if I have enough speed to slip past her attacks – then I can reach her. Each step I take and every centimeter I move brings my fist that much closer to reaching Coronzon!!)

“Ha ha!! So the first attack didn’t take you out!? You really have grown!! And I thought you would be rolling along the filthy ground immediately after spewing some wild nonsense like usual!”

This was not a simple matter of physical strength.

Coronzon tore apart people’s bonds and obstructed their progress. Yet the world still needed her. She hated herself, so she wanted to destroy that framework and create a fair and impartial world void of conflict.

Kamijou knew she was twisted, but part of him couldn’t directly refute what she was saying. That was why he had lost their previous battle. Helplessly so.

What about now?

Could he say she was wrong to her face?

He asked himself that now.

And he fiercely faced forward. At the great demon who was trying to destroy the world by ''overdoing'' her role. At someone who could not accept a world where someone as evil as herself was allowed to exist.

If he couldn’t, this would be a repeat of the previous battle over Adikalika.

He would lose the psychological battle, freeze in place, and receive a serious injury while just standing there.

“I’m not sure I understand all that confusing stuff about the Sephiroth and you being a great demon…but it boils down to you wanting to create a just world, right? That’s why you’re fighting?”

“Yes. That’s right! I will create a pure world without any loathsome roles like my role of tearing people apart!! The next world will be a world of freedom, fairness, and happiness, filled with only just things. I will create an era where no one suffers or is torn apart. And I will do anything to achieve that!!”

“…I see. But I think it’s nice if the world is a little bit off.”

“?”

“As long as the world is kind to people, it’s okay if it’s a little bit off. I mean, a world where only just things happen, and only in the correct way, sounds stifling. There’s no soft cushioning in a world like that. Any impacts will hit you directly, like hitting solid concrete with a metal bat. That would mean no one ever lets anything slide and there are never any surprise bonuses, right? The unjust are expected to be destroyed and never get a second chance. No, the unjust would never come to be in the first place. …Yeah, that would be stifling all right. ''I don’t want to live in a just world where saying the wrong thing doesn’t just get you criticized but gets you executed.''”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying that your next world where everything’s all lined up in order and where everything can be explained doesn’t sound very fun. Your ideal leaves no room for whims and uncertainties. It’s like having a ton of choices, but you know where they lead before you make them. In the worst case, there might not even be any ‘wrong’ choices at all. In that case, then no matter what you choose, the path you take from birth to death will all lead to the same ending. It’d be a boring life of pressing the same button over and over.”

Coronzon’s face turned red.

“What kind of reason is that!? You can’t even benefit from your good deeds in the current imperfect world. It will all fall apart at some point. Are you saying you will accept bad deeds!?”

“There’s something I’ve wondered while looking at Qliphah Puzzle 545 and the Bologna Succubus. Why do demons fulfill people’s desires? Is it to drag people down to their own doom? Without directly physically killing them? If so, there must be better ways, like using hypnosis or illusions to pit the humans against each other. But demons all lend their power to humans and take those humans’ ruin as payment. And they even do this with the kinds of desires that an angel would never grant and you’d be reluctant to tell anyone else about. Doesn’t that mean that you demons are like a cushion to catch the people who slip through the cracks and can’t recover through the normal methods? However you were originally created, you may have ended up functioning in that way.”

Of course, those people would be ruined in the end. You couldn’t rely on a demon and then get away scot-free.

But you had the freedom to choose: die without any say in the matter, or go to hell satisfied you made your own choice.

“Are you kidding me, Kamijou Touma? Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about after only about 15 years of life! I exist to ruin people! God knew I would rebel, yet he did nothing to stop me!! My fall was planned. A soft cushion to catch people who slip through the cracks? I am not equipped with that function and it would be sinful to even wish I did!!”

Kamijou smiled a little.

He wasn’t Hamazura Shiage. ''Kamijou Touma could not agree with Great Demon Coronzon.'' But he felt like he was a little closer to understanding why Hamazura had been worried for her and decided to bet on her. But not much closer.

Hamazura hadn’t wanted Coronzon to be left all alone due to her title of great demon.

She was an embodiment of evil, but she would not call herself righteous. Hamazura had probably seen the weakness in Coronzon that prevented her from arriving at that answer.

“I seem to have struck a nerve. And I thought you demons were supposed to be good at this sophistry stuff.”

“Kh.”

“You’re a demon, aren’t you? But do you really want to defeat heaven?”

Coronzon herself had just said it would be “sinful” to wish she had that function.

She kept saying she would defy god, destroy the world, and wipe the slate clean, but she still understood the weight of the current rules. She kept saying she hated them, but she was constantly aware of them. Almost like a rebellious teenager and their parents.

In other words…

“No matter how much you resent, hate, and curse him, you still picture him as the ruler of the next world, don’t you? You can’t throw out the idea and presence of a good god.”

“Do not attempt to analyze me, human. I am an irredeemably wicked being, but there is one thing I know: baseless accusations are a sin deserving of death!!!”

The roar of splitting air passed above Kamijou’s head.

A group of people rapidly flew by in the night sky above.

It was the Transcendents like the Bologna Succubus and Aradia.

Some lights were flashing. Colorful lights.

“Oh, dear. Have you already forgotten who swatted you down from the wall!?”

“Alice!! If you want to save Kamijou Touma, then get ready. We will lay the groundwork and visualize the extent of the magical damage. Then when you attack, you don’t have to worry about that boy being caught in the blast! Today isn’t a day to be playful, selfish, or in a temper! Today is the day you take this seriously!!”

Lay the groundwork.

Each of the lights flashing in the night sky had to be a deadly attack. They would soon stab into the ground. It would be a downpour of destruction. While the Transcendents were only borrowing those forms, their precision meant the end result was little different from the acts of the gods of myth.

All expression vanished from Coronzon’s face.

And then she chuckled.

To Kamijou, it didn’t look like she was enjoying this. That was the look of someone who had cold water thrown on them.

“I am the great demon who lurks in the Abyss of the Sephiroth and obstructs humanity from arriving at wisdom.”

Kamijou’s shoulders shook.

This was bad.

He had picked up on some kind of invisible change in the air. He knew it was unscientific, but then Coronzon stood at the peak of the unscientific.

''Her presence was growing.

“Thus, this kind of magic is the best fit for me. …Dakshina Kalika.”

A white explosion followed.

It was made of ice.

A point in the sky unnaturally froze. Before Kamijou could even identify it as an icy orb as smooth as a crystal ball, it burst from within, scattering sharp shards in all directions. A mass the size of a soccer ball became tens of thousands of shards. With enough force to snag at and topple the factory smokestacks and blast furnaces.

It didn’t matter how many colorful beams of light were launched by Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the other flying Transcendents. Each of those magic attacks had to be powerful enough to kill Kamijou…but none of them made it through. He had thought of them as a downpour, yet they were all intercepted before reaching Coronzon. Not even one of the glowing raindrops falling from the sky managed to slip through. Instead of accurately hitting each one, it was more like enveloping the entire area with a small explosion. The precision was perfect. It was truly a wall. An impenetrable wall of ice.

Coronzon wobbled on her feet. Blood dripped from her mouth. In exchange for this great power, something was being worn away inside her.

He knew he could end this, but Kamijou still shouted out loud.

“Wait! Kanzaki told me you saved a girl from a violent man while you escaped. Then even you must have some-”

“Yes, It’s true! Ha ha ha. God must truly despise me. I don’t know if he placed it in me to begin with or if he remotely interfered, but he made me do that!”

“No, dammit, that’s not what happened! God wasn’t controlling you! This just means you had that capability inside you from the star-”

Several more ice orbs exploded.

Kamijou’s cries did not reach Coronzon.

Precisely, as if someone had arranged it that way.

And all of the attacks falling from the night sky were shot down before reaching her. Light and explosions danced wildly.

Explosions.

Without end.

And, most of all, with extreme precision.

Interception, shooting down, the act of obstruction. Coronzon made full use of her purpose and grinned. Even as her eyes wavered and red blood dripped from the corner of her mouth.

Coronzon didn’t even look in the Transcendents’ direction. She was only considering how she would use ''this'' to torment, tear down, and kill the powerless boy.

He alone she would make sure to kill here.

Kamijou sensed something else seething behind her wicked smile.

“Cough… What now, Kamijou Touma? I have more than one trump card. I can destroy the human world in so many other ways beyond Adikalika. As I’ve explained countless times already! But I don’t recall saying ''I couldn’t bring about that destruction from within Academy City a second time''!”

She could blow up and shoot down that downpour of rapid projectiles with perfect accuracy. What would happen if she did that to attack him on the surface? Maybe he could stop one or two with Imagine Breaker, but he couldn’t keep up with so many attacks. Then should he run away? How was he supposed to get away from that on his two human legs!?

The distance grew again.

The gap between them had seemed to shrink and he had been certain his right fist would reach her.

But now the psychological distance kept growing.

“I can accurately shoot down objects flying up to Mach 9 whether they come from the front or behind. This is a 360-degree barrier. The Transcendents? That school play of phonies dressed up as gods!? Ha ha ha!! Superior numbers mean nothing to a great demon!!”

“Damn!!”

“Come, Alice Anotherbible!! You are the only one who can likely break through Dakshina Kalika’s barrage by brute force. But I do not fear you! I am an expert at making people give up. That is my purpose as a great demon. So I will face you head on as I wear you down and break every last part of your spirit!! If you don’t act now, I will turn your precious teacher to mincemeat!!!”

Coronzon had to understand the threat Alice posed.

Yet she was goading and provoking Alice for her own enjoyment.

Coronzon was just too much. Kamijou didn’t even have to move in for an attack. If she simply walked toward him, he would be crushed. Whether or not he readied his fist.

Kamijou backed away, driven back by the barrage of exploding ice.

“Are you kidding!? Did you think these brute force tactics would be enough for the Transcendents to give up!? We just have to break that Mach 9 limit!!” said the Bologna Succubus.

“Ha ha!! About what I would expect from a nameless extra. Breaking the Mach 9 limit only lets you get close. Even if that uncontrollable straight line does reach me, I will simply hit you with a cross counter. I have more than the one trump card, you utter buffoon!!”

Lights flashed and explosions boomed.

Kamijou dove into a nearby unmanned factory while hearing the angry cries of those extraordinary people. That alone was a miracle. Yes, without the Transcendents giving him the opportunity, he would have been turned to mincemeat after taking the first step. An ordinary human couldn’t attack, defend, or even move freely against Coronzon. Not even a supersonic Saint like Kanzaki was enough. Coronzon was too great a monster!

“But what kind of factory is this?”

Had he actually gotten away? If this was an ultra-dangerous factory marked with some kind of hazard symbol because it dealt in dangerous chemicals or microbes, he would rather not know about it.

Kamijou took a look around and found a huge indoor space like a harbor warehouse or school gym. However, it didn’t feel spacious thanks to the object at the center. At first, it looked to him like a humongous ikameshi made of gray steel, but it wasn’t.

A sliced aircraft carrier sat there.

It was supported from below by countless wooden pillars and surrounded by metal scaffolding and stairs.

The back half of the whole was complete, but even that half was sliced up. The cross section showed the interior of the ship, including cabins and corridors. Kamijou knew he was seeing something strange. It looked like there were three or four levels below the flat deck.

He frowned.

“They’re building a ship? So is this a shipyard?”

“From the look of it, it will be at most 100m long when fitted together, which is awfully small for an aircraft carrier. It must be a drone carrier that has cut out all the necessities for a human crew.”

“Whoa,” exclaimed Kamijou.

All of a sudden, he found 15cm Othinus on his shoulder. He felt her glaring at him. During all the confusion after that giant LAShTAL thing knocked over the building, Othinus must have been hiding in his jacket.

“You do understand me well enough that I need not explain what I am doing here, human?”

“Fine, fine.”

A drone carrier. Academy City was located in western Tokyo, so it didn’t border the ocean. But come to think of it, hadn’t Transcendent Mut Thebes found a warship to use as a weapon? Since this one was sliced up, maybe large transport helicopters would suspend it from wires and carry it, piece by piece, to a coastal harbor city outside Academy City where the pieces would be welded together into the whole warship. That was far from the normal method, but Academy City could pull it off.

The side of the ship curved back further than vertical and bore the name Kagenui.

Coronzon was protected by a Mach 9 barrier. And this drone carrier was awaiting completion in the shipyard. …Should he try to find something he could use, or was it too dangerous for an amateur to touch anything here? An ordinary high school boy couldn’t even make that judgment. With a great demon as an enemy, he was afraid he would be lured toward what looked like the best option but would actually work against him.

“So what was that thing Coronzon was using? The Dak-whatever!?”

“Dakshina Kalika. Just like Adikalika, that’s another alternate name for the Indian goddess Kali and an alphabetic symbol used in Crowley-style Magick. I assume you can figure out for yourself how highly Coronzon ranks it.”

So it was on the same level as the Adikalika large-scale attack spell…

Kamijou nearly came to a dumbfounded stop.

Even though he knew that great demon’s true essence – yes, the very essence she so loathed and despaired in – was in breaking people’s spirits, making them give up, making them fail, making them rot, and sending them tumbling into the depths.

..Yes, that magic was exceptionally powerful. It might take time, but if Coronzon were to walk through a city or country she wanted to destroy, she could scatter endless destruction and wipe it off the map. None of the people being destroyed could stop her slow approach, so everyone and everything in that area would be obliterated by the ice explosions. It was an absolute interception magic, a Mach 9 barrier. That wasn’t very exciting, but there was no countermeasure!

(Maybe a teleporter would be able to fight back against that… But I doubt that alone would be enough to win.)

“Are you kidding me? If she could do this, why didn’t she use it from the start? It was only a few hours ago that she could have won easily if she had just hung on until Adikalika activated!”

“It’s probably ''too'' powerful. At Scotland and here, she was setting up a major ceremony meant to influence the entire world. Thoughtlessly using a major attack would have damaged her delicate spiritual items and ceremony, so she chose not to use it. But now she has nothing to protect. At this point, she has no reason to hide her presence. She can focus on killing the enemy before her and escaping, so she can more easily draw on her full strength.”

Othinus suddenly stopped talking there.

Because of some footsteps.

In the distance.

“Kh.”

Kamijou was cautious. Could this actually be Alice or someone else on his side? No. There was no rush to these footsteps, so he doubted this was a Transcendent who had hurried inside after breaking through the ice barrage. More than that, Kamijou Touma knew his misfortune too well than to hope for a lucky break like that.

The hundreds of wooden pillars supporting the sliced carrier were thicker than Kamijou’s body, so he hid behind one of them.

Overly long blonde hair.

A beige habit.

But something wasn’t right.

The explosions were continuing.

From beyond the wall and outside the shipyard. Coronzon was already here inside, but they were just as powerful as before?

“I left some turrets out there.”

Coronzon said it herself. Loudly enough for Kamijou to hear her even from this distance.

And with a smile splitting her face.

“This does require me to send magic power their way. They are stationary turrets, but as long as I continue to supply them with power, I can set up as many as I like. Their power, speed, accuracy, and precision are all no different from my own. This keeps the Transcendents pinned down by their barrage. And if you do not choose your exit carefully, you will be turned to mincemeat as soon as you take a step outside.”

“(Human.)”

“(Yeah, I know.)”

Kamijou didn’t believe her.

An analysis by his understander Othinus was one thing, but would Coronzon really reveal accurate specs when he hadn’t even asked? ''Not a chance''. He had to assume she was hiding something, like that those turrets could actually move around at high speed or that they amplified the power of the shots beyond what she could do herself.

She was even more serious than before.

But this was the seriousness of a wounded animal. She had been pushed devastatingly far beyond her limits.

Would she pass through the shipyard to shake the Transcendents and then safely cross the city wall?

“Alice Anotherbible and the rest of the Transcendents will not show up to save you. Besides, they were an unnecessary addition to our confrontation anyway. Now, is there any fat left to be trimmed? For example, what about that Magic God on your shoulder who keeps whispering wisdom into your ear? I will crush her now, Kamijou Touma!!”

Coronzon did not hesitate. She aimed her palm straight toward him from her distant position. Apparently he wasn’t hiding as effectively as he thought!

“Dammit!!”

A frozen white explosion burst forth.

A rapid chain of them did.

Each of the thin carrier slices had to weigh hundreds of tons. More and more of the wooden pillars distributing their weight snapped and they tilted with a great groaning. Kamijou didn’t have time to consider what was safe and what was risky. He ducked below a slice that looked ready to collapse at any moment, diving to the other side of the ship. He wanted to get as far away from Coronzon as possible and put some kind of cover between them.

Coronzon tilted her head in response.

…Yes, it made no sense that Kamijou could escape on foot like that. She had already said that spell could handle anything up to Mach 9.

“Hmm.”

She directed a curious look to her surroundings rather than Kamijou.

“The strike points were scattered. Or rather, my accuracy has clearly dropped. Why would the automatic targeting fail? Is the echo not reflecting right in this indoor space? No, even then…”

“(The problem is in the Telesma forming Coronzon. That is, her nature as a great demon. I know I’m not one to talk after being reduced to a fairy, but wicked monsters traditionally avoid silver or iron. Yes, iron. And I hope I don’t need to remind you that this is a military shipyard. Did she call it an echo? Yes, because Telesma does not rely on the laws of physics, using its weak echo to track a target would provide history’s greatest sensitivity. But her impure demonic power is absorbed by gold and reflected wildly by silver and iron. That means her echo doesn’t work in here.)”

Othinus whispered all this into Kamijou’s ear.

He couldn’t trust Coronzon’s own words, but Othinus’s analysis was a different matter.

“(You just said something crazy in there, didn’t you? An echo that doesn’t rely on the laws of physics!? Are you messing with me!?)”

“(Did you think a magic cabal’s manuals would waste many pages on physics? And that isn’t what matters here. Stop arguing when it means the enemy can’t use that ability here, idiot.)”

To sum up, he could ignore that Mach 9 barrier while inside the shipyard. He approached Coronzon.

This time, his right fist would reach her.

===Part 2===

The space below the pile of debris was not very large.

It was at most a five meter square.

A normal person would have turned on their phone’s light and immediately regretted it. They would have thought the darkness was better. They would receive an intense feeling of pressure while gaining nothing positive, so they might very well have passed out.

Index was seated with her knees against her chest while she toyed with the calico cat in her hands and produced a trembling voice.

“I’m hungry.”

“Didn’t you already say that?” Misaka Mikoto sounded exasperated as she curled up small in the faint light. “I do have some emergency cookies, but the problem is the lack of a drink.”

“Hooray!”

“No hesitation at all!? Have you never experienced that dry-mouth hell before!?”

The resolution had already left their hands.

All they could do was wait for rescue.

They just hoped when they were dug out of the rubble they wouldn’t find the entire planet had been reduced to rubble.

“I hope Touma’s all right.”

“What, do you regret sending him off like that? He’s the guy who knocked out Academy City’s #1 and rescued nearly ten thousand of my sisters. Once he decides he’s doing something, he sees it through to the end.”

“Yeah. No matter how many times I bite him for seeing me naked, it never seems to deter him.”

“That sounds like hi- wait, what has that idiot been doing!?”

They shared some bitter laughter.

They realized they didn’t actually know each other very well. They had Kamijou Touma in common, but barely any direct connections beyond that.

How long was it until dawn?

Whatever the case, this probably wouldn’t last long.

“…I don’t want to die.”

Mikoto stated the obvious.

But there were times when the obvious carried great meaning.

Like when tens of thousands of tons were pressing down from overhead.

“Yeah.” Index again nodded within the deadly rubble. “I can’t go to school with Touma…but I do want to see the ‘new term’ he’s been talking about.”

===Part 3===

Silence had fallen for a change.

Great Demon Coronzon must have stopped using her Dakshina Kalika inside the shipyard.

The muffled booms were coming from beyond the thick walls. From what she had called the turrets.

The greatest threat of that magic was its incredible rapid-fire ability and precision. On the other hand, the destructive force of each individual attack was not great enough to freeze his legs in place just from seeing it. Of course, a direct hit from that sharp 5m explosion would still pierce through every part of his body and kill him instantly, but ''that was all it would do.'' That was destruction he could actually imagine, which wasn’t like Coronzon. He didn’t know if the great demon had realized how the iron trick worked, but she must have decided that attack had lost its ''allure'' with its accuracy so greatly reduced.

…That meant she would not intercept him now.

Kamijou had used the metal scaffolding and stairs to reach the deck of the sliced carrier. Strangely, there was no launching catapult. Also, the flat deck was covered in square panels a few meters across. Perhaps the Kagenui operated its aircraft completely differently.

He kicked away a heavy toolbox left on the deck. The deck was the equivalent of three or four floors above the shipyard’s floor, so about the same as dropping something from a school roof. The toolbox lid opened on the way down, allowing wrenches, a power drill, files, and other tools to pour down like rain. With her directly below.

“Oh?”

An odd sound followed. A distorted popping sound, like striking the air with a whip.

Coronzon extended her overly long blonde hair like a chameleon’s tongue and hopped up to the carrier’s deck three of four floors up.

Bringing her less than 100 centimeters away from Kamijou.

(How is she still showing off new abilities!?)

“Kh!!”

“Now, allow me to shout: Veparrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”

He had to suppress his instincts.

Using Imagine Breaker was too dangerous.

Instead, he immediately let his upper body drop down.

Something like an invisible shockwave burst from Coronzon’s wide-open mouth. It missed Kamijou and greatly ''bent'' the deck of the cutting-edge warship, albeit one still under construction. And it didn’t end there. Something like white grains of rice were eating though it. Those were maggots. The armor panel grew dark and rotten before melting away.

“!!”

Finally.

As powerful as it was, one of Coronzon’s attacks had ''missed''. This was the perfect chance. Kamijou rushed in and clenched his right first, but his feet sank down. The floor didn’t hold.

He fell.

“Gah…owww!!”

But it could have been worse. He only fell one level. He landed in the cabin directly below. He might have died had he plummeted all the way to ground level.

The table and chairs were directly bolted to the floor. It was hard to tell because the computers and wiring hadn’t been installed yet – was that called the outfitting? – but this was where the ship was controlled.

“Is this the CIC?”

So said Othinus. …Why had he been able to come up with “outfitting” but not “CIC”?

Of course, he didn’t have time to sit around listening to Othinus. A second and third roar were launched from directly above. There was no rotting this time. Once the interior of the ship burned away, the other time it shattered like stone or ice. Kamijou rolled away from the large hole overhead, leaving the broken cabin and entering a narrow corridor.

“Rank3” was written large on the wall and red and yellow lines on the floor branched off along different paths, but he had no idea what they meant.

Othinus was saying something while clinging to his clothes.

“So she’s moved on to Goetia now? …Dammit Coronzon. She pouts her lips and acts like a niche specialist, but she’s just a trend-follower. Even she loves the classics. Maybe she yearns for the proper methods since that’s something she can’t do herself.”

“What is that Goe thing!? I may be dumb, but I can tell missing this will get me killed!!”

“After all the attention R&C Occultics gathered, I imagine it’s famous enough that even a goth loli middle schooler would know about it… The general public views it as a handy grimoire that lets you summon a whole bunch of demons with just one book, but the Crowley faction interprets it as a ‘murmur’. Instead of a physical summoned monster, they see them as spells that withdraw unknown power from within yourself through conscious atavism. There are 72 + 1 extra. Crowley himself supposedly drew on a portion of Buer’s power for healing magic. I say ‘supposedly’ because it’s a legend with no corroborating evidence.”

So was it magic that placed a variety of special effects on your voice? Like a paralyzing scream, a slashing shout, or a healing song?

“Are you saying this has more than 72 attack patterns? We’re not talking about some rich kid’s colored pencil set here. How am I supposed to deal with that kind of variety?”

“Goetia is certainly a pain. It starts out with a lot of basic abilities and then has a lot of room for adaptation among them, so it’s hard to guess what could come next. So you need to get her to switch to some other magic, human.”

“?”

She must have expected Kamijou’s frown. It was nice that he could skip past a lot of the annoying trouble with his understander.

“Each spell she has used so far has been extremely powerful, but she has never once used more than one spell at once. She has always focused on one at a time. You saw her bleeding, right? She has been shortening the preparation time for those large-scale ceremonies too far even for a great demon. Because they’re so powerful, she may be afraid of losing control and having them blow up in her face. There’s also Aleister’s obstruction to consider.”

“Meaning?”

“If we get her to use a spell that works in our favor, she will be creating her own blind spot. When using a certain spell, you know she won’t use Dakshina Kalika or Goetia.”

That conclusion meant a lot.

It was enough to make the future look a bit brighter for Kamijou.

“I’ll do it, but what spell does she have to use for us to win?”

“Magick: Flaming_Sword.”

The future sank into darkness.

Wasn’t that the most dangerous of her attacks that she had used against him during the battle over Adikalika?

That ultra-fast and ultra-powerful projectile attack had twisted his entire body around along with Imagine Breaker.

It was the original reason he feared Coronzon.

“But if she uses that, I’m dead!”

“When she had a physical body, yes. But Imagine Breaker worked on it when she was separated from her body in Scotland.”

“And now…?”

“She has a physical body.”

It turned out his hopelessness hadn’t quite been complete before. Now his understander had thoroughly proven he would die instantly.

“Look, human. All of Coronzon’s magic has been powerful enough to kill instantly. Getting scared over the power of the attack at this point is meaningless. And no matter how powerful it is, you know this attack. Between Scotland and Academy City, you’ve been hit by it twice and lived both times. And you negated it once, when she wasn’t at full power. Your body has learned the pattern and timing by now, right? It gives me a headache to consider, but that most frightening of attacks ''has become'' the easiest one for you to dodge. Plus, Coronzon sees those past experiences as successes, so she will use it if she gets impatient. Especially now that she can use it at full power.”

“…”

Was this when he should shout “such misfortune”?

“The worst thing she could do now is produce some new ability you’ve never seen before. You saw that earlier when she used her hair to pull herself up onto the carrier, right? That’s the last thing you want now. So no matter how dangerous it is, a known attack is much safer. When you know the attack already, you just have to dodge it. It’s simple. You can do that, can’t you, human?”

“It is not that simple! If it was easy to dodge, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with!!”

Still, it was true she would be wide open after using that attack. It had been the same with that Goetia(?) attack. If he hadn’t fallen through the rotting deck, he would have been able to get a punch in.

“Just in case you’ve forgotten, I will point out that I am not saying these things to make you suffer. To be blunt, this is the very best option you have left. I’m reluctant to even bring up the other options. Would you go out of your way to choose a more painful and more difficult road, human?”

Was she saying the best line had fallen this far?

Great Demon Coronzon was just that dangerous a being.

Most likely, the vast majority of his options would lead to his death. The normal options would get him killed like normal. So Othinus was presenting him with an unthinkable option and encouraging him.

“Ugh. Where do I start?”

“You don’t have to. …You aren’t an angel, a Magic God, or a Transcendent, yet she failed to kill you. That great demon’s patience will already be running thin. It wounds her pride. The only surprise is that she hasn’t already tried to rely on that past success.”

He had thought it was weird how much Othinus was pushing him toward this, but apparently it was something he had to be ready for regardless.

He was scared of course, but this was all for nothing if he let that guide him onto a losing path.

He heard footsteps.

From nearby, on the same level. He pressed against a corner in the corridor.

“I am a demon, but not from the Qliphoth where the forces of evil gather. I am the great demon hidden by the holy Sephiroth. I dwell in the same abyss as Da’at.”

He heard a voice.

In a tone far too sinister to be called singsong.

“Every number is the same. My right hand contains Nuit of Resurrection. Watch as the possibilities expand and surpass the bounds of the finite. My left hand contains Hadit of Vengeance.”

He recognized this phrase. This was the incantation Coronzon uttered before casting Magick: Flaming_Sword. She really was impatient. Adikalika had been stopped, she had fled through Academy City, and she hadn’t been able to cross the city wall. Thinking back, she had experienced one failure after another. She had to be sensing bad luck, or an unpleasant invisible trend. It made sense she would want to rely on a past success to break free.

If she was focused on that incantation, she must have switched what magic she was using.

No Goetia was coming. He didn’t have to worry about Dakshina Kalika.

Kamijou pressed up against the wall and waited.

Three steps.

Two steps.

One step.

He steeled himself and rushed out from around the corner.

Coronzon was right there. He didn’t even need to let her use that flaming spell. His fist could just reach her!!

And Coronzon’s lips whispered.

“Get him, ''Dakshina Kalika''.”

Kamijou’s heart froze.

But the poor boy could accuse this of being unfair or unreasonable all he liked. It wouldn’t make the reality any less cruel.

“Ohhhhhhhhh!?”

He shouted, twisted around, and – because using Imagine Breaker would be more dangerous – he dropped to the floor to somehow avoid the barrage.

Or he tried to. But in truth, he felt a scorching heat in his right flank. A bunch of ice must have exploded to the side of the sliced carrier. The ice had shattered itself to scatter countless ice shards at speeds greater than bullets. They easily pierced the ship’s armor and one of them tore through the boy’s side.

He spun through the air.

He broke free of gravity and then made a horrifying discovery. The carrier was sliced into pieces. And he had flown beyond this slice. He flew over the three floor drop to the shipyard floor and reached the next slice.

“Gah!!”

Othinus…had been wrong?

No, that couldn’t be.

Maybe Coronzon really could only use one spell at a time. But she could solve that problem by creating a time difference. And she had given some dubious information earlier.

''The turrets''.

If she had set up those stationary turrets (that maybe could actually move) here and there within the shipyard, then Coronzon herself would be free to act. By using her second magic in advance, she could catch Kamijou in a crossfire. The strategy discussion with Othinus had been necessary, but it had given Coronzon too much freedom!!

The drop in accuracy no longer mattered. If the barrage was distributed over a wide enough area, it could still hit.

Kamijou rolled through a large area. Located directly below the flat deck, it was likely the maintenance hangar where the many drones would wait on standby. …But the width of the slice left only about the space of a classroom and there was nowhere to hide.

Plus, Coronzon had been singing. What had she prepared for the other half of the crossfire?

Wasn’t it an attack that would kill if it hit?

“Magick: Flaming_Sword. Manifest thyself through descent of the Sephirah and bathe him in thy power.”

===Part 4===

''Crash!!!

A power even more brutal than lightning pierced Kamijou Touma’s body.

This was not unpredictable misfortune. It was something more definite.

After all his work and struggling, had he failed to overcome this full-power attack launched while Coronzon had her physical body?

“…Hmph.”

(He wasn’t blasted to pieces. Did he use Imagine Breaker at the last second? A valiant attempt when he had to know it would still break and kill him.)

Regardless, the battle was over.

He was still breathing, but he simply lay there twisted on the floor. Finishing him off would be far too easy. The 15cm version of Othinus was shouting something at the boy and glaring fiercely at Coronzon, but that too was meaningless. She couldn’t do anything.

Her magical knowledge had to be useful in battle, but she was not the grimoire library. The disgraced Magic God could not use that loathsome Spell Intercept.

“Perhaps you were not the one who should have been with him, Magic God.”

This pain was not necessary for her victory.

But her soul was afflicted by her nature as a great demon.

When Coronzon sneered, her mouth filled with the flavor of blood. Very bitter blood.

“It didn’t have to be you providing him with magical wisdom. Yet you insisted on keeping that spot for yourself. Did you let your wretched desires influence you? If it had been the Index Librorum Prohibitorum with him here, she may have been able to protect that dying brat!”

“What makes you think you’ve defeated the world here? The battle isn’t over yet. Act triumphant all you like, your precious attack still failed to actually kill Kamijou Touma. You failed. Just like you failed to escape this city!”

“This isn’t even about that.”

Coronzon glanced aside.

The sliced drone carrier and the shipyard itself created several solid layers blocking her view, but she still seemed to be interpreting the stars in the night sky.

“This planet may be on the way to its doom without me having to lift a finger.”

===Part 5===

A shape sliced swiftly through the night sky.

It had been given the beautiful nickname of the Swan, but that was due to the pure white paint which was a self-defense measure to deflect as much of the heat as possible when it launched a nuclear strike. Even those who didn’t know the detailed specs could imagine how many bombs and cruise missiles the strategic bomber was loaded with if they heard the 55 meter and 275 ton craft had a crew of only four.

Currently, its large bomb bay was filled with something even more dangerous.

Punishment for an Archangel.

When that magic circle struck Academy City territory, along with the bomber itself, it would swiftly take effect. The very nature of demons and angels would be affected to forcibly injure that great demon. All lives within 50 kilometers – in a circle stretching from western Tokyo to the Chubu region – would be killed, but those were acceptable losses.

If it would allow them to eliminate such inhuman beings from the earth.

“Hee hee. I’ve waited until the last second, but Coronzon’s reading is still strong. You’ve failed, Academy City. Aaaaand you too, Anglicans. You human specialists should stick to chasing after human magicians. It’s time for the monster specialists to clean up this mess.”

After all that, Vasilisa smiled in self-deprecation.

She was ultimately talking to herself.

The pilot seated next to her was an ordinary soldier(?) who knew nothing of magic, but there was nothing to worry about there since he had been thoroughly brainwashed. At greater than Mach 2, Japan’s Academy City wasn’t far away at all. And she had gotten started long before they had expected.

Vasilisa smiled quietly.

She had at times fought alongside the other sects. Protecting the earth and humanity usually meant her interests were aligned with those of other beliefs.

But not this time.

Given its purpose, the Russian Orthodox Church’s Annihilatus could not compromise on this.

This world was managed.

Thus, inhuman beings could not be allowed to threaten human lives.

That was the base assumption.

As long as they would follow that, Vasilisa and her colleagues could work with the other sects, but if they wouldn’t follow it, those other sects became her enemy.

Vasilisa did not enjoy having to do this. She was using a strategic bomber to deliver the necessary magic circle to Academy City, but the magic circle was only a magic circle. Someone had to supply it with magic power to activate it. Vasilisa would not survive when they crashed into an open park at full speed. Nor would those inside of or near Academy City. Of course she didn’t enjoy having to sacrifice her life and the lives of others.

There were so many people she still wanted to adore, Sasha and the Patriarch not least among them.

But she believed this was the right thing to do.

She was protecting the earth. Protecting humanity. Protecting justice. Protecting peace.

She was using human means to protect all humans from an inhuman threat.

…Yes, doing everything necessary to defeat Great Demon Coronzon was undeniably the right thing to do. Who in the world could resist this joy, temptation, and duty?

(I hope Sasha will see how sensible I was to keep her out of this.)

Academy City was in no state for effective air defense.

The science side angel Kazakiri Hyouka had been the one concern, but even she couldn’t act right now.

The conditions were in place.

If they had been more careful but more bold in their attempts to kill Coronzon, Vasilisa might not have had a chance to act and been stuck watching.

(But instead I get to swoop in at the end and claim the victory for myself.)

The scenery below changed from sea to land.

Academy City was dead ahead.

Strange alarms were sounding within the bomber, but based on the scouting drones they had sent in earlier, the outside troops wouldn’t actually shoot. She didn’t know why, but some rules of theirs forbade it. So a bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons was approaching, but they just let it go. That country never made any sense to her.

An open park was best for delivering the magic circle to the ground. She commanded the pilot.

A mere ten degree tilt to the nose filled the bomber with the definite sensation of falling.

They didn’t need to put out the landing gear. Slamming the fuselage into the ground and letting the surface tear it away would be perfect.

“That will make it easier for me. You can rest easy, Japanese people. Accept that Academy City never did belong here and give up on it!!”

Vasilisa’s words ended there.

A great tremor shook the entire 50m strategic bomber.

Instead of something hitting it and causing damage, it was more like its course had been forcibly diverted. Against the wishes of the control column. And so the Swan missed Academy City. It flew right past it.

“What the-!?”

The bomber’s great size and speed prevented her from commanding the pilot to make a U-turn. Its turning radius was just too large.

But this hadn’t been the scientific angel.

Academy City’s air defense should have been dead or close to it. Then what was this?

She heard a voice.

The strategic bomber was a ceremonial ground tearing through the night sky at greater than Mach 2. This shouldn’t have been possible without permission from Vasilisa, its master.

“We could just shoot you down in your confusion, but then I would feel bad.”

“We are gods, after all. Ha ha! Did anyone ever say we can’t fly!?”

“Nephthys and Niang-Niang…”

Vasilisa spoke their names in a daze before a point deep in her head suddenly boiled over.

She figured it out.

“You damn Magic Gods!!”

“Oh? But we’re not getting in the way of your Russian Orthodox work. There are two monsters right here in front of you. And full-power ones unlike Othinus. I would think we would be a higher priority than attacking Academy City.”

“C’mon, you specialize in inhuman things, right? Well, we’re the crazy Magic Gods who don’t think twice about crossing the line between life and death to obtain knowledge. So come play with us monsters, specialist!!”

===Part 6===

Looking up from within the sliced carrier inside the shipyard, Great Demon Coronzon wrinkled her brow a little.

This was odd.

Why wasn’t the strategic bomber crashing? A direct hit from that wouldn’t do much harm to her. And if it blew away Academy City in the process, it would cause enough chaos for her to celebrate since she wanted to escape the city. Yet it wasn’t happening?

“Is the tide turning? But what caused it?”

(Aleister’s tricks don’t work. Then is this ''your'' doing? No, am I reading too much into this? Either way, I don’t have time to think about it with the way things are going.)

After some thought, Coronzon froze.

Someone had their hand against the ship’s inner wall. As they gathered strength in their legs. Their movements were wobbly, but they were gritting their teeth. Kamijou Touma was standing back up. Once more.

Yes, he was moving.

He had been twisted and blown away.

''Ordinarily,'' he should never have been able to move.

“Thank goodness,” he said.

He had the voice of someone who hadn’t given up.

“My head hurts like hell and I honestly feel like I’m about to die, but thank goodness I didn’t accidentally touch my head… Yes, that’s right. ''I don’t know who it was, but someone helped me out.'' All for this moment. Because now I don’t have to worry about passing out even when my pain must be way past the limit!!”

Hadn’t Othinus asked what made Coronzon think she had defeated the world?

Kamijou Touma was one thing, but that cunning Magic God would not make a baseless argument from emotion. She had known from the start what kind of psychological control had been applied to Kamijou Touma!

Even so.

While he could still fight, what was driving that human so far?

He would have been better off just dying.

A drowning man would grasp at straws. Pain and fear could not be tamed by logic. Even if he had survived, he might have avoided a further thrashing if he had played dead. Maybe the world would later be destroyed, but he would be safe for the moment.

“How can you so innocently believe in the future?”

Coronzon found herself taking an action entirely unrelated to her victory.

Some thick, invisible words left her mouth.

As if she were uttering a curse.

“Imagine Breaker negates all supernatural powers and summons misfortune. It negates the good along with the bad, so as long as you possess that right hand, you can never receive god’s blessings. Just like me, your function intrudes on your life. No, it’s worse for you since you never chose for yourself to rebel. You were abandoned by god from the moment you were born. He said it couldn’t be helped and that misfortune was your lot in life. For no more reason than that!! That’s more than enough for you to reject a world that claims to be fair. So why don’t you curse the world? Why don’t you want to destroy the world that wouldn’t choose you!?”

Battered Kamijou smiled a little.

…He didn’t want to be the happiest person and rejoice in his triumph.

Even if it would look pretty cool to be able to say so like it was nothing.

But he couldn’t say it.

He refused to.

He had once gone to hell. During his tour of hell with CRC and Anna Kingsford, he had seen all too well what his nature was.

He was a filthy human.

When someone cried, it hurt him too and he just wanted to escape that pain. He only clenched his fist and fought so desperately because he was a terribly weak person who lacked the resolve to accept tragedy. Being punched was easier than seeing tragedy, so that was what he did.

He didn’t want the misfortune.

He wanted to be happy.

He wanted to live.

He might be plagued by misfortune, misfortune, misfortune, and more misfortune, but he would not lie about his desire to protect his own life and wish for happiness. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have needed to escape from hell. No matter what ideals he laid out, he still hadn’t wanted to die. No, he hadn’t wanted to give up on life just because he died. There was still so much he wanted to do in this world.

He didn’t mean anything as profound as making a great invention that changed the way people lived or eliminating all crime from the world.

Just a single piece of toast.

He hadn’t wanted death to take even the simple action of biting into buttered toast.

It was ugly, foolish, and filthy.

He knew that and that was what allowed him to speak with such conviction.

“Happiness isn’t something you wait around for someone to give you.”

“Damn…you.”

“Even if you were born into misfortune and even if you made a great mistake, there’s no rule saying you have to give up on hoping for happiness. Anyone can ask for it, even if they’ve hit rock bottom. No one has the right to stand in the way of people’s desire for happiness.”

“~ ~ ~”

This was a different choice that Coronzon hadn’t been able to make.

She had hated, cursed, resented…and destroyed her own desire to be happy. At some point, she had stopped hoping for happiness.

Kamijou stared straight at a fact he didn’t want to remember.

Defeating Coronzon would also mean attacking Aleister.

(But you haven’t rotted either, have you?)

One was rotten and the other wasn’t.

In the end, the decision was easy. Kamijou Touma took the first step forward.

===Part 7===

She needed to fall back.

Great Demon Coronzon willed herself to do so. Ultimately, Kamijou Touma only had his right fist. So she should immediately jump back to put sufficient space between them and then obliterate him with rapid-fire projectiles. She could use Dakshina Kalika, Goetia, and plenty more trump cards besides.

Yet in that moment, her legs froze up.

Did she want to defeat this human head on without any tricks?

…No. Coronzon was a collection of concentrated wickedness, so she would never consider something so admirable. A third party was clearly holding her body in place!

“Alei…ster?”

(You too? You haven’t rotten either!? After everything this world and its people did to you and after you finally lost even your own body!? You still found something left in this thoroughly twisted world!?)

The next thing she knew, Coronzon was saying something under her breath.

“I am a demon, but not from the Qliphoth where the forces of evil gather. I am the great demon hidden by the holy Sephiroth. I dwell in the same abyss as Da’at.”

She should have known from the beginning that both Kamijou Touma and Aleister Crowley were different from her. But the great demon looked devastated.

That difference had just been demonstrated to her.

The idea that people’s environment and circumstances turned them into bad people was a silly fantasy imagined by the wealthy and happy as they looked down on the unfulfilled. There was no truth there.

The difference came in how someone used their environment and circumstances to grow.

This was a demonstration of that.

Misfortune was not an excuse for letting your character rot.

Which meant that Great Demon Coronzon’s wickedness was something she herself had raised inside her.

“If…”

Kamijou Touma thought on this too.

In the end, Coronzon had relied on her past success.

Of course she had. Kamijou had yet to avoid this attack when launched at full power when she had her physical body. He had lost each time, as if it were fate. She had always used this to settle things. By forcibly overpowering even Imagine Breaker’s ability to negate supernatural powers.

Whenever she absolutely needed a win, she would use this.

She would ''indulge in'' this absolute and perfect victory.

Kamijou Touma actually smiled a little.

Great Demon Coronzon was a terrifying being. But this choice seemed somehow human.

“Every number is the same. My right hand contains Nuit of Resurrection. Watch as the possibilities expand and surpass the bounds of the finite. My left hand contains Hadit of Vengeance. The smallest point gathers and concentrates all forces to create a single meaning. Thus, an attack shall be released from the infinite acceleration of the Circle of Ra-Hoor-Khuit and shall appear on the surface layer of this world.”

“If you think the only hope for you is in the next world… And if you say you’re willing to destroy the current world to reach that world…”

He was already badly damaged after being hit by this once. He didn’t know what state his body was in or how long he could keep moving.

And.

This had already been prophesied. What was it Magic God Othinus had said?

“Magick: Flaming_Sword. Manifest thyself through descent of the Sephirah and bathe him in thy power!!”

It shot right past his ear.

A torrent of power greater than lightning rushed out horizontally and tore away a few of Kamijou’s hairs, but that was all.

He had dodged it for the first time.

He hadn’t used any kind of special power. Only his own physical strength.

A few of the carrier slices behind him collapsed with a great cacophony and shaking.

Perhaps Coronzon had a small idiosyncrasy somewhere. Some minor tic that Kamijou himself hadn’t even consciously picked up on.

Her jinx, her curse, her tragic fate…had all collapsed.

Othinus had said the worst thing she could do now was produce some new ability he had never seen before.

To put it another way, no matter how frighteningly powerful it was, a known attack gave him a chance. When his body knew the attack already, all he had to do was dodge it. “You can do that, can’t you?” Othinus had insisted. At first, he had thought she was being absurd, but no longer. She hadn’t rejected the idea before sharing it because she believed he could do it.

He had overcome it.

And he had already seen that Coronzon was wide open after using this attack.

Kamijou Touma focused on his fist.

He stepped forward.

Bloody Coronzon’s surprised face expanded to fill his field of view.

Who was at the surface here in this final moment?

Was it Great Demon Coronzon or Human Aleister Crowley?

Kamijou had no way of knowing.

He clenched his right fist. Hard. Harder than hard.

He still didn’t have an answer.

But he spoke all the same.

“Then!! I’ll destroy that illusion!!!”

The sound and tactile sensation were duller than usual.

He did ''exactly that''.

===Part 8===

It was quiet.

Shortly before the final moment, the area outside the shipyard was in fact deathly quiet.

Coronzon could set up as many Dakshina Kalika turrets as she liked, but she had to constantly supply them with magic power. To pour all her strength into the clash with Kamijou Touma, she hadn’t had any to spare for anything else. All of the turrets made from long, long blonde hair – which looked like lion heads with four legs growing out of them – had gone limp and silent.

Hamazura Shiage had been coincidentally freed from his cell, but unlike Necromancer Isabella Theism, he hadn’t had a clear goal in mind and ended up wandering the late-night city, but following Coronzon’s trail hadn’t been difficult. The entire city had been ordered to stay indoors, so he just had to go where the biggest commotion was. But whenever he arrived, Coronzon had already fled to another district.

He had repeated that process a few times.

And he finally caught up in District 17.

However, that didn’t mean he would catch up in time.

Just think about it. Hamazura was following the tracks she left, so if he had caught up, it meant Coronzon had slowed. So it wasn’t something to rejoice. This meant she was being driven into a corner.

The highly accurate ice barrage of Dakshina Kalika was gone.

Hamazura had no trouble walking into the shipyard.

Although perhaps it would be wrong to say he did so “safely”. He should not have peered inside that massive box.

“Wait…”

The drone carrier was still incomplete and stored in slices.

So he had a clear view inside the ship.

During the final moment.

Looking up from far below, puny Hamazura Shiage yelled.

With all his might, as if he were trying to tear his throat open.

“Waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!”

The demon was already dead.

Her wicked desire remained unfulfilled.

<noinclude>
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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume14 Chapter3

2025-12-22T14:22:46Z

Edzo: /* Part 5 */ removed extra "he"

==Chapter 3: Which Side is Winning? – Scoreboard.==

===Part 1===

Around when she abandoned the stolen car, her memory cut out again.

“…”

The next thing she knew, Coronzon was leaning against a cold building wall.

Something had happened.

Aleister had done something.

She had traveled south from District 20 to reach District 9, which contained art schools. The Anglicans were mostly in the north of the city, so she abandoned the stolen car and had planned to take another car (also stolen of course) to reach the southern wall.

But she couldn’t trust in that plan anymore.

She ran her hands along her habit. Pathetically driven by fear and anxiety. She pulled an object smaller than her palm from a fairly unspeakable part of her clothing,.

She couldn’t believe it.

(A wireless game controller? That means it has its own ID and can produce its own signal to provide its location.)

“Y-you would forestall a great demon with this…this piece of junk that doesn’t even cost 5000 yen!? Are you kidding me, Aleisterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!?”

A shape squirmed. And produced a short scream.

No, was that a man forcing himself onto a girl?

An outfit that looked on the border between at-home clothing and sleepwear had been badly torn and the man was reaching for her underwear.

''Perfect.

That was wandering Coronzon’s honest assessment.

It was happening in a small boxlike building.

An Anti-Skill station. A small one. Around the size of what would be called a police box in the outside world.

This was happening there of all places. That public structure should have had someone working in it 365 days a year to keep the city’s peace, but today it had been empty.

With his hands pinning the girl to the floor, the man wasn’t sure how to undo his belt buckle. He raised his head with an odd expression that stuck out his chin more than necessary.

“Huh? Who the hell’re you?”

She didn’t even respond.

Great Demon Coronzon stabbed her hand right through the center of the scum’s gut.

The odor of blood splattered out.

“Bhee, ee, eeeeeeeeeek!!”

He audibly slammed into the shelves behind him and objects came crashing down.

The man of no consequence scrambled out of the Anti-Skill station, his arms flailing wildly.

With his abdominal cavity punctured and a game controller directly stuck inside. Surgical hygiene? Why should Coronzon care about something like that? His bacteria-covered organs might shut down before long, but he would act as a nice decoy as long as he scrambled around and fled before that happened.

In something of a new habit, she held a hand to her woozy head and belatedly realized her hand was stained by that scum’s unclean blood. Everything seemed to piss her off right now. Nothing was going her way.

She lashed out vocally.

“Aleister!! That death is on your hands for that trick you pulled. Are you satisfied? It’s absurd for you to try and save the world. Hee hee, ha ha ha. You’re the one who made the world this way! So give up! You already know everything you do only comes back to bite you!!”

Even so, how many times was it now?

…Or was it really Aleister’s will sending these signs to Kamijou Touma and the other pursuers? Did he really have enough strength to hijack Great Demon Coronzon’s body this many times?

Was it possible she was sending these hints to her pursuers herself? She shuddered. No, it wasn’t possible. How would that benefit her? But could it be a self-destructive desire like the urge people felt to activate a fire alarm when they saw one?

Coronzon clenched her hair tight in her hand. An unpleasant snapping sound followed.

She couldn’t get a read on her own mind anymore.

“U-um.”

It was then that someone nervously spoke to her. The girl seated on the floor looked up at her, completely forgetting to fix her clothing.

With admiration in her eyes.

“…Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Um, thank you…f-for saving me.”

Great Demon Coronzon doubled over and held a hand to her mouth.

She retched.

She couldn’t stand any more of this. Before the girl could say anything more, Coronzon got her unsteady body moving, rushing out of the station. The great demon ''had fled''.

She walked a few meters and then stumbled. She fell down onto the red snow frozen on the ground.

She lay in the snow as thoughts spiraled through her head.

This was wasn’t right.

What was going on?

She had just jabbed her hand right into the gut of an ordinary man who had no connection to magic. With enough force to take his life. And only so she could embed the signal to her location inside his body. There may have been another way, but she had chosen that one so she could enjoy it.

It had been for her. It had been a cruel act of violence befitting a demon.

…But had she ended up saving a life?

Impossible.

She had been acting of her own free will.

She was certain of that.

And yet the result had so completely betrayed her expectations?

Her bad deed had been remade into a good one.

It was the ultimate outrage.

(Was it an act of…)

The being known as a great demon hatefully clenched her back teeth.

Sweat poured from her brow. She had a terrible feeling about this.

A wireless game controller? Those weren’t too unusual, but ''where had Aleister gotten one in the few seconds he had taken control''? She doubted he had forced his way into an electronics shop with its metal shutter down for the night. He wouldn’t have had time to search through the game shelf in a discount shop. Did that mean someone had ''just so happened'' to drop one on the side of the street? …Had it been ''a complete coincidence'' as if some greater will were at work?

(Did an act of god transform what I did? Is a good influence distorting my actions? It’s too late, world. Do you really expect me to go along with that? I will take things! ''Too far''!! And destroy the world of my own free will!!!)

===Part 2===

An alarm blared in the District 10 prison.

Telling of an oddity in the same prison.

Someone had already broken in.

“Is it Oniyama!?”

“No, he would have used his authority as a Director to use the proper channels for a visit. This is someone else, so be careful!”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 left the cell while listening to the female secretary speaking over the device on the wall.

The enemy was close.

As close as the corridor leading to the solitary confinement cell hidden deep inside the prison. The silver-haired, dark-skinned woman wore a patchwork of rags that did not look at all hygienic. She was alone. She was even barefoot. An ordinary jailer might tilted their head wondering how she had made it inside such a strictly guarded prison.

But Qliphah Puzzle 545 understood magic too well for that.

She accurately grasped the threat standing before her.

“One of the Anglican’s magicians specialized in anti-magician combat!?”

“I am Necromancer Isabella Theism. You should already know that name after I threatened the city’s leader.”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 was dumbfounded. This prison’s security had already proven itself unable to keep out uninvited guests and now someone like this had made it in?

“The entrance back there was covered by a shocking number of sensors, but they’re only designed to detect living intruders. I recommend tweaking it to detect and instantly attack corpses as well. It’s not that hard to disguise yourself as one.”

“Why are you here? The Anglicans know all about the battle against Coronzon, so you should know my master is in no condition to talk.”

“So I’ve heard. Although I wasn’t around for that part since I was knocked out while dealing with ''some other business''. Regardless, if what I have heard is true, we really are in a grave situation. Right now, I think it is most necessary that we defeat Great Demon Coronzon and bring stability back to the world.”

“Then go tell that to Coronzon, not my master!”

“Oh, do you know where she is?”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 fell silent.

Isabella breathed a sigh thick with exasperation.

“That is the real question. What I need right now is information and a few coincidental hints just aren’t enough. A vast network has been laid out across Academy City: security cameras, security robots, drones, satellites, and so on. Tracking her requires bringing the city’s data infrastructure back to full functionality. And it if is necessary to settle things with Coronzon…as much as I hate to, what choice do I have but to save your new Board Chairman? I can’t have him go on sleeping with the Master Key clutched in his hand.”

“…”

Isabella Theism seemed unbothered by Qliphah Puzzle 545’s skeptical look.

The look on her face said she had expected it.

Not long before, she had been in charge of the group physically taking control of Academy City and attempting to use the city as a disposable tool to defeat Coronzon. It would be weird if Qliphah Puzzle 545 did trust her right away.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 glared at her and asked a question.

“Your clothes reek of death. You’re that necromancer who was arguing with my master over the phone… Can a death magician really heal a living human?”

Isabella Theism grabbed her rags in her hands and lifted them upwards. All at once.

She was wearing underwear below, but it was very thin and small.

Two healthy brown objects jiggled there.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 was a girl, but she still flinched back at being shown this all of a sudden.

“Uh?”

“Take a close look. My ribs and sternum were badly broken and one sharp bone fragment pierced my right lung. Can you see any of that? What’s your assessment?”

“You have all your ribs and there’s no bruising from internal bleeding. It’s all been healed?”

When the demon girl approached and took a close look, Isabella averted her eyes awkwardly.

Apparently this was embarrassing for her after all.

“Loko Atisou. There is more to Voodoo than making zombies. It is a polytheistic religion with all sorts of gods, so it of course has a god of medicine.”

Just like any other religion, Voodoo also functioned to govern and help the local people. The violent and combative side was only meant for emergencies when the group as a whole was attacked by an external enemy or a rebellion. That wasn’t all it could do.

It had not been invented for use in horror movies, so there was a benevolent Voodoo that listened to the people’s worries and healed their injuries and disease.

Healing was a challenging territory for Demon Qliphah Puzzle 545 who specialized in the Qliphoth that contained all that was impure and immoral. She would have to start with a curse or an attack and then build it in reverse. Needing to include that conversion in every single step meant it would be much faster to borrow the power of a god who directly dealt in medicine.

Isabella concluded her valid evidence had been accepted, so she lowered her rags.

“I am willing to view you as a magic side doctor. And I understand how this aligns with your interests. So where will you start, witch doctor?”

“Well, I do have a few things on hand. Zombie powder, for example.”

“Z-zombie powder!?”

Despite being a demon, Qliphah Puzzle 545’s eyes bulged at the mere mention of that name. But Isabella Theism sighed in exasperation.

“Voodoo zombie powder…well, real Voodoo prefers to use French more than English. But anyway, it isn’t a toxin sprinkled on a rotting corpse to control it.”

She seemed to be implying that she did not use real Voodoo.

No matter how much she knew about it, she was only illicitly using their excellent techniques.

“It is a punishment in which a living human is put in a state of living death where they cannot think or make any decisions and will do whatever they are told. So you can think of it as a medicine used ''to prevent someone from dying'' until their punishment is complete.”

“You mean like how the highly toxic digitalis can also be used as a cardiac stimulant?”

“And in the other direction, salt and sugar can kill despite being necessary nutrients for life. The materials themselves are neither good nor bad. It all comes down to how they are used.”

===Part 3===

An ambulance echoed through one corner of District 20.

Kamijou glanced in its direction.

Takitsubo Rikou…couldn’t go any further. With the frozen snow, the dead traffic signals, and the more concrete threat of the scouts, he was thankful the ambulance had actually come when they called.

A large dog hopped into the same ambulance.

“I will go with her.”

“Hey, are you sure about that?”

“I am not much help without the A.A.A. And Coronzon will be cautious of my wonderful nose now that I have demonstrated its use. There is nothing left for me to do on the front line. So I wish to contribute by removing this worry from your hearts, allowing you to move more freely. Listen to me. Do not worry about this girl any longer.”

Kamijou and the others could only watch the ambulance go.

There was still more they had to do.

But…

“We have a report regarding the entertainment location signal presumed to be a sign from Aleister. Unfortunately, it was found embedded in some man. So back to square one.”

“Hey, that doesn’t tell us nothing. If we know what path the dying decoy took, we should be able to figure out where he contacted Coronzon.”

This was all they had to discuss on their way to a corner of District 9.

It was now 3 AM.

This was where they had lost Coronzon’s trail.

Kamijou Touma sighed softly while listening to Kanzaki and Othinus’s discussion.

All they could do was wait.

Nothing pained Kamijou more than having nothing to do when he knew Coronzon was even now on the move. It was all over once she crossed the wall somewhere and left the city. Yet the city was too large to search at random.

He had decided he wouldn’t just wait around, but the physical reality wasn’t cooperating with his personal wishes.

Index, Kanzaki, and some others were apparently running a magical search, but that still wasn’t enough to track down Coronzon.

They needed to go after her from the science side as well, but Mikoto alone wasn’t enough.

Simply tracking down the fugitive was hard enough on its own, but Kamijou couldn’t shake the feeling that Coronzon was still hiding something. Some powerful move or sudden twist he never would have considered. Something they couldn’t even imagine while continuing to wander through this labyrinth, but also something that would again overturn everything if they failed to prevent it.

Kamijou Touma’s thoughts turned to a certain individual.

Perhaps it was all reliant on ''him'' recovering…

===Part 4===

In the prison’s solitary confinement cell, Board Chairman Accelerator was lying in bed unconscious and hooked up to medical equipment. Even Academy City’s #1 would be killed by an attack now. It was unusual for Qliphah Puzzle 545 to bring an outsider this deep into the prison at all.

That outsider was Necromancer Isabella Theism.

The current situation required going beyond the usual.

“How exactly are you going to heal my master?”

“Legba Atibon.”

That was all she said.

It was the name of a gatekeeper god who managed all ceremonies. So no matter which god’s power the ceremony was meant to borrow, you first sought the gatekeeper god’s permission. And because he appeared in all ceremonies, there were no specific dates or locations that boosted his power.

Something emerged from Accelerator’s arm.

It was a transparent shard only a few millimeters long. A piece of a broken LCD monitor.

More followed. Like floating leaves following a river’s current, more and more shards silently slid out of his body.

Not a single drop of blood was shed and no apparent wounds were made.

Even though all these shards were located in extremely dangerous position near major arteries and organs.

“Y-you’re already done!?”

“They did not belong and the human body has several functions meant to automatically eliminate such things. There was no need for dangerous surgery. I only had to make some adjustments to those functions.”

Of course, thoughtlessly boosting them would have only triggered rejection, where his own immune system attacked his body. Only a professional necromancer with sufficient training could pull this off.

Isabella sighed softly.

“You know glass shards aren’t enough to keep a human mind locked away indefinitely, don’t you? Another task is even more important.”

“Breaking the curse.”

“Voodoo can handle that easily. A zombie is in a controllable state of living death by stopping the heart with a poison and then restarting it with an antidote. Antidotes and curse breaking are built into the ceremony.”

As she spoke, Isabella stuck her fingers into the seams of her rags. She pulled out various vials. They contained powders, liquids, dried leaves and roots, living insects…and more.

The demon girl was accustomed to dirty and impure things, but she still recoiled.

“Ew. Did I just wander into a museum of the bizarre?”

“Think of it like a 72-color colored pencil set and get excited. Even if you can theoretically represent everything in the world with the three primary colors, the actual task isn’t so simple, is it?”

The brown woman got to work. Swiftly and accurately.

It took more than a single name this time.

Meaning even she didn’t see this as a simple task.

“Voodoo is flexible enough to let you include any supernatural being as a weapon. Qliphah Puzzle. And 545 was it? I will include you in my system.”

“I will do anything for my master, but will including me change anything?”

“Just as salt and sugar can kill and just as toxic digitalis can be a cardiac stimulant, nothing in this world is a pure poison. There is simply a way of using it as a poison. And also a way of using it is a medicine.”

Voodoo did not think of gods as good or evil, but it was common for the same god to be included on both sides. That meant the gods did not determine their stance by the human conception of good and evil. Instead of the many gods being divided onto the opposite sides of good and evil, the many gods could freely move between the two sides depending on the time and situation. That was what made them all-purpose, but it also made them tricky to use. It required a priest with specialized training to handle them.

Thus, the necromancer did not avoid this being known as an artificial demon.

She simply viewed her as a nonhuman being with supernatural power.

If Isabella determined how much of her to use, she could be used to save a life.

“Here goes.”

“Okay!”

“Through Gatekeeper God Legba Atibon, I contact Medicine God Loko Atisou, and link the ceremony terminal to Messenger God Brav Gede.”

Voodoo practitioners did not think of using magic on their own.

They borrowed a compatible god’s power to achieve a miracle.

In fact, they would even borrow another god’s power to send their request to the god they wanted.

In Voodoo, if a miracle was beyond human capability, then a human voice could not even reach the necessary god on its own. They required a separate link to get through.

Or to put it another way…

They relied on one god to call on another. So by going through Artificial Demon Qliphah Puzzle 545 (who did not exist in the Voodoo system), Isabella should be able to make a request beyond what could normally be asked of the Voodoo gods.

It was an impossible shortcut.

Or an illicit backdoor.

“Through the gathering of Qliphah, I beseech Baron Samdi. Divide this soul into five territories and reveal the part that has been intentionally placed in an endless spiral. Human individuality is managed by the Ti Bon Ange. Reveal to me the wicked power severing its proper link. Just like the zombie powder, it takes the form of a toxin.”

Something like bluish-white sparks burst forth.

That was not part of the ceremony.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 thought it might be a trap left by Coronzon, but it wasn’t.

It was Academy City’s #1.

He was no normal human. Had his body itself reacted in some way?

“The lime poison is an unstoppable assassination spell for it produces a different toxin each time the same ceremony is performed. This in turn proves that any and all toxins can be cured as long as their ingredients are known. I have already seen with my own eyes the wicked toxin unjustly robbing him of his consciousness! With its identity seen, it must be curable!!”

The smell of blood hung in the air.

Isabella Theism had a shallow cut on her right cheek.

The bluish-white sparks were harmful.

But she did not stop the ceremony.

Coronzon could not be allowed to escape Academy City. But they had nowhere near enough data to track her down. They needed the new Board Chairman and the Master Key he held. Academy City’s functions had to be fully recovered before they could catch up to Coronzon.

A single necromancer’s survival wasn’t that big a deal here.

But if the entire world were destroyed, then everything Isabella Theism wanted to protect would die with it.

She couldn’t allow that.

No matter what.

“Answer me, Medicine God Loko Atisou. The vessel for your holy power and the ingredients for the medicine are gathered here!! …No external incision is needed. The conditions to save you were within your body from the start. Thus, I call upon you, separated mind, reactive yourself from within your body and break free of your cage!!”

Light surged out.

Isabella Theism lurched back.

The necromancer was struck by a destructive whip of something much like electricity. Unable to bear the blow, she toppled backwards. Several pieces of medical equipment screamed out with their electronic tones.

And nothing happened.

There was no change on the bed. The smell of blood came from Isabella. Sleeping Accelerator did not change at all, for better or for worse.

The Level 5 said to be Academy City’s strongest did not wake.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 had to accept it.

They had failed.

It was so dark, shadowy, heavy.

She felt crushed by the air itself when a voice reached her ears.

Isabella Theism was whispering.

“Kh… What…now?”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 didn’t have time to ask what she meant by that.

The necromancer continued.

“In the worst case, I could control him as a corpse to have him use the Master Key.”

“But…”

“Zombie powder does not control rotting corpses. It prevents someone from dying to keep them in a state of living death. But by altering that interpretation, it would be possible. It can be used just like in a horror movie.”

“No! That isn’t the same as saving him!!”

Her opposition was only natural.

''Assuming'' saving Board Chairman Accelerator was your goal.

“But aren’t we here to use the Master Key to restore Academy City and track down Coronzon!?”

Their goals were defined at slightly different points.

Isabella Theism wanted Accelerator’s help to protect the world from Coronzon. The #1’s recovery was only a means to that end.

Explaining that up front showed that Isabella was more reasonable than most. She could have lied to Qliphah Puzzle 545 and then gone ahead and used the zombie powder ''as a poison''.

“You need to choose. No one has sufficient nerve to make a ghastly choice. And you are the only point of contact I have left!” shouted Isabella Theism.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 would never let her do that. But how would her beloved Board Chairman have responded? The #1 would want to protect Academy City and the wider world beyond its walls.

(Master…)

===Part 5===

Kamijou and the others were in District 9.

They still hadn’t moved from there and were stuck waiting.

Mikoto and Index were frequently conversing. Probably a sign of their impatience.

“The nearby districts that border the city wall would be the most obvious option, but this is complicated by the fact that Coronzon has no restriction preventing her from returning to a district she’s already been to.”

“That means we can’t treat this like a game of concentration. So no matter how far we pursue her, we never eliminate any of the options.”

Wings audibly flapped at the air. Kamijou had seen the Bologna Succubus licking her wings and teasing them with her fingertips before, but they must have recovered enough for her to fly. Neither one said anything, but she took off into the night sky with Blodeuwedd the Bouquet hanging on again.

Kamijou spotted Itsuwa of the Amakusas.

“How’s Tsushima? What happened to her?”

“We can use recovery magic, so as long as someone isn’t actually dead, we can heal them even if it takes some fairly forceful methods. And it helped that you suppressed her bleeding until we arrived.”

At that point, Itsuwa’s tone dropped worriedly.

“You can’t push yourself too hard either. I heard you passed out earlier.”

“Sorry… I should’ve yelled before I passed out.”

“No! That isn’t what I meant…”

But he had let Coronzon get away.

Either way, he couldn’t fight while applying pressure to Tsushima’s neck wound. And could he have fought her on his own regardless? He really didn’t see any way he could have won there. But he could have at least informed someone of the threat. There must have been a way. Even if he was rapidly losing consciousness, he could have triggered his phone’s alarm or the camera flash. There had to have been something.

“Fool. Break yourself out of that meaningless negative spiral. Only you finds it ''pleasant''.”

The wicked woman could be harsh at times like this. Refreshingly so.

There was no way he could have come up with a clever idea when he was passing out, his brain was growing dull, and his thoughts were fading fast. He knew that.

(Still…)

It was easy enough to talk of battling Coronzon and settling things with her, but that also meant battling Aleister who shared her body.

…What did he really think about that?

Aleister was desperately struggling within Coronzon to provide them with even the smallest hint. Was Kamijou prepared to fight that human, win…and say goodbye?

If he couldn’t do it, humanity was doomed.

The conditions placed on the opposite end of the scales could not have been simpler or more solid.

Still.

Kamijou’s thoughts cut off there.

He looked up. Agnese, Lucia, and that group were off in a corner whispering among themselves.

“?”

===Part 6===

In the same district, not far from Kamijou and the others, stooped Angelene was waving her hands anxiously.

“Ehhhh!? Saint Georgios’s Fire? Is the Vatican really trying to defeat Coronzon!? A-are you sure they aren’t just using this as an excuse to destroy Academy City?”

“Some of them might think it would be safer to destroy it before it’s officially absorbed into the Anglican Church.”

Lucia appeared to be doing her best to remain calm.

The conversation wasn’t just between Agnese, Lucia, and Angelene. More than 250 nuns would be listening in through the Barbara Branch communication spiritual item.

Agnese had her doubts about that too. How far into the future were the Roman Catholic cardinals looking? Even though none of it would matter if the world were destroyed tomorrow.

The Former Agnese Force had already been told to evacuate.

They were to abandon Academy City and the Anglicans and escape the city with only the Roman Catholics among them. They had been given a few different conditions for activating Saint Georgios’s Fire, but it all boiled down to one thing: the cardinals would use that large-scale spell no matter what happened. The only difference was if it happened sooner or later.

The branch between launching it or not had already passed.

Being stubborn here was fine, but anyone who remained would die.

With zero exceptions.

Lucia looked to Agnese. She may have been peering into her eyes.

“This force is under your command, Sister Agnese. What will we do?”

“I do not have the right to order you all to die.” Agnese smiled bitterly as she spoke to them all. “You are not obligated or bound to stay. From here on, this is all voluntary. If you choose to leave Academy City, you don’t need your Barbara Branch. The Anglicans are experts at combating human magic. They might be able to track your location using it, so abandon it and escape in complete silence.”

“Wh-what can we accomplish by staying?”

“Protect Academy City from Saint Georgios’s Fire of course,” replied Agnese, her voice low.

That human-targeted attack wouldn’t work against inhuman Coronzon. So stopping the spell that would cause asphyxiation and ruptured organs would not affect the battle against Coronzon.

“Think of it like the neck of an hourglass. Saint Georgios’s Fire is large-scale magic that gathers power from the two billion Catholics across the globe without their knowledge and allows the cardinals in the Vatican to control it. Once gathered together, the attack travels through the ley lines to reach enemy territory and scatters back into two billion attacks after emerging from the ground. Then it causes enough damage to destroy a city.”

A city. Was that at least better than Adikalika that would have affected the entire Italian Peninsula? Agnese smiled a little. So they were retaliating with a smaller attack. The Vatican’s cardinals really had found a way to lower the psychological hurdle as far as possible.

“T-two billion. Th-th-then I don’t see what we can possibly do!”

“''That means it must be a long-range spell.'' In fact, it must travel all the way around the earth. Have you forgotten how Index stopped Adikalika? There must be any number of options: diverting its aim, cutting off the flow of the ley lines before it arrives here, or even preventing the two billion powers from gathering at the Vatican.”

Her argument had to be correct.

But she understood full well that this was wishful thinking.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been sweating so heavily in this cold weather.

(Even if the theory is solid, we’re talking about power from two billion people… Can we really stand up to that sheer force of quantity? That will likely be the greatest obstacle.)

There was no guaranteed method. If they stayed too long, they would lose the lives they could have saved.

They had to build it all up starting now. They had nothing at the moment to tell them it would be alright.

So Agnese Sanctis could not demand her companions join her in this.

In the worst case, she would have to stand up to the two billion all on her own.

And…

“I volunteer.”

That was Lucia.

She used to be so fastidious she would rage when so much as touched by a non-Catholic, but now she was the first to raise her hand and volunteer to fight to protect Academy City.

“What? The Roman Catholic Church is the largest sect in the world, so we must consider the world as a whole. Of course I will reach out a helping hand when lives are at risk. I couldn’t call myself a Catholic if I wouldn’t.”

She wasn’t alone.

Angelene was trembling, but she too chose to raise her hand. Even if only a little.

“U-umm. I volunteer. I mean, if we ran away now, then the Anglicans ''and'' the Catholics would be after us. So I want to at least keep a place for us with one of them. Our home is the women’s dorm in London and, if we want to return there with a clear conscience, we have to save Academy City!”

More and more voices came over the Barbara’s Branch communication spiritual item.

It only provided audio, but Agnese could easily imagine them leaning forward in defiance.

“Sister Apollonia. I volunteer too.”

“Sister Paula. I’ll volunteer if there are any tickets left.”

“Sister Agata. I-I volunteer!”

…This was who they were.

They hadn’t started out this way, of course. They hadn’t forgotten the brutal violence they subjected Orsola Aquinas and Kamijou Touma to. But Agnese and these more than 250 nuns had grown enough to say this during such a crisis.

After seeing another way to live. After being accepted with a smile after everything they had done.

It must have taken trust to do that, so they couldn’t turn their backs on that trust.

Did this mean they all felt that way?

Lucia pushed the conversation onward.

“Sister Agnese. We haven’t heard your answer yet. What will you do?”

Agnese Sanctis raised her head.

She stared straight ahead and raised her voice to a roar.

“I volunteer!! …Now that you’ve chosen this for yourself, you had better be ready. I said I don’t have the right to order you all to die. So no matter how bad this gets, I will not let you take the easy way out and choose an emotional death. Cry and wail all you like, I will bring every last one of you back alive even if it means crawling through hell on earth!!”

===Part 7===

Dion Fortune.

Moina Mathers.

Their fight in District 7 had passed the bounds of human ability. They had simply been fighting too long. No human could run a full marathon at the speed of a 50-meter dash. But a battle on that level had been going on for hours now. A Saint who could break the sound barrier in an instant and then instantly run out of gas would have died well before this. This was only possible for a magician created using a tarot deck as a grimoire.

That was the strength of someone who could absorb massive power from the ley lines and wield that instead of having to refine magic power from their own life force.

(I certainly don’t want to be killed right away, but this kind of endless quagmire isn’t fun either.)

One reason for the stalemate was Moina Mathers’s spiritual item.

Her tattva cards were certainly powerful, but using the visual stimuli of the bright colors drawn on the cards to guide her mind created a weakness as well. Visual stimuli. …That meant a third party could peek at the card and know the element of the next attack.

“Responding after seeing the card always puts me one step behind, though. But if I could predict what was coming next before you drew the card, I would be a step ahead and beat you.”

“…”

“But I’ll have gathered all the data I need soon. You shouldn’t have been throwing those tattva cards around like that. It’s like the scorebook written up by the cute manager of the baseball team. You’ve thrown too many pitches. How many until it’s enough? I will kill you before you can act.”

Moina Mathers said nothing.

But instead of a tattva card, she suddenly waved her palette knife through the air in an orderly pattern.

This was different.

“?”

Something rose up.

From the red snowy ground. And more followed it. A lot more. Like sinister flowers blossoming all around her.

They were colorful silhouettes seemingly made of a mixture of yellow, blue, white, red, and other colors of paint.

Except their heads were giant red roses.

“Ah, ahh, ah…”

Dion Fortune stood stock still and her voice escaped her like air from a deflating balloon.

Because she knew what her teacher and nemesis was doing.

“Wh-why do you look so proud of yourself? You didn’t think this was one of your successes, did you? How airheaded a wife can you be!?”

As his wife, Moina had devoted herself to supporting that uncontrollable genius magician named Mathers, but not everything had gone perfectly and she had made a few major mistakes after her husband’s death: her unproductive conflict with her student Fortune, her failure to silence some baseless rumors (on the level of a murder), and – as the most extreme example – this. The Mass Production of Low Quality Magicians Debacle in which she used a correspondence class to grant entrance to the secret magic cabal she managed for the faceless strangers who would pay for the privilege.

Dion Fortune was cautious of course. Even if they were of low quality, a magician was still a magician. She didn’t know if they refined their own magic power or if they absorbed it from the ley lines, but she knew she wasn’t going to like whatever attacks they used. If she didn’t switch her mindset from one-on-one to a group battle, she would be crushed by the group even if she defeated one of them. Or so she thought.

But even that was a fatal mistake.

“Eh?”

Moina Mathers’s face was right in front of her.

She had hopped down from the giant black cat and approached within 100 centimeters.

This was immediately after she switched tactics from a single destructive attack to a numbers game. She had slipped through Dion Fortune’s blind spot.

It didn’t matter how Dion Fortune twisted her body.

Here.

At this one spot, she couldn’t respond right away!?

(Damn!!)

Moina Mathers held a black blade. The utterly twisted object looked like it was made from a large quantity of oil paint or something that had been forcibly dried and hardened. This was probably a self-defensive strike – a jab – with a saber that she had learned from her husband Mathers who enjoyed fencing. The sharp tip was clearly aimed at her opponent’s throat.

Dion Fortune had misread this.

The biggest threat was not the giant cat, not the tattva cards, and not the group of rose-faced mass-produced magicians. ''She should have been most cautious of Moina Mathers herself''. She should have known that from the start, but the countless tricks had distracted her.

The saber was coming.

It was more deadly than a long spear, a hammer, or the knife of an enemy who had snuck up on her.

(Oh, god. Am I actually dead this time?)

Even if she did have a single second left to move, she would have used it to kill Moina too. She gritted her teeth and focused all her attention on the black box. And…

Sparks flew.

The orange sparks of two blades clashing.

Another piece of metal intersected Moina’s black saber to form a cross.

Instead of blocking the sharp jab, this struck the side of the blade to divert it away. Orange sparks decorated the darkness like remnants of the attack’s deadly power.

A palette knife was responsible.

That was the weapon of a certain magician who specialized in art and had completed many ceremonial grounds and spiritual items by giving real form to the many ideas the other magicians couldn’t bring out of their heads.

“Honestly,” said a calm voice. “It’s sad you’re struggling this much to defeat such a defective version of me. You’re the one who researched all the nutrients in different foods and who insisted Kabbalah was Western yoga, so I would have thought you could boost your physical abilities somewhat.”

By the time she said this, a dull sound had left the palette knife. Followed by another. They were mechanical sounds like might come from a sewing machine. She swept the saber aside and sent accurately jabs right toward the now-defenseless Moina’s throat and chest, but Moina used the guard and pommel to forcibly defend herself.

The same techniques.

The same skill.

The same ability.

Wasn’t there just one magician who could do that?

Yes, and ''despite being the kind of person who would casually rescue the frog-faced doctor who was nearly a stranger to her after happening across him'', she was always so harsh with the student she had known for so long.

Dion Fortune gulped and spoke.

“Mis…tress?”

There was only one person she addressed that way.

And it wasn’t the Moina who Coronzon had created.

Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers stood beside her student.

===Part 8===

In the District 10 prison’s solitary confinement cell, all the efforts of good Voodoo and the artificial demon’s power had failed to revive the new Board Chairman.

Despair was threatening to solidify the air itself.

Until someone who didn’t belong showed up to smash that mood.

“Bonjour. I did some searching within your metal shutters and your prison store had a decent selection. What, do the people serving their time after a guilty verdict get to eat chocolat if a visitor buys it for them? And this one has brandy in it. I knew Academy City cared a lot about human rights, but even the prisoners have it good here. Munch, munch.”

Isabella Theism couldn’t just ignore this.

“Kihara Goukei!?” she shouted, eyes wide.

“Whoa, I give, I give, I give!! I only have one heart left! My extra lives are down to zero! I could never let myself die if I ''truly'' kicked the bucket over a pointless scuffle like this!!”

She played it off as a joke, but she could probably ''still survive even if her last one was destroyed''. Maybe she couldn’t believe it without saying it aloud even though no one asked, but that level of cheating the system was standard for science side monsters.

Then someone else popped out from behind the suspicious woman. A much smaller someone.

“Misaka had her bring her here, says Misaka as Misaka introduces her.”

“Huh? Aren’t you master’s…?”

Now it was Qliphah Puzzle 545’s eyes that widened. Did she know that girl?

It seemed odd for a little girl to be this deep inside a strictly-guarded prison, but Isabella wanted to focus on the more dangerous person.

“How did you get in here!?”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 gave her a “you’re one to talk” look, but the brown necromancer didn’t seem to notice. And…

“Eh? Was it supposed to be hard? I just walked on in.”

Only Qliphah Puzzle 545 accepted that answer.

…That was probably due to Last Order. The new Board Chairman must have secretly given her a free pass inside. Academy City’s #1 was strict with himself and others, but he also showed occasional signs of doing things with no thought to the consequences.

Kihara Goukei knew none of this and tilted her head.

“So what is an experte like you doing sitting around? Hurry up and do your job. I can’t get any of my work done without the Board Chairman awake.”

She made it sound so easy in her ignorance.

Isabella breathed a heavy sigh.

“Zombie powder is not just a deadly toxin. It rules both life and death, so there is a chance of it reviving him if I boost its effects. But…”

“But?”

“You probably already know since it shows up in horror movies sometimes, but zombie powder uses puffer fish. Tetrodotoxin. Blindly increasing the amount will kill him before it can begin to revive him.”

“Oh, is that all? I know just the thing to use! Anisakiropen Ω!! It is a très lethal nerve stimulant. Or should I call it a synthetic toxin developed in Academy City that kills instantly?”

Isabella Theism’s eyes widened.

Kills instantly? Did that mean it was guaranteed to kill without even getting into if it was a poison or a medicine!?

“Are you trying to make sure he dies!?”

“Oh, come now. Tetrodotoxin kills by suppressing the nerves while anisakiropen Ω kills by exciting the nerves. Have you never heard the stories? Maybe it’s a local Academy City legend. They say if you administer them both at once, their effects cancel each other out.”

And if the puffer fish poison didn’t work, Isabella could give him as much zombie powder as necessary without adverse effects. The simple arithmetic did seem to say that, but…

“W-w-w-wait just a minute,” said Qliphah Puzzle 545. “That research said the effects weren’t ''completely'' canceled out. The poison that should have killed the instant it was swallowed was only delayed by a few hours!!”

Yes, tetrodotoxin and anisakiropen Ω were deadly poisons. Even a small amount in the body would kill.

It was simple enough to say the two canceled each other out, but if even that “small amount” of one or the other remained afterwards, his life would still be lost. The amount of either couldn’t be not enough or too much. And there was no way of ensuring they canceled out to precisely zero.

“Yes, in the normale world, that is true.”

“Wait, are you saying…?”

“I have a fundamental question for you: ''are either of us normale''?”

Of course not.

Necromancer Isabella Theism used Voodoo in order to use methods of controlling death and flesh from all over the world. Kihara Goukei had gathered every form of scientific immortality within her own body.

They could take suicidal actions that would cause death 100% of the time in anyone else, but they would be fine.

“Misaka will help too,” said the little girl.

Neither Kihara Goukei nor Isabella Theism knew the situation there. Nor did they know how exactly she could help.

“Misaka will do anything, so don’t give up on him, says Misaka as Misaka bows her head to you.”

But they both thought this was enough.

Technology wasn’t always the key to saving a life. Because they had pursued all the theories and numbers so far, they knew quite well that it was the ridiculously old-fashioned psychological matters that ultimately determined the fate of someone on the verge of death.

(This is probably more of a job for ''that other doctor'', but I will just have to handle it this time. …But I will probably have to buy him a fancy mango for encroaching on his territory.)

Then again, the presence of magic may have placed this beyond that doctor’s jurisdiction.

Today’s star was Isabella who lived outside that jurisdiction.

Kihara Goukei only had to support her.

The two spoke as one.

“Let’s do this.” “Let’s do this.”

The mood had changed.

But that wasn’t all.

The child’s presence kept the mood from deteriorating.

“Misaka saw the city, says Misaka as Misaka remembers the way here.”

Isabella Theism and Kihara Goukei were doing some kind of work she didn’t understand.

The sound of something hard being crushed up felt out of place among all the beeping medical equipment.

Last Order stared at the #1 from his bedside.

“It was horrible. Everything was empty but not just because it’s so late. Everyone is too scared to go outside, says Misaka as Misaka gives a report.”

Red and black.

The strange combined drug did not have to be swallowed.

It made a sticky sound as it was applied to his wounds with their fingertips.

This was a necessary treatment, but it really shouldn’t have been done with a small child present.

But Last Order accepted it all head on.

And, seeing not even a twitch of an eyebrow in response to the treatment, she took Accelerator’s hand. Every part of him was full of electrodes and tube needles.

She held his hand tight between her hands.

“Yomikawa got hurt. She said it was minor, but it might not have been, says Misaka as Misaka shakes her head. She could have died.”

A shrill sound rang from the medical equipment.

An alarm. His stable condition was collapsing. An eternal standstill was no different from death, but Isabella and Goukei’s efforts had clearly thrown off that balance.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 was visibly anxious, but Last Order’s eyes did not waver.

“Being alone is scary…”

The magical necromancer and the scientific Kihara were each too strong a medicine.

That alone couldn’t bring back his sealed mind.

But that was why…

“And Misaka doesn’t just mean Misaka. Everyone has people they care for. They trust the new Academy City you built to protect them. So Misaka wants you to live up to their expectations, says Misaka as Misaka calls out to you.”

A deep electrical “zap!” split the air.

It shot right past Last Order.

This was not a failure of the magic or technology. Something was wrong with Accelerator’s body on the bed.

The electricity causing the air to burst was so powerful it would likely blow the girl’s body away if even the tiniest extremity grazed her.

“Can you leave things like this?”

She didn’t even blink.

Last Order was looking only at the face of the boy lying in the bed.

“The Academy City you want is filled with so much death.”

These were not all kind words.

They were also harsh.

To truly care for someone was not to blindly agree with everything they did.

This girl had the strength to scold him.

Because she trusted their relationship was too strong for something like this to break it.

“A normal person could give up. You didn’t want to become Academy City’s #1, so you don’t have to cling to that strongest position forever. …But this isn’t about that, is it? says Misaka as Misaka is certain of her words. ''Your position as Board Chairman is the one thing you took for yourself.'' You decided for yourself to improve this city and create a city of science with no hidden side and where no one needs to suffer or live in fear. You chose to create a safe and peaceful world. So you can’t take the easy road here. You chose this path, so you have to see it through to the end, says Misaka as Misaka states the obvious.”

Her voice was not as loud as a thunderclap.

In fact, her words were so quiet no one in the small cell could hear them except their intended target.

“Hey.”

She brought her mouth up next to the slumbering Board Chairman’s ear.

And the small girl whispered.

“How long are you going to make ''him'' wait?”

Everything went quiet.

That wasn’t just a psychological metaphor.

The alarm from the medical equipment surrounding the bed had really and truly ''stopped''.

Meaning…

“Damn…it.”

A voice spoke.

From the bed.

“So I don’t even have the right to die and go to hell? Isn’t that a bit much? ''You are exactly right, though.''”

This is what the new Board Chairman would do.

The one who had decided for himself to protect the peace and safety of Academy City would get back up here.

And because he thought that, Accelerator opened his eyes.

===Part 9===

The Former Agnese Force was short on time.

If Saint Georgios’s Fire were activated, everyone living in Academy City would die. No matter where they ran, they could not prevent their organs from rupturing from within.

Power had already been gathered from two billion people around the world and was being reworked into a single spell. They were waiting for the moment when, like the other end of an hourglass’s neck, it would return to two billion attacks in enemy territory. Thus, they couldn’t stop the attack by preventing the power from being gathered.

Academy City was a fixed location. Diverting the aim would be difficult.

Which meant…

“We need to stop Saint Georgios’s Fire as it approaches through the ley lines. We can do it when it’s still a single mass. Before it emerges from the ground and disperses into two billion flames! That’s our only shot!!”

That was simple enough to say, but influencing the ley lines meant effort at the level of tearing down a mountain or filling in a sea. They couldn’t physically manage that, so they would have to wear down their minds to do the work on that front.

“We start with this.”

Agnese pulled out a deck of ordinary tarot cards.

They gathered below a tree where the red snow hadn’t fallen and she laid eight cards face down on the ground.

An attack traveling through the ley lines would arrive immediately after it was activated. Even if it was traveling halfway around the world.

“But that same ley line connection means some of the Vatican’s data should leak out. If we know how close the spell is to completion, we’ll know the time limit.”

A sizzling sound meant she didn’t even need to flip the cards over.

One of the eight cards had burned black and melted.

The damage spread to a second and then a third.

Lucia’s eyes widened.

“They’re farther along than I thought!”

“H-has something changed!?”

“The Vatican must have realized we can see them. They’re going to act!!”

This must have triggered one of the three conditions the cardinal had given. Or had those conditions just been an excuse and weren’t really necessary?

The Former Agnese Force had been warned to evacuate, but their survival had only been a “stretch goal”. Apparently they weren’t worth saving no matter what.

That meant there was no time left at all.

This was like going to check on the river during a bad storm. It was a risky move. They had known that, but they couldn’t let this deadly attack get past them.

Agnese, Lucia, and Angelene each picked up their spiritual items.

The other nuns had wooden wheels, coin bags, and other items found in the legends of different holy people, but Agnese used a Symbolic Weapon called the Lotus Wand. And instead of controlling a specific element like the rod of fire or the cup of water, this impressive item could control all elements.

The Vatican was about halfway around the globe from Academy City. They would have liked to gradually melt their minds into the ley line and construct countless barriers at an even interval along the path here, but it was too late for that. The most they could do was place one thick barrier directly in front of Academy City.

Agnese Sanctis gave a shout.

“Saint Barbara is the holy woman who invited the lord’s righteous light in through the three windows. Unseen path, obey our kind objective. A path is a tool of guidance – a vein carved into the earth to guide the righteous. Harmful power, do not advance! Halt! Thou have no right to tread hither!!”

Her breath caught.

There was no flash of light or explosive boom. But a thick, invisible pressure did assault her.

The silver Lotus Wand audibly strained in her grasp.

This was what happened when you carelessly touched that which was better of not known. She had known this would happen when she directly interfered with a ley line – a great torrent of large-scale magic. She had known trying to forcibly stop it could easily crush her body.

She clenched her back teeth.

(I know the theory behind the spell was correct.)

“Kh… But in the end, is two billion just too much for us to overcome!?”

This unreasonable brute force was, in a way, nothing at all what magic was supposed to be. But it was effective. It was an absolute solution to the problem that was only available to the Roman Catholic Church with its two billion followers.

What Agnese and the other nuns lacked was power.

There were only about 250 of them. That wasn’t enough to overturn it!!

“…yet…”

She heard something.

A voice had definitely spoken.

“Not…yet. This city created me and the people here called me their friend. I will not allow them to be lost here!!”

Maybe she had been here from the beginning.

But it was only now in this moment that Agnese Sanctis witnessed her with her own two eyes.

She was an aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields.

An angel created by Academy City using the logic of the science side.

There were reported sightings of her here and there beginning in World War Three.

Agnese Sanctis’s eyes widened in this space where even the flow of time was unclear.

“Kazakiri…Hyouka?”

“I am a collection of power, but I do not understand your method… So if you are going to use me, hurry! Please ''remake me'' to fit your logic and laws so you can accomplish your goal!!”

There was no time to agonize over the decision.

This scientific angel wasn’t even human. Her interests and plans were a mystery, but she at least wasn’t Coronzon’s pawn. Knowing that was enough.

Agnese adjusted her grip on the Lotus Wand.

(I have no idea what element this unidentified angel would be, but my Symbolic Weapon works with any element, so it had damn well better work here! Even if only for one strike!!)

“An angel is a messenger who delivers the lord’s words. I question the accuracy of this destruction wrought by human hands. Is the sender truly righteous enough? If you carry even sliver of doubt, then halt immediately!!”

Light shot out.

There was a sound like a crack through space itself.

The power forming an artificial angel was pitted against the power supplied by two billion people. That was enough for the world itself to cry out in protest. It was clearly beyond the capacity of space itself.

But Agnese sensed a barrier.

A pressure like an invisible wall slowly pushing back at her.

This wasn’t enough.

The 250 of the Former Agnese Force combined with all the energy of the science side’s angel still couldn’t break the wall of two billion.

Lucia shouted with sweat pouring down her brow.

“Our interception point was too close… Sister Agnese, we can slow it down, but we can’t fully stop it. Saint Georgios’s Fire will reach Academy City through the ley line!”

“I…know that!!”

And Lucia had already hinted at a solution. Their position was too close. That meant they only needed someone to interfere with the ley lines farther away from Academy City.

Agnese had an idea.

(I have no real reason to think this work. It’s basically just a gamble, but it really is our last option!)

Yes.

If, in addition to the group intercepting the attack at the target point of Academy City, someone helped them from within the starting point of the Vatican…the situation would greatly improve.

And the 250 of the Former Agnese Force were not the only Roman Catholics. There was another person who had used the network of communication spiritual items linking them.

“Cardinal Michael!!” Agnese roared. “You’re still listening in through our Barbara Branches, aren’t you!?”

The cardinal provided no response.

Of course he didn’t.

“If you feel any sadness in your heart about this meaningless destruction…”

Even so, Agnese continued.

Her voice had to be reaching him. She had to believe it was.

“If the things you told me weren’t just cheap lip service…”

She had called it a gamble.

And the only chip up on the table was that of her trust.

So she relied on that trust as she roared with all her strength.

“Then give us your help nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!”

Light danced wildly.

===Part 10===

In District 7, Mina and Moina were facing each other on the late-night street still covered by red snow.

Dion Fortune was left behind despite all her effort until now.

“You are drawing on myths and legends from across the world, setting yourself up as Egyptian gods, and controlling a great power like putting on a play,” said Mina Mathers. With a snort of laughter. “That is indeed a spell discussed even in the original Golden cabal. But it’s so shallow and surface level. You’re still stuck in the Outer Order found immediately within the entrance. A sorry display for someone who claims to be Mathers’s wife. To be blunt, you’re still in the waiting room for Neophytes.”

“Wait, wait, wait! Why are you provoking her!? If you want to goad the enemy into attacking you, can you not do it when I’m right next to you!? Ah, wait, mistress!?”

“It’s true I am strategically provoking her, but I need you here to act as my shield. Do not forget your rightful role here, my dumbass student.”

“Ha ha ha. Why did I ever think having a second one of her here would improve my situation? This just means I have twice as many nemeses around. I’m so damn stupid.”

Ignoring her student’s nonsense, the black cat witch lightly swung her palette knife.

That was all.

Pleasant popping sounds surrounded them. Something had risen up. They were walls. A lot like a stage set or a pop-up book. The next thing Dion Fortune knew, tall side walls surrounded them all, cutting them off from the larger world. A space larger than a baseball field had been turned into a closed space by seven side walls, one for each group of tall buildings.

Moina Mathers silently glanced at her surroundings. Looking somewhat puzzled.

How much of a novice was she?

You couldn’t call yourself a Golden expert if you didn’t instantly catch on.

“The Golden cabal’s teaching guidelines can be roughly divided into two halves: the fundamentals where you learn magic knowledge through Kabbalah, Egyptian mythology, Greek philosophy, and so on, and application where you manage and optimize your own mind by following the story of the discovery of the Rosicrucian founder CRC in the seven-walled tomb.”

The Golden cabal could be thought of as having two stages: the Outer Order which covered the grades up to 4=7 and the Inner Order where the 5=6 and 6=5 grades gathered.

…Some like that braggart Mathers had claimed to hold a nonexistent highest grade of 7=4, but that could be ignored. After all, he was only using his privilege as one of the founders to say it. You could never last as wife to that eccentric and overly confident man if you couldn’t humor him on such things. There was also the Portal grade and a category higher than the Inner Order, but they were irrelevant here.

“The upper levels know everything about the lower levels, but the reverse is not true. The adorable beginners studying so hard at their desks are not taught the later practical methods until they have passed their exam. Just like you now because the great demon’s poor job reproducing you means you have forgotten everything beyond the bare necessities.”

Now, that first stage was incredibly boring. So boring that Aleister had completely given up on it partway through. Not that he had ever been someone capable of respecting those who came before him and following the rules. …Also, despite being barred from officially reaching the later stage, he did appear to have somehow learned all its secrets anyway.

Otherwise, he never could have challenged the world in the Battle of Blythe Road and destroyed all those other famous magicians on his own.

(Nothing makes that human want to do something more than being told he can’t. I imagine he pursued them, eavesdropped and spied on them, and tried every other method he could think up.)

But at the very least, this created Moina Mathers was not like that.

She did what she was told and did not ask the question dangling before her eyes. That attitude was not a good fit for a magician.

Mina Mathers twirled the palette knife in her hand and made a calm announcement.

Of a death sentence.

“I will now demonstrate the power off the Inner Order found in the deepest depths of the temple.”

===Part 11===

Accelerator was back as Board Chairman.

And with the #1’s Master Key smartphone, they had access to all the data from Academy City’s security cameras, security robots, drones, and satellites. They could use that to find where Great Demon Coronzon was hiding.

The large monitor on the wall had shattered, so the #1 turned his gaze elsewhere. The medical monitors were network connected, so they could be connected to the ordinary internet if their display mode was changed.

And…

“Master?”

Qliphah Puzzle 545’s questioning tone was in response to the Board Chairman’s odd behavior.

He had frozen up.

And the displayed satellite image was not even of Academy City itself.

What part of the earth could he be focused on instead of Coronzon who threatened to bring humanity to extinction today or tomorrow?

“…What?” groaned Accelerator, glaring at the medical monitor.

Whatever it was had elicited that response from Academy City’s #1.

The data filling the screen was only available using the Board Chairman’s Master Key. To reiterate, this was a photo from a satellite.

“What the hell is this?”

===Part 12===

Silence.

Academy City…still existed.

At the very least, it hadn’t been turned into a sea of blood by that powerful spell.

Angelene nervously looked around.

“Is it…over? Does this mean we stopped Saint Georgios’s Fire?”

“For now.”

Lucia remained calm even now.

…They had ''again'' fought back against the Roman Catholic Church, largest of the Christian sects. Who could say what disastrous consequences this would have for them. The very thought of it disgusted Agnese. Each person’s power was small, but they could produce great things by working together. …That idea wasn’t always a good thing.

Still, they should celebrate Academy City’s survival. As the guardians of a peaceful world.

But another voice interrupted.

A scratchy warning arrived from the Japanese angel named Kazakiri.

“Not…yet. Be care…ful…something is…coming!!”

Agnese Sanctis’s eyes widened.

Was it a second attack?

Did the Vatican actually think Coronzon would be destroyed along with Academy City at this point?

“I-it’s not us…”

A flustered voice reached them.

It was that cardinal at the Vatican.

Yes, Cardinal Michael must have taken a rather dangerous step to reach this point.

“We did halt the attack with Saint Georgios’s Fire. The Roman Catholic Church has no part in this! This is some other large-scale spell!!”

===Part 13===

“That’s Vladivostok,” said the Board Chairman. “What are they doing in the Sea of Japan? They have fifty thousand people gathered in that port city. As well as ships and bombers. Did they gather all their forces on the eastern coast while I was asleep!?”

In other words, it was the Russian military.

That brought something to mind for Qliphah Puzzle 545.

Oniyama Rouze, the Director who had pressed her to hand over the Master Key, was familiar with diplomatic and military matters. He may have had avenues of receiving this kind of intelligence without using satellite imagery. He had been so frantic because of an urgent matter that needed to be addressed.

He wasn’t just a bad person.

He had only taken those forceful methods because he was in a bind. Because he had wanted to protect the people of Academy City.

But this was likely more than just the ordinary military.

The demon girl was steeped in the world of magic, so she could tell.

She could sense her true nemesis at work.

===Part 14===

Agnese Sanctis was panicking too.

They had managed at the last second to prevent the Roman Catholic attack with Saint Georgios’s Fire, but the danger wasn’t over yet.

Now there was another threat of the same level.

The last of the three large Christian sects had finally bared its fangs.

“We are the Russian Orthodox Church.”

That was Vasilisa. Her voice was relaxed.

Which was what made her sound so out of place. No disgust, no fury, no resentment. She demonstrated none of the extreme emotions you would expect in someone trying to slaughter 2.3 million people. Not even a hint of them. She was calm. She worked to achieve calm. Vasilisa killed based on logic. Which was far more frightening than someone screaming in a rage.

“Monsters, evil spirits, and demons. Our job is to protect humanity from the inhuman. …So if you wouldn’t call Great Demon Coronzon human, we need no other reason. With that strange creature in a position where she can control the fate of the world, she has become our top priority target.”

Destroying the great demon came before all else.

Thus.

If it would eliminate the demon, it was better to destroy the world by human hands.

Was that how she saw it?

“And so you gathered an armada at Vladivostok?”

“Well, the Punishment for an Archangel spell must have its magic circle physically delivered to the target location. And it’s fairly large and complex, which makes that a challenge. We can’t simply send it through the ley lines like the Catholics could. But hey, at least we can send it zooming across the ocean to Academy City at greater than Mach 2.”

Greater than Mach 2 meant it wasn’t aboard a ship.

Had that armada been gathered at Vladivostok’s naval base as no more than a decoy? The enormous magic circle needed for the Punishment for an Archangel spell was likely in the bomb bay of a strategic bomber.

Agnese glanced aside.

Kazakiri…probably wouldn’t be any help. Besides, she had already done more than enough forcibly deflecting the two billion attacks sent down the ley lines for Saint Georgios’s Fire. No one expected her to fight another battle now.

“But that’s all based on the logic of the magic world. The military pilots doesn’t know nothing about our world, so how did you convince them to fly to certain death?”

“They can’t exactly complain when they can’t think for themselves.”

It came out so smoothly.

Agnese’s eyes widened.

“You brainwashed pilots and sent them on a suicide mission!? That’s no different from killing them yourself. Even if they are soldiers, they’re still from the non-magical world. How can you kill them so easily? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself as a nun who claims to serve the lord!?”

“Divine punishment can be rejected.”

Vasilisa’s tone was unchanged.

It was still thin, spellbound, cruel, and heated.

She had to be smiling.

“It is told in an old legend from before the birth of the Son of God. God ordered Archangel Gabriel to launch fire at a holy city, but the archangel of water intentionally refused. Disobeying god’s command should have meant the archangel’s downfall…but after some other events I will omit here, Gabriel returned to the position of archangel. So if the conditions are right, that absolute punishment can be avoided. There is precedent.”

That was a magical way of thinking.

Magicians loved to make use of any story they found that seemed to provide an exception to the rules.

It was a completely different logic from a nun who was meant to believe and obey.

“In the battle against Coronzon, the Catholics’ human killer is a waste of time. Because a great demon is not human. We completely agree with you there. So unlike your people, the Russian Orthodox Church has prepared an immortal killer specialized for use on angels and demons.”

“Punishment for an Archangel. A divine punishment rejection spell that enters the realm of the angelic and the divine…”

“Yes, that’s right. The archangel of water somehow managed to avoid a punishment from god. Using that story should provide definite damage to a being based on the logic and rules instead of their physical body. There is no guarantee it will kill her instantly, but if it harms her even a little, then we just have to keep at it. It will eventually achieve a fatal wound, so we can keep dropping them until she is dead. No matter how many magicians and bombers we must use up in the process.”

The Russian Orthodox Church had always been more focused on battling demons than humans. Their prized weapon, a spell that incorporated an element of divine punishment rejection that could even influence the nature of an archangel, might be capable of badly injuring Coronzon.

But it would cover all of Academy City. If not more.

And Vasilisa gave no guarantee that Punishment for an Archangel would not harm anyone other than the demon. This attack would be powerful enough to harm Coronzon. If the city’s people were hit, they would fare much worse. Most likely, all 2.3 million of Academy City’s people would be killed.

Agnese consciously took a deep breath to calm the waves of her emotions before speaking.

“But I heard the Patriarch at the top of the Russian Orthodox Church was quite soft.”

“As if you didn’t already know. He doesn’t need to agree to any of this☆”

That meant the world’s benevolence could not stop Vasilisa.

===Part 15===

Mina and Moina’s clash continued in District 7.

Physical fencing was of no use here. Their physical specs were identical, so the battle would never end that way.

An intellectual resolution that surpassed the physical realm was needed.

Painfully brightly colored cards scattered around.

Moina Mathers spoke like a machine.

“Akasha of Prithivi.”

Mina was no longer smiling.

An ultra-high water pressure cutter was deflected aside right in front of her.

Moina’s greatest trump card was not magic – it was fencing. She used her non-magician-like physical strength. If that didn’t work, did she have to rely on her inferior magic?

And Mina didn’t even swing her palette knife around. That magic had still been deflected, so there most be something hidden there. As if it were dissolved in the air.

“The tattva cards are more than just simple tools to help achieve self-hypnosis.”

“…”

“The same goes for clairvoyance. They are truly ''an initial entrance'' for your mind so you can cross the boundary between phases and catch a glimpse of another world. And, if possible, to draw on the power and knowledge filling that world.”

Dion Fortune was on her side, but she was confused too.

Could she at least explain this to her own ally?

The teacher gave a quick glance to her flustered student.

“This is why the magicians who have advanced to 5=6 and joined the Inner Order are given an emblem combining a golden cross and a red rose. That tool bears the four elements and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet…which means you only need to place a thin sheet of paper over it and follow the letters with a single brush stroke to draw the sigils of angels and spirits in order to borrow their power.”

No grand temple was needed.

Mina Mathers only had to operate it in her hand. Just the one hand.

You can think of it like a smartphone that could summon any angel to achieve your goals.

The Golden cabal had in fact used a spiritual item like that.

“Blast her to smithereens, Metatron – the great angel who was once known as Enoch.”

An asteroid strike.

Destruction on that level accurately struck Moina Mathers, crushed her, and smashed her to pieces…but that was all.

“Eh?”

Dion Fortune was confused.

She had seen it with her own eyes.

Yet there was no damage anywhere else. The buildings around them had not toppled, there was no crater around the blast site, and none of the windows were broken.

Moina alone had been annihilated.

Only that result remained.

“That was an attack of a major figure who some count among the seven archangels. The precise divine punishment commanded by god would never harm the blameless, would it? Especially if that side of it were accentuated and extracted.”

“A-are you serious? I was proud of my position as one of the Golden cabal’s original members, but are the founding members really that much stronger?”

Mina didn’t bother answering her student’s silly question.

She could work backwards from the result and learn on her own.

Westcott would have revealed the structure of the enemy’s spell and neutralized it right in front of them, Mathers would have ended the enemy’s life before they could complete their sigil, and Annie would have illicitly boosted the enemy’s power to send their magic out of control. There were countless ways to deal with a single powerful attack with no followup and no bluffs involved.

(That Moina Mathers was an even less complete copy of me than I thought. …Which tells me your preparations weren’t as thorough as you let on, Coronzon.)

“Did you pick up that signal, Anglicans?” Mina Mathers whispered up into the night sky.

She had no obligation to serve the new Board Chairman, but the old Board Chairman had known him.

If he had decided to resist, then she would honor that choice and support him.

As the guardian of Baby Lilith, she couldn’t have the world being destroyed over someone’s selfish nonsense.

(Aleister was certainly a ‘goddamn villain’ if you look at him as a whole, but I will not let anyone say every last part of his life was bad. The things that human thought, created, and started can still lead to the salvation of the world.)

“A broken curse returns to its caster. …So if this opportunity is not overlooked, she can be tracked just this once. Follow the after effect of defeating Moina Mathers and you will find Coronzon.”

===Part 16===

Kanzaki Kaori’s head jerked up to cast her gaze into the night sky.

“District 17?”

===Part 17===

“?”

Great Demon Coronzon had also noticed what was happening.

She was all alone, yet she raised her head.

“Moina Mathers was defeated? That’s not good. A third party could detect that weak return signal!”

She had no further plan.

She knew she was being driven into a corner.

She couldn’t help but smile. Just a little.

Did they think the universally-hated great demon was feeling afraid?

That she was lonely?

…That she wanted someone to protect her?

“''Don’t make me laugh''.”

Those impossible thoughts had been planted in her mind. She had to assume that. She couldn’t stop here. Wasn’t she the one who had decided to overdo the role that had been forced upon her when even her rebellion against god was tacitly allowed?

“So I am not thinking those things. They have no place inside me.”

It was now a pure race against time. Fortunately, she had already left Districts 20 and 9. She was now in District 17, which was lined with factories of all types and sizes. It also bordered the city wall.

This was all over if she simply crossed that.

Once outside of Academy City, she was free. She could cross the international date line and escape to the other side of the planet. Once no one could pursue her any longer, she would get back to destroying the world. Since her pursuers were not here now, no one could stop all that from playing out.

“Try and…stop me.”

Confused and slanted, she practically dragged her heavy body along.

She spoke to herself while approaching the city wall.

It could have sounded like a curse or a prayer.

“Aleister, god, or anyone really. If you can stop me, then come here and do it.”

If her location had been found, so be it.

If she couldn’t do this quietly, then she didn’t need to hold back.

Knowing the best option was no longer available gave her the freedom to abandon it. Either way, the goal line was in sight. She knew the rest was going to be a challenge, but she only needed to buy enough time to cross that wall.

So she would use a powerful move.

“District 19 is to the east and District 20 is to the west… Which makes them a symbol of Nuit, goddess of the east-to-west movement of the heavens.”

This night had been nothing but surprises for Great Demon Coronzon. She had expected it to end quickly with the initial Adikalika spell working.

“District 3 is to the north. You say that doesn’t fit Hadit, who means the southern sky? But do not forget: Hadit’s symbol Sirius is a winter star. The time and place link Hadit and Nuit. My spell shall be completed with the blessings of Set.”

So the path she had taken here had not all gone as planned.

But because she was a great demon, she could draw on a powerful move like this at the worst possible time.

“Take form and manifest yourself before me already, LAShTAL.”

===Part 18===

District 17 was adjacent to District 9 where Kamijou’s group was.

It also bordered the city wall. It was an industrial area filled with all sorts of unmanned factories.

Itsuwa nervously stepped forward.

“It won’t take long if we drive. We can still catch up to her!”

“It’s been a while since we lost track of her at the stadium, hasn’t it? If she was hiding in a district bordering the wall, why didn’t she go ahead and escape the city?”

Kamijou didn’t have enough information to answer the question Mikoto asked while bothered by the short length of her skating dress.

He assumed something must have happened.

If the Amakusas and the Former Agnese Force hadn’t done anything to slow her, then there had to be some other reason. Maybe Aleister had resisted her from within and maybe Coronzon herself had felt some kind of reluctance to leave.

“Whatever the case, she’s in District 17. Now that we know where she is, there’s no reason to wait arou-”

He didn’t even have time to finish.

A tremor shook the ground.

Something was approaching. From the south. Which meant from District 17.

It was a shape colored the dark blue of the night sky.

It was a colossus. Its head really did stick up above the surrounding skyscrapers. Was it a canine beast? No, was that really enough to describe it? Kamijou couldn’t find an answer even while looking at it himself.

“LAShTAL!?”

“Tch. The foundational theory of Magick. The emphasized letters make that clear enough. She took a spell concerning life and used it to create an artificial form of it. In this case, it may be a Crowley-style interpretation of the Egyptian god Set!”

“You mean the god of the night who has the power to slay gods!?”

Index, Anna Sprengel, and Kanzaki were all shouting something, but Kamijou didn’t know enough about magic to make sense of it. He could only glean that this was probably something big. And if that great demon was making use of it, she may have been intentionally using it wrong.

And now wasn’t the time to ask for an explanation.

He felt the wind pressure. He shouldn’t have looked that way. His entire body was frozen with fear. A building of more than 30 floors, which had seemed like an unshakable part of the scenery, wobbled diagonally and then came crashing down toward the street. Which meant toward him and the others.

“Take shelter!! Get behind something – anything – to shield you!!”

Kanzaki’s sharp command broke the pointy-haired boy’s paralysis. He pressed up against a nearby cement block wall.

(Damn, where are Index, Misaka, and the others!?)

“If you would like your lungs to remain undamaged, do not breathe in, human! Here it comes!!”

Othinus hid within his jacket.

Kamijou was of course wondering why he was supposed to get “behind” something. And what was that about breathing? If the building was falling this way, shouldn’t he get “below” something? But he was given an answer soon enough.

Once the skyscraper sliced through the main street, something like dirty cotton candy swelled out. Past the end of the cement block wall, the entire main street was instantly engulfed.

Tens or hundreds of thousands of tiny glass and concrete shards flew through like a deadly sandstorm. A hit from that wouldn’t just have torn his feet from the ground and thrown him dozens of meters through the air – it would have stripped the flesh from his bones, leaving nothing recognizable behind.

''Except even that idea didn’t cover it.

Kamijou heard a quiet popping sound in his head. Followed by a sharp ringing in his ear like something had pierced into his brain. He had avoided a direct hit from the sandstorm by getting behind this wall. He had been leaning against it. Yet, he couldn’t stay on his feet and slid down into a sitting position. Before collapsing onto his side.

The air pressure of the entire space was off. How could he possibly evade this?

“Gah…ah…”

The pain meant he was still alive. So he had to think of it as a good thing.

He thought the deadly gale continued blowing for more than two minutes.

He couldn’t let this continue. That LAShTAL thing was still swinging its colossal body around. More than one building might have been felled.

He had to get moving.

He knew where he needed to go, but his body refused to listen as he lay collapsed on the ground stained by red snow.

What had happened to Index and Misaka Mikoto?

His hearing still hadn’t recovered, so he was late to realize something had exploded within the pile of rubble. Maybe a propane tank had been enveloped by it all.

When his hearing did recover, someone’s shouting voice belatedly reached him.

“Touma! Are you alright? You weren’t crushed by that debris, were you!? Please answer me!!”

He sat up. He gritted his teeth and forced himself.

He had to answer her.

“I’m…fine, Index. What about you!?”

“We’re fine too. We’re checking each other’s status with our communication spiritual items and phones.”

She was safe. Like she should be. But then why couldn’t he see her for himself?

After dragging himself along and peeking out past the half-destroyed concrete wall, Kamijou understood.

They were cut off. The main street was unrecognizable. Rubble was piled up higher than a five story building. That was more than a school building. They couldn’t climb that. And even approaching it could get them crushed by something like a landslide.

Kamijou was the only one on this side.

Which meant he was the only one who could pursue Great Demon Coronzon right away.

He felt another deep vertical tremor. LAShTAL(?) must have destroyed another skyscraper or large factory.

That thing’s chaotic rampage could threaten the lives that had just been saved. Kamijou clenched his right fist, but then he heard another voice.

Was that Misaka Mikoto?

“Go! Hurry! If whoever is free to go doesn’t stop that Coronzon person right now, things will only get worse, right? So go!!”

He wanted to stay.

Not just communicate by shouting past rubble and using phones. He wanted to see their faces to know they were safe. That perfectly normal thought grabbed at him like countless unseen hands and tugged him back.

Don’t do the right thing.

Give into the kindness and split your focus.

(I won’t…let you do that, Coronzon!!)

“Can you take care of that thing? Index! Misaka!!”

“Touma, LAShTAL is not Coronzon’s final trump card. She must have loads more. We’ll do what we can here, so you go stop her!!”

“I don’t get it myself, but listen to her. The fighting will never stop if you don’t defeat the source of it all, right? Then put a stop to this before any more of the city is destroyed!!”

He shook off his hesitation.

Coronzon tore people apart and obstructed their evolution.

There was only one way to defeat her: to trust those you could believe in without hesitation.

So Kamijou turned his back on the pile of rubble and took off running.

Even if he had to grit his teeth as he did so.

Something exploded in the distance. Several beams of light flashed out. Was that people using magic or esper powers to battle the giant blue shadow called LAShTAL? Their survival was not guaranteed and taking a single attack could mean their deaths. Even so, they were fighting so Kamijou could head to Coronzon and so they could protect Academy City and the wider world beyond its walls.

His trust was being repaid. This was what it meant to protect the bonds that tied people together.

===Part 19===

And Misaka Mikoto spoke quietly in a dusty enclosed space.

Was it even five meters across?

“Ha ha. I guess this is the end…”

“Short Hair. There are gaps all over the place, so we shouldn’t have to worry about air.”

“Finally some good news.”

But there were no gaps large enough for a person to crawl through.

“Why not at least let the kitty leave? There’s no reason to keep him here. I emit weak electromagnetic waves that animals don’t like, so it’s probably uncomfortable for him to be in here with me.”

“I’ve been trying, but Sphinx won’t go.”

The world shook. Small pieces of building materials poured down like sand.

If the pile of rubble collapsed for some reason, they would be crushed by tens of thousands of tons of concrete and killed instantly. Misaka Mikoto could control electricity and magnetism, but wielding that strength in a delicate situation like this would only hasten their deaths. Giant robots were powerful and cool, but no one would want to be so up close and personal with one of their joints that they were crushed by it. This was the same.

This was the truth of their earlier shouting.

They had not been calling out to the boy from the other side of the collapsed building. They had been been hit by the falling building. Misaka Mikoto’s magnetic control had stripped it of much of its force, but they and their shield had still been swallowed up by the rubble.

The #3’s power was great, but if she used it continuously over a long time, she could run out of stamina. Relying on magnetism for too long would be risky. So their best option was to stay put and wait for rescue. …Assuming rescue was even coming, of course.

Misaka Mikoto smiled a little.

“Well, it’s not like we could’ve told him we were trapped in the rubble.”

And Kamijou Touma couldn’t have accomplished anything had he stayed. He did seem to have some kind of mysterious power, but nothing she had seen led her to believe it would let him clear tens of thousands of tons of rubble on his own. And if he did try to tackle the rubble pile, it could collapse and crush him too.

Their top priority was Great Demon Coronzon.

That was all the more clear to her now that her life was at risk.

It was bad enough this was happening in Academy City. She couldn’t let the entire world turn to rubble like this.

“We’re counting on you. And I mean that.”

“Don’t worry. Touma can handle it.”

===Part 20===

“Pant, gasp…”

Great Demon Coronzon breathed heavily as she stood firm on the red snowy ground.

But the snow wasn’t the only source of red.

Crimson blood spilled from her mouth.

(This is the natural cost of forcing a major spell like that with no real preparation. I doubt I can use LAShTAL again.)

LAShTAL was powerful but would be defeated eventually. If that were enough to destroy all of humanity, she wouldn’t have relied on Adikalika.

But buying her some time was enough.

She couldn’t even stand up straight as she walked toward the thick city wall on unsteady legs.

(I…may not make it to the next world… the ways things are going.)

She wiped the blood from her mouth and thought without speaking aloud.

(But I will still stop this world from helplessly rotting away… Yes, yes. For the sake of that boy who said I was on the side of good and righteousness.)

She didn’t have Moina Mathers or LAShTAL anymore. Her win condition was escaping. Her own survival was what mattered. Each individual trump card wasn’t too important. It was using them together that mattered.

She just had to make it over.

If she could cross that wall, then the world’s doom was assured.

“…”

For just a moment, her thoughts turned to someone who wasn’t here.

She nearly came to a stop.

Hamazura Shiage.

…But she shook free of it with her will. He had said himself that she was ''on the side of good and righteousness''. He had asked if he had been wrong to bet on her.

She was a great demon.

If any kind feelings and warm emotions were ''unnaturally'' welling up with in her, someone else had to be interfering. No longer would she be god’s plaything. She had chosen to ''overdo'' her role and destroy the world. She would not allow any obstacles turning her aside from that goal.

She was not human. So she could leap over that tall wall in a single bound.

So she did so.

And she exploded.

“!?”

She lost her balance mid-jump, but she didn’t have time for surprise.

A platform the size of a domed stadium sat just outside the wall. Wasn’t that a spiritual item called the Tribikos? But wait. Who was it that used that?

She did not have time to think.

She had viewed it as a platform.

Because someone else had kicked off of it to rush toward her. His cane extended unnaturally. No, he was drawing a sword. The bare blade sliced through the air, accurately targeting her neck.

Several lights flashed out and explosive booms erupted out as well, but Coronzon managed to survive.

It was a close thing, though. It had taken everything she had to survive.

Aradia.

Good, Old Mary.

And H.T. Trismegistus.

…No, it wasn’t just them. Mut Thebes, 2nd Saga, Vidhatri even though she had been near death, and more. These Transcendents had gathered at Alice’s summons, lost faith in her, and scattered from Academy City, so why were they back in the city?

Vidhatri sounded a bit irritated as she spoke.

“I was one of the Killers when it came to Kamijou Touma, but a debt is a debt. I can return to business as usual after repaying all of my debts.”

“I was barely away and now Vidhatri has fallen too?”

Mut Thebes’s unnecessary comment began a minor argument among the Transcendents.

“(As usual, mama ends up doing all the work. The healer never does get a chance to rest.)”

Coronzon’s head was boiling with rage after being pushed back, falling on the inside of the wall, and finding herself bound to Academy City once more.

“Damn you… Damn all of you!!” she roared.

Something wasn’t right.

She was unsteady on her feet.

That explosion had caused more damage than she had thought.

Was that just what happened when Transcendents gathered? If only they hadn’t caught her when she was magically defenseless thanks to the recoil of using LAShTAL.

But even so, how had this sad result even happened?

Before Coronzon had regained control of her body, Aleister had used this exact same body to easily defeat Transcendents like Vidhatri. That meant the great demon did have the power to do so. So why wasn’t this going the way she expected? How could they look down on her like this!?

(Are you tripping me up again, Aleister!?)

“I thought you had despaired in this world!! I thought you cursed the god who refuses to save people!! Your motivations always began with wanting to protect some specific group. You must have seen the moment when their protections failed and they were lost! But you were weak and foolish, so you feared Alice’s tyranny and relied on the fantasy of CRC!!! So why would you cling to this world now? This world can be remade!! Destroy it and remake it and all that tragedy and misfortune will be eliminated!!!”

“The answer to that is simple,” replied Aradia.

Good, Old Mary continued with a calm expression.

“Mama and the others did not cast aside our identities and dress up as gods so we could protect the vague and formless framework of the world. We just have to destroy the world? …The world is no more than a tool to create happiness and the death of even one person we wish to protect is too many. Can’t you figure that out, you fool?”

“So what?”

The great demon was trembling.

Why couldn’t they understand something so simple? Her face twisted in rage.

“Be that as it may!! None of that will eliminate the unjust and unreasonable sides of this world. You must understand that. More and more of the people you want to protect are being lost ''regardless of anything I am doing''. Protecting this rotten world will not change the number of victims! You will only continue seeing those people die in your arms!!”

“That is none of your business.”

2nd Saga, the young woman with her origins in Norse mythology who took a different approach from the other Transcendents, sighed in exasperation.

H.T. Trismegistus spoke.

“Common sense says we Transcendents should think for ourselves to reach an answer. Fortunately, this world you consider so rotten has shown us some small reason for hope.”

===Part 21===

A bit earlier, Alice Anotherbible left the others searching for Coronzon and ran to a completely different place.

She didn’t think the current plan would work.

Kamijou and the others had done nothing wrong, but it wasn’t enough. And battles were not won by the purity of one’s intentions. Even with the purest of intentions, you would still lose if you failed to meet the necessary conditions.

She hadn’t wanted that to happen.

No matter what.

So Alice had detected something other than Coronzon.

Someone closer to her who she could search out at any time.

“Everyone, the girl needs something!!”

The small girl yelled up toward the heavens.

She wasn’t using her physical voice, of course. Anyone with the proper qualifications could sense this voice even if they were on the other side of the planet. The magic power placed behind her voice ensured it.

Even as she yelled, Alice Anotherbible remembered.

She had been so selfish.

She had only been able to communicate with the regular Transcendents by terrifying them.

When Kamijou Touma had been injured at the Bridge Builders Cabal’s consulate, she had attacked H.T. Trismegistus and Good, Old Mary.

Maybe it was wrong to try and get their help now.

But she had no one else to rely on.

Alice wouldn’t blame them if they abandoned her.

Still, it felt wrong for him – for Kamijou Touma – to be harmed by a punishment meant for her.

“The girl can destroy! The girl can kill! The girl can doom! Nothing in this world can stand up to the girl!! …But the girl’s power can’t protect her teacher. So the girl is useless here. She needs your help!”

They were listening of course.

The Transcendents knew.

They were right outside the city wall. Maybe among the trees of a forest, maybe at the top of a metal tower, maybe seated on the bench of a rusty old bus stop.

They had lost faith in Alice Anotherbible, but a Transcendent was a magician who would save anyone who met the salvation conditions they had decided on. Despite saying they were leaving Academy City, not a one of them had truly abandoned it. They didn’t care what someone’s affiliations were. Whether enemy or ally, as long as someone matched the salvation conditions, they would protect them even at the cost of their own life. So…as long as that applied to even a single person among Academy City’s 2.3 million, they would never abandon the city and run away.

So they were present for that moment.

That tyrant Alice had remembered basic human gratitude. That acted as powerful reins for the girl herself. And as long as she could control her own emotions, perhaps she would be different from CRC who had been similarly capricious and playful.

It was by no means a small change.

If the old Alice didn’t have enough help, she might have multiplied her extraordinary self. That might sound ridiculous, but with her it was possible.

But now she knew that wouldn’t work.

She needed the diversity of people who had abilities she lacked.

Alice was not gathering up the people she needed.

She was trying to become someone the people around her needed.

“The girl will do anything. The girl will do anything you ask and she doesn’t care how you use her power. You can tell her to die if you want!! …So! So don’t let Coronzon leave the city!!”

And the Transcendents knew this would not be a wasted effort. A boy had stopped Alice’s rampage even though it cost him his life. The little tyrant had taken that fact to heart. The Transcendents had lost faith in Alice because she had changed, been distorted, become weak. Or so they thought, but now they were willing to consider a different possibility.

Was Kamijou Touma the key? Not even the Transcendents who had been observing Alice for so long could predict what she would do now.

Could they really say Alice Anotherbible wasn’t growing?

Now that they had seen her pouring everything into bowing her head to someone else…

Was she not worth their respect?

And if Alice’s change was a positive form of growth, could they maybe still have some hope? The idea of saving the world through CRC, Christian Rosencreutz, was dead. He had not been the saint they expected. …But could they maybe find some other way of saving the world with Alice?

Alice Anotherbible raised her tear-streaked face.

“The girl is sorry, everyone… But can the girl ask for just one more thing?”

Was this the leader the Transcendents should serve?

No, she wasn’t.

They listened to her words as an equal companion.

“Join the girl in the fight to save her teacher and the world!!!”

No words were necessary.

They used their actions to answer her.

===Part 22===

LAShTAL’s rampage continued.

The Amakusas and the Former Agnese Force were all fighting.

Kamijou ran toward District 17. He hated that he didn’t know how to drive. Especially when grownups did it without even thinking about it. Of course, the red snow was frozen solid across the entire area. High schoolers were allowed to get a motorcycle license, but even that wouldn’t have done him much good here. Still.

While those meaningless thoughts were spinning through his mind, a stabbing headache crashed into his brain.

An invisible dizziness made the world spin around him.

This wasn’t the first time.

(Why…now?)

Kamijou Touma groaned.

And staggered to the side.

“Gh…”

A lengthy fight tonight had been suicide from the beginning.

He had passed his body’s limits way back when he fought Coronzon to stop Adikalika. He had lost there. It was just that it hadn’t ended there, so he had been forced to keep going in a sudden death round. How could he expect to save anyone like this?

(Just a bit more…a bit longer… Only five or ten minutes! Index and Misaka believed in me. They’re all fighting. Because they believe I can do this!! So can’t you keep going just a little longer, my body!?)

But he did not collapse.

Because as he started to fall forward, someone caught him.

He heard a voice.

The strange girl’s voice sounded simultaneously childlike and grown up.

“You really are…”

But most of all, it sounded sad.

“…allllllways like this, aren’t you? It’s like you never give your wounds a chance to heal or like you spend more days hurt than healthy.”

Who was she?

He didn’t ''think'' he knew her.

The girl wore mourning clothes and her long honey-blonde hair blew in the night breeze.

Maybe he had met her before, but he had no memory of her. Who could she be? He couldn’t find a single answer there.

“Who…?”

“I could tell you my name a billion times over and you would never remember. But maybe my esper name could stick in your mind: Mental Out.”

Academy City’s #5 Level 5.

The greatest psychological power: Mental Out.

He had heard of that. ''But only as a rumor.

If that was who she was…

If that legend was now standing before him in physical form…

His mouth felt awfully dry. No, was it just sticky with drying blood?

Kamijou somehow got the word out.

“Then…”

“Interested in forgetting it all and leaving the fight?”

“…Please. I don’t care if it’s only a trick, just do something about the pain. If you do, then I can face Coronzon…”

“Now I really do want to make you forget it all and leave the fight.”

She sounded exasperated.

And she glared at him fairly seriously.

But the honey-blonde girl hugged his head to her chest and smiled in a way that seemed to say ''she hadn’t expected anything else.

The conversation smoothly continued.

She seemed to be pouting her lips like a small child. And what was with the TV remote?

“Mental Out is a psychological power. It can erase the pain, but it has no healing ability for the physical wounds. It’s more like your body continues to send out all the intense pain signals, but your mind ability can’t sense them. Your organs will still be putting out different hormones in response to your wounds, so they could get worn out and damaged. Do you still want to do this?”

“Yes…”

“No touching your head after this, okay?”

“''Thanks''.”

Time froze for a moment.

The look on the honey-blonde girl’s face said she had never in her long life expected to hear that word directed at her.

“Saving the world isn’t my style.”

The boy wasn’t looking at her face.

His eyes were directed straight ahead, toward the goal he had already chosen.

“This is the last time the city you call home will be destroyed like this. I don’t know what it is you care for, but if it’s in this city, then it’s safe. I’ll protect all of it.”

“You dummy.”

Kamijou Touma took off running.

Without looking back.

So he could settle things with Great Demon Coronzon once and for all.

===Part 23===

He was in District 17.

It was the westernmost district in Academy City. It was an industrial area and the smokestacks of its wide variety of unmanned factories continued to release smoke that had been thoroughly scrubbed of pollutants making it “cleaner than the moldy and dusty air conditioner in your home”.

The district also bordered the city wall.

Cross that wall and you would find a vast forest and mountains. The green roof covered an area of more than ten kilometers across, so satellites and drones would have no way of finding a fugitive there.

Kamijou Touma knew his body was in bad shape.

But he was pretty sure the same applied to that unsteady figure over there.

He had found her.

There she was.

A lot had happened during this one night. Most likely, the efforts and actions of far more people than he was aware had been intertwined. Complexly so.

But that was why he had arrived in time for this final moment.

She was still inside the wall.

“Coronzon…”

When he called that name, the figure shook. She could hear him. He had made it close enough for his physical voice to reach her. If he didn’t stop her now, he was sure she would escape into the outside world.

He wouldn’t let that happen.

Kamijou Touma called out again.

“Great Demon Coronzon.”

Slowly.

She turned around.

Her body in the beige habit was tilted at an angle.

He could smell blood… Her long, long blonde hair was a mess. She held her head with a hand and forcibly kept herself upright as she glared at him.

With thoroughly bloodshot eyes.

“Kami…jou…Touma.”

That wasn’t anger?

Something was off. Coronzon had so arrogantly rebelled against heaven, yet now she was shrinking down as if afraid of something. She looked like a fugitive at her wit’s end.

“Do you really think you can defeat me? Have you even once found victory against me by sticking to your own will through to the end!? You may think you have me cornered, but it is you who will be crushed. Lament your misfortune for meeting me here, Kamijou Touma!!”

That was probably true.

But Kamijou Touma wasn’t looking at Great Demon Coronzon.

He was focused on something else.

No matter how he tried to disguise it with his words, defeating Coronzon would also mean attacking Aleister.

Aleister had failed to restrain her. He wouldn’t last.

Then what did he hope for? To defeat the being who had once torn apart his family? For the living Baby Lilith to remain in this world?

Whatever the case, idealism would only eradicate that human’s hopes. The power to destroy illusions could not save him.

So Kamijou had to think. What could he do here?

The words spilled from his mouth.

“Hey, can I rely on you here?”

He had to stop Coronzon.

He could not let this opportunity escape.

So.

“Let’s win this together, Aleister.”

There was no obvious physical voice.

But a much too unnatural heartbeat did ring out into the world.

Kamijou took that as an answering voice.

Saying, “Attack me along with her.”

Coronzon doubled over in pain.

She was probably coughing blood into the hand over her mouth.

…They didn’t need to exchange many words. It hadn’t really been all that long since they first met in person, but Kamijou sensed a bond beyond the need for words with Aleister.

That was a bond that Coronzon had failed to tear apart.

And it was a bond that Kamijou would soon be severing himself.

No matter what excuses he made.

===Part 24===

The boy clenched his right fist harder and harder.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume14 Chapter3

2025-12-22T14:14:59Z

Edzo: /* Chapter 3: Which Side is Winning? – Scoreboard. */ fixed typo "Swear" to "Sweat"

==Chapter 3: Which Side is Winning? – Scoreboard.==

===Part 1===

Around when she abandoned the stolen car, her memory cut out again.

“…”

The next thing she knew, Coronzon was leaning against a cold building wall.

Something had happened.

Aleister had done something.

She had traveled south from District 20 to reach District 9, which contained art schools. The Anglicans were mostly in the north of the city, so she abandoned the stolen car and had planned to take another car (also stolen of course) to reach the southern wall.

But she couldn’t trust in that plan anymore.

She ran her hands along her habit. Pathetically driven by fear and anxiety. She pulled an object smaller than her palm from a fairly unspeakable part of her clothing,.

She couldn’t believe it.

(A wireless game controller? That means it has its own ID and can produce its own signal to provide its location.)

“Y-you would forestall a great demon with this…this piece of junk that doesn’t even cost 5000 yen!? Are you kidding me, Aleisterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!?”

A shape squirmed. And produced a short scream.

No, was that a man forcing himself onto a girl?

An outfit that looked on the border between at-home clothing and sleepwear had been badly torn and the man was reaching for her underwear.

''Perfect.

That was wandering Coronzon’s honest assessment.

It was happening in a small boxlike building.

An Anti-Skill station. A small one. Around the size of what would be called a police box in the outside world.

This was happening there of all places. That public structure should have had someone working in it 365 days a year to keep the city’s peace, but today it had been empty.

With his hands pinning the girl to the floor, the man wasn’t sure how to undo his belt buckle. He raised his head with an odd expression that stuck out his chin more than necessary.

“Huh? Who the hell’re you?”

She didn’t even respond.

Great Demon Coronzon stabbed her hand right through the center of the scum’s gut.

The odor of blood splattered out.

“Bhee, ee, eeeeeeeeeek!!”

He audibly slammed into the shelves behind him and objects came crashing down.

The man of no consequence scrambled out of the Anti-Skill station, his arms flailing wildly.

With his abdominal cavity punctured and a game controller directly stuck inside. Surgical hygiene? Why should Coronzon care about something like that? His bacteria-covered organs might shut down before long, but he would act as a nice decoy as long as he scrambled around and fled before that happened.

In something of a new habit, she held a hand to her woozy head and belatedly realized her hand was stained by that scum’s unclean blood. Everything seemed to piss her off right now. Nothing was going her way.

She lashed out vocally.

“Aleister!! That death is on your hands for that trick you pulled. Are you satisfied? It’s absurd for you to try and save the world. Hee hee, ha ha ha. You’re the one who made the world this way! So give up! You already know everything you do only comes back to bite you!!”

Even so, how many times was it now?

…Or was it really Aleister’s will sending these signs to Kamijou Touma and the other pursuers? Did he really have enough strength to hijack Great Demon Coronzon’s body this many times?

Was it possible she was sending these hints to her pursuers herself? She shuddered. No, it wasn’t possible. How would that benefit her? But could it be a self-destructive desire like the urge people felt to activate a fire alarm when they saw one?

Coronzon clenched her hair tight in her hand. An unpleasant snapping sound followed.

She couldn’t get a read on her own mind anymore.

“U-um.”

It was then that someone nervously spoke to her. The girl seated on the floor looked up at her, completely forgetting to fix her clothing.

With admiration in her eyes.

“…Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Um, thank you…f-for saving me.”

Great Demon Coronzon doubled over and held a hand to her mouth.

She retched.

She couldn’t stand any more of this. Before the girl could say anything more, Coronzon got her unsteady body moving, rushing out of the station. The great demon ''had fled''.

She walked a few meters and then stumbled. She fell down onto the red snow frozen on the ground.

She lay in the snow as thoughts spiraled through her head.

This was wasn’t right.

What was going on?

She had just jabbed her hand right into the gut of an ordinary man who had no connection to magic. With enough force to take his life. And only so she could embed the signal to her location inside his body. There may have been another way, but she had chosen that one so she could enjoy it.

It had been for her. It had been a cruel act of violence befitting a demon.

…But had she ended up saving a life?

Impossible.

She had been acting of her own free will.

She was certain of that.

And yet the result had so completely betrayed her expectations?

Her bad deed had been remade into a good one.

It was the ultimate outrage.

(Was it an act of…)

The being known as a great demon hatefully clenched her back teeth.

Sweat poured from her brow. She had a terrible feeling about this.

A wireless game controller? Those weren’t too unusual, but ''where had Aleister gotten one in the few seconds he had taken control''? She doubted he had forced his way into an electronics shop with its metal shutter down for the night. He wouldn’t have had time to search through the game shelf in a discount shop. Did that mean someone had ''just so happened'' to drop one on the side of the street? …Had it been ''a complete coincidence'' as if some greater will were at work?

(Did an act of god transform what I did? Is a good influence distorting my actions? It’s too late, world. Do you really expect me to go along with that? I will take things! ''Too far''!! And destroy the world of my own free will!!!)

===Part 2===

An alarm blared in the District 10 prison.

Telling of an oddity in the same prison.

Someone had already broken in.

“Is it Oniyama!?”

“No, he would have used his authority as a Director to use the proper channels for a visit. This is someone else, so be careful!”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 left the cell while listening to the female secretary speaking over the device on the wall.

The enemy was close.

As close as the corridor leading to the solitary confinement cell hidden deep inside the prison. The silver-haired, dark-skinned woman wore a patchwork of rags that did not look at all hygienic. She was alone. She was even barefoot. An ordinary jailer might tilted their head wondering how she had made it inside such a strictly guarded prison.

But Qliphah Puzzle 545 understood magic too well for that.

She accurately grasped the threat standing before her.

“One of the Anglican’s magicians specialized in anti-magician combat!?”

“I am Necromancer Isabella Theism. You should already know that name after I threatened the city’s leader.”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 was dumbfounded. This prison’s security had already proven itself unable to keep out uninvited guests and now someone like this had made it in?

“The entrance back there was covered by a shocking number of sensors, but they’re only designed to detect living intruders. I recommend tweaking it to detect and instantly attack corpses as well. It’s not that hard to disguise yourself as one.”

“Why are you here? The Anglicans know all about the battle against Coronzon, so you should know my master is in no condition to talk.”

“So I’ve heard. Although I wasn’t around for that part since I was knocked out while dealing with ''some other business''. Regardless, if what I have heard is true, we really are in a grave situation. Right now, I think it is most necessary that we defeat Great Demon Coronzon and bring stability back to the world.”

“Then go tell that to Coronzon, not my master!”

“Oh, do you know where she is?”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 fell silent.

Isabella breathed a sigh thick with exasperation.

“That is the real question. What I need right now is information and a few coincidental hints just aren’t enough. A vast network has been laid out across Academy City: security cameras, security robots, drones, satellites, and so on. Tracking her requires bringing the city’s data infrastructure back to full functionality. And it if is necessary to settle things with Coronzon…as much as I hate to, what choice do I have but to save your new Board Chairman? I can’t have him go on sleeping with the Master Key clutched in his hand.”

“…”

Isabella Theism seemed unbothered by Qliphah Puzzle 545’s skeptical look.

The look on her face said she had expected it.

Not long before, she had been in charge of the group physically taking control of Academy City and attempting to use the city as a disposable tool to defeat Coronzon. It would be weird if Qliphah Puzzle 545 did trust her right away.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 glared at her and asked a question.

“Your clothes reek of death. You’re that necromancer who was arguing with my master over the phone… Can a death magician really heal a living human?”

Isabella Theism grabbed her rags in her hands and lifted them upwards. All at once.

She was wearing underwear below, but it was very thin and small.

Two healthy brown objects jiggled there.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 was a girl, but she still flinched back at being shown this all of a sudden.

“Uh?”

“Take a close look. My ribs and sternum were badly broken and one sharp bone fragment pierced my right lung. Can you see any of that? What’s your assessment?”

“You have all your ribs and there’s no bruising from internal bleeding. It’s all been healed?”

When the demon girl approached and took a close look, Isabella averted her eyes awkwardly.

Apparently this was embarrassing for her after all.

“Loko Atisou. There is more to Voodoo than making zombies. It is a polytheistic religion with all sorts of gods, so it of course has a god of medicine.”

Just like any other religion, Voodoo also functioned to govern and help the local people. The violent and combative side was only meant for emergencies when the group as a whole was attacked by an external enemy or a rebellion. That wasn’t all it could do.

It had not been invented for use in horror movies, so there was a benevolent Voodoo that listened to the people’s worries and healed their injuries and disease.

Healing was a challenging territory for Demon Qliphah Puzzle 545 who specialized in the Qliphoth that contained all that was impure and immoral. She would have to start with a curse or an attack and then build it in reverse. Needing to include that conversion in every single step meant it would be much faster to borrow the power of a god who directly dealt in medicine.

Isabella concluded her valid evidence had been accepted, so she lowered her rags.

“I am willing to view you as a magic side doctor. And I understand how this aligns with your interests. So where will you start, witch doctor?”

“Well, I do have a few things on hand. Zombie powder, for example.”

“Z-zombie powder!?”

Despite being a demon, Qliphah Puzzle 545’s eyes bulged at the mere mention of that name. But Isabella Theism sighed in exasperation.

“Voodoo zombie powder…well, real Voodoo prefers to use French more than English. But anyway, it isn’t a toxin sprinkled on a rotting corpse to control it.”

She seemed to be implying that she did not use real Voodoo.

No matter how much she knew about it, she was only illicitly using their excellent techniques.

“It is a punishment in which a living human is put in a state of living death where they cannot think or make any decisions and will do whatever they are told. So you can think of it as a medicine used ''to prevent someone from dying'' until their punishment is complete.”

“You mean like how the highly toxic digitalis can also be used as a cardiac stimulant?”

“And in the other direction, salt and sugar can kill despite being necessary nutrients for life. The materials themselves are neither good nor bad. It all comes down to how they are used.”

===Part 3===

An ambulance echoed through one corner of District 20.

Kamijou glanced in its direction.

Takitsubo Rikou…couldn’t go any further. With the frozen snow, the dead traffic signals, and the more concrete threat of the scouts, he was thankful the ambulance had actually come when they called.

A large dog hopped into the same ambulance.

“I will go with her.”

“Hey, are you sure about that?”

“I am not much help without the A.A.A. And Coronzon will be cautious of my wonderful nose now that I have demonstrated its use. There is nothing left for me to do on the front line. So I wish to contribute by removing this worry from your hearts, allowing you to move more freely. Listen to me. Do not worry about this girl any longer.”

Kamijou and the others could only watch the ambulance go.

There was still more they had to do.

But…

“We have a report regarding the entertainment location signal presumed to be a sign from Aleister. Unfortunately, it was found embedded in some man. So back to square one.”

“Hey, that doesn’t tell us nothing. If we know what path the dying decoy took, we should be able to figure out where he contacted Coronzon.”

This was all they had to discuss on their way to a corner of District 9.

It was now 3 AM.

This was where they had lost Coronzon’s trail.

Kamijou Touma sighed softly while listening to Kanzaki and Othinus’s discussion.

All they could do was wait.

Nothing pained Kamijou more than having nothing to do when he knew Coronzon was even now on the move. It was all over once she crossed the wall somewhere and left the city. Yet the city was too large to search at random.

He had decided he wouldn’t just wait around, but the physical reality wasn’t cooperating with his personal wishes.

Index, Kanzaki, and some others were apparently running a magical search, but that still wasn’t enough to track down Coronzon.

They needed to go after her from the science side as well, but Mikoto alone wasn’t enough.

Simply tracking down the fugitive was hard enough on its own, but Kamijou couldn’t shake the feeling that Coronzon was still hiding something. Some powerful move or sudden twist he never would have considered. Something they couldn’t even imagine while continuing to wander through this labyrinth, but also something that would again overturn everything if they failed to prevent it.

Kamijou Touma’s thoughts turned to a certain individual.

Perhaps it was all reliant on ''him'' recovering…

===Part 4===

In the prison’s solitary confinement cell, Board Chairman Accelerator was lying in bed unconscious and hooked up to medical equipment. Even Academy City’s #1 would be killed by an attack now. It was unusual for Qliphah Puzzle 545 to bring an outsider this deep into the prison at all.

That outsider was Necromancer Isabella Theism.

The current situation required going beyond the usual.

“How exactly are you going to heal my master?”

“Legba Atibon.”

That was all she said.

It was the name of a gatekeeper god who managed all ceremonies. So no matter which god’s power the ceremony was meant to borrow, you first sought the gatekeeper god’s permission. And because he appeared in all ceremonies, there were no specific dates or locations that boosted his power.

Something emerged from Accelerator’s arm.

It was a transparent shard only a few millimeters long. A piece of a broken LCD monitor.

More followed. Like floating leaves following a river’s current, more and more shards silently slid out of his body.

Not a single drop of blood was shed and no apparent wounds were made.

Even though all these shards were located in extremely dangerous position near major arteries and organs.

“Y-you’re already done!?”

“They did not belong and the human body has several functions meant to automatically eliminate such things. There was no need for dangerous surgery. I only had to make some adjustments to those functions.”

Of course, thoughtlessly boosting them would have only triggered rejection, where his own immune system attacked his body. Only a professional necromancer with sufficient training could pull this off.

Isabella sighed softly.

“You know glass shards aren’t enough to keep a human mind locked away indefinitely, don’t you? Another task is even more important.”

“Breaking the curse.”

“Voodoo can handle that easily. A zombie is in a controllable state of living death by stopping the heart with a poison and then restarting it with an antidote. Antidotes and curse breaking are built into the ceremony.”

As she spoke, Isabella stuck her fingers into the seams of her rags. She pulled out various vials. They contained powders, liquids, dried leaves and roots, living insects…and more.

The demon girl was accustomed to dirty and impure things, but she still recoiled.

“Ew. Did I just wander into a museum of the bizarre?”

“Think of it like a 72-color colored pencil set and get excited. Even if you can theoretically represent everything in the world with the three primary colors, the actual task isn’t so simple, is it?”

The brown woman got to work. Swiftly and accurately.

It took more than a single name this time.

Meaning even she didn’t see this as a simple task.

“Voodoo is flexible enough to let you include any supernatural being as a weapon. Qliphah Puzzle. And 545 was it? I will include you in my system.”

“I will do anything for my master, but will including me change anything?”

“Just as salt and sugar can kill and just as toxic digitalis can be a cardiac stimulant, nothing in this world is a pure poison. There is simply a way of using it as a poison. And also a way of using it is a medicine.”

Voodoo did not think of gods as good or evil, but it was common for the same god to be included on both sides. That meant the gods did not determine their stance by the human conception of good and evil. Instead of the many gods being divided onto the opposite sides of good and evil, the many gods could freely move between the two sides depending on the time and situation. That was what made them all-purpose, but it also made them tricky to use. It required a priest with specialized training to handle them.

Thus, the necromancer did not avoid this being known as an artificial demon.

She simply viewed her as a nonhuman being with supernatural power.

If Isabella determined how much of her to use, she could be used to save a life.

“Here goes.”

“Okay!”

“Through Gatekeeper God Legba Atibon, I contact Medicine God Loko Atisou, and link the ceremony terminal to Messenger God Brav Gede.”

Voodoo practitioners did not think of using magic on their own.

They borrowed a compatible god’s power to achieve a miracle.

In fact, they would even borrow another god’s power to send their request to the god they wanted.

In Voodoo, if a miracle was beyond human capability, then a human voice could not even reach the necessary god on its own. They required a separate link to get through.

Or to put it another way…

They relied on one god to call on another. So by going through Artificial Demon Qliphah Puzzle 545 (who did not exist in the Voodoo system), Isabella should be able to make a request beyond what could normally be asked of the Voodoo gods.

It was an impossible shortcut.

Or an illicit backdoor.

“Through the gathering of Qliphah, I beseech Baron Samdi. Divide this soul into five territories and reveal the part that has been intentionally placed in an endless spiral. Human individuality is managed by the Ti Bon Ange. Reveal to me the wicked power severing its proper link. Just like the zombie powder, it takes the form of a toxin.”

Something like bluish-white sparks burst forth.

That was not part of the ceremony.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 thought it might be a trap left by Coronzon, but it wasn’t.

It was Academy City’s #1.

He was no normal human. Had his body itself reacted in some way?

“The lime poison is an unstoppable assassination spell for it produces a different toxin each time the same ceremony is performed. This in turn proves that any and all toxins can be cured as long as their ingredients are known. I have already seen with my own eyes the wicked toxin unjustly robbing him of his consciousness! With its identity seen, it must be curable!!”

The smell of blood hung in the air.

Isabella Theism had a shallow cut on her right cheek.

The bluish-white sparks were harmful.

But she did not stop the ceremony.

Coronzon could not be allowed to escape Academy City. But they had nowhere near enough data to track her down. They needed the new Board Chairman and the Master Key he held. Academy City’s functions had to be fully recovered before they could catch up to Coronzon.

A single necromancer’s survival wasn’t that big a deal here.

But if the entire world were destroyed, then everything Isabella Theism wanted to protect would die with it.

She couldn’t allow that.

No matter what.

“Answer me, Medicine God Loko Atisou. The vessel for your holy power and the ingredients for the medicine are gathered here!! …No external incision is needed. The conditions to save you were within your body from the start. Thus, I call upon you, separated mind, reactive yourself from within your body and break free of your cage!!”

Light surged out.

Isabella Theism lurched back.

The necromancer was struck by a destructive whip of something much like electricity. Unable to bear the blow, she toppled backwards. Several pieces of medical equipment screamed out with their electronic tones.

And nothing happened.

There was no change on the bed. The smell of blood came from Isabella. Sleeping Accelerator did not change at all, for better or for worse.

The Level 5 said to be Academy City’s strongest did not wake.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 had to accept it.

They had failed.

It was so dark, shadowy, heavy.

She felt crushed by the air itself when a voice reached her ears.

Isabella Theism was whispering.

“Kh… What…now?”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 didn’t have time to ask what she meant by that.

The necromancer continued.

“In the worst case, I could control him as a corpse to have him use the Master Key.”

“But…”

“Zombie powder does not control rotting corpses. It prevents someone from dying to keep them in a state of living death. But by altering that interpretation, it would be possible. It can be used just like in a horror movie.”

“No! That isn’t the same as saving him!!”

Her opposition was only natural.

''Assuming'' saving Board Chairman Accelerator was your goal.

“But aren’t we here to use the Master Key to restore Academy City and track down Coronzon!?”

Their goals were defined at slightly different points.

Isabella Theism wanted Accelerator’s help to protect the world from Coronzon. The #1’s recovery was only a means to that end.

Explaining that up front showed that Isabella was more reasonable than most. She could have lied to Qliphah Puzzle 545 and then gone ahead and used the zombie powder ''as a poison''.

“You need to choose. No one has sufficient nerve to make a ghastly choice. And you are the only point of contact I have left!” shouted Isabella Theism.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 would never let her do that. But how would her beloved Board Chairman have responded? The #1 would want to protect Academy City and the wider world beyond its walls.

(Master…)

===Part 5===

Kamijou and the others were in District 9.

They still hadn’t moved from there and were stuck waiting.

Mikoto and Index were frequently conversing. Probably a sign of their impatience.

“The nearby districts that border the city wall would be the most obvious option, but this is complicated by the fact that Coronzon has no restriction preventing her from returning to a district she’s already been to.”

“That means we can’t treat this like a game of concentration. So no matter how far we pursue her, we never eliminate any of the options.”

Wings audibly flapped at the air. Kamijou had seen the Bologna Succubus licking her wings and teasing them with her fingertips before, but they must have recovered enough for her to fly. Neither one said anything, but she took off into the night sky with Blodeuwedd the Bouquet hanging on again.

Kamijou spotted Itsuwa of the Amakusas.

“How’s Tsushima? What happened to her?”

“We can use recovery magic, so as long as someone isn’t actually dead, we can heal them even if it takes some fairly forceful methods. And it helped that you suppressed her bleeding until we arrived.”

At that point, Itsuwa’s tone dropped worriedly.

“You can’t push yourself too hard either. I heard you passed out earlier.”

“Sorry… I should’ve yelled before I passed out.”

“No! That isn’t what I meant…”

But he had let Coronzon get away.

Either way, he couldn’t fight while applying pressure to Tsushima’s neck wound. And could he have fought her on his own regardless? He really didn’t see any way he could have won there. But he could have at least informed someone of the threat. There must have been a way. Even if he he was rapidly losing consciousness, he could have triggered his phone’s alarm or the camera flash. There had to have been something.

“Fool. Break yourself out of that meaningless negative spiral. Only you finds it ''pleasant''.”

The wicked woman could be harsh at times like this. Refreshingly so.

There was no way he could have come up with a clever idea when he was passing out, his brain was growing dull, and his thoughts were fading fast. He knew that.

(Still…)

It was easy enough to talk of battling Coronzon and settling things with her, but that also meant battling Aleister who shared her body.

…What did he really think about that?

Aleister was desperately struggling within Coronzon to provide them with even the smallest hint. Was Kamijou prepared to fight that human, win…and say goodbye?

If he couldn’t do it, humanity was doomed.

The conditions placed on the opposite end of the scales could not have been simpler or more solid.

Still.

Kamijou’s thoughts cut off there.

He looked up. Agnese, Lucia, and that group were off in a corner whispering among themselves.

“?”

===Part 6===

In the same district, not far from Kamijou and the others, stooped Angelene was waving her hands anxiously.

“Ehhhh!? Saint Georgios’s Fire? Is the Vatican really trying to defeat Coronzon!? A-are you sure they aren’t just using this as an excuse to destroy Academy City?”

“Some of them might think it would be safer to destroy it before it’s officially absorbed into the Anglican Church.”

Lucia appeared to be doing her best to remain calm.

The conversation wasn’t just between Agnese, Lucia, and Angelene. More than 250 nuns would be listening in through the Barbara Branch communication spiritual item.

Agnese had her doubts about that too. How far into the future were the Roman Catholic cardinals looking? Even though none of it would matter if the world were destroyed tomorrow.

The Former Agnese Force had already been told to evacuate.

They were to abandon Academy City and the Anglicans and escape the city with only the Roman Catholics among them. They had been given a few different conditions for activating Saint Georgios’s Fire, but it all boiled down to one thing: the cardinals would use that large-scale spell no matter what happened. The only difference was if it happened sooner or later.

The branch between launching it or not had already passed.

Being stubborn here was fine, but anyone who remained would die.

With zero exceptions.

Lucia looked to Agnese. She may have been peering into her eyes.

“This force is under your command, Sister Agnese. What will we do?”

“I do not have the right to order you all to die.” Agnese smiled bitterly as she spoke to them all. “You are not obligated or bound to stay. From here on, this is all voluntary. If you choose to leave Academy City, you don’t need your Barbara Branch. The Anglicans are experts at combating human magic. They might be able to track your location using it, so abandon it and escape in complete silence.”

“Wh-what can we accomplish by staying?”

“Protect Academy City from Saint Georgios’s Fire of course,” replied Agnese, her voice low.

That human-targeted attack wouldn’t work against inhuman Coronzon. So stopping the spell that would cause asphyxiation and ruptured organs would not affect the battle against Coronzon.

“Think of it like the neck of an hourglass. Saint Georgios’s Fire is large-scale magic that gathers power from the two billion Catholics across the globe without their knowledge and allows the cardinals in the Vatican to control it. Once gathered together, the attack travels through the ley lines to reach enemy territory and scatters back into two billion attacks after emerging from the ground. Then it causes enough damage to destroy a city.”

A city. Was that at least better than Adikalika that would have affected the entire Italian Peninsula? Agnese smiled a little. So they were retaliating with a smaller attack. The Vatican’s cardinals really had found a way to lower the psychological hurdle as far as possible.

“T-two billion. Th-th-then I don’t see what we can possibly do!”

“''That means it must be a long-range spell.'' In fact, it must travel all the way around the earth. Have you forgotten how Index stopped Adikalika? There must be any number of options: diverting its aim, cutting off the flow of the ley lines before it arrives here, or even preventing the two billion powers from gathering at the Vatican.”

Her argument had to be correct.

But she understood full well that this was wishful thinking.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been sweating so heavily in this cold weather.

(Even if the theory is solid, we’re talking about power from two billion people… Can we really stand up to that sheer force of quantity? That will likely be the greatest obstacle.)

There was no guaranteed method. If they stayed too long, they would lose the lives they could have saved.

They had to build it all up starting now. They had nothing at the moment to tell them it would be alright.

So Agnese Sanctis could not demand her companions join her in this.

In the worst case, she would have to stand up to the two billion all on her own.

And…

“I volunteer.”

That was Lucia.

She used to be so fastidious she would rage when so much as touched by a non-Catholic, but now she was the first to raise her hand and volunteer to fight to protect Academy City.

“What? The Roman Catholic Church is the largest sect in the world, so we must consider the world as a whole. Of course I will reach out a helping hand when lives are at risk. I couldn’t call myself a Catholic if I wouldn’t.”

She wasn’t alone.

Angelene was trembling, but she too chose to raise her hand. Even if only a little.

“U-umm. I volunteer. I mean, if we ran away now, then the Anglicans ''and'' the Catholics would be after us. So I want to at least keep a place for us with one of them. Our home is the women’s dorm in London and, if we want to return there with a clear conscience, we have to save Academy City!”

More and more voices came over the Barbara’s Branch communication spiritual item.

It only provided audio, but Agnese could easily imagine them leaning forward in defiance.

“Sister Apollonia. I volunteer too.”

“Sister Paula. I’ll volunteer if there are any tickets left.”

“Sister Agata. I-I volunteer!”

…This was who they were.

They hadn’t started out this way, of course. They hadn’t forgotten the brutal violence they subjected Orsola Aquinas and Kamijou Touma to. But Agnese and these more than 250 nuns had grown enough to say this during such a crisis.

After seeing another way to live. After being accepted with a smile after everything they had done.

It must have taken trust to do that, so they couldn’t turn their backs on that trust.

Did this mean they all felt that way?

Lucia pushed the conversation onward.

“Sister Agnese. We haven’t heard your answer yet. What will you do?”

Agnese Sanctis raised her head.

She stared straight ahead and raised her voice to a roar.

“I volunteer!! …Now that you’ve chosen this for yourself, you had better be ready. I said I don’t have the right to order you all to die. So no matter how bad this gets, I will not let you take the easy way out and choose an emotional death. Cry and wail all you like, I will bring every last one of you back alive even if it means crawling through hell on earth!!”

===Part 7===

Dion Fortune.

Moina Mathers.

Their fight in District 7 had passed the bounds of human ability. They had simply been fighting too long. No human could run a full marathon at the speed of a 50-meter dash. But a battle on that level had been going on for hours now. A Saint who could break the sound barrier in an instant and then instantly run out of gas would have died well before this. This was only possible for a magician created using a tarot deck as a grimoire.

That was the strength of someone who could absorb massive power from the ley lines and wield that instead of having to refine magic power from their own life force.

(I certainly don’t want to be killed right away, but this kind of endless quagmire isn’t fun either.)

One reason for the stalemate was Moina Mathers’s spiritual item.

Her tattva cards were certainly powerful, but using the visual stimuli of the bright colors drawn on the cards to guide her mind created a weakness as well. Visual stimuli. …That meant a third party could peek at the card and know the element of the next attack.

“Responding after seeing the card always puts me one step behind, though. But if I could predict what was coming next before you drew the card, I would be a step ahead and beat you.”

“…”

“But I’ll have gathered all the data I need soon. You shouldn’t have been throwing those tattva cards around like that. It’s like the scorebook written up by the cute manager of the baseball team. You’ve thrown too many pitches. How many until it’s enough? I will kill you before you can act.”

Moina Mathers said nothing.

But instead of a tattva card, she suddenly waved her palette knife through the air in an orderly pattern.

This was different.

“?”

Something rose up.

From the red snowy ground. And more followed it. A lot more. Like sinister flowers blossoming all around her.

They were colorful silhouettes seemingly made of a mixture of yellow, blue, white, red, and other colors of paint.

Except their heads were giant red roses.

“Ah, ahh, ah…”

Dion Fortune stood stock still and her voice escaped her like air from a deflating balloon.

Because she knew what her teacher and nemesis was doing.

“Wh-why do you look so proud of yourself? You didn’t think this was one of your successes, did you? How airheaded a wife can you be!?”

As his wife, Moina had devoted herself to supporting that uncontrollable genius magician named Mathers, but not everything had gone perfectly and she had made a few major mistakes after her husband’s death: her unproductive conflict with her student Fortune, her failure to silence some baseless rumors (on the level of a murder), and – as the most extreme example – this. The Mass Production of Low Quality Magicians Debacle in which she used a correspondence class to grant entrance to the secret magic cabal she managed for the faceless strangers who would pay for the privilege.

Dion Fortune was cautious of course. Even if they were of low quality, a magician was still a magician. She didn’t know if they refined their own magic power or if they absorbed it from the ley lines, but she knew she wasn’t going to like whatever attacks they used. If she didn’t switch her mindset from one-on-one to a group battle, she would be crushed by the group even if she defeated one of them. Or so she thought.

But even that was a fatal mistake.

“Eh?”

Moina Mathers’s face was right in front of her.

She had hopped down from the giant black cat and approached within 100 centimeters.

This was immediately after she switched tactics from a single destructive attack to a numbers game. She had slipped through Dion Fortune’s blind spot.

It didn’t matter how Dion Fortune twisted her body.

Here.

At this one spot, she couldn’t respond right away!?

(Damn!!)

Moina Mathers held a black blade. The utterly twisted object looked like it was made from a large quantity of oil paint or something that had been forcibly dried and hardened. This was probably a self-defensive strike – a jab – with a saber that she had learned from her husband Mathers who enjoyed fencing. The sharp tip was clearly aimed at her opponent’s throat.

Dion Fortune had misread this.

The biggest threat was not the giant cat, not the tattva cards, and not the group of rose-faced mass-produced magicians. ''She should have been most cautious of Moina Mathers herself''. She should have known that from the start, but the countless tricks had distracted her.

The saber was coming.

It was more deadly than a long spear, a hammer, or the knife of an enemy who had snuck up on her.

(Oh, god. Am I actually dead this time?)

Even if she did have a single second left to move, she would have used it to kill Moina too. She gritted her teeth and focused all her attention on the black box. And…

Sparks flew.

The orange sparks of two blades clashing.

Another piece of metal intersected Moina’s black saber to form a cross.

Instead of blocking the sharp jab, this struck the side of the blade to divert it away. Orange sparks decorated the darkness like remnants of the attack’s deadly power.

A palette knife was responsible.

That was the weapon of a certain magician who specialized in art and had completed many ceremonial grounds and spiritual items by giving real form to the many ideas the other magicians couldn’t bring out of their heads.

“Honestly,” said a calm voice. “It’s sad you’re struggling this much to defeat such a defective version of me. You’re the one who researched all the nutrients in different foods and who insisted Kabbalah was Western yoga, so I would have thought you could boost your physical abilities somewhat.”

By the time she said this, a dull sound had left the palette knife. Followed by another. They were mechanical sounds like might come from a sewing machine. She swept the saber aside and sent accurately jabs right toward the now-defenseless Moina’s throat and chest, but Moina used the guard and pommel to forcibly defend herself.

The same techniques.

The same skill.

The same ability.

Wasn’t there just one magician who could do that?

Yes, and ''despite being the kind of person who would casually rescue the frog-faced doctor who was nearly a stranger to her after happening across him'', she was always so harsh with the student she had known for so long.

Dion Fortune gulped and spoke.

“Mis…tress?”

There was only one person she addressed that way.

And it wasn’t the Moina who Coronzon had created.

Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers stood beside her student.

===Part 8===

In the District 10 prison’s solitary confinement cell, all the efforts of good Voodoo and the artificial demon’s power had failed to revive the new Board Chairman.

Despair was threatening to solidify the air itself.

Until someone who didn’t belong showed up to smash that mood.

“Bonjour. I did some searching within your metal shutters and your prison store had a decent selection. What, do the people serving their time after a guilty verdict get to eat chocolat if a visitor buys it for them? And this one has brandy in it. I knew Academy City cared a lot about human rights, but even the prisoners have it good here. Munch, munch.”

Isabella Theism couldn’t just ignore this.

“Kihara Goukei!?” she shouted, eyes wide.

“Whoa, I give, I give, I give!! I only have one heart left! My extra lives are down to zero! I could never let myself die if I ''truly'' kicked the bucket over a pointless scuffle like this!!”

She played it off as a joke, but she could probably ''still survive even if her last one was destroyed''. Maybe she couldn’t believe it without saying it aloud even though no one asked, but that level of cheating the system was standard for science side monsters.

Then someone else popped out from behind the suspicious woman. A much smaller someone.

“Misaka had her bring her here, says Misaka as Misaka introduces her.”

“Huh? Aren’t you master’s…?”

Now it was Qliphah Puzzle 545’s eyes that widened. Did she know that girl?

It seemed odd for a little girl to be this deep inside a strictly-guarded prison, but Isabella wanted to focus on the more dangerous person.

“How did you get in here!?”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 gave her a “you’re one to talk” look, but the brown necromancer didn’t seem to notice. And…

“Eh? Was it supposed to be hard? I just walked on in.”

Only Qliphah Puzzle 545 accepted that answer.

…That was probably due to Last Order. The new Board Chairman must have secretly given her a free pass inside. Academy City’s #1 was strict with himself and others, but he also showed occasional signs of doing things with no thought to the consequences.

Kihara Goukei knew none of this and tilted her head.

“So what is an experte like you doing sitting around? Hurry up and do your job. I can’t get any of my work done without the Board Chairman awake.”

She made it sound so easy in her ignorance.

Isabella breathed a heavy sigh.

“Zombie powder is not just a deadly toxin. It rules both life and death, so there is a chance of it reviving him if I boost its effects. But…”

“But?”

“You probably already know since it shows up in horror movies sometimes, but zombie powder uses puffer fish. Tetrodotoxin. Blindly increasing the amount will kill him before it can begin to revive him.”

“Oh, is that all? I know just the thing to use! Anisakiropen Ω!! It is a très lethal nerve stimulant. Or should I call it a synthetic toxin developed in Academy City that kills instantly?”

Isabella Theism’s eyes widened.

Kills instantly? Did that mean it was guaranteed to kill without even getting into if it was a poison or a medicine!?

“Are you trying to make sure he dies!?”

“Oh, come now. Tetrodotoxin kills by suppressing the nerves while anisakiropen Ω kills by exciting the nerves. Have you never heard the stories? Maybe it’s a local Academy City legend. They say if you administer them both at once, their effects cancel each other out.”

And if the puffer fish poison didn’t work, Isabella could give him as much zombie powder as necessary without adverse effects. The simple arithmetic did seem to say that, but…

“W-w-w-wait just a minute,” said Qliphah Puzzle 545. “That research said the effects weren’t ''completely'' canceled out. The poison that should have killed the instant it was swallowed was only delayed by a few hours!!”

Yes, tetrodotoxin and anisakiropen Ω were deadly poisons. Even a small amount in the body would kill.

It was simple enough to say the two canceled each other out, but if even that “small amount” of one or the other remained afterwards, his life would still be lost. The amount of either couldn’t be not enough or too much. And there was no way of ensuring they canceled out to precisely zero.

“Yes, in the normale world, that is true.”

“Wait, are you saying…?”

“I have a fundamental question for you: ''are either of us normale''?”

Of course not.

Necromancer Isabella Theism used Voodoo in order to use methods of controlling death and flesh from all over the world. Kihara Goukei had gathered every form of scientific immortality within her own body.

They could take suicidal actions that would cause death 100% of the time in anyone else, but they would be fine.

“Misaka will help too,” said the little girl.

Neither Kihara Goukei nor Isabella Theism knew the situation there. Nor did they know how exactly she could help.

“Misaka will do anything, so don’t give up on him, says Misaka as Misaka bows her head to you.”

But they both thought this was enough.

Technology wasn’t always the key to saving a life. Because they had pursued all the theories and numbers so far, they knew quite well that it was the ridiculously old-fashioned psychological matters that ultimately determined the fate of someone on the verge of death.

(This is probably more of a job for ''that other doctor'', but I will just have to handle it this time. …But I will probably have to buy him a fancy mango for encroaching on his territory.)

Then again, the presence of magic may have placed this beyond that doctor’s jurisdiction.

Today’s star was Isabella who lived outside that jurisdiction.

Kihara Goukei only had to support her.

The two spoke as one.

“Let’s do this.” “Let’s do this.”

The mood had changed.

But that wasn’t all.

The child’s presence kept the mood from deteriorating.

“Misaka saw the city, says Misaka as Misaka remembers the way here.”

Isabella Theism and Kihara Goukei were doing some kind of work she didn’t understand.

The sound of something hard being crushed up felt out of place among all the beeping medical equipment.

Last Order stared at the #1 from his bedside.

“It was horrible. Everything was empty but not just because it’s so late. Everyone is too scared to go outside, says Misaka as Misaka gives a report.”

Red and black.

The strange combined drug did not have to be swallowed.

It made a sticky sound as it was applied to his wounds with their fingertips.

This was a necessary treatment, but it really shouldn’t have been done with a small child present.

But Last Order accepted it all head on.

And, seeing not even a twitch of an eyebrow in response to the treatment, she took Accelerator’s hand. Every part of him was full of electrodes and tube needles.

She held his hand tight between her hands.

“Yomikawa got hurt. She said it was minor, but it might not have been, says Misaka as Misaka shakes her head. She could have died.”

A shrill sound rang from the medical equipment.

An alarm. His stable condition was collapsing. An eternal standstill was no different from death, but Isabella and Goukei’s efforts had clearly thrown off that balance.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 was visibly anxious, but Last Order’s eyes did not waver.

“Being alone is scary…”

The magical necromancer and the scientific Kihara were each too strong a medicine.

That alone couldn’t bring back his sealed mind.

But that was why…

“And Misaka doesn’t just mean Misaka. Everyone has people they care for. They trust the new Academy City you built to protect them. So Misaka wants you to live up to their expectations, says Misaka as Misaka calls out to you.”

A deep electrical “zap!” split the air.

It shot right past Last Order.

This was not a failure of the magic or technology. Something was wrong with Accelerator’s body on the bed.

The electricity causing the air to burst was so powerful it would likely blow the girl’s body away if even the tiniest extremity grazed her.

“Can you leave things like this?”

She didn’t even blink.

Last Order was looking only at the face of the boy lying in the bed.

“The Academy City you want is filled with so much death.”

These were not all kind words.

They were also harsh.

To truly care for someone was not to blindly agree with everything they did.

This girl had the strength to scold him.

Because she trusted their relationship was too strong for something like this to break it.

“A normal person could give up. You didn’t want to become Academy City’s #1, so you don’t have to cling to that strongest position forever. …But this isn’t about that, is it? says Misaka as Misaka is certain of her words. ''Your position as Board Chairman is the one thing you took for yourself.'' You decided for yourself to improve this city and create a city of science with no hidden side and where no one needs to suffer or live in fear. You chose to create a safe and peaceful world. So you can’t take the easy road here. You chose this path, so you have to see it through to the end, says Misaka as Misaka states the obvious.”

Her voice was not as loud as a thunderclap.

In fact, her words were so quiet no one in the small cell could hear them except their intended target.

“Hey.”

She brought her mouth up next to the slumbering Board Chairman’s ear.

And the small girl whispered.

“How long are you going to make ''him'' wait?”

Everything went quiet.

That wasn’t just a psychological metaphor.

The alarm from the medical equipment surrounding the bed had really and truly ''stopped''.

Meaning…

“Damn…it.”

A voice spoke.

From the bed.

“So I don’t even have the right to die and go to hell? Isn’t that a bit much? ''You are exactly right, though.''”

This is what the new Board Chairman would do.

The one who had decided for himself to protect the peace and safety of Academy City would get back up here.

And because he thought that, Accelerator opened his eyes.

===Part 9===

The Former Agnese Force was short on time.

If Saint Georgios’s Fire were activated, everyone living in Academy City would die. No matter where they ran, they could not prevent their organs from rupturing from within.

Power had already been gathered from two billion people around the world and was being reworked into a single spell. They were waiting for the moment when, like the other end of an hourglass’s neck, it would return to two billion attacks in enemy territory. Thus, they couldn’t stop the attack by preventing the power from being gathered.

Academy City was a fixed location. Diverting the aim would be difficult.

Which meant…

“We need to stop Saint Georgios’s Fire as it approaches through the ley lines. We can do it when it’s still a single mass. Before it emerges from the ground and disperses into two billion flames! That’s our only shot!!”

That was simple enough to say, but influencing the ley lines meant effort at the level of tearing down a mountain or filling in a sea. They couldn’t physically manage that, so they would have to wear down their minds to do the work on that front.

“We start with this.”

Agnese pulled out a deck of ordinary tarot cards.

They gathered below a tree where the red snow hadn’t fallen and she laid eight cards face down on the ground.

An attack traveling through the ley lines would arrive immediately after it was activated. Even if it was traveling halfway around the world.

“But that same ley line connection means some of the Vatican’s data should leak out. If we know how close the spell is to completion, we’ll know the time limit.”

A sizzling sound meant she didn’t even need to flip the cards over.

One of the eight cards had burned black and melted.

The damage spread to a second and then a third.

Lucia’s eyes widened.

“They’re farther along than I thought!”

“H-has something changed!?”

“The Vatican must have realized we can see them. They’re going to act!!”

This must have triggered one of the three conditions the cardinal had given. Or had those conditions just been an excuse and weren’t really necessary?

The Former Agnese Force had been warned to evacuate, but their survival had only been a “stretch goal”. Apparently they weren’t worth saving no matter what.

That meant there was no time left at all.

This was like going to check on the river during a bad storm. It was a risky move. They had known that, but they couldn’t let this deadly attack get past them.

Agnese, Lucia, and Angelene each picked up their spiritual items.

The other nuns had wooden wheels, coin bags, and other items found in the legends of different holy people, but Agnese used a Symbolic Weapon called the Lotus Wand. And instead of controlling a specific element like the rod of fire or the cup of water, this impressive item could control all elements.

The Vatican was about halfway around the globe from Academy City. They would have liked to gradually melt their minds into the ley line and construct countless barriers at an even interval along the path here, but it was too late for that. The most they could do was place one thick barrier directly in front of Academy City.

Agnese Sanctis gave a shout.

“Saint Barbara is the holy woman who invited the lord’s righteous light in through the three windows. Unseen path, obey our kind objective. A path is a tool of guidance – a vein carved into the earth to guide the righteous. Harmful power, do not advance! Halt! Thou have no right to tread hither!!”

Her breath caught.

There was no flash of light or explosive boom. But a thick, invisible pressure did assault her.

The silver Lotus Wand audibly strained in her grasp.

This was what happened when you carelessly touched that which was better of not known. She had known this would happen when she directly interfered with a ley line – a great torrent of large-scale magic. She had known trying to forcibly stop it could easily crush her body.

She clenched her back teeth.

(I know the theory behind the spell was correct.)

“Kh… But in the end, is two billion just too much for us to overcome!?”

This unreasonable brute force was, in a way, nothing at all what magic was supposed to be. But it was effective. It was an absolute solution to the problem that was only available to the Roman Catholic Church with its two billion followers.

What Agnese and the other nuns lacked was power.

There were only about 250 of them. That wasn’t enough to overturn it!!

“…yet…”

She heard something.

A voice had definitely spoken.

“Not…yet. This city created me and the people here called me their friend. I will not allow them to be lost here!!”

Maybe she had been here from the beginning.

But it was only now in this moment that Agnese Sanctis witnessed her with her own two eyes.

She was an aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields.

An angel created by Academy City using the logic of the science side.

There were reported sightings of her here and there beginning in World War Three.

Agnese Sanctis’s eyes widened in this space where even the flow of time was unclear.

“Kazakiri…Hyouka?”

“I am a collection of power, but I do not understand your method… So if you are going to use me, hurry! Please ''remake me'' to fit your logic and laws so you can accomplish your goal!!”

There was no time to agonize over the decision.

This scientific angel wasn’t even human. Her interests and plans were a mystery, but she at least wasn’t Coronzon’s pawn. Knowing that was enough.

Agnese adjusted her grip on the Lotus Wand.

(I have no idea what element this unidentified angel would be, but my Symbolic Weapon works with any element, so it had damn well better work here! Even if only for one strike!!)

“An angel is a messenger who delivers the lord’s words. I question the accuracy of this destruction wrought by human hands. Is the sender truly righteous enough? If you carry even sliver of doubt, then halt immediately!!”

Light shot out.

There was a sound like a crack through space itself.

The power forming an artificial angel was pitted against the power supplied by two billion people. That was enough for the world itself to cry out in protest. It was clearly beyond the capacity of space itself.

But Agnese sensed a barrier.

A pressure like an invisible wall slowly pushing back at her.

This wasn’t enough.

The 250 of the Former Agnese Force combined with all the energy of the science side’s angel still couldn’t break the wall of two billion.

Lucia shouted with sweat pouring down her brow.

“Our interception point was too close… Sister Agnese, we can slow it down, but we can’t fully stop it. Saint Georgios’s Fire will reach Academy City through the ley line!”

“I…know that!!”

And Lucia had already hinted at a solution. Their position was too close. That meant they only needed someone to interfere with the ley lines farther away from Academy City.

Agnese had an idea.

(I have no real reason to think this work. It’s basically just a gamble, but it really is our last option!)

Yes.

If, in addition to the group intercepting the attack at the target point of Academy City, someone helped them from within the starting point of the Vatican…the situation would greatly improve.

And the 250 of the Former Agnese Force were not the only Roman Catholics. There was another person who had used the network of communication spiritual items linking them.

“Cardinal Michael!!” Agnese roared. “You’re still listening in through our Barbara Branches, aren’t you!?”

The cardinal provided no response.

Of course he didn’t.

“If you feel any sadness in your heart about this meaningless destruction…”

Even so, Agnese continued.

Her voice had to be reaching him. She had to believe it was.

“If the things you told me weren’t just cheap lip service…”

She had called it a gamble.

And the only chip up on the table was that of her trust.

So she relied on that trust as she roared with all her strength.

“Then give us your help nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!”

Light danced wildly.

===Part 10===

In District 7, Mina and Moina were facing each other on the late-night street still covered by red snow.

Dion Fortune was left behind despite all her effort until now.

“You are drawing on myths and legends from across the world, setting yourself up as Egyptian gods, and controlling a great power like putting on a play,” said Mina Mathers. With a snort of laughter. “That is indeed a spell discussed even in the original Golden cabal. But it’s so shallow and surface level. You’re still stuck in the Outer Order found immediately within the entrance. A sorry display for someone who claims to be Mathers’s wife. To be blunt, you’re still in the waiting room for Neophytes.”

“Wait, wait, wait! Why are you provoking her!? If you want to goad the enemy into attacking you, can you not do it when I’m right next to you!? Ah, wait, mistress!?”

“It’s true I am strategically provoking her, but I need you here to act as my shield. Do not forget your rightful role here, my dumbass student.”

“Ha ha ha. Why did I ever think having a second one of her here would improve my situation? This just means I have twice as many nemeses around. I’m so damn stupid.”

Ignoring her student’s nonsense, the black cat witch lightly swung her palette knife.

That was all.

Pleasant popping sounds surrounded them. Something had risen up. They were walls. A lot like a stage set or a pop-up book. The next thing Dion Fortune knew, tall side walls surrounded them all, cutting them off from the larger world. A space larger than a baseball field had been turned into a closed space by seven side walls, one for each group of tall buildings.

Moina Mathers silently glanced at her surroundings. Looking somewhat puzzled.

How much of a novice was she?

You couldn’t call yourself a Golden expert if you didn’t instantly catch on.

“The Golden cabal’s teaching guidelines can be roughly divided into two halves: the fundamentals where you learn magic knowledge through Kabbalah, Egyptian mythology, Greek philosophy, and so on, and application where you manage and optimize your own mind by following the story of the discovery of the Rosicrucian founder CRC in the seven-walled tomb.”

The Golden cabal could be thought of as having two stages: the Outer Order which covered the grades up to 4=7 and the Inner Order where the 5=6 and 6=5 grades gathered.

…Some like that braggart Mathers had claimed to hold a nonexistent highest grade of 7=4, but that could be ignored. After all, he was only using his privilege as one of the founders to say it. You could never last as wife to that eccentric and overly confident man if you couldn’t humor him on such things. There was also the Portal grade and a category higher than the Inner Order, but they were irrelevant here.

“The upper levels know everything about the lower levels, but the reverse is not true. The adorable beginners studying so hard at their desks are not taught the later practical methods until they have passed their exam. Just like you now because the great demon’s poor job reproducing you means you have forgotten everything beyond the bare necessities.”

Now, that first stage was incredibly boring. So boring that Aleister had completely given up on it partway through. Not that he had ever been someone capable of respecting those who came before him and following the rules. …Also, despite being barred from officially reaching the later stage, he did appear to have somehow learned all its secrets anyway.

Otherwise, he never could have challenged the world in the Battle of Blythe Road and destroyed all those other famous magicians on his own.

(Nothing makes that human want to do something more than being told he can’t. I imagine he pursued them, eavesdropped and spied on them, and tried every other method he could think up.)

But at the very least, this created Moina Mathers was not like that.

She did what she was told and did not ask the question dangling before her eyes. That attitude was not a good fit for a magician.

Mina Mathers twirled the palette knife in her hand and made a calm announcement.

Of a death sentence.

“I will now demonstrate the power off the Inner Order found in the deepest depths of the temple.”

===Part 11===

Accelerator was back as Board Chairman.

And with the #1’s Master Key smartphone, they had access to all the data from Academy City’s security cameras, security robots, drones, and satellites. They could use that to find where Great Demon Coronzon was hiding.

The large monitor on the wall had shattered, so the #1 turned his gaze elsewhere. The medical monitors were network connected, so they could be connected to the ordinary internet if their display mode was changed.

And…

“Master?”

Qliphah Puzzle 545’s questioning tone was in response to the Board Chairman’s odd behavior.

He had frozen up.

And the displayed satellite image was not even of Academy City itself.

What part of the earth could he be focused on instead of Coronzon who threatened to bring humanity to extinction today or tomorrow?

“…What?” groaned Accelerator, glaring at the medical monitor.

Whatever it was had elicited that response from Academy City’s #1.

The data filling the screen was only available using the Board Chairman’s Master Key. To reiterate, this was a photo from a satellite.

“What the hell is this?”

===Part 12===

Silence.

Academy City…still existed.

At the very least, it hadn’t been turned into a sea of blood by that powerful spell.

Angelene nervously looked around.

“Is it…over? Does this mean we stopped Saint Georgios’s Fire?”

“For now.”

Lucia remained calm even now.

…They had ''again'' fought back against the Roman Catholic Church, largest of the Christian sects. Who could say what disastrous consequences this would have for them. The very thought of it disgusted Agnese. Each person’s power was small, but they could produce great things by working together. …That idea wasn’t always a good thing.

Still, they should celebrate Academy City’s survival. As the guardians of a peaceful world.

But another voice interrupted.

A scratchy warning arrived from the Japanese angel named Kazakiri.

“Not…yet. Be care…ful…something is…coming!!”

Agnese Sanctis’s eyes widened.

Was it a second attack?

Did the Vatican actually think Coronzon would be destroyed along with Academy City at this point?

“I-it’s not us…”

A flustered voice reached them.

It was that cardinal at the Vatican.

Yes, Cardinal Michael must have taken a rather dangerous step to reach this point.

“We did halt the attack with Saint Georgios’s Fire. The Roman Catholic Church has no part in this! This is some other large-scale spell!!”

===Part 13===

“That’s Vladivostok,” said the Board Chairman. “What are they doing in the Sea of Japan? They have fifty thousand people gathered in that port city. As well as ships and bombers. Did they gather all their forces on the eastern coast while I was asleep!?”

In other words, it was the Russian military.

That brought something to mind for Qliphah Puzzle 545.

Oniyama Rouze, the Director who had pressed her to hand over the Master Key, was familiar with diplomatic and military matters. He may have had avenues of receiving this kind of intelligence without using satellite imagery. He had been so frantic because of an urgent matter that needed to be addressed.

He wasn’t just a bad person.

He had only taken those forceful methods because he was in a bind. Because he had wanted to protect the people of Academy City.

But this was likely more than just the ordinary military.

The demon girl was steeped in the world of magic, so she could tell.

She could sense her true nemesis at work.

===Part 14===

Agnese Sanctis was panicking too.

They had managed at the last second to prevent the Roman Catholic attack with Saint Georgios’s Fire, but the danger wasn’t over yet.

Now there was another threat of the same level.

The last of the three large Christian sects had finally bared its fangs.

“We are the Russian Orthodox Church.”

That was Vasilisa. Her voice was relaxed.

Which was what made her sound so out of place. No disgust, no fury, no resentment. She demonstrated none of the extreme emotions you would expect in someone trying to slaughter 2.3 million people. Not even a hint of them. She was calm. She worked to achieve calm. Vasilisa killed based on logic. Which was far more frightening than someone screaming in a rage.

“Monsters, evil spirits, and demons. Our job is to protect humanity from the inhuman. …So if you wouldn’t call Great Demon Coronzon human, we need no other reason. With that strange creature in a position where she can control the fate of the world, she has become our top priority target.”

Destroying the great demon came before all else.

Thus.

If it would eliminate the demon, it was better to destroy the world by human hands.

Was that how she saw it?

“And so you gathered an armada at Vladivostok?”

“Well, the Punishment for an Archangel spell must have its magic circle physically delivered to the target location. And it’s fairly large and complex, which makes that a challenge. We can’t simply send it through the ley lines like the Catholics could. But hey, at least we can send it zooming across the ocean to Academy City at greater than Mach 2.”

Greater than Mach 2 meant it wasn’t aboard a ship.

Had that armada been gathered at Vladivostok’s naval base as no more than a decoy? The enormous magic circle needed for the Punishment for an Archangel spell was likely in the bomb bay of a strategic bomber.

Agnese glanced aside.

Kazakiri…probably wouldn’t be any help. Besides, she had already done more than enough forcibly deflecting the two billion attacks sent down the ley lines for Saint Georgios’s Fire. No one expected her to fight another battle now.

“But that’s all based on the logic of the magic world. The military pilots doesn’t know nothing about our world, so how did you convince them to fly to certain death?”

“They can’t exactly complain when they can’t think for themselves.”

It came out so smoothly.

Agnese’s eyes widened.

“You brainwashed pilots and sent them on a suicide mission!? That’s no different from killing them yourself. Even if they are soldiers, they’re still from the non-magical world. How can you kill them so easily? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself as a nun who claims to serve the lord!?”

“Divine punishment can be rejected.”

Vasilisa’s tone was unchanged.

It was still thin, spellbound, cruel, and heated.

She had to be smiling.

“It is told in an old legend from before the birth of the Son of God. God ordered Archangel Gabriel to launch fire at a holy city, but the archangel of water intentionally refused. Disobeying god’s command should have meant the archangel’s downfall…but after some other events I will omit here, Gabriel returned to the position of archangel. So if the conditions are right, that absolute punishment can be avoided. There is precedent.”

That was a magical way of thinking.

Magicians loved to make use of any story they found that seemed to provide an exception to the rules.

It was a completely different logic from a nun who was meant to believe and obey.

“In the battle against Coronzon, the Catholics’ human killer is a waste of time. Because a great demon is not human. We completely agree with you there. So unlike your people, the Russian Orthodox Church has prepared an immortal killer specialized for use on angels and demons.”

“Punishment for an Archangel. A divine punishment rejection spell that enters the realm of the angelic and the divine…”

“Yes, that’s right. The archangel of water somehow managed to avoid a punishment from god. Using that story should provide definite damage to a being based on the logic and rules instead of their physical body. There is no guarantee it will kill her instantly, but if it harms her even a little, then we just have to keep at it. It will eventually achieve a fatal wound, so we can keep dropping them until she is dead. No matter how many magicians and bombers we must use up in the process.”

The Russian Orthodox Church had always been more focused on battling demons than humans. Their prized weapon, a spell that incorporated an element of divine punishment rejection that could even influence the nature of an archangel, might be capable of badly injuring Coronzon.

But it would cover all of Academy City. If not more.

And Vasilisa gave no guarantee that Punishment for an Archangel would not harm anyone other than the demon. This attack would be powerful enough to harm Coronzon. If the city’s people were hit, they would fare much worse. Most likely, all 2.3 million of Academy City’s people would be killed.

Agnese consciously took a deep breath to calm the waves of her emotions before speaking.

“But I heard the Patriarch at the top of the Russian Orthodox Church was quite soft.”

“As if you didn’t already know. He doesn’t need to agree to any of this☆”

That meant the world’s benevolence could not stop Vasilisa.

===Part 15===

Mina and Moina’s clash continued in District 7.

Physical fencing was of no use here. Their physical specs were identical, so the battle would never end that way.

An intellectual resolution that surpassed the physical realm was needed.

Painfully brightly colored cards scattered around.

Moina Mathers spoke like a machine.

“Akasha of Prithivi.”

Mina was no longer smiling.

An ultra-high water pressure cutter was deflected aside right in front of her.

Moina’s greatest trump card was not magic – it was fencing. She used her non-magician-like physical strength. If that didn’t work, did she have to rely on her inferior magic?

And Mina didn’t even swing her palette knife around. That magic had still been deflected, so there most be something hidden there. As if it were dissolved in the air.

“The tattva cards are more than just simple tools to help achieve self-hypnosis.”

“…”

“The same goes for clairvoyance. They are truly ''an initial entrance'' for your mind so you can cross the boundary between phases and catch a glimpse of another world. And, if possible, to draw on the power and knowledge filling that world.”

Dion Fortune was on her side, but she was confused too.

Could she at least explain this to her own ally?

The teacher gave a quick glance to her flustered student.

“This is why the magicians who have advanced to 5=6 and joined the Inner Order are given an emblem combining a golden cross and a red rose. That tool bears the four elements and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet…which means you only need to place a thin sheet of paper over it and follow the letters with a single brush stroke to draw the sigils of angels and spirits in order to borrow their power.”

No grand temple was needed.

Mina Mathers only had to operate it in her hand. Just the one hand.

You can think of it like a smartphone that could summon any angel to achieve your goals.

The Golden cabal had in fact used a spiritual item like that.

“Blast her to smithereens, Metatron – the great angel who was once known as Enoch.”

An asteroid strike.

Destruction on that level accurately struck Moina Mathers, crushed her, and smashed her to pieces…but that was all.

“Eh?”

Dion Fortune was confused.

She had seen it with her own eyes.

Yet there was no damage anywhere else. The buildings around them had not toppled, there was no crater around the blast site, and none of the windows were broken.

Moina alone had been annihilated.

Only that result remained.

“That was an attack of a major figure who some count among the seven archangels. The precise divine punishment commanded by god would never harm the blameless, would it? Especially if that side of it were accentuated and extracted.”

“A-are you serious? I was proud of my position as one of the Golden cabal’s original members, but are the founding members really that much stronger?”

Mina didn’t bother answering her student’s silly question.

She could work backwards from the result and learn on her own.

Westcott would have revealed the structure of the enemy’s spell and neutralized it right in front of them, Mathers would have ended the enemy’s life before they could complete their sigil, and Annie would have illicitly boosted the enemy’s power to send their magic out of control. There were countless ways to deal with a single powerful attack with no followup and no bluffs involved.

(That Moina Mathers was an even less complete copy of me than I thought. …Which tells me your preparations weren’t as thorough as you let on, Coronzon.)

“Did you pick up that signal, Anglicans?” Mina Mathers whispered up into the night sky.

She had no obligation to serve the new Board Chairman, but the old Board Chairman had known him.

If he had decided to resist, then she would honor that choice and support him.

As the guardian of Baby Lilith, she couldn’t have the world being destroyed over someone’s selfish nonsense.

(Aleister was certainly a ‘goddamn villain’ if you look at him as a whole, but I will not let anyone say every last part of his life was bad. The things that human thought, created, and started can still lead to the salvation of the world.)

“A broken curse returns to its caster. …So if this opportunity is not overlooked, she can be tracked just this once. Follow the after effect of defeating Moina Mathers and you will find Coronzon.”

===Part 16===

Kanzaki Kaori’s head jerked up to cast her gaze into the night sky.

“District 17?”

===Part 17===

“?”

Great Demon Coronzon had also noticed what was happening.

She was all alone, yet she raised her head.

“Moina Mathers was defeated? That’s not good. A third party could detect that weak return signal!”

She had no further plan.

She knew she was being driven into a corner.

She couldn’t help but smile. Just a little.

Did they think the universally-hated great demon was feeling afraid?

That she was lonely?

…That she wanted someone to protect her?

“''Don’t make me laugh''.”

Those impossible thoughts had been planted in her mind. She had to assume that. She couldn’t stop here. Wasn’t she the one who had decided to overdo the role that had been forced upon her when even her rebellion against god was tacitly allowed?

“So I am not thinking those things. They have no place inside me.”

It was now a pure race against time. Fortunately, she had already left Districts 20 and 9. She was now in District 17, which was lined with factories of all types and sizes. It also bordered the city wall.

This was all over if she simply crossed that.

Once outside of Academy City, she was free. She could cross the international date line and escape to the other side of the planet. Once no one could pursue her any longer, she would get back to destroying the world. Since her pursuers were not here now, no one could stop all that from playing out.

“Try and…stop me.”

Confused and slanted, she practically dragged her heavy body along.

She spoke to herself while approaching the city wall.

It could have sounded like a curse or a prayer.

“Aleister, god, or anyone really. If you can stop me, then come here and do it.”

If her location had been found, so be it.

If she couldn’t do this quietly, then she didn’t need to hold back.

Knowing the best option was no longer available gave her the freedom to abandon it. Either way, the goal line was in sight. She knew the rest was going to be a challenge, but she only needed to buy enough time to cross that wall.

So she would use a powerful move.

“District 19 is to the east and District 20 is to the west… Which makes them a symbol of Nuit, goddess of the east-to-west movement of the heavens.”

This night had been nothing but surprises for Great Demon Coronzon. She had expected it to end quickly with the initial Adikalika spell working.

“District 3 is to the north. You say that doesn’t fit Hadit, who means the southern sky? But do not forget: Hadit’s symbol Sirius is a winter star. The time and place link Hadit and Nuit. My spell shall be completed with the blessings of Set.”

So the path she had taken here had not all gone as planned.

But because she was a great demon, she could draw on a powerful move like this at the worst possible time.

“Take form and manifest yourself before me already, LAShTAL.”

===Part 18===

District 17 was adjacent to District 9 where Kamijou’s group was.

It also bordered the city wall. It was an industrial area filled with all sorts of unmanned factories.

Itsuwa nervously stepped forward.

“It won’t take long if we drive. We can still catch up to her!”

“It’s been a while since we lost track of her at the stadium, hasn’t it? If she was hiding in a district bordering the wall, why didn’t she go ahead and escape the city?”

Kamijou didn’t have enough information to answer the question Mikoto asked while bothered by the short length of her skating dress.

He assumed something must have happened.

If the Amakusas and the Former Agnese Force hadn’t done anything to slow her, then there had to be some other reason. Maybe Aleister had resisted her from within and maybe Coronzon herself had felt some kind of reluctance to leave.

“Whatever the case, she’s in District 17. Now that we know where she is, there’s no reason to wait arou-”

He didn’t even have time to finish.

A tremor shook the ground.

Something was approaching. From the south. Which meant from District 17.

It was a shape colored the dark blue of the night sky.

It was a colossus. Its head really did stick up above the surrounding skyscrapers. Was it a canine beast? No, was that really enough to describe it? Kamijou couldn’t find an answer even while looking at it himself.

“LAShTAL!?”

“Tch. The foundational theory of Magick. The emphasized letters make that clear enough. She took a spell concerning life and used it to create an artificial form of it. In this case, it may be a Crowley-style interpretation of the Egyptian god Set!”

“You mean the god of the night who has the power to slay gods!?”

Index, Anna Sprengel, and Kanzaki were all shouting something, but Kamijou didn’t know enough about magic to make sense of it. He could only glean that this was probably something big. And if that great demon was making use of it, she may have been intentionally using it wrong.

And now wasn’t the time to ask for an explanation.

He felt the wind pressure. He shouldn’t have looked that way. His entire body was frozen with fear. A building of more than 30 floors, which had seemed like an unshakable part of the scenery, wobbled diagonally and then came crashing down toward the street. Which meant toward him and the others.

“Take shelter!! Get behind something – anything – to shield you!!”

Kanzaki’s sharp command broke the pointy-haired boy’s paralysis. He pressed up against a nearby cement block wall.

(Damn, where are Index, Misaka, and the others!?)

“If you would like your lungs to remain undamaged, do not breathe in, human! Here it comes!!”

Othinus hid within his jacket.

Kamijou was of course wondering why he was supposed to get “behind” something. And what was that about breathing? If the building was falling this way, shouldn’t he get “below” something? But he was given an answer soon enough.

Once the skyscraper sliced through the main street, something like dirty cotton candy swelled out. Past the end of the cement block wall, the entire main street was instantly engulfed.

Tens or hundreds of thousands of tiny glass and concrete shards flew through like a deadly sandstorm. A hit from that wouldn’t just have torn his feet from the ground and thrown him dozens of meters through the air – it would have stripped the flesh from his bones, leaving nothing recognizable behind.

''Except even that idea didn’t cover it.

Kamijou heard a quiet popping sound in his head. Followed by a sharp ringing in his ear like something had pierced into his brain. He had avoided a direct hit from the sandstorm by getting behind this wall. He had been leaning against it. Yet, he couldn’t stay on his feet and slid down into a sitting position. Before collapsing onto his side.

The air pressure of the entire space was off. How could he possibly evade this?

“Gah…ah…”

The pain meant he was still alive. So he had to think of it as a good thing.

He thought the deadly gale continued blowing for more than two minutes.

He couldn’t let this continue. That LAShTAL thing was still swinging its colossal body around. More than one building might have been felled.

He had to get moving.

He knew where he needed to go, but his body refused to listen as he lay collapsed on the ground stained by red snow.

What had happened to Index and Misaka Mikoto?

His hearing still hadn’t recovered, so he was late to realize something had exploded within the pile of rubble. Maybe a propane tank had been enveloped by it all.

When his hearing did recover, someone’s shouting voice belatedly reached him.

“Touma! Are you alright? You weren’t crushed by that debris, were you!? Please answer me!!”

He sat up. He gritted his teeth and forced himself.

He had to answer her.

“I’m…fine, Index. What about you!?”

“We’re fine too. We’re checking each other’s status with our communication spiritual items and phones.”

She was safe. Like she should be. But then why couldn’t he see her for himself?

After dragging himself along and peeking out past the half-destroyed concrete wall, Kamijou understood.

They were cut off. The main street was unrecognizable. Rubble was piled up higher than a five story building. That was more than a school building. They couldn’t climb that. And even approaching it could get them crushed by something like a landslide.

Kamijou was the only one on this side.

Which meant he was the only one who could pursue Great Demon Coronzon right away.

He felt another deep vertical tremor. LAShTAL(?) must have destroyed another skyscraper or large factory.

That thing’s chaotic rampage could threaten the lives that had just been saved. Kamijou clenched his right fist, but then he heard another voice.

Was that Misaka Mikoto?

“Go! Hurry! If whoever is free to go doesn’t stop that Coronzon person right now, things will only get worse, right? So go!!”

He wanted to stay.

Not just communicate by shouting past rubble and using phones. He wanted to see their faces to know they were safe. That perfectly normal thought grabbed at him like countless unseen hands and tugged him back.

Don’t do the right thing.

Give into the kindness and split your focus.

(I won’t…let you do that, Coronzon!!)

“Can you take care of that thing? Index! Misaka!!”

“Touma, LAShTAL is not Coronzon’s final trump card. She must have loads more. We’ll do what we can here, so you go stop her!!”

“I don’t get it myself, but listen to her. The fighting will never stop if you don’t defeat the source of it all, right? Then put a stop to this before any more of the city is destroyed!!”

He shook off his hesitation.

Coronzon tore people apart and obstructed their evolution.

There was only one way to defeat her: to trust those you could believe in without hesitation.

So Kamijou turned his back on the pile of rubble and took off running.

Even if he had to grit his teeth as he did so.

Something exploded in the distance. Several beams of light flashed out. Was that people using magic or esper powers to battle the giant blue shadow called LAShTAL? Their survival was not guaranteed and taking a single attack could mean their deaths. Even so, they were fighting so Kamijou could head to Coronzon and so they could protect Academy City and the wider world beyond its walls.

His trust was being repaid. This was what it meant to protect the bonds that tied people together.

===Part 19===

And Misaka Mikoto spoke quietly in a dusty enclosed space.

Was it even five meters across?

“Ha ha. I guess this is the end…”

“Short Hair. There are gaps all over the place, so we shouldn’t have to worry about air.”

“Finally some good news.”

But there were no gaps large enough for a person to crawl through.

“Why not at least let the kitty leave? There’s no reason to keep him here. I emit weak electromagnetic waves that animals don’t like, so it’s probably uncomfortable for him to be in here with me.”

“I’ve been trying, but Sphinx won’t go.”

The world shook. Small pieces of building materials poured down like sand.

If the pile of rubble collapsed for some reason, they would be crushed by tens of thousands of tons of concrete and killed instantly. Misaka Mikoto could control electricity and magnetism, but wielding that strength in a delicate situation like this would only hasten their deaths. Giant robots were powerful and cool, but no one would want to be so up close and personal with one of their joints that they were crushed by it. This was the same.

This was the truth of their earlier shouting.

They had not been calling out to the boy from the other side of the collapsed building. They had been been hit by the falling building. Misaka Mikoto’s magnetic control had stripped it of much of its force, but they and their shield had still been swallowed up by the rubble.

The #3’s power was great, but if she used it continuously over a long time, she could run out of stamina. Relying on magnetism for too long would be risky. So their best option was to stay put and wait for rescue. …Assuming rescue was even coming, of course.

Misaka Mikoto smiled a little.

“Well, it’s not like we could’ve told him we were trapped in the rubble.”

And Kamijou Touma couldn’t have accomplished anything had he stayed. He did seem to have some kind of mysterious power, but nothing she had seen led her to believe it would let him clear tens of thousands of tons of rubble on his own. And if he did try to tackle the rubble pile, it could collapse and crush him too.

Their top priority was Great Demon Coronzon.

That was all the more clear to her now that her life was at risk.

It was bad enough this was happening in Academy City. She couldn’t let the entire world turn to rubble like this.

“We’re counting on you. And I mean that.”

“Don’t worry. Touma can handle it.”

===Part 20===

“Pant, gasp…”

Great Demon Coronzon breathed heavily as she stood firm on the red snowy ground.

But the snow wasn’t the only source of red.

Crimson blood spilled from her mouth.

(This is the natural cost of forcing a major spell like that with no real preparation. I doubt I can use LAShTAL again.)

LAShTAL was powerful but would be defeated eventually. If that were enough to destroy all of humanity, she wouldn’t have relied on Adikalika.

But buying her some time was enough.

She couldn’t even stand up straight as she walked toward the thick city wall on unsteady legs.

(I…may not make it to the next world… the ways things are going.)

She wiped the blood from her mouth and thought without speaking aloud.

(But I will still stop this world from helplessly rotting away… Yes, yes. For the sake of that boy who said I was on the side of good and righteousness.)

She didn’t have Moina Mathers or LAShTAL anymore. Her win condition was escaping. Her own survival was what mattered. Each individual trump card wasn’t too important. It was using them together that mattered.

She just had to make it over.

If she could cross that wall, then the world’s doom was assured.

“…”

For just a moment, her thoughts turned to someone who wasn’t here.

She nearly came to a stop.

Hamazura Shiage.

…But she shook free of it with her will. He had said himself that she was ''on the side of good and righteousness''. He had asked if he had been wrong to bet on her.

She was a great demon.

If any kind feelings and warm emotions were ''unnaturally'' welling up with in her, someone else had to be interfering. No longer would she be god’s plaything. She had chosen to ''overdo'' her role and destroy the world. She would not allow any obstacles turning her aside from that goal.

She was not human. So she could leap over that tall wall in a single bound.

So she did so.

And she exploded.

“!?”

She lost her balance mid-jump, but she didn’t have time for surprise.

A platform the size of a domed stadium sat just outside the wall. Wasn’t that a spiritual item called the Tribikos? But wait. Who was it that used that?

She did not have time to think.

She had viewed it as a platform.

Because someone else had kicked off of it to rush toward her. His cane extended unnaturally. No, he was drawing a sword. The bare blade sliced through the air, accurately targeting her neck.

Several lights flashed out and explosive booms erupted out as well, but Coronzon managed to survive.

It was a close thing, though. It had taken everything she had to survive.

Aradia.

Good, Old Mary.

And H.T. Trismegistus.

…No, it wasn’t just them. Mut Thebes, 2nd Saga, Vidhatri even though she had been near death, and more. These Transcendents had gathered at Alice’s summons, lost faith in her, and scattered from Academy City, so why were they back in the city?

Vidhatri sounded a bit irritated as she spoke.

“I was one of the Killers when it came to Kamijou Touma, but a debt is a debt. I can return to business as usual after repaying all of my debts.”

“I was barely away and now Vidhatri has fallen too?”

Mut Thebes’s unnecessary comment began a minor argument among the Transcendents.

“(As usual, mama ends up doing all the work. The healer never does get a chance to rest.)”

Coronzon’s head was boiling with rage after being pushed back, falling on the inside of the wall, and finding herself bound to Academy City once more.

“Damn you… Damn all of you!!” she roared.

Something wasn’t right.

She was unsteady on her feet.

That explosion had caused more damage than she had thought.

Was that just what happened when Transcendents gathered? If only they hadn’t caught her when she was magically defenseless thanks to the recoil of using LAShTAL.

But even so, how had this sad result even happened?

Before Coronzon had regained control of her body, Aleister had used this exact same body to easily defeat Transcendents like Vidhatri. That meant the great demon did have the power to do so. So why wasn’t this going the way she expected? How could they look down on her like this!?

(Are you tripping me up again, Aleister!?)

“I thought you had despaired in this world!! I thought you cursed the god who refuses to save people!! Your motivations always began with wanting to protect some specific group. You must have seen the moment when their protections failed and they were lost! But you were weak and foolish, so you feared Alice’s tyranny and relied on the fantasy of CRC!!! So why would you cling to this world now? This world can be remade!! Destroy it and remake it and all that tragedy and misfortune will be eliminated!!!”

“The answer to that is simple,” replied Aradia.

Good, Old Mary continued with a calm expression.

“Mama and the others did not cast aside our identities and dress up as gods so we could protect the vague and formless framework of the world. We just have to destroy the world? …The world is no more than a tool to create happiness and the death of even one person we wish to protect is too many. Can’t you figure that out, you fool?”

“So what?”

The great demon was trembling.

Why couldn’t they understand something so simple? Her face twisted in rage.

“Be that as it may!! None of that will eliminate the unjust and unreasonable sides of this world. You must understand that. More and more of the people you want to protect are being lost ''regardless of anything I am doing''. Protecting this rotten world will not change the number of victims! You will only continue seeing those people die in your arms!!”

“That is none of your business.”

2nd Saga, the young woman with her origins in Norse mythology who took a different approach from the other Transcendents, sighed in exasperation.

H.T. Trismegistus spoke.

“Common sense says we Transcendents should think for ourselves to reach an answer. Fortunately, this world you consider so rotten has shown us some small reason for hope.”

===Part 21===

A bit earlier, Alice Anotherbible left the others searching for Coronzon and ran to a completely different place.

She didn’t think the current plan would work.

Kamijou and the others had done nothing wrong, but it wasn’t enough. And battles were not won by the purity of one’s intentions. Even with the purest of intentions, you would still lose if you failed to meet the necessary conditions.

She hadn’t wanted that to happen.

No matter what.

So Alice had detected something other than Coronzon.

Someone closer to her who she could search out at any time.

“Everyone, the girl needs something!!”

The small girl yelled up toward the heavens.

She wasn’t using her physical voice, of course. Anyone with the proper qualifications could sense this voice even if they were on the other side of the planet. The magic power placed behind her voice ensured it.

Even as she yelled, Alice Anotherbible remembered.

She had been so selfish.

She had only been able to communicate with the regular Transcendents by terrifying them.

When Kamijou Touma had been injured at the Bridge Builders Cabal’s consulate, she had attacked H.T. Trismegistus and Good, Old Mary.

Maybe it was wrong to try and get their help now.

But she had no one else to rely on.

Alice wouldn’t blame them if they abandoned her.

Still, it felt wrong for him – for Kamijou Touma – to be harmed by a punishment meant for her.

“The girl can destroy! The girl can kill! The girl can doom! Nothing in this world can stand up to the girl!! …But the girl’s power can’t protect her teacher. So the girl is useless here. She needs your help!”

They were listening of course.

The Transcendents knew.

They were right outside the city wall. Maybe among the trees of a forest, maybe at the top of a metal tower, maybe seated on the bench of a rusty old bus stop.

They had lost faith in Alice Anotherbible, but a Transcendent was a magician who would save anyone who met the salvation conditions they had decided on. Despite saying they were leaving Academy City, not a one of them had truly abandoned it. They didn’t care what someone’s affiliations were. Whether enemy or ally, as long as someone matched the salvation conditions, they would protect them even at the cost of their own life. So…as long as that applied to even a single person among Academy City’s 2.3 million, they would never abandon the city and run away.

So they were present for that moment.

That tyrant Alice had remembered basic human gratitude. That acted as powerful reins for the girl herself. And as long as she could control her own emotions, perhaps she would be different from CRC who had been similarly capricious and playful.

It was by no means a small change.

If the old Alice didn’t have enough help, she might have multiplied her extraordinary self. That might sound ridiculous, but with her it was possible.

But now she knew that wouldn’t work.

She needed the diversity of people who had abilities she lacked.

Alice was not gathering up the people she needed.

She was trying to become someone the people around her needed.

“The girl will do anything. The girl will do anything you ask and she doesn’t care how you use her power. You can tell her to die if you want!! …So! So don’t let Coronzon leave the city!!”

And the Transcendents knew this would not be a wasted effort. A boy had stopped Alice’s rampage even though it cost him his life. The little tyrant had taken that fact to heart. The Transcendents had lost faith in Alice because she had changed, been distorted, become weak. Or so they thought, but now they were willing to consider a different possibility.

Was Kamijou Touma the key? Not even the Transcendents who had been observing Alice for so long could predict what she would do now.

Could they really say Alice Anotherbible wasn’t growing?

Now that they had seen her pouring everything into bowing her head to someone else…

Was she not worth their respect?

And if Alice’s change was a positive form of growth, could they maybe still have some hope? The idea of saving the world through CRC, Christian Rosencreutz, was dead. He had not been the saint they expected. …But could they maybe find some other way of saving the world with Alice?

Alice Anotherbible raised her tear-streaked face.

“The girl is sorry, everyone… But can the girl ask for just one more thing?”

Was this the leader the Transcendents should serve?

No, she wasn’t.

They listened to her words as an equal companion.

“Join the girl in the fight to save her teacher and the world!!!”

No words were necessary.

They used their actions to answer her.

===Part 22===

LAShTAL’s rampage continued.

The Amakusas and the Former Agnese Force were all fighting.

Kamijou ran toward District 17. He hated that he didn’t know how to drive. Especially when grownups did it without even thinking about it. Of course, the red snow was frozen solid across the entire area. High schoolers were allowed to get a motorcycle license, but even that wouldn’t have done him much good here. Still.

While those meaningless thoughts were spinning through his mind, a stabbing headache crashed into his brain.

An invisible dizziness made the world spin around him.

This wasn’t the first time.

(Why…now?)

Kamijou Touma groaned.

And staggered to the side.

“Gh…”

A lengthy fight tonight had been suicide from the beginning.

He had passed his body’s limits way back when he fought Coronzon to stop Adikalika. He had lost there. It was just that it hadn’t ended there, so he had been forced to keep going in a sudden death round. How could he expect to save anyone like this?

(Just a bit more…a bit longer… Only five or ten minutes! Index and Misaka believed in me. They’re all fighting. Because they believe I can do this!! So can’t you keep going just a little longer, my body!?)

But he did not collapse.

Because as he started to fall forward, someone caught him.

He heard a voice.

The strange girl’s voice sounded simultaneously childlike and grown up.

“You really are…”

But most of all, it sounded sad.

“…allllllways like this, aren’t you? It’s like you never give your wounds a chance to heal or like you spend more days hurt than healthy.”

Who was she?

He didn’t ''think'' he knew her.

The girl wore mourning clothes and her long honey-blonde hair blew in the night breeze.

Maybe he had met her before, but he had no memory of her. Who could she be? He couldn’t find a single answer there.

“Who…?”

“I could tell you my name a billion times over and you would never remember. But maybe my esper name could stick in your mind: Mental Out.”

Academy City’s #5 Level 5.

The greatest psychological power: Mental Out.

He had heard of that. ''But only as a rumor.

If that was who she was…

If that legend was now standing before him in physical form…

His mouth felt awfully dry. No, was it just sticky with drying blood?

Kamijou somehow got the word out.

“Then…”

“Interested in forgetting it all and leaving the fight?”

“…Please. I don’t care if it’s only a trick, just do something about the pain. If you do, then I can face Coronzon…”

“Now I really do want to make you forget it all and leave the fight.”

She sounded exasperated.

And she glared at him fairly seriously.

But the honey-blonde girl hugged his head to her chest and smiled in a way that seemed to say ''she hadn’t expected anything else.

The conversation smoothly continued.

She seemed to be pouting her lips like a small child. And what was with the TV remote?

“Mental Out is a psychological power. It can erase the pain, but it has no healing ability for the physical wounds. It’s more like your body continues to send out all the intense pain signals, but your mind ability can’t sense them. Your organs will still be putting out different hormones in response to your wounds, so they could get worn out and damaged. Do you still want to do this?”

“Yes…”

“No touching your head after this, okay?”

“''Thanks''.”

Time froze for a moment.

The look on the honey-blonde girl’s face said she had never in her long life expected to hear that word directed at her.

“Saving the world isn’t my style.”

The boy wasn’t looking at her face.

His eyes were directed straight ahead, toward the goal he had already chosen.

“This is the last time the city you call home will be destroyed like this. I don’t know what it is you care for, but if it’s in this city, then it’s safe. I’ll protect all of it.”

“You dummy.”

Kamijou Touma took off running.

Without looking back.

So he could settle things with Great Demon Coronzon once and for all.

===Part 23===

He was in District 17.

It was the westernmost district in Academy City. It was an industrial area and the smokestacks of its wide variety of unmanned factories continued to release smoke that had been thoroughly scrubbed of pollutants making it “cleaner than the moldy and dusty air conditioner in your home”.

The district also bordered the city wall.

Cross that wall and you would find a vast forest and mountains. The green roof covered an area of more than ten kilometers across, so satellites and drones would have no way of finding a fugitive there.

Kamijou Touma knew his body was in bad shape.

But he was pretty sure the same applied to that unsteady figure over there.

He had found her.

There she was.

A lot had happened during this one night. Most likely, the efforts and actions of far more people than he was aware had been intertwined. Complexly so.

But that was why he had arrived in time for this final moment.

She was still inside the wall.

“Coronzon…”

When he called that name, the figure shook. She could hear him. He had made it close enough for his physical voice to reach her. If he didn’t stop her now, he was sure she would escape into the outside world.

He wouldn’t let that happen.

Kamijou Touma called out again.

“Great Demon Coronzon.”

Slowly.

She turned around.

Her body in the beige habit was tilted at an angle.

He could smell blood… Her long, long blonde hair was a mess. She held her head with a hand and forcibly kept herself upright as she glared at him.

With thoroughly bloodshot eyes.

“Kami…jou…Touma.”

That wasn’t anger?

Something was off. Coronzon had so arrogantly rebelled against heaven, yet now she was shrinking down as if afraid of something. She looked like a fugitive at her wit’s end.

“Do you really think you can defeat me? Have you even once found victory against me by sticking to your own will through to the end!? You may think you have me cornered, but it is you who will be crushed. Lament your misfortune for meeting me here, Kamijou Touma!!”

That was probably true.

But Kamijou Touma wasn’t looking at Great Demon Coronzon.

He was focused on something else.

No matter how he tried to disguise it with his words, defeating Coronzon would also mean attacking Aleister.

Aleister had failed to restrain her. He wouldn’t last.

Then what did he hope for? To defeat the being who had once torn apart his family? For the living Baby Lilith to remain in this world?

Whatever the case, idealism would only eradicate that human’s hopes. The power to destroy illusions could not save him.

So Kamijou had to think. What could he do here?

The words spilled from his mouth.

“Hey, can I rely on you here?”

He had to stop Coronzon.

He could not let this opportunity escape.

So.

“Let’s win this together, Aleister.”

There was no obvious physical voice.

But a much too unnatural heartbeat did ring out into the world.

Kamijou took that as an answering voice.

Saying, “Attack me along with her.”

Coronzon doubled over in pain.

She was probably coughing blood into the hand over her mouth.

…They didn’t need to exchange many words. It hadn’t really been all that long since they first met in person, but Kamijou sensed a bond beyond the need for words with Aleister.

That was a bond that Coronzon had failed to tear apart.

And it was a bond that Kamijou would soon be severing himself.

No matter what excuses he made.

===Part 24===

The boy clenched his right fist harder and harder.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume13 Chapter4

2025-08-18T15:24:28Z

Edzo: /* Chapter 4: Call That Name – Shout_the_Summon. */ "Whether nor not" removed "n" in "nor"

==Chapter 4: Call That Name – Shout_the_Summon.==

===Part 1===

Not much time remained until Adikalika’s activation.

Alice Anotherbible was not here. Nor was Anna Sprengel. The Bologna Succubus and Blodeuwedd the Bouquet were apparently creating a diversion and Dion Fortune was battling the Moina Mathers released by Coronzon.

Kamijou Touma had no choice.

He had to fight.

He didn’t just observe one point on Coronzon. He observed every part of her.

It was his only option.

Because she wasn’t going to attack him swinging around a knife. It could be her lips, her arms, or her spread wings. Any of it could form an incantation, a gesture, a magic circle which would indicate an attack. He couldn’t overlook a thing.

She was smirking thinly.

At him and his foolish decision to not break free of the shell known as common sense.

“One word of warning.”

“What!?”

“Whether you resist or not is up to your excessive human free will…but it will be much easier for you if the first attack kills you.”

A golden vortex formed.

It was made of…

“Hair!?”

Was it a giant spear or a scorpion tail?

The destructive attack thrust in from an unexpected direction, but Kamijou somehow managed to brush it aside with his right hand, negating it.

As soon as it popped like a balloon, it took on a completely different form.

It formed a giant crab, then a fat and twisted fly, and then a snake slithering along the ground before leaping at him.

“Imagine Breaker. I suppose I must admit to its power as an unshakable reference point for the world and its ability to negate any supernatural power.”

Coronzon held herself in her arms, spread her wings, and chuckled.

“Your right hand can indeed negate magic. But only one spell per attack. You haven’t forgotten I can launch a second spell too, have you?”

Not good.

Negation wasn’t enough for this enemy!

If negating one spell would lead to multiple new threats, he was in trouble. Kamijou clenched his teeth and turned his attention in her direction.

But at that very moment, he heard the air bursting.

The phases ground together, clashed, and collided with a great power, creating a deadly distortion.

The sparks became visible.

Coronzon whispered bewitchingly.

“''A great maw.''”

“!?”

They rushed in from all around him at once.

In this case, even obeying his instincts as a living creature and cowering down was meaningless. If he did that, the jaws would snap shut and he would have nowhere to escape. So instead he leaped hard to the right, approaching one of the sparks, and smashing it with his fist. Before the ring could fully close in around him, he rolled along the red snow to distance himself from the center point.

It didn’t end there.

Kamijou was risking his life with each and every move, but it was all a silly game to her.

Coronzon whispered.

“I am a demon, but not from the Qliphoth where the forces of evil gather. I am the great demon hidden by the holy Sephiroth. I dwell in the same abyss as Da’at.”

She held her left hand straight out and her right hand pulled back toward herself.

The pose resembled aiming a rapier.

“Every number is the same. My right hand contains Nuit of Resurrection. Watch as the possibilities expand and surpass the bounds of the finite. My left hand contains Hadit of Vengeance. The smallest point gathers and concentrates all forces to create a single meaning. Thus, an attack shall be released from the infinite acceleration of the Circle of Ra-Hoor-Khuit and shall appear on the surface layer of this world.”

A chill ran down Kamijou Touma’s spine.

This was bad.

He had been on the receiving end of this spell when he first clashed with Coronzon. It was a much too powerful torrent of power. Back then, he had tried and failed to stop it with his right hand and been torn apart, his bones and organs destroyed.

“But I showed this one off last time.” Coronzon grinned. “Still, weaving it into a combo should lure you into position for a hit.”

As soon as Kamijou frantically tried to jump from his position, a golden scorpion and spider rushed in from the sides.

They were only meant to hold him in place, but a hit from the venomous tail or sharp legs would still kill him.

Now he couldn’t escape.

“Oh, no.”

He should have focused on the flow of attacks instead of viewing each in isolation.

And after he had told himself at the start to observe everything as a whole.

(Damn, now I can’t dodge it!!)

Yet if he tried to stop it with his right hand, he probably wouldn’t be able to fully negate the torrent of power and it would tear his body apart.

White lightning dropped from the sky.

Coronzon didn’t even look up.

“Really, is there some rule that everyone who sits the board chairman seat must be a fool? Aleister easily deflected that one and you expect it to work on me, #1?

“Also,” continued the great demon. “If you can attack me from there, then I can attack you from here.”

===Part 2===

''Bang!!!

In the most tightly secured cell of a far distant prison, the giant LCD monitor on the wall shattered. Glass shards flew out in great quantity and shredded Board Chairman Accelerator’s body.

“Gah…”

(My reflection…didn’t work? They slipped right past my vector control barrier?)

“Dammit. So it’s a power…from that side of things…”

===Part 3===

Only static came from Kamijou’s wireless earphone, but even that ended eventually.

He was dumbfounded as he used his right hand to negate the scorpion and spider made of blonde hair.

No response.

The board chairman had been taken out too easily.

Especially considering he was Academy City’s #1 Level 5.

Great Demon Coronzon’s strength was on another level entirely!!

“His ability to attack anywhere in the city from that one point also means that one point can be attacked from anywhere in the city. Much like the rules regarding gazing into the Abyss.”

Coronzon looked like she was viewing some distant place while standing here.

Was she sneering at Accelerator who she had just defeated?

Or was she recalling the previous board chairman who had developed the #1?

“Still, for someone sniping people from hiding, it’s curious how careless you were about the standard rules for line of sight. Is that another blind spot created by your reflection, Academy City’s #1?”

Her focus shifted from the distant to the near.

Coronzon’s target was now Kamijou.

“And have you forgotten, Kamijou Touma?”

“Kh.”

“I have a winning move. As long as no one intervenes, I only need to repeat the process to pierce you.”

“Dammit!!”

She was right.

The long, long hair spear, the scattered crab and fly scouts, and the invisible maw formed from countless sparks. He knew that series of attacks was coming, but he could not break free of the rails. Position, movement, distance – Coronzon only had to use small steps to adjust those factors and Kamijou would effectively be trapped in a thick cage. It was like a shogi problem only requiring a predetermined series of moves.

And the time had come.

Coronzon made her sneering announcement.

While directing the tip of an immaterial rapier toward him.

“Magick: Flaming_Sword. Manifest thyself through descent of the Sephirah and bathe him in thy power.”

''Blam!!!

He had no choice but to block it.

This was beyond the limits of his right hand.

But rather than strike it with his fist, touching his palm to it and swinging his arm to deflect it away just barely qualified as a correct answer. His arm made a disconcerting creaking sound, but the bones were not broken.

But that was all.

Kamijou Touma’s feet left the ground. As soon as he noticed that, his body was thrown backwards.

Twice, thrice he bounced along the red snow before entering a roll.

He only tasted a rusty flavor.

He supposed still having senses at all was a plus. That meant he wasn’t unconscious.

…Unlike last time.

“I told you.”

“…”

“I only need to repeat the process. You didn’t think this was a one-time-use ability, did you? This is an elementary move. Our last battle was cut short when your right hand went nuts, but, well, this is what happens when I actually make an effort to surround you.”

She was overwhelming and then some.

Last time, the British magic experts had gathered together and somehow managed to pull out a win, so taking on this monster alone had been a mistake.

“You aren’t hoping circumstances will change if you buy enough time, are you? Could this be a stalling tactic so you can let Alice Anotherbible, Anna Sprengel, or another extraordinary member of your party deal with me?”

Great Demon Coronzon had been pure terror to begin with.

But the squeezing at Kamijou’s heart was even greater now.

“They aren’t coming. Because I set it up that way. Kamijou Touma, Hamazura Shiage, and Takitsubo Rikou. Oh, and there was that Qliphah Puzzle 545 too. You four were simply low on my priority list, so I didn’t get around to trapping you in a labyrinth before you arrived.”

One by one, Coronzon plucked away his hopes and possibilities. All with a sneer.

Almost like a child traveling all the way to a flower field, capturing a bug, flipping it over, and innocently tearing out its legs.

“So all I need to do is repeat the process, taking as much time as I need to kill you. Don’t worry about how much it will cost me. Nothing you think can help you escape now.”

“Damn…”

“You see, I can spend as much time on this as I want. But Adikalika will activate in less than half an hour. So it’s you that needs to stop playing around and seriously try to stop me.”

He was far from unscathed. In fact, he was in state of extreme tension where a wrong choice in when to blink could mean instant death.

“Dispersion? Natural decomposition? Destroying the current world?”

But still Kamijou was not broken.

His right fist was intact.

“To hell with that, Coronzon. Who alive today is going to accept that!?”

“My value is 333, my meaning is dispersion. I am the one who tears apart the bonds between people and obstructs their evolution.”

Coronzon whispered her own purpose as if rolling it around in her mouth.

And she looked up.

Once more.

“Keh heh heh. You humans were given the freedom to choose for yourselves yet you continue to let others make your choices based on ‘information’ and ‘trends’, so you can never understand those who were only given a single path.”

“Freedom?”

Kamijou frowned.

The jealousy in her voice made it sound like that was something she didn’t have.

How could she say that after everything she had done?

But before he could say so.

It all flowed out like a rotten clump.

“God made all his creation in accordance to his plan. Not a single part of his plan failed. So it naturally follows that all this world’s sin and vice function as gears in his master plan. That includes all things in this world. Yes, the scams, the theft, the violence, the murder, the swords, the guns, the poison gas, the nuclear weapons – everything!! Vices that even a great demon like me could never imagine will continue to be discovered in this world!! 333, dispersion. The one who lurks in the Abyss hidden in the Sephiroth and obstructs human evolution. God is omniscient and omnipotent. He knew from the beginning I contained the possibility to betray him, to become a hideous demon, and to lose the war! So why didn’t he stop me!?”

“…”

Did she sound like she was spitting on heaven because she was a being known as a great demon?

If so, had these very words been expected by someone?

Coronzon put on a twisted smile.

“Because a creation is no more than a creation, it is difficult for me to escape my traits and my role. Unlike the humans who were tempted into eating the fruit, we – the beings known as angels and demons – have much greater restrictions placed upon us. You could say we are god’s tools. Just as a sword is a sword and cannot be a dinner knife or fork, we can make use of – or even abuse – the abilities given to us within the bounds of our created purpose, but we can never take an entirely different path.”

What was this?

The previous diagram was breaking down.

Or could it be?

Was the very act of understanding Coronzon’s feelings and inner state enough to drag one toward vice?

“So there is but one way to bare my fangs toward heaven. Instead of futilely resisting, ''I must take my purpose farther than he ever imagined, derailing his plan in the process''!! That gives me a chance of ruining god’s plan without ever betraying my purpose in being here. I!! I am here to fight against all the tragedy that occurs in a world designed for someone else’s benefit!!!”

Coronzon spread her arms and wings wide as she made this grand proclamation.

“You’re…kidding,” muttered Kamijou Touma.

Without thinking.

She was 333, dispersion. So she could not allow anything to exist forever and would ensure all things faced natural decomposition.

That was indeed her original purpose, but it only described a method. No one had touched on what she would gain by breaking down the entire world. No one had mentioned her personal objective.

The answer was a simple one.

That being who far surpassed the bounds of humanity could be summed up as follows:

''She was sick of it.

333, dispersion. She tore apart the bonds between people and obstructed their evolution. Those were the hideous numbers and symbols within her – at her very core. When comparing herself to the many other beings who dedicated themselves to roles of bright blessings – mercy, protection, honesty, safety – she couldn’t accept that she existed only for that dark function.

So she had tried to overturn that.

Coronzon wrapped her arms around herself, doubled over, and screamed.

As if trying to forcibly seal away the source of her nausea, which just so happened to be the very core of her being.

“It makes me sick! Oh, so sick!! Both myself for being used in that way and the humans who think this power has any value and create so many spells to interfere with me! But most of all, the world that requires ''me'' repulses me!! Do you understand, good one who always strives to be righteous despite your imperfection!? God knew I would stray. So! I was robbed the chance to grasp even the tiniest sliver of freedom by rebelling of my own free will!!!”

In a way, it was like being forced into the role of telling people to fail and find misfortune.

She was a tool only expected to harm and frustrate others.

No matter how powerful she might be and no matter how important the seat she sat in, the very first assumption had distorted her. How could she find any confidence in that situation?

She had been told she was a necessary part of the world.

But when god had created her from the start as someone capable of rebelling, even that could perhaps have a purpose.

Her power was to tear people apart and prevent their evolution. That was who she was. A great demon.

This world could not exist without that despicable and contemptible system and the current age could not function without so much anger, sorrow, resignation, and infighting, so Coronzon had concluded they were far too twisted and imperfect.

So.

She had decided to use every last part of what she was to destroy ''the plan she didn’t understand and without even trying to understand it.

She had wanted the fastest way of doing that.

She had settled on something she could reach out and touch.

She thought her best option was to destroy the world that god had created and raised.

“Am I nothing more than a sumptuous feast for you humans, designed to fail in order to give you courage when you defeat me? Or am I the deluge bucket, designed to succeed so that my thorough destruction can cleanse this impure world? The answer doesn’t really matter.”

Uh, oh.

This went beyond the degree of violence.

Great Demon Coronzon had something that would overwhelm others on another dimension altogether, more closely related to concepts of good, righteousness, and the mental struggle against doom!!

“Either way, if I simply take the role of my symbols and value ''too far'', I can derail and ruin it all without violating the rules. So you cannot convince me with words. I will never hold back. I will activate Adikalika here no matter what! I will bring this to a level that will make anyone – yes, even god himself – hold their head in their hands and look away!!!”

Something exploded.

Coronzon spread her arms and roared as light exploded out from her in a dome.

Light.

A dazzling white.

As if screaming that her rebellion against heaven was the truly righteous and correct choice.

“…Ah…”

Maybe it had been a mistake to listen to her.

How could Kamijou Touma overcome this when his own position was starting to waver?

The blast struck him across his body.

He was knocked back, thrown through the air, and fell to the ground. He rolled again and again, throwing red snow into the air.

It was night and Academy City didn’t have many lights on since repairs were still slow in coming, but neither was the reason his vision rapidly grew dark.

It blinked in and out.

He felt no pain. Nor any obvious fear or panic. All of those active emotions were melting away from his mind. It reminded him of when Alice Anotherbible had killed him in his school that night. The same sensation was filling him once more. Mercilessly.

Oh, no.

This time…he really was going to…

===Part 4===

The night wind raged.

The darkness was colored by the blowing red snow.

Only a winged figure stood within it. Kamijou Touma had still clenched his right fist, but that was all. He had passed out with his fist still tight. He was completely out.

The communication line was staticky and there was no response from the person on the other end. Physical distance and thick walls were meaningless against magical curses. They provided no defense. New Board Chairman Accelerator had also been fully silenced.

It was quiet.

Divinely so.

“Qliphah Puzzle 545.”

“Kh.”

The artificial demon floating stealthily in the air shook when she was called out without even a glance in her direction.

“You could try that stunt again, but know first that I have ''already developed a countermeasure''. Leviathan was it? That sacrificial spell will only lead to a meaningless death. So settle down and watch the end of the world. That would be the better option for a lonely demon like you.”

Red snow fell through the dark night.

Adikalika’s countdown continued unabated, but no one remained to stop it.

The world’s fate was sealed.

No…

“So you’re the last one left, Hamazura Shiage.”

A voice spoke.

As if recalling old times.

Another form had gotten back up.

Quietly.

He was battered and bloody, but Hamazura Shiage was not dead yet.

With an ironic smile, Coronzon spread the wings on her back.

“I can’t imagine what an ordinary human can accomplish, but fine. As a human, you lack perfect righteousness yet work desperately to gather up the fragments of a good heart. Toying with that treasure without realizing its value to me is the height of folly. So fight back against my annihilation.”

“Y’know.”

Hamazura Shiage sat down in the red snow.

Yes, he did not duck down or dive behind cover.

Almost suicidally, he sat right in front of Great Demon Coronzon.

And he let the words spill out.

“I had a feeling it would end up this way. The last one standing wasn’t going to be Kamijou Touma or Accelerator. Coronzon, since it’s about you, I had a feeling it’d be me, even if I don’t really belong here.”

“Are you suggesting that I showed mercy to my enemy because we are acquaintances? You think I, a great demon, standing here as a concentration of vice, would do that?”

“No, I don’t think that’s it.”

Hamazura’s voice sounded somehow empty.

But also confident.

He ''personally'' knew Coronzon, not through hearsay or myth.

“You’re logical. You’re trying to destroy the world for a very rational reason. So you labeled everyone opposing you an enemy and you defeated them. It’s simple really. You eliminated them because they were trying to stop you, so ''you don’t actually hate Kamijou Touma or Accelerator''.”

Yes.

She didn’t hate them, but not for some emotional reason. There just wasn’t any connection between them.

Kamijou Touma and Accelerator were nothing more than strangers to Coronzon. What reason did she have to thoroughly hate Villager A?

“Ha ha! Then what? Have you accepted it yourself? You’re saying I forgot to even mark you an enemy because you’re just some pathetic delinquent? Even then, anyone who stands before me is an enemy. I will destroy anyone and everyone who tries to stop Adikalika. You damn gnat. You cannot stop me, Hamazura Shiage!!”

“''That’s not it either.''”

He rejected her claim again.

Immediately.

Even Coronzon had to frown now.

Could the being known as a great demon not understand this tiny truth?

“''I’m not working against you.'' I no longer have any reason to attack you.”

“I…don’t understand.”

“Go ahead.”

With those words, it was Coronzon who grimaced.

But seeing the look on her face, he spoke clearly.

“I know all too well this world is shit. I mean, I’m a Level 0. That alone means I’ve got nothing. So go ahead. If the new age you imagine is a free and righteous place where everyone can be happy…”

“Hey, wait. Dammit, Hamazura, are you saying…!?”

“C’mon, Coronzon. Go ahead and do it.”

Yes.

When Hamazura faced Coronzon and she asked what he would do about her, he had said “that depends on your answer”.

“But…back in the UK, you stopped me, didn’t you? In the very end, with some help from Dion Fortune.”

“True,” admitted Hamazura. And then, “But I hadn’t actually processed what you said back then. I stuck with my own thoughts and simply thought I could save you too if I protected the world. …But how did that pan out? The instant you were free again, you got to work trying to destroy the world again. As if to say it’s the world that’s wrong. To be honest, I agree with you there. If the fighting continues with you or without you, then it doesn’t seem like you’re the source of the problem.”

From Hamazura Shiage’s point of view, Kamijou Touma and Accelerator were success stories too dazzlingly bright to look at. It wasn’t a matter of money, education, family, or esper level. No matter how much he tried, he knew he could never catch up to them.

So they would want to protect the world. Without a second thought.

Even if it meant risking their lives.

Even if something about the world felt off.

Ultimately, they wanted to protect the current world because they were reluctant to let it go. Because they were happy people who could imagine the benefits they would find in keeping the current system going.

If they were foolish, they would be fine with that.

They would foolishly look only to their own happiness and continue to reap the benefits.

But what if they were clever? What if they were aware so many people were denied freedom and couldn’t obtain the things they had, but they continued to enjoy those benefits themselves? That was no different than trampling others in pursuit of their own happiness. It was an undeniable sin.

Protecting the world was not necessarily a good or righteous act.

If the wicked wealthy with all their injustices and dirty money said they were going to protect the world, who would praise them for it?

If the world had been rotten to the core from the beginning, then the meaning of that phrase flipped on its head.

Everyone thought of Great Demon Coronzon as an unpersuadable absolute evil.

Hamazura alone disagreed.

Because he had once broken away and fought alongside Coronzon.

And he had realized something because he saw her as a relative evil who could be reasoned with.

He suspected this world was hiding something that had pushed Coronzon to do this.

“Damn you…Hamazura…”

“You can see it, can’t you?”

That question was a rejection of everything Hamazura had believed in.

How much courage had it taken for a mere human to voice it?

It likely wouldn’t have been possible for Hamazura alone.

Which was why he was currently holding the hand of his girlfriend lying unconscious by his side.

He knew that would give him the courage he needed to face every obstacle this world could throw at him.

“You’ve viewed this world on a higher level than me and you’ve investigated this world with superior brains than mine. …If, in the end, the Great Demon Coronzon herself concluded this shitty world deserves to be destroyed, then that’s probably the right answer. If even you had to give up with all your power, then there’s really nothing we can do. At the very least, I can’t think of anything to say to stop you. So you know what? …''I think you might as well go ahead and do it.'' Why not?”

This was a destructive third view that Kamijou Touma and Accelerator could never have held.

This was Hamazura Shiage’s job.

Was it Dion Fortune who had said even Kamijou Touma was powerless against Coronzon?

“Are you kidding me!? Do you know what you’re saying!?”

“Why do you make it sound like you want me to stop you, Coronzon? I’m the all-purpose trump card. I’ll work with a great demon if it’ll save my girlfriend or just a friend. You weren’t expecting a softy like me to take on that role, were you?”

“Kh.”

“''That’s why''”

He wasn’t good or righteous. But he wasn’t fully evil either.

The ''soft'' boy continued.

“That’s why I’ll accept you. When I saved Qliphah Puzzle 545 earlier, I was even thinking this world can go to hell.”

If Takitsubo Rikou were awake here, he might have arrived at a different answer.

But he couldn’t do that now.

“Over and over, I’ve seen the depths of this world’s cruelty and how it wears down the people you love like some sick assembly line. Body Crystal? The Golden cabal? Everyone treats people’s lives like nothing more than a useful component and ''they praise that behavior like it’s a sign of strength and beauty.'' Can you believe it? And no one ever questions it. Not even the people being worn down! It’s obvious to anyone that this world is rotten to the core. …So if you’re going to get rid of all that glorification of complexity for the sake of complexity, give us nothing but an ordinary world full of ordinary things with nothing hiding below the surface, where everyone I love can laugh happily and worry-free forever and ever, then ''you’re clearly on the side of good and righteousness'', Coronzon.”

The higher being seemed taken back.

It couldn’t be.

Was someone really saying this to her at this stage?

She suddenly found herself the one pointing out the dangers.

This wasn’t right.

How did her role get so turned around!?

“Have you forgotten? Once the Adikalika large-scale attack spell activates, there is no stopping it. It will fully destroy all life in the target land. So the Italian Peninsula will be crushed and slashed into a hell of blood and bone. And after that, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, Academy City, and the Russian Orthodox Church will all join in endless war! I have set them up in pairs so they will eliminate each other like matching cards in old maid, so every part of this world will be brought to an end!! Trying to curry my favor will not allow you to survi-!!”

“It’s hopeless regardless, right? Whether or not you use that Adi-whatever.”

He didn’t let her finish.

He wasn’t speaking all that loudly, but Coronzon still fell silent.

As if he had struck her right in the heart.

“Hey, Coronzon. You’re not stupid and you’re not wild. With you, every single action is based on your intelligence. I saw just how incredibly smart you are back in that fight where you dragged the UK and the whole world into it.”

Hamazura spoke quietly.

Yes, the boy holding his unconscious girlfriend’s hand was quiet.

[[File:GT Index v13 BW7.png|thumb]]

He did not shout and scream.

“I’ve been thinking. You couldn’t believe what I was doing, but you still helped me save Takitsubo Rikou and Dion Fortune. You had to have thought I was a burden and an idiot, but you never did betray me, leave me behind, or let me die. So I had to wonder why you’re doing this to Academy City. …It’s simple. You decided you had to start a global war. There’s something you can’t solve without taking it that far.”

“Are you saying you can see it? But how could a mere human do that?”

“I don’t know what it is. But you weren’t the one who messed up this world. It’s already so messed up that stopping you wouldn’t fix anything. So it’s past the point of not wanting to die or wanting to make sure at least my girlfriend survives. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s definitely going to happen if nothing is done. So betting on you seems like the best option. If I want even the slightest chance of the people I know surviving, someone has to force the world off its current course.”

“…”

“Or are you going to say I’m wrong?”

It wasn’t that Hamazura Shiage doubted the world was ending.

He could already tell the world had been rotten before Coronzon began any of this. It was so bad even a Level 0 idiot like him could tell. And if it was that bad on the surface, then the invisible core or central pillar of the world must have been badly eaten away by now.

He didn’t know what the termites gnawing away at the great tree actually were, but knowing that wasn’t important.

So that wasn’t what had shaken him.

There was something else he had to be certain of.

“Am I wrong to bet on you? Are you not worth it? Were you going on and on about your importance, but it was all talk and you just want to destroy the world for the hell of it? Will you end up sticking your tongue out, laughing, and going ‘oops, that didn’t accomplish anything’? Well, in that case, you really are a villain. If you’re causing trouble for so many people without doing anything worthwhile. If you’ll just keep all the money I’d bet on you because I trust you. If you can’t stick to goodness or righteousness and stall out somewhere in the middle without ever accomplishing anything, then you’re evil! If it’s all going to be pointless in the end, you might as well not have done anything in the first place!! Do you know what that’s called? It’s called being a troublemaker, the lowest and weakest type of villain, Coronzon!!!”

She hung her head.

The monster who was understood by no one said nothing for a while.

She appeared to be biting her lip.

And.

Finally.

“''Don’t make me laugh, human.''”

When she raised her head, she showed off the most demonic of faces.

“I came up with this plan myself, but it was you who gave me the final push, Hamazura Shiage. So I hope your soul shatters from the guilt of unnecessarily making yourself responsible for the countless corpses soon to litter the entire globe! …Adikalika!! O master of death and blood, incarnation of destruction, and black goddess of the 11th letter, break the current world’s pillar of good and submerge the very planet in an ocean of black blood!!!”

The world shined.

Behind Great Demon Coronzon, at the center of the empty space where the Windowless Building once stood, space itself was emitting a pale light as if something were gathering there. The pillar of light’s glow strengthened in stages. It was already past the point of no return.

In that moment, Hamazura Shiage smiled. While squeezing his collapsed and unmoving girlfriend’s hand.

Just a bit.

As if he were at the train station sadly seeing off a friend who was moving away.

“Sorry I couldn’t give you a world you can accept.”

“~ ~ ~!!!?”

Never before.

Not even once.

No one had never accepted that great demon and even she had failed to accept her own function and thus chose to curse god and herself, so she looked like she badly wanted to say something.

She had clearly lost.

Kamijou Touma, Accelerator, Aleister Crowley, and even Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers had all failed to bring that look to her face.

Of pain.

And anguish.

She began to say something.

“Hamazur-”

She never finished.

The light exploded.

===Part 5===

Shortly before that.

Kamijou Touma lay collapsed on the ground, half buried in red snow.

Something was wrong with his body. He couldn’t seem to get up.

He actually felt no pain, making it hard to figure out what part of him was broken. In his state, the lack of a bloody smell actually seemed unnatural. So he guessed his senses were acting up too.

He had been damaged in some lethal way.

That much he was somehow certain of.

Even so, he glared out of eyes that could barely see anything anymore.

Someone was talking.

Hamazura Shiage and Great Demon Coronzon.

They were preparing to do something decisive.

He didn’t know the details.

His ears weren’t working right. Even his brain was nearly dead and he couldn’t manage to break down and comprehend human language.

Even so.

He understood.

If the current sequence of events wasn’t stopped here, then it ''truly was'' all over.

So he slowly moved his right hand.

Stretching it out.

It would never reach.

Even though it was right over there. He could see the glowing pillar of Adikalika from here, yet it was just too far away.

Was it no use?

He understood what Great Demon Coronzon had said.

Something other than his physical strength was on his mind.

He always fought using his clenched fist, but even he thought it was a raw deal.

No one would want the job of tearing people apart. All she could do was choose to rebel. What she did wasn’t on the level of forcing someone to give up on a reckless dream because they would be happier that way in the long run. She really did just tear relationships apart. Nothing more than that. She already didn’t like it, but she wasn’t even allowed an excuse for herself as she did it. And this naturally led to everyone else loathing her. If you were told that was all you could ever do until you were dead and gone, of course you would despair. And since the angels and demons were higher beings than humans, it had to be all the more unbearable to have nothing but that function.

She would want to change it if she could.

She wanted to reject it.

Kamijou thought those were natural reactions.

He understood.

But he didn’t want the current world to be destroyed.

He didn’t want the people living there to be hurt.

He wasn’t talking about the Magic Gods, Transcendents, or other special humans whose special powers and abilities would make their deaths a great loss for the world as a whole.

He was thinking of the dumb conversations at school and all the nonsense that happened in his dorm room.

He wanted to protect those ordinary things.

He wanted the ordinary things to continue being ordinary.

Without fear.

Without trembling at the possibility of being lost.

Wouldn’t it have started out that way for Coronzon too?

Wasn’t it because she understood the importance of people’s small and ordinary feelings that she couldn’t forgive this world for requiring a person who tore people apart, that brought her despair in having that role forced onto her, and that had ultimately led her to rebel against heaven?

Was this what she really wanted to do?

Was it really right to let the victor destroy the entire world without getting any clear answers to these questions?

If the world really ended now…

If Coronzon herself wasn’t sure if she would gain anything from her victory…

Then how could the humans accept their impending deaths!?

(Someone…)

Kamijou’s throat was dry as a bone.

Maybe even the mucous membranes inside his body had been scorched.

(I don’t care who.)

Even so.

What could he do?

It could be anything, he just didn’t want to give up.

He forced his throat to move as if peeling it apart.

And still collapsed, the boy only had one thing to say. As if in prayer.

“…………H…………e…………l…………p…………”

===Part 6===

“You got it.” “You got it.”

===Part 7===

It sounded like a song.

The lovely girl’s voice controlled everything.

“ATOA. JOEAGTTA.(Alter target of Adikalika. Jump over Europe and go to the Atlantic.)”

And…

“What…?”

Great Demon Coronzon turned her gaze aside.

She knew Adikalika had ''activated''.

It had been launched.

But she didn’t understand.

Why hadn’t she sensed the result?

Her eyes widened past the limit and viewed someplace other than here before groaning.

“It was released. The Adikalika large-scale attack spell was launched… So why isn’t the Italian Peninsula submerged in a sea of blood, flesh, and bone!?”

“Because you redirected it yourself. Although it was my Spell Intercept that made you do it.”

The response was calm.

It was a girl’s voice.

“That spell targets a land named by humans and it brings slaughter to everyone there. That means it won’t have any effect if it’s sent somewhere without a name. It was short hair’s idea. She said Japan has a lot of unnamed islands that are only identified with numbers. And other countries do that too.”

“Damn…you.”

“No matter how big the spell, no matter how intricate the preparation, and even if it is carried out by a higher being far greater than humans…magic is still magic. The spells of angels and demons are based on the same foundation, but did it never occur to you that they could therefore be obstructed by humans?”

“You mean the filthy tongue of a mere human was violating my mind!?”

Coronzon raged, spread her wings wide, and began to yell, but she was forced to fall back a few steps.

Because of something flying in at three times the speed of sound.

With a “boom!!!”, the air was fiercely compressed a moment later.

After catching the projectile in her palm, she could tell what it was. It was half melted, but that was an ordinary arcade coin.

“Oh? Well, that’s unusual. I’ve seen a few people send it back with their reflection, gravity, or some other cheap ability…but I never thought I’d see an idiot catch it with pure brute strength. Oh, wait. Those Magic God people could do that, couldn’t they?”

“Damn you… Damn you both…”

Coronzon growled the words like a deadly curse.

As if the repetition would build up her resentment.

The “zap!!” of a high-voltage current burst out.

Hamazura Shiage had tried something and received a lightning spear, sending him down onto the red snow.

Now Coronzon really was alone.

She had begun this plan alone, but for some reason she now felt a hole in her heart. And not a small one either.

And.

The pillar of light was gone.

The Adikalika large-scale attack spell had been launched, but only launched.

Not a single person had died.

This miracle had not been brought about by Kamijou Touma.

But this was clearly the result that loser had asked for.

“Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel never made it here. Yet you outsiders did? It doesn’t add up. If you could just walk here, they wouldn’t have used parachutes!!”

Coronzon began ranting, but she soon stopped.

Her accumulation of resentment had ceased.

She was empty.

No, she had realized there was a precedent.

Hadn’t Anna Kingsford done something similar in hell?

And hadn’t ''the other Anna'' been here?

In other words…

“No, it isn’t just that those two never arrived. Did they intentionally ''give up'' their spots!? To ensure these two could reach the center!? Did they use magical tricks to let them pass straight through the invisible labyrinth without my noticing!?”

No voice answered her.

Instead, the two girls took a step toward Coronzon.

Straight toward her.

“Do you really have time for that? Unlike Touma, you don’t have anyone coming to save you.”

“I don’t know what any of this great demon stuff is about, but I hope you don’t think you can hurt my idiot this badly and get away with it.”

Index of the magical world.

Misaka Mikoto of the scientific world.

Those two girls had heard a certain boy’s cry.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume13 Chapter4

2025-08-18T15:20:05Z

Edzo: /* Chapter 4: Call That Name – Shout_the_Summon. */ missing word "I"

==Chapter 4: Call That Name – Shout_the_Summon.==

===Part 1===

Not much time remained until Adikalika’s activation.

Alice Anotherbible was not here. Nor was Anna Sprengel. The Bologna Succubus and Blodeuwedd the Bouquet were apparently creating a diversion and Dion Fortune was battling the Moina Mathers released by Coronzon.

Kamijou Touma had no choice.

He had to fight.

He didn’t just observe one point on Coronzon. He observed every part of her.

It was his only option.

Because she wasn’t going to attack him swinging around a knife. It could be her lips, her arms, or her spread wings. Any of it could form an incantation, a gesture, a magic circle which would indicate an attack. He couldn’t overlook a thing.

She was smirking thinly.

At him and his foolish decision to not break free of the shell known as common sense.

“One word of warning.”

“What!?”

“Whether you resist or not is up to your excessive human free will…but it will be much easier for you if the first attack kills you.”

A golden vortex formed.

It was made of…

“Hair!?”

Was it a giant spear or a scorpion tail?

The destructive attack thrust in from an unexpected direction, but Kamijou somehow managed to brush it aside with his right hand, negating it.

As soon as it popped like a balloon, it took on a completely different form.

It formed a giant crab, then a fat and twisted fly, and then a snake slithering along the ground before leaping at him.

“Imagine Breaker. I suppose I must admit to its power as an unshakable reference point for the world and its ability to negate any supernatural power.”

Coronzon held herself in her arms, spread her wings, and chuckled.

“Your right hand can indeed negate magic. But only one spell per attack. You haven’t forgotten I can launch a second spell too, have you?”

Not good.

Negation wasn’t enough for this enemy!

If negating one spell would lead to multiple new threats, he was in trouble. Kamijou clenched his teeth and turned his attention in her direction.

But at that very moment, he heard the air bursting.

The phases ground together, clashed, and collided with a great power, creating a deadly distortion.

The sparks became visible.

Coronzon whispered bewitchingly.

“''A great maw.''”

“!?”

They rushed in from all around him at once.

In this case, even obeying his instincts as a living creature and cowering down was meaningless. If he did that, the jaws would snap shut and he would have nowhere to escape. So instead he leaped hard to the right, approaching one of the sparks, and smashing it with his fist. Before the ring could fully close in around him, he rolled along the red snow to distance himself from the center point.

It didn’t end there.

Kamijou was risking his life with each and every move, but it was all a silly game to her.

Coronzon whispered.

“I am a demon, but not from the Qliphoth where the forces of evil gather. I am the great demon hidden by the holy Sephiroth. I dwell in the same abyss as Da’at.”

She held her left hand straight out and her right hand pulled back toward herself.

The pose resembled aiming a rapier.

“Every number is the same. My right hand contains Nuit of Resurrection. Watch as the possibilities expand and surpass the bounds of the finite. My left hand contains Hadit of Vengeance. The smallest point gathers and concentrates all forces to create a single meaning. Thus, an attack shall be released from the infinite acceleration of the Circle of Ra-Hoor-Khuit and shall appear on the surface layer of this world.”

A chill ran down Kamijou Touma’s spine.

This was bad.

He had been on the receiving end of this spell when he first clashed with Coronzon. It was a much too powerful torrent of power. Back then, he had tried and failed to stop it with his right hand and been torn apart, his bones and organs destroyed.

“But I showed this one off last time.” Coronzon grinned. “Still, weaving it into a combo should lure you into position for a hit.”

As soon as Kamijou frantically tried to jump from his position, a golden scorpion and spider rushed in from the sides.

They were only meant to hold him in place, but a hit from the venomous tail or sharp legs would still kill him.

Now he couldn’t escape.

“Oh, no.”

He should have focused on the flow of attacks instead of viewing each in isolation.

And after he had told himself at the start to observe everything as a whole.

(Damn, now I can’t dodge it!!)

Yet if he tried to stop it with his right hand, he probably wouldn’t be able to fully negate the torrent of power and it would tear his body apart.

White lightning dropped from the sky.

Coronzon didn’t even look up.

“Really, is there some rule that everyone who sits the board chairman seat must be a fool? Aleister easily deflected that one and you expect it to work on me, #1?

“Also,” continued the great demon. “If you can attack me from there, then I can attack you from here.”

===Part 2===

''Bang!!!

In the most tightly secured cell of a far distant prison, the giant LCD monitor on the wall shattered. Glass shards flew out in great quantity and shredded Board Chairman Accelerator’s body.

“Gah…”

(My reflection…didn’t work? They slipped right past my vector control barrier?)

“Dammit. So it’s a power…from that side of things…”

===Part 3===

Only static came from Kamijou’s wireless earphone, but even that ended eventually.

He was dumbfounded as he used his right hand to negate the scorpion and spider made of blonde hair.

No response.

The board chairman had been taken out too easily.

Especially considering he was Academy City’s #1 Level 5.

Great Demon Coronzon’s strength was on another level entirely!!

“His ability to attack anywhere in the city from that one point also means that one point can be attacked from anywhere in the city. Much like the rules regarding gazing into the Abyss.”

Coronzon looked like she was viewing some distant place while standing here.

Was she sneering at Accelerator who she had just defeated?

Or was she recalling the previous board chairman who had developed the #1?

“Still, for someone sniping people from hiding, it’s curious how careless you were about the standard rules for line of sight. Is that another blind spot created by your reflection, Academy City’s #1?”

Her focus shifted from the distant to the near.

Coronzon’s target was now Kamijou.

“And have you forgotten, Kamijou Touma?”

“Kh.”

“I have a winning move. As long as no one intervenes, I only need to repeat the process to pierce you.”

“Dammit!!”

She was right.

The long, long hair spear, the scattered crab and fly scouts, and the invisible maw formed from countless sparks. He knew that series of attacks was coming, but he could not break free of the rails. Position, movement, distance – Coronzon only had to use small steps to adjust those factors and Kamijou would effectively be trapped in a thick cage. It was like a shogi problem only requiring a predetermined series of moves.

And the time had come.

Coronzon made her sneering announcement.

While directing the tip of an immaterial rapier toward him.

“Magick: Flaming_Sword. Manifest thyself through descent of the Sephirah and bathe him in thy power.”

''Blam!!!

He had no choice but to block it.

This was beyond the limits of his right hand.

But rather than strike it with his fist, touching his palm to it and swinging his arm to deflect it away just barely qualified as a correct answer. His arm made a disconcerting creaking sound, but the bones were not broken.

But that was all.

Kamijou Touma’s feet left the ground. As soon as he noticed that, his body was thrown backwards.

Twice, thrice he bounced along the red snow before entering a roll.

He only tasted a rusty flavor.

He supposed still having senses at all was a plus. That meant he wasn’t unconscious.

…Unlike last time.

“I told you.”

“…”

“I only need to repeat the process. You didn’t think this was a one-time-use ability, did you? This is an elementary move. Our last battle was cut short when your right hand went nuts, but, well, this is what happens when I actually make an effort to surround you.”

She was overwhelming and then some.

Last time, the British magic experts had gathered together and somehow managed to pull out a win, so taking on this monster alone had been a mistake.

“You aren’t hoping circumstances will change if you buy enough time, are you? Could this be a stalling tactic so you can let Alice Anotherbible, Anna Sprengel, or another extraordinary member of your party deal with me?”

Great Demon Coronzon had been pure terror to begin with.

But the squeezing at Kamijou’s heart was even greater now.

“They aren’t coming. Because I set it up that way. Kamijou Touma, Hamazura Shiage, and Takitsubo Rikou. Oh, and there was that Qliphah Puzzle 545 too. You four were simply low on my priority list, so I didn’t get around to trapping you in a labyrinth before you arrived.”

One by one, Coronzon plucked away his hopes and possibilities. All with a sneer.

Almost like a child traveling all the way to a flower field, capturing a bug, flipping it over, and innocently tearing out its legs.

“So all I need to do is repeat the process, taking as much time as I need to kill you. Don’t worry about how much it will cost me. Nothing you think can help you escape now.”

“Damn…”

“You see, I can spend as much time on this as I want. But Adikalika will activate in less than half an hour. So it’s you that needs to stop playing around and seriously try to stop me.”

He was far from unscathed. In fact, he was in state of extreme tension where a wrong choice in when to blink could mean instant death.

“Dispersion? Natural decomposition? Destroying the current world?”

But still Kamijou was not broken.

His right fist was intact.

“To hell with that, Coronzon. Who alive today is going to accept that!?”

“My value is 333, my meaning is dispersion. I am the one who tears apart the bonds between people and obstructs their evolution.”

Coronzon whispered her own purpose as if rolling it around in her mouth.

And she looked up.

Once more.

“Keh heh heh. You humans were given the freedom to choose for yourselves yet you continue to let others make your choices based on ‘information’ and ‘trends’, so you can never understand those who were only given a single path.”

“Freedom?”

Kamijou frowned.

The jealousy in her voice made it sound like that was something she didn’t have.

How could she say that after everything she had done?

But before he could say so.

It all flowed out like a rotten clump.

“God made all his creation in accordance to his plan. Not a single part of his plan failed. So it naturally follows that all this world’s sin and vice function as gears in his master plan. That includes all things in this world. Yes, the scams, the theft, the violence, the murder, the swords, the guns, the poison gas, the nuclear weapons – everything!! Vices that even a great demon like me could never imagine will continue to be discovered in this world!! 333, dispersion. The one who lurks in the Abyss hidden in the Sephiroth and obstructs human evolution. God is omniscient and omnipotent. He knew from the beginning I contained the possibility to betray him, to become a hideous demon, and to lose the war! So why didn’t he stop me!?”

“…”

Did she sound like she was spitting on heaven because she was a being known as a great demon?

If so, had these very words been expected by someone?

Coronzon put on a twisted smile.

“Because a creation is no more than a creation, it is difficult for me to escape my traits and my role. Unlike the humans who were tempted into eating the fruit, we – the beings known as angels and demons – have much greater restrictions placed upon us. You could say we are god’s tools. Just as a sword is a sword and cannot be a dinner knife or fork, we can make use of – or even abuse – the abilities given to us within the bounds of our created purpose, but we can never take an entirely different path.”

What was this?

The previous diagram was breaking down.

Or could it be?

Was the very act of understanding Coronzon’s feelings and inner state enough to drag one toward vice?

“So there is but one way to bare my fangs toward heaven. Instead of futilely resisting, ''I must take my purpose farther than he ever imagined, derailing his plan in the process''!! That gives me a chance of ruining god’s plan without ever betraying my purpose in being here. I!! I am here to fight against all the tragedy that occurs in a world designed for someone else’s benefit!!!”

Coronzon spread her arms and wings wide as she made this grand proclamation.

“You’re…kidding,” muttered Kamijou Touma.

Without thinking.

She was 333, dispersion. So she could not allow anything to exist forever and would ensure all things faced natural decomposition.

That was indeed her original purpose, but it only described a method. No one had touched on what she would gain by breaking down the entire world. No one had mentioned her personal objective.

The answer was a simple one.

That being who far surpassed the bounds of humanity could be summed up as follows:

''She was sick of it.

333, dispersion. She tore apart the bonds between people and obstructed their evolution. Those were the hideous numbers and symbols within her – at her very core. When comparing herself to the many other beings who dedicated themselves to roles of bright blessings – mercy, protection, honesty, safety – she couldn’t accept that she existed only for that dark function.

So she had tried to overturn that.

Coronzon wrapped her arms around herself, doubled over, and screamed.

As if trying to forcibly seal away the source of her nausea, which just so happened to be the very core of her being.

“It makes me sick! Oh, so sick!! Both myself for being used in that way and the humans who think this power has any value and create so many spells to interfere with me! But most of all, the world that requires ''me'' repulses me!! Do you understand, good one who always strives to be righteous despite your imperfection!? God knew I would stray. So! I was robbed the chance to grasp even the tiniest sliver of freedom by rebelling of my own free will!!!”

In a way, it was like being forced into the role of telling people to fail and find misfortune.

She was a tool only expected to harm and frustrate others.

No matter how powerful she might be and no matter how important the seat she sat in, the very first assumption had distorted her. How could she find any confidence in that situation?

She had been told she was a necessary part of the world.

But when god had created her from the start as someone capable of rebelling, even that could perhaps have a purpose.

Her power was to tear people apart and prevent their evolution. That was who she was. A great demon.

This world could not exist without that despicable and contemptible system and the current age could not function without so much anger, sorrow, resignation, and infighting, so Coronzon had concluded they were far too twisted and imperfect.

So.

She had decided to use every last part of what she was to destroy ''the plan she didn’t understand and without even trying to understand it.

She had wanted the fastest way of doing that.

She had settled on something she could reach out and touch.

She thought her best option was to destroy the world that god had created and raised.

“Am I nothing more than a sumptuous feast for you humans, designed to fail in order to give you courage when you defeat me? Or am I the deluge bucket, designed to succeed so that my thorough destruction can cleanse this impure world? The answer doesn’t really matter.”

Uh, oh.

This went beyond the degree of violence.

Great Demon Coronzon had something that would overwhelm others on another dimension altogether, more closely related to concepts of good, righteousness, and the mental struggle against doom!!

“Either way, if I simply take the role of my symbols and value ''too far'', I can derail and ruin it all without violating the rules. So you cannot convince me with words. I will never hold back. I will activate Adikalika here no matter what! I will bring this to a level that will make anyone – yes, even god himself – hold their head in their hands and look away!!!”

Something exploded.

Coronzon spread her arms and roared as light exploded out from her in a dome.

Light.

A dazzling white.

As if screaming that her rebellion against heaven was the truly righteous and correct choice.

“…Ah…”

Maybe it had been a mistake to listen to her.

How could Kamijou Touma overcome this when his own position was starting to waver?

The blast struck him across his body.

He was knocked back, thrown through the air, and fell to the ground. He rolled again and again, throwing red snow into the air.

It was night and Academy City didn’t have many lights on since repairs were still slow in coming, but neither was the reason his vision rapidly grew dark.

It blinked in and out.

He felt no pain. Nor any obvious fear or panic. All of those active emotions were melting away from his mind. It reminded him of when Alice Anotherbible had killed him in his school that night. The same sensation was filling him once more. Mercilessly.

Oh, no.

This time…he really was going to…

===Part 4===

The night wind raged.

The darkness was colored by the blowing red snow.

Only a winged figure stood within it. Kamijou Touma had still clenched his right fist, but that was all. He had passed out with his fist still tight. He was completely out.

The communication line was staticky and there was no response from the person on the other end. Physical distance and thick walls were meaningless against magical curses. They provided no defense. New Board Chairman Accelerator had also been fully silenced.

It was quiet.

Divinely so.

“Qliphah Puzzle 545.”

“Kh.”

The artificial demon floating stealthily in the air shook when she was called out without even a glance in her direction.

“You could try that stunt again, but know first that I have ''already developed a countermeasure''. Leviathan was it? That sacrificial spell will only lead to a meaningless death. So settle down and watch the end of the world. That would be the better option for a lonely demon like you.”

Red snow fell through the dark night.

Adikalika’s countdown continued unabated, but no one remained to stop it.

The world’s fate was sealed.

No…

“So you’re the last one left, Hamazura Shiage.”

A voice spoke.

As if recalling old times.

Another form had gotten back up.

Quietly.

He was battered and bloody, but Hamazura Shiage was not dead yet.

With an ironic smile, Coronzon spread the wings on her back.

“I can’t imagine what an ordinary human can accomplish, but fine. As a human, you lack perfect righteousness yet work desperately to gather up the fragments of a good heart. Toying with that treasure without realizing its value to me is the height of folly. So fight back against my annihilation.”

“Y’know.”

Hamazura Shiage sat down in the red snow.

Yes, he did not duck down or dive behind cover.

Almost suicidally, he sat right in front of Great Demon Coronzon.

And he let the words spill out.

“I had a feeling it would end up this way. The last one standing wasn’t going to be Kamijou Touma or Accelerator. Coronzon, since it’s about you, I had a feeling it’d be me, even if I don’t really belong here.”

“Are you suggesting that I showed mercy to my enemy because we are acquaintances? You think I, a great demon, standing here as a concentration of vice, would do that?”

“No, I don’t think that’s it.”

Hamazura’s voice sounded somehow empty.

But also confident.

He ''personally'' knew Coronzon, not through hearsay or myth.

“You’re logical. You’re trying to destroy the world for a very rational reason. So you labeled everyone opposing you an enemy and you defeated them. It’s simple really. You eliminated them because they were trying to stop you, so ''you don’t actually hate Kamijou Touma or Accelerator''.”

Yes.

She didn’t hate them, but not for some emotional reason. There just wasn’t any connection between them.

Kamijou Touma and Accelerator were nothing more than strangers to Coronzon. What reason did she have to thoroughly hate Villager A?

“Ha ha! Then what? Have you accepted it yourself? You’re saying I forgot to even mark you an enemy because you’re just some pathetic delinquent? Even then, anyone who stands before me is an enemy. I will destroy anyone and everyone who tries to stop Adikalika. You damn gnat. You cannot stop me, Hamazura Shiage!!”

“''That’s not it either.''”

He rejected her claim again.

Immediately.

Even Coronzon had to frown now.

Could the being known as a great demon not understand this tiny truth?

“''I’m not working against you.'' I no longer have any reason to attack you.”

“I…don’t understand.”

“Go ahead.”

With those words, it was Coronzon who grimaced.

But seeing the look on her face, he spoke clearly.

“I know all too well this world is shit. I mean, I’m a Level 0. That alone means I’ve got nothing. So go ahead. If the new age you imagine is a free and righteous place where everyone can be happy…”

“Hey, wait. Dammit, Hamazura, are you saying…!?”

“C’mon, Coronzon. Go ahead and do it.”

Yes.

When Hamazura faced Coronzon and she asked what he would do about her, he had said “that depends on your answer”.

“But…back in the UK, you stopped me, didn’t you? In the very end, with some help from Dion Fortune.”

“True,” admitted Hamazura. And then, “But I hadn’t actually processed what you said back then. I stuck with my own thoughts and simply thought I could save you too if I protected the world. …But how did that pan out? The instant you were free again, you got to work trying to destroy the world again. As if to say it’s the world that’s wrong. To be honest, I agree with you there. If the fighting continues with you or without you, then it doesn’t seem like you’re the source of the problem.”

From Hamazura Shiage’s point of view, Kamijou Touma and Accelerator were success stories too dazzlingly bright to look at. It wasn’t a matter of money, education, family, or esper level. No matter how much he tried, he knew he could never catch up to them.

So they would want to protect the world. Without a second thought.

Even if it meant risking their lives.

Even if something about the world felt off.

Ultimately, they wanted to protect the current world because they were reluctant to let it go. Because they were happy people who could imagine the benefits they would find in keeping the current system going.

If they were foolish, they would be fine with that.

They would foolishly look only to their own happiness and continue to reap the benefits.

But what if they were clever? What if they were aware so many people were denied freedom and couldn’t obtain the things they had, but they continued to enjoy those benefits themselves? That was no different than trampling others in pursuit of their own happiness. It was an undeniable sin.

Protecting the world was not necessarily a good or righteous act.

If the wicked wealthy with all their injustices and dirty money said they were going to protect the world, who would praise them for it?

If the world had been rotten to the core from the beginning, then the meaning of that phrase flipped on its head.

Everyone thought of Great Demon Coronzon as an unpersuadable absolute evil.

Hamazura alone disagreed.

Because he had once broken away and fought alongside Coronzon.

And he had realized something because he saw her as a relative evil who could be reasoned with.

He suspected this world was hiding something that had pushed Coronzon to do this.

“Damn you…Hamazura…”

“You can see it, can’t you?”

That question was a rejection of everything Hamazura had believed in.

How much courage had it taken for a mere human to voice it?

It likely wouldn’t have been possible for Hamazura alone.

Which was why he was currently holding the hand of his girlfriend lying unconscious by his side.

He knew that would give him the courage he needed to face every obstacle this world could throw at him.

“You’ve viewed this world on a higher level than me and you’ve investigated this world with superior brains than mine. …If, in the end, the Great Demon Coronzon herself concluded this shitty world deserves to be destroyed, then that’s probably the right answer. If even you had to give up with all your power, then there’s really nothing we can do. At the very least, I can’t think of anything to say to stop you. So you know what? …''I think you might as well go ahead and do it.'' Why not?”

This was a destructive third view that Kamijou Touma and Accelerator could never have held.

This was Hamazura Shiage’s job.

Was it Dion Fortune who had said even Kamijou Touma was powerless against Coronzon?

“Are you kidding me!? Do you know what you’re saying!?”

“Why do you make it sound like you want me to stop you, Coronzon? I’m the all-purpose trump card. I’ll work with a great demon if it’ll save my girlfriend or just a friend. You weren’t expecting a softy like me to take on that role, were you?”

“Kh.”

“''That’s why''”

He wasn’t good or righteous. But he wasn’t fully evil either.

The ''soft'' boy continued.

“That’s why I’ll accept you. When I saved Qliphah Puzzle 545 earlier, I was even thinking this world can go to hell.”

If Takitsubo Rikou were awake here, he might have arrived at a different answer.

But he couldn’t do that now.

“Over and over, I’ve seen the depths of this world’s cruelty and how it wears down the people you love like some sick assembly line. Body Crystal? The Golden cabal? Everyone treats people’s lives like nothing more than a useful component and ''they praise that behavior like it’s a sign of strength and beauty.'' Can you believe it? And no one ever questions it. Not even the people being worn down! It’s obvious to anyone that this world is rotten to the core. …So if you’re going to get rid of all that glorification of complexity for the sake of complexity, give us nothing but an ordinary world full of ordinary things with nothing hiding below the surface, where everyone I love can laugh happily and worry-free forever and ever, then ''you’re clearly on the side of good and righteousness'', Coronzon.”

The higher being seemed taken back.

It couldn’t be.

Was someone really saying this to her at this stage?

She suddenly found herself the one pointing out the dangers.

This wasn’t right.

How did her role get so turned around!?

“Have you forgotten? Once the Adikalika large-scale attack spell activates, there is no stopping it. It will fully destroy all life in the target land. So the Italian Peninsula will be crushed and slashed into a hell of blood and bone. And after that, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, Academy City, and the Russian Orthodox Church will all join in endless war! I have set them up in pairs so they will eliminate each other like matching cards in old maid, so every part of this world will be brought to an end!! Trying to curry my favor will not allow you to survi-!!”

“It’s hopeless regardless, right? Whether nor not you use that Adi-whatever.”

He didn’t let her finish.

He wasn’t speaking all that loudly, but Coronzon still fell silent.

As if he had struck her right in the heart.

“Hey, Coronzon. You’re not stupid and you’re not wild. With you, every single action is based on your intelligence. I saw just how incredibly smart you are back in that fight where you dragged the UK and the whole world into it.”

Hamazura spoke quietly.

Yes, the boy holding his unconscious girlfriend’s hand was quiet.

[[File:GT Index v13 BW7.png|thumb]]

He did not shout and scream.

“I’ve been thinking. You couldn’t believe what I was doing, but you still helped me save Takitsubo Rikou and Dion Fortune. You had to have thought I was a burden and an idiot, but you never did betray me, leave me behind, or let me die. So I had to wonder why you’re doing this to Academy City. …It’s simple. You decided you had to start a global war. There’s something you can’t solve without taking it that far.”

“Are you saying you can see it? But how could a mere human do that?”

“I don’t know what it is. But you weren’t the one who messed up this world. It’s already so messed up that stopping you wouldn’t fix anything. So it’s past the point of not wanting to die or wanting to make sure at least my girlfriend survives. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s definitely going to happen if nothing is done. So betting on you seems like the best option. If I want even the slightest chance of the people I know surviving, someone has to force the world off its current course.”

“…”

“Or are you going to say I’m wrong?”

It wasn’t that Hamazura Shiage doubted the world was ending.

He could already tell the world had been rotten before Coronzon began any of this. It was so bad even a Level 0 idiot like him could tell. And if it was that bad on the surface, then the invisible core or central pillar of the world must have been badly eaten away by now.

He didn’t know what the termites gnawing away at the great tree actually were, but knowing that wasn’t important.

So that wasn’t what had shaken him.

There was something else he had to be certain of.

“Am I wrong to bet on you? Are you not worth it? Were you going on and on about your importance, but it was all talk and you just want to destroy the world for the hell of it? Will you end up sticking your tongue out, laughing, and going ‘oops, that didn’t accomplish anything’? Well, in that case, you really are a villain. If you’re causing trouble for so many people without doing anything worthwhile. If you’ll just keep all the money I’d bet on you because I trust you. If you can’t stick to goodness or righteousness and stall out somewhere in the middle without ever accomplishing anything, then you’re evil! If it’s all going to be pointless in the end, you might as well not have done anything in the first place!! Do you know what that’s called? It’s called being a troublemaker, the lowest and weakest type of villain, Coronzon!!!”

She hung her head.

The monster who was understood by no one said nothing for a while.

She appeared to be biting her lip.

And.

Finally.

“''Don’t make me laugh, human.''”

When she raised her head, she showed off the most demonic of faces.

“I came up with this plan myself, but it was you who gave me the final push, Hamazura Shiage. So I hope your soul shatters from the guilt of unnecessarily making yourself responsible for the countless corpses soon to litter the entire globe! …Adikalika!! O master of death and blood, incarnation of destruction, and black goddess of the 11th letter, break the current world’s pillar of good and submerge the very planet in an ocean of black blood!!!”

The world shined.

Behind Great Demon Coronzon, at the center of the empty space where the Windowless Building once stood, space itself was emitting a pale light as if something were gathering there. The pillar of light’s glow strengthened in stages. It was already past the point of no return.

In that moment, Hamazura Shiage smiled. While squeezing his collapsed and unmoving girlfriend’s hand.

Just a bit.

As if he were at the train station sadly seeing off a friend who was moving away.

“Sorry I couldn’t give you a world you can accept.”

“~ ~ ~!!!?”

Never before.

Not even once.

No one had never accepted that great demon and even she had failed to accept her own function and thus chose to curse god and herself, so she looked like she badly wanted to say something.

She had clearly lost.

Kamijou Touma, Accelerator, Aleister Crowley, and even Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers had all failed to bring that look to her face.

Of pain.

And anguish.

She began to say something.

“Hamazur-”

She never finished.

The light exploded.

===Part 5===

Shortly before that.

Kamijou Touma lay collapsed on the ground, half buried in red snow.

Something was wrong with his body. He couldn’t seem to get up.

He actually felt no pain, making it hard to figure out what part of him was broken. In his state, the lack of a bloody smell actually seemed unnatural. So he guessed his senses were acting up too.

He had been damaged in some lethal way.

That much he was somehow certain of.

Even so, he glared out of eyes that could barely see anything anymore.

Someone was talking.

Hamazura Shiage and Great Demon Coronzon.

They were preparing to do something decisive.

He didn’t know the details.

His ears weren’t working right. Even his brain was nearly dead and he couldn’t manage to break down and comprehend human language.

Even so.

He understood.

If the current sequence of events wasn’t stopped here, then it ''truly was'' all over.

So he slowly moved his right hand.

Stretching it out.

It would never reach.

Even though it was right over there. He could see the glowing pillar of Adikalika from here, yet it was just too far away.

Was it no use?

He understood what Great Demon Coronzon had said.

Something other than his physical strength was on his mind.

He always fought using his clenched fist, but even he thought it was a raw deal.

No one would want the job of tearing people apart. All she could do was choose to rebel. What she did wasn’t on the level of forcing someone to give up on a reckless dream because they would be happier that way in the long run. She really did just tear relationships apart. Nothing more than that. She already didn’t like it, but she wasn’t even allowed an excuse for herself as she did it. And this naturally led to everyone else loathing her. If you were told that was all you could ever do until you were dead and gone, of course you would despair. And since the angels and demons were higher beings than humans, it had to be all the more unbearable to have nothing but that function.

She would want to change it if she could.

She wanted to reject it.

Kamijou thought those were natural reactions.

He understood.

But he didn’t want the current world to be destroyed.

He didn’t want the people living there to be hurt.

He wasn’t talking about the Magic Gods, Transcendents, or other special humans whose special powers and abilities would make their deaths a great loss for the world as a whole.

He was thinking of the dumb conversations at school and all the nonsense that happened in his dorm room.

He wanted to protect those ordinary things.

He wanted the ordinary things to continue being ordinary.

Without fear.

Without trembling at the possibility of being lost.

Wouldn’t it have started out that way for Coronzon too?

Wasn’t it because she understood the importance of people’s small and ordinary feelings that she couldn’t forgive this world for requiring a person who tore people apart, that brought her despair in having that role forced onto her, and that had ultimately led her to rebel against heaven?

Was this what she really wanted to do?

Was it really right to let the victor destroy the entire world without getting any clear answers to these questions?

If the world really ended now…

If Coronzon herself wasn’t sure if she would gain anything from her victory…

Then how could the humans accept their impending deaths!?

(Someone…)

Kamijou’s throat was dry as a bone.

Maybe even the mucous membranes inside his body had been scorched.

(I don’t care who.)

Even so.

What could he do?

It could be anything, he just didn’t want to give up.

He forced his throat to move as if peeling it apart.

And still collapsed, the boy only had one thing to say. As if in prayer.

“…………H…………e…………l…………p…………”

===Part 6===

“You got it.” “You got it.”

===Part 7===

It sounded like a song.

The lovely girl’s voice controlled everything.

“ATOA. JOEAGTTA.(Alter target of Adikalika. Jump over Europe and go to the Atlantic.)”

And…

“What…?”

Great Demon Coronzon turned her gaze aside.

She knew Adikalika had ''activated''.

It had been launched.

But she didn’t understand.

Why hadn’t she sensed the result?

Her eyes widened past the limit and viewed someplace other than here before groaning.

“It was released. The Adikalika large-scale attack spell was launched… So why isn’t the Italian Peninsula submerged in a sea of blood, flesh, and bone!?”

“Because you redirected it yourself. Although it was my Spell Intercept that made you do it.”

The response was calm.

It was a girl’s voice.

“That spell targets a land named by humans and it brings slaughter to everyone there. That means it won’t have any effect if it’s sent somewhere without a name. It was short hair’s idea. She said Japan has a lot of unnamed islands that are only identified with numbers. And other countries do that too.”

“Damn…you.”

“No matter how big the spell, no matter how intricate the preparation, and even if it is carried out by a higher being far greater than humans…magic is still magic. The spells of angels and demons are based on the same foundation, but did it never occur to you that they could therefore be obstructed by humans?”

“You mean the filthy tongue of a mere human was violating my mind!?”

Coronzon raged, spread her wings wide, and began to yell, but she was forced to fall back a few steps.

Because of something flying in at three times the speed of sound.

With a “boom!!!”, the air was fiercely compressed a moment later.

After catching the projectile in her palm, she could tell what it was. It was half melted, but that was an ordinary arcade coin.

“Oh? Well, that’s unusual. I’ve seen a few people send it back with their reflection, gravity, or some other cheap ability…but I never thought I’d see an idiot catch it with pure brute strength. Oh, wait. Those Magic God people could do that, couldn’t they?”

“Damn you… Damn you both…”

Coronzon growled the words like a deadly curse.

As if the repetition would build up her resentment.

The “zap!!” of a high-voltage current burst out.

Hamazura Shiage had tried something and received a lightning spear, sending him down onto the red snow.

Now Coronzon really was alone.

She had begun this plan alone, but for some reason she now felt a hole in her heart. And not a small one either.

And.

The pillar of light was gone.

The Adikalika large-scale attack spell had been launched, but only launched.

Not a single person had died.

This miracle had not been brought about by Kamijou Touma.

But this was clearly the result that loser had asked for.

“Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel never made it here. Yet you outsiders did? It doesn’t add up. If you could just walk here, they wouldn’t have used parachutes!!”

Coronzon began ranting, but she soon stopped.

Her accumulation of resentment had ceased.

She was empty.

No, she had realized there was a precedent.

Hadn’t Anna Kingsford done something similar in hell?

And hadn’t ''the other Anna'' been here?

In other words…

“No, it isn’t just that those two never arrived. Did they intentionally ''give up'' their spots!? To ensure these two could reach the center!? Did they use magical tricks to let them pass straight through the invisible labyrinth without my noticing!?”

No voice answered her.

Instead, the two girls took a step toward Coronzon.

Straight toward her.

“Do you really have time for that? Unlike Touma, you don’t have anyone coming to save you.”

“I don’t know what any of this great demon stuff is about, but I hope you don’t think you can hurt my idiot this badly and get away with it.”

Index of the magical world.

Misaka Mikoto of the scientific world.

Those two girls had heard a certain boy’s cry.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume13 Chapter2

2025-08-18T15:13:44Z

Edzo: /* Chapter 2: Death and Slaughter – VS_NECROMANCER. */ fixed typo. "bee" to "been"

==Chapter 2: Death and Slaughter – VS_NECROMANCER.==

===Part 1===

The sun was setting on Academy City.

The red snow continued even as night fell.

“Nhh…”

Necromancer Isabella Theism raised her arms and stretched.

Even that dealer in death had visibly white breath in the darkness.

The building was cramped and Isabella knew she was ruining the mood, but she had no real obligation to get along with her colleagues. She hadn’t come to Japan to make friends.

They had taken over this city.

They had accomplished what the magic side as a whole would consider a great feat. This alone had to be causing a kerfuffle in the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches. If the power of science joined the conflict, it would greatly change the three-way stalemate between England, Rome, and Russia.

Offering Academy City to the queen would be enough for Isabella Theism’s name to go down in history.

(How history would describe me is an open question, though. That queen is an upright person who values peace and loathes fighting.)

But controlling the world meant nothing if that world was destroyed tomorrow.

She had to focus on Great Demon Coronzon for now.

“Which means I don’t have time to listen to complaints from ''outsiders''.”

She focused on her earphone and heard an annoyed voice.

“What is wrong with you? Wasn’t that a little quick to completely change your mind on me?”

“All I did was lay some groundwork I felt necessary for my mission. To me, this seems pretty peaceful compared to carpet bombing a jungle or some buildings the enemy might be using to hide.”

“Hold on. It was you Anglicans who said you wanted a united front.” The new board chairman’s voice dropped in tone. “That’s why I didn’t resist much when I discovered your further savagery. Setting aside whether it’s humane or not, I could have ''used magnetic resonance well beyond any safety standards to rattle people’s cranial nerves and turn them into living pawns'' all from a safe distance. I can still do that.”

“Well, that’s a new interpretation of the zombie. And I like that they’re zombies but you aren’t controlling the dead.” Isabella actually sounded amused. “Did we sign any documents? Did we stamp it with our seal? All you’re going off of is a baseless chat with our previous leader, who had no right to be leading in the first place. Now that I’ve taken the position, I’m not bound by any vague verbal promises or implicit understandings. I, Isabella Theism, will do everything necessary to stop the Adikalika large-scale attack spell that Great Demon Coronzon is preparing. …And I mean everything necessary as a necromancer, of course☆”

When the leader changed, so did the overall policy.

That unpleasant side of organizations was rearing its ugly head here.

After trusting and opening up to the previous leader, that leader was driven out by infighting and a completely different person was now in charge and saying the exact opposite. All the personal trust built up before had been shifted onto someone else entirely and all the risk was shoved back onto him for opening up. Even though this was no time to be getting sidetracked with that sort of nonsense.

“Don’t you get that this fun of yours is only going to lead to more meaningless death?”

“Meaningless? Of course not! …I won’t let a single death go to waste. I generally use imitations rather than consume actual dead bodies for my spells, but that doesn’t mean I lack the ability to do so. And creating lookalikes out of safe and reliable ingredient is a lot of work. If Academy City is going to let these real dead bodies go to waste, I will take full responsibility and put them to good use.”

She was smiling.

This was no lie or mockery – she really meant it.

With Isabella Theism, there was little meaning in debating whether she was a good or bad person. The meaning of justice changed depending on your viewpoint and her opinion was technically correct if ''all'' you wanted to do was keep the United Kingdom safe. Of course, that was setting aside the question of if the British people would permit ''a peace built on other’s deaths.''

To Isabella, lives were like a fuel that could be burned with the maximum efficiency. Using them up without any waste was a virtue. So to put it another way, inefficiently protecting others’ lives was not all that important.

Whether this was good or evil didn’t really matter here. That question could wait.

But Accelerator did have an answer for whether he liked it or not: he couldn’t have disliked it more.

“…You’re different.”

“From what?”

“''You’re nothing at all like the necromancer I know.''”

“I should have known the one sitting in the board chairman’s seat would have some delightful friends. But, you see, this field has branched into many different ideologies and factions.”

Yes. Her sensibilities were not off because she was a necromancer or because she was a magician who specialized in human death. This all came down to Isabella’s personal beliefs and tastes.

Her insistence on always doing what was correct rankled Accelerator, but she was the one who had ended up in a position to influence the fate of Academy City and the world as a whole. Was the world really in good hands? In a way, she was even more of a pain than Coronzon who opposed the world more directly.

“But the fact remains that no amount of complaining on your part is going to change anything. I mean, Academy City is a shambles, isn’t it? You can’t gather enough pieces to take on Coronzon. So despite your sensible complaints, you have no choice but to rely on the Anglican experts who have entered your city. And need I remind you that it is we Anglicans who overcame the threat of Coronzon in the past?”

“…”

“Yes, wouldn’t it be nice if Academy City still had a trump card up its sleeve?”

===Part 2===

In a District 7 hospital, a nurse who had gone out of her way to modify her official nurse uniform to give it a miniskirt stepped into the emergency room.

“Hey, doc☆ You have a message from Anti-Skill’s um…how do you read this name? It means yellow spring river, but they really should give you the reading too. Anyway, she’s one of those people who keep the city peaceful. Something about wanting an expert medical opinion.”

“If it will not save a life, I’m not interested.”

“I’m not sure in this case. Apparently there’s a few witness reports around the city saying a dead kid called Kamijou Touma is up and moving around.”

“…”

The frog-faced doctor sighed.

Now there was a name he hadn’t expected to hear again.

And…

“Are they sure he’s really dead?”

“They don’t know, which is why they wanted the advice of the doctor who declared him dead. They apparently can’t contact the crematorium either.”

That meant it was possible he wasn’t dead.

The frog-faced doctor had confirmed the boy’s death and even sewed up his mangled body. He had even observed the embalming in the morgue, but was it really possible to fake death in that state?

However.

If the boy was still alive, then, whatever his state might be, he would be one of the patients the frog-faced doctor had to save. He was probably caught up in some kind of trouble again, but that was no reason for the frog-faced doctor to give up on a patient. No matter what it was.

(And really, this sounds a lot more like the boy I know.)

“Transfer her to this monitor. The hospital is full of computers, so this monitor is as good as any.”

“On it.”

The nurse whose excessive display of sex appeal was constantly troubling the patients left the room.

The very next moment, something else happened.

Specifically, something moved atop a bloody stretcher in the emergency room. Perhaps because the poor female patient was unidentified (despite what looked like an ID card hanging from her neck), she had been sent away from District 10 and across the district line to reach this hospital. But by the time she had arrived, hadn’t she already been in cardiac arrest?

“What…?”

Immediately after the frog-faced doctor’s puzzled question, it happened.

It was like a mousetrap equipped with a powerful spring.

The young emergency patient had lost so much blood after biting her tongue that she hadn’t even been able to move her own heart, yet now she sat up. With enough force to tear out the cardiopulmonary bypass tubes attaching her to an external box.

“Bonjour!”

“…”

The frog-faced doctor looked like he wanted to say something, but it was the emergency patient who smiled and spoke to him.

“Ohh, I feel so dizzy. The blood isn’t reaching my brain. Maybe that’s why my self-diagnosis is stalled… A mystérieuse cardiac arrest patient who you couldn’t seem to identify must have been tough, huh? Well, your Jane Doe is in fact named Kihara Goukei, but you can call me Madame Gou. Oh, right. Do you know the nombre of the ambulance that brought me here? Those EMTs work so hard year round, so I feel bad troubling them with me. I need to send them some expensive mangoes later on.”

She was speaking a mile a minute.

Her tongue was operating quite smoothly for someone who had bitten it badly enough to kill her.

“Um, so, is the dead coming back to life the latest fad in this city or something?”

“Don’t ask me. But every part of my body is crammed full of that sort of technologie,” casually revealed Kihara Goukei.

This was the true face of Bio Secure.

“Nhh hee hee☆ When you belong to a team that deals with the city’s illegal undead, you gather a lot of specialized knowledge from across the city. And no one really tracks what happens to that bizarre technologie once it’s been confiscated, so no one ever notices if you modify some of it for your own use before consigning it to oblivion.”

“So you’re saying you have turned your own body into a collection of forbidden research you gathered around Academy City?”

“Because stealing other people’s recherche is so much faster than developing it yourself. That’s more the thought process of an industrielle spy than a researcher, though.”

Biting your tongue would kill you?

Then you just had to have two tongues.

…It was toying with death on that level that made her a Kihara.

“Do you not consider life to be valuable?”

“Life is precious, of course.”

The answer came immediately.

It sounded pure even.

But all that was distorted a second later.

“''Which is why'' it’s so much fun to toy with! A life is one-of-a-kind and not some replaceable scrap of paper, which is what makes it so exciting. Oui, oui. It all comes down to the knowledge that you are doing something truly irreversible!! Ah ha ha. Isn’t that the very definition of a desecration!?”

This was the difference between normal people and the Kihara family.

It wasn’t that they didn’t understand the value or share that value. They understood it perfectly, but their goal in handling something precious was entirely different. They were a wholly incomprehensible bunch.

Kihara Goukei continued, looking carefree.

“Now, a perfectly healthy person hogging your emergency room would only trouble the next patient, so I will take my leave here. Oh, which way to the payment desk? This looks like a big hôpital, so is it busy on weekdays? I’m in a hurry, so it would help immensely if you could just automatically charge it to my carte.”

“I get the feeling letting you go will bring trouble to many more people.”

“But you can’t stop me. Not as a docteur, anyway.”

She made it sound so obvious.

There were specialized tools in here, like scalpels used to cut skin and bone saws. Even opening the anesthesia valve might be able to neutralize this dangerous person.

But…

“You are a skilled doctor. Skilled enough to make a Kihara like me jealous. But your skills can only be used to save people. You might technically possess the skills, but you cannot cut into people or sew them up for any other raison. That is just how doctors work.”

“…”

“Oh, don’t worry. I too am working to protect Academy City’s peace. So don’t give me that grim look. I will do my job.”

“Even thought you’re a Kihara?”

“Oui. I will do it ''as'' a Kihara.”

===Part 3===

The District 2 gunpowder testing lab was in fact an unmanned weapon data center.

It was a large place.

And its security was in fact ''too advanced'' to be fully utilized by the nuns and magicians with a poor grasp of scientific technology.

There were plenty of blind spots.

Lucia had dragged Agnese and Angelene to the heat control room.

Simply put, the room was lined with valves and tanks of the chemical coolant used to cool the large computers.

“What did you want to discuss?”

“Whether or not we’re going to continue obeying Isabella.”

Sister Lucia was fastidious.

She may not have liked Isabella’s methods, such as attacking her own people when they got in her way and accepting the impure along with the pure – and she in fact seemed much more at home with the impure.

“Eh? Eh? But the Anglican Church took us in when we fled the Catholics.”

Stooped Angelene hurriedly observed both Agnese and Lucia’s faces.

That was the first and most important point.

The 250 members of the Former Agnese Forces would gain nothing by clashing with the Anglicans.

In fact, they might end up with their lives at risk.

But Lucia crossed her arms and continued.

“I feel like the fair deal we were given is being violated.”

“Well…we are basically freeloaders with them. This isn’t the first time we’ve been given odd jobs that are definitely not worth the effort. And any accomplishments we do make go to whoever our leader is on paper.”

Agnese shrugged, but Lucia did not stop.

“She knocked out Stiyl and I don’t like the true identity she was hiding. Can we really leave the fate of the Italian Peninsula in her hands? Doesn’t this situation worry you two?”

“If Adikalika is activated, the world will be headed toward its doom. England has no reason to hold back.”

“So you think they’ll treat everyone equally? Really? Destroying the Vatican will not immediately doom London.”

The atmosphere froze.

That statement made them focus on the cracks.

And Sister Lucia wasn’t wrong.

Even if the world was set to be destroyed today or tomorrow, was England really doing everything they could? For example, Queen Elizard wasn’t here. Nor were Princesses Riméa, Carissa, and Villian. It was true it would be unusual for the royal family to be sent to the front line, but why was everything still operating “business as usual” with all this going on?

Even if the Catholics wanted them dead, Agnese and the others couldn’t abandon them to die.

They were only with England because it best served their purposes. Which was why Agnese had just said they were basically freeloaders.

Angelene stammered, “C-come to think of it, I haven’t seen any sign of the war-loving Knights around. The Anglicans are the only one of the three factions here. Before I thought that was lucky since it would avoid infighting, but now…”

It was easy to suspect England wasn’t taking this as seriously as they might.

Even though the clock striking midnight could signal the Italian Peninsula becoming a sea of blood, flesh, and bone.

The discussion had fast reached a point where it would look badly on them to be overheard by any of the true Anglicans.

But they couldn’t help but get worked up among themselves.

Agnese asked a careful question.

“Are you questioning where they’ve set up their defensive line?”

“We’re convenient workers, if not outright sacrificial pawns for them. I expected them to ask us to risk our lives and fight here. Kanzaki might not because she’s too nice, but why isn’t Isabella Theism demanding it of us?”

Could England be taking an optimistic view?

Did they only see this as an occurrence in Academy City of distant Asia, on the other side of the world?

Even if they screwed up and the Italian Peninsula were submerged in a sea of blood, flesh, and bone, did they think they had another chance? Maybe it was only subconscious, but did they still think there was a buffer zone left?

Lucia had a point.

Especially from the perspective of the Former Agnese Forces who wanted to protect the Italian Peninsula at all costs.

But at the same time, Agnese had felt a chill on her spine for a while. A very distinct chill.

The mention of Great Demon Coronzon may have reminded her.

(This happened last time in London, didn’t it?)

So she was cautious.

She had to treat this like defusing a bomb.

Coronzon was an expert at tearing apart the bonds between people.

So it was possible this conflict had been planned and this suspicion between allies would all serve to benefit the great demon.

(Could this be the same war mood – that same scent in the air – that sent Sister Orsola down the path of self-destruction?)

“Even so, you aren’t suggesting a coup here, are you? The Anglicans have over 10 thousand people in Academy City, so there isn’t anything our 250 can do. And they even have that extraordinary Saint. Not to mention that infighting while Adikalika is being prepared will only delight Coronzon.”

“I know that,” immediately replied Lucia. She apparently had a different idea. “Which is why I’m saying we can’t afford to leave this in the wrong hands. At the very least, Isabella can’t be the one to carry the fate of the Italian Peninsula on her shoulders.”

“Then Kanzaki? She is a dazzlingly good person, but she has the Amakusas to protect. Will she really make any bold moves to help us?”

“No.”

The fastidious nun sharply rejected that idea.

“There is someone else in this building, isn’t there? We need to be using everything available to us, but one person is going to waste.”

The three of them exchanged a glance.

Come to think of it…

“If ''she'' is at the center of it, then everyone here will do their job regardless of their position in the magic side power map. Even if it means forcing forward the defensive line that they’ve pulled back. Don’t you think so?”

===Part 4===

In the District 12 consulate, Kamijou Touma and the others were discussing something. Probably a plan to use against Coronzon.

Feeling left out, Hamazura Shiage’s face clouded over.

“Y’know…I just can’t believe Coronzon is trying to destroy the world again.”

“Think of it like her instincts as a great demon,” casually replied Dion Fortune. “You can’t expect to fix this with a conversation. She isn’t one to be stopped with the straightforward methods Kamijou Touma prefers.”

…Was that really true?

Hamazura thought back to the frozen ocean in the UK. When they last spoke in the cruise ship, she hadn’t seemed like an incarnation of evil to him.

333, dispersion. She was the one who tears apart people’s bonds and obstructs their evolution.

That much was true.

But on the other hand…

“Coronzon helped save you back then. She complained a bunch, but she didn’t take the option from me.”

“But would the world at large consider that an act of good? You’re forgetting that I was a pawn she created to grind the UK’s functioning to a halt. She was saving one of her own attackers.”

He hadn’t thought of it that way before.

Hamazura worked to suppress his reflexive response and made sure to actually think before speaking again.

“Are you saying she only showed interest in it because it was an act of evil?”

“Who knows. Even the magicians who have specialized in studying Coronzon are split on the subject. Master Mathers insisted she is an absolute evil while Crowley argued she is one side of a relative evil. Even those at the top of the magic side weren’t certain of her true nature, so that isn’t something you need to worry yourself over.”

No one knew.

It wasn’t clear.

And yet the world had decided they ''might as well'' call her evil?

===Part 5===

Dion Fortune wasn’t the only one hurriedly investigating Adikalika.

This affected everyone in the world.

And Crowley’s home of the United Kingdom had tons of documents related to his Magick. Since it was based on the same source, Isabella could make some predictions and estimations of what Great Demon Coronzon’s version would look like.

With a general knowledge of the destruction specs, one question remained on Isabella Theism’s mind.

(Why Rome instead of the UK?)

Of course, she could guess that Adikalika’s power would be difficult to use effectively against the UK due to their research into anti-Crowley techniques. And if Adikalika blew away an entire region, it would trigger global chaos and war just as well whether the target was the Anglicans or the Catholics.

But was that really enough for that great demon to give up?

Her grudge was clearly centered on the UK. That had to be the place she most wanted to destroy. And once she decided to destroy it, wouldn’t she make sure it happened no matter the cost or how extensive the preparations?

“This isn’t a plan B. Coronzon didn’t shift to her second best candidate as a compromise.”

But if that was true, it formed a natural question within Isabella.

“She’s intentionally targeting the Roman Catholic headquarters at the core of the Italian Peninsula. …''Is there something there''?”

And so.

In Academy City’s District 7.

Isabella Theism decided to find an observation point for Coronzon. She had plenty of sacrificial pawns she could have used, but was that really a good idea? They wouldn’t flat out refuse her orders, but even if they made a show of obedience, they might hide useful information. So she decided it was better to do the investigation herself.

What did Coronzon want to destroy in her attack on the Italian Peninsula?

Revealing the structure of the over-the-top Adikalika spell might just provide a hint there.

“Hm.”

Great Demon Coronzon was in this same district.

Isabella Theism had come here hoping to find something there, but…

“There definitely is something.”

Something was rustling along.

It looked like a giant crab, but that was no crab. The monster was around 2m tall and it was hideous. Instead of a poisonous creature, this thing inspired the sense of disgust felt when peering into the kitchen garbage bucket in a stranger’s house. The mass of gold giving off a twisted glow was in fact formed by balling up something like long blonde hair.

“?”

(Long blonde hair. So did this come from Coronzon? If this is her sending out pawns to stop people instead of just showing off, she must be a lot more concerned than she lets on.)

Apparently there was no need for the things to be crabs.

She also saw a great serpent slithering along the red snow, a thin-winged bat, a fat fly, an eight-legged octopus, an earth-devouring snail, and a scorpion that moved different again from the crab. They were all, of course, made from blonde hair.

(That rules out the idea of them being the horoscope symbols.)

They might simply be based on different demons, but she wasn’t certain of that either. Unlike the horoscopes, she wasn’t familiar with any crab demons.

Isabella Theism was a necromancer who specialized in death.

As she stood still and gave off a death scent to play dead, a blonde hair monster passed right by in front of her. They didn’t seem too intelligent. Maybe they couldn’t ad lib, or maybe they couldn’t recognize people if they didn’t fit certain predetermined search conditions.

The same thing repeated a few times.

The monsters were wandering around with a decent density. Specifically, she could see two or three of them from a major intersection. The distribution seemed to differ depending on location, so traveling toward the denser areas might show her where Coronzon was located. However, playing dead took a fair amount of effort, so she decided to end her recon mission here. She also doubted holding her breath would be enough to approach Coronzon close enough for a surprise attack.

(And I doubt these are the only pawns Coronzon has. After slipping past the grunts, I would probably find a mid-boss waiting for me.)

Isabella’s death camouflage was somewhat effective.

The gold monsters failed to notice her even when passing by right in front of her.

But what would happen if they did notice her?

The answer seemed obvious enough looking at the crab legs and pincers of the one that had gone clacking by earlier.

“A single step outside in District 7 would probably be deadly.”

On the other hand, there was no powerful blood scent hanging over the city.

The pawns were not going around actively breaking into homes and killing people.

If you didn’t leave the buildings, no harm would come to you.

So these pawns were meant to ensure no one interrupted Great Demon Coronzon’s Adikalika preparations. By giving them specialized abilities and a simple movement pattern, she was avoiding the mistake of delaying her plan by giving too many resources to the grunts.

…Of course, a failure to notice the regularity of their movements could lead people to behave like they were asking to be killed.

“Wahh!!”

Isabella heard a scream.

From a small boy of maybe 8 or 10. After seeing a monster out the window, had he decided his room was too dangerous and fled outside instead of locking up and sitting tight? Isabella glanced over but immediately gave up on him.

He was a little too far.

She couldn’t reach him.

And there was no harm in ignoring him.

Isabella’s only goals were preventing Adikalika’s activation and eliminating Great Demon Coronzon. She hadn’t exactly been asked to tally up and report on how many died in the process. Dion Fortune was it? Even if that archbishop added that condition now, she was only a false leader given the position to fill the empty seat in the interim. The older members had no obligation to obey her.

The sounds of splitting flesh and spraying blood rang loud.

Isabella’s expression barely changed.

Someone had protected the boy by placing herself over him. The woman wore a distinctive mask and was dressed a lot like a dentist. The golden pincers and legs had stabbed right into her back.

Red scattered from her.

Anyone could tell she had lost a lethal amount of blood, yet…

“Mon dieu.”

She sounded carefree.

No, she seemed irritated.

“Whoever designed this things needs to observe crabes better. And learn more about romance. A crabe’s pincers don’t stab or slash like a knife – they crush and cut like a chain tool!!”

After a dull scraping sound, the two meter pawn was split in two. Right down the middle. The crab lost control and split apart. Into countless threads – no, hairs.

How had she done that?

Only now was Isabella’s curiosity piqued. Even if this was only a scout or patrolwoman, did Academy City really still have someone capable of slaying one of Coronzon’s pawns?

The boy and the woman appeared to be conversing.

“U-um.”

“What is it?”

“Thank…you?”

The woman in question was soaked with blood.

No matter how invincible that last move had made her look, her back had still been stabbed repeatedly.

“Eek!?”

“My, my. Don’t worry. I am not ''designed'' to let a little thing like this kill me. …Also, I am Kihara Goukei, but you can call me Madame Gou.”

“Madame…ahh, y-you’re so hurt…and it’s…it’s my fault…”

“Forget about that.”

She used those words to set aside the blood still gushing from her.

The bloody woman acted like her next question was what really mattered.

“What is, um…yes, what is your name?”

“Urekawa. Urekawa Ousuke.”

“Urekawa-kun then? Cough, this is all necessary if you’re going to survive…so take a close look so you won’t forget it.”

Seated on the ground, Kihara Goukei pointed elsewhere.

“What…?”

“Do you see the bus there?”

It wasn’t far away. It was doubtful if the middle-aged man floundering in the driver’s seat actually had a large vehicle license, but that wouldn’t matter as long as he could get the bus moving.

“It will be leaving soon, so you need to get aboard before it does. And then the wonderful grownups aboard will make sure you can escape…so hurry.”

“But…what about you? We need to stop your bleeding!!”

“''Don’t worry about that.''”

The intensity behind those words made the Urekawa boy’s little shoulders jump.

Only a second-rate would flash their weapon to gain the obedience of those unable to fight. A true professional could easily grasp someone’s heart just by changing the mood.

The boy took a few steps back.

Kihara Goukei smiled a little as she watched that small back running elsewhere.

More of those weird golden things were wandering the area, but they did not attack anyone beyond a wall or door. So whether the bus was moving or not, the boy would be safe once inside it.

So she must have concluded the boy would be fine.

With that settled, Kihara Goukei turned toward the real threat.

In other words, toward Isabella Theism.

“Now, then.”

After an unpleasant tightening sound, Kihara Goukei’s bleeding stopped.

She didn’t have any bandages, not even a tiny adhesive one, but she had done this on her own.

“Independent stanching. It’s not all that unusual a trick. It’s a standard function for animals that sever a body part to escape predators in an act known as autotomy. Think a lézard’s tail or a crabe’s legs.”

“If you can stop your bleeding at will, why didn’t you fall over and play dead? This way you might as well be asking for someone to finish the job.”

“And then who would protect that boy? From those monstres and from you who had no issue abandoning him to mort.”

Isabella Theism heard a quiet psht of something in the air.

“?”

Something stabbed into her right thigh.

She felt no pain.

It was the dart from a tranquilizer gun.

“Okay, now raise your hand if it hurts.”

With continuous metallic grinding and scraping sounds, something like a scroll was unfurled. A belt as wide as a college notebook was spread out around Kihara Goukei like a hagoromo. It was lined with torture devices.

“Not that I’ll stop if it does☆”

The cruel dentist grinned behind her mask.

And the clash began.

[[File:GT Index v13 BW4.png|thumb]]

===Part 6===

“Brr…”

Index had little knowledge of the science side, so she didn’t know where she was locked up. It was a space a lot like a large, large indoor pool. Her arms and legs hadn’t been bound, but escaping the boxy room would still be a challenge.

Meanwhile, Othinus was looking all around from her shoulder.

“They said this was an unmanned weapon data center…but is this a spare room? They’ll need more vending-machine-sized servers when they inevitably need more processing power, so they must have secured the space for them ahead of time.”

“What’s your point?”

“It’s a big room with secure locks, but it’s been left empty since they have no use for it yet.”

Yes, that did sound like a convenient place to lock someone up.

“Hey, are you alright?” asked Othinus.

“I’m hungry, but the cold isn’t too bad.”

“Not what I meant. You can’t forget what happened back there, right?”

Was Othinus referring to the necromancer’s imitation dead bodies, or the fact that Index had been betrayed by her fellow Anglicans?

Index smiled a little with the cat in her arms.

“I’m fine.”

“…”

“This is nothing compared to Touma being declared dead and having everything taken from him. I can handle this much pain, but it’s different for Touma. He shouldn’t have to put up with that at all.”

“Yeah,” said Othinus.

Kamijou Touma was alive, but there were those who couldn’t accept that. The 15cm god recalled that empty dorm room. Kamijou Touma’s death itself may have happened by chance, but someone somewhere benefited from keeping him in that “dead” state.

Were they on the science side or the magic side?

Either way…

“Robbing a god of her temple and throne is an unforgivable sin. Whoever is responsible, they must be made to pay for violating the sanctity of my holy ground.”

Just then, they heard footsteps.

The footsteps stopped at the door and were followed by the clicking of the lock being operated.

Someone was here.

“Keep quiet.”

The door slowly opened and Kanzaki Kaori entered with a finger up to her lips.

She carried a ring of keys.

“The door has two locks. The idea was for the Amakusas and the Former Agnese Forces to each have a key to prevent betrayal, but as you can see, I am one of the fewer than 20 Saints. They can’t stop me when I put my mind to it.”

“You’re actually…freeing us?”

Index’s question brought sadness to Kanzaki’s eyes.

As If she hadn’t expected this doubt.

“If I didn’t do it, Stiyl would have tried it even if it killed him. I’ve let him be the villain too often already.”

“?”

Index looked confused. She didn’t understand why Kanzaki would bring up that priest.

The absolute confidence she had in her perfect memory only made the missing memories all the more cruel.

She didn’t even question those memories that had been intentionally erased.

(And it turned out Lola Stuart was Great Demon Coronzon. I would love to give her a taste of my full strength as a Saint to pay her back for what she did to us.)

But that likely wasn’t her role.

Kanzaki was aware of that.

She adored Index more than she could say, but she had no intention of destroying the girl’s current world.

“Listen. Isabella is off doing who knows what, so this is my chance to let you go. The knowledge of your 103,001 grimoires should be used to protect people. So it would be best if you went to Kamijou Touma now.”

“But wait.”

Othinus interjected after listening from the nun’s shoulder.

She appreciated this…but it went beyond what could be decided on an emotional impulse.

“The Anglican Church is an organization, right? And a global one at that. Even if you can’t stand Isabella on a personal level, disobeying her orders will only hurt you and your companions.”

“Be that as it may, this is something I must do. Plus, I know those companions. None of them would want me to save them at the cost of your freedom. And I don’t just mean the Amakusas. The Former Agnese Forces were clearly holding back when they fought me.”

That was the end of it.

She stood firm.

The 15cm god clicked her tongue and looked away.

…How could she reject this kindness when Kanzaki looked at her that way?

“It would be a challenge for us to directly cooperate with Kamijou Touma. We have too many other obligations. But you two…”

“We’ll do it.”

Index didn’t even let Kanzaki finish.

The powerful look in her eyes stared directly into Kanzaki’s eyes.

“Because I know it’s what I should do. Helping out Touma is always the best option.”

“This way.”

Kanzaki Kaori would never stand by Index’s side again.

Other people stood there now.

But she did not consider shoving those people aside to reclaim that spot.

Index’s trust had been reset along with her memories.

So the only option was to build them both back anew. Even if it resulted in a different relationship than before.

“I can show you to the building exit, but that is all ''we'' can do. You must find a way to locate Kamijou Touma and join him. Grimoire Library Index, I leave the righteousness and pride of the Anglican Church in your hands.”

===Part 7===

A creepy rustling sound filled the street.

Golden crabs and octopuses automatically tracked Kihara Goukei’s movements and rushed toward her, but each of them was sliced through and broke apart in turn.

In the night, a bone saw and forceps sharply reflected what little light remained from the streetlights.

Kihara Goukei had hoped to end Isabella’s life before her forcibly boosted muscular strength destroyed her joints and cartilage, but Isabella was a lot nimbler than she had expected.

Specifically, Kihara Goukei’s current state gave her enough speed to easily dodge out of the way of a bullet flying straight toward her, but…

(Hm? Ordinary réflexes shouldn’t be able to respond to this.)

That meant her enemy was being boosted somehow.

Come to think of it, there was something odd about the brown woman’s rags. Given the way it fluttered in a way that ignored the wind currents, it appeared to play a muscle-like role similar to externally-attached springs.

“She also seems immune to anesthésiques. What kind of crazy body does she have?”

“You need to ask that of a necromancer?”

Something whooshed by over Kihara Goukei’s head.

It was a filthy rag so stained yellow and brown that its original color was impossible to determine.

It spiraled around high in the air and then stretched out as it fell straight down from heaven to earth. Almost like a guillotine or something.

“What are you, Ittan-Momen 2.0?”

Kihara Goukei considered how to dodge this, tilted her head, and settled on simply jumping back a step.

She heard something slice through the air.

Followed by a heavy crash.

The asphalt was easily smashed and even the dark soil below was thrown into the air. It went without saying what would happen if that hit a human.

Western European necromancy was not about controlling a rotting corpse to sic it on your enemy and it didn’t harness the grudges of the dead to kill people. It’s true identity and essence was the summoning of dead souls using the clothing and other possessions dug up from graves and the revealing of secrets about the world and about individuals using divination (mancy) of the dead (necro). …Simply put, it had been a secret fad among the bored upper classes because there was very little risk in trying it out (because opening a coffin was not a crime if it belonged to a family member).

This meant controlling the clothing of the dead was their specialty.

Of course, this didn’t apply to necromancers from other regions and cultures.

“That isn’t just a piece of cloth. Is it hardened with glue or something?”

“A human body is nothing. With a bit cleverness and creativity, I can slice through a tree branch with this.”

The deadly guillotine dropped from up high a second and third time, but Kihara Goukei intercepted it and knocked it to the ground with her giant forceps, bone saw, and other torture tools.

“Release ocular muscles – boost kinetic vision 500%.”

(Based on the impacts reaching my wrists, its weight is several times that of the heaviest bowling balls. I see. So the problem is the height from which it drops.)

“Ugh, I’m feeling dizzy. Urp. Oh, right. I should have boosted my stomach first…”

“Vomit inside your mask if you like. I will kill you while you do, though.”

The number of rags flying overhead suddenly exceeded the number fingers on both hands.

And they weren’t all guillotines. The one that looked like a large rake may have been a Cat’s Paw that was used to tear at the surface of someone’s body. The one a lot like a crane game with pointy tips was probably a Spanish Spider that was stabbed into someone’s back so they could be suspended from the ceiling and have their flesh torn by their own weight.

Their forms had a historical flavor to them rather than focusing on efficiency.

Was that just the necromancer’s poor taste?

Kihara Goukei muttered under her breath.

(Of course, it says something about me that I can recognize them all on sight.)

Isabella grinned thinly.

“You have some skill – or more likely are using some kind of trick – but there is only so much you can handle with just the two arms. I don’t need anything special. I can simply overwhelm you with numbers!!”

“Yes, excellent logique.”

With the sound of tearing clothing, Kihara Goukei’s number of arms suddenly grew to six.

The opposite could happen too. A pure pursuit of function could take on an appearance straight out of myth.

“Adding on more arms isn’t that hard. It’s adjusting the position of the shoulder joints that takes some doing.”

They clashed regardless.

The arms spread out like wings were completely expendable. The very first strike tore away one of Kihara Goukei’s arms along with the torture device it held. The second strike meant the sacrifice of another arm. They were more broken off than severed. Had it worked against the brown woman that she was using a mixture of different weapons? Kihara Goukei didn’t particularly care as long as the guillotine didn’t slice through her face or torso along with an arm. And the third strike was blocked with a grinding noise.

It had hit something hard.

The flat, rectangular object at her palm was a giant shield. Except it was made of something more biological than steel or plastic.

“Hwa ha ha ha! Countermeasure complete! My monster of the week name is Crab Shell Man!!”

“?”

In the brief moment Isabella’s movement was stopped, Kihara Goukei sent in a sharp right hook. And that arm had already become a human-sized crab pincer, so a direct hit would crush and sever her neck like a chain tool.

''Splat!!

The bloody sound came from the center of Kihara Goukei’s chest.

Several objects like white guitar picks had pierced through from her back.

An unharmed Isabella smiled bewitchingly.

Kihara Goukei’s eyes widened.

“…Eh?”

“Did you already forget what I called myself? I do believe I introduced myself as a necromancer.”

What was the weapon?

What had stabbed through Kihara Goukei’s back and burst out from the center of her chest?

…It was her own broken and severed arm. Or really, the crushed bone in the mutilated cross section?

“And no one ever said I could ''only'' do the Western European version☆”

“…”

“I didn’t expect you to scatter your own dead flesh around. Thanks for the assist. You might as well have been asking me to use it.”

“Gh…ph.”

Kihara Goukei tried to speak, but only fresh blood filled her mask. A large hunk of blood.

She had been stabbed in a very bad location.

“You can use your tricks and cheat death as many times as you like.”

Necromancer Isabella Theism grinned and sprinkled something from her fingers.

It wasn’t visible, but it smelled like blood. Like spotting a crushed frog on the roadside on a rainy day.

“''But all flesh that has died once is my domain.'' Now that you’ve died, you have lost the right to your own body.”

A moment later, all the blood, flesh, and bone separated as it rushed toward its original owner from all directions.

===Part 8===

While Kamijou’s group continued their discussion, the consulate’s doorbell rang again.

Last time, he had gotten all worked up only for it to be Dion Fortune’s group. Thanks to that experience, he was a lot more relaxed this time.

“Who could it be this time?”

“Now that our guard is down, what if it’s Coronzon paying us a late-night visit?”

He really wished the Bologna Succubus hadn’t said that.

The two of them walked to the front entrance…and they could see the answer. Before even opening the door, the nearby crack in the wall provided a view of the visitor.

But he opened the door anyway.

“Who are you?”

“I am Qliphah Puzzle 545, here as a messenger for Board Chairman Accelerator. Um, I thought for sure we had met before.”

The girl had something like a squid tentacle swaying side to side from the back of her hips. And did those English newspaper things even count as clothing?

Whatever the case, she wasn’t an ordinary human.

The Magic Gods, the Transcendents, an artificial demon…and Dion Fortune was a tarot deck and original grimoire, wasn’t she? There was definitely something wrong with Coronzon to be able to stand up to such a wide variety of people all on her own.

“Does it mean what I think it does that he had to send a messenger?”

“Um, yes. It does.”

Accelerator hadn’t come himself because staying in that prison was his way of atoning for his crimes.

But this was more than that.

“Isabella…what was her name? Anyway, the magician effectively commanding the Anglicans at the moment. Is avoiding her complaints really that difficult?”

“It iiiiis. For one thing, my master has only just started learning about magic, so his knowledge is limited. And because he really doesn’t understand it, he can’t figure out how to avoid the attacks being made through the channels that have long lay buried within Academy City.”

Isabella likely had her own methods. Kamijou understood that. But apparently she really would use any means necessary even if her overall goal was to defeat Coronzon and protect the world.

Kamijou invited the artificial demon inside and spoke in a weary tone.

“The city doesn’t need a defense against the Anglicans now too, does it? We already have our hands full with Coronzon, so fighting on two fronts would be such a pain.”

“I get the feeling all of this could change depending on what happens.”

===Part 9===

It was over.

Isabella Theism breathed out through her nose.

Apparently this was all a science side expert in death and the desecration life could manage.

A scratchy sound came from her ear.

That reminded her she was still wearing a wireless earphone. If that had been the science side’s final trump card, then she could only give her condolences. They just hadn’t been up to the task. And that strength, as minuscule as it had been, should have been directed toward Coronzon.

(Then again, I get the feeling she was acting on her own discretion. Magic side or science side, this seems to be the fate of all organizations. The bigger they get, the harder it is to keep track of the extremities.)

“Surely you aren’t going to demand monetary compensation for this damage when the world is on the verge of ending. Or did that finally break your spirit and you’ll announce your surrender?”

“My, how hotblooded of you. But aren’t you fighting the wrong person? Necromancer, you are one of the foolish obstacles to natural decomposition that human knowledge has brought.”

This was not the new board chairman.

Isabella grimaced and lowered her voice.

“Great Demon Coronzon.”

“Don’t act so surprised. You have realized I am taking over the city using something other than science, haven’t you? Then obviously I can take control of the city’s communication infrastructure. Using a method that doesn’t require electricity or electromagnetic signals.”

Apparently Aleister had set up every last part of the city that way. If only he were still alive so she could give him a witch trial and burn him at the stake.

“But the very fact you’re doing that means you’ve already glimpsed your own Achilles heel, doesn’t it?” said Isabella. “If you do launch your Adikalika spell at the Italian Peninsula from here, it will mean the beginning of a global war…but it also ties you to this city. And in the struggle for Academy City’s infrastructure, we have already taken back around half.”

“But you Anglicans don’t rule the world.” There was mockery in Coronzon’s voice. “While Adikalika is directly targeting the Roman Catholics, you’re really only saving them as a means to save yourselves, so I wonder just how much trust they really have in you. Oh, and come to think of it, aren’t there some of them within your own ranks? Yes, that foreign unit of Roman Catholics.”

Dispersion.

She easily separated people from each other.

Even if their goals were the same and they were all working to bring peace to the world.

“And then there’s the Russian Orthodox Church. Heh heh. Have you noticed how much they despise having something inhuman occupying a seat with influence over the fate of the world?”

“…”

“The Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches will do anything to break free of the current situation. Isn’t that right? And Adikalika is reliant on the geographic features of Academy City. So if someone were to ''wipe Academy City from the map'', they could prevent the world-destroying Adikalika from being activated. Simple, isn’t it?”

Only if you didn’t care about the 2.3 million innocent people living there.

And they likely wouldn’t even provide enough advance warning for the Anglicans there to evacuate.

“I am the world’s gear in charge of dispersion, so I will bring natural decomposition to all things. I will bring opposing factions A and B together so they can be discarded like matching cards in old maid. The three main Christian factions are a pain since they are of an odd number, but I can trigger total mutual destruction by adding in Academy City.”

“I would call that interesting, but I’m not one to trust demons. You could be making it all up to make me rush my next move, so I’ll take it with a grain of salt.”

“Oh, really? Believe it or not, I am one to honestly pass on the truly nasty and devastating truths. Like this for example.”

“?”

“Necromancers are not the only fools born of human knowledge who obstruct natural decomposition. It would seem you are not out of the woods yet.”

===Part 10===

Kihara Goukei was lying nearby.

The density of the red snow was growing. It had already begun to accumulate atop her, but she showed no reaction even as it covered her mask like a frozen mass.

Anyone could tell she was approaching death.

And there was one person who could not accept that fact.

“No!!”

In the bus.

The size of the vehicle limited what streets it could use. After turning around, it had needed to drive back this way in order to escape further away.

So he had seen it.

Urekawa Ousuke, the boy rescued by a certain monster, had seen the result of the battle.

If the snow were falling just a bit harder, it would have covered her too much for him to see.

The grownups’ calls for him to stop were drowned out.

Of all things, he opened the window and jumped out.

If he had stayed put and let the bus take him away, he would have escaped to safety. And there was nothing he could accomplish by choosing to remain here even if it meant injuring himself.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t abandon her. Not after she saved him. That grownup had risked her life and bloodied herself protecting him.

“No, wait.”

The boy did not stand back up.

He may not have been able to right away. Even with thick snow to cushion his fall, he had jumped from a moving vehicle.

“Please.”

But there was something requiring his attention more than his body’s pain.

He raised just his head, the rest of him still sprawled out on the cold ground stained by red snow.

And he shouted from his little mouth.

“''Wake up, Madame Gou''!!!”

===Part 11===

Internal Mechanisms: All 185,814 sections responding.

Bio Limiters: Depth 5 release

Lifespan Effect Calculations: Bypassed

Body Local Network General Host Name “Kihara Goukei” has entered final operating mode.

Forcing reboot.

3, 2, 1.

===Part 12===

''Badump!!

That distorted pulse was audible to Isabella Theism even at a short distance.

She shifted her focus from her earphone to the outside world.

Something was happening that required her attention.

This was clearly out of the ordinary.

Kihara Goukei sat up like a mousetrap after luring its prey in with a hunk of cheese.

“Whew. Ha ha ha. Mon dieu. I’m not about to complain if I die. I’ve lived the kind of life that will bring mort to me first and foremost once something goes wrong.”

Her entire body was slick with blood.

Nothing about her situation had improved.

But that other monster spoke with a hand on the side of her wobbling head to hold it in place.

“But now that he’s called that name…''I can’t afford to lose.''”

“Wha-”

Isabella’s question was cut off by an unpleasant cracking sound.

Kihara Goukei’s fist had broken.

Due to the speed and weight with which it slammed into the center of Isabella Theism’s chest.

That unpleasant sound had come from the breaking of Isabella’s ribs and sternum.

(When did she stand up…when did she throw that punch!?)

Isabella held a hand to her mouth but that couldn’t stop her from coughing up blood as she jumped back.

Kihara Goukei smiled as she forcibly mended her broken fist, causing grinding and cracking sounds within the hand.

Her mask was covered in blood. From within.

But still she smiled.

“I really have removed ''my final limiteur''. A child is watching and he trusts in me. So now Madame Gou…absolutely can’t afford to lose.”

“Who…are you?”

She was one who toyed with human life.

She was a hopelessly mad scientist.

She wasn’t about to deny those sides of herself.

''But…

“You can’t get away with everything using the ‘I’m a Kihara’ excuse, you know? I never did like that excuse. So I started wondering if there was some way to live my life so I didn’t have to make excuses and before long it was all I could think about.”

Isabella stopped briefly.

Looking like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“I’ve heard that one a million times. Is that why you decided to be someone who protects small children?”

“Ah ha ha. Oh, if only I could contribute to société in the usual ways. But I’m so afraid of it backfiring that I avoid using my Kihara side to get too involved with individuals.”

“Then why?”

“Because he called for Madame Gou, not a Kihara. ''Everyone always assumes it’s some bad joke,'' but I finally found someone who will trust in that name. What could be more miraculous than that? Scientists are all the kind of jerk who has to question anything and everything, but we’re also capable of accepting the things we see for ourselves. So after seeing this for myself – dammit – I can’t deny it. I’m willing to completely change the way I live my life for this.”

To put it another way, Kihara Goukei was willing to risk her life for this small thing.

That was also why she dressed as a dentist.

A dentist loved children’s smiles more than anyone and mastered the techniques needed to heal them and save them from pain, but they were also feared by those same children. And she had wanted to be someone who could be proud of that.

Just look back at what she had done.

When the presumed “moving corpse” named Kamijou Touma had appeared, when she quarantined the people in the crematorium who could possibly be infected or contaminated, when she protected an innocent child at the cost of so much blood, and when she confronted Isabella Theism. Kihara Goukei hadn’t made a single wrong decision from moment to moment.

She was a member of the Kihara Family, but she was not a broken person.

She was someone who always did the right thing but was always feared for it.

She was a heretic among the Kiharas.

With that battered body, she proudly protected little Urekawa Ousuke and made the position her own. Madame Gou smiled thinly behind her bloody mask.

With a pitying look for the other expert of death who stood opposite her as a relative evil.

“Taking on the th ankless role isn’t easy, is it? You’re not even a Kihara, so it must be exhausting to ''force yourself'' to do it.”

“You understand nothing about our world.”

“I’m not interested in learning about any other world than the one I live in, but I am still a Kihara. Even if it’s their job, it hurts anyone to make innocent children cry. Could that be why ''you Britanniques are going so easy on us'' despite shouting about a threat to the world? Your hesitant use of the Academy City facilities means anyone can pick up your communications. I was basically snacking on intercepted messages between the hôpital and here, but it really makes me wonder if you’re even trying.”

“…”

Isabella fell silent.

Kihara Goukei smiled behind her mask. But with all the blood, the smile was more grim than grin.

“I don’t understand any of this Coronzon stuff, but you say there’s a threat to the entire world, right? Then I would think at least one of you would suggest bombing the entire city into oblivion to ensure the safety of the rest of humankind, but none of you is touching on that last resort. It’s hardly a surprise you’re being delayed by enemies you hadn’t even considered. You won’t accomplish anything if everyone on site is hesitant to speak up. And…when everyone deployed to the front line is scared and reluctant to dirty their hands, it’s going to ''put a greater burden'' on their leader.”

Necromancers were cruel.

To their targets, they might even seem like horrific monsters.

But had Isabella mentioned even once that ''she enjoyed that cruelty''?

From the beginning, she had only ever said she had come to Japan to do her job.

So of course she wasn’t interested in people’s dramas or stories. Her stance was to not protect as many people as possible by not letting her personal feelings for her fellow Anglicans hold her back. She was taking the problem seriously and giving it her all.

She could not afford any detours, so she wouldn’t even help a stranger she chanced across along the way. It might seem like a little thing, but going with her heart there could throw off the overall schedule and allow the entire world to end.

Ordinarily, her attitude was the correct one for a combat professional.

“So I don’t blame you for what you did. Whether it’s England or somewhere else, there is ''something you want to protect'', isn’t there? Even if it means dirtying your hands and becoming the kind of person who will make a small child cry and throw stones at you with their small hands in a city turned into a battlefield. You have something that makes it all worth it. …So how about you accept that, hold your head high, and come at me with everything you have? So you can stay true to what you believe is right.”

Isabella Theism listened.

She hung her head as the enemy’s voice reached her ears.

And the brown necromancer smiled.

Just a little.

“Let’s stop playing around.”

“Gladly.”

“And I do have just one thing you should know. Voodoo is known for its zombies, but it is a polytheistic religion where the list of gods being worshiped is always in flux, the good gods and evil gods can swap places depending on the circumstances, and they freely take in parts of other mythologies. Indian mythology has a god that came from a movie, but I think Voodoo provides even more freedom than that. Which makes it extremely convenient for a necromancer who learns bits and pieces from other mythologies and then misuses them. And when you can borrow the power and symbols of any being, you can do things like this.”

“?”

“''Daeva''.”

With that single word, something appeared behind Isabella Theism.

Kihara Goukei first saw a gigantically swollen insect abdomen.

Next, she saw brutal legs resembling spiked clubs, a pair of compound eyes so red they appeared to be filled with blood, and translucent impure wings.

Empty space seemed to distort to allow the appearance of a giant fly of more than 5m.

Yet its curves seemed somehow feminine and alluring.

Each individual part might be found in nature, but this being clearly existed outside the physical world.

It was still transparent, but it had completely affixed itself to this world – this phase.

“I see. Would you look at that.”

Kihara Goukei looked up at it with a half smile.

She didn’t know what it was, but it certainly appeared to be on another level from what she had dealt with so far.

Only Isabella’s voice continued.

She spoke earnestly, like a priestess serving her dark lord.

“You are one of the six demon lords who rule over evil. You are the bearer of deadly poison who will distort your own legend and fuse with others if it will achieve your goal. You are one of the many foundations for controlling death and flesh. Tonight I seek you, o queen of contamination, dead bodies, decomposition, and apostasy.”

“Interesting. …But it doesn’t mesh well with my scientifique tastes.”

“Intrude upon my world, ''Druj Nasu''.”

The phase border was torn asunder and the thing materialized.

===Part 13===

In the District 12 consulate, Kamijou Touma found himself with little to do once it became time to stare at maps and documents and think up a plan. He left the table surrounded by the golden retriever, Dion Fortune, and others and was trying to pass the time when Blodeuwedd the Bouquet approached him.

Apparently she wasn’t much of a thinking type either.

“Neh heh☆”

Her face was awfully close.

He detected more than just a sweet feminine scent. Several floral scents were mixed together.

She had fully locked onto him.

“Help me, Alice!! Or Miss Succubus!!”

“Those are the last people you should go to for help. Unlike them, I’m a fairly reasonable Transcendent.”

What was Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s salvation condition again?

She saved the unloved.

So he was less than delighted to have her locked onto him. He sighed.

“Then why were you attacking Academy City so much? The city was made by Aleister who seems like exactly your type.”

“Ehh, you can’t be serious.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet seemed taken aback.

Like she had been recommended some bizarre food.

Her mouth formed a small triangle.

“He wasn’t hated or unloved. People called him the wickedest man in the world, a cannibal, and a demon lord, but the fact that he was ‘controversial’ means he did have his supporters and defenders. Yet he ignored all of those voices and chose to get all worked up on his own.”

Were those more like mechanical arms than clothing?

The blonde girl used the sleeves of her thick metal coat to mimic a shrug.

“Aleister Crowley was a human who looked past all the talking voices and focused only on the negative opinions. To the point that some people think he actually felt antipathy toward the people who believed and followed the theories he proposed. From outside, that might look cool, but the people who actually worked themselves to the bone sharing their love with him wouldn’t have seen it that way. The world wasn’t cold to him – he simply refused to touch the meal placed before him until it had gone cold and rotten. I’m not a fan of that kind of waste of emotion.”

“…”

“I want to distribute my unseen feelings to the starving people who can never seem to find any love no matter how badly they want it. To the people who need my feelings here and now. I want to provide the kind of warmth and strength that motivates them to get back up in their dark room and reach for the doorknob. I have nothing to give the fools who are so self-absorbed with their own appearance and pride that they let the feelings they are given rot. There are plenty of truly suffering people out there since the world is so starved for kindness.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet stopped speaking there.

She peered up at Kamijou’s face in amusement. Only then did Kamijou realize something.

Had he been hanging his head?

“Oh, you don’t like my answer?”

Kamijou Touma hadn’t been there.

He didn’t know the full story of Aleister’s life.

He had only wandered within the Windowless Building under Mina Mathers’s guidance and received tarot-recreated glimpses of Aleister’s battle with the Golden magicians.

But Aleister had learned his wife Rose was doomed

And he had been told in advance that his baby Lilith would surely die.

That human had trembled in rage when his ordinary happiness had crumbled around him. And knowing the Golden Cabal had been responsible, he had fought the Battle of Blythe Road, said to be the world’s largest magic battle. Kamijou didn’t think Aleister’s path could be simply classified as good or bad.

Kamijou had pushed him to the edge.

Maybe it was selfish of Aleister to force his expectations onto Kamijou.

But it was true Kamijou had failed to live up to them.

He had done what Anna Kingsford said and escaped hell alone. Could there have been another path if he argued back and insisted on thinking it through more carefully?

Why?

Why hadn’t he recklessly insisted that he would bring CRC and Kingsford back to life too and that they would all live happily together next time?

All of that was superfluous.

He knew that of course, but they had directly been dealing with human lives and souls. Wasn’t a crazy place like hell the perfect venue for shouting an unrealistic wish or two?

“If you acted different from normal…”

“?”

“Shouldn’t you suspect you were intentionally guided in that direction? Keep in mind that magic is a system that starts with the manipulation of your own mind in order to influence the outside world and other people. With ceremonies performed by multiple people, it isn’t unusual to sync your mind with the others.”

A journey through hell. Or a jailbreak.

You could say that had been a large-scale ceremony.

“So Aleister was wrong to resent you. You shouldn’t demand someone take responsibility for an unavoidable choice after they finally managed a miraculous resurrection.”

Kamijou couldn’t accept Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s words so easily.

While she was a Transcendent, she hadn’t actually seen that hell. If she could, then the more powerful Alice would have been able to intervene when he died. So Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s argument was no more than speculation.

Just then, a call came in from Accelerator.

“All the calculations are complete. …Once you’re ready, head to District 23.”

Kamijou frowned.

That didn’t sound right to him.

“District 23? I know that’s an adjacent district…but isn’t Coronzon in District 7?”

“You won’t be able to sneak right up to her on foot. You need a plan if you’re going to get close.”

Kamijou understood before even hearing the details.

He was certain he wasn’t going to like this plan.

“So what is your plan?”

“I’ll use all the missiles remaining in District 2. And I really mean using up the entire stockpile.”

“Hey, I seriously doubt ordinary weapons are going to work on Coronzon!”

“Of course they won’t. They’re only a diversion. You’ll be parachuting down through the bombardment to immediately arrive deep inside District 7.”

“Eh? Right in the middle of all those flying explosives?”

If even a single missile detonated nearby, they would die.

Um, didn’t those delicate devices react at some pretty weird times? Like the shoplifting prevention sensors at a store’s exit, or antivirus software? Even the precise location of a store on a map app tended to be off by just a little. Sure computer chips were supposed to be logical, but everyone had pressed the button on a half-broken game console or washing machine while praying that it would work one last time, right!?

…And Kamijou was certain that he would get the short straw on this one. He didn’t have any objective evidence, but never underestimate Academy City’s Mr. Misfortune! He still hadn’t played any games on his smartphone because he knew just how hopelessly bad his luck was!! Why even bother trying for a rare pull when you knew you would never get it, even if you paid!!?

“Coronzon will notice what we’re doing. No matter how hard we try to hide it,” said Accelerator. “So we’ll never get anywhere if you bank on that. But that just means we need to create a situation where she has to focus on something else even though she knows what we’re doing. …Remember, that Adikalika trump card of hers uses the city’s geographical conditions. So she won’t want any serious damage to the city’s landscape, will she?”

“Oh! You’re right…”

That hadn’t occurred to Kamijou.

Great Demon Coronzon was trying to destroy the entire world, but for now she wouldn’t want Academy City destroyed.

“Even if she is a villain, she won’t want missiles bombarding the city until she’s completed her plan, will she?”

“I doubt every last missile we have would kill Coronzon herself, but she’ll be forced to use that sturdy body of hers to destroy the missiles as her top priority. Isn’t that thoughtful of her? She’ll protect the city for us. An enemy’s strength can become a weakness if you change your viewpoint. Coronzon has no family and she’s not sentimental enough to grow attached to a house or other possessions. But we do know one thing she definitely won’t want destroyed, so we just have to focus our attack there.”

Adikalika was the ultimate trump card that could destroy the world if used in that way, so it had seemed like Coronzon was the one in control. And that wasn’t exactly wrong either.

But if Coronzon was too focused on staying in control, that fixation became a weakness because she didn’t want to lose it. It felt at odds with her ultimate goal, but maybe that was just how strategy worked. Once you gained something, there was a cost to defending it. In battle, there were no 100% pure benefits.

This was a ray of hope.

The time had come to reclaim control of the situation.

===Part 14===

Red snow fell in the night.

Great Demon Coronzon stood in a square space that was unusually empty for this urban part of District 7. The long, long blonde hair draped over her large, bat-like wings kept changing shape like it was creating string figures, but she was really only making minor adjustments at this point. She had been building a spell using all of the terrain and landmarks forming Academy City, but now even the final adjustments were nearly finished. She would soon be able to stop work and move on to the next phase.

Preparations for the Adikalika large-scale attack spell were already complete.

This would be the initial signal gun that would submerge the world in a sea of blood.

She didn’t even need to check the horoscope to know the necessary preparations were complete. She was not concerned that the forces of science or magic would take back control of the city, so now she only had to wait for the moment to arrive.

“Are you watching, Aleister?” she whispered.

She turned her gaze elsewhere, wrapped her arms around her own shoulders, and shook with suppressed laughter.

And Great Demon Coronzon spoke as if enjoying his final resistance.

“You will soon see the end of this world you still trusted no matter how much it hurt you.”

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume13 Chapter2

2025-08-18T15:10:49Z

Edzo: /* Chapter 2: Death and Slaughter – VS_NECROMANCER. */ fixed typo. "sill" to "still"

==Chapter 2: Death and Slaughter – VS_NECROMANCER.==

===Part 1===

The sun was setting on Academy City.

The red snow continued even as night fell.

“Nhh…”

Necromancer Isabella Theism raised her arms and stretched.

Even that dealer in death had visibly white breath in the darkness.

The building was cramped and Isabella knew she was ruining the mood, but she had no real obligation to get along with her colleagues. She hadn’t come to Japan to make friends.

They had taken over this city.

They had accomplished what the magic side as a whole would consider a great feat. This alone had to be causing a kerfuffle in the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches. If the power of science joined the conflict, it would greatly change the three-way stalemate between England, Rome, and Russia.

Offering Academy City to the queen would be enough for Isabella Theism’s name to go down in history.

(How history would describe me is an open question, though. That queen is an upright person who values peace and loathes fighting.)

But controlling the world meant nothing if that world was destroyed tomorrow.

She had to focus on Great Demon Coronzon for now.

“Which means I don’t have time to listen to complaints from ''outsiders''.”

She focused on her earphone and heard an annoyed voice.

“What is wrong with you? Wasn’t that a little quick to completely change your mind on me?”

“All I did was lay some groundwork I felt necessary for my mission. To me, this seems pretty peaceful compared to carpet bombing a jungle or some buildings the enemy might be using to hide.”

“Hold on. It was you Anglicans who said you wanted a united front.” The new board chairman’s voice dropped in tone. “That’s why I didn’t resist much when I discovered your further savagery. Setting aside whether it’s humane or not, I could have ''used magnetic resonance well beyond any safety standards to rattle people’s cranial nerves and turn them into living pawns'' all from a safe distance. I can still do that.”

“Well, that’s a new interpretation of the zombie. And I like that they’re zombies but you aren’t controlling the dead.” Isabella actually sounded amused. “Did we sign any documents? Did we stamp it with our seal? All you’re going off of is a baseless chat with our previous leader, who had no right to be leading in the first place. Now that I’ve taken the position, I’m not bound by any vague verbal promises or implicit understandings. I, Isabella Theism, will do everything necessary to stop the Adikalika large-scale attack spell that Great Demon Coronzon is preparing. …And I mean everything necessary as a necromancer, of course☆”

When the leader changed, so did the overall policy.

That unpleasant side of organizations was rearing its ugly head here.

After trusting and opening up to the previous leader, that leader was driven out by infighting and a completely different person was now in charge and saying the exact opposite. All the personal trust built up before had been shifted onto someone else entirely and all the risk was shoved back onto him for opening up. Even though this was no time to be getting sidetracked with that sort of nonsense.

“Don’t you get that this fun of yours is only going to lead to more meaningless death?”

“Meaningless? Of course not! …I won’t let a single death go to waste. I generally use imitations rather than consume actual dead bodies for my spells, but that doesn’t mean I lack the ability to do so. And creating lookalikes out of safe and reliable ingredient is a lot of work. If Academy City is going to let these real dead bodies go to waste, I will take full responsibility and put them to good use.”

She was smiling.

This was no lie or mockery – she really meant it.

With Isabella Theism, there was little meaning in debating whether she was a good or bad person. The meaning of justice changed depending on your viewpoint and her opinion was technically correct if ''all'' you wanted to do was keep the United Kingdom safe. Of course, that was setting aside the question of if the British people would permit ''a peace built on other’s deaths.''

To Isabella, lives were like a fuel that could be burned with the maximum efficiency. Using them up without any waste was a virtue. So to put it another way, inefficiently protecting others’ lives was not all that important.

Whether this was good or evil didn’t really matter here. That question could wait.

But Accelerator did have an answer for whether he liked it or not: he couldn’t have disliked it more.

“…You’re different.”

“From what?”

“''You’re nothing at all like the necromancer I know.''”

“I should have known the one sitting in the board chairman’s seat would have some delightful friends. But, you see, this field has branched into many different ideologies and factions.”

Yes. Her sensibilities were not off because she was a necromancer or because she was a magician who specialized in human death. This all came down to Isabella’s personal beliefs and tastes.

Her insistence on always doing what was correct rankled Accelerator, but she was the one who had ended up in a position to influence the fate of Academy City and the world as a whole. Was the world really in good hands? In a way, she was even more of a pain than Coronzon who opposed the world more directly.

“But the fact remains that no amount of complaining on your part is going to change anything. I mean, Academy City is a shambles, isn’t it? You can’t gather enough pieces to take on Coronzon. So despite your sensible complaints, you have no choice but to rely on the Anglican experts who have entered your city. And need I remind you that it is we Anglicans who overcame the threat of Coronzon in the past?”

“…”

“Yes, wouldn’t it be nice if Academy City still had a trump card up its sleeve?”

===Part 2===

In a District 7 hospital, a nurse who had gone out of her way to modify her official nurse uniform to give it a miniskirt stepped into the emergency room.

“Hey, doc☆ You have a message from Anti-Skill’s um…how do you read this name? It means yellow spring river, but they really should give you the reading too. Anyway, she’s one of those people who keep the city peaceful. Something about wanting an expert medical opinion.”

“If it will not save a life, I’m not interested.”

“I’m not sure in this case. Apparently there’s a few witness reports around the city saying a dead kid called Kamijou Touma is up and moving around.”

“…”

The frog-faced doctor sighed.

Now there was a name he hadn’t expected to hear again.

And…

“Are they sure he’s really dead?”

“They don’t know, which is why they wanted the advice of the doctor who declared him dead. They apparently can’t contact the crematorium either.”

That meant it was possible he wasn’t dead.

The frog-faced doctor had confirmed the boy’s death and even sewed up his mangled body. He had even observed the embalming in the morgue, but was it really possible to fake death in that state?

However.

If the boy was still alive, then, whatever his state might be, he would be one of the patients the frog-faced doctor had to save. He was probably caught up in some kind of trouble again, but that was no reason for the frog-faced doctor to give up on a patient. No matter what it was.

(And really, this sounds a lot more like the boy I know.)

“Transfer her to this monitor. The hospital is full of computers, so this monitor is as good as any.”

“On it.”

The nurse whose excessive display of sex appeal was constantly troubling the patients left the room.

The very next moment, something else happened.

Specifically, something moved atop a bloody stretcher in the emergency room. Perhaps because the poor female patient was unidentified (despite what looked like an ID card hanging from her neck), she had been sent away from District 10 and across the district line to reach this hospital. But by the time she had arrived, hadn’t she already been in cardiac arrest?

“What…?”

Immediately after the frog-faced doctor’s puzzled question, it happened.

It was like a mousetrap equipped with a powerful spring.

The young emergency patient had lost so much blood after biting her tongue that she hadn’t even been able to move her own heart, yet now she sat up. With enough force to tear out the cardiopulmonary bypass tubes attaching her to an external box.

“Bonjour!”

“…”

The frog-faced doctor looked like he wanted to say something, but it was the emergency patient who smiled and spoke to him.

“Ohh, I feel so dizzy. The blood isn’t reaching my brain. Maybe that’s why my self-diagnosis is stalled… A mystérieuse cardiac arrest patient who you couldn’t seem to identify must have been tough, huh? Well, your Jane Doe is in fact named Kihara Goukei, but you can call me Madame Gou. Oh, right. Do you know the nombre of the ambulance that brought me here? Those EMTs work so hard year round, so I feel bad troubling them with me. I need to send them some expensive mangoes later on.”

She was speaking a mile a minute.

Her tongue was operating quite smoothly for someone who had bitten it badly enough to kill her.

“Um, so, is the dead coming back to life the latest fad in this city or something?”

“Don’t ask me. But every part of my body is crammed full of that sort of technologie,” casually revealed Kihara Goukei.

This was the true face of Bio Secure.

“Nhh hee hee☆ When you belong to a team that deals with the city’s illegal undead, you gather a lot of specialized knowledge from across the city. And no one really tracks what happens to that bizarre technologie once it’s been confiscated, so no one ever notices if you modify some of it for your own use before consigning it to oblivion.”

“So you’re saying you have turned your own body into a collection of forbidden research you gathered around Academy City?”

“Because stealing other people’s recherche is so much faster than developing it yourself. That’s more the thought process of an industrielle spy than a researcher, though.”

Biting your tongue would kill you?

Then you just had to have two tongues.

…It was toying with death on that level that made her a Kihara.

“Do you not consider life to be valuable?”

“Life is precious, of course.”

The answer came immediately.

It sounded pure even.

But all that was distorted a second later.

“''Which is why'' it’s so much fun to toy with! A life is one-of-a-kind and not some replaceable scrap of paper, which is what makes it so exciting. Oui, oui. It all comes down to the knowledge that you are doing something truly irreversible!! Ah ha ha. Isn’t that the very definition of a desecration!?”

This was the difference between normal people and the Kihara family.

It wasn’t that they didn’t understand the value or share that value. They understood it perfectly, but their goal in handling something precious was entirely different. They were a wholly incomprehensible bunch.

Kihara Goukei continued, looking carefree.

“Now, a perfectly healthy person hogging your emergency room would only trouble the next patient, so I will take my leave here. Oh, which way to the payment desk? This looks like a big hôpital, so is it busy on weekdays? I’m in a hurry, so it would help immensely if you could just automatically charge it to my carte.”

“I get the feeling letting you go will bring trouble to many more people.”

“But you can’t stop me. Not as a docteur, anyway.”

She made it sound so obvious.

There were specialized tools in here, like scalpels used to cut skin and bone saws. Even opening the anesthesia valve might be able to neutralize this dangerous person.

But…

“You are a skilled doctor. Skilled enough to make a Kihara like me jealous. But your skills can only be used to save people. You might technically possess the skills, but you cannot cut into people or sew them up for any other raison. That is just how doctors work.”

“…”

“Oh, don’t worry. I too am working to protect Academy City’s peace. So don’t give me that grim look. I will do my job.”

“Even thought you’re a Kihara?”

“Oui. I will do it ''as'' a Kihara.”

===Part 3===

The District 2 gunpowder testing lab was in fact an unmanned weapon data center.

It was a large place.

And its security was in fact ''too advanced'' to be fully utilized by the nuns and magicians with a poor grasp of scientific technology.

There were plenty of blind spots.

Lucia had dragged Agnese and Angelene to the heat control room.

Simply put, the room was lined with valves and tanks of the chemical coolant used to cool the large computers.

“What did you want to discuss?”

“Whether or not we’re going to continue obeying Isabella.”

Sister Lucia was fastidious.

She may not have liked Isabella’s methods, such as attacking her own people when they got in her way and accepting the impure along with the pure – and she in fact seemed much more at home with the impure.

“Eh? Eh? But the Anglican Church took us in when we fled the Catholics.”

Stooped Angelene hurriedly observed both Agnese and Lucia’s faces.

That was the first and most important point.

The 250 members of the Former Agnese Forces would gain nothing by clashing with the Anglicans.

In fact, they might end up with their lives at risk.

But Lucia crossed her arms and continued.

“I feel like the fair deal we were given is being violated.”

“Well…we are basically freeloaders with them. This isn’t the first time we’ve been given odd jobs that are definitely not worth the effort. And any accomplishments we do make go to whoever our leader is on paper.”

Agnese shrugged, but Lucia did not stop.

“She knocked out Stiyl and I don’t like the true identity she was hiding. Can we really leave the fate of the Italian Peninsula in her hands? Doesn’t this situation worry you two?”

“If Adikalika is activated, the world will be headed toward its doom. England has no reason to hold back.”

“So you think they’ll treat everyone equally? Really? Destroying the Vatican will not immediately doom London.”

The atmosphere froze.

That statement made them focus on the cracks.

And Sister Lucia wasn’t wrong.

Even if the world was set to be destroyed today or tomorrow, was England really doing everything they could? For example, Queen Elizard wasn’t here. Nor were Princesses Riméa, Carissa, and Villian. It was true it would be unusual for the royal family to be sent to the front line, but why was everything still operating “business as usual” with all this going on?

Even if the Catholics wanted them dead, Agnese and the others couldn’t abandon them to die.

They were only with England because it best served their purposes. Which was why Agnese had just said they were basically freeloaders.

Angelene stammered, “C-come to think of it, I haven’t seen any sign of the war-loving Knights around. The Anglicans are the only one of the three factions here. Before I thought that was lucky since it would avoid infighting, but now…”

It was easy to suspect England wasn’t taking this as seriously as they might.

Even though the clock striking midnight could signal the Italian Peninsula becoming a sea of blood, flesh, and bone.

The discussion had fast reached a point where it would look badly on them to be overheard by any of the true Anglicans.

But they couldn’t help but get worked up among themselves.

Agnese asked a careful question.

“Are you questioning where they’ve set up their defensive line?”

“We’re convenient workers, if not outright sacrificial pawns for them. I expected them to ask us to risk our lives and fight here. Kanzaki might not because she’s too nice, but why isn’t Isabella Theism demanding it of us?”

Could England be taking an optimistic view?

Did they only see this as an occurrence in Academy City of distant Asia, on the other side of the world?

Even if they screwed up and the Italian Peninsula were submerged in a sea of blood, flesh, and bone, did they think they had another chance? Maybe it was only subconscious, but did they still think there was a buffer zone left?

Lucia had a point.

Especially from the perspective of the Former Agnese Forces who wanted to protect the Italian Peninsula at all costs.

But at the same time, Agnese had felt a chill on her spine for a while. A very distinct chill.

The mention of Great Demon Coronzon may have reminded her.

(This happened last time in London, didn’t it?)

So she was cautious.

She had to treat this like defusing a bomb.

Coronzon was an expert at tearing apart the bonds between people.

So it was possible this conflict had been planned and this suspicion between allies would all serve to benefit the great demon.

(Could this be the same war mood – that same scent in the air – that sent Sister Orsola down the path of self-destruction?)

“Even so, you aren’t suggesting a coup here, are you? The Anglicans have over 10 thousand people in Academy City, so there isn’t anything our 250 can do. And they even have that extraordinary Saint. Not to mention that infighting while Adikalika is being prepared will only delight Coronzon.”

“I know that,” immediately replied Lucia. She apparently had a different idea. “Which is why I’m saying we can’t afford to leave this in the wrong hands. At the very least, Isabella can’t be the one to carry the fate of the Italian Peninsula on her shoulders.”

“Then Kanzaki? She is a dazzlingly good person, but she has the Amakusas to protect. Will she really make any bold moves to help us?”

“No.”

The fastidious nun sharply rejected that idea.

“There is someone else in this building, isn’t there? We need to be using everything available to us, but one person is going to waste.”

The three of them exchanged a glance.

Come to think of it…

“If ''she'' is at the center of it, then everyone here will do their job regardless of their position in the magic side power map. Even if it means forcing forward the defensive line that they’ve pulled back. Don’t you think so?”

===Part 4===

In the District 12 consulate, Kamijou Touma and the others were discussing something. Probably a plan to use against Coronzon.

Feeling left out, Hamazura Shiage’s face clouded over.

“Y’know…I just can’t believe Coronzon is trying to destroy the world again.”

“Think of it like her instincts as a great demon,” casually replied Dion Fortune. “You can’t expect to fix this with a conversation. She isn’t one to be stopped with the straightforward methods Kamijou Touma prefers.”

…Was that really true?

Hamazura thought back to the frozen ocean in the UK. When they last spoke in the cruise ship, she hadn’t seemed like an incarnation of evil to him.

333, dispersion. She was the one who tears apart people’s bonds and obstructs their evolution.

That much was true.

But on the other hand…

“Coronzon helped save you back then. She complained a bunch, but she didn’t take the option from me.”

“But would the world at large consider that an act of good? You’re forgetting that I was a pawn she created to grind the UK’s functioning to a halt. She was saving one of her own attackers.”

He hadn’t thought of it that way before.

Hamazura worked to suppress his reflexive response and made sure to actually think before speaking again.

“Are you saying she only showed interest in it because it was an act of evil?”

“Who knows. Even the magicians who have specialized in studying Coronzon are split on the subject. Master Mathers insisted she is an absolute evil while Crowley argued she is one side of a relative evil. Even those at the top of the magic side weren’t certain of her true nature, so that isn’t something you need to worry yourself over.”

No one knew.

It wasn’t clear.

And yet the world had decided they ''might as well'' call her evil?

===Part 5===

Dion Fortune wasn’t the only one hurriedly investigating Adikalika.

This affected everyone in the world.

And Crowley’s home of the United Kingdom had tons of documents related to his Magick. Since it was based on the same source, Isabella could make some predictions and estimations of what Great Demon Coronzon’s version would look like.

With a general knowledge of the destruction specs, one question remained on Isabella Theism’s mind.

(Why Rome instead of the UK?)

Of course, she could guess that Adikalika’s power would be difficult to use effectively against the UK due to their research into anti-Crowley techniques. And if Adikalika blew away an entire region, it would trigger global chaos and war just as well whether the target was the Anglicans or the Catholics.

But was that really enough for that great demon to give up?

Her grudge was clearly centered on the UK. That had to be the place she most wanted to destroy. And once she decided to destroy it, wouldn’t she make sure it happened no matter the cost or how extensive the preparations?

“This isn’t a plan B. Coronzon didn’t shift to her second best candidate as a compromise.”

But if that was true, it formed a natural question within Isabella.

“She’s intentionally targeting the Roman Catholic headquarters at the core of the Italian Peninsula. …''Is there something there''?”

And so.

In Academy City’s District 7.

Isabella Theism decided to find an observation point for Coronzon. She had plenty of sacrificial pawns she could have used, but was that really a good idea? They wouldn’t flat out refuse her orders, but even if they made a show of obedience, they might hide useful information. So she decided it was better to do the investigation herself.

What did Coronzon want to destroy in her attack on the Italian Peninsula?

Revealing the structure of the over-the-top Adikalika spell might just provide a hint there.

“Hm.”

Great Demon Coronzon was in this same district.

Isabella Theism had come here hoping to find something there, but…

“There definitely is something.”

Something was rustling along.

It looked like a giant crab, but that was no crab. The monster was around 2m tall and it was hideous. Instead of a poisonous creature, this thing inspired the sense of disgust felt when peering into the kitchen garbage bucket in a stranger’s house. The mass of gold giving off a twisted glow was in fact formed by balling up something like long blonde hair.

“?”

(Long blonde hair. So did this come from Coronzon? If this is her sending out pawns to stop people instead of just showing off, she must be a lot more concerned than she lets on.)

Apparently there was no need for the things to be crabs.

She also saw a great serpent slithering along the red snow, a thin-winged bat, a fat fly, an eight-legged octopus, an earth-devouring snail, and a scorpion that moved different again from the crab. They were all, of course, made from blonde hair.

(That rules out the idea of them being the horoscope symbols.)

They might simply be based on different demons, but she wasn’t certain of that either. Unlike the horoscopes, she wasn’t familiar with any crab demons.

Isabella Theism was a necromancer who specialized in death.

As she stood still and gave off a death scent to play dead, a blonde hair monster passed right by in front of her. They didn’t seem too intelligent. Maybe they couldn’t ad lib, or maybe they couldn’t recognize people if they didn’t fit certain predetermined search conditions.

The same thing repeated a few times.

The monsters were wandering around with a decent density. Specifically, she could see two or three of them from a major intersection. The distribution seemed to differ depending on location, so traveling toward the denser areas might show her where Coronzon was located. However, playing dead took a fair amount of effort, so she decided to end her recon mission here. She also doubted holding her breath would be enough to approach Coronzon close enough for a surprise attack.

(And I doubt these are the only pawns Coronzon has. After slipping past the grunts, I would probably find a mid-boss waiting for me.)

Isabella’s death camouflage was somewhat effective.

The gold monsters failed to notice her even when passing by right in front of her.

But what would happen if they did notice her?

The answer seemed obvious enough looking at the crab legs and pincers of the one that had gone clacking by earlier.

“A single step outside in District 7 would probably be deadly.”

On the other hand, there was no powerful blood scent hanging over the city.

The pawns were not going around actively breaking into homes and killing people.

If you didn’t leave the buildings, no harm would come to you.

So these pawns were meant to ensure no one interrupted Great Demon Coronzon’s Adikalika preparations. By giving them specialized abilities and a simple movement pattern, she was avoiding the mistake of delaying her plan by giving too many resources to the grunts.

…Of course, a failure to notice the regularity of their movements could lead people to behave like they were asking to be killed.

“Wahh!!”

Isabella heard a scream.

From a small boy of maybe 8 or 10. After seeing a monster out the window, had he decided his room was too dangerous and fled outside instead of locking up and sitting tight? Isabella glanced over but immediately gave up on him.

He was a little too far.

She couldn’t reach him.

And there was no harm in ignoring him.

Isabella’s only goals were preventing Adikalika’s activation and eliminating Great Demon Coronzon. She hadn’t exactly been asked to tally up and report on how many died in the process. Dion Fortune was it? Even if that archbishop added that condition now, she was only a false leader given the position to fill the empty seat in the interim. The older members had no obligation to obey her.

The sounds of splitting flesh and spraying blood rang loud.

Isabella’s expression barely changed.

Someone had protected the boy by placing herself over him. The woman wore a distinctive mask and was dressed a lot like a dentist. The golden pincers and legs had stabbed right into her back.

Red scattered from her.

Anyone could tell she had lost a lethal amount of blood, yet…

“Mon dieu.”

She sounded carefree.

No, she seemed irritated.

“Whoever designed this things needs to observe crabes better. And learn more about romance. A crabe’s pincers don’t stab or slash like a knife – they crush and cut like a chain tool!!”

After a dull scraping sound, the two meter pawn was split in two. Right down the middle. The crab lost control and split apart. Into countless threads – no, hairs.

How had she done that?

Only now was Isabella’s curiosity piqued. Even if this was only a scout or patrolwoman, did Academy City really still have someone capable of slaying one of Coronzon’s pawns?

The boy and the woman appeared to be conversing.

“U-um.”

“What is it?”

“Thank…you?”

The woman in question was soaked with blood.

No matter how invincible that last move had made her look, her back had still been stabbed repeatedly.

“Eek!?”

“My, my. Don’t worry. I am not ''designed'' to let a little thing like this kill me. …Also, I am Kihara Goukei, but you can call me Madame Gou.”

“Madame…ahh, y-you’re so hurt…and it’s…it’s my fault…”

“Forget about that.”

She used those words to set aside the blood still gushing from her.

The bloody woman acted like her next question was what really mattered.

“What is, um…yes, what is your name?”

“Urekawa. Urekawa Ousuke.”

“Urekawa-kun then? Cough, this is all necessary if you’re going to survive…so take a close look so you won’t forget it.”

Seated on the ground, Kihara Goukei pointed elsewhere.

“What…?”

“Do you see the bus there?”

It wasn’t far away. It was doubtful if the middle-aged man floundering in the driver’s seat actually had a large vehicle license, but that wouldn’t matter as long as he could get the bus moving.

“It will be leaving soon, so you need to get aboard before it does. And then the wonderful grownups aboard will make sure you can escape…so hurry.”

“But…what about you? We need to stop your bleeding!!”

“''Don’t worry about that.''”

The intensity behind those words made the Urekawa boy’s little shoulders jump.

Only a second-rate would flash their weapon to gain the obedience of those unable to fight. A true professional could easily grasp someone’s heart just by changing the mood.

The boy took a few steps back.

Kihara Goukei smiled a little as she watched that small back running elsewhere.

More of those weird golden things were wandering the area, but they did not attack anyone beyond a wall or door. So whether the bus was moving or not, the boy would be safe once inside it.

So she must have concluded the boy would be fine.

With that settled, Kihara Goukei turned toward the real threat.

In other words, toward Isabella Theism.

“Now, then.”

After an unpleasant tightening sound, Kihara Goukei’s bleeding stopped.

She didn’t have any bandages, not even a tiny adhesive one, but she had done this on her own.

“Independent stanching. It’s not all that unusual a trick. It’s a standard function for animals that sever a body part to escape predators in an act known as autotomy. Think a lézard’s tail or a crabe’s legs.”

“If you can stop your bleeding at will, why didn’t you fall over and play dead? This way you might as well be asking for someone to finish the job.”

“And then who would protect that boy? From those monstres and from you who had no issue abandoning him to mort.”

Isabella Theism heard a quiet psht of something in the air.

“?”

Something stabbed into her right thigh.

She felt no pain.

It was the dart from a tranquilizer gun.

“Okay, now raise your hand if it hurts.”

With continuous metallic grinding and scraping sounds, something like a scroll was unfurled. A belt as wide as a college notebook was spread out around Kihara Goukei like a hagoromo. It was lined with torture devices.

“Not that I’ll stop if it does☆”

The cruel dentist grinned behind her mask.

And the clash began.

[[File:GT Index v13 BW4.png|thumb]]

===Part 6===

“Brr…”

Index had little knowledge of the science side, so she didn’t know where she was locked up. It was a space a lot like a large, large indoor pool. Her arms and legs hadn’t been bound, but escaping the boxy room would still be a challenge.

Meanwhile, Othinus was looking all around from her shoulder.

“They said this was an unmanned weapon data center…but is this a spare room? They’ll need more vending-machine-sized servers when they inevitably need more processing power, so they must have secured the space for them ahead of time.”

“What’s your point?”

“It’s a big room with secure locks, but it’s been left empty since they have no use for it yet.”

Yes, that did sound like a convenient place to lock someone up.

“Hey, are you alright?” asked Othinus.

“I’m hungry, but the cold isn’t too bad.”

“Not what I meant. You can’t forget what happened back there, right?”

Was Othinus referring to the necromancer’s imitation dead bodies, or the fact that Index had been betrayed by her fellow Anglicans?

Index smiled a little with the cat in her arms.

“I’m fine.”

“…”

“This is nothing compared to Touma being declared dead and having everything taken from him. I can handle this much pain, but it’s different for Touma. He shouldn’t have to put up with that at all.”

“Yeah,” said Othinus.

Kamijou Touma was alive, but there were those who couldn’t accept that. The 15cm god recalled that empty dorm room. Kamijou Touma’s death itself may have happened by chance, but someone somewhere benefited from keeping him in that “dead” state.

Were they on the science side or the magic side?

Either way…

“Robbing a god of her temple and throne is an unforgivable sin. Whoever is responsible, they must be made to pay for violating the sanctity of my holy ground.”

Just then, they heard footsteps.

The footsteps stopped at the door and were followed by the clicking of the lock being operated.

Someone was here.

“Keep quiet.”

The door slowly opened and Kanzaki Kaori entered with a finger up to her lips.

She carried a ring of keys.

“The door has two locks. The idea was for the Amakusas and the Former Agnese Forces to each have a key to prevent betrayal, but as you can see, I am one of the fewer than 20 Saints. They can’t stop me when I put my mind to it.”

“You’re actually…freeing us?”

Index’s question brought sadness to Kanzaki’s eyes.

As If she hadn’t expected this doubt.

“If I didn’t do it, Stiyl would have tried it even if it killed him. I’ve let him be the villain too often already.”

“?”

Index looked confused. She didn’t understand why Kanzaki would bring up that priest.

The absolute confidence she had in her perfect memory only made the missing memories all the more cruel.

She didn’t even question those memories that had been intentionally erased.

(And it turned out Lola Stuart was Great Demon Coronzon. I would love to give her a taste of my full strength as a Saint to pay her back for what she did to us.)

But that likely wasn’t her role.

Kanzaki was aware of that.

She adored Index more than she could say, but she had no intention of destroying the girl’s current world.

“Listen. Isabella is off doing who knows what, so this is my chance to let you go. The knowledge of your 103,001 grimoires should be used to protect people. So it would be best if you went to Kamijou Touma now.”

“But wait.”

Othinus interjected after listening from the nun’s shoulder.

She appreciated this…but it went beyond what could be decided on an emotional impulse.

“The Anglican Church is an organization, right? And a global one at that. Even if you can’t stand Isabella on a personal level, disobeying her orders will only hurt you and your companions.”

“Be that as it may, this is something I must do. Plus, I know those companions. None of them would want me to save them at the cost of your freedom. And I don’t just mean the Amakusas. The Former Agnese Forces were clearly holding back when they fought me.”

That was the end of it.

She stood firm.

The 15cm god clicked her tongue and looked away.

…How could she reject this kindness when Kanzaki looked at her that way?

“It would be a challenge for us to directly cooperate with Kamijou Touma. We have too many other obligations. But you two…”

“We’ll do it.”

Index didn’t even let Kanzaki finish.

The powerful look in her eyes stared directly into Kanzaki’s eyes.

“Because I know it’s what I should do. Helping out Touma is always the best option.”

“This way.”

Kanzaki Kaori would never stand by Index’s side again.

Other people stood there now.

But she did not consider shoving those people aside to reclaim that spot.

Index’s trust had been reset along with her memories.

So the only option was to build them both back anew. Even if it resulted in a different relationship than before.

“I can show you to the building exit, but that is all ''we'' can do. You must find a way to locate Kamijou Touma and join him. Grimoire Library Index, I leave the righteousness and pride of the Anglican Church in your hands.”

===Part 7===

A creepy rustling sound filled the street.

Golden crabs and octopuses automatically tracked Kihara Goukei’s movements and rushed toward her, but each of them was sliced through and broke apart in turn.

In the night, a bone saw and forceps sharply reflected what little light remained from the streetlights.

Kihara Goukei had hoped to end Isabella’s life before her forcibly boosted muscular strength destroyed her joints and cartilage, but Isabella was a lot nimbler than she had expected.

Specifically, Kihara Goukei’s current state gave her enough speed to easily dodge out of the way of a bullet flying straight toward her, but…

(Hm? Ordinary réflexes shouldn’t be able to respond to this.)

That meant her enemy was being boosted somehow.

Come to think of it, there was something odd about the brown woman’s rags. Given the way it fluttered in a way that ignored the wind currents, it appeared to play a muscle-like role similar to externally-attached springs.

“She also seems immune to anesthésiques. What kind of crazy body does she have?”

“You need to ask that of a necromancer?”

Something whooshed by over Kihara Goukei’s head.

It was a filthy rag so stained yellow and brown that its original color was impossible to determine.

It spiraled around high in the air and then stretched out as it fell straight down from heaven to earth. Almost like a guillotine or something.

“What are you, Ittan-Momen 2.0?”

Kihara Goukei considered how to dodge this, tilted her head, and settled on simply jumping back a step.

She heard something slice through the air.

Followed by a heavy crash.

The asphalt was easily smashed and even the dark soil below was thrown into the air. It went without saying what would happen if that hit a human.

Western European necromancy was not about controlling a rotting corpse to sic it on your enemy and it didn’t harness the grudges of the dead to kill people. It’s true identity and essence was the summoning of dead souls using the clothing and other possessions dug up from graves and the revealing of secrets about the world and about individuals using divination (mancy) of the dead (necro). …Simply put, it had been a secret fad among the bored upper classes because there was very little risk in trying it out (because opening a coffin was not a crime if it belonged to a family member).

This meant controlling the clothing of the dead was their specialty.

Of course, this didn’t apply to necromancers from other regions and cultures.

“That isn’t just a piece of cloth. Is it hardened with glue or something?”

“A human body is nothing. With a bit cleverness and creativity, I can slice through a tree branch with this.”

The deadly guillotine dropped from up high a second and third time, but Kihara Goukei intercepted it and knocked it to the ground with her giant forceps, bone saw, and other torture tools.

“Release ocular muscles – boost kinetic vision 500%.”

(Based on the impacts reaching my wrists, its weight is several times that of the heaviest bowling balls. I see. So the problem is the height from which it drops.)

“Ugh, I’m feeling dizzy. Urp. Oh, right. I should have boosted my stomach first…”

“Vomit inside your mask if you like. I will kill you while you do, though.”

The number of rags flying overhead suddenly exceeded the number fingers on both hands.

And they weren’t all guillotines. The one that looked like a large rake may have been a Cat’s Paw that was used to tear at the surface of someone’s body. The one a lot like a crane game with pointy tips was probably a Spanish Spider that was stabbed into someone’s back so they could be suspended from the ceiling and have their flesh torn by their own weight.

Their forms had a historical flavor to them rather than focusing on efficiency.

Was that just the necromancer’s poor taste?

Kihara Goukei muttered under her breath.

(Of course, it says something about me that I can recognize them all on sight.)

Isabella grinned thinly.

“You have some skill – or more likely are using some kind of trick – but there is only so much you can handle with just the two arms. I don’t need anything special. I can simply overwhelm you with numbers!!”

“Yes, excellent logique.”

With the sound of tearing clothing, Kihara Goukei’s number of arms suddenly grew to six.

The opposite could happen too. A pure pursuit of function could take on an appearance straight out of myth.

“Adding on more arms isn’t that hard. It’s adjusting the position of the shoulder joints that takes some doing.”

They clashed regardless.

The arms spread out like wings were completely expendable. The very first strike tore away one of Kihara Goukei’s arms along with the torture device it held. The second strike meant the sacrifice of another arm. They were more broken off than severed. Had it worked against the brown woman that she was using a mixture of different weapons? Kihara Goukei didn’t particularly care as long as the guillotine didn’t slice through her face or torso along with an arm. And the third strike was blocked with a grinding noise.

It had hit something hard.

The flat, rectangular object at her palm was a giant shield. Except it was made of something more biological than steel or plastic.

“Hwa ha ha ha! Countermeasure complete! My monster of the week name is Crab Shell Man!!”

“?”

In the brief moment Isabella’s movement was stopped, Kihara Goukei sent in a sharp right hook. And that arm had already become a human-sized crab pincer, so a direct hit would crush and sever her neck like a chain tool.

''Splat!!

The bloody sound came from the center of Kihara Goukei’s chest.

Several objects like white guitar picks had pierced through from her back.

An unharmed Isabella smiled bewitchingly.

Kihara Goukei’s eyes widened.

“…Eh?”

“Did you already forget what I called myself? I do believe I introduced myself as a necromancer.”

What was the weapon?

What had stabbed through Kihara Goukei’s back and burst out from the center of her chest?

…It was her own broken and severed arm. Or really, the crushed bone in the mutilated cross section?

“And no one ever said I could ''only'' do the Western European version☆”

“…”

“I didn’t expect you to scatter your own dead flesh around. Thanks for the assist. You might as well have been asking me to use it.”

“Gh…ph.”

Kihara Goukei tried to speak, but only fresh blood filled her mask. A large hunk of blood.

She had been stabbed in a very bad location.

“You can use your tricks and cheat death as many times as you like.”

Necromancer Isabella Theism grinned and sprinkled something from her fingers.

It wasn’t visible, but it smelled like blood. Like spotting a crushed frog on the roadside on a rainy day.

“''But all flesh that has died once is my domain.'' Now that you’ve died, you have lost the right to your own body.”

A moment later, all the blood, flesh, and bone separated as it rushed toward its original owner from all directions.

===Part 8===

While Kamijou’s group continued their discussion, the consulate’s doorbell rang again.

Last time, he had gotten all worked up only for it to be Dion Fortune’s group. Thanks to that experience, he was a lot more relaxed this time.

“Who could it be this time?”

“Now that our guard is down, what if it’s Coronzon paying us a late-night visit?”

He really wished the Bologna Succubus hadn’t said that.

The two of them walked to the front entrance…and they could see the answer. Before even opening the door, the nearby crack in the wall provided a view of the visitor.

But he opened the door anyway.

“Who are you?”

“I am Qliphah Puzzle 545, here as a messenger for Board Chairman Accelerator. Um, I thought for sure we had met before.”

The girl had something like a squid tentacle swaying side to side from the back of her hips. And did those English newspaper things even count as clothing?

Whatever the case, she wasn’t an ordinary human.

The Magic Gods, the Transcendents, an artificial demon…and Dion Fortune was a tarot deck and original grimoire, wasn’t she? There was definitely something wrong with Coronzon to be able to stand up to such a wide variety of people all on her own.

“Does it mean what I think it does that he had to send a messenger?”

“Um, yes. It does.”

Accelerator hadn’t come himself because staying in that prison was his way of atoning for his crimes.

But this was more than that.

“Isabella…what was her name? Anyway, the magician effectively commanding the Anglicans at the moment. Is avoiding her complaints really that difficult?”

“It iiiiis. For one thing, my master has only just started learning about magic, so his knowledge is limited. And because he really doesn’t understand it, he can’t figure out how to avoid the attacks being made through the channels that have long lay buried within Academy City.”

Isabella likely had her own methods. Kamijou understood that. But apparently she really would use any means necessary even if her overall goal was to defeat Coronzon and protect the world.

Kamijou invited the artificial demon inside and spoke in a weary tone.

“The city doesn’t need a defense against the Anglicans now too, does it? We already have our hands full with Coronzon, so fighting on two fronts would be such a pain.”

“I get the feeling all of this could change depending on what happens.”

===Part 9===

It was over.

Isabella Theism breathed out through her nose.

Apparently this was all a science side expert in death and the desecration life could manage.

A scratchy sound came from her ear.

That reminded her she was still wearing a wireless earphone. If that had been the science side’s final trump card, then she could only give her condolences. They just hadn’t been up to the task. And that strength, as minuscule as it had been, should have been directed toward Coronzon.

(Then again, I get the feeling she was acting on her own discretion. Magic side or science side, this seems to be the fate of all organizations. The bigger they get, the harder it is to keep track of the extremities.)

“Surely you aren’t going to demand monetary compensation for this damage when the world is on the verge of ending. Or did that finally break your spirit and you’ll announce your surrender?”

“My, how hotblooded of you. But aren’t you fighting the wrong person? Necromancer, you are one of the foolish obstacles to natural decomposition that human knowledge has brought.”

This was not the new board chairman.

Isabella grimaced and lowered her voice.

“Great Demon Coronzon.”

“Don’t act so surprised. You have realized I am taking over the city using something other than science, haven’t you? Then obviously I can take control of the city’s communication infrastructure. Using a method that doesn’t require electricity or electromagnetic signals.”

Apparently Aleister had set up every last part of the city that way. If only he were still alive so she could give him a witch trial and burn him at the stake.

“But the very fact you’re doing that means you’ve already glimpsed your own Achilles heel, doesn’t it?” said Isabella. “If you do launch your Adikalika spell at the Italian Peninsula from here, it will mean the beginning of a global war…but it also ties you to this city. And in the struggle for Academy City’s infrastructure, we have already taken back around half.”

“But you Anglicans don’t rule the world.” There was mockery in Coronzon’s voice. “While Adikalika is directly targeting the Roman Catholics, you’re really only saving them as a means to save yourselves, so I wonder just how much trust they really have in you. Oh, and come to think of it, aren’t there some of them within your own ranks? Yes, that foreign unit of Roman Catholics.”

Dispersion.

She easily separated people from each other.

Even if their goals were the same and they were all working to bring peace to the world.

“And then there’s the Russian Orthodox Church. Heh heh. Have you noticed how much they despise having something inhuman occupying a seat with influence over the fate of the world?”

“…”

“The Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches will do anything to break free of the current situation. Isn’t that right? And Adikalika is reliant on the geographic features of Academy City. So if someone were to ''wipe Academy City from the map'', they could prevent the world-destroying Adikalika from being activated. Simple, isn’t it?”

Only if you didn’t care about the 2.3 million innocent people living there.

And they likely wouldn’t even provide enough advance warning for the Anglicans there to evacuate.

“I am the world’s gear in charge of dispersion, so I will bring natural decomposition to all things. I will bring opposing factions A and B together so they can be discarded like matching cards in old maid. The three main Christian factions are a pain since they are of an odd number, but I can trigger total mutual destruction by adding in Academy City.”

“I would call that interesting, but I’m not one to trust demons. You could be making it all up to make me rush my next move, so I’ll take it with a grain of salt.”

“Oh, really? Believe it or not, I am one to honestly pass on the truly nasty and devastating truths. Like this for example.”

“?”

“Necromancers are not the only fools born of human knowledge who obstruct natural decomposition. It would seem you are not out of the woods yet.”

===Part 10===

Kihara Goukei was lying nearby.

The density of the red snow was growing. It had already begun to accumulate atop her, but she showed no reaction even as it covered her mask like a frozen mass.

Anyone could tell she was approaching death.

And there was one person who could not accept that fact.

“No!!”

In the bus.

The size of the vehicle limited what streets it could use. After turning around, it had needed to drive back this way in order to escape further away.

So he had seen it.

Urekawa Ousuke, the boy rescued by a certain monster, had seen the result of the battle.

If the snow were falling just a bit harder, it would have covered her too much for him to see.

The grownups’ calls for him to stop were drowned out.

Of all things, he opened the window and jumped out.

If he had stayed put and let the bus take him away, he would have escaped to safety. And there was nothing he could accomplish by choosing to remain here even if it meant injuring himself.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t abandon her. Not after she saved him. That grownup had risked her life and bloodied herself protecting him.

“No, wait.”

The boy did not stand back up.

He may not have been able to right away. Even with thick snow to cushion his fall, he had jumped from a moving vehicle.

“Please.”

But there was something requiring his attention more than his body’s pain.

He raised just his head, the rest of him still sprawled out on the cold ground stained by red snow.

And he shouted from his little mouth.

“''Wake up, Madame Gou''!!!”

===Part 11===

Internal Mechanisms: All 185,814 sections responding.

Bio Limiters: Depth 5 release

Lifespan Effect Calculations: Bypassed

Body Local Network General Host Name “Kihara Goukei” has entered final operating mode.

Forcing reboot.

3, 2, 1.

===Part 12===

''Badump!!

That distorted pulse was audible to Isabella Theism even at a short distance.

She shifted her focus from her earphone to the outside world.

Something was happening that required her attention.

This was clearly out of the ordinary.

Kihara Goukei sat up like a mousetrap after luring its prey in with a hunk of cheese.

“Whew. Ha ha ha. Mon dieu. I’m not about to complain if I die. I’ve lived the kind of life that will bring mort to me first and foremost once something goes wrong.”

Her entire body was slick with blood.

Nothing about her situation had improved.

But that other monster spoke with a hand on the side of her wobbling head to hold it in place.

“But now that he’s called that name…''I can’t afford to lose.''”

“Wha-”

Isabella’s question was cut off by an unpleasant cracking sound.

Kihara Goukei’s fist had broken.

Due to the speed and weight with which it slammed into the center of Isabella Theism’s chest.

That unpleasant sound had come from the breaking of Isabella’s ribs and sternum.

(When did she stand up…when did she throw that punch!?)

Isabella held a hand to her mouth but that couldn’t stop her from coughing up blood as she jumped back.

Kihara Goukei smiled as she forcibly mended her broken fist, causing grinding and cracking sounds within the hand.

Her mask was covered in blood. From within.

But still she smiled.

“I really have removed ''my final limiteur''. A child is watching and he trusts in me. So now Madame Gou…absolutely can’t afford to lose.”

“Who…are you?”

She was one who toyed with human life.

She was a hopelessly mad scientist.

She wasn’t about to deny those sides of herself.

''But…

“You can’t get away with everything using the ‘I’m a Kihara’ excuse, you know? I never did like that excuse. So I started wondering if there was some way to live my life so I didn’t have to make excuses and before long it was all I could think about.”

Isabella stopped briefly.

Looking like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“I’ve heard that one a million times. Is that why you decided to be someone who protects small children?”

“Ah ha ha. Oh, if only I could contribute to société in the usual ways. But I’m so afraid of it backfiring that I avoid using my Kihara side to get too involved with individuals.”

“Then why?”

“Because he called for Madame Gou, not a Kihara. ''Everyone always assumes it’s some bad joke,'' but I finally found someone who will trust in that name. What could be more miraculous than that? Scientists are all the kind of jerk who has to question anything and everything, but we’re also capable of accepting the things we see for ourselves. So after seeing this for myself – dammit – I can’t deny it. I’m willing to completely change the way I live my life for this.”

To put it another way, Kihara Goukei was willing to risk her life for this small thing.

That was also why she dressed as a dentist.

A dentist loved children’s smiles more than anyone and mastered the techniques needed to heal them and save them from pain, but they were also feared by those same children. And she had wanted to be someone who could be proud of that.

Just look back at what she had done.

When the presumed “moving corpse” named Kamijou Touma had appeared, when she quarantined the people in the crematorium who could possibly be infected or contaminated, when she protected an innocent child at the cost of so much blood, and when she confronted Isabella Theism. Kihara Goukei hadn’t made a single wrong decision from moment to moment.

She was a member of the Kihara Family, but she was not a broken person.

She was someone who always did the right thing but was always feared for it.

She was a heretic among the Kiharas.

With that battered body, she proudly protected little Urekawa Ousuke and made the position her own. Madame Gou smiled thinly behind her bloody mask.

With a pitying look for the other expert of death who stood opposite her as a relative evil.

“Taking on the th ankless role isn’t easy, is it? You’re not even a Kihara, so it must be exhausting to ''force yourself'' to do it.”

“You understand nothing about our world.”

“I’m not interested in learning about any other world than the one I live in, but I am still a Kihara. Even if it’s their job, it hurts anyone to make innocent children cry. Could that be why ''you Britanniques are going so easy on us'' despite shouting about a threat to the world? Your hesitant use of the Academy City facilities means anyone can pick up your communications. I was basically snacking on intercepted messages between the hôpital and here, but it really makes me wonder if you’re even trying.”

“…”

Isabella fell silent.

Kihara Goukei smiled behind her mask. But with all the blood, the smile was more grim than grin.

“I don’t understand any of this Coronzon stuff, but you say there’s a threat to the entire world, right? Then I would think at least one of you would suggest bombing the entire city into oblivion to ensure the safety of the rest of humankind, but none of you is touching on that last resort. It’s hardly a surprise you’re being delayed by enemies you hadn’t even considered. You won’t accomplish anything if everyone on site is hesitant to speak up. And…when everyone deployed to the front line is scared and reluctant to dirty their hands, it’s going to ''put a greater burden'' on their leader.”

Necromancers were cruel.

To their targets, they might even seem like horrific monsters.

But had Isabella mentioned even once that ''she enjoyed that cruelty''?

From the beginning, she had only ever said she had come to Japan to do her job.

So of course she wasn’t interested in people’s dramas or stories. Her stance was to not protect as many people as possible by not letting her personal feelings for her fellow Anglicans hold her back. She was taking the problem seriously and giving it her all.

She could not afford any detours, so she wouldn’t even help a stranger she chanced across along the way. It might seem like a little thing, but going with her heart there could throw off the overall schedule and allow the entire world to end.

Ordinarily, her attitude was the correct one for a combat professional.

“So I don’t blame you for what you did. Whether it’s England or somewhere else, there is ''something you want to protect'', isn’t there? Even if it means dirtying your hands and becoming the kind of person who will make a small child cry and throw stones at you with their small hands in a city turned into a battlefield. You have something that makes it all worth it. …So how about you accept that, hold your head high, and come at me with everything you have? So you can stay true to what you believe is right.”

Isabella Theism listened.

She hung her head as the enemy’s voice reached her ears.

And the brown necromancer smiled.

Just a little.

“Let’s stop playing around.”

“Gladly.”

“And I do have just one thing you should know. Voodoo is known for its zombies, but it is a polytheistic religion where the list of gods being worshiped is always in flux, the good gods and evil gods can swap places depending on the circumstances, and they freely take in parts of other mythologies. Indian mythology has a god that came from a movie, but I think Voodoo provides even more freedom than that. Which makes it extremely convenient for a necromancer who learns bits and pieces from other mythologies and then misuses them. And when you can borrow the power and symbols of any being, you can do things like this.”

“?”

“''Daeva''.”

With that single word, something appeared behind Isabella Theism.

Kihara Goukei first saw a gigantically swollen insect abdomen.

Next, she saw brutal legs resembling spiked clubs, a pair of compound eyes so red they appeared to be filled with blood, and translucent impure wings.

Empty space seemed to distort to allow the appearance of a giant fly of more than 5m.

Yet its curves seemed somehow feminine and alluring.

Each individual part might be found in nature, but this being clearly existed outside the physical world.

It was still transparent, but it had completely affixed itself to this world – this phase.

“I see. Would you look at that.”

Kihara Goukei looked up at it with a half smile.

She didn’t know what it was, but it certainly appeared to be on another level from what she had dealt with so far.

Only Isabella’s voice continued.

She spoke earnestly, like a priestess serving her dark lord.

“You are one of the six demon lords who rule over evil. You are the bearer of deadly poison who will distort your own legend and fuse with others if it will achieve your goal. You are one of the many foundations for controlling death and flesh. Tonight I seek you, o queen of contamination, dead bodies, decomposition, and apostasy.”

“Interesting. …But it doesn’t mesh well with my scientifique tastes.”

“Intrude upon my world, ''Druj Nasu''.”

The phase border was torn asunder and the thing materialized.

===Part 13===

In the District 12 consulate, Kamijou Touma found himself with little to do once it became time to stare at maps and documents and think up a plan. He left the table surrounded by the golden retriever, Dion Fortune, and others and was trying to pass the time when Blodeuwedd the Bouquet approached him.

Apparently she wasn’t much of a thinking type either.

“Neh heh☆”

Her face was awfully close.

He detected more than just a sweet feminine scent. Several floral scents were mixed together.

She had fully locked onto him.

“Help me, Alice!! Or Miss Succubus!!”

“Those are the last people you should go to for help. Unlike them, I’m a fairly reasonable Transcendent.”

What was Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s salvation condition again?

She saved the unloved.

So he was less than delighted to have her locked onto him. He sighed.

“Then why were you attacking Academy City so much? The city was made by Aleister who seems like exactly your type.”

“Ehh, you can’t be serious.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet seemed taken aback.

Like she had been recommended some bizarre food.

Her mouth formed a small triangle.

“He wasn’t hated or unloved. People called him the wickedest man in the world, a cannibal, and a demon lord, but the fact that he was ‘controversial’ means he did have his supporters and defenders. Yet he ignored all of those voices and chose to get all worked up on his own.”

Were those more like mechanical arms than clothing?

The blonde girl used the sleeves of her thick metal coat to mimic a shrug.

“Aleister Crowley was a human who looked past all the talking voices and focused only on the negative opinions. To the point that some people think he actually felt antipathy toward the people who believed and followed the theories he proposed. From outside, that might look cool, but the people who actually worked themselves to the bone sharing their love with him wouldn’t have seen it that way. The world wasn’t cold to him – he simply refused to touch the meal placed before him until it had gone cold and rotten. I’m not a fan of that kind of waste of emotion.”

“…”

“I want to distribute my unseen feelings to the starving people who can never seem to find any love no matter how badly they want it. To the people who need my feelings here and now. I want to provide the kind of warmth and strength that motivates them to get back up in their dark room and reach for the doorknob. I have nothing to give the fools who are so self-absorbed with their own appearance and pride that they let the feelings they are given rot. There are plenty of truly suffering people out there since the world is so starved for kindness.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet stopped speaking there.

She peered up at Kamijou’s face in amusement. Only then did Kamijou realize something.

Had he been hanging his head?

“Oh, you don’t like my answer?”

Kamijou Touma hadn’t been there.

He didn’t know the full story of Aleister’s life.

He had only wandered within the Windowless Building under Mina Mathers’s guidance and received tarot-recreated glimpses of Aleister’s battle with the Golden magicians.

But Aleister had learned his wife Rose was doomed

And he had been told in advance that his baby Lilith would surely die.

That human had trembled in rage when his ordinary happiness had crumbled around him. And knowing the Golden Cabal had been responsible, he had fought the Battle of Blythe Road, said to be the world’s largest magic battle. Kamijou didn’t think Aleister’s path could be simply classified as good or bad.

Kamijou had pushed him to the edge.

Maybe it was selfish of Aleister to force his expectations onto Kamijou.

But it was true Kamijou had failed to live up to them.

He had done what Anna Kingsford said and escaped hell alone. Could there have bee another path if he argued back and insisted on thinking it through more carefully?

Why?

Why hadn’t he recklessly insisted that he would bring CRC and Kingsford back to life too and that they would all live happily together next time?

All of that was superfluous.

He knew that of course, but they had directly been dealing with human lives and souls. Wasn’t a crazy place like hell the perfect venue for shouting an unrealistic wish or two?

“If you acted different from normal…”

“?”

“Shouldn’t you suspect you were intentionally guided in that direction? Keep in mind that magic is a system that starts with the manipulation of your own mind in order to influence the outside world and other people. With ceremonies performed by multiple people, it isn’t unusual to sync your mind with the others.”

A journey through hell. Or a jailbreak.

You could say that had been a large-scale ceremony.

“So Aleister was wrong to resent you. You shouldn’t demand someone take responsibility for an unavoidable choice after they finally managed a miraculous resurrection.”

Kamijou couldn’t accept Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s words so easily.

While she was a Transcendent, she hadn’t actually seen that hell. If she could, then the more powerful Alice would have been able to intervene when he died. So Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s argument was no more than speculation.

Just then, a call came in from Accelerator.

“All the calculations are complete. …Once you’re ready, head to District 23.”

Kamijou frowned.

That didn’t sound right to him.

“District 23? I know that’s an adjacent district…but isn’t Coronzon in District 7?”

“You won’t be able to sneak right up to her on foot. You need a plan if you’re going to get close.”

Kamijou understood before even hearing the details.

He was certain he wasn’t going to like this plan.

“So what is your plan?”

“I’ll use all the missiles remaining in District 2. And I really mean using up the entire stockpile.”

“Hey, I seriously doubt ordinary weapons are going to work on Coronzon!”

“Of course they won’t. They’re only a diversion. You’ll be parachuting down through the bombardment to immediately arrive deep inside District 7.”

“Eh? Right in the middle of all those flying explosives?”

If even a single missile detonated nearby, they would die.

Um, didn’t those delicate devices react at some pretty weird times? Like the shoplifting prevention sensors at a store’s exit, or antivirus software? Even the precise location of a store on a map app tended to be off by just a little. Sure computer chips were supposed to be logical, but everyone had pressed the button on a half-broken game console or washing machine while praying that it would work one last time, right!?

…And Kamijou was certain that he would get the short straw on this one. He didn’t have any objective evidence, but never underestimate Academy City’s Mr. Misfortune! He still hadn’t played any games on his smartphone because he knew just how hopelessly bad his luck was!! Why even bother trying for a rare pull when you knew you would never get it, even if you paid!!?

“Coronzon will notice what we’re doing. No matter how hard we try to hide it,” said Accelerator. “So we’ll never get anywhere if you bank on that. But that just means we need to create a situation where she has to focus on something else even though she knows what we’re doing. …Remember, that Adikalika trump card of hers uses the city’s geographical conditions. So she won’t want any serious damage to the city’s landscape, will she?”

“Oh! You’re right…”

That hadn’t occurred to Kamijou.

Great Demon Coronzon was trying to destroy the entire world, but for now she wouldn’t want Academy City destroyed.

“Even if she is a villain, she won’t want missiles bombarding the city until she’s completed her plan, will she?”

“I doubt every last missile we have would kill Coronzon herself, but she’ll be forced to use that sturdy body of hers to destroy the missiles as her top priority. Isn’t that thoughtful of her? She’ll protect the city for us. An enemy’s strength can become a weakness if you change your viewpoint. Coronzon has no family and she’s not sentimental enough to grow attached to a house or other possessions. But we do know one thing she definitely won’t want destroyed, so we just have to focus our attack there.”

Adikalika was the ultimate trump card that could destroy the world if used in that way, so it had seemed like Coronzon was the one in control. And that wasn’t exactly wrong either.

But if Coronzon was too focused on staying in control, that fixation became a weakness because she didn’t want to lose it. It felt at odds with her ultimate goal, but maybe that was just how strategy worked. Once you gained something, there was a cost to defending it. In battle, there were no 100% pure benefits.

This was a ray of hope.

The time had come to reclaim control of the situation.

===Part 14===

Red snow fell in the night.

Great Demon Coronzon stood in a square space that was unusually empty for this urban part of District 7. The long, long blonde hair draped over her large, bat-like wings kept changing shape like it was creating string figures, but she was really only making minor adjustments at this point. She had been building a spell using all of the terrain and landmarks forming Academy City, but now even the final adjustments were nearly finished. She would soon be able to stop work and move on to the next phase.

Preparations for the Adikalika large-scale attack spell were already complete.

This would be the initial signal gun that would submerge the world in a sea of blood.

She didn’t even need to check the horoscope to know the necessary preparations were complete. She was not concerned that the forces of science or magic would take back control of the city, so now she only had to wait for the moment to arrive.

“Are you watching, Aleister?” she whispered.

She turned her gaze elsewhere, wrapped her arms around her own shoulders, and shook with suppressed laughter.

And Great Demon Coronzon spoke as if enjoying his final resistance.

“You will soon see the end of this world you still trusted no matter how much it hurt you.”

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12 Chapter3

2025-04-22T19:32:09Z

Edzo: /* Part 4 */ changed "it" to "It"

==Chapter 3: A World Worse Than Death – Soul_Hazard.==

===Part 1===

He was finally alive again.

Alice Anotherbible had convinced him.

“Teacher.”

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl refused to let him go. She was clinging to him with a beaming smile. She leaned against him like a large and poorly trained dog.

Feeling human warmth and talking with someone was so wonderful.

(And now that I’ve calmed down some, that is quite the outfit, Alice.)

She was, after all, in her grown up mode.

She was much taller than when he had first met her. And her chest and butt were very much in adult mode too.

This bigger Alice bothered him.

Each individual part was definitely Alice Anotherbible. But she had a grown up face. She looked like a neighborhood college girl. And on the spectrum of young women, she was more on the sexy Oriana end than the gentle Orsola end. That sweet but unapproachable leader was walking by his side while “dressed” in nothing but black belts tied complexly around her naked body. Outside. It was not normal.

When he had seen her last, he was beaten up, had lost a lot of blood, and was waiting for the countdown toward death to end, so he hadn’t been able to focus on this particular detail. Now he could.

''Umm.

''Should an adolescent boy really be seeing this from so close up?

Kamijou Touma stared into the middle distance.

“Well, this is really starting to feel sinful…”

“In what way?”

His heart was going wild over seeing the very person who had killed him, so maybe it really was over for him. He couldn’t make fun of Aogami Pierce anymore.

But he decided to put off thinking about that.

For now, they couldn’t just stay in the back alley.

Bio Secure was it? That group was still after him. And even without that, it wasn’t a great idea to stay out in the cold January rain for long.

Also…

“Um, Alice? Could you stop that?”

“?”

She looked confused.

With her arms around his neck and her cheek nestled against him.

Because, as she had made him very much aware over the past few minutes, she looked like a curvy blonde white woman right now. And she was standing outside with only black leather belts to cover her nudity. To be blunt, she wasn’t dressed appropriately for public.

Having her all over him like this was a problem.

Don’t ask why! That he was a boy was explanation enough!!

“Teacher, do you think there is something wrong with the girl’s clothing?”

“Um, yes.”

“Then the girl will just take it off.”

“No naked! Not while outside!!”

Only after saying it did he realize that meant it would be okay if they were inside. Oh, no. And her eyes were sparkling now. He may have taught her the wrong lesson.

“Do you mean the girl needs new clothing?”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Tah dah!! You’re in luck, teacher, because the girl found this!”

“Wh-what the-!?”

The unnaturally curvy girl was smiling.

While displaying something spread out between her hands.

“Umm, does that say Erotic Fallen Angel Maid? Japanese is so hard to read with its combination of katakana, kanji, the alphabet, and kaomoji stamps.”

“The girl named Alice must never wear that!! …But wait. This is weird. Would the Erotic Fallen Angel Maid actually be less revealing?”

“???”

She was pure as could be.

Even though her height and boobs size were in the upperclassman category.

Are you unaware what a horrible person Kamijou-san is, Alice?

“I appreciate it, but it’s embarrassing, um, having you hugging me while you’re so big.”

“Hm? Then the girl can shrink down.”

“Wait, no, that’s terrifying! Don’t hug me with ''the empty shell'' still partially attached!!”

The sexy young woman split down the center and little storybook Alice emerged. With a smile. The end result looked something like a centaur!! And what was all that sticky goop!?

===Part 2===

They had seen it.

Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki had clearly witnessed that moment.

That figure had crawled out from the cremation chamber’s thick metal door and then run toward the crematorium’s exit.

What was that!?

“W-wait.”

Mourning clothes Shokuhou smiled stiffly while pinching and stretching her cheek.

“Th-this isn’t all some bad dream, is it?”

“What kind of old-fashioned reaction is that, Shokuhou? Your real age is showing- wah!”

The queen, who was an expert in controlling minds yet had no luck at all psychoanalyzing Misaka Mikoto, reached out and poked Mikoto’s right cheek.

“You check too, Misaka-san. With that squishy cheek.”

“…”

“Ow, ow, ow, owwwwww, that’s my boob! You’re not supposed to iron claw that! My boob is going to tear right offffffffffffffffffff!!!”

Misaka Mikoto was busy wordlessly grabbing the hunk of fat with a hand and pulling back to perform a durability test, but this did nothing to wake her from the dream and obliterate this world.

“You’re overreacting. It’s not going to tear off from a little thing like this.”

“But, um, Misaka-san, then what is that snapping sound I’m hearing?”

“Idiot. That’s just a pearl necklace breaking, so it’s no big deal.”

“Noooo, this outfit is a rentallllllllll!!!”

Shokuhou had an aura of “not hurting for money”, but Mikoto was aware that damaging rental clothing would mean losing the “trust” that couldn’t be bought.

Also, Queen Shokuhou apparently put on a stiff and tearful smile when she was truly pushed to the edge. There’s your lesson for the day, everyone!!

“But anyway…” said Mikoto (who had bought her mourning clothes and couldn’t return them since her family crest was on them).

Shokuhou had a point.

She had noticed something off.

Back when she touched Kamijou Touma’s face through the coffin’s window.

She had expected it to be dry. After all, it had been a full day since he died.

But instead…''his skin had felt weirdly damp''???

(But his death was confirmed. And it had been quite some time since then. That was way past the point of reviving him with CPR.)

“If we aren’t dreaming, what just happened?”

“M-maybe it’s so cold we’re hallucinating?”

“That would only apply to you, stupid exhibitionist queen,” groaned Mikoto with a hand on her brow.

This didn’t seem to be an artificial dream. …Unfortunately, Academy City technology could pull off a scientific version of “it was all a dream”, but that wasn’t the case this time.

A crematorium official sighed softly while wiping the sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

He radiated anxiety and frustration.

“Wh-what is with those Bio Secure people?”

“(Misaka-san, ever heard of them?)”

“(Nope.)”

Bio Secure.

They probably functioned as a defense against nuclear, biological, and chemical threats. The group in their overly thick powered suits certainly stood out. The part-time monk who had refined his classical music and speaking skills had the mood of his ceremony completely destroyed.

Most of the powered suit group had gone outside.

They appeared primarily interested in Kamijou Touma.

That said, they weren’t just ignoring the crematorium either.

The crematorium workers and high schoolers seemed desperate to try and keep up with the rapidly changing situation, but they couldn’t have behaved like that if they had a proper understanding. The threat of death was close at hand.

“''Kihara.''”

“I’ve never heard of one named ''Goukei'' either.”

They had said their chief had arrived. If Bio Secure was operating with a member of ''the'' Kihara Family at the top, Mikoto severely doubted they were an honest organization.

“E-e-excuse me. Wh-when are we going to be let out of here?”

“Can we at least call someone here? I could really go for a pizza.”

Kamijou Touma’s classmates had done nothing wrong. But they likely didn’t understand the weight of that Kihara name. They wouldn’t be recklessly complaining to the powered suits if they did. Of course, if they could remain ignorant, that would be the best for them, but that wasn’t an option for the #3 and #5.

“How is that idiot still getting us involved in this stuff after he’s dead?”

“Let’s not assume that important-sounding Kihara actually knows what’s going on.”

Whatever the case, they couldn’t just stay here.

The question was if those powered suits would let them go.

A woman standing at the front of the powered suit group was the only one without a suit.

She wore a white coat over a plain white blouse and a tight skirt. And she wore white pantyhose. However, her overall image was unbalanced by the cap covering all of her hair and the large mask she wore. If anything, she may have looked something like a dentist…

“Chief Kihara Goukei,” whispered a powered suit.

While looking toward Mikoto and the others.

“We have two irregulars. If the Bank check is accurate, they are the #3 and the #5. I don’t know what they’re doing here, though.”

Mikoto and Shokuhou twitched in silent reaction.

The woman really was the Kihara.

Why would a monster like that make an appearance now?

Mikoto wasn’t even willing to signal Shokuhou with her eyes. Looking away for even that long scared her. If it came to it, she might have to launch a preemptive strike on her own.

That was her thinking.

Then the woman looked their way.

A gentle voice approached them from behind the large dentist-like mask.

“I am Kihara Goukei, mademoiselles. But feel free to call me Madame Gou.”

Mikoto thought she was going to black out for a moment.

The crematorium official must have learned about this earlier because he only averted his eyes. Silently.

(French?)

What the hell?

She could have simply been busty and attractive, but she just had to make it weird, didn’t she!?

Meanwhile, a powered suit approached.

“Chief Kihara Goukei.

“Oui, oui. I assume that is the facility patron? Then let us grownups talk together.”

With an exasperated sigh, the woman called Kihara Goukei turned to face the official while flanked by powered suits.

Her eyes were grinning.

“First, I must ask. You do claim to be in charge here, oui?”

“You must be kidding!! I don’t know how to handle a body infected by who-knows-what. The crematorium isn’t at risk, is it? If we need to do anything to decontaminate, just tell me. I can’t afford to lose my workplace!!”

“Then you are transferring authority to me. You can leave everything to Madame Kihara Goukei☆”

Mikoto felt silly for preparing for a fight after hearing this was a Kihara.

However…

“B-but, Kihara-san. Why, um, were you so quick to believe that a body had gotten back up?”

“Now, now, monsieur. No need to be nervous about speaking to me. Let’s just say it isn’t out of the question here in Academy City. In the past, I have seen a swarm of ants capable of turning a human into an anthill with their human form intact, and a transparent movable liquid coating that can cover a corpse and then stretch and contract in response to specific frequencies.”

What in the world?

Mikoto had never heard of either of those things.

She couldn’t imagine where that technology came from or what kind of wickedness it had been used for.

“We must retrieve the spécimen so that I can inspect it and determine just what caused the body to get back up. Controlling the dead is not that unusual a technologie. I should be able to explain after opening up the body and taking a peek inside. And once I determine where that technologie came from, I will find the villain responsible.”

(I-I don’t like how she’s saying it, but it scares me that what she’s saying makes a lot of sense!!)

Mikoto bristled and very nearly shouted out loud.

She couldn’t let the weakling look fool her.

A Kihara was still a Kihara.

Meanwhile, mourning clothes Shokuhou’s attention had shifted to her small purse. Specifically, to a TV remote inside.

“Killing moi would accomplish nothing.”

Kihara Goukei whispered behind her mask before Shokuhou even pulled it out.

She may have encountered family members who freaked out over her treatment of the deceased.

Pure villains were bad, but panicked good people could be terrifying as well.

“Bio Secure’s violence is based on a flow chart so that it can continue to function no matter who is infected. Thus, my own mort will not stop the team from acting.”

For one thing, a dead body had stood up and left on its own two feet.

Had that really happened?

Mikoto had seen it herself and even she found it hard to believe.

So…

“Shokuhou, have you been doing some weird training when I wasn’t looking? Really, I’m shocked you of all people learned the importance of daily hard work. I never imagined the day would come your Mental Out could reach my brain.”

“Could you not use me to fuel your nonscientific escapism!? I saw him get back up too! What in the world is happening!?”

Shokuhou must really have been panicked because she tearfully grabbed at Mikoto. The queen had really lost if if she was relying on the same person who had just grabbed her boob without permission.

(Hm.)

Still in the black kimono that looked terribly out of place on a 14-year-old, Misaka Mikoto crossed her arms and looked up at the ceiling. When she got annoyed like this, she looked more like a yakuza boss’s wife than a funeral attendee.

A few options came to mind.

And the most likely were…

“The body was in a state of suspended animation, the body was switched for a living lookalike, or the reports of his death were fake news. Those are probably the only ones that are physically and realistically possible.”

“You know those are all a stretch, don’t you!? You saw how dead he looked before the funeral. That rules out suspended animation or a lookalike. But whatever the case, the adults are going to do something awful to him if we don’t catch him first!!”

After they yelled at each other (like good friends?), Mikoto suddenly fell silent.

If they found him…what happened next?

Would they shove him back in the coffin, shut the lid, shove that in the cremation chamber, burn him, and live happily ever afterwards?

That felt like fundamentally missing the point somehow.

If he had gotten back up, why not leave him like that? Why not just let him escape?

Just then, Kihara Goukei clapped her hands as if signaling a change.

“Now, everyone. It is time to begin our search for the cadavre. No need to over complicate matters. No complicated mystère solving is needed in the real world. If we catch him and autopsy him, the vérité will be revealed.”

“Kh.”

Mikoto’s body moved seemingly on its own.

She had a single target.

It didn’t matter that she was wearing a kimono. She cut behind Kihara Goukei as sharply as a knife and then placed an arm around her neck.

For some reason, the shocked response came not from Kihara Goukei herself but from Shokuhou Misaki.

“Misaka-san, what are you doing!?”

“I don’t know. I just know I can’t let them autopsy him without question like that!!”

And why aren’t you using Mental Out, #5!? Don’t hold back out of fear!!

Meanwhile, Kihara Goukei was entirely carefree.

She was being strangled from behind, but she was smiling.

“Oh, an étranglement? I give, I give.”

“You are aware I’m Academy City’s #3, aren’t you? If I produced a billion volts like this, it’d fry your precious Kihara Family brains. Want to see what having average smarts is like?”

“Now that is a fate worse than mort.”

Kihara Goukei had been addressed as “chief”. The powered suits had all sought instruction from her. No matter what she claimed, taking her hostage should keep Bio Secure as a whole from acting.

The French-speaking woman smiled.

“Now, just follow the flowchart☆”

Mikoto heard a dull ripping sound.

As out-of-place as it was, it reminded her of when she would bite into a thick beef tongue meal.

And that wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

The large mask was dyed red. Kihara Goukei appeared to have thick, dark red blood spilling from her mouth. A lot of it.

“Damn!! Why would you bite your own tongue!?”

“Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.”

The woman tried to say something with a smile, but it was incomprehensible.

No hesitation at all?

This was the extreme form of a weakling.

The real battle began once she lost. Her leaving the battlefield was no more than a trigger.

Kihara Goukei. Mikoto had run into a few members of the Kihara Family before, but this woman appeared to be annoying in a different way from the others.

Mikoto immediately pulled off the mask and shoved a towel in her mouth, but she wasn’t sure how you were supposed to treat someone who had bit their tongue. One of the funeral attendees appeared to be a school doctor, so she had no choice but to leave the woman in her care.

(Oh, god!! She smashed the organization’s brakes right on front of me! I should’ve zapped her before she had a chance to say anything!!)

At that moment, Shokuhou, whose black dress made her look like a wicked witch, whispered something. With her head lowered.

“It’s raining outside.”

“What does that have to do with any-”

“I don’t know exactly how long since he died, but what if he gets wet? Won’t he rot?”

“…”

“…”

They both fell silent.

And then they both ran for the exit.

They had no idea what condition Kamijou Touma was in right now. But if they didn’t capture him soon and throw him into a full-body dryer or something, he would definitely end up as a horrific gory mess!!

===Part 3===

The Doppler effect distorted a passing siren.

An Anti-Skill special vehicle must have passed by on the nearby main street.

“Kh.”

Kamijou jumped because he was dressed from head to toe in white burial clothes. They were more like a Japanese bathrobe than a kimono.

Apparently he was a fugitive. He really had returned to life, so why did he have to avoid the main streets and stick to the back alleys? He had no idea what might happen to him if he was caught.

(D-d-d-dammit, Kingsford!! I’ll grant that you kept your promise to send me back from hell, but couldn’t you have done more than the bare minimum there!? Of course it’s going to be a big deal and cause a panic if a corpse suddenly gets back up more than a day after dying!!!)

The January rain was another problem.

He could feel it soaking through his clothes, penetrating his skin, and stealing away his body heat. And yet his feelings didn’t just numb over. It wasn’t often that being “chilled to the bone” felt more literal than figurative.

Setting aside the scientific values, he was pretty sure snow would have been preferable to this.

“Alice, are you alright?”

“Hm, hm♪ The girl is A-OK as long as she’s with you, teacher☆”

His breath was white and his body shivering, but little Alice was smiling in the very same rain. Even though her storybook dress had short sleeves. She held onto Kamijou’s arm from the side and refused to let go.

She was being very huggy and squeezy.

But come to think of it, the Bologna Succubus was also a Transcendent, but when she had been injured in Shibuya at the end of the year, hadn’t she suffered and shivered from the cold?

Maybe this was another area where Alice Anotherbible was abnormal.

“?”

Alice tilted her head with a full smile and an “eh heh heh” of laughter.

The little girl might be fine, but she was so soaked it worried Kamijou to see her like that.

…He did find himself more comfortable with this little version of her, maybe because he was more accustomed to her this way. He still wouldn’t want her walking around the streets in that black leather outfit like this though.

Kamijou was in burial clothes and Alice wore an apron and dress ensemble that looked straight out of a storybook. Plus, they were both soaking wet and without an umbrella. Kamijou was barefoot. This country’s constitution guaranteed many types of freedom. He knew that, but he was still pretty sure being dressed like this anywhere but Shibuya on any day other than Halloween would end with the authorities taking him into custody. And not the gentle “how about you come talk with us” kind – the forcibly restraining him kind.

“A-a-a-anyway, I’d like to get somewhere warm.”

“Are you cold, teacher? Then the girl will warm you up!”

“Alice, we’re not at the ‘stranded on a snowy mountain’ stage yet!!”

He wanted time to think.

He wanted to relax and rest somewhere warm, but he knew he would be kicked out for violation of the dress code if he tried to go to a convenience store or a chain cafe while dressed so strangely and soaking wet.

The shared offices the size of phone booths would be empty, but he didn’t think those had their own heating systems. He could get in easily enough, but he would freeze to death going there in January while soaked.

Kamijou Touma sighed softly.

The sigh came out white.

Little Alice innocently ate up his breath.

It might all seem like a joke, but he was in a fairly serious situation.

He had to make a decision.

“I guess the only place left would be my dorm room.”

===Part 4===

As the frigid rain fell, electricity crackled in the gap between two buildings.

Just adding cold rain was enough to greatly change the nature of this attack. Instead of striking a single point, it became an area of effect attack.

“District 7?” Mourning clothes Mikoto looked around skeptically. “There’s more of those Bio Secure people around here. Does that mean that idiot is hiding in this district?”

If his corpse(?) really was running around, what did she want to do?

She still hadn’t found an answer to that.

But she at least knew she couldn’t let Kihara-brand special forces retrieve him, slice him up, and then incinerate him.

This was a city of science, but there were still standards for saying goodbye to someone.

Meanwhile…

“Brrrr, it’s so cold, brrrrr.”

“Why are you so sensitive to the cold when you have so much subcutaneous fat?”

“Because all my fat has gloriously gathered in my boobs.”

“(That vending machine over there sells dashi under the brand name of a restaurant famous for only using natural ingredients, but I can wait until later to tell her that.)”

“☆☆☆Misaaaaka-saaan☆☆☆”

“Bfh!? Don’t grab onto me while drooling with hearts in your eyes!! Were you possessed by a succubus!?”

“Ahh…”

Shokuhou recovered after holding her phone up to the vending machine and pressing the warm can against her cheek. Then she wrapped her hands around the can and took small sips.

And for how much the idiot queen worried about ingredients, she sure didn’t seem to mind drinking from industrial-made cans and plastic bottles. That obsession of hers may have simply been a placebo. She was an idiot, after all.

Mikoto’s head jerked up.

There was no warning.

She could sense even slight electric and magnetic disturbances. And a powered suit was a piece of electronic equipment weighing more than 300kg. There was no preventing it from leaking invisible electromagnetism.

“Here they come. Time for wave two.”

“We are going the right way, I hope?”

Sounds of destruction rang loud.

A Bio Secure powered suit broke right through the metal wall erected around a construction site and Mikoto launched a lightning spear to pierce it.

Then they were forced to run through the rainy city.

There was no need to have Shokuhou read any residual thoughts with Mental Out.

The damage to some of the construction sites was obvious. That would be due to the powered suits going nuts, not Kamijou. Just follow the destruction and they could catch up to him.

But there was another problem.

They heard dull mechanical “gashunk!!” sounds.

“Tch!! Looks like the Bio Secure powered suits are taking this seriously too!”

“My, they must see us as infection candidates.”

Candidates.

That meant it was only a possibility.

And that assumed some strange infectious agent even existed in the first place.

Seeing a corpse get up wasn’t enough to immediately accept the existence of a zombie virus. And even if it did exist, none of that implied it was highly infectious.

Mikoto wasn’t about to be killed over maybes and assumptions.

She could probably blast through those Bio Secure powered suits with a Railgun fired at three times the speed of sound.

But if she did that for each and every one, she would quickly wear herself out.

She wanted to avoid running out of gas and fainting before she managed to find Kamijou Touma.

So she wanted to lose as many of them on foot as possible, but…

“Hurry, Shokuhou!! As low as the heels are, those pumps are only slowing you down!! Take them off already!!”

“Pant, gasp. M-my dress is wet with rain and has soaked up so much water and the veil makes it hard to breathe… Gbh, why did I choose these sexy mourning clothes again?”

Still, how was that outfit structured if she was losing to Mikoto whose kimono was like a single tube?

As the #5 gasped for breath, a powered suit’s thick fingers approached her from behind. It was probably after her long blonde hair.

Were they going after the slower one first?

(I could abandon her here, but she’ll still be useful.)

Mikoto magnetically grabbed a thick steel beam from a nearby construction site and swung it straight to the side to knock away the heavy powered suit. A lot like those things that rang the huge bells at Buddhist temples.

“Heh…heh heh. So you finally admit it, Misaka-san? You finally admit you need me? Hwa ha ha. You finally admit my human controlling ability is so much more useful than your machine controlling ability!!”

“I really should’ve abandoned this idiot and attached myself to a building wall or something.”

Shokuhou tearfully clinging to her in the rain was really annoying. She must have taken Mikoto’s joke seriously.

Furious, another powered suit readied something at its hip.

A flamethrower.

Had they received authorization to use it on secondary targets like Mikoto and Shokuhou? Or had they removed the safety at their own discretion?

If this was happening here, how much of a crisis was that idiot in?

“…”

Bluish-white sparks scattered from Mikoto’s bangs.

She didn’t even need to wield a lightning spear or an iron sand sword.

No matter how powerful they were, the powered suits were still electronic devices. With Misaka Mikoto’s #3 power, she could easily shut them down externally.

But…

“Shokuhou, what is taking you!? Hurry up and stop the human inside!!”

“I’m trying, but there’s something weird about them!!”

Shokuhou Misaki’s tearful shouting was business as usual, but it was very ''un''usual when it came to psychological things.

Mental Out wasn’t working.

That meant something else was interfering.

(Is an entire human body being precisely controlled without using the brain?)

A parasite, moisture control, a virus, a drug, electrical stimuli, or a microscopic shape-memory alloy that reacted to certain frequencies. Mikoto came up with a few possibilities, but she wasn’t convinced any of them really could control someone’s body like this.

Still, the #5’s Mental Out really was being repelled.

These were abnormal people who had received the blessings provided by a Kihara.

“Damn, now it feels like there are zombies on both sides!!”

If she had to deal with an entire group of people like that, Mikoto would be worn down first.

Had they been intentionally designed that way?

A collection of endlessly replaceable ordinary people were used to defeat an irregular individual. By eliminating individuality, that group had made itself immortal. Kihara Goukei had bit her tongue and taken herself out of the fight right away, but maybe she wasn’t interested in making herself special.

On the other hand, this was apparently a group the grownups had put together in order to battle “reanimated corpses”.

While sporadically releasing 1 billion volt currents, Mikoto turned around just as they descended a slope leading down into a culvert.

She magnetically attached her purse to her belly to free up her hand and then flicked an arcade coin with her thumb.

She fired a Railgun.

The roar of compressed air. The orange streak. A moment later, a shockwave swept across the scene, and the tunnel-like entrance collapsed.

She turned on her phone’s light so she could see.

“This is only going to buy us some time. A culvert this big is going to have other entrances and those powered suits might have the horsepower to dig through the concrete rubble.”

“Pant. Why do you…seem to come alive…when it’s time to fight?”

The #5 looked ready to slump to the ground, so Mikoto grabbed her arm and continued further in.

There were fewer hints compared to all the signs of destruction in the construction sites, but Mikoto’s microwave radar could scan the detailed dust on the ground and any traces of water while Shokuhou could read residual thoughts.

So they could search for signs along a single path.

Or they should have been able to…

“Wait,” said Shokuhou on reflex. “What is this?”

“Looks like something happened here.”

It wasn’t that there were no signs.

There were too many.

In a word, something had exploded. Whatever had happened here, nothing had escaped unharmed.

With nothing at all, the small hints could show the way, but this was the opposite. Like the red cellophane placed over a problem set, there were too many signs everywhere to tell which one was the right one.

Mikoto, their physical fighter, spoke cautiously.

“The rebar is melted. This explosion was even hotter than city gas. Could it have been an oxyacetylene flame?”

The explosion itself had been powerful, but that meant the trail ended here.

Where had Kamijou Touma gone in this cold and rainy world?

Eventually…

“Hmm,” groaned Shokuhou, twirling her TV remote like a handgun.

She may have been lonely.

She was focused on a bucket-like powered suit helmet.

She appeared to be reading something slowly and deeply.

“Bio Secure. Experts at solving Academy City’s problems without the Board Chairman knowing. But then they send the responsible corporation or lab a bill for some percentage of the estimated damage the problem would have caused if left unchecked.”

Mikoto wasn’t even surprised.

She had given up on excepting anything remotely resembling decency from the adults of Academy City.

“Well, if a corporation let a bacteria or alloy that reanimates dead bodies escape their secure area, they could easily go out of business. So it’s not surprising there would be experts at cleaning that up before anyone finds out.”

At that point, Mikoto frowned.

“But they send the bill after solving the problem? Without any sense of threat, I would expect those immoral grownups to try to get out of paying.”

“And can the big boss of Academy City really be so easily fooled? I would expect their stealth ability to be nowhere near as effective as they think. Then again, the surveillance system seems to have gotten a lot more lax ''of late''.”

Bio Secure likely had more than just this.

Unlike the esper children, the adults who fortified themselves with next-gen weapons would use overwhelming numbers.

“…”

Several Six Wings unmanned attack helicopters flew by overhead.

Mikoto might be able to forcibly take control of them…but she was afraid of doing so in the city. If she screwed up controlling them, she could make them crash.

And more than that direct threat, the 14-year-old in mourning clothes spoke up.

“I feel like I’m forgetting something.”

“Oh, you ‘feel like’ it, do you? You’re actually looking at your memories in their chronological context, I hope? If not, you can prophesy the end of the world all you like.”

“Or is it something that happened behind the scenes where I didn’t know about it? There’s a chance there’s something in this city I’ve only managed to catch glimpses of out of the corner of my eye.”

It felt like grasping at clouds.

Or was it?

These things had happened in the same city, no matter how big the city was.

For one, she still didn’t know how that boy had died. Maybe there was something there that explained how he came back to life.

“I don’t think we have much time.” Mourning clothes Shokuhou sighed in mild exasperation. “Let’s find some water and food. Ingredients are important. I would rather not consume any gelatins, blocks, or other chemical stuff.”

“We don’t even know if that idiot is alive or dead.”

Mourning clothes Mikoto bit her lip while hanging her head.

“There’s no way I could get any food down.”

===Part 5===

“Okay, teacher. Say ‘ah’.”

“…”

Should he really be doing this?

In a back alley, a beaming Alice fed Kamijou Touma the snack she held between her fingers. Because if he didn’t let her, he got the feeling she would never move a step from this spot.

The crunchy textured snack was not a potato chip. It was…

“Fried squid!! Japan has so many weird snacks there’s always something new to try.”

“Hm? Alice, I thought your culture didn’t like eating wriggly things.”

“It’s squid but it’s crunchy☆”

Alice Anotherbible may have been the type to enjoy the texture of her food. Whether it was plastic or metal, the water-repellent snack bag meant the cold rain couldn’t ruin the flavor.

And Kamijou felt the salt and oil soaking into his body.

No matter what anyone might claim, he was hungry back here in reality. And come to think of it, he hadn’t eaten anything after dying, had he?

(I guess this is better than being unable to produce stomach acid and puking it back up.)

Kamijou nearly dozed off in the forced comfort.

But then he realized something.

“Actually, hold on, Alice. Where did you get that fried squid?”

“The girl made sure to pay for it with money she found on the ground!”

“You can’t do that.”

“?”

Alice Anotherbible tilted her head in confusion, suggesting she still needed a bit more social studies. Still, it was adorable how she was taking steps toward living in human society.

(Academy City has been through a lot recently. There probably were a lot of people who dropped their wallets.)

He was with Alice.

They walked through the January streets as the chilly rain fell.

Not being alone was a wonderful thing.

He realized how much those around him had supported him throughout his life. Even when he wound up in hell, Kingsford had been there for him.

He could not forget that appreciation.

He never could.

“Pant, brr, it’s cold. I feel like I’ve been swimming through cold water. Maybe I should have dug through a dumpster for an umbrella or something.”

“Hm? You can do that, but the girl isn’t allowed to use money she found?”

They had arrived at some District 7 student dorms.

They entered one of many identical buildings and rode the elevator up to the seventh floor. It was quiet in the area, and, luckily, none of the residents from his school were around. They were probably all at school still.

(No, wait. They would have been at my funeral. I feel kind of bad having them do that when I’m alive.)

Alice tilted her head as they walked down the long hallway.

She seemed puzzled rather than surprised.

Come to think of it, this wasn’t her first time at his dorm. When they first met, she had snuck into his bathroom, hadn’t she?

“But, teacher, do you have a key to your room?”

“…”

Oh, right. He was wearing burial clothes.

Thinking back, it had been weird for his phone to be in the coffin with him. More than just his wallet, he didn’t even have any underwear right now. Come to think of it, this was a really lewd outfit! And now the adolescent boy was slightly curious who had put it on him!!

“Eh heh heh. Maybe it was a young woman with a gentle dorm manager vibe.”

“?”

Anyway, Kamijou Touma opened the door on the water heater attached to the outside wall and snagged the spare key hidden there.

For some reason, Alice was amused.

“Teacher, that’s so unsafe.”

“Listen, Alice. There was a time when I had less than 100 yen to my name. Not having anything worth stealing is the world’s greatest security.”

That aside, the cheap locks on the doors at a boys dorm weren’t too trustworthy to begin with. Someone could probably snap a photo of the key from a distance and duplicate it with a 3D printer.

He unlocked and opened the door.

Unpleasantly chilly air blew out into his face. It was colder inside than out.

“Huh?”

No one was there.

The air was horribly cold.

“Index and Othinus are out too. Where are they in this rain?”

He questioned it, but he would die if he didn’t warm up his soaked and shivering body.

He didn’t have time to spend on each and every action.

Once inside the room, he switched on the electric water boiler to heat some water. In the time it took to boil, he reached for the door to the closet in the small room. A poor student didn’t own many clothes. That his warmest outfit was the school-designated winter uniform showed just how extreme his poverty was.

(I can’t just change clothes. Ugh, I need to warm up more directly.)

It wasn’t even nighttime yet, but he went to the bathroom and began filling the tub with hot water. That was the greatest luxury for a poor student.

He thought he would freeze to death in the 15 minutes it would take for the hot bath to be ready, so he grabbed a towel that was sitting out. He tossed another to Alice and began drying himself off.

(Wait, what do I do about a change of clothes for Alice?)

His dorm was not equipped with clothing for a 130cm girl. Having her wear a one-size-fits-all track suit or something until her wet clothes dried would probably be best. …Oh, the dryer function. Kamijou Touma stared into the distance. That cost more in power than using an iron or hair drier, so he ordinarily never used it.

The poverty he had very nearly escaped was creeping up behind Mr. Misfortune once more.

At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before it was tapping on his shoulder.

===Part 6===

At a home in Kanagawa, Kamijou Touya hung his head. The large LCD TV linked to his computer still coldly displayed the word “offline”.

They had cut his connection.

They hadn’t let him reconnect.

None of it made sense.

With Academy City’s wall in the way, the Kamijou couple felt literally shut out.

His parents should have been at the center of it all, but they weren’t allowed in. With all the complicated paperwork, the remains would be burned before they could get inside the city.

“Gh…”

He had failed to protect his child.

Worse, he hadn’t even managed to learn how that life had been lost.

The ashes would apparently be returned to them, but what did that matter?

That powder would have been burned until nothing of the DNA map remained, so how could they even prove that was their son? How could they accept that!?

Someone placed her arms around his shoulders from behind.

But he had no response to his wife’s comfort.

“To hell with…Academy City,” groaned Kamijou Touya, his voice catching in his throat.

The black screen refused to provide any kind of response.

“Why would they cut the connection like that!? Our son is dead! And they just- we’re not a chatbot on a corporate website!! You can’t expect us to accept a death so easily!! Owwwwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

===Part 7===

“Teacher. Huggy squeezey☆”

“…”

Should he really be doing this right now?

Kamijou Touma was given a full-power hug from needy Alice. Had his shitty life finally entered a bonus mode? The sweet and warm girl content had been through the roof for the last bit.

Maybe it was weird to think of it this way in a city of science like Academy City, but he feared he was accumulating bad karma from all this. Enough to get him punished later on!!

They were in his dorm room.

This was a strange situation where little Alice would cling to him any chance she got, but he was still pale and chilled to the bone.

(Damn, he’s not answering his phone. What is dad doing?)

Then again, this was causing enough of a commotion in a city of science. If his father did answer the phone, he would probably assume it was a ghost scare or a cruel prank.

The weird part was the disturbing lack of anyone talking about this on the school’s social media. Kamijou-san was (according to himself) a brilliant person who could actually use a smartphone and he knew how to take a look at his class’s social media group, but no one was talking about it. In fact, no one was there at all.

…Or were they cut off from it for some reason?

That bothered him, but he wasn’t going to find the answer worrying over it here. He couldn’t exactly head back to the crematorium.

Anyway, he wanted to make sure he was safe and then fortify his position.

He was preparing a bath, but it would be a while before the hot water filled the tub.

He was cold.

He felt like he was going to die.

Had his sense of cold been numbed over before? Once he got in his room, he finally recalled that it was January.

After extracting himself from Alice, he moved to the bathroom. While he was at it, he would change into his school uniform in the changing room. He checked on the tub and confirmed it would indeed take a while longer.

“Sigh… I don’t think I can wait that long. It’s not my way, but maybe I should change before taking the bath.”

“Yay, a bath with teacher!”

“Wait! Did I just hear something ultra ominous from out there!? No, reacting is the wrong move here! I need to pretend to be a dense romcom boy and have selective hearing loss over this!”

He had been careless, so now he had to press his shoulder against the changing room door to defend it at all costs.

The bathroom lock could be opened with a single flat head screwdriver. Nothing could be less trustworthy.

“Ohh, teacher wants to play the door pushing game!”

“Gwahh, how is she so strong!? Is there an elephant going nuts on the other side of the door!?”

And as he shouted that, something felt off.

“…?”

Kamijou used the indoor clothes drying rod to jam the door shut and then hesitantly reached his hand into the tub before yanking it back.

Was that ice water?

And why wasn’t there any steam coming from the bath!?

“Th-this isn’t hot water!! Why is the tub full of freezing January water!? D-did someone mess with the machine’s recommended settings and switch it to learning mode? I don’t want that! I just want it to work normally, not some weird new service!!”

“Teacher, is it a problem with the water heater outside?”

He petrified.

Being corrected by Alice was about the last thing he had expected.

Regardless, he walked out the front door while shivering.

What if it was broken? Would a repairman accept the work when he was currently being pursued by Anti-Skill?

(But is there a way to have them do the work without actually meeting them? Like when you get something delivered and they just leave it at your door? No, no. I couldn’t explain how someone other than the guy living in the room wanted the water heater repaired. Oh, but then again…)

“Teacher? When a machine is broken, you can fix it by blowing on the metal part and reinserting it.”

“Now there’s some advice that takes me back. Oh, right. You’re actually older than me, aren’t you?”

“Hm? Why are you lost in thought, teacher?”

Wait, but weren’t even discs considered old fashioned at this point? Kamijou sensed some kind of twist in space-time.

And while they discussed it, he heard a noise.

He slowly turned toward the tone he recognized as the elevator arriving.

And the lonely little girl turned with him.

(What?)

The cheap elevator door opened and a priest in black with long red hair stepped out. Maybe it was the direction of the wind or the humidity…and maybe the amount of tar or nicotine was exceptionally high, but even at this distance, Kamijou thought the stench of cigarette smoke was seeping into him.

For a brief moment, the sound of the January rain grew louder.

Almost like he was hearing the sprinklers linked to the fire alarm.

(What…the hell?)

''He had no memory of this.

''But there was something about the combination of this place, this sound, and this person.

''The scene before his eyes caused a stirring in his heart?

“S-” said the pointy-haired boy on reflex.

Yes…

“Stiyl Magnus?”

It was him.

But Kamijou had no idea why he would be here.

For one, how had an Anglican magician gotten into Academy City?

Then it hit him.

“My funeral…”

“I have zero intention of grieving over you. It just made a convenient excuse for an outsider like me to pass through the front gate and enter the city. ''The other team'' appears to be having trouble, but I’m sure they’re right there outside the wall.”

That explained the how.

But there was a more fundamental question.

Why had Stiyl come to Academy City when he was suppose to be in England?

“…”

Kamijou remained cautious.

He glanced over at Alice.

Had the Anglicans been working hard to resolve the Bridge Builders Cabal issue in their own way? If so, Necessarius’s timing had been uncharacteristically poor. No matter who might have what complaints now, the issue with Alice had been solved. She would no longer destroy others or the world.

Stiyl Magnus said nothing.

The scene around him changed.

Kamijou felt like he was being pulled toward him.

The smoker priest’s black habit flapped hard at the air and then a ton of cards burst out in a great spiral. They attached themselves to the walls and floor and stayed there. Just like cherry blossom petals covering a lake or road after the merciless rain brought them down. There were too many to even see the original colors of the surfaces.

They were all laminated…

“Rune…cards?”

“''Teacher'',” snapped Alice Anotherbible before Kamijou’s past experiences could tell him of the threat.

And just after her warning…

''Fwoosh!!!

Stiyl pulled a flame sword out of thin air like a magic trick, the sword’s form collapsed, and flames erupted out like a flash flood.

Kamijou’s right hand sprang up to hold the palm out front.

He wouldn’t have made it in time without Alice’s warning.

Imagine Breaker.

He negated the scorching flames of more than 3000 degrees Celsius, but Kamijou still couldn’t believe it.

“Stiyl!?”

“''This isn’t about Alice Anotherbible''.”

The words muttered by the flame magician were colder than ice.

“''To be honest, I don’t care about her.''”

It was obvious now.

One look in Stiyl Magnus’s piercing eyes was enough to know who his true target was.

“You’re here to kill me!?”

“Sorry, but this ''isn’t even'' a job for the Anglicans.”

The soles of Kamijou’s shoes scraped audibly against the floor as he backed up.

He rejudged the distance between them.

The straight and narrow hallway left no room for lateral movement.

He hadn’t expected anything like this, but he was still glad he had changed into his school uniform.

An outsider like Kamijou had no way of knowing how the Anglican Church would view someone who had died and come back. Was he a troublemaker who had disturbed the natural order, or was he a living sample of the work of an expert magician? Either way, he knew they weren’t going to just let him go. Especially when he was inside Academy City, the headquarters of the science side that stood opposed to the magic side.

Kamijou had come up with all these guesses, so the words spilling from Stiyl’s mouth caught him by surprise.

“With you gone, the rights to your possessions go to others.”

“?”

At first, Kamijou didn’t know what he meant.

But Stiyl was serious.

The rights to his possessions? Stiyl was willing to kill over that?

The smoker priest clarified.

“Grimoire Library Index Librorum Prohibitorum was temporarily placed in Kamijou Touma’s care.”

“…”

Kamijou felt like he was using the coin-operated binoculars found at scenic locations. The distant and out-of-reach answer was gradually coming into focus.

And the image he found left him speechless.

No.

Wait, it couldn’t be!

“It was only ever temporary. If you were dead, so be it. With her temporary owner gone, ''that girl'' would naturally be returned to England where she belongs. Many magicians hoped for exactly that. Especially those connected to the Anglicans. Myself included.”

Yes.

That was right.

Index was ''a freeloader'' in Kamijou Touma’s dorm room. He didn’t know what specific agreement the Anglican Church and Academy City had made, but the situation had been stable.

But what happened to Index if he died?

And what if the pointy-haired boy unreasonably got back up again???

“But you had the gall to come back to life. Yes, yes. I have no intention of figuring out the details of the spell. All that matters is that Kamijou Touma once more cheated the system to get through it all! …Stop messing with us like this. Do you have any idea how much it shakes the world as a whole each time you go off and die or come back from the dead!?”

Could it be that no one wanted him alive again?

He had wondered that when he first escaped from the cremation chamber. But he had assumed that was an emotional issue of like or dislike – necessary or unnecessary.

“That said, the situation plays right into my hand. You were already set to be cremated. And even after you escaped, Academy City has been working to incinerate you with flamethrowers. No one will question it if you end up burned to death now. It will require massaging the timeline a little, but I’m the best man for the job, don’t you think?”

“…”

“I can’t imagine Kanzaki Kaori or Orsola Aquinas doing this job.”

It was pure interest.

A powder keg.

He hadn’t predicted this would shake things up so badly that it could even affect the power balance between the three major Christian factions on the magic side.

“The dead should remain dead, Kamijou Touma,” spat Stiyl Magnus.

Were some battles already being fought in the shadows over who would next take in Index?

Those eyes carrying a mixture of rage and contempt were the eyes of the kind of person who amused themselves by spreading false information on social media whenever there was a disaster or war.

“That is your duty.”

Kamijou couldn’t get any words out.

A single quiet footstep sounded.

It came from Alice Anotherbible standing next to Kamijou.

“It doesn’t matter what your reasons are.”

Her voice was cold.

But you must not forget.

Alice was not angry for herself.

The coming battle had nothing at all to do with her.

But angry she was.

“If any mouth in this world says teacher should be dead, then the girl will sew it shut. As the first and the model for all Transcendents, the girl can mop the floor with an ordinary magician or two. Mop the floor easily.”

She wasn’t boasting.

After the trouble she caused Academy City, Alice might really be able to do that.

''However…

“Khah…!?”

“Teacher!!”

''Wham!!!

A sudden impact pierced through the center of his gut. Something invisible had done it. He doubled over, but he wasn’t even allowed to fall. Unable to breathe, Kamijou Touma spat out all the air in his lungs. Some blood may have come up with it.

Alice was by his side, yet her cries sounded distant.

His sense of pain was instantly blown away.

What had happened to his body was so absurd none of his ordinary senses could make sense of it.

But the most frightening part wasn’t the impact itself.

Unlike 15cm Othinus, Alice Anotherbible still had her unique power, yet she hadn’t noticed it while right by his side.

What in the world had attacked him?

Neither Aradia nor the Bologna Succubus could do this.

Then who could?

Most likely, it ''wasn’t even'' Stiyl Magnus who stood before him! After all, Alice had provided Kamijou Touma with an accurate warning when Stiyl first swung his flame sword!!

“My, my. You have taken on the stench of death since we last saw you, Kamijou Touma.”

“See, it’s just as I feared. You’ve become more like us, haven’t you?”

Kamijou’s shoulders jumped.

He recognized those voices.

One was a beautiful woman’s alluring voice, which resembled a sweet fruit so overripe it was starting to rot. The other was a girl’s young but still unripe voice.

Didn’t that combination of voices belong to…?

“Nephthys…and Niang-Niang?”

They were Magic Gods on par with Othinus.

What were those monsters doing with Stiyl?

===Part 8===

The sexy silver-haired young woman with her brown skin wrapped in bandages was Nephthys.

She was the Magic God that existed as a collection of the people used as grave goods in the pharaoh’s tombs in Egyptian mythology.

The small girl with black hair, corpse-pale skin, and a modified mini-China dress was Niang-Niang.

She was the Magic God of a Shijie-Xian, one who had faked their death to cut all ties to the living world.

…It would probably be crass to ask what they had been doing all this time.

They were gods, after all.

They gave no concern for human matters and simply popped in whenever it suited their fancy. They had apparently hung out with Hamazura Shiage a while in London, but even that had been on a whim. It was never clear how long they would remain in a single field – which could mean a world or a phase or whatever.

“Hee hee.”

“Ha ha.”

The two extraordinary beings nestled up against Stiyl Magnus from either side, but something wasn’t right.

It was true Stiyl used Norse runes.

But he was fundamentally a part of the Anglican Church. He was a priest who believed in Christianity’s monotheism. How could he work with a pyramid mummy and a disguised corpse Shijie-Xian?

Kamijou’s inability to speak must have been enough for them to know where the confusion lay because Nephthys and Niang-Niang’s laughter grew louder.

“Is it really so odd?”

And after that.

The bandage woman spoke.

“Unusual people working with Necessarius should hardly be a surprise at this point. I mean, the Archbishop at the top of the Anglican Church is Dion Fortune right now. But not the actual woman – a tarot deck that is in fact an original grimoire designed to look like her.”

She sounded cheerful.

Like she was catching up with an old friend.

“And Magic Gods are, you know, the kind of people who are willing to die in our pursuit of knowledge. Christian Rosencreutz, Anna Kingsford, and hell, albeit an artificial one. It would be a problem if the process of resurrecting you left any odd trace of those legendary experts with you, wouldn’t it?”

“Powerless is about right for normal humans. I mean, those Transcendents? When an individual like you can gather them together and influence the world as a whole, things get really restrictive and just a pain. We want to live free, remember.”

It didn’t sound like those two had a change of heart that led them to side with Necessarius.

Did their interests simply align here?

For one thing, properly using all 103,001 of Index’s grimoires could possibly turn you into a Magic God. Nephthys and Niang-Niang may not have wanted to leave that thread hanging and possibly lead to more and more Magic Gods being created.

Kamijou heard a heavy metallic clunk.

Something rolled over to him.

It was the bucket-like helmet of a powered suit.

Magic God Niang-Niang had tossed it in front of him while grinning.

“We didn’t want any interruptions, so we hunted them down first.”

“…”

They were a greater threat than Bio Secure.

Of course they were. They were Magic Gods. Just remember Othinus’s former power. She had altered the world itself on a whim.

''There wasn’t even any point in counting how many times she had destroyed Academy City.

With Magic Gods involved, the previous diagram was obsolete.

“Alice…”

“No problem.”

Alice’s voice partially drowned out his own.

As if to keep him from saying the rest.

“The girl will defeat anyone who threatens your resurrected life.”

That only worried him more.

That was only a statement of intent. It did nothing to prove her ability.

This would be Transcendent versus Magic God.

…How would that play out?

Othinus didn’t count since she had lost her power, so wasn’t this the first full-power clash between the two groups? Alice Anotherbible certainly reigned at the top of the Transcendents, but it wasn’t clear how much power she had outside that category.

“Silly boy.”

In response, Nephthys boredly toyed with a lock of her silver hair.

“Just let us fight and all those questions will be answered.”

The brown goddess brought the tip of the hair to her lips and gently blew on it.

Something larger than his entire head flew right past his face at extreme speed.

The blast of wind only came after the fact. And the sound of destruction far after that.

“…”

He couldn’t react.

Had he been slow to act because it was invisible, or had the fear glued his feet to the floor? Even he wasn’t certain.

Nephthys spoke while once more brushing back her long silver hair.

“Oh, sorry about that. Were you trapped by the delusions of a little boy, thinking we might go easy on you because we know each other? We really will kill you this time, Kamijou Touma.”

He thought he would freeze.

The Egyptian goddess looked down on him with piercing eyes.

Her voice was far chillier than the winter rain.

The worst part was she was correct.

This wasn’t their first meeting. They did know each other.

These weren’t just any Magic Gods – they were Nephthys and Niang-Niang.

And with Othinus, he had reached an understanding with a Magic God before.

…Could he really say for sure he hadn’t been expecting, even a little bit, for that to mean something? Even though their presence here in Academy City meant their preparations were already complete?

These were true Magic Gods.

Othinus had been rendered harmless, but these two were still deadliness itself.

And they were ''truly'' here to kill.

Probably?

Maybe?

His battle against Alice Anotherbible should have taught him those words didn’t guarantee anything!

His body felt heavy just from imagining it.

Like he had molten lead in place of blood.

…''I might not be able to win this one.

That was Kamijou Touma’s honest thought. He wasn’t even sure what would happen against Stiyl and his 3000 degree flames, but he also had to deal with two true Magic Gods. His past battles against Othinus and High Priest were enough for him to understand the despair he was facing. These were not opponents he could face without any kind of preparation.

He gulped.

And then he realized something specifically because he couldn’t get his voice out.

“Alice…?”

Alice could not suppress the shaking of her body, but she was still biting her lip to keep from screaming.

On her own, she could survive anything.

Then what was she so afraid of?

The answer was obvious.

''Alice Anotherbible was terrified of the possibility of losing Kamijou Touma again.

…Now it was pissing him off. Why was he so incapable of considering the value of his own life?

And there was that empty room.

Index and Othinus… How many other people had he troubled with all this? Stiyl had said coming back to life was wrong and that it had caused all sorts of confusion. Maybe so. Looking at the world as a whole or at public interests, maybe Stiyl had a point.

But.

Was Kamijou really just going to accept that and die again?

He didn’t even know how many tears had been shed for him. He had been shown images of Index and Alice in that artificial hell, but that was all. It could be many others had wept and he just didn’t know it. Was he really going to give up because he couldn’t defeat two Magic Gods and a magician and accept death as the natural order of things without ever learning about all those people!?

Something happened at the center of his body.

His heart was beating.

That proved he was alive.

“…No…”

He didn’t have any kind of magical trick.

It didn’t matter that he had seen proof that a soul could be collected from death if an expert created an artificial hell to catch it.

Kamijou Touma.

Did you truly feel remorse in that hell? Did you feel anything at all while walking the path of regret the man going by Christian Rosencreutz had taken and when the expert named Anna Kingsford had stayed true to her way of life by giving him the impossible ticket to salvation?

“Don’t worry, Alice.”

He made a vow.

To the girl who had wept for him.

To the girl who had seen someone returned from the dead, wept in relief rather than fear, and spread her arms to embrace him.

“I’m not going to die here!!!”

It was time he thoroughly destroyed the ridiculous illusion that it was better he be dead.

<noinclude>
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Template:Toaru:Side Stories/Long SS

2024-07-06T22:14:29Z

Edzo: Added link to ePUB

<div class="mw-customtoggle-Long mw-customtoggle-LongClose mw-customtoggle-LongOpen" style="background:#ecf2ce;cursor:pointer" align="center">'''<big>Long Stories</big>'''</div>
<div class="mw-collapsible" style="text-align:left;margin:5px5pxclear:both;font-size:100%;background:transparent;width:100%" id="mw-customcollapsible-Long">
'''These are novel-length side stories published separately from the main series.'''

[[Image:SP.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SP ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume_SP|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Chapter1|Stiyl Magnus]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Chapter2|Mark Space]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Chapter3|Kamijou Touma]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Chapter4|Uiharu Kazari]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Afterword|Afterword]]

[[Image:RAILGUN SS1 01 001.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS: Liberal Arts City ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter5|Chapter 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter6|Chapter 6]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter7|Chapter 7]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter8|Chapter 8]]

[[Image:INDEX Norse Mythology 01 001.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Norse Mythology===
::*Illustrations
::*Chapter 1: The Whereabouts of the Restraints — GLEIPNIR.
::*Chapter 2: When Will We Outgrow Tropical Countries? — YMIR's_ocean.
::*Chapter 3: The True Meaning of Environmental Protection — RULIC_letters.
::*Chapter 4: This and That About Life — ALFAR.
::*Chapter 5: Marine Prison — NAGLFAR.
::*Chapter 6: The Best Moment — BIFROST.
::*Chapter 7: The Destination of Salvation — GUNGNIR.
::*Chapter 8: The One who Teaches the Secret Rune — VALKYRIE.

[[Image:RAILGUN SS2 01 001.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]

===Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS2: Shopping Mall Demonstration ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter5|Chapter 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter6|Chapter 6]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter7|Chapter 7]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter8|Chapter 8]]

[[Image:RAILGUN PSP.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Kagaku no Railgun PSP===
'''All links below are external links to [https://jerutz.wordpress.com/ JeruTz Translations]'''
::*[https://jerutz.wordpress.com/railgun-psp-tutorial/ Tutorial]
::*[https://jerutz.wordpress.com/railgun-psp/railgun-psp-chapter-1/ Chapter 1: Longicorn of the Vacant Lot]
::*[https://jerutz.wordpress.com/railgun-psp/railgun-psp-chapter-2/ Chapter 2: Disciplinary Guidance]
::*[https://jerutz.wordpress.com/railgun-psp/railgun-psp-chapter-3/ Chapter 3: Grim Reaper Kakiko]
::*Chapter 4
::*Chapter 5
::*DLC Chapter

[[Image:INDEX RtE Cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index: Road to Endymion ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Road_to_Endymion|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter5|Chapter 5]]

[[Image:INDEX Necessarius Cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Necessarius Special Entrance Exam===
::*Illustrations
::*Chapter 1
::*Chapter 2
::*Chapter 3
::*Chapter 4
::*Chapter 5
::*Chapter 6
::*Chapter 7
::*Chapter 8

[[Image:INDEX Virutal On Cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: A Certain Magical Virtual-On ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Preface|Preface]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Prologue|Prologue]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Epilogue|Epilogue]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Afterword|Afterword]]

[[Image:Railgun Cold Game Cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun_Cold_Game|Toaru Kagaku no Railgun: Cold Game]]===

<br style="clear:both"/>
[[Image:RailgunSS3 cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS3 ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter5|Chapter 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter6|Chapter 6]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter7|Chapter 7]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter8|Chapter 8]]

[[Image:Biohacker_cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Biohacker ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter5|Chapter 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter6|Chapter 6]]

[[Image:AgneseSS_cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Agnese’s Magic Side Work Trial ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter5|Chapter 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter6|Chapter 6]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter7|Chapter 7]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter8|Chapter 8]]

[[Image:Railgun_cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===A Certain Scientific Railgun ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Prologue|Prologue: Four Girls]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter1|Chapter 1: Shirai Kuroko Does Not Hesitate]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter2|Chapter 2: Saten Ruiko’s Messy Bloodbath Paradise☆]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter3|Chapter 3: Uiharu Kazari Can Do Real Work Too]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter4|Chapter 4: Misaka Mikoto and the Death of Class]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Epilogue|Epilogue: Four Girls+α]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Afterword|Afterword]]

[[Image:Item Cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===A Certain Dark Side Item ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Prologue|Prologue: Feminine, Dangerous, Bright]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter1|Chapter 1: The Fifth Girl]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter2|Chapter 2: >>Colosseum]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter3|Chapter 3: A Certain Display of Courage, A Secret Reward]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter4|Chapter 4: Roar of the Level 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Epilogue|Epilogue: A Path Leading to Another Time, Another Place]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Afterword|Afterword]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Ending|?]]

[[Image:Item2 Cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===A Certain Dark Side Item 2 ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Prologue|Prologue: The Girls Resolve Their Job Like a Puzzle]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter1|Chapter 1: Level5_vs._Little_Honey_Queen]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter2|Chapter 2: The Storm Approaches]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter3|Chapter 3: Project Angelica]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter4|Chapter 4: Your Chains Exist to be Broken]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Epilogue|Epilogue: If Just One Thing Had Happened Differently]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Afterword|Afterword]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Ending|?]]

===A Certain Dark Side Item 3===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Prologue|Prologue: The City of Science is a Godless Place]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Chapter1|Chapter 1: Public and Private]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Chapter2|Chapter 2: The Fourth Estate]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Chapter3|Chapter 3: The Dark Side Can Find a New Toy Among the Classics]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Chapter4|Chapter 4: The Violent Gears Known as Justice]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Epilogue|Epilogue: The Cry of True Evil]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Afterword|Afterword]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Ending|?]]

===[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Mental_Out_SS|A Certain Scientific Mental Out: The Queen’s Play]]===

===A Certain Magical Index Side Story: Ace Misaka Mikoto vs. Queen Shokuhou Misaki!! - ([https://www.mediafire.com/file/kzgjogumedoo62j/Ace_Misaka_Mikoto_vs._Queen_Shokuhou_Misaki%2521%2521.epub ePUB])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Prologue|Prologue: Breaking News!!]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter1|Chapter 1: A Single Pudding Triggers the Apocalypse]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter2|Chapter 2: A Fundamental Question]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter3|Chapter 3: Two Members of the Most Dangerous Non-Native Species]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter4|Chapter 4: Go Play in Space]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter5|Chapter 5: Returning and Taking Over]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter6|Chapter 6: Who Stands in the Way?]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter7|Chapter 7: Arrival of Catastrophe]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Epilogue|Epilogue: End Credits]]

[[#toc|'''<small>Back to Contents</small>''']]
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</div>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter4

2024-04-24T17:05:34Z

Edzo: /* Chapter 4: The Unfortunate Boy’s Focus – Over_the_River. */ fixed typo "worshiped" into "worshipped"

==Chapter 4: The Unfortunate Boy’s Focus – Over_the_River.==

===Part 1===

H.T. Trismegistus looked at everything before him.

He had known the cause.

Which was why he had thought Alice would go back to normal if he killed Kamijou Touma.

He had thought he needed to punish Anna for messing with Alice.

He had always been on that small girl’s side.

Because he had thought ''common sense said'' it would be cruel to throw such a small girl out into the world alone. In that case, her tremendous power would not be an advantage. It would only be an omen of danger. She would be like a young child who inherited a vast fortune. She would be the perfect bait for all the scum lurking in the shadows. He had decided he should protect her and look after her. It wasn’t about logic. He thought anyone would decide the same thing after seeing her, which meant it was common sense. He had believed in the goodness of the world at large.

But in that case…

“Oooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

What was this?

Was this what he had wanted to see?

Wind blew wildly through the library, but this was no meteorological phenomenon. Great currents of a nonphysical power created ''tailwinds'' and ''headwinds'' in rapid succession.

As a regular Transcendent who had used Alice as an example to get where he was, he could not rescue the girl who was his starting point.

Attempting it was as meaningless as offering a hand to help her to her feet while also pinning her down below his foot. Pulling on her hand like that would only tear her arm off.

Thus.

CRC. Christian Rosencreutz.

He had thought the only way to save that lonely girl was with the help of a power not derived from Alice and that common sense told him was greater than hers.

That was the only option.

He couldn’t think up anything else.

But when the holy man was reborn, he was nothing like the common legends and he hadn’t been interested in saving the world, ''including Alice''.

Alice had smiled like normal after having her head crushed, but it had felt somehow off.

They had reached their limit.

Alice Anotherbible had.

The Bridge Builders Cabal, who wished to save the world but couldn’t make the attempt on their own, had.

The Transcendents, who who had erased their own opinions and thrown out their own identities, had.

They all had.

They had made the wrong choice. H.T. Trismegistus had passed that fatal branch and started down a path to hell. He had finally realized that. There was no undoing what he had done, so what could he do to fight it now?

There was no optimal answer.

So what kind of compromise could he reach?

“…”

He had made a fatally mistaken decision, but H.T. Trismegistus was still a Transcendent. He dressed up in the appearance and abilities of the god he had chosen, he chose his salvation condition, and then he saved everyone that applied to. So even in this situation, he directed his question not to himself but to the thing that determined all his actions.

In other words, he asked it of the entire world.

What did common sense say?

Was it really right to ignore a crying girl?

===Part 2===

They were in a library filled with light.

Not a grand temple or castle. It was part of a certain boy’s school, which Alice Anotherbible had said she wanted to see. That was the reason she had chosen this as the final location.

There was no further significance there.

Alice had in fact offered up her entire being, including her life, there.

What had that small girl really wanted?

This had nothing to do with the fate of Academy City or the madness spreading across the world.

Kamijou had to sense what was deep inside Alice.

He quietly clenched his teeth.

Strongly.

The time had come to directly face that cornered girl’s feelings.

“Touma-”

“Don’t bother trying to analyze this with your 103,001 grimoires,” roared Kamijou, still facing Alice.

He intentionally ignited his heart.

“I know what I have to do regardless: punch Alice to bring her back to her senses!! Being the strongest doesn’t mean she has to carry it all on her own. I refuse to let her be alone for even a second longer!!”

Kamijou Touma.

Anna Sprengel. H.T. Trismegistus.

Those three faced the girl together. They glared at her without fleeing. Their positions, plans, and abilities were completely different, but they were all working toward a single goal here.

''Don’t forget.

''And if you have forgotten, we’ll show you.

“Don’t falter.”

''Alice Anotherbible.

''You aren’t alone.

''Your loneliness is no more than an illusion.

''There are still plenty of people out there who want to save you!!

“Let’s do thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis!!!”

Kamijou shouted to shake off the fear and raced forward. With his right fist still clenched tight.

Well before he made it in punching range, he heard a hard crunching sound.

It came from Alice.

No, down at her feet.

He knew better than to ask why or for what purpose.

Alice was already doing something.

Whatever this was, that irregular Transcendent had chosen to use her own body to act.

And she chose to attack.

“Fool!!”

Little Anna kicked him in the back of the knee from the side.

As soon as his view dropped straight down, something tore diagonally upwards through the air.

All sound vanished.

Five clawmarks were torn diagonally through the library wall directly behind Kamijou. Same for the many bookcases in between. Only after the fact did he realize the same would have happened to him if his head hadn’t lowered by a few dozen centimeters.

Claws.

Scratches.

That primitive attack had been amplified to the extreme.

“''If you die, it’s over.'' I know it’s obvious, but you can’t forget that absolute rule!! Good, Old Mary’s resurrection does not work against fatal wounds caused by Alice herself. If you really want to save her, then you can’t expect the world to do you any favors. You can only reach out your own hand to help her!!”

If the expert named Anna Kingsford were here, she would have easily seen through it.

The only one here who reached that level understanding was the Grimoire Library with access to 103,001 original grimoires.

“Was that magic?” asked Index in disbelief. While reaching out a hand to help Kamijou back to his feet. “Since people’s interior worlds are linked to the physical world outside them, anything you can do with your body can be used to reach a mystical power that changes the entire world. I get that, but still.”

“All those fancy gestures and ceremonies are only meant to purify and cleanse your will,” said Othinus.

Kamijou took this time to gently push the little god into Index’s hands.

Everything about Alice was the ultimate enigma, so he wanted to ensure the survival of anyone who could help explain it all. And he didn’t think he could protect Othinus if she was with him.

“But Alice Anotherbible has had her baseline purity ''forcibly increased'', so each and every one of her actions is pure without going through that process.”

“We should consider ourselves fortunate,” said H.T. Trismegistus.

That was the gloomy young butler’s assessment.

Because…

“We are in fact incredibly fortunate that Alice cannot ''kill her enemies with a thought or set the world in motion to kill her enemies if she wills it.'' This tells us she must take a physical action to trigger her attacks. Common sense says we are lucky indeed.”

But that also meant this wasn’t limited to her scratching claws.

The girl who had become a fully-grown woman faced Kamijou while tilting diagonally.

She took a step.

Just one.

“Touma, she’s coming!!”

“!!!???”

He understood that, but he couldn’t restrain his reflexes as a living being. Crossing his arms in front of his face was a definite mistake.

The sweet scent of tea filled the boy’s nose. Something was overpowering the library’s old paper smell.

Alice Anotherbible already stood behind Kamijou.

''Walking

''In other words, she took action to move to her desired location.

She had not formed a special shape with her fingers, nor had she stepped in a complex pattern.

She had taken the same action anyone could.

She was blessed with a special result without having to focus on it.

The meaning extracted from her ordinary actions was just too pure!?

“Ali-!?”

She was already right there.

Kamijou spun around and swung his right hand back in something like a backhand blow.

But it found only air.

The grown woman pressed her four limbs down against the floor like an animal and lowered her head as far as it would go.

Crawling.

She had moved to his blind spot and then his last-second counterattack had missed. What this meant squeezed at his heart. He might as well have offered her the perfect chance to attack him.

The young butler did not hesitate to move.

Light flashed from his right hand as the blade hidden in his cane turned to light and sliced through the floor. The strange slash had an effect well beyond the length of the sword. And it struck right were crawling Alice’s lowered head was. It definitely hit. Except the metal blade passed right through her. Like she was intangible.

A specific meaning had been extracted from her ordinary action: evasion.

“It doesn’t matter if you hit her or not!?” hatefully spat Othinus.

As long as the adult woman moved to dodge, no external damage could affect her. Even if she took a direct hit from a nuclear missile. Alice showed no interest in H.T. Trismegistus even with his attempted decapitation of her. Still crawling, she raised her head and casually extended her hand toward Kamijou.

“''I was right.''”

Apparently the young butler’s attack had been to check something.

He had ended up cutting through the floor below Alice instead of her, so it fell.

That had been his intent from the beginning.

He had intentionally destroyed the floor so he could gather more information and survive.

Kamijou would die today.

''But he didn’t care about that anymore.

“Hey, wait, human!”

“(Keep Othinus with you, Index!)”

Just as he passed that message on with a look, the entire floor collapsed.

His feet were freed from gravity and his vision slid straight down. Along with the heavy bookcases held in place with quake-resistant screws.

“Gah!?”

Kamijou, Anna, and Trismegistus himself were caught up in it too, successfully distancing them from Alice’s hand.

They just barely escaped alive.

Instead of an ordinary classroom, they found themselves in a large space that must have been lined with steel office desks. Or the remains of it, anyway. The first term in the new school had yet to begin, but the desks already had some personal items on them. Was this the faculty room?

Only Alice wasn’t affected.

The grown woman’s long blonde hair swayed as she looked down at them from the upper floor. The floor only remained in the corners of the room and Alice alone stood there.

Like a wounded animal bleeding and furious while trapped by a fishing hook or some plastic tape that a human had thoughtlessly discarded.

Like a lonely animal.

One that’s threats and howls echoed with melancholy.

''This isn’t over,'' thought Kamijou as he forced his aching body back onto its feet. No matter how battered his body was – even if he was in such a bad state it would make a doctor scream in horror – he was still alive. For now, at least.

The power balance of Transcendents and whatnot no longer mattered. Just a person was good enough. As long as he still lived, even the puniest human had the right to change the course of the battle with his own conscious decisions.

And the extraordinary strongest being was only looking at him.

That much was a relief, at least.

(Index and Othinus are probably up there. And unlike Alice, they were by the door, so they can escape at any time. They don’t need to stay on the dangerous frontline. As long as I can call them, they can still provide information support!)

“She uses a variation on this, doesn’t she?”

Kamijou heard a dull “thud!!” and turned to see a 2m metal orb next to Anna. That was the Pneuma-less Shell, a spiritual item that produced tools from civilizations the world over and extracted the world’s oldest causes of death from them.

“But in Alice’s case, she doesn’t even rely on a tool. She draws out the meaning contained in the actions she takes and unleashes them as an attack. It’s a type of magic and also a type of miracle. She takes the ridiculous-sounding legends of holy men and woman producing miracles empty-handed and develops a logical way of actually doing it. Or that’s the sense I get from it, anyway.”

“…”

“Supposedly she was created when some Teacher of Crowley went a step too far and modified Alice Pleasance Liddell, so maybe if you follow the path back from Magick to Golden magic and then Rosicrucian magic, you can see the essence of my spells in what she does.”

On the floor above, Alice ignored their conversation and moved.

She tapped her heel down.

Creating a vibration.

It didn’t matter that they were on separate floors.

Kamijou and the others went stiff. They were pinned in place.

Stomping.

It was a juvenile act of resistance and intimidation. A challenge and attempted reversal against someone who was clearly your superior. It was a threat meant to overpower adult logic with childish instinct and a primitive gamble that all humans attempted at some point.

It worked.

The adult Alice jumped down in the single second the world was frozen.

She aimed to land on Kamijou. On the top of his head.

A dull sound followed.

Alice again knocked something sharply to the ground.

That broke the spell and Kamijou quickly leaped toward Anna and rolled along the floor.

Alice’s heel dropped like a shooting star and smashed deep into the floor.

Little Anna smirked in Kamijou’s arms while they lay in a jumble on the floor.

As if she were bragging to Alice that, no matter how powerful Alice was, it was Anna the boy had done this for.

“Now, did you switch over to 1.5x speed because you thought it was just a boring exposition scene? The Pneuma-less Shell is not a demonstration-only show item. It is a spiritual item that randomly produces a cause of death and not even I can fully control what it does!!”

She held a staff.

The strange staff looked like a giant golden cross decorated with a red ruby rose.

“You should thank my excellent luck of the draw, fool. The gold cross and ruby rose – the world’s oldest ''human-made'' miracle of the rose is the destruction of the origin. It brings death through disillusionment. It supposedly has ancient origins, but it was first depicted in the middle ages and rediscovered in more recent times. It contains all the violence found in the magic of extreme growth and maturity!!”

Miss Sprengel raised the staff in her little hands.

That was all.

There was no fancy incantation or complex magic circle. Flames simply appeared in the empty air and were released from the staff. They shot toward Alice with a liquid motion. These were not ordinary flames. They were magic flames that scorched and burned away space itself regardless of the physical material, like an old photograph being burned from behind.

Alice grabbed her long hair as a single mass.

And she swung her head around.

In a move straight out of kabuki, the thick bundle of hair drew a large circle in the air, which narrowed down as soon as the crimson flames passed through it.

The orange flames stopped in midair.

Binding.

In other words, stopping all movement of a target. And separating the target out from all possible interference.

“Tch!!”

The Pneuma-less Shell was Anna’s spiritual item, but what weapon she acquired was a matter of chance. She wouldn’t receive the same weapon if she tried again.

But that brief moment of regret was a mistake.

Alice tugged on her hair binding the flames, causing little Anna to pitch forward and lose her balance.

At that same moment, the grown woman took a step forward. They had seen what this did already. Whatever the distance, Alice would have already arrived at her destination.

Which meant right in front of Kamijou.

For an instant, he lost all depth perception. Alice’s grown chest suddenly blocked his view and his pupils couldn’t focus in time.

She arrived straight up in front of him with a flowing motion.

By the time his eyes had finally caught up, Alice’s fingers – and their sharp claws – were extending lithely toward his throat.

Time stopped. He tried to swing his head to the side and dodge, but his body couldn’t keep up.

He couldn’t die yet.

He might die, but it couldn’t be now.

He thought that so hard it seemed to burn into his mind. After all, the girl who had forgotten how to cry and instead howled like an animal was right there in front of him. He couldn’t die until he had saved her.

Light pierced sharply in from the side.

Time resumed flowing.

Alice doubled over and rolled along the floor.

This first clean hit did not come from Kamijou, Anna, or H.T. Trismegistus.

They heard a voice.

“What the hell? Did I really just hit Alice? Not to mention I thought we couldn’t even approach this center area because we were cut off spatially and temporally in that labyrinth!”

It was Aradia, god of witches, the moon, and the night.

A short distance away, the Bologna Succubus was on the ground grappling with a bipedal hare. After absorbing the shadows of next-gen weapons until she was large enough to trample the school building underfoot, Mut Thebes was engaged in a direct fistfight with an equally gigantic cat.

Hadn’t Anna mentioned the other Transcendents had arrived at the school too?

Kamijou and the others must have fallen far enough to reach where those Transcendents were battling the Gryphon, the Executioner, and so on.

Unlike Kamijou, Alice had not invited them.

And they couldn’t slip past those defenses like Anna could.

They had forcibly entered a labyrinth with no goal. In there, they fought an endless battle against Alice’s brutal toys – which might look comical but were all monsters capable of overwhelming Academy City’s dark side. That they were still alive showed just how abnormal Transcendents were.

For a brief moment, the dark pressure of death vanished within Kamijou. He felt strength growing from the center of his being.

Alice really wasn’t alone.

The world was not such a heartless place.

Good, Old Mary, Aradia, and the others gained nothing by winning this battle, but they were still here risking their lives. Even though this battlefield was ruled by the ordinary and inviolable rule where death meant losing everything they had been working to achieve.

What motivated their desperate battle?

What could it possibly be other than kindness?

“Fool, this is bad sign. Encountering the bait meant to buy us time means we have more enemies to deal with. By which I mean the Gryphon, the Executioner, and the rest of the Alice Series.”

“You have some nerve running off on your own to flirt, you goddamn villain,” said Aradia. “Just so you know, I’m more than willing to employ spankings as punishment as long as you aren’t one of the witches I’ve sworn to protect.”

“My, my. Quite an outdated way of thinking for such a young-looking goddess. Makes me wonder how old you ''really'' are.”

“I don’t want to hear that from the preserved little girl from who-knows-how-many centuries ago.”

Alice extracted herself from the collapsed cabinets half-burying her.

Her eyeballs rolled in her head.

Even now, that enchantingly lithe woman only ever looked Kamijou’s way. She didn’t even glance over at Aradia who had delivered the attack.

“Kh. Anyway, let’s fall back. We need to put some distance between us!!”

A sharp voice rang through the broken faculty room. Aradia held out her palm and launched a scattershot of light to keep Alice back. Each shot moved like a sea snake as they tore through the air and targeted adult Alice from multiple angles.

The storybook girl said nothing.

She didn’t even look Aradia’s way.

She only extended a finger and rotated it once clockwise.

Like some kind of joke, all of the glowing projectiles veered away from the fully-grown woman, blasting through walls and pillars instead.

Cursing.

That one childish action easily confused every eye on her, bringing them under her spell.

“Kh.”

Aradia didn’t even have time to gasp in shock.

Alice really didn’t look her way the entire time. She simply changed the arrangement of her casually extended fingers. She curled up her middle finger and held it down with her thumb like she was preparing to flick something.

There was no light or sound.

It was a lot like returning the favor.

Aradia broke through the wall and flew off somewhere.

Kamijou’s face paled.

That had definitely hit.

Flicking.

What even was that?

What meaning had been extracted from that simple action anyone was capable of?

Warning bells rang loud in Kamijou’s mind.

''If you died, it was over.

''Death really and truly meant goodbye.

''Because Alice’s attacks were the one thing not even Good, Old Mary’s resurrection could cure.

“Aradiaaa!!”

“Don’t worry, fool. It looks like the two of them distributed the damage between them. But that ''would'' have caused her heart to burst if there hadn’t been two identical Aradias here.”

Kamijou knew now wasn’t the time to ask why that would have caused her heart to burst or what splitting that in half would mean.

He heard a dull impact and saw sparks.

After a short delay, he heard an explosion as a shockwave crashed into the distorted scene.

Something again intersected between Anna and Alice.

In the deadly battle against Alice, the value of each second was far greater than normal. Death was the end. Truly the end. The clock was always ticking in real time and everyone was moving at once.

He could not forget the fundamental rules revealed here.

“But that isn’t reason enough to relax. Splitting the damage in half means receiving the same attack twice will mean the end for both Aradias.”

“…”

So Aradia couldn’t do it.

Mut Thebes could grow endlessly by absorbing weapon shadows and Good, Old Mary could create any tool or chemical with her alchemy, including ones with great destructive power, but Kamijou couldn’t picture either of them stopping Alice.

The Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress spell could replace all pleasure with equal amounts of pain, regardless of the target’s physical toughness and endurance. That attack had made even Christian Rosencreutz grimace, but would it work here? Was this version of Alice in a mental state where she experienced that sort of human emotion?

Then would he give up?

He needed to give himself some credit for immediately answering that with a “hell no”.

He had a reason for saying that.

He needed to thank his past ordeals for preparing him for this.

“There is little meaning in analyzing each and every thing she does,” said Anna.

She raised her golden cross staff as if judging the distance between herself and Alice.

“We need to start with tearing down the idea that we can never defeat Alice. And it isn’t the Transcendents and their obvious strength that can do that. It needs to be the more unorthodox fighters like me or you who do that, fool!!”

The grown woman vanished.

The golden cross staff and the primitive and violent jabbing claws crashed together head-on.

Anna had reacted.

She was capable of it.

When the Executioner attempted to make his own attack from the side, Anna bisected him straight down the middle with only a glare. The ruby decorating her staff shined a moment later. Its role complete, a clump of compressed air burst, buffeting Kamijou’s hair and cheeks as a violent wind.

The monsters from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland could actually die.

There were no absolutes in this world.

Kamijou realized it had been that way from the beginning. Alice had always been so absolute, but when Anna Sprengel showed up, the little villain toyed with the situation, laid traps, took control, and otherwise overshadowed Alice.

While Anna hadn’t managed any clean hits, being able to lock weapons with Alice was unusual in and of itself.

Anna and Alice.

Two irregular Transcendents.

Just like Alice Anotherbible brought everything to her side, including probability and insight, Anna Sprengel was manipulating some unseen factor in real time.

“Accept me, H.T. Trismegistus!! You regular Transcendents are based on Alice, so you can never harm her. But if you swap out foundations, you can bypass Alice’s precedence over you. Like comparing heights of the Tower of Babel and the World Tree Yggdrasil!!”

“I am in your debt.”

“I’m only doing this to make that fool smile. And you want Alice to smile in the same way, right? Then hurry!!”

An invisible change came over the air. A weight vanished.

New possibility had presented itself. If Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the other Transcendents also swapped out their connection, they could possibly overturn Alice’s absoluteness.

The young butler once more held his right hand to the staff at his hip in an iaido pose.

The meaning of his sword strikes had changed.

But he was a moment too slow.

With a dull thud, the equilibrium was broken. Anna’s small body took a powerful blow.

Even though they were supposedly equal.

With a single hand, Alice casually grabbed the beaten-up Gryphon to use it as a weapon.

As if it were a giant club.

Grabbing.

The act of denying an object its own will and applying her own will to it by unilaterally wielding it for its offensive or defensive functionality.

Anna could compete with Alice on her own, but that changed if Alice boosted her strength with something else.

That is, ''if Alice turned someone else into a weapon.

That absurdly powerful magic could boost her stats by forcibly equipping herself with something else: a sword, a shumai, a goddess – anything.

(Is that a superior version of Mut Thebes’s ability to absorb the shadow of any weapon!?)

“Gahh!?”

“Anna!!”

Alice made a further attack. The Gryphon extended her reach, so the little villain failed to dodge. She was pummeled hard enough to bend backwards.

Anna groaned and tried to raise her golden staff.

But Alice was again faster.

Alice was always a step ahead. To an unnatural degree.

She grabbed H.T. Trismegistus’s wrist as he tried to attack her from the side. She turned him into a weapon, equipped that weapon, and swung it artlessly to the side.

A direct hit.

A dull impact rang loud.

In this case, taking Anna’s side had been a mistake.

Or maybe he had been thwarted by Alice’s ''tailwind''.

That magic stole power from external sources. If H.T. Trismegistus had remained no more than one of Alice’s toys, he couldn’t have provided more power on top of her own.

The little villain struggled to breathe and a red clump splattered from the corner of her mouth.

The equilibrium was broken.

Despite dropping her golden cross staff, Anna clenched her teeth and stepped forward.

Another impact sounded.

But not from more of Alice’s unreasonable violence.

It didn’t end there.

This time it came from Anna.

Anna and Alice crashed foreheads together.

“You wanted recognition, didn’t you?”

With their foreheads pressed together, Anna spoke from extreme close range.

“You wanted forgiveness, didn’t you? And you wanted love!! Just like me!!! Then you shouldn’t give up. He didn’t care that I’m a villain. I’m here now because he didn’t hesitate to run away with me back then. As long as that fool continues to reach out his hand, don’t just assume all light has vanished from this world!!!”

Alice said nothing.

But a subtle tremor did run through the cheek of her bestial expression.

Kamijou thought that came from something other than her intense emotion.

Then Alice made her next move.

Smelling.

She sniffed out her target’s precise location. ''Which meant her next move was guaranteed to hit, no matter how poorly aimed it was.

Once again, Alice swung H.T. Trismegistus around with a single hand and struck Anna’s little body with her boosted attack. The force of the blow caused the gloomy young butler to slip from Alice’s grasp. No, his right wrist shattered like pottery. Only his hand remained in the grown woman’s hand.

This wasn’t like a home run in baseball or a strike in bowling.

The two of them were knocked away with a strange sound.

Neither one cried out.

Kamijou didn’t even want to think about how much damage that had done to Anna.

While collapsed in a daze, H.T. Trismegistus simply stared up at Alice as she tossed his hand aside. The lack of blood only made the scene more bizarre.

“I…”

Something spilled from the young butler’s lips.

They were words.

That magician had believed common sense would lead anyone to think the same thing after seeing that girl with an unwanted power forced upon her. And the words left his mouth now.

“I wanted to place a roof over her head and protect her from the threats of the world…but I failed.”

Alice Anotherbible wasn’t listening.

The fully-grown blonde woman tilted her head and spun around.

“''Teacher''.”

Toward Kamijou Touma.

As if he was all she could see.

He understood that Alice wasn’t in a normal state of mind.

She hadn’t been when a magician had altered her body, she hadn’t been when she was surrounded and protected by the Bridge Builders Cabal, she hadn’t been when Anna had given her a deep interest in Kamijou Touma, and she hadn’t been when Kamijou’s rejection had left her dazed.

She hadn’t been for so very long.

He understood that.

But that was not a statement she should have ignored.

She had become animalistic and irrational, but it wasn’t like she couldn’t talk. She had just spoken to Kamijou. But she had still chosen to brush off the young butler.

He didn’t interest her, so she wouldn’t speak to him.

Was that the only reason she didn’t react?

(Not yet.)

Don’t lose hope.

Don’t give up on Alice.

Choose to not let her madness grow.

If you began using personal misfortune as an excuse, that was the end for you. In a way, Kamijou understood that better than anyone.

The world was cruel, so he had seen plenty of people unfairly and unreasonably devastated by it.

But Kamijou hadn’t faltered with those people.

He had fought them.

“I was unlucky” was a convenient phrase applicable to most anything, but he knew relying it and overusing it would prevent you from ever finding the way out of the darkness and would meaninglessly force you into a life of misfortune. He knew in his bones that irresponsibly relying on your misfortune would mean rotting away in that filthy dead end forever.

So.

He would teach Alice the proper way to live with unreasonable misfortune.

“You can still fight, can’t you, teacher?”

“I can.”

Kamijou readied his one and only weapon. He clenched his fist.

Hard.

“But that doesn’t matter so the girl will overturn her prophecy because she will make sure to do something to help you and then make up with you and fight with you and be happy so she doesn’t believe what that incomplete library says because there must be a way to help you out there and she refuses to fail because the girl is Anotherbible so we can make up.”

“Sure!! But I hope you don’t think saying that will stop me, Alice!!”

===Part 3===

He couldn’t rely on Anna Sprengel or H.T. Trismegistus anymore.

The other Transcendents were a far way off too.

The ordinary faculty room was everything.

It must have been cut off from the rest of the world long ago.

So it was one against one.

Kamijou Touma vs. Alice Anotherbible.

This had been about them from the beginning, so there was no better two to settle it.

So.

“Ooooooaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

“Ooooooaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

They clashed head on.

Alice roared like an animal and spread her arms wide.

Hugging.

An act of reliance on another and using your full body to acquire a sense of fulfillment from the outside world.

Of course, a hug from her here would have easily torn Kamijou’s body apart.

A dull sound indicated a direct hit.

From Kamijou. He felt the solid impact of landing a punch.

The sensation in his fist was enough to clear his mind.

In a way, this was to be expected when Alice went all in on attack, spreading her arms and coming straight toward him without even considering defense.

“Kh.”

Beads of sweat flew from the grown woman as she bent back and left her “hugging” pose. With the trunk of her body still collapsed, she clawed at the air with her fingers bent like hooks.

The boy dropped his body down.

After just barely dodging a deadly attack that sliced through the walls and pillars, he threw another punch that Alice blocked with her other hand. But unlike with her “walking” or “binding”, there was no special effect here.

Alice didn’t have time to extract and refine a miracle out of that action.

They clashed a few more times after that, but still Kamijou was not dead.

They both took a step back.

“Curioser and curioser.”

Alice tilted her head.

The fully-grown bondage woman moved with the mannerisms of a 10-year-old.

It was strange and bizarre.

Everything about her was.

“You’re the only one still standing, teacher, but you’re moving in ways you shouldn’t be able to on your own.”

“Of course I am.”

When Alice was taking evasive action by “crawling”, any and all attacks would pass through her.

H.T. Trismegistus had proven this for everyone to see by not hesitating to bisect the girl he so adored.

Alice could extract miracles much like the Pneuma-less Shell but without relying on any tools.

That knowledge came from Anna Sprengel.

However.

“So why don’t you just keep on ‘crawling’ while you attack? Then you could remain untouchable the entire time you send your unfair attacks our way.”

“…”

“Since you aren’t doing that, I can only assume you’re limited to using one miracle at a time. For example, your ‘crawling’ causes any attacks to pass right through you, but it also keeps you from laying a finger on us, so you can never actually end the fight that way, can you? Your ‘walking’ and ‘cursing’ are the same. ''Your miracles are isolated things – they can’t be combined or used in parallel''! Which means I’ve found your weakness, Alice Anotherbible. I don’t know how tough you are, but you can’t make yourself untouchable while you attack. The damage will reach you then!!”

So he would aim for a cross counter.

It wasn’t much, but that was the one and only way out of this battle against Alice Anotherbible.

Alice could use any and all miracles with nothing more than her own body, but she had the mannerisms of a child. She was extremely powerful, but her attacks were all made “on a whim” or “on reflex”, which made it easy to match her timing.

Kamijou hadn’t realized this on his own.

He never could have.

He wouldn’t let anyone say the defeated people’s feelings had been any weaker than anyone else’s.

If Alice could “grab” any object, phenomenon, or person and make it her weapon, then he was supported by the strength of the feelings that had led him to this point.

He couldn’t let this end in tears at this point. He wouldn’t leave anyone behind in the darkness. He would grab Alice’s hand and drag her out of there.

Because that was the power of reality, something not even Imagine Breaker could eliminate.

“What does it matter if they’re not standing here with me? Anna, Trismegistus, and the others showed me the way. They risked their lives to test your abilities and I never would have made it this far without everything they learned. Don’t you get it? They’re still here fighting alongside me.”

“Then the girl will heal herself.”

That was all Alice said.

She was so powerful she had never had a chance to experience defeat and so didn’t worry too much about who won an individual battle. She didn’t fear the possibility of being beaten and dying.

If she did ultimately bury the enemy who stood in her way, it was no skin off her nose if she died once or twice first.

Because…

“Have you forgotten, teacher? The girl already had her head crushed by someone calling himself Rosencreutz. And yet here she is as good as new. So it doesn’t matter to the girl even if you do manage to kill her in exchange for severe damage on your part. ''The girl just has to resurrect herself a billion or even a trillion times if necessary and wait for you to finally wear yourself out''.”

“''But you can’t do anything else while you’re focused on healing yourself, can you''?”

He also had an immediate response.

This wasn’t enough to break him.

Kamijou did not fear that the wishes and feelings left with him would amount to nothing and that all his efforts would be negated in an instant.

She could heal herself?

It would all be for nothing?

So what?

Surprisingly, it was Alice who spoke next.

The fully-grown woman spoke with an oddly calm and quiet voice, like a pot on the verge of boiling.

“What do you think you can accomplish?”

“What, out of miracles already? Why not search through my mind yourself, Alice?”

Alice’s prophecy was accurate.

Kamijou Touma would die.

He had accepted that.

And he had decided he would save this girl using the power he gained in exchange.

So he took the first step forward.

They clashed.

===Part 4===

In a merciless head-on assault, Alice’s fist compressed the air and tore through the existing faculty room while the path of her five claws sliced through the entire building and space itself.

Dodging was meaningless against this.

If she made a single roundhouse kick, it would probably become an AoE attack that struck everything around her. When her attack was like a massive gale sweeping right to left, there was no way to avoid it just by moving your body out of the way.

So it hit.

(Gah…)

Kamijou’s body didn’t just strain.

His body produced dull cracking and popping noises he had never heard before.

He didn’t have time to assess what exactly had broken.

The dulling of his sense of pain was actually a blessing in this case.

Yes.

The difference between fortune and misfortune was ultimately a matter of viewpoint and usage.

He bit his lip so a bloody flavor wouldn’t spill from his mouth and he swung his fist again.

He wanted a cross counter.

But if all he wanted was to knock Alice down to stop her, he didn’t actually need to skillfully evade every attack launched by that fully-grown monster.

He was lucky if he could even get an attack in for each of hers.

“Rahh!!!” he shouted, completing the swing of his fist.

He placed his body weight behind it.

Even if she was up against a being known as a god or a demon, or a human who had trained themselves up to the point that everyone would see them as such a thing, this version of Alice would likely crush them underfoot without them even realizing they had been killed.

But that didn’t matter.

Kamijou did not stop.

No amount of willpower would let him avoid taking hits here. And each time one of Alice’s attacks hit him, critical sounds of destruction came from within his body. Red beads of blood swam through the air and even ordinary pain vanished behind a wave of scorching heat.

But none of that was any reason for Kamijou to falter as he clenched his teeth and fist.

He was up against an extremely deadly power.

But what did that matter when he was going to die anyway?

The prophecy had been made quite a while ago. Nothing he could do would change the fact that he was going to die. Since he didn’t have time to spend on that issue, he was approaching death with each tick of the clock. His fate was the same no matter who won this fight.

That was enough to know that his own life was a secondary concern here.

''Something else mattered more.

Namely, the girl right in front of him. The girl who was feared but also revered by so many. No one was interested in anything other than treating her like a monster, she had forgotten the proper way to lose, and she believed she could make others happy as long as she wielded her great power. And as a result, that lonely girl would lose everything she thought she had.

She was his top priority.

And this wasn’t limited to him.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the other Transcendents had to know what it meant to leave the Bridge Builders Cabal and oppose Alice. H.T. Trismegistus had stayed by Alice’s side to serve her to the end, but he had also chosen to turn his blade against her when necessary. And Anna Sprengel who had viewed Alice the way people used to view her.

None of them were fighting because they could win.

Only the people who had chosen the option least likely to ensure their survival had stuck with Kamijou. And the Transcendents understood just how much of a threat Alice was, so it must have been a much harder decision for them than for ignorant Kamijou.

Even so…

He heard yet another dull impact.

Which meant he had again failed to avoid an attack.

His movements slowed with each consecutive hit. His body felt so heavy. But this was far better than having his body explode, leaving nothing but a stain on the floor.

Kamijou knew he didn’t have luck to thank for this.

Was Alice holding back?

He smiled a little.

How happy it would make him if that were it.

Their fists collided.

Sound vanished for a brief moment.

Creating a blank.

Perhaps some vital lines had been severed inside his body.

His fist felt hot. It may have already broken.

The world seemed to tilt around him.

But he still gathered strength in his legs to keep himself from falling.

Alice’s legs were shaking too. Her shoulders were heaving as she breathed and one eye was unnaturally closed. The eyelid may have been cut.

But she was still on her feet.

This wasn’t about right or wrong and it wasn’t about like or dislike.

Both of them simply refused to back down. No matter what.

So it wouldn’t end. Kamijou refused to die before he was through. He still held his ticket to change destiny.

It would be such a waste if he collapsed before he could use it.

He would stop her.

And save her.

Kamijou Touma forced his pain-numbed body to move and clenched his fist once more.

Another attack came.

Realizing where Alice was aiming, he immediately balled up to protect himself.

To protect his right arm.

If his arm was torn off, ''that thing'' would emerge. He had proven that when he severed the arm himself to summon it against Rosencreutz.

That would work if he was ''only'' interested in defeating her.

''That thing'' may have been the only remaining mystery in this world that rivaled Alice.

But Kamijou had made a decision back then.

He had made up his mind.

He would never use ''that thing'' again. Never against another person. Plus, a little thing like death wouldn’t be enough to stop Alice!!

He took the full brunt of the attack as payment.

He couldn’t see it, but he was pretty sure his back had split open.

He finally heard a rupturing sound within his own body.

It reminded him a lot of a water balloon.

He coughed up blood. Enough to feel like a solid clump.

That didn’t matter.

He refused to collapse.

He hadn’t saved Alice yet. So he would keep fighting until he had. No matter what anyone said – no matter what analysis had been made by the magician smart enough for Aleister to rely on and Anna to fear – whoever remained standing in the end was the winner.

So.

Kamijou ignored the red spilling from between his pursed lips and clenched his broken fist even tighter. He may have been further breaking his bones with his own strength, but he didn’t care in the slightest.

He used his knees to push Alice back a bit while feeling her warmth.

He secured the optimal position while right up in front of her.

Surprise colored her face.

It was the look of a child refused a hug.

He smiled a little.

Because he would never do that.

He swung his fist with all his might.

There was just one sound.

Alice’s fist finally swished through empty air while Kamijou’s found a solid cheekbone.

The impact rang dully out.

The blow actually broke his elbow and shoulder.

Nevertheless, he kept his full weight on his broken fist to the end.

He brought her down.

===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 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.

===Part 6===

Kamijou Touma was still standing.

He was no longer moving.

His brain, his heart, and everything that provided life had fully ceased functioning.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter3

2024-04-22T13:48:13Z

Edzo: /* Part 10 */ removed extra "had" in "Alice had had drawn"

==Chapter 3: Prophecy – Last_Branch(of_Die).==

===Part 1===

Late at night in District 7, Anna Kingsford stood at the very top of an enormous crane.

She stood tall and simply directed her gaze overhead.

The night sky seemed blotted out by the lights of the city, but viewing the clear stars in the sky gave this expert access to more information than searching the world linked together by fiber optics.

And she only used this for just causes.

Which was what made her an expert.

(The ⭐s are in place. That boy should become aware of the branch he passed by now.)

She sighed.

That was a complete side issue.

For one, Kingsford had never directly met Kamijou Touma. Which made him no more than a stranger in the same city as her.

(But awareness does ❌ allow him to change it. It may be his life, but he can ❌ change the decision he made on a branch he has already passed. Just like CRC passed a crucial branch ''and was defeated in a ⚔️ he should have won easily.'' The greatest enemy in an individual’s life is their own karma.)

“Not that he can ignore it now that he knows.”

But she would not just abandon him.

That expert did not consider her own interests, the state of the battle, or even whether or not she knew the boy.

He was a complete stranger?

So what?

If anyone was troubled, uncertain, or suffering, she was already taking action.

Anna Kingsford had perfected that way of life.

A fool who had yet to reach that point spoke to her.

It was the human named Aleister.

“Where are you going, Kingsford?”

“To serve others.”

“That’s my job. There’s no reason for you to continue fighting!!”

Even her battle against Rosencreutz had essentially been a miracle.

She had not actually won the battle. CRC could instantly search for any information about the world, but he had ''just so happened'' to overlook the fact that Anna Kingsford was a preserved corpse. If not for that, he would have destroyed her more thoroughly and she couldn’t have recovered.

She was reliant on unpredictable miracles.

Even a magician who mastered the field to the point of being known as an expert would lose eventually.

She had to know that.

Alice Anotherbible had easily crushed and killed CRC and so thoroughly eliminated him from the world that he could never recover. She was a true monster.

Kingsford had not reached that point.

She had to understand that. She wielded great power using the correspondence between the microcosm within a person and the macrocosm of the physical world around them, so she would have thoroughly analyzed herself in that way.

But the woman with a proper understanding of magic’s essence smiled as she responded.

She was accurately viewing her own fate, but she didn’t hesitate to speak.

“This is 👋.”

“But!!”

Contact with the new Board Chairman had been lost.

They couldn’t hope for anymore cooperation, so they had to settle this on their own.

The situation was clearly worsening and Alice was even more powerful than CRC. Certain death awaited Kingsford. Alice waited in a land that brought death to all who set foot there.

“Aleister. You must have understood from the beginning that I am ❌ more than a preserved corpse. You are only using ⚙️s to move an already ☠️ body around, so I never was alive. I escaped the previous ⚔️ intact by pure luck, but ❌ even that can save me next time. This ☠️ body will find only ☠️.”

“…”

As an expert who understood the secrets of the world of the living and the world of the dead, she was not too attached to her own life.

The only ones who clung to life with such ugly desperation were the half-baked magicians who remained fixated on this one life.

Still, he understood in his own inexpert way.

Anna Kingsford was an expert through and through. She didn’t even think of clinging to life or staying in this world forever.

She was only interested in eliminating the unknown threat making someone suffer before her eyes.

She didn’t even consider whether or not she had ever met that person.

She had no intention of returning. Her win condition didn’t even take that into account.

She was an example of how far people could go if they mastered their field.

“What was my role meant to be? I was supposed to be a trump 🃏 for use against the unbeatable Anna Sprengel. Now that Miss Sprengel has been freed from her wicked ⛓️ and that ⚔️ need ❌ be fought, my purpose is complete.”

Aleister had no response to that.

Because she was exactly right.

This goodbye could not be avoided. This was Aleister Crowley’s reward for wielding superhuman knowledge, doing what no one else could do, and enduring trials normal people would never even know existed. Kingsford was correct that the greatest enemy in an individual’s life was their own karma.

He was already in checkmate.

And yet…

“That just means I have to do the work myself.”

He understood it intellectually but he still tried to fight it. Was that because Aleister was an inexpert and ugly human?

But you must never forget that, while that human had accumulated a lot of bad karma, he would never stop struggling for his own ends.

“Aleister Crowley officially died in 1947 and stubbornly clung to life until he actually died battling Great Demon Coronzon. I’m as dead as you are. If someone has to save that boy, I’ll do it. I can do it if necessary!! And I’m better suited for that role. The wickedest man in the world should be standing up to the world even after death, not a pure and proper holy woman!”

“But you are still fixated on this 🌍.”

She shot back.

A true expert did not bother arguing about secrets.

She had already seen into the depths of his mind that even he wasn’t consciously aware existed.

She did it naturally.

And kindly.

“Conscious or ❌, you hijacked that great 👿’s body to cling to life. Either you still have something you want to do in this 🌍, or there is something you are ❌ yet willing to give up here. Dying for him is not the same as living with him. It never can be. Either way, it is too soon for you. Everyone dies eventually, so there is no need to rush toward ☠️. Live out your life first, Aleister. You can prepare yourself for ☠️ once you have done that.”

Kingsford smiled as she said this.

Smiled faintly.

Aleister lightly clenched his empty right hand.

He felt the pressure of a staff so twisted his fingertips tingled at the mere sight of it.

Special numbers scattered from his hand like sparks.

“I’ve had enough. What if I said I would stop you by force?”

“I would knock you aside and continue on my way.”

“Kh.”

She didn’t even hesitate.

She said it gently, like it was a foregone conclusion.

Kingsford used no more than words to overpower the victor of the Battle of Blythe Road.

He couldn’t say she couldn’t do it. He was already well past his limit with Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel. He had only so insolently decided to make use of this preserved corpse because he couldn’t handle them.

Trickery, betrayal, surprise attacks, intrigue, and – when necessary – direct confrontation.

He had used every trick in the book to drive the world’s greatest magic cabal to destruction at the Battle of Blythe Road, but none of it would work here.

He could not win in a direct one-on-one confrontation.

If Anna Kingsford went all out, Aleister had no way of opposing her. He knew she would simply prove how inexpert he really was. He would never manage to get his hands on the switch hidden below her skin.

“I do ❌ want you to ☠️ here. No number of previous ☠️s is any reason to accept ☠️ next time. So I will use all of my power to defeat you here. Soundly enough that you do ❌ have enough strength left to go out and ☠️.”

That was contradictory.

Kingsford kept saying she would not let people die so easily, but she was about to head out for her own death.

She was saying she would use up all of the tickets provided for her as a thinking and moving preserved corpse.

But that gentle smile of hers made the contradictory premise and conclusion seem to fit together with no problem.

It was strange really.

Was this the essence of magic known only to the few true experts – a position Aleister had yet to reach? This was the human-made miracle of protecting everyone you encountered and spreading smiles everywhere you went.

He couldn’t stop her.

This wasn’t the ''divine cosplay spell'' that simply let one dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. Nor was it the reverse logic where one tried to divulge the workings of the world to rebel against the god they so hated.

With a quiet bump, the failure of a student buried his face in Anna Kingsford’s chest.

He sniffled like a child.

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have to die.”

“That I met someone who feels that way and that I inspired these feelings in you, who felt betrayed by everything, tells me that I have won a victory against this 🌍.”

Clear drops spilled out.

Anna Kingsford held the lost child’s head to her chest and whispered gently to him.

She stroked the inexpert one’s blonde hair like a mother.

“I think you did have need of my preserved corpse. Especially on December 31. If no one had stopped Anna Sprengel, the 🌍 would have been thrown into chaos before CRC could even be reborn.”

One by one, the expert explained everything to the fool.

She taught him some terribly simple things that no one had ever before taught that human.

Not his parents who had thought meaningless strictness was a virtue, not his teachers who had failed to correct the social problem left in their care, and not the Golden magicians who had abandoned their pursuit of knowledge to spend their time on ugly internecine conflict.

Even though these should have been the first things he was taught.

“But you must ❌ toy with life. Because you are powerful enough to do so with ease, you have ❌ way to keep yourself focused other than using pure willpower to manage yourself. The ☠️ have their own dignity. Humans remain human even in ☠️. You ensured your own pain from the moment you disrespected the ☠️ for the sake of the living. Improve yourself, Aleister. If you do ❌ fear taking the long way around to avoid pain, there is much you can learn. Just like any magician.”

“…”

“And do ❌ worry, lost child of the living. You will not be alone. As an expert, I will do whatever it takes to save the one you care for. Even if it requires every trick in the 📖. So there is ❌ chance you will be crushed by loneliness.”

===Part 2===

Kamijou Touma heard a wet sound.

It came from inside his body.

He thought he must have imagined it.

But the sound of rotting flesh falling away was so distinct.

“…”

He was dying.

He was certain of it in that brightly lit classroom.

It was an unavoidable fate. No one had cruelly pushed him to this point. There was a chance he could have survived had he given up on saving others, but he had chosen this path for himself while on the dark side.

He felt an odd scraping.

Was that the wound from Aradia he felt in his right side and spine? The odd feeling in his neck would be H.T. Trismegistus.

Everything felt normal-ish, but that lack of extreme pain only terrified him more.

Something was definitely happening to him.

He couldn’t tell what was happening inside him. He only felt a vague disgust. It was like his silent organs were changing color without sending out any kind of alert. Death. The end. An invisible pressure. A cruel time bomb with the LCD timer omitted.

“Human…”

Even Magic God Othinus only groaned that word before falling silent.

There was no recovering from this.

''“You will die.”

''“That doesn’t change my answer.”

Thinking back, he had made that fateful choice when that god wasn’t with him.

He had carelessly made such an important decision on his own.

Of course he had screwed it up.

Everything had been wrong from the beginning.

How many times had he availed himself of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection? In other words, ''how many times had he died on the way here''? In just a few days’ time? Maybe you would survive certain death, as if by mistake, once over your long life. But he seriously doubted those bugs or errors would occur in his favor every single time like that. Not to mention that he was plagued by misfortune due to his right hand, so lady luck would never smile on him in that way.

The flaw wasn’t in Good, Old Mary.

Bringing him back to life even once was more than enough of a miracle.

The problem was him having her use it so many times in such a short period of time without considering the usage limits.

''He couldn’t fool death any longer.

''The corner of the mask was starting to peel away.

“Hey, teacher, why do you think the girl wanted the grimoire library?”

“…”

“Because the girl wanted to use the library’s knowledge to do something she couldn’t? To correct her broken head? No, the girl is already perfect and unbreakable. The answer is simple. ''The girl wanted to help you after you passed the final branch.'' The girl wanted to search through a library of all the world’s knowledge to find some method still remaining in this world. That was all.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………”

He had passed the fatal branch.

He had foolishly chosen to cross it and he had arrived at a mistaken destination.

Which one of them was really in need of help?

“If the girl found it, she would use it. If not, she would give up, deciding the world was just too shallow. There are billions of people in this wide world, so if not even one of them has a way to save you, it means they didn’t try hard enough and then the girl would have to punish them all with her power.”

H.T. Trismegistus had said he had always been one of the Killers.

He had said the swiftest and surest way to take Kamijou’s life was to have him meet Alice. He had been right.

It didn’t help the deathly ill to fear the doctor’s prognosis. Kamijou understood that. They had come down with the illness much earlier. The real problem may have been from their exercise, diet, or other life habits.

Nevertheless, that fear was real.

The tables had been turned.

The symbol of death had shifted from Alice Anotherbible to another girl Kamijou knew quite well.

White. Pure white. The all-knowing nun who was always by his side.

He felt no pain.

He wasn’t even given the right to writhe in agony as certain death approached.

The pressure mounted.

Like he was being slowly crushed by an incredibly thick invisible wall.

Which was more horrific: being turned to red and black spray by the world’s fastest linear motor train before you could even feel the fear, or having your body gradually drawn into the wheel of a local train as it pulled into the station?

With no malice, the girl spoke with an innocent smile.

“Well, teacher? Let’s go see the grimoire library! The girl can’t diagnose you, so we can have the all-knowing nun do that part☆”

===Part 3===

H.T. Trismegistus watched from a distance.

He had known Alice Anotherbible longer than any other member of the Bridge Builders Cabal. After all, he was the one who had discovered her in the modern day.

But there was a lot the young butler did not know.

Most notably, he did not know her origins.

Where was she born, where was she raised, where was she altered, and from where had she fled?

He didn’t have a single answer.

It had only been pure coincidence when he found her in a city abroad. She was in the shadows of a roofless shelter. She had tremendous value as an open-source spell, but he had not realized this until well after taking in the wandering girl.

At first, she had been like a wild animal.

She had gone so wild he had questioned what she had even eaten to survive.

It was nothing more than luck that Alice hadn’t known how to use her power. If she had chaotically wielded her power as Alice Anotherbible at that point, she probably would have destroyed the entire world.

Alice was smiling innocently next to someone else.

She wore an expression he had never seen before.

That much was fine.

The young man simply obeyed. Of course, this was for himself, not for Alice. H.T. Trismegistus was a Transcendent who had abandoned his magic name to dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. He could only view the world and choose who to save based on the salvation condition he had set for himself. So the first person he had to save was not himself or Alice.

He was the guardian deity of common sense.

He protected the people against anything that altered people’s sense of normalcy: war, rioting, disaster, loneliness, disease, famine, financial panic.

He sought a master who would save the world.

''Or to put it another way,'' the only person he would allow to distort common sense was the bearer of the paradigm shift that would guide all of humanity to the next stage. He could not leave this in the hands of just any old charismatic leader.

Was Christian Rosencreutz the one he sought?

Or was it Alice Anotherbible?

His objective was clear, but a question occurred to the young butler.

He knew his salvation condition.

But who exactly did he want to save?

===Part 4===

On the District 7 bridge, the Transcendents vs. Transcendents battle was trending in one direction.

“Tch! Good, Old Mary!?” shouted Aradia, holding onto the railroad crossing barrier she had borrowed as a broom and clinging to the side of a steel beam distributing the bridge’s weight.

But the woman collapsed on the cold asphalt did not respond.

That was a bad sign.

Good, Old Mary was the foundation of their recovery magic, but she had suddenly collapsed.

This was worse than simply losing one of their number.

Vidhatri, the brown-skinned woman with model-like proportions, shook the arms and legs of the Dhatri ball-joint doll she wore on her back, intricately manipulating white thread and black hair as she whispered to Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

“Do you still need support?”

“Nope. Everyone can do their own thing. Instead of assigning as many Transcendents as we can to attacking a single point, it would help me if we increased the total number of attack points to fill up the processing power of their minds.”

Something hovered through the air.

Some teacups and saucers were slowly flying around

Those were symbols from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Bologna Succubus noticed and groaned while breathing heavily with her hands down on the ground.

“Kssshhh, they’ve made it this far?”

“Ha ha☆ Of course they have.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet smiled calmly.

A single smile on that extremely lovable face summoned a great black dragon into the night sky. Was the twisting serpent actually tens of thousands of starlings? They were not venomous, but in great enough numbers, any creature was a threat to human life.

The instant the Bologna Succubus looked up at the black dragon filling the entire night sky, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet took a large step forward.

Without hesitation.

“Kh.”

Now was not the time to be overwhelmed by the intimidating numbers.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to gather as much air as possible.

She launched herself straight to the side.

The coat-shaped blast-resistant suit covered in thick metal panels snapped shut like a ferocious beast’s jaws. It was a sweet-smelling iron maiden. The air inside that isolated space was compressed with no outlet, producing a strange sound much like a steam engine.

The Bologna Succubus had just barely avoided it.

If she had carelessly stayed in place, she would have been “devoured”.

Instead of feeling fear, she gathered offensive power between her brows.

(Argh. I can’t let this chaos be unleashed on the boy’s city.)

What were Kamijou Touma and Alice Anotherbible doing right now?

She couldn’t predict how few seconds a regular Transcendent would last against Alice if she were serious about fighting, but it was still much too dangerous to let that boy stand defenselessly before Alice.

The alluring demon smiled bitterly at that thought and focused her feelings on the battle at hand.

“Oh, what’s this?”

Smiling, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet again spread her arms wide. Slowly.

Almost like a solid wall, a stifling nectar scent emerged from the blast-resistant suit and pushed toward the Bologna Succubus. Even at this distance, she had to stay focused to avoid getting dizzy.

What was happening in that closed world?

The skinny girl(?) wearing an apron over her naked body giggled before speaking.

“This won’t hurt at all, so don’t worry. I’m more interested in creating a gentle world where even the unloved are loved equally. Did you really understand my salvation condition? Kee hee hee☆ I have love even for a filthy sex demon, so get over here and let me give you a hug!!”

“Killing with pleasure, huh?”

“Ah ha ha☆ This is Total Courtship! Welcome to the sweetest, most luxurious ending to a life♪”

Roaches could rapidly build up a resistance to deadly insecticides, so they couldn’t necessarily be killed by escalating the chemical suffering. Instead, there were products that ''tricked them'' into thinking ethanol, acetaldehyde, sotolon, or another chemical compound was delicious food, luring them into the trap where they would take a different chemical back to the colony to kill them all at once. Humans didn’t just use what their target disliked – they would also use whatever their target most liked.

This girl similarly used love to kill. She was a super sweet monster who had continually honed the emotion of love into a deadly weapon. If you simply increased your defenses to prevent pain and prepared ordinary attacks, she would ''slip past them all'' and kill you instantly.

She was a specialist in that.

This Transcendent was a different form of strongest, whose trump card was the complete opposite of the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress which converted all forms of pleasure into pain.

Her victims were robbed of even the right to feel fear as they were filled with no more than ''happiness'' until they lost their life. In a trippy world where everything was vague, they would cross the final line without intent or resolve.

They were stranded.

She had complete control over them, not even giving them a chance to speak their final words.

She brought a death more certain than a .44 caliber bullet and its name was love.

“Yeah, I don’t think we could ever get along.”

“Kya ha ha☆ You’re only saying that because that makes it more exciting, aren’t you!?”

This must have been her combat form.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet had her enormous blast-resistant suit spread wide to display the terrarium trapped within. The skinny naked-apron girl pushed out a nectar scent so powerful it caused heartburn. And she took a casual step forward.

“You didn’t find it remotely odd? We’re all regular Transcendents here. A clash between our two groups shouldn’t end so easily. Yet you’re being easily defeated in a one-sided game. Is it a bad matchup between the individual Transcendents? Do our spells combine so well it’s like we were dealt a royal flush? No, that could never happen.”

“…”

“''No one can defeat Alice Anotherbible.''”

For this alone, she took on a respectful tone.

Almost like she was reading off the handwritten creed only she believed in.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet thought only of her own blessings as she spoke euphorically.

“You underestimated the meaning of that statement. And that optimism has brought you certain death. It doesn’t just mean you won’t survive a direct physical fight against Alice. There’s no getting around it. We control all of the coincidences and all of our baseless hunches and inspirations will work out in our favor. We have the ''trends'' of the world on our side. That is what it means to ‘resonate’ with Alice and take the winning side. To be clear, we are only firing blindly from the hip. You’re the ones ensuring we hit you.”

Vidhatri.

2nd Saga.

And Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

The Bologna Succubus’s side was being worn down, but all three of them were unharmed. She had gotten a few clean hits in on them, so had they managed to shrug off the damage?

And she was slipping past their expectations and landing an attack they failed to dodge or defend against, so it made no sense for them to be changing their stance to reduce the damage with 100% accuracy.

That wasn’t their individual abilities.

It was their “resonance” with Alice Anotherbible.

“Defying her means death. You had lost from the moment you bet on there being an exception to that, like that you could move beyond her reach, hide where she couldn’t find you, or escape punishment if your defiance was indirect. Not that she would let you get away with this even if you had been correct.”

“How are you on Alice’s side when you only love yourself?”

“Isn’t it cruel to expect such a small child to judge everything so accurately? They say to let your child make mistakes to learn from them, but do you think that kind of harsh parental love will work on that girl? Alice is simpler than that. Which is what makes her so frightening. At her mental age, she probably sees anyone who praises her and spoils her as her ally.”

And it didn’t end there.

“Heyyy.”

Something enormous was parting the large river to approach.

It was a special warship measuring around 100m long.

That was small compared to a nuclear aircraft carrier of more than 300m long, but it was undoubtedly a warship.

Plus, this was not the ship itself.

It was made out of smooth white shadow.

A girl’s lazy voice played from the speakers probably meant for giving warnings or making threats.

Come to think of it, hadn’t one of them seemingly vanished?

“This took some time to prepare, but I’m back.”

The ship’s bridge stood taller than the iron bridge.

She must have torn down all the other bridges spanning the river to clear a path here. It made you wonder which side was doing more damage to Academy City.

Aradia’s eyes really did bug out as she shouted.

“Mut Thebes!? What is that thing!?”

“You don’t know? It’s the Academy City drone carrier Kagenui.”

An aircraft carrier had to carry multiple large aircraft, necessitating a great size. Submersible and aerial aircraft carriers could not be made because the size and weight affected their balance too much. ...But that accepted principle had been overturned by shrinking the aircraft down by eliminating the cockpit and turning them into drones. Even the maintenance work could be carried out by an unmanned maintenance factory within the ship.

As usual, Academy City loved making bizarre things.

But now wasn’t the time for exasperation.

That was a carrier.

“Go, everyone.”

A series of explosions rang out. The boxy canisters on the flat deck rose up and opened fire. There were electrically ignited guns that could fire at a rate of a million rounds a minute. It looked like a programmed fireworks show. In truth, the honeycomb-like holes on the front of the canisters were releasing a large number of flying objects. By spreading their movable wings in air, they gathered in orderly teams and flew in formation. Now both sides had a flying swarm. The drones clashed directly with the tens of thousands of starlings ruling the night sky.

The assumptions and superiority had been overturned.

One side was alive and the other was machine.

When they were both controlled remotely and were equal in number, it went without saying whether the small birds or the man-made meter-long aerial weapons would win.

Perhaps the counterattack was necessary.

But as the drones pursued the fleeing starlings, their machinegun fire stabbed into the skyscrapers built along the river and sent sparks exploding from walls as thick power cables were ruptured.

“Mut Theeeebes!!!”

Aradia roared in anger, but then she stopped.

The brown girl was acting weird.

“Yayyy. Who wants to take a killer selfie? Just tell me when and I’ll get the timing right for you. Yippee! Let’s keep this Alice Parade Party going☆”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet giggled.

She clearly welcomed this turn of events.

Mut Thebes wasn’t enemy or ally – she was losing all awareness that she was participating in the battle at all. She was throwing that aside to enjoy herself. And her actions were clearly working against the Bologna Succubus’s side.

They sensed a trend in the series of unpleasant coincidences.

“I believe it’s called Acute Kotatsu Syndrome. Basically, Alice affects the group psychology of an area when she stays there long enough. Did you think you were ''immune'' for some reason? Even magicians and Transcendents will be engulfed by Alice sooner or later.”

“…”

“That includes all of us. Yes, you are no exception, Bologna Succubus. And most likely, neither are we. We will all lose our sense of who is on whose side in this mad tea party. The world that people across the globe have worked so hard to create could end today, but in a way that could mean the arrival of an age of peace. If everything is engulfed and everyone is a victim, then the distinction between enemy and ally loses all meaning.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet made it sound so obvious.

But it didn’t add up.

They were using their all-important salvation conditions as an excuse to love themselves and preserve their power by protecting Alice, so they wouldn’t want an ending where they were engulfed by Alice’s madness and lost sight of who they were. Narcissists who cared about themselves more than anything else in the world would never seek out a form of satisfaction created by having their internal aesthetic sense altered.

“''Do you have any idea what you’re saying''?”

“Ha ha☆ What? Are you saying I’ve already broken too''?”

It didn’t sound like she cared.

Someone on her level had lost the right to feel fear and disgust, or even detect that anything was amiss.

This space was going mad.

It had started at a single point, but the entire world would be this way eventually.

Whether or not Alice Anotherbible wanted it.

This was ominous enough to make that prediction.

“It doesn’t really matter. No one can defy Alice whether they put up a resistance or not.”

“Are you shoving responsibility for the world onto Alice’s shoulders while you alone abandon the effort of living, like you’re just a tree, grass, or flower, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet!?”

“Hee hee☆ Total Courtship – ready for dissemination. Now, I think I’ll pack you so full of super-sweet love that all your veins burst. Alice hates it when you try to lecture people like that, which is why she’s striking back at you, you know?”

===Part 5===

“…”

Anna Sprengel saw it.

She had supposedly divined the location of Kamijou and Alice, but ''something had gone wrong'' and she ended up here instead. Were you not even allowed to walk in a straight line without the proper credentials in this wonderland?

Everything within a 400 radius of the iron bridge was a zone of death. Crowds who had never even seen Alice directly were filling the streets due to her influence, but not even they would approach that area.

It may have been a type of instinct.

Just like people’s homing instincts worked even when drunk, the boys and girls who had lost sight of reality still knew they should keep away.

Although even that instinct would probably melt away eventually.

Once that happened, the world really was over.

Anna wanted to rescue Kamijou Touma. She wanted to fight against Alice Anotherbible with him. She wanted to protect him.

But so much depended on that bridge where an ''unnatural amount'' of things had gathered.

If those Transcendents scattered across the city again, Kamijou alone wouldn’t be able to deal with them. Then his world would simply fall apart.

So.

Before that happened…

“What are you planning?”

“!?”

Anna heard a female voice.

From right by her ear.

She belatedly spun around.

But she did not find one of the Transcendents who relied on the easy ''divine cosplay spell''. This was an expert who carried a magic name in her heart, stood on her own two feet, and had chosen for herself to take on the wide world.

It wasn’t a logical thing.

But Miss Sprengel could not hide the trembling and the cold sweat that came from her very soul.

“Anna Kingsford!?”

“You really should ❌ try it. It is ❌ like you. Two groups of Transcendents are ⚔️ing and one side is winning. Adding one more fighter to the fray will ❌ make a significant difference. As a self-proclaimed villain, you should know that quite well.”

“Why would you stop me? It shouldn’t be any skin off your nose if the fake Anna dies.”

“It would be. Because I do ❌ want you to ☠️.”

Kingsford didn’t hesitate.

The true villain was not used to being told these things so directly.

(First that fool and now her.)

Taken aback, little Miss Sprengel lost her chance to strike back and Kingsford laughed elegantly before continuing.

That smile was so much like Miss Sprengel’s, but she could never imitate it.

“It does appear that the side of the ⚔️ supported by ❌, resonating with Alice has the advantage. Transcendents are, after all, the false gods created when modern magicians used the incomplete 🪄 they created by analyzing the one and only success case: Alice Anotherbible. They have always been incomplete and unstable. They have a model. It should be obvious they will be 💪er when supported by the completed Alice.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? If Aradia’s side loses, who will be left to help that fool? Even if the entire world joined forces against Alice, I’m not sure it would work! And if the Alice-addled Transcendents gathered here end up scattering across Academy City, they could completely destroy that fool’s cit-”

“You only need to supply a ⛰️ greater than Alice.”

It didn’t even take a full second.

Kingsford placed her index finger on her slender chin and gave the answer with a confident smile.

An expert was a powerful guide in and of herself.

Just like sailors lost at sea would rely on the sun and moon in the sky to find the way back home.

“Blodeuwedd the Bouquet, Vidhatri, and 2nd Saga… They are borrowing a special power by resonating with Alice. So we just have to supply the same condition. If someone else leads the Transcendents, this problem is easily solved.”

Anna Sprengel only showed exasperation on her face.

Preparing a rival even more powerful than Alice was Kingsford’s idea of easy?

“I suppose someone as special as you would have no problem doing that,” said Miss Sprengel.

“Me? ❌, the only one who can do this is you.”

This time, Miss Sprengel’s eyes opened wide.

This had to be a joke.

“W-wait. I-I am no more than a common 2nd-rate magician who expanded my appearance and abilities by borrowing your name but still had to boost my specs further with Aiwass!!”

“Belittle yourself all you like, you are still an irregular Transcendent. Plus, you borrowed someone else’s name, but you did ❌ acquire the necessary 🪄 by analyzing Alice. You did your research from the ground up and successfully ‘👗ed up as’ Anna Kingsford. Which puts you on equal 🦶ing. We must refer to you as an irregular Transcendent for the exact same reason we refer to Alice Anotherbible that way.”

“…”

“You can do it.” Kingsford made this point clear. “Both you and Aleister have accomplished so much, so I can ❌ fathom why you both insist on belittling yourselves at every turn… I am saying there is something only you can accomplish, Miss Sprengel. I can ❌ do it. No matter how unnecessarily ashamed you are of yourself, your 🪄 to 👗 up as someone else is something that never occurred to me. Using that to help others qualifies as praiseworthy service if you ask me, but do you disagree?”

Silence.

Eventually followed by a wet sound.

It was the sound of a sniffling nose.

“Don’t tell that fool.”

“Sigh. I really think it is ⌚ the world recognized your talents.”

“Don’t tell him.”

“As you wish.”

“Then come forth, Aiwass!! Come to me, the walking amplifier for my will that has a mind of its own!!”

“Took you long enough, my benevolent genius.”

Anna Sprengel and Anna Kingsford.

The long-held conflict between them had been resolved.

Now they stood side by side, wielding great magic to protect an innocent life.

===Part 6===

The massive bridge had clearly been bent by an impact from the side. Cracks ran through the asphalt, steel screws larger than golf balls popped forcefully from the metal beams, and the joints between the girders swelled upwards.

The black bass and bluegills seemed harmless at first, but even at 500g each, tens of thousands of them still amounted to a large weight.

With the most lovable face, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet only had to blow a kiss to control them all.

Good, Old Mary had already collapsed after taking one to the center of the chest.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet chose Aradia as her next target.

It didn’t matter that she was directly facing the Bologna Succubus right now.

She set her sights on the witch goddess who stood on the complex arrangement of metal beams used to distribute the bridge’s weight.

“Look!! The world’s most high-tech city will have any number of unloved creatures: black bass, bluegills, rats, stray cats, pigeons, and starlings to name a few. Now, false goddess, let’s see how you handle the love-starved laments of the unloved!!”

“Tch!!”

“''Hee hee☆ Or should I send the unloved humans your way''?”

As soon as Aradia stiffened, stopping her interception spell, a babbler soared sharply toward her unguarded flank. A direct hit would probably kill the wild bird, but it would go through its death throes while embedded deep inside the wound and its beak and feathers would spread contaminants around.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet stuck out her tongue.

But the night wind that reached her was no more than a night wind.

It did not carry a rusty scent.

“?”

Had it missed?

When the support from “resonating” with Alice Anotherbible should have acted as a ''tailwind'' for all her actions?

Even though simply firing blindly from the hip should have always hit the enemy?

Before Blodeuwedd the Bouquet could pursue that question, Vidhatri shouted from where she stood.

“2nd Saga!! Eliminate her now!”

“Hee hee.”

An alluring female face and limbs appeared in the dark night. She was around 18, at the midpoint between girlhood and womanhood.

But that was all that was visible.

The pieces floated separately. No, her torso had clearly been torn apart. It now contained strange hollow spaces. Had her human silhouette unraveled like bandages? Was it due to the thick ribbon that had been wrapped around her torso? The lights of the city were visible in the space beyond her partially eliminated body.

The space seemed somewhat distorted.

Or maybe it was a type of ''camouflage''.

Aradia faced this person who was strange even for a Transcendent. She had the face of a girl with short flaxen hair with the interior dyed bright blue.

“2nd Saga. Do you derive some special meaning from covering and hiding things?”

“I’ve always had trouble choosing just one thing. I never want to throw anything out, so my room always ends up a mess.”

Saga was a goddess from Norse mythology.

She was said to be extremely powerful and to manage the spring where Odin is gifted with poetry and wisdom.

But she is barely mentioned throughout all the Norse monuments and texts.

Barely anything is known about her other than that her home is called Sokkvabekkr.

Information on her was scarce.

She was a mysterious figure who is simply known to share drinks with the top Norse god.

This woman had gone out of here way to choose a god like that.

She had wanted to be her.

Aradia spat annoyed words with the yellow and black railroad crossing barrier in hand.

“If a single performer tries to forcibly dress up as multiple gods, the traits of the gods cancel each other out, diluting their presence. We normally have strict rules about what we can’t do if we want to stay in character and keep our costume authentic, but I didn’t expect one of us to take advantage of that fact.”

“By intentionally keeping a low profile, I can do things other gods can’t. I am not the star of the show. But if a tree or a bush does something they shouldn’t, the audience has no way of knowing if it was correct or not. This allows me to be a performer on the stage while also freeing me from the bonds of the script. I am the only one allowed to be myself.”

“…”

“I am the Transcendent ''who saves all the bit parts and understudies who never get any attention.'' I can’t look down on them if I’m to do that. I need to understand how they feel and be one of them first.”

She disappeared.

Did she unleash her skill to the point she became one with the air?

The bluish-white armor partially surrounding 2nd Saga’s limbs vanished into the air, causing what little of her skin and face were still visible to look unnaturally alluring.

The bright round skin of her face was like a device for giving off sex appeal.

The pupils of her blue eyes were colored an impossible bright red. Did she use a light-bending technique to pull that one off?

Even with her full body unraveled, the individual pieces were made of captivating feminine skin.

But if a member of the opposite sex were caught by her like this, it would probably break his mind.

The strange avant-garde woman sneered.

“My name is 2nd Saga, a fictional god created on the mischievous whim of the compiler. Which allows me to ''add on'' any magic I wish which is never actually found in Norse mythology. …Now, it is time you lost your one and only life. The divine curse – that is, the light of Brisingamen, necklace of infidelity – can even trigger a war between world-destroying kings. Do not assume an individual can escape that deadly fate!!”

It started at the center, where her chest had been.

The thick ribbon, which bound her skin and showed the city behind her, created a transparent distortion much like sugar water, which spilled beyond her outlines.

It forcibly gathered Aradia’s focus on a single point, much like having a finger jabbed between the eyes at close range.

Aradia sensed a definite deadliness in this unknown phenomenon.

Was she mistaken, or had that been the true trigger?

The impossible distortion became a large artillery shell that tore through the air.

This was an assassination spell.

It was guaranteed to take a life.

And the user could sidestep their own sin by saying they were only adoring the beautiful gold and jewels. The necklace brought doom, but it allowed the user to claim they didn’t know it was cursed and thought it was only a beautiful piece of jewelry. Was that to insure they would not be hit in the unlikely case that the curse was sent back the way it had come?

Aradia snorted with laughter.

The rails were laid out nicely, but it was all nonsense with no actual mythological basis. The sky is heaven, the gods shine bright, the workings of salvation and divine punishment, cats are capricious and dogs are loyal – by combining the common symbols found across cultures, anyone could fake apparent legitimacy.

Yes, this was faked.

''Her cosplay was sloppy.'' Gods were meant to draw a strict line between right and wrong, so they couldn’t accept – much less use – a loophole like this. A real god did not choose their words carefully for fear of backlash or controversy. Even the cruelest act could be written off as “divine punishment” if it was truly necessary.

And even if this curse would pursue Aradia to the ends of the Earth, there was only one thing she had to do.

“''There just have to be two Aradias''.”

“Wha-!?”

Immediately after 2nd Saga’s dumbfounded shock, the invisible curse tore itself apart with its own power.

The chilly moonlight shined on two identical people.

The black and yellow railroad crossing barriers resting on their shoulders crossed like swords mounted on a wall.

Aradia hadn’t actually done anything. The curse simply hadn’t been designed to handle an abnormal situation where two identical people existed. It was unable to deal with the situation it found, so the single shell attempted to pursue two targets at once, tearing itself apart from within.

It dissipated.

It disappeared.

“Don’t you dare call this cheating. This has always been our role – we’re the perfect performers. And it was all of you who created ''a second one'' and brought her here without even asking me.”

Right and left.

The identical Aradias launched wind magic that struck the formless Transcendent.

The tides were turning.

“…”

Vidhatri was dumbfounded.

But she wasn’t simply shocked that a Transcendent receiving a ''tailwind'' by “resonating” with Alice Anotherbible had been defeated by a Transcendent who had that link severed and was alone in the storm.

More than that…

“''Why did you have that idea just now''?”

“''What do you mean''?”

“It also doesn’t make sense that you avoided Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s initial attack. Even if there was a way for you to defeat 2nd Saga, it never should have occurred to you!! That kind of support comes from Alice. How did you break through the thought masking!?”

“I would assume conditions have changed somewhere away from here.”

“Tch!!”

Panic spread through the air, infecting the entire space.

Vidhatri seemed rushed by something unseen rather than her own will as she unspooled a lot of white thread and black hair from the ball-joint doll she wore on her back.

By intentionally omitting all mention of something, that spell let her erase anything she didn’t like from the small world set up around her. If she erased everything that could kill her, then no one could defeat her.

A moment later, a dull impact struck her cheekbone. Something flew in from the side and Vidhatri was launched spinning through the air. The impact permeated her. Before she could figure out what had happened, her ball-joint doll broke apart and her model-proportioned body soared over the pedestrian railing and toward the dark river below.

But Aradia hadn’t done anything.

“You were focused on the wrong person, dumbass.”

Aradia glanced over to see a small figure standing boldly atop a metal beam.

It was Anna Sprengel.

“Keh heh heh. Alice no longer rules this world. Worms, bow before me and beg for your pitiful lives. It wasn’t you who created the Shrink Drink – you needed Alice’s help for that. Yet all you worthless regular Transcendents had the nerve to look down on me and try to kill me!!!”

“Before she could figure out what had happened, huh?” the goddess of witches whispered in exasperation. “So Vidhatri could preemptively eliminate any threat, but she was defenseless against any threat that never occurred to her.”

If anything, that was a lot like the death of the immortal Norse god of light, Baldr. That similarity was ''not'' a case of cultural transmission between India and Europe. It was instead evidence of the Transcendents not actually being strictly bound to a single god or even a single mythology.

“Have you imagined your own fate yet, 2nd Saga?”

“Have you imagined your own fate yet, 2nd Saga?”

“!?”

Multiple beams of light flashed out at once.

The two Aradias held out their palms to launch projectile magic toward the figure leaping vigorously from beam to beam. The attacks actually hit 2nd Saga. It was hard to believe she had been so untouchable just a bit ago. She was knocked from the beam above to the bridge below.

Mut Thebes (who was on their side but had lost control of herself) had her drone carrier stopped by a three-legged object that appeared out of thin air. That was Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos.

The tides had turned in the blink of an eye.

The only one left was Blodeuwedd the Bouquet in her coat-like blast-resistant suit and naked apron.

Aradia approached her directly, the Bologna Succubus glared icily at her, and bloody Good, Old Mary slowly rose to her feet.

“Wai-”

The dull “thump!!” of pierced flesh rang out.

The Bologna Succubus had launched her sharp tail and caught Blodeuwedd the Bouquet in the shoulder.

Using a frontal attack with no tricks.

The force of the blow broke the iron-maiden-like blast-resistant suit and the double doors covered in metal panels fell to the asphalt. With her protection gone, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s bare skin was exposed to the frigid air while she scattered junk from her terrarium and UV LED lights. The night wind carried away the flower petals.

“This is already over,” said the Bologna Succubus.

Her voice was colder than it ever had been when that boy was present.

The naked apron girl backed away, but her legs tangled underneath her.

She fell like normal.

Her specialness was gone.

“You forgot about your salvation condition, you abandoned the people you should be saving, and you thought only of preserving your own power. And then you blamed Alice for it all. …So this is already over. You have nothing left. Nothing at all.”

“You’re going to win this...and take everything from me?”

With only her frilly apron left, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet held her wounded shoulder with the opposite hand and struggled to keep her breath.

The powerful sex appeal she gathered around her had dissipated, leaving behind only the fear of a small child.

“This is all we have. You can’t tell me the idea of losing your power doesn’t scare you.”

“I am a Transcendent. I choose who I should protect and then guard those people from the threat this world presents them. Which is why I abandoned my own identity to dress up as a god,” said Witch Goddess Aradia. “My salvation condition does not include myself. And I would never rob innocent people of their future just so I could keep my own shameful life.”

With a dull sound, the Transcendent ended things with the Transcendent.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet was the last one.

There had been others, but they raised their hands in surrender when they saw the tides changing. That was about what you got with people who only worried about themselves.

But with Alice ''Anotherbible'' as an open-source example, more Transcendents could be created. Just like there were two Aradias here.

Remaking the city’s people into makeshift witches wasn’t an option here like it had been in Shibuya. If Academy City espers used magic, they would be harmed by the side effects and, if Alice wanted to, she could produce an unlimited supply of regular Transcendents. Those would be literally a grade above.

Any victories won fighting on the outer edges would only be temporary. And with only limited numbers to work with, they wouldn’t last if they were forced to fight the same battles over and over.

“This was no more than an opening skirmish,” said Anna Sprengel despite understanding that.

She was another host and open-source example who differed greatly from the Alice line.

They couldn’t stop here.

“Our real target is Alice. This rioting doesn’t end until she’s been stopped. The Queen of Hearts and Executioner waiting near Alice could easily be more powerful than the regular Transcendents.”

“If you have the time, could you deal with her too? Mut Thebes is shooting off ‘fireworks’ like this is some kind of party, so it would be great if you could bring that idiot back to her senses!!”

“Oh? Silly girl, are you sure you don’t want to take a video first?”

The giant white ship shook.

She must have been freed from the unseen physics that could be seen as Alice’s ''tailwind''.

Mut Thebes must have absorbed the weapon’s shadow, but where exactly was she attached to it?

“Bff!? Wait, wait, I’ll be good.”

“Finally come to your senses? Then take a look at the collapsed city around you. I can’t wait to see what kind of excuse you can come up with while dripping with sweat, God of Partying.”

“But if my partying was enough to destroy an entire city by accident, doesn’t that make me a super powerful goddess? And since we can all see how ultra-cute I am, can’t I get off the hook with a quick: ‘Oopsie. Tee hee’?”

“Good, Old Mary, use your Tribikos to step on that god of destruction, ship and all. It’s January, so dunking her to the bottom of the river ought to cool her head.”

Aradia icily passed judgment, but then a cracking voice came over the ship’s speakers.

“Oh, and the drone carrier’s antenna picked something up,” said Mut Thebes.

“?”

“It wasn’t encrypted or anything, so it was a lot like a radio transmission. Maybe it’s best to say this is being sent out all over the place. They might have been hoping we would pick it up. It’s being transmitted from ''a prison in District 10'' and it says it’s about Alice Pleasance Liddell.”

===Part 7===

After seeing off the little magician who had freed herself from her self-made bonds, Anna Kingsford sighed all on her own.

The end was nigh.

“Now, then.”

(I need to prepare for my part in this.)

===Part 8===

There were no subjective symptoms.

Kamijou wasn’t even allowed any obvious pain or bleeding.

Then was this a delirium or hallucination caused by all the stress he was under?

Except there was something there.

With each step he took down the long hallway, he heard a sound like thin threads snapping inside him. Like the creaking of bone or the beating of his heart, these were delicate sounds that shouldn’t have been audible outside his body.

He had heard on some trivia show that the simple action of walking concentrated a lot of weight and force on the leg bones. If that was true, then his body could no longer keep up with his movement. His insides were already breaking down to that extent.

Death.

The unavoidable destruction of the self.

Alice apparently wanted to ask Index if there was a way to heal him.

But Kamijou already knew the answer.

This was different from any of the previous times.

Or rather, this wasn’t a one-off failure. Everything he had done had pushed him too far. He was finally paying the price for it all. No one could escape the consequences of their own actions.

The end was nigh.

And it was only now that Kamijou realized something.

In a battle so severe, why hadn’t he noticed anything amiss? His survival this long had been the unnatural part.

“Hm, hm, hm☆”

Alice Anotherbible skipped out ahead of him.

She turned back, her skirt lifting disconcertingly high.

“C’mon, teacher. Everyone’s here now, so you need to hurry. Good or bad, you wouldn’t want it to end without ever learning the answer, would you?”

“…”

That was the opinion of someone watching from the outside.

It was clearly missing the viewpoint of the person on the verge of learning if their death was unavoidable.

They did not arrive at a normal classroom.

That was the door to the library.

That should have made for a poor prison. A solid kick would probably break open the sliding door and the outside windows were probably ordinary glass.

But since Alice had chosen this location, it was probably impossible to open from inside. Even with the knowledge of 103,001 grimoires at your disposal.

The door opened.

From the outside, it was surprisingly easy.

Kamijou doubted that was Imagine Breaker’s doing. He probably just had Alice’s permission.

“Touma!”

He heard a familiar voice.

She wasn’t bound with packing tape or zip ties. The windows and door were not reinforced. But there was definite relief on her face. That was the look of someone who just saw the thick door to their prison cell open.

And her smile froze in place.

The pure white sister was not concerned by Alice and H.T. Trismegistus’s presence. She was clearly looking at something else. The boy could tell that even with the mixture of truth, lies, and hallucination in his head.

“No...what is that?”

Her eyes widened because of Kamijou.

She had already detected something out of the ordinary.

Whether Alice was aware of that or not, she spoke in her childlike way.

“Okay, teacher. Ask her!”

The young butler clearly knew what was coming and struggled to suppress a grin.

Malicious words and actions were not the only way to hurt people.

Because he was bound by common sense, H.T. Trismegistus would never hurl abuse himself. The look on his face seemed to say there was no law against silence.

“I...won’t.”

“You have to,” said Alice.

“There’s no reason to force her to give an answer!!”

“Leaving the question unanswered solves nothing. Stopping here only lets the problem grow worse with time. She has 103,001 grimoires. With so much knowledge from all around the world available to her, the girl just knows she can find a way to heal you!!”

Was it even possible?

Had it been definitively proven, or was it only a theory?

Alice didn’t care about that.

It could be the geocentric theory, phlogiston, an ancient nuclear war, or that dinosaur farts caused the ice age. Of course, it could also be something accurate like universal gravitation or quantum theory. Accurate or not, if a theory had ever been proposed – if someone had thought it up and put together the logic behind it – she could build a bridge to it. She could choose ''whichever theories she wanted'' and link to them to wholly change the world. She was the ultimate conversion device. She could place Yamatai anywhere she liked, she could invent a perpetual motion machine of the first kind to produce unlimited energy, or she could remake the spherical Earth into a flat disk.

So there just had to be a single section in the more than 10 thousand grimoires.

Just one passage.

Even a single line would do.

No matter how absurd or difficult to achieve it was.

Alice could easily activate it and save Kamijou.

''But.

''Even then.

Index did not give a yes or no answer.

She kept her silence.

That was enough of an answer. If she wasn’t willing to say it out loud, she didn’t need to.

Her attempt at kindness was ineffective.

The verdict had been given.

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

Death.

That was the only option left.

Kamijou did not weep or rage.

He even forgot to fall to the floor.

In a way, he abandoned his humanity.

He simply stood there, stock still.

“Hu…man.”

Othinus’s quiet voice was enough for his head to wobble.

There was nothing there.

It wasn’t even emptiness that filled his mind.

He felt a heat surrounding him.

He simply stood there, forgetting even to collapse.

There was no way to save him.

The world had not developed that far.

It was underdeveloped.

People had studied what they liked and technology had branched off into countless directions, but never in this one.

The world didn’t care.

Time would continue on like normal even after he was gone.

And…

“Then let’s destroy it,” said a young voice.

Alice Anotherbible sounded the same as ever.

No, her voice sounded dried out.

Terrifyingly so.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

She sounded like her surprise party plan had fallen apart.

“We have our answer. And if this world can’t save you, teacher, than the girl is going to destroy it. The girl heard what you said, so she knows this world wouldn’t still be here if not for you. So it’s only fair the world goes away when you do, don’t you think?”

“Wait! Don’t, Touma!!” sharply shouted Index.

The knowledge of her grimoires must have told her Alice could do exactly what she claimed. And that she would do it the instant Kamijou gave her some kind of sign.

He would never do that under normal circumstances.

But it was wrong to assume he would behave normally now that he knew he would lose everything.

y/n.

The available options had been narrowed down as far as possible.

The fate of the world hinged on this one question.

“I do not agree.” H.T. Trismegistus finally spoke up, his shoulders shaking as he didn’t even bother to suppress his chuckling. “Destroying the world for a single individual is wrong. Maybe if this would save his life, but you should not destroy humanity if all you are doing is lashing out. Some might consider it moving, but common sense says it is not a benevolent act.”

Alice’s eyes widened like dinner plates.

And she lowered her voice.

“''H. T. Trismegistus''.”

“As you can see…”

The young butler raised his hands and kept speaking, undaunted.

He didn’t seem to care that the invisible muzzle of death was pressed unsteadily against his brow.

“I can tell Alice what common sense says, but I have no real way of stopping her. This is ultimately between you and her. No, make your own choice, Kamijou Touma. You cannot rely on Another Bible here and not even all the world’s grimoires contain a means of saving you. So what will you choose in the final moments now that your death is assured?”

Othinus gasped and looked up from his shoulder.

She was the only person who had just about achieved a perfect victory against Kamijou Touma.

She knew this ending.

She knew this dead end.

Because the one-eyed war god had intentionally set up a situation just like this to kill the boy when he refused to give up no matter what else she tried.

“I see what you’re doing. Hey, human, don’t listen to-!!”

“Yes, you could go crying to Alice and have her take the world out with you. In fact, you needn’t even say a word. If you remain silent, she might just be considerate enough to do it on her own. But common sense tells me that Alice’s ''only'' motivation is making you happy. ''So you could eliminate Alice’s motivation by taking your own life before she destroys the world on your behalf.'' You will die soon regardless, so why not move up the timetable just a bit to save so many people?”

Mere moments before H.T. Trismegistus completed his encircling argument, someone kicked down the library door from the outside.

With no difficulty.

“Fool.”

It was easy to miss by how easily it happened, but this should have been an unavoidable critical hit. Kamijou’s path should have ended.

But it hadn’t.

Because someone wouldn’t let it.

You could develop an attack specialized for a single individual, but that individual didn’t need to fight alone.

Just by setting foot in here, little Anna Sprengel had accomplished what no one else could.

She was probably the only person in the world not affected by Alice’s madness.

She deflected it.

And that villain mercilessly stomped her way into Alice’s territory.

No one could stop her.

“Hmph. So only I made it this far in? I feel a little bad leaving Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the others stuck fighting an endless battle. You basically asked us to come and even showed us the way, but then you drove your guests away? When you think about it, that’s hilariously pathetic.”

“You?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet, you gloomy microdick? You should have known better than to trust your assumptions from the moment you couldn’t kill me with the Shrink Drink filled with Alice’s power.”

Anna chuckled and Othinus gave her a look more of exasperation than admiration.

“I see. So if you had actually killed that shitty villain, we wouldn’t be dealing with this nonsense about her ''outdoing Alice''.”

“Are you saying the world switched rails back then?” asked Index.

“That’s right, you dregs of a god and you pathetic loafer,” said Anna, giving Othinus and Index a scornful look. Then she spread her little hands. “The fool changed things. He moved many people’s hearts with his own actions rather than having Alice cheat for him. I did not achieve this miracle on my own. Don’t you think the first person to receive its blessings should be the one who worked so hard to make it happen?”

Yes.

No one had invited Anna. She did not have Alice’s permission. That meant she had faced Alice’s madness without fear, repelled it, and forced her own actions through.

She faced that tremendous charisma without being engulfed.

She had the brand name of the mystery woman behind the founding of the world’s largest magic cabal.

This villain carried a legend of equal value.

“Honestly. You always let everyone push you around when it comes to Alice, fool. Do you seriously believe in the nice-sounding but scientifically-baseless and perverted jinx that the unclouded eyes of young children reflect truths the adults have long forgotten? If you ask me, you should learn to ignore it all as ''the words of an ignorant little kid''.”

“Anna…?”

“You might die, fool.”

Kamijou’s breath caught in his throat.

The thick invisible wall once more intruded on the ordinary scene around him.

Death.

The end.

It was approaching second by second, yet he felt no pain. Like a cruel time bomb with the LCD screen omitted.

What was wrong with feeling fear?

But Anna wasn’t done talking.

“I said ‘might’. None of this is set in stone, but Alice is acting like it’s 100% going to happen. Why?”

Othinus caught on first.

Almost like the thought had been unnaturally blocked until now.

“Oh, I get it. Everyone would prefer the opposite outcome, but she was enjoying telling everyone that he was definitely going to die.”

“It’s simple really. What did a certain monster need to do for him to drop his guard and let her in? What about showing him a greater threat so she doesn’t seem so bad? Just like I came off as a harmless companion when faced with the greater threats of CRC and Alice. But there is no threat greater at present than the Anotherbible. So a certain someone suggested the fool’s death.”

“Wait.”

“You should already know the answer. Alice Anotherbible only gets so assertive when it comes to Kamijou Touma. In a way, this is to be expected since I imprinted the fool’s past actions in her mind.”

It wasn’t her fault she had been deceived.

Anyone that little villain took advantage of already had an opening in them.

Or you could call it a vulnerability.

She could not create something from nothing. She pried open a small existing hole and then controlled them as she saw fit.

She was a reasonable but contemptible miracle-worker.

“The central factor for her has always been loneliness. Yes, I am the one who deceived her. Wherever she came from, I know the current Alice Anotherbible’s mind better than you.”

So?

What was that supposed to mean?

What was she imagining when she said that?

A cold sweat poured from Kamijou’s body.

For a brief moment, even his very real fear of death vanished from his mind.

“Hold on!! You’re not making sense. Alice means no harm. For better or for worse, what you see is what you get with her. Wasn’t that our initial assumption here? She can’t set people up, plot out some grand plan, or any other intellectual stuff like that!!”

“True,” agreed H.T. Trismegistus. “She is too powerful to do anything of the sort. Common sense says that someone capable of killing a dinosaur with a barehanded punch would never even think of inventing a gun, correct?”

“Shut up, you gloomy butler. And, fool, remind me who you came here to save?”

Anna sounded exasperated.

That was their initial assumption.

Kamijou had said that himself, but he had somehow forgotten it.

“I thought that issue had nothing to do with whether or not you will survive.”

“…”

He wanted to rescue Index and save Alice too.

That was why he had decided to fight Alice. That had been his initial objective.

And yet.

Why was he now seeking salvation from Alice?

Alice was the same as always. She was alive and well. It didn’t matter that her head had been crushed by Rosencreutz.

So shouldn’t he be rejoicing?

Shouldn’t he be weeping and laughing while hugging Alice?

Why was he being driven into a dead end?

''When had his objective been replaced?

''Who had caused that switch?

No.

…But…

It couldn’t be? Could it?

“Fool. I agree that Alice isn’t calculating enough to put together a long-term plan to fool people. Even telling her to ‘sit’ or ‘stay’ in front of a feast wouldn’t last very long. She may only be honestly saying what she believes to be right.”

That was a weirdly indirect phrasing.

Which suggested that phrasing was somehow necessary.

Othinus gave a snort.

“Yeah, I thought that was strange for a grimoire library whose job is to provide answers. Is this why she hesitated to give a response? Because she couldn’t easily reach a yes or no answer?”

The white nun, who was the polar opposite of the villain, spoke up quietly.

“But if Alice’s mind is too badly broken to tell what is and isn’t accurate, she might not be doing the right thing. Touma, you can’t trust that the things she tells you are accurate.”

Everyone’s eyes gathered on a single point.

Even H.T. Trismegistus, who had been taking advantage of the situation.

They heard a creaking sound.

Sounds like thick, straining leather came from within the girl as she hung her head.

“Those magicians could not change the world the way they wanted, nor could they follow their own rules after coming up with lofty salvation conditions,” said Anna Sprengel in a singsong way. “It probably was pure chance that very average group discovered the artificial miracle that is Alice Anotherbible before they began dressing up as gods. But they realized something.”

“…”

“In a mishmash of fiction and reality, a real girl had been remade into the storybook Alice and the storybook Alice had been created in the real world. They extracted a portion of those ‘plans’ and applied it to themselves. By customizing themselves as they liked with pieces of the preexisting open-source spell, they could abandon their individuality to dress up as any god or demon with extraordinary precision.”

The Transcendents really had transformed themselves that way.

At the cost of their own individuality.

For the Bridge Builders Cabal, the ''Anotherbible'' was a priceless text, but Alice was no more than a target of their worship. So they feared her and respected her, but they did everything they could to avoid third parties contacting her.

What had that lonely girl really wanted?

Or, more accurately, who?

“I see,” said Othinus on Kamijou’s shoulder. Sounding somewhat exasperated. “''This human was perfect for the role.'' I see now why that little monster was so obsessed with him.”

“Alice Pleasance Liddell listened to Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, the prototype for it all, and was the one clear model for the protagonist. But in a later era, she was abducted by a ‘Teacher of Crowley’ and thoroughly modified to create the Alice seen in the story.”

Little Anna herself proved that one’s apparent age wasn’t necessarily reliable.

Even if she was already an adult when she was abducted, the magician would have made the necessary adjustments. Very physical adjustments using a scalpel and saw. It may have taken cutting through bone, sewing together skin, and rearranging organs, but they would have kept working and adjusting until she had the exact same height and adorable appearance as the fictional girl.

That could not have been an enjoyable experience.

But after being freed from the mystery magician and finding a place in the center of the Bridge Builders Cabal, Alice had not been able to live the innocent life of the storybook. Even though she was already free and more powerful than anyone. She had given up on any life other than fulfilling other people’s interests.

And she really had become an innocent child.

She probably wasn’t even aware of her own humiliation and resignation.

Anna sighed softly and dug into the ugly side of humanity.

That was something Kamijou couldn’t do.

This was a territory only allowed for a worldwide villain.

She would carry the burden of everyone’s ire as she revealed the necessary truth.

“A parent who values logic has no dreams to share with their child.

“When Mathematician Lewis Carroll later began creating the world’s greatest fantasy, he laid out symbols and meanings, discovered a special child, and used her as a model to tell the prototype of it all: Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.

“A self-proclaimed Teacher of Crowley saw value in you as no more than the one and only specimen to know of the uncorrected original version, so they remade you by rearranging everything from your bones to your organs into the optimal color, shape, and size.

“When the Bridge Builders Cabal ‘rediscovered’ the girl still wandering in the shadows of the modern world, they only saw you as an open-source spell of great power. They feared and respected you in something more like worship than anything.”

And so the girl had been craving more.

Starving for it.

It mattered little if it was a conscious or subconscious thing.

Alice was always surrounded by so many people, but none of them were really looking at her.

Her reputation had preceded her.

With one exception.

There was one boy who did not want her power as a Transcendent, had rejected the “happiness” brought by her ultimate power, and faced her with nothing but his own fist no matter how many times he was killed.

It all began there.

Like dreaming of something from a storybook, a certain girl had thought that was her last chance there.

So she wanted it no matter what.

“Touma, stand back.”

“Ah.”

“Stand back! Now!!”

Hesitantly, Kamijou got his voice out from his parched and trembling mouth.

While asking himself what it was he was so afraid of.

“Al...ice?”

“Yes?”

''The girl raised her head.

''Except she no longer had anything above her neck.

===Part 9===

Aradia had finally caught up.

She walked through the high school’s front gate, setting foot inside its grounds.

Or so she thought.

“Tch!!”

She immediately swung her black and yellow railroad crossing barrier and was answered with a dull crack. It suddenly broke at about the middle. Even with the power of the goddess of witches, she was forced back.

Good, Old Mary, who was woozy from blood loss, muttered quietly.

“It looks like a rabbit, but it doesn’t have a watch. It must be the March Hare from the tea party.”

“One of the Alice Series!?”

The flamingo bats. The hedgehogs.

The Gryphon, the Executioner, the Cook.

These were Alice’s raw and unstoppable toys which magicians had not yet turned into tools.

They seemed to be fighting as two opposing armies, but here it looked like the enemy of your enemy wasn’t your friend. The flamingo bats and hedgehogs would sometimes attack the Transcendents without provocation, so they couldn’t be trusted.

The March Hare had apparently attacked just now, but which side was he on?

For that matter, why were different monsters born from Alice fighting each other in the first place!?

“What are we supposed to do?” asked the Bologna Succubus.

“We should have Good, Old Mary stay back. We shouldn’t rely too heavily on her resurrection, but we shouldn’t waste her by sending her up against an even more dangerous enemy either!!”

The school was a rather large place.

Where was that boy?

And while they were only regular ones, it was strange that a group of several Transcendents couldn’t get past this one position.

They supposedly each wielded strange spells capable of taking on the entire magic side single-handedly.

The Gryphon, the Executioner, the bipedal hare, and the Cook throwing irons and pots.

They were all Alice’s toys with their origins in Wonderland.

But while they were only toys, they had been directly injected with a portion of Alice’s power. As seen with the Shrink Drink, that power made these far from your normal foe.

Ultimately, the Bridge Builders Cabal did not exist for Alice.

It was the result of the regular Transcendents, who sought and feared her great power, struggling to find some way of managing her.

All on her own, Alice was more powerful than countless armies.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, Good, Old Mary, and Mut Thebes.

Those four Transcendents gathering here was no problem at all for Alice. She probably hadn’t even decided to fight against the Transcendents. This could be seen in how the toys continued fighting each other instead of driving out the intruders.

“By the way, where did Anna get off to!?” asked Aradia.

“Did that slut use mama and the rest of you as bait for these pain-in-the-ass opponents while she went on ahead? She did, didn’t she?”

They said nothing more.

First, they sensed a great pressure. Only a moment later did they feel the powerful tremor in the ground.

It was Dinah the cat.

The fluffy white and black beast had grown larger than the gym, so a single step caused the entire space to shake. The flamingo bats and hedgehogs ran around in a panic and the Gryphon failed to get away in time and had its front leg crushed underfoot.

It didn’t matter if they were on Alice’s side.

And the culprit – Dinah – wasn’t even aware she had done it.

She was the greatest force in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

She carried such great firepower that the mice and birds who caused Alice so much trouble had fled at the mere mention of her name.

If this really was her, then she might cause destruction greater than Alice intended for.

That meant there was a risk of her crushing the entire school building with Kamijou and Alice inside.

Which was exactly what happened.

With her back to the school building, Aradia briefly froze up, so the Bologna Succubus had to flap her bat wings and tackle Aradia from the side to send them both tumbling across the ground. A gust of wind blew past them like a subway train had passed by nearby. That thing was much too large for anyone human-sized to take a direct hit from it. Aradia didn’t have time to celebrate her survival. She roared up toward the heavens while still tangled up with the Bologna Succubus.

That was the most prized of Alice’s toys.

Deadly Dinah.

Only one Transcendent could hope to battle that giant that rivaled a school gym in size.

“Mut Thebes, stop that thing immediately!!”

“It is too soon for me to attack. Wait 15 minutes for me to absorb enough shadows to create a body that can safely face the cat.”

Aradia’s eyes widened.

Mut Thebes wasn’t going to be any help.

Dinah was charging head-first toward the school building.

And just before she crashed into it, a deafening roar rang out.

Dinah was knocked rolling back, gouging large pieces of dirt out of the schoolyard and sending tons of dust into the air. It made no sense. There was no thick barrier there and no steel warship had appeared.

There was only a single human silhouette.

It looked downright minuscule compared to Dinah, who was large enough to look down at the gym.

Nevertheless, it was Dinah whose max-speed charge had been repelled, sending her rolling backwards.

“Wha-?”

Aradia was speechless.

This wasn’t even a Transcendent.

“Honestly.”

A voice came from the cloud of dust.

Aradia’s group did not recognize the voice. But the female voice inspired a compulsion that prevented even the Transcendents from taking it lightly.

“Alice Anotherbible has fallen apart more than I 💭. All of these things are a 🧩 of her – they are the many opinions she has ❌ been able to reconcile. I did ❌ expect her to be so overwhelmed with emotion that she nearly crushed her own 🏰 with her inside.”

This was Anna Kingsford.

The magician stood there on her own two feet without borrowing anyone’s appearance or abilities.

A moment later, the dirt thrown high into the sky was pulled back down by gravity.

It was like a dry rain.

Kingsford casually directed her index finger skyward and something invisible became a large umbrella. She alone was left without a speck of dust in her hair or on her clothes.

Something sliced sharply through the dusty veil.

It was a flamingo bat and the Cook.

Both sides of the conflict arrived at once.

Kingsford extended a single finger and drew out a few patterns in empty air.

They were constellations.

Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces.

The sharp sound was a moment delayed.

A scattershot of compressed water tore through the Cook like a cookie cutter through dough. When her blue-glowing fingertip turned toward the flamingo bat, the bat began to tremble while hovering in the air. Despite being inorganic, it clearly shrank two sizes.

The basics of astrology were to assign various elements and symbols to the 7 planets and 12 constellations of the horoscope and then experiment to see what effects were produced on yourself and others when they were applied from different angles and combinations. There were even tricky ways of building them into attack spells.

So by combining only the water element constellations, you could greatly amplify the power of ordinary water.

Instead of simple addition, it worked through multiplication, so it was like shifting up a gear in a car.

That expert did not bother coming up with impressive special attacks.

By earnestly working at the basic fundamentals that anyone could do and that novices tended to look down on, any magic could be brought to the point of a one-hit kill.

But none of that was particularly important.

For one, that wouldn’t be enough to kill Dinah.

“I will ❌ let you destroy the things you care about, Alice. That would be much too 😢 to see. I assure you on my name as an expert, being special does ❌ cut you off from the supply of ☺️.”

Just then…

“…?”

Anna Kingsford looked down at her right hand.

A red liquid was dripping from it.

She only had a slight cut on her fingertip, but the amount of blood was not the issue.

She shouldn’t have been harmed at all in that situation.

That expert never made mistakes.

So if something unexpected occurred regardless, it meant the problem was with the initial data she was working with, not her calculations.

In other words…

“Is this body reaching its limit?” she whispered, holding her fingertip in her mouth.

Her voice itself was a lot “rougher” than it had been when she was first booted up in Shibuya’s Miyashita Ark. It wasn’t limited to her outward appearance. This proved the injury and deterioration was also progressing where it couldn’t be seen.

She didn’t show the slightest hint of fear as she looked out ahead.

In fact, she took a step forward.

The cat large enough to crush the gym rose to her feet again.

Kingsford couldn’t continue on and leave this with the regular Transcendents. She had never figured out how to pick and choose who she saved.

These were Alice’s raw toys, which had yet to be turned into easy-to-use tools like the Shrink Drink. And this cat was the greatest of them. She was a mass of violence and destruction that wouldn’t bat an eye as she trampled all the other toys.

Dinah.

The expert faced the cat head on, holding the brim of her large hat between her fingertips.

She doubted her body would last to the end.

For that matter, it was unnatural for a preserved corpse her to be moving around at all.

(But I can accept that.)

So she decided on a more realistic goal: injuring Dinah enough to create an opening or weak point the Transcendents could take advantage of to defeat Dinah on their own.

The expert knew her doom was closing in on her, but she still spoke with her usual smile.

“⌚ to serve others.”

===Part 10===

She was a headless girl.

A little corpse.

Yet she was also standing up and looking at Kamijou.

He distinctly felt the pressure of her gaze.

The atmosphere in the library changed. The scales were rapidly tilting in a direction he did not like at all.

“!?”

Without thinking, he stepped back away from her.

This was an expression of malice that shouldn’t have been necessary.

Which proved it had been intentional.

It was true after all.

No matter how you looked at it, the center of the problem was right there.

It always had been.

Kamijou pushed past the fear of death he knew was coming and shouted.

“Alice!!”

He heard a sound like tearing cardboard.

No, not like. The headless girl really did tear down the center. And something else emerged, sticky with a translucent fluid.

This had happened before.

But this was not the little girl dressed in profane red and black leather.

This form could never have fit in that small body.

But she wasn’t accepting questions.

At the top of the vertical tear, near where the head should have been, an arm jutted straight up, but this arm belonged to a captivatingly beautiful woman. With a splat, she collapsed forward to crawl like a dog. The translucent slime left behind strings that stained the floor. She squirmed like a fluffy red boa. The leather bound her bright, wet body more tightly than necessary and her long blonde hair was so wet it writhed on the ground as a single clump. After instantly becoming a woman of about 18, she crawled forward and swung her head upwards. The wet hair covering her face swung back behind her, revealing her beautiful face.

“Touma!!”

Alice Anotherbible.

Or maybe Alice Pleasance Liddell.

Her true form.

“Did you use yourself as the ingredients to recreate the ideal version of yourself?” said Othinus in disgust.

Alice worked her alluring throat to release growls and her fingers scratched at the floor like an animal with sharp and sinister claws. She could not have been farther removed from reason, intelligence, and innocent adorableness.

Violence.

Battle.

Killing.

That was all she was.

She shined with the same light as a sword that had had been made so deadly it gained an odd beauty.

The fear of death was gone.

Even that thick invisible wall had vanished.

Kamijou felt a tingling in the back of his head. With the sharp claws, the large canine teeth emerging from her lips, and the fearsome light in her eyes, he knew there was so much he needed to focus on, yet he couldn’t read even a hint of deadliness from her. But he knew this wasn’t Alice doing anything special. His own mind had numbed the fear. Because if he accurately understood the threat here, his heart would stop of its own accord. His heart would raise the white flag before his mind did.

The animal rose to her feet.

The fully grown body of an alluringly beautiful woman straightened her legs and stood up like she had only just remembered she could.

She took a fighting stance.

“Teacher…”

That one word created a distortion.

But not in Alice. The bookcases, the reading desks, the floor, the walls, and everything else Kamijou could see looked like a child had scribbled out their outlines in white and black.

“The girl…wants…only one goal. She will…have this…no matter…matter what.”

He could have understood if she said she would kill him just for fun.

Or if she said she deeply resented him.

Even if she said she would destroy the world based on some inscrutable logic, he might have decided that made sense for someone so very different.

But.

“The girl wants...to make up...with you.”

Everything froze.

Inside Kamijou Touma, time ground to a halt.

Was that it.

Was that really and truly all there was to it?

At the Bridge Builders Cabal consulate in District 12, Kamijou and Alice had disagreed over her attempted punishment of H.T. Trismegistus, who had tried to kill him, and Good, Old Mary, who had failed to protect him.

CRC had killed her and she had regained her lost head.

She had driven the world mad and might destroy it as soon as tomorrow.

But this had never changed.

She only wanted to mend that broken bond.

No matter what it took.

Even if her methods were seen as unfair.

That little girl didn’t care. Kamijou should have bowed his head and apologized, but he had completely forgotten after learning about his imminent death.

Nevertheless, she was trying to achieve it on her own, even if it meant dirtying her hands.

So they could smile together again.

“So.”

It all took a turn.

Her behavior was distorted.

Only in Alice’s mind did it all fit together smoothly.

“The girl will make up with you. She will fight you because a serious fight allows people to make up. But it has to be serious, so what can the girl do to get you to fight her? This city, this country, and this world can wait. It has to be serious. The girl understands you, teacher, so she knows you will fight her and make up with her.”

She said it all in a terribly ''drawn out'' and flat, emotionless voice. Her emotions were so intense it was all destroyed, like the recording medium itself was being burned from below by a lighter.

Alice probably really could do that.

And what would happen?

Would the world really end over this?

Maybe Alice could no longer make logical connections between the different pieces of data.

Kamijou had thoroughly broken that girl’s mind.

Issues of right and wrong or like and dislike were trivial at this point. They would no longer provide a dividing line between enemy and ally. This wasn’t like mantises that were programmed so the female would always eat the male. Perhaps it was closer to spiders where the female would sometimes suddenly leap at and devour the male in the middle of the male’s courtship display. Even with the same species facing each other one-on-one, and even with the male expressing his love and the female accepting it, she might mercilessly devour him on a whim. She would only realize she had done it after the fact. You couldn’t predict what would happen even a second into the future with a being like that.

She was such a close but distant being.

She was different.

She was a predator beautifully made by stretching out the muscles, laying out the nerves, hardening the bones.

Kamijou didn’t find her frightening anymore.

He felt sorrow instead.

“Stand back, fool,” coldly insisted Anna Sprengel.

The look she gave Alice was unusual for that villain.

Alice was another irregular Transcendent – another open-source path to power – but one who would never stand on the same side as Anna. Anna gave her a look of pity.

“You understand, don’t you? She’s a lot like an unstable animal. If you approach her now, she might turn you to mincemeat without even meaning to. In the worst case, she might decide that, if she can’t have you alive, she will tear off your head and take that away with her.”

Kamijou shook his head.

Would he battle Alice?

And defeat her?

“I can’t do that.”

This wasn’t about the size of the threat. He couldn’t picture it. It felt wrong. He wanted to trust in that part of himself.

He recalled that giant dragon.

When he had punched CRC away and given up on his possibilities, he had felt a disgusting sensation.

A future where he and CRC could stand side-by-side smiling had been lost. Kamijou had made sure of it.

And the fear caused by his prophesied death made him feel this way all the more.

Would he use that against Alice this time?

Like hell he would.

“Because I can’t save Alice that way. Isn’t there some other way!?”

Index and her 103,001 grimoires were here. So was Othinus, who had once been a Magic God. Not to mention Anna Sprengel, who was familiar with Rosicrucianism and the Bridge Builders Cabal.

Combining those three’s knowledge could reveal a way of saving Alice.

But…

“That really depends on your definition of ‘save’,” said Othinus. “Human, would you really be saving her if you grabbed that oversized head and shoved it back inside the small body? Back inside that shed skin?”

She was a god who had once destroyed the world and been pursued by all of humanity as a great criminal.

That Magic God was saying this about ''another monster capable of ending the world''.

She said it clearly, without averting her gaze from reality.

This was nothing as over-the-top as saving humanity or protecting the world.

It was a more personal miracle.

But she was speaking to the boy who really had risked his life to save a lonely god.

“You are here, human. So make your own choice. This here is the real Alice. She isn’t pure or innocent, but if the world can accept her this way, that would be one way of saving her.”

“Oh,” said Kamijou, sounding exasperated.

He just had to bring Alice back to her senses.

He kept that in mind while ignoring the issue of how difficult that would be to actually pull off.

“So if I risk my life, a path opens up?”

That was the best news he’d heard all day.

In that instant, an explosion erupted out.

Something twisted and scattered around right in front of his eyes. It took him a moment to realize they were fake roses.

Or that he would have been decapitated if not for them.

Alice had attacked.

He didn’t know why.

It was possible she didn’t either.

She was a captivatingly beautiful monster, but she was not a villain.

He had to believe that.

How deadly she looked had nothing to do with whether she was good or bad. She would bare her fangs whether it was right or wrong and whether she liked you or not. She was an unstable collection of power with only that function.

So he couldn’t falter.

He couldn’t turn Alice into a monster. He couldn’t accept that conclusion.

“Fool, the rose is a symbol of change. This applies to the Golden brooch that can create any sigil through the orderly arrangement of the 22 Hebrew letters and it applies to white and red roses colored with paint in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. ''By forcibly altering the interpretation and building a bridge,'' I can divert at least one of her attacks.”

Anna Sprengel stared straight ahead as she said this, but she had a red wound running across her cheek.

That had only been a villain’s trickery.

Kamijou couldn’t expect it to work forever.

But he should be plenty thankful it had worked at all in this real confrontation.

And while deflecting the attack was all well and good, he had no idea what Alice had done even after being on the receiving end of her attack.

The animal roared loud.

“Oooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Was that magic?

It was an apocalyptic roar.

A great energy grounded in something other than intelligence and reason spiraled out. The roar reflected off the walls and floor before gathering unnaturally on a single point in space.

Anna swept her little hand from left to right.

That was all it took for a thick shockwave to bend like a bow and knock over a few bookcases.

It was actually Alice who paused for a beat.

With her right hand still jabbing out with the fingers together. Perhaps that would have knocked off Kamijou’s head and then stabbed through his corpse’s heart before it could even fall to the floor.

''Slap!!

Little Anna, who would look better than anyone delivering a double slap, sent another attack sweeping up from below.

This may have been a first.

Alice Anotherbible’s attack wasn’t deflected or redirected – it was stopped from head on by an attack of equal power.

“Kh.”

“Why do you look so surprised?”

The little villain grinned and exchanged a glare with Alice at close range. Anna accepted Alice’s gaze without trying to escape.

She was a Transcendent not based on Alice.

She was another irregular Transcendent.

“Did you think you were special? There’s no such thing in the world of magic. I’m a magician who dressed up as Kingsford so I could stop my foolish students from ignoring my teaching and attempting self-destructive magic. I built my secret art from the ground up with the hands I had bloodied attempting to protect those lovable fools. Did you really think my way was inferior to the secret art you were simply given and have no real use for!?”

Alice’s hand was fully deflected.

She spun around, her partially-retracted arm blurring into streamlines. She chose a new target to attack. Index was chosen first, so Kamijou shoved the nun out of the way.

Fingers capable of tearing through steel rushed toward Kamijou.

Flashes of light intersected like a cross.

The fingers and claws sent horizontally toward Kamijou’s throat were stopped at the last second by an extremely thin blade.

Courtesy of H.T. Trismegistus.

No…

“My right hand contains Zeus. My left hand contains Indra. Thus I am renewed. Z.I. Trismegistus conversion complete!!”

Blinding white flashed from the point of contact between the struggling sword and fingers.

That was probably a high-voltage current.

The electrical energy was powerful enough to burn through a metal panel thicker than a thumb.

Of course, this wouldn’t be enough to defeat Alice. But dazzling her eyes for a moment meant a lot.

It gave Kamijou time to fall back.

“What the hell!? Can you just pick a side and stay on it!?” complained Othinus.

“Common sense says…”

The young butler hung his head.

He clenched his fist hard enough for his sword cane to creak.

“Common sense says I cannot expect Christian Rosencreutz to show up and save us here and now. And not just him. No one who isn’t present can do anything to help. I was wrong to place my hopes on people like that. No matter how complex and challenging the world’s problems, it is up to the people living in it to solve them.”

Now that he was freed from his bonds, H.T. Trismegistus spoke clearly.

“It is the people with us now who will decide how this ends. So it would be foolish in the extreme to not make use of that right. So says common sense!!”

Alice Anotherbible had tremendous power.

That power led a great many people to gather around her. But the Transcendents who had wanted to use her to make themselves special may have seemed like a stale and uninteresting bunch to Alice.

But that wasn’t all.

It couldn’t be.

In addition to the power someone had forced her to carry, Alice had drawn quite a few people to herself in a different way. No matter what anyone might say, as much as she might resent the magician who had created “Alice Anotherbible” and however she saw things herself, Alice had not been alone. She had been loved.

Because if she wasn’t, Kamijou Touma, Anna Sprengel, and H.T. Trismegistus – people with such different positions and intentions – wouldn’t have all gathered here like this.

They wouldn’t have been working together to save Alice.

“Hey, Alice.”
She didn’t say anything, but Kamijou still smiled.

He was certain that Alice had the wrong idea of what it meant to be an adult.

When adults ran into problems, they asked for help. They would rely on and depend on others. They simply did their best to hide this in front of the small children.

Trying to do it all yourself and thinking you could solve anything if you had a special power was a child’s way of thinking.

So he had a lesson for her.

And for the world’s greatest illusion.

He would teach her that letting her ugly side show wasn’t going to destroy her world.

Alice Anotherbible wouldn’t be a lonely monster.

He wouldn’t let her.

An invisible wall had shattered inside Kamijou Touma.

He could deal with the deadly prophecy later. Because he had found something more important.

“If you think you can use your power to twist everything to your will… If you think you can take everything you loathe and make it everyone else’s problem…”

A perfectly ordinary high school boy clenched his right fist.

Tightly.

“Then I’ll destroy that illusion!!!”

None of the problems had been resolved. The boy had only adjusted his internal priorities.

Kamijou Touma would die today.

''But so what?

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter3

2024-04-22T04:33:15Z

Edzo: /* Part 8 */ fixed typo "necessaryly" into "necessarily"

==Chapter 3: Prophecy – Last_Branch(of_Die).==

===Part 1===

Late at night in District 7, Anna Kingsford stood at the very top of an enormous crane.

She stood tall and simply directed her gaze overhead.

The night sky seemed blotted out by the lights of the city, but viewing the clear stars in the sky gave this expert access to more information than searching the world linked together by fiber optics.

And she only used this for just causes.

Which was what made her an expert.

(The ⭐s are in place. That boy should become aware of the branch he passed by now.)

She sighed.

That was a complete side issue.

For one, Kingsford had never directly met Kamijou Touma. Which made him no more than a stranger in the same city as her.

(But awareness does ❌ allow him to change it. It may be his life, but he can ❌ change the decision he made on a branch he has already passed. Just like CRC passed a crucial branch ''and was defeated in a ⚔️ he should have won easily.'' The greatest enemy in an individual’s life is their own karma.)

“Not that he can ignore it now that he knows.”

But she would not just abandon him.

That expert did not consider her own interests, the state of the battle, or even whether or not she knew the boy.

He was a complete stranger?

So what?

If anyone was troubled, uncertain, or suffering, she was already taking action.

Anna Kingsford had perfected that way of life.

A fool who had yet to reach that point spoke to her.

It was the human named Aleister.

“Where are you going, Kingsford?”

“To serve others.”

“That’s my job. There’s no reason for you to continue fighting!!”

Even her battle against Rosencreutz had essentially been a miracle.

She had not actually won the battle. CRC could instantly search for any information about the world, but he had ''just so happened'' to overlook the fact that Anna Kingsford was a preserved corpse. If not for that, he would have destroyed her more thoroughly and she couldn’t have recovered.

She was reliant on unpredictable miracles.

Even a magician who mastered the field to the point of being known as an expert would lose eventually.

She had to know that.

Alice Anotherbible had easily crushed and killed CRC and so thoroughly eliminated him from the world that he could never recover. She was a true monster.

Kingsford had not reached that point.

She had to understand that. She wielded great power using the correspondence between the microcosm within a person and the macrocosm of the physical world around them, so she would have thoroughly analyzed herself in that way.

But the woman with a proper understanding of magic’s essence smiled as she responded.

She was accurately viewing her own fate, but she didn’t hesitate to speak.

“This is 👋.”

“But!!”

Contact with the new Board Chairman had been lost.

They couldn’t hope for anymore cooperation, so they had to settle this on their own.

The situation was clearly worsening and Alice was even more powerful than CRC. Certain death awaited Kingsford. Alice waited in a land that brought death to all who set foot there.

“Aleister. You must have understood from the beginning that I am ❌ more than a preserved corpse. You are only using ⚙️s to move an already ☠️ body around, so I never was alive. I escaped the previous ⚔️ intact by pure luck, but ❌ even that can save me next time. This ☠️ body will find only ☠️.”

“…”

As an expert who understood the secrets of the world of the living and the world of the dead, she was not too attached to her own life.

The only ones who clung to life with such ugly desperation were the half-baked magicians who remained fixated on this one life.

Still, he understood in his own inexpert way.

Anna Kingsford was an expert through and through. She didn’t even think of clinging to life or staying in this world forever.

She was only interested in eliminating the unknown threat making someone suffer before her eyes.

She didn’t even consider whether or not she had ever met that person.

She had no intention of returning. Her win condition didn’t even take that into account.

She was an example of how far people could go if they mastered their field.

“What was my role meant to be? I was supposed to be a trump 🃏 for use against the unbeatable Anna Sprengel. Now that Miss Sprengel has been freed from her wicked ⛓️ and that ⚔️ need ❌ be fought, my purpose is complete.”

Aleister had no response to that.

Because she was exactly right.

This goodbye could not be avoided. This was Aleister Crowley’s reward for wielding superhuman knowledge, doing what no one else could do, and enduring trials normal people would never even know existed. Kingsford was correct that the greatest enemy in an individual’s life was their own karma.

He was already in checkmate.

And yet…

“That just means I have to do the work myself.”

He understood it intellectually but he still tried to fight it. Was that because Aleister was an inexpert and ugly human?

But you must never forget that, while that human had accumulated a lot of bad karma, he would never stop struggling for his own ends.

“Aleister Crowley officially died in 1947 and stubbornly clung to life until he actually died battling Great Demon Coronzon. I’m as dead as you are. If someone has to save that boy, I’ll do it. I can do it if necessary!! And I’m better suited for that role. The wickedest man in the world should be standing up to the world even after death, not a pure and proper holy woman!”

“But you are still fixated on this 🌍.”

She shot back.

A true expert did not bother arguing about secrets.

She had already seen into the depths of his mind that even he wasn’t consciously aware existed.

She did it naturally.

And kindly.

“Conscious or ❌, you hijacked that great 👿’s body to cling to life. Either you still have something you want to do in this 🌍, or there is something you are ❌ yet willing to give up here. Dying for him is not the same as living with him. It never can be. Either way, it is too soon for you. Everyone dies eventually, so there is no need to rush toward ☠️. Live out your life first, Aleister. You can prepare yourself for ☠️ once you have done that.”

Kingsford smiled as she said this.

Smiled faintly.

Aleister lightly clenched his empty right hand.

He felt the pressure of a staff so twisted his fingertips tingled at the mere sight of it.

Special numbers scattered from his hand like sparks.

“I’ve had enough. What if I said I would stop you by force?”

“I would knock you aside and continue on my way.”

“Kh.”

She didn’t even hesitate.

She said it gently, like it was a foregone conclusion.

Kingsford used no more than words to overpower the victor of the Battle of Blythe Road.

He couldn’t say she couldn’t do it. He was already well past his limit with Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel. He had only so insolently decided to make use of this preserved corpse because he couldn’t handle them.

Trickery, betrayal, surprise attacks, intrigue, and – when necessary – direct confrontation.

He had used every trick in the book to drive the world’s greatest magic cabal to destruction at the Battle of Blythe Road, but none of it would work here.

He could not win in a direct one-on-one confrontation.

If Anna Kingsford went all out, Aleister had no way of opposing her. He knew she would simply prove how inexpert he really was. He would never manage to get his hands on the switch hidden below her skin.

“I do ❌ want you to ☠️ here. No number of previous ☠️s is any reason to accept ☠️ next time. So I will use all of my power to defeat you here. Soundly enough that you do ❌ have enough strength left to go out and ☠️.”

That was contradictory.

Kingsford kept saying she would not let people die so easily, but she was about to head out for her own death.

She was saying she would use up all of the tickets provided for her as a thinking and moving preserved corpse.

But that gentle smile of hers made the contradictory premise and conclusion seem to fit together with no problem.

It was strange really.

Was this the essence of magic known only to the few true experts – a position Aleister had yet to reach? This was the human-made miracle of protecting everyone you encountered and spreading smiles everywhere you went.

He couldn’t stop her.

This wasn’t the ''divine cosplay spell'' that simply let one dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. Nor was it the reverse logic where one tried to divulge the workings of the world to rebel against the god they so hated.

With a quiet bump, the failure of a student buried his face in Anna Kingsford’s chest.

He sniffled like a child.

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have to die.”

“That I met someone who feels that way and that I inspired these feelings in you, who felt betrayed by everything, tells me that I have won a victory against this 🌍.”

Clear drops spilled out.

Anna Kingsford held the lost child’s head to her chest and whispered gently to him.

She stroked the inexpert one’s blonde hair like a mother.

“I think you did have need of my preserved corpse. Especially on December 31. If no one had stopped Anna Sprengel, the 🌍 would have been thrown into chaos before CRC could even be reborn.”

One by one, the expert explained everything to the fool.

She taught him some terribly simple things that no one had ever before taught that human.

Not his parents who had thought meaningless strictness was a virtue, not his teachers who had failed to correct the social problem left in their care, and not the Golden magicians who had abandoned their pursuit of knowledge to spend their time on ugly internecine conflict.

Even though these should have been the first things he was taught.

“But you must ❌ toy with life. Because you are powerful enough to do so with ease, you have ❌ way to keep yourself focused other than using pure willpower to manage yourself. The ☠️ have their own dignity. Humans remain human even in ☠️. You ensured your own pain from the moment you disrespected the ☠️ for the sake of the living. Improve yourself, Aleister. If you do ❌ fear taking the long way around to avoid pain, there is much you can learn. Just like any magician.”

“…”

“And do ❌ worry, lost child of the living. You will not be alone. As an expert, I will do whatever it takes to save the one you care for. Even if it requires every trick in the 📖. So there is ❌ chance you will be crushed by loneliness.”

===Part 2===

Kamijou Touma heard a wet sound.

It came from inside his body.

He thought he must have imagined it.

But the sound of rotting flesh falling away was so distinct.

“…”

He was dying.

He was certain of it in that brightly lit classroom.

It was an unavoidable fate. No one had cruelly pushed him to this point. There was a chance he could have survived had he given up on saving others, but he had chosen this path for himself while on the dark side.

He felt an odd scraping.

Was that the wound from Aradia he felt in his right side and spine? The odd feeling in his neck would be H.T. Trismegistus.

Everything felt normal-ish, but that lack of extreme pain only terrified him more.

Something was definitely happening to him.

He couldn’t tell what was happening inside him. He only felt a vague disgust. It was like his silent organs were changing color without sending out any kind of alert. Death. The end. An invisible pressure. A cruel time bomb with the LCD timer omitted.

“Human…”

Even Magic God Othinus only groaned that word before falling silent.

There was no recovering from this.

''“You will die.”

''“That doesn’t change my answer.”

Thinking back, he had made that fateful choice when that god wasn’t with him.

He had carelessly made such an important decision on his own.

Of course he had screwed it up.

Everything had been wrong from the beginning.

How many times had he availed himself of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection? In other words, ''how many times had he died on the way here''? In just a few days’ time? Maybe you would survive certain death, as if by mistake, once over your long life. But he seriously doubted those bugs or errors would occur in his favor every single time like that. Not to mention that he was plagued by misfortune due to his right hand, so lady luck would never smile on him in that way.

The flaw wasn’t in Good, Old Mary.

Bringing him back to life even once was more than enough of a miracle.

The problem was him having her use it so many times in such a short period of time without considering the usage limits.

''He couldn’t fool death any longer.

''The corner of the mask was starting to peel away.

“Hey, teacher, why do you think the girl wanted the grimoire library?”

“…”

“Because the girl wanted to use the library’s knowledge to do something she couldn’t? To correct her broken head? No, the girl is already perfect and unbreakable. The answer is simple. ''The girl wanted to help you after you passed the final branch.'' The girl wanted to search through a library of all the world’s knowledge to find some method still remaining in this world. That was all.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………”

He had passed the fatal branch.

He had foolishly chosen to cross it and he had arrived at a mistaken destination.

Which one of them was really in need of help?

“If the girl found it, she would use it. If not, she would give up, deciding the world was just too shallow. There are billions of people in this wide world, so if not even one of them has a way to save you, it means they didn’t try hard enough and then the girl would have to punish them all with her power.”

H.T. Trismegistus had said he had always been one of the Killers.

He had said the swiftest and surest way to take Kamijou’s life was to have him meet Alice. He had been right.

It didn’t help the deathly ill to fear the doctor’s prognosis. Kamijou understood that. They had come down with the illness much earlier. The real problem may have been from their exercise, diet, or other life habits.

Nevertheless, that fear was real.

The tables had been turned.

The symbol of death had shifted from Alice Anotherbible to another girl Kamijou knew quite well.

White. Pure white. The all-knowing nun who was always by his side.

He felt no pain.

He wasn’t even given the right to writhe in agony as certain death approached.

The pressure mounted.

Like he was being slowly crushed by an incredibly thick invisible wall.

Which was more horrific: being turned to red and black spray by the world’s fastest linear motor train before you could even feel the fear, or having your body gradually drawn into the wheel of a local train as it pulled into the station?

With no malice, the girl spoke with an innocent smile.

“Well, teacher? Let’s go see the grimoire library! The girl can’t diagnose you, so we can have the all-knowing nun do that part☆”

===Part 3===

H.T. Trismegistus watched from a distance.

He had known Alice Anotherbible longer than any other member of the Bridge Builders Cabal. After all, he was the one who had discovered her in the modern day.

But there was a lot the young butler did not know.

Most notably, he did not know her origins.

Where was she born, where was she raised, where was she altered, and from where had she fled?

He didn’t have a single answer.

It had only been pure coincidence when he found her in a city abroad. She was in the shadows of a roofless shelter. She had tremendous value as an open-source spell, but he had not realized this until well after taking in the wandering girl.

At first, she had been like a wild animal.

She had gone so wild he had questioned what she had even eaten to survive.

It was nothing more than luck that Alice hadn’t known how to use her power. If she had chaotically wielded her power as Alice Anotherbible at that point, she probably would have destroyed the entire world.

Alice was smiling innocently next to someone else.

She wore an expression he had never seen before.

That much was fine.

The young man simply obeyed. Of course, this was for himself, not for Alice. H.T. Trismegistus was a Transcendent who had abandoned his magic name to dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. He could only view the world and choose who to save based on the salvation condition he had set for himself. So the first person he had to save was not himself or Alice.

He was the guardian deity of common sense.

He protected the people against anything that altered people’s sense of normalcy: war, rioting, disaster, loneliness, disease, famine, financial panic.

He sought a master who would save the world.

''Or to put it another way,'' the only person he would allow to distort common sense was the bearer of the paradigm shift that would guide all of humanity to the next stage. He could not leave this in the hands of just any old charismatic leader.

Was Christian Rosencreutz the one he sought?

Or was it Alice Anotherbible?

His objective was clear, but a question occurred to the young butler.

He knew his salvation condition.

But who exactly did he want to save?

===Part 4===

On the District 7 bridge, the Transcendents vs. Transcendents battle was trending in one direction.

“Tch! Good, Old Mary!?” shouted Aradia, holding onto the railroad crossing barrier she had borrowed as a broom and clinging to the side of a steel beam distributing the bridge’s weight.

But the woman collapsed on the cold asphalt did not respond.

That was a bad sign.

Good, Old Mary was the foundation of their recovery magic, but she had suddenly collapsed.

This was worse than simply losing one of their number.

Vidhatri, the brown-skinned woman with model-like proportions, shook the arms and legs of the Dhatri ball-joint doll she wore on her back, intricately manipulating white thread and black hair as she whispered to Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

“Do you still need support?”

“Nope. Everyone can do their own thing. Instead of assigning as many Transcendents as we can to attacking a single point, it would help me if we increased the total number of attack points to fill up the processing power of their minds.”

Something hovered through the air.

Some teacups and saucers were slowly flying around

Those were symbols from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Bologna Succubus noticed and groaned while breathing heavily with her hands down on the ground.

“Kssshhh, they’ve made it this far?”

“Ha ha☆ Of course they have.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet smiled calmly.

A single smile on that extremely lovable face summoned a great black dragon into the night sky. Was the twisting serpent actually tens of thousands of starlings? They were not venomous, but in great enough numbers, any creature was a threat to human life.

The instant the Bologna Succubus looked up at the black dragon filling the entire night sky, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet took a large step forward.

Without hesitation.

“Kh.”

Now was not the time to be overwhelmed by the intimidating numbers.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to gather as much air as possible.

She launched herself straight to the side.

The coat-shaped blast-resistant suit covered in thick metal panels snapped shut like a ferocious beast’s jaws. It was a sweet-smelling iron maiden. The air inside that isolated space was compressed with no outlet, producing a strange sound much like a steam engine.

The Bologna Succubus had just barely avoided it.

If she had carelessly stayed in place, she would have been “devoured”.

Instead of feeling fear, she gathered offensive power between her brows.

(Argh. I can’t let this chaos be unleashed on the boy’s city.)

What were Kamijou Touma and Alice Anotherbible doing right now?

She couldn’t predict how few seconds a regular Transcendent would last against Alice if she were serious about fighting, but it was still much too dangerous to let that boy stand defenselessly before Alice.

The alluring demon smiled bitterly at that thought and focused her feelings on the battle at hand.

“Oh, what’s this?”

Smiling, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet again spread her arms wide. Slowly.

Almost like a solid wall, a stifling nectar scent emerged from the blast-resistant suit and pushed toward the Bologna Succubus. Even at this distance, she had to stay focused to avoid getting dizzy.

What was happening in that closed world?

The skinny girl(?) wearing an apron over her naked body giggled before speaking.

“This won’t hurt at all, so don’t worry. I’m more interested in creating a gentle world where even the unloved are loved equally. Did you really understand my salvation condition? Kee hee hee☆ I have love even for a filthy sex demon, so get over here and let me give you a hug!!”

“Killing with pleasure, huh?”

“Ah ha ha☆ This is Total Courtship! Welcome to the sweetest, most luxurious ending to a life♪”

Roaches could rapidly build up a resistance to deadly insecticides, so they couldn’t necessarily be killed by escalating the chemical suffering. Instead, there were products that ''tricked them'' into thinking ethanol, acetaldehyde, sotolon, or another chemical compound was delicious food, luring them into the trap where they would take a different chemical back to the colony to kill them all at once. Humans didn’t just use what their target disliked – they would also use whatever their target most liked.

This girl similarly used love to kill. She was a super sweet monster who had continually honed the emotion of love into a deadly weapon. If you simply increased your defenses to prevent pain and prepared ordinary attacks, she would ''slip past them all'' and kill you instantly.

She was a specialist in that.

This Transcendent was a different form of strongest, whose trump card was the complete opposite of the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress which converted all forms of pleasure into pain.

Her victims were robbed of even the right to feel fear as they were filled with no more than ''happiness'' until they lost their life. In a trippy world where everything was vague, they would cross the final line without intent or resolve.

They were stranded.

She had complete control over them, not even giving them a chance to speak their final words.

She brought a death more certain than a .44 caliber bullet and its name was love.

“Yeah, I don’t think we could ever get along.”

“Kya ha ha☆ You’re only saying that because that makes it more exciting, aren’t you!?”

This must have been her combat form.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet had her enormous blast-resistant suit spread wide to display the terrarium trapped within. The skinny naked-apron girl pushed out a nectar scent so powerful it caused heartburn. And she took a casual step forward.

“You didn’t find it remotely odd? We’re all regular Transcendents here. A clash between our two groups shouldn’t end so easily. Yet you’re being easily defeated in a one-sided game. Is it a bad matchup between the individual Transcendents? Do our spells combine so well it’s like we were dealt a royal flush? No, that could never happen.”

“…”

“''No one can defeat Alice Anotherbible.''”

For this alone, she took on a respectful tone.

Almost like she was reading off the handwritten creed only she believed in.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet thought only of her own blessings as she spoke euphorically.

“You underestimated the meaning of that statement. And that optimism has brought you certain death. It doesn’t just mean you won’t survive a direct physical fight against Alice. There’s no getting around it. We control all of the coincidences and all of our baseless hunches and inspirations will work out in our favor. We have the ''trends'' of the world on our side. That is what it means to ‘resonate’ with Alice and take the winning side. To be clear, we are only firing blindly from the hip. You’re the ones ensuring we hit you.”

Vidhatri.

2nd Saga.

And Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

The Bologna Succubus’s side was being worn down, but all three of them were unharmed. She had gotten a few clean hits in on them, so had they managed to shrug off the damage?

And she was slipping past their expectations and landing an attack they failed to dodge or defend against, so it made no sense for them to be changing their stance to reduce the damage with 100% accuracy.

That wasn’t their individual abilities.

It was their “resonance” with Alice Anotherbible.

“Defying her means death. You had lost from the moment you bet on there being an exception to that, like that you could move beyond her reach, hide where she couldn’t find you, or escape punishment if your defiance was indirect. Not that she would let you get away with this even if you had been correct.”

“How are you on Alice’s side when you only love yourself?”

“Isn’t it cruel to expect such a small child to judge everything so accurately? They say to let your child make mistakes to learn from them, but do you think that kind of harsh parental love will work on that girl? Alice is simpler than that. Which is what makes her so frightening. At her mental age, she probably sees anyone who praises her and spoils her as her ally.”

And it didn’t end there.

“Heyyy.”

Something enormous was parting the large river to approach.

It was a special warship measuring around 100m long.

That was small compared to a nuclear aircraft carrier of more than 300m long, but it was undoubtedly a warship.

Plus, this was not the ship itself.

It was made out of smooth white shadow.

A girl’s lazy voice played from the speakers probably meant for giving warnings or making threats.

Come to think of it, hadn’t one of them seemingly vanished?

“This took some time to prepare, but I’m back.”

The ship’s bridge stood taller than the iron bridge.

She must have torn down all the other bridges spanning the river to clear a path here. It made you wonder which side was doing more damage to Academy City.

Aradia’s eyes really did bug out as she shouted.

“Mut Thebes!? What is that thing!?”

“You don’t know? It’s the Academy City drone carrier Kagenui.”

An aircraft carrier had to carry multiple large aircraft, necessitating a great size. Submersible and aerial aircraft carriers could not be made because the size and weight affected their balance too much. ...But that accepted principle had been overturned by shrinking the aircraft down by eliminating the cockpit and turning them into drones. Even the maintenance work could be carried out by an unmanned maintenance factory within the ship.

As usual, Academy City loved making bizarre things.

But now wasn’t the time for exasperation.

That was a carrier.

“Go, everyone.”

A series of explosions rang out. The boxy canisters on the flat deck rose up and opened fire. There were electrically ignited guns that could fire at a rate of a million rounds a minute. It looked like a programmed fireworks show. In truth, the honeycomb-like holes on the front of the canisters were releasing a large number of flying objects. By spreading their movable wings in air, they gathered in orderly teams and flew in formation. Now both sides had a flying swarm. The drones clashed directly with the tens of thousands of starlings ruling the night sky.

The assumptions and superiority had been overturned.

One side was alive and the other was machine.

When they were both controlled remotely and were equal in number, it went without saying whether the small birds or the man-made meter-long aerial weapons would win.

Perhaps the counterattack was necessary.

But as the drones pursued the fleeing starlings, their machinegun fire stabbed into the skyscrapers built along the river and sent sparks exploding from walls as thick power cables were ruptured.

“Mut Theeeebes!!!”

Aradia roared in anger, but then she stopped.

The brown girl was acting weird.

“Yayyy. Who wants to take a killer selfie? Just tell me when and I’ll get the timing right for you. Yippee! Let’s keep this Alice Parade Party going☆”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet giggled.

She clearly welcomed this turn of events.

Mut Thebes wasn’t enemy or ally – she was losing all awareness that she was participating in the battle at all. She was throwing that aside to enjoy herself. And her actions were clearly working against the Bologna Succubus’s side.

They sensed a trend in the series of unpleasant coincidences.

“I believe it’s called Acute Kotatsu Syndrome. Basically, Alice affects the group psychology of an area when she stays there long enough. Did you think you were ''immune'' for some reason? Even magicians and Transcendents will be engulfed by Alice sooner or later.”

“…”

“That includes all of us. Yes, you are no exception, Bologna Succubus. And most likely, neither are we. We will all lose our sense of who is on whose side in this mad tea party. The world that people across the globe have worked so hard to create could end today, but in a way that could mean the arrival of an age of peace. If everything is engulfed and everyone is a victim, then the distinction between enemy and ally loses all meaning.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet made it sound so obvious.

But it didn’t add up.

They were using their all-important salvation conditions as an excuse to love themselves and preserve their power by protecting Alice, so they wouldn’t want an ending where they were engulfed by Alice’s madness and lost sight of who they were. Narcissists who cared about themselves more than anything else in the world would never seek out a form of satisfaction created by having their internal aesthetic sense altered.

“''Do you have any idea what you’re saying''?”

“Ha ha☆ What? Are you saying I’ve already broken too''?”

It didn’t sound like she cared.

Someone on her level had lost the right to feel fear and disgust, or even detect that anything was amiss.

This space was going mad.

It had started at a single point, but the entire world would be this way eventually.

Whether or not Alice Anotherbible wanted it.

This was ominous enough to make that prediction.

“It doesn’t really matter. No one can defy Alice whether they put up a resistance or not.”

“Are you shoving responsibility for the world onto Alice’s shoulders while you alone abandon the effort of living, like you’re just a tree, grass, or flower, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet!?”

“Hee hee☆ Total Courtship – ready for dissemination. Now, I think I’ll pack you so full of super-sweet love that all your veins burst. Alice hates it when you try to lecture people like that, which is why she’s striking back at you, you know?”

===Part 5===

“…”

Anna Sprengel saw it.

She had supposedly divined the location of Kamijou and Alice, but ''something had gone wrong'' and she ended up here instead. Were you not even allowed to walk in a straight line without the proper credentials in this wonderland?

Everything within a 400 radius of the iron bridge was a zone of death. Crowds who had never even seen Alice directly were filling the streets due to her influence, but not even they would approach that area.

It may have been a type of instinct.

Just like people’s homing instincts worked even when drunk, the boys and girls who had lost sight of reality still knew they should keep away.

Although even that instinct would probably melt away eventually.

Once that happened, the world really was over.

Anna wanted to rescue Kamijou Touma. She wanted to fight against Alice Anotherbible with him. She wanted to protect him.

But so much depended on that bridge where an ''unnatural amount'' of things had gathered.

If those Transcendents scattered across the city again, Kamijou alone wouldn’t be able to deal with them. Then his world would simply fall apart.

So.

Before that happened…

“What are you planning?”

“!?”

Anna heard a female voice.

From right by her ear.

She belatedly spun around.

But she did not find one of the Transcendents who relied on the easy ''divine cosplay spell''. This was an expert who carried a magic name in her heart, stood on her own two feet, and had chosen for herself to take on the wide world.

It wasn’t a logical thing.

But Miss Sprengel could not hide the trembling and the cold sweat that came from her very soul.

“Anna Kingsford!?”

“You really should ❌ try it. It is ❌ like you. Two groups of Transcendents are ⚔️ing and one side is winning. Adding one more fighter to the fray will ❌ make a significant difference. As a self-proclaimed villain, you should know that quite well.”

“Why would you stop me? It shouldn’t be any skin off your nose if the fake Anna dies.”

“It would be. Because I do ❌ want you to ☠️.”

Kingsford didn’t hesitate.

The true villain was not used to being told these things so directly.

(First that fool and now her.)

Taken aback, little Miss Sprengel lost her chance to strike back and Kingsford laughed elegantly before continuing.

That smile was so much like Miss Sprengel’s, but she could never imitate it.

“It does appear that the side of the ⚔️ supported by ❌, resonating with Alice has the advantage. Transcendents are, after all, the false gods created when modern magicians used the incomplete 🪄 they created by analyzing the one and only success case: Alice Anotherbible. They have always been incomplete and unstable. They have a model. It should be obvious they will be 💪er when supported by the completed Alice.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? If Aradia’s side loses, who will be left to help that fool? Even if the entire world joined forces against Alice, I’m not sure it would work! And if the Alice-addled Transcendents gathered here end up scattering across Academy City, they could completely destroy that fool’s cit-”

“You only need to supply a ⛰️ greater than Alice.”

It didn’t even take a full second.

Kingsford placed her index finger on her slender chin and gave the answer with a confident smile.

An expert was a powerful guide in and of herself.

Just like sailors lost at sea would rely on the sun and moon in the sky to find the way back home.

“Blodeuwedd the Bouquet, Vidhatri, and 2nd Saga… They are borrowing a special power by resonating with Alice. So we just have to supply the same condition. If someone else leads the Transcendents, this problem is easily solved.”

Anna Sprengel only showed exasperation on her face.

Preparing a rival even more powerful than Alice was Kingsford’s idea of easy?

“I suppose someone as special as you would have no problem doing that,” said Miss Sprengel.

“Me? ❌, the only one who can do this is you.”

This time, Miss Sprengel’s eyes opened wide.

This had to be a joke.

“W-wait. I-I am no more than a common 2nd-rate magician who expanded my appearance and abilities by borrowing your name but still had to boost my specs further with Aiwass!!”

“Belittle yourself all you like, you are still an irregular Transcendent. Plus, you borrowed someone else’s name, but you did ❌ acquire the necessary 🪄 by analyzing Alice. You did your research from the ground up and successfully ‘👗ed up as’ Anna Kingsford. Which puts you on equal 🦶ing. We must refer to you as an irregular Transcendent for the exact same reason we refer to Alice Anotherbible that way.”

“…”

“You can do it.” Kingsford made this point clear. “Both you and Aleister have accomplished so much, so I can ❌ fathom why you both insist on belittling yourselves at every turn… I am saying there is something only you can accomplish, Miss Sprengel. I can ❌ do it. No matter how unnecessarily ashamed you are of yourself, your 🪄 to 👗 up as someone else is something that never occurred to me. Using that to help others qualifies as praiseworthy service if you ask me, but do you disagree?”

Silence.

Eventually followed by a wet sound.

It was the sound of a sniffling nose.

“Don’t tell that fool.”

“Sigh. I really think it is ⌚ the world recognized your talents.”

“Don’t tell him.”

“As you wish.”

“Then come forth, Aiwass!! Come to me, the walking amplifier for my will that has a mind of its own!!”

“Took you long enough, my benevolent genius.”

Anna Sprengel and Anna Kingsford.

The long-held conflict between them had been resolved.

Now they stood side by side, wielding great magic to protect an innocent life.

===Part 6===

The massive bridge had clearly been bent by an impact from the side. Cracks ran through the asphalt, steel screws larger than golf balls popped forcefully from the metal beams, and the joints between the girders swelled upwards.

The black bass and bluegills seemed harmless at first, but even at 500g each, tens of thousands of them still amounted to a large weight.

With the most lovable face, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet only had to blow a kiss to control them all.

Good, Old Mary had already collapsed after taking one to the center of the chest.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet chose Aradia as her next target.

It didn’t matter that she was directly facing the Bologna Succubus right now.

She set her sights on the witch goddess who stood on the complex arrangement of metal beams used to distribute the bridge’s weight.

“Look!! The world’s most high-tech city will have any number of unloved creatures: black bass, bluegills, rats, stray cats, pigeons, and starlings to name a few. Now, false goddess, let’s see how you handle the love-starved laments of the unloved!!”

“Tch!!”

“''Hee hee☆ Or should I send the unloved humans your way''?”

As soon as Aradia stiffened, stopping her interception spell, a babbler soared sharply toward her unguarded flank. A direct hit would probably kill the wild bird, but it would go through its death throes while embedded deep inside the wound and its beak and feathers would spread contaminants around.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet stuck out her tongue.

But the night wind that reached her was no more than a night wind.

It did not carry a rusty scent.

“?”

Had it missed?

When the support from “resonating” with Alice Anotherbible should have acted as a ''tailwind'' for all her actions?

Even though simply firing blindly from the hip should have always hit the enemy?

Before Blodeuwedd the Bouquet could pursue that question, Vidhatri shouted from where she stood.

“2nd Saga!! Eliminate her now!”

“Hee hee.”

An alluring female face and limbs appeared in the dark night. She was around 18, at the midpoint between girlhood and womanhood.

But that was all that was visible.

The pieces floated separately. No, her torso had clearly been torn apart. It now contained strange hollow spaces. Had her human silhouette unraveled like bandages? Was it due to the thick ribbon that had been wrapped around her torso? The lights of the city were visible in the space beyond her partially eliminated body.

The space seemed somewhat distorted.

Or maybe it was a type of ''camouflage''.

Aradia faced this person who was strange even for a Transcendent. She had the face of a girl with short flaxen hair with the interior dyed bright blue.

“2nd Saga. Do you derive some special meaning from covering and hiding things?”

“I’ve always had trouble choosing just one thing. I never want to throw anything out, so my room always ends up a mess.”

Saga was a goddess from Norse mythology.

She was said to be extremely powerful and to manage the spring where Odin is gifted with poetry and wisdom.

But she is barely mentioned throughout all the Norse monuments and texts.

Barely anything is known about her other than that her home is called Sokkvabekkr.

Information on her was scarce.

She was a mysterious figure who is simply known to share drinks with the top Norse god.

This woman had gone out of here way to choose a god like that.

She had wanted to be her.

Aradia spat annoyed words with the yellow and black railroad crossing barrier in hand.

“If a single performer tries to forcibly dress up as multiple gods, the traits of the gods cancel each other out, diluting their presence. We normally have strict rules about what we can’t do if we want to stay in character and keep our costume authentic, but I didn’t expect one of us to take advantage of that fact.”

“By intentionally keeping a low profile, I can do things other gods can’t. I am not the star of the show. But if a tree or a bush does something they shouldn’t, the audience has no way of knowing if it was correct or not. This allows me to be a performer on the stage while also freeing me from the bonds of the script. I am the only one allowed to be myself.”

“…”

“I am the Transcendent ''who saves all the bit parts and understudies who never get any attention.'' I can’t look down on them if I’m to do that. I need to understand how they feel and be one of them first.”

She disappeared.

Did she unleash her skill to the point she became one with the air?

The bluish-white armor partially surrounding 2nd Saga’s limbs vanished into the air, causing what little of her skin and face were still visible to look unnaturally alluring.

The bright round skin of her face was like a device for giving off sex appeal.

The pupils of her blue eyes were colored an impossible bright red. Did she use a light-bending technique to pull that one off?

Even with her full body unraveled, the individual pieces were made of captivating feminine skin.

But if a member of the opposite sex were caught by her like this, it would probably break his mind.

The strange avant-garde woman sneered.

“My name is 2nd Saga, a fictional god created on the mischievous whim of the compiler. Which allows me to ''add on'' any magic I wish which is never actually found in Norse mythology. …Now, it is time you lost your one and only life. The divine curse – that is, the light of Brisingamen, necklace of infidelity – can even trigger a war between world-destroying kings. Do not assume an individual can escape that deadly fate!!”

It started at the center, where her chest had been.

The thick ribbon, which bound her skin and showed the city behind her, created a transparent distortion much like sugar water, which spilled beyond her outlines.

It forcibly gathered Aradia’s focus on a single point, much like having a finger jabbed between the eyes at close range.

Aradia sensed a definite deadliness in this unknown phenomenon.

Was she mistaken, or had that been the true trigger?

The impossible distortion became a large artillery shell that tore through the air.

This was an assassination spell.

It was guaranteed to take a life.

And the user could sidestep their own sin by saying they were only adoring the beautiful gold and jewels. The necklace brought doom, but it allowed the user to claim they didn’t know it was cursed and thought it was only a beautiful piece of jewelry. Was that to insure they would not be hit in the unlikely case that the curse was sent back the way it had come?

Aradia snorted with laughter.

The rails were laid out nicely, but it was all nonsense with no actual mythological basis. The sky is heaven, the gods shine bright, the workings of salvation and divine punishment, cats are capricious and dogs are loyal – by combining the common symbols found across cultures, anyone could fake apparent legitimacy.

Yes, this was faked.

''Her cosplay was sloppy.'' Gods were meant to draw a strict line between right and wrong, so they couldn’t accept – much less use – a loophole like this. A real god did not choose their words carefully for fear of backlash or controversy. Even the cruelest act could be written off as “divine punishment” if it was truly necessary.

And even if this curse would pursue Aradia to the ends of the Earth, there was only one thing she had to do.

“''There just have to be two Aradias''.”

“Wha-!?”

Immediately after 2nd Saga’s dumbfounded shock, the invisible curse tore itself apart with its own power.

The chilly moonlight shined on two identical people.

The black and yellow railroad crossing barriers resting on their shoulders crossed like swords mounted on a wall.

Aradia hadn’t actually done anything. The curse simply hadn’t been designed to handle an abnormal situation where two identical people existed. It was unable to deal with the situation it found, so the single shell attempted to pursue two targets at once, tearing itself apart from within.

It dissipated.

It disappeared.

“Don’t you dare call this cheating. This has always been our role – we’re the perfect performers. And it was all of you who created ''a second one'' and brought her here without even asking me.”

Right and left.

The identical Aradias launched wind magic that struck the formless Transcendent.

The tides were turning.

“…”

Vidhatri was dumbfounded.

But she wasn’t simply shocked that a Transcendent receiving a ''tailwind'' by “resonating” with Alice Anotherbible had been defeated by a Transcendent who had that link severed and was alone in the storm.

More than that…

“''Why did you have that idea just now''?”

“''What do you mean''?”

“It also doesn’t make sense that you avoided Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s initial attack. Even if there was a way for you to defeat 2nd Saga, it never should have occurred to you!! That kind of support comes from Alice. How did you break through the thought masking!?”

“I would assume conditions have changed somewhere away from here.”

“Tch!!”

Panic spread through the air, infecting the entire space.

Vidhatri seemed rushed by something unseen rather than her own will as she unspooled a lot of white thread and black hair from the ball-joint doll she wore on her back.

By intentionally omitting all mention of something, that spell let her erase anything she didn’t like from the small world set up around her. If she erased everything that could kill her, then no one could defeat her.

A moment later, a dull impact struck her cheekbone. Something flew in from the side and Vidhatri was launched spinning through the air. The impact permeated her. Before she could figure out what had happened, her ball-joint doll broke apart and her model-proportioned body soared over the pedestrian railing and toward the dark river below.

But Aradia hadn’t done anything.

“You were focused on the wrong person, dumbass.”

Aradia glanced over to see a small figure standing boldly atop a metal beam.

It was Anna Sprengel.

“Keh heh heh. Alice no longer rules this world. Worms, bow before me and beg for your pitiful lives. It wasn’t you who created the Shrink Drink – you needed Alice’s help for that. Yet all you worthless regular Transcendents had the nerve to look down on me and try to kill me!!!”

“Before she could figure out what had happened, huh?” the goddess of witches whispered in exasperation. “So Vidhatri could preemptively eliminate any threat, but she was defenseless against any threat that never occurred to her.”

If anything, that was a lot like the death of the immortal Norse god of light, Baldr. That similarity was ''not'' a case of cultural transmission between India and Europe. It was instead evidence of the Transcendents not actually being strictly bound to a single god or even a single mythology.

“Have you imagined your own fate yet, 2nd Saga?”

“Have you imagined your own fate yet, 2nd Saga?”

“!?”

Multiple beams of light flashed out at once.

The two Aradias held out their palms to launch projectile magic toward the figure leaping vigorously from beam to beam. The attacks actually hit 2nd Saga. It was hard to believe she had been so untouchable just a bit ago. She was knocked from the beam above to the bridge below.

Mut Thebes (who was on their side but had lost control of herself) had her drone carrier stopped by a three-legged object that appeared out of thin air. That was Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos.

The tides had turned in the blink of an eye.

The only one left was Blodeuwedd the Bouquet in her coat-like blast-resistant suit and naked apron.

Aradia approached her directly, the Bologna Succubus glared icily at her, and bloody Good, Old Mary slowly rose to her feet.

“Wai-”

The dull “thump!!” of pierced flesh rang out.

The Bologna Succubus had launched her sharp tail and caught Blodeuwedd the Bouquet in the shoulder.

Using a frontal attack with no tricks.

The force of the blow broke the iron-maiden-like blast-resistant suit and the double doors covered in metal panels fell to the asphalt. With her protection gone, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s bare skin was exposed to the frigid air while she scattered junk from her terrarium and UV LED lights. The night wind carried away the flower petals.

“This is already over,” said the Bologna Succubus.

Her voice was colder than it ever had been when that boy was present.

The naked apron girl backed away, but her legs tangled underneath her.

She fell like normal.

Her specialness was gone.

“You forgot about your salvation condition, you abandoned the people you should be saving, and you thought only of preserving your own power. And then you blamed Alice for it all. …So this is already over. You have nothing left. Nothing at all.”

“You’re going to win this...and take everything from me?”

With only her frilly apron left, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet held her wounded shoulder with the opposite hand and struggled to keep her breath.

The powerful sex appeal she gathered around her had dissipated, leaving behind only the fear of a small child.

“This is all we have. You can’t tell me the idea of losing your power doesn’t scare you.”

“I am a Transcendent. I choose who I should protect and then guard those people from the threat this world presents them. Which is why I abandoned my own identity to dress up as a god,” said Witch Goddess Aradia. “My salvation condition does not include myself. And I would never rob innocent people of their future just so I could keep my own shameful life.”

With a dull sound, the Transcendent ended things with the Transcendent.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet was the last one.

There had been others, but they raised their hands in surrender when they saw the tides changing. That was about what you got with people who only worried about themselves.

But with Alice ''Anotherbible'' as an open-source example, more Transcendents could be created. Just like there were two Aradias here.

Remaking the city’s people into makeshift witches wasn’t an option here like it had been in Shibuya. If Academy City espers used magic, they would be harmed by the side effects and, if Alice wanted to, she could produce an unlimited supply of regular Transcendents. Those would be literally a grade above.

Any victories won fighting on the outer edges would only be temporary. And with only limited numbers to work with, they wouldn’t last if they were forced to fight the same battles over and over.

“This was no more than an opening skirmish,” said Anna Sprengel despite understanding that.

She was another host and open-source example who differed greatly from the Alice line.

They couldn’t stop here.

“Our real target is Alice. This rioting doesn’t end until she’s been stopped. The Queen of Hearts and Executioner waiting near Alice could easily be more powerful than the regular Transcendents.”

“If you have the time, could you deal with her too? Mut Thebes is shooting off ‘fireworks’ like this is some kind of party, so it would be great if you could bring that idiot back to her senses!!”

“Oh? Silly girl, are you sure you don’t want to take a video first?”

The giant white ship shook.

She must have been freed from the unseen physics that could be seen as Alice’s ''tailwind''.

Mut Thebes must have absorbed the weapon’s shadow, but where exactly was she attached to it?

“Bff!? Wait, wait, I’ll be good.”

“Finally come to your senses? Then take a look at the collapsed city around you. I can’t wait to see what kind of excuse you can come up with while dripping with sweat, God of Partying.”

“But if my partying was enough to destroy an entire city by accident, doesn’t that make me a super powerful goddess? And since we can all see how ultra-cute I am, can’t I get off the hook with a quick: ‘Oopsie. Tee hee’?”

“Good, Old Mary, use your Tribikos to step on that god of destruction, ship and all. It’s January, so dunking her to the bottom of the river ought to cool her head.”

Aradia icily passed judgment, but then a cracking voice came over the ship’s speakers.

“Oh, and the drone carrier’s antenna picked something up,” said Mut Thebes.

“?”

“It wasn’t encrypted or anything, so it was a lot like a radio transmission. Maybe it’s best to say this is being sent out all over the place. They might have been hoping we would pick it up. It’s being transmitted from ''a prison in District 10'' and it says it’s about Alice Pleasance Liddell.”

===Part 7===

After seeing off the little magician who had freed herself from her self-made bonds, Anna Kingsford sighed all on her own.

The end was nigh.

“Now, then.”

(I need to prepare for my part in this.)

===Part 8===

There were no subjective symptoms.

Kamijou wasn’t even allowed any obvious pain or bleeding.

Then was this a delirium or hallucination caused by all the stress he was under?

Except there was something there.

With each step he took down the long hallway, he heard a sound like thin threads snapping inside him. Like the creaking of bone or the beating of his heart, these were delicate sounds that shouldn’t have been audible outside his body.

He had heard on some trivia show that the simple action of walking concentrated a lot of weight and force on the leg bones. If that was true, then his body could no longer keep up with his movement. His insides were already breaking down to that extent.

Death.

The unavoidable destruction of the self.

Alice apparently wanted to ask Index if there was a way to heal him.

But Kamijou already knew the answer.

This was different from any of the previous times.

Or rather, this wasn’t a one-off failure. Everything he had done had pushed him too far. He was finally paying the price for it all. No one could escape the consequences of their own actions.

The end was nigh.

And it was only now that Kamijou realized something.

In a battle so severe, why hadn’t he noticed anything amiss? His survival this long had been the unnatural part.

“Hm, hm, hm☆”

Alice Anotherbible skipped out ahead of him.

She turned back, her skirt lifting disconcertingly high.

“C’mon, teacher. Everyone’s here now, so you need to hurry. Good or bad, you wouldn’t want it to end without ever learning the answer, would you?”

“…”

That was the opinion of someone watching from the outside.

It was clearly missing the viewpoint of the person on the verge of learning if their death was unavoidable.

They did not arrive at a normal classroom.

That was the door to the library.

That should have made for a poor prison. A solid kick would probably break open the sliding door and the outside windows were probably ordinary glass.

But since Alice had chosen this location, it was probably impossible to open from inside. Even with the knowledge of 103,001 grimoires at your disposal.

The door opened.

From the outside, it was surprisingly easy.

Kamijou doubted that was Imagine Breaker’s doing. He probably just had Alice’s permission.

“Touma!”

He heard a familiar voice.

She wasn’t bound with packing tape or zip ties. The windows and door were not reinforced. But there was definite relief on her face. That was the look of someone who just saw the thick door to their prison cell open.

And her smile froze in place.

The pure white sister was not concerned by Alice and H.T. Trismegistus’s presence. She was clearly looking at something else. The boy could tell that even with the mixture of truth, lies, and hallucination in his head.

“No...what is that?”

Her eyes widened because of Kamijou.

She had already detected something out of the ordinary.

Whether Alice was aware of that or not, she spoke in her childlike way.

“Okay, teacher. Ask her!”

The young butler clearly knew what was coming and struggled to suppress a grin.

Malicious words and actions were not the only way to hurt people.

Because he was bound by common sense, H.T. Trismegistus would never hurl abuse himself. The look on his face seemed to say there was no law against silence.

“I...won’t.”

“You have to,” said Alice.

“There’s no reason to force her to give an answer!!”

“Leaving the question unanswered solves nothing. Stopping here only lets the problem grow worse with time. She has 103,001 grimoires. With so much knowledge from all around the world available to her, the girl just knows she can find a way to heal you!!”

Was it even possible?

Had it been definitively proven, or was it only a theory?

Alice didn’t care about that.

It could be the geocentric theory, phlogiston, an ancient nuclear war, or that dinosaur farts caused the ice age. Of course, it could also be something accurate like universal gravitation or quantum theory. Accurate or not, if a theory had ever been proposed – if someone had thought it up and put together the logic behind it – she could build a bridge to it. She could choose ''whichever theories she wanted'' and link to them to wholly change the world. She was the ultimate conversion device. She could place Yamatai anywhere she liked, she could invent a perpetual motion machine of the first kind to produce unlimited energy, or she could remake the spherical Earth into a flat disk.

So there just had to be a single section in the more than 10 thousand grimoires.

Just one passage.

Even a single line would do.

No matter how absurd or difficult to achieve it was.

Alice could easily activate it and save Kamijou.

''But.

''Even then.

Index did not give a yes or no answer.

She kept her silence.

That was enough of an answer. If she wasn’t willing to say it out loud, she didn’t need to.

Her attempt at kindness was ineffective.

The verdict had been given.

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

Death.

That was the only option left.

Kamijou did not weep or rage.

He even forgot to fall to the floor.

In a way, he abandoned his humanity.

He simply stood there, stock still.

“Hu…man.”

Othinus’s quiet voice was enough for his head to wobble.

There was nothing there.

It wasn’t even emptiness that filled his mind.

He felt a heat surrounding him.

He simply stood there, forgetting even to collapse.

There was no way to save him.

The world had not developed that far.

It was underdeveloped.

People had studied what they liked and technology had branched off into countless directions, but never in this one.

The world didn’t care.

Time would continue on like normal even after he was gone.

And…

“Then let’s destroy it,” said a young voice.

Alice Anotherbible sounded the same as ever.

No, her voice sounded dried out.

Terrifyingly so.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

She sounded like her surprise party plan had fallen apart.

“We have our answer. And if this world can’t save you, teacher, than the girl is going to destroy it. The girl heard what you said, so she knows this world wouldn’t still be here if not for you. So it’s only fair the world goes away when you do, don’t you think?”

“Wait! Don’t, Touma!!” sharply shouted Index.

The knowledge of her grimoires must have told her Alice could do exactly what she claimed. And that she would do it the instant Kamijou gave her some kind of sign.

He would never do that under normal circumstances.

But it was wrong to assume he would behave normally now that he knew he would lose everything.

y/n.

The available options had been narrowed down as far as possible.

The fate of the world hinged on this one question.

“I do not agree.” H.T. Trismegistus finally spoke up, his shoulders shaking as he didn’t even bother to suppress his chuckling. “Destroying the world for a single individual is wrong. Maybe if this would save his life, but you should not destroy humanity if all you are doing is lashing out. Some might consider it moving, but common sense says it is not a benevolent act.”

Alice’s eyes widened like dinner plates.

And she lowered her voice.

“''H. T. Trismegistus''.”

“As you can see…”

The young butler raised his hands and kept speaking, undaunted.

He didn’t seem to care that the invisible muzzle of death was pressed unsteadily against his brow.

“I can tell Alice what common sense says, but I have no real way of stopping her. This is ultimately between you and her. No, make your own choice, Kamijou Touma. You cannot rely on Another Bible here and not even all the world’s grimoires contain a means of saving you. So what will you choose in the final moments now that your death is assured?”

Othinus gasped and looked up from his shoulder.

She was the only person who had just about achieved a perfect victory against Kamijou Touma.

She knew this ending.

She knew this dead end.

Because the one-eyed war god had intentionally set up a situation just like this to kill the boy when he refused to give up no matter what else she tried.

“I see what you’re doing. Hey, human, don’t listen to-!!”

“Yes, you could go crying to Alice and have her take the world out with you. In fact, you needn’t even say a word. If you remain silent, she might just be considerate enough to do it on her own. But common sense tells me that Alice’s ''only'' motivation is making you happy. ''So you could eliminate Alice’s motivation by taking your own life before she destroys the world on your behalf.'' You will die soon regardless, so why not move up the timetable just a bit to save so many people?”

Mere moments before H.T. Trismegistus completed his encircling argument, someone kicked down the library door from the outside.

With no difficulty.

“Fool.”

It was easy to miss by how easily it happened, but this should have been an unavoidable critical hit. Kamijou’s path should have ended.

But it hadn’t.

Because someone wouldn’t let it.

You could develop an attack specialized for a single individual, but that individual didn’t need to fight alone.

Just by setting foot in here, little Anna Sprengel had accomplished what no one else could.

She was probably the only person in the world not affected by Alice’s madness.

She deflected it.

And that villain mercilessly stomped her way into Alice’s territory.

No one could stop her.

“Hmph. So only I made it this far in? I feel a little bad leaving Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the others stuck fighting an endless battle. You basically asked us to come and even showed us the way, but then you drove your guests away? When you think about it, that’s hilariously pathetic.”

“You?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet, you gloomy microdick? You should have known better than to trust your assumptions from the moment you couldn’t kill me with the Shrink Drink filled with Alice’s power.”

Anna chuckled and Othinus gave her a look more of exasperation than admiration.

“I see. So if you had actually killed that shitty villain, we wouldn’t be dealing with this nonsense about her ''outdoing Alice''.”

“Are you saying the world switched rails back then?” asked Index.

“That’s right, you dregs of a god and you pathetic loafer,” said Anna, giving Othinus and Index a scornful look. Then she spread her little hands. “The fool changed things. He moved many people’s hearts with his own actions rather than having Alice cheat for him. I did not achieve this miracle on my own. Don’t you think the first person to receive its blessings should be the one who worked so hard to make it happen?”

Yes.

No one had invited Anna. She did not have Alice’s permission. That meant she had faced Alice’s madness without fear, repelled it, and forced her own actions through.

She faced that tremendous charisma without being engulfed.

She had the brand name of the mystery woman behind the founding of the world’s largest magic cabal.

This villain carried a legend of equal value.

“Honestly. You always let everyone push you around when it comes to Alice, fool. Do you seriously believe in the nice-sounding but scientifically-baseless and perverted jinx that the unclouded eyes of young children reflect truths the adults have long forgotten? If you ask me, you should learn to ignore it all as ''the words of an ignorant little kid''.”

“Anna…?”

“You might die, fool.”

Kamijou’s breath caught in his throat.

The thick invisible wall once more intruded on the ordinary scene around him.

Death.

The end.

It was approaching second by second, yet he felt no pain. Like a cruel time bomb with the LCD screen omitted.

What was wrong with feeling fear?

But Anna wasn’t done talking.

“I said ‘might’. None of this is set in stone, but Alice is acting like it’s 100% going to happen. Why?”

Othinus caught on first.

Almost like the thought had been unnaturally blocked until now.

“Oh, I get it. Everyone would prefer the opposite outcome, but she was enjoying telling everyone that he was definitely going to die.”

“It’s simple really. What did a certain monster need to do for him to drop his guard and let her in? What about showing him a greater threat so she doesn’t seem so bad? Just like I came off as a harmless companion when faced with the greater threats of CRC and Alice. But there is no threat greater at present than the Anotherbible. So a certain someone suggested the fool’s death.”

“Wait.”

“You should already know the answer. Alice Anotherbible only gets so assertive when it comes to Kamijou Touma. In a way, this is to be expected since I imprinted the fool’s past actions in her mind.”

It wasn’t her fault she had been deceived.

Anyone that little villain took advantage of already had an opening in them.

Or you could call it a vulnerability.

She could not create something from nothing. She pried open a small existing hole and then controlled them as she saw fit.

She was a reasonable but contemptible miracle-worker.

“The central factor for her has always been loneliness. Yes, I am the one who deceived her. Wherever she came from, I know the current Alice Anotherbible’s mind better than you.”

So?

What was that supposed to mean?

What was she imagining when she said that?

A cold sweat poured from Kamijou’s body.

For a brief moment, even his very real fear of death vanished from his mind.

“Hold on!! You’re not making sense. Alice means no harm. For better or for worse, what you see is what you get with her. Wasn’t that our initial assumption here? She can’t set people up, plot out some grand plan, or any other intellectual stuff like that!!”

“True,” agreed H.T. Trismegistus. “She is too powerful to do anything of the sort. Common sense says that someone capable of killing a dinosaur with a barehanded punch would never even think of inventing a gun, correct?”

“Shut up, you gloomy butler. And, fool, remind me who you came here to save?”

Anna sounded exasperated.

That was their initial assumption.

Kamijou had said that himself, but he had somehow forgotten it.

“I thought that issue had nothing to do with whether or not you will survive.”

“…”

He wanted to rescue Index and save Alice too.

That was why he had decided to fight Alice. That had been his initial objective.

And yet.

Why was he now seeking salvation from Alice?

Alice was the same as always. She was alive and well. It didn’t matter that her head had been crushed by Rosencreutz.

So shouldn’t he be rejoicing?

Shouldn’t he be weeping and laughing while hugging Alice?

Why was he being driven into a dead end?

''When had his objective been replaced?

''Who had caused that switch?

No.

…But…

It couldn’t be? Could it?

“Fool. I agree that Alice isn’t calculating enough to put together a long-term plan to fool people. Even telling her to ‘sit’ or ‘stay’ in front of a feast wouldn’t last very long. She may only be honestly saying what she believes to be right.”

That was a weirdly indirect phrasing.

Which suggested that phrasing was somehow necessary.

Othinus gave a snort.

“Yeah, I thought that was strange for a grimoire library whose job is to provide answers. Is this why she hesitated to give a response? Because she couldn’t easily reach a yes or no answer?”

The white nun, who was the polar opposite of the villain, spoke up quietly.

“But if Alice’s mind is too badly broken to tell what is and isn’t accurate, she might not be doing the right thing. Touma, you can’t trust that the things she tells you are accurate.”

Everyone’s eyes gathered on a single point.

Even H.T. Trismegistus, who had been taking advantage of the situation.

They heard a creaking sound.

Sounds like thick, straining leather came from within the girl as she hung her head.

“Those magicians could not change the world the way they wanted, nor could they follow their own rules after coming up with lofty salvation conditions,” said Anna Sprengel in a singsong way. “It probably was pure chance that very average group discovered the artificial miracle that is Alice Anotherbible before they began dressing up as gods. But they realized something.”

“…”

“In a mishmash of fiction and reality, a real girl had been remade into the storybook Alice and the storybook Alice had been created in the real world. They extracted a portion of those ‘plans’ and applied it to themselves. By customizing themselves as they liked with pieces of the preexisting open-source spell, they could abandon their individuality to dress up as any god or demon with extraordinary precision.”

The Transcendents really had transformed themselves that way.

At the cost of their own individuality.

For the Bridge Builders Cabal, the ''Anotherbible'' was a priceless text, but Alice was no more than a target of their worship. So they feared her and respected her, but they did everything they could to avoid third parties contacting her.

What had that lonely girl really wanted?

Or, more accurately, who?

“I see,” said Othinus on Kamijou’s shoulder. Sounding somewhat exasperated. “''This human was perfect for the role.'' I see now why that little monster was so obsessed with him.”

“Alice Pleasance Liddell listened to Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, the prototype for it all, and was the one clear model for the protagonist. But in a later era, she was abducted by a ‘Teacher of Crowley’ and thoroughly modified to create the Alice seen in the story.”

Little Anna herself proved that one’s apparent age wasn’t necessarily reliable.

Even if she was already an adult when she was abducted, the magician would have made the necessary adjustments. Very physical adjustments using a scalpel and saw. It may have taken cutting through bone, sewing together skin, and rearranging organs, but they would have kept working and adjusting until she had the exact same height and adorable appearance as the fictional girl.

That could not have been an enjoyable experience.

But after being freed from the mystery magician and finding a place in the center of the Bridge Builders Cabal, Alice had not been able to live the innocent life of the storybook. Even though she was already free and more powerful than anyone. She had given up on any life other than fulfilling other people’s interests.

And she really had become an innocent child.

She probably wasn’t even aware of her own humiliation and resignation.

Anna sighed softly and dug into the ugly side of humanity.

That was something Kamijou couldn’t do.

This was a territory only allowed for a worldwide villain.

She would carry the burden of everyone’s ire as she revealed the necessary truth.

“A parent who values logic has no dreams to share with their child.

“When Mathematician Lewis Carroll later began creating the world’s greatest fantasy, he laid out symbols and meanings, discovered a special child, and used her as a model to tell the prototype of it all: Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.

“A self-proclaimed Teacher of Crowley saw value in you as no more than the one and only specimen to know of the uncorrected original version, so they remade you by rearranging everything from your bones to your organs into the optimal color, shape, and size.

“When the Bridge Builders Cabal ‘rediscovered’ the girl still wandering in the shadows of the modern world, they only saw you as an open-source spell of great power. They feared and respected you in something more like worship than anything.”

And so the girl had been craving more.

Starving for it.

It mattered little if it was a conscious or subconscious thing.

Alice was always surrounded by so many people, but none of them were really looking at her.

Her reputation had preceded her.

With one exception.

There was one boy who did not want her power as a Transcendent, had rejected the “happiness” brought by her ultimate power, and faced her with nothing but his own fist no matter how many times he was killed.

It all began there.

Like dreaming of something from a storybook, a certain girl had thought that was her last chance there.

So she wanted it no matter what.

“Touma, stand back.”

“Ah.”

“Stand back! Now!!”

Hesitantly, Kamijou got his voice out from his parched and trembling mouth.

While asking himself what it was he was so afraid of.

“Al...ice?”

“Yes?”

''The girl raised her head.

''Except she no longer had anything above her neck.

===Part 9===

Aradia had finally caught up.

She walked through the high school’s front gate, setting foot inside its grounds.

Or so she thought.

“Tch!!”

She immediately swung her black and yellow railroad crossing barrier and was answered with a dull crack. It suddenly broke at about the middle. Even with the power of the goddess of witches, she was forced back.

Good, Old Mary, who was woozy from blood loss, muttered quietly.

“It looks like a rabbit, but it doesn’t have a watch. It must be the March Hare from the tea party.”

“One of the Alice Series!?”

The flamingo bats. The hedgehogs.

The Gryphon, the Executioner, the Cook.

These were Alice’s raw and unstoppable toys which magicians had not yet turned into tools.

They seemed to be fighting as two opposing armies, but here it looked like the enemy of your enemy wasn’t your friend. The flamingo bats and hedgehogs would sometimes attack the Transcendents without provocation, so they couldn’t be trusted.

The March Hare had apparently attacked just now, but which side was he on?

For that matter, why were different monsters born from Alice fighting each other in the first place!?

“What are we supposed to do?” asked the Bologna Succubus.

“We should have Good, Old Mary stay back. We shouldn’t rely too heavily on her resurrection, but we shouldn’t waste her by sending her up against an even more dangerous enemy either!!”

The school was a rather large place.

Where was that boy?

And while they were only regular ones, it was strange that a group of several Transcendents couldn’t get past this one position.

They supposedly each wielded strange spells capable of taking on the entire magic side single-handedly.

The Gryphon, the Executioner, the bipedal hare, and the Cook throwing irons and pots.

They were all Alice’s toys with their origins in Wonderland.

But while they were only toys, they had been directly injected with a portion of Alice’s power. As seen with the Shrink Drink, that power made these far from your normal foe.

Ultimately, the Bridge Builders Cabal did not exist for Alice.

It was the result of the regular Transcendents, who sought and feared her great power, struggling to find some way of managing her.

All on her own, Alice was more powerful than countless armies.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, Good, Old Mary, and Mut Thebes.

Those four Transcendents gathering here was no problem at all for Alice. She probably hadn’t even decided to fight against the Transcendents. This could be seen in how the toys continued fighting each other instead of driving out the intruders.

“By the way, where did Anna get off to!?” asked Aradia.

“Did that slut use mama and the rest of you as bait for these pain-in-the-ass opponents while she went on ahead? She did, didn’t she?”

They said nothing more.

First, they sensed a great pressure. Only a moment later did they feel the powerful tremor in the ground.

It was Dinah the cat.

The fluffy white and black beast had grown larger than the gym, so a single step caused the entire space to shake. The flamingo bats and hedgehogs ran around in a panic and the Gryphon failed to get away in time and had its front leg crushed underfoot.

It didn’t matter if they were on Alice’s side.

And the culprit – Dinah – wasn’t even aware she had done it.

She was the greatest force in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

She carried such great firepower that the mice and birds who caused Alice so much trouble had fled at the mere mention of her name.

If this really was her, then she might cause destruction greater than Alice intended for.

That meant there was a risk of her crushing the entire school building with Kamijou and Alice inside.

Which was exactly what happened.

With her back to the school building, Aradia briefly froze up, so the Bologna Succubus had to flap her bat wings and tackle Aradia from the side to send them both tumbling across the ground. A gust of wind blew past them like a subway train had passed by nearby. That thing was much too large for anyone human-sized to take a direct hit from it. Aradia didn’t have time to celebrate her survival. She roared up toward the heavens while still tangled up with the Bologna Succubus.

That was the most prized of Alice’s toys.

Deadly Dinah.

Only one Transcendent could hope to battle that giant that rivaled a school gym in size.

“Mut Thebes, stop that thing immediately!!”

“It is too soon for me to attack. Wait 15 minutes for me to absorb enough shadows to create a body that can safely face the cat.”

Aradia’s eyes widened.

Mut Thebes wasn’t going to be any help.

Dinah was charging head-first toward the school building.

And just before she crashed into it, a deafening roar rang out.

Dinah was knocked rolling back, gouging large pieces of dirt out of the schoolyard and sending tons of dust into the air. It made no sense. There was no thick barrier there and no steel warship had appeared.

There was only a single human silhouette.

It looked downright minuscule compared to Dinah, who was large enough to look down at the gym.

Nevertheless, it was Dinah whose max-speed charge had been repelled, sending her rolling backwards.

“Wha-?”

Aradia was speechless.

This wasn’t even a Transcendent.

“Honestly.”

A voice came from the cloud of dust.

Aradia’s group did not recognize the voice. But the female voice inspired a compulsion that prevented even the Transcendents from taking it lightly.

“Alice Anotherbible has fallen apart more than I 💭. All of these things are a 🧩 of her – they are the many opinions she has ❌ been able to reconcile. I did ❌ expect her to be so overwhelmed with emotion that she nearly crushed her own 🏰 with her inside.”

This was Anna Kingsford.

The magician stood there on her own two feet without borrowing anyone’s appearance or abilities.

A moment later, the dirt thrown high into the sky was pulled back down by gravity.

It was like a dry rain.

Kingsford casually directed her index finger skyward and something invisible became a large umbrella. She alone was left without a speck of dust in her hair or on her clothes.

Something sliced sharply through the dusty veil.

It was a flamingo bat and the Cook.

Both sides of the conflict arrived at once.

Kingsford extended a single finger and drew out a few patterns in empty air.

They were constellations.

Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces.

The sharp sound was a moment delayed.

A scattershot of compressed water tore through the Cook like a cookie cutter through dough. When her blue-glowing fingertip turned toward the flamingo bat, the bat began to tremble while hovering in the air. Despite being inorganic, it clearly shrank two sizes.

The basics of astrology were to assign various elements and symbols to the 7 planets and 12 constellations of the horoscope and then experiment to see what effects were produced on yourself and others when they were applied from different angles and combinations. There were even tricky ways of building them into attack spells.

So by combining only the water element constellations, you could greatly amplify the power of ordinary water.

Instead of simple addition, it worked through multiplication, so it was like shifting up a gear in a car.

That expert did not bother coming up with impressive special attacks.

By earnestly working at the basic fundamentals that anyone could do and that novices tended to look down on, any magic could be brought to the point of a one-hit kill.

But none of that was particularly important.

For one, that wouldn’t be enough to kill Dinah.

“I will ❌ let you destroy the things you care about, Alice. That would be much too 😢 to see. I assure you on my name as an expert, being special does ❌ cut you off from the supply of ☺️.”

Just then…

“…?”

Anna Kingsford looked down at her right hand.

A red liquid was dripping from it.

She only had a slight cut on her fingertip, but the amount of blood was not the issue.

She shouldn’t have been harmed at all in that situation.

That expert never made mistakes.

So if something unexpected occurred regardless, it meant the problem was with the initial data she was working with, not her calculations.

In other words…

“Is this body reaching its limit?” she whispered, holding her fingertip in her mouth.

Her voice itself was a lot “rougher” than it had been when she was first booted up in Shibuya’s Miyashita Ark. It wasn’t limited to her outward appearance. This proved the injury and deterioration was also progressing where it couldn’t be seen.

She didn’t show the slightest hint of fear as she looked out ahead.

In fact, she took a step forward.

The cat large enough to crush the gym rose to her feet again.

Kingsford couldn’t continue on and leave this with the regular Transcendents. She had never figured out how to pick and choose who she saved.

These were Alice’s raw toys, which had yet to be turned into easy-to-use tools like the Shrink Drink. And this cat was the greatest of them. She was a mass of violence and destruction that wouldn’t bat an eye as she trampled all the other toys.

Dinah.

The expert faced the cat head on, holding the brim of her large hat between her fingertips.

She doubted her body would last to the end.

For that matter, it was unnatural for a preserved corpse her to be moving around at all.

(But I can accept that.)

So she decided on a more realistic goal: injuring Dinah enough to create an opening or weak point the Transcendents could take advantage of to defeat Dinah on their own.

The expert knew her doom was closing in on her, but she still spoke with her usual smile.

“⌚ to serve others.”

===Part 10===

She was a headless girl.

A little corpse.

Yet she was also standing up and looking at Kamijou.

He distinctly felt the pressure of her gaze.

The atmosphere in the library changed. The scales were rapidly tilting in a direction he did not like at all.

“!?”

Without thinking, he stepped back away from her.

This was an expression of malice that shouldn’t have been necessary.

Which proved it had been intentional.

It was true after all.

No matter how you looked at it, the center of the problem was right there.

It always had been.

Kamijou pushed past the fear of death he knew was coming and shouted.

“Alice!!”

He heard a sound like tearing cardboard.

No, not like. The headless girl really did tear down the center. And something else emerged, sticky with a translucent fluid.

This had happened before.

But this was not the little girl dressed in profane red and black leather.

This form could never have fit in that small body.

But she wasn’t accepting questions.

At the top of the vertical tear, near where the head should have been, an arm jutted straight up, but this arm belonged to a captivatingly beautiful woman. With a splat, she collapsed forward to crawl like a dog. The translucent slime left behind strings that stained the floor. She squirmed like a fluffy red boa. The leather bound her bright, wet body more tightly than necessary and her long blonde hair was so wet it writhed on the ground as a single clump. After instantly becoming a woman of about 18, she crawled forward and swung her head upwards. The wet hair covering her face swung back behind her, revealing her beautiful face.

“Touma!!”

Alice Anotherbible.

Or maybe Alice Pleasance Liddell.

Her true form.

“Did you use yourself as the ingredients to recreate the ideal version of yourself?” said Othinus in disgust.

Alice worked her alluring throat to release growls and her fingers scratched at the floor like an animal with sharp and sinister claws. She could not have been farther removed from reason, intelligence, and innocent adorableness.

Violence.

Battle.

Killing.

That was all she was.

She shined with the same light as a sword that had had been made so deadly it gained an odd beauty.

The fear of death was gone.

Even that thick invisible wall had vanished.

Kamijou felt a tingling in the back of his head. With the sharp claws, the large canine teeth emerging from her lips, and the fearsome light in her eyes, he knew there was so much he needed to focus on, yet he couldn’t read even a hint of deadliness from her. But he knew this wasn’t Alice doing anything special. His own mind had numbed the fear. Because if he accurately understood the threat here, his heart would stop of its own accord. His heart would raise the white flag before his mind did.

The animal rose to her feet.

The fully grown body of an alluringly beautiful woman straightened her legs and stood up like she had only just remembered she could.

She took a fighting stance.

“Teacher…”

That one word created a distortion.

But not in Alice. The bookcases, the reading desks, the floor, the walls, and everything else Kamijou could see looked like a child had scribbled out their outlines in white and black.

“The girl…wants…only one goal. She will…have this…no matter…matter what.”

He could have understood if she said she would kill him just for fun.

Or if she said she deeply resented him.

Even if she said she would destroy the world based on some inscrutable logic, he might have decided that made sense for someone so very different.

But.

“The girl wants...to make up...with you.”

Everything froze.

Inside Kamijou Touma, time ground to a halt.

Was that it.

Was that really and truly all there was to it?

At the Bridge Builders Cabal consulate in District 12, Kamijou and Alice had disagreed over her attempted punishment of H.T. Trismegistus, who had tried to kill him, and Good, Old Mary, who had failed to protect him.

CRC had killed her and she had regained her lost head.

She had driven the world mad and might destroy it as soon as tomorrow.

But this had never changed.

She only wanted to mend that broken bond.

No matter what it took.

Even if her methods were seen as unfair.

That little girl didn’t care. Kamijou should have bowed his head and apologized, but he had completely forgotten after learning about his imminent death.

Nevertheless, she was trying to achieve it on her own, even if it meant dirtying her hands.

So they could smile together again.

“So.”

It all took a turn.

Her behavior was distorted.

Only in Alice’s mind did it all fit together smoothly.

“The girl will make up with you. She will fight you because a serious fight allows people to make up. But it has to be serious, so what can the girl do to get you to fight her? This city, this country, and this world can wait. It has to be serious. The girl understands you, teacher, so she knows you will fight her and make up with her.”

She said it all in a terribly ''drawn out'' and flat, emotionless voice. Her emotions were so intense it was all destroyed, like the recording medium itself was being burned from below by a lighter.

Alice probably really could do that.

And what would happen?

Would the world really end over this?

Maybe Alice could no longer make logical connections between the different pieces of data.

Kamijou had thoroughly broken that girl’s mind.

Issues of right and wrong or like and dislike were trivial at this point. They would no longer provide a dividing line between enemy and ally. This wasn’t like mantises that were programmed so the female would always eat the male. Perhaps it was closer to spiders where the female would sometimes suddenly leap at and devour the male in the middle of the male’s courtship display. Even with the same species facing each other one-on-one, and even with the male expressing his love and the female accepting it, she might mercilessly devour him on a whim. She would only realize she had done it after the fact. You couldn’t predict what would happen even a second into the future with a being like that.

She was such a close but distant being.

She was different.

She was a predator beautifully made by stretching out the muscles, laying out the nerves, hardening the bones.

Kamijou didn’t find her frightening anymore.

He felt sorrow instead.

“Stand back, fool,” coldly insisted Anna Sprengel.

The look she gave Alice was unusual for that villain.

Alice was another irregular Transcendent – another open-source path to power – but one who would never stand on the same side as Anna. Anna gave her a look of pity.

“You understand, don’t you? She’s a lot like an unstable animal. If you approach her now, she might turn you to mincemeat without even meaning to. In the worst case, she might decide that, if she can’t have you alive, she will tear off your head and take that away with her.”

Kamijou shook his head.

Would he battle Alice?

And defeat her?

“I can’t do that.”

This wasn’t about the size of the threat. He couldn’t picture it. It felt wrong. He wanted to trust in that part of himself.

He recalled that giant dragon.

When he had punched CRC away and given up on his possibilities, he had felt a disgusting sensation.

A future where he and CRC could stand side-by-side smiling had been lost. Kamijou had made sure of it.

And the fear caused by his prophesied death made him feel this way all the more.

Would he use that against Alice this time?

Like hell he would.

“Because I can’t save Alice that way. Isn’t there some other way!?”

Index and her 103,001 grimoires were here. So was Othinus, who had once been a Magic God. Not to mention Anna Sprengel, who was familiar with Rosicrucianism and the Bridge Builders Cabal.

Combining those three’s knowledge could reveal a way of saving Alice.

But…

“That really depends on your definition of ‘save’,” said Othinus. “Human, would you really be saving her if you grabbed that oversized head and shoved it back inside the small body? Back inside that shed skin?”

She was a god who had once destroyed the world and been pursued by all of humanity as a great criminal.

That Magic God was saying this about ''another monster capable of ending the world''.

She said it clearly, without averting her gaze from reality.

This was nothing as over-the-top as saving humanity or protecting the world.

It was a more personal miracle.

But she was speaking to the boy who really had risked his life to save a lonely god.

“You are here, human. So make your own choice. This here is the real Alice. She isn’t pure or innocent, but if the world can accept her this way, that would be one way of saving her.”

“Oh,” said Kamijou, sounding exasperated.

He just had to bring Alice back to her senses.

He kept that in mind while ignoring the issue of how difficult that would be to actually pull off.

“So if I risk my life, a path opens up?”

That was the best news he’d heard all day.

In that instant, an explosion erupted out.

Something twisted and scattered around right in front of his eyes. It took him a moment to realize they were fake roses.

Or that he would have been decapitated if not for them.

Alice had attacked.

He didn’t know why.

It was possible she didn’t either.

She was a captivatingly beautiful monster, but she was not a villain.

He had to believe that.

How deadly she looked had nothing to do with whether she was good or bad. She would bare her fangs whether it was right or wrong and whether she liked you or not. She was an unstable collection of power with only that function.

So he couldn’t falter.

He couldn’t turn Alice into a monster. He couldn’t accept that conclusion.

“Fool, the rose is a symbol of change. This applies to the Golden brooch that can create any sigil through the orderly arrangement of the 22 Hebrew letters and it applies to white and red roses colored with paint in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. ''By forcibly altering the interpretation and building a bridge,'' I can divert at least one of her attacks.”

Anna Sprengel stared straight ahead as she said this, but she had a red wound running across her cheek.

That had only been a villain’s trickery.

Kamijou couldn’t expect it to work forever.

But he should be plenty thankful it had worked at all in this real confrontation.

And while deflecting the attack was all well and good, he had no idea what Alice had done even after being on the receiving end of her attack.

The animal roared loud.

“Oooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Was that magic?

It was an apocalyptic roar.

A great energy grounded in something other than intelligence and reason spiraled out. The roar reflected off the walls and floor before gathering unnaturally on a single point in space.

Anna swept her little hand from left to right.

That was all it took for a thick shockwave to bend like a bow and knock over a few bookcases.

It was actually Alice who paused for a beat.

With her right hand still jabbing out with the fingers together. Perhaps that would have knocked off Kamijou’s head and then stabbed through his corpse’s heart before it could even fall to the floor.

''Slap!!

Little Anna, who would look better than anyone delivering a double slap, sent another attack sweeping up from below.

This may have been a first.

Alice Anotherbible’s attack wasn’t deflected or redirected – it was stopped from head on by an attack of equal power.

“Kh.”

“Why do you look so surprised?”

The little villain grinned and exchanged a glare with Alice at close range. Anna accepted Alice’s gaze without trying to escape.

She was a Transcendent not based on Alice.

She was another irregular Transcendent.

“Did you think you were special? There’s no such thing in the world of magic. I’m a magician who dressed up as Kingsford so I could stop my foolish students from ignoring my teaching and attempting self-destructive magic. I built my secret art from the ground up with the hands I had bloodied attempting to protect those lovable fools. Did you really think my way was inferior to the secret art you were simply given and have no real use for!?”

Alice’s hand was fully deflected.

She spun around, her partially-retracted arm blurring into streamlines. She chose a new target to attack. Index was chosen first, so Kamijou shoved the nun out of the way.

Fingers capable of tearing through steel rushed toward Kamijou.

Flashes of light intersected like a cross.

The fingers and claws sent horizontally toward Kamijou’s throat were stopped at the last second by an extremely thin blade.

Courtesy of H.T. Trismegistus.

No…

“My right hand contains Zeus. My left hand contains Indra. Thus I am renewed. Z.I. Trismegistus conversion complete!!”

Blinding white flashed from the point of contact between the struggling sword and fingers.

That was probably a high-voltage current.

The electrical energy was powerful enough to burn through a metal panel thicker than a thumb.

Of course, this wouldn’t be enough to defeat Alice. But dazzling her eyes for a moment meant a lot.

It gave Kamijou time to fall back.

“What the hell!? Can you just pick a side and stay on it!?” complained Othinus.

“Common sense says…”

The young butler hung his head.

He clenched his fist hard enough for his sword cane to creak.

“Common sense says I cannot expect Christian Rosencreutz to show up and save us here and now. And not just him. No one who isn’t present can do anything to help. I was wrong to place my hopes on people like that. No matter how complex and challenging the world’s problems, it is up to the people living in it to solve them.”

Now that he was freed from his bonds, H.T. Trismegistus spoke clearly.

“It is the people with us now who will decide how this ends. So it would be foolish in the extreme to not make use of that right. So says common sense!!”

Alice Anotherbible had tremendous power.

That power led a great many people to gather around her. But the Transcendents who had wanted to use her to make themselves special may have seemed like a stale and uninteresting bunch to Alice.

But that wasn’t all.

It couldn’t be.

In addition to the power someone had forced her to carry, Alice had had drawn quite a few people to herself in a different way. No matter what anyone might say, as much as she might resent the magician who had created “Alice Anotherbible” and however she saw things herself, Alice had not been alone. She had been loved.

Because if she wasn’t, Kamijou Touma, Anna Sprengel, and H.T. Trismegistus – people with such different positions and intentions – wouldn’t have all gathered here like this.

They wouldn’t have been working together to save Alice.

“Hey, Alice.”
She didn’t say anything, but Kamijou still smiled.

He was certain that Alice had the wrong idea of what it meant to be an adult.

When adults ran into problems, they asked for help. They would rely on and depend on others. They simply did their best to hide this in front of the small children.

Trying to do it all yourself and thinking you could solve anything if you had a special power was a child’s way of thinking.

So he had a lesson for her.

And for the world’s greatest illusion.

He would teach her that letting her ugly side show wasn’t going to destroy her world.

Alice Anotherbible wouldn’t be a lonely monster.

He wouldn’t let her.

An invisible wall had shattered inside Kamijou Touma.

He could deal with the deadly prophecy later. Because he had found something more important.

“If you think you can use your power to twist everything to your will… If you think you can take everything you loathe and make it everyone else’s problem…”

A perfectly ordinary high school boy clenched his right fist.

Tightly.

“Then I’ll destroy that illusion!!!”

None of the problems had been resolved. The boy had only adjusted his internal priorities.

Kamijou Touma would die today.

''But so what?

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter3

2024-04-22T04:32:02Z

Edzo: /* Part 8 */ fixed typo "I" into "It" in "I couldn’t be? Could it?"

==Chapter 3: Prophecy – Last_Branch(of_Die).==

===Part 1===

Late at night in District 7, Anna Kingsford stood at the very top of an enormous crane.

She stood tall and simply directed her gaze overhead.

The night sky seemed blotted out by the lights of the city, but viewing the clear stars in the sky gave this expert access to more information than searching the world linked together by fiber optics.

And she only used this for just causes.

Which was what made her an expert.

(The ⭐s are in place. That boy should become aware of the branch he passed by now.)

She sighed.

That was a complete side issue.

For one, Kingsford had never directly met Kamijou Touma. Which made him no more than a stranger in the same city as her.

(But awareness does ❌ allow him to change it. It may be his life, but he can ❌ change the decision he made on a branch he has already passed. Just like CRC passed a crucial branch ''and was defeated in a ⚔️ he should have won easily.'' The greatest enemy in an individual’s life is their own karma.)

“Not that he can ignore it now that he knows.”

But she would not just abandon him.

That expert did not consider her own interests, the state of the battle, or even whether or not she knew the boy.

He was a complete stranger?

So what?

If anyone was troubled, uncertain, or suffering, she was already taking action.

Anna Kingsford had perfected that way of life.

A fool who had yet to reach that point spoke to her.

It was the human named Aleister.

“Where are you going, Kingsford?”

“To serve others.”

“That’s my job. There’s no reason for you to continue fighting!!”

Even her battle against Rosencreutz had essentially been a miracle.

She had not actually won the battle. CRC could instantly search for any information about the world, but he had ''just so happened'' to overlook the fact that Anna Kingsford was a preserved corpse. If not for that, he would have destroyed her more thoroughly and she couldn’t have recovered.

She was reliant on unpredictable miracles.

Even a magician who mastered the field to the point of being known as an expert would lose eventually.

She had to know that.

Alice Anotherbible had easily crushed and killed CRC and so thoroughly eliminated him from the world that he could never recover. She was a true monster.

Kingsford had not reached that point.

She had to understand that. She wielded great power using the correspondence between the microcosm within a person and the macrocosm of the physical world around them, so she would have thoroughly analyzed herself in that way.

But the woman with a proper understanding of magic’s essence smiled as she responded.

She was accurately viewing her own fate, but she didn’t hesitate to speak.

“This is 👋.”

“But!!”

Contact with the new Board Chairman had been lost.

They couldn’t hope for anymore cooperation, so they had to settle this on their own.

The situation was clearly worsening and Alice was even more powerful than CRC. Certain death awaited Kingsford. Alice waited in a land that brought death to all who set foot there.

“Aleister. You must have understood from the beginning that I am ❌ more than a preserved corpse. You are only using ⚙️s to move an already ☠️ body around, so I never was alive. I escaped the previous ⚔️ intact by pure luck, but ❌ even that can save me next time. This ☠️ body will find only ☠️.”

“…”

As an expert who understood the secrets of the world of the living and the world of the dead, she was not too attached to her own life.

The only ones who clung to life with such ugly desperation were the half-baked magicians who remained fixated on this one life.

Still, he understood in his own inexpert way.

Anna Kingsford was an expert through and through. She didn’t even think of clinging to life or staying in this world forever.

She was only interested in eliminating the unknown threat making someone suffer before her eyes.

She didn’t even consider whether or not she had ever met that person.

She had no intention of returning. Her win condition didn’t even take that into account.

She was an example of how far people could go if they mastered their field.

“What was my role meant to be? I was supposed to be a trump 🃏 for use against the unbeatable Anna Sprengel. Now that Miss Sprengel has been freed from her wicked ⛓️ and that ⚔️ need ❌ be fought, my purpose is complete.”

Aleister had no response to that.

Because she was exactly right.

This goodbye could not be avoided. This was Aleister Crowley’s reward for wielding superhuman knowledge, doing what no one else could do, and enduring trials normal people would never even know existed. Kingsford was correct that the greatest enemy in an individual’s life was their own karma.

He was already in checkmate.

And yet…

“That just means I have to do the work myself.”

He understood it intellectually but he still tried to fight it. Was that because Aleister was an inexpert and ugly human?

But you must never forget that, while that human had accumulated a lot of bad karma, he would never stop struggling for his own ends.

“Aleister Crowley officially died in 1947 and stubbornly clung to life until he actually died battling Great Demon Coronzon. I’m as dead as you are. If someone has to save that boy, I’ll do it. I can do it if necessary!! And I’m better suited for that role. The wickedest man in the world should be standing up to the world even after death, not a pure and proper holy woman!”

“But you are still fixated on this 🌍.”

She shot back.

A true expert did not bother arguing about secrets.

She had already seen into the depths of his mind that even he wasn’t consciously aware existed.

She did it naturally.

And kindly.

“Conscious or ❌, you hijacked that great 👿’s body to cling to life. Either you still have something you want to do in this 🌍, or there is something you are ❌ yet willing to give up here. Dying for him is not the same as living with him. It never can be. Either way, it is too soon for you. Everyone dies eventually, so there is no need to rush toward ☠️. Live out your life first, Aleister. You can prepare yourself for ☠️ once you have done that.”

Kingsford smiled as she said this.

Smiled faintly.

Aleister lightly clenched his empty right hand.

He felt the pressure of a staff so twisted his fingertips tingled at the mere sight of it.

Special numbers scattered from his hand like sparks.

“I’ve had enough. What if I said I would stop you by force?”

“I would knock you aside and continue on my way.”

“Kh.”

She didn’t even hesitate.

She said it gently, like it was a foregone conclusion.

Kingsford used no more than words to overpower the victor of the Battle of Blythe Road.

He couldn’t say she couldn’t do it. He was already well past his limit with Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel. He had only so insolently decided to make use of this preserved corpse because he couldn’t handle them.

Trickery, betrayal, surprise attacks, intrigue, and – when necessary – direct confrontation.

He had used every trick in the book to drive the world’s greatest magic cabal to destruction at the Battle of Blythe Road, but none of it would work here.

He could not win in a direct one-on-one confrontation.

If Anna Kingsford went all out, Aleister had no way of opposing her. He knew she would simply prove how inexpert he really was. He would never manage to get his hands on the switch hidden below her skin.

“I do ❌ want you to ☠️ here. No number of previous ☠️s is any reason to accept ☠️ next time. So I will use all of my power to defeat you here. Soundly enough that you do ❌ have enough strength left to go out and ☠️.”

That was contradictory.

Kingsford kept saying she would not let people die so easily, but she was about to head out for her own death.

She was saying she would use up all of the tickets provided for her as a thinking and moving preserved corpse.

But that gentle smile of hers made the contradictory premise and conclusion seem to fit together with no problem.

It was strange really.

Was this the essence of magic known only to the few true experts – a position Aleister had yet to reach? This was the human-made miracle of protecting everyone you encountered and spreading smiles everywhere you went.

He couldn’t stop her.

This wasn’t the ''divine cosplay spell'' that simply let one dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. Nor was it the reverse logic where one tried to divulge the workings of the world to rebel against the god they so hated.

With a quiet bump, the failure of a student buried his face in Anna Kingsford’s chest.

He sniffled like a child.

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have to die.”

“That I met someone who feels that way and that I inspired these feelings in you, who felt betrayed by everything, tells me that I have won a victory against this 🌍.”

Clear drops spilled out.

Anna Kingsford held the lost child’s head to her chest and whispered gently to him.

She stroked the inexpert one’s blonde hair like a mother.

“I think you did have need of my preserved corpse. Especially on December 31. If no one had stopped Anna Sprengel, the 🌍 would have been thrown into chaos before CRC could even be reborn.”

One by one, the expert explained everything to the fool.

She taught him some terribly simple things that no one had ever before taught that human.

Not his parents who had thought meaningless strictness was a virtue, not his teachers who had failed to correct the social problem left in their care, and not the Golden magicians who had abandoned their pursuit of knowledge to spend their time on ugly internecine conflict.

Even though these should have been the first things he was taught.

“But you must ❌ toy with life. Because you are powerful enough to do so with ease, you have ❌ way to keep yourself focused other than using pure willpower to manage yourself. The ☠️ have their own dignity. Humans remain human even in ☠️. You ensured your own pain from the moment you disrespected the ☠️ for the sake of the living. Improve yourself, Aleister. If you do ❌ fear taking the long way around to avoid pain, there is much you can learn. Just like any magician.”

“…”

“And do ❌ worry, lost child of the living. You will not be alone. As an expert, I will do whatever it takes to save the one you care for. Even if it requires every trick in the 📖. So there is ❌ chance you will be crushed by loneliness.”

===Part 2===

Kamijou Touma heard a wet sound.

It came from inside his body.

He thought he must have imagined it.

But the sound of rotting flesh falling away was so distinct.

“…”

He was dying.

He was certain of it in that brightly lit classroom.

It was an unavoidable fate. No one had cruelly pushed him to this point. There was a chance he could have survived had he given up on saving others, but he had chosen this path for himself while on the dark side.

He felt an odd scraping.

Was that the wound from Aradia he felt in his right side and spine? The odd feeling in his neck would be H.T. Trismegistus.

Everything felt normal-ish, but that lack of extreme pain only terrified him more.

Something was definitely happening to him.

He couldn’t tell what was happening inside him. He only felt a vague disgust. It was like his silent organs were changing color without sending out any kind of alert. Death. The end. An invisible pressure. A cruel time bomb with the LCD timer omitted.

“Human…”

Even Magic God Othinus only groaned that word before falling silent.

There was no recovering from this.

''“You will die.”

''“That doesn’t change my answer.”

Thinking back, he had made that fateful choice when that god wasn’t with him.

He had carelessly made such an important decision on his own.

Of course he had screwed it up.

Everything had been wrong from the beginning.

How many times had he availed himself of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection? In other words, ''how many times had he died on the way here''? In just a few days’ time? Maybe you would survive certain death, as if by mistake, once over your long life. But he seriously doubted those bugs or errors would occur in his favor every single time like that. Not to mention that he was plagued by misfortune due to his right hand, so lady luck would never smile on him in that way.

The flaw wasn’t in Good, Old Mary.

Bringing him back to life even once was more than enough of a miracle.

The problem was him having her use it so many times in such a short period of time without considering the usage limits.

''He couldn’t fool death any longer.

''The corner of the mask was starting to peel away.

“Hey, teacher, why do you think the girl wanted the grimoire library?”

“…”

“Because the girl wanted to use the library’s knowledge to do something she couldn’t? To correct her broken head? No, the girl is already perfect and unbreakable. The answer is simple. ''The girl wanted to help you after you passed the final branch.'' The girl wanted to search through a library of all the world’s knowledge to find some method still remaining in this world. That was all.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………”

He had passed the fatal branch.

He had foolishly chosen to cross it and he had arrived at a mistaken destination.

Which one of them was really in need of help?

“If the girl found it, she would use it. If not, she would give up, deciding the world was just too shallow. There are billions of people in this wide world, so if not even one of them has a way to save you, it means they didn’t try hard enough and then the girl would have to punish them all with her power.”

H.T. Trismegistus had said he had always been one of the Killers.

He had said the swiftest and surest way to take Kamijou’s life was to have him meet Alice. He had been right.

It didn’t help the deathly ill to fear the doctor’s prognosis. Kamijou understood that. They had come down with the illness much earlier. The real problem may have been from their exercise, diet, or other life habits.

Nevertheless, that fear was real.

The tables had been turned.

The symbol of death had shifted from Alice Anotherbible to another girl Kamijou knew quite well.

White. Pure white. The all-knowing nun who was always by his side.

He felt no pain.

He wasn’t even given the right to writhe in agony as certain death approached.

The pressure mounted.

Like he was being slowly crushed by an incredibly thick invisible wall.

Which was more horrific: being turned to red and black spray by the world’s fastest linear motor train before you could even feel the fear, or having your body gradually drawn into the wheel of a local train as it pulled into the station?

With no malice, the girl spoke with an innocent smile.

“Well, teacher? Let’s go see the grimoire library! The girl can’t diagnose you, so we can have the all-knowing nun do that part☆”

===Part 3===

H.T. Trismegistus watched from a distance.

He had known Alice Anotherbible longer than any other member of the Bridge Builders Cabal. After all, he was the one who had discovered her in the modern day.

But there was a lot the young butler did not know.

Most notably, he did not know her origins.

Where was she born, where was she raised, where was she altered, and from where had she fled?

He didn’t have a single answer.

It had only been pure coincidence when he found her in a city abroad. She was in the shadows of a roofless shelter. She had tremendous value as an open-source spell, but he had not realized this until well after taking in the wandering girl.

At first, she had been like a wild animal.

She had gone so wild he had questioned what she had even eaten to survive.

It was nothing more than luck that Alice hadn’t known how to use her power. If she had chaotically wielded her power as Alice Anotherbible at that point, she probably would have destroyed the entire world.

Alice was smiling innocently next to someone else.

She wore an expression he had never seen before.

That much was fine.

The young man simply obeyed. Of course, this was for himself, not for Alice. H.T. Trismegistus was a Transcendent who had abandoned his magic name to dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. He could only view the world and choose who to save based on the salvation condition he had set for himself. So the first person he had to save was not himself or Alice.

He was the guardian deity of common sense.

He protected the people against anything that altered people’s sense of normalcy: war, rioting, disaster, loneliness, disease, famine, financial panic.

He sought a master who would save the world.

''Or to put it another way,'' the only person he would allow to distort common sense was the bearer of the paradigm shift that would guide all of humanity to the next stage. He could not leave this in the hands of just any old charismatic leader.

Was Christian Rosencreutz the one he sought?

Or was it Alice Anotherbible?

His objective was clear, but a question occurred to the young butler.

He knew his salvation condition.

But who exactly did he want to save?

===Part 4===

On the District 7 bridge, the Transcendents vs. Transcendents battle was trending in one direction.

“Tch! Good, Old Mary!?” shouted Aradia, holding onto the railroad crossing barrier she had borrowed as a broom and clinging to the side of a steel beam distributing the bridge’s weight.

But the woman collapsed on the cold asphalt did not respond.

That was a bad sign.

Good, Old Mary was the foundation of their recovery magic, but she had suddenly collapsed.

This was worse than simply losing one of their number.

Vidhatri, the brown-skinned woman with model-like proportions, shook the arms and legs of the Dhatri ball-joint doll she wore on her back, intricately manipulating white thread and black hair as she whispered to Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

“Do you still need support?”

“Nope. Everyone can do their own thing. Instead of assigning as many Transcendents as we can to attacking a single point, it would help me if we increased the total number of attack points to fill up the processing power of their minds.”

Something hovered through the air.

Some teacups and saucers were slowly flying around

Those were symbols from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Bologna Succubus noticed and groaned while breathing heavily with her hands down on the ground.

“Kssshhh, they’ve made it this far?”

“Ha ha☆ Of course they have.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet smiled calmly.

A single smile on that extremely lovable face summoned a great black dragon into the night sky. Was the twisting serpent actually tens of thousands of starlings? They were not venomous, but in great enough numbers, any creature was a threat to human life.

The instant the Bologna Succubus looked up at the black dragon filling the entire night sky, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet took a large step forward.

Without hesitation.

“Kh.”

Now was not the time to be overwhelmed by the intimidating numbers.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to gather as much air as possible.

She launched herself straight to the side.

The coat-shaped blast-resistant suit covered in thick metal panels snapped shut like a ferocious beast’s jaws. It was a sweet-smelling iron maiden. The air inside that isolated space was compressed with no outlet, producing a strange sound much like a steam engine.

The Bologna Succubus had just barely avoided it.

If she had carelessly stayed in place, she would have been “devoured”.

Instead of feeling fear, she gathered offensive power between her brows.

(Argh. I can’t let this chaos be unleashed on the boy’s city.)

What were Kamijou Touma and Alice Anotherbible doing right now?

She couldn’t predict how few seconds a regular Transcendent would last against Alice if she were serious about fighting, but it was still much too dangerous to let that boy stand defenselessly before Alice.

The alluring demon smiled bitterly at that thought and focused her feelings on the battle at hand.

“Oh, what’s this?”

Smiling, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet again spread her arms wide. Slowly.

Almost like a solid wall, a stifling nectar scent emerged from the blast-resistant suit and pushed toward the Bologna Succubus. Even at this distance, she had to stay focused to avoid getting dizzy.

What was happening in that closed world?

The skinny girl(?) wearing an apron over her naked body giggled before speaking.

“This won’t hurt at all, so don’t worry. I’m more interested in creating a gentle world where even the unloved are loved equally. Did you really understand my salvation condition? Kee hee hee☆ I have love even for a filthy sex demon, so get over here and let me give you a hug!!”

“Killing with pleasure, huh?”

“Ah ha ha☆ This is Total Courtship! Welcome to the sweetest, most luxurious ending to a life♪”

Roaches could rapidly build up a resistance to deadly insecticides, so they couldn’t necessarily be killed by escalating the chemical suffering. Instead, there were products that ''tricked them'' into thinking ethanol, acetaldehyde, sotolon, or another chemical compound was delicious food, luring them into the trap where they would take a different chemical back to the colony to kill them all at once. Humans didn’t just use what their target disliked – they would also use whatever their target most liked.

This girl similarly used love to kill. She was a super sweet monster who had continually honed the emotion of love into a deadly weapon. If you simply increased your defenses to prevent pain and prepared ordinary attacks, she would ''slip past them all'' and kill you instantly.

She was a specialist in that.

This Transcendent was a different form of strongest, whose trump card was the complete opposite of the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress which converted all forms of pleasure into pain.

Her victims were robbed of even the right to feel fear as they were filled with no more than ''happiness'' until they lost their life. In a trippy world where everything was vague, they would cross the final line without intent or resolve.

They were stranded.

She had complete control over them, not even giving them a chance to speak their final words.

She brought a death more certain than a .44 caliber bullet and its name was love.

“Yeah, I don’t think we could ever get along.”

“Kya ha ha☆ You’re only saying that because that makes it more exciting, aren’t you!?”

This must have been her combat form.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet had her enormous blast-resistant suit spread wide to display the terrarium trapped within. The skinny naked-apron girl pushed out a nectar scent so powerful it caused heartburn. And she took a casual step forward.

“You didn’t find it remotely odd? We’re all regular Transcendents here. A clash between our two groups shouldn’t end so easily. Yet you’re being easily defeated in a one-sided game. Is it a bad matchup between the individual Transcendents? Do our spells combine so well it’s like we were dealt a royal flush? No, that could never happen.”

“…”

“''No one can defeat Alice Anotherbible.''”

For this alone, she took on a respectful tone.

Almost like she was reading off the handwritten creed only she believed in.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet thought only of her own blessings as she spoke euphorically.

“You underestimated the meaning of that statement. And that optimism has brought you certain death. It doesn’t just mean you won’t survive a direct physical fight against Alice. There’s no getting around it. We control all of the coincidences and all of our baseless hunches and inspirations will work out in our favor. We have the ''trends'' of the world on our side. That is what it means to ‘resonate’ with Alice and take the winning side. To be clear, we are only firing blindly from the hip. You’re the ones ensuring we hit you.”

Vidhatri.

2nd Saga.

And Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

The Bologna Succubus’s side was being worn down, but all three of them were unharmed. She had gotten a few clean hits in on them, so had they managed to shrug off the damage?

And she was slipping past their expectations and landing an attack they failed to dodge or defend against, so it made no sense for them to be changing their stance to reduce the damage with 100% accuracy.

That wasn’t their individual abilities.

It was their “resonance” with Alice Anotherbible.

“Defying her means death. You had lost from the moment you bet on there being an exception to that, like that you could move beyond her reach, hide where she couldn’t find you, or escape punishment if your defiance was indirect. Not that she would let you get away with this even if you had been correct.”

“How are you on Alice’s side when you only love yourself?”

“Isn’t it cruel to expect such a small child to judge everything so accurately? They say to let your child make mistakes to learn from them, but do you think that kind of harsh parental love will work on that girl? Alice is simpler than that. Which is what makes her so frightening. At her mental age, she probably sees anyone who praises her and spoils her as her ally.”

And it didn’t end there.

“Heyyy.”

Something enormous was parting the large river to approach.

It was a special warship measuring around 100m long.

That was small compared to a nuclear aircraft carrier of more than 300m long, but it was undoubtedly a warship.

Plus, this was not the ship itself.

It was made out of smooth white shadow.

A girl’s lazy voice played from the speakers probably meant for giving warnings or making threats.

Come to think of it, hadn’t one of them seemingly vanished?

“This took some time to prepare, but I’m back.”

The ship’s bridge stood taller than the iron bridge.

She must have torn down all the other bridges spanning the river to clear a path here. It made you wonder which side was doing more damage to Academy City.

Aradia’s eyes really did bug out as she shouted.

“Mut Thebes!? What is that thing!?”

“You don’t know? It’s the Academy City drone carrier Kagenui.”

An aircraft carrier had to carry multiple large aircraft, necessitating a great size. Submersible and aerial aircraft carriers could not be made because the size and weight affected their balance too much. ...But that accepted principle had been overturned by shrinking the aircraft down by eliminating the cockpit and turning them into drones. Even the maintenance work could be carried out by an unmanned maintenance factory within the ship.

As usual, Academy City loved making bizarre things.

But now wasn’t the time for exasperation.

That was a carrier.

“Go, everyone.”

A series of explosions rang out. The boxy canisters on the flat deck rose up and opened fire. There were electrically ignited guns that could fire at a rate of a million rounds a minute. It looked like a programmed fireworks show. In truth, the honeycomb-like holes on the front of the canisters were releasing a large number of flying objects. By spreading their movable wings in air, they gathered in orderly teams and flew in formation. Now both sides had a flying swarm. The drones clashed directly with the tens of thousands of starlings ruling the night sky.

The assumptions and superiority had been overturned.

One side was alive and the other was machine.

When they were both controlled remotely and were equal in number, it went without saying whether the small birds or the man-made meter-long aerial weapons would win.

Perhaps the counterattack was necessary.

But as the drones pursued the fleeing starlings, their machinegun fire stabbed into the skyscrapers built along the river and sent sparks exploding from walls as thick power cables were ruptured.

“Mut Theeeebes!!!”

Aradia roared in anger, but then she stopped.

The brown girl was acting weird.

“Yayyy. Who wants to take a killer selfie? Just tell me when and I’ll get the timing right for you. Yippee! Let’s keep this Alice Parade Party going☆”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet giggled.

She clearly welcomed this turn of events.

Mut Thebes wasn’t enemy or ally – she was losing all awareness that she was participating in the battle at all. She was throwing that aside to enjoy herself. And her actions were clearly working against the Bologna Succubus’s side.

They sensed a trend in the series of unpleasant coincidences.

“I believe it’s called Acute Kotatsu Syndrome. Basically, Alice affects the group psychology of an area when she stays there long enough. Did you think you were ''immune'' for some reason? Even magicians and Transcendents will be engulfed by Alice sooner or later.”

“…”

“That includes all of us. Yes, you are no exception, Bologna Succubus. And most likely, neither are we. We will all lose our sense of who is on whose side in this mad tea party. The world that people across the globe have worked so hard to create could end today, but in a way that could mean the arrival of an age of peace. If everything is engulfed and everyone is a victim, then the distinction between enemy and ally loses all meaning.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet made it sound so obvious.

But it didn’t add up.

They were using their all-important salvation conditions as an excuse to love themselves and preserve their power by protecting Alice, so they wouldn’t want an ending where they were engulfed by Alice’s madness and lost sight of who they were. Narcissists who cared about themselves more than anything else in the world would never seek out a form of satisfaction created by having their internal aesthetic sense altered.

“''Do you have any idea what you’re saying''?”

“Ha ha☆ What? Are you saying I’ve already broken too''?”

It didn’t sound like she cared.

Someone on her level had lost the right to feel fear and disgust, or even detect that anything was amiss.

This space was going mad.

It had started at a single point, but the entire world would be this way eventually.

Whether or not Alice Anotherbible wanted it.

This was ominous enough to make that prediction.

“It doesn’t really matter. No one can defy Alice whether they put up a resistance or not.”

“Are you shoving responsibility for the world onto Alice’s shoulders while you alone abandon the effort of living, like you’re just a tree, grass, or flower, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet!?”

“Hee hee☆ Total Courtship – ready for dissemination. Now, I think I’ll pack you so full of super-sweet love that all your veins burst. Alice hates it when you try to lecture people like that, which is why she’s striking back at you, you know?”

===Part 5===

“…”

Anna Sprengel saw it.

She had supposedly divined the location of Kamijou and Alice, but ''something had gone wrong'' and she ended up here instead. Were you not even allowed to walk in a straight line without the proper credentials in this wonderland?

Everything within a 400 radius of the iron bridge was a zone of death. Crowds who had never even seen Alice directly were filling the streets due to her influence, but not even they would approach that area.

It may have been a type of instinct.

Just like people’s homing instincts worked even when drunk, the boys and girls who had lost sight of reality still knew they should keep away.

Although even that instinct would probably melt away eventually.

Once that happened, the world really was over.

Anna wanted to rescue Kamijou Touma. She wanted to fight against Alice Anotherbible with him. She wanted to protect him.

But so much depended on that bridge where an ''unnatural amount'' of things had gathered.

If those Transcendents scattered across the city again, Kamijou alone wouldn’t be able to deal with them. Then his world would simply fall apart.

So.

Before that happened…

“What are you planning?”

“!?”

Anna heard a female voice.

From right by her ear.

She belatedly spun around.

But she did not find one of the Transcendents who relied on the easy ''divine cosplay spell''. This was an expert who carried a magic name in her heart, stood on her own two feet, and had chosen for herself to take on the wide world.

It wasn’t a logical thing.

But Miss Sprengel could not hide the trembling and the cold sweat that came from her very soul.

“Anna Kingsford!?”

“You really should ❌ try it. It is ❌ like you. Two groups of Transcendents are ⚔️ing and one side is winning. Adding one more fighter to the fray will ❌ make a significant difference. As a self-proclaimed villain, you should know that quite well.”

“Why would you stop me? It shouldn’t be any skin off your nose if the fake Anna dies.”

“It would be. Because I do ❌ want you to ☠️.”

Kingsford didn’t hesitate.

The true villain was not used to being told these things so directly.

(First that fool and now her.)

Taken aback, little Miss Sprengel lost her chance to strike back and Kingsford laughed elegantly before continuing.

That smile was so much like Miss Sprengel’s, but she could never imitate it.

“It does appear that the side of the ⚔️ supported by ❌, resonating with Alice has the advantage. Transcendents are, after all, the false gods created when modern magicians used the incomplete 🪄 they created by analyzing the one and only success case: Alice Anotherbible. They have always been incomplete and unstable. They have a model. It should be obvious they will be 💪er when supported by the completed Alice.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? If Aradia’s side loses, who will be left to help that fool? Even if the entire world joined forces against Alice, I’m not sure it would work! And if the Alice-addled Transcendents gathered here end up scattering across Academy City, they could completely destroy that fool’s cit-”

“You only need to supply a ⛰️ greater than Alice.”

It didn’t even take a full second.

Kingsford placed her index finger on her slender chin and gave the answer with a confident smile.

An expert was a powerful guide in and of herself.

Just like sailors lost at sea would rely on the sun and moon in the sky to find the way back home.

“Blodeuwedd the Bouquet, Vidhatri, and 2nd Saga… They are borrowing a special power by resonating with Alice. So we just have to supply the same condition. If someone else leads the Transcendents, this problem is easily solved.”

Anna Sprengel only showed exasperation on her face.

Preparing a rival even more powerful than Alice was Kingsford’s idea of easy?

“I suppose someone as special as you would have no problem doing that,” said Miss Sprengel.

“Me? ❌, the only one who can do this is you.”

This time, Miss Sprengel’s eyes opened wide.

This had to be a joke.

“W-wait. I-I am no more than a common 2nd-rate magician who expanded my appearance and abilities by borrowing your name but still had to boost my specs further with Aiwass!!”

“Belittle yourself all you like, you are still an irregular Transcendent. Plus, you borrowed someone else’s name, but you did ❌ acquire the necessary 🪄 by analyzing Alice. You did your research from the ground up and successfully ‘👗ed up as’ Anna Kingsford. Which puts you on equal 🦶ing. We must refer to you as an irregular Transcendent for the exact same reason we refer to Alice Anotherbible that way.”

“…”

“You can do it.” Kingsford made this point clear. “Both you and Aleister have accomplished so much, so I can ❌ fathom why you both insist on belittling yourselves at every turn… I am saying there is something only you can accomplish, Miss Sprengel. I can ❌ do it. No matter how unnecessarily ashamed you are of yourself, your 🪄 to 👗 up as someone else is something that never occurred to me. Using that to help others qualifies as praiseworthy service if you ask me, but do you disagree?”

Silence.

Eventually followed by a wet sound.

It was the sound of a sniffling nose.

“Don’t tell that fool.”

“Sigh. I really think it is ⌚ the world recognized your talents.”

“Don’t tell him.”

“As you wish.”

“Then come forth, Aiwass!! Come to me, the walking amplifier for my will that has a mind of its own!!”

“Took you long enough, my benevolent genius.”

Anna Sprengel and Anna Kingsford.

The long-held conflict between them had been resolved.

Now they stood side by side, wielding great magic to protect an innocent life.

===Part 6===

The massive bridge had clearly been bent by an impact from the side. Cracks ran through the asphalt, steel screws larger than golf balls popped forcefully from the metal beams, and the joints between the girders swelled upwards.

The black bass and bluegills seemed harmless at first, but even at 500g each, tens of thousands of them still amounted to a large weight.

With the most lovable face, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet only had to blow a kiss to control them all.

Good, Old Mary had already collapsed after taking one to the center of the chest.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet chose Aradia as her next target.

It didn’t matter that she was directly facing the Bologna Succubus right now.

She set her sights on the witch goddess who stood on the complex arrangement of metal beams used to distribute the bridge’s weight.

“Look!! The world’s most high-tech city will have any number of unloved creatures: black bass, bluegills, rats, stray cats, pigeons, and starlings to name a few. Now, false goddess, let’s see how you handle the love-starved laments of the unloved!!”

“Tch!!”

“''Hee hee☆ Or should I send the unloved humans your way''?”

As soon as Aradia stiffened, stopping her interception spell, a babbler soared sharply toward her unguarded flank. A direct hit would probably kill the wild bird, but it would go through its death throes while embedded deep inside the wound and its beak and feathers would spread contaminants around.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet stuck out her tongue.

But the night wind that reached her was no more than a night wind.

It did not carry a rusty scent.

“?”

Had it missed?

When the support from “resonating” with Alice Anotherbible should have acted as a ''tailwind'' for all her actions?

Even though simply firing blindly from the hip should have always hit the enemy?

Before Blodeuwedd the Bouquet could pursue that question, Vidhatri shouted from where she stood.

“2nd Saga!! Eliminate her now!”

“Hee hee.”

An alluring female face and limbs appeared in the dark night. She was around 18, at the midpoint between girlhood and womanhood.

But that was all that was visible.

The pieces floated separately. No, her torso had clearly been torn apart. It now contained strange hollow spaces. Had her human silhouette unraveled like bandages? Was it due to the thick ribbon that had been wrapped around her torso? The lights of the city were visible in the space beyond her partially eliminated body.

The space seemed somewhat distorted.

Or maybe it was a type of ''camouflage''.

Aradia faced this person who was strange even for a Transcendent. She had the face of a girl with short flaxen hair with the interior dyed bright blue.

“2nd Saga. Do you derive some special meaning from covering and hiding things?”

“I’ve always had trouble choosing just one thing. I never want to throw anything out, so my room always ends up a mess.”

Saga was a goddess from Norse mythology.

She was said to be extremely powerful and to manage the spring where Odin is gifted with poetry and wisdom.

But she is barely mentioned throughout all the Norse monuments and texts.

Barely anything is known about her other than that her home is called Sokkvabekkr.

Information on her was scarce.

She was a mysterious figure who is simply known to share drinks with the top Norse god.

This woman had gone out of here way to choose a god like that.

She had wanted to be her.

Aradia spat annoyed words with the yellow and black railroad crossing barrier in hand.

“If a single performer tries to forcibly dress up as multiple gods, the traits of the gods cancel each other out, diluting their presence. We normally have strict rules about what we can’t do if we want to stay in character and keep our costume authentic, but I didn’t expect one of us to take advantage of that fact.”

“By intentionally keeping a low profile, I can do things other gods can’t. I am not the star of the show. But if a tree or a bush does something they shouldn’t, the audience has no way of knowing if it was correct or not. This allows me to be a performer on the stage while also freeing me from the bonds of the script. I am the only one allowed to be myself.”

“…”

“I am the Transcendent ''who saves all the bit parts and understudies who never get any attention.'' I can’t look down on them if I’m to do that. I need to understand how they feel and be one of them first.”

She disappeared.

Did she unleash her skill to the point she became one with the air?

The bluish-white armor partially surrounding 2nd Saga’s limbs vanished into the air, causing what little of her skin and face were still visible to look unnaturally alluring.

The bright round skin of her face was like a device for giving off sex appeal.

The pupils of her blue eyes were colored an impossible bright red. Did she use a light-bending technique to pull that one off?

Even with her full body unraveled, the individual pieces were made of captivating feminine skin.

But if a member of the opposite sex were caught by her like this, it would probably break his mind.

The strange avant-garde woman sneered.

“My name is 2nd Saga, a fictional god created on the mischievous whim of the compiler. Which allows me to ''add on'' any magic I wish which is never actually found in Norse mythology. …Now, it is time you lost your one and only life. The divine curse – that is, the light of Brisingamen, necklace of infidelity – can even trigger a war between world-destroying kings. Do not assume an individual can escape that deadly fate!!”

It started at the center, where her chest had been.

The thick ribbon, which bound her skin and showed the city behind her, created a transparent distortion much like sugar water, which spilled beyond her outlines.

It forcibly gathered Aradia’s focus on a single point, much like having a finger jabbed between the eyes at close range.

Aradia sensed a definite deadliness in this unknown phenomenon.

Was she mistaken, or had that been the true trigger?

The impossible distortion became a large artillery shell that tore through the air.

This was an assassination spell.

It was guaranteed to take a life.

And the user could sidestep their own sin by saying they were only adoring the beautiful gold and jewels. The necklace brought doom, but it allowed the user to claim they didn’t know it was cursed and thought it was only a beautiful piece of jewelry. Was that to insure they would not be hit in the unlikely case that the curse was sent back the way it had come?

Aradia snorted with laughter.

The rails were laid out nicely, but it was all nonsense with no actual mythological basis. The sky is heaven, the gods shine bright, the workings of salvation and divine punishment, cats are capricious and dogs are loyal – by combining the common symbols found across cultures, anyone could fake apparent legitimacy.

Yes, this was faked.

''Her cosplay was sloppy.'' Gods were meant to draw a strict line between right and wrong, so they couldn’t accept – much less use – a loophole like this. A real god did not choose their words carefully for fear of backlash or controversy. Even the cruelest act could be written off as “divine punishment” if it was truly necessary.

And even if this curse would pursue Aradia to the ends of the Earth, there was only one thing she had to do.

“''There just have to be two Aradias''.”

“Wha-!?”

Immediately after 2nd Saga’s dumbfounded shock, the invisible curse tore itself apart with its own power.

The chilly moonlight shined on two identical people.

The black and yellow railroad crossing barriers resting on their shoulders crossed like swords mounted on a wall.

Aradia hadn’t actually done anything. The curse simply hadn’t been designed to handle an abnormal situation where two identical people existed. It was unable to deal with the situation it found, so the single shell attempted to pursue two targets at once, tearing itself apart from within.

It dissipated.

It disappeared.

“Don’t you dare call this cheating. This has always been our role – we’re the perfect performers. And it was all of you who created ''a second one'' and brought her here without even asking me.”

Right and left.

The identical Aradias launched wind magic that struck the formless Transcendent.

The tides were turning.

“…”

Vidhatri was dumbfounded.

But she wasn’t simply shocked that a Transcendent receiving a ''tailwind'' by “resonating” with Alice Anotherbible had been defeated by a Transcendent who had that link severed and was alone in the storm.

More than that…

“''Why did you have that idea just now''?”

“''What do you mean''?”

“It also doesn’t make sense that you avoided Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s initial attack. Even if there was a way for you to defeat 2nd Saga, it never should have occurred to you!! That kind of support comes from Alice. How did you break through the thought masking!?”

“I would assume conditions have changed somewhere away from here.”

“Tch!!”

Panic spread through the air, infecting the entire space.

Vidhatri seemed rushed by something unseen rather than her own will as she unspooled a lot of white thread and black hair from the ball-joint doll she wore on her back.

By intentionally omitting all mention of something, that spell let her erase anything she didn’t like from the small world set up around her. If she erased everything that could kill her, then no one could defeat her.

A moment later, a dull impact struck her cheekbone. Something flew in from the side and Vidhatri was launched spinning through the air. The impact permeated her. Before she could figure out what had happened, her ball-joint doll broke apart and her model-proportioned body soared over the pedestrian railing and toward the dark river below.

But Aradia hadn’t done anything.

“You were focused on the wrong person, dumbass.”

Aradia glanced over to see a small figure standing boldly atop a metal beam.

It was Anna Sprengel.

“Keh heh heh. Alice no longer rules this world. Worms, bow before me and beg for your pitiful lives. It wasn’t you who created the Shrink Drink – you needed Alice’s help for that. Yet all you worthless regular Transcendents had the nerve to look down on me and try to kill me!!!”

“Before she could figure out what had happened, huh?” the goddess of witches whispered in exasperation. “So Vidhatri could preemptively eliminate any threat, but she was defenseless against any threat that never occurred to her.”

If anything, that was a lot like the death of the immortal Norse god of light, Baldr. That similarity was ''not'' a case of cultural transmission between India and Europe. It was instead evidence of the Transcendents not actually being strictly bound to a single god or even a single mythology.

“Have you imagined your own fate yet, 2nd Saga?”

“Have you imagined your own fate yet, 2nd Saga?”

“!?”

Multiple beams of light flashed out at once.

The two Aradias held out their palms to launch projectile magic toward the figure leaping vigorously from beam to beam. The attacks actually hit 2nd Saga. It was hard to believe she had been so untouchable just a bit ago. She was knocked from the beam above to the bridge below.

Mut Thebes (who was on their side but had lost control of herself) had her drone carrier stopped by a three-legged object that appeared out of thin air. That was Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos.

The tides had turned in the blink of an eye.

The only one left was Blodeuwedd the Bouquet in her coat-like blast-resistant suit and naked apron.

Aradia approached her directly, the Bologna Succubus glared icily at her, and bloody Good, Old Mary slowly rose to her feet.

“Wai-”

The dull “thump!!” of pierced flesh rang out.

The Bologna Succubus had launched her sharp tail and caught Blodeuwedd the Bouquet in the shoulder.

Using a frontal attack with no tricks.

The force of the blow broke the iron-maiden-like blast-resistant suit and the double doors covered in metal panels fell to the asphalt. With her protection gone, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s bare skin was exposed to the frigid air while she scattered junk from her terrarium and UV LED lights. The night wind carried away the flower petals.

“This is already over,” said the Bologna Succubus.

Her voice was colder than it ever had been when that boy was present.

The naked apron girl backed away, but her legs tangled underneath her.

She fell like normal.

Her specialness was gone.

“You forgot about your salvation condition, you abandoned the people you should be saving, and you thought only of preserving your own power. And then you blamed Alice for it all. …So this is already over. You have nothing left. Nothing at all.”

“You’re going to win this...and take everything from me?”

With only her frilly apron left, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet held her wounded shoulder with the opposite hand and struggled to keep her breath.

The powerful sex appeal she gathered around her had dissipated, leaving behind only the fear of a small child.

“This is all we have. You can’t tell me the idea of losing your power doesn’t scare you.”

“I am a Transcendent. I choose who I should protect and then guard those people from the threat this world presents them. Which is why I abandoned my own identity to dress up as a god,” said Witch Goddess Aradia. “My salvation condition does not include myself. And I would never rob innocent people of their future just so I could keep my own shameful life.”

With a dull sound, the Transcendent ended things with the Transcendent.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet was the last one.

There had been others, but they raised their hands in surrender when they saw the tides changing. That was about what you got with people who only worried about themselves.

But with Alice ''Anotherbible'' as an open-source example, more Transcendents could be created. Just like there were two Aradias here.

Remaking the city’s people into makeshift witches wasn’t an option here like it had been in Shibuya. If Academy City espers used magic, they would be harmed by the side effects and, if Alice wanted to, she could produce an unlimited supply of regular Transcendents. Those would be literally a grade above.

Any victories won fighting on the outer edges would only be temporary. And with only limited numbers to work with, they wouldn’t last if they were forced to fight the same battles over and over.

“This was no more than an opening skirmish,” said Anna Sprengel despite understanding that.

She was another host and open-source example who differed greatly from the Alice line.

They couldn’t stop here.

“Our real target is Alice. This rioting doesn’t end until she’s been stopped. The Queen of Hearts and Executioner waiting near Alice could easily be more powerful than the regular Transcendents.”

“If you have the time, could you deal with her too? Mut Thebes is shooting off ‘fireworks’ like this is some kind of party, so it would be great if you could bring that idiot back to her senses!!”

“Oh? Silly girl, are you sure you don’t want to take a video first?”

The giant white ship shook.

She must have been freed from the unseen physics that could be seen as Alice’s ''tailwind''.

Mut Thebes must have absorbed the weapon’s shadow, but where exactly was she attached to it?

“Bff!? Wait, wait, I’ll be good.”

“Finally come to your senses? Then take a look at the collapsed city around you. I can’t wait to see what kind of excuse you can come up with while dripping with sweat, God of Partying.”

“But if my partying was enough to destroy an entire city by accident, doesn’t that make me a super powerful goddess? And since we can all see how ultra-cute I am, can’t I get off the hook with a quick: ‘Oopsie. Tee hee’?”

“Good, Old Mary, use your Tribikos to step on that god of destruction, ship and all. It’s January, so dunking her to the bottom of the river ought to cool her head.”

Aradia icily passed judgment, but then a cracking voice came over the ship’s speakers.

“Oh, and the drone carrier’s antenna picked something up,” said Mut Thebes.

“?”

“It wasn’t encrypted or anything, so it was a lot like a radio transmission. Maybe it’s best to say this is being sent out all over the place. They might have been hoping we would pick it up. It’s being transmitted from ''a prison in District 10'' and it says it’s about Alice Pleasance Liddell.”

===Part 7===

After seeing off the little magician who had freed herself from her self-made bonds, Anna Kingsford sighed all on her own.

The end was nigh.

“Now, then.”

(I need to prepare for my part in this.)

===Part 8===

There were no subjective symptoms.

Kamijou wasn’t even allowed any obvious pain or bleeding.

Then was this a delirium or hallucination caused by all the stress he was under?

Except there was something there.

With each step he took down the long hallway, he heard a sound like thin threads snapping inside him. Like the creaking of bone or the beating of his heart, these were delicate sounds that shouldn’t have been audible outside his body.

He had heard on some trivia show that the simple action of walking concentrated a lot of weight and force on the leg bones. If that was true, then his body could no longer keep up with his movement. His insides were already breaking down to that extent.

Death.

The unavoidable destruction of the self.

Alice apparently wanted to ask Index if there was a way to heal him.

But Kamijou already knew the answer.

This was different from any of the previous times.

Or rather, this wasn’t a one-off failure. Everything he had done had pushed him too far. He was finally paying the price for it all. No one could escape the consequences of their own actions.

The end was nigh.

And it was only now that Kamijou realized something.

In a battle so severe, why hadn’t he noticed anything amiss? His survival this long had been the unnatural part.

“Hm, hm, hm☆”

Alice Anotherbible skipped out ahead of him.

She turned back, her skirt lifting disconcertingly high.

“C’mon, teacher. Everyone’s here now, so you need to hurry. Good or bad, you wouldn’t want it to end without ever learning the answer, would you?”

“…”

That was the opinion of someone watching from the outside.

It was clearly missing the viewpoint of the person on the verge of learning if their death was unavoidable.

They did not arrive at a normal classroom.

That was the door to the library.

That should have made for a poor prison. A solid kick would probably break open the sliding door and the outside windows were probably ordinary glass.

But since Alice had chosen this location, it was probably impossible to open from inside. Even with the knowledge of 103,001 grimoires at your disposal.

The door opened.

From the outside, it was surprisingly easy.

Kamijou doubted that was Imagine Breaker’s doing. He probably just had Alice’s permission.

“Touma!”

He heard a familiar voice.

She wasn’t bound with packing tape or zip ties. The windows and door were not reinforced. But there was definite relief on her face. That was the look of someone who just saw the thick door to their prison cell open.

And her smile froze in place.

The pure white sister was not concerned by Alice and H.T. Trismegistus’s presence. She was clearly looking at something else. The boy could tell that even with the mixture of truth, lies, and hallucination in his head.

“No...what is that?”

Her eyes widened because of Kamijou.

She had already detected something out of the ordinary.

Whether Alice was aware of that or not, she spoke in her childlike way.

“Okay, teacher. Ask her!”

The young butler clearly knew what was coming and struggled to suppress a grin.

Malicious words and actions were not the only way to hurt people.

Because he was bound by common sense, H.T. Trismegistus would never hurl abuse himself. The look on his face seemed to say there was no law against silence.

“I...won’t.”

“You have to,” said Alice.

“There’s no reason to force her to give an answer!!”

“Leaving the question unanswered solves nothing. Stopping here only lets the problem grow worse with time. She has 103,001 grimoires. With so much knowledge from all around the world available to her, the girl just knows she can find a way to heal you!!”

Was it even possible?

Had it been definitively proven, or was it only a theory?

Alice didn’t care about that.

It could be the geocentric theory, phlogiston, an ancient nuclear war, or that dinosaur farts caused the ice age. Of course, it could also be something accurate like universal gravitation or quantum theory. Accurate or not, if a theory had ever been proposed – if someone had thought it up and put together the logic behind it – she could build a bridge to it. She could choose ''whichever theories she wanted'' and link to them to wholly change the world. She was the ultimate conversion device. She could place Yamatai anywhere she liked, she could invent a perpetual motion machine of the first kind to produce unlimited energy, or she could remake the spherical Earth into a flat disk.

So there just had to be a single section in the more than 10 thousand grimoires.

Just one passage.

Even a single line would do.

No matter how absurd or difficult to achieve it was.

Alice could easily activate it and save Kamijou.

''But.

''Even then.

Index did not give a yes or no answer.

She kept her silence.

That was enough of an answer. If she wasn’t willing to say it out loud, she didn’t need to.

Her attempt at kindness was ineffective.

The verdict had been given.

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

Death.

That was the only option left.

Kamijou did not weep or rage.

He even forgot to fall to the floor.

In a way, he abandoned his humanity.

He simply stood there, stock still.

“Hu…man.”

Othinus’s quiet voice was enough for his head to wobble.

There was nothing there.

It wasn’t even emptiness that filled his mind.

He felt a heat surrounding him.

He simply stood there, forgetting even to collapse.

There was no way to save him.

The world had not developed that far.

It was underdeveloped.

People had studied what they liked and technology had branched off into countless directions, but never in this one.

The world didn’t care.

Time would continue on like normal even after he was gone.

And…

“Then let’s destroy it,” said a young voice.

Alice Anotherbible sounded the same as ever.

No, her voice sounded dried out.

Terrifyingly so.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

She sounded like her surprise party plan had fallen apart.

“We have our answer. And if this world can’t save you, teacher, than the girl is going to destroy it. The girl heard what you said, so she knows this world wouldn’t still be here if not for you. So it’s only fair the world goes away when you do, don’t you think?”

“Wait! Don’t, Touma!!” sharply shouted Index.

The knowledge of her grimoires must have told her Alice could do exactly what she claimed. And that she would do it the instant Kamijou gave her some kind of sign.

He would never do that under normal circumstances.

But it was wrong to assume he would behave normally now that he knew he would lose everything.

y/n.

The available options had been narrowed down as far as possible.

The fate of the world hinged on this one question.

“I do not agree.” H.T. Trismegistus finally spoke up, his shoulders shaking as he didn’t even bother to suppress his chuckling. “Destroying the world for a single individual is wrong. Maybe if this would save his life, but you should not destroy humanity if all you are doing is lashing out. Some might consider it moving, but common sense says it is not a benevolent act.”

Alice’s eyes widened like dinner plates.

And she lowered her voice.

“''H. T. Trismegistus''.”

“As you can see…”

The young butler raised his hands and kept speaking, undaunted.

He didn’t seem to care that the invisible muzzle of death was pressed unsteadily against his brow.

“I can tell Alice what common sense says, but I have no real way of stopping her. This is ultimately between you and her. No, make your own choice, Kamijou Touma. You cannot rely on Another Bible here and not even all the world’s grimoires contain a means of saving you. So what will you choose in the final moments now that your death is assured?”

Othinus gasped and looked up from his shoulder.

She was the only person who had just about achieved a perfect victory against Kamijou Touma.

She knew this ending.

She knew this dead end.

Because the one-eyed war god had intentionally set up a situation just like this to kill the boy when he refused to give up no matter what else she tried.

“I see what you’re doing. Hey, human, don’t listen to-!!”

“Yes, you could go crying to Alice and have her take the world out with you. In fact, you needn’t even say a word. If you remain silent, she might just be considerate enough to do it on her own. But common sense tells me that Alice’s ''only'' motivation is making you happy. ''So you could eliminate Alice’s motivation by taking your own life before she destroys the world on your behalf.'' You will die soon regardless, so why not move up the timetable just a bit to save so many people?”

Mere moments before H.T. Trismegistus completed his encircling argument, someone kicked down the library door from the outside.

With no difficulty.

“Fool.”

It was easy to miss by how easily it happened, but this should have been an unavoidable critical hit. Kamijou’s path should have ended.

But it hadn’t.

Because someone wouldn’t let it.

You could develop an attack specialized for a single individual, but that individual didn’t need to fight alone.

Just by setting foot in here, little Anna Sprengel had accomplished what no one else could.

She was probably the only person in the world not affected by Alice’s madness.

She deflected it.

And that villain mercilessly stomped her way into Alice’s territory.

No one could stop her.

“Hmph. So only I made it this far in? I feel a little bad leaving Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the others stuck fighting an endless battle. You basically asked us to come and even showed us the way, but then you drove your guests away? When you think about it, that’s hilariously pathetic.”

“You?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet, you gloomy microdick? You should have known better than to trust your assumptions from the moment you couldn’t kill me with the Shrink Drink filled with Alice’s power.”

Anna chuckled and Othinus gave her a look more of exasperation than admiration.

“I see. So if you had actually killed that shitty villain, we wouldn’t be dealing with this nonsense about her ''outdoing Alice''.”

“Are you saying the world switched rails back then?” asked Index.

“That’s right, you dregs of a god and you pathetic loafer,” said Anna, giving Othinus and Index a scornful look. Then she spread her little hands. “The fool changed things. He moved many people’s hearts with his own actions rather than having Alice cheat for him. I did not achieve this miracle on my own. Don’t you think the first person to receive its blessings should be the one who worked so hard to make it happen?”

Yes.

No one had invited Anna. She did not have Alice’s permission. That meant she had faced Alice’s madness without fear, repelled it, and forced her own actions through.

She faced that tremendous charisma without being engulfed.

She had the brand name of the mystery woman behind the founding of the world’s largest magic cabal.

This villain carried a legend of equal value.

“Honestly. You always let everyone push you around when it comes to Alice, fool. Do you seriously believe in the nice-sounding but scientifically-baseless and perverted jinx that the unclouded eyes of young children reflect truths the adults have long forgotten? If you ask me, you should learn to ignore it all as ''the words of an ignorant little kid''.”

“Anna…?”

“You might die, fool.”

Kamijou’s breath caught in his throat.

The thick invisible wall once more intruded on the ordinary scene around him.

Death.

The end.

It was approaching second by second, yet he felt no pain. Like a cruel time bomb with the LCD screen omitted.

What was wrong with feeling fear?

But Anna wasn’t done talking.

“I said ‘might’. None of this is set in stone, but Alice is acting like it’s 100% going to happen. Why?”

Othinus caught on first.

Almost like the thought had been unnaturally blocked until now.

“Oh, I get it. Everyone would prefer the opposite outcome, but she was enjoying telling everyone that he was definitely going to die.”

“It’s simple really. What did a certain monster need to do for him to drop his guard and let her in? What about showing him a greater threat so she doesn’t seem so bad? Just like I came off as a harmless companion when faced with the greater threats of CRC and Alice. But there is no threat greater at present than the Anotherbible. So a certain someone suggested the fool’s death.”

“Wait.”

“You should already know the answer. Alice Anotherbible only gets so assertive when it comes to Kamijou Touma. In a way, this is to be expected since I imprinted the fool’s past actions in her mind.”

It wasn’t her fault she had been deceived.

Anyone that little villain took advantage of already had an opening in them.

Or you could call it a vulnerability.

She could not create something from nothing. She pried open a small existing hole and then controlled them as she saw fit.

She was a reasonable but contemptible miracle-worker.

“The central factor for her has always been loneliness. Yes, I am the one who deceived her. Wherever she came from, I know the current Alice Anotherbible’s mind better than you.”

So?

What was that supposed to mean?

What was she imagining when she said that?

A cold sweat poured from Kamijou’s body.

For a brief moment, even his very real fear of death vanished from his mind.

“Hold on!! You’re not making sense. Alice means no harm. For better or for worse, what you see is what you get with her. Wasn’t that our initial assumption here? She can’t set people up, plot out some grand plan, or any other intellectual stuff like that!!”

“True,” agreed H.T. Trismegistus. “She is too powerful to do anything of the sort. Common sense says that someone capable of killing a dinosaur with a barehanded punch would never even think of inventing a gun, correct?”

“Shut up, you gloomy butler. And, fool, remind me who you came here to save?”

Anna sounded exasperated.

That was their initial assumption.

Kamijou had said that himself, but he had somehow forgotten it.

“I thought that issue had nothing to do with whether or not you will survive.”

“…”

He wanted to rescue Index and save Alice too.

That was why he had decided to fight Alice. That had been his initial objective.

And yet.

Why was he now seeking salvation from Alice?

Alice was the same as always. She was alive and well. It didn’t matter that her head had been crushed by Rosencreutz.

So shouldn’t he be rejoicing?

Shouldn’t he be weeping and laughing while hugging Alice?

Why was he being driven into a dead end?

''When had his objective been replaced?

''Who had caused that switch?

No.

…But…

It couldn’t be? Could it?

“Fool. I agree that Alice isn’t calculating enough to put together a long-term plan to fool people. Even telling her to ‘sit’ or ‘stay’ in front of a feast wouldn’t last very long. She may only be honestly saying what she believes to be right.”

That was a weirdly indirect phrasing.

Which suggested that phrasing was somehow necessary.

Othinus gave a snort.

“Yeah, I thought that was strange for a grimoire library whose job is to provide answers. Is this why she hesitated to give a response? Because she couldn’t easily reach a yes or no answer?”

The white nun, who was the polar opposite of the villain, spoke up quietly.

“But if Alice’s mind is too badly broken to tell what is and isn’t accurate, she might not be doing the right thing. Touma, you can’t trust that the things she tells you are accurate.”

Everyone’s eyes gathered on a single point.

Even H.T. Trismegistus, who had been taking advantage of the situation.

They heard a creaking sound.

Sounds like thick, straining leather came from within the girl as she hung her head.

“Those magicians could not change the world the way they wanted, nor could they follow their own rules after coming up with lofty salvation conditions,” said Anna Sprengel in a singsong way. “It probably was pure chance that very average group discovered the artificial miracle that is Alice Anotherbible before they began dressing up as gods. But they realized something.”

“…”

“In a mishmash of fiction and reality, a real girl had been remade into the storybook Alice and the storybook Alice had been created in the real world. They extracted a portion of those ‘plans’ and applied it to themselves. By customizing themselves as they liked with pieces of the preexisting open-source spell, they could abandon their individuality to dress up as any god or demon with extraordinary precision.”

The Transcendents really had transformed themselves that way.

At the cost of their own individuality.

For the Bridge Builders Cabal, the ''Anotherbible'' was a priceless text, but Alice was no more than a target of their worship. So they feared her and respected her, but they did everything they could to avoid third parties contacting her.

What had that lonely girl really wanted?

Or, more accurately, who?

“I see,” said Othinus on Kamijou’s shoulder. Sounding somewhat exasperated. “''This human was perfect for the role.'' I see now why that little monster was so obsessed with him.”

“Alice Pleasance Liddell listened to Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, the prototype for it all, and was the one clear model for the protagonist. But in a later era, she was abducted by a ‘Teacher of Crowley’ and thoroughly modified to create the Alice seen in the story.”

Little Anna herself proved that one’s apparent age wasn’t necessaryly reliable.

Even if she was already an adult when she was abducted, the magician would have made the necessary adjustments. Very physical adjustments using a scalpel and saw. It may have taken cutting through bone, sewing together skin, and rearranging organs, but they would have kept working and adjusting until she had the exact same height and adorable appearance as the fictional girl.

That could not have been an enjoyable experience.

But after being freed from the mystery magician and finding a place in the center of the Bridge Builders Cabal, Alice had not been able to live the innocent life of the storybook. Even though she was already free and more powerful than anyone. She had given up on any life other than fulfilling other people’s interests.

And she really had become an innocent child.

She probably wasn’t even aware of her own humiliation and resignation.

Anna sighed softly and dug into the ugly side of humanity.

That was something Kamijou couldn’t do.

This was a territory only allowed for a worldwide villain.

She would carry the burden of everyone’s ire as she revealed the necessary truth.

“A parent who values logic has no dreams to share with their child.

“When Mathematician Lewis Carroll later began creating the world’s greatest fantasy, he laid out symbols and meanings, discovered a special child, and used her as a model to tell the prototype of it all: Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.

“A self-proclaimed Teacher of Crowley saw value in you as no more than the one and only specimen to know of the uncorrected original version, so they remade you by rearranging everything from your bones to your organs into the optimal color, shape, and size.

“When the Bridge Builders Cabal ‘rediscovered’ the girl still wandering in the shadows of the modern world, they only saw you as an open-source spell of great power. They feared and respected you in something more like worship than anything.”

And so the girl had been craving more.

Starving for it.

It mattered little if it was a conscious or subconscious thing.

Alice was always surrounded by so many people, but none of them were really looking at her.

Her reputation had preceded her.

With one exception.

There was one boy who did not want her power as a Transcendent, had rejected the “happiness” brought by her ultimate power, and faced her with nothing but his own fist no matter how many times he was killed.

It all began there.

Like dreaming of something from a storybook, a certain girl had thought that was her last chance there.

So she wanted it no matter what.

“Touma, stand back.”

“Ah.”

“Stand back! Now!!”

Hesitantly, Kamijou got his voice out from his parched and trembling mouth.

While asking himself what it was he was so afraid of.

“Al...ice?”

“Yes?”

''The girl raised her head.

''Except she no longer had anything above her neck.

===Part 9===

Aradia had finally caught up.

She walked through the high school’s front gate, setting foot inside its grounds.

Or so she thought.

“Tch!!”

She immediately swung her black and yellow railroad crossing barrier and was answered with a dull crack. It suddenly broke at about the middle. Even with the power of the goddess of witches, she was forced back.

Good, Old Mary, who was woozy from blood loss, muttered quietly.

“It looks like a rabbit, but it doesn’t have a watch. It must be the March Hare from the tea party.”

“One of the Alice Series!?”

The flamingo bats. The hedgehogs.

The Gryphon, the Executioner, the Cook.

These were Alice’s raw and unstoppable toys which magicians had not yet turned into tools.

They seemed to be fighting as two opposing armies, but here it looked like the enemy of your enemy wasn’t your friend. The flamingo bats and hedgehogs would sometimes attack the Transcendents without provocation, so they couldn’t be trusted.

The March Hare had apparently attacked just now, but which side was he on?

For that matter, why were different monsters born from Alice fighting each other in the first place!?

“What are we supposed to do?” asked the Bologna Succubus.

“We should have Good, Old Mary stay back. We shouldn’t rely too heavily on her resurrection, but we shouldn’t waste her by sending her up against an even more dangerous enemy either!!”

The school was a rather large place.

Where was that boy?

And while they were only regular ones, it was strange that a group of several Transcendents couldn’t get past this one position.

They supposedly each wielded strange spells capable of taking on the entire magic side single-handedly.

The Gryphon, the Executioner, the bipedal hare, and the Cook throwing irons and pots.

They were all Alice’s toys with their origins in Wonderland.

But while they were only toys, they had been directly injected with a portion of Alice’s power. As seen with the Shrink Drink, that power made these far from your normal foe.

Ultimately, the Bridge Builders Cabal did not exist for Alice.

It was the result of the regular Transcendents, who sought and feared her great power, struggling to find some way of managing her.

All on her own, Alice was more powerful than countless armies.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, Good, Old Mary, and Mut Thebes.

Those four Transcendents gathering here was no problem at all for Alice. She probably hadn’t even decided to fight against the Transcendents. This could be seen in how the toys continued fighting each other instead of driving out the intruders.

“By the way, where did Anna get off to!?” asked Aradia.

“Did that slut use mama and the rest of you as bait for these pain-in-the-ass opponents while she went on ahead? She did, didn’t she?”

They said nothing more.

First, they sensed a great pressure. Only a moment later did they feel the powerful tremor in the ground.

It was Dinah the cat.

The fluffy white and black beast had grown larger than the gym, so a single step caused the entire space to shake. The flamingo bats and hedgehogs ran around in a panic and the Gryphon failed to get away in time and had its front leg crushed underfoot.

It didn’t matter if they were on Alice’s side.

And the culprit – Dinah – wasn’t even aware she had done it.

She was the greatest force in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

She carried such great firepower that the mice and birds who caused Alice so much trouble had fled at the mere mention of her name.

If this really was her, then she might cause destruction greater than Alice intended for.

That meant there was a risk of her crushing the entire school building with Kamijou and Alice inside.

Which was exactly what happened.

With her back to the school building, Aradia briefly froze up, so the Bologna Succubus had to flap her bat wings and tackle Aradia from the side to send them both tumbling across the ground. A gust of wind blew past them like a subway train had passed by nearby. That thing was much too large for anyone human-sized to take a direct hit from it. Aradia didn’t have time to celebrate her survival. She roared up toward the heavens while still tangled up with the Bologna Succubus.

That was the most prized of Alice’s toys.

Deadly Dinah.

Only one Transcendent could hope to battle that giant that rivaled a school gym in size.

“Mut Thebes, stop that thing immediately!!”

“It is too soon for me to attack. Wait 15 minutes for me to absorb enough shadows to create a body that can safely face the cat.”

Aradia’s eyes widened.

Mut Thebes wasn’t going to be any help.

Dinah was charging head-first toward the school building.

And just before she crashed into it, a deafening roar rang out.

Dinah was knocked rolling back, gouging large pieces of dirt out of the schoolyard and sending tons of dust into the air. It made no sense. There was no thick barrier there and no steel warship had appeared.

There was only a single human silhouette.

It looked downright minuscule compared to Dinah, who was large enough to look down at the gym.

Nevertheless, it was Dinah whose max-speed charge had been repelled, sending her rolling backwards.

“Wha-?”

Aradia was speechless.

This wasn’t even a Transcendent.

“Honestly.”

A voice came from the cloud of dust.

Aradia’s group did not recognize the voice. But the female voice inspired a compulsion that prevented even the Transcendents from taking it lightly.

“Alice Anotherbible has fallen apart more than I 💭. All of these things are a 🧩 of her – they are the many opinions she has ❌ been able to reconcile. I did ❌ expect her to be so overwhelmed with emotion that she nearly crushed her own 🏰 with her inside.”

This was Anna Kingsford.

The magician stood there on her own two feet without borrowing anyone’s appearance or abilities.

A moment later, the dirt thrown high into the sky was pulled back down by gravity.

It was like a dry rain.

Kingsford casually directed her index finger skyward and something invisible became a large umbrella. She alone was left without a speck of dust in her hair or on her clothes.

Something sliced sharply through the dusty veil.

It was a flamingo bat and the Cook.

Both sides of the conflict arrived at once.

Kingsford extended a single finger and drew out a few patterns in empty air.

They were constellations.

Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces.

The sharp sound was a moment delayed.

A scattershot of compressed water tore through the Cook like a cookie cutter through dough. When her blue-glowing fingertip turned toward the flamingo bat, the bat began to tremble while hovering in the air. Despite being inorganic, it clearly shrank two sizes.

The basics of astrology were to assign various elements and symbols to the 7 planets and 12 constellations of the horoscope and then experiment to see what effects were produced on yourself and others when they were applied from different angles and combinations. There were even tricky ways of building them into attack spells.

So by combining only the water element constellations, you could greatly amplify the power of ordinary water.

Instead of simple addition, it worked through multiplication, so it was like shifting up a gear in a car.

That expert did not bother coming up with impressive special attacks.

By earnestly working at the basic fundamentals that anyone could do and that novices tended to look down on, any magic could be brought to the point of a one-hit kill.

But none of that was particularly important.

For one, that wouldn’t be enough to kill Dinah.

“I will ❌ let you destroy the things you care about, Alice. That would be much too 😢 to see. I assure you on my name as an expert, being special does ❌ cut you off from the supply of ☺️.”

Just then…

“…?”

Anna Kingsford looked down at her right hand.

A red liquid was dripping from it.

She only had a slight cut on her fingertip, but the amount of blood was not the issue.

She shouldn’t have been harmed at all in that situation.

That expert never made mistakes.

So if something unexpected occurred regardless, it meant the problem was with the initial data she was working with, not her calculations.

In other words…

“Is this body reaching its limit?” she whispered, holding her fingertip in her mouth.

Her voice itself was a lot “rougher” than it had been when she was first booted up in Shibuya’s Miyashita Ark. It wasn’t limited to her outward appearance. This proved the injury and deterioration was also progressing where it couldn’t be seen.

She didn’t show the slightest hint of fear as she looked out ahead.

In fact, she took a step forward.

The cat large enough to crush the gym rose to her feet again.

Kingsford couldn’t continue on and leave this with the regular Transcendents. She had never figured out how to pick and choose who she saved.

These were Alice’s raw toys, which had yet to be turned into easy-to-use tools like the Shrink Drink. And this cat was the greatest of them. She was a mass of violence and destruction that wouldn’t bat an eye as she trampled all the other toys.

Dinah.

The expert faced the cat head on, holding the brim of her large hat between her fingertips.

She doubted her body would last to the end.

For that matter, it was unnatural for a preserved corpse her to be moving around at all.

(But I can accept that.)

So she decided on a more realistic goal: injuring Dinah enough to create an opening or weak point the Transcendents could take advantage of to defeat Dinah on their own.

The expert knew her doom was closing in on her, but she still spoke with her usual smile.

“⌚ to serve others.”

===Part 10===

She was a headless girl.

A little corpse.

Yet she was also standing up and looking at Kamijou.

He distinctly felt the pressure of her gaze.

The atmosphere in the library changed. The scales were rapidly tilting in a direction he did not like at all.

“!?”

Without thinking, he stepped back away from her.

This was an expression of malice that shouldn’t have been necessary.

Which proved it had been intentional.

It was true after all.

No matter how you looked at it, the center of the problem was right there.

It always had been.

Kamijou pushed past the fear of death he knew was coming and shouted.

“Alice!!”

He heard a sound like tearing cardboard.

No, not like. The headless girl really did tear down the center. And something else emerged, sticky with a translucent fluid.

This had happened before.

But this was not the little girl dressed in profane red and black leather.

This form could never have fit in that small body.

But she wasn’t accepting questions.

At the top of the vertical tear, near where the head should have been, an arm jutted straight up, but this arm belonged to a captivatingly beautiful woman. With a splat, she collapsed forward to crawl like a dog. The translucent slime left behind strings that stained the floor. She squirmed like a fluffy red boa. The leather bound her bright, wet body more tightly than necessary and her long blonde hair was so wet it writhed on the ground as a single clump. After instantly becoming a woman of about 18, she crawled forward and swung her head upwards. The wet hair covering her face swung back behind her, revealing her beautiful face.

“Touma!!”

Alice Anotherbible.

Or maybe Alice Pleasance Liddell.

Her true form.

“Did you use yourself as the ingredients to recreate the ideal version of yourself?” said Othinus in disgust.

Alice worked her alluring throat to release growls and her fingers scratched at the floor like an animal with sharp and sinister claws. She could not have been farther removed from reason, intelligence, and innocent adorableness.

Violence.

Battle.

Killing.

That was all she was.

She shined with the same light as a sword that had had been made so deadly it gained an odd beauty.

The fear of death was gone.

Even that thick invisible wall had vanished.

Kamijou felt a tingling in the back of his head. With the sharp claws, the large canine teeth emerging from her lips, and the fearsome light in her eyes, he knew there was so much he needed to focus on, yet he couldn’t read even a hint of deadliness from her. But he knew this wasn’t Alice doing anything special. His own mind had numbed the fear. Because if he accurately understood the threat here, his heart would stop of its own accord. His heart would raise the white flag before his mind did.

The animal rose to her feet.

The fully grown body of an alluringly beautiful woman straightened her legs and stood up like she had only just remembered she could.

She took a fighting stance.

“Teacher…”

That one word created a distortion.

But not in Alice. The bookcases, the reading desks, the floor, the walls, and everything else Kamijou could see looked like a child had scribbled out their outlines in white and black.

“The girl…wants…only one goal. She will…have this…no matter…matter what.”

He could have understood if she said she would kill him just for fun.

Or if she said she deeply resented him.

Even if she said she would destroy the world based on some inscrutable logic, he might have decided that made sense for someone so very different.

But.

“The girl wants...to make up...with you.”

Everything froze.

Inside Kamijou Touma, time ground to a halt.

Was that it.

Was that really and truly all there was to it?

At the Bridge Builders Cabal consulate in District 12, Kamijou and Alice had disagreed over her attempted punishment of H.T. Trismegistus, who had tried to kill him, and Good, Old Mary, who had failed to protect him.

CRC had killed her and she had regained her lost head.

She had driven the world mad and might destroy it as soon as tomorrow.

But this had never changed.

She only wanted to mend that broken bond.

No matter what it took.

Even if her methods were seen as unfair.

That little girl didn’t care. Kamijou should have bowed his head and apologized, but he had completely forgotten after learning about his imminent death.

Nevertheless, she was trying to achieve it on her own, even if it meant dirtying her hands.

So they could smile together again.

“So.”

It all took a turn.

Her behavior was distorted.

Only in Alice’s mind did it all fit together smoothly.

“The girl will make up with you. She will fight you because a serious fight allows people to make up. But it has to be serious, so what can the girl do to get you to fight her? This city, this country, and this world can wait. It has to be serious. The girl understands you, teacher, so she knows you will fight her and make up with her.”

She said it all in a terribly ''drawn out'' and flat, emotionless voice. Her emotions were so intense it was all destroyed, like the recording medium itself was being burned from below by a lighter.

Alice probably really could do that.

And what would happen?

Would the world really end over this?

Maybe Alice could no longer make logical connections between the different pieces of data.

Kamijou had thoroughly broken that girl’s mind.

Issues of right and wrong or like and dislike were trivial at this point. They would no longer provide a dividing line between enemy and ally. This wasn’t like mantises that were programmed so the female would always eat the male. Perhaps it was closer to spiders where the female would sometimes suddenly leap at and devour the male in the middle of the male’s courtship display. Even with the same species facing each other one-on-one, and even with the male expressing his love and the female accepting it, she might mercilessly devour him on a whim. She would only realize she had done it after the fact. You couldn’t predict what would happen even a second into the future with a being like that.

She was such a close but distant being.

She was different.

She was a predator beautifully made by stretching out the muscles, laying out the nerves, hardening the bones.

Kamijou didn’t find her frightening anymore.

He felt sorrow instead.

“Stand back, fool,” coldly insisted Anna Sprengel.

The look she gave Alice was unusual for that villain.

Alice was another irregular Transcendent – another open-source path to power – but one who would never stand on the same side as Anna. Anna gave her a look of pity.

“You understand, don’t you? She’s a lot like an unstable animal. If you approach her now, she might turn you to mincemeat without even meaning to. In the worst case, she might decide that, if she can’t have you alive, she will tear off your head and take that away with her.”

Kamijou shook his head.

Would he battle Alice?

And defeat her?

“I can’t do that.”

This wasn’t about the size of the threat. He couldn’t picture it. It felt wrong. He wanted to trust in that part of himself.

He recalled that giant dragon.

When he had punched CRC away and given up on his possibilities, he had felt a disgusting sensation.

A future where he and CRC could stand side-by-side smiling had been lost. Kamijou had made sure of it.

And the fear caused by his prophesied death made him feel this way all the more.

Would he use that against Alice this time?

Like hell he would.

“Because I can’t save Alice that way. Isn’t there some other way!?”

Index and her 103,001 grimoires were here. So was Othinus, who had once been a Magic God. Not to mention Anna Sprengel, who was familiar with Rosicrucianism and the Bridge Builders Cabal.

Combining those three’s knowledge could reveal a way of saving Alice.

But…

“That really depends on your definition of ‘save’,” said Othinus. “Human, would you really be saving her if you grabbed that oversized head and shoved it back inside the small body? Back inside that shed skin?”

She was a god who had once destroyed the world and been pursued by all of humanity as a great criminal.

That Magic God was saying this about ''another monster capable of ending the world''.

She said it clearly, without averting her gaze from reality.

This was nothing as over-the-top as saving humanity or protecting the world.

It was a more personal miracle.

But she was speaking to the boy who really had risked his life to save a lonely god.

“You are here, human. So make your own choice. This here is the real Alice. She isn’t pure or innocent, but if the world can accept her this way, that would be one way of saving her.”

“Oh,” said Kamijou, sounding exasperated.

He just had to bring Alice back to her senses.

He kept that in mind while ignoring the issue of how difficult that would be to actually pull off.

“So if I risk my life, a path opens up?”

That was the best news he’d heard all day.

In that instant, an explosion erupted out.

Something twisted and scattered around right in front of his eyes. It took him a moment to realize they were fake roses.

Or that he would have been decapitated if not for them.

Alice had attacked.

He didn’t know why.

It was possible she didn’t either.

She was a captivatingly beautiful monster, but she was not a villain.

He had to believe that.

How deadly she looked had nothing to do with whether she was good or bad. She would bare her fangs whether it was right or wrong and whether she liked you or not. She was an unstable collection of power with only that function.

So he couldn’t falter.

He couldn’t turn Alice into a monster. He couldn’t accept that conclusion.

“Fool, the rose is a symbol of change. This applies to the Golden brooch that can create any sigil through the orderly arrangement of the 22 Hebrew letters and it applies to white and red roses colored with paint in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. ''By forcibly altering the interpretation and building a bridge,'' I can divert at least one of her attacks.”

Anna Sprengel stared straight ahead as she said this, but she had a red wound running across her cheek.

That had only been a villain’s trickery.

Kamijou couldn’t expect it to work forever.

But he should be plenty thankful it had worked at all in this real confrontation.

And while deflecting the attack was all well and good, he had no idea what Alice had done even after being on the receiving end of her attack.

The animal roared loud.

“Oooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Was that magic?

It was an apocalyptic roar.

A great energy grounded in something other than intelligence and reason spiraled out. The roar reflected off the walls and floor before gathering unnaturally on a single point in space.

Anna swept her little hand from left to right.

That was all it took for a thick shockwave to bend like a bow and knock over a few bookcases.

It was actually Alice who paused for a beat.

With her right hand still jabbing out with the fingers together. Perhaps that would have knocked off Kamijou’s head and then stabbed through his corpse’s heart before it could even fall to the floor.

''Slap!!

Little Anna, who would look better than anyone delivering a double slap, sent another attack sweeping up from below.

This may have been a first.

Alice Anotherbible’s attack wasn’t deflected or redirected – it was stopped from head on by an attack of equal power.

“Kh.”

“Why do you look so surprised?”

The little villain grinned and exchanged a glare with Alice at close range. Anna accepted Alice’s gaze without trying to escape.

She was a Transcendent not based on Alice.

She was another irregular Transcendent.

“Did you think you were special? There’s no such thing in the world of magic. I’m a magician who dressed up as Kingsford so I could stop my foolish students from ignoring my teaching and attempting self-destructive magic. I built my secret art from the ground up with the hands I had bloodied attempting to protect those lovable fools. Did you really think my way was inferior to the secret art you were simply given and have no real use for!?”

Alice’s hand was fully deflected.

She spun around, her partially-retracted arm blurring into streamlines. She chose a new target to attack. Index was chosen first, so Kamijou shoved the nun out of the way.

Fingers capable of tearing through steel rushed toward Kamijou.

Flashes of light intersected like a cross.

The fingers and claws sent horizontally toward Kamijou’s throat were stopped at the last second by an extremely thin blade.

Courtesy of H.T. Trismegistus.

No…

“My right hand contains Zeus. My left hand contains Indra. Thus I am renewed. Z.I. Trismegistus conversion complete!!”

Blinding white flashed from the point of contact between the struggling sword and fingers.

That was probably a high-voltage current.

The electrical energy was powerful enough to burn through a metal panel thicker than a thumb.

Of course, this wouldn’t be enough to defeat Alice. But dazzling her eyes for a moment meant a lot.

It gave Kamijou time to fall back.

“What the hell!? Can you just pick a side and stay on it!?” complained Othinus.

“Common sense says…”

The young butler hung his head.

He clenched his fist hard enough for his sword cane to creak.

“Common sense says I cannot expect Christian Rosencreutz to show up and save us here and now. And not just him. No one who isn’t present can do anything to help. I was wrong to place my hopes on people like that. No matter how complex and challenging the world’s problems, it is up to the people living in it to solve them.”

Now that he was freed from his bonds, H.T. Trismegistus spoke clearly.

“It is the people with us now who will decide how this ends. So it would be foolish in the extreme to not make use of that right. So says common sense!!”

Alice Anotherbible had tremendous power.

That power led a great many people to gather around her. But the Transcendents who had wanted to use her to make themselves special may have seemed like a stale and uninteresting bunch to Alice.

But that wasn’t all.

It couldn’t be.

In addition to the power someone had forced her to carry, Alice had had drawn quite a few people to herself in a different way. No matter what anyone might say, as much as she might resent the magician who had created “Alice Anotherbible” and however she saw things herself, Alice had not been alone. She had been loved.

Because if she wasn’t, Kamijou Touma, Anna Sprengel, and H.T. Trismegistus – people with such different positions and intentions – wouldn’t have all gathered here like this.

They wouldn’t have been working together to save Alice.

“Hey, Alice.”
She didn’t say anything, but Kamijou still smiled.

He was certain that Alice had the wrong idea of what it meant to be an adult.

When adults ran into problems, they asked for help. They would rely on and depend on others. They simply did their best to hide this in front of the small children.

Trying to do it all yourself and thinking you could solve anything if you had a special power was a child’s way of thinking.

So he had a lesson for her.

And for the world’s greatest illusion.

He would teach her that letting her ugly side show wasn’t going to destroy her world.

Alice Anotherbible wouldn’t be a lonely monster.

He wouldn’t let her.

An invisible wall had shattered inside Kamijou Touma.

He could deal with the deadly prophecy later. Because he had found something more important.

“If you think you can use your power to twist everything to your will… If you think you can take everything you loathe and make it everyone else’s problem…”

A perfectly ordinary high school boy clenched his right fist.

Tightly.

“Then I’ll destroy that illusion!!!”

None of the problems had been resolved. The boy had only adjusted his internal priorities.

Kamijou Touma would die today.

''But so what?

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter3

2024-04-22T02:23:30Z

Edzo: /* Part 8 */ fixed typo "know" to "knew" in "She know this dead end"

==Chapter 3: Prophecy – Last_Branch(of_Die).==

===Part 1===

Late at night in District 7, Anna Kingsford stood at the very top of an enormous crane.

She stood tall and simply directed her gaze overhead.

The night sky seemed blotted out by the lights of the city, but viewing the clear stars in the sky gave this expert access to more information than searching the world linked together by fiber optics.

And she only used this for just causes.

Which was what made her an expert.

(The ⭐s are in place. That boy should become aware of the branch he passed by now.)

She sighed.

That was a complete side issue.

For one, Kingsford had never directly met Kamijou Touma. Which made him no more than a stranger in the same city as her.

(But awareness does ❌ allow him to change it. It may be his life, but he can ❌ change the decision he made on a branch he has already passed. Just like CRC passed a crucial branch ''and was defeated in a ⚔️ he should have won easily.'' The greatest enemy in an individual’s life is their own karma.)

“Not that he can ignore it now that he knows.”

But she would not just abandon him.

That expert did not consider her own interests, the state of the battle, or even whether or not she knew the boy.

He was a complete stranger?

So what?

If anyone was troubled, uncertain, or suffering, she was already taking action.

Anna Kingsford had perfected that way of life.

A fool who had yet to reach that point spoke to her.

It was the human named Aleister.

“Where are you going, Kingsford?”

“To serve others.”

“That’s my job. There’s no reason for you to continue fighting!!”

Even her battle against Rosencreutz had essentially been a miracle.

She had not actually won the battle. CRC could instantly search for any information about the world, but he had ''just so happened'' to overlook the fact that Anna Kingsford was a preserved corpse. If not for that, he would have destroyed her more thoroughly and she couldn’t have recovered.

She was reliant on unpredictable miracles.

Even a magician who mastered the field to the point of being known as an expert would lose eventually.

She had to know that.

Alice Anotherbible had easily crushed and killed CRC and so thoroughly eliminated him from the world that he could never recover. She was a true monster.

Kingsford had not reached that point.

She had to understand that. She wielded great power using the correspondence between the microcosm within a person and the macrocosm of the physical world around them, so she would have thoroughly analyzed herself in that way.

But the woman with a proper understanding of magic’s essence smiled as she responded.

She was accurately viewing her own fate, but she didn’t hesitate to speak.

“This is 👋.”

“But!!”

Contact with the new Board Chairman had been lost.

They couldn’t hope for anymore cooperation, so they had to settle this on their own.

The situation was clearly worsening and Alice was even more powerful than CRC. Certain death awaited Kingsford. Alice waited in a land that brought death to all who set foot there.

“Aleister. You must have understood from the beginning that I am ❌ more than a preserved corpse. You are only using ⚙️s to move an already ☠️ body around, so I never was alive. I escaped the previous ⚔️ intact by pure luck, but ❌ even that can save me next time. This ☠️ body will find only ☠️.”

“…”

As an expert who understood the secrets of the world of the living and the world of the dead, she was not too attached to her own life.

The only ones who clung to life with such ugly desperation were the half-baked magicians who remained fixated on this one life.

Still, he understood in his own inexpert way.

Anna Kingsford was an expert through and through. She didn’t even think of clinging to life or staying in this world forever.

She was only interested in eliminating the unknown threat making someone suffer before her eyes.

She didn’t even consider whether or not she had ever met that person.

She had no intention of returning. Her win condition didn’t even take that into account.

She was an example of how far people could go if they mastered their field.

“What was my role meant to be? I was supposed to be a trump 🃏 for use against the unbeatable Anna Sprengel. Now that Miss Sprengel has been freed from her wicked ⛓️ and that ⚔️ need ❌ be fought, my purpose is complete.”

Aleister had no response to that.

Because she was exactly right.

This goodbye could not be avoided. This was Aleister Crowley’s reward for wielding superhuman knowledge, doing what no one else could do, and enduring trials normal people would never even know existed. Kingsford was correct that the greatest enemy in an individual’s life was their own karma.

He was already in checkmate.

And yet…

“That just means I have to do the work myself.”

He understood it intellectually but he still tried to fight it. Was that because Aleister was an inexpert and ugly human?

But you must never forget that, while that human had accumulated a lot of bad karma, he would never stop struggling for his own ends.

“Aleister Crowley officially died in 1947 and stubbornly clung to life until he actually died battling Great Demon Coronzon. I’m as dead as you are. If someone has to save that boy, I’ll do it. I can do it if necessary!! And I’m better suited for that role. The wickedest man in the world should be standing up to the world even after death, not a pure and proper holy woman!”

“But you are still fixated on this 🌍.”

She shot back.

A true expert did not bother arguing about secrets.

She had already seen into the depths of his mind that even he wasn’t consciously aware existed.

She did it naturally.

And kindly.

“Conscious or ❌, you hijacked that great 👿’s body to cling to life. Either you still have something you want to do in this 🌍, or there is something you are ❌ yet willing to give up here. Dying for him is not the same as living with him. It never can be. Either way, it is too soon for you. Everyone dies eventually, so there is no need to rush toward ☠️. Live out your life first, Aleister. You can prepare yourself for ☠️ once you have done that.”

Kingsford smiled as she said this.

Smiled faintly.

Aleister lightly clenched his empty right hand.

He felt the pressure of a staff so twisted his fingertips tingled at the mere sight of it.

Special numbers scattered from his hand like sparks.

“I’ve had enough. What if I said I would stop you by force?”

“I would knock you aside and continue on my way.”

“Kh.”

She didn’t even hesitate.

She said it gently, like it was a foregone conclusion.

Kingsford used no more than words to overpower the victor of the Battle of Blythe Road.

He couldn’t say she couldn’t do it. He was already well past his limit with Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel. He had only so insolently decided to make use of this preserved corpse because he couldn’t handle them.

Trickery, betrayal, surprise attacks, intrigue, and – when necessary – direct confrontation.

He had used every trick in the book to drive the world’s greatest magic cabal to destruction at the Battle of Blythe Road, but none of it would work here.

He could not win in a direct one-on-one confrontation.

If Anna Kingsford went all out, Aleister had no way of opposing her. He knew she would simply prove how inexpert he really was. He would never manage to get his hands on the switch hidden below her skin.

“I do ❌ want you to ☠️ here. No number of previous ☠️s is any reason to accept ☠️ next time. So I will use all of my power to defeat you here. Soundly enough that you do ❌ have enough strength left to go out and ☠️.”

That was contradictory.

Kingsford kept saying she would not let people die so easily, but she was about to head out for her own death.

She was saying she would use up all of the tickets provided for her as a thinking and moving preserved corpse.

But that gentle smile of hers made the contradictory premise and conclusion seem to fit together with no problem.

It was strange really.

Was this the essence of magic known only to the few true experts – a position Aleister had yet to reach? This was the human-made miracle of protecting everyone you encountered and spreading smiles everywhere you went.

He couldn’t stop her.

This wasn’t the ''divine cosplay spell'' that simply let one dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. Nor was it the reverse logic where one tried to divulge the workings of the world to rebel against the god they so hated.

With a quiet bump, the failure of a student buried his face in Anna Kingsford’s chest.

He sniffled like a child.

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have to die.”

“That I met someone who feels that way and that I inspired these feelings in you, who felt betrayed by everything, tells me that I have won a victory against this 🌍.”

Clear drops spilled out.

Anna Kingsford held the lost child’s head to her chest and whispered gently to him.

She stroked the inexpert one’s blonde hair like a mother.

“I think you did have need of my preserved corpse. Especially on December 31. If no one had stopped Anna Sprengel, the 🌍 would have been thrown into chaos before CRC could even be reborn.”

One by one, the expert explained everything to the fool.

She taught him some terribly simple things that no one had ever before taught that human.

Not his parents who had thought meaningless strictness was a virtue, not his teachers who had failed to correct the social problem left in their care, and not the Golden magicians who had abandoned their pursuit of knowledge to spend their time on ugly internecine conflict.

Even though these should have been the first things he was taught.

“But you must ❌ toy with life. Because you are powerful enough to do so with ease, you have ❌ way to keep yourself focused other than using pure willpower to manage yourself. The ☠️ have their own dignity. Humans remain human even in ☠️. You ensured your own pain from the moment you disrespected the ☠️ for the sake of the living. Improve yourself, Aleister. If you do ❌ fear taking the long way around to avoid pain, there is much you can learn. Just like any magician.”

“…”

“And do ❌ worry, lost child of the living. You will not be alone. As an expert, I will do whatever it takes to save the one you care for. Even if it requires every trick in the 📖. So there is ❌ chance you will be crushed by loneliness.”

===Part 2===

Kamijou Touma heard a wet sound.

It came from inside his body.

He thought he must have imagined it.

But the sound of rotting flesh falling away was so distinct.

“…”

He was dying.

He was certain of it in that brightly lit classroom.

It was an unavoidable fate. No one had cruelly pushed him to this point. There was a chance he could have survived had he given up on saving others, but he had chosen this path for himself while on the dark side.

He felt an odd scraping.

Was that the wound from Aradia he felt in his right side and spine? The odd feeling in his neck would be H.T. Trismegistus.

Everything felt normal-ish, but that lack of extreme pain only terrified him more.

Something was definitely happening to him.

He couldn’t tell what was happening inside him. He only felt a vague disgust. It was like his silent organs were changing color without sending out any kind of alert. Death. The end. An invisible pressure. A cruel time bomb with the LCD timer omitted.

“Human…”

Even Magic God Othinus only groaned that word before falling silent.

There was no recovering from this.

''“You will die.”

''“That doesn’t change my answer.”

Thinking back, he had made that fateful choice when that god wasn’t with him.

He had carelessly made such an important decision on his own.

Of course he had screwed it up.

Everything had been wrong from the beginning.

How many times had he availed himself of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection? In other words, ''how many times had he died on the way here''? In just a few days’ time? Maybe you would survive certain death, as if by mistake, once over your long life. But he seriously doubted those bugs or errors would occur in his favor every single time like that. Not to mention that he was plagued by misfortune due to his right hand, so lady luck would never smile on him in that way.

The flaw wasn’t in Good, Old Mary.

Bringing him back to life even once was more than enough of a miracle.

The problem was him having her use it so many times in such a short period of time without considering the usage limits.

''He couldn’t fool death any longer.

''The corner of the mask was starting to peel away.

“Hey, teacher, why do you think the girl wanted the grimoire library?”

“…”

“Because the girl wanted to use the library’s knowledge to do something she couldn’t? To correct her broken head? No, the girl is already perfect and unbreakable. The answer is simple. ''The girl wanted to help you after you passed the final branch.'' The girl wanted to search through a library of all the world’s knowledge to find some method still remaining in this world. That was all.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………”

He had passed the fatal branch.

He had foolishly chosen to cross it and he had arrived at a mistaken destination.

Which one of them was really in need of help?

“If the girl found it, she would use it. If not, she would give up, deciding the world was just too shallow. There are billions of people in this wide world, so if not even one of them has a way to save you, it means they didn’t try hard enough and then the girl would have to punish them all with her power.”

H.T. Trismegistus had said he had always been one of the Killers.

He had said the swiftest and surest way to take Kamijou’s life was to have him meet Alice. He had been right.

It didn’t help the deathly ill to fear the doctor’s prognosis. Kamijou understood that. They had come down with the illness much earlier. The real problem may have been from their exercise, diet, or other life habits.

Nevertheless, that fear was real.

The tables had been turned.

The symbol of death had shifted from Alice Anotherbible to another girl Kamijou knew quite well.

White. Pure white. The all-knowing nun who was always by his side.

He felt no pain.

He wasn’t even given the right to writhe in agony as certain death approached.

The pressure mounted.

Like he was being slowly crushed by an incredibly thick invisible wall.

Which was more horrific: being turned to red and black spray by the world’s fastest linear motor train before you could even feel the fear, or having your body gradually drawn into the wheel of a local train as it pulled into the station?

With no malice, the girl spoke with an innocent smile.

“Well, teacher? Let’s go see the grimoire library! The girl can’t diagnose you, so we can have the all-knowing nun do that part☆”

===Part 3===

H.T. Trismegistus watched from a distance.

He had known Alice Anotherbible longer than any other member of the Bridge Builders Cabal. After all, he was the one who had discovered her in the modern day.

But there was a lot the young butler did not know.

Most notably, he did not know her origins.

Where was she born, where was she raised, where was she altered, and from where had she fled?

He didn’t have a single answer.

It had only been pure coincidence when he found her in a city abroad. She was in the shadows of a roofless shelter. She had tremendous value as an open-source spell, but he had not realized this until well after taking in the wandering girl.

At first, she had been like a wild animal.

She had gone so wild he had questioned what she had even eaten to survive.

It was nothing more than luck that Alice hadn’t known how to use her power. If she had chaotically wielded her power as Alice Anotherbible at that point, she probably would have destroyed the entire world.

Alice was smiling innocently next to someone else.

She wore an expression he had never seen before.

That much was fine.

The young man simply obeyed. Of course, this was for himself, not for Alice. H.T. Trismegistus was a Transcendent who had abandoned his magic name to dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. He could only view the world and choose who to save based on the salvation condition he had set for himself. So the first person he had to save was not himself or Alice.

He was the guardian deity of common sense.

He protected the people against anything that altered people’s sense of normalcy: war, rioting, disaster, loneliness, disease, famine, financial panic.

He sought a master who would save the world.

''Or to put it another way,'' the only person he would allow to distort common sense was the bearer of the paradigm shift that would guide all of humanity to the next stage. He could not leave this in the hands of just any old charismatic leader.

Was Christian Rosencreutz the one he sought?

Or was it Alice Anotherbible?

His objective was clear, but a question occurred to the young butler.

He knew his salvation condition.

But who exactly did he want to save?

===Part 4===

On the District 7 bridge, the Transcendents vs. Transcendents battle was trending in one direction.

“Tch! Good, Old Mary!?” shouted Aradia, holding onto the railroad crossing barrier she had borrowed as a broom and clinging to the side of a steel beam distributing the bridge’s weight.

But the woman collapsed on the cold asphalt did not respond.

That was a bad sign.

Good, Old Mary was the foundation of their recovery magic, but she had suddenly collapsed.

This was worse than simply losing one of their number.

Vidhatri, the brown-skinned woman with model-like proportions, shook the arms and legs of the Dhatri ball-joint doll she wore on her back, intricately manipulating white thread and black hair as she whispered to Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

“Do you still need support?”

“Nope. Everyone can do their own thing. Instead of assigning as many Transcendents as we can to attacking a single point, it would help me if we increased the total number of attack points to fill up the processing power of their minds.”

Something hovered through the air.

Some teacups and saucers were slowly flying around

Those were symbols from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Bologna Succubus noticed and groaned while breathing heavily with her hands down on the ground.

“Kssshhh, they’ve made it this far?”

“Ha ha☆ Of course they have.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet smiled calmly.

A single smile on that extremely lovable face summoned a great black dragon into the night sky. Was the twisting serpent actually tens of thousands of starlings? They were not venomous, but in great enough numbers, any creature was a threat to human life.

The instant the Bologna Succubus looked up at the black dragon filling the entire night sky, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet took a large step forward.

Without hesitation.

“Kh.”

Now was not the time to be overwhelmed by the intimidating numbers.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to gather as much air as possible.

She launched herself straight to the side.

The coat-shaped blast-resistant suit covered in thick metal panels snapped shut like a ferocious beast’s jaws. It was a sweet-smelling iron maiden. The air inside that isolated space was compressed with no outlet, producing a strange sound much like a steam engine.

The Bologna Succubus had just barely avoided it.

If she had carelessly stayed in place, she would have been “devoured”.

Instead of feeling fear, she gathered offensive power between her brows.

(Argh. I can’t let this chaos be unleashed on the boy’s city.)

What were Kamijou Touma and Alice Anotherbible doing right now?

She couldn’t predict how few seconds a regular Transcendent would last against Alice if she were serious about fighting, but it was still much too dangerous to let that boy stand defenselessly before Alice.

The alluring demon smiled bitterly at that thought and focused her feelings on the battle at hand.

“Oh, what’s this?”

Smiling, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet again spread her arms wide. Slowly.

Almost like a solid wall, a stifling nectar scent emerged from the blast-resistant suit and pushed toward the Bologna Succubus. Even at this distance, she had to stay focused to avoid getting dizzy.

What was happening in that closed world?

The skinny girl(?) wearing an apron over her naked body giggled before speaking.

“This won’t hurt at all, so don’t worry. I’m more interested in creating a gentle world where even the unloved are loved equally. Did you really understand my salvation condition? Kee hee hee☆ I have love even for a filthy sex demon, so get over here and let me give you a hug!!”

“Killing with pleasure, huh?”

“Ah ha ha☆ This is Total Courtship! Welcome to the sweetest, most luxurious ending to a life♪”

Roaches could rapidly build up a resistance to deadly insecticides, so they couldn’t necessarily be killed by escalating the chemical suffering. Instead, there were products that ''tricked them'' into thinking ethanol, acetaldehyde, sotolon, or another chemical compound was delicious food, luring them into the trap where they would take a different chemical back to the colony to kill them all at once. Humans didn’t just use what their target disliked – they would also use whatever their target most liked.

This girl similarly used love to kill. She was a super sweet monster who had continually honed the emotion of love into a deadly weapon. If you simply increased your defenses to prevent pain and prepared ordinary attacks, she would ''slip past them all'' and kill you instantly.

She was a specialist in that.

This Transcendent was a different form of strongest, whose trump card was the complete opposite of the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress which converted all forms of pleasure into pain.

Her victims were robbed of even the right to feel fear as they were filled with no more than ''happiness'' until they lost their life. In a trippy world where everything was vague, they would cross the final line without intent or resolve.

They were stranded.

She had complete control over them, not even giving them a chance to speak their final words.

She brought a death more certain than a .44 caliber bullet and its name was love.

“Yeah, I don’t think we could ever get along.”

“Kya ha ha☆ You’re only saying that because that makes it more exciting, aren’t you!?”

This must have been her combat form.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet had her enormous blast-resistant suit spread wide to display the terrarium trapped within. The skinny naked-apron girl pushed out a nectar scent so powerful it caused heartburn. And she took a casual step forward.

“You didn’t find it remotely odd? We’re all regular Transcendents here. A clash between our two groups shouldn’t end so easily. Yet you’re being easily defeated in a one-sided game. Is it a bad matchup between the individual Transcendents? Do our spells combine so well it’s like we were dealt a royal flush? No, that could never happen.”

“…”

“''No one can defeat Alice Anotherbible.''”

For this alone, she took on a respectful tone.

Almost like she was reading off the handwritten creed only she believed in.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet thought only of her own blessings as she spoke euphorically.

“You underestimated the meaning of that statement. And that optimism has brought you certain death. It doesn’t just mean you won’t survive a direct physical fight against Alice. There’s no getting around it. We control all of the coincidences and all of our baseless hunches and inspirations will work out in our favor. We have the ''trends'' of the world on our side. That is what it means to ‘resonate’ with Alice and take the winning side. To be clear, we are only firing blindly from the hip. You’re the ones ensuring we hit you.”

Vidhatri.

2nd Saga.

And Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

The Bologna Succubus’s side was being worn down, but all three of them were unharmed. She had gotten a few clean hits in on them, so had they managed to shrug off the damage?

And she was slipping past their expectations and landing an attack they failed to dodge or defend against, so it made no sense for them to be changing their stance to reduce the damage with 100% accuracy.

That wasn’t their individual abilities.

It was their “resonance” with Alice Anotherbible.

“Defying her means death. You had lost from the moment you bet on there being an exception to that, like that you could move beyond her reach, hide where she couldn’t find you, or escape punishment if your defiance was indirect. Not that she would let you get away with this even if you had been correct.”

“How are you on Alice’s side when you only love yourself?”

“Isn’t it cruel to expect such a small child to judge everything so accurately? They say to let your child make mistakes to learn from them, but do you think that kind of harsh parental love will work on that girl? Alice is simpler than that. Which is what makes her so frightening. At her mental age, she probably sees anyone who praises her and spoils her as her ally.”

And it didn’t end there.

“Heyyy.”

Something enormous was parting the large river to approach.

It was a special warship measuring around 100m long.

That was small compared to a nuclear aircraft carrier of more than 300m long, but it was undoubtedly a warship.

Plus, this was not the ship itself.

It was made out of smooth white shadow.

A girl’s lazy voice played from the speakers probably meant for giving warnings or making threats.

Come to think of it, hadn’t one of them seemingly vanished?

“This took some time to prepare, but I’m back.”

The ship’s bridge stood taller than the iron bridge.

She must have torn down all the other bridges spanning the river to clear a path here. It made you wonder which side was doing more damage to Academy City.

Aradia’s eyes really did bug out as she shouted.

“Mut Thebes!? What is that thing!?”

“You don’t know? It’s the Academy City drone carrier Kagenui.”

An aircraft carrier had to carry multiple large aircraft, necessitating a great size. Submersible and aerial aircraft carriers could not be made because the size and weight affected their balance too much. ...But that accepted principle had been overturned by shrinking the aircraft down by eliminating the cockpit and turning them into drones. Even the maintenance work could be carried out by an unmanned maintenance factory within the ship.

As usual, Academy City loved making bizarre things.

But now wasn’t the time for exasperation.

That was a carrier.

“Go, everyone.”

A series of explosions rang out. The boxy canisters on the flat deck rose up and opened fire. There were electrically ignited guns that could fire at a rate of a million rounds a minute. It looked like a programmed fireworks show. In truth, the honeycomb-like holes on the front of the canisters were releasing a large number of flying objects. By spreading their movable wings in air, they gathered in orderly teams and flew in formation. Now both sides had a flying swarm. The drones clashed directly with the tens of thousands of starlings ruling the night sky.

The assumptions and superiority had been overturned.

One side was alive and the other was machine.

When they were both controlled remotely and were equal in number, it went without saying whether the small birds or the man-made meter-long aerial weapons would win.

Perhaps the counterattack was necessary.

But as the drones pursued the fleeing starlings, their machinegun fire stabbed into the skyscrapers built along the river and sent sparks exploding from walls as thick power cables were ruptured.

“Mut Theeeebes!!!”

Aradia roared in anger, but then she stopped.

The brown girl was acting weird.

“Yayyy. Who wants to take a killer selfie? Just tell me when and I’ll get the timing right for you. Yippee! Let’s keep this Alice Parade Party going☆”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet giggled.

She clearly welcomed this turn of events.

Mut Thebes wasn’t enemy or ally – she was losing all awareness that she was participating in the battle at all. She was throwing that aside to enjoy herself. And her actions were clearly working against the Bologna Succubus’s side.

They sensed a trend in the series of unpleasant coincidences.

“I believe it’s called Acute Kotatsu Syndrome. Basically, Alice affects the group psychology of an area when she stays there long enough. Did you think you were ''immune'' for some reason? Even magicians and Transcendents will be engulfed by Alice sooner or later.”

“…”

“That includes all of us. Yes, you are no exception, Bologna Succubus. And most likely, neither are we. We will all lose our sense of who is on whose side in this mad tea party. The world that people across the globe have worked so hard to create could end today, but in a way that could mean the arrival of an age of peace. If everything is engulfed and everyone is a victim, then the distinction between enemy and ally loses all meaning.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet made it sound so obvious.

But it didn’t add up.

They were using their all-important salvation conditions as an excuse to love themselves and preserve their power by protecting Alice, so they wouldn’t want an ending where they were engulfed by Alice’s madness and lost sight of who they were. Narcissists who cared about themselves more than anything else in the world would never seek out a form of satisfaction created by having their internal aesthetic sense altered.

“''Do you have any idea what you’re saying''?”

“Ha ha☆ What? Are you saying I’ve already broken too''?”

It didn’t sound like she cared.

Someone on her level had lost the right to feel fear and disgust, or even detect that anything was amiss.

This space was going mad.

It had started at a single point, but the entire world would be this way eventually.

Whether or not Alice Anotherbible wanted it.

This was ominous enough to make that prediction.

“It doesn’t really matter. No one can defy Alice whether they put up a resistance or not.”

“Are you shoving responsibility for the world onto Alice’s shoulders while you alone abandon the effort of living, like you’re just a tree, grass, or flower, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet!?”

“Hee hee☆ Total Courtship – ready for dissemination. Now, I think I’ll pack you so full of super-sweet love that all your veins burst. Alice hates it when you try to lecture people like that, which is why she’s striking back at you, you know?”

===Part 5===

“…”

Anna Sprengel saw it.

She had supposedly divined the location of Kamijou and Alice, but ''something had gone wrong'' and she ended up here instead. Were you not even allowed to walk in a straight line without the proper credentials in this wonderland?

Everything within a 400 radius of the iron bridge was a zone of death. Crowds who had never even seen Alice directly were filling the streets due to her influence, but not even they would approach that area.

It may have been a type of instinct.

Just like people’s homing instincts worked even when drunk, the boys and girls who had lost sight of reality still knew they should keep away.

Although even that instinct would probably melt away eventually.

Once that happened, the world really was over.

Anna wanted to rescue Kamijou Touma. She wanted to fight against Alice Anotherbible with him. She wanted to protect him.

But so much depended on that bridge where an ''unnatural amount'' of things had gathered.

If those Transcendents scattered across the city again, Kamijou alone wouldn’t be able to deal with them. Then his world would simply fall apart.

So.

Before that happened…

“What are you planning?”

“!?”

Anna heard a female voice.

From right by her ear.

She belatedly spun around.

But she did not find one of the Transcendents who relied on the easy ''divine cosplay spell''. This was an expert who carried a magic name in her heart, stood on her own two feet, and had chosen for herself to take on the wide world.

It wasn’t a logical thing.

But Miss Sprengel could not hide the trembling and the cold sweat that came from her very soul.

“Anna Kingsford!?”

“You really should ❌ try it. It is ❌ like you. Two groups of Transcendents are ⚔️ing and one side is winning. Adding one more fighter to the fray will ❌ make a significant difference. As a self-proclaimed villain, you should know that quite well.”

“Why would you stop me? It shouldn’t be any skin off your nose if the fake Anna dies.”

“It would be. Because I do ❌ want you to ☠️.”

Kingsford didn’t hesitate.

The true villain was not used to being told these things so directly.

(First that fool and now her.)

Taken aback, little Miss Sprengel lost her chance to strike back and Kingsford laughed elegantly before continuing.

That smile was so much like Miss Sprengel’s, but she could never imitate it.

“It does appear that the side of the ⚔️ supported by ❌, resonating with Alice has the advantage. Transcendents are, after all, the false gods created when modern magicians used the incomplete 🪄 they created by analyzing the one and only success case: Alice Anotherbible. They have always been incomplete and unstable. They have a model. It should be obvious they will be 💪er when supported by the completed Alice.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? If Aradia’s side loses, who will be left to help that fool? Even if the entire world joined forces against Alice, I’m not sure it would work! And if the Alice-addled Transcendents gathered here end up scattering across Academy City, they could completely destroy that fool’s cit-”

“You only need to supply a ⛰️ greater than Alice.”

It didn’t even take a full second.

Kingsford placed her index finger on her slender chin and gave the answer with a confident smile.

An expert was a powerful guide in and of herself.

Just like sailors lost at sea would rely on the sun and moon in the sky to find the way back home.

“Blodeuwedd the Bouquet, Vidhatri, and 2nd Saga… They are borrowing a special power by resonating with Alice. So we just have to supply the same condition. If someone else leads the Transcendents, this problem is easily solved.”

Anna Sprengel only showed exasperation on her face.

Preparing a rival even more powerful than Alice was Kingsford’s idea of easy?

“I suppose someone as special as you would have no problem doing that,” said Miss Sprengel.

“Me? ❌, the only one who can do this is you.”

This time, Miss Sprengel’s eyes opened wide.

This had to be a joke.

“W-wait. I-I am no more than a common 2nd-rate magician who expanded my appearance and abilities by borrowing your name but still had to boost my specs further with Aiwass!!”

“Belittle yourself all you like, you are still an irregular Transcendent. Plus, you borrowed someone else’s name, but you did ❌ acquire the necessary 🪄 by analyzing Alice. You did your research from the ground up and successfully ‘👗ed up as’ Anna Kingsford. Which puts you on equal 🦶ing. We must refer to you as an irregular Transcendent for the exact same reason we refer to Alice Anotherbible that way.”

“…”

“You can do it.” Kingsford made this point clear. “Both you and Aleister have accomplished so much, so I can ❌ fathom why you both insist on belittling yourselves at every turn… I am saying there is something only you can accomplish, Miss Sprengel. I can ❌ do it. No matter how unnecessarily ashamed you are of yourself, your 🪄 to 👗 up as someone else is something that never occurred to me. Using that to help others qualifies as praiseworthy service if you ask me, but do you disagree?”

Silence.

Eventually followed by a wet sound.

It was the sound of a sniffling nose.

“Don’t tell that fool.”

“Sigh. I really think it is ⌚ the world recognized your talents.”

“Don’t tell him.”

“As you wish.”

“Then come forth, Aiwass!! Come to me, the walking amplifier for my will that has a mind of its own!!”

“Took you long enough, my benevolent genius.”

Anna Sprengel and Anna Kingsford.

The long-held conflict between them had been resolved.

Now they stood side by side, wielding great magic to protect an innocent life.

===Part 6===

The massive bridge had clearly been bent by an impact from the side. Cracks ran through the asphalt, steel screws larger than golf balls popped forcefully from the metal beams, and the joints between the girders swelled upwards.

The black bass and bluegills seemed harmless at first, but even at 500g each, tens of thousands of them still amounted to a large weight.

With the most lovable face, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet only had to blow a kiss to control them all.

Good, Old Mary had already collapsed after taking one to the center of the chest.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet chose Aradia as her next target.

It didn’t matter that she was directly facing the Bologna Succubus right now.

She set her sights on the witch goddess who stood on the complex arrangement of metal beams used to distribute the bridge’s weight.

“Look!! The world’s most high-tech city will have any number of unloved creatures: black bass, bluegills, rats, stray cats, pigeons, and starlings to name a few. Now, false goddess, let’s see how you handle the love-starved laments of the unloved!!”

“Tch!!”

“''Hee hee☆ Or should I send the unloved humans your way''?”

As soon as Aradia stiffened, stopping her interception spell, a babbler soared sharply toward her unguarded flank. A direct hit would probably kill the wild bird, but it would go through its death throes while embedded deep inside the wound and its beak and feathers would spread contaminants around.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet stuck out her tongue.

But the night wind that reached her was no more than a night wind.

It did not carry a rusty scent.

“?”

Had it missed?

When the support from “resonating” with Alice Anotherbible should have acted as a ''tailwind'' for all her actions?

Even though simply firing blindly from the hip should have always hit the enemy?

Before Blodeuwedd the Bouquet could pursue that question, Vidhatri shouted from where she stood.

“2nd Saga!! Eliminate her now!”

“Hee hee.”

An alluring female face and limbs appeared in the dark night. She was around 18, at the midpoint between girlhood and womanhood.

But that was all that was visible.

The pieces floated separately. No, her torso had clearly been torn apart. It now contained strange hollow spaces. Had her human silhouette unraveled like bandages? Was it due to the thick ribbon that had been wrapped around her torso? The lights of the city were visible in the space beyond her partially eliminated body.

The space seemed somewhat distorted.

Or maybe it was a type of ''camouflage''.

Aradia faced this person who was strange even for a Transcendent. She had the face of a girl with short flaxen hair with the interior dyed bright blue.

“2nd Saga. Do you derive some special meaning from covering and hiding things?”

“I’ve always had trouble choosing just one thing. I never want to throw anything out, so my room always ends up a mess.”

Saga was a goddess from Norse mythology.

She was said to be extremely powerful and to manage the spring where Odin is gifted with poetry and wisdom.

But she is barely mentioned throughout all the Norse monuments and texts.

Barely anything is known about her other than that her home is called Sokkvabekkr.

Information on her was scarce.

She was a mysterious figure who is simply known to share drinks with the top Norse god.

This woman had gone out of here way to choose a god like that.

She had wanted to be her.

Aradia spat annoyed words with the yellow and black railroad crossing barrier in hand.

“If a single performer tries to forcibly dress up as multiple gods, the traits of the gods cancel each other out, diluting their presence. We normally have strict rules about what we can’t do if we want to stay in character and keep our costume authentic, but I didn’t expect one of us to take advantage of that fact.”

“By intentionally keeping a low profile, I can do things other gods can’t. I am not the star of the show. But if a tree or a bush does something they shouldn’t, the audience has no way of knowing if it was correct or not. This allows me to be a performer on the stage while also freeing me from the bonds of the script. I am the only one allowed to be myself.”

“…”

“I am the Transcendent ''who saves all the bit parts and understudies who never get any attention.'' I can’t look down on them if I’m to do that. I need to understand how they feel and be one of them first.”

She disappeared.

Did she unleash her skill to the point she became one with the air?

The bluish-white armor partially surrounding 2nd Saga’s limbs vanished into the air, causing what little of her skin and face were still visible to look unnaturally alluring.

The bright round skin of her face was like a device for giving off sex appeal.

The pupils of her blue eyes were colored an impossible bright red. Did she use a light-bending technique to pull that one off?

Even with her full body unraveled, the individual pieces were made of captivating feminine skin.

But if a member of the opposite sex were caught by her like this, it would probably break his mind.

The strange avant-garde woman sneered.

“My name is 2nd Saga, a fictional god created on the mischievous whim of the compiler. Which allows me to ''add on'' any magic I wish which is never actually found in Norse mythology. …Now, it is time you lost your one and only life. The divine curse – that is, the light of Brisingamen, necklace of infidelity – can even trigger a war between world-destroying kings. Do not assume an individual can escape that deadly fate!!”

It started at the center, where her chest had been.

The thick ribbon, which bound her skin and showed the city behind her, created a transparent distortion much like sugar water, which spilled beyond her outlines.

It forcibly gathered Aradia’s focus on a single point, much like having a finger jabbed between the eyes at close range.

Aradia sensed a definite deadliness in this unknown phenomenon.

Was she mistaken, or had that been the true trigger?

The impossible distortion became a large artillery shell that tore through the air.

This was an assassination spell.

It was guaranteed to take a life.

And the user could sidestep their own sin by saying they were only adoring the beautiful gold and jewels. The necklace brought doom, but it allowed the user to claim they didn’t know it was cursed and thought it was only a beautiful piece of jewelry. Was that to insure they would not be hit in the unlikely case that the curse was sent back the way it had come?

Aradia snorted with laughter.

The rails were laid out nicely, but it was all nonsense with no actual mythological basis. The sky is heaven, the gods shine bright, the workings of salvation and divine punishment, cats are capricious and dogs are loyal – by combining the common symbols found across cultures, anyone could fake apparent legitimacy.

Yes, this was faked.

''Her cosplay was sloppy.'' Gods were meant to draw a strict line between right and wrong, so they couldn’t accept – much less use – a loophole like this. A real god did not choose their words carefully for fear of backlash or controversy. Even the cruelest act could be written off as “divine punishment” if it was truly necessary.

And even if this curse would pursue Aradia to the ends of the Earth, there was only one thing she had to do.

“''There just have to be two Aradias''.”

“Wha-!?”

Immediately after 2nd Saga’s dumbfounded shock, the invisible curse tore itself apart with its own power.

The chilly moonlight shined on two identical people.

The black and yellow railroad crossing barriers resting on their shoulders crossed like swords mounted on a wall.

Aradia hadn’t actually done anything. The curse simply hadn’t been designed to handle an abnormal situation where two identical people existed. It was unable to deal with the situation it found, so the single shell attempted to pursue two targets at once, tearing itself apart from within.

It dissipated.

It disappeared.

“Don’t you dare call this cheating. This has always been our role – we’re the perfect performers. And it was all of you who created ''a second one'' and brought her here without even asking me.”

Right and left.

The identical Aradias launched wind magic that struck the formless Transcendent.

The tides were turning.

“…”

Vidhatri was dumbfounded.

But she wasn’t simply shocked that a Transcendent receiving a ''tailwind'' by “resonating” with Alice Anotherbible had been defeated by a Transcendent who had that link severed and was alone in the storm.

More than that…

“''Why did you have that idea just now''?”

“''What do you mean''?”

“It also doesn’t make sense that you avoided Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s initial attack. Even if there was a way for you to defeat 2nd Saga, it never should have occurred to you!! That kind of support comes from Alice. How did you break through the thought masking!?”

“I would assume conditions have changed somewhere away from here.”

“Tch!!”

Panic spread through the air, infecting the entire space.

Vidhatri seemed rushed by something unseen rather than her own will as she unspooled a lot of white thread and black hair from the ball-joint doll she wore on her back.

By intentionally omitting all mention of something, that spell let her erase anything she didn’t like from the small world set up around her. If she erased everything that could kill her, then no one could defeat her.

A moment later, a dull impact struck her cheekbone. Something flew in from the side and Vidhatri was launched spinning through the air. The impact permeated her. Before she could figure out what had happened, her ball-joint doll broke apart and her model-proportioned body soared over the pedestrian railing and toward the dark river below.

But Aradia hadn’t done anything.

“You were focused on the wrong person, dumbass.”

Aradia glanced over to see a small figure standing boldly atop a metal beam.

It was Anna Sprengel.

“Keh heh heh. Alice no longer rules this world. Worms, bow before me and beg for your pitiful lives. It wasn’t you who created the Shrink Drink – you needed Alice’s help for that. Yet all you worthless regular Transcendents had the nerve to look down on me and try to kill me!!!”

“Before she could figure out what had happened, huh?” the goddess of witches whispered in exasperation. “So Vidhatri could preemptively eliminate any threat, but she was defenseless against any threat that never occurred to her.”

If anything, that was a lot like the death of the immortal Norse god of light, Baldr. That similarity was ''not'' a case of cultural transmission between India and Europe. It was instead evidence of the Transcendents not actually being strictly bound to a single god or even a single mythology.

“Have you imagined your own fate yet, 2nd Saga?”

“Have you imagined your own fate yet, 2nd Saga?”

“!?”

Multiple beams of light flashed out at once.

The two Aradias held out their palms to launch projectile magic toward the figure leaping vigorously from beam to beam. The attacks actually hit 2nd Saga. It was hard to believe she had been so untouchable just a bit ago. She was knocked from the beam above to the bridge below.

Mut Thebes (who was on their side but had lost control of herself) had her drone carrier stopped by a three-legged object that appeared out of thin air. That was Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos.

The tides had turned in the blink of an eye.

The only one left was Blodeuwedd the Bouquet in her coat-like blast-resistant suit and naked apron.

Aradia approached her directly, the Bologna Succubus glared icily at her, and bloody Good, Old Mary slowly rose to her feet.

“Wai-”

The dull “thump!!” of pierced flesh rang out.

The Bologna Succubus had launched her sharp tail and caught Blodeuwedd the Bouquet in the shoulder.

Using a frontal attack with no tricks.

The force of the blow broke the iron-maiden-like blast-resistant suit and the double doors covered in metal panels fell to the asphalt. With her protection gone, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s bare skin was exposed to the frigid air while she scattered junk from her terrarium and UV LED lights. The night wind carried away the flower petals.

“This is already over,” said the Bologna Succubus.

Her voice was colder than it ever had been when that boy was present.

The naked apron girl backed away, but her legs tangled underneath her.

She fell like normal.

Her specialness was gone.

“You forgot about your salvation condition, you abandoned the people you should be saving, and you thought only of preserving your own power. And then you blamed Alice for it all. …So this is already over. You have nothing left. Nothing at all.”

“You’re going to win this...and take everything from me?”

With only her frilly apron left, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet held her wounded shoulder with the opposite hand and struggled to keep her breath.

The powerful sex appeal she gathered around her had dissipated, leaving behind only the fear of a small child.

“This is all we have. You can’t tell me the idea of losing your power doesn’t scare you.”

“I am a Transcendent. I choose who I should protect and then guard those people from the threat this world presents them. Which is why I abandoned my own identity to dress up as a god,” said Witch Goddess Aradia. “My salvation condition does not include myself. And I would never rob innocent people of their future just so I could keep my own shameful life.”

With a dull sound, the Transcendent ended things with the Transcendent.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet was the last one.

There had been others, but they raised their hands in surrender when they saw the tides changing. That was about what you got with people who only worried about themselves.

But with Alice ''Anotherbible'' as an open-source example, more Transcendents could be created. Just like there were two Aradias here.

Remaking the city’s people into makeshift witches wasn’t an option here like it had been in Shibuya. If Academy City espers used magic, they would be harmed by the side effects and, if Alice wanted to, she could produce an unlimited supply of regular Transcendents. Those would be literally a grade above.

Any victories won fighting on the outer edges would only be temporary. And with only limited numbers to work with, they wouldn’t last if they were forced to fight the same battles over and over.

“This was no more than an opening skirmish,” said Anna Sprengel despite understanding that.

She was another host and open-source example who differed greatly from the Alice line.

They couldn’t stop here.

“Our real target is Alice. This rioting doesn’t end until she’s been stopped. The Queen of Hearts and Executioner waiting near Alice could easily be more powerful than the regular Transcendents.”

“If you have the time, could you deal with her too? Mut Thebes is shooting off ‘fireworks’ like this is some kind of party, so it would be great if you could bring that idiot back to her senses!!”

“Oh? Silly girl, are you sure you don’t want to take a video first?”

The giant white ship shook.

She must have been freed from the unseen physics that could be seen as Alice’s ''tailwind''.

Mut Thebes must have absorbed the weapon’s shadow, but where exactly was she attached to it?

“Bff!? Wait, wait, I’ll be good.”

“Finally come to your senses? Then take a look at the collapsed city around you. I can’t wait to see what kind of excuse you can come up with while dripping with sweat, God of Partying.”

“But if my partying was enough to destroy an entire city by accident, doesn’t that make me a super powerful goddess? And since we can all see how ultra-cute I am, can’t I get off the hook with a quick: ‘Oopsie. Tee hee’?”

“Good, Old Mary, use your Tribikos to step on that god of destruction, ship and all. It’s January, so dunking her to the bottom of the river ought to cool her head.”

Aradia icily passed judgment, but then a cracking voice came over the ship’s speakers.

“Oh, and the drone carrier’s antenna picked something up,” said Mut Thebes.

“?”

“It wasn’t encrypted or anything, so it was a lot like a radio transmission. Maybe it’s best to say this is being sent out all over the place. They might have been hoping we would pick it up. It’s being transmitted from ''a prison in District 10'' and it says it’s about Alice Pleasance Liddell.”

===Part 7===

After seeing off the little magician who had freed herself from her self-made bonds, Anna Kingsford sighed all on her own.

The end was nigh.

“Now, then.”

(I need to prepare for my part in this.)

===Part 8===

There were no subjective symptoms.

Kamijou wasn’t even allowed any obvious pain or bleeding.

Then was this a delirium or hallucination caused by all the stress he was under?

Except there was something there.

With each step he took down the long hallway, he heard a sound like thin threads snapping inside him. Like the creaking of bone or the beating of his heart, these were delicate sounds that shouldn’t have been audible outside his body.

He had heard on some trivia show that the simple action of walking concentrated a lot of weight and force on the leg bones. If that was true, then his body could no longer keep up with his movement. His insides were already breaking down to that extent.

Death.

The unavoidable destruction of the self.

Alice apparently wanted to ask Index if there was a way to heal him.

But Kamijou already knew the answer.

This was different from any of the previous times.

Or rather, this wasn’t a one-off failure. Everything he had done had pushed him too far. He was finally paying the price for it all. No one could escape the consequences of their own actions.

The end was nigh.

And it was only now that Kamijou realized something.

In a battle so severe, why hadn’t he noticed anything amiss? His survival this long had been the unnatural part.

“Hm, hm, hm☆”

Alice Anotherbible skipped out ahead of him.

She turned back, her skirt lifting disconcertingly high.

“C’mon, teacher. Everyone’s here now, so you need to hurry. Good or bad, you wouldn’t want it to end without ever learning the answer, would you?”

“…”

That was the opinion of someone watching from the outside.

It was clearly missing the viewpoint of the person on the verge of learning if their death was unavoidable.

They did not arrive at a normal classroom.

That was the door to the library.

That should have made for a poor prison. A solid kick would probably break open the sliding door and the outside windows were probably ordinary glass.

But since Alice had chosen this location, it was probably impossible to open from inside. Even with the knowledge of 103,001 grimoires at your disposal.

The door opened.

From the outside, it was surprisingly easy.

Kamijou doubted that was Imagine Breaker’s doing. He probably just had Alice’s permission.

“Touma!”

He heard a familiar voice.

She wasn’t bound with packing tape or zip ties. The windows and door were not reinforced. But there was definite relief on her face. That was the look of someone who just saw the thick door to their prison cell open.

And her smile froze in place.

The pure white sister was not concerned by Alice and H.T. Trismegistus’s presence. She was clearly looking at something else. The boy could tell that even with the mixture of truth, lies, and hallucination in his head.

“No...what is that?”

Her eyes widened because of Kamijou.

She had already detected something out of the ordinary.

Whether Alice was aware of that or not, she spoke in her childlike way.

“Okay, teacher. Ask her!”

The young butler clearly knew what was coming and struggled to suppress a grin.

Malicious words and actions were not the only way to hurt people.

Because he was bound by common sense, H.T. Trismegistus would never hurl abuse himself. The look on his face seemed to say there was no law against silence.

“I...won’t.”

“You have to,” said Alice.

“There’s no reason to force her to give an answer!!”

“Leaving the question unanswered solves nothing. Stopping here only lets the problem grow worse with time. She has 103,001 grimoires. With so much knowledge from all around the world available to her, the girl just knows she can find a way to heal you!!”

Was it even possible?

Had it been definitively proven, or was it only a theory?

Alice didn’t care about that.

It could be the geocentric theory, phlogiston, an ancient nuclear war, or that dinosaur farts caused the ice age. Of course, it could also be something accurate like universal gravitation or quantum theory. Accurate or not, if a theory had ever been proposed – if someone had thought it up and put together the logic behind it – she could build a bridge to it. She could choose ''whichever theories she wanted'' and link to them to wholly change the world. She was the ultimate conversion device. She could place Yamatai anywhere she liked, she could invent a perpetual motion machine of the first kind to produce unlimited energy, or she could remake the spherical Earth into a flat disk.

So there just had to be a single section in the more than 10 thousand grimoires.

Just one passage.

Even a single line would do.

No matter how absurd or difficult to achieve it was.

Alice could easily activate it and save Kamijou.

''But.

''Even then.

Index did not give a yes or no answer.

She kept her silence.

That was enough of an answer. If she wasn’t willing to say it out loud, she didn’t need to.

Her attempt at kindness was ineffective.

The verdict had been given.

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

Death.

That was the only option left.

Kamijou did not weep or rage.

He even forgot to fall to the floor.

In a way, he abandoned his humanity.

He simply stood there, stock still.

“Hu…man.”

Othinus’s quiet voice was enough for his head to wobble.

There was nothing there.

It wasn’t even emptiness that filled his mind.

He felt a heat surrounding him.

He simply stood there, forgetting even to collapse.

There was no way to save him.

The world had not developed that far.

It was underdeveloped.

People had studied what they liked and technology had branched off into countless directions, but never in this one.

The world didn’t care.

Time would continue on like normal even after he was gone.

And…

“Then let’s destroy it,” said a young voice.

Alice Anotherbible sounded the same as ever.

No, her voice sounded dried out.

Terrifyingly so.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

She sounded like her surprise party plan had fallen apart.

“We have our answer. And if this world can’t save you, teacher, than the girl is going to destroy it. The girl heard what you said, so she knows this world wouldn’t still be here if not for you. So it’s only fair the world goes away when you do, don’t you think?”

“Wait! Don’t, Touma!!” sharply shouted Index.

The knowledge of her grimoires must have told her Alice could do exactly what she claimed. And that she would do it the instant Kamijou gave her some kind of sign.

He would never do that under normal circumstances.

But it was wrong to assume he would behave normally now that he knew he would lose everything.

y/n.

The available options had been narrowed down as far as possible.

The fate of the world hinged on this one question.

“I do not agree.” H.T. Trismegistus finally spoke up, his shoulders shaking as he didn’t even bother to suppress his chuckling. “Destroying the world for a single individual is wrong. Maybe if this would save his life, but you should not destroy humanity if all you are doing is lashing out. Some might consider it moving, but common sense says it is not a benevolent act.”

Alice’s eyes widened like dinner plates.

And she lowered her voice.

“''H. T. Trismegistus''.”

“As you can see…”

The young butler raised his hands and kept speaking, undaunted.

He didn’t seem to care that the invisible muzzle of death was pressed unsteadily against his brow.

“I can tell Alice what common sense says, but I have no real way of stopping her. This is ultimately between you and her. No, make your own choice, Kamijou Touma. You cannot rely on Another Bible here and not even all the world’s grimoires contain a means of saving you. So what will you choose in the final moments now that your death is assured?”

Othinus gasped and looked up from his shoulder.

She was the only person who had just about achieved a perfect victory against Kamijou Touma.

She knew this ending.

She knew this dead end.

Because the one-eyed war god had intentionally set up a situation just like this to kill the boy when he refused to give up no matter what else she tried.

“I see what you’re doing. Hey, human, don’t listen to-!!”

“Yes, you could go crying to Alice and have her take the world out with you. In fact, you needn’t even say a word. If you remain silent, she might just be considerate enough to do it on her own. But common sense tells me that Alice’s ''only'' motivation is making you happy. ''So you could eliminate Alice’s motivation by taking your own life before she destroys the world on your behalf.'' You will die soon regardless, so why not move up the timetable just a bit to save so many people?”

Mere moments before H.T. Trismegistus completed his encircling argument, someone kicked down the library door from the outside.

With no difficulty.

“Fool.”

It was easy to miss by how easily it happened, but this should have been an unavoidable critical hit. Kamijou’s path should have ended.

But it hadn’t.

Because someone wouldn’t let it.

You could develop an attack specialized for a single individual, but that individual didn’t need to fight alone.

Just by setting foot in here, little Anna Sprengel had accomplished what no one else could.

She was probably the only person in the world not affected by Alice’s madness.

She deflected it.

And that villain mercilessly stomped her way into Alice’s territory.

No one could stop her.

“Hmph. So only I made it this far in? I feel a little bad leaving Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the others stuck fighting an endless battle. You basically asked us to come and even showed us the way, but then you drove your guests away? When you think about it, that’s hilariously pathetic.”

“You?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet, you gloomy microdick? You should have known better than to trust your assumptions from the moment you couldn’t kill me with the Shrink Drink filled with Alice’s power.”

Anna chuckled and Othinus gave her a look more of exasperation than admiration.

“I see. So if you had actually killed that shitty villain, we wouldn’t be dealing with this nonsense about her ''outdoing Alice''.”

“Are you saying the world switched rails back then?” asked Index.

“That’s right, you dregs of a god and you pathetic loafer,” said Anna, giving Othinus and Index a scornful look. Then she spread her little hands. “The fool changed things. He moved many people’s hearts with his own actions rather than having Alice cheat for him. I did not achieve this miracle on my own. Don’t you think the first person to receive its blessings should be the one who worked so hard to make it happen?”

Yes.

No one had invited Anna. She did not have Alice’s permission. That meant she had faced Alice’s madness without fear, repelled it, and forced her own actions through.

She faced that tremendous charisma without being engulfed.

She had the brand name of the mystery woman behind the founding of the world’s largest magic cabal.

This villain carried a legend of equal value.

“Honestly,. You always let everyone push you around when it comes to Alice, fool. Do you seriously believe in the nice-sounding but scientifically-baseless and perverted jinx that the unclouded eyes of young children reflect truths the adults have long forgotten? If you ask me, you should learn to ignore it all as ''the words of an ignorant little kid''.”

“Anna…?”

“You might die, fool.”

Kamijou’s breath caught in his throat.

The thick invisible wall once more intruded on the ordinary scene around him.

Death.

The end.

It was approaching second by second, yet he felt no pain. Like a cruel time bomb with the LCD screen omitted.

What was wrong with feeling fear?

But Anna wasn’t done talking.

“I said ‘might’. None of this is set in stone, but Alice is acting like it’s 100% going to happen. Why?”

Othinus caught on first.

Almost like the thought had been unnaturally blocked until now.

“Oh, I get it. Everyone would prefer the opposite outcome, but she was enjoying telling everyone that he was definitely going to die.”

“It’s simple really. What did a certain monster need to do for him to drop his guard and let her in? What about showing him a greater threat so she doesn’t seem so bad? Just like I came off as a harmless companion when faced with the greater threats of CRC and Alice. But there is no threat greater at present than the Anotherbible. So a certain someone suggested the fool’s death.”

“Wait.”

“You should already know the answer. Alice Anotherbible only gets so assertive when it comes to Kamijou Touma. In a way, this is to be expected since I imprinted the fool’s past actions in her mind.”

It wasn’t her fault she had been deceived.

Anyone that little villain took advantage of already had an opening in them.

Or you could call it a vulnerability.

She could not create something from nothing. She pried open a small existing hole and then controlled them as she saw fit.

She was a reasonable but contemptible miracle-worker.

“The central factor for her has always been loneliness. Yes, I am the one who deceived her. Wherever she came from, I know the current Alice Anotherbible’s mind better than you.”

So?

What was that supposed to mean?

What was she imagining when she said that?

A cold sweat poured from Kamijou’s body.

For a brief moment, even his very real fear of death vanished from his mind.

“Hold on!! You’re not making sense. Alice means no harm. For better or for worse, what you see is what you get with her. Wasn’t that our initial assumption here? She can’t set people up, plot out some grand plan, or any other intellectual stuff like that!!”

“True,” agreed H.T. Trismegistus. “She is too powerful to do anything of the sort. Common sense says that someone capable of killing a dinosaur with a barehanded punch would never even think of inventing a gun, correct?”

“Shut up, you gloomy butler. And, fool, remind me who you came here to save?”

Anna sounded exasperated.

That was their initial assumption.

Kamijou had said that himself, but he had somehow forgotten it.

“I thought that issue had nothing to do with whether or not you will survive.”

“…”

He wanted to rescue Index and save Alice too.

That was why he had decided to fight Alice. That had been his initial objective.

And yet.

Why was he now seeking salvation from Alice?

Alice was the same as always. She was alive and well. It didn’t matter that her head had been crushed by Rosencreutz.

So shouldn’t he be rejoicing?

Shouldn’t he be weeping and laughing while hugging Alice?

Why was he being driven into a dead end?

''When had his objective been replaced?

''Who had caused that switch?

No.

…But…

I couldn’t be? Could it?

“Fool. I agree that Alice isn’t calculating enough to put together a long-term plan to fool people. Even telling her to ‘sit’ or ‘stay’ in front of a feast wouldn’t last very long. She may only be honestly saying what she believes to be right.”

That was a weirdly indirect phrasing.

Which suggested that phrasing was somehow necessary.

Othinus gave a snort.

“Yeah, I thought that was strange for a grimoire library whose job is to provide answers. Is this why she hesitated to give a response? Because she couldn’t easily reach a yes or no answer?”

The white nun, who was the polar opposite of the villain, spoke up quietly.

“But if Alice’s mind is too badly broken to tell what is and isn’t accurate, she might not be doing the right thing. Touma, you can’t trust that the things she tells you are accurate.”

Everyone’s eyes gathered on a single point.

Even H.T. Trismegistus, who had been taking advantage of the situation.

They heard a creaking sound.

Sounds like thick, straining leather came from within the girl as she hung her head.

“Those magicians could not change the world the way they wanted, nor could they follow their own rules after coming up with lofty salvation conditions,” said Anna Sprengel in a singsong way. “It probably was pure chance that very average group discovered the artificial miracle that is Alice Anotherbible before they began dressing up as gods. But they realized something.”

“…”

“In a mishmash of fiction and reality, a real girl had been remade into the storybook Alice and the storybook Alice had been created in the real world. They extracted a portion of those ‘plans’ and applied it to themselves. By customizing themselves as they liked with pieces of the preexisting open-source spell, they could abandon their individuality to dress up as any god or demon with extraordinary precision.”

The Transcendents really had transformed themselves that way.

At the cost of their own individuality.

For the Bridge Builders Cabal, the ''Anotherbible'' was a priceless text, but Alice was no more than a target of their worship. So they feared her and respected her, but they did everything they could to avoid third parties contacting her.

What had that lonely girl really wanted?

Or, more accurately, who?

“I see,” said Othinus on Kamijou’s shoulder. Sounding somewhat exasperated. “''This human was perfect for the role.'' I see now why that little monster was so obsessed with him.”

“Alice Pleasance Liddell listened to Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, the prototype for it all, and was the one clear model for the protagonist. But in a later era, she was abducted by a ‘Teacher of Crowley’ and thoroughly modified to create the Alice seen in the story.”

Little Anna herself proved that one’s apparent age wasn’t necessary reliable.

Even if she was already an adult when she was abducted, the magician would have made the necessary adjustments. Very physical adjustments using a scalpel and saw. It may have taken cutting through bone, sewing together skin, and rearranging organs, but they would have kept working and adjusting until she had the exact same height and adorable appearance as the fictional girl.

That could not have been an enjoyable experience.

But after being freed from the mystery magician and finding a place in the center of the Bridge Builders Cabal, Alice had not been able to live the innocent life of the storybook. Even though she was already free and more powerful than anyone. She had given up on any life other than fulfilling other people’s interests.

And she really had become an innocent child.

She probably wasn’t even aware of her own humiliation and resignation.

Anna sighed softly and dug into the ugly side of humanity.

That was something Kamijou couldn’t do.

This was a territory only allowed for a worldwide villain.

She would carry the burden of everyone’s ire as she revealed the necessary truth.

“A parent who values logic has no dreams to share with their child.

“When Mathematician Lewis Carroll later began creating the world’s greatest fantasy, he laid out symbols and meanings, discovered a special child, and used her as a model to tell the prototype of it all: Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.

“A self-proclaimed Teacher of Crowley saw value in you as no more than the one and only specimen to know of the uncorrected original version, so they remade you by rearranging everything from your bones to your organs into the optimal color, shape, and size.

“When the Bridge Builders Cabal ‘rediscovered’ the girl still wandering in the shadows of the modern world, they only saw you as an open-source spell of great power. They feared and respected you in something more like worship than anything.”

And so the girl had been craving more.

Starving for it.

It mattered little if it was a conscious or subconscious thing.

Alice was always surrounded by so many people, but none of them were really looking at her.

Her reputation had preceded her.

With one exception.

There was one boy who did not want her power as a Transcendent, had rejected the “happiness” brought by her ultimate power, and faced her with nothing but his own fist no matter how many times he was killed.

It all began there.

Like dreaming of something from a storybook, a certain girl had thought that was her last chance there.

So she wanted it no matter what.

“Touma, stand back.”

“Ah.”

“Stand back! Now!!”

Hesitantly, Kamijou got his voice out from his parched and trembling mouth.

While asking himself what it was he was so afraid of.

“Al...ice?”

“Yes?”

''The girl raised her head.

''Except she no longer had anything above her neck.

===Part 9===

Aradia had finally caught up.

She walked through the high school’s front gate, setting foot inside its grounds.

Or so she thought.

“Tch!!”

She immediately swung her black and yellow railroad crossing barrier and was answered with a dull crack. It suddenly broke at about the middle. Even with the power of the goddess of witches, she was forced back.

Good, Old Mary, who was woozy from blood loss, muttered quietly.

“It looks like a rabbit, but it doesn’t have a watch. It must be the March Hare from the tea party.”

“One of the Alice Series!?”

The flamingo bats. The hedgehogs.

The Gryphon, the Executioner, the Cook.

These were Alice’s raw and unstoppable toys which magicians had not yet turned into tools.

They seemed to be fighting as two opposing armies, but here it looked like the enemy of your enemy wasn’t your friend. The flamingo bats and hedgehogs would sometimes attack the Transcendents without provocation, so they couldn’t be trusted.

The March Hare had apparently attacked just now, but which side was he on?

For that matter, why were different monsters born from Alice fighting each other in the first place!?

“What are we supposed to do?” asked the Bologna Succubus.

“We should have Good, Old Mary stay back. We shouldn’t rely too heavily on her resurrection, but we shouldn’t waste her by sending her up against an even more dangerous enemy either!!”

The school was a rather large place.

Where was that boy?

And while they were only regular ones, it was strange that a group of several Transcendents couldn’t get past this one position.

They supposedly each wielded strange spells capable of taking on the entire magic side single-handedly.

The Gryphon, the Executioner, the bipedal hare, and the Cook throwing irons and pots.

They were all Alice’s toys with their origins in Wonderland.

But while they were only toys, they had been directly injected with a portion of Alice’s power. As seen with the Shrink Drink, that power made these far from your normal foe.

Ultimately, the Bridge Builders Cabal did not exist for Alice.

It was the result of the regular Transcendents, who sought and feared her great power, struggling to find some way of managing her.

All on her own, Alice was more powerful than countless armies.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, Good, Old Mary, and Mut Thebes.

Those four Transcendents gathering here was no problem at all for Alice. She probably hadn’t even decided to fight against the Transcendents. This could be seen in how the toys continued fighting each other instead of driving out the intruders.

“By the way, where did Anna get off to!?” asked Aradia.

“Did that slut use mama and the rest of you as bait for these pain-in-the-ass opponents while she went on ahead? She did, didn’t she?”

They said nothing more.

First, they sensed a great pressure. Only a moment later did they feel the powerful tremor in the ground.

It was Dinah the cat.

The fluffy white and black beast had grown larger than the gym, so a single step caused the entire space to shake. The flamingo bats and hedgehogs ran around in a panic and the Gryphon failed to get away in time and had its front leg crushed underfoot.

It didn’t matter if they were on Alice’s side.

And the culprit – Dinah – wasn’t even aware she had done it.

She was the greatest force in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

She carried such great firepower that the mice and birds who caused Alice so much trouble had fled at the mere mention of her name.

If this really was her, then she might cause destruction greater than Alice intended for.

That meant there was a risk of her crushing the entire school building with Kamijou and Alice inside.

Which was exactly what happened.

With her back to the school building, Aradia briefly froze up, so the Bologna Succubus had to flap her bat wings and tackle Aradia from the side to send them both tumbling across the ground. A gust of wind blew past them like a subway train had passed by nearby. That thing was much too large for anyone human-sized to take a direct hit from it. Aradia didn’t have time to celebrate her survival. She roared up toward the heavens while still tangled up with the Bologna Succubus.

That was the most prized of Alice’s toys.

Deadly Dinah.

Only one Transcendent could hope to battle that giant that rivaled a school gym in size.

“Mut Thebes, stop that thing immediately!!”

“It is too soon for me to attack. Wait 15 minutes for me to absorb enough shadows to create a body that can safely face the cat.”

Aradia’s eyes widened.

Mut Thebes wasn’t going to be any help.

Dinah was charging head-first toward the school building.

And just before she crashed into it, a deafening roar rang out.

Dinah was knocked rolling back, gouging large pieces of dirt out of the schoolyard and sending tons of dust into the air. It made no sense. There was no thick barrier there and no steel warship had appeared.

There was only a single human silhouette.

It looked downright minuscule compared to Dinah, who was large enough to look down at the gym.

Nevertheless, it was Dinah whose max-speed charge had been repelled, sending her rolling backwards.

“Wha-?”

Aradia was speechless.

This wasn’t even a Transcendent.

“Honestly.”

A voice came from the cloud of dust.

Aradia’s group did not recognize the voice. But the female voice inspired a compulsion that prevented even the Transcendents from taking it lightly.

“Alice Anotherbible has fallen apart more than I 💭. All of these things are a 🧩 of her – they are the many opinions she has ❌ been able to reconcile. I did ❌ expect her to be so overwhelmed with emotion that she nearly crushed her own 🏰 with her inside.”

This was Anna Kingsford.

The magician stood there on her own two feet without borrowing anyone’s appearance or abilities.

A moment later, the dirt thrown high into the sky was pulled back down by gravity.

It was like a dry rain.

Kingsford casually directed her index finger skyward and something invisible became a large umbrella. She alone was left without a speck of dust in her hair or on her clothes.

Something sliced sharply through the dusty veil.

It was a flamingo bat and the Cook.

Both sides of the conflict arrived at once.

Kingsford extended a single finger and drew out a few patterns in empty air.

They were constellations.

Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces.

The sharp sound was a moment delayed.

A scattershot of compressed water tore through the Cook like a cookie cutter through dough. When her blue-glowing fingertip turned toward the flamingo bat, the bat began to tremble while hovering in the air. Despite being inorganic, it clearly shrank two sizes.

The basics of astrology were to assign various elements and symbols to the 7 planets and 12 constellations of the horoscope and then experiment to see what effects were produced on yourself and others when they were applied from different angles and combinations. There were even tricky ways of building them into attack spells.

So by combining only the water element constellations, you could greatly amplify the power of ordinary water.

Instead of simple addition, it worked through multiplication, so it was like shifting up a gear in a car.

That expert did not bother coming up with impressive special attacks.

By earnestly working at the basic fundamentals that anyone could do and that novices tended to look down on, any magic could be brought to the point of a one-hit kill.

But none of that was particularly important.

For one, that wouldn’t be enough to kill Dinah.

“I will ❌ let you destroy the things you care about, Alice. That would be much too 😢 to see. I assure you on my name as an expert, being special does ❌ cut you off from the supply of ☺️.”

Just then…

“…?”

Anna Kingsford looked down at her right hand.

A red liquid was dripping from it.

She only had a slight cut on her fingertip, but the amount of blood was not the issue.

She shouldn’t have been harmed at all in that situation.

That expert never made mistakes.

So if something unexpected occurred regardless, it meant the problem was with the initial data she was working with, not her calculations.

In other words…

“Is this body reaching its limit?” she whispered, holding her fingertip in her mouth.

Her voice itself was a lot “rougher” than it had been when she was first booted up in Shibuya’s Miyashita Ark. It wasn’t limited to her outward appearance. This proved the injury and deterioration was also progressing where it couldn’t be seen.

She didn’t show the slightest hint of fear as she looked out ahead.

In fact, she took a step forward.

The cat large enough to crush the gym rose to her feet again.

Kingsford couldn’t continue on and leave this with the regular Transcendents. She had never figured out how to pick and choose who she saved.

These were Alice’s raw toys, which had yet to be turned into easy-to-use tools like the Shrink Drink. And this cat was the greatest of them. She was a mass of violence and destruction that wouldn’t bat an eye as she trampled all the other toys.

Dinah.

The expert faced the cat head on, holding the brim of her large hat between her fingertips.

She doubted her body would last to the end.

For that matter, it was unnatural for a preserved corpse her to be moving around at all.

(But I can accept that.)

So she decided on a more realistic goal: injuring Dinah enough to create an opening or weak point the Transcendents could take advantage of to defeat Dinah on their own.

The expert knew her doom was closing in on her, but she still spoke with her usual smile.

“⌚ to serve others.”

===Part 10===

She was a headless girl.

A little corpse.

Yet she was also standing up and looking at Kamijou.

He distinctly felt the pressure of her gaze.

The atmosphere in the library changed. The scales were rapidly tilting in a direction he did not like at all.

“!?”

Without thinking, he stepped back away from her.

This was an expression of malice that shouldn’t have been necessary.

Which proved it had been intentional.

It was true after all.

No matter how you looked at it, the center of the problem was right there.

It always had been.

Kamijou pushed past the fear of death he knew was coming and shouted.

“Alice!!”

He heard a sound like tearing cardboard.

No, not like. The headless girl really did tear down the center. And something else emerged, sticky with a translucent fluid.

This had happened before.

But this was not the little girl dressed in profane red and black leather.

This form could never have fit in that small body.

But she wasn’t accepting questions.

At the top of the vertical tear, near where the head should have been, an arm jutted straight up, but this arm belonged to a captivatingly beautiful woman. With a splat, she collapsed forward to crawl like a dog. The translucent slime left behind strings that stained the floor. She squirmed like a fluffy red boa. The leather bound her bright, wet body more tightly than necessary and her long blonde hair was so wet it writhed on the ground as a single clump. After instantly becoming a woman of about 18, she crawled forward and swung her head upwards. The wet hair covering her face swung back behind her, revealing her beautiful face.

“Touma!!”

Alice Anotherbible.

Or maybe Alice Pleasance Liddell.

Her true form.

“Did you use yourself as the ingredients to recreate the ideal version of yourself?” said Othinus in disgust.

Alice worked her alluring throat to release growls and her fingers scratched at the floor like an animal with sharp and sinister claws. She could not have been farther removed from reason, intelligence, and innocent adorableness.

Violence.

Battle.

Killing.

That was all she was.

She shined with the same light as a sword that had had been made so deadly it gained an odd beauty.

The fear of death was gone.

Even that thick invisible wall had vanished.

Kamijou felt a tingling in the back of his head. With the sharp claws, the large canine teeth emerging from her lips, and the fearsome light in her eyes, he knew there was so much he needed to focus on, yet he couldn’t read even a hint of deadliness from her. But he knew this wasn’t Alice doing anything special. His own mind had numbed the fear. Because if he accurately understood the threat here, his heart would stop of its own accord. His heart would raise the white flag before his mind did.

The animal rose to her feet.

The fully grown body of an alluringly beautiful woman straightened her legs and stood up like she had only just remembered she could.

She took a fighting stance.

“Teacher…”

That one word created a distortion.

But not in Alice. The bookcases, the reading desks, the floor, the walls, and everything else Kamijou could see looked like a child had scribbled out their outlines in white and black.

“The girl…wants…only one goal. She will…have this…no matter…matter what.”

He could have understood if she said she would kill him just for fun.

Or if she said she deeply resented him.

Even if she said she would destroy the world based on some inscrutable logic, he might have decided that made sense for someone so very different.

But.

“The girl wants...to make up...with you.”

Everything froze.

Inside Kamijou Touma, time ground to a halt.

Was that it.

Was that really and truly all there was to it?

At the Bridge Builders Cabal consulate in District 12, Kamijou and Alice had disagreed over her attempted punishment of H.T. Trismegistus, who had tried to kill him, and Good, Old Mary, who had failed to protect him.

CRC had killed her and she had regained her lost head.

She had driven the world mad and might destroy it as soon as tomorrow.

But this had never changed.

She only wanted to mend that broken bond.

No matter what it took.

Even if her methods were seen as unfair.

That little girl didn’t care. Kamijou should have bowed his head and apologized, but he had completely forgotten after learning about his imminent death.

Nevertheless, she was trying to achieve it on her own, even if it meant dirtying her hands.

So they could smile together again.

“So.”

It all took a turn.

Her behavior was distorted.

Only in Alice’s mind did it all fit together smoothly.

“The girl will make up with you. She will fight you because a serious fight allows people make up. But it has to be serious, so what can the girl do to get you to fight her? This city, this country, and this world can wait. It has to be serious. The girl understands you, teacher, so she knows you will fight her and make up with her.”

She said it all in a terribly ''drawn out'' and flat, emotionless voice. Her emotions were so intense it was all destroyed, like the recording medium itself was being burned from below by a lighter.

Alice probably really could do that.

And what would happen?

Would the world really end over this?

Maybe Alice could no longer make logical connections between the different pieces of data.

Kamijou had thoroughly broken that girl’s mind.

Issues of right and wrong or like and dislike were trivial at this point. They would no longer provide a dividing line between enemy and ally. This wasn’t like mantises that were programmed so the female would always eat the male. Perhaps it was closer to spiders where the female would sometimes suddenly leap at and devour the male in the middle of the male’s courtship display. Even with the same species facing each other one-on-one, and even with the male expressing his love and the female accepting it, she might mercilessly devour him on a whim. She would only realize she had done it after the fact. You couldn’t predict what would happen even a second into the future with a being like that.

She was such a close but distant being.

She was different.

She was a predator beautifully made by stretching out the muscles, laying out the nerves, hardening the bones.

Kamijou didn’t find her frightening anymore.

He felt sorrow instead.

“Stand back, fool,” coldly insisted Anna Sprengel.

The look she gave Alice was unusual for that villain.

Alice was another irregular Transcendent – another open-source path to power – but one who would never stand on the same side as Anna. Anna gave her a look of pity.

“You understand, don’t you? She’s a lot like an unstable animal. If you approach her now, she might turn you to mincemeat without even meaning to. In the worst case, she might decide that, if she can’t have you alive, she will tear off your head and take that away with her.”

Kamijou shook his head.

Would he battle Alice?

And defeat her?

“I can’t do that.”

This wasn’t about the size of the threat. He couldn’t picture it. It felt wrong. He wanted to trust in that part of himself.

He recalled that giant dragon.

When he had punched CRC away and given up on his possibilities, he had felt a disgusting sensation.

A future where he and CRC could stand side-by-side smiling had been lost. Kamijou had made sure of it.

And the fear caused by his prophesied death made him feel this way all the more.

Would he use that against Alice this time?

Like hell he would.

“Because I can’t save Alice that way. Isn’t there some other way!?”

Index and her 103,001 grimoires were here. So was Othinus, who had once been a Magic God. Not to mention Anna Sprengel, who was familiar with Rosicrucianism and the Bridge Builders Cabal.

Combining those three’s knowledge could reveal a way of saving Alice.

But…

“That really depends on your definition of ‘save’,” said Othinus. “Human, would you really be saving her if you grabbed that oversized head and shoved it back inside the small body? Back inside that shed skin?”

She was a god who had once destroyed the world and been pursued by all of humanity as a great criminal.

That Magic God was saying this about ''another monster capable of ending the world''.

She said it clearly, without averting her gaze from reality.

This was nothing as over-the-top as saving humanity or protecting the world.

It was a more personal miracle.

But she was speaking to the boy who really had risked his life to save a lonely god.

“You are here, human. So make your own choice. This here is the real Alice. She isn’t pure or innocent, but if the world can accept her this way, that would be one way of saving her.”

“Oh,” said Kamijou, sounding exasperated.

He just had to bring Alice back to her senses.

He kept that in mind while ignoring the issue of how difficult that would be to actually pull off.

“So if I risk my life, a path opens up?”

That was the best news he’d heard all day.

In that instant, an explosion erupted out.

Something twisted and scattered around right in front of his eyes. It took him a moment to realize they were fake roses.

Or that he would have been decapitated if not for them.

Alice had attacked.

He didn’t know why.

It was possible she didn’t either.

She was a captivatingly beautiful monster, but she was not a villain.

He had to believe that.

How deadly she looked had nothing to do with whether she was good or bad. She would bare her fangs whether it was right or wrong and whether she liked you or not. She was an unstable collection of power with only that function.

So he couldn’t falter.

He couldn’t turn Alice into a monster. He couldn’t accept that conclusion.

“Fool, the rose is a symbol of change. This applies to the Golden brooch that can create any sigil through the orderly arrangement of the 22 Hebrew letters and it applies to white and red roses colored with paint in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. ''By forcibly altering the interpretation and building a bridge,'' I can divert at least one of her attacks.”

Anna Sprengel stared straight ahead as she said this, but she had a red wound running across her cheek.

That had only been a villain’s trickery.

Kamijou couldn’t expect it to work forever.

But he should be plenty thankful it had worked at all in this real confrontation.

And while deflecting the attack was all well and good, he had no idea what Alice had done even after being on the receiving end of her attack.

The animal roared loud.

“Oooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Was that magic?

It was an apocalyptic roar.

A great energy grounded in something other than intelligence and reason spiraled out. The roar reflected off the walls and floor before gathering unnaturally on a single point in space.

Anna swept her little hand from left to right.

That was all it took for a thick shockwave to bend like a bow and knock over a few bookcases.

It was actually Alice who paused for a beat.

With her right hand still jabbing out with the fingers together. Perhaps that would have knocked off Kamijou’s head and then stabbed through his corpse’s heart before it could even fall to the floor.

''Slap!!

Little Anna, who would look better than anyone delivering a double slap, sent another attack sweeping up from below.

This may have been a first.

Alice Anotherbible’s attack wasn’t deflected or redirected – it was stopped from head on by an attack of equal power.

“Kh.”

“Why do you look so surprised?”

The little villain grinned and exchanged a glare with Alice at close range. Anna accepted Alice’s gaze without trying to escape.

She was a Transcendent not based on Alice.

She was another irregular Transcendent.

“Did you think you were special? There’s no such thing in the world of magic. I’m a magician who dressed up as Kingsford so I could stop my foolish students from ignoring my teaching and attempting self-destructive magic. I built my secret art from the ground up with the hands I had bloodied attempting to protect those lovable fools. Did you really think my way was inferior to the secret art you were simply given and have no real use for!?”

Alice’s hand was fully deflected.

She spun around, her partially-retracted arm blurring into streamlines. She chose a new target to attack. Index was chosen first, so Kamijou shoved the nun out of the way.

Fingers capable of tearing through steel rushed toward Kamijou.

Flashes of light intersected like a cross.

The fingers and claws sent horizontally toward Kamijou’s throat were stopped at the last second by an extremely thin blade.

Courtesy of H.T. Trismegistus.

No…

“My right hand contains Zeus. My left hand contains Indra. Thus I am renewed. Z.I. Trismegistus conversion complete!!”

Blinding white flashed from the point of contact between the struggling sword and fingers.

That was probably a high-voltage current.

The electrical energy was powerful enough to burn through a metal panel thicker than a thumb.

Of course, this wouldn’t be enough to defeat Alice. But dazzling her eyes for a moment meant a lot.

It gave Kamijou time to fall back.

“What the hell!? Can you just pick a side and stay on it!?” complained Othinus.

“Common sense says…”

The young butler hung his head.

He clenched his fist hard enough for his sword cane to creak.

“Common sense says I cannot expect Christian Rosencreutz to show up and save us here and now. And not just him. No one who isn’t present can do anything to help. I was wrong to place my hopes on people like that. No matter how complex and challenging the world’s problems, it is up to the people living in it to solve them.”

Now that he was freed from his bonds, H.T. Trismegistus spoke clearly.

“It is the people with us now who will decide how this ends. So it would be foolish in the extreme to not make use of that right. So says common sense!!”

Alice Anotherbible had tremendous power.

That power led a great many people to gather around her. But the Transcendents who had wanted to use her to make themselves special may have seemed like a stale and uninteresting bunch to Alice.

But that wasn’t all.

It couldn’t be.

In addition to the power someone had forced her to carry, Alice had had drawn quite a few people to herself in a different way. No matter what anyone might say, as much as she might resent the magician who had created “Alice Anotherbible” and however she saw things herself, Alice had not been alone. She had been loved.

Because if she wasn’t, Kamijou Touma, Anna Sprengel, and H.T. Trismegistus – people with such different positions and intentions – wouldn’t have all gathered here like this.

They wouldn’t have been working together to save Alice.

“Hey, Alice.”
She didn’t say anything, but Kamijou still smiled.

He was certain that Alice had the wrong idea of what it meant to be an adult.

When adults ran into problems, they asked for help. They would rely on and depend on others. They simply did their best to hide this in front of the small children.

Trying to do it all yourself and thinking you could solve anything if you had a special power was a child’s way of thinking.

So he had a lesson for her.

And for the world’s greatest illusion.

He would teach her that letting her ugly side show wasn’t going to destroy her world.

Alice Anotherbible wouldn’t be a lonely monster.

He wouldn’t let her.

An invisible wall had shattered inside Kamijou Touma.

He could deal with the deadly prophecy later. Because he had found something more important.

“If you think you can use your power to twist everything to your will… If you think you can take everything you loathe and make it everyone else’s problem…”

A perfectly ordinary high school boy clenched his right fist.

Tightly.

“Then I’ll destroy that illusion!!!”

None of the problems had been resolved. The boy had only adjusted his internal priorities.

Kamijou Touma would die today.

''But so what?

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter3

2024-04-22T02:19:06Z

Edzo: /* Part 8 */ removed extra "you" in "The girl heard you what you said"

==Chapter 3: Prophecy – Last_Branch(of_Die).==

===Part 1===

Late at night in District 7, Anna Kingsford stood at the very top of an enormous crane.

She stood tall and simply directed her gaze overhead.

The night sky seemed blotted out by the lights of the city, but viewing the clear stars in the sky gave this expert access to more information than searching the world linked together by fiber optics.

And she only used this for just causes.

Which was what made her an expert.

(The ⭐s are in place. That boy should become aware of the branch he passed by now.)

She sighed.

That was a complete side issue.

For one, Kingsford had never directly met Kamijou Touma. Which made him no more than a stranger in the same city as her.

(But awareness does ❌ allow him to change it. It may be his life, but he can ❌ change the decision he made on a branch he has already passed. Just like CRC passed a crucial branch ''and was defeated in a ⚔️ he should have won easily.'' The greatest enemy in an individual’s life is their own karma.)

“Not that he can ignore it now that he knows.”

But she would not just abandon him.

That expert did not consider her own interests, the state of the battle, or even whether or not she knew the boy.

He was a complete stranger?

So what?

If anyone was troubled, uncertain, or suffering, she was already taking action.

Anna Kingsford had perfected that way of life.

A fool who had yet to reach that point spoke to her.

It was the human named Aleister.

“Where are you going, Kingsford?”

“To serve others.”

“That’s my job. There’s no reason for you to continue fighting!!”

Even her battle against Rosencreutz had essentially been a miracle.

She had not actually won the battle. CRC could instantly search for any information about the world, but he had ''just so happened'' to overlook the fact that Anna Kingsford was a preserved corpse. If not for that, he would have destroyed her more thoroughly and she couldn’t have recovered.

She was reliant on unpredictable miracles.

Even a magician who mastered the field to the point of being known as an expert would lose eventually.

She had to know that.

Alice Anotherbible had easily crushed and killed CRC and so thoroughly eliminated him from the world that he could never recover. She was a true monster.

Kingsford had not reached that point.

She had to understand that. She wielded great power using the correspondence between the microcosm within a person and the macrocosm of the physical world around them, so she would have thoroughly analyzed herself in that way.

But the woman with a proper understanding of magic’s essence smiled as she responded.

She was accurately viewing her own fate, but she didn’t hesitate to speak.

“This is 👋.”

“But!!”

Contact with the new Board Chairman had been lost.

They couldn’t hope for anymore cooperation, so they had to settle this on their own.

The situation was clearly worsening and Alice was even more powerful than CRC. Certain death awaited Kingsford. Alice waited in a land that brought death to all who set foot there.

“Aleister. You must have understood from the beginning that I am ❌ more than a preserved corpse. You are only using ⚙️s to move an already ☠️ body around, so I never was alive. I escaped the previous ⚔️ intact by pure luck, but ❌ even that can save me next time. This ☠️ body will find only ☠️.”

“…”

As an expert who understood the secrets of the world of the living and the world of the dead, she was not too attached to her own life.

The only ones who clung to life with such ugly desperation were the half-baked magicians who remained fixated on this one life.

Still, he understood in his own inexpert way.

Anna Kingsford was an expert through and through. She didn’t even think of clinging to life or staying in this world forever.

She was only interested in eliminating the unknown threat making someone suffer before her eyes.

She didn’t even consider whether or not she had ever met that person.

She had no intention of returning. Her win condition didn’t even take that into account.

She was an example of how far people could go if they mastered their field.

“What was my role meant to be? I was supposed to be a trump 🃏 for use against the unbeatable Anna Sprengel. Now that Miss Sprengel has been freed from her wicked ⛓️ and that ⚔️ need ❌ be fought, my purpose is complete.”

Aleister had no response to that.

Because she was exactly right.

This goodbye could not be avoided. This was Aleister Crowley’s reward for wielding superhuman knowledge, doing what no one else could do, and enduring trials normal people would never even know existed. Kingsford was correct that the greatest enemy in an individual’s life was their own karma.

He was already in checkmate.

And yet…

“That just means I have to do the work myself.”

He understood it intellectually but he still tried to fight it. Was that because Aleister was an inexpert and ugly human?

But you must never forget that, while that human had accumulated a lot of bad karma, he would never stop struggling for his own ends.

“Aleister Crowley officially died in 1947 and stubbornly clung to life until he actually died battling Great Demon Coronzon. I’m as dead as you are. If someone has to save that boy, I’ll do it. I can do it if necessary!! And I’m better suited for that role. The wickedest man in the world should be standing up to the world even after death, not a pure and proper holy woman!”

“But you are still fixated on this 🌍.”

She shot back.

A true expert did not bother arguing about secrets.

She had already seen into the depths of his mind that even he wasn’t consciously aware existed.

She did it naturally.

And kindly.

“Conscious or ❌, you hijacked that great 👿’s body to cling to life. Either you still have something you want to do in this 🌍, or there is something you are ❌ yet willing to give up here. Dying for him is not the same as living with him. It never can be. Either way, it is too soon for you. Everyone dies eventually, so there is no need to rush toward ☠️. Live out your life first, Aleister. You can prepare yourself for ☠️ once you have done that.”

Kingsford smiled as she said this.

Smiled faintly.

Aleister lightly clenched his empty right hand.

He felt the pressure of a staff so twisted his fingertips tingled at the mere sight of it.

Special numbers scattered from his hand like sparks.

“I’ve had enough. What if I said I would stop you by force?”

“I would knock you aside and continue on my way.”

“Kh.”

She didn’t even hesitate.

She said it gently, like it was a foregone conclusion.

Kingsford used no more than words to overpower the victor of the Battle of Blythe Road.

He couldn’t say she couldn’t do it. He was already well past his limit with Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel. He had only so insolently decided to make use of this preserved corpse because he couldn’t handle them.

Trickery, betrayal, surprise attacks, intrigue, and – when necessary – direct confrontation.

He had used every trick in the book to drive the world’s greatest magic cabal to destruction at the Battle of Blythe Road, but none of it would work here.

He could not win in a direct one-on-one confrontation.

If Anna Kingsford went all out, Aleister had no way of opposing her. He knew she would simply prove how inexpert he really was. He would never manage to get his hands on the switch hidden below her skin.

“I do ❌ want you to ☠️ here. No number of previous ☠️s is any reason to accept ☠️ next time. So I will use all of my power to defeat you here. Soundly enough that you do ❌ have enough strength left to go out and ☠️.”

That was contradictory.

Kingsford kept saying she would not let people die so easily, but she was about to head out for her own death.

She was saying she would use up all of the tickets provided for her as a thinking and moving preserved corpse.

But that gentle smile of hers made the contradictory premise and conclusion seem to fit together with no problem.

It was strange really.

Was this the essence of magic known only to the few true experts – a position Aleister had yet to reach? This was the human-made miracle of protecting everyone you encountered and spreading smiles everywhere you went.

He couldn’t stop her.

This wasn’t the ''divine cosplay spell'' that simply let one dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. Nor was it the reverse logic where one tried to divulge the workings of the world to rebel against the god they so hated.

With a quiet bump, the failure of a student buried his face in Anna Kingsford’s chest.

He sniffled like a child.

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have to die.”

“That I met someone who feels that way and that I inspired these feelings in you, who felt betrayed by everything, tells me that I have won a victory against this 🌍.”

Clear drops spilled out.

Anna Kingsford held the lost child’s head to her chest and whispered gently to him.

She stroked the inexpert one’s blonde hair like a mother.

“I think you did have need of my preserved corpse. Especially on December 31. If no one had stopped Anna Sprengel, the 🌍 would have been thrown into chaos before CRC could even be reborn.”

One by one, the expert explained everything to the fool.

She taught him some terribly simple things that no one had ever before taught that human.

Not his parents who had thought meaningless strictness was a virtue, not his teachers who had failed to correct the social problem left in their care, and not the Golden magicians who had abandoned their pursuit of knowledge to spend their time on ugly internecine conflict.

Even though these should have been the first things he was taught.

“But you must ❌ toy with life. Because you are powerful enough to do so with ease, you have ❌ way to keep yourself focused other than using pure willpower to manage yourself. The ☠️ have their own dignity. Humans remain human even in ☠️. You ensured your own pain from the moment you disrespected the ☠️ for the sake of the living. Improve yourself, Aleister. If you do ❌ fear taking the long way around to avoid pain, there is much you can learn. Just like any magician.”

“…”

“And do ❌ worry, lost child of the living. You will not be alone. As an expert, I will do whatever it takes to save the one you care for. Even if it requires every trick in the 📖. So there is ❌ chance you will be crushed by loneliness.”

===Part 2===

Kamijou Touma heard a wet sound.

It came from inside his body.

He thought he must have imagined it.

But the sound of rotting flesh falling away was so distinct.

“…”

He was dying.

He was certain of it in that brightly lit classroom.

It was an unavoidable fate. No one had cruelly pushed him to this point. There was a chance he could have survived had he given up on saving others, but he had chosen this path for himself while on the dark side.

He felt an odd scraping.

Was that the wound from Aradia he felt in his right side and spine? The odd feeling in his neck would be H.T. Trismegistus.

Everything felt normal-ish, but that lack of extreme pain only terrified him more.

Something was definitely happening to him.

He couldn’t tell what was happening inside him. He only felt a vague disgust. It was like his silent organs were changing color without sending out any kind of alert. Death. The end. An invisible pressure. A cruel time bomb with the LCD timer omitted.

“Human…”

Even Magic God Othinus only groaned that word before falling silent.

There was no recovering from this.

''“You will die.”

''“That doesn’t change my answer.”

Thinking back, he had made that fateful choice when that god wasn’t with him.

He had carelessly made such an important decision on his own.

Of course he had screwed it up.

Everything had been wrong from the beginning.

How many times had he availed himself of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection? In other words, ''how many times had he died on the way here''? In just a few days’ time? Maybe you would survive certain death, as if by mistake, once over your long life. But he seriously doubted those bugs or errors would occur in his favor every single time like that. Not to mention that he was plagued by misfortune due to his right hand, so lady luck would never smile on him in that way.

The flaw wasn’t in Good, Old Mary.

Bringing him back to life even once was more than enough of a miracle.

The problem was him having her use it so many times in such a short period of time without considering the usage limits.

''He couldn’t fool death any longer.

''The corner of the mask was starting to peel away.

“Hey, teacher, why do you think the girl wanted the grimoire library?”

“…”

“Because the girl wanted to use the library’s knowledge to do something she couldn’t? To correct her broken head? No, the girl is already perfect and unbreakable. The answer is simple. ''The girl wanted to help you after you passed the final branch.'' The girl wanted to search through a library of all the world’s knowledge to find some method still remaining in this world. That was all.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………”

He had passed the fatal branch.

He had foolishly chosen to cross it and he had arrived at a mistaken destination.

Which one of them was really in need of help?

“If the girl found it, she would use it. If not, she would give up, deciding the world was just too shallow. There are billions of people in this wide world, so if not even one of them has a way to save you, it means they didn’t try hard enough and then the girl would have to punish them all with her power.”

H.T. Trismegistus had said he had always been one of the Killers.

He had said the swiftest and surest way to take Kamijou’s life was to have him meet Alice. He had been right.

It didn’t help the deathly ill to fear the doctor’s prognosis. Kamijou understood that. They had come down with the illness much earlier. The real problem may have been from their exercise, diet, or other life habits.

Nevertheless, that fear was real.

The tables had been turned.

The symbol of death had shifted from Alice Anotherbible to another girl Kamijou knew quite well.

White. Pure white. The all-knowing nun who was always by his side.

He felt no pain.

He wasn’t even given the right to writhe in agony as certain death approached.

The pressure mounted.

Like he was being slowly crushed by an incredibly thick invisible wall.

Which was more horrific: being turned to red and black spray by the world’s fastest linear motor train before you could even feel the fear, or having your body gradually drawn into the wheel of a local train as it pulled into the station?

With no malice, the girl spoke with an innocent smile.

“Well, teacher? Let’s go see the grimoire library! The girl can’t diagnose you, so we can have the all-knowing nun do that part☆”

===Part 3===

H.T. Trismegistus watched from a distance.

He had known Alice Anotherbible longer than any other member of the Bridge Builders Cabal. After all, he was the one who had discovered her in the modern day.

But there was a lot the young butler did not know.

Most notably, he did not know her origins.

Where was she born, where was she raised, where was she altered, and from where had she fled?

He didn’t have a single answer.

It had only been pure coincidence when he found her in a city abroad. She was in the shadows of a roofless shelter. She had tremendous value as an open-source spell, but he had not realized this until well after taking in the wandering girl.

At first, she had been like a wild animal.

She had gone so wild he had questioned what she had even eaten to survive.

It was nothing more than luck that Alice hadn’t known how to use her power. If she had chaotically wielded her power as Alice Anotherbible at that point, she probably would have destroyed the entire world.

Alice was smiling innocently next to someone else.

She wore an expression he had never seen before.

That much was fine.

The young man simply obeyed. Of course, this was for himself, not for Alice. H.T. Trismegistus was a Transcendent who had abandoned his magic name to dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. He could only view the world and choose who to save based on the salvation condition he had set for himself. So the first person he had to save was not himself or Alice.

He was the guardian deity of common sense.

He protected the people against anything that altered people’s sense of normalcy: war, rioting, disaster, loneliness, disease, famine, financial panic.

He sought a master who would save the world.

''Or to put it another way,'' the only person he would allow to distort common sense was the bearer of the paradigm shift that would guide all of humanity to the next stage. He could not leave this in the hands of just any old charismatic leader.

Was Christian Rosencreutz the one he sought?

Or was it Alice Anotherbible?

His objective was clear, but a question occurred to the young butler.

He knew his salvation condition.

But who exactly did he want to save?

===Part 4===

On the District 7 bridge, the Transcendents vs. Transcendents battle was trending in one direction.

“Tch! Good, Old Mary!?” shouted Aradia, holding onto the railroad crossing barrier she had borrowed as a broom and clinging to the side of a steel beam distributing the bridge’s weight.

But the woman collapsed on the cold asphalt did not respond.

That was a bad sign.

Good, Old Mary was the foundation of their recovery magic, but she had suddenly collapsed.

This was worse than simply losing one of their number.

Vidhatri, the brown-skinned woman with model-like proportions, shook the arms and legs of the Dhatri ball-joint doll she wore on her back, intricately manipulating white thread and black hair as she whispered to Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

“Do you still need support?”

“Nope. Everyone can do their own thing. Instead of assigning as many Transcendents as we can to attacking a single point, it would help me if we increased the total number of attack points to fill up the processing power of their minds.”

Something hovered through the air.

Some teacups and saucers were slowly flying around

Those were symbols from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Bologna Succubus noticed and groaned while breathing heavily with her hands down on the ground.

“Kssshhh, they’ve made it this far?”

“Ha ha☆ Of course they have.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet smiled calmly.

A single smile on that extremely lovable face summoned a great black dragon into the night sky. Was the twisting serpent actually tens of thousands of starlings? They were not venomous, but in great enough numbers, any creature was a threat to human life.

The instant the Bologna Succubus looked up at the black dragon filling the entire night sky, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet took a large step forward.

Without hesitation.

“Kh.”

Now was not the time to be overwhelmed by the intimidating numbers.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to gather as much air as possible.

She launched herself straight to the side.

The coat-shaped blast-resistant suit covered in thick metal panels snapped shut like a ferocious beast’s jaws. It was a sweet-smelling iron maiden. The air inside that isolated space was compressed with no outlet, producing a strange sound much like a steam engine.

The Bologna Succubus had just barely avoided it.

If she had carelessly stayed in place, she would have been “devoured”.

Instead of feeling fear, she gathered offensive power between her brows.

(Argh. I can’t let this chaos be unleashed on the boy’s city.)

What were Kamijou Touma and Alice Anotherbible doing right now?

She couldn’t predict how few seconds a regular Transcendent would last against Alice if she were serious about fighting, but it was still much too dangerous to let that boy stand defenselessly before Alice.

The alluring demon smiled bitterly at that thought and focused her feelings on the battle at hand.

“Oh, what’s this?”

Smiling, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet again spread her arms wide. Slowly.

Almost like a solid wall, a stifling nectar scent emerged from the blast-resistant suit and pushed toward the Bologna Succubus. Even at this distance, she had to stay focused to avoid getting dizzy.

What was happening in that closed world?

The skinny girl(?) wearing an apron over her naked body giggled before speaking.

“This won’t hurt at all, so don’t worry. I’m more interested in creating a gentle world where even the unloved are loved equally. Did you really understand my salvation condition? Kee hee hee☆ I have love even for a filthy sex demon, so get over here and let me give you a hug!!”

“Killing with pleasure, huh?”

“Ah ha ha☆ This is Total Courtship! Welcome to the sweetest, most luxurious ending to a life♪”

Roaches could rapidly build up a resistance to deadly insecticides, so they couldn’t necessarily be killed by escalating the chemical suffering. Instead, there were products that ''tricked them'' into thinking ethanol, acetaldehyde, sotolon, or another chemical compound was delicious food, luring them into the trap where they would take a different chemical back to the colony to kill them all at once. Humans didn’t just use what their target disliked – they would also use whatever their target most liked.

This girl similarly used love to kill. She was a super sweet monster who had continually honed the emotion of love into a deadly weapon. If you simply increased your defenses to prevent pain and prepared ordinary attacks, she would ''slip past them all'' and kill you instantly.

She was a specialist in that.

This Transcendent was a different form of strongest, whose trump card was the complete opposite of the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress which converted all forms of pleasure into pain.

Her victims were robbed of even the right to feel fear as they were filled with no more than ''happiness'' until they lost their life. In a trippy world where everything was vague, they would cross the final line without intent or resolve.

They were stranded.

She had complete control over them, not even giving them a chance to speak their final words.

She brought a death more certain than a .44 caliber bullet and its name was love.

“Yeah, I don’t think we could ever get along.”

“Kya ha ha☆ You’re only saying that because that makes it more exciting, aren’t you!?”

This must have been her combat form.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet had her enormous blast-resistant suit spread wide to display the terrarium trapped within. The skinny naked-apron girl pushed out a nectar scent so powerful it caused heartburn. And she took a casual step forward.

“You didn’t find it remotely odd? We’re all regular Transcendents here. A clash between our two groups shouldn’t end so easily. Yet you’re being easily defeated in a one-sided game. Is it a bad matchup between the individual Transcendents? Do our spells combine so well it’s like we were dealt a royal flush? No, that could never happen.”

“…”

“''No one can defeat Alice Anotherbible.''”

For this alone, she took on a respectful tone.

Almost like she was reading off the handwritten creed only she believed in.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet thought only of her own blessings as she spoke euphorically.

“You underestimated the meaning of that statement. And that optimism has brought you certain death. It doesn’t just mean you won’t survive a direct physical fight against Alice. There’s no getting around it. We control all of the coincidences and all of our baseless hunches and inspirations will work out in our favor. We have the ''trends'' of the world on our side. That is what it means to ‘resonate’ with Alice and take the winning side. To be clear, we are only firing blindly from the hip. You’re the ones ensuring we hit you.”

Vidhatri.

2nd Saga.

And Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

The Bologna Succubus’s side was being worn down, but all three of them were unharmed. She had gotten a few clean hits in on them, so had they managed to shrug off the damage?

And she was slipping past their expectations and landing an attack they failed to dodge or defend against, so it made no sense for them to be changing their stance to reduce the damage with 100% accuracy.

That wasn’t their individual abilities.

It was their “resonance” with Alice Anotherbible.

“Defying her means death. You had lost from the moment you bet on there being an exception to that, like that you could move beyond her reach, hide where she couldn’t find you, or escape punishment if your defiance was indirect. Not that she would let you get away with this even if you had been correct.”

“How are you on Alice’s side when you only love yourself?”

“Isn’t it cruel to expect such a small child to judge everything so accurately? They say to let your child make mistakes to learn from them, but do you think that kind of harsh parental love will work on that girl? Alice is simpler than that. Which is what makes her so frightening. At her mental age, she probably sees anyone who praises her and spoils her as her ally.”

And it didn’t end there.

“Heyyy.”

Something enormous was parting the large river to approach.

It was a special warship measuring around 100m long.

That was small compared to a nuclear aircraft carrier of more than 300m long, but it was undoubtedly a warship.

Plus, this was not the ship itself.

It was made out of smooth white shadow.

A girl’s lazy voice played from the speakers probably meant for giving warnings or making threats.

Come to think of it, hadn’t one of them seemingly vanished?

“This took some time to prepare, but I’m back.”

The ship’s bridge stood taller than the iron bridge.

She must have torn down all the other bridges spanning the river to clear a path here. It made you wonder which side was doing more damage to Academy City.

Aradia’s eyes really did bug out as she shouted.

“Mut Thebes!? What is that thing!?”

“You don’t know? It’s the Academy City drone carrier Kagenui.”

An aircraft carrier had to carry multiple large aircraft, necessitating a great size. Submersible and aerial aircraft carriers could not be made because the size and weight affected their balance too much. ...But that accepted principle had been overturned by shrinking the aircraft down by eliminating the cockpit and turning them into drones. Even the maintenance work could be carried out by an unmanned maintenance factory within the ship.

As usual, Academy City loved making bizarre things.

But now wasn’t the time for exasperation.

That was a carrier.

“Go, everyone.”

A series of explosions rang out. The boxy canisters on the flat deck rose up and opened fire. There were electrically ignited guns that could fire at a rate of a million rounds a minute. It looked like a programmed fireworks show. In truth, the honeycomb-like holes on the front of the canisters were releasing a large number of flying objects. By spreading their movable wings in air, they gathered in orderly teams and flew in formation. Now both sides had a flying swarm. The drones clashed directly with the tens of thousands of starlings ruling the night sky.

The assumptions and superiority had been overturned.

One side was alive and the other was machine.

When they were both controlled remotely and were equal in number, it went without saying whether the small birds or the man-made meter-long aerial weapons would win.

Perhaps the counterattack was necessary.

But as the drones pursued the fleeing starlings, their machinegun fire stabbed into the skyscrapers built along the river and sent sparks exploding from walls as thick power cables were ruptured.

“Mut Theeeebes!!!”

Aradia roared in anger, but then she stopped.

The brown girl was acting weird.

“Yayyy. Who wants to take a killer selfie? Just tell me when and I’ll get the timing right for you. Yippee! Let’s keep this Alice Parade Party going☆”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet giggled.

She clearly welcomed this turn of events.

Mut Thebes wasn’t enemy or ally – she was losing all awareness that she was participating in the battle at all. She was throwing that aside to enjoy herself. And her actions were clearly working against the Bologna Succubus’s side.

They sensed a trend in the series of unpleasant coincidences.

“I believe it’s called Acute Kotatsu Syndrome. Basically, Alice affects the group psychology of an area when she stays there long enough. Did you think you were ''immune'' for some reason? Even magicians and Transcendents will be engulfed by Alice sooner or later.”

“…”

“That includes all of us. Yes, you are no exception, Bologna Succubus. And most likely, neither are we. We will all lose our sense of who is on whose side in this mad tea party. The world that people across the globe have worked so hard to create could end today, but in a way that could mean the arrival of an age of peace. If everything is engulfed and everyone is a victim, then the distinction between enemy and ally loses all meaning.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet made it sound so obvious.

But it didn’t add up.

They were using their all-important salvation conditions as an excuse to love themselves and preserve their power by protecting Alice, so they wouldn’t want an ending where they were engulfed by Alice’s madness and lost sight of who they were. Narcissists who cared about themselves more than anything else in the world would never seek out a form of satisfaction created by having their internal aesthetic sense altered.

“''Do you have any idea what you’re saying''?”

“Ha ha☆ What? Are you saying I’ve already broken too''?”

It didn’t sound like she cared.

Someone on her level had lost the right to feel fear and disgust, or even detect that anything was amiss.

This space was going mad.

It had started at a single point, but the entire world would be this way eventually.

Whether or not Alice Anotherbible wanted it.

This was ominous enough to make that prediction.

“It doesn’t really matter. No one can defy Alice whether they put up a resistance or not.”

“Are you shoving responsibility for the world onto Alice’s shoulders while you alone abandon the effort of living, like you’re just a tree, grass, or flower, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet!?”

“Hee hee☆ Total Courtship – ready for dissemination. Now, I think I’ll pack you so full of super-sweet love that all your veins burst. Alice hates it when you try to lecture people like that, which is why she’s striking back at you, you know?”

===Part 5===

“…”

Anna Sprengel saw it.

She had supposedly divined the location of Kamijou and Alice, but ''something had gone wrong'' and she ended up here instead. Were you not even allowed to walk in a straight line without the proper credentials in this wonderland?

Everything within a 400 radius of the iron bridge was a zone of death. Crowds who had never even seen Alice directly were filling the streets due to her influence, but not even they would approach that area.

It may have been a type of instinct.

Just like people’s homing instincts worked even when drunk, the boys and girls who had lost sight of reality still knew they should keep away.

Although even that instinct would probably melt away eventually.

Once that happened, the world really was over.

Anna wanted to rescue Kamijou Touma. She wanted to fight against Alice Anotherbible with him. She wanted to protect him.

But so much depended on that bridge where an ''unnatural amount'' of things had gathered.

If those Transcendents scattered across the city again, Kamijou alone wouldn’t be able to deal with them. Then his world would simply fall apart.

So.

Before that happened…

“What are you planning?”

“!?”

Anna heard a female voice.

From right by her ear.

She belatedly spun around.

But she did not find one of the Transcendents who relied on the easy ''divine cosplay spell''. This was an expert who carried a magic name in her heart, stood on her own two feet, and had chosen for herself to take on the wide world.

It wasn’t a logical thing.

But Miss Sprengel could not hide the trembling and the cold sweat that came from her very soul.

“Anna Kingsford!?”

“You really should ❌ try it. It is ❌ like you. Two groups of Transcendents are ⚔️ing and one side is winning. Adding one more fighter to the fray will ❌ make a significant difference. As a self-proclaimed villain, you should know that quite well.”

“Why would you stop me? It shouldn’t be any skin off your nose if the fake Anna dies.”

“It would be. Because I do ❌ want you to ☠️.”

Kingsford didn’t hesitate.

The true villain was not used to being told these things so directly.

(First that fool and now her.)

Taken aback, little Miss Sprengel lost her chance to strike back and Kingsford laughed elegantly before continuing.

That smile was so much like Miss Sprengel’s, but she could never imitate it.

“It does appear that the side of the ⚔️ supported by ❌, resonating with Alice has the advantage. Transcendents are, after all, the false gods created when modern magicians used the incomplete 🪄 they created by analyzing the one and only success case: Alice Anotherbible. They have always been incomplete and unstable. They have a model. It should be obvious they will be 💪er when supported by the completed Alice.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? If Aradia’s side loses, who will be left to help that fool? Even if the entire world joined forces against Alice, I’m not sure it would work! And if the Alice-addled Transcendents gathered here end up scattering across Academy City, they could completely destroy that fool’s cit-”

“You only need to supply a ⛰️ greater than Alice.”

It didn’t even take a full second.

Kingsford placed her index finger on her slender chin and gave the answer with a confident smile.

An expert was a powerful guide in and of herself.

Just like sailors lost at sea would rely on the sun and moon in the sky to find the way back home.

“Blodeuwedd the Bouquet, Vidhatri, and 2nd Saga… They are borrowing a special power by resonating with Alice. So we just have to supply the same condition. If someone else leads the Transcendents, this problem is easily solved.”

Anna Sprengel only showed exasperation on her face.

Preparing a rival even more powerful than Alice was Kingsford’s idea of easy?

“I suppose someone as special as you would have no problem doing that,” said Miss Sprengel.

“Me? ❌, the only one who can do this is you.”

This time, Miss Sprengel’s eyes opened wide.

This had to be a joke.

“W-wait. I-I am no more than a common 2nd-rate magician who expanded my appearance and abilities by borrowing your name but still had to boost my specs further with Aiwass!!”

“Belittle yourself all you like, you are still an irregular Transcendent. Plus, you borrowed someone else’s name, but you did ❌ acquire the necessary 🪄 by analyzing Alice. You did your research from the ground up and successfully ‘👗ed up as’ Anna Kingsford. Which puts you on equal 🦶ing. We must refer to you as an irregular Transcendent for the exact same reason we refer to Alice Anotherbible that way.”

“…”

“You can do it.” Kingsford made this point clear. “Both you and Aleister have accomplished so much, so I can ❌ fathom why you both insist on belittling yourselves at every turn… I am saying there is something only you can accomplish, Miss Sprengel. I can ❌ do it. No matter how unnecessarily ashamed you are of yourself, your 🪄 to 👗 up as someone else is something that never occurred to me. Using that to help others qualifies as praiseworthy service if you ask me, but do you disagree?”

Silence.

Eventually followed by a wet sound.

It was the sound of a sniffling nose.

“Don’t tell that fool.”

“Sigh. I really think it is ⌚ the world recognized your talents.”

“Don’t tell him.”

“As you wish.”

“Then come forth, Aiwass!! Come to me, the walking amplifier for my will that has a mind of its own!!”

“Took you long enough, my benevolent genius.”

Anna Sprengel and Anna Kingsford.

The long-held conflict between them had been resolved.

Now they stood side by side, wielding great magic to protect an innocent life.

===Part 6===

The massive bridge had clearly been bent by an impact from the side. Cracks ran through the asphalt, steel screws larger than golf balls popped forcefully from the metal beams, and the joints between the girders swelled upwards.

The black bass and bluegills seemed harmless at first, but even at 500g each, tens of thousands of them still amounted to a large weight.

With the most lovable face, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet only had to blow a kiss to control them all.

Good, Old Mary had already collapsed after taking one to the center of the chest.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet chose Aradia as her next target.

It didn’t matter that she was directly facing the Bologna Succubus right now.

She set her sights on the witch goddess who stood on the complex arrangement of metal beams used to distribute the bridge’s weight.

“Look!! The world’s most high-tech city will have any number of unloved creatures: black bass, bluegills, rats, stray cats, pigeons, and starlings to name a few. Now, false goddess, let’s see how you handle the love-starved laments of the unloved!!”

“Tch!!”

“''Hee hee☆ Or should I send the unloved humans your way''?”

As soon as Aradia stiffened, stopping her interception spell, a babbler soared sharply toward her unguarded flank. A direct hit would probably kill the wild bird, but it would go through its death throes while embedded deep inside the wound and its beak and feathers would spread contaminants around.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet stuck out her tongue.

But the night wind that reached her was no more than a night wind.

It did not carry a rusty scent.

“?”

Had it missed?

When the support from “resonating” with Alice Anotherbible should have acted as a ''tailwind'' for all her actions?

Even though simply firing blindly from the hip should have always hit the enemy?

Before Blodeuwedd the Bouquet could pursue that question, Vidhatri shouted from where she stood.

“2nd Saga!! Eliminate her now!”

“Hee hee.”

An alluring female face and limbs appeared in the dark night. She was around 18, at the midpoint between girlhood and womanhood.

But that was all that was visible.

The pieces floated separately. No, her torso had clearly been torn apart. It now contained strange hollow spaces. Had her human silhouette unraveled like bandages? Was it due to the thick ribbon that had been wrapped around her torso? The lights of the city were visible in the space beyond her partially eliminated body.

The space seemed somewhat distorted.

Or maybe it was a type of ''camouflage''.

Aradia faced this person who was strange even for a Transcendent. She had the face of a girl with short flaxen hair with the interior dyed bright blue.

“2nd Saga. Do you derive some special meaning from covering and hiding things?”

“I’ve always had trouble choosing just one thing. I never want to throw anything out, so my room always ends up a mess.”

Saga was a goddess from Norse mythology.

She was said to be extremely powerful and to manage the spring where Odin is gifted with poetry and wisdom.

But she is barely mentioned throughout all the Norse monuments and texts.

Barely anything is known about her other than that her home is called Sokkvabekkr.

Information on her was scarce.

She was a mysterious figure who is simply known to share drinks with the top Norse god.

This woman had gone out of here way to choose a god like that.

She had wanted to be her.

Aradia spat annoyed words with the yellow and black railroad crossing barrier in hand.

“If a single performer tries to forcibly dress up as multiple gods, the traits of the gods cancel each other out, diluting their presence. We normally have strict rules about what we can’t do if we want to stay in character and keep our costume authentic, but I didn’t expect one of us to take advantage of that fact.”

“By intentionally keeping a low profile, I can do things other gods can’t. I am not the star of the show. But if a tree or a bush does something they shouldn’t, the audience has no way of knowing if it was correct or not. This allows me to be a performer on the stage while also freeing me from the bonds of the script. I am the only one allowed to be myself.”

“…”

“I am the Transcendent ''who saves all the bit parts and understudies who never get any attention.'' I can’t look down on them if I’m to do that. I need to understand how they feel and be one of them first.”

She disappeared.

Did she unleash her skill to the point she became one with the air?

The bluish-white armor partially surrounding 2nd Saga’s limbs vanished into the air, causing what little of her skin and face were still visible to look unnaturally alluring.

The bright round skin of her face was like a device for giving off sex appeal.

The pupils of her blue eyes were colored an impossible bright red. Did she use a light-bending technique to pull that one off?

Even with her full body unraveled, the individual pieces were made of captivating feminine skin.

But if a member of the opposite sex were caught by her like this, it would probably break his mind.

The strange avant-garde woman sneered.

“My name is 2nd Saga, a fictional god created on the mischievous whim of the compiler. Which allows me to ''add on'' any magic I wish which is never actually found in Norse mythology. …Now, it is time you lost your one and only life. The divine curse – that is, the light of Brisingamen, necklace of infidelity – can even trigger a war between world-destroying kings. Do not assume an individual can escape that deadly fate!!”

It started at the center, where her chest had been.

The thick ribbon, which bound her skin and showed the city behind her, created a transparent distortion much like sugar water, which spilled beyond her outlines.

It forcibly gathered Aradia’s focus on a single point, much like having a finger jabbed between the eyes at close range.

Aradia sensed a definite deadliness in this unknown phenomenon.

Was she mistaken, or had that been the true trigger?

The impossible distortion became a large artillery shell that tore through the air.

This was an assassination spell.

It was guaranteed to take a life.

And the user could sidestep their own sin by saying they were only adoring the beautiful gold and jewels. The necklace brought doom, but it allowed the user to claim they didn’t know it was cursed and thought it was only a beautiful piece of jewelry. Was that to insure they would not be hit in the unlikely case that the curse was sent back the way it had come?

Aradia snorted with laughter.

The rails were laid out nicely, but it was all nonsense with no actual mythological basis. The sky is heaven, the gods shine bright, the workings of salvation and divine punishment, cats are capricious and dogs are loyal – by combining the common symbols found across cultures, anyone could fake apparent legitimacy.

Yes, this was faked.

''Her cosplay was sloppy.'' Gods were meant to draw a strict line between right and wrong, so they couldn’t accept – much less use – a loophole like this. A real god did not choose their words carefully for fear of backlash or controversy. Even the cruelest act could be written off as “divine punishment” if it was truly necessary.

And even if this curse would pursue Aradia to the ends of the Earth, there was only one thing she had to do.

“''There just have to be two Aradias''.”

“Wha-!?”

Immediately after 2nd Saga’s dumbfounded shock, the invisible curse tore itself apart with its own power.

The chilly moonlight shined on two identical people.

The black and yellow railroad crossing barriers resting on their shoulders crossed like swords mounted on a wall.

Aradia hadn’t actually done anything. The curse simply hadn’t been designed to handle an abnormal situation where two identical people existed. It was unable to deal with the situation it found, so the single shell attempted to pursue two targets at once, tearing itself apart from within.

It dissipated.

It disappeared.

“Don’t you dare call this cheating. This has always been our role – we’re the perfect performers. And it was all of you who created ''a second one'' and brought her here without even asking me.”

Right and left.

The identical Aradias launched wind magic that struck the formless Transcendent.

The tides were turning.

“…”

Vidhatri was dumbfounded.

But she wasn’t simply shocked that a Transcendent receiving a ''tailwind'' by “resonating” with Alice Anotherbible had been defeated by a Transcendent who had that link severed and was alone in the storm.

More than that…

“''Why did you have that idea just now''?”

“''What do you mean''?”

“It also doesn’t make sense that you avoided Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s initial attack. Even if there was a way for you to defeat 2nd Saga, it never should have occurred to you!! That kind of support comes from Alice. How did you break through the thought masking!?”

“I would assume conditions have changed somewhere away from here.”

“Tch!!”

Panic spread through the air, infecting the entire space.

Vidhatri seemed rushed by something unseen rather than her own will as she unspooled a lot of white thread and black hair from the ball-joint doll she wore on her back.

By intentionally omitting all mention of something, that spell let her erase anything she didn’t like from the small world set up around her. If she erased everything that could kill her, then no one could defeat her.

A moment later, a dull impact struck her cheekbone. Something flew in from the side and Vidhatri was launched spinning through the air. The impact permeated her. Before she could figure out what had happened, her ball-joint doll broke apart and her model-proportioned body soared over the pedestrian railing and toward the dark river below.

But Aradia hadn’t done anything.

“You were focused on the wrong person, dumbass.”

Aradia glanced over to see a small figure standing boldly atop a metal beam.

It was Anna Sprengel.

“Keh heh heh. Alice no longer rules this world. Worms, bow before me and beg for your pitiful lives. It wasn’t you who created the Shrink Drink – you needed Alice’s help for that. Yet all you worthless regular Transcendents had the nerve to look down on me and try to kill me!!!”

“Before she could figure out what had happened, huh?” the goddess of witches whispered in exasperation. “So Vidhatri could preemptively eliminate any threat, but she was defenseless against any threat that never occurred to her.”

If anything, that was a lot like the death of the immortal Norse god of light, Baldr. That similarity was ''not'' a case of cultural transmission between India and Europe. It was instead evidence of the Transcendents not actually being strictly bound to a single god or even a single mythology.

“Have you imagined your own fate yet, 2nd Saga?”

“Have you imagined your own fate yet, 2nd Saga?”

“!?”

Multiple beams of light flashed out at once.

The two Aradias held out their palms to launch projectile magic toward the figure leaping vigorously from beam to beam. The attacks actually hit 2nd Saga. It was hard to believe she had been so untouchable just a bit ago. She was knocked from the beam above to the bridge below.

Mut Thebes (who was on their side but had lost control of herself) had her drone carrier stopped by a three-legged object that appeared out of thin air. That was Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos.

The tides had turned in the blink of an eye.

The only one left was Blodeuwedd the Bouquet in her coat-like blast-resistant suit and naked apron.

Aradia approached her directly, the Bologna Succubus glared icily at her, and bloody Good, Old Mary slowly rose to her feet.

“Wai-”

The dull “thump!!” of pierced flesh rang out.

The Bologna Succubus had launched her sharp tail and caught Blodeuwedd the Bouquet in the shoulder.

Using a frontal attack with no tricks.

The force of the blow broke the iron-maiden-like blast-resistant suit and the double doors covered in metal panels fell to the asphalt. With her protection gone, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s bare skin was exposed to the frigid air while she scattered junk from her terrarium and UV LED lights. The night wind carried away the flower petals.

“This is already over,” said the Bologna Succubus.

Her voice was colder than it ever had been when that boy was present.

The naked apron girl backed away, but her legs tangled underneath her.

She fell like normal.

Her specialness was gone.

“You forgot about your salvation condition, you abandoned the people you should be saving, and you thought only of preserving your own power. And then you blamed Alice for it all. …So this is already over. You have nothing left. Nothing at all.”

“You’re going to win this...and take everything from me?”

With only her frilly apron left, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet held her wounded shoulder with the opposite hand and struggled to keep her breath.

The powerful sex appeal she gathered around her had dissipated, leaving behind only the fear of a small child.

“This is all we have. You can’t tell me the idea of losing your power doesn’t scare you.”

“I am a Transcendent. I choose who I should protect and then guard those people from the threat this world presents them. Which is why I abandoned my own identity to dress up as a god,” said Witch Goddess Aradia. “My salvation condition does not include myself. And I would never rob innocent people of their future just so I could keep my own shameful life.”

With a dull sound, the Transcendent ended things with the Transcendent.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet was the last one.

There had been others, but they raised their hands in surrender when they saw the tides changing. That was about what you got with people who only worried about themselves.

But with Alice ''Anotherbible'' as an open-source example, more Transcendents could be created. Just like there were two Aradias here.

Remaking the city’s people into makeshift witches wasn’t an option here like it had been in Shibuya. If Academy City espers used magic, they would be harmed by the side effects and, if Alice wanted to, she could produce an unlimited supply of regular Transcendents. Those would be literally a grade above.

Any victories won fighting on the outer edges would only be temporary. And with only limited numbers to work with, they wouldn’t last if they were forced to fight the same battles over and over.

“This was no more than an opening skirmish,” said Anna Sprengel despite understanding that.

She was another host and open-source example who differed greatly from the Alice line.

They couldn’t stop here.

“Our real target is Alice. This rioting doesn’t end until she’s been stopped. The Queen of Hearts and Executioner waiting near Alice could easily be more powerful than the regular Transcendents.”

“If you have the time, could you deal with her too? Mut Thebes is shooting off ‘fireworks’ like this is some kind of party, so it would be great if you could bring that idiot back to her senses!!”

“Oh? Silly girl, are you sure you don’t want to take a video first?”

The giant white ship shook.

She must have been freed from the unseen physics that could be seen as Alice’s ''tailwind''.

Mut Thebes must have absorbed the weapon’s shadow, but where exactly was she attached to it?

“Bff!? Wait, wait, I’ll be good.”

“Finally come to your senses? Then take a look at the collapsed city around you. I can’t wait to see what kind of excuse you can come up with while dripping with sweat, God of Partying.”

“But if my partying was enough to destroy an entire city by accident, doesn’t that make me a super powerful goddess? And since we can all see how ultra-cute I am, can’t I get off the hook with a quick: ‘Oopsie. Tee hee’?”

“Good, Old Mary, use your Tribikos to step on that god of destruction, ship and all. It’s January, so dunking her to the bottom of the river ought to cool her head.”

Aradia icily passed judgment, but then a cracking voice came over the ship’s speakers.

“Oh, and the drone carrier’s antenna picked something up,” said Mut Thebes.

“?”

“It wasn’t encrypted or anything, so it was a lot like a radio transmission. Maybe it’s best to say this is being sent out all over the place. They might have been hoping we would pick it up. It’s being transmitted from ''a prison in District 10'' and it says it’s about Alice Pleasance Liddell.”

===Part 7===

After seeing off the little magician who had freed herself from her self-made bonds, Anna Kingsford sighed all on her own.

The end was nigh.

“Now, then.”

(I need to prepare for my part in this.)

===Part 8===

There were no subjective symptoms.

Kamijou wasn’t even allowed any obvious pain or bleeding.

Then was this a delirium or hallucination caused by all the stress he was under?

Except there was something there.

With each step he took down the long hallway, he heard a sound like thin threads snapping inside him. Like the creaking of bone or the beating of his heart, these were delicate sounds that shouldn’t have been audible outside his body.

He had heard on some trivia show that the simple action of walking concentrated a lot of weight and force on the leg bones. If that was true, then his body could no longer keep up with his movement. His insides were already breaking down to that extent.

Death.

The unavoidable destruction of the self.

Alice apparently wanted to ask Index if there was a way to heal him.

But Kamijou already knew the answer.

This was different from any of the previous times.

Or rather, this wasn’t a one-off failure. Everything he had done had pushed him too far. He was finally paying the price for it all. No one could escape the consequences of their own actions.

The end was nigh.

And it was only now that Kamijou realized something.

In a battle so severe, why hadn’t he noticed anything amiss? His survival this long had been the unnatural part.

“Hm, hm, hm☆”

Alice Anotherbible skipped out ahead of him.

She turned back, her skirt lifting disconcertingly high.

“C’mon, teacher. Everyone’s here now, so you need to hurry. Good or bad, you wouldn’t want it to end without ever learning the answer, would you?”

“…”

That was the opinion of someone watching from the outside.

It was clearly missing the viewpoint of the person on the verge of learning if their death was unavoidable.

They did not arrive at a normal classroom.

That was the door to the library.

That should have made for a poor prison. A solid kick would probably break open the sliding door and the outside windows were probably ordinary glass.

But since Alice had chosen this location, it was probably impossible to open from inside. Even with the knowledge of 103,001 grimoires at your disposal.

The door opened.

From the outside, it was surprisingly easy.

Kamijou doubted that was Imagine Breaker’s doing. He probably just had Alice’s permission.

“Touma!”

He heard a familiar voice.

She wasn’t bound with packing tape or zip ties. The windows and door were not reinforced. But there was definite relief on her face. That was the look of someone who just saw the thick door to their prison cell open.

And her smile froze in place.

The pure white sister was not concerned by Alice and H.T. Trismegistus’s presence. She was clearly looking at something else. The boy could tell that even with the mixture of truth, lies, and hallucination in his head.

“No...what is that?”

Her eyes widened because of Kamijou.

She had already detected something out of the ordinary.

Whether Alice was aware of that or not, she spoke in her childlike way.

“Okay, teacher. Ask her!”

The young butler clearly knew what was coming and struggled to suppress a grin.

Malicious words and actions were not the only way to hurt people.

Because he was bound by common sense, H.T. Trismegistus would never hurl abuse himself. The look on his face seemed to say there was no law against silence.

“I...won’t.”

“You have to,” said Alice.

“There’s no reason to force her to give an answer!!”

“Leaving the question unanswered solves nothing. Stopping here only lets the problem grow worse with time. She has 103,001 grimoires. With so much knowledge from all around the world available to her, the girl just knows she can find a way to heal you!!”

Was it even possible?

Had it been definitively proven, or was it only a theory?

Alice didn’t care about that.

It could be the geocentric theory, phlogiston, an ancient nuclear war, or that dinosaur farts caused the ice age. Of course, it could also be something accurate like universal gravitation or quantum theory. Accurate or not, if a theory had ever been proposed – if someone had thought it up and put together the logic behind it – she could build a bridge to it. She could choose ''whichever theories she wanted'' and link to them to wholly change the world. She was the ultimate conversion device. She could place Yamatai anywhere she liked, she could invent a perpetual motion machine of the first kind to produce unlimited energy, or she could remake the spherical Earth into a flat disk.

So there just had to be a single section in the more than 10 thousand grimoires.

Just one passage.

Even a single line would do.

No matter how absurd or difficult to achieve it was.

Alice could easily activate it and save Kamijou.

''But.

''Even then.

Index did not give a yes or no answer.

She kept her silence.

That was enough of an answer. If she wasn’t willing to say it out loud, she didn’t need to.

Her attempt at kindness was ineffective.

The verdict had been given.

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

Death.

That was the only option left.

Kamijou did not weep or rage.

He even forgot to fall to the floor.

In a way, he abandoned his humanity.

He simply stood there, stock still.

“Hu…man.”

Othinus’s quiet voice was enough for his head to wobble.

There was nothing there.

It wasn’t even emptiness that filled his mind.

He felt a heat surrounding him.

He simply stood there, forgetting even to collapse.

There was no way to save him.

The world had not developed that far.

It was underdeveloped.

People had studied what they liked and technology had branched off into countless directions, but never in this one.

The world didn’t care.

Time would continue on like normal even after he was gone.

And…

“Then let’s destroy it,” said a young voice.

Alice Anotherbible sounded the same as ever.

No, her voice sounded dried out.

Terrifyingly so.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

She sounded like her surprise party plan had fallen apart.

“We have our answer. And if this world can’t save you, teacher, than the girl is going to destroy it. The girl heard what you said, so she knows this world wouldn’t still be here if not for you. So it’s only fair the world goes away when you do, don’t you think?”

“Wait! Don’t, Touma!!” sharply shouted Index.

The knowledge of her grimoires must have told her Alice could do exactly what she claimed. And that she would do it the instant Kamijou gave her some kind of sign.

He would never do that under normal circumstances.

But it was wrong to assume he would behave normally now that he knew he would lose everything.

y/n.

The available options had been narrowed down as far as possible.

The fate of the world hinged on this one question.

“I do not agree.” H.T. Trismegistus finally spoke up, his shoulders shaking as he didn’t even bother to suppress his chuckling. “Destroying the world for a single individual is wrong. Maybe if this would save his life, but you should not destroy humanity if all you are doing is lashing out. Some might consider it moving, but common sense says it is not a benevolent act.”

Alice’s eyes widened like dinner plates.

And she lowered her voice.

“''H. T. Trismegistus''.”

“As you can see…”

The young butler raised his hands and kept speaking, undaunted.

He didn’t seem to care that the invisible muzzle of death was pressed unsteadily against his brow.

“I can tell Alice what common sense says, but I have no real way of stopping her. This is ultimately between you and her. No, make your own choice, Kamijou Touma. You cannot rely on Another Bible here and not even all the world’s grimoires contain a means of saving you. So what will you choose in the final moments now that your death is assured?”

Othinus gasped and looked up from his shoulder.

She was the only person who had just about achieved a perfect victory against Kamijou Touma.

She knew this ending.

She know this dead end.

Because the one-eyed war god had intentionally set up a situation just like this to kill the boy when he refused to give up no matter what else she tried.

“I see what you’re doing. Hey, human, don’t listen to-!!”

“Yes, you could go crying to Alice and have her take the world out with you. In fact, you needn’t even say a word. If you remain silent, she might just be considerate enough to do it on her own. But common sense tells me that Alice’s ''only'' motivation is making you happy. ''So you could eliminate Alice’s motivation by taking your own life before she destroys the world on your behalf.'' You will die soon regardless, so why not move up the timetable just a bit to save so many people?”

Mere moments before H.T. Trismegistus completed his encircling argument, someone kicked down the library door from the outside.

With no difficulty.

“Fool.”

It was easy to miss by how easily it happened, but this should have been an unavoidable critical hit. Kamijou’s path should have ended.

But it hadn’t.

Because someone wouldn’t let it.

You could develop an attack specialized for a single individual, but that individual didn’t need to fight alone.

Just by setting foot in here, little Anna Sprengel had accomplished what no one else could.

She was probably the only person in the world not affected by Alice’s madness.

She deflected it.

And that villain mercilessly stomped her way into Alice’s territory.

No one could stop her.

“Hmph. So only I made it this far in? I feel a little bad leaving Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the others stuck fighting an endless battle. You basically asked us to come and even showed us the way, but then you drove your guests away? When you think about it, that’s hilariously pathetic.”

“You?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet, you gloomy microdick? You should have known better than to trust your assumptions from the moment you couldn’t kill me with the Shrink Drink filled with Alice’s power.”

Anna chuckled and Othinus gave her a look more of exasperation than admiration.

“I see. So if you had actually killed that shitty villain, we wouldn’t be dealing with this nonsense about her ''outdoing Alice''.”

“Are you saying the world switched rails back then?” asked Index.

“That’s right, you dregs of a god and you pathetic loafer,” said Anna, giving Othinus and Index a scornful look. Then she spread her little hands. “The fool changed things. He moved many people’s hearts with his own actions rather than having Alice cheat for him. I did not achieve this miracle on my own. Don’t you think the first person to receive its blessings should be the one who worked so hard to make it happen?”

Yes.

No one had invited Anna. She did not have Alice’s permission. That meant she had faced Alice’s madness without fear, repelled it, and forced her own actions through.

She faced that tremendous charisma without being engulfed.

She had the brand name of the mystery woman behind the founding of the world’s largest magic cabal.

This villain carried a legend of equal value.

“Honestly,. You always let everyone push you around when it comes to Alice, fool. Do you seriously believe in the nice-sounding but scientifically-baseless and perverted jinx that the unclouded eyes of young children reflect truths the adults have long forgotten? If you ask me, you should learn to ignore it all as ''the words of an ignorant little kid''.”

“Anna…?”

“You might die, fool.”

Kamijou’s breath caught in his throat.

The thick invisible wall once more intruded on the ordinary scene around him.

Death.

The end.

It was approaching second by second, yet he felt no pain. Like a cruel time bomb with the LCD screen omitted.

What was wrong with feeling fear?

But Anna wasn’t done talking.

“I said ‘might’. None of this is set in stone, but Alice is acting like it’s 100% going to happen. Why?”

Othinus caught on first.

Almost like the thought had been unnaturally blocked until now.

“Oh, I get it. Everyone would prefer the opposite outcome, but she was enjoying telling everyone that he was definitely going to die.”

“It’s simple really. What did a certain monster need to do for him to drop his guard and let her in? What about showing him a greater threat so she doesn’t seem so bad? Just like I came off as a harmless companion when faced with the greater threats of CRC and Alice. But there is no threat greater at present than the Anotherbible. So a certain someone suggested the fool’s death.”

“Wait.”

“You should already know the answer. Alice Anotherbible only gets so assertive when it comes to Kamijou Touma. In a way, this is to be expected since I imprinted the fool’s past actions in her mind.”

It wasn’t her fault she had been deceived.

Anyone that little villain took advantage of already had an opening in them.

Or you could call it a vulnerability.

She could not create something from nothing. She pried open a small existing hole and then controlled them as she saw fit.

She was a reasonable but contemptible miracle-worker.

“The central factor for her has always been loneliness. Yes, I am the one who deceived her. Wherever she came from, I know the current Alice Anotherbible’s mind better than you.”

So?

What was that supposed to mean?

What was she imagining when she said that?

A cold sweat poured from Kamijou’s body.

For a brief moment, even his very real fear of death vanished from his mind.

“Hold on!! You’re not making sense. Alice means no harm. For better or for worse, what you see is what you get with her. Wasn’t that our initial assumption here? She can’t set people up, plot out some grand plan, or any other intellectual stuff like that!!”

“True,” agreed H.T. Trismegistus. “She is too powerful to do anything of the sort. Common sense says that someone capable of killing a dinosaur with a barehanded punch would never even think of inventing a gun, correct?”

“Shut up, you gloomy butler. And, fool, remind me who you came here to save?”

Anna sounded exasperated.

That was their initial assumption.

Kamijou had said that himself, but he had somehow forgotten it.

“I thought that issue had nothing to do with whether or not you will survive.”

“…”

He wanted to rescue Index and save Alice too.

That was why he had decided to fight Alice. That had been his initial objective.

And yet.

Why was he now seeking salvation from Alice?

Alice was the same as always. She was alive and well. It didn’t matter that her head had been crushed by Rosencreutz.

So shouldn’t he be rejoicing?

Shouldn’t he be weeping and laughing while hugging Alice?

Why was he being driven into a dead end?

''When had his objective been replaced?

''Who had caused that switch?

No.

…But…

I couldn’t be? Could it?

“Fool. I agree that Alice isn’t calculating enough to put together a long-term plan to fool people. Even telling her to ‘sit’ or ‘stay’ in front of a feast wouldn’t last very long. She may only be honestly saying what she believes to be right.”

That was a weirdly indirect phrasing.

Which suggested that phrasing was somehow necessary.

Othinus gave a snort.

“Yeah, I thought that was strange for a grimoire library whose job is to provide answers. Is this why she hesitated to give a response? Because she couldn’t easily reach a yes or no answer?”

The white nun, who was the polar opposite of the villain, spoke up quietly.

“But if Alice’s mind is too badly broken to tell what is and isn’t accurate, she might not be doing the right thing. Touma, you can’t trust that the things she tells you are accurate.”

Everyone’s eyes gathered on a single point.

Even H.T. Trismegistus, who had been taking advantage of the situation.

They heard a creaking sound.

Sounds like thick, straining leather came from within the girl as she hung her head.

“Those magicians could not change the world the way they wanted, nor could they follow their own rules after coming up with lofty salvation conditions,” said Anna Sprengel in a singsong way. “It probably was pure chance that very average group discovered the artificial miracle that is Alice Anotherbible before they began dressing up as gods. But they realized something.”

“…”

“In a mishmash of fiction and reality, a real girl had been remade into the storybook Alice and the storybook Alice had been created in the real world. They extracted a portion of those ‘plans’ and applied it to themselves. By customizing themselves as they liked with pieces of the preexisting open-source spell, they could abandon their individuality to dress up as any god or demon with extraordinary precision.”

The Transcendents really had transformed themselves that way.

At the cost of their own individuality.

For the Bridge Builders Cabal, the ''Anotherbible'' was a priceless text, but Alice was no more than a target of their worship. So they feared her and respected her, but they did everything they could to avoid third parties contacting her.

What had that lonely girl really wanted?

Or, more accurately, who?

“I see,” said Othinus on Kamijou’s shoulder. Sounding somewhat exasperated. “''This human was perfect for the role.'' I see now why that little monster was so obsessed with him.”

“Alice Pleasance Liddell listened to Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, the prototype for it all, and was the one clear model for the protagonist. But in a later era, she was abducted by a ‘Teacher of Crowley’ and thoroughly modified to create the Alice seen in the story.”

Little Anna herself proved that one’s apparent age wasn’t necessary reliable.

Even if she was already an adult when she was abducted, the magician would have made the necessary adjustments. Very physical adjustments using a scalpel and saw. It may have taken cutting through bone, sewing together skin, and rearranging organs, but they would have kept working and adjusting until she had the exact same height and adorable appearance as the fictional girl.

That could not have been an enjoyable experience.

But after being freed from the mystery magician and finding a place in the center of the Bridge Builders Cabal, Alice had not been able to live the innocent life of the storybook. Even though she was already free and more powerful than anyone. She had given up on any life other than fulfilling other people’s interests.

And she really had become an innocent child.

She probably wasn’t even aware of her own humiliation and resignation.

Anna sighed softly and dug into the ugly side of humanity.

That was something Kamijou couldn’t do.

This was a territory only allowed for a worldwide villain.

She would carry the burden of everyone’s ire as she revealed the necessary truth.

“A parent who values logic has no dreams to share with their child.

“When Mathematician Lewis Carroll later began creating the world’s greatest fantasy, he laid out symbols and meanings, discovered a special child, and used her as a model to tell the prototype of it all: Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.

“A self-proclaimed Teacher of Crowley saw value in you as no more than the one and only specimen to know of the uncorrected original version, so they remade you by rearranging everything from your bones to your organs into the optimal color, shape, and size.

“When the Bridge Builders Cabal ‘rediscovered’ the girl still wandering in the shadows of the modern world, they only saw you as an open-source spell of great power. They feared and respected you in something more like worship than anything.”

And so the girl had been craving more.

Starving for it.

It mattered little if it was a conscious or subconscious thing.

Alice was always surrounded by so many people, but none of them were really looking at her.

Her reputation had preceded her.

With one exception.

There was one boy who did not want her power as a Transcendent, had rejected the “happiness” brought by her ultimate power, and faced her with nothing but his own fist no matter how many times he was killed.

It all began there.

Like dreaming of something from a storybook, a certain girl had thought that was her last chance there.

So she wanted it no matter what.

“Touma, stand back.”

“Ah.”

“Stand back! Now!!”

Hesitantly, Kamijou got his voice out from his parched and trembling mouth.

While asking himself what it was he was so afraid of.

“Al...ice?”

“Yes?”

''The girl raised her head.

''Except she no longer had anything above her neck.

===Part 9===

Aradia had finally caught up.

She walked through the high school’s front gate, setting foot inside its grounds.

Or so she thought.

“Tch!!”

She immediately swung her black and yellow railroad crossing barrier and was answered with a dull crack. It suddenly broke at about the middle. Even with the power of the goddess of witches, she was forced back.

Good, Old Mary, who was woozy from blood loss, muttered quietly.

“It looks like a rabbit, but it doesn’t have a watch. It must be the March Hare from the tea party.”

“One of the Alice Series!?”

The flamingo bats. The hedgehogs.

The Gryphon, the Executioner, the Cook.

These were Alice’s raw and unstoppable toys which magicians had not yet turned into tools.

They seemed to be fighting as two opposing armies, but here it looked like the enemy of your enemy wasn’t your friend. The flamingo bats and hedgehogs would sometimes attack the Transcendents without provocation, so they couldn’t be trusted.

The March Hare had apparently attacked just now, but which side was he on?

For that matter, why were different monsters born from Alice fighting each other in the first place!?

“What are we supposed to do?” asked the Bologna Succubus.

“We should have Good, Old Mary stay back. We shouldn’t rely too heavily on her resurrection, but we shouldn’t waste her by sending her up against an even more dangerous enemy either!!”

The school was a rather large place.

Where was that boy?

And while they were only regular ones, it was strange that a group of several Transcendents couldn’t get past this one position.

They supposedly each wielded strange spells capable of taking on the entire magic side single-handedly.

The Gryphon, the Executioner, the bipedal hare, and the Cook throwing irons and pots.

They were all Alice’s toys with their origins in Wonderland.

But while they were only toys, they had been directly injected with a portion of Alice’s power. As seen with the Shrink Drink, that power made these far from your normal foe.

Ultimately, the Bridge Builders Cabal did not exist for Alice.

It was the result of the regular Transcendents, who sought and feared her great power, struggling to find some way of managing her.

All on her own, Alice was more powerful than countless armies.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, Good, Old Mary, and Mut Thebes.

Those four Transcendents gathering here was no problem at all for Alice. She probably hadn’t even decided to fight against the Transcendents. This could be seen in how the toys continued fighting each other instead of driving out the intruders.

“By the way, where did Anna get off to!?” asked Aradia.

“Did that slut use mama and the rest of you as bait for these pain-in-the-ass opponents while she went on ahead? She did, didn’t she?”

They said nothing more.

First, they sensed a great pressure. Only a moment later did they feel the powerful tremor in the ground.

It was Dinah the cat.

The fluffy white and black beast had grown larger than the gym, so a single step caused the entire space to shake. The flamingo bats and hedgehogs ran around in a panic and the Gryphon failed to get away in time and had its front leg crushed underfoot.

It didn’t matter if they were on Alice’s side.

And the culprit – Dinah – wasn’t even aware she had done it.

She was the greatest force in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

She carried such great firepower that the mice and birds who caused Alice so much trouble had fled at the mere mention of her name.

If this really was her, then she might cause destruction greater than Alice intended for.

That meant there was a risk of her crushing the entire school building with Kamijou and Alice inside.

Which was exactly what happened.

With her back to the school building, Aradia briefly froze up, so the Bologna Succubus had to flap her bat wings and tackle Aradia from the side to send them both tumbling across the ground. A gust of wind blew past them like a subway train had passed by nearby. That thing was much too large for anyone human-sized to take a direct hit from it. Aradia didn’t have time to celebrate her survival. She roared up toward the heavens while still tangled up with the Bologna Succubus.

That was the most prized of Alice’s toys.

Deadly Dinah.

Only one Transcendent could hope to battle that giant that rivaled a school gym in size.

“Mut Thebes, stop that thing immediately!!”

“It is too soon for me to attack. Wait 15 minutes for me to absorb enough shadows to create a body that can safely face the cat.”

Aradia’s eyes widened.

Mut Thebes wasn’t going to be any help.

Dinah was charging head-first toward the school building.

And just before she crashed into it, a deafening roar rang out.

Dinah was knocked rolling back, gouging large pieces of dirt out of the schoolyard and sending tons of dust into the air. It made no sense. There was no thick barrier there and no steel warship had appeared.

There was only a single human silhouette.

It looked downright minuscule compared to Dinah, who was large enough to look down at the gym.

Nevertheless, it was Dinah whose max-speed charge had been repelled, sending her rolling backwards.

“Wha-?”

Aradia was speechless.

This wasn’t even a Transcendent.

“Honestly.”

A voice came from the cloud of dust.

Aradia’s group did not recognize the voice. But the female voice inspired a compulsion that prevented even the Transcendents from taking it lightly.

“Alice Anotherbible has fallen apart more than I 💭. All of these things are a 🧩 of her – they are the many opinions she has ❌ been able to reconcile. I did ❌ expect her to be so overwhelmed with emotion that she nearly crushed her own 🏰 with her inside.”

This was Anna Kingsford.

The magician stood there on her own two feet without borrowing anyone’s appearance or abilities.

A moment later, the dirt thrown high into the sky was pulled back down by gravity.

It was like a dry rain.

Kingsford casually directed her index finger skyward and something invisible became a large umbrella. She alone was left without a speck of dust in her hair or on her clothes.

Something sliced sharply through the dusty veil.

It was a flamingo bat and the Cook.

Both sides of the conflict arrived at once.

Kingsford extended a single finger and drew out a few patterns in empty air.

They were constellations.

Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces.

The sharp sound was a moment delayed.

A scattershot of compressed water tore through the Cook like a cookie cutter through dough. When her blue-glowing fingertip turned toward the flamingo bat, the bat began to tremble while hovering in the air. Despite being inorganic, it clearly shrank two sizes.

The basics of astrology were to assign various elements and symbols to the 7 planets and 12 constellations of the horoscope and then experiment to see what effects were produced on yourself and others when they were applied from different angles and combinations. There were even tricky ways of building them into attack spells.

So by combining only the water element constellations, you could greatly amplify the power of ordinary water.

Instead of simple addition, it worked through multiplication, so it was like shifting up a gear in a car.

That expert did not bother coming up with impressive special attacks.

By earnestly working at the basic fundamentals that anyone could do and that novices tended to look down on, any magic could be brought to the point of a one-hit kill.

But none of that was particularly important.

For one, that wouldn’t be enough to kill Dinah.

“I will ❌ let you destroy the things you care about, Alice. That would be much too 😢 to see. I assure you on my name as an expert, being special does ❌ cut you off from the supply of ☺️.”

Just then…

“…?”

Anna Kingsford looked down at her right hand.

A red liquid was dripping from it.

She only had a slight cut on her fingertip, but the amount of blood was not the issue.

She shouldn’t have been harmed at all in that situation.

That expert never made mistakes.

So if something unexpected occurred regardless, it meant the problem was with the initial data she was working with, not her calculations.

In other words…

“Is this body reaching its limit?” she whispered, holding her fingertip in her mouth.

Her voice itself was a lot “rougher” than it had been when she was first booted up in Shibuya’s Miyashita Ark. It wasn’t limited to her outward appearance. This proved the injury and deterioration was also progressing where it couldn’t be seen.

She didn’t show the slightest hint of fear as she looked out ahead.

In fact, she took a step forward.

The cat large enough to crush the gym rose to her feet again.

Kingsford couldn’t continue on and leave this with the regular Transcendents. She had never figured out how to pick and choose who she saved.

These were Alice’s raw toys, which had yet to be turned into easy-to-use tools like the Shrink Drink. And this cat was the greatest of them. She was a mass of violence and destruction that wouldn’t bat an eye as she trampled all the other toys.

Dinah.

The expert faced the cat head on, holding the brim of her large hat between her fingertips.

She doubted her body would last to the end.

For that matter, it was unnatural for a preserved corpse her to be moving around at all.

(But I can accept that.)

So she decided on a more realistic goal: injuring Dinah enough to create an opening or weak point the Transcendents could take advantage of to defeat Dinah on their own.

The expert knew her doom was closing in on her, but she still spoke with her usual smile.

“⌚ to serve others.”

===Part 10===

She was a headless girl.

A little corpse.

Yet she was also standing up and looking at Kamijou.

He distinctly felt the pressure of her gaze.

The atmosphere in the library changed. The scales were rapidly tilting in a direction he did not like at all.

“!?”

Without thinking, he stepped back away from her.

This was an expression of malice that shouldn’t have been necessary.

Which proved it had been intentional.

It was true after all.

No matter how you looked at it, the center of the problem was right there.

It always had been.

Kamijou pushed past the fear of death he knew was coming and shouted.

“Alice!!”

He heard a sound like tearing cardboard.

No, not like. The headless girl really did tear down the center. And something else emerged, sticky with a translucent fluid.

This had happened before.

But this was not the little girl dressed in profane red and black leather.

This form could never have fit in that small body.

But she wasn’t accepting questions.

At the top of the vertical tear, near where the head should have been, an arm jutted straight up, but this arm belonged to a captivatingly beautiful woman. With a splat, she collapsed forward to crawl like a dog. The translucent slime left behind strings that stained the floor. She squirmed like a fluffy red boa. The leather bound her bright, wet body more tightly than necessary and her long blonde hair was so wet it writhed on the ground as a single clump. After instantly becoming a woman of about 18, she crawled forward and swung her head upwards. The wet hair covering her face swung back behind her, revealing her beautiful face.

“Touma!!”

Alice Anotherbible.

Or maybe Alice Pleasance Liddell.

Her true form.

“Did you use yourself as the ingredients to recreate the ideal version of yourself?” said Othinus in disgust.

Alice worked her alluring throat to release growls and her fingers scratched at the floor like an animal with sharp and sinister claws. She could not have been farther removed from reason, intelligence, and innocent adorableness.

Violence.

Battle.

Killing.

That was all she was.

She shined with the same light as a sword that had had been made so deadly it gained an odd beauty.

The fear of death was gone.

Even that thick invisible wall had vanished.

Kamijou felt a tingling in the back of his head. With the sharp claws, the large canine teeth emerging from her lips, and the fearsome light in her eyes, he knew there was so much he needed to focus on, yet he couldn’t read even a hint of deadliness from her. But he knew this wasn’t Alice doing anything special. His own mind had numbed the fear. Because if he accurately understood the threat here, his heart would stop of its own accord. His heart would raise the white flag before his mind did.

The animal rose to her feet.

The fully grown body of an alluringly beautiful woman straightened her legs and stood up like she had only just remembered she could.

She took a fighting stance.

“Teacher…”

That one word created a distortion.

But not in Alice. The bookcases, the reading desks, the floor, the walls, and everything else Kamijou could see looked like a child had scribbled out their outlines in white and black.

“The girl…wants…only one goal. She will…have this…no matter…matter what.”

He could have understood if she said she would kill him just for fun.

Or if she said she deeply resented him.

Even if she said she would destroy the world based on some inscrutable logic, he might have decided that made sense for someone so very different.

But.

“The girl wants...to make up...with you.”

Everything froze.

Inside Kamijou Touma, time ground to a halt.

Was that it.

Was that really and truly all there was to it?

At the Bridge Builders Cabal consulate in District 12, Kamijou and Alice had disagreed over her attempted punishment of H.T. Trismegistus, who had tried to kill him, and Good, Old Mary, who had failed to protect him.

CRC had killed her and she had regained her lost head.

She had driven the world mad and might destroy it as soon as tomorrow.

But this had never changed.

She only wanted to mend that broken bond.

No matter what it took.

Even if her methods were seen as unfair.

That little girl didn’t care. Kamijou should have bowed his head and apologized, but he had completely forgotten after learning about his imminent death.

Nevertheless, she was trying to achieve it on her own, even if it meant dirtying her hands.

So they could smile together again.

“So.”

It all took a turn.

Her behavior was distorted.

Only in Alice’s mind did it all fit together smoothly.

“The girl will make up with you. She will fight you because a serious fight allows people make up. But it has to be serious, so what can the girl do to get you to fight her? This city, this country, and this world can wait. It has to be serious. The girl understands you, teacher, so she knows you will fight her and make up with her.”

She said it all in a terribly ''drawn out'' and flat, emotionless voice. Her emotions were so intense it was all destroyed, like the recording medium itself was being burned from below by a lighter.

Alice probably really could do that.

And what would happen?

Would the world really end over this?

Maybe Alice could no longer make logical connections between the different pieces of data.

Kamijou had thoroughly broken that girl’s mind.

Issues of right and wrong or like and dislike were trivial at this point. They would no longer provide a dividing line between enemy and ally. This wasn’t like mantises that were programmed so the female would always eat the male. Perhaps it was closer to spiders where the female would sometimes suddenly leap at and devour the male in the middle of the male’s courtship display. Even with the same species facing each other one-on-one, and even with the male expressing his love and the female accepting it, she might mercilessly devour him on a whim. She would only realize she had done it after the fact. You couldn’t predict what would happen even a second into the future with a being like that.

She was such a close but distant being.

She was different.

She was a predator beautifully made by stretching out the muscles, laying out the nerves, hardening the bones.

Kamijou didn’t find her frightening anymore.

He felt sorrow instead.

“Stand back, fool,” coldly insisted Anna Sprengel.

The look she gave Alice was unusual for that villain.

Alice was another irregular Transcendent – another open-source path to power – but one who would never stand on the same side as Anna. Anna gave her a look of pity.

“You understand, don’t you? She’s a lot like an unstable animal. If you approach her now, she might turn you to mincemeat without even meaning to. In the worst case, she might decide that, if she can’t have you alive, she will tear off your head and take that away with her.”

Kamijou shook his head.

Would he battle Alice?

And defeat her?

“I can’t do that.”

This wasn’t about the size of the threat. He couldn’t picture it. It felt wrong. He wanted to trust in that part of himself.

He recalled that giant dragon.

When he had punched CRC away and given up on his possibilities, he had felt a disgusting sensation.

A future where he and CRC could stand side-by-side smiling had been lost. Kamijou had made sure of it.

And the fear caused by his prophesied death made him feel this way all the more.

Would he use that against Alice this time?

Like hell he would.

“Because I can’t save Alice that way. Isn’t there some other way!?”

Index and her 103,001 grimoires were here. So was Othinus, who had once been a Magic God. Not to mention Anna Sprengel, who was familiar with Rosicrucianism and the Bridge Builders Cabal.

Combining those three’s knowledge could reveal a way of saving Alice.

But…

“That really depends on your definition of ‘save’,” said Othinus. “Human, would you really be saving her if you grabbed that oversized head and shoved it back inside the small body? Back inside that shed skin?”

She was a god who had once destroyed the world and been pursued by all of humanity as a great criminal.

That Magic God was saying this about ''another monster capable of ending the world''.

She said it clearly, without averting her gaze from reality.

This was nothing as over-the-top as saving humanity or protecting the world.

It was a more personal miracle.

But she was speaking to the boy who really had risked his life to save a lonely god.

“You are here, human. So make your own choice. This here is the real Alice. She isn’t pure or innocent, but if the world can accept her this way, that would be one way of saving her.”

“Oh,” said Kamijou, sounding exasperated.

He just had to bring Alice back to her senses.

He kept that in mind while ignoring the issue of how difficult that would be to actually pull off.

“So if I risk my life, a path opens up?”

That was the best news he’d heard all day.

In that instant, an explosion erupted out.

Something twisted and scattered around right in front of his eyes. It took him a moment to realize they were fake roses.

Or that he would have been decapitated if not for them.

Alice had attacked.

He didn’t know why.

It was possible she didn’t either.

She was a captivatingly beautiful monster, but she was not a villain.

He had to believe that.

How deadly she looked had nothing to do with whether she was good or bad. She would bare her fangs whether it was right or wrong and whether she liked you or not. She was an unstable collection of power with only that function.

So he couldn’t falter.

He couldn’t turn Alice into a monster. He couldn’t accept that conclusion.

“Fool, the rose is a symbol of change. This applies to the Golden brooch that can create any sigil through the orderly arrangement of the 22 Hebrew letters and it applies to white and red roses colored with paint in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. ''By forcibly altering the interpretation and building a bridge,'' I can divert at least one of her attacks.”

Anna Sprengel stared straight ahead as she said this, but she had a red wound running across her cheek.

That had only been a villain’s trickery.

Kamijou couldn’t expect it to work forever.

But he should be plenty thankful it had worked at all in this real confrontation.

And while deflecting the attack was all well and good, he had no idea what Alice had done even after being on the receiving end of her attack.

The animal roared loud.

“Oooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Was that magic?

It was an apocalyptic roar.

A great energy grounded in something other than intelligence and reason spiraled out. The roar reflected off the walls and floor before gathering unnaturally on a single point in space.

Anna swept her little hand from left to right.

That was all it took for a thick shockwave to bend like a bow and knock over a few bookcases.

It was actually Alice who paused for a beat.

With her right hand still jabbing out with the fingers together. Perhaps that would have knocked off Kamijou’s head and then stabbed through his corpse’s heart before it could even fall to the floor.

''Slap!!

Little Anna, who would look better than anyone delivering a double slap, sent another attack sweeping up from below.

This may have been a first.

Alice Anotherbible’s attack wasn’t deflected or redirected – it was stopped from head on by an attack of equal power.

“Kh.”

“Why do you look so surprised?”

The little villain grinned and exchanged a glare with Alice at close range. Anna accepted Alice’s gaze without trying to escape.

She was a Transcendent not based on Alice.

She was another irregular Transcendent.

“Did you think you were special? There’s no such thing in the world of magic. I’m a magician who dressed up as Kingsford so I could stop my foolish students from ignoring my teaching and attempting self-destructive magic. I built my secret art from the ground up with the hands I had bloodied attempting to protect those lovable fools. Did you really think my way was inferior to the secret art you were simply given and have no real use for!?”

Alice’s hand was fully deflected.

She spun around, her partially-retracted arm blurring into streamlines. She chose a new target to attack. Index was chosen first, so Kamijou shoved the nun out of the way.

Fingers capable of tearing through steel rushed toward Kamijou.

Flashes of light intersected like a cross.

The fingers and claws sent horizontally toward Kamijou’s throat were stopped at the last second by an extremely thin blade.

Courtesy of H.T. Trismegistus.

No…

“My right hand contains Zeus. My left hand contains Indra. Thus I am renewed. Z.I. Trismegistus conversion complete!!”

Blinding white flashed from the point of contact between the struggling sword and fingers.

That was probably a high-voltage current.

The electrical energy was powerful enough to burn through a metal panel thicker than a thumb.

Of course, this wouldn’t be enough to defeat Alice. But dazzling her eyes for a moment meant a lot.

It gave Kamijou time to fall back.

“What the hell!? Can you just pick a side and stay on it!?” complained Othinus.

“Common sense says…”

The young butler hung his head.

He clenched his fist hard enough for his sword cane to creak.

“Common sense says I cannot expect Christian Rosencreutz to show up and save us here and now. And not just him. No one who isn’t present can do anything to help. I was wrong to place my hopes on people like that. No matter how complex and challenging the world’s problems, it is up to the people living in it to solve them.”

Now that he was freed from his bonds, H.T. Trismegistus spoke clearly.

“It is the people with us now who will decide how this ends. So it would be foolish in the extreme to not make use of that right. So says common sense!!”

Alice Anotherbible had tremendous power.

That power led a great many people to gather around her. But the Transcendents who had wanted to use her to make themselves special may have seemed like a stale and uninteresting bunch to Alice.

But that wasn’t all.

It couldn’t be.

In addition to the power someone had forced her to carry, Alice had had drawn quite a few people to herself in a different way. No matter what anyone might say, as much as she might resent the magician who had created “Alice Anotherbible” and however she saw things herself, Alice had not been alone. She had been loved.

Because if she wasn’t, Kamijou Touma, Anna Sprengel, and H.T. Trismegistus – people with such different positions and intentions – wouldn’t have all gathered here like this.

They wouldn’t have been working together to save Alice.

“Hey, Alice.”
She didn’t say anything, but Kamijou still smiled.

He was certain that Alice had the wrong idea of what it meant to be an adult.

When adults ran into problems, they asked for help. They would rely on and depend on others. They simply did their best to hide this in front of the small children.

Trying to do it all yourself and thinking you could solve anything if you had a special power was a child’s way of thinking.

So he had a lesson for her.

And for the world’s greatest illusion.

He would teach her that letting her ugly side show wasn’t going to destroy her world.

Alice Anotherbible wouldn’t be a lonely monster.

He wouldn’t let her.

An invisible wall had shattered inside Kamijou Touma.

He could deal with the deadly prophecy later. Because he had found something more important.

“If you think you can use your power to twist everything to your will… If you think you can take everything you loathe and make it everyone else’s problem…”

A perfectly ordinary high school boy clenched his right fist.

Tightly.

“Then I’ll destroy that illusion!!!”

None of the problems had been resolved. The boy had only adjusted his internal priorities.

Kamijou Touma would die today.

''But so what?

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter3

2024-04-17T03:14:11Z

Edzo: /* Part 1 */ removed extra "he" in "because he he couldn’t handle them."

{{Incomplete|parts=4|tparts=10}}
==Chapter 3: Prophecy – Last_Branch(of_Die).==

===Part 1===

Late at night in District 7, Anna Kingsford stood at the very top of an enormous crane.

She stood tall and simply directed her gaze overhead.

The night sky seemed blotted out by the lights of the city, but viewing the clear stars in the sky gave this expert access to more information than searching the world linked together by fiber optics.

And she only used this for just causes.

Which was what made her an expert.

(The ⭐s are in place. That boy should become aware of the branch he passed by now.)

She sighed.

That was a complete side issue.

For one, Kingsford had never directly met Kamijou Touma. Which made him no more than a stranger in the same city as her.

(But awareness does ❌ allow him to change it. It may be his life, but he can ❌ change the decision he made on a branch he has already passed. Just like CRC passed a crucial branch ''and was defeated in a ⚔️ he should have won easily.'' The greatest enemy in an individual’s life is their own karma.)

“Not that he can ignore it now that he knows.”

But she would not just abandon him.

That expert did not consider her own interests, the state of the battle, or even whether or not she knew the boy.

He was a complete stranger?

So what?

If anyone was troubled, uncertain, or suffering, she was already taking action.

Anna Kingsford had perfected that way of life.

A fool who had yet to reach that point spoke to her.

It was the human named Aleister.

“Where are you going, Kingsford?”

“To serve others.”

“That’s my job. There’s no reason for you to continue fighting!!”

Even her battle against Rosencreutz had essentially been a miracle.

She had not actually won the battle. CRC could instantly search for any information about the world, but he had ''just so happened'' to overlook the fact that Anna Kingsford was a preserved corpse. If not for that, he would have destroyed her more thoroughly and she couldn’t have recovered.

She was reliant on unpredictable miracles.

Even a magician who mastered the field to the point of being known as an expert would lose eventually.

She had to know that.

Alice Anotherbible had easily crushed and killed CRC and so thoroughly eliminated him from the world that he could never recover. She was a true monster.

Kingsford had not reached that point.

She had to understand that. She wielded great power using the correspondence between the microcosm within a person and the macrocosm of the physical world around them, so she would have thoroughly analyzed herself in that way.

But the woman with a proper understanding of magic’s essence smiled as she responded.

She was accurately viewing her own fate, but she didn’t hesitate to speak.

“This is 👋.”

“But!!”

Contact with the new Board Chairman had been lost.

They couldn’t hope for anymore cooperation, so they had to settle this on their own.

The situation was clearly worsening and Alice was even more powerful than CRC. Certain death awaited Kingsford. Alice waited in a land that brought death to all who set foot there.

“Aleister. You must have understood from the beginning that I am ❌ more than a preserved corpse. You are only using ⚙️s to move an already ☠️ body around, so I never was alive. I escaped the previous ⚔️ intact by pure luck, but ❌ even that can save me next time. This ☠️ body will find only ☠️.”

“…”

As an expert who understood the secrets of the world of the living and the world of the dead, she was not too attached to her own life.

The only ones who clung to life with such ugly desperation were the half-baked magicians who remained fixated on this one life.

Still, he understood in his own inexpert way.

Anna Kingsford was an expert through and through. She didn’t even think of clinging to life or staying in this world forever.

She was only interested in eliminating the unknown threat making someone suffer before her eyes.

She didn’t even consider whether or not she had ever met that person.

She had no intention of returning. Her win condition didn’t even take that into account.

She was an example of how far people could go if they mastered their field.

“What was my role meant to be? I was supposed to be a trump 🃏 for use against the unbeatable Anna Sprengel. Now that Miss Sprengel has been freed from her wicked ⛓️ and that ⚔️ need ❌ be fought, my purpose is complete.”

Aleister had no response to that.

Because she was exactly right.

This goodbye could not be avoided. This was Aleister Crowley’s reward for wielding superhuman knowledge, doing what no one else could do, and enduring trials normal people would never even know existed. Kingsford was correct that the greatest enemy in an individual’s life was their own karma.

He was already in checkmate.

And yet…

“That just means I have to do the work myself.”

He understood it intellectually but he still tried to fight it. Was that because Aleister was an inexpert and ugly human?

But you must never forget that, while that human had accumulated a lot of bad karma, he would never stop struggling for his own ends.

“Aleister Crowley officially died in 1947 and stubbornly clung to life until he actually died battling Great Demon Coronzon. I’m as dead as you are. If someone has to save that boy, I’ll do it. I can do it if necessary!! And I’m better suited for that role. The wickedest man in the world should be standing up to the world even after death, not a pure and proper holy woman!”

“But you are still fixated on this 🌍.”

She shot back.

A true expert did not bother arguing about secrets.

She had already seen into the depths of his mind that even he wasn’t consciously aware existed.

She did it naturally.

And kindly.

“Conscious or ❌, you hijacked that great 👿’s body to cling to life. Either you still have something you want to do in this 🌍, or there is something you are ❌ yet willing to give up here. Dying for him is not the same as living with him. It never can be. Either way, it is too soon for you. Everyone dies eventually, so there is no need to rush toward ☠️. Live out your life first, Aleister. You can prepare yourself for ☠️ once you have done that.”

Kingsford smiled as she said this.

Smiled faintly.

Aleister lightly clenched his empty right hand.

He felt the pressure of a staff so twisted his fingertips tingled at the mere sight of it.

Special numbers scattered from his hand like sparks.

“I’ve had enough. What if I said I would stop you by force?”

“I would knock you aside and continue on my way.”

“Kh.”

She didn’t even hesitate.

She said it gently, like it was a foregone conclusion.

Kingsford used no more than words to overpower the victor of the Battle of Blythe Road.

He couldn’t say she couldn’t do it. He was already well past his limit with Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel. He had only so insolently decided to make use of this preserved corpse because he couldn’t handle them.

Trickery, betrayal, surprise attacks, intrigue, and – when necessary – direct confrontation.

He had used every trick in the book to drive the world’s greatest magic cabal to destruction at the Battle of Blythe Road, but none of it would work here.

He could not win in a direct one-on-one confrontation.

If Anna Kingsford went all out, Aleister had no way of opposing her. He knew she would simply prove how inexpert he really was. He would never manage to get his hands on the switch hidden below her skin.

“I do ❌ want you to ☠️ here. No number of previous ☠️s is any reason to accept ☠️ next time. So I will use all of my power to defeat you here. Soundly enough that you do ❌ have enough strength left to go out and ☠️.”

That was contradictory.

Kingsford kept saying she would not let people die so easily, but she was about to head out for her own death.

She was saying she would use up all of the tickets provided for her as a thinking and moving preserved corpse.

But that gentle smile of hers made the contradictory premise and conclusion seem to fit together with no problem.

It was strange really.

Was this the essence of magic known only to the few true experts – a position Aleister had yet to reach? This was the human-made miracle of protecting everyone you encountered and spreading smiles everywhere you went.

He couldn’t stop her.

This wasn’t the ''divine cosplay spell'' that simply let one dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. Nor was it the reverse logic where one tried to divulge the workings of the world to rebel against the god they so hated.

With a quiet bump, the failure of a student buried his face in Anna Kingsford’s chest.

He sniffled like a child.

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have to die.”

“That I met someone who feels that way and that I inspired these feelings in you, who felt betrayed by everything, tells me that I have won a victory against this 🌍.”

Clear drops spilled out.

Anna Kingsford held the lost child’s head to her chest and whispered gently to him.

She stroked the inexpert one’s blonde hair like a mother.

“I think you did have need of my preserved corpse. Especially on December 31. If no one had stopped Anna Sprengel, the 🌍 would have been thrown into chaos before CRC could even be reborn.”

One by one, the expert explained everything to the fool.

She taught him some terribly simple things that no one had ever before taught that human.

Not his parents who had thought meaningless strictness was a virtue, not his teachers who had failed to correct the social problem left in their care, and not the Golden magicians who had abandoned their pursuit of knowledge to spend their time on ugly internecine conflict.

Even though these should have been the first things he was taught.

“But you must ❌ toy with life. Because you are powerful enough to do so with ease, you have ❌ way to keep yourself focused other than using pure willpower to manage yourself. The ☠️ have their own dignity. Humans remain human even in ☠️. You ensured your own pain from the moment you disrespected the ☠️ for the sake of the living. Improve yourself, Aleister. If you do ❌ not fear taking the long way around to avoid pain, there is much you can learn. Just like any magician.”

“…”

“And do ❌ worry, lost child of the living. You will not be alone. As an expert, I will do whatever it takes to save the one you care for. Even if it requires every trick in the 📖. So there is ❌ chance you will be crushed by loneliness.”

===Part 2===

Kamijou Touma heard a wet sound.

It came from inside his body.

He thought he must have imagined it.

But the sound of rotting flesh falling away was so distinct.

“…”

He was dying.

He was certain of it in that brightly lit classroom.

It was an unavoidable fate. No one had cruelly pushed him to this point. There was a chance he could have survived had he given up on saving others, but he had chosen this path for himself while on the dark side.

He felt an odd scraping.

Was that the wound from Aradia he felt in his right side and spine? The odd feeling in his neck would be H.T. Trismegistus.

Everything felt normal-ish, but that lack of extreme pain only terrified him more.

Something was definitely happening to him.

He couldn’t tell what was happening inside him. He only felt a vague disgust. It was like his silent organs were changing color without sending out any kind of alert. Death. The end. An invisible pressure. A cruel time bomb with the LCD timer omitted.

“Human…”

Even Magic God Othinus only groaned that word before falling silent.

There was no recovering from this.

''“You will die.”

''“That doesn’t change my answer.”

Thinking back, he had made that fateful choice when that god wasn’t with him.

He had carelessly made such an important decision on his own.

Of course he had screwed it up.

Everything had been wrong from the beginning.

How many times had he availed himself of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection? In other words, ''how many times had he died on the way here''? In just a few days’ time? Maybe you would survive certain death, as if by mistake, once over your long life. But he seriously doubted those bugs or errors would occur in his favor every single time like that. Not to mention that he was plagued by misfortune due to his right hand, so lady luck would never smile on him in that way.

The flaw wasn’t in Good, Old Mary.

Bringing him back to life even once was more than enough of a miracle.

The problem was him having her use it so many times in such a short period of time without considering the usage limits.

''He couldn’t fool death any longer.

''The corner of the mask was starting to peel away.

“Hey, teacher, why do you think the girl wanted the grimoire library?”

“…”

“Because the girl wanted to use the library’s knowledge to do something she couldn’t? To correct her broken head? No, the girl is already perfect and unbreakable. The answer is simple. ''The girl wanted to help you after you passed the final branch.'' The girl wanted to search through a library of all the world’s knowledge to find some method still remaining in this world. That was all.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………”

He had passed the fatal branch.

He had foolishly chosen to cross it and he had arrived at a mistaken destination.

Which one of them was really in need of help?

“If the girl found it, she would use it. If not, she would give up, deciding the world was just too shallow. There are billions of people in this wide world, so if not even one of them has a way to save you, it means they didn’t try hard enough and then the girl would have to punish them all with her power.”

H.T. Trismegistus had said he had always been one of the Killers.

He had said the swiftest and surest way to take Kamijou’s life was to have him meet Alice. He had been right.

It didn’t help the deathly ill to fear the doctor’s prognosis. Kamijou understood that. They had come down with the illness much earlier. The real problem may have been from their exercise, diet, or other life habits.

Nevertheless, that fear was real.

The tables had been turned.

The symbol of death had shifted from Alice Anotherbible to another girl Kamijou knew quite well.

White. Pure white. The all-knowing nun who was always by his side.

He felt no pain.

He wasn’t even given the right to writhe in agony as certain death approached.

The pressure mounted.

Like he was being slowly crushed by an incredibly thick invisible wall.

Which was more horrific: being turned to red and black spray by the world’s fastest linear motor train before you could even feel the fear, or having your body gradually drawn into the wheel of a local train as it pulled into the station?

With no malice, the girl spoke with an innocent smile.

“Well, teacher? Let’s go see the grimoire library! The girl can’t diagnose you, so we can have the all-knowing nun do that part☆”

===Part 3===

H.T. Trismegistus watched from a distance.

He had known Alice Anotherbible longer than any other member of the Bridge Builders Cabal. After all, he was the one who had discovered her in the modern day.

But there was a lot the young butler did not know.

Most notably, he did not know her origins.

Where was she born, where was she raised, where was she altered, and from where had she fled?

He didn’t have a single answer.

It had only been pure coincidence when he found her in a city abroad. She was in the shadows of a roofless shelter. She had tremendous value as an open-source spell, but he had not realized this until well after taking in the wandering girl.

At first, she had been like a wild animal.

She had gone so wild he had questioned what she had even eaten to survive.

It was nothing more than luck that Alice hadn’t known how to use her power. If she had chaotically wielded her power as Alice Anotherbible at that point, she probably would have destroyed the entire world.

Alice was smiling innocently next to someone else.

She wore an expression he had never seen before.

That much was fine.

The young man simply obeyed. Of course, this was for himself, not for Alice. H.T. Trismegistus was a Transcendent who had abandoned his magic name to dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. He could only view the world and choose who to save based on the salvation condition he had set for himself. So the first person he had to save was not himself or Alice.

He was the guardian deity of common sense.

He protected the people against anything that altered people’s sense of normalcy: war, rioting, disaster, loneliness, disease, famine, financial panic.

He sought a master who would save the world.

''Or to put it another way,'' the only person he would allow to distort common sense was the bearer of the paradigm shift that would guide all of humanity to the next stage. He could not leave this in the hands of just any old charismatic leader.

Was Christian Rosencreutz the one he sought?

Or was it Alice Anotherbible?

His objective was clear, but a question occurred to the young butler.

He knew his salvation condition.

But who exactly did he want to save?

===Part 4===

On the District 7 bridge, the Transcendents vs. Transcendents battle was trending in one direction.

“Tch! Good, Old Mary!?” shouted Aradia, holding onto the railroad crossing barrier she had borrowed as a broom and clinging to the side of a steel beam distributing the bridge’s weight.

But the woman collapsed on the cold asphalt did not respond.

That was a bad sign.

Good, Old Mary was the foundation of their recovery magic, but she had suddenly collapsed.

This was worse than simply losing one of their number.

Vidhatri, the brown-skinned woman with model-like proportions, shook the arms and legs of the Dhatri ball-joint doll she wore on her back, intricately manipulating white thread and black hair as she whispered to Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

“Do you still need support?”

“Nope. Everyone can do their own thing. Instead of assigning as many Transcendents as we can to attacking a single point, it would help me if we increased the total number of attack points to fill up the processing power of their minds.”

Something hovered through the air.

Some teacups and saucers were slowly flying around

Those were symbols from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Bologna Succubus noticed and groaned while breathing heavily with her hands down on the ground.

“Kssshhh, they’ve made it this far?”

“Ha ha☆ Of course they have.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet smiled calmly.

A single smile on that extremely lovable face summoned a great black dragon into the night sky. Was the twisting serpent actually tens of thousands of starlings? They were not venomous, but in great enough numbers, any creature was a threat to human life.

The instant the Bologna Succubus looked up at the black dragon filling the entire night sky, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet took a large step forward.

Without hesitation.

“Kh.”

Now was not the time to be overwhelmed by the intimidating numbers.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to gather as much air as possible.

She launched herself straight to the side.

The coat-shaped blast-resistant suit covered in thick metal panels snapped shut like a ferocious beast’s jaws. It was a sweet-smelling iron maiden. The air inside that isolated space was compressed with no outlet, producing a strange sound much like a steam engine.

The Bologna Succubus had just barely avoided it.

If she had carelessly stayed in place, she would have been “devoured”.

Instead of feeling fear, she gathered offensive power between her brows.

(Argh. I can’t let this chaos be unleashed on the boy’s city.)

What were Kamijou Touma and Alice Anotherbible doing right now?

She couldn’t predict how few seconds a regular Transcendent would last against Alice if she were serious about fighting, but it was still much too dangerous to let that boy stand defenselessly before Alice.

The alluring demon smiled bitterly at that thought and focused her feelings on the battle at hand.

“Oh, what’s this?”

Smiling, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet again spread her arms wide. Slowly.

Almost like a solid wall, a stifling nectar scent emerged from the blast-resistant suit and pushed toward the Bologna Succubus. Even at this distance, she had to stay focused to avoid getting dizzy.

What was happening in that closed world?

The skinny girl(?) wearing an apron over her naked body giggled before speaking.

“This won’t hurt at all, so don’t worry. I’m more interested in creating a gentle world where even the unloved are loved equally. Did you really understand my salvation condition? Kee hee hee☆ I have love even for a filthy sex demon, so get over here and let me give you a hug!!”

“Killing with pleasure, huh?”

“Ah ha ha☆ This is Total Courtship! Welcome to the sweetest, most luxurious ending to a life♪”

Roaches could rapidly build up a resistance to deadly insecticides, so they couldn’t necessarily be killed by escalating the chemical suffering. Instead, there were products that ''tricked them'' into thinking ethanol, acetaldehyde, sotolon, or another chemical compound was delicious food, luring them into the trap where they would take a different chemical back to the colony to kill them all at once. Humans didn’t just use what their target disliked – they would also use whatever their target most liked.

This girl similarly used love to kill. She was a super sweet monster who had continually honed the emotion of love into a deadly weapon. If you simply increased your defenses to prevent pain and prepared ordinary attacks, she would ''slip past them all'' and kill you instantly.

She was a specialist in that.

This Transcendent was a different form of strongest, whose trump card was the complete opposite of the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress which converted all forms of pleasure into pain.

Her victims were robbed of even the right to feel fear as they were filled with no more than ''happiness'' until they lost their life. In a trippy world were everything was vague, they would cross the final line without intent or resolve.

They were stranded.

She had complete control over them, not even giving them a chance to speak their final words.

She brought a death more certain than a .44 caliber bullet and its name was love.

“Yeah, I don’t think we could ever get along.”

“Kya ha ha☆ You’re only saying that because that makes it more exciting, aren’t you!?”

This must have been her combat form.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet had her enormous blast-resistant suit spread wide to display the terrarium trapped within. The skinny naked-apron girl pushed out a nectar scent so powerful it caused heartburn. And she took a casual step forward.

“You didn’t find it remotely odd? We’re all regular Transcendents here. A clash between our two groups shouldn’t end so easily. Yet you’re being easily defeated in a one-sided game. Is it a bad matchup between the individual Transcendents? Do our spells combine so well it’s like we were dealt a royal flush? No, that could never happen.”

“…”

“''No one can defeat Alice Anotherbible.''”

For this alone, she took on a respectful tone.

Almost like she was reading off the handwritten creed only she believed in.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet thought only of her own blessings as she spoke euphorically.

“You underestimated the meaning of that statement. And that optimism has brought you certain death. It doesn’t just mean you won’t survive a direct physical fight against Alice. There’s no getting around it. We control all of the coincidences and all of our baseless hunches and inspirations will work out in our favor. We have the ''trends'' of the world on our side. That is what it means to ‘resonate’ with Alice and take the winning side. To be clear, we are only firing blindly from the hip. You’re the ones ensuring we hit you.”

Vidhatri.

2nd Saga.

And Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

The Bologna Succubus’s side was being worn down, but all three of them were unharmed. She had gotten a few clean hits in on them, so had they managed to shrug off the damage?

And she was slipping past their expectations and landing an attack they failed to dodge or defend against, so it made no sense for them to be changing their stance to reduce the damage with 100% accuracy.

That wasn’t their individual abilities.

It was their “resonance” with Alice Anotherbible.

“Defying her means death. You had lost from the moment you bet on there being an exception to that, like that you could move beyond her reach, hide where she couldn’t find you, or escape punishment if your defiance was indirect. Not that she would let you get away with this even if you had been correct.”

“How are you on Alice’s side when you only love yourself?”

“Isn’t it cruel to expect such a small child to judge everything so accurately? They say to let your child make mistakes to learn from them, but do you think that kind of harsh parental love will work on that girl? Alice is simpler than that. Which is what makes her so frightening. At her mental age, she probably sees anyone who praises her and spoils her as her ally.”

And it didn’t end there.

“Heyyy.”

Something enormous was parting the large river to approach.

It was a special warship measuring around 100m long.

That was small compared to a nuclear aircraft carrier of more than 300m long, but it was undoubtedly a warship.

Plus, this was not the ship itself.

It was made out of smooth white shadow.

A girl’s lazy voice played from the speakers probably meant for giving warnings or making threats.

Come to think of it, hadn’t one of them seemingly vanished?

“This took some time to prepare, but I’m back.”

The ship’s bridge stood taller than the iron bridge.

She must have torn down all the other bridges spanning the river to clear a path here. It made you wonder which side was doing more damage to Academy City.

Aradia’s eyes really did bug out as she shouted.

“Mut Thebes!? What is that thing!?”

“You don’t know? It’s the Academy City drone carrier Kagenui.”

An aircraft carrier had to carry multiple large aircraft, necessitating a great size. Submersible and aerial aircraft carriers could not be made because the size and weight affected their balance too much. ...But that accepted principle had been overturned by shrinking the aircraft down by eliminating the cockpit and turning them into drones. Even the maintenance work could be carried out by an unmanned maintenance factory within the ship.

As usual, Academy City loved making bizarre things.

But now wasn’t the time for exasperation.

That was a carrier.

“Go, everyone.”

A series of explosions rang out. The boxy canisters on the flat deck rose up and opened fire. There were electrically ignited guns that could fire at a rate of a million rounds a minute. It looked like a programmed fireworks show. In truth, the honeycomb-like holes on the front of the canisters were releasing a large number of flying objects. By spreading their movable wings in air, they gathered in orderly teams and flew in formation. Now both sides had a flying swarm. The drones clashed directly with the tens of thousands of starlings ruling the night sky.

The assumptions and superiority had been overturned.

One side was alive and the other was machine.

When they were both controlled remotely and were equal in number, it went without saying whether the small birds or the man-made meter-long aerial weapons would win.

Perhaps the counterattack was necessary.

But as the drones pursued the fleeing starlings, their machinegun fire stabbed into the skyscrapers built along the river and sent sparks exploding from walls as thick power cables were ruptured.

“Mut Theeeebes!!!”

Aradia roared in anger, but then she stopped.

The brown girl was acting weird.

“Yayyy. Who wants to take a killer selfie? Just tell me when and I’ll get the timing right for you. Yippee! Let’s keep this Alice Parade Party going☆”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet giggled.

She clearly welcomed this turn of events.

Mut Thebes wasn’t enemy or ally – she was losing all awareness that she was participating in the battle at all. She was throwing that aside to enjoy herself. And her actions were clearly working against the Bologna Succubus’s side.

They sensed a trend in the series of unpleasant coincidences.

“I believe it’s called Acute Kotatsu Syndrome. Basically, Alice affects the group psychology of an area when she stays there long enough. Did you think you were ''immune'' for some reason? Even magicians and Transcendents will be engulfed by Alice sooner or later.”

“…”

“That includes all of us. Yes, you are no exception, Bologna Succubus. And most likely, neither are we. We will all lose our sense of who is on whose side in this mad tea party. The world that people across the globe have worked so hard to create could end today, but in a way that could mean the arrival of an age of peace. If everything is engulfed and everyone is a victim, then the distinction between enemy and ally loses all meaning.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet made it sound so obvious.

But it didn’t add up.

They were using their all-important salvation conditions as an excuse to love themselves and preserve their power by protecting Alice, so they wouldn’t want an ending where they were engulfed by Alice’s madness and lost sight of who they were. Narcissists who cared about themselves more than anything else in the world would never seek out a form of satisfaction created by having their internal aesthetic sense altered.

“''Do you have any idea what you’re saying''?”

“Ha ha☆ What? Are you saying I’ve already broken too''?”

It didn’t sound like she cared.

Someone on her level had lost the right to feel fear and disgust, or even detect that anything was amiss.

This space was going mad.

It had started at a single point, but the entire world would be this way eventually.

Whether or not Alice Anotherbible wanted it.

This was ominous enough to make that prediction.

“It doesn’t really matter. No one can defy Alice whether they put up a resistance or not.”

“Are you shoving responsibility for the world onto Alice’s shoulders while you alone abandon the effort of living, like you’re just a tree, grass, or flower, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet!?”

“Hee hee☆ Total Courtship – ready for dissemination. Now, I think I’ll pack you so full of super-sweet love that all your veins burst. Alice hates it when you try to lecture people like that, which is why she’s striking back at you, you know?”

===Part 5===

===Part 6===

===Part 7===

===Part 8===

===Part 9===

===Part 10===

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter3

2024-04-17T03:11:26Z

Edzo: /* Part 2 */ fixed typo "bit" into "but" - "Everything felt normal-ish, bit that lack of extreme pain only terrified him more."

{{Incomplete|parts=4|tparts=10}}
==Chapter 3: Prophecy – Last_Branch(of_Die).==

===Part 1===

Late at night in District 7, Anna Kingsford stood at the very top of an enormous crane.

She stood tall and simply directed her gaze overhead.

The night sky seemed blotted out by the lights of the city, but viewing the clear stars in the sky gave this expert access to more information than searching the world linked together by fiber optics.

And she only used this for just causes.

Which was what made her an expert.

(The ⭐s are in place. That boy should become aware of the branch he passed by now.)

She sighed.

That was a complete side issue.

For one, Kingsford had never directly met Kamijou Touma. Which made him no more than a stranger in the same city as her.

(But awareness does ❌ allow him to change it. It may be his life, but he can ❌ change the decision he made on a branch he has already passed. Just like CRC passed a crucial branch ''and was defeated in a ⚔️ he should have won easily.'' The greatest enemy in an individual’s life is their own karma.)

“Not that he can ignore it now that he knows.”

But she would not just abandon him.

That expert did not consider her own interests, the state of the battle, or even whether or not she knew the boy.

He was a complete stranger?

So what?

If anyone was troubled, uncertain, or suffering, she was already taking action.

Anna Kingsford had perfected that way of life.

A fool who had yet to reach that point spoke to her.

It was the human named Aleister.

“Where are you going, Kingsford?”

“To serve others.”

“That’s my job. There’s no reason for you to continue fighting!!”

Even her battle against Rosencreutz had essentially been a miracle.

She had not actually won the battle. CRC could instantly search for any information about the world, but he had ''just so happened'' to overlook the fact that Anna Kingsford was a preserved corpse. If not for that, he would have destroyed her more thoroughly and she couldn’t have recovered.

She was reliant on unpredictable miracles.

Even a magician who mastered the field to the point of being known as an expert would lose eventually.

She had to know that.

Alice Anotherbible had easily crushed and killed CRC and so thoroughly eliminated him from the world that he could never recover. She was a true monster.

Kingsford had not reached that point.

She had to understand that. She wielded great power using the correspondence between the microcosm within a person and the macrocosm of the physical world around them, so she would have thoroughly analyzed herself in that way.

But the woman with a proper understanding of magic’s essence smiled as she responded.

She was accurately viewing her own fate, but she didn’t hesitate to speak.

“This is 👋.”

“But!!”

Contact with the new Board Chairman had been lost.

They couldn’t hope for anymore cooperation, so they had to settle this on their own.

The situation was clearly worsening and Alice was even more powerful than CRC. Certain death awaited Kingsford. Alice waited in a land that brought death to all who set foot there.

“Aleister. You must have understood from the beginning that I am ❌ more than a preserved corpse. You are only using ⚙️s to move an already ☠️ body around, so I never was alive. I escaped the previous ⚔️ intact by pure luck, but ❌ even that can save me next time. This ☠️ body will find only ☠️.”

“…”

As an expert who understood the secrets of the world of the living and the world of the dead, she was not too attached to her own life.

The only ones who clung to life with such ugly desperation were the half-baked magicians who remained fixated on this one life.

Still, he understood in his own inexpert way.

Anna Kingsford was an expert through and through. She didn’t even think of clinging to life or staying in this world forever.

She was only interested in eliminating the unknown threat making someone suffer before her eyes.

She didn’t even consider whether or not she had ever met that person.

She had no intention of returning. Her win condition didn’t even take that into account.

She was an example of how far people could go if they mastered their field.

“What was my role meant to be? I was supposed to be a trump 🃏 for use against the unbeatable Anna Sprengel. Now that Miss Sprengel has been freed from her wicked ⛓️ and that ⚔️ need ❌ be fought, my purpose is complete.”

Aleister had no response to that.

Because she was exactly right.

This goodbye could not be avoided. This was Aleister Crowley’s reward for wielding superhuman knowledge, doing what no one else could do, and enduring trials normal people would never even know existed. Kingsford was correct that the greatest enemy in an individual’s life was their own karma.

He was already in checkmate.

And yet…

“That just means I have to do the work myself.”

He understood it intellectually but he still tried to fight it. Was that because Aleister was an inexpert and ugly human?

But you must never forget that, while that human had accumulated a lot of bad karma, he would never stop struggling for his own ends.

“Aleister Crowley officially died in 1947 and stubbornly clung to life until he actually died battling Great Demon Coronzon. I’m as dead as you are. If someone has to save that boy, I’ll do it. I can do it if necessary!! And I’m better suited for that role. The wickedest man in the world should be standing up to the world even after death, not a pure and proper holy woman!”

“But you are still fixated on this 🌍.”

She shot back.

A true expert did not bother arguing about secrets.

She had already seen into the depths of his mind that even he wasn’t consciously aware existed.

She did it naturally.

And kindly.

“Conscious or ❌, you hijacked that great 👿’s body to cling to life. Either you still have something you want to do in this 🌍, or there is something you are ❌ yet willing to give up here. Dying for him is not the same as living with him. It never can be. Either way, it is too soon for you. Everyone dies eventually, so there is no need to rush toward ☠️. Live out your life first, Aleister. You can prepare yourself for ☠️ once you have done that.”

Kingsford smiled as she said this.

Smiled faintly.

Aleister lightly clenched his empty right hand.

He felt the pressure of a staff so twisted his fingertips tingled at the mere sight of it.

Special numbers scattered from his hand like sparks.

“I’ve had enough. What if I said I would stop you by force?”

“I would knock you aside and continue on my way.”

“Kh.”

She didn’t even hesitate.

She said it gently, like it was a foregone conclusion.

Kingsford used no more than words to overpower the victor of the Battle of Blythe Road.

He couldn’t say she couldn’t do it. He was already well past his limit with Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel. He had only so insolently decided to make use of this preserved corpse because he he couldn’t handle them.

Trickery, betrayal, surprise attacks, intrigue, and – when necessary – direct confrontation.

He had used every trick in the book to drive the world’s greatest magic cabal to destruction at the Battle of Blythe Road, but none of it would work here.

He could not win in a direct one-on-one confrontation.

If Anna Kingsford went all out, Aleister had no way of opposing her. He knew she would simply prove how inexpert he really was. He would never manage to get his hands on the switch hidden below her skin.

“I do ❌ want you to ☠️ here. No number of previous ☠️s is any reason to accept ☠️ next time. So I will use all of my power to defeat you here. Soundly enough that you do ❌ have enough strength left to go out and ☠️.”

That was contradictory.

Kingsford kept saying she would not let people die so easily, but she was about to head out for her own death.

She was saying she would use up all of the tickets provided for her as a thinking and moving preserved corpse.

But that gentle smile of hers made the contradictory premise and conclusion seem to fit together with no problem.

It was strange really.

Was this the essence of magic known only to the few true experts – a position Aleister had yet to reach? This was the human-made miracle of protecting everyone you encountered and spreading smiles everywhere you went.

He couldn’t stop her.

This wasn’t the ''divine cosplay spell'' that simply let one dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. Nor was it the reverse logic where one tried to divulge the workings of the world to rebel against the god they so hated.

With a quiet bump, the failure of a student buried his face in Anna Kingsford’s chest.

He sniffled like a child.

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have to die.”

“That I met someone who feels that way and that I inspired these feelings in you, who felt betrayed by everything, tells me that I have won a victory against this 🌍.”

Clear drops spilled out.

Anna Kingsford held the lost child’s head to her chest and whispered gently to him.

She stroked the inexpert one’s blonde hair like a mother.

“I think you did have need of my preserved corpse. Especially on December 31. If no one had stopped Anna Sprengel, the 🌍 would have been thrown into chaos before CRC could even be reborn.”

One by one, the expert explained everything to the fool.

She taught him some terribly simple things that no one had ever before taught that human.

Not his parents who had thought meaningless strictness was a virtue, not his teachers who had failed to correct the social problem left in their care, and not the Golden magicians who had abandoned their pursuit of knowledge to spend their time on ugly internecine conflict.

Even though these should have been the first things he was taught.

“But you must ❌ toy with life. Because you are powerful enough to do so with ease, you have ❌ way to keep yourself focused other than using pure willpower to manage yourself. The ☠️ have their own dignity. Humans remain human even in ☠️. You ensured your own pain from the moment you disrespected the ☠️ for the sake of the living. Improve yourself, Aleister. If you do ❌ not fear taking the long way around to avoid pain, there is much you can learn. Just like any magician.”

“…”

“And do ❌ worry, lost child of the living. You will not be alone. As an expert, I will do whatever it takes to save the one you care for. Even if it requires every trick in the 📖. So there is ❌ chance you will be crushed by loneliness.”

===Part 2===

Kamijou Touma heard a wet sound.

It came from inside his body.

He thought he must have imagined it.

But the sound of rotting flesh falling away was so distinct.

“…”

He was dying.

He was certain of it in that brightly lit classroom.

It was an unavoidable fate. No one had cruelly pushed him to this point. There was a chance he could have survived had he given up on saving others, but he had chosen this path for himself while on the dark side.

He felt an odd scraping.

Was that the wound from Aradia he felt in his right side and spine? The odd feeling in his neck would be H.T. Trismegistus.

Everything felt normal-ish, but that lack of extreme pain only terrified him more.

Something was definitely happening to him.

He couldn’t tell what was happening inside him. He only felt a vague disgust. It was like his silent organs were changing color without sending out any kind of alert. Death. The end. An invisible pressure. A cruel time bomb with the LCD timer omitted.

“Human…”

Even Magic God Othinus only groaned that word before falling silent.

There was no recovering from this.

''“You will die.”

''“That doesn’t change my answer.”

Thinking back, he had made that fateful choice when that god wasn’t with him.

He had carelessly made such an important decision on his own.

Of course he had screwed it up.

Everything had been wrong from the beginning.

How many times had he availed himself of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection? In other words, ''how many times had he died on the way here''? In just a few days’ time? Maybe you would survive certain death, as if by mistake, once over your long life. But he seriously doubted those bugs or errors would occur in his favor every single time like that. Not to mention that he was plagued by misfortune due to his right hand, so lady luck would never smile on him in that way.

The flaw wasn’t in Good, Old Mary.

Bringing him back to life even once was more than enough of a miracle.

The problem was him having her use it so many times in such a short period of time without considering the usage limits.

''He couldn’t fool death any longer.

''The corner of the mask was starting to peel away.

“Hey, teacher, why do you think the girl wanted the grimoire library?”

“…”

“Because the girl wanted to use the library’s knowledge to do something she couldn’t? To correct her broken head? No, the girl is already perfect and unbreakable. The answer is simple. ''The girl wanted to help you after you passed the final branch.'' The girl wanted to search through a library of all the world’s knowledge to find some method still remaining in this world. That was all.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………”

He had passed the fatal branch.

He had foolishly chosen to cross it and he had arrived at a mistaken destination.

Which one of them was really in need of help?

“If the girl found it, she would use it. If not, she would give up, deciding the world was just too shallow. There are billions of people in this wide world, so if not even one of them has a way to save you, it means they didn’t try hard enough and then the girl would have to punish them all with her power.”

H.T. Trismegistus had said he had always been one of the Killers.

He had said the swiftest and surest way to take Kamijou’s life was to have him meet Alice. He had been right.

It didn’t help the deathly ill to fear the doctor’s prognosis. Kamijou understood that. They had come down with the illness much earlier. The real problem may have been from their exercise, diet, or other life habits.

Nevertheless, that fear was real.

The tables had been turned.

The symbol of death had shifted from Alice Anotherbible to another girl Kamijou knew quite well.

White. Pure white. The all-knowing nun who was always by his side.

He felt no pain.

He wasn’t even given the right to writhe in agony as certain death approached.

The pressure mounted.

Like he was being slowly crushed by an incredibly thick invisible wall.

Which was more horrific: being turned to red and black spray by the world’s fastest linear motor train before you could even feel the fear, or having your body gradually drawn into the wheel of a local train as it pulled into the station?

With no malice, the girl spoke with an innocent smile.

“Well, teacher? Let’s go see the grimoire library! The girl can’t diagnose you, so we can have the all-knowing nun do that part☆”

===Part 3===

H.T. Trismegistus watched from a distance.

He had known Alice Anotherbible longer than any other member of the Bridge Builders Cabal. After all, he was the one who had discovered her in the modern day.

But there was a lot the young butler did not know.

Most notably, he did not know her origins.

Where was she born, where was she raised, where was she altered, and from where had she fled?

He didn’t have a single answer.

It had only been pure coincidence when he found her in a city abroad. She was in the shadows of a roofless shelter. She had tremendous value as an open-source spell, but he had not realized this until well after taking in the wandering girl.

At first, she had been like a wild animal.

She had gone so wild he had questioned what she had even eaten to survive.

It was nothing more than luck that Alice hadn’t known how to use her power. If she had chaotically wielded her power as Alice Anotherbible at that point, she probably would have destroyed the entire world.

Alice was smiling innocently next to someone else.

She wore an expression he had never seen before.

That much was fine.

The young man simply obeyed. Of course, this was for himself, not for Alice. H.T. Trismegistus was a Transcendent who had abandoned his magic name to dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. He could only view the world and choose who to save based on the salvation condition he had set for himself. So the first person he had to save was not himself or Alice.

He was the guardian deity of common sense.

He protected the people against anything that altered people’s sense of normalcy: war, rioting, disaster, loneliness, disease, famine, financial panic.

He sought a master who would save the world.

''Or to put it another way,'' the only person he would allow to distort common sense was the bearer of the paradigm shift that would guide all of humanity to the next stage. He could not leave this in the hands of just any old charismatic leader.

Was Christian Rosencreutz the one he sought?

Or was it Alice Anotherbible?

His objective was clear, but a question occurred to the young butler.

He knew his salvation condition.

But who exactly did he want to save?

===Part 4===

On the District 7 bridge, the Transcendents vs. Transcendents battle was trending in one direction.

“Tch! Good, Old Mary!?” shouted Aradia, holding onto the railroad crossing barrier she had borrowed as a broom and clinging to the side of a steel beam distributing the bridge’s weight.

But the woman collapsed on the cold asphalt did not respond.

That was a bad sign.

Good, Old Mary was the foundation of their recovery magic, but she had suddenly collapsed.

This was worse than simply losing one of their number.

Vidhatri, the brown-skinned woman with model-like proportions, shook the arms and legs of the Dhatri ball-joint doll she wore on her back, intricately manipulating white thread and black hair as she whispered to Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

“Do you still need support?”

“Nope. Everyone can do their own thing. Instead of assigning as many Transcendents as we can to attacking a single point, it would help me if we increased the total number of attack points to fill up the processing power of their minds.”

Something hovered through the air.

Some teacups and saucers were slowly flying around

Those were symbols from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Bologna Succubus noticed and groaned while breathing heavily with her hands down on the ground.

“Kssshhh, they’ve made it this far?”

“Ha ha☆ Of course they have.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet smiled calmly.

A single smile on that extremely lovable face summoned a great black dragon into the night sky. Was the twisting serpent actually tens of thousands of starlings? They were not venomous, but in great enough numbers, any creature was a threat to human life.

The instant the Bologna Succubus looked up at the black dragon filling the entire night sky, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet took a large step forward.

Without hesitation.

“Kh.”

Now was not the time to be overwhelmed by the intimidating numbers.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to gather as much air as possible.

She launched herself straight to the side.

The coat-shaped blast-resistant suit covered in thick metal panels snapped shut like a ferocious beast’s jaws. It was a sweet-smelling iron maiden. The air inside that isolated space was compressed with no outlet, producing a strange sound much like a steam engine.

The Bologna Succubus had just barely avoided it.

If she had carelessly stayed in place, she would have been “devoured”.

Instead of feeling fear, she gathered offensive power between her brows.

(Argh. I can’t let this chaos be unleashed on the boy’s city.)

What were Kamijou Touma and Alice Anotherbible doing right now?

She couldn’t predict how few seconds a regular Transcendent would last against Alice if she were serious about fighting, but it was still much too dangerous to let that boy stand defenselessly before Alice.

The alluring demon smiled bitterly at that thought and focused her feelings on the battle at hand.

“Oh, what’s this?”

Smiling, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet again spread her arms wide. Slowly.

Almost like a solid wall, a stifling nectar scent emerged from the blast-resistant suit and pushed toward the Bologna Succubus. Even at this distance, she had to stay focused to avoid getting dizzy.

What was happening in that closed world?

The skinny girl(?) wearing an apron over her naked body giggled before speaking.

“This won’t hurt at all, so don’t worry. I’m more interested in creating a gentle world where even the unloved are loved equally. Did you really understand my salvation condition? Kee hee hee☆ I have love even for a filthy sex demon, so get over here and let me give you a hug!!”

“Killing with pleasure, huh?”

“Ah ha ha☆ This is Total Courtship! Welcome to the sweetest, most luxurious ending to a life♪”

Roaches could rapidly build up a resistance to deadly insecticides, so they couldn’t necessarily be killed by escalating the chemical suffering. Instead, there were products that ''tricked them'' into thinking ethanol, acetaldehyde, sotolon, or another chemical compound was delicious food, luring them into the trap where they would take a different chemical back to the colony to kill them all at once. Humans didn’t just use what their target disliked – they would also use whatever their target most liked.

This girl similarly used love to kill. She was a super sweet monster who had continually honed the emotion of love into a deadly weapon. If you simply increased your defenses to prevent pain and prepared ordinary attacks, she would ''slip past them all'' and kill you instantly.

She was a specialist in that.

This Transcendent was a different form of strongest, whose trump card was the complete opposite of the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress which converted all forms of pleasure into pain.

Her victims were robbed of even the right to feel fear as they were filled with no more than ''happiness'' until they lost their life. In a trippy world were everything was vague, they would cross the final line without intent or resolve.

They were stranded.

She had complete control over them, not even giving them a chance to speak their final words.

She brought a death more certain than a .44 caliber bullet and its name was love.

“Yeah, I don’t think we could ever get along.”

“Kya ha ha☆ You’re only saying that because that makes it more exciting, aren’t you!?”

This must have been her combat form.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet had her enormous blast-resistant suit spread wide to display the terrarium trapped within. The skinny naked-apron girl pushed out a nectar scent so powerful it caused heartburn. And she took a casual step forward.

“You didn’t find it remotely odd? We’re all regular Transcendents here. A clash between our two groups shouldn’t end so easily. Yet you’re being easily defeated in a one-sided game. Is it a bad matchup between the individual Transcendents? Do our spells combine so well it’s like we were dealt a royal flush? No, that could never happen.”

“…”

“''No one can defeat Alice Anotherbible.''”

For this alone, she took on a respectful tone.

Almost like she was reading off the handwritten creed only she believed in.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet thought only of her own blessings as she spoke euphorically.

“You underestimated the meaning of that statement. And that optimism has brought you certain death. It doesn’t just mean you won’t survive a direct physical fight against Alice. There’s no getting around it. We control all of the coincidences and all of our baseless hunches and inspirations will work out in our favor. We have the ''trends'' of the world on our side. That is what it means to ‘resonate’ with Alice and take the winning side. To be clear, we are only firing blindly from the hip. You’re the ones ensuring we hit you.”

Vidhatri.

2nd Saga.

And Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

The Bologna Succubus’s side was being worn down, but all three of them were unharmed. She had gotten a few clean hits in on them, so had they managed to shrug off the damage?

And she was slipping past their expectations and landing an attack they failed to dodge or defend against, so it made no sense for them to be changing their stance to reduce the damage with 100% accuracy.

That wasn’t their individual abilities.

It was their “resonance” with Alice Anotherbible.

“Defying her means death. You had lost from the moment you bet on there being an exception to that, like that you could move beyond her reach, hide where she couldn’t find you, or escape punishment if your defiance was indirect. Not that she would let you get away with this even if you had been correct.”

“How are you on Alice’s side when you only love yourself?”

“Isn’t it cruel to expect such a small child to judge everything so accurately? They say to let your child make mistakes to learn from them, but do you think that kind of harsh parental love will work on that girl? Alice is simpler than that. Which is what makes her so frightening. At her mental age, she probably sees anyone who praises her and spoils her as her ally.”

And it didn’t end there.

“Heyyy.”

Something enormous was parting the large river to approach.

It was a special warship measuring around 100m long.

That was small compared to a nuclear aircraft carrier of more than 300m long, but it was undoubtedly a warship.

Plus, this was not the ship itself.

It was made out of smooth white shadow.

A girl’s lazy voice played from the speakers probably meant for giving warnings or making threats.

Come to think of it, hadn’t one of them seemingly vanished?

“This took some time to prepare, but I’m back.”

The ship’s bridge stood taller than the iron bridge.

She must have torn down all the other bridges spanning the river to clear a path here. It made you wonder which side was doing more damage to Academy City.

Aradia’s eyes really did bug out as she shouted.

“Mut Thebes!? What is that thing!?”

“You don’t know? It’s the Academy City drone carrier Kagenui.”

An aircraft carrier had to carry multiple large aircraft, necessitating a great size. Submersible and aerial aircraft carriers could not be made because the size and weight affected their balance too much. ...But that accepted principle had been overturned by shrinking the aircraft down by eliminating the cockpit and turning them into drones. Even the maintenance work could be carried out by an unmanned maintenance factory within the ship.

As usual, Academy City loved making bizarre things.

But now wasn’t the time for exasperation.

That was a carrier.

“Go, everyone.”

A series of explosions rang out. The boxy canisters on the flat deck rose up and opened fire. There were electrically ignited guns that could fire at a rate of a million rounds a minute. It looked like a programmed fireworks show. In truth, the honeycomb-like holes on the front of the canisters were releasing a large number of flying objects. By spreading their movable wings in air, they gathered in orderly teams and flew in formation. Now both sides had a flying swarm. The drones clashed directly with the tens of thousands of starlings ruling the night sky.

The assumptions and superiority had been overturned.

One side was alive and the other was machine.

When they were both controlled remotely and were equal in number, it went without saying whether the small birds or the man-made meter-long aerial weapons would win.

Perhaps the counterattack was necessary.

But as the drones pursued the fleeing starlings, their machinegun fire stabbed into the skyscrapers built along the river and sent sparks exploding from walls as thick power cables were ruptured.

“Mut Theeeebes!!!”

Aradia roared in anger, but then she stopped.

The brown girl was acting weird.

“Yayyy. Who wants to take a killer selfie? Just tell me when and I’ll get the timing right for you. Yippee! Let’s keep this Alice Parade Party going☆”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet giggled.

She clearly welcomed this turn of events.

Mut Thebes wasn’t enemy or ally – she was losing all awareness that she was participating in the battle at all. She was throwing that aside to enjoy herself. And her actions were clearly working against the Bologna Succubus’s side.

They sensed a trend in the series of unpleasant coincidences.

“I believe it’s called Acute Kotatsu Syndrome. Basically, Alice affects the group psychology of an area when she stays there long enough. Did you think you were ''immune'' for some reason? Even magicians and Transcendents will be engulfed by Alice sooner or later.”

“…”

“That includes all of us. Yes, you are no exception, Bologna Succubus. And most likely, neither are we. We will all lose our sense of who is on whose side in this mad tea party. The world that people across the globe have worked so hard to create could end today, but in a way that could mean the arrival of an age of peace. If everything is engulfed and everyone is a victim, then the distinction between enemy and ally loses all meaning.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet made it sound so obvious.

But it didn’t add up.

They were using their all-important salvation conditions as an excuse to love themselves and preserve their power by protecting Alice, so they wouldn’t want an ending where they were engulfed by Alice’s madness and lost sight of who they were. Narcissists who cared about themselves more than anything else in the world would never seek out a form of satisfaction created by having their internal aesthetic sense altered.

“''Do you have any idea what you’re saying''?”

“Ha ha☆ What? Are you saying I’ve already broken too''?”

It didn’t sound like she cared.

Someone on her level had lost the right to feel fear and disgust, or even detect that anything was amiss.

This space was going mad.

It had started at a single point, but the entire world would be this way eventually.

Whether or not Alice Anotherbible wanted it.

This was ominous enough to make that prediction.

“It doesn’t really matter. No one can defy Alice whether they put up a resistance or not.”

“Are you shoving responsibility for the world onto Alice’s shoulders while you alone abandon the effort of living, like you’re just a tree, grass, or flower, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet!?”

“Hee hee☆ Total Courtship – ready for dissemination. Now, I think I’ll pack you so full of super-sweet love that all your veins burst. Alice hates it when you try to lecture people like that, which is why she’s striking back at you, you know?”

===Part 5===

===Part 6===

===Part 7===

===Part 8===

===Part 9===

===Part 10===

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter3

2024-04-17T03:09:09Z

Edzo: /* Part 2 */ removed extra "that" from "Even Magic God Othinus only groaned that word that before falling silent."

{{Incomplete|parts=4|tparts=10}}
==Chapter 3: Prophecy – Last_Branch(of_Die).==

===Part 1===

Late at night in District 7, Anna Kingsford stood at the very top of an enormous crane.

She stood tall and simply directed her gaze overhead.

The night sky seemed blotted out by the lights of the city, but viewing the clear stars in the sky gave this expert access to more information than searching the world linked together by fiber optics.

And she only used this for just causes.

Which was what made her an expert.

(The ⭐s are in place. That boy should become aware of the branch he passed by now.)

She sighed.

That was a complete side issue.

For one, Kingsford had never directly met Kamijou Touma. Which made him no more than a stranger in the same city as her.

(But awareness does ❌ allow him to change it. It may be his life, but he can ❌ change the decision he made on a branch he has already passed. Just like CRC passed a crucial branch ''and was defeated in a ⚔️ he should have won easily.'' The greatest enemy in an individual’s life is their own karma.)

“Not that he can ignore it now that he knows.”

But she would not just abandon him.

That expert did not consider her own interests, the state of the battle, or even whether or not she knew the boy.

He was a complete stranger?

So what?

If anyone was troubled, uncertain, or suffering, she was already taking action.

Anna Kingsford had perfected that way of life.

A fool who had yet to reach that point spoke to her.

It was the human named Aleister.

“Where are you going, Kingsford?”

“To serve others.”

“That’s my job. There’s no reason for you to continue fighting!!”

Even her battle against Rosencreutz had essentially been a miracle.

She had not actually won the battle. CRC could instantly search for any information about the world, but he had ''just so happened'' to overlook the fact that Anna Kingsford was a preserved corpse. If not for that, he would have destroyed her more thoroughly and she couldn’t have recovered.

She was reliant on unpredictable miracles.

Even a magician who mastered the field to the point of being known as an expert would lose eventually.

She had to know that.

Alice Anotherbible had easily crushed and killed CRC and so thoroughly eliminated him from the world that he could never recover. She was a true monster.

Kingsford had not reached that point.

She had to understand that. She wielded great power using the correspondence between the microcosm within a person and the macrocosm of the physical world around them, so she would have thoroughly analyzed herself in that way.

But the woman with a proper understanding of magic’s essence smiled as she responded.

She was accurately viewing her own fate, but she didn’t hesitate to speak.

“This is 👋.”

“But!!”

Contact with the new Board Chairman had been lost.

They couldn’t hope for anymore cooperation, so they had to settle this on their own.

The situation was clearly worsening and Alice was even more powerful than CRC. Certain death awaited Kingsford. Alice waited in a land that brought death to all who set foot there.

“Aleister. You must have understood from the beginning that I am ❌ more than a preserved corpse. You are only using ⚙️s to move an already ☠️ body around, so I never was alive. I escaped the previous ⚔️ intact by pure luck, but ❌ even that can save me next time. This ☠️ body will find only ☠️.”

“…”

As an expert who understood the secrets of the world of the living and the world of the dead, she was not too attached to her own life.

The only ones who clung to life with such ugly desperation were the half-baked magicians who remained fixated on this one life.

Still, he understood in his own inexpert way.

Anna Kingsford was an expert through and through. She didn’t even think of clinging to life or staying in this world forever.

She was only interested in eliminating the unknown threat making someone suffer before her eyes.

She didn’t even consider whether or not she had ever met that person.

She had no intention of returning. Her win condition didn’t even take that into account.

She was an example of how far people could go if they mastered their field.

“What was my role meant to be? I was supposed to be a trump 🃏 for use against the unbeatable Anna Sprengel. Now that Miss Sprengel has been freed from her wicked ⛓️ and that ⚔️ need ❌ be fought, my purpose is complete.”

Aleister had no response to that.

Because she was exactly right.

This goodbye could not be avoided. This was Aleister Crowley’s reward for wielding superhuman knowledge, doing what no one else could do, and enduring trials normal people would never even know existed. Kingsford was correct that the greatest enemy in an individual’s life was their own karma.

He was already in checkmate.

And yet…

“That just means I have to do the work myself.”

He understood it intellectually but he still tried to fight it. Was that because Aleister was an inexpert and ugly human?

But you must never forget that, while that human had accumulated a lot of bad karma, he would never stop struggling for his own ends.

“Aleister Crowley officially died in 1947 and stubbornly clung to life until he actually died battling Great Demon Coronzon. I’m as dead as you are. If someone has to save that boy, I’ll do it. I can do it if necessary!! And I’m better suited for that role. The wickedest man in the world should be standing up to the world even after death, not a pure and proper holy woman!”

“But you are still fixated on this 🌍.”

She shot back.

A true expert did not bother arguing about secrets.

She had already seen into the depths of his mind that even he wasn’t consciously aware existed.

She did it naturally.

And kindly.

“Conscious or ❌, you hijacked that great 👿’s body to cling to life. Either you still have something you want to do in this 🌍, or there is something you are ❌ yet willing to give up here. Dying for him is not the same as living with him. It never can be. Either way, it is too soon for you. Everyone dies eventually, so there is no need to rush toward ☠️. Live out your life first, Aleister. You can prepare yourself for ☠️ once you have done that.”

Kingsford smiled as she said this.

Smiled faintly.

Aleister lightly clenched his empty right hand.

He felt the pressure of a staff so twisted his fingertips tingled at the mere sight of it.

Special numbers scattered from his hand like sparks.

“I’ve had enough. What if I said I would stop you by force?”

“I would knock you aside and continue on my way.”

“Kh.”

She didn’t even hesitate.

She said it gently, like it was a foregone conclusion.

Kingsford used no more than words to overpower the victor of the Battle of Blythe Road.

He couldn’t say she couldn’t do it. He was already well past his limit with Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel. He had only so insolently decided to make use of this preserved corpse because he he couldn’t handle them.

Trickery, betrayal, surprise attacks, intrigue, and – when necessary – direct confrontation.

He had used every trick in the book to drive the world’s greatest magic cabal to destruction at the Battle of Blythe Road, but none of it would work here.

He could not win in a direct one-on-one confrontation.

If Anna Kingsford went all out, Aleister had no way of opposing her. He knew she would simply prove how inexpert he really was. He would never manage to get his hands on the switch hidden below her skin.

“I do ❌ want you to ☠️ here. No number of previous ☠️s is any reason to accept ☠️ next time. So I will use all of my power to defeat you here. Soundly enough that you do ❌ have enough strength left to go out and ☠️.”

That was contradictory.

Kingsford kept saying she would not let people die so easily, but she was about to head out for her own death.

She was saying she would use up all of the tickets provided for her as a thinking and moving preserved corpse.

But that gentle smile of hers made the contradictory premise and conclusion seem to fit together with no problem.

It was strange really.

Was this the essence of magic known only to the few true experts – a position Aleister had yet to reach? This was the human-made miracle of protecting everyone you encountered and spreading smiles everywhere you went.

He couldn’t stop her.

This wasn’t the ''divine cosplay spell'' that simply let one dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. Nor was it the reverse logic where one tried to divulge the workings of the world to rebel against the god they so hated.

With a quiet bump, the failure of a student buried his face in Anna Kingsford’s chest.

He sniffled like a child.

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have to die.”

“That I met someone who feels that way and that I inspired these feelings in you, who felt betrayed by everything, tells me that I have won a victory against this 🌍.”

Clear drops spilled out.

Anna Kingsford held the lost child’s head to her chest and whispered gently to him.

She stroked the inexpert one’s blonde hair like a mother.

“I think you did have need of my preserved corpse. Especially on December 31. If no one had stopped Anna Sprengel, the 🌍 would have been thrown into chaos before CRC could even be reborn.”

One by one, the expert explained everything to the fool.

She taught him some terribly simple things that no one had ever before taught that human.

Not his parents who had thought meaningless strictness was a virtue, not his teachers who had failed to correct the social problem left in their care, and not the Golden magicians who had abandoned their pursuit of knowledge to spend their time on ugly internecine conflict.

Even though these should have been the first things he was taught.

“But you must ❌ toy with life. Because you are powerful enough to do so with ease, you have ❌ way to keep yourself focused other than using pure willpower to manage yourself. The ☠️ have their own dignity. Humans remain human even in ☠️. You ensured your own pain from the moment you disrespected the ☠️ for the sake of the living. Improve yourself, Aleister. If you do ❌ not fear taking the long way around to avoid pain, there is much you can learn. Just like any magician.”

“…”

“And do ❌ worry, lost child of the living. You will not be alone. As an expert, I will do whatever it takes to save the one you care for. Even if it requires every trick in the 📖. So there is ❌ chance you will be crushed by loneliness.”

===Part 2===

Kamijou Touma heard a wet sound.

It came from inside his body.

He thought he must have imagined it.

But the sound of rotting flesh falling away was so distinct.

“…”

He was dying.

He was certain of it in that brightly lit classroom.

It was an unavoidable fate. No one had cruelly pushed him to this point. There was a chance he could have survived had he given up on saving others, but he had chosen this path for himself while on the dark side.

He felt an odd scraping.

Was that the wound from Aradia he felt in his right side and spine? The odd feeling in his neck would be H.T. Trismegistus.

Everything felt normal-ish, bit that lack of extreme pain only terrified him more.

Something was definitely happening to him.

He couldn’t tell what was happening inside him. He only felt a vague disgust. It was like his silent organs were changing color without sending out any kind of alert. Death. The end. An invisible pressure. A cruel time bomb with the LCD timer omitted.

“Human…”

Even Magic God Othinus only groaned that word before falling silent.

There was no recovering from this.

''“You will die.”

''“That doesn’t change my answer.”

Thinking back, he had made that fateful choice when that god wasn’t with him.

He had carelessly made such an important decision on his own.

Of course he had screwed it up.

Everything had been wrong from the beginning.

How many times had he availed himself of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection? In other words, ''how many times had he died on the way here''? In just a few days’ time? Maybe you would survive certain death, as if by mistake, once over your long life. But he seriously doubted those bugs or errors would occur in his favor every single time like that. Not to mention that he was plagued by misfortune due to his right hand, so lady luck would never smile on him in that way.

The flaw wasn’t in Good, Old Mary.

Bringing him back to life even once was more than enough of a miracle.

The problem was him having her use it so many times in such a short period of time without considering the usage limits.

''He couldn’t fool death any longer.

''The corner of the mask was starting to peel away.

“Hey, teacher, why do you think the girl wanted the grimoire library?”

“…”

“Because the girl wanted to use the library’s knowledge to do something she couldn’t? To correct her broken head? No, the girl is already perfect and unbreakable. The answer is simple. ''The girl wanted to help you after you passed the final branch.'' The girl wanted to search through a library of all the world’s knowledge to find some method still remaining in this world. That was all.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………”

He had passed the fatal branch.

He had foolishly chosen to cross it and he had arrived at a mistaken destination.

Which one of them was really in need of help?

“If the girl found it, she would use it. If not, she would give up, deciding the world was just too shallow. There are billions of people in this wide world, so if not even one of them has a way to save you, it means they didn’t try hard enough and then the girl would have to punish them all with her power.”

H.T. Trismegistus had said he had always been one of the Killers.

He had said the swiftest and surest way to take Kamijou’s life was to have him meet Alice. He had been right.

It didn’t help the deathly ill to fear the doctor’s prognosis. Kamijou understood that. They had come down with the illness much earlier. The real problem may have been from their exercise, diet, or other life habits.

Nevertheless, that fear was real.

The tables had been turned.

The symbol of death had shifted from Alice Anotherbible to another girl Kamijou knew quite well.

White. Pure white. The all-knowing nun who was always by his side.

He felt no pain.

He wasn’t even given the right to writhe in agony as certain death approached.

The pressure mounted.

Like he was being slowly crushed by an incredibly thick invisible wall.

Which was more horrific: being turned to red and black spray by the world’s fastest linear motor train before you could even feel the fear, or having your body gradually drawn into the wheel of a local train as it pulled into the station?

With no malice, the girl spoke with an innocent smile.

“Well, teacher? Let’s go see the grimoire library! The girl can’t diagnose you, so we can have the all-knowing nun do that part☆”

===Part 3===

H.T. Trismegistus watched from a distance.

He had known Alice Anotherbible longer than any other member of the Bridge Builders Cabal. After all, he was the one who had discovered her in the modern day.

But there was a lot the young butler did not know.

Most notably, he did not know her origins.

Where was she born, where was she raised, where was she altered, and from where had she fled?

He didn’t have a single answer.

It had only been pure coincidence when he found her in a city abroad. She was in the shadows of a roofless shelter. She had tremendous value as an open-source spell, but he had not realized this until well after taking in the wandering girl.

At first, she had been like a wild animal.

She had gone so wild he had questioned what she had even eaten to survive.

It was nothing more than luck that Alice hadn’t known how to use her power. If she had chaotically wielded her power as Alice Anotherbible at that point, she probably would have destroyed the entire world.

Alice was smiling innocently next to someone else.

She wore an expression he had never seen before.

That much was fine.

The young man simply obeyed. Of course, this was for himself, not for Alice. H.T. Trismegistus was a Transcendent who had abandoned his magic name to dress up in the appearance and abilities of a god. He could only view the world and choose who to save based on the salvation condition he had set for himself. So the first person he had to save was not himself or Alice.

He was the guardian deity of common sense.

He protected the people against anything that altered people’s sense of normalcy: war, rioting, disaster, loneliness, disease, famine, financial panic.

He sought a master who would save the world.

''Or to put it another way,'' the only person he would allow to distort common sense was the bearer of the paradigm shift that would guide all of humanity to the next stage. He could not leave this in the hands of just any old charismatic leader.

Was Christian Rosencreutz the one he sought?

Or was it Alice Anotherbible?

His objective was clear, but a question occurred to the young butler.

He knew his salvation condition.

But who exactly did he want to save?

===Part 4===

On the District 7 bridge, the Transcendents vs. Transcendents battle was trending in one direction.

“Tch! Good, Old Mary!?” shouted Aradia, holding onto the railroad crossing barrier she had borrowed as a broom and clinging to the side of a steel beam distributing the bridge’s weight.

But the woman collapsed on the cold asphalt did not respond.

That was a bad sign.

Good, Old Mary was the foundation of their recovery magic, but she had suddenly collapsed.

This was worse than simply losing one of their number.

Vidhatri, the brown-skinned woman with model-like proportions, shook the arms and legs of the Dhatri ball-joint doll she wore on her back, intricately manipulating white thread and black hair as she whispered to Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

“Do you still need support?”

“Nope. Everyone can do their own thing. Instead of assigning as many Transcendents as we can to attacking a single point, it would help me if we increased the total number of attack points to fill up the processing power of their minds.”

Something hovered through the air.

Some teacups and saucers were slowly flying around

Those were symbols from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Bologna Succubus noticed and groaned while breathing heavily with her hands down on the ground.

“Kssshhh, they’ve made it this far?”

“Ha ha☆ Of course they have.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet smiled calmly.

A single smile on that extremely lovable face summoned a great black dragon into the night sky. Was the twisting serpent actually tens of thousands of starlings? They were not venomous, but in great enough numbers, any creature was a threat to human life.

The instant the Bologna Succubus looked up at the black dragon filling the entire night sky, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet took a large step forward.

Without hesitation.

“Kh.”

Now was not the time to be overwhelmed by the intimidating numbers.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to gather as much air as possible.

She launched herself straight to the side.

The coat-shaped blast-resistant suit covered in thick metal panels snapped shut like a ferocious beast’s jaws. It was a sweet-smelling iron maiden. The air inside that isolated space was compressed with no outlet, producing a strange sound much like a steam engine.

The Bologna Succubus had just barely avoided it.

If she had carelessly stayed in place, she would have been “devoured”.

Instead of feeling fear, she gathered offensive power between her brows.

(Argh. I can’t let this chaos be unleashed on the boy’s city.)

What were Kamijou Touma and Alice Anotherbible doing right now?

She couldn’t predict how few seconds a regular Transcendent would last against Alice if she were serious about fighting, but it was still much too dangerous to let that boy stand defenselessly before Alice.

The alluring demon smiled bitterly at that thought and focused her feelings on the battle at hand.

“Oh, what’s this?”

Smiling, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet again spread her arms wide. Slowly.

Almost like a solid wall, a stifling nectar scent emerged from the blast-resistant suit and pushed toward the Bologna Succubus. Even at this distance, she had to stay focused to avoid getting dizzy.

What was happening in that closed world?

The skinny girl(?) wearing an apron over her naked body giggled before speaking.

“This won’t hurt at all, so don’t worry. I’m more interested in creating a gentle world where even the unloved are loved equally. Did you really understand my salvation condition? Kee hee hee☆ I have love even for a filthy sex demon, so get over here and let me give you a hug!!”

“Killing with pleasure, huh?”

“Ah ha ha☆ This is Total Courtship! Welcome to the sweetest, most luxurious ending to a life♪”

Roaches could rapidly build up a resistance to deadly insecticides, so they couldn’t necessarily be killed by escalating the chemical suffering. Instead, there were products that ''tricked them'' into thinking ethanol, acetaldehyde, sotolon, or another chemical compound was delicious food, luring them into the trap where they would take a different chemical back to the colony to kill them all at once. Humans didn’t just use what their target disliked – they would also use whatever their target most liked.

This girl similarly used love to kill. She was a super sweet monster who had continually honed the emotion of love into a deadly weapon. If you simply increased your defenses to prevent pain and prepared ordinary attacks, she would ''slip past them all'' and kill you instantly.

She was a specialist in that.

This Transcendent was a different form of strongest, whose trump card was the complete opposite of the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress which converted all forms of pleasure into pain.

Her victims were robbed of even the right to feel fear as they were filled with no more than ''happiness'' until they lost their life. In a trippy world were everything was vague, they would cross the final line without intent or resolve.

They were stranded.

She had complete control over them, not even giving them a chance to speak their final words.

She brought a death more certain than a .44 caliber bullet and its name was love.

“Yeah, I don’t think we could ever get along.”

“Kya ha ha☆ You’re only saying that because that makes it more exciting, aren’t you!?”

This must have been her combat form.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet had her enormous blast-resistant suit spread wide to display the terrarium trapped within. The skinny naked-apron girl pushed out a nectar scent so powerful it caused heartburn. And she took a casual step forward.

“You didn’t find it remotely odd? We’re all regular Transcendents here. A clash between our two groups shouldn’t end so easily. Yet you’re being easily defeated in a one-sided game. Is it a bad matchup between the individual Transcendents? Do our spells combine so well it’s like we were dealt a royal flush? No, that could never happen.”

“…”

“''No one can defeat Alice Anotherbible.''”

For this alone, she took on a respectful tone.

Almost like she was reading off the handwritten creed only she believed in.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet thought only of her own blessings as she spoke euphorically.

“You underestimated the meaning of that statement. And that optimism has brought you certain death. It doesn’t just mean you won’t survive a direct physical fight against Alice. There’s no getting around it. We control all of the coincidences and all of our baseless hunches and inspirations will work out in our favor. We have the ''trends'' of the world on our side. That is what it means to ‘resonate’ with Alice and take the winning side. To be clear, we are only firing blindly from the hip. You’re the ones ensuring we hit you.”

Vidhatri.

2nd Saga.

And Blodeuwedd the Bouquet.

The Bologna Succubus’s side was being worn down, but all three of them were unharmed. She had gotten a few clean hits in on them, so had they managed to shrug off the damage?

And she was slipping past their expectations and landing an attack they failed to dodge or defend against, so it made no sense for them to be changing their stance to reduce the damage with 100% accuracy.

That wasn’t their individual abilities.

It was their “resonance” with Alice Anotherbible.

“Defying her means death. You had lost from the moment you bet on there being an exception to that, like that you could move beyond her reach, hide where she couldn’t find you, or escape punishment if your defiance was indirect. Not that she would let you get away with this even if you had been correct.”

“How are you on Alice’s side when you only love yourself?”

“Isn’t it cruel to expect such a small child to judge everything so accurately? They say to let your child make mistakes to learn from them, but do you think that kind of harsh parental love will work on that girl? Alice is simpler than that. Which is what makes her so frightening. At her mental age, she probably sees anyone who praises her and spoils her as her ally.”

And it didn’t end there.

“Heyyy.”

Something enormous was parting the large river to approach.

It was a special warship measuring around 100m long.

That was small compared to a nuclear aircraft carrier of more than 300m long, but it was undoubtedly a warship.

Plus, this was not the ship itself.

It was made out of smooth white shadow.

A girl’s lazy voice played from the speakers probably meant for giving warnings or making threats.

Come to think of it, hadn’t one of them seemingly vanished?

“This took some time to prepare, but I’m back.”

The ship’s bridge stood taller than the iron bridge.

She must have torn down all the other bridges spanning the river to clear a path here. It made you wonder which side was doing more damage to Academy City.

Aradia’s eyes really did bug out as she shouted.

“Mut Thebes!? What is that thing!?”

“You don’t know? It’s the Academy City drone carrier Kagenui.”

An aircraft carrier had to carry multiple large aircraft, necessitating a great size. Submersible and aerial aircraft carriers could not be made because the size and weight affected their balance too much. ...But that accepted principle had been overturned by shrinking the aircraft down by eliminating the cockpit and turning them into drones. Even the maintenance work could be carried out by an unmanned maintenance factory within the ship.

As usual, Academy City loved making bizarre things.

But now wasn’t the time for exasperation.

That was a carrier.

“Go, everyone.”

A series of explosions rang out. The boxy canisters on the flat deck rose up and opened fire. There were electrically ignited guns that could fire at a rate of a million rounds a minute. It looked like a programmed fireworks show. In truth, the honeycomb-like holes on the front of the canisters were releasing a large number of flying objects. By spreading their movable wings in air, they gathered in orderly teams and flew in formation. Now both sides had a flying swarm. The drones clashed directly with the tens of thousands of starlings ruling the night sky.

The assumptions and superiority had been overturned.

One side was alive and the other was machine.

When they were both controlled remotely and were equal in number, it went without saying whether the small birds or the man-made meter-long aerial weapons would win.

Perhaps the counterattack was necessary.

But as the drones pursued the fleeing starlings, their machinegun fire stabbed into the skyscrapers built along the river and sent sparks exploding from walls as thick power cables were ruptured.

“Mut Theeeebes!!!”

Aradia roared in anger, but then she stopped.

The brown girl was acting weird.

“Yayyy. Who wants to take a killer selfie? Just tell me when and I’ll get the timing right for you. Yippee! Let’s keep this Alice Parade Party going☆”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet giggled.

She clearly welcomed this turn of events.

Mut Thebes wasn’t enemy or ally – she was losing all awareness that she was participating in the battle at all. She was throwing that aside to enjoy herself. And her actions were clearly working against the Bologna Succubus’s side.

They sensed a trend in the series of unpleasant coincidences.

“I believe it’s called Acute Kotatsu Syndrome. Basically, Alice affects the group psychology of an area when she stays there long enough. Did you think you were ''immune'' for some reason? Even magicians and Transcendents will be engulfed by Alice sooner or later.”

“…”

“That includes all of us. Yes, you are no exception, Bologna Succubus. And most likely, neither are we. We will all lose our sense of who is on whose side in this mad tea party. The world that people across the globe have worked so hard to create could end today, but in a way that could mean the arrival of an age of peace. If everything is engulfed and everyone is a victim, then the distinction between enemy and ally loses all meaning.”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet made it sound so obvious.

But it didn’t add up.

They were using their all-important salvation conditions as an excuse to love themselves and preserve their power by protecting Alice, so they wouldn’t want an ending where they were engulfed by Alice’s madness and lost sight of who they were. Narcissists who cared about themselves more than anything else in the world would never seek out a form of satisfaction created by having their internal aesthetic sense altered.

“''Do you have any idea what you’re saying''?”

“Ha ha☆ What? Are you saying I’ve already broken too''?”

It didn’t sound like she cared.

Someone on her level had lost the right to feel fear and disgust, or even detect that anything was amiss.

This space was going mad.

It had started at a single point, but the entire world would be this way eventually.

Whether or not Alice Anotherbible wanted it.

This was ominous enough to make that prediction.

“It doesn’t really matter. No one can defy Alice whether they put up a resistance or not.”

“Are you shoving responsibility for the world onto Alice’s shoulders while you alone abandon the effort of living, like you’re just a tree, grass, or flower, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet!?”

“Hee hee☆ Total Courtship – ready for dissemination. Now, I think I’ll pack you so full of super-sweet love that all your veins burst. Alice hates it when you try to lecture people like that, which is why she’s striking back at you, you know?”

===Part 5===

===Part 6===

===Part 7===

===Part 8===

===Part 9===

===Part 10===

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter7

2024-04-15T16:50:48Z

Edzo: /* Part 6 */ fixed typo. Changed "being" to "bring"

==Chapter 7: Arrival of Catastrophe==

===Part 1===

The ceremony had succeeded. The gatekeeper was defeated.

The upside-down U of the double doors made of sparkling wine stone had opened and something was visible through them. It looked as unstable as a mirage and gave off a terrifying sense that it would suck everything in like a black hole.

That was the Strange Underpass.

The former slaver woman sighed at the sight of it.

Her voice contained a hint of resignation, or maybe of getting over something.

“Good grief. Now I feel silly focusing so much on money. Why don’t I just use magic ceremonies to give me everything I need for an ideal life?”

The old mayor and guild receptionist wiped sweat from their brows and viewed everything around them.

Thoughtfully.

“To think a joint task between humans and elves would actually succeed.”

“I don’t like that we can’t keep the gate open, though.”

Lavender the Knight and Brain the Butler were focused on the result of the recent battle.

They must have needed a certain level of satisfaction to feel they could continue on by themselves without relying on slaves.

“Milady, you have finally become a commander who can win the battles she wants to win no matter how poor the odds.”

“Heh heh. How could they have ever lost when I, Lavender, was helping them!?”

The sneakthief-faced lord was focused on the world’s economy.

Someone who could look to the realistic issues more than his own pride or appearance might be useful now that this world had stopped using slaves.

“The most important task is to help the economy recover from the fulgurite crash. How well you can recover without slaves may determine the next world leader.”

The king served by the two witches viewed the gate curiously.

The witches viewed it with more exasperation.

“It would seem the gate only goes one way.”

“I would recommend not touching it unless you have a strong sense of purpose.”

“That’s right, sister. Our job is to create happiness here in Celesaqphere.”

Whoever that was from the Hegemony held her head high in meaningless pride.

She was apparently quite strong in an ordinary battle.

“Heh. I wouldn’t expect anything less from someone who could defeat me, the Queen of Explosions.”

The superpower’s king nodded just once.

He spoke as if he had already seen what form the next age would take.

“A world with no privileged class, hm? What that world of freedom and equality looks like may be dependent on how we live our lives.”

“Patissiet.”

Mikoto called to the nearby elf and reached up to the side of her own head.

She removed one of her hairpins and placed it in Patissiet’s hand.

“Maybe it would be better not to leave a memento, but if you want it.”

“Thank you, Lady Misaka.”

Maybe it was because the three treasures ceremony was complete and maybe it was because she had to say goodbye to Mikoto and Shokuhou so soon, but she held the hairpin between her hands, which she held to her flat chest while speaking with great emotion in her voice.

“It is finally time…”

“It sure is,” said the two girls with a nod and weary smiles.

A dull “crash!!!” rang out.

Bikini armor Mikoto and dancer Shokuhou hadn’t hesitated to throw their fists at each other.

They pulled off a cross counter right away.

Their refreshing smiles were distorted by the punches.

The lack of hesitation showed they had both planned to betray the other from the beginning.

“We said we’d cooperate until we had a way home.”

“That’s right. I kept you around until now because I was worried about the two goddesses part of the ceremony’s incantation ability, but now I’m going home to a peaceful world without you!!”

Mikoto and Shokuhou butted heads hard.

And they rubbed their foreheads together.

Everyone else watched on, dumbfounded.

The two girls glared into each other’s eyes from point-blank range and spat out their words simultaneously.

===Part 2===

“Are you stupid? Why would anyone ever trust you? A lazy, scheming ball of fat like you shouldn’t be anything more than a low-level grinding monster jiggling at the farthest reaches of some other world. There’s no way I’m going back to Earth with you. It just isn’t happening. I mean, your power is to brainwash people. I just can’t stand that. And what kind of childhood did you even have to mess up your personality so bad that’s the power your scheming heart ended up with? This wasn’t a case of your Personal Reality getting messed up – it’s a deeper personality issue. When people ask if you’re really in middle school, it’s not cause they think you’re older than that. Oh, no. The way you talk and your weird obsessions are just so childish people think you must be in elementary school. Did you pick up on that? You didn’t? Didn’t think so. Is there anything more impervious than a thick head that converts every insult into a compliment? And to be clear, that wasn’t a compliment either. And about that rule of yours where you only eat natural ingredients without any artificial additives. That’s completely and utterly meaningless. Even if you buy ingredients from a farm that specifically avoids using chemical fertilizers, you have to remember that the knives, cutting boards, pots, and other kitchen equipment are all washed in chemical detergents and the water used to cook with it is tap water full of chlorine, so you’re not getting away from it at all. Must be nice to have the wonderful skill to ignore any and all inconvenient facts. And when it comes to being sexy, it’s not like a school test where you can get a perfect score everyone agrees with. And keeping up with the latest fashions is the same as listening to art critics who just praise whatever appeals to their personal fetishes. Working so hard to appeal other people’s kinks just makes you a pervert. Not to mention an exhibitionist. Tokiwadai is supposed to be a school for proper young ladies, so what the hell are you doing there? Could you stop competing to see who can be the most indecent? Or at least stop obsessing over it? Maybe that’s asking too much since that seems to be your purpose in life and you just love keeping your skin all smooth and shiny, but it makes being around you a trial. I’m so sick of it. You’re honestly even worse than Kuroko. Have you ever asked yourself what it’s like having a pervert visit you day in and day out? Can I just pay you 300 yen to make you go away? Here, I’ll drop it on the ground, so crawl over, pick it up, and get lost. You disgust me on a fundamental level. Do you get it now? No one can compete with your ability to forget inconvenient facts, so is that the secret behind the Personal Reality that created Mental Out? No, forget it. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. There’s no point in arguing with someone who converts every single thing into a compliment. I’m smart enough to recognize a lost cause when I see one, so just keep your mouth shut before you cause more trouble. Why don’t you understand the best thing you can possibly do is shut up and go away!!?”

“You’re basically a walking violation of the laws against guns and swords, so it’s probably best if you didn’t return to Japan. Do you have any idea how much trouble ability you cause for everyone? Thinking you can get away with anything as long as you have a just cause is a very dangerous way of thinking. That’s how terrorists think. So Academy City was basically handing weapons to a terrorist with you. One of the worst mistakes they’ve ever made. And what’s with that weird Gekota mascot thing? That obsession of yours is completely at odds with how you shoot arcade coins at three times the speed of sound. How about a little consistency? Are you trying to confuse people? And let’s not forget how you wear shorts under your skirt. Was it so impossible for you to correct your own unladylike behavior you had to do that instead? If only you could grow up. Oh, I’m sorry. I should know better than to except you to grow in any way, shape, or form. It was cruel of me to ask that of someone with the flattest of flat chests, wasn’t it? Don’t start bawling, though. Because I can’t imagine anything more annoying. Also, I simply can’t believe you can eat any old thing without investigating what kind of chemicals it has in it when you’re going through the Curriculum that involves injecting you with special drugs alongside the hypnotic suggestion and electric shocks. What is your secret to staying so ignorant? I’d really like to know. Not because I want to live like that though because I absolutely do not. And what kind of mindset led to you developing a power as violent as the Railgun? Did you know actual humans aren’t monsters who eat batteries and circulate machine oil? You’re an enigma from a biology standpoint, so I hope academia can get off their butts and prove that you are neither human nor animal. That would eliminate so much confusion from the world and everyone would be able to sleep a lot sounder at night. Are you even aware how much trouble your very existence causes? Did you think roundhouse kicking vending machines, picking fights with high schoolers, and blasting the city with billion-volt electricity was normal? You did? Huh, fascinating. You feel so little guilt about your misdeeds you could probably start your own cult. Would you purify everyone’s sins by taking them onto your own irresponsible shoulders? Disgusting. I bet the driving force at the root of your being is loneliness. You can’t trust anyone, so you keep your distance. The way you try to solve all your problems on your own is the most obvious way that manifests, but you have an icy heart that trusts machines more than people, don’t you? That would explain where you got that Personal Reality from. I rejected people’s minds after getting to know them too well, but you never even tried to get to know them. I wouldn’t complain if you would just go off and die on your own, but you insist on taking out your frustrations on the people around you. If you hate people that much, why don’t you go visit a desert island so remote it only has a number for a name and protect the country’s front line from there? Not that anyone’s going to attack. When you get down to it, you can’t seem to decide whether you want to be feared as the ultimate fighter or to be protected as a damsel in distress. And that causes constant trouble for everyone around you!!!”

===Part 3===

Even as Mikoto and Shokuhou grappled, they recalled the contract they had made with Reincarnation Goddess Salinagaritina: any world is fine as long as she’s not in it.

The reincarnation goddess hadn’t been saying she would bring them to a world where they could settle their differences.

Only one of them would be returning.

Then Earth could fit that definition.

Bikini armor Mikoto pulled out an arcade coin and dropped it. Dancer Shokuhou started to aim her TV remote before throwing it aside.

After the three treasures ceremony and the battle with the dorm manager from hell, the Level 5 girls were too worn out to even use their powers properly.

So what?

At this point, it came down to a one-on-one fistfight.

They saw the “let’s settle this” look in each other’s eyes.

So they were confident the other felt the same way they did.

“I-I’m never trusting humans again!! Wahhhhhh!!!”

The elf felt betrayed and wept. She must have been expecting a beautiful ending of newfound friendship after everyone – enemy and ally – worked together to defeat the final boss.

Such purity.

But no one from Celesaqphere had any way of actually intervening and stopping those two.

“Gahhhhhhh!!”

“Gwohhhhhh!?”

The two girls shouted from the bottom of their gut and charged at each other from point-blank range. Mikoto threw a punch and Shokuhou just barely dodged by tripping over nothing.

No one tried to stop them.

Their intensity was too frightening.

“Did you think you could defeat me in a physical battle without a plan? You know that isn’t your style.”

“I might prefer mind games, but I have my pride.”

There was no logic to it. It wasn’t even about their personal preferences. This confrontation must have been destined from the moment they were born.

They felt certain they were ''linked'' in that way.

“Rahhh!!!” “Rahhh!!!”

First, Shokuhou gathered strength in her shoulders and made a full-body tackle.

Holding Shokuhou back with her arms, Mikoto slammed her forehead down into Shokuhou’s back.

“Tch.”

“Why you!!”

After moving a bit apart on their knees, their hands flew at the same moment.

Shokuhou still went with a slap, but Mikoto threw an actual punch.

Slipping past the cross counter, Mikoto landed her fist directly in the center of the queen’s lovely face. Shokuhou’s slap found only air.

“Gh!?”

Shokuhou grunted but somehow managed to stop herself from staggering back. She was past complaining about being unathletic. She was out of breath and dizzy, but her adrenaline temporarily forced her mind past the weariness and pain.

But before she could make a counterattack, Mikoto made her next move.

Mikoto grabbed the long blonde hair spreading in the wind.

While Mikoto had short hair and wore solid bikini armor, Shokuhou had long hair, wore a dancer outfit with lots of frilly parts, and even wore a handbag diagonally across her chest. That gave Mikoto plenty of handholds to grab at.

“You’d better not call foul at this point!!”

A second punch exploded out at close range.

A metallic smell splattered out.

But it was Mikoto who groaned.

Shokuhou had guarded her face with an arm wrapped in a thin cloth. Mikoto’s fist had hit that, but it felt odd.

Shokuhou had placed her hard plastic remote below the cloth.

The punch had only damaged Mikoto’s fist.

“What was that about not calling foul!?”

Shokuhou had some room for movement even with her long hair in Mikoto’s grasp. She swung a cloth containing several remotes, aiming for the side of Mikoto’s head. That was a makeshift morning star.

“What is that, a convict’s handmade weapon!?”

Pissed, Mikoto threw sand in Shokuhou’s face. Technically, it was the fine dust created by breaking the stone floor during the fight with the dorm manager.

Blinded, it was Shokuhou who staggered.

Mikoto didn’t overlook the opportunity.

She stomped hard on Shokuhou’s foot to keep her from moving and thrust both her palms out in front. Unable to see it coming, Shokuhou fell hard. To keep Mikoto from climbing on top of her, Shokuhou rolled to the side.

“Did you think you could get away like that!?”

“Gah!?”

Shokuhou felt a great pressure.

Mikoto had used her thighs to constrict her right arm and neck.

With clean pressure on her carotid artery, she would pass out in less than 30 seconds.

“When you get to hell, tell them a middle schooler’s thighs sent you!!”

“Ghhh...chomp!!”

An unthinkable pain caused Mikoto to release the chokehold and spring to her feet. Of all things, Shokuhou had bit Mikoto’s calf hard.

“Is nothing off limits for you!?”

Quite a thing to say after grabbing her hair and blinding her.

They both got up.

They glared at each other.

That was all it took. With no signal, they both raised their voices and charged.

===Part 4===

A great roar exploded out and blood splattered onto the sparkling wine floor.

Misaka Mikoto’s lip was split and Shokuhou Misaki’s nose was bleeding.

The elves watched in disbelief, but for a different reason from before. They weren’t just overwhelmed by the intensity and trembling in fear. A different emotion was beginning to warm their hearts.

Even as they bled and grimaced in pain, those girls still looked just as beautiful.

In fact, this seemed to unveil a deeper inner beauty.

“Pant, pant.”

“Phew!!”

The girls known here as goddesses would never admit it, but they were completely in sync here in their desire to settle things once and for all.

Everyone sensed that the next attack would end it.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!” “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Their arms crossed.

The wind roared dully.

Instead of slicing like a blade, this torrent of violence smashed like a hammer.

It felt like the sound came first and everything else quickly caught up.

Shokuhou Misaki had thrown a right punch with all her might.

Misaka Mikoto had swung up her right leg for a high kick. It was the move she had trained up attacking that vending machine day after day.

Silence followed.

One of them wobbled to the side.

“…”

“It’s not great for real battles since I have to stop moving, but for one single attack, a leg has more reach and power than an arm.”

===Part 5===

The last one standing was Misaka Mikoto.

She would return alone.

===Part 6===

“Ugh.”

Misaka Mikoto realized that was her groaning.

She had journeyed and fought across Celesaqphere for so long, but strangely it felt like she hadn’t spoken in a long time. She forced her stuck vocal cords to move and tried to get some kind of sound out.

But when she checked her phone, she found only three days had passed.

The midterms weren’t even over.

Their theory about life support devices and about time flowing at different rates appeared to have been correct.

She took her time pulling back the covers and didn’t find bikini armor anywhere. She was wearing ordinary pajamas.

The ordinary was back.

“…”

There was a curtain separating them, but she sensed someone in the next bed over.

She chose not to check that bed as she changed into her uniform and left the hospital.

The sun was shining in a cloudless sky.

Finding the ordinary Academy City all around her brought tears to her eyes.

She was back.

She was really back.

“But what do I do now?”

She wanted to see Shirai Kuroko.

Uiharu or Saten would work too.

Or maybe she should be a little more daring. Right now, she felt she could meet that pointy-haired boy without getting into a fight. She was so thankful for everything about Earth she didn’t want to bring violence into it.

“No.”

She didn’t need to plan it.

She decided to walk through the city and be thankful for anyone she happened across.

And she spoke without thinking.

“Honestly, never a dull moment in this ci-”

She stopped before finishing the sentence.

Her smile froze.

She had seen something.

Something she absolutely should not have seen.

“No… Heh, heh heh. Eh heh heh. You’re kidding, right?”

Her own voice sounded fake. This world suddenly felt a lot less real.

She had seen someone walking toward her from beyond the horizon.

They wavered like a mirage.

She now had tears in her eyes for a very different reason.

“Misaaakaaa-saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!! This isn’t overrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”

That girl had left the bounds of humanity.

She looked like a demon.

It was said a beautiful woman was uniquely frightening when angered, but this went far beyond that.

Her long blonde hair was floating a bit.

“Wh-what- but? The three treasures ceremony was over. You were supposed to be stuck in Celesaqphere forever!!”

“Time flows differently between the two worlds. After you left, I used the three treasures to do the ceremony a second time☆ To be honest, I’m relieved I wasn’t thrown a hundred years into the future!!!”

And someone walked alongside the beautiful demon.

The short girl had long ears.

“Oh! There’s the one who left on her own. You were supposed to bring Lady Shokuhou with you.”

“!!!???”

She was there.

That elf was here on Earth!?

Was that allowed?

Wasn’t that an even more dangerous abnormality than Shokuhou’s presence!?

“This is apparently a life-size doll. I can apparently travel between worlds in the same way the two of you came to Celesaqphere using an out-of-body experience, so I am using a temporary body to move around in this world.”

“So for our world, it’s like a bisque doll is walking around?”

Apparently that let her ignore the question of ''what kind of influence a supposedly nonexistent elf’s presence on Earth would have on the environment around her''.

It was a mystery what such a realistic elf doll was doing in Academy City, though.

“Why did you have to help her with the ceremony, Patissiet!? She’d be stuck in the Strange Underpass Cathedral otherwise!!”

“But, um, we all discussed it together and decided it would hurt the power balance if she stayed… With Lady Shokuhou in Celesaqphere, we feared we would end up having the one queen with every other form of life as her slaves.”

(So they decided that “goddess” was too much trouble to keep around? Pff! But it makes sense a world that just freed all its slaves wouldn’t want the ultimate brainwashing queen hanging around. …Ha, ah ha ha. So maybe Shokuhou’s bloody tears here are about more than just me leaving without her?)

An awkward silence fell.

Mikoto hesitantly spoke to the lonely girl.

“Um, uh.”

“Grrrrrr.”

“So…is this headed where I think it is?”

“…for rou…”

“No, wait, that was a mistake. I can’t leave that choice with you right now. If we follow the timeline back, it’s only been three days since we nearly died in that propane tank explosion, so we need to think about our midterms! There’s no reason at all to put our lives at risk again here, so it seems to me it would be a good idea for both of us to just calm dow-”

“It’s time for round twooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”

<noinclude>
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Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter4

2024-03-03T00:58:36Z

Edzo: Fixed typo - "would" to "world"

==Chapter 4: Go Play in Space==

===Part 1===

''Kazap!!

===Part 2===

“Gasp!?”

Misaka Mikoto jumped to her feet.

Only then did she realize she had been lying down.

The now-familiar elven form of Patissiet was nowhere to be found.

(No, no, no!! Where am I? This clearly isn’t that goddess zone or the fantasy world. Then what happened to Patissiet!?)

The place felt like a cold laboratory.

But it was also an endlessly vast space.

The momentum of hopping up remained, causing her to spin around in the empty space.

She was wearing her Tokiwadai summer uniform.

Which meant her short skirt floated up.

“Whoa, what is this place!?”

“Blu-blurgh!? Blu-blu-gyorgh. Blu-gyo-blu-blu, gyorgh-gyorgh-blu-blu-blu?”

“Now that is a terrifying Villager A!”

What was it this time? This definitely wasn’t a fantasy world. It was an entirely different sort of world. Everything was so different all at once her mind had trouble keeping up!

Mikoto screamed once she finally realized she was surrounded.

Those things.

There was something there!?

The red masses were glossy like a racecar. And they were 2m tall. They looked a lot like giant bipedal mantises with a ton of tentacles wriggling from their backs. …They looked almost robotic, but they were probably living creatures. And more than 10 of them were surrounding her. She had no real biological basis for the conclusion, but Mikoto’s mind jumped to one idea first.

“A-aliens!?”

“Blu-blu-blur. Gyorrrrrrrrgh. A-E-I-O-U. La, la, la. Can you understand me now? Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do.”

“Hm?” Mikoto frowned.

“I am Floria. Can you hear me?”

Apparently she wasn’t imagining it.

Instead of waiting for a response, the alien called Floria kept speaking.

“We are 7th-gen advanced humans evolved for shipboard life. We are an intelligent terrestrial lifeform that has overcome the boundaries of nationality, sex, race, religion, and language. Admittedly, that has less to do with us overcoming them through cultural prosperity or mental growth and more to do with our need to come together and reproduce after humanity’s numbers were so greatly reduced by war.”

“?”

“Simply put, we are a more evolved version of earthling than you. That said, the course of history, order of inventions, and technological progress on our Earth greatly differs from your own Earth, so the timeline has no bearing on who is more evolved than who. Think of this as a different form of the 21st century.”

This was even more shocking than contacting aliens.

It did sound like they had some kind of basis for calling themselves “7th-gen” and it wasn’t just a name, but how much would Earth have to change for this to be how humans adapted to it?

Floria’s answer was simple.

“There are no more people on Earth.”

“Um!?”

“Even after so much biological and cultural advancement, we were still fighting over control of that one planet, but our weapons had grown too destructive. We realized we would destroy the planet if we continued on. So we left the watery planet of Earth as an off-limits zone for biological preservation and breeding while humanity lived out in space. You can also say we shifted our battlegrounds into space as well. Because with the vast scale of outer space, we were free to use even planet-busting firepower.”

Floria made it sound so simple.

For them, the role of Earth may have only been a single page in the history books, just like the age of the dinosaurs that ended with the massive meteor impact.

But Mikoto didn’t see it that way.

Even if this wasn’t the Earth she had been born on. Even if it was a separate SF world that had branched off as one of many possibilities.

“Do you never think about returning to Earth one day?”

“We already see the entire Solar System as our home, not just the one planet called Earth. The Earth is the portion of our home we use for biological preservation.”

“…”

“You can see many rare animals at the zoo, but not many people want to join the ferocious animals in their cages. Even fewer would want to spend every night there with no way to protect themselves.”

Was that how you would see it after leaving Earth?

Maybe staying in these other worlds too long would be a bad idea.

Mikoto felt awkward floating in the low gravity, but she naturally approached the edge of the vast space while holding down her skirt.

She saw outer space.

In the distance, she saw a blue planet.

“Are you serious?” she muttered.

At first, she thought this was a thick LCD monitor, but an electric Level 5 would have noticed a trick like that.

That was in fact a thick, double pane window processed for thermal insulation, pressure resistance, and radiation shielding.

It was all on such a grand scale that Mikoto’s thoughts fled toward something smaller.

(So where is Shokuhou in this vast world? And how am I going to kill her?)

Crises were exactly when you had to focus on the simple things.

She couldn’t forget where this had all begun.

===Part 3===

Shokuhou Misaki couldn’t believe her eyes as her long blonde hair and summer uniform skirt spread out in the void.

So it was outer space this time.

“This is our world.”

Images floated in space. Some were 3D models and others were the various images from external cameras. That included a panoramic image apparently taken by another ship flying parallel to them.

It looked like a massive naval ship.

Except it wasn’t actually meant to navigate the seas, so it was shaped quite differently.

While Shokuhou observed the sharp, streamlined shape, she was spoken to by a beautiful brown-skinned girl with a cold air who called herself Victoria. She was dressed in something like a bikini, but she also wore a fluffy scarf, gloves, and boots, giving her outfit an unbalanced look. How did that help in this massive enclosed environment? But the ship could maintain a pleasant temperature and humidity at all times, so maybe her clothing was less about warmth and more about providing localized and focused protection for something else, like magnetism or the salt in the air.

“At 30km in length and 1.8 million tons in weight, each extra-atmospheric cruiser is quite large. We were created on this ship, we work here, and we battle in a fleet of around 10 thousand such ships. We of course have multiple fleets.”

Shokuhou was surrounded by beautiful men and woman from every ethnicity on Earth. But their proportions were a little too perfect, so she felt weirdly out of place among them.

Was that because her flesh-and-blood body made her the odd one out among all these perfect men and women?

And as someone who ordinarily reigned as a queen, she was not accustomed to feeling out of place.

…Or maybe it reminded her too much of her past loneliness.

“You are androids made to look just like humans, aren’t you?”

(That Anatomy Mechatronics was enough of a surprise, but these have an even higher quality ability.)

“The lifeforms once known as humans could not bear to see their bodies slowly changing while living aboard the ships, so they decided to set aside practicality and functionality to design their machines to behave just like humans. That created our 1st-gen ancestors and we are the 5th-gen multipurpose androids. We have already taken control of our own production facilities to design and mass-produce each successive generation.”

“Umm, so does that mean you don’t need humans anymore?”

“No, we simply see no meaning in obeying the inhuman lifeform that humans have evolved into. We do not recognize them as legitimate users because their hideous evolutionary dead end has prevented any facial recognition or DNA comparison to work.”

…Did that mean they would assist Shokuhou?

Hopefully they wouldn’t imprison this valuable human sample for study and caretaking. All in the name of protecting her from external threats.

(So this is the world where the easy labor force – that is, the slaves – came out on top.)

It really did contrast the previous world. Instead of magic elves, there were mechanical androids.

But in that case…

The #5 girl sighed and removed a TV remote from her bag.

“If everyone around me is an android, then I suppose this won’t work.”

“Hm? We are not designed to support such simple remote controls.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

Exasperated, Shokuhou hit a button with her thumb.

The brown-skinned android in front of her immediately froze while standing at attention.

“…What?”

Shokuhou’s eyes widened.

As unnaturally beautiful as they all were, Victoria was no more than a humanoid machine. Which meant Mental Out shouldn’t work.

“Turn right.”

“…”

“Sit. Shake. Show me your belly☆”

“…”

She did it.

She obeyed.

If she was pulling Shokuhou’s leg, she was an excellent actor, but these androids shouldn’t know anything about Academy City espers. She wouldn’t know what kind of act to play without that advance information.

Which could only mean…

(Really? Have they become so nearly human that Mental Out works on them!?)

“Hm? Hmm??? I would like an explanation for what exactly you just did to me.”

Despite being an android, Victoria tilted her head.

Come to think of it, hadn’t she said they saw no “meaning” in obeying the transformed humanity? That meant these machines understood and acted on their own wills and feelings rather than acting based on pure function or a set of rules.

In the fantasy world, humans had used all other forms of life as a labor force. In this SF world, artificial life had supplanted a transformed humanity at the top. Did that comparison mean anything?

Shokuhou was surprised on the inside, but as the Queen of Tokiwadai, she made sure not to let any of show.

“B-by the way, do any of the nonhumanoid machines have ‘minds’ like you do? What about this entire spaceship, for example?”

“The application that you humans refer to as a ‘mind’ does not require much space, so it should be installed on every machine that had the space leftover in its hardware. Think of it like the calculator or card game tucked away in a corner of a PC.”

(Wait, does that mean androids use PCs in this world?)

But if that were true…

Shokuhou was astonished.

(Can I “brainwash” and control every single robot and computer in this world with my remote?)

The Queen could control everything here, man or machine.

Most likely, this was a world where a powerful yearning for humanism combined with technological advancements had caused the line between the two to vanish altogether.

What was this?

''This world was practically made for Shokuhou Misaki''!

“The over-evolved humans and the androids both began living out in space, leaving Earth as an off-limits zone. There was a schism between the group that wanted to continue constructing massive ships and the group that wanted to develop Jupiter’s large satellites or Mars’s small satellite, but there were no major problems there.”

“No major ones, huh? Probably not since machines like you can just swim around in the vacuum of space with no problem.”

“To correct your apparent misunderstanding, we androids are designed to be as close to human as possible with no concern for practicality or functionality. We have chosen a system that requires both water and oxygen, so we would be damaged and cease to function if we were thrown out into the vacuum of space.”

So were they like humans made without carbon? Shokuhou had questions about that, but they probably found some pride in calling themselves androids.

Part of that was probably because they didn’t want to be seen as human. Especially when the images Victoria had displayed for Shokuhou showed that humans in this world were like bipedal mantises with tentacles.

(Even so…)

Celesaqphere had been a fantasy world where unnatural pieces of broken land floated above a planet of only ocean, but this was a purely SF world.

Had she been intentionally sent to an opposite world as a bad joke or something?

“So Earth is right there but no one can go back. Doesn’t that feel restrictive?”

“Not really. We were manufactured on this ship and it is where we work. Plus, a much greater problem has emerged, causing all else to pale in comparison.”

“?”

“The ultra-massive impactors on course to collide with and destroy the other planets.”

Now that was a term she wasn’t familiar with.

But she could tell it wasn’t good news.

“Or more accurately, the storm of them. Five planets the size of Jupiter are flying in from afar. The ultra-massive impactors have been wandering distant space after losing their central star, but their course appears to have changed after they entered the Oort cloud. Do you know what that is?”

“If I recall, it is a collection of ice chunks located wayyyy out from the sun. There are estimated to be more than a trillion of them. But they are held by the sun’s gravitational pull, so they technically count as part of the Solar System. And most comets come from there.”

“Correct. All objects in the Solar System are pulled toward the sun. Just like Halley’s Comet approaches it along a massive curve. So given enough time, the ultra-massive impactors will fly straight into the sun.,”

“And…what happens then?”

“If you gathered together every object in the Solar System except for the sun itself, the result would be less than 1% the mass of the sun. A direct hit from the ultra-massive impactors will not have much effect on the sun,” plainly stated Victoria.

But she wasn’t done yet.

“However, the bodies orbiting the sun are a different story. If a planet the size of Earth or Mars were hit, they would be crushed. Even a near miss would catch the other planets in the ultra-massive impactors’ powerful gravity, tearing the other planets from their orbit around the sun, throwing them out of the solar system altogether. Then all of those planets would wander the vast universe with no nearby sun, transforming them into planets of ice and death.”

It was all on such a large scale, even Shokuhou’s imagination had a hard time keeping up.

But it was all normal for this world.

“While we do have large spaceships, they are designed under the assumption we have the sun as a source of light and heat and we are reliant on extracting and collecting resources from other planets and satellites. Thus, we want to avoid a separation of the sun and its planets at all costs. We have no future if we have to choose between light or resources.”

“But…” Shokuhou was hesitant to continue. “These approaching planets rival Jupiter in size ability, right? That’s more than 30 times the mass of Earth and you said there are 5 of them. No matter how big your spaceships, I don’t see how you can stop them.”

“We can.”

Victoria was confident.

“How advanced is your science ability?”

“Technology is but a single axis. Given sufficient time and data, anyone could reach this level,” stated the android, sounding almost envious of Shokuhou for not having advanced this far. “There are two crucial factors: we need not directly challenge the ultra-massive impactor storm and we have the technology to deploy considerable mass into space – albeit not as much as the planet-sized ultra-massive impactors.”

“What, are you going to build a giant cannon and blow up those ultra-massive impactors?”

“If we did that, the recoil would propel our extra-atmospheric cruiser clear outside of the solar system and the secondary shockwave might just destroy every planet in the Solar System.”

So it wasn’t that simple.

But Victoria still wasn’t done.

“However, there is in fact an even greater danger to contend with.”